Chapter Three

It was one of the bad nights. Understandably so, considering the day he'd had.

Wrapping up the case in the early morning hours had resulted in the rest of the day off, as Nick didn't need to be back in to work until the next night. Most of that day had been spent in the lab finishing up paperwork and the unexpected confrontations with Warrick and Sara, and it was early evening by the time Nick finally pulled into his driveway.

He'd been faced with two options: stay up all night and sleep during the day, keeping to his regular sleeping pattern, or try to get some sleep now and spend the day bumming around before work.

Stupidly, after a quick dinner, he had gone with the latter. He'd had an exhausting day and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and not surface for as long as he could manage. Instead, after comforting himself he was alone in his home and the hidden gun was still safely stashed away, Nick spent a few hours lying awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversations he'd had with Warrick and Sara, dissecting them, because that's what he did all day long and it was hard to turn off that kind of constant analytical thinking just because he wasn't on the clock.

He couldn't help being anxious about going into work the next night, nervous that his friends would go to Catherine or Grissom and spill the beans, like running and telling Mom and Dad. He didn't think he'd faired that badly with either Warrick or Sara, but was positive the same would not hold for a one-on-one with either of the senior CSIs. At least he had a little bit of prep time before a confrontation with Grissom would go down. The supervisor was still out of town, although Nick thought he was supposed to be back sometime the next day.

Nick invented possible scenarios for the way such a conversation might go…and none of them made him too eager to get to work. No matter the explanations, or excuses, that he came up with, even imaginary Grissom made him feel about two feet tall…even imaginary Catherine made him feel like a child.

Nick looked over at the alarm clock on the table next to his bed and flung his head back in frustration. It was three in the morning, and it looked like he was going to be staying up.

Nick gave himself another twenty minutes, and after he still couldn't fall asleep, he dragged himself out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen. He flipped on the light and pulled the coffee pouch out of its place in the cabinet, grumbling all the way. Once the coffee pot started its brewing process, he went into the living room and flung himself onto the couch, reaching for the remote off of the coffee table. He flipped through a few dozen channels without finding anything that held his attention for more than twenty seconds.

He was actually spared from his boredom by a muffled ring coming from his bedroom. He hurried into the room and dug his cell phone out of the pocket of the jeans he'd tossed on the floor and answered it on the fourth ring. Catherine calling…flashed on the screen.

"Hello."

"Nicky. Were you sleeping?"

"Uh, nah, you're fine. What's up?" Nick was momentarily worried that she'd called for The Talk, but shook it off. Catherine would never call him at this hour unless she needed him for a case.

He headed back into the kitchen, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder so that he could pour himself a cup of joe. He could tell he was going to need it.

"I'm really sorry, but I need you for a double homicide. Warrick's gonna meet you there."

Nick wrote down the address she told him and assured her that it was fine, he didn't mind, much, and that he was on his way.

Yawning, he rubbed a hand over his chin. He should really shave before he left. He felt tired and scruffy. He glanced longingly at the pot of fresh coffee taunting him from the counter, knowing he would only have enough time for one cup.

Warrick pulled up to the curb in front of the convenience store and turned off the ignition. He stared through the wide windshield at the storefront, relishing the relative peace of the truck's interior before stepping out into the harsh reality his job provided. Having properly steeled himself, he hopped out of the massive Yukon and grabbed his kit out of the back seat.

Yellow crime scene tape set up a fence along the curb, and Warrick ducked under, raising a hand in greeting to Jim Brass, waiting for him in front of the open glass double doors.

"I thought Catherine said she was sending both you and Nicky out," Brass said, leading Warrick into the store.

Warrick shrugged. "I was still in the lab, Nick was off. Give him a few extra minutes."

Despite his words, Warrick couldn't help but feel concerned. Nick was very much the punctual type, and whether he was supposed to be off or not, Nick never kept them waiting. He shrugged it off again, knowing his friend had probably just been sleeping…that last case had really taken a lot out of him, more so than the rest of them.

Warrick turned his attention back to the homicide detective. "What's the story here?"

Brass raised his eyebrows and gestured to the counter. "Started as a robbery, then the suspect started shooting. Convenience store clerk is Kevin Davis, twenty-six. Shot once in the chest." He moved around the counter, where the young coroner David Phillips was crouching over the body of the young clerk.

"Hey, Dave." Warrick hefted his kit.

"Warrick." David held onto a clipboard in one hand and made a sweeping gesture with the other, encompassing the body. "Gunshot probably wouldn't have been fatal with proper and immediate treatment, but it looks like he bled out."

Warrick raised his eyebrows in agreement, reminded in the worst way to breathe through his mouth. There was a sizeable blood pool surrounding the body. "How long?"

