Chapter 23 – I'll Just Hold On

"Promise me you won't get married in a drive through wedding chapel." My mother leaned forward and hugged me tightly. "And if you do, make sure you call us first. We'd like to be there since you're the last one to get married."

"Thanks for the gentle reminder, mom." Anna and I were getting ready to head back to Vegas. We had been at my parents' house for about a week before Grissom called while we were out here, inquiring as to when I'd be back. I took that as my unwritten cue to wrap up the family reunion and head home as there was only so long that he could stall Ecklie. "I promise that before Anna and I get married, we'll call."

"Nicholas, I don't mean as she's walking down the aisle. That doesn't count as before the wedding. I know how you think." My mother released me from her hug and put her right hand on my shoulder and squeezed as she shook her left index finger at me, "I mean it, Nicholas. If you get married and don't call your father and me in time for us to get there, just remember that you're not too old for a spanking young man. I will take you over my knee and don't think for a second you're too old. Even though you carry a gun, I'm still your mother."

Anna stifled a laugh behind me as my mother took her hand off my shoulder, "Mom, really. I'll call."

I turned to look at Anna to get her opinion. She let me know what it was loud and clear when she shook her head, "No way. My money's on mom."

"Thank you." My mother stepped back and hugged Anna, "Make sure he takes good care of you. If he doesn't, well, you have my number."

"Yes, ma'am. You have my word."

"I told you, call me mom." My mother released Anna from her hug. "Well, before I get too emotional, I had best let the two of you get going."

My father, sisters and brother had to return to work today. We had all said goodbye last night as we ate outside on my parents' deck. My brother cooked steaks for everyone and though we delayed as much as we could, when the sun went down and my niece and nephew had both fallen asleep, we knew we had to say goodbye. My father told Anna and me goodbye again this morning before he left for work, leaving my mother alone in the house with Anna and me. I came back to reality when I heard my mother sniff as she tried to cover up the fact she was crying. "Love you, mom."

"I love you too Nicholas and you as well, Anna. Welcome to the family."

Saying goodbye once again to my mother, I opened the door to Cathy's 4Runner and helped Anna in and after hugging my mother one last time, we finally left. I couldn't help but tear up when I saw my mother in the rearview mirror dabbing the corner of her eyes with her shirt. "We'll be back, Nicky. I know you don't want to leave."

I reached over for Anna's hand. "I know. It's just so damn hard sometimes. I knew I didn't want to stay in Texas after I graduated but I also knew that I'd miss being able to see my parents day in and day out." Kissing the top of Anna's hand, I saw the diamond in the engagement ring I had given to her catch the late morning sun. "And I have you to help me through it all."

We made it through Texas and most of New Mexico before I started to get tired. It was getting close to dark when we stopped in eastern Arizona for the night. It didn't take either of us long to fall asleep in the hotel bed.

I kept waking up during the night and was restless. I turned the TV on and kept the volume down low to keep from disturbing Anna as she slept. I passed the time switching between the Weather Channel and tracing imaginary patterns on Anna's back while she was sleeping on her stomach. I finally turned the TV off just before four.

The next morning, Anna volunteered to drive the rest of the way home so we'd be back in Vegas before dinner. Since I didn't sleep well, I gladly let Anna drive so I could nap on the way home. As we left the hotel, she had told Bryan that we were on our way home and he made us swear that we'd call him when we got closer to Summerlin.

After leaning the seat back, I fell asleep for a bit and when I woke up, Anna was singing along to a song that was playing from a CD she had in the radio. As she kept singing, it didn't take me long to realize what song it was. I smiled as I kept my eyes closed and listened to her singing it, with her completely unaware that I was even awake.

"Now I have moved and I've kept on moving. Proved the points that needed proving. Lost some friends that needed losing, found others along the way. I've kissed the fellows and left them crying, stolen dreams yes there's no denying…"

I kept my eyes closed as Anna stopped singing and hoped she'd continue. "I know you're awake."

"How'd you know?" I pulled on the lever to the back rest of the truck seat so I could sit up. "And where are we?"

"Almost to Vegas and you quit snoring. I knew you were awake then."

I rubbed my eyes and tried to stretch as much as I could in the seat. "I am beginning to love that song as much as you do."

Anna nodded, "I figured I'd wear you down eventually. We've got about an hour to go until we're back in Vegas. Bryan has already called wanting to know where we were. Cody has been asking for his Uncle Nicky all day long."

"He's a sweet kid." I wanted to ask Anna how she felt about kids, but wasn't quite sure how to approach it.

