FATHER AND SON
Nick was running a little late. He didn't even make it to the office until 9:40, and was cursing under his breath as he quickly parked his truck and hurried into the building. Hopefully, Grissom wouldn't give him any grief about his tardiness - after all, the reason he was late was Grissom's fault. He's the one who told him he needed to talk to Marsha.
Nick ran his hand across the back of his neck, smiling slightly. Marsha - Marty - was still at his place, wearing his t-shirt. Maybe she'd climbed back into his bed and was sleeping again - hair spilling darkly around the pillow cases. She had said she would wait for him to return - sometime later in the day, after he and Grissom had talked to Eric Minet and Samantha White at the high school.
Grissom was standing in the hallway outside his office, talking with someone. From the back, the man looked strangely familiar. Nick slowed down as he got closer - a tight knot forming in his chest as he realized exactly who the other man was.
"Hello Father."
Nicolas Garrett Stokes III turned to look at his son, cocking an eyebrow as he took in Nick's still damp hair, t-shirt and slightly wrinkled jeans.
"Nicholas. You're looking - disreputable, as always."
Long awkward silence. Nick looked at Grissom in dismay - *What's he doing here?* - but the older man merely shrugged his shoulders. Nick looked back to his father and sighed. As always, the man cut an imposing figure - part of it due to the obviously expensive and tailored suit he wore, part of it due to the fact that he practically dripped 'old-school wealth'. His hair was artfully silvered at the temples, his face remarkably unlined for a man in his late 50s. People had often commented on how much Nick looked like his father, and he had always hoped it wasn't true. He wondered if his eyes had ever been that icy and disdainful.
His father was studying him coldly, obviously waiting for Nick to speak. Nick gritted his teeth, and instead turned to Grissom. "Sorry I'm late, Grissom."
Grissom glanced at the younger man oddly, "Only a few minutes, Nicky - don't worry about it. I was doing paperwork anyway."
"You always were irresponsible," his father interjected, "Never on time for anything."
Nick felt his gut tighten and coil as he turned back to his father, "We all can't be as perfect as you, father. What are you doing here?"
"You're mother was worried about you, Nicholas. You haven't been answering your phone. You haven't been responding to her pages."
Nick sighed, "I unhooked my phones a couple of nights ago now and must have forgotten to plug them back into the jacks."
"Well, isn't that just like you, Nicholas," his father commented, "you were always inconsiderate like that. Do you know what your mother has gone through, worrying about you? Thank God I had to come to Vegas anyway for a seminar, and was available to make sure you were still alive -"
The derisive tone in his father's voice made Nick stiffen even more. He noticed with surprise that Grissom had also tensed up, inching slightly away from the wall and a little closer to Nick, subconsciously aligning himself with the younger man. Nick tried to smile at him, but his mouth was stiff.
"I'll call mom later and let her know I'm alright. Lucky for me you were here on business, and checking to make sure I was alright wasn't too much of an inconvenience. As you can see, I'm still breathing. I'm sure that's a relief to you. Shall we get going Grissom? Brass meeting us there?"
"We're not finished yet, Nicholas. I have approximately 45 minutes before I have to be at the first seminar. Plenty of time for us to -"
"Listen - Mr. Stokes," Grissom cut his father off, "I'm sure you and Nick have a lot of catching up to do, and I'm sure Nick will be available to talk to you later. Right now, we have to get moving - we're meeting a colleague to interview a couple of potential witnesses to a crime, and we're already running late."
"Where are you staying, father?" Nick asked, turning and noting with sardonic amusement the stunned look on his father's face. It wasn't often he was cut-off mid-sentence.
"I'm staying at Les Suites," his father finally responded. "I expect you to meet me there for dinner this evening - I'm finished with the seminars at 8:00. Wear a suit - I'm assuming you have one?"
