Author: ShadesOfNick
Title: Touched By Gravity
Genre: Angst (Series)
Characters: Nick and Sara. Whole team although light on Greg.
Spoilers: None for future episodes, but a few references to past seasons.
Note: My fanfic chapters are normally longer than this, but I wanted to get a feel for what readers in this particular community wanted in terms of length. So I'm starting off on the short side-at least for me. My normal fanfic chapters run about 3000 or 4000 words and this one is only 1100. So just the very opening here.
Summary: Nick's investigation of a case is abruptly interrupted. It may take a little teamwork to solve the case with him out of commission-or is he really? Just might he still be able to provide an essential connection to the truth?
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Touched By Gravity I
"Down here?" Nick asked gesturing to the door that stood half open out into the kitchen of the house he had arrived at only seconds before.
"Yep. No lights down there. We're working on getting something besides flashlights to light it up," the uniformed officer called over to him from the hallway.
"No lights. That's just…great," Nick commented in a disappointed mumble.
"What'd ya say?" the officer inquired back loudly.
"Nothing. Just…thinking out loud."
"Oh." Nick heard from a few feet off behind his back. He didn't offer anything additional. Instead he walked to where the door was partially open and then stood in the frame of the doorway, just on the threshold between the kitchen and landing that led downstairs. The early morning sunlight that flooded the upper level of the house faintly crept across only the two top steps. The rest was a visual void. As he retrieved his flashlight from his pocket Nick silently wondered why it always had to be somewhere dark and underground. Why couldn't these criminals ever leave a body upstairs in a well lit area? Nope it always had to be a basement or a well or a bunker fifty feet underground. Only the bold ones weren't desperate to hide the wrong they had done. At that instant Nick formed a new found albeit strange appreciation for being assigned one of those rare cases.
The tiny tremor that seized his hand as he turned on the light took him by surprise. It had been a long time since the last time. The thread of hope that he was beginning to move on from that day, that day in hell, frayed a little as he shone the beam of the flashlight on the dirty wood staircase below his feet. As he slowly descended into the shadows he glanced back over his shoulder once, checking to make sure the door in fact was still open. Confirming that it was he turned his head facing forward again and his eyes focused back on the surroundings that the glow from his flashlight had illuminated. He stepped down one more stair and the light found her. Nick stopped and scanned the scene, lighting each piece of the puzzle a fraction at a time. The DB was a female teenager, maybe sixteen, dressed in grey sweatpants and a pale blue and very oversized t-shirt. She was lying on her right side, facing the staircase. The nearest object to her still form was a white plastic laundry basket, which was also rested on its side. Its apparent former contents were sprinkled around the section of floor to the right of her body. Directing the beam of the flashlight deeper into the basement Nick noted the washer and dryer in the far northeast corner.
Certainly at first glance most people would think this poor girl had been headed down the stairs to go do laundry and had taken a lethal fall. Funny how gravity kept people alive, grounded them, but also could so easily contribute to their demise.
And it could have very well been what happened, but he wouldn't know until the evidence recited the tale to him. After skimming the rest of the basement he moved again, descending the final three stairs. Setting down the kit he had grasped in his right hand he squatted to visually examine the body, this girl not even out of high school who had been robbed of any tomorrow. He stared at her for a motionless moment, trying to recall a detail from a few minutes earlier. Had there been a parent, a relative, a friend, anyone outside with the officers there? A second nature to study faces had been engrained into him by this job long ago. Upon arriving at a scene he always did his best to mentally log the images of the people's faces on scene. He came up empty handed this time. There had been no one out there for this young girl. That would be on the top of the list of questions. It struck Nick as odd. In particular, who had found and reported the body?
The sharp ring of his cell broke his intent visual lock on the girl's face. Retrieving it and putting it to his ear he continued to pan the flashlight beam across the length of the basement.
"Stokes."
"Nick. Solved the case yet?" Sara's voice asked teasingly.
"Not yet but I'm working on it. Don't you worry."
"Come on now Nick. You've been out there what ten or fifteen minutes now, right? What's taking you so long?" she replied, a enormous grin in her tone.
"Well why don't you come on out here and we'll see who can figure it out first?"
"I'd be more than happy to come on out there and show you how it's done, but I have forty beer bottles to dust for prints."
"Whoa forty! Somebody's got one hell of a hangover."
"Not anymore. At least not the party's host, Mr. Cabran. He's sleepin' it off permanently."
"I guess that's one way to avoid a hangover. Wouldn't be my first choice but to each their own."
"It wasn't his choice either. Somebody chose for him. Soon as I'm done with this stuff for Grissom I'll be out, okay?"
"Well you know if it's gonna take you more than a couple minutes don't bother. I'll have everything wrapped up here and it'll be too late for you to come 'show me how it's done', that was how you put it right?" he responded, letting the smile on his face seep into his voice.
"Aw! Isn't that sweet you were listening. Nice try. Better hurry up and solve the case before I get out there because your charm won't keep you from eating my dust."
"In your dreams."
"Uh Nick. I think you have that backwards."
"No ma'am I don't believe I do."
"Tick tock Nick. Tick tock. Time is awastin'."
Nick let out a faint chuckle into the phone before responding.
"I'll be here."
"And so will I in a few," Sara replied and hung up, cutting off the end of her slight laugh at him. Nick flipped the phone closed and returned it to his pocket. The smile lingered on his face. Somewhere along the line going to work had become like going home to your family. And Nick's family at work never failed to take the opportunity to tease him or challenge him. They also never let him forget there was a reason for that. Simply that he was family.
To Be Continued…