An Unfair Act of Vengeance

Notes: I appreciate the reviews, and I'm really excited to see how this story actually plays out once I put it all into words.

Summary: After Nick is released from the hospital he begins to suspect that someone is stalking him, but he assumes that he is just overreacting. Meanwhile, Grissom and the team are unable to find any real evidence as to who might've committed the crime, and the evidence they do find is not what they expect it to be.

Nick looked quietly out of his bedroom window. It had been two days since he had been released from the hospital, and he was feeling shut in. His eyes watched as people walked to and from their houses going on with their lives. The hell with it, I'm going. And with that he went and easily changed into a T-shirt and shorts. With a quick, but cautious, swooping motion he grabbed his running shoes, and had pulled them on as he headed for the door.

He forced himself to take it a bit easy, after all, he did want to get back to work sometime soon… And Grissom had made it perfectly clear that this damn psychiatrist examination he'd have to go through in two weeks was better than going through an extra two or three weeks off, and having to take a bunch of proficiency tests over again.

He heard some footsteps fall in with him, and he looked over to see a muscular blonde running next to him.

"Hi, I've seriously never done this before," she smiled sheepishly, "but you seemed like a really nice guy. My name's Mona Westguard"

"Oh, really? Well, Miss Westguard, I'm Nick Stokes." Nick chuckled as they quickly jogged down the path.

"Nice to meet you. Well I just moved here, but I've never seen anyone actually coming here to actually jog. Although, I hope you can go faster than this…"

"Normally, but I had some surgery a few days ago…" Nick said, purposely being vague.

"Oh really, what happened?"

Nick sighed as they continued down the cement path. "I was working, and some guy ended up stabbing me…" As soon as he said those last two words he regretted it. Her mouth was open for a few moments before she bit her lip, and decided to come out with it.

"Well, it really was nice meeting you, maybe I'll see you around here again." She sped up easily leaving him behind, and Nick decided to take a break. He found his way over to a bench and sat there looking down at his chest. Go figure… I guess no one will ever think I'm normal anymore. Not after all the crap I've taken up to now…

Grissom walked into the break room where Catherine, Sara, and Greg waited for him. The looks on their faces gave it all away…

"You guys didn't get anything did you?" He didn't even need an answer.

""I can't understand it Gil, we've spent the last two days going over all the evidence and it hasn't gotten us anywhere. We've processed Nick's clothes, the knife, we did the best as we could with the dusty shoeprints, we can't identify the first victim, and the list goes on and on. I really think we've slammed into a brick wall here."

"Look, Catherine, the answer to who did this has to be in here somewhere, we just need to know where to look."

"Easy for you to say Grissom," Sara piped up, "but there is nothing here. We've been going over everything, Greg and I have already been back out to the crime scene three times. Whoever did this, pretty much committed the perfect crime."

Grissom lowered his head, while his arm simultaneously began to rub his forehead in a futile attempt to battle the migraine he knew was coming. Before he had the chance to respond the door slammed open.

"Hey, you guys," Warrick said nervously, "I think you ought to see something…"

They followed him back to the work station he had been working at. Only to find a lot of pictures of the knife and stab wound that Nick had received. "First of all, I've got to say all that I'm about to tell you isn't conclusive, but the only prints on the knife came from Nick which is pretty much the only conclusive factor here. However, the jagged part of the knife matches the top of Nick's wound. The only thing that makes that surprising is the way the handle would end up for that to happen. It would be backwards if someone stabbed you…" Warrick went on hastily, trying to demonstrate with his own hands on Greg.

"But not if someone had stabbed…" Catherine started, but she couldn't finish. It was absurd, it just wasn't possible for this to have gone down that way.

"Themselves." Grissom finished the sentence for her, and his eyes once more found themselves staring at his hands, and his clothes, remembering that just a few days ago they had had Nick's blood on them.

"But, you said that was inconclusive, I think it's way more likely that the guy who did this just happened to change his grip before stabbing Nick." Greg said confidently, he was thinking the same thing as everyone else, it just wasn't possible. Nick would never do that, to us, to himself…never… He hoped he was right, no he was positive… After a few moments he realized that he didn't know what he was thinking anymore.

Nick forced himself to start jogging back to his house, and on his way a large, muscular bumped into him, his elbow lightly connecting to where Nick's bandage lay hidden beneath his shirt. He promptly fell to his knees, but managed to quickly regain his breath.

"Sorry man, you might want to watch out though, people can come tearing around corners here."

Nick watched the guy run off without even making sure if he was ok. That jerk really ought to try using his brain… He managed to pull himself up, and began to walk back towards his house.

Just past another bend of trees, the man veered off the concrete path and onto a small trail. That fool never even recognized me… A dark smile flashed across his face as Nick slowly came back into his view.