Nick felt his ears turn red, but managed to keep his voice remarkably calm, "My shift starts tonight at 8:00, so dinner is out of the question. Perhaps we can have a coffee together back here, if you're interested - unless I'm called out to a crime scene. Then we might have to forego."
"Not very hospitable, Nicholas. I'm sure Mr. Grissom can be persuaded to let you take a few hours to have dinner with me." Both men turned to look at Grissom, Nick's face vaguely pleading and his father's arrogantly expectant.
Grissom sighed and shook his head, "Actually, Mr. Stokes, any other night it wouldn't be a problem - but tonight I'm going to be short staffed, and Nick and I are working a major case together - one, as you can see, we're already working overtime on. I'm afraid a coffee break is as good as it's going to get. Now, if you don't mind, we really have to get going."
"Sorry, father. I'll talk to you later," Nick offered, as he turned and followed Grissom down the hallway, weirdly elated that for once his father hadn't gotten what he wanted.
* * * * *
Nicholas Garrett Stokes III watched as his oldest son turned on his heel and followed his boss down the hallway and out the door of the lab. Grabbing his cell phone out of his pocket, he quickly punched in his wife's office number, smiling grimly when she picked up the phone.
"Well, he's still alive, if that's what you were worried about," he greeted her, "He just unhooked his phones."
"How does he look, Garrett?"
"Like he always looks when I see him - pissed off and tense."
He heard his wife sigh on the other end, "What did you say to him?"
"I told him you were worried when you couldn't get hold of him."
"And, what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Did you tell him you were worried too?"
"What purpose would that serve, Mary? He wouldn't believe it. I told him I was here for a seminar," the older man walked out into the parking lot and headed towards his Mercedes rental.
"So, instead of telling him the truth - that you were worried and wanted to see him, you made up some seminar? So now he thinks the only reason you stopped by to see him is because you were there anyway."
Garrett sighed, running a hand tiredly over his face, "That's about it, Mary." The car beeped when he pressed the key tag to unlock the doors, and he slid into the leather interior and rested his head against the backrest. "When did it get so hard?"
"Perhaps when you stopped treating him like a son and started treating him like a project," his wife's words were gentle, but they still made Garrett wince. "You have to make this right, Garrett - whatever the problem between you and Nick has been in the past, you have to make it right. I want my son back."
"I want him back too. But I don't know if I can fix this, Mary. There's too much water under the bridge. You know the first thing I said to him when I saw him this morning? I told him he looked 'disreputable'," Garrett sighed, "I wanted to hug him, and instead I insulted him. What's wrong with me, Mary?"
"You're scared," his wife replied, "and it's understandable. You haven't exactly gone easy on him, and he has every right to be angry at you. But our son is a good man, Garrett - he'll forgive you, if you ask him to. Tell him you're sorry. Talk to him. Tell him you love him."
"I asked him to have dinner with me - he said he couldn't - has to work."
"Then have lunch with him."
"He'll wonder why I'm not at my seminar," Garrett snorted at this, "Christ, Mary."
Mary laughed gently, "Tell him you made the seminar up because you wanted to see him. It's a starting point. Where are you right now?"
"I'm in the car, in the parking lot where he works. He probably won't be back for a while."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I guess I'm going to wait for him to come back."
"And?"
"I'll talk to him - without turning into my father. I'll make things right again, Mary. I swear I will. I really do love him."
He could feel Mary's gentle smile reach out through the phone and wrap him in warmth, "I know you do, Garrett. I know you do."
Hanging up the phone, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet, flipping it open until he found what he was looking for. It was an old picture, yellowed with age, rubbed smooth around the edges. Sliding it out of the protective plastic, Nicholas Garrett Stokes III smiled into the gap- toothed grin of his oldest son at seven years old. His baseball hat sat askew on his head, his front teeth missing, and a fine dusting of freckles sprinkled across his nose. In his hands, he was holding a fishing rod, and dangling from the line was a ridiculously small trout. Flipping over the picture, he read the child-like scrawl * My First Catch with Daddy! I love You! Love, Nicky *
Hot tears blurred his vision, but it didn't matter. The words were burned in his brain. Nick had loved him once, a long time ago, before his father had failed him so miserably.
