Off: hey, thanks for all the reviews. Trust me, it definitely means something to me. Ok, so I lied sometime before. This is the last chap in Texas then we'll go on back to Vegas for another couple of chapters, and then it should be done. Remember that I changed the ending of The Stalker, although that will be more important next chapter. Oh, and I can't remember who reviewed it right now, but somebody thought I should have made this an R rating. They're probably right. I'm not going to change it now but just in general remember that there are bad words and unhappy feelings. After all, that's what angst is all about.

Warning: spoilers for Overload.

"Nine"

I.

"Can't you stay longer?"

I shake my head. "Sorry, Lilly. My flight leaves in an hour and a half. I've got to get going." I don't add how desperate I am to leave here and how Texas is more and more starting to mirror Hell in my mind. I was always considered tactful.

"Wouldn't your boss-"

"Lilly," I interrupt, not being able to handle it anymore. "This isn't about work. I. . .I need to go home, Lilly. This isn't home for me anymore."

Lilly isn't crying but she looks about two steps away from it. "I could talk to Mom," Lilly says. "I could try to get her to. . .to understand. To be nicer to you."

"It's not just that," I say, and it's not, though getting away from Mom would be enough of a reason to leave. Thankfully, she isn't in the kitchen with us right now. The only words she's spoken since the funeral is how she doesn't want to have to look on me. David, Marianne, and Richard are in the other room, trying to get her to talk to me before I leave. I've already said my goodbyes to them. Now I'm left with Lilly, Jennifer, and Luke, and how to explain that I think my head might explode if I stay any longer in this house. I need to be out of here, out of the memories and the discord. I need to be somewhere else.

And I miss Vegas and it's bright lights. I miss my other family and friends.

"I've made a home in Vegas," I try to explain. "I don't know if I ever meant it to be; I just needed to get out of here, and Vegas was like my own version of the Night of the Pifflings." I ignore the confused looks. "But now it's different. My job and my life there. . .it's not just some place to hide, to bury my head in and wait until the end. It's not an intermission in my life, the place I live for a while before I come back to Texas and sort my life out. Vegas is home for me now, and I need to be there. I need to get home."

Lilly falls silent and rubs her eyes. Luke bites his lower lips. It's a habit of his when he's nervous.

"Maybe you could visit more often," he says quickly, as if afraid that his nose is going to get bitten off for even making such a simple gesture. "Maybe you could come around more."

"Maybe," I say, appreciating the sentiment while secretly thinking 'not a chance in hell'. "Or maybe you guys could come fly out to Vegas once in awhile." I grin suddenly, and the grin isn't forced. "It's a fun place to spend a couple of days."

"We'll see," Lilly says, smiling. "Maybe after the baby. There's not a lot of point in going to Vegas if I can't even enjoy some alcohol."

I laugh and then glance at the clock. "Need to get going," I say. "Is there any point in even asking Mom for a ride?"

"I'll drive you," Jen offers suddenly. She's been silent for awhile and I look at her, surprised.

"Sure," I say. "Thanks."

Richard walks in then, looking almost apologetic. "Mom's gone to her room," he says, eyes never quite focusing on my face. "She isn't going to come out 'till you're gone. She won't see you."

I sigh, not surprised but not happy. "All right." I give Luke and Lilly a quick hug each and stop in mid-motion as I move towards Richard, who doesn't look sure if he wants a hug or not. I pick up my suitcase instead and shake his hand. Richard stands, nearly immobile, and opens his mouth to speak. I wait but no words come out of his lips, and I'm not sure I want to hear anything anyway. I don't think Richard and I are ready to talk yet. Some things never get resolved, no matter how hard you try.

"I'll see you," I say and he nods back to me, his mouth closing.

I stare at them all for a minute, wishing I had something to add, something to say that would make everything okay, but I don't. We all know now that I'm really not perfect and sometimes there is no moral lesson, just an ending of a part of your life.

I turn for the door silently and Luke calls out my name, equally unsatisfied with just this quick goodbye. He looks directly at me and the apology on his face is even stronger than the one in his voice. He says what I think Richard can not.

"I'm sorry."

I nod. "Me too," I say, and follow Jennifer out of the house.

II.

Jen and I ride mostly in silence while listening to her Creedence Clearwater Revival CD. Neither of us particularly like country music and we're both often annoyed with that Texas stereotype, that all those who hail from here initially idolize Lone Star. The week before I left, Greg jokingly asked me if all my exes really did live in Texas. I made him process the extremely disgusting public bathroom at the next homicide we worked together.

I missed Greg. I missed them all. I knew that none of them were family, that none of them considered me to be family, but all the same I had formed them to fit that category in my head, to take place, I guess, of what I had lost. Somewhere along the line, Sara, Warrick, and Greg had blurred the lines of friendship in my mind with siblings, and Catherine seemed to be somewhere between my exceptionally cool aunt and my cold, frigid mother, depending on her mood. Grissom, of course, was the obvious one. Grissom was the mentor, the one I had needed so desperately to believe in me in my first years in Vegas. Grissom played the father with frightening accuracy of someone who had never had children.

