We're coming down now - - last Nick chapter. Hang in with me for a few more rounds, and I promise we'll make it through, okay? Thanks for staying with me after the last chapter - - I know it crossed a lot of inherent taboo lines for a lot of people, including me, but I hope you'll stay, regardless. After all, we're almost done.

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Chapter Thirty-eight: A Fine Line (NICK)

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What he saw when he came through the door shoulder-to-shoulder with Grissom was skin. Flowers, first, all tanned, tense muscles, and then Sara. Nick looked away at this realization, his face burning, unable to look at her nakedness, especially like this.

He looked around the room instead, frozen and unspeaking, searching for any weapons that Flowers might be able to reach. They didn't have the authority to arrest Flowers, but Nick had called in a black-and-white to follow them. All they had to do was stop Flowers from going on the run before the officers could reach him, but they couldn't stop him while they were bleeding to death. He didn't see any visible guns, and his eyes traveled over Flowers's shoulder to touch upon Sara's face. His gaze connected with hers, and he swallowed back a cringe at the thousand-yard, unrecognizing stare he found there. He was only beginning to look back at Grissom to signal a move when he saw Grissom move without a hint of signal - - a hand on a gun, already out of the holster and drawing upwards before Nick could even stop him with an arm or a word, and then leveled at Flowers's back.

For a second, Nick hesitated.

Why stop him? a small voice whispered. Why stop him? You don't care whether Flowers lives or dies. Look at what he's done - - look at what he's DOING to her, Nicky! No one would blame you for just letting him shoot . . . no one needs to know that you could've stopped him - - Grissom wouldn't say a word, Sara can't even understand what's happening, and Flowers . . . Flowers would be dead . . .

But winning. Because isn't that exactly what he wants? To ruin Grissom forever? To find a flaw, place a chisel, and knock him wide open?

His hand flung out and he knew, sickeningly, that it was going to be too late - - yes, too late forever, way to go, Nicky, good job - - but maybe at least he could knock the shot awry. Maybe it would ricochet. He could say that Grissom shot off on purpose, or that there was some kind of skirmish . . . maybe it would be enough just to have the bullet go through a lampshade or an elegant chair.

He heard his own voice, too shrill: "Jesus, Grissom, put the gun down!"

The shot hit the floor to the side by a combination of Nick knocking it off-balance and, he hoped, Grissom choosing to turn it downwards, even if he hadn't been able to keep his finger from tightening with that final ounce of pressure.

Flowers rolled away and stood. The sheet from underneath Sara came with him, and he wrapped it around his waist in an exaggerated gesture of modesty, as if he were a blushing maiden embarrassed to be found in such a compromised position. The contrast to Sara - - exposed, delicate, damaged, and violated - - was thrown into even sharper relief. Flowers smiled at them, as if pleased by their visit, and sat down primly on the bed by one of Sara's feet. Nick looked at her unpainted toenails, because it was the only part of her he could stand to view. Ten perfect toes. He had been curious about her feet before, teased by open-toed shoes, and had even joked with her about it, teasingly, and it had become a kind of game, with Sara wearing cotton sneakers and slowly unlacing them until Nick pretended to be riveted by the strip-show like reveal and she faked a blush, apologized, and tied them again.

Maybe next time, Nick - - buy my feet dinner and I'll tell you if they're ready to go all the way yet.

I'll buy them flowers, Nick always said. Tie daisies around your toes.

He pointed his own gun at Flowers, who might as well have been a statue for his stillness. He was vaguely aware that his hands were trembling and damp with sweat, but he gripped even harder against the warming metal and tried to keep it steady.

"Don't move," he said to Flowers.

He was all too aware of his role in this final act. He was there only to stop Grissom from killing Matthew Flowers, no matter what. Once again, he was Grissom's safety. Flowers had wanted to ruin Grissom once and for all, and what could ruin him more than, here, at the end of the world, pulling that trigger? Grissom wasn't a killer. They all needed Grissom to be better than themselves, and if Grissom broke Flowers apart with lead, what would be left for the rest of them?

So selfish, Nicky. But protect him anyway.

He was here to look at Flowers so Grissom would be free to look at Sara. To look after Sara.

Grissom said, harshly, "Where are the keys?"

Flowers shrugged. "Have you considered that I might not know? I could have thrown them out a window - - or swallowed them - - or simply hidden them away so well that you might never find them. And how are you going to free your lady, Dr. Grissom, if you can't even find a piece of metal? Take a welding torch to her wrist to melt them away?"