Nick walked past parked cars, before he hurried across the street, and down another street that led right to his house. He looked at his Denali parked in the driveway, and just before opening the gate to his yard he heard his cell phone going off. He quickly ran the steps to his house, taking one look over his shoulder. For a moment he thought he had seen the guy from the park that had bumped into him, but he shook his head before running inside and grabbing his phone.

"Hey Nick," Warrick said as casually as he could, "How you holding up?"

"I've been better." Nick replied before he thought of how stupid his answer was.

"You sound like you're out of breath, what have you been up too?"

"Oh, uh… I just went for jogging for a while… I needed the air, not to mention the exercise."

"Yeah, you get much more exercise and Grissom may start asking if you're on steroids. Plus, you sound like you've got something else on your mind."

"Ah… I guess that would be this blonde… Some people I just don't get, they're into you one minute, then they're dashing down the sidewalk the first chance they get… Although, I'm sure it's been too long for you to remember any of that."

"You're just meeting people all over the place aren't you, I mean nurses, joggers, what's next man?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Nick asked as they laughed. He was glad Warrick had called, and he wanted to loosen him up some before he asked about the case…

"Well, I was just calling to make sure you weren't being a dumb ass and were still taking your pills. It's already too late to keep you inside."

"If I stayed inside for more than three days I'd probably lose my mind man."

"What have you got to lose?"

"Plenty, so how's the case going?" he asked.

Warrick could easily sense that Nick had become more concerned. The tone of his voice had remained light, but he had neverbeen ableto keep his accent in check when he was trying to be casual. Nick must've realized he'd let it slip, because he cleared his throat while waiting for Warrick to respond.

"Look, Nick, it's an ongoing case…"

"Come on, just save the bull, and tell me what's going on. I think I deserve to know." Nick sighed as he shook his head. His Texan accent made it remarkably clear to Warrick that he wasn't too happy about being in the dark on the situation.

"Ok, man, Grissom is going to give me hell later, but you're right, you deserve to know."

Nick forced himself to stay calm, and receive whatever news he had with a cool attitude. Nothing could have prepared him for his best friend's answer, though.

"Man, we haven't found a shred of evidence. All the evidence we do have has led us no where, but we do know that whoever did this must have put a lot of profound thought into how it would all play out. It seems like he planned for everything man, except your inability to let someone take you down."

"How is that possible? I saw the other body, it must've been covered with trace. How could someone not put up a fight after going through all that?"

"I don't know, but he managed to, and that's all that matters. Hey, Grissom is coming, if he finds out what I told you he'll be on my back for years… I'll see you soon."

"Yeah, bye." Nick said quietly, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice. He knew that they were the best CSI team in Vegas, and possibly in the whole U.S. If they couldn't find anything from this guy then it definitely meant that the case would probably never be solved. He felt a pang of guilt as he realized that he had been absolutely no help to the case. He hadn't seen that officer die, he hadn't even fought back. I just stood there, like some fool, looking at that damn knife…

"Grissom!" The supervisor's head quickly snapped up as he saw Ecklie waving him towards his office. He looked down at Nick's file, and decided it'd be best to get this over with.

"Ecklie, I'm really busy, you know this case hasn't turned up anything so far."

"Well, I trust that you have time for hearing my final decision about Nick."

"O-of course…" Grissom fell silent and waited, hoping that he'd get Nick back in the field as soon as possible.

"I'm still concerned, but I've talked with a Dr. Carl Alberts, and he has agreed to perform an evaluation on Nick's condition. We go with his suggestion, no matter what. And, I want you to keep him on a short leash whenever he gets back. I'll give you the go ahead when I feel he's fully ready to go solo on any case. Oh, and Catherine is going to be taking your place while you're at that conference next week, so make sure you let her know well enough before hand…"

"Yeah, well, if that's all I need to go and run a few extra tests on some of that evidence." He didn't wait for an answer before leaving the room. He felt like he had just made a pact with the devil, and he wasn't particularly proud that he had been the one to suggest a psychologist. He knew Nick hated talking to complete strangers about everything he had gone through over the years; unfortunately that list just kept growing.

He smiled maliciously as he watched Nick return from a second run. He knew that the young CSI almost always got the bad end of any deal that came his way. He had learned a lot about Nick from his work file, and was glad that he had won the honor of falling victim to his dearest friend. To him the young Texan represented everything he had spent his life fighting against. You'll pay for destroying his life, you'll pay for those that took his daughter away from him… You may have gotten off easy last year, but I promised him, I swore to Walter that if his plan went awry and his victim survived I would make them pay…

To Be Continued...

Chapter 4 is on its way, I'm starting it now... I can already tell you a general summary though parts are likely to change before I'm done, some of this may actuallyend upin Chapter 5:

Nick gets the feeling that this guy he keeps seeing isstalking him, and he goes tries to talk to Warrick, but grows angry when his friends are reluctant to believe him. Grissom makes plans for leaving for his conference, and once he is gone Catherine and the team are still unable to find anything on the case until they find out where the original 911 call came from, and they are shocked to see where it leads them.