Author's Note: Oooh, that last chapter got some really good reviews! I am glad that you guys appreciated the sarcastic edge I gave Nick – a case of art imitating life as you may have guessed! This chapter gave me a bit of trouble so I'm sorry if it's terrible! This is dedicated to Rummy and JJ, and our time on the couch in the Senior's Room (don't ask!).
I know nobody knows
where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin
you got to lose to know how to win
("Dream On" by Aerosmith)
Four Days Earlier"Why won't you let anyone help you?"
"Because I don't need you! I don't need anybody!" shouted Nick as he stalked away from Grissom and stormed out of the lab. He passed Warrick but shoved his friend out of the way before he could speak. He smiled smugly as Warrick hit the wall with a resounding thud. Nick flung his ID on the floor as he left the lab in one final gesture of defiance. He got into his car and sped away, to destination unknown.
The next thing he knew he was sitting in his house. He was sitting on the floor of his kitchen, surrounded by a plethora of assorted items. He didn't remember pulling them out and he certainly didn't remember bringing everything into the kitchen. He knew it was his kitchen, but somehow it wasn't. It felt different somehow. It was as if he was in one place but it was a completely different place. It didn't look like his kitchen but he knew that it was. Curiouser and curiouser he thought giddily to himself. He was sitting there, not sure how he got there, and was quoting Alice in Wonderland in his head. He began to rifle through the items that surrounded him, with a detached sense of interest.
First there was a mirror. Or at least, it was what remained of what used to be a mirror. It was fragmented into about a hundred pieces and scattered on the surface of a silver serving tray he didn't even know he owned. His reflection stared back at him like a Picasso painting. It was his face, but there was something about it that he didn't recognize. Whether it was the distortion of the broken mirror to not, something was definitely wrong as he gazed at himself. As he gazed at his image, perturbed by what he saw, everything faded to red. The redness poured from each shard of glass like syrup until all he could see was the blanket of red that washed away his face. Horrified, he threw the tray aside, not caring if the glass scattered across the floor.
What the hell was that about? he wondered as a chill came over him. Did it just get darker in here or something? He could have sworn that it was brighter a moment ago; now the lighting was sort of dingy. He shrugged it off and picked up the next item that lay beside him on the floor. It was a long coil of rope. He ran his hands over the coarse twists and rolled the rope between his palms. He played with it absently, twisting and tying it at random. He looked down and saw that he had knotted it so that it left a loop hanging at one end. Cool, I made a lasso! He began to swing it over his head like he had done so many times in his childhood. He'd always wanted to be John Wayne. John Wayne was the epitome of cowboy cool. Too bad I turned out like me instead he thought bitterly as the rope swung faster and faster. Suddenly, he felt like he couldn't breathe. There were invisible hands wrapping themselves around his throat, cutting off his air. He clawed at his neck, the rope still in his hand. God, somebody help me! he screamed silently. The room was starting to spin. In a fit of panic, the rope fell from his hands as he reached up to clutch at his throat. The rope hadn't even hit the floor when the crushing feeling in his chest disappeared as quickly as it had come. He gulped in the air and swept the rope out of his sight.
He wanted to get up and leave this room but his legs wouldn't cooperate. There was a reason why he was supposed to stay here. Something was compelling him to continue looking through these odd items on the floor, even though he didn't want to anymore. He picked up a small bottle. Funny, it looks just like the one that Warrick took from me yesterday. He popped the top off and shook the contents into his hand. Pills that were every color of the rainbow spilled into his outstretched palm and onto the floor. He couldn't believe that many pills came from such a small bottle. He picked up a little red one and looked at it closely. He squinted (had it gotten darker in here) and held the pill right up beside his eye. If he didn't know any better he would have sworn that the pill had the words "Eat Me" printed on the side. But that was just craziness…wasn't it? He scooped a handful from the floor and looked at each in turn. Every single one seemed to have the same alluring message on the side of them. He stared into his palm at the mesmerizing array of colors that it held. He suddenly felt a very strong urge to pop all of the pills in his mouth. What harm could it do? After all, the pills were telling him to eat them. He was just bringing them to his mouth when his arms began to twitch violently. A sharp pain shot through his stomach and he could taste the bile rising in his mouth. His hands were shaking so badly that the pills fell to the floor at an agonizingly slow rate. NO! his mind screamed out to him as his hands failed to comply with the demand that they catch the pills. I need those! He couldn't stop the violent convulsions or the blindness that suddenly overtook him. All he could hear was the tiny clicking sounds of the pills hitting the floor….
Then suddenly everything was as it was. The pills were gone, he could see again and the shaking had stopped. I must be losing it! He wanted to run away from this nightmare but couldn't move. The kitchen was getting darker still, until the overhead light illuminated a perfect circle on the floor in front of him. One final thing lay before him.
His gun.
He reached out with palms that were slick with perspiration and picked up the gun. He ogled it with sort of morbid fascination. Up until his time in the box, he hadn't really given his gun much thought. But during those long hours of confinement, he had found himself dissecting the gun with his eyes. The criminalist in him knew every intimate detail of the gun's mechanics, while the terrified observer in him knew what a bullet could do at close range. Now, as he sat here lovingly holding his gun in his hand, it all came rushing back to him. He remembered putting the gun up underneath his chin in the seconds before they had found him. So close…so damn close. He checked the weapon. It was loaded. He had done it once before…could he do it again? His hands were surprisingly steady as he brought the gun up to his chin. He closed his eyes as the cool metal pressed against his draw. There was a familiarity there that brought him a strange sense of comfort. He couldn't control his life, but he could control his death. He could here Gordon's voice in his ears.
"Put your gun in your mouth and pull the trigger"Well that made sense. Maybe it was manlier to swallow a bullet. Probably a better chance for success too. With a split second of hesitation, Nick placed the barrel of the gun in his mouth. What am I doing? he wondered, though not without a sense of complacency. He knew the answer. The only thing I can do. He took a deep, final breath, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger…
The bang exploded through the room with the ferocity of a cannon blast. Nickwas all but thrown out of hisseat. His heart pounding and his body shaking he looked around. He was not in his kitchen; he was in one of the offices at the lab. The bang had been from Bobby, who was firing a test round. It took Nick a couple of long minutes to realize that he had been sound asleep behind the stack of files. Just a dream he told himself. It was just a dream. The images of the dream were still swirling in Nick's mind, already fading with his consciousness. He tried to piece the jumbled pictures together but found that they were escaping him too quickly. The only things he could really remember were the final, haunting image of the gun in his mouth…and the hint of disappointment he felt when he woke up. He couldn't help but wonder aloud.
"What if it all means something?"