Chapter Fourteen: Rest in Pieces

Locating Warrick turned out to be more complicated than anticipated. He must not have wanted to be found, because Nick was positive the lab wasn't this big. He felt as though he'd trekked three miles at least, up and down hallways and back again, poking his head into every room, disrupting work and earning more than one glare from an annoyed colleague. No sign of Warrick.

Nick had the childish thought that Warrick was only a few steps behind him, ducking into doorways and maintenance closets when he turned around or hiding behind lab techs and other CSIs as he passed. He shook his head and had to smile. That would never happen; Warrick towered over everyone else in the lab. There was still that other thought, though, and Nick had a brief lapse into paranoia where he actually opened a supply closet door, scanning the small, predictably empty space and slamming the door shut quickly before anyone could see.

He walked briskly down the hall after that, hands stuffed in his pockets, head lowered in defeat, and collided hard with Warrick at the hallway intersection, each man rounding the corner from a different direction and paying attention to where they were walking.

Nick bounced back a few steps, hand to his forehead where he'd knocked into the top of the taller man's lowered one. Warrick blinked hard a few times and patted his short, dreaded hair.

"Damn, man," Warrick said. There was no anger, or even annoyance in his voice. It was his usual light, amused tone that had been missing of late. He even looked at Nick with something closely resembling a smile. "Hard head."

Nick pressed his fingertips lightly on what was already a developing bump on his forehead and raised his eyebrows. "Right back at ya."

That being done with, it seemed they would be doomed to slip back into their recent pattern of uncomfortable silence followed by a prolonged period of not talking. And they might have, as Warrick's eyes narrowed and shifted his gaze to what was surely a big heap of nothing over Nick's right shoulder, but Nick took a small breath, and then a smaller step to his right to regain eye contact.

"You maybe have a minute to talk?" he asked. Pathetic. You sound absolutely pathetic.

Warrick's expression was almost comical, eyes widening and mouth making a shape not quite a smile or a frown. He let out a small laugh and scratched at the back of his head. "Yeah. I, uh…yeah, I do."

Nick understood the other man's uneasiness, because he was feeling it himself. It was a strange feeling to be feeling, faced with the simple prospect of speaking with the man who wore the title of his best friend. This mutual uneasiness manifested in two lopsided grins, and Warrick gestured with the file folder in his hand.

"Just lemme run this down the hall to Hodges," he said. "Meet ya in the break room in five?"

"Yeah," Nick said, giving both a casual nod and shrug of his shoulders. "Sure."

"Aight." Warrick studied Nick, another long stare. He opened his mouth as if to say more, but closed it with a small jerk of his head and continued down the hall in the direction he'd initially been heading.

As soon as he was out of eyesight Nick brought his hand back up to his forehead and prodded the spot gently. Yep. Definitely going to have a bruise there.


He felt as though he'd been standing dumbly in the middle of the break room for nearly half an hour. It had only been four minutes, and he must have checked his watch two dozen times. He worried that standing like he was would make him appear impatient, but wasn't sure he wanted the vulnerability of sitting when the other man entered the room, open for an attack, verbal or otherwise.

He wondered if crossing his arms would make his seem nervous or defensive, and knew neither was an emotion he wanted to convey. Still, he couldn't figure out what to do with his hands, so he crossed them anyway. He wondered what the point of this was going to be, what he hoped to accomplish. Everything he had to say, everything he'd been practicing in his head for the past week, seemed to escape him. His mind was a complete blank. He felt like he was a complete blank, and had no idea what was going to happen or what he was supposed to do.

So he remained where he was, standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed in an attempt to get his damned watch out of his line of sight. Of course, there was still the wall clock, and according to the location of its hands, the predetermined meeting time had come and gone.

