Nick and Greg were sitting at a light table, looking at the crime scene pictures. They needed to find out how officer Wood died.
Greg kept the conversations professional, much to Nick's annoyance. After half an hour, Nick couldn't take it anymore.
"Can I ask you something?"
"What is it?" Greg asked free of emotion, still looking at the pictures.
"What are you mad at me for?" Nick just had to ask.
Greg looked at him. "I'm not." He picked one of the pictures up, trying not to get into this conversation.
"Of course you are!" Nick pulled the picture out of Greg's hand. "Is it because of Julian? I didn't mean to defend him."
"This has nothing to do with Julian."
"So there is something? What did I do wrong?"
"Nothing. You made it pretty clear that you don't need me and I'm trying to give you some space." Again, Greg didn't have much emotions in his voice or his face. On the inside, it looked completely different.
"I never said that."
Greg sighed. "What do you want me to do, Nick? I have no idea how to deal with this! I offered you to talk to me, but you don't want to. That's okay, I guess."
"Then how come you don't look okay with it?"
Greg averted his gaze off Nick. "Come on, Nick, we have work to do."
"You're not getting off that easily now. Please, Greg. I really feel like this could hurt our friendship if we don't talk about it." It's not that Nick didn't want to talk to Greg, he just didn't want to talk about his feelings or about what happened.
"Alright, I'm listening. What do you want to say? You said I don't understand how you feel, right? Then why won't you explain it to me?"
Nick couldn't help but hear the hurt in Greg's voice, but kept pushing him, without even noticing it. "How is it that you expected me to respect you not wanting to talk about your feelings but I don't get the same? Why is this so important to you?"
"Because! Nick, in all these years of our friendship I felt like it's been a one way thing. I told you everything and you only told me half of the things going on. And that was okay, I figured you didn't need to talk more. But now I see how it affects you and you're too stubborn and too proud to talk about it!"
Nick just stared at Greg. It never felt like that to Nick. He was that kind of guy that didn't want to talk too much about everything, but he didn't know that it hurt Greg. In fact, Nick told Greg more than he told most people.
Greg tried to calm down again. "I'm sorry. You have every right to keep things to yourself, but every time I reach out to you, you push me away. And I know now I did the same to you a few weeks back and I feel really bad about it, and I know I have no right to expect you to confide in me, but... I can't take it anymore. I can't take being pushed away all the time right now." He didn't plan to spill his feelings like that on Nick but the words just kept coming. He felt too fragile at the moment to be treated like that.
"I'm not... pushing you away, Greg. I... I don't know what I am doing, but pushing you away... No." Nick was overwhelmed by what Greg just said. He had no idea how to deal with it.
"Maybe not on purpose, but you are. And I keep wondering why. Do you still blame me for what's happened?" Greg just kept talking and talking.
"What?" Nick laughed humorlessly. "Don't be ridiculous, I never blamed you for this. You're really overreacting. You're reading way too much into this, Greg."
"Am I? Or is it just more convenient to think that?" Greg headed for the door. "I need some air..."
The next shift arrived. Both Nick and Greg tried to process what happened between them at home. Greg obviously wasn't processing it well, so he decided to split the work on the case so that they wouldn't have to work together. Catherine noticed something going on between the two and decided to find out what it was.
"Hey Nicky. Where's Greg?"
"Down in autopsy, trying to find out more about how Wood died," Nick answered while processing evidence on his own.
"Is everything alright between you two?" Catherine asked worried.
"Yeah. Yeah, we're... good."
"Can you say that again without the worried look on your face?" Cath smiled at him.
He sighed. "I don't know, Catherine, what's going on with him. He's oversensitive, choleric, it's just too much at times."
Catherine sat down next to him. "But he was so cheerful the last few days. It looked like he really turned around. What happened?"
Catherine was right, Nick thought. Greg really tried to leave all the troubles behind and start all over. Nick's behavior, though, ruined it all, he was sure. "Alright... I might've said something that upset him..."
"And what was that?"
"He wants me to tell him everything that's going on in my life and I don't need that, so he said I push him away. He's clearly overreacting."
"Is he?" Catherine looked at Nick. She knew his colleague very well and knew that he tended to push people away when things got unpleasant. "Why don't you just reach out to him, prove him he's wrong, then? Tell him what's on your mind, it'll make both of you feel better."
"I can't." Nick looked away.
"Why not? He's your friend, why can't you talk to him?"