"Do you want kids? I mean, I guess I should have asked this long ago."

Feeling relieved that Anna beat me to it, I was glad she was taking the pressure off me, "My mother would love nothing else if we were to have lots of grandbabies but to answer your question, yeah. I do want kids eventually. Of course, this'll be after we're married and all. You?"

"My childhood was less than great. My parents were okay and before you ask, no they didn't leave me locked in a closet or anything but I always felt like I wasn't wanted. There's a significant age gap between Sam and me and I'm just scared that I will be as detached to my child as my mother was to me. There were good times and I don't regret how my life turned out, but what happens if I turn out like my mother? I wouldn't wish that on any child, let alone one that I carried for nine months and felt move inside of me."

I held Anna's hand in mine. "Anna, I can't begin to understand how you were raised. You saw my dysfunctional family. Even being in a different time zone, we're still extremely close. I saw you interact with my niece and nephew and they adore you. I also know that Cody adores you as well. I don't think you have anything to worry about as far as turning out like your mother. You've got a great support system with me and with Bryan and Cathy as well as my family. You'll be an all star mother."

"I hope you're right and I also think that we'd probably need to be married first or your mother would tan my hide." Anna turned her attention back to the CD in the player and I let the subject drop, but was hoping that was her backhanded way of telling me she was okay with the idea.

We had driven another thirty minutes when the CD reached the end and had started over. Anna had just reached up to change the disc when she stopped herself and let the automatic CD ejector take the disc back in and start playing it over. "Can I ask you something?"

I had been lost in thought as I listened to Anna sing the parts of the CD that she knew. I interjected with my own singing when I knew parts. "Of course you can."

We were less than half an hour from home when my phone rang. I saw on the caller ID that it was Bryan's number. Since Anna was driving and I knew Bryan would want to talk to her, I answered the phone. "Ronald's House of Pies. This is CSI Man. How can I help you?"

"Funny, dude. Where are you? Aggie hasn't called yet and by my calculations, you should be close to Summerlin."

"Bryan wants to know where we are." I held the phone out to Anna.

She tucked her hair behind her ear before she took the phone from me. "We're about half an hour from home. I was just…" Anna stopped talking, "Bryan we were…" I could tell by her facial expressions that she was getting flustered, "Would you just let me finish!" Anna laughed, "Thank you. We were about to stop for gas and as soon as we were done, I was planning on calling you. I didn't want to return Cathy's truck to her on empty nor did I want to blow myself up by being on the cell phone while I'm pumping gas."

I could hear Bryan talking on the phone, but couldn't make out what he was saying until Anna turned the speakerphone on. "... about all that. Your truck is on empty, too. All because I care that much."

"Ass. I was gonna be nice, but it's on. You can have Cathy's truck back then as is which is completely empty. Give us less than half an hour and we'll be pulling in to my driveway."

"Be careful, Aggs. Can Nick hear me?"

I picked the phone up, "Yeah, Anna put it on speakerphone."

"Figured. Tell her to be careful driving. I'm not at work today and I don't need one of those other morons at work coming to rescue the two of you."

Anna laughed and said we'd be home in a little bit.

True to her word, exactly half an hour later, we pulled in to our driveway. "I can't believe I'm home. I can't believe I'm home with you."

Anna was pulling to a stop behind her truck. Bryan was standing in the driveway and was holding Cody. "What's that mean?" I looked over at Anna for an answer but she was waving at Cody who was using both of his hands as he waved back at us.

"Later. Not in front of Cody." Anna pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened the door, leaving me as puzzled now as when she left me when she actually left me. "Hey, Cody."

"Aunt Anna!" Cody wiggled out of Bryan's grip, almost to the point of causing Bryan to drop him on the driveway. He broke out into a big grin and ran the few steps to Anna and jumped up as high as he could and caught her waist. "Daddy said you went to see Gamma Ceecee and Gampa David and Uncle Nicky went to go get you."

Anna picked Cody up as Bryan watched, "Yep, I did go see my mom and dad and then Nicky did come get me and now we're back and I missed you."

Cody hugged Anna's neck tightly, "I missed you too, Aunt Anna." He let go of Anna's neck, signaling that he wanted to get down. "Uncle Nicky!" The little boy ran over to me and I caught him in mid jump and held on to him. "I missed you, Uncle Nicky."

