A/N: A warning on this chapter, you get a look at that crime scene here, and it does involve a child. Please know, I would never ever hurt a child. I have a young son of my own whom I love very dearly. This is just a requirement for the plot.

Chapter 2

As usual, Nick had insisted on driving. The drive out to Henderson was made in silence, not even the radio breaking the quiet.

At the start of the drive, Greg had tried to engage the older man in conversation, starting to say, "Nick," only to be cut off by the more seasoned CSI.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Nick's eyes had never deviated from the road ahead of them, his voice hadn't risen.

Greg had surreptitiously watched Nick from the corner of his eye. He wished he could smooth away the lines on Nick's forehead, around his eyes, get the older man to smile again. He loved that big Texan grin. He knew it was probably too soon to expect it, though. After all, Warrick had been like a brother to Nick. He just hoped that Nick didn't forget how to smile. He'd seen the evidence of what this job could do to a person. He didn't think Sara would ever really be the same, no matter how long she was away from the job, from Vegas.

When they arrived at the house where the boy had been found, both men jumped down from the department Tahoe without a word. Greg met Nick at the back of the Tahoe, where Nick lifted the cargo door so they could both collect their silver field kits.

Captain Jim Brass was waiting for them by the front door of the house, black notebook and pen in hand. He was wearing his usual attire of suit and tie, his usual hangdog face a bit more drawn than usual. Everyone knew that Brass had been pretty hard on Warrick, in the weeks before his death. It made Greg wonder if Brass perhaps felt a bit of guilt at how he'd treated the African American CSI.

Nick pushed past Brass, into the front room of the house, and Brass raised an eyebrow at Greg, as if to say, "What's up with him?"

Shrugging, Greg motioned for Brass to precede him, then followed the homicide detective.

From the outside of the house, there was little to suggest the large scale renovations taking place within. The inside of the house had been pretty well gutted, the once dry walled walls taken down to the studs, ceiling frames exposed, floor showing bare concrete. Sawhorses supported pieces of wood being used as makeshift tables, tools scattered across their surface. One corner of what had once been the living room had stacks of two by fours, dry wall, ceiling tiles, and other construction materials.

A uniformed officer, looking a little green around the gills, stood in here. Sweat stood out on his forehead, and he seemed to be mumbling under his breath. Greg wasn't sure, but he thought it might have been the Lord's Prayer.

Nick had disappeared from view, deeper into the house, into an area where new drywall had been recently installed.

Greg was nearly walking on Brass's heels, anxious to find Nick, get started processing the scene. As he continued to follow Brass, it dawned on Greg that the New Jersey transplant hadn't spoken once since they'd arrived. This was highly unusual for the seasoned homicide detective. By this time, he would have given them a run down of how the body had been found, and what appeared to have happened. He was strangely quiet, now.

As Greg and Brass entered the hallway leading deeper into the house, Nick came stumbling back out of a room at the far end of the hall, looking as though he might get sick. He still had his crime scene kit in hand, nearly dropping it when he moved to brace his latex gloved hand on the wall in front of him. Realizing he had the kit, he set it down, then placed his hand against the wall, leaning his head on his arm.

Brass did a half turn, twisting to share a look with Greg, before Greg pushed past the homicide detective and moved up next to Nick.

Shifting his kit to his left hand, Greg put his right hand gently on Nick's shoulder. "Nicky, you okay?"

Gulping in a few deep breaths, Nick managed a weak, "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," before straightening back up.

"Look, if you want, I'll process in here, and you can process the perimeter," Greg said, as he removed his hand from his friend's shoulder.

Still looking a bit green, but shaking his head resolutely, Nick said, "No, we'll do it together." Picking his case back up, Nick moved warily towards the door again. The way Nick stopped in the doorway, blocking his sight of the room, gave Greg the impression that Nick was trying to shield him from the spectacle within.

"Nick?" Greg questioned gently, about to put his hand on Nick's arm to try to get the older man to move out of the way.

Nick didn't say anything, just stepped aside, revealing the terrible sight within the room.

Taking a step into the room, Greg sucked in a lung full of air in a rush, before letting it out on a strangled, "Sweet Jesus!"

The boy couldn't have been any older than nine or ten years old, but the way he'd been posed made him look more like an infant. He was laying on his stomach, arms and legs drawn up under him, bottom in the air, facing the door. He had his right thumb in his mouth, and his eyes were closed as if he were merely sleeping. He wore no clothes, and his skin was the ashen gray pallor of death, except in the areas of the boy's body nearest the floor, which were a dark purple from lividity.

David Phillips, the assistant coroner, was examining the body. He had just finished removing a meat probe style thermometer from an incision he'd made over the boy's liver.

"Dave?" Greg couldn't quite disguise the slight tremor in his voice.

