Okay, this chapter's up and I think there are one or two more after it. Spoilers: the stalker. I changed the end of the stalker a little, so just be warned. And no, this is not a greg/nick fic before I get asked. They're friends but no slash, at least, not on this one.

"The Wicked Witch is Not Dead Yet"

"Unfucking believable. The Texans are winning the Patriots. Who thought Houston could win out ANYBODY?"

"Hey, hey, hey," I protest, holding my hands up in mock defense of my state. "The Texans aren't that bad."

Greg gives me a scornful, contemptuous look. "Riiight. And Grissom isn't that strange of a guy."

This makes me laugh so hard I choke on the beer I'm holding and have to set it down on the table while I relearn how to intake oxygen. Greg asks lightly if he needs to call 911 or something like that, and I tell him, between coughs, to fuck off. I'm having a good night.

A while ago, Greg had started suckering me into going out with him every other Friday night to a wide variety of nightclubs in Vegas, some of them a little too varied for my tastes. My sort of revenge for these forced outings were making him watch Monday night football with Warrick and me at my place. Greg often made exaggerated sighs, mocked the football players, and claimed he wouldn't even be around watching if it wasn't for the cheerleaders, but the truth was that I had converted him into a football fan, and he was surprisingly good at betting on what team would win. In fact, my wallet was beginning to hate me for bringing Greg into the football picture in the first place.

Tonight it's just him and me hanging out, watching probably the most amazing football upset in a century. Normally Warrick would be here too but he just finished pulling off another triple and told us if he didn't get some sleep he'd be a stunt double for any George A. Romero flick. Greg had told him to go home; he'd like to "keep his brain in his skull for just a little longer".

I manage to breathe in and out again without coughing or 911 support and lean back into the couch cushions, sipping my beer. I had been home a week and two days since the flight from Texas. Once we had reached the airport, Jen and I hadn't said much else to each other, except that we loved one another and we promised to call more often. So far, neither of us have called yet, and I haven't heard from anyone in else in Texas either. Somehow, that doesn't surprise me much. Promises are just words. They don't really mean anything.

God I wonder, when did I start thinking like that?

Greg eyes me over his beer and begins to look serious, never a good sign. I'm already on my third beer but Greg's still on his first. Our first night out at some dance club with horrendous music, I found out just what a lightweight Greg is. More than two shots of anything would have him passed out on the floor before you could say 'softie'.

I have a sudden feeling that Greg is going to start prying at me, wondering what's wrong with me, when I changed. The first couple of days at work, people still acted cautious around me, as if waiting for me to crack and reveal the sadness in my soul. When I guess it finally became apparent that I wasn't about to have a breakdown at work, sobbing about my dead father in the ground, people started acting normal again, used to me being "reliable Nicky". Everybody acted this way, except two: Grissom, who continued to give me strange, peering looks as if I was some sort of a specimen for scientific observation, and Greg.

"What are you thinking about?" Greg asks, drinking his beer slowly. I shrug and don't really respond. I don't have anything to say.

Greg continues to watch me. "You've been just a little different, you know, since Texas." He says this quietly, softly, and as slowly as he drinks his beer, as if worried that he's speaking out of turn and liable for a screaming match. "You've been just a little more. . .quiet, I guess, or darker or something. I don't know."

I shrug again, trying to keep this as casual as I can. "Well, stuff's happened," I say, as if this is any kind of a revelation, "but you don't need to worry about me. I'm doing okay."

"Are you?" he asks, and I know that he doesn't believe it for a second.

I also know he won't press it if I deny anything being wrong, and I open my mouth to do so when there's a knock on the door. I look at it, surprised, and then turn to Greg. "I guess Warrick decided to come after all," I say, and then glance at the game, which is already in the fourth quarter. "He's kind of late."

Greg shakes his head. "No way," he says. "You didn't see him this afternoon before he left. He really was dead on his feet. I mean corpse, coffins, and all."

I smile at that and get up. I can't think of who it else might be, certainly nobody from work, and I'm all ready to see some sort of new tenant or neighbor needing to borrow eggs or something, when I open the door and see Mom.

My jaw doesn't literally drop but it might as well. I take a step backwards in total surprise and don't say anything, too shocked to really speak. Mom takes this step backward as an invitation and walks into the room.

She looks good, of course. Mom always paints herself upright. Her hair is fashioned perfectly, not a wisp out of place, and her makeup is impeccable, taking at least five years off of her real age. She has an essence that screams good breeding, and if you could even consider her to still be somewhat beautiful, if only except the fact that she is scowling like mad and her eyes are sharp crystals of blue ice.

Before I can make my mouth articulate actual words, my mother turns her infamous glare on me and says, "I just want you to know that I thought your eulogy was disgusting and I think your father would have hated it. It was despicable, talking about his faults like that in front of all those people, speaking ill of the dead! You should be ashamed of yourself, and I hope you are, hope that you've realized your own, personal issues with your father was no reason to use his funeral as an excuse for some kind of personal therapy."

"That wasn't what it was about," I say but Mom cuts me off.

"I just want you to know that I don't ever, ever want to see you back in my home again, and if you do come I'll get a restraining order against you, legally keeping you away." Mom steps closer to me and her scowl becomes more of a sneer, bringing new life to the words 'contempt' and 'disgust'. "I look at you and I don't see a man anymore, a son who has grown up to understand what it is to be a responsible, decent human being. I look at you and I see a spoiled brat, a boy who never grew up at all, who's playing cop and pretending to be the hero when he has no idea what it means to be out in the line of duty. I don't look at you and see my son anymore, or anything that connects you to this family. You aren't worth enough to be a part of it. I will no longer recognize you as my son. I refuse to bear you any longer!"

