Author's Note: OK, first can I apologize... yes? Thank you. I'm sorry it's
been so long since I've updated. I just spent a couple of months in
Switzerland working (for the record, au pairing = bad.) so no story.
Actually no stories of any kind so have been satisfying my need for a fic
fix since I got back...
Would like to thank everyone who's still with me*g*. Love the reviews. Also everyone who's been dying to tell me that Nick is in fact from Dallas (not Houston) and that I've been spelling Warrick's name wrong (castle near where I live called Warwick - it sounds the same, what can I say?) but managed to restrain themselves.
Right, so for the first time actually have some idea where this story is headed (yay) so it should come along a lot quicker now. I hope. But anyway question: in the UK if a person isn't charged with a crime any DNA samples taken, fingerprints, etc would be destroyed, is that so in America? I.e. would they have Nick's DNA on file or not? Can anybody help me? Pretty please with sugar on top.
Part 6
Nick Stokes shuddered. He could almost be seven again as the same feeling of powerlessness swept over him. She was back and suddenly he was just a child. Neither innocent nor naive, yet still powerless. Always powerless. He felt rather than saw her smile against his flushed skin. The night light in the corner glowed, casting an eerie shadow over everything in the room. Everything was shadows and shapes; this was a nightmare world. She touched him and he prayed to wake up. To his parents' God. The one of Sunday school, of sermons and hymns. The one who loved everybody. In those moments Nicky knew with all the certainty of a child that He didn't love him. He wasn't listening, as he prayed, as he cried, as he screamed. No one was. He was alone. Always but especially with her.
Twenty-five years older, Nick reveled in the power of the Tahoe as he switched gears, taking it up a notch. Testing himself on the all but deserted dusty road. Here he could let it go. All his aggression, his frustration, his fear released and he felt better. Only a little bit and only for a little while but it was something. It was enough for him to just stop and get his head together as he turned and drove back to the city that had felt more like home than the town of his birth. He knew enough about himself to know that this was exactly the time when he didn't want to be making decisions. Knew enough to know that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he ran away - if he became that boy once more.
Everything seemed foreign as he slowed down to join the more often frequented roads. The streets he'd grown to know and to a certain extent love took on a sinister tone. Even his own street, his own house was wrong. Violated. She'd known where it was. She must have done. Maybe she'd even been there. Been inside, touched his things. God! She'd seen what he was looking at now.
Nick took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold of his home. Maybe not his home anymore. The place where he inhabited. For the time being, he decided, only for the time being though. Unsurprisingly, the light on his answering machine was flashing; 'You have messages'.
Of course he did. He'd been driving for almost an hour, trying to clear his head, focus his thoughts, escape the numerous questions that were rapidly forming at the forefront of his mind. It was impossible though; there were more and more with every minute the passed, with every action and reaction. Had she been in here? Had she listened to his messages? Had she watched him like Nigel Crane, at home, where he should have been safe, where he had felt safe? What was she doing in Vegas to begin with? Had she come here for him? He didn't know, he doubted he'd ever know. Not really. Sighing, Nick reached for the phone. He couldn't ignore it and the people who cared about him forever. If he was really honest with himself that would be the one way to deny himself the answers that he needed. But first...
The voices faded into the background. Warrick then Sara then Catherine then Grissom then Greg. He smiled slightly at the last one as the younger stumbled over his words, trying to articulate something that he himself probably didn't even understand. It was all there though. Support for him. A desire to be there for him. His smile grew as he relaxed for the first time since this whole thing had started. He didn't have anything to be afraid of. The most important people in his life now knew and it was ok. It would be ok.
