Every person learns early in life that there are things you don't do. You don't cry in public. You don't play outside when there is lightning. You don't tell your parents when your brother does something wrong, not when you stand to gain from being able to tell.

But most of all, people learn that you don't have a fight with someone and then talk about it. You don't talk about it with the person you fought with, and you don't talk about it to anyone else. You pretend it didn't happen.

The thing about growing up is that things get more chaotic. The entropy in life increases exponentially each year. The only way to manage entropy is to categorize it, fit it into a neat set of parameters, put it in a box. You expand the rules you've always known.

That's how it comes to pass that you can't talk about the hard things. It isn't just about fights anymore. It's anything that isn't easy to say. You don't share your feelings. If someone dies, you don't talk about it. You don't talk about it when your best friend is buried alive. You pretend it didn't happen.

The way Warrick figured, it was when you broke the rules that things got bad. Nothing truly happened until it was discussed.

He remembered the way Nick had looked at him that day in the park, when he had tried to talk. The tiny bit of panic, quickly covered up. Nick had always followed the rules.

Warrick remembered the Nigel Crane incident from years before. They didn't talk about it. No issues there, it hadn't really happened.

If Nick was going to follow the rules, then he would too. He had never been a big fan of following the rules, as shown by the numerous conflicts he had had just at the lab since he had come to work for Grissom. But for Nick, he would do it.

That's why he didn't say it. He didn't tell Nick what he thought. He made small mental notes on Nick's condition, but kept his thoughts to himself.

It was why, when he heard Nick's breath catch when his flashlight dropped and broke, he silently handed him a new one. Why he didn't comment on Nick's thin, sickly appearance. Why he laughed and joked with his friend as though nothing had happened.

He wondered if, when you had already acknowledged the disorder of your world, you could still fit it in that box.


There was something about life that really changed at midnight of New Year's Day. If you slept through the monumental second of a whole year ending and a new one beginning, you didn't get to see it. You woke up the next morning and it was another normal day. You didn't get to see the magic. The magic moment where, as the New Year came in, everything went sparkly and the whole world lit up, exploding into gold light like the sun. At least, that's what Nick's big brother told him.

The first year he was old enough to stay up until midnight for New Years, Nick had been ecstatic. He was going to get to see it, really see it, and wouldn't it just be so great?

He almost didn't make it. He almost fell asleep just an hour before it happened. But no, he held on. He was determined to see the New Year, and he was going to see it before anyone else too.

They were at a party, at the home of one of his father's friends. Lawyers, and the like. Nick didn't like them much, they ignored him, and their kids were too old. He didn't say that though. His mom had told him to be polite.

His brothers and sisters didn't pay him much attention. They left him sitting on the stairs, waiting for the light. And so he sat. He waited, for what felt like the longest time in his five years. Waiting waiting waiting like when mom dragged him to the doctor and they sat in the room that smelled wrong while he waited to be called back and stuck with a needle.

This was a bit better though, because, though this room didn't smell good either, hopefully no one was going to stick him with anything sharp.

As the moment approached, the grown-ups talked louder, crowded around a television. Afraid he would miss something, Nick scrambled down the stairs and pushed his way through the sea of legs, looking for familiar ones.

But none stood out. He stopped, standing in the middle of so many people, looking up to see no one he knew. He chewed his lip, not even knowing which direction to go to get out of this mess.

"Mommy?" he squeaked, staring up at the grown-ups. "Mommy?"

"Nicky, come over here," her voice floated toward him along with the familiar smell of her perfume, and he ran as fast as he could to collide with her legs.

"Are you ready, Nicky? It's almost time," she said, smiling, pointing towards the little television.

On the grainy picture, he saw an orb, and suddenly, it began to fall, as all the people around him began to shout "Ten…nine…eight…seven…"

This was it, this was it, it was going to happen now, the magic moment, and he was going to see it!

"Four…three…two…one…HAPPY NEW YEAR!"

The little orb on the screen lit up. Nothing else did. Nick felt his mom tighten her arms around him in a hug, felt people shuffling around, but he didn't care. Where was it? That little ball on TV was not the world. Where were the lights? Where was the magic?!

He struggled to push through the crowd without getting stepped on, and finally made it out of the crowd, near a window. Nick climbed up onto the window seat and squinted through the glass at the looming darkness, trying to understand, when suddenly it all exploded.

The darkness shattered, and the world burst into sparkling, burning, electrifying color.

These were nothing like the Fireworks at Fourth of July. They were so much better.

Dozing in the car on the way home, he felt warm and happy and…magical. It had been magic, and he had been the first person to see it.

As he looked back on that time in his childhood, Nick shook his head at how stupid he had been to believe his brother. The world didn't change when the year changed. Nothing changed when the lights came on and showed everything for what it was.

It only changed when the lights went out, and all you were left with was the dark.


Warrick fiddled with the dial on his radio, trying to find a good station. He drove lazily, one wrist draped over the wheel, as he leaned back in his seat.

He had left the lab the morning before at the end of shift, after he and Nick had obtained some encrypted files from the home of a suspect. Warrick had taken one look and known that the encryption would take hours to break. He figured, as it was the end of shift, the best course of action would be to get some rest and return to it next shift.

He had said as much to Nick, Nick had nodded, seemingly in agreement, and said he'd leave in a few minutes.

However, as he walked into the lab, he was surprised to see Nick squinting at the computer screen, in the same clothes as the previous shift.

"Damn, Nick, did you ever go home last night?" he asked, taking in Nick's rumpled clothes and the dark circles under his eyes.

"I got the files," Nick mumbled, avoiding Warrick eyes. That's a no, then.

"Yeah? Anything good?" he replied instead.

"Some bank records, showing a transfer of forty thousand bucks to an Angela Woods, two days before the murder," Nick replied, pointing at the screen.

"Pay off from the husband to kill his wife?" Warrick hypothesized. "We should check it out."

Nick nodded and stood to leave, stumbling a little.

"Nick, maybe you should head home? I can handle this on my own," Warrick said quietly, placing a hand on Nick's shoulder.

Nick shrugged off the hand. "No. I'm fine. C'mon, man. Let's go." He walked out of the room, before Warrick could respond.

Warrick stared after his partner, shaking his head sadly. So this was the aftermath. A friend who couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, and wouldn't talk to anyone about it.

He'd never thought of his friend as the self-destructive type, but now he was beginning to wonder. Nick wasn't the same person he had been, not anymore.

Though he had watched Nick in the box on a live feed, he still couldn't fathom what Nick must have gone through. He knew that the entire time, Nick had seemed very calm. He had held it together.

It was only when they had finally found him that he had started to fall apart. And it looked as though, when Nick fell apart, he left a piece of himself in that box, there to be imprisoned, lost to them forever.