There is a long moment of silence. Finally, I say calmly, "Okay. You're no longer my mother. Did you really come all the way from Texas to tell me that?"

My mother stares at me, still glaring but obviously surprised, as if she expected some kind of bigger reaction, some kind of showdown between the two of us, forces of good and evil or something similarly melodramatic. I think she needs to feel victorious, to walk out as I'm begging for her to come back, to forgive me for these sins. I know that's what she needs because I can see the righteousness in her face; she wants to still have power over me, to make me sorry for all that I have done. I keep my face steady but suddenly I am pissed off, and I have to put my hands behind my back so she won't see me clenching my fists. How dare she come here and act like she still reigns over me, me, who she's just disowned as a son. She could do whatever she wanted in Texas but we aren't in Texas anymore. This is my home, dammit! She doesn't belong here.

My mom recovers quickly from my apparent lack of reaction, and she sniffs disdainfully as she glances around the apartment, pretending that her precious ego hasn't been bruised. "I wouldn't have bothered coming at all," she says, eyeing the dishes piling up next to the sink with a barely concealed aversion, "but your phone number has changed since I last talked to you, as well as apparently your address. I think I liked your other home better, Nicholas. It was actually rather spacious and well decorated, a nice, good looking home. This one is a glorified bachelor's pad. Why ever did you get rid of that nice house for this utter dump?"

"Well, the creepy, murdering guy living upstairs was sort of not a bonus," Greg says suddenly from the couch. I look back at him, surprised, almost having forgotten that he was there. My mother has that affect on people.

My mom turns her cool glare onto Greg, who sinks back a little into the cushions but stares at her incredulously anyway. "If Nigel Crane had been living upstairs, waching me sleep," he continues, staring at my mom, "I'd have gotten the fuck out of dodge too."

I watch Greg, surprised, I suppose, at his lack of timidity when he is usually so hesitant in the face of authority. I am also surprised about what he's just said. Though I guess it was sort of obvious why I moved from my house on Archer Lane, I had never once spoken to him about Nigel Crane and what that had felt like, to know that he had been there, watching me, every second I was home. To feel eyes on me while I was taking a shower, watching TV, trying to sleep. I didn't last three days back in the house before I made the decision to move. Still, I don't expect Greg to think about things like that.

My mother raises an eyebrow at Greg's wildly colored shirt and very spiky hair, and then turns back to me. "Nick, who is this. . . jester. . .and what on Earth is he babbling about?"

"Nothing," I say quickly, giving a hard look to Greg. "Listen, Mom-"

"You didn't tell her?" Greg asks. I turn back to him, willing him with my eyes to shut up, which he appears to ignore. He stares at me with wide eyes and then stands up from the couch and walks over to where my mom and I are. Greg continues to watch me for a minute before finally looking at my mother. "You don't know what happened to Nick?"

"All I know about Nick is that when his father had a stroke, when he could have been dying and needed his son's attention and love, Nick was nowhere to be seen. He abandoned his ailing father for his love of a pathetic career of no real value. He didn't even call back for the better part of a week and insisted that he couldn't leave until the month was nearly over, all the while his father lay in a hospital, wondering where his beloved son was and why he didn't care about him anymore."

Greg's eyebrows rose at what he obviously considers condescending hyperbole but apparently restrains his sarcasm to ask, "Was this in May?"

"Shut up, man," I tell him. "This isn't your problem."

Greg ignores this. "May?" he asks again.

Mom throws her hands up in the air and rolls her eyes, as if answering this question was the most tiresome bother in her life. "I still don't see how this pertains to you," she says, drawing herself up, "but yes, Nick's father's stroke was May 8th, 2002, six or so in the morning, and Nick was nowhere to be seen. Now, do you have some sort of ridiculous alibi you'd like to claim on behalf of your friend?"

"Greg," I say again and only for him to interrupt me

"Yeah," Greg says flatly, ignoring my glaring at him, "on May 8th, 2002, six or so in the morning, Nick was in his fifth hour of surgery after being shot in the stomach and trying his hardest not to die himself, so I think you might want to forgive him for not being able to make a phone call. He was busy recovering in the hospital after sort of nearly dying."

Mom stares at Greg. Her mouth is open and motionless, as if someone has just hit the pause button on the remote for her expressions. Very slowly, she turns to look at me, as if she doesn't know who I am or how I even got here. "Nick," she asks, "is this true?"

"Yeah," I say, "it's true."

She pauses again, becoming motionless for a few minutes before her mouth begins to move, trying to find words to describe whatever she is thinking. Finally, she gives up on this and says, "I don't know what to say."

I shrug. Maybe this is where I should describe what happened to me in detail, explain what really happened and how sorry I am, but I can't do any of that because I'm still pissed. "There isn't anything to say. It's in the past, right?" My voice doesn't sound forgiving and I don't really bother trying to adjust it.

Mom and Greg continue watching me with open mouths until I can't take it anymore. I'm sick of people looking at me and I'm not going to wait around until they've had their fill. "Look," I say, "feel free to hang around here, but I've got to get going."

My mom holds up her head, regaining some of her eternal sense of composure. "Don't be ridiculous," she says as if that's ridiculous is always how I act. "If you don't want me here, kick me out. This is, after all, your home."

"You know something?" I ask her, watching her eyes. "This place somehow doesn't feel like home with you in it."

"Nick," Greg says and puts his hand on my arm. I shake it off. I can't be here anymore, not with Mom, not with Greg, not with anyone. I need somewhere where I can just be quiet, where I don't have to worry if I'm fooling anybody with this "I'm okay" look I thought I had perfected. I need somewhere without friends or family and I'm not going to find it here.

"Let go of me," I tell him, and grab my jacket and leave.