A/N: Okay, so despite the alerts down, I decided to post this chapter now. I hope you'll like it;-)

Fire and water

by Nicol Leoraine

Chapter 30

He wasn't sure what had really happened. He was sitting on the stairs, his upper body leaning against the wall, his right hand pressing protectively over the wound in his shoulder, the injured limb cradled in his lap. The world was a mass of grey and even though he was struggling to stay alert, all he could think of was the last thing he'd told his wife…"Don't be afraid, I'll be safe."

Now he was sitting here on the steps of the fire escape of an abandoned building, bleeding from a bullet wound and waiting for help with another guy who was in an even worse condition. As if it wasn't enough...something above them moved and both of them looked up, startled.

"What now?" Kyle asked in a whisper and looked at Nick, who unsteadily rose to his feet, the gun now resting in his left hand.

"Don't move," Nick hissed at him and Kyle nodded, pushing against the wall as if trying to vanish. When Nick saw Jonah crawling over the window sill then slowly heading down towards them, he was starting to regret that they had stayed here waiting for help, rather than taking the risk and trying to pass the first floor. Now it was too late to escape a confrontation with Jonah. Nick grit his teeth and took in a jagged breath, then pointed the gun up toward the approaching form. Seeing the movement, Jonah stopped several steps away from them. He looked down at Nick, a smirk showing on his soot smudged face.

That scared Nick. There was no reason for Jonah to smile that way and he could almost feel the glint in the kid's eye. Something had changed, something that made Jonah forget the cops that were all around, the fire, the dead body inside, something that allowed him to ignore everything, with the happiness of one who simply no longer cared. Nick could think only of two things that would make someone so undaunted by the situation and given Jonah's past, Nick voted for drugs. That wasn't good.

Looking around when they'd first climbed out of the window, Nick had discovered that the smoke belching out of the first floor window made it impossible to see the people below. He could still see the street and the cars parked a little further along, but it hadn't given him much in the way of comfort. Staring at Jonah as he loomed over them on the fire escape, he knew that all he could now do was face Jonah squarely and hope that the boy hadn't decided that going out in a hail of bullets would be the best way to go.

"Nicky, help is on the way, just hold on!"

Nick flinched. He'd totally forgotten about the others who were waiting on the street. He didn't know what to do...would it provoke Jonah into shooting if he replied? Or would Grissom calling to him make him more nervous? When Nick heard his name being called the second time, he saw the twitch of Jonah's hand and decided.

"Uh, we may...have a little problem Gris," Nick called out, his eyes not leaving Jonah's face and that was the only reason he saw the slight shake of his head.

"What kind of trouble?" The worry in Grissom's voice was obvious, as was the underlying but unspoken question, 'Can things get any worse?'

Nick had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes and shout at Grissom a list of ridiculous things that certainly could make things worse, like having a plane fall on top of them, or even being confronted with a pissed off skunk. Thinking of the fanciful things made him want to giggle, and he recognized the hint of hysteria that was creeping into his thoughts fueled by everything that had been happening. Shaking his head and biting his tongue, he managed to cram the feeling back into the imaginary box in his head and brought his attention back to the immediate problem.

"Jonah," he stated to Grissom as well as the man above him. Nick saw the change, and the comparison of flicking off a light switch came into his mind. The manic light in Jonah's eyes died, to be replaced with a lifeless stare.

"I don't know what to do anymore," he said with a tone that should've been resigned, but instead it was just hollow.

"Why don't you put your gun down, Jonah?" Nick asked in strained voice and hoped against everything that Jonah would do just that. The dry chuckle he heard was enough of a reply though.

"I won't go to jail." It was a statement, pure and simple. One that made Nick cringe and he tightened his grip on his gun.

"It doesn't have to end like this," Nick spoke with trembling voice and this time he saw the shake of the head.

"I killed that woman. I killed the man," Jonah said slowly. "And I enjoyed it," he added in such a way that Nick believed him. In the background, he could hear the sirens of approaching fire engines, but the sound seemed to come from far away, distorted by the static that was filling his ears. From below came the sounds of a muffled argument and inside the building that was being consumed by the fire, something heavy fell with a thud. Kyle was still pressing his body against the wall, crouching in the shadows, waiting, with the stink of fear literally rolling off him.

"It's just like with the drugs. Once you taste it, you have to try it again. I don't want to try anymore," Jonah spoke and the hand with the gun was slowly lowered. Nick let out a sigh of relief he didn't really feel. What happened next told him why. Jonah grabbed the railing and in one smooth move jumped over it.

"No!" Nick screamed but that was all he could do. He flinched when he heard the sick thud as the body hit the pavement. Nick could hear the commotion, the startled cries as the others converged on the fallen man, not knowing who had jumped, then Grissom's voice calling for an ambulance. Shuddering as everything caught up with him in a rush, Nick sank down to sprawl on the steps, his head resting against the metal railing and the gun dangling from his hand. He heard Warrick and Brass calling to him, desperately asking if they were okay, but the voices were being drowned by the buzzing in his ears that continued to grow louder and louder. The fact he was lying in an uncomfortable position on the stairs barely registered with him, and he lay there, staring at the night sky. It was dark, but it was okay. There was no one else to hurt them and his friends were coming. He could rest.

EPILOGUE

Nick blinked. It wasn't much but he was content with the simple movement as long as he didn't have to move any other muscle. It was almost three days after that awful night and he was still in his hospital room. It didn't seem fair, really. Travis had already been released, and was probably packing, ready to leave the city. Kyle Anders had also been discharged earlier that day and Nick thought it was wrong that he was still stuck here, because really, the man had been shot. Ok, the bullet had gone straight through, and the wound was clean and healing, still it just didn't seem fair: all Nick had was a few cuts and bruises…and a sliced arm…and some minor burns on his legs…fine, if he was totally honest, what kept him here was the smoke inhalation and the fact that the bullet graze on his side got infected. Nick grumbled quietly to himself about his enforced hospitalization. He knew the reasoning behind it, but he chose conversely to be grumpy about the whole thing.

