A/N: Yes, yes, I wrote another DLG one-shot, but I just can't seem to get the writing part of brain away from that episode. This is sort of like my brain's attempt to think through Grissom's thought processes and understand why things were done the way they were.

Unfinished Business

5:13PM.
Gil Grissom was thinking. At least, that was what he was going to say if anyone entered his office and tried to talk to him. He had been sitting as his desk for what seemed like hours, staring at the clock on the bottom right-hand corner of his desktop, watching the minutes go by.

5:14PM.
It wasn't exactly making productive use of his time, but despite the fact that Grissom was still at the lab, his shift had ended hours ago. The cases he and his team had been working had been...put to rest, so to speak. The problem was that Grissom just couldn't seem to get himself out of his chair. There was a feeling hanging over his head that he had left something unfinished. It was a feeling he'd gotten only a handful of times, usually when he was working a particularly difficult case, and he told himself that he wasn't resting until it was solved.

He had wrapped up all of his cases, so that couldn't be the problem now. "I guess it's over."

Grissom brought a hand up to his eyes and rubbed them vigorously. Those words, said so briskly in his own voice, had been replaying over and over in his head all afternoon. The entire conversation was replaying in his head. It didn't take very long, considering that he and Nick had wrapped that up in about three minutes. It was quite possibly the single most incompetent thing that he had ever said, and he had said it in a moment and to a person that truly needed more.

Grissom's tired eyes ticked back to the computer screen. 5:17PM. What exactly was it that was holding him in his chair? There were many things that he would rather be doing at the moment than sitting in office in the lab, literally staring off into space. There was a documentary about the pyramids on the Discovery Channel that he had wanted to see tonight. But no matter how he tried to motivate himself, his legs were just letting him leave.

It was more than his legs that weren't letting him leave, it was that feeling that leaving now would quite possibly leave some things unfinished, some things unsaid, forever. Normally one that relished in leaving things unsaid, something about that day was striking at Grissom unrelentingly. It seemed that there were so many things that he should have done.

He should have said more. He should have done more. He should have included Nick. He should have given the younger man any kind of encouragement. He should have let him know that he would be there for him. He should have been there for him.

And then there were the things that he shouldn't have done. Like letting Nick leave like that.

"Good." Things weren't good, but Grissom had let the conversation end like that. He could have reached out, and given Nick some support, lent him an ear, anything more than sit in his chair and say "good."

The problem was that Grissom wasn't good at those sorts of things. He could solve a murder, provide the motive, weapon and opportunity before he breaked for lunch, but give him a colleague in trouble and he flailed about miserably. Give him a friend in trouble, and he was basically worthless.

Grissom didn't know what to do in those sorts of situations. He had spent years training himself to remain detached; his analytical brain had told him years ago that there were certain personality traits that would nothing more than handicap the work that he was doing. He had never imagined that he would one day have the relationships with his coworkers that he did.

And here he was now, being thrust again and again into situations that needed these traits – empathy, compassion, the ability to reach out to a person as more than a law enforcement officer. He was trying, but…no, that wasn't true. He wasn't trying. If he was, then things wouldn't be sitting the way they were.

"I guess it's over." Far from it. Of course, when he had said that, things hadn't been in the place that they were now. Grissom felt that the case was solved – the part of it that mattered. He had been lying awake every day, thinking about the second voice on that tape. Thinking about whether or not Nick should know. Those things had all been solved. So, truthfully, it was over. For him.

Not for Nick.

Knowing that there was another voice on the tape that he thought was going to be the last thing he ever heard did not give Nick any closure. It had to have given him more questions. Grissom's questions were answered…but not Nick's. Grissom could see it his eyes when they were sitting in that very room earlier. Why did this happen to me, Grissom? his eyes asked. Nick had stopped asking for Grissom to provide him all of the answers awhile ago, but he did it there. Not out loud, but something about him was screaming out for Grissom to give him some answers. Because it was obvious that Nick didn't have them.

And now the one person that may have had the answers was gone. And only Nick was left to find a way to deal with everything that had happened.

