You Mentioned Her Name

Chapter Eight: The Living Past

by angellwings

It was his day off, and she'd come over after work the night before. They'd fallen asleep on the floor in front of his television. She smiled and propped herself up on her elbow to look at him. Did the boy know how sexy he was? Probably not. Her fingers itched to trace his jaw line like they used to, but she couldn't. That was no longer one of her rights. She was no longer his girlfriend, and hadn't been for a long time. It was times like these when she regretted ever refusing his proposals. She had never longed to caress Jeremy's face the way she wanted to touch Nick's. There hadn't been a whole lot of chemistry between her and Jeremy, and now she knew why. It was because Nick still had a tight hold on her heart. Because she had never let go, she couldn't let go. He was a part of her in a way no one else ever could be.

She'd arranged for this to be her day off as well, and though Nick didn't know, it had been intentional scheduling. She needed to spend a day with him. She'd only gotten to see him at breakfast with the rest of the graveyard CSI's for the past couple of weeks. She needed some Mel/Nick private time, and although it wasn't the same kind of private time they used to have in college . . . it would still do nicely.

She smiled when she thought about the good old days when they had truly been Mel and Nick, and despite how hard she tried the memory of when it all came crashing down replayed in her head.

She blinked her eyes open slowly to find Nick staring at her in thought. She smiled softly at him.

"Mornin' Sparky." She said as she caressed his cheek. He smiled and caught her hand in his.

"Mornin', Red. How did you sleep?"

She smirked playfully at him, "I was pretty restless for a while, but eventually I settled down."

He chuckled deeply and kissed her on the lips, "Glad to hear it."

His arms went around her waist, and she snuggled in to his chest. She was more than willing to stay like that for the whole day. But something was bothering her, she had an appointment or something . . . oh no!

"Nicky, what time is it?" She asked with wide eyes.

"Quarter till twelve, why?"

"Shit! She's going to kill me." Melissa said as she pulled herself out of Nick's arms, and ran to his chest of drawers. He couldn't help but grin at the site. She had her own drawer of clothes that she ALWAYS kept at his apartment for times just like these. If only he could convince her that times should ALWAYS be like these.

"Let me guess, your mother?" He asked with twinge of bitterness.

"I'm supposed to meet her at home for brunch, and I'm already thirty minutes late." She explained frantically as she grabbed some clothes and began to dress herself.

"You know, I don't think she likes me very much." He said with a sigh as he watched her slip a pair of Levi's on.

"What are you talking about? She's known you your whole life of course she likes you." She said as she turned to him in her bra and her jeans and placed a quick peck on his lips.

"As your friend she likes me, but as your boyfriend? Not so much." He told her with a shake of his head. It was scary how perceptive that boy could be sometimes. She buttoned up a pastel colored dress shirt before setting herself back on the bed beside of him.

"Well, I like you." She told him with a wink.

"But not enough to marry me, right Mel?" He asked seriously.

She sighed in exasperation, "How many times are we going to have this conversation?"

"As many times as it takes for you to marry me." He said with a look of determination.

"We're not even in our junior year of college yet, Nicky. We're too young." She told him as she turned away to slip on her white keds.

"That's your mother talking." He told her with his own sigh of exasperation.

"She has a point, Nick. You know that." She told him as she stood again.

"Then what are we doing?" He asked as he sat up and placed his feet on the floor.

"What are you talking about?" She asked him in confusion.

"If we're not moving forward then what are we doing?" He asked again, "We're going in circles, Mel."

"What's wrong with circles? I like them, they're comfortable." She said softly.

"But they make you dizzy after a while, Red." He said as his tone matched hers. He slipped on a white t-shirt and sat down beside her.

"Where is this coming from, Nick? We were fine when I woke up. How did things change that quickly?" She said as she looked him the eye for the first time in five minutes. He grabbed her hand and held it against his chest.

"I want you, Mel, and I want you for the rest of my life. I want people to know that your mine, and I'm yours. I want that so bad it hurts. I ache every time we're together because you don't seem to share my need for it. I want to move forward in life knowing that you'll always be with me, but you just want to stay right where we are. I want to start a life with you, and if you don't want to start that life then maybe . . . we need to take a step back." He said softly and passionately with his eyes fastened on hers. He only looked away to say the last part. He practically spat the words out. She could tell they pained him to say, and they pained her even more to hear.