Dad, I thought and looked out the window, not wanting to think about either of them right now.

"Penny," Jen says and I glance at her.

"Huh?"

"Penny for your thoughts," she clarifies.

"Where's the penny?"

Jen rolls her eyes, reaches with one hand into the glove compartment as she still drives, and tosses me a nickel. "Now I get five thoughts," she says and I laugh. "What were you thinking about?"

"Family," I say honestly.

"No wonder you looked so unhappy," Jen says dryly. I don't respond. She watches me, hesitates, and then says, "Why won't you tell Mom why you really couldn't come?"

"Aw, are you still harping on that?" I ask, closing my eyes. "I told you. I tried to talk to Mom and she wouldn't listen."

"And you're too proud to make her listen," Jen says, her voice even dryer than before. "All right. Let's say that it's just your sense of machismo. Why won't you tell me? Or Lilly or Marianne or hell, even Luke? You're not just hiding it from Mom. You're hiding it from all of us."

"You'd just go talk to Mom," I say.

Jen snorts. "Bullshit. I wouldn't and you know it. What's the real reason?"

I hear a crashing sound in my mind, replaying from years ago. His voice, high pitched, nervous. Adrenaline pumping through my body.

A gunshot. The sound louder than anything I've ever heard.

Whiteness. Utter and complete. Then darkness, and pain.

I open my eyes and literally have to shake my head to clear it. "I don't want to think about," I say. My arms slide over my stomach almost unconsciously and I pull them away. "I try not to go back to places I wish I hadn't been."

"Like what happened to you a couple of years ago?" Jen asks. 'Or what happened to you when you were nine?" She waits but I stay silent. "Sooner or later, Nicky, you're going to need to talk to someone. It isn't healthy to keep things buried inside, pretending they don't exist."

I can't help it. I look at her incredulously. "Are you trying to say that you're the sane one out of the two of us?"

"Oh, fuck no. I've got my own problems and issues and traumas, just like everyone. I'm no model for absolute sanity. Nobody with the last name Stokes is."

"Well, then don't you think you're being a bit hypocritical?" I ask. "You're asking me to open up, to talk about what I clearly don't want to discuss, but you're not talking about yourself. You don't go on about your life."

Jen smiled wryly. "I would," she says, "but I wouldn't know what to say." She takes a long breath and says, "it's not the same with us, Nicky. You have these things that have happened to you, things that you try to shut out and pretend aren't real, things that you need to talk about. Me, I'm different. I don't know where I went wrong, when I became so unhappy all of the time. I could never say something like I died 27 years ago, not with any real sense of honesty, because I don't know when I died. I just know that somewhere along the line, things began to change. What imbued the essence of Jennifer had little to do with me. Jennifer just kind of became this slightly neurotic, intensely bitter, sarcastic workaholic that everybody knows me as. Nobody remembers me as anything else, and sometimes I don't think I do either."

She pauses and I say her name but she cuts me off quickly.

"That's not you," she continues, looking out at the road ahead of us. "You changed to cope with how your life went just like everybody, but somehow you managed to make everybody think that you're happier than you are. Bu you aren't happy, Nick, I know you aren't. I'm not good at talking or comforting or holding hands and being there, but I am good at seeing things, and I can see you, Nick, hurting, grieving, silently, still trying to maintain what everyone knows about Nick: happy, optimistic, naïve, perfect. But you're not and you know it, and so do I. What happened when you were nine, Nicky? Please tell me."

I looked at her and then away, my hands clenching slowly into fists to keep them from fidgeting. The only person I had ever told about the babysitter was Catherine, and that somehow didn't surprise me. Catherine reminds me a lot of my mother and Jennifer; she has my mother's iciness and Jen's direct brashness. The only thing separating her from donning the name 'Stokes' and really being a member of this family was her affection for her daughter, and enough sex appeal to create the nickname 'sex kitten'.

But I had told Catherine. I had never planned on telling anyone. I had told her and I had hated it. There was nothing good feeling about sharing, no light at the end of the tunnel. But I had done it.

Of course, Catherine had threatened me into it. Told me she'd take me off the case we were working on, the one I had become so obsessed with. It was probably that, more than anything, that made me tell her.

Apparantly, Jennifer came up with the same idea, because she suddenly said, "Nick, I won't let you go home. I'll pull the car over right now and make you walk to the airport. We're not that far away, certainly within a quick driving distance, but you'll never make your flight and you'll be stuck here, waiting."

"Petty threats," I say, pretending this is not an idea that seriously disturbs me. "I thought you could do better than that."

"Better than being stuck in Texas longer than necessary?"

She has a point.

"I mean it, Nick," Jen says unnecessarily because I know she means it. I know how Jennifer is. She doesn't bother with false threats. She's perfectly willing to carry out almost anything to get what she wants. I love Jennifer but she can be ruthless, just like Catherine, just like Mom. And I meant what I had said before. I needed to get home.