I didn't get a chance to answer because I was watching the reunion between Bryan and Anna. Bryan was at least three inches taller than the six feet in height that I could claim, which meant he towered over Anna even more than I did. She stepped closer and he finally picked her up and let her feet dangle a good foot off of the ground as she put her arms around his neck. It was a good minute before Anna said anything and when she finally did, her voice was soft. "I missed you." Anna had her back to me but I could tell by her shaking shoulders that she was crying, "Frog, I missed you."

Bryan's voice was almost as quiet as Anna's, "Aggs, I missed you, too. Work hasn't been the same without you. We're all starving at the department because none of us can cook worth a damn." Anna started to laugh and Bryan put her down on the ground, "If you ever do something that damn stupid ever again, I can and will kick your redheaded ass all the way from here to Maine and back. You got that?"

Anna smiled as she wiped tears out of her eyes, "Given what I've cried over the past couple weeks, I should be all cried out by now but I'm not. Where's Cathy?"

"At work. She wants you to call her when you and CSI Man get settled in." Bryan held out his hand and Cody took it, "In any event, your keys." He dropped the keys to her Xterra in her hand, "I know you and CSI Man have some settling in to do, but if you can come up for air long enough, call me later on."

"Bryan!" Anna slugged him on the shoulder. "There are children present." I started to laugh as I got our bags out of the back of Cathy's truck and dropped them under the carport.

Bryan waived it off, "He thinks I'm talking about swimming which is why I made the reference I did. Cathy gets off at eight and I'm sure she'd love to come by and see you since she wants to kick your butt as bad as I want to." After picking Cody up, Bryan hugged Anna again, "I mean that. If you ever do something that stupid…" He didn't finish his thoughts because of Cody and instead, hugged Anna again before Cody said he was being squashed. Laughing, Bryan let go of Anna again. "Just remember…"

"Yeah, yeah. Go home, Frogster." Anna reached in and got the last two bags out of the back seat of Cathy's truck before tossing Bryan the keys and shutting the door.

"I'm glad you had the sense enough to come home." Bryan opened the door to Cathy's truck and let Cody sit in the back seat. "And that you had the sense enough to listen to CSI Man when he asked you to come back with him." Bryan slammed the door shut, "Or I really would have kicked your ass. Love you, Aggs."

"Love you too, Frog." Anna reached for my hand as we watched Bryan leave. He waved before he disappeared down the road.

Anna and I walked hand in hand towards the gate and she let go of my hand long enough for me to lock it. I let the lock hit the metal gate and checked to be sure it was locked. After seeing that it was, I picked her up and carried her back towards the house. "Inside now?"

Though she had to maneuver around a bit in my arms to reach, she kissed me, "Yes."

After adjusting Anna in my arms to where she had her legs around my waist and arms around my neck, I walked as fast as I could inside, ignoring our bags that were on the ground under the carport. After unlocking the door, I set her down on the floor in the living room and turned to lock the door. When I turned back around, Anna was stripping her clothes off and started to reach for my shirt to pull it up over my head. I held my arms up and she got it off and threw it on the couch behind her. After jumping up at me and almost causing me to trip over Draco who happily bounded up to us after hearing Anna's voice as she asked me to make love to her again, I carried her back to the bedroom and shut the door to keep Danilla and Draco out of the room as we made love for the first time after getting home.

Almost two hours later, the scratching and the whining behind the door was getting too much to handle. Anna slipped on one of my work shirts and opened the door, almost getting trampled to death by Danilla who came racing into the room and leapt on the bed and was closely followed by Draco who stopped at the edge of the bed after realizing that Anna wasn't in bed with me. Anna left the room with Draco a step behind her but came back with a glass of ice water and set it on the bedside table before throwing my shirt into the corner and getting back in bed with me. "Warm me up. It's cold in here."

I pulled Anna closer to me and wrapped my arms around her as I relished the feeling of her skin next to mine. "This is the part I missed the most while you were gone."

"What?" Anna adjusted herself where she was on her back, looking up at me.

I put my left arm under her neck and she put her left leg over my right hip and interlaced the fingers on her left hand with mine. "This. The closeness. Now that Bryan's gone and we've come up for air so to speak, can we finish the conversation we had earlier?"

"Yeah. We can." Anna reached for her water and finished about a third of the glass before offering it to me. I finished off the rest of the water and handed it back to her. She pulled the covers up to cover her chest before returning to the position we were in earlier. "This is what I missed, too."

"In the truck, you started to ask me something but never did and you made the comment in the driveway. Can we start there?"

I felt Anna's grip tighten on my hand, "Yes we can. I wanted to ask you if there was ever a time when I was gone that you thought about giving up on me."

"Anna." That wasn't what I expected her to ask.