"A S-step back?" She asked in shock, "Like . . . a break?"

He nodded as he tried to gather up the strength to answer, "Yeah, like a . . . break."

His voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper. She grasped his hand tighter and spoke up tearfully, "But we-we can't. You don't mean that."

He brought their hands away from his chest, and stared at their intertwined fingers as they rested on his mattress, "If we can't move forward then the only way to move is backward."

She could tell he was hating this as much as she was. She could hear the tears in his voice, "No! I refuse to believe that. I-we need to come back to this later when we're not so emotional."

"It's not going to just go away, Mel. I'm not going to just pretend this conversation never happened. We can't go on like this. At this point . . . it's all or nothing." He couldn't look at her. He would give in if he did. He kept a tight grasp on her hand, though, he couldn't force himself to let go just yet, but after that last comment she had yanked her hand out of his.

"DON'T say that. I'm not ready for what you're ready for yet, Nicky, but I don't want to give up on us either. I love you, and I want to be with you, but I just don't think I'm at a place where I can . . ."

"Marry me." He finished for her sadly.

Her bottom lip trembled at the tone of his voice. He was giving up, "Yes, I'm sorry, Nick, I am. I love you, but-"

"But WHAT? That should be it. You love me, I love you. We've been dating for two years now. That should be the end of it." He said as his voice cracked out of heartbreak and frustration.

She couldn't stand the hurt in his voice, and she couldn't stand that she had done that. She had hurt him this much. Silent tears flowed down her cheeks. Maybe he was right, maybe they needed to take a step back from each other. She had never meant to hurt him like this. Never.

"Mornin', Red." She heard Nick mumble sleepily as he stirred and brought her out of her reverie.

She quickly wiped away a tear that had fallen, and smiled at him. He narrowed his eyes at her thoughtfully.

"What's wrong?" He asked with a furrowed brow.

"Just thinking, that's all. I don't really want to talk about it." She told him dismissively.

"You sure? You look pretty upset." He told her as he grabbed her hand and ran his thumb across the back of it comfortingly.

She blinked back a few more tears that had been forming and squeezed his hand, "I'm sure."

She pushed herself up off the floor, and stretched. She yawned and ran a hand through her hair. He stayed where he was and watched her. She was beautiful, but he'd always known that. Even when they were kids he'd thought she was gorgeous, of course so did every one else. Once they'd hit the last couple years of middle school she'd had almost every boy in their class after her. Things had changed then. She went on her first date during seventh grade, and he'd been forced to ask his sister to help her pick out an out fit. It was one of the most infuriating moments of his life.

"Nicky!" She yelled excitedly as she ran to meet him and load into his mother's van.

"You're late." He said as he let her hop in first.

"Sorry, Sam said he wanted to talk to me after our last class, and well, you know I couldn't not show." She told him with an excited smile as she tightened one of her red pig tails.

"So, what did he want?" Nick asked casually.

"He asked if he could take me to the dance next week." She said as she placed her book bag in front of her and buckled her seat belt.

"Ooo, Mel's got her first date." His sister said from the front passenger seat as she turned to look at them.

"I'm so excited, Clare, he is so cute." Melissa told her with animated hand motions.

Nick rolled his eyes, and kept himself from groaning angrily, and to think Sam had been his friend.

"What do you want for breakfast?" He heard Mel ask from the kitchen.

"I don't know, cereal sounds fine to me." He said as he inhaled deeply and pushed himself off the floor.

"Please, that's not breakfast." She scoffed.

"Oh yeah, and what did you have in mind, Chef Melissa?" He asked sarcastically.

"Oh, I don't know. A couple of those omelets that only the Stokes men know how to make." She said coyly.

"Isn't this my day off? I don't think I should be forced to fix breakfast on my day off." He told her as he suppressed a grin.

"Please? For me? I miss the famous Stokes omelet. I haven't had one since college." She pouted pathetically as she leaned back against the counter.

He sighed melodramatically, "Fine. I'll make the omelets."