And then, "message 6..." His mom's voice echoed through the otherwise silent room. "Nicholas? Are you there? If you're there pick up!" Nick felt the tension that had been slowly seeping out of his body and down into the couch return as he braced himself for the barrage of questions he knew were coming. Had he heard about poor Janey? And wasn't it awful? Did he know anything? Did he have anything that she could pass on to the family? The woman on the end of the line wasn't technically his mother, he reminded himself. She was the public defender, the figure in the community. The subtle differences that had distinguished the two women had become even subtler as he was growing up and now he could usually be fairly certain that it was the latter he was talking to. The message ended as abruptly as it had begun. Nick sank back into his seat. It would start soon. The compulsive inspection of everything in the flat, in his life, any thing out of place whether real or imaginary would go just as it had before. Soon but now he felt weary. More tired, more worn than any thirty-two year old had any right to feel.
******
It was almost as if nothing had changed, Sara Sidle noted with grim detachment. There was still a case to be solved, still jobs to do. Except that suddenly everything had changed, everything was different. Their team wasn't really a team any more. Not without Nick. His absence hung over their heads like a ghost, even as they were, each supposedly engrossed in his or her own task. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe that he was just elsewhere, following up a lead or talking to a witness, something, anything so that this wasn't really happening. But it was, of course it was and instead of being with Nick, being able to help Nick, she was stuck in the lab, going through the motions and waiting while the second hand on the clock ticked round with agonizing slowness again and again and again. Every minute felt like an hour as the tall brunette counted each one down.
Running a hand over her face, Sara groaned and tore herself unwillingly from the clock. Shutting out the hypnotic rhythm and turning back to the list in front of her. Just a set of names and places and dates. Could be anything really. But it's not. And that was why she was still there. After Catherine and Grist's bombshell the briefing had only lasted long enough for them to reiterate that the best way to help Nice was to get this case solved and off the table, dealt with. Away. Like that would somehow make everything go back to as it had been before Jane Peterson made a post humus appearance. But that was why they were all still there, if she was honest. Friendship that transcended shift work. That was why she was pouring over computer databases and antique telephone directories and every other resource she could get her hands on trying to track down seventeen young men who could be anywhere on the planet on the off chance that there was something, anything on one of them that could be even remotely relevant. It was a perverse kind of victimology; the victims of their victim. She just couldn't bring herself to add the 'relevant data' about Nick.
Would like to thank everyone who's still with me*g*. Love the reviews. Also everyone who's been dying to tell me that Nick is in fact from Dallas (not Houston) and that I've been spelling Warrick's name wrong (castle near where I live called Warwick - it sounds the same, what can I say?) but managed to restrain themselves.
Right, so for the first time actually have some idea where this story is headed (yay) so it should come along a lot quicker now. I hope. But anyway question: in the UK if a person isn't charged with a crime any DNA samples taken, fingerprints, etc would be destroyed, is that so in America? I.e. would they have Nick's DNA on file or not? Can anybody help me? Pretty please with sugar on top.
Part 6
Nick Stokes shuddered. He could almost be seven again as the same feeling of powerlessness swept over him. She was back and suddenly he was just a child. Neither innocent nor naive, yet still powerless. Always powerless. He felt rather than saw her smile against his flushed skin. The night light in the corner glowed, casting an eerie shadow over everything in the room. Everything was shadows and shapes; this was a nightmare world. She touched him and he prayed to wake up. To his parents' God. The one of Sunday school, of sermons and hymns. The one who loved everybody. In those moments Nicky knew with all the certainty of a child that He didn't love him. He wasn't listening, as he prayed, as he cried, as he screamed. No one was. He was alone. Always but especially with her.
Twenty-five years older, Nick reveled in the power of the Tahoe as he switched gears, taking it up a notch. Testing himself on the all but deserted dusty road. Here he could let it go. All his aggression, his frustration, his fear released and he felt better. Only a little bit and only for a little while but it was something. It was enough for him to just stop and get his head together as he turned and drove back to the city that had felt more like home than the town of his birth. He knew enough about himself to know that this was exactly the time when he didn't want to be making decisions. Knew enough to know that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he ran away - if he became that boy once more.