Grissom wasn't an idiot; quite the opposite, actually. He knew that Nick was dealing with things in his own way – in a way that Grissom could really relate to. He wasn't talking about it. And it seemed to be working.

True, he was paler than Grissom had ever seen him, but he hadn't exactly spent as much time during the summer outside as he usually did. True, he looked older and more tired a lot of the time. True, he was taking cases to heart more than before, if that was possible.

But at the same time, he was facing it head-on. He didn't curl up into a frightened ball and lock the doors, turn out the lights, and never come out of his house again. He didn't opt to hang around the lab, instead falling back into the work routine with greater ease than Grissom thought possible. He smiled. He laughed. He solved cases. Truthfully, Grissom was in awe of Nick's strength after all he had been through.

If only those were the kinds of things that he said, instead of "good". He tried. To him, that word, "good", had relayed everything that he had wanted to say. "Good" had meant "I'm sorry for not telling you about the investigation I was conducting behind your back and I'm relieved that you're not angry with me". "Good" had meant "I'm sorry for everything's that had happened to you and I wish that there was more that I could do." "Good" had meant "I'm here for you if you ever need it, as a supervisor, as a colleague, as a friend."

There was more that he could do. He could actually say these things, instead of thinking about them all after the fact. When he was faced with those moments, he froze up. It always seemed that he thought of the perfect things to say later, sitting in his office, staring at the clock on his computer screen.

5:26PM. Grissom was sure that he had the chance, if he could get the nerve to take it. The chance at a second chance. Nick was still in the building. Like himself, unable to leave. Catherine had stopped by several times in the past couple of hours to point out that fact.

Grissom drummed his fingers on the surface of his desk. Seriously, how hard would it be? "How are you?" That was a simple question, he could lead with that. As long as Nick didn't respond with "I'm fine." That was Grissom's cue to shut down, and cease all pretenses at being socially proactive. When Nick answered with "I'm fine", then things would be going nowhere, even on the off chance that Grissom put in the extra effort.

5:29PM. If he was going to do something, he needed to do it soon. Nick wasn't going to hang around in the lab all night.

It seemed that Grissom had made up his mind before he was consciously aware of it. The hint was that he found himself rising from the chair that he had been stuck in for the last few hours. He found himself crossing his office, opening the door, and walking out into the hallway.

"Hey, Archie, have you seen Nick around?" Grissom came across the audio/visual tech hovering around the DNA lab.

Archie sipped cautiously from his coffee cup. "Yeah, I think I saw him in one of the evidence rooms."

"Doing what?" Archie's reluctance to answer the question, and his guarded posture didn't escape Grissom's notice. His expression softened. "It's okay that he found out about the tape."

The tech tried to suppress a sigh of relief. "I, I just didn't know that you hadn't told him, and-"

"It's okay. I should have, and I shouldn't have put you in that position. It was never my intention for you to feel like you had to cover for me." There, that wasn't so hard. Except that was only what he thought.

What Grissom said was "It doesn't matter now, Archie."

Archie recoiled from the response. "Nick's down there," he said, pointing down the hall.

"Thank you, Arch-"

But the tech was already on his way back to the A/V lab. Away from Grissom.

He sighed. He just wasn't wired for this sort of thing. If he couldn't even apologize to Archie, how could he expect to have a meaningful conversation with Nick? And about something as serious as this? There was just no chance.

Grissom watched as Archie ducked into the doorway of the A/V lab, and he squinted. He was not leaving this lab until things were taken care of.

He marched down the hall and entered the lab just as Archie was settling himself in front of a monitor, ready to work on security tapes for a swing shift case.

"I'm sorry I put you in the position that I did, Archie." The words jumped out of his mouth of their own free will.

The tech's head whipped around to face Grissom, and he seemed surprised, and then an easy smile overtook his features. It was all the response that Grissom needed. It was all the encouragement that Grissom needed. He returned the smile and stepped back out of the room. Archie had said that Nick was down the hall, and he had some unfinished business to attend to.

The End.