And Warrick was still standing alone in the break room. He sighed and wrinkled his nose. It was barely past the time he'd told Nick he would meet him, but Nick was usually a pretty punctual guy and he'd seemed eager enough to talk. After all of the silence, the unbearably long, uncomfortable silence, he just wanted it to be over. This possible end was much more appealing than the alternatives his pessimistic mind had busily been concocting. His pessimistic mind was currently picturing Nick laughing with Sara and Greg, watching Warrick sweat on some hidden camera.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Warrick gave himself a mental slap for even allowing himself to think it. It was disgusting to put Nick and hidden cameras in the same thought.

So now he was standing in the middle of the room, alone, feeling like a complete ass for a brand new set of reasons. No matter what happened, Warrick told himself that he was not giving up. He would stand there, in that room, in that spot, all night if that's what it took. He was heartsick for his friend and missed having him around, more than he thought he would. It was by some miraculously strong source of willpower and a healthy dose of frustration he hadn't run right over to Nick's house on more than one occasion. It had seemed Nick wanted it to be that way, and it wasn't worth it to fight the man.

Nick had approached him out of nowhere and asked to talk. That was progress if ever there was, the big step he'd been waiting for. Warrick was dealing with a bit of lingering resentment, no mistaking that, but even more, there was a sadness digging at him, at the thought their friendship had almost been lost.

Almost. That was the key word, and Warrick sighed as he realized the thought hadn't been put completely out of his mind yet. There was a lot of rebuilding to be done, on both sides, and this was supposed to be the first big step in that direction.

So where the hell was Nick?

Warrick started to pace the small room, having grown antsy standing still. He checked his watch again; they were starting to push ten minutes. Maybe Nick had just gotten held up with something to do with the service station case. It was completely plausible. Warrick, himself was starting to press for time. He needed to get back to Hodges. The tech had been less than thrilled when Warrick had dumped his evidence on the desk and split.

The damned little voice in his head was whispering again, telling him Nick had chickened out, that this whole thing was a joke. He was a joke, and the thought there was anything part of their friendship left worth salvaging was a joke. If Nick hadn't thought so, then he would have been there.

Another glance at his watch and Warrick saw the minutes were ticking by faster and faster, and any chance he was going to be able to keep his frustration at bay for the greater good was flying out the window. He was growing more pissed with each passing second, and just when he thought his patience couldn't be tested any longer, he heard hurried booted footsteps.

No longer unsure what to do with his hands, Warrick stopped pacing and planted them on his hips, standing firmly in the middle of the room, flush with the door. Nick breezed into the room and he was there to greet him with raised eyebrows and a harsh tone. "Five minutes?"

Nick stopped short. "Sorry, I got held up with – "

Warrick used a small wave of his hand to stop Nick once more, having heard all he needed to hear. Nick was telling the truth, not blowing him off, and it only took a few words for this relieving revelation to come to light.

"It's cool," he said, relaxing his posture.

And thus they reached the point in the conversation where the awkward silence should take its cruel, monstrous hold on them. They might have been able to get past it, to carry on some sort of meaningful conversation and even repair their flailing friendship that very evening, if not for the interruption.

"Warrick? Nick?"

They turned in unison to Catherine on the threshold.

She shrank back, correctly sensing she was interrupting something that really couldn't risk it. She tentatively held up an assignment slip. "Grissom asked if you guys would mind taking a new case."

Warrick glanced at Nick, but the other man was already nodding. "Yeah, that's cool," he said.

It was a true testament to the hesitance they were both still feeling. Warrick wanted to smack Nick upside the head, but then again, he needed a good smack himself.

Catherine's eyes ticked from Nick to Warrick, who also nodded his halfhearted agreement. She took a step into the room and held out the paper for one of them to take, raising her eyebrows as Warrick obliged.

"Got a really weird one tonight, guys," she said. "Woman was hit in a parking garage by her own car."


In retrospect, the happenings of that already eventful night could have been easily avoided if Gil would have taken the case, or given it to Catherine, Sara, Greg, or any combination of the three. If he would have given it to Warrick as a solo. If he would have kept it for himself.

