Title: Namesake
Author: Ann Harding
Spoilers: Grave Danger, Bodies in Motion, mentions of Primum Non Nocere
Warnings: AU. CHARACTER DEATH.
Namesake
Ten years after Grave Danger, Warrick has a talk with his young son.
Warnings (AU) Character death off-screen. You'll figure it out whom soon enough.
"Dad, can ask you something?"
Warrick looked up from the paper he was reading to his eight-year-old son. "Sure," he replied with a grin. He was glad for the distraction. Reading about Mayor Rory Atwater always made his blood boil. Even if he no longer worked for the Crime Lab, Warrick still remembered everything that man had put Grissom and the rest of them through. And then was the way he handled himself during and after the Walter Gordon case. "What is it?"
The child shifted from foot to foot. Something was clearly bothering him, but Warrick couldn't figure what that might be. So far as he knew there were no problems in school. Maybe it was fight with one of his friends.
"I need some help with my homework," the young boy began. "We are suppose to ask our parents how we got our names. I asked Mom about mine, but she told me to ask you."
"She did, huh?" Warrick exhaled. He shouldn't be surprised that his wife would tell their son to talk to him. After all, Tina had never even met their child's namesake. Warrick liked to keep his private and work lives separate – particularly when he had been working at the Crime Lab. He had planned on introducing Tina some of his coworkers, but for a variety of reasons, it just didn't happen until after that night. So he was really the only one who could answer any of the boy's questions. He put down the paper and nodded. "Come here," he said patting the couch seat next to him and waited until the boy had sat.
Warrick wasn't sure were to begin so he decided to start with what he had already told the boy. "You know how before I got my job at the casino, I used to work with the cops, right?"
The child nodded. He looked slightly confused – most likely wondering why his dad was talking about a job he had left before he was even born.
"You were a CIS…or something."
Warrick smiled. "A CSI," he corrected. "And you've met some the people I used to work with…like Sara and Greg."
Again, the child nodded. "And that strange guy…Mr. Gris… Mr. Gris…"
Again Warrick nodded. "Mr. Grissom," he finished. He wondered what his former boss would think of that description. "Well, there was another guy I use to work with in addition to Greg, Sara and Grissom. This guy and me well…worked together a lot. And over time he was sort of like the brother I never had." He gave his son a small wry smile. "Can you guess what his name was?"
Dark brown eyes studied him for several seconds. "Nick?", he finally guessed.
Warrick smiled. "You got it, bucko. His name was Nick. Just like yours."
Nicky Brown cocked his head to one side. "What happened to him, Dad?" he asked. "And why don't you work with the cops anymore?"
Warrick sighed. Even now after all these years it hurt to think about what happened to Nick Stokes. The memories of the day were burned into his mind. The hours they had spent frantically searching for any hint of where Nick was. Hours without any hint other then a sadistic feed that showed Nick's slow and steady deterioration. The ransom drop – Warrick never figured where Grissom got the money for it – that had been a bust. No one ever showed up to collect the money. And then Nick's time had run out. Watching his friend suffocate in living color via that sadistic video feed was something that still gave Warrick nightmares every May 19th.
After that they began coming through old cases…looking for anything that might give them hint as to who would have wanted to kidnap Nick. There was no need to rush, but everyone at the lab wanted to find Nick and bring him home. They couldn't imagine leaving him wherever his abductor had buried him. And then they came across the Kelly Gordon file. The pieces fit but most intriguing was that Kelly had once worked at a nursery – one that was with in Archie's radius. And what they discovered there was another thing that gave Warrick nightmares on occasion.
"…ad. Dad."
Warrick started, shaking his head to rid himself of the nightmarish images. "Yeah Nicky?" he said.
"What happened to him?" Something seemed occur to the boy.
Warrick thought for a few more seconds and tried to find the right way to tell his young child what had happened to his long ago best friend. Death was never easy to explain to a child, never mind murder. Particularly one with where motive was as complicated as Walter Gordon's. Even Warrick had trouble fully understanding what drove the older man. The fact that they had been able to connect and the dots and convict Gordon for the crime had done nothing to bring any sort of closure nor did it ease Warrick's guilt over having failed his friend so badly.
"You remember what happened to Grandma Brown?" Warrick asked. His grandmother used to baby-sit the young Nicky when Tina's shift at the hospital overlapped the time that Warrick was working at the bar, playing the music that at one time had been the only thing that kept Warrick sane. Her death the year before had been very hard on the six-year-old child.
Nicky nodded. "She died and went to heaven where she is watching over me."
"Well, that's where he is…he's up in heaven."
Nicky seemed to consider that. "Is he watching out for you?" he asked after a few seconds.
Now there was something Warrick had never considered. He had told the young Nicky that his great grandma was watching over him because that was what his grandmother had told Warrick when his mother died. The thought had provided the young Warrick with a small amount of comfort and made him feel less alone in the world. But as an adult, Warrick never really thought about it much.
However, it would be just like Nick Stokes to look out for his friends…even if he had to do it from the great beyond. "You know, " he said with a laugh. "I wouldn't be surprised if he were. He was that sort of guy." He smiled at the image of a guardian angel an "aw shucks" grin and a Texan drawl.
"All right," a voice said from the kitchen. "Time for someone to go to bed."
"Aw…mom." Nicky complained even as he moved towards the stairs.
"Go up and brush your teeth, get into you pjs and then you can come back down to say good night." Tina instructed – even though Nicky's nightly routine was always the same.
The boy let out a dramatic sigh but did as he was told.
Tina crossed the room and sat next to him. "You all right?" she asked softly.
Warrick nodded. "Yeah," he said. But when she looked at him he sighed. "No I'm not," he conceded, "but I will be."
He got up and walked over to one of photo albums on the bookshelf. He opened one of the books and flipped through stopping at the last page and pulled out a few pictures. He looked at one of the photos in particular. It was a print out of a digital picture that had been taken night he, Nick and Sara had gone out to celebrate Nick's promotion – even if it hadn't gone through for financial reasons. Nick was in between Warrick and Sara all three of them were smiling for the camera. Those had been the good days…back before Conrad Ecklie had spilt up the team. And before Walter Gordon had set the trap to catch some random CSI and by sheer random chance had caught and killed Nick Stokes.
He took the photo in his hands and walked back to the couch. When Nicky came back down for his good night hugs then Warrick would ready with his son's bedtime story. Only instead of reading him one, Warrick figured he would tell him one. He had the prefect story, the time that he and Nick had competing theories as to how a man had ended up in the back seat of his car at the bottom of a ravine. And that was just one of many good stories he could tell his son about his namesake.
End.
Just to clarify – in this universe not only did Walter Gordon not show up for the ransom drop – he did not leave Nick the gun. So Nick was not able to shoot out the light – an action that not only gave him more time, but let the ants in the coffin and helped lead the team to where he was buried.