Chapter Seventeen: Tiny Voices

It just now hit me this is more than just a setback

And when you spelled it out, well I guess I didn't get that

And every trace of momentum is gone

And this isn't turning out the way I want

And after all of my alibis desert me

I just want to get by; I don't want nothing to hurt me

I had no idea where my head was at

But if my heart says I'm sorry, can we leave it at that?

For the first time, Gil was very aware of how quiet his office was, and the noise he heard in the silence was unbearable. A room he so often sought for a moment to himself, a moment to think, and here now that room was too quiet.

He heard every scratch and scritch from across the room, from the shelf of terrariums. He heard the low purr of the ventilation system over his head. He heard the electrical buzz in the bulb of the lamp on his desk. And the worst of it: his own nonstop thoughts, the loudest and clearest of all.

"What does Nick Stokes mean to you?"

Over and over again. Not just Walter Gordon's voice; his own, and Warrick's, Catherine's, Sara's. No matter how many times he heard the words, they were never easy to hear.

The first time he'd been asked that question, he hadn't answered. He had a perfectly plausible reason in facing down a madman mere moments from his own self-inflicted demise only trying to unhinge him, but after so many months had passed the fact still remained that he hadn't answered. Answering that question would have made him appear weak, maybe. Vulnerable. More defenseless than he was already. Because letting your feelings show was opening the door for an attack. Not to mention, wildly unprofessional.

And so here he sat, an old man well-trained in keeping his emotions buried deep enough to keep up the cool exterior at all necessary times. Which was all the time. The one thing he needed now was to focus on those emotions. To focus on what he felt and thought, and he had to find a way to communicate these things to someone who probably didn't give a damn to hear it.

Warrick, the man with the plan, said otherwise, said all it would take was Gil to open up. Said Nick quitting was nothing but a plea for attention.

Impossible situation, easy solution. Except it wasn't so easy. Gil had the answers; he always had an answer for everything. More often than not, however, words failed him, and he let opportunities pass him by. He let moments pass him by, moments he could never get back.

It wasn't nearly as easy as Warrick made it out to be. Nick wasn't a child throwing a temper tantrum because he didn't get a snack after naptime. He was a grown man, hurting, and looking for a way out of that pain. Every turn Gil took seemed to be the wrong one, leading him to another dead end.

Keeping the tape from Nick had been an easy decision, whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not. He hadn't really even thought there was another option. He'd received the tape, taken it to Archie, and that was it. Nick had seemed to be moving on, barreling back into his work at full steam, and Gil hadn't wanted anything to stunt his recovery and return to full-time work in the lab. It had seemed like a good plan at the time, and a thoughtful one, at that.

And that was the brick wall he'd come crashing into. It hadn't been a good plan. Turned out, Nick would have wanted to know.

"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'."

It wouldn't have been so hard. And in retrospect, plenty of retrospect, Nick had deserved to know as soon as Gil had the tape in his hands. Another moment passed and gone and not available to do over. There was no point in dwelling any longer, because that wasn't going to help the situation.

Gil looked out into the hallway, ears perked for the low drone of voices but in their old age, they couldn't isolate any individual comments. He glanced around the lonely confines of his office and let out a small sigh. All the times he'd been shut up here, thinking of the constant interruptions from his team and the others in the lab as mere annoyances, and now he found himself actually hoping someone would come in. He'd even left the door open. If David Hodges walked into the room at that moment, he might even let the man stay for longer than a minute and a half before asking him to leave. And even then, he might ask nicely.

In the air of the hallways was a hum of gossip, rumors, and random bits of truth. They were all blaming him, and hell, they had a valid reason. It was his foul, and now he had to fix it. Gil looked down at the coffee cup in front of him, and for the first time in a good long while, longed for it to be filled with a fragrant, oaky red wine as opposed to the brown sewage the lab provided and called coffee.

"What does Nick Stokes mean to you?"

If he knew the answer to that, then they wouldn't be in this boat. If Gil could just figure it out and find a way to communicate it to the younger man, things would be working out differently. For one, people wouldn't be looking at him like he ran over their dog.

"You're wrong, Grissom. You're so wrong. Anything you say to him is going to change his mind. Tell him what he means to us, but more than that, what he means to you."

Those were the words to finally kick his uselessly intellectual brain into gear.

"You haven't been around him nearly as much lately."

Warrick's words in Catherine's voice. Her perpetually scolding tone. Gil frowned as his mind rearranged and recalled the happenings of the past few weeks, working through them at warp-speed, and came to a crashing stop where it all started. That damned B and E.

"He wants more than the solo, Gil."

It hadn't been about the solo at all; it had always been about showing Nick what he meant to him. As a CSI, as a friend, as whatever, it all came back to what Nick meant to him. Now he had to figure out how to do that.

It was Catherine who predictably seemed to have all the answers.

"You know what I've noticed."

Gil still refused to look up at her. "That we're at a crime scene and should be focusing all of our attention on collecting evidence?"

Catherine rolled her eyes. To pacify him, she grabbed the mini-flashlight out of her kit and started walking the perimeter of the space. "I've noticed you haven't been working a whole lot of scenes with Nick lately."

