An Unfair Act of Vengeance

Notes: Hope you enjoyed the last chapter, and thanks for all the reviews!

Summary: Greg finds Nick's family, and is forced to tell them what has happened to their son. Nick goes through the evaluation and Warrick goes with him, but Nick can't seem to focusthen he starts tofeel likehe recognizes the doctor. Catherine and Sara struggle with Ecklie to keep some involvement with the case.

Greg walked along the beach, entirely aware of the fact that he was the only person around wearing a lot of clothing. His plane had landed a few hours ago, but he had had to do a lot of searching before he found the beach house the Stokes family was staying at. He saw the large three story house pop out of some trees, and walked towards the picnic table where he could distantly see figures gathering to eat an early lunch.

"So, anyone want to try explaining to me why Nick isn't here again?" Greg overheard one of Nick's sisters ask.

"Because he is overly devoted to that job of his…" mumbled one the of several men gathered at the table, it must've been Nick's older brother, he certainly looked like an older 'version' of Nick… Tears welled once more in his already puffy, red eyes. The people sitting around the table continued to laugh and joke around as Greg slowly walked closer. He didn't know how he could break the news to these people. Something about them seemed so genuine, they all reminded him of Nick…

Judge William Stokes glanced up, and didn't notice the man watching them at first, but when he looked up again he furrowed his brow. He had never seen anyone wearing pants and a long sleeved shirt on this beach before, especially not someone his age. Something about him looked familiar, but he couldn't place the guy yet. He kept slowly walking closer and soon his wife and kids had caught the look on his face, and they too had turned to look at the strange man.

Greg could see that they were all staring at him, and as he walked even closer he began to feel his hands shake violently at his sides. He had briefly met Nick's parents, but he had never met his older siblings, let alone their spouses. He began to feel sick, and his legs started to wobble as he looked at how happy they were… and as he thought of how devastated they would soon be…

Judge Stokes was the first to leave the table and walk up to the strange man, but as he walked up to him he could see the tears in the stranger's eyes, and his shaking arms and legs. He grabbed the stranger's arm, and tried to lead him to an open chair by the table, but Greg shook his head…

"Who are you anyway?"

"I-I'm Greg S-Sanders… I work with…"

"Nick…" Nick's father finished for him. Something had happened to his son, and his colleague had traveled this far just to tell them. Of course the phones in the house weren't working, he swore, he should have gotten them fixed as soon as they got there…

"What, what happened to him? What happened to my son?" he tried to keep his voice down, but everyone at the table heard him, and the laughing instantly stopped as they exchanged worried glances, waiting for Greg to answer.

"He w-was stabbed a week ago, and the guy came back, held him at g-g-gunpoint before taping him up, and…" he fell to his knees, no longer able to hold back the wave of tears. He looked up, and saw Nick's mother standing over a broken plate, unable to stop trembling, tears filled her eyes. He took in the others' reactions, and tried hard to be strong as he saw Nick's sisters begin to tear up. Nick's brother looked furious that someone had dared to do that to his little brother.

Judge Stokes quickly helped Greg into a chair, before he started calling out directions to his family, "you girls go get your kids ready, guys go pack now, and take care of Jillian for me, we need to keep it together, we're going to the airport as soon as we can!" He refocused on Greg, and firmly held onto the young man's shoulders.

"How is Nick? Do you know where he is?"

"H-he's in the hospital. W-we're doing our best to help him, but the DA is wanting someone to pin this all on, and the evidence all points t-t-to Nick…"

"How in the hell can it all be pointing to Nick?" the Judge exclaimed loudly.

"Because, he was forced to do everything that he did at gunpoint…" Greg tried to stop crying, but he couldn't; his hand fumbled inside his pocket for a moment before he pulled out a large bunch of airline tickets. "I g-got enough f-for all of you guys… There's a d-dozen tickets there…"

"How are you getting back?"

"I'm not… I'm flying to New York to find G-Grissom… to tell him w-what's going on."

Judge Stokes looked down gratefully at the already purchased tickets, "Thank you so much… not for just the tickets, but for being s-such a good friend to my s-s-son."

"It's nothing…" Greg barely managed to spit out as he finally began to fight off some tears successfully without seeing all of Nick's family at once.

"No, it's everything, not many people would put everything aside and not only fly to another city, but would actually seek out his friend's family to tell them something like this…"

Warrick uneasily wheeled Nick out into the hallway. He had placed his friend's forensics hat low over his head to stop him from seeing too many people staring at him with pity. Nick had laughed when Warrick had given him the hat, and had been enthusiastic about it, but he had been less thrilled to hear that this damn evaluation had been pushed forward to today.

Soon they were sitting inside a large, open room that held essentially no furniture except a desk and several chairs. As Warrick sat himself down in the foldout chair he smiled.

"Man, why do you get the only comfy chair in this place?" Warrick asked Nick.

"I guess the nurses really like me a lot, bro." Nick smiled warily at his friend. He grabbed his best friend's hand for a brief moment, "Thanks for coming Warrick, I don't think I could face this alone…"

"Sure you could, but I wouldn't want you to be arrested for assault if this guy doesn't play nice. After all, Ecklie did choose him…"

Both fell quiet as a tall, muscular man entered the room, and flashed a quick smile before introducing himself as Dr. Carl Alberts. He sighed as he sat down, it would be difficult to vary his voice just enough so that it didn't fully give him away to the Texan CSI.

