Chapter Six: The Road Ahead

The Tahoe's taillights cut through the night, eerily illuminating every bush, branch, and building lining the dark street. Warrick and Sara's scene was a little ways out of town but not quite as far as the others'. Walnut Grove Middle School was one of the more elite grade schools in the Las Vegas region, and was nestled close to a wooded area.

It was quiet inside the SUV, and Sara didn't want it be quiet, because then all she had to occupy herself with were her own scattered thoughts. Without asking permission from the driver she pushed the power button on the radio in the dash and a smooth jazz ballad filtered silkily out of the speakers. Sara turned to Warrick with a smile, her fingers poised over the tuner.

"It calms me down," he said, already tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel.

"It's elevator music," Sara responded with a small laugh. "It is calming, though," she admitted, drawing her hand back into her lap. She leaned her hand back against the headrest and stared out of her window, letting the soothing ballad work its magic on her frayed nerves.

It wasn't long, though, before the passing blurry shapes started to make her head hurt. Then Sara turned her head to stare out of the windshield, something weighing heavy on her mind. "What happened last night?" she asked tentatively. "With you and Nick?"

Warrick had seemed so edgy after the last shift she hadn't wanted to push the issue. After being part of the Fantastically Silent Four earlier on in the night she decided the issue needed to be pushed and eventually resolved. Seeing Nick give Warrick the silent treatment had brought things into sharp focus for Sara; it wasn't just her. It was a very real possibility the issue was with any of them – it was with Nick.

Warrick visibly stiffened. He brought a hand up to his face and rubbed it over his chin. "Nothing," he said after a moment.

Sara looked down at her hands and picked at her fingernails. "If you don't want to talk about it…"

"No," Warrick said. "I mean nothing happened. We didn't talk. At all." He sighed. "I thought at first it was just because he was upset over the way your guys' case worked out, you know. How Grissom had you take over – "

"You know I didn't ask him to do that, right?" There was a beat, and Sara was worried that he didn't believe her. It wouldn't be unprecedented for Warrick to side with his best friend over her. They hadn't always gotten along.

"Yeah," Warrick said finally.

It was half-hearted and he didn't expand on it, and Sara bit her lip. He obviously thought even though she hadn't done it this time, it was certainly something she was capable of.

"It wasn't that, though," he continued, shaking his head. "It's my fault," he said softly.

"What are you talking about?" Sara frowned. "How is Nick's bad attitude your fault?"

Warrick screwed up his face and lightly hit the steering when with his fist. "I haven't had the time…I haven't been there for him."

Sara was confused, but then it dawned on her. "Tina," she said.

Warrick nodded, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Sara shifted in her seat. This wasn't exactly an area in which she was an expert. "Things are different now," she said. "Nick understands that."

"Nah, Sara, I should have been making the time. Thought I was doing the right thing by giving him space." Warrick shook his head again. "Stupid."

Sara set a hand on his arm, which was remarkably tense. "It's not because of you, Warrick. Nick's got his issues, yeah, but you're not to blame for that."

Warrick looked over and gave her a small smile. "Thanks for saying, but I don't know. I just feel like this whole thing could have been avoided."

"Yeah," Sara said, nodding. "If last May had never happened. But that's not the way things work. You have to take what you're given, and do the best you can. When life hands you lemons – "

"Please, Sara," Warrick interrupted, laughing. "Pep talks are one thing, but don't be pulling these clichés out on me."

Sara laughed, too. "Sorry, I got a little into it."

Laughing felt good, and the CSIs took a moment to savor the rarity and soak up the musical tones still floating in the air before they reached the park and things became somber again.


"Can I ask?"

"Can you ask what?"

Pause.

"What's going on?"

Another pause. A long, long pause.

The radio was off. Greg absently tapped his palms on his legs in time with a beat audible only to himself. "Things just seemed…really, really…weird back in there."

Nick sighed, and didn't take his eyes off of the road outside the windshield. There was no arguing with Greg; the last few days had been really weird, due mostly to his own pitiful attitude. What had started as frustrated disappointment with his boss had evolved into a full-blown temper tantrum manifesting at inappropriate, not to mention regrettable times, and he was pushing his friends away.

His thoughts started to drift, his focus on his driving slipping away and going to wherever it was his mind wandered off to.

Sara. What was going on there? They'd always been so close; joking, laughing, even flirting back in the beginning, but now she meant more to him than the pretty new girl in the lab. She was like a sister, always there for him in her special Sara way, making him feel better. She had a spirit and an intuition he'd never encountered before, and she knew what was going on. For some reason, there was one thing she didn't know; she didn't know what being the one to run that case would have meant. And she was the second one to do that to him in the last week. His real issue was with Grissom, but good luck talking to that man. So his frustration came out at the next closest person.