But he'd thought he would be nice, helpful, and thoughtful, and all of the things people didn't normally associate with Gil Grissom. He wanted to help Nick and Warrick, so he gave them the case to work together, and hopefully it would get them talking. He knew the two of them always managed to have a good time working a case, even under the most morbid of circumstances. It was how they kept sane.

There had been no semblance of a good time to be had that night, not in the slightest.

It was nearing dawn, and Gil hadn't heard a peep from either man since they'd gone out to the parking garage. When he'd passed the A/V lab an hour earlier and seen Nick in with Archie, he hadn't stopped to check in. He knew the guys were doing fine.

The first inkling Gil had that he'd made a mistake hit him the moment Catherine came into his office. There was just a feeling that came into the room with her.

"Have you heard?" she asked, almost breathlessly.

"Heard what?"

Catherine laughed. "Do you seriously have your head in the sand or what?"

Gil's eyes widened. "Catherine, what are you talking about? What happened?"

She set her palms on the surface of his desk and leaned in, as though sharing a secret. "That case that you gave the guys?"

Gil nodded, the bad feeling in his gut growing.

Catherine took a breath. "Kelly Gordon is a suspect in the murder."

Gil's mouth dropped open and he found himself incapable of the basic function of speech. It took him a moment to recover. "What? How?"

Catherine straightened and moved aimlessly about the office, clearly upset. "Well, she was paroled sometime last week, and Nick found some kind of recording between Kelly and the victim…"

She continued to ramble rapidly, gesturing wildly with her arms, but Gil had stopped listening. Just past Catherine, outside his open office door, he could see Nick walking, or more accurately stomping, down the hall in their direction.

"Catherine," Gil said softly.

His warning fell on deaf ears, or maybe he hadn't spoken loudly enough. Catherine continued on, oblivious to Nick's approach.

"Catherine," he said louder, finally drawing her attention.

"What?" She stopped and turned to face him just as Nick approached in the doorway.

Gil's eyes moved to meet his over Catherine's shoulder.

She noticed the small movement and turned her attention to the new arrival. "Hey, Nick."

"Catherine."

That was all. Short, hollow-sounding, and not Nick. That sense that he'd made a mistake was picking up momentum, and Gil felt an unfamiliar tug in his stomach.

Gil wasn't the only one affected by the younger's man's tone. Catherine actually took a step back and lowered her head.

"I'm just going to…" she trailed off and slipped out of the room past Nick.

He stood still in the doorway, drawn up to his full height and stiff as a board.

"Nick?" Gil was hesitant to ask, hesitant to speak at all.

Nick was nearly unrecognizable, his expression a crudely sculpted mask, one that was out of place on such a typically good-natured man. He seemed to have aged five years in the last few hours. Etched into his face were lines of anguish, betrayal, and anger.

It was the last one that was scaring Gil, giving him the most cause to try again. "Is there a problem with your case?"

Nick smiled the thinnest, tightest, most unpleasant smile Gil had ever seen and he wasn't sure he would ever have thought Nick capable of it. "Like with the suspect?" he asked, voice deep and grating. He moved fully into the room and took a seat in the chair across from Gil, sitting just as rigidly as he'd stood in the doorway.

Gil swallowed. He knew there had to be more going on, because Nick had to know he would never have assigned the case to him if he'd known Kelly Gordon was going to end up a suspect. He fought to keep eye contact with Nick, and it was turning into a real struggle. There was so much fire in those brown eyes; so much more going on behind them than Gil Grissom could ever have hoped to understand.

"I heard…" He found himself unable to say the name, but Nick already knew what he was going to say, so why waste his time. "Is that a problem?"

Nick's eyes narrowed. "No. No, it's not a problem."

If that wasn't the problem then it was something else. Gil got a chill from the frigid atmosphere of the room.

"By the way, I found out about the tape." Nick's words were cold as ice; they traveled across the room in cool crystalline form and shattered upon reaching Gil's ears, which felt as though they were bleeding.