"If you hid them, I'll find them," Grissom said. His voice was shaking. "If you threw them away, I'll go get them. If you swallowed them, I'll rip you open to get them back, God help me."

"Oh, God," Flowers said easily, "yes, may He help us all."

He looked straight at Nick, who watched the gun leap between his fingers as they spasmed together. It was impossible, of course, but - -

But Flowers looked like him.

The resemblance wasn't strong enough to send up any soap opera ideas about him being actually tied by blood to the man in front of him who was still damp with Sara's blood, but it was enough to make him shiver and press his lips together until they ached against the ridges of his teeth. Not everything was there. Flowers was fair-haired where Nick was dark - - pale blonde hair and blue eyes making him look like Hitler's perfect Aryan or even the Bible's conception of an angel. But they had the same shape - - the same squared shoulders, the same mouths, the same shape of hand, the same nose - - a minute series of similarities that were invisible to almost anyone else and shockingly plain to him. And Flowers smiled the way that Nick did (or had) - - without a trace of malice. When Flowers smiled, you wanted to buy him a beer and introduce him to your sister.

He thought of drinking sticky-sweet orange tea with Amy in Boston. She would have loved Flowers. Would have called him Matty and let him kiss her goodnight on the porch. Would have wanted him to take her to go see fireworks on the Fourth of July.

But even the smile, as much as it disturbed him, was not what bothered him the most.

It was something he could not put his finger on, the way he supposed no one could ever pinpoint exactly what it was that made them cringe away from Edward Hyde. It was a kind of sensation that clung to Flowers like a layer of cellophane - - only winking back at him in certain types of light. It was the look of . . . property. As if Flowers weren't himself but merely an extension of some higher power. A willing extension, a desperate extension. A slave. He looked like someone with a master. There had to be someone above him, had to be - - Nick was too intimate with the concept of belonging beneath someone else to not recognize that glimmer.

I'm Grissom's safety. He's someone's gun.

"Would you mind if I moved just a little, Nick?"

He hated the way his name, so casual, came out of that mouth. Hated the instant familiarity.

"If I'm going to produce those keys Dr. Grissom seems to want so badly, I'm going to have to go and get them, right? You understand that."

His tongue was thick in his mouth. "No, I don't think so. You tell me where they are and I'll get them."

"I don't think so," Flowers said, mimicking Nick's tone perfectly. It was like an auditory mirror. "See, you'd have to take your attention off me, and I'm just so close to what you're trying to save. I'm close to both of them. Close enough to reach her, and wouldn't that just kill him? So I think you should just let me get what you want . . ." He offered a lascivious look at Sara. "Unless I've already done that."

I'm Grissom's safety and he's someone's gun. There's a fine line between people like me and people like Flowers, but there is one. I know there is. There has to be. It's fine but it's there, I just wish that I could see it a little clearer.

It was just such a very fine line. Such a sliver of distinction.

He used to think that the empathy Grissom scolded him for so often would be what would save him, in the end. He used to believe that trust would open up the doors that reserve could not - - that the very need for approval that Grissom had tried to stamp out of him would be what made him invaluable. Not in so many words, but he had hoped. He had hoped that persisting in caring what Grissom thought would be a form of defiance in itself - - that the empathy would earn Grissom's empathy. And now Grissom had him at his side like an original Nick Stokes was the best thing since sliced bread . . . and it ought to have been everything he'd ever wanted.

Instead, he found himself wondering if what made Grissom need him was already lost. If somehow, in the last few days - - and how short a time it had been, how the days had just slipped underneath his feet - - it either felt like years or seconds since things had been Okay, not days. Anything but the actual time - - that empathy had dissolved and run off him like rainwater.

The gun quivered in his hand. He kept pointing it at Flowers.

He said, "You can move," but didn't lower his hands. Had to be ready. He had to be ready because Grissom was never going to be ready for this again. That momentary rage-horror that had fuelled Grissom's finger on the trigger was gone, channeled into Sara, and Nick was all that was left.

Flowers gave him a gracious smile. "Thank you."

He stood and kept the sheet wrapped around his hips.