Gil shot an irritated look her way and she raised her hands defensively. "I'm just saying."

Gil shook his head. That was Cath, all right, always just saying.

Just saying the right thing to annoy him, and just saying the things that, if he ever chose to listen to her in the first place, would have provided some of the answers for him. Instead he dismissed her comments as they came, doomed to mull over them at a later date.

Gil pursed his lips, glancing over the night's assignments. It Nick didn't fight him on it too bad, he might just have a way to get them through this, and part ways Friday night as the same team they'd always been.


Nick sighed, idling wishing to be a piece of furniture. Not something as important or noticeable as the couch, but perhaps a table. And now that he was thinking about it, maybe just one leg of a table, that way no one in the room would be paying any attention to him, and he wouldn't be struggling to hide the whirlwind of emotions threatening to split his chest in two. He stared pointedly at a spot on the linoleum floor, avoiding the eyes watching him, the voices chattering at him.

He thought he'd gotten through to them, but Catherine and Sara were driving him completely insane. Nick had been careful to be the first person in the break room that night so everyone could sit where they pleased without all of the uncomfortable, unnecessary worry about where he was going to sit and what it meant. He'd sat at the table, staring at his hands until the others began to arrive. The women strategically and very quickly plopped on either side of him before Warrick or Greg had the chance to run interference, and he was now being subjected to one of the most pathetic attempts at a guilt trip he'd ever had the misfortune to be party to.

"You know," Catherine was saying, speaking slowly as though calculating her words and his possible responses before he even had a chance to think about one himself. "They're going to have to find someone to take your place on the shift."

Nick didn't trust himself enough to respond, not with the cornucopia of emotions he was wrestling with. He wasn't sure which would be the first to fight its way to the surface. He bit his lip and nodded.

Sara raised her eyebrows, joining in the festivities. "Who do you think it's going to be?" she asked Catherine.

"Ecklie might bump Steve Meyers from Days," Catherine said with pointed unhappiness, as though she knew what she was talking about.

Sara made a small disgusted sound. "That's no good."

Catherine shook her head. "No, it's not." She turned her wide eyes back to Nick. "He'll never be able to replace you, you know."

"You know?" "You KNOW?" "YOU know?"

Guilt tripping 101; trying to get a response out of him, preferably that would make the other person feel better regardless of your own feelings. Yes, he knew. She didn't need to say it again and again and again.

Nick squinted at his special spot on the floor, allowing himself only another small nod. But as far as he 'you know'ed, no one was talking about replacing him, not yet anyway. They were simply switching tactics. This very special guilt trip was a result of the fact they'd very gotten the message that yelling at him wasn't going to get anything done. Despite his best efforts to remain unaffected, they were slowly starting to break him down. Steve Meyers was an absolute moron, and Nick marveled at the fact the man still had a job in the department and it would over his dead body, or in this instance relocated one, that he would take his spot on Graveyard.

Nick frowned and pretended the spot on the floor said something interesting. His desire to transform into an inanimate object intensified as he tried not to fidget in his seat, and the others continued.

"No matter who it is, things just aren't going to be the same around here without you."

You know? Nick added in his head.

Sara, sidekick cape and tights firmly in place, again nodded her agreement and shot a big puppy-dog-eyed pout at Nick, which he saw out of the corner of his eye. "We're really going to miss you, you know," she said.

Nick thought for second his head might really finally explode. He didn't even nod, just closed his eyes and brought his hands up to rub his throbbing temples.

"Would you two please give it a rest already?"

Oh, so Warrick was in the room. He'd been so quiet until now, no one had really noticed him. Lucky.

It worked. Greg gave a muffled snort from somewhere behind Nick and Catherine and Sara's escapade was cut short. Catherine crossed her arms and sat back in her chair, squinting at Warrick. Sara only huffed lightly.

Nick looked up for the first time in twenty minutes to shoot a grateful look his friend's way, and Warrick nodded.

He could only look up for so long, thought, and resumed staring at that speck on the linoleum lest anyone think he was willing to talk, because he really wasn't. It was hard enough to think about what was happening, and the reality of the situation was, he didn't know. He didn't know what he was doing or how he was feeling about it. It would be so much easier to make it through the remainder of the week with blinders firmly in place. The blinders weren't working as well as advertised, though, because Nick didn't have to be looking at Warrick to know that his friend was still looking at him.

He'd slipped up. The other night, outside the lab with nothing but the two of them and the football, he'd slipped up, let his resolve fade and his weakness show, and given Warrick a window.

Nick glanced up in spite of himself and saw the look in Grissom's eyes as the man entered the room. He knew instantly that Warrick had already set a plan in motion and involved the supervisor. God help us all.


When Gil entered the break room, armed with assignment slips and a strategy, he couldn't help but notice the seating arrangement of his team.

Warrick leaned against the wall opposite him, attempting a casual pose but Gil felt tension radiating from the man. He was keeping a watchful, though not at all discrete, eye on Nick, as well as giving Catherine and Sara a disapproving glare. Greg perched on an arm of the couch, even though it was unoccupied and he could have sat on the cushions if he wanted. Being as it was Greg, Gil didn't give it too much thought. He just figured Greg, like Warrick, was trying a little too hard to appear casual, staying in neutral territory.