"Male Caucasian, approximately nine to ten years of age. Liver temp suggests time of death within the last ten hours. Blood and tearing around the rectum suggests sexual assault. No apparent cause of death. I'll inform Doc Robbins to collect an S.A.E. kit. No apparent trace on him, but we'll bag the hands to preserve anything under the nails."

Greg could tell Dave was doing his best to maintain his own composure.

Speaking softly, as though they were in a house of God, instead of what had turned out to be a house of horror, Greg said, "Thanks, Dave." He then shared a pitiful excuse for a smile with the coroner.

As Dave had already snapped photos of the body, Greg waited for the coroner and the paramedics to remove the body, before beginning to take photos of the rest of the scene.

It quickly became obvious that this was the dump sight, not the primary crime scene. Other than a scuffed footprint or two, there really wasn't much evidence here. The two men collected what they could, before walking around the outside of the house. Again, there wasn't much there. The alleyway, outback, was dirt so hard packed it couldn't hold a footprint or tire print, and the lawn out front hadn't been driven over, or tread upon.

By the time they had finished processing the scene, Brass had finished conducting interviews of the neighbors. None of them had seen the boy before, and noone had seen any activity at the house that shouldn't have been there.

To say that they had nothing at this stage was a major understatement.

When they arrived back at the lab, they checked what little evidence they had in, then went and printed up photos from the scene. Once they had finished those tasks, there was really nothing else they could do until they got some information from Doc Robbins about the boy, and identified him. And at this point, Doc Robbins had a bit of a backlog from days that he had to get through in autopsy, before he could get to anything for graveyard.

Finding Grissom seemingly buried to the elbows in paperwork in his office, Greg knocked tentatively on the boss's door.

"Come in," Grissom said with a sigh, pulling his glasses from his nose to rub at his eyes, before replacing them. "Greg, you look terrible!" Grissom started, after taking a long look at the level one CSI. "Does Nick look as bad as you?" Contrary to popular belief, Grissom did realize how certain cases affected certain CSIs.

A faraway look on his face, as he thought of the older CSI, Greg said, "Worse, Gris."

Glancing at his watch, Grissom saw that they were only about halfway through shift. "How much evidence do you have to process?"

"It was a dump site, there wasn't much to find. We're going to have to wait on the autopsy."

"I'm giving you two the rest of the night off, then. Go get Nick drunk or something, get his mind off the case, off Warrick. Whatever you have to do, Greg," Grissom said with a sad sigh. He knew Nick was hurting, they had just been so busy and understaffed lately, that he hadn't been able to give anyone extra time off. Now seemed the perfect time to let Nick blow off some steam.

"You know we're both scheduled for tomorrow off, right?" Greg asked, only to mentally slap his forehead, as Grissom would know that, since he made the schedules.

"That's why I said get him drunk, Greg," Grissom responded drily. "If I recall correctly, you're on call, though, so you need to stay at least slightly sober." Grissom gave the younger man a smirk, before shooing him out the door with a hand. "Get out of here."

With a small smile, Greg headed out the door to track down Nick.

Greg finally found Nick in the break room. The older man had a cup of coffee in front of him, which appeared to have been sitting there for a while, as there was no longer any steam creeping up from it. Arms crossed in front of him on the table, head resting on them, Nick had fallen asleep. Even in sleep, the creases in the older man's forehead didn't smooth away completely, making Greg wonder what he could be dreaming about.

Shaking his head sadly, Greg said, "Nick." When he received no response, he tried a little louder, "Nick!" Still receiving no response, he laid his hand on the other man's shoulder, intending to shake it gently.

The instant Greg's hand touch Nick, the other man jerked upright, nearly tipping his chair over in his surprise.

When Nick whirled toward him, one fist upraised, as though to hit him, Greg couldn't help but take a couple of steps backwards, hands upraised. He wondered at the look of abject terror on Nick's face, but didn't mention it, as the other man registered his surroundings and quickly caught himself.

Speaking as though nothing had happened, Greg said, "Grissom said to take the rest of the night off." Not sure he should mention anything about video games, Greg decided to suggest a movie, instead. "Stay at my place tonight, and we can watch a movie and get drunk."

Pain settled in Nick's eyes, replacing the terror, as he quietly said, "I'd rather play some video games, if you don't mind."

"Okay, Nick. Whatever you want. Go home and get whatever you need. I've got to stop by the store and stock up. Anything in particular you want?"

Nick had stood up, and they were now walking towards the elevator to the parking level.

"Coors, or something like that, I guess. I'm not really in the mood to drink," Nick said softly, before they parted ways to go to their own vehicles.

While all of his other plans seemed to be going down the drain, at least Nick didn't seem to be objecting to staying at Greg's place, so he counted himself lucky on that one. Even if it wouldn't be in the way Greg would have liked to have Nick staying with him. As Nick reached his truck, a few spaces down from Greg's car, Greg called out, "You remember how to get to my place, right?"

Nick didn't reply, just nodded, and waved a hand at him before climbing into his truck.