Grissom was whispering something in Sara's ear that sounded like comfort, as if Sara had scraped her knee and everything that was wrong could be cured by words alone. As if the kiss Grissom delivered so gently to her bruised cheek could heal her. Sometimes, he thought, Grissom was just so stupid. Never learned a thing about real life or real people - - too caught up in the dust of books and the sharp acid smell of chemicals. Never learned what anyone needed from him.

Nick could have comforted Sara. He would have known what to say in a genuine honesty. He wouldn't have been Grissom, sitting by her side and crooning with all damned good intentions that things would be okay, honey, that they would make it okay.

The taste in his mouth was metallic.

Grissom doesn't know anything.

For all those years of Grissom condescending to him for every youthful thing he'd ever done - - anything that ever hinted that he wasn't just a scientist - - every slip, every folly, every kid's mistake - - it was Grissom who had never grown up, after all.

Flowers came out of the dresser drawer with a silver key. The lights made it glimmer.

"Give it to him," Nick said, jerking his head so hard towards Grissom that his neck made a snapping noise and ached immediately. "Give him the key and let him get those things off her."

Flowers stopped looking at him and turned his attention back to Grissom, but didn't extend the key. "Is this your wunderkind, Dr. Grissom?" He studied Nick, pale blue eyes mercilessly scrutinizing. "No. But you want to be, don't you? Except now you're starting to realize that he doesn't care what you want to be, as long as what you are is what he wants. And he wants you to be - - what? The good guy? The hero? The . . . saint?"

Nick's fingers seemed to freeze on the gun, as if frostbite glued them there.

"He wouldn't think you're such a saint if he'd heard what you'd said, would he? On the rooftop? Do you know I reminded Sanders of that, just before I killed him? Do you know that I made him a saint, after all? I gave him what he wanted."

"Give him the keys," Nick said softly.

Do you want me to hit you or something, so everyone knows how perfect you are?

Greg, he thought miserably, Greg, man, I'm sorry. I didn't - - I couldn't - - I'm so sorry that it came out like this. I'm sorry that this is the way it has to be.

And he was, was sorry. He was sorry that he had traded in his friendship with Greg for another shot at Grissom's approval, he was sorry that he'd let weariness trip him up enough to glide his tongue over his teeth and stick his vocal chords to make him say things he never would have said otherwise, and he was sorry that Greg had died before Nick could even get a chance to begin apologizing. He was sorry that Grissom couldn't see there was no one left more ill-suited to the job of keeping them all safe than Nick. He was sorry for Lizzie Zimmer, who had stumbled into all of this carrying too many years of hatred; sorry for Ecklie, who had been so sure that things were under his control; sorry for Claberson, who had had it all together and then seen it all fall apart; sorry for Hodges, who had, after all, only wanted to be a hero; even a little sorry for Flowers, with all his faulty wiring and the willing-slave look that made him just a pawn in someone else's game.

Flowers was still looking at him. "People pray to saints, Nick."

He kept his eyes open while he prayed to Greg, who wasn't going to save anyone ever again. It was fruitless, and helpless - - Greg hadn't even been able to rescue himself. But it kept him from going crazy, and it kept his hands steady on the gun.

Again, "Give him the keys."

"You're a very determined person."

Flowers sighed and held his hand out to Grissom, who plucked the key from it as if it were a rose instead of just a badly-shaped piece of metal. It fit perfectly into the lock - - Flowers hadn't been lying about that - - and turned. Sara's wrist came free, marked with a bracelet of reddened skin from the pressure and her struggles.

"There are officers on the way," Nick said. He didn't budge his gaze from Flowers, but his peripheral vision caught Grissom unlocking the rest of the cuffs and slowly wrapping his arms around Sara's shoulders. "You're done. No more tabloid rumors, no more legends, no more white roses, they're going to tie you down on a table and kill you." His voice shook. "You bastard. You bastard. They'll kill you, and I'm gonna watch."

When someone opened the door behind him, Nick almost fired out of sheer reflex.

What the hell - -

"Sara." The voice - - warm, edged with grief. "Aw, Sara . . ."

Warrick - - Warrick and Catherine. I told them, though. I told them to stay where they were because none of us needed to hurt Grissom anymore. Warrick's his golden boy, and Catherine's his oldest friend, what do they think they're doing here? I'm expendable. I'm not enough. I could die and it wouldn't hurt him, but they don't need to be here, it'll KILL him if they're gone.

He threw his arm out to block the door. "Don't you get any closer," he said from between his teeth. "Don't you dare."

