DISCLAIMER:Don't own anything associated with the show… I just like playing with the characters in it from time to time. Dance Monkeys! Dance!
RATING: T – Teen (language and adult issues)
PAIRINGS: GSR & Yo!Bling pre-established in previous fics of this timeline.
SPOILERS: Sequel to "Displacement" and "Transitions"
SUMMARY: Everything is changing around Nick Stokes. Can he deal with it, and how it will affect him in the end?
A/N: The rest is going to come at you fast. So, let me take this moment to thank you all for sticking around for the ride.
REVIEWS: Reviews are the way I know if people are enjoying the work or not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not, I hope you found at least a little something to brighten your day, and thanks for taking the time to read.
Chapter 44
2006.12.26 – 2006.12.28
Las Vegas, NV
From the moment Sara dropped him at his place, Nick started thinking. He thought about all of the things he never gave himself leave to consider. He had the next three days all to himself, and he planned to use that time to actually think about who he really was and what he truly wanted.
He knew most people did that kind of thing on a regular basis, but he never felt he had a right to indulge himself in such a way. For some reason he always believed things were what they were and thinking about how you felt about them never did anyone any good. Lately, he came to realize just how wrong that assumption had been. A lot of my assumptions have been proven wrong lately.
His attention was brought to the present by the sound of the washing machine cutting off. He quickly transferred the load of whites from the washer to the dryer with a practiced ease. When he was in high school, his mother had started working a huge case and was putting in more hours than usual, so when he complained to his sister Connie that he hated having to listen to his sister-in-law's comments when he would show up at their place with a load of laundry every time he babysat for Neeley, she told him it was high time he learned how to wash his own dirty drawers. The lesson had been so successful that Nick started doing all the laundry at home, to help his mother in the only way he knew how.
As he threw in the dryer sheet and closed the door, Nick remarked to himself that Connie had always done things like that when they were growing up. In hindsight, Nick realized that his sister was doing everything in her limited capacity to keep him from turning into his brother. Connie always complained about their older brother, and she insisted that Daniel was the perfect example of everything she hated about men; his arrogance, his complete lack of any domestic skill, his approach to marriage, his political beliefs, and his general attitude toward women.
Nick found himself chuckling to himself as he made his way back to the kitchen, because his sister had certainly practiced what she preached as he thought about the man she married. Michael was a caring, compassionate, articulate, intelligent, strong and loving man. When they had their first child, Michael gave up his position at a major architectural firm and stayed home to care for their first born. His reputation allowed him to work whenever he wanted as a freelance architect, instead of being at the whims of others in a high pressure firm. This gave his wife the freedom to continue her work as a defense attorney in her mother's firm. Nick found that his sister had not only broken the mold of a proper Texas marriage, she was re-writing the whole book. So, why was it he always thought of his brother when it came to someone who had found happily ever after?
As the microwave dinged, telling him his French bread pizza was done, Nick said, "If only you'd have taught me how to cook, too." He took it out of the microwave, threw out the container and grabbed a paper towel before he moved into the living room to flop down onto the couch and flip on the television.
Nick watched the evening edition of Sportscenter on ESPN and munched away at his pizza as he thought about what it was that appealed to him about his brother's life. Daniel met Louise when they were in high school, he took her to the prom, they went to the same college, they got married, they had children and they made a successful life. The only word that came to Nick's mind as he recounted his brother's life was easy. Daniel had it easy.
Daniel never had to question his beliefs, never had to question his worthiness, and he never had to question what he had to do, it was all too easy for him to go through life. Nick had to admit that he envied him the simplicity of his life. Daniel did not live with the unanswered questions that woke Nick in a cold sweat at times. Daniel never looked at the world through a microscope, but instead with a sweeping vision, content in the knowledge that world fit into his vision without fail. Nick had to deal with the how and why on a daily basis, yet Daniel only ever worried about who was going to pay for a crime. Nick knew that everyone held a secret and in his line of work, he learned about them and treasured them, while Daniel never got to see inside the mind of another living soul. Nick was able to see the heart of things and people, and used that insight to guide his decisions. Daniel had a daughter that felt abandoned by his inability to see to the heart of the matter at first glance.
Suddenly, Nick was no longer envious of his brother's simplicity. As Connie had been known to say, "Remember, being simple is considered a handicap in most people." In his mind, complicated was quickly becoming his new favorite word.
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Standing in his bedroom as he folded the clean laundry Nick realized that he had never folded laundry with anyone, other than his mother or his sisters. That thought was accompanied by the fact that he was never close enough to another woman to ever have the chance.
