Off: So, next chap is up. This is mostly just a conversation between Nick and another one of his siblings. The funeral will be next chap, and then after that we should be back in Vegas again. Thanks for all the reviews; I appreciate it.

"Perfection"

I wake up the next morning with the sun in my eyes and an ache in my jaw that I had hoped would disappear by the time I got up. Unsurprisingly, it didn't. I sit up a little in my bed and rub my chin tenderly, trying not to aggravate the pain.

After I had put Luke in the car the night before, I had drove around the town a bit, as promised. This wasn't much of a hardship; I didn't really want to see Mom, either, or Richard, for that matter. Luke passed out long before we actually got home, and I half carried, half dragged him into the house and put him to bed in his old bedroom. Mom had thankfully been asleep for all this. Unfortunately, Richard hadn't.

I hear a knock on the bedroom door. "Yeah?" I ask, hoping it's anybody but Mom or Rich. Or Luke, for that matter. I'm still not sure exactly how I feel with our sort-of reconciliation. Things have been stranger since I got back into Texas. Thankfully, I'm leaving later tonight.

The door opens. It's Jennifer, looking like she just got out of bed, though I bet she's been awake for a lot longer than I have. There are dark circles under her eyes and I realize that she, like Mom, looks skinnier than I remember, though Jennifer was never particularly pudgy. I wonder if I ended up staying here longer than planned, I might lose a couple extra pounds around the waist myself. Maybe staying in Texas was the ultimate diet plan.

"Hey," Jennifer says as she closes the door behind her. She sits at the foot of the bed and takes a better look at me, peering closely at my face. "Richard do that?" she asks.

"Is it bruised?"

"Only if purple isn't your natural skin tone," Jennifer says dryly. "What happened? Marianne didn't say what you two were fighting about. Was it the eulogy?"

"In a way. But mostly, it was about Luke. And me."

Jennifer's eyebrows raise so high they almost disappear into her blonde hair. "So you did drag Luke home? I thought I heard snoring coming from his room. I knew Lilly wanted you to, but I didn't think you would."

I decide not to try and respond to this. "You went to bed early," I comment instead. "I remember the days you couldn't sleep before midnight."

She shrugged. "I've been more tired lately."

"You look it."

Jennifer smiled wryly at me. "Are you psychoanalyzing me, Nicky? Has Vegas changed your perception on shrinks?"

I laugh and shake my head. "No, no. I still don't like headshrinkers. I just noticed that you seemed more tired. That's all."

Jennifer tilts her head to the side. "I was seeing a psychiatrist once," she said in an offhand manner. "For a little while."

"You mean like dating?"

"I mean like paying," Jennifer says. "I thought maybe. . .maybe things would change. That those people might know what they were doing or something. I don't know. I don't know what I thought was going to happen. It didn't." She lapses into silence for a bit and then looks thoughtfully at my jaw. "So, what did he say? Richard, I mean."

"Oh," I say. I don't really want to go into it. "Just some stuff about Luke and me. How we're no good, not part of the family. Things like that."

I don't feel like talking about how much what Richard had said hurt me. How Luke had always been a good for nothing nobody. How after Luke had slept with Julia, I couldn't take the pressure anymore, of being a part of the family, being a cop on the street, being the perfect son. Richard said I showed what he had always known: I was always a selfish jerk, only looking out for myself. I hadn't cared about Dad, I hadn't cared about Mom. And though Richard never said it, I got the distinct impression he was feeling like I didn't care about him.

I don't tell Jennifer any of this but she seems to understand what I don't say, because Jennifer has always been too perceptive for her own good. "It probably infuriated him," she says calmly. "You going and forgiving Luke after what he did. He probably thinks if he had slept with Julia, you would never have forgiven him. And maybe you wouldn't have. Luke's always been the black sheep of the family. Richard's just a wannabe. Nobody loves a wannabe."

"I love Richard," I say, and as soon as I say it, I know it's true.

"I know," Jennifer says, "but do you feel sorry for him? Do you care that he's always had to play second fiddle to your lead, that Mom and Dad never looked at him with adoring eyes until you left for Vegas. Richard wasn't hated the way that Luke was, but he was ignored as if he didn't exist at all. Nothing he did compared to you. But I bet you don't feel sorry for him, not the way you feel sorry for Luke. Even though Luke did what he did, "

I don't answer. I don't know what I feel.

"It's okay, you know," Jennifer says. Her voice sounds cool, as if everything's anything but okay. "I don't feel sorry for him, either. I wouldn't feel sorry for anybody here. There's nothing pity can change."

I look at my sister. "Why are you sad, Jen?"

Her eyebrows rise up again. A sardonic expression, a constant companion of hers since adolescence, is back on her face again. "Why are you?" she counters. "Why are you obsessed with keeping your secrets? I know you almost as well as Lilly does, certainly better than Richard. You draw back what shouldn't be hidden. You pretend that everything is all right, that you are fine and dandy and perfect. You've been doing it for years, almost as long as I can remember. What did you need so desperately to keep private that you wouldn't tell Mom the real reason you didn't come?"