"Because I don't want to load my troubles on him, that wouldn't be fair. He's been through enough already." Not even Nick believed this excuse, why would he think Catherine would?
"Oh come on, Nicky, cut the crap. He could take it and you know that. What's the real reason?" For some reason, Catherine's bluntness worked for Nick well enough to tell her what's wrong.
He sighed. "The truth is, I'm long over what happened. I thought being buried in that small space would trigger some memories from, you know, when I was being buried. But it didn't. The arm will heal, that's all fine."
"So what's troubling you, then?"
"Well... I just can't get over the fact that I did nothing to help arrest Dunbrook and that I wasn't able to fight anyone of them off at that crime scene... And now they got away and again I'm stuck at the lab and can't go after them!"
"...That's it?" Catherine asked surprised.
Nick nodded a little confused.
"You risk your friendship... This case, even, because of some macho pride thing?" Catherine tried hard not to yell at Nick.
"What? No!" Nick was surprised about Catherine's insensitive reaction. He just told her how hard it is to talk about his feelings and now that he did, this is what he gets from her? "For the last weeks I felt completely useless. That has nothing to do with pride! Besides, Greg and I are good, he's just pissed at me, it'll pass."
"No, it has everything to do with pride. You don't feel that way because these cops are on the run, you feel that way because YOU can't go after them. I can't believe you! Now go find Greg and apologize to him! Because he's not just pissed at you, Nick. He's deeply hurt!"
"But Catherine, I..."
"Go!" She yelled.
Down in autopsy, Greg was talking to Doc Robbins.
"Take a look. He was still alive when his fingers were spilled with the lye. Lucky for him, he was dead when it was spilled on his face." Doc Robbins held up one of the victim's hands.
Greg nodded. "Was he strapped down and gagged?"
"Good eye." The Doc smiled. "Yes, these ligature marks suggest that. He was probably not tied to a chair but to a bed or something like that, because he was lying down when he was bleeding out."
Greg sighed. "It's not like this guy was a saint, but he didn't deserve being tortured, either." Greg wasn't sure what to feel about officer Wood's painful death. He was almost glad that he died, but at the same time felt ashamed for thinking that.
"What's done is done. He brought it to himself when he chose to team up with a bunch of lunatics," Doc Robbins said, trying to comfort a seemingly affected Greg.
Greg gave him a faint smile. "Yeah... But still, we need to find out which of these lunatics did this to him. But thank you, Doc." He walked out.
On his way out he saw Nick walking up to him. Trying to walk past his colleague without saying anything, Nick stopped him. "Hey, I was looking for you."
"Well, here I am..." Greg was headed to the exit door.
"Would you please wait a second?" Nick asked with annoyance in his voice.
Greg stopped, but didn't turn around to face Nick. "What is it?"
"Oh come on, Greg, please. I want to apologize, don't make this any harder than it has to be."
Greg turned around. "Alright..." Greg sat down on a bench in front of the autopsy room.
Nick didn't. He kept standing. "Okay... I'm sorry... For everything I said. It's funny because..." Nick started walking up and down. "I tried everything to make sure not to burden you with my problems and ended up making things worse than they have to be. Greg, I... I didn't tell you how I felt because I needed you to think I'm fine. I needed you to think I'm stronger than I really was and I wanted you to concentrate on your own troubles, not mine." Nick stopped to wait and see Greg's reaction to this.
Greg just sat there, looking at the floor. "I don't need to be protected, Nick. I wanted to be there for you..."
"I know, I know. But still, I have the feeling I have to shield you from everything bad, especially after all that's happened. I'm a jerk, I led you into believing I'm much worse than I actually was."
"Don't play it down, Nick. It's okay, you have every right to..." He was interrupted by Nick.
"No, I am okay. The only problem I have is that I feel useless because I'm not allowed in the field and I couldn't help arrest Dunbrook." Nick again waited to see Greg's reaction. He feared to get a similar reaction to Catherine's.
For a moment, Greg thought exactly what she did. What is he thinking? Treating me that way because he's too proud to let others do the job?
But Greg wasn't about to react like that. He just stood up and faced Nick.
"You ARE a jerk, Nick." Greg smiled at him while patting him on his shoulder. "Now come on, let's leave this all behind us, alright?"
Nick smiled. He was relieved Greg was able to forgive him. He had a good feeling about their friendship and hoped that Greg would find his good mood back soon.
"So, Doc Robbins said Wood was strapped down in a lying position when he died..." They walked back to the lab together and Greg filled Nick in on the news on the case.