There was no sound of the splash when Nick hit the water. To him, it felt more like the water had opened up and made a hole and then closed around him once he was inside. The water was neither warm nor cold and only added a slight sting to the pain in his shoulder. A few seconds after having landed in the water, Nick hit the ocean floor. Upon doing so, he opened his eyes and wasn't surprised when the salt water didn't sting them. The water around him was perfectly clear, allowing him to see the sandy bottom he was sitting on and the completely deserted ocean floor that extended all around him. Nick looked up and realized that instead of having to swim to the surface, all he had to do was stand up. The water was only about four feet deep, so when he did the water only came up to just past his waist.

Nick wiped the water from his face and turned around, looking for the cliff that he had just fallen off of. But it was nowhere to be seen. There was no waves crashing against the side of it. In its place was a small, sandy beach and behind it was a series of grassy hills and tall palm trees that when on for as far as Nick could see. Having nowhere else to go, Nick trudged through the water to the shore. Once both of his feet were on the dry sand, he suddenly became aware of and felt the warmth of the sun wash all over him. He looked down as the feeling radiated all the way down to his feet, and after one look at his body Nick realized he wasn't soaking wet like he should have been after having come out of the ocean. His clothes were completely dry as if he had never been in the water in the first place.

"Pretty cool huh?"

The voice came from off to Nick's right, but the Texan didn't need to look up to know who it was. He had been waiting for this person to come along since his first person, but he should have known all along that Warrick Brown would be saved for last.

Nick smiled as he looked up and saw his best friend standing on the beach a few feet away from him. Warrick smiled back as the two walked towards each other in order to pull one another into a tight hug. The embrace added pain to Nick's shoulder, but he didn't care at all. After a moment the two stepped back, both still smiling widely.

"I was wondering when you'd come along," Nick said.

"I had to chill here and make sure you went through the first four the right way to prove you deserved to see me," Warrick teased. "Let's go sit."

Nick followed Warrick over to a picnic table placed strategically on the line where the sand ended and the grass began, right under a palm tree that created comfortable shade. The two sat down across from each other and Warrick pulled a pair of beers from the cooler on the sand next to the table. He passed one to Nick, who had an amused smile on his face.

"I should have known they would serve beer in heaven," he said as he took the cold bottle from Warrick.

Warrick laughed. "Of course they do, it's my heaven man."

Nick took a long drink of what he quickly decided was the best thing he had ever tasted. The two were in a comfortable silence for a few moments while they enjoyed their beers and the sunny day. It wasn't long before Nick couldn't stay quiet any longer.

"Do you like it here?" Nick asked.

Warrick nodded. "It's not a bad deal."

"Do you like it better than Vegas?"

"How could I?" Warrick replied. "It's sweet here man, but nothing was better than Vegas because I was alive in Vegas. I was with you and everyone else. But I had my time there and now it's done. I've come to terms with that so now I can enjoy being here."

"You should still be down there with us," Nick said. "What happened wasn't fair."

"A lot of things aren't fair," Warrick said. "You know that just as well as I do. But there was nothing that could have been done to change what happened."

Nick shook his head. "I should have went out with you. I shouldn't have let you go to your car alone."

"Why?" Warrick asked. "So McKean would have killed both of us? He wouldn't have hesitated anymore if you were there than he did when you weren't. He would have been more than happy to kill the both of us. I'm glad you didn't come with me. I'm glad it was just me that got killed."

When Nick opened his mouth to argue, Warrick cut him off. "When we flipped that coin, and you got that trash run that got you buried alive, you never once blamed me. The whole time we were looking for you I kept thinking about how easily it could have been me down there and how much stronger you were than me. I would have given up right away, but you never did."

"What's your point?" Nick asked quietly.

"When we were looking for you, I've never been so scared in my life. I was terrified that I wasn't going to be able to save my best friend. But we did, we got you. I was so scared that we weren't going to be able to do anything about you being buried alive because there was nothing that could have been done for us to stop it from happening. That's how you feel now. You won't admit that there was nothing you could have done, so you blame yourself to convince yourself that you could have changed what happened. But you couldn't have. Blaming yourself now won't bring me back." Warrick leaned forward and looked Nick dead in the eye. "Nothing can bring me back Nicky."

Nick nodded slowly. "I know."

"Good," Warrick said. "I hate seeing you blaming yourself for what happened."

"It just sucks," Nick replied. "So much has changed. You're gone, Grissom's gone, Sara's only back part time. It feels like just yesterday you and I were competing to see who could get CSI 3 first. Now Greg's a CSI 3. It's insane. I can clearly remember him as the DNA tech, kicking us out of his lab every day and putting off running Grissom's evidence to come play video games with us in the break room."

Warrick laughed. "Those were the days," he said. "How's that new guy? Ray?"