I continue to look out the window. The cars and the trees fly, quickly vanishing behind us. I like watching them disappear from sight. It makes it easier somehow.

"Mom and Dad wanted to take us to the show, something we could all enjoy," I say quiet, watching the world's vanishing act, somehow wishing I could be a part of it. "We had been planning it for a month or so because everybody's schedules were so conflicting with work and school and soccer practice and the like. Mom was sick of everyone being split part, doing their own thing. She wanted to do something as a family together. Only Luke and I got sick. Actually, Luke got me sick. Maybe I never forgave him for that. I don't know."

"Mom was mad at Luke for something. I really don't remember what now. She wanted to go to the show anyway, to punish him for whatever he did. She promised me she'd take me to the show alone some other day and she'd buy me all the candy and soda I wanted when I was feeling better. Mom did all that right in front of Luke. She really can be a bitch sometimes."

"She called Amy, our regular sitter. Do you remember her? The one with those godawful ugly orange curls?" I don't bother to turn to see if Jennifer nods. "She couldn't come. Had a date, or something. I remember being glad and at the same time wondering who would want to go out with her. Guess I'm not always so nice, either."

I hear Jennifer's mouth open, as if she wants to speak, but she doesn't, and I'm glad. I want this over with and the less she interrupts, the quicker it will be.

"So Mom called around and finally got a last minute babysitter. Molly Watkins. She lived down a couple of streets, the daughter of a friend of a friend. She came over and Mom thanked her and then you guys all left."

I hesitated then, frowning. Back story wasn't so hard to do; I could talk endlessly about the parts that didn't matter. I didn't want to talk about what happened next. That meant I had to think about it.

"Molly liked Luke right away. She was playing with him and tickling him, almost totally ignoring me completely, and then I saw her hands touching his thighs, rising up his shorts. I didn't know what was happening, was confused about why the babysitter would be doing something like that, but somehow I knew this wasn't good, wasn't like Mom seeing if Luke had had an accident. I told her to stop and she did. She stopped and she looked at me. I had never seen that kind of look on anybody's face. It was so. . ." I trailed off and closed my eyes. I could picture Molly's face with in my mind with stunning accuracy over 27 years. I decided to move on. "She asked me what I was going to do about it. Called me Big Boy. Mom and Dad used to call me that, their good 'big boy'. I started to freak out anytime they'd say that after that night. I couldn't handle it."

"I remember that," Jennifer says softly. I resolutely keep turned towards the window. I don't want to see Jennifer's face right now.

"She wanted to know what I'd do for her. She told me if I made her happy, she'd leave Luke alone. I didn't understand exactly what that meant, what she was asking, but I agreed because Luke was my little brother and it was my job to protect him. I think, in a way, that's what hurt the most when he and Julia slept together. I had labeled myself his protector, the one who kept him from having to do. . .what I did. And he, he betrayed me, which really isn't fair to say. Molly took me into the bedroom and Luke never saw anything. I don't think he even remembers that night. He was so young. He only came in afterwards and I made him sit with me in the room while Molly went out to watch television. I didn't want him anywhere near her; I kept telling myself I had to protect him, only I couldn't seem to make myself do much of anything. I was just laying there, still so warm and yet I was shivering. I just laid there and waited for Mom to get home so I could tell her what I happened and she could make things better."

"Only when y'all got home, something had happened. Mom was really pissed off, even at me. Dad ended up having to leave to go talk to some client in jail (this was just before he became a judge), and when I was just lying in my bed, not moving, Mom didn't ask me what was wrong, just what the hell I was doing. She kept asking me, so angry at whatever it was that had pissed her off, and she started shaking me a bit, ignoring what I was trying to say until I just stopped trying to say it. I think a part of me has always hated her, after that. She had calmed down by the next morning and she asked me again, more gently, what had happened, but by then it was just. . .it was just too late. I decided I never wanted anyone to know what had happened. I never wanted anyone to see. I was angry and ashamed and I. . .well, it doesn't really matter. Nothin' in the past does, right?"

Jennifer is silent and finally I make myself look over at her, though my hands are still clenched together. She's staring at me, only occasionally glancing at the road, and she isn't crying, but her face is very pale, as if she's too shocked to cry. "It was the popcorn," she says finally, her voice softer than I think I've ever heard it. "Richard was being a baby and I poured all of the popcorn over on his head. He started having a tantrum, causing a scene. We got kicked out of the theatre. Mom was so embarrassed; she wouldn't talk to me for three days." She swallows and suddenly she does look like she's about to cry. "Nick, I'm so-"

"Don't," I say and try to make my voice sound steadier than it is. We stare at each other and I know that neither of us have the words to make the other person feel okay, and yet I have to say something, because that's who I am. I echo what I told Catherine. "It's what makes a person, right?" I ask and need her to agree so I don't have to start crying myself.

"Yeah," Jennifer says quietly, and we arrive at the airport.

Off: okay so that's done and just for anybody whose annoyed that there was no huge face off with the mom, I'm not actually done with her yet. She's too much fun to write. Heh heh heh heh heh. Next chapter: back in Vegas.