Title: Crash and Burn

Disclaimer: Angst, slash, violence, language.

POV: Nick

Chapter Nine: Fighting the Odds

I stood outside the two story white structure. This is where my heart led me, to a place I wished to forever forget. I should have been in the hospital. I should have been a good boy and listened to Grissom. But I couldn't stay there and listen to them anymore. All their talk was making me doubt myself and I couldn't let that happen. I was the only one who knew the truth. Let them all believe me to be crazy. I'll show them. They'll come to regret this day. Taking a step toward the two-story structure I steeled my spine for the rush of memories that I expected to come flooding back. They didn't come, though. Instead my mind returned to the previous hours of the day.

I awoke in the hospital, a bit groggy from the pain medication that had been given to me. Grissom leaned against the foot of the bed, his back to me. He was the only one there. My mind played through the movie of another similar time, months ago. Only this time, Greg wouldn't be walking through the door to give me a kiss. I study the posture of my boss. He had his left arm crossed over his chest, while his right hand was up near his face; doing what I couldn't see. His slumped shoulders told me that he was either tired or feeling guilty about something. I reached over to the table for a glass of water, my throat feeling dry. Grissom turned to face me as the movement of my arm jerked the tether that connected it to the bedrail.

I glared at him as best I could. "Are they really necessary?"

Coming around the side of the bed to pour me a glass of water he said, "Yes, Nicky, I'm afraid they are. I can't have you repeating your last stay in the hospital. It's bad enough that you're here now and for the same damn thing." He undid the right tether and gave me the cup of water. The liquid was cooling.

"I didn't do this to myself, if that's what you're thinking," I remarked.

"How can I believe you?" questioned Grissom. "Looking back over the months, you haven't exactly been yourself. I never thought you'd attempt suicide the first time. Then you tried to kill yourself again while in the hospital. What makes this time any different? The scars from the last two times have been reopened."

I tossed the cup at him in building frustration. "What makes this time different is that I didn't do it. You have to believe me on this one, Griss."

"I'm not sure what I should believe anymore." He sat in an old wooden chair. "I don't know what's going on in your life anymore. Hell, for all I know you staged the beating and turned around and did this to yourself."

"Is that really what you believe?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

"It is what Ecklie believes and he's convinced the sheriff that you're unstable. They're talking about firing you and having you committed; which they can do if they see you as a threat to yourself. Something you clearly seem to be," he explained.

"I'm not crazy, Grissom. I've never been surer of anything in my life," I told him with confidence.

"Okay, then tell me what happened," was his reply.

"Alright, I will. After you brought me back from the hospital, after the beating, I was just sitting around on my couch, thinking of how everything had become fucked up," I started. "I took my medication and a sleeping pill. I wanted to waste away the time, hoping that maybe when I woke up everything would be a change. Hoping that this whole damn thing was just a dream. Instead I had another nightmare. Have I told you how tired I am of nightmares? I woke to the sound of someone knocking, no banging, on my door."

"You had a visitor last night? Mr. Knowles didn't mention that," Grissom stated.

I ignored him to continue my recount. "When I opened the door I went cold. There stood Nigel Crane, the one and only." Grissom sat up straighter in his chair at the mention of my stalker. "He told me that he was going to make my life non-existent. He said that if he couldn't be me then I couldn't be me, or something along those lines. I tried to close the door on him, to keep him from entering. But I guess I wasn't quick enough. He barged right on in. I thought he would just shoot me and get it done and over with. However, he said it would be more fun to watch me suffer in pain. Grabbing a knife from a pocket he proceeded toward me. I think that's about the time my neighbor returned home or something because he spooked. He did this to me," I raised my free wrist. "I didn't do it."

"Nicky, there are no defensive wounds on your hands or anywhere else. You didn't put up a fight," said Grissom.

"It's not exactly easy to fight when you have medication racing through your body and you've been beaten on," I snapped.

"Nicky, Nigel Crane was not at your house last night. He didn't hurt you," Grissom stated matter-of-factly. "I've checked, Nigel Crane is still behind bars."

I chuckled. "He told me that he fabricated those records."

Grissom frowned in worry. "I sent Sara to talk to him, Nicky. He's still behind bars. There's no way he could have been at your house."

The words echoed in my mind, "still behind bars". But how could that be? He was in my house last night. He hurt me and truly intended for me to die. This wasn't right. None of it fit into place. However, if the man was still behind bars he shouldn't have been home. So why was there a car sitting in the driveway, the hood still warm from a recent drive? Why was there a light on in the basement? On silent footsteps I crept toward a basement window. Someone moved around inside but I couldn't tell who it was. Years of dust had settled on the window, blocking out most of the details. All I could tell was that the person appeared to be the height of Nigel Crane; who by all rights was in jail. Maybe he had a brother. Maybe he had a twin brother. An identical twin that we didn't know about. Stranger things have happened.

The figure picked some sort of object up off a table in the corner of the room. He gave it a good look over before disappearing behind a pile of boxes. I could no longer see him and I began to feel a little paranoid. Where had he gone? What was he doing? It was then that I heard the heart wrenching scream. A scream I knew all too well. Greg was in that basement and he was in need of immediate help. It was now or never.