I shake my head. "You say I do a good job pretending, but everybody here seems so sure that it wasn't work keeping me from seeing Dad that I'm beginning to wonder. Everybody except Mom, that is. She knows what she knows."

"That just means she's obtuse," Jen says bluntly. "If Mom opened her eyes enough to see beyond what she wanted to see, she could tell that you've been lying, just like the rest of us can. But she can't because Mom's never been like that. Dad wasn't either, you know. They were both equally blind to everything but your radiance. Your perfection that you've worked so long to create. Poor Richard was never so good at acting. He's too simple to imagine a more interesting persona."

I don't know why that angers me but it does. Maybe it's her voice. I know exactly who she sounds like. "You know, you're as bad as Mom sometimes," I tell her, and her eyes close gently.

"I know," she says quietly, her voice full of a soft regret that quickly changes back to bitterness. "Good thing I haven't had kids yet, huh?"

"Jennifer. . ." I began to say and trail off. I don't know what I want to tell her.

"Don't," she says. "It doesn't matter. We are who we are, you know. Marianne's faithful. David's silent. Lilly's sweet. Richard's second-rate. Luke's a loser. I'm bitter. And you're. . .you're perfect."

I keep silent and don't look up into her eyes. Jen stands up from the bed. "You know," she says, "most of the time I think men got it pretty easy. They don't give childbirth, they don't have periods. They have their rights and privileges handed out to them on little silver plates. I don't care what other people say; as a woman, it's still hard to get anywhere in work without being treated like a coffee-girl, or the secretary who gives blow jobs. Most of the time, anyway, I feel being a woman is kind of a drag, but here, in this house, I'm glad, I'm so glad I'm not a man. Marianne, Lilly, and I weren't as highly praised as you, we weren't loved like you, but we weren't asked to live up to you either. We had our good moments and our bad, but even in the worst of them we weren't asked to imitate your false perfection, to become our brother Nicholas Stokes. You and Richard and Luke . .it was like living in a place of cutthroats who did what they had to do to survive. Competition to be the alpha male was fierce. You'd do anything you had to to get our parent's attention."

"That's not true," I say, angry enough that I get up off the bed as well. I don't want to be compared to Richard, who hit me just last night, or Luke who slept with Julia. I would never have done those things. "I never did anything to them. I never tried to sabotage Luke or Richard."

"But you already had most of the attention, didn't you? Besides, I doubt there was an A on your report card that didn't have Mom and Dad's face shadowed behind it."

There isn't a lot I can say to that. I want to yell at her but I know she's speaking the truth. I try to get around this in a different way. "You didn't mention David," I tell her. "He's a man, too, in this house, and he very rarely got into the fights."

"That's true," Jennifer says. "I doubt David's got the intelligence for the game. I don't think he's clever enough to imagine a world where parents don't love their children equally."

"Stop it," I tell her sharply. "He's our brother."

"That doesn't mean it's not true," she says with a shrug. "But truth has always been subjective for you, hasn't it? You feel more than you think, Nicky, you always have. Sometimes I wondered at you becoming a CSI. I know you've got the head for it, but do you have the stomach?"

"Why are you like this?" I ask her bitterly, shaking my head. "Why are you so godammned vicious all the time?"

Jennifer's eyes falter then and she looks at the ground. "It's in the blood," she says quietly, almost to herself. "I don't know how you escaped it." She turns around, as if to leave, and I call out to her, asking her to stop. I don't want us to leave our conversation like this. I want at least one good conversation with a sibling that doesn't end up in getting drunk or getting punched.

Jennifer doesn't turn around but she does stop. "Mom said you said something strange in the car yesterday. Something about dying 27 years ago."

I feel myself swallow. "It's nothing," I lie automatically.

Jennifer turns and looks at me. "Is that what makes you so secretive? Is that where your need to be perfect started? What changed you, Nick? What changed you into this more beautiful, more exquisitely sad creature?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Poetry, Jen? From you?"

She laughs dryly. "We're all full of surprises," she says. "But no one greater than you. Who'd have thought you'd leave here and become even more despised than Luke? Even I didn't guess that one. I think everyone assumed you'd always be here; you were the heart of this home. Who'd know that the prodigal son would pull up his stakes and leave, never calling to talk, never looking back."

She walks to the door and then glances over her shoulder. "The funeral's at twelve," she said. "Mom wants to leave by eleven."

I call out Jennifer's name again but this time she ignores me and shuts the door behind her. Slowly, I sit back down on my bed and feel my jaw, still bruised and aching. I think of what Jennifer has said, and everything since I've come back here.

I suddenly miss Grissom and his strange excitement over disgusting things that would make most people shriek. Catherine and her low cut shirts; Greg and his insane ones. Sara and Warrick bantering, joking around after a case. I almost even miss Hodges and his annoying, nasal voice, just because he's a part of the world that I feel I've left behind.

I miss Vegas, the place I belong.

How did I ever call this place home?