"Yay! You're my hero, Nicky." She squealed as she placed a kiss on his cheek.

He shook his head and laughed, "And you take advantage of that as much as you can, don't you?"

"What kind of a woman would I be if I didn't?" She asked him with a raised eyebrow and a wink.

"A respectable one." He said with a playful grin as he pulled out a frying pan and a spatula.

She laughed and smacked him in the back of the head lightly, "You're just oh so funny, Sparky."

"I do try." He said as he went to open the refrigerator.

"So how was work yesterday? You seemed pretty worn out." She asked as she slipped easily out of the playful banter.

"Well, I had to figure out how a woman drowned in the middle of a desert." He said with a slight chuckle as he pulled out all the eggs he would need for two omelets.

Melissa's brow furrowed, "She drowned in the middle of a desert? Body dump?"

"That's what I thought, but it turns out there was no evidence to suggest a dump." He said with a slight grin. It was amusing to hear her hypothesize his cases. He was rubbing off on her, and her liked it.

"Then how? It's a little bizarre." She said as she reached into the refrigerator around him and pulled out a Tupperware container of grapes.

"Have you ever heard of the Mountain Shadow Effect?" He asked as he nudged her away with his shoulder.

"Nope, but I'm sure you're gonna tell me about it." She said with a light laugh as she nudged his shoulder and walked back to her spot around the counter.

"Basically the shadow of the mountain causes barometric pressure to drop and humidity to rise which leads to a flash flood." He said as he pulled out more ingredients.

"Oh right, so it stormed in a hurry and she was bombarded with rain water." She said with an understanding nod, "And then the rain evaporates in the sun."

"Exactly, but the interesting part was her fiancé changed her map, competitive muscle head that he was, and made her think she was walled in. She probably could have found her way out of the canyon in time if he would have left the map alone." He said as he closed the refrigerator and shook his head.

She rolled her eyes at the situation as a whole and popped a grape into her mouth, "People can be so petty some times. It couldn't have been a happy relationship if he was that heavily competitive."

"It was ridiculous, relationships aren't supposed to be like that." Nick said as he started to chop up half of an onion.

She smiled softly at him, "You're such an idealistic romantic, Nicky."

"You're not gonna start picking on me about that too, now, are you?" He asked her with a smile.

"Aw, are the other kids picking on you?" She asked in a baby voice.

"You have no idea. Sara is the worst, though, she's truly not a big romantic. Warrick just thinks it's funny, and Grissom . . . well, I think he thinks I'm a naive little kid because of it. It took him forever to put me on murder cases by myself." He said as he ran a whisk through the raw eggs.

She grinned at him, and squeezed his arm, "I doubt that's because you're a romantic by nature. People tend to have need to look out for you, Sparky, I'd have thought you would have figured that out by now. You're very easy to be protective of, and maybe he felt like he needed to make sure you could really handle it."

"So, he was protecting me? Well, hate to break it to you, Red, but I'm all grown up now. I can protect myself." He said with a sigh and a lot of resentment.

"Hey, calm down," Her eyes widened at the intensity of his tone as she moved around behind him and started to massage his shoulders, "I didn't say you couldn't handle it. I just think that you're so easy to care about that people naturally want to protect you. It's a compliment, Nicky, you've got a lot of people that care about you."

She could feel him relax underneath her fingers and he finally spoke, "I know, but sometimes those people are more of a hindrance than a help."

She removed her hands from his shoulders and leaned against the counter again, "Maybe you need to talk to them about that. Let them know how you feel."

"Yeah maybe." He answered weakly.

She sighed, "You definitely need a movie day."

He raised an eyebrow in her direction and grinned at her in amusement, "And what movie do you suggest?"

"Ghostbusters 1 and 2." She said with a smirk.

He laughed, "Great I get to listen to you quote Bill Murray for the rest of the day."

"You know you love it." She told him with a knowing smile as she closed the container of grapes, and carried them out of the kitchen.

He smiled wistfully at her as he watched her retreating form, "Yeah, maybe a little too much."


ta da! An update! I know it's been way too long, but I was stuck! Luckily somebody101 gave me a little inspiration (Thanks by the way!).

Enjoy!

angellwings