"Easy, Nick," Catherine said, laying her hand on his arm. "We won't get closer."

"Where are the cops? Where is the fucking black-and-white I called? Where is Brass? Why are you here instead of them? You wanna arrest him, Warrick? Cath? Want to read him his rights? What are you doing here? I told you to stay away from this."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about her safety, at least," Flowers said quietly. "She's off-limits."

"Fantastic. Someone's safe, and I'm just - -"

He stopped.

That willing-slave look.

Someone's gun.

Off-limits.

"Who are you working for?"

Flowers reclined, catlike, on the bed, just a few inches from Sara. "I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, Nick. Didn't Ecklie tell you that I don't work for anyone? I'm sure he thought that he was running the operation, but - -"

"He did," Nick said, realizing. "He thought he was in control, but he was just the decoy for us to see. And you were just the decoy for him to see."

Sara said, "Claberson."

It was the first time she'd said anything since Nick had gotten there, and he was shocked by the sound of her voice. It was hoarse, quiet, and shell-shocked. But she was trying, he could tell. There was a kind of savagery there - - she hasn't stopped, Nick thought, unmistakably feeling blessed. She's angry, and that's better than being defeated. She's not going to give up. She's not going to let him win.

"Shh," Grissom said, soothingly. "It's okay. We'll be out of here soon, I promise. You don't have to talk right now. We're going to get you to a hospital."

Oh, Grissom, you're missing the point! Let her talk! Let her SCREAM.

"Claberson thought that there was someone else," Sara said. She straightened against Grissom. "It was in his notes. He thought that someone else was running the show."

"Claberson," Flowers said, "was more intelligent than I thought. He ran away - - cowardly, but sensible - - and he left you what you needed - - stupid, but courageous. Such a blend of contradictions. But he was right. Someone else was pulling all the strings. Someone wealthy . . . and cruel . . . and brilliant. I like him quite a lot, actually. If this were Hollywood, it would turn out that he's actually my father, and that poor man I killed all those years ago didn't have any biological link to me at all. But he's not my father, is he?" He looked at Catherine. "He's yours."

Braun. Sam Braun.

Nick didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"I guess you didn't trap the big bad wolf after all," Flowers said, placing his head on the pillow. This far above him, covered in that white sheet, he still had the angelic look that let him catch people so off-guard. "I think by the time you get through arresting me, he'll be long gone. That's what I would have done - - and there's a fine line between someone like me and someone like him."

"You son of a bitch," Grissom said wonderingly.

Nick watched the gun rise in Grissom's hand.

There's a fine line between people like me and people like Flowers.

What are you going to do when all that empathy is gone? When you aren't what Grissom needs you to be? What are you going to do when you can't even stop the bad guys from winning?

Jesus, Grissom, put the gun down.

She's not going to let him win. All that's happened, and she still hasn't given up. She's not going to let him win, because that's not what we do. She's not, and neither am I.

What's going to be left for us if Grissom's a killer?

I'm expendable. I'm not enough. I can't hurt him.

Nick fired twice.

Flowers touched a hand to his chest, and his fingers came away wet, sticky, and crimson. He looked at them with a great expression of puzzlement on his face, as if he had never seen or expected to see anything so odd as his own blood coming out with such speed. He looked up at Nick, and then back at his fingers. A red drop of blood swelled and dropped to the sheet, where it blossomed and grew.

"Red," he said. "I never bought red roses."

He smiled, so obviously confused, and then his hand fell down on Sara's thigh, where it left a smeared scarlet handprint on her bare skin. Red roses. Flowers closed his eyes and Nick watched his chest rise and fall with shallow breaths until the movement stopped completely.

Warrick was holding Nick's shoulders as he slid back, grateful for the warmth.

"So you didn't have to," he said, feeling tired. There it was, leaving him like a whisper, the last trace of value, of Nick, of belonging. The last trace of willing slave. He met Grissom's eyes across the room. He couldn't read the expression, and, for the first time, didn't care. He had done what he was supposed to do. He smiled at Grissom, and when his tongue flicked over his lips, he could taste Flowers's blood from where it had splattered back on him.

Grissom's eyes were the icy color of faded denim, and there was a drop of blood clinging to his cheek.

"So you didn't have to," Nick said. He hoped it was enough, and that Grissom would understand.

He let Warrick hold him upright as they waited for the police to come.