He scoured his memory banks trying to recall the longest relationship he had ever had. Surprisingly, it was hard pin-pointing one specific relationship, because they all seemed to last about the same amount of time; long enough for sex. That little revelation bothered Nick more than any of the other things he had learned about himself lately.
Nick had always ribbed Warrick about being the player, but when the rubber hit the road, Warrick had been in more relationships than Nick in half of his lifetime. Warrick could remember their names and details about each of the women he had been with, but Nick was having trouble even remembering a single thing about each of the women he had seen over the years.
If Nick was truly honest with himself, the only woman he even held the slightest emotion (beyond lust) for was Kristy, the hooker. He tossed the socks he had just balled up into the dresser drawer as he shook his head and said, "Damn! I can't even remember her last name." Once again, Nick was forced to admit that Sara had been right; he really did only date women who offered no threat to his easy life; that never made him question anything.
Finding out that, no matter how hard his sister had tried, Nick still turned into a mutated version of his older brother was not something he had anticipated on his journey of personal discovery. The two sides of his mind were instantly at war over this revelation. Nick was suddenly very happy that his whole life had been turned upside down and placed under the microscope. It was obvious to him that the changes around him may have been frightening, but they were actually going to save him from himself.
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After going through his third boutique, Nick was reminded in glaringly bright letters exactly how much he hated shopping. One of the things he had to do with the rest of his week off was to find a wedding gift for Grissom and Sara. They told everyone that they were not interested in gifts, but Nick was sticking to some of his old-fashioned ways (even if he was working to rid himself of others) and a gentleman always brings a gift to a wedding. Of course, he had also taken their suggestion and made a donation to a suitable charity in their names.
Nick had chosen the Nature Conservancy, because they never flooded people with requests for more money, or pulled off any ridiculous protests; they simply worked to purchase and protect lands important for environmental safety. He knew Grissom and Sara were both supporters of the organization, and he had given a little money to them after one particularly impassioned dissertation from his sister Rachel a couple years ago.
With a heaving sigh as he pulled out of the parking spot, he decided to call it a day on the shopping. He still had a few more days to try and find something for the happy couple. If worse came to worst, he would just use the Warrick Plan, and get them a gift certificate. He knew it was the coward's way out, but he procrastinated too long and was running out of time.
Sticking to the honesty kick he was working on with himself, he knew he had procrastinated out of some childish hope the whole thing would go away. While he was happy for his friend and his boss, he was frustrated by the fact that he felt like he was being left behind. He knew it was wrong, but he was still coming to grips with that reality.
His mother was also right, Nick was a planner. So, when things failed to fit into his carefully constructed reality, he struggled to cope with the changes. Some changes were easier for him to deal with, while others left him fighting for a place amidst the chaos.
Warrick and Sara were still his friends, but now he wondered what his place was in their lives. Would Sara still check up on him when he had a cold? Would Warrick still come over for football games? Or…would they both simply forget about him in their new lives?
He mulled on that last bit as he drove back to his place. Pulling into his parking space, Nick chuckled to himself, "What am I worried about? I'm too loveable to forget." The statement was meant as a joke, for his own benefit, but it also served to give him a little boost. The truth was that Nick knew his friends, and he knew they cared about him enough not to let him drift away. If anything had ever proven it to him, it was the aftermath of his abduction.
Nick keyed his way into his condo and set the little bag from the card shop down on the bookcase beside the door. Looking around the living room, Nick released a deep sigh. He recently told his niece that he never thought about the abduction, but he had lied. He thought about it a lot, even though he tried really hard not to. It never worked, because at some point in his day there would always be something to bring the memories of that time back to his conscious mind with a power he hated to succumb to.
A few years back, Nick had been stalked, without knowing anything about it. The guy had become obsessed with Nick, and did everything to inject himself into the life Nick possessed. At the time, Nick thought being attacked by that nut was the worst thing that could have ever happened to him. Once again, he was wrong.
After he had been shoved through a second story window by his stalker, Sara and Warrick picked him up from the hospital, vowing to keep an eye on him. However, he talked them into letting him sleep it off at home while they went to work. Sara had been the most reluctant, but Nick put on the charm and convinced her he would be fine. And again, he was wrong. The stalker had taken up residence in Nick's ceiling and attacked him when he felt threatened by another. After that, Sara was glued to his side for a week, and no amount of charm in the world was going to convince her otherwise.