* * * * *
Grissom watched Nick covertly from the corner of his eye as the younger man fiddled with the radio. Earlier that morning, after Nick had shown up unexpectedly at his place and they had talked, Grissom had been sure he saw glimmers of the old Nick. Those glimmers were gone. Instead, angsty Nick was back. The younger man was tense and obviously unhappy, Grissom didn't even really know what to say to him.
Finally, when he thought he couldn't stand the silence a second longer, Nick spoke.
"Thanks for that. Back there, with my father."
Grissom shrugged, "Not a problem. May I ask what that was all about?"
"What what was all about? His attitude?" Nick's voice was grim, and he hunched his shoulders in on himself, "Or his general belief that God himself has nothing on him?"
"He's just - he's not the type of person I would have ever pictured as your father."
Nick snorted, "Well, that works both ways. I don't think I'm the type of son he ever imagined he'd have."
Silence for a few minutes. Grissom weaved into the second lane of traffic expertly, waiting for Nick to continue. The younger man shifted in his seat until he was facing Grissom almost fully. "I come from a long line of lawyers. My - family - is like the Texan version of the Kennedy's. We're not as well-known outside the state, but in Texas? Everyone knows the Stokes. My father is a judge for the Texas Superior Court - appointed by George Bush himself, before he became President. My mother is a lawyer, all my sisters are lawyers - my youngest brother Vincent? Lawyer. I bucked the trend when I became a cop."
"And?"
"I left some things out when I talked to you this morning about Pete. My father was expecting to be appointed to the State Supreme Court around the same time Ford was killed. The press got hold of the fact that I was involved - linked me to my father - and voila - instant scandal. Father didn't get appointed until a few years later. He was already upset with the fact that I was a cop, but the whole thing with Ford and Pete - followed by me switching into the forensics unit - that was the icing on the cake. He pretty much laid down an ultimatum - either I shape up, get with the program and join the 'family firm', or I ship out. In other words, he disowned me."
"But didn't you go home for Thanksgiving last year?"
Nick shrugged, "Yeah, but I stayed with my sister. Dinner was at her house, so father couldn't very well kick me out. He just vacillated between icy contempt and searing diatribes against me, my job and the fact that I was letting the family down by not becoming a lawyer. Actually, Thanksgiving is the reason I unhooked all my phones the other night. Mom figured she'd start on the guilt three months in advance this year."
Grissom sighed, "Nothing like mother-guilt."
"Tell me about it," Nick agreed. "Last Thanksgiving was a treat I don't soon want to repeat. Between my father alternately ignoring me or lecturing me on duty, and my mother and sisters harassing me about when I was moving back to Texas, getting married and starting a family, I was never so glad to come home to Las Vegas. I couldn't handle two years in a row."
"Why did your father come to the lab to find you, instead of going straight to your house?"
"He doesn't know where I live. None of my family do - no one's come to visit me here, and no one writes me - they just call to harass me. He was probably hoping he could get an address from someone at the lab. And obviously, he couldn't call me to let me know he was here - my phones aren't plugged in."
"Has he always been so -"
"Proper? Judgmental? No - there was a time when I thought he loved me," Nick sighed suddenly and closed his eyes against the tightening in his chest, "but that was a long time ago. I haven't been the son he wanted since I was nine. I'm damaged goods."
"Damaged goods? What's that supposed to mean?" Grissom's tone was soft. It was a good thing Nick had shut his eyes, affectively ending the conversation. The gentle concern in Grissom's eyes, along with the banked anger the older man still felt towards Nick's father, would have made Nick cry.
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Author's Note: Shorter Chapter than normal. Just needed to get this in there lay some groundwork for an upcoming chapter.