Catherine and Sara walked into the lab, and began to reexamine all the evidence they had collected so far. They were only at it for a few minutes before Ecklie stormed in.

"What the hell are you doing? I told you both that you were off his case!"

"We're not working Nick's case, we're still working on who killed Officer Dayton and the other unidentified victim. And it just so happens that Nick was stabbed with the same weapon, so it looks like we'll be doing a lot of collaborating on these two cases." Catherine refused the urge to smile, and was glad she hadn't when Ecklie stormed off, already mad.

"Let's get started shall we; this could take a while."

The questions came quickly, and Nick barely had time to think them over, he started with simple questions like his name, where he was from, his parent's names and so on. Next came questions about what had happened over the previous few weeks, and then he began to ask questions about Nick's previous cases. He answered as best as he could, until he reached one certain case…

"How did you react when you discovered that a boy had been killed in Dr. Sapien's home during a therapy session?"

"I… uh… I g-guess I was mad…"

"Why weren't any disciplinary actions taken when you began to 'work solo' on this case, apparently cutting out Ms. Willows?"

"I explained why I was mad, and promised to do better… so she let me off the hook."

"And, why exactly did you get mad?"

"You're supposed to be able to trust some people, the kid should've been able to trust her, and she should have lost her license well before that case anyhow."

"Because she had 'inappropriate relations' with a different underage patient?"

"Yeah…"

"So, back to why you were mad, perhaps you just felt sorry for him, but I think there is something deeper than that, am I right?"

"Yeah…" Nick sighed, he suddenly wished Warrick wasn't there anymore…

"Why were you mad Nick?"

"I, I was nine years old for God's sake, my parents hired some damn last minute babysitter…" He stopped speaking, his eyes looked down at his shoes uncomfortably as Warrick sat next to him, completely stunned.

"And, you felt ashamed so you didn't tell anyone did you?" Oh this was going to be extremely useful for the future stages of his plan… This was undoubtedly a major point of shame in the young CSI's life…

"No… Catherine is the only other person that knows…"

"I see… Well, we'll probably come back to this a little later, I have some more questions about cases for you…" Then he readily began to fire off more questions, and Nick began to have a harder time answering them all, his thoughts were starting to get mixed up, and he was so tired…

"How did you react when Walter Gordon abducted you?"

"I… I was scared I guess…"

"Did you fight back?"

"I struggled, but the man had me drugged within moments, there wasn't a whole lot that I could do…"

"Mm hmm. And, did you ever try to take your own life once you were buried alive or after you were rescued?"

"O-once, right before they f-found me."

"Okay, tell me about Cassie McBride."

"Her family was killed, she was left for dead, we found her… end of story." Nick knew his tone was harsh enough that the other man would never believe that was all.

"So you didn't get too rough with a suspect?"

"Ok, so I put him up against a wall, nothing else happened."

"Maybe not at the time, but, I am starting to see some routine behavior here." With this sentence he purposely didn't alter his voice as much. Nick's eyes narrowed as he began to study his psychologist's face… now that he thought about it the man looked awfully familiar.

"What do you mean?" Nick asked, forcing himself to stay calm.

"Well, you hide things from others that you think will make them judge you. You get mad, and violent with people who affect you on the job in a personal way… and I have the feeling that you're not telling me everything already…"

"What exactly does this have to do with what's going on right now?" Nick demanded.

"Come on Mr. Stokes, you've got to realize how the evidence looks. You've attempted suicide before, so it isn't unthinkable that you'd try it again by stabbing yourself. Then you drugged Ms. Willows, a person, that you've apparently confided in more than anyone else, and then you tape yourself up, and put yourself into a new grave… None of these events are all that shocking when one takes a close look at your past."

"How dare you? You have no right to accuse me of those things! I've already told you about the man with-"

"Yes, yes I know, the man with the gun… Well, I think that about wraps this up gentlemen, I'll be delivering my report to Mr. Ecklie first, but I'll leave a copy with Ms. Willows, so she can go over it with you… I feel results are best received when they come from a close friend…"

Nick was looking back down at his feet. This hadn't gone well at all, and he tried desperately to hide the look of disappointment on his face.

"Goodbye gentlemen." This time he had said it with his normal, deeper voice, a voice that the other man recognized at once. He was out the door in an instant and he saw Ecklie waiting for him.

"Look, Nick, I'm sure this turned out fine man." Warrick tried to comfort his friend who was clearly scared.

"I'm sorry Warrick, I'm so sorry…"

"What the hell are you apologizing for?"

"That's him, I know him… He's the guy, the one who's been following me around, and that voice… that's the same voice of the guy that held me at g-gunpoint…" Tears filled his eyes as he looked to his friend for support, but Warrick was shocked. If Nick was right then that meant this guy had just been toying with his best friend for the past three hours… and if that was the case then that asshole would have a lot of explaining to do…

To Be Continued…

Next Chapter: Warrick looks into Dr. Alberts' past whereabouts, but discovers that he was at the institution he works for everyday for the past four weeks. Warrick begins to doubt what the evidence says. Nick is confronted by Dr. Alberts, Ecklie, and the DA, and refuses their 'deal'. He soon finds himself on the other side of the law, and doesn't know who to turn to for help… Meanwhile, his family shows up, and they are enraged when no one can tell them where Nick is. Greg gets to New York and looks for Grissom.