"I caught you off guard. I know. I just know that I caused you so much pain. I know Bryan told you he talked to me even though he swore he wouldn't. I kinda expected him to actually. He kept telling me you were holding your own and it killed me to think you had moved on already. I wanted to call you so many times to tell you I was sorry but I was scared of your answer. That's why I said what I said in the driveway. I'm still in shock and awe that I'm here with you. I didn't think you'd speak to me again." Anna released her hand from mine and adjusted her engagement ring before taking my hand in hers again and kissing me softly. "I'm so sorry, Nicky."

"Anna, I put on a brave front because I didn't want anyone to know about you. Warrick was the only one who knew at first. I wound up moving in with him and then he saved my ass."

"From Renee?"

I nodded, "Yeah. From doing something stupid because of her. After Warrick threatened to handcuff me to a street lamp, I told him. I broke down and told Catherine a couple of weeks before I came to see you. I started to hear Caledonia all the time or flashes of us would hit me at all hours of the day. Cath noticed when we were at lunch on a break from a case and confronted me and it all came out. By that time I was losing hope that you'd come back, but I realized then that God forbid if you didn't come back that it'd take a long, long time before I could move on and I never, ever would have been able to get over you." I stopped to kiss Anna, "Pour vous ayez mon coeur. Je t'aime beaucoup. Tres beaucoup."

"Look at you, Mr. Language Expert." Anna smiled, "And you have my heart as well, Nick." She returned the kiss I gave her earlier, "And I love you, too."

"Since we're being honest, my turn to ask a question again."

"Anything." Anna reached up to kiss me before nudging my chin up with the top of her head so she could lie in bed closer to me.

"Your sister said something that day and I, well, I need to know if..." I trailed off, unsure how to word my question. "I want to know if the fact I slept with a hooker bothers you."

"No, why should it?"

I sighed, "It bothered your sister. I was just hoping it didn't bother you."

I could feel Anna shaking her head, "No it doesn't bother me. Nicky, she's in your past. I have no problems with her or her chosen profession. I don't judge people. I get enough of that from my family. Aside from which, my sister is an old fashioned prude. Blame it on the French upbringing."

"So you're sure it's not a problem?"

"You want me to be wrong?"

I had to laugh at Anna's smartass remark, "No. I don't want you to be wrong. I just wanted to make sure Kristy wasn't a hangup for you."

"She's not. Answer me this though. If she didn't die, would you have pursued a relationship with her? A personal one I mean?"

"I don't know. She told me the night she died she was getting out of her line of work but the guy that killed her was her pimp. He said she was going back to college to recruit more girls. Of course by this time, she was gone and I couldn't ask her." I started to lightly trace my fingertips across Anna's back causing her skin to react with chill bumps. "If she was honest about changing jobs, maybe. We'd probably have had to leave Vegas." I pulled away from Anna so I could kiss her. "And we would have never met."

Anna returned her head under my chin after she kissed me back, "As my grandmother always says 'les choses se produisent toujours pour une raison.'"

"My French isn't that good. That means what?"

"It means things always happen for a reason. I'm not saying that Kristy's death had to happen but if she didn't die and you did start a relationship with her and you did move, like you said, we would have never met."

"True. So your sister is the prude and you're not hung up like she said?"

"Nicky, I love you. I have no problems with Kristy or whoever else. I'm thankful you're still you. I never thought I'd be back here again with you. I knew as soon as I left that I screwed up but the most maddening decisions seem like the right ones at the time and..." Anna stopped when she gasped, "Damn."

I looked over Anna's shoulder and saw Danilla behind her. The cat had her head cocked to the side and her left paw on Anna's shoulder. She was poking Anna with her claws because we weren't paying attention to her. When Danilla meowed and swatted Anna again, causing Anna to gasp another time, I couldn't help myself. I started laughing. "I'm glad you're home. This is how our lives are supposed to be."

A/N: Anna and Nick return. Typed this chapter out on my BlackBerry earlier today after I got attacked by a plot bunny. Vicious little creatures.

If you're in the mood for something goofy, go check out my Investigation CSI Style crackfics spoofs featuring Tom Cruise, Greg in a coconut bra and matching grass skirt, Nick's attack tarantula, Hodges reenacting that scene with Tom Cruise from "Risky Business" and Dr Langston in a toga. Look for a Harry Potter/CSI spoof and since Catherine is obsessed with ER in my Investigation CSI Style crackfics, watch for an ER/CSI spoof coming up soon.

Reviews? Please.

Merry Christmas everyone.