Nick was running a little late. He didn't even make it to the office until 9:40, and was cursing under his breath as he quickly parked his truck and hurried into the building. Hopefully, Grissom wouldn't give him any grief about his tardiness - after all, the reason he was late was Grissom's fault. He's the one who told him he needed to talk to Marsha.
Nick ran his hand across the back of his neck, smiling slightly. Marsha - Marty - was still at his place, wearing his t-shirt. Maybe she'd climbed back into his bed and was sleeping again - hair spilling darkly around the pillow cases. She had said she would wait for him to return - sometime later in the day, after he and Grissom had talked to Eric Minet and Samantha White at the high school.
Grissom was standing in the hallway outside his office, talking with someone. From the back, the man looked strangely familiar. Nick slowed down as he got closer - a tight knot forming in his chest as he realized exactly who the other man was.
"Hello Father."
Nicolas Garrett Stokes III turned to look at his son, cocking an eyebrow as he took in Nick's still damp hair, t-shirt and slightly wrinkled jeans.
"Nicholas. You're looking - disreputable, as always."
Long awkward silence. Nick looked at Grissom in dismay - *What's he doing here?* - but the older man merely shrugged his shoulders. Nick looked back to his father and sighed. As always, the man cut an imposing figure - part of it due to the obviously expensive and tailored suit he wore, part of it due to the fact that he practically dripped 'old-school wealth'. His hair was artfully silvered at the temples, his face remarkably unlined for a man in his late 50s. People had often commented on how much Nick looked like his father, and he had always hoped it wasn't true. He wondered if his eyes had ever been that icy and disdainful.
His father was studying him coldly, obviously waiting for Nick to speak. Nick gritted his teeth, and instead turned to Grissom. "Sorry I'm late, Grissom."
Grissom glanced at the younger man oddly, "Only a few minutes, Nicky - don't worry about it. I was doing paperwork anyway."
"You always were irresponsible," his father interjected, "Never on time for anything."
Nick felt his gut tighten and coil as he turned back to his father, "We all can't be as perfect as you, father. What are you doing here?"
"You're mother was worried about you, Nicholas. You haven't been answering your phone. You haven't been responding to her pages."
Nick sighed, "I unhooked my phones a couple of nights ago now and must have forgotten to plug them back into the jacks."
"Well, isn't that just like you, Nicholas," his father commented, "you were always inconsiderate like that. Do you know what your mother has gone through, worrying about you? Thank God I had to come to Vegas anyway for a seminar, and was available to make sure you were still alive -"
The derisive tone in his father's voice made Nick stiffen even more. He noticed with surprise that Grissom had also tensed up, inching slightly away from the wall and a little closer to Nick, subconsciously aligning himself with the younger man. Nick tried to smile at him, but his mouth was stiff.
"I'll call mom later and let her know I'm alright. Lucky for me you were here on business, and checking to make sure I was alright wasn't too much of an inconvenience. As you can see, I'm still breathing. I'm sure that's a relief to you. Shall we get going Grissom? Brass meeting us there?"
"We're not finished yet, Nicholas. I have approximately 45 minutes before I have to be at the first seminar. Plenty of time for us to -"
"Listen - Mr. Stokes," Grissom cut his father off, "I'm sure you and Nick have a lot of catching up to do, and I'm sure Nick will be available to talk to you later. Right now, we have to get moving - we're meeting a colleague to interview a couple of potential witnesses to a crime, and we're already running late."
"Where are you staying, father?" Nick asked, turning and noting with sardonic amusement the stunned look on his father's face. It wasn't often he was cut-off mid-sentence.
"I'm staying at Les Suites," his father finally responded. "I expect you to meet me there for dinner this evening - I'm finished with the seminars at 8:00. Wear a suit - I'm assuming you have one?"
Nick felt his ears turn red, but managed to keep his voice remarkably calm, "My shift starts tonight at 8:00, so dinner is out of the question. Perhaps we can have a coffee together back here, if you're interested - unless I'm called out to a crime scene. Then we might have to forego."