Nick, Sara, and Catherine were seated at the table in the middle of the room, the hostile area, the women flanking Nick on either side, and Nick looking absolutely miserable. He raised his eyes as Gil entered the room, and although there was still visibly lingering resentment there, there was also a small bit of pleading. Get me away from them, Gris, his wide brown eyes seemed to implore.

It was a moment from months, maybe years, ago. A moment Gil had been unceremoniously dropped into, but he understood his role. He would chuckle at the look, eliciting some sort of attention to Nick's expression from Cath or Sara, and Sara would huff and give him a playful shove, and they would all share a small, easy laugh. Gil almost quirked a smile, both from the thought and the look, but it went unnoticed; Nick quickly averted his eyes, ducking his head back down. The rest of the group remained just as quiet.

Might as well get down to business. Gil cleared his throat. "Sara, I have something small for you. Suspicious circs."

Sara's right eye twitched but she nodded. "Okay."

One down. "I've got arson at a warehouse downtown," Gil continued, perhaps a bit too loudly. "It's gonna take a few more bodies."

Quick glance around the room, like you don't have this planned out. "Warrick, Catherine, why don't you guys take Greg with you on this one. I'm not sure he's worked an arson." It almost sounded natural.

It was good enough for Warrick, who grinned widely and moved to take the assignment slip from Gil.

"You bet," he said, giving Gil a light punch to the arm as he passed him in the doorway, causing him to take a stumbling step back.

Catherine laughed as she rose to join Warrick, looking equally pleased with Gil's decision. "What was that?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Gil said slowly.

Catherine and Greg moved out to catch up with Warrick's quick steps, Sara joining them, and then it was show time.

Somehow, Nick had managed not to look up since his initial reaction to Gil's entry into the room.

"Solo, huh?" he asked, his head down. Gil had a feeling there was more he wanted to say, but Nick bit his lip.

"No."

Nick's head snapped up, and he looked at Gil with eyes screwed up in confusion and, dare he hope, relief. It vanished quickly, replaced with a scowl. It seemed Nick was getting extremely good at manipulating his face to expose the emotions he wanted, and to hide the ones he didn't.

"You don't need to check up on me," Nick said. There was a brief pause. "You know?"

"I know," Gil said, keeping his voice soft and steady. Things weren't exactly off to the great start he'd been hoping for.

He took a few steps forward and set the paper on the table in front of Nick. "Homicide in the North Carefree housing edition. We'll leave in five."

Nick read the paper, made a sound Gil assumed was a resigned sigh, and made a movement he guessed was a nod. "I'll drive."

Take what you can get. "Okay."

Nick made another bobbing gesture with his head. "Okay."


"That worked out pretty conveniently, didn't it?"

Warrick shot a look at Catherine as he hopped up into the driver's seat and pretended not to know what she was talking about. "What do you mean?"

Catherine climbed into her own seat and gave him a knowing smile. "Come off it. You know what I mean."

Warrick fought to suppress his grin. It was way too early to start getting excited. "We'll see," he said, buckling his seatbelt and giving Catherine a wink.

"Did I miss something?"

Warrick glanced at Greg in the rearview mirror. "Always, Greggo." He took the truck out of park. "Just sit back and enjoy the ride."

Catherine let out a breath and patted Warrick's hand absently. "It'll work out," she said in a tiny voice, and Warrick wasn't sure if she was speaking to him or simply reassuring herself. "It'll work out."


If Gil had thought his office to be quiet, it was nothing compared to the car ride to the scene.

Nick was silent, driving just as he'd wanted, white-knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel firmly at the perfect two and ten o'clock positions, a true testament to the stress he was under. His arms were straight and stiff, and Gil swore if he held his own posture that tightly he would be stuck that way for a good long while. His back ached from just looking at Nick, and he hated that he was the reason for all of that stress, or was in the very least contributing to it.

The tinny voice coming out of the radio sounded like an older and vaguely familiar country tune. Gil lightly tapped his fingers on his thighs in some semblance of beat he could pick up from the low volume. Two things you can do now, he thought, very aware every additional minute passing silently was another minute he wasn't going to get back. Talk about it, or talk about…not it. There were no do-overs, just do-betters. Make a move.

Gil swallowed and said the first thing that came to mind. "Have you given any thought as to what you'll do?"

Nick glanced over for a fraction of a second and then back to the road. He let out a sigh and raised his eyebrows. His hands shifted just slightly in his death hold on the wheel. "No, haven't really thought about it," he said thickly. "Might just take some time off."

He's talking to you. Always a good sign. Gil shifted in his seat. "You know there'll always be a place for you here."

Nick's eyes narrowed a touch, his shoulders slumped just the slightest. Gil's own back relaxed as well.

"Yeah," Nick said in a small, tired voice. "I know."

For the moment, Gil didn't feel the need to say more. They rode the rest of the twenty minutes in silence, and he strangely felt these silent twenty minutes weren't for waste, as all the others had been.


To be continued...