"He's really smart," Nick said. "He caught on very quickly. And he's a really good guy. He cares a lot about the work and the team."

"He's a lot like you," Warrick noted. "Just from what I've seen, you two have a lot in common."

Nick nodded in agreement. "I know I can trust him. I feel like talking to him is like talking to an older, wiser version of you. Like a combination of you and Grissom. It's nice having Ray around, but it's not the same. If he had worked with us when you and Grissom were still there, no case would have ever gone unsolved."

Warrick smiled. "He needs you ya know," he said. "Back in that restaurant."

"I know," Nick replied. "He'll die if I stay here, won't he?"

Warrick shrugged. "I don't know. Nobody knows that. If it were a known fact, it would too greatly influence your decision. What you choose has to be what you want."

"Did you get to choose?"

Warrick shook his head. "No. But this isn't about me. This is about you. We don't have very long, and there's a lot we have to talk about. Per usual, you can't do anything without me. So I gotta teach you some shit so when you back, you'll be able to function."

Nick laughed at that. "
Sounds like a plan."

Warrick took a drink from his bottle before beginning. "You have to let go."

Nick frowned in confusion. "Of what?"

"Everything you've lost," Warrick replied. "All the victims you couldn't save, all the bad guys that got away. Me."

"How can I just let go?" Nick asked. "I don't even know what letting go entails."

"Relief from pain," Warrick said. "It'll still hurt, don't get me wrong. There's no cure for heartbreak over a lost loved one. Especially me," he joked, eliciting a small laugh from Nick. "But when you let go, you come to terms with what happened and accept it. When you do that, thinking about me will make you happy instead of angry or sad. You gotta let go of what you can't change or hold on to anymore."

"Why?" Nick asked.

"So that you can move on with your life," Warrick said. "You can never fully be in your own life if you're still living in the past. It won't happen overnight, but if you can move on from losing things you think you should have been able to save, you'll be happier and better off."

Nick shook his head slowly. "How do I do that?"

"When you think about me, what do you think about?" Warrick asked.

"The night you died mostly," Nick replied.

"Well, when you let go, you'll think about the times we played basketball against Greg and Archie and beat the hell out of them. You'll think about all the times we annoyed Hodges and pissed off Ecklie. You'll be able to think about the good things that you want to think about and get past the bad shit that has a hold on you."

"I don't think I can do that," Nick said. "I don't do it on purpose. It all happens in my nightmares and dreams, and when something reminds me of you it just reminds me that you're gone. I feel like if I let go, I'll lose you completely. Everyone else can act like nothing happened. They all moved on, but I can't. I can't get over the fact that my best friend is dead."

"I don't want you to get over it," Warrick said. "You get over it when your team loses a game or when you have a bad day. You don't get over losing someone that was a part of your life for so long. You don't need to let go of me, you need to let go of your guilt and the burden you've been carrying since you came to Vegas. You need to let go of the pain."

Nick sighed. "I don't control the pain. I feel like I don't control anything anymore. I can't help or stop any of it."

"Yes you can," Warrick said with a nod. "You control the pain because you control how you view me. You think about how I died and how you wish you could change it, but you can't. You simply can't change what happened, so you have to let go of that. Let go of what happened. Let go of the past so you can live in the present and live for the future."

"What if I can't?" Nick asked.

Warrick shrugged. "Then you'll spend the rest of your life thinking about an event you can't change. It does you no good to keep thinking about it, and when you can let go, you can release a great deal of the pain you're suffering from it and focus on doing the things you have left to do with your life."

Nick fell silent as he finished off his beer. He turned and looked out at the ocean where the small waves were rolling up the beach and breaking softly. The wind carried a cool breeze off the water that blew through Nick's dark hair and rustled the leaves of the palm trees overhead. He knew that his time was drawing to a close with Warrick because the pain in his shoulder was getting to be extremely close to how it had been in the restaurant, but he told himself that if he ignored it he would be able to stay here as long as he wanted.

"Okay," Nick finally said. "Okay. I'll let go. I don't really know how or when I'm gonna be able to do this, but I will."

Warrick smiled. "Good. Because you can't help me back there. You need to help the people around you that love you."

Nick frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The team depends on you just as much as you depend on them. Catherine depends on you to keep her from going completely insane as much as you depend on her to always have your back. Greg needs you to look to in order to know that everything's going to be okay as much as you need him to make you laugh after even the worst case. They all need to see you fighting through the same shit they do because if they see you doing it, they know it's worth it. They can look at you and know it's going to be alright because they know you'll make sure it is."

Warrick's eyes had Nick's locked so that the other man couldn't look away. "You never, ever give up Nicky," he continued. "That used to piss me off because you were so stubborn, but I always knew it was one of your best qualities. Don't give up on anything, ever. Especially not yourself."