"Not very hospitable, Nicholas. I'm sure Mr. Grissom can be persuaded to let you take a few hours to have dinner with me." Both men turned to look at Grissom, Nick's face vaguely pleading and his father's arrogantly expectant.
Grissom sighed and shook his head, "Actually, Mr. Stokes, any other night it wouldn't be a problem - but tonight I'm going to be short staffed, and Nick and I are working a major case together - one, as you can see, we're already working overtime on. I'm afraid a coffee break is as good as it's going to get. Now, if you don't mind, we really have to get going."
"Sorry, father. I'll talk to you later," Nick offered, as he turned and followed Grissom down the hallway, weirdly elated that for once his father hadn't gotten what he wanted.
* * * * *
Nicholas Garrett Stokes III watched as his oldest son turned on his heel and followed his boss down the hallway and out the door of the lab. Grabbing his cell phone out of his pocket, he quickly punched in his wife's office number, smiling grimly when she picked up the phone.
"Well, he's still alive, if that's what you were worried about," he greeted her, "He just unhooked his phones."
"How does he look, Garrett?"
"Like he always looks when I see him - pissed off and tense."
He heard his wife sigh on the other end, "What did you say to him?"
"I told him you were worried when you couldn't get hold of him."
"And, what about you?"
"What about me?"
"Did you tell him you were worried too?"
"What purpose would that serve, Mary? He wouldn't believe it. I told him I was here for a seminar," the older man walked out into the parking lot and headed towards his Mercedes rental.
"So, instead of telling him the truth - that you were worried and wanted to see him, you made up some seminar? So now he thinks the only reason you stopped by to see him is because you were there anyway."
Garrett sighed, running a hand tiredly over his face, "That's about it, Mary." The car beeped when he pressed the key tag to unlock the doors, and he slid into the leather interior and rested his head against the backrest. "When did it get so hard?"
"Perhaps when you stopped treating him like a son and started treating him like a project," his wife's words were gentle, but they still made Garrett wince. "You have to make this right, Garrett - whatever the problem between you and Nick has been in the past, you have to make it right. I want my son back."
"I want him back too. But I don't know if I can fix this, Mary. There's too much water under the bridge. You know the first thing I said to him when I saw him this morning? I told him he looked 'disreputable'," Garrett sighed, "I wanted to hug him, and instead I insulted him. What's wrong with me, Mary?"
"You're scared," his wife replied, "and it's understandable. You haven't exactly gone easy on him, and he has every right to be angry at you. But our son is a good man, Garrett - he'll forgive you, if you ask him to. Tell him you're sorry. Talk to him. Tell him you love him."
"I asked him to have dinner with me - he said he couldn't - has to work."
"Then have lunch with him."
"He'll wonder why I'm not at my seminar," Garrett snorted at this, "Christ, Mary."
Mary laughed gently, "Tell him you made the seminar up because you wanted to see him. It's a starting point. Where are you right now?"
"I'm in the car, in the parking lot where he works. He probably won't be back for a while."
"So, what are you going to do?"
"I guess I'm going to wait for him to come back."
"And?"
"I'll talk to him - without turning into my father. I'll make things right again, Mary. I swear I will. I really do love him."
He could feel Mary's gentle smile reach out through the phone and wrap him in warmth, "I know you do, Garrett. I know you do."
Hanging up the phone, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet, flipping it open until he found what he was looking for. It was an old picture, yellowed with age, rubbed smooth around the edges. Sliding it out of the protective plastic, Nicholas Garrett Stokes III smiled into the gap- toothed grin of his oldest son at seven years old. His baseball hat sat askew on his head, his front teeth missing, and a fine dusting of freckles sprinkled across his nose. In his hands, he was holding a fishing rod, and dangling from the line was a ridiculously small trout. Flipping over the picture, he read the child-like scrawl * My First Catch with Daddy! I love You! Love, Nicky *
Hot tears blurred his vision, but it didn't matter. The words were burned in his brain. Nick had loved him once, a long time ago, before his father had failed him so miserably.