David checked a note on his clipboard and then glanced at his watch. "Liver temp indicates time of death was around an hour and a half ago, so…what, two a.m.?"

Warrick compared the estimate with his own watch and nodded. He turned back to Brass. "I thought Catherine said this was a double."

"It is." The squat detective made his way through the store to an aisle along the far wall, glass coolers lining one side, pain killers and toiletries on the other.

Warrick saw the blood pool before he saw the body. His lips parted and he cocked his head when he did see it. "Man," he said under his breath.

Brass nodded solemnly. He opened a brown leather wallet he'd been carrying with him. "Jesse Warner, sixteen."

Warrick crouched and examined the bullet hole in the kid's gut. "Wrong place at the wrong time." He heard hurried footsteps come into the store and stood, nodding to Nick over the low shelving.

Nick gave a sheepish smile, but it didn't take away from the bags under his eyes. "Sorry I'm a little late," he drawled. His tee was uncharacteristically untucked from his jeans, which looked as though they could have walked in on their own.

"It's cool, man. I just got here, myself." Warrick eyed his friend's weary, messy appearance warily, but kept his comments to himself. He didn't want to instigate another fight. He nodded in the direction of the counter. "You want to take the bodies or the scene?"

Nick didn't respond, but lifted his kit as an answer.

Warrick chuckled. "Guess I'll do the bodies."

He knelt back down by the fallen boy. He thought he heard Nick yawn as he made his way through the store.

"What's up, Dave?"

The voices of the Assistant Coroner and his partner faded to background noise as he concentrated on the body sprawled before him.

"You're back," Sara said bluntly when she saw Nick and Warrick come down the hall, bearing gifts for the lab techs in the form of sealed evidence bags.

Nick smiled just slightly, more to keep her at ease than out of good nature. "No rest for the weary, right?"

He dropped off the tape lifts of fingerprints he'd pulled from the convenience store counter with Jacqui, and kept those of the shoe treads for himself. He found an empty room and tossed the images onto the table, bringing a hand to his mouth to stifle another yawn.

Sara had apparently followed him to the room. "I'm really sorry about today, Nick."

"Stop apologizin', Sara," he said, in as friendly as a tone as he could muster. "We're cool." Nick spread the images he'd collected out on the table, trying to determine which was the clearest. He wasn't necessarily ignoring her, just doing whatever he could to speed this process along. He smiled and snatched up one of the prints. He had a hopeful feeling this case was going to be an easy one to wrap up. They had fingerprints, shoe prints, and tapes from a security camera. Quick and dirty.

Sara stood just a second longer at the other side of the table. "Guess I better see what Hodges for me," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"You got a new case already, too?" It was a stupid question; of course she had a new case. That would be the reason Catherine called him in.

"Yeah," Sara said. "I don't' know when I'm going to get some sleep."

"If you want, I can keep an eye on your evidence for you, so you can go home for a few hours." Nick spoke before he thought about what he was saying. That politeness his mother had ingrained in him at a young age was really starting to come back and bite him in the ass. He winced and looked down at the table.

Sara smiled. "Really? That would be awesome."

She quickly gave him a rundown of the case and the evidence that was being processed. Nick nodded along, cursing at himself in his head. He'd been handed an easy case, the suspect had been sloppy, and they'd collected a ton of great evidence from the scene. The odds were that Catherine had probably put him on this particular case on purpose so that he didn't have to stay for very long and could catch a few hours of sleep before his official shift that night. And here he was, taking on more work, ensuring that sleep wasn't going to be a part of his near future.

Sure enough, Warrick enthusiastically tracked him down after only forty-five minutes to tell him that Archie had gotten a good still of the shooter and the prints that Nick had pulled had gotten a hit in AFIS; the guy had a record.

Nick smiled and said that was great, but on the inside, he felt like he was going to fall down if he didn't recharge his batteries, and soon. He checked his watch; Sara wouldn't be back in for at least three more hours, which would give him about five before he was planning on coming in for his shift.

Nick had been spending a lot of time at work over the past few months. Sara had always been the one to max out on overtime week after week, burying her problems in her work, and now it was him. He always came in early, and he was sure that everyone knew this was because he hated being home alone for long periods of time, but no one ever said anything about it. They just let him work.

Really, he appreciated it, because it kept him from having to have those kinds of inevitable awkward talks that had happened with Warrick and Sara earlier that day. He wanted his friends to care, but he wanted them to do it quietly. Every now and then he wondered if he was being a hypocrite, but didn't want to think about that either. Mostly, he just didn't want to think.

So he worked.

To be continued...