Everything seemed foreign as he slowed down to join the more often frequented roads. The streets he'd grown to know and to a certain extent love took on a sinister tone. Even his own street, his own house was wrong. Violated. She'd known where it was. She must have done. Maybe she'd even been there. Been inside, touched his things. God! She'd seen what he was looking at now.
Nick took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold of his home. Maybe not his home anymore. The place where he inhabited. For the time being, he decided, only for the time being though. Unsurprisingly, the light on his answering machine was flashing; 'You have messages'.
Of course he did. He'd been driving for almost an hour, trying to clear his head, focus his thoughts, escape the numerous questions that were rapidly forming at the forefront of his mind. It was impossible though; there were more and more with every minute the passed, with every action and reaction. Had she been in here? Had she listened to his messages? Had she watched him like Nigel Crane, at home, where he should have been safe, where he had felt safe? What was she doing in Vegas to begin with? Had she come here for him? He didn't know, he doubted he'd ever know. Not really. Sighing, Nick reached for the phone. He couldn't ignore it and the people who cared about him forever. If he was really honest with himself that would be the one way to deny himself the answers that he needed. But first...
The voices faded into the background. Warrick then Sara then Catherine then Grissom then Greg. He smiled slightly at the last one as the younger stumbled over his words, trying to articulate something that he himself probably didn't even understand. It was all there though. Support for him. A desire to be there for him. His smile grew as he relaxed for the first time since this whole thing had started. He didn't have anything to be afraid of. The most important people in his life now knew and it was ok. It would be ok.
And then, "message 6..." His mom's voice echoed through the otherwise silent room. "Nicholas? Are you there? If you're there pick up!" Nick felt the tension that had been slowly seeping out of his body and down into the couch return as he braced himself for the barrage of questions he knew were coming. Had he heard about poor Janey? And wasn't it awful? Did he know anything? Did he have anything that she could pass on to the family? The woman on the end of the line wasn't technically his mother, he reminded himself. She was the public defender, the figure in the community. The subtle differences that had distinguished the two women had become even subtler as he was growing up and now he could usually be fairly certain that it was the latter he was talking to. The message ended as abruptly as it had begun. Nick sank back into his seat. It would start soon. The compulsive inspection of everything in the flat, in his life, any thing out of place whether real or imaginary would go just as it had before. Soon but now he felt weary. More tired, more worn than any thirty-two year old had any right to feel.
******
It was almost as if nothing had changed, Sara Sidle noted with grim detachment. There was still a case to be solved, still jobs to do. Except that suddenly everything had changed, everything was different. Their team wasn't really a team any more. Not without Nick. His absence hung over their heads like a ghost, even as they were, each supposedly engrossed in his or her own task. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe that he was just elsewhere, following up a lead or talking to a witness, something, anything so that this wasn't really happening. But it was, of course it was and instead of being with Nick, being able to help Nick, she was stuck in the lab, going through the motions and waiting while the second hand on the clock ticked round with agonizing slowness again and again and again. Every minute felt like an hour as the tall brunette counted each one down.
Running a hand over her face, Sara groaned and tore herself unwillingly from the clock. Shutting out the hypnotic rhythm and turning back to the list in front of her. Just a set of names and places and dates. Could be anything really. But it's not. And that was why she was still there. After Catherine and Grist's bombshell the briefing had only lasted long enough for them to reiterate that the best way to help Nice was to get this case solved and off the table, dealt with. Away. Like that would somehow make everything go back to as it had been before Jane Peterson made a post humus appearance. But that was why they were all still there, if she was honest. Friendship that transcended shift work. That was why she was pouring over computer databases and antique telephone directories and every other resource she could get her hands on trying to track down seventeen young men who could be anywhere on the planet on the off chance that there was something, anything on one of them that could be even remotely relevant. It was a perverse kind of victimology; the victims of their victim. She just couldn't bring herself to add the 'relevant data' about Nick.