Childish; that was the perfect word for the way the two of them had been acting, but it was at the core that brother-sister relationship they had. Sara was the favored smarty pants, basking in all of that coveted approval and attention. Nick was the scabby-kneed, accident-prone little brother, always getting into one scrape or another, always on the receiving end of the much less coveted disappointment of mom and dad. That shake of the head. Stay on the sidewalk. No more than two houses down so we can call you home. Stay away from bugs; you know what they do to you.

Little brother was sick of it. Big sis had fallen down in the mud and the rain and it had made his day. But the fight wasn't really a fight, wasn't really that big, but it had become something big in those few moments outside the lab. An apology, that's all it would have taken.

Catherine, his 'Mom away from Mom.' She'd meant well, he knew that. She'd just been upset and, surprise surprise, concerned. He knew he wasn't helping matters any, with all of the distance he was putting between himself and everyone else. Catherine wasn't just his surrogate mom, she was everyone's. And between him, Sara, Greg, and Warrick…that was a lot of secondhand stress coming her way. The things she'd said had been hard to hear, but Nick understood. He'd blown up at people he cared about several times, instead of saying the comforting things he meant to say. He'd opened up to her once with something he'd never told anyone, ever, surprised how easy the words had come. After that, he'd been able to tell Catherine anything. Not anymore. He didn't feel like he could tell anyone anything anymore. He just kept things to himself. And then he got defensive when they wanted to know why.

Warrick. His best friend, the best one Nick had really had since high school. Frat brothers didn't really count, and he hadn't kept in touch with any of them. But he was seeing less and less of Warrick these days. He liked Tina, he really did; but the number of times he was having to remind himself of this had him doubting the sincerity of it. Another little bit of regression on his part; his buddy's girl was taking up a lot of his free time and they didn't get to hang and be guys anymore. His X Box was starting to gather dust.

Say something. If it's bothering you, say something. Something else Nick had told himself over and over. For some reason, the link between his brain and his mouth had been severely comprised at some point, and he instead ended up saying either the wrong things or nothing at all.

The last few months had been unspeakably tense, and a wedge was slowly being driven between each of them. Who was hammering away at that wedge; that was the question. There was no doubt in Nick's mind that things were very easily rectifiable, and by him. A couple of apologies and a round of cold ones, and the laughter would resume, the sun shining upon their ranks once more.

"Um…Nick? Nick. Nick!"

Nick's eyes widened and his vision came sharply into focus. So sharply, it actually momentarily blacked out, and when things righted themselves, Nick gasped.

He'd given himself that talk only a couple of nights earlier about spacing out while he was driving, and how one day he was going to end up wrapped around a telephone pole. Nick yanked the steering wheel hard to the left in an attempt to avoid the line of trees the vehicle had been slowly drifting towards.

The tires on the right side of the SUV dipped down, sucked into the remaining mud in the ditch as they slipped in it. Greg leaned towards the center of the vehicle as the branches of the large trees closest to the road scratched along the passenger side.

Nick poured on the gas and pulled the wheel as far to the left as he could manage. Sweat gathered at his hairline and slid down his face. He gritted his teeth against the resistance put up by the mud.

The SUV righted itself back onto the road, and Nick braked when all four tires were kissing solid asphalt. He gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, refusing to look over at Greg, whose wide eyes he could feel staring at him.

"Sorry, Greg," he said quietly.

Greg shook his head, breathing a little heavily, his left hand gripping the center console. "We're fine, don't worry about it." He looked around at the dark, deserted road. "No one even saw."

Nick slowly nodded, getting his increased breathing and heart rate under control. "Greg – "

"Seriously, don't worry about it."

Nick felt a hand on his arm, and he looked over at Greg, those wide eyes now brimming with concern. Not that pity-filled concern everyone else looked at him with; this was fearful, and for good reason.

Greg shook his arm slightly. "Just…get some help. Okay?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah." He stared down at his hands, still gripping the steering wheel with a death-hold. A thought crossed his mind, and his eyes whipped back over to his friend.

Greg understood immediately, shaking his head with a small, albeit shaky, smile. "I won't tell them."

"Thanks." Nick's voice sounded hoarse to his own ears. Greg was right; he needed help.

"Now," Greg said, sitting back in his seat. "Let's get to that scene." He unbuckled and rebuckled his seatbelt, wincing slightly.

Nick felt sore as well, from jerking forward against the belt when it locked up from the forceful braking. He nodded again. "Okay." He took the truck out of park and started down the road again.

For the remainder of the drive, Nick held the steering wheel in both hands, and he could tell Greg was shooting cautious glances his way the entire time.


To be continued...