He hadn't anticipated this, and didn't have a plan. Gil didn't know what to do. He didn't have time to figure it out, either, as Nick continued.

"I did a voice comparison. Sylvia Mullins is the other voice on that tape. She's Walter Gordon's ex-business manager. So…I'm pretty sure she had something to do with my kidnapping."

If there was anything that could have made the moment more painful, it was hearing Nick say those words for the first time. There was no hesitation, no stumbling. It was pure indifference, as though it wasn't what mattered anymore.

"But now she's dead." It was all Gil could force his mouth to say. He hoped to keep Nick talking about the case and leave the conversation in a place where Nick was still speaking with him.

"Yeah."

"So…it's over."

Stupid, stupid, stupid. You stupid old man. Any chance of the conversation ending on anything resembling a positive, or even neutral light, fled the scene in the two seconds it took for Gil Grissom to make one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

Nick laughed. "Are you kidding me?"

"Nick, I – "

"You should have told me. Who didn't you?" Nick threw his arms out. "Honestly. What reason could you possibly have for – "

"To protect you." The words flew from his mouth of their own accord, and Gil finally had to break that precious eye contact before his eyes burned up in their sockets.

"That's not your job," Nick gritted out through clenched teeth. "You should have told me. About the tape, about the other speaker. I shouldn't have found this out from a computer screen."

"Nicky, I – " Gil was growing desperate, feeling so out of control that he could actually feel Nick slipping away. Nicky.

"And right after I told you," Nick said, his voice low. "Right after I came in here, sat in this chair, and told you I was going to be open with you." He sat back, a disgusted look marring his handsome features. "You were going to tell me then, weren't you? And you didn't."

"I didn't want you to find out," Gil said honestly.

"I can't keep having this same conversation with you, Grissom." Nick's voice was rising again, taking on a pitch Gil was unfamiliar with and didn't quite know what to do with.

"What conversation, Nick?" he asked, eyebrows furrowed in genuine confusion.

"My point, exactly!"

Gil tensed as the rising pressure in the room hit a breaking point.

Nick stood so fast he knocked his chair to the ground. His face was a mask of too many emotions for Gil to isolate and focus on individually. He didn't know which emotion to speak to.

"Seriously, Grissom, how the hell hard would it have been? 'Nick, I just wanted to let you know, there's another voice on the tape, and I'm trying to find out who it is.'"

Part of Gil really thought the best move on his part was to let Nick get it all out of his system. This was a small thing. A big mistake on his part, but not something that would have any long-lasting impact. He couldn't have been more wrong.

"You're just going to sit there?" Nick asked, not exactly yelling, but not speaking softly, either.

Gil's mouth fell open, but he couldn't think of a damn thing to say. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I should have told you. He could have said any of those things. Anything would have been better than the dumbfounded silence with which he was staring at Nick's face. His hurting face.

After a few moments, the mood in the room changed. The window closed, and Gil could have said anything at that point and it wouldn't have mattered because he'd waited too long. Nick's heaving chest slowly came to a rest, his shoulders fell, and his face lost that angry red color. Gil was left staring at the shell of the man he'd come to know and respect. The man that he'd seen put through, and had put through himself, so much.

"I can't…" Nick began, trailing off and looking away. He sighed, and when he spoke again, it was barely above a whisper. "I can't work like this, Gil."

Gil sat forward, frowning out of a renewed fear chilling him from the inside out. The blood in his veins froze. "Nick, what do you…?"

"I just…" Nick bit his lip.

Gil slowly rose from his chair, and when Nick looked back at him, he froze in a kind of half-standing, half-sitting position.

"A week, Grissom," Nick said softly. "I just can't do this anymore." Nick waited there, in the middle of the dim, now silent office, before he turned and left without another word.

Gil was left alone, half-standing, half-sitting, trying to make sense of the fact Nick had just put in his weeks' notice. And it could have been so easily avoided, if he'd just kept the damned case for himself.


To be continued...