"Does it get any better?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, it does," Warrick said. "It will if you can forgive yourself and let go of what you couldn't control. It's got a hold on you, but only because you let it. You can let it go, but only if you want to."

Nick nodded slowly. "I really wish I was going to remember this," he said softly. "Being able to look back on this would really help a lot back there."

"Who says you can't look back at this?"

"I thought I wasn't going to remember any of this?"

"You won't," Warrick said.

Nick shook his head. "You're not making any sense. If I can't remember it, how can I look back at it?"

Warrick smiled. "Memories don't come from your mind, they come from your heart. You won't be able to remember exactly what you did or what was said, but you'll be able to remember how you felt. You'll know the things we taught you and when you need them and use them, the feeling you had when you were with us will come back. You won't consciously know what it is, but deep down you will. Your heart never forgets."

"Even if I let go?" Nick asked.

"You're not letting go of how you feel about something or someone. You don't let go of them, you let go of the pain that comes from losing them. You let go of the thoughts that make you think you can change it," Warrick explained.

Nick sighed heavily. "I can't go back," he whispered, more to himself than Warrick.

"Yes you can," Warrick argued. "You don't want to die Nick. If you stay here, that means you die. Then everyone you love and care about that loves you just as much is going to have to go to your funeral and cry and grieve over how unfair it was that you died doing the job that you love and are so good at. But what they won't know is that you chose to die. You chose to leave them and everything else behind because you thought it would fix things, but it won't."

"I can't go back," Nick repeated, but this time, as soon as the last syllable left his lips, the pain in his shoulder immediately skyrocketed to how bad it had been when he had first been shot. The sudden explosion of pain knocked the wind from Nick's lungs and was so bad he almost fell from his seat at the table but was stopped by Warrick reaching across and grabbing both of Nick's wrists in each hand.

"Look at me," Warrick instructed, but Nick's eyes were squeezed shut against the pain. "Nicky, look at me man."

Nick slowly opened his eyes and looked at Warrick. His breathing was labored from the tightness in his chest and the pain flowing through his body like a poison. He tried to focus on Warrick's tight grip on his wrists, but couldn't take his mind off of his shoulder.

"Changing your future doesn't change the past. Stopping yourself from having a future won't change the past. You can't stay here just because you feel guilty for what happened to me. It wasn't your fault, you can't change anything. You have to let go Nicky," Warrick said calmly to his suffering friend.

Nick felt tears stinging his eyes. "Why can't I just stay here with you?"

"You don't want to," Warrick replied. "That's why your shoulder hurts so much. You're scared to go back, but you want to. You don't want to stay here because you don't want to die. You're not ready to die yet Nick, but you're ready to let go."

Before Nick had time to realize what was happening, the table they were sitting at disappeared and they fell to the ground beneath them, which had shifted position and was at a slant. The slanted ground turned to a cliff that lead down to the ocean that couldn't be seen, but the waves were audible as they once again crashed against the side of the wall. The cliff ran off behind Warrick, so when he hit the ground he began sliding towards the edge. Nick scrambled after him and dove forward as Warrick was going over, catching his right wrist with his left hand. The weight and tug from holding Warrick's wrist pulled at Nick's shoulder, bringing the pain to an almost unbearable level. Warrick's whole body was over the edge and was being fully supported by Nick, who had just realized that the ground was now completely level and he wasn't going to fall off even though he was holding on to Warrick.

"I can't let go because I'm not holding on to you anymore," Warrick said, looking up at his best friend. "The burden of me dying isn't gripping your wrists anymore. It's not consuming your heart and mind. I let go of you. You have to let go of me Nicky."

Tears fell from Nick's eyes, both from the thought of letting go of his best friend and the pain in his shoulder. His arm was shaking and he knew he couldn't hold on much longer. He sighed in his frustration, but then the sigh turned into a deep, slow breath as Nick realized and accepted what he had to do. He smiled sadly at Warrick, who did the same. No more words needed to be spoken. Neither of them offered a goodbye because they both knew it was only the end for now, not forever.

Nick let his eyes close as he relaxed his hand and felt Warrick's wrist slip away. Once the weight was gone from his arm he opened his eyes and watched as his best friend fell slowly and calmly down towards the ocean. There was no splash, no sound. Nick watched as nothing happened, and when he was convinced he was really gone he rolled onto his back, his right arm resting above his head and his left clutched to his side, still in pain. The wind picked up and as it did, Nick closed his eyes, knowing fully well who was coming to talk to him now. Lily was walking towards him to send him back to that restaurant, but he wasn't ready yet. He didn't want to leave, but he knew he couldn't stay. So for the time being, he just pretended it was all okay.