* * * * *
Grissom watched Nick covertly from the corner of his eye as the younger man fiddled with the radio. Earlier that morning, after Nick had shown up unexpectedly at his place and they had talked, Grissom had been sure he saw glimmers of the old Nick. Those glimmers were gone. Instead, angsty Nick was back. The younger man was tense and obviously unhappy, Grissom didn't even really know what to say to him.
Finally, when he thought he couldn't stand the silence a second longer, Nick spoke.
"Thanks for that. Back there, with my father."
Grissom shrugged, "Not a problem. May I ask what that was all about?"
"What what was all about? His attitude?" Nick's voice was grim, and he hunched his shoulders in on himself, "Or his general belief that God himself has nothing on him?"
"He's just - he's not the type of person I would have ever pictured as your father."
Nick snorted, "Well, that works both ways. I don't think I'm the type of son he ever imagined he'd have."
Silence for a few minutes. Grissom weaved into the second lane of traffic expertly, waiting for Nick to continue. The younger man shifted in his seat until he was facing Grissom almost fully. "I come from a long line of lawyers. My - family - is like the Texan version of the Kennedy's. We're not as well-known outside the state, but in Texas? Everyone knows the Stokes. My father is a judge for the Texas Superior Court - appointed by George Bush himself, before he became President. My mother is a lawyer, all my sisters are lawyers - my youngest brother Vincent? Lawyer. I bucked the trend when I became a cop."
"And?"
"I left some things out when I talked to you this morning about Pete. My father was expecting to be appointed to the State Supreme Court around the same time Ford was killed. The press got hold of the fact that I was involved - linked me to my father - and voila - instant scandal. Father didn't get appointed until a few years later. He was already upset with the fact that I was a cop, but the whole thing with Ford and Pete - followed by me switching into the forensics unit - that was the icing on the cake. He pretty much laid down an ultimatum - either I shape up, get with the program and join the 'family firm', or I ship out. In other words, he disowned me."
"But didn't you go home for Thanksgiving last year?"
Nick shrugged, "Yeah, but I stayed with my sister. Dinner was at her house, so father couldn't very well kick me out. He just vacillated between icy contempt and searing diatribes against me, my job and the fact that I was letting the family down by not becoming a lawyer. Actually, Thanksgiving is the reason I unhooked all my phones the other night. Mom figured she'd start on the guilt three months in advance this year."
Grissom sighed, "Nothing like mother-guilt."
"Tell me about it," Nick agreed. "Last Thanksgiving was a treat I don't soon want to repeat. Between my father alternately ignoring me or lecturing me on duty, and my mother and sisters harassing me about when I was moving back to Texas, getting married and starting a family, I was never so glad to come home to Las Vegas. I couldn't handle two years in a row."
"Why did your father come to the lab to find you, instead of going straight to your house?"
"He doesn't know where I live. None of my family do - no one's come to visit me here, and no one writes me - they just call to harass me. He was probably hoping he could get an address from someone at the lab. And obviously, he couldn't call me to let me know he was here - my phones aren't plugged in."
"Has he always been so -"
"Proper? Judgmental? No - there was a time when I thought he loved me," Nick sighed suddenly and closed his eyes against the tightening in his chest, "but that was a long time ago. I haven't been the son he wanted since I was nine. I'm damaged goods."
"Damaged goods? What's that supposed to mean?" Grissom's tone was soft. It was a good thing Nick had shut his eyes, affectively ending the conversation. The gentle concern in Grissom's eyes, along with the banked anger the older man still felt towards Nick's father, would have made Nick cry.
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Author's Note: Shorter Chapter than normal. Just needed to get this in there lay some groundwork for an upcoming chapter.