But it was after the abduction that Nick finally understood how much their friendship had meant to them. Sara and Warrick took turns staying with him at the hospital. Warrick took care of his place and his bills while he was in the hospital and Sara had his parents staying in her apartment until Nick finally convinced them to go home. More times than he could count, he would wake to find Sara half asleep in a chair beside his hospital bed. Warrick would sneak him in the burgers he practically lived on, and kept him up to date on the happenings at the lab. If there was one thing in his life he should never question, it was their friendship.
That realization left him feeling a little guilty for having ever doubted their loyalties.
He started to dig through the freezer for something to nuke for dinner. "One of these days, I need to take someone up on their offers to teach me how to cook. Man cannot live on frozen pizzas and burritos alone." Nick ripped open the wrapper and tossed the burrito into the microwave. He picked up the remote from the counter and flipped on the television.
When he finally settled into the couch with his burrito and a beer, Nick started thinking about the abduction again, or more accurately, the aftermath of the abduction. He was certainly more claustrophobic than he ever had been in his life. And any kind of bug on or near him still gave him the shivering fits. But the most important thing he noticed since that episode was his shift in attitude.
Once upon a time, Nick had been the voice of optimism, but that changed when on a random coincidence he was shoved into a trunk and subsequently buried alive, left to live his last hours in total psychological torment. Pure dumb luck had him inside that acrylic box, and it took everything in his soul to keep from blaming anyone for his ordeal. However, there was a casualty that day, the last of his innocence.
Nick never really understood just how much he had changed until the previous Fall when Stephanie was in the hospital fighting for her life. He found himself playing out the worst case scenarios for his friends, not giving them the hope that they needed. Hope had always been his department, but he realized that somewhere he lost touch with that part of his soul. He knew it was not dead, but he was certainly struggling to find it at times. If he was going to get himself out of the mess that his life had become, he needed to find the hope within himself again.
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Spending the better part of the afternoon cleaning out his garage, Nick decided he had enough time left to hit a few more shops for that gift, so he headed upstairs for a shower. As the water worked off the first layer of dirt and dust Nick thought about his last conversation with Grissom, and about the things that were said.
He knew Grissom was right, Nick had not given him any reason to consider him when selecting a CSI to succeed him. For some reason, Nick had been sailing along on auto-pilot for quite a while. If he was honest, he knew it started even before the abduction. There had been something bothering him ever since Ecklie broke up the team.
Ecklie sowed a seed of doubt in Nick's mind during his internal investigation, or more accurately, his witch hunt to discredit Grissom. But when he approached Nick, Ecklie made it seem like Grissom had purposely hung him out to dry when he was working the Westonson case. Nick got the distinct impression that Ecklie was implying Grissom had set him up to fail. In his heart, he knew Ecklie was wrong, but it left a tiny niggling doubt in the back of his mind.
As he continued to scrub the grime of his labors off of his body, Nick realized that Ecklie had used his strongest weakness against him, and thereby inflicting maximum damage to his relationship with Grissom. Once again, jumping to conclusions and making assumptions without looking deeper into the matter cost Nick dearly.
He tried to work out in his head exactly what it was that made him always form those assumptions before he had all the facts. As he worked the shampoo into his hair he struggled to understand what it was that sent him down the same road all the time. If he was ever going to overcome the habit he needed to get a grip on where it originated. The only thing that seemed to make sense to him was not something he ever imagined of himself. Nick Stokes was a closed minded, judgmental hard ass by nature. In other words, he was his father's son.
Nick squeezed his eyes shut and fought to hold back the frustration that came with his realization. His father was far from being a bad man, but he did have his preconceived notions about people and circumstances. The only thing that kept Nick from resenting his father for this nature was the fact that, when presented with opposing evidence, he would always follow the truth. But in Judge Stokes mind, you had to earn his belief; it was never given freely.
With his head directly under the shower head, the water washed away the last of the shampoo and the last of Nick's resentment. All those years with Grissom, and it took self-reflection in the shower to understand what the man had been trying to teach him all along; never draw conclusions until all the evidence is in. He needed to learn how to follow the evidence, instead of having the evidence beat him over the head before he got the picture.
He stood there under the water for a while longer, the water sluicing over him. The heat of the water and the relief from finally having gotten his head screwed on straight gave Nick the most relaxed feeling he had felt in a long time. He needed to remember to thank Grissom for suggesting the vacation before it was all said and done. Now that he could see the light, it was time to set a few more things straight, but that would have to wait until after the holidays.