The first day of his stay in the hospital, Nick had a hard time not rolling his eyes and nearly bit through his tongue when Catherine tried to give him one of her speeches about thinking before acting. That was, of course, right after she hugged him so hard that he was glad for the extra bit of oxygen coming through the nasal canula. Sara came in next. Her reaction was a little different though. She first punched him in the good arm, then grinned and told him how happy she was he was alive. She didn't talk about work and had to leave early when her pager beeped. Work was calling. After that Nick pretty much slept through the next day so it was only yesterday afternoon he found out that Jonah wasn't dead. It was Brass who told him and Nick was glad there was something to talk about, too afraid of the detective's wrath.

"The idiot just broke his leg. I don't understand the kid...if he wanted to die, he should've just shot himself in the head while he could," Jim said, sitting in the bedside chair and carefully shaking his head. He was in a relatively good mood, having finally woken up without the damn headache that had been troubling him for the last two days.

Nick shrugged at that.

"He was high as a kite. I'm just happy he didn't decide to shoot me."

"True. Which reminds me, Nicky...I believe I've already told you not to follow an armed suspect without backup-" Nick opened his mouth to disagree, but he was stopped by a warning glare and a raised hand. "In fact, I think you were told to go home."

"But I-" Nick tried to protest, but it was futile and for the next twenty minutes, he was biting his lip and finding enormous interest in his blanket, while Brass repeated several times why it was an absolutely stupid thing to do what he did. When Nick finally managed to argue that he had saved Kyle, the detective paused and for a moment just stared at Nick.

"Yeah, but we almost lost your stubborn Texan ass. You do it again and I will shoot you myself."

It was the third day when Grissom finally caught Nick awake and got a chance to give him some good news.

"Kyle Anders decided to testify about Alan Rickson, and Elizabeth Petey who was supposed to be the fourth victim agreed too. Jonah hadn't witnessed any meetings between Richard Kinsberg and Alan Rickson but we've crawled through the warehouse Kinsberg rented and found a cell phone-"

"Wait, who's Kinsberg?" Nick asked, confused.

"Jim didn't tell you?" Grissom frowned when Nick shook his head.

"No, but he told me plenty of things I didn't want to hear," he muttered. "So who is this guy?"

"You may know him as the Master. His real name was Richard Kinsberg. We found his prints in the database of the army; it just took some time to get the clearance for his file. He was a sniper."

"Figures," Nick muttered. "So will we be able to get Alan Rickson?"

"Like I was saying, we found a cell phone. It was the type with a built in camera. Archie found a file with Rickson talking about the job."

"So the Mas- this Kinsberg, he was planning to blackmail Rickson?" Nick asked in surprise.

Grissom shrugged in reply.

"Or it was just insurance, in case Alan Rickson was reluctant to pay the full price of the job. Who knows."

"Will it be enough to get Rickson into court and convicted?"

"It was enough for the DA to organize a warrant to search his house and to freeze his bank accounts. All his cases will be inspected."

Nick grimaced at that, knowing what it meant. Even if Rickson put only one bad guy behind bars, that bad guy now had grounds for an appeal to re-open his case. On the other hand, Rickson had probably let several of those bad guys go free.

"Did you see Travis?" Grissom asked suddenly, pulling Nick out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, he stopped by earlier. He's leaving town, heading north, probably Canada. You know, I think Jim must've scared the hell out of him," Nick said with a smirk that quickly vanished when he remembered just why Travis was leaving.

"He told me he couldn't stay here. There are too many bad memories here for him, and he doesn't like the feel of the city anymore. He says he needs a change, to start again. I thought he would return home, to Dallas."

"Well, if he wants to start again, going home wouldn't be his first choice," Grissom mused and watched as Nick played with the edge of the blanket.

"Probably not," the younger CSI agreed, then grinned. "I can't really say I'm surprised. I've known Jim for some time, but he still put a hell of a scare into me yesterday. I can only imagine what he told Travis."

"Hmm…maybe the same things I wanted to tell you when I found out you went after the Master," Grissom said with a smirk of his own and Nick sighed, thinking he was about to get another lecture about getting himself into dangerous situations. Suddenly, something occurred to him and he looked pointedly at the entomologist.

"You know we never got to talk about this hearing problem of yours, Grissom," Nick said and watched as the man froze. His hands reached for his glasses as he tried to buy some time pretending to be cleaning them. Nick cleared his throat and Grissom looked up with a sigh. His first reaction was to try and play dumb, but then he looked at Nick and knew that below the shirt there was a wound that was there because he didn't hear a warning shout. He knew that if Nick hadn't been so lucky, that bullet might've done much more damage than just grazed him. Yes, Grissom owed Nick an explanation and something else too. He had to find the courage and solve the situation before someone else paid an even higher price for him. It was time to take the leap.

The End

First of I want to say BIG THANKS to my beta reader TangledPencils. Without her help this would've been a much bumpier ride, not to mention that I would've greatly missed all the funny correspondence that we exchanged, lol.

I should also thanks for the continuous support of some of the reviewers, especially to Wraithsangel and Mma63, as well as Gear's Girl, snowangel-983,SassySasha19, mtee1958, Beaujolais and also all the others who sent me a review (sorry If I didn't mention your name, but trust me, your comments were greatly appreciated:)

If you feel like dropping a line and tell me how you liked this last chapter, you're welcome -big grin-

Cheers,

Nicol Leoraine.