Chapter 45 – Drop Kick Me Jesus Through The Goal Posts of Life

I awoke, disoriented and panicked. For a brief flash of time, an alarmingly high level of panic rose with the contents of my stomach and I was half certain I'd see the starlit night sky and smell the dirt closing in around me. In that brief flash of a memory, I had to fight back the contents of my stomach a second time as I swallowed against the bitterness of blood, no doubt from an ulcer, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and slow realization that I was at home and I was safe. The roof was still over my head. The ceiling fan was spinning and the floor fan beside me hummed soothingly as it rotated around in a semi circle. Anna was lying on her back with one of her legs out of the covers. I reached over to feel her stomach, hoping I'd feel the baby move, but Thing was just as still as his mother was. I watched the slow rise and fall of Anna's chest and felt myself tear up once again at the thought of how close I came to making her a widow. Before I could stop it, a sob had worked its way up my body and escaped with a sickening sound before I pulled the pillow over my face to quiet my outburst.

Draco had taken her spot on Anna's side of the bed but perked up when she heard me stirring. I did my best to calm the dog down without waking Anna up. Just to make sure I wasn't dreaming, I pinched myself hard on the top of my thigh and winced at the pain. I knew that if it hadn't hurt, I was dreaming again and I was back in that hell that I had barely had escaped from. A chill ran up my body as once again, I remembered how terrifyingly close I was to pulling that trigger.

For the longest time, it was so hard for me to envision a situation that had the potential to take my life away without spiraling into a blind panic. Now, I was having a hard time not envisioning situations that would take my life away. Buried alive. Shot on the job. Ran over. Car wreck. Explosion. Tornado. Earthquake. Fell off a building. Stabbed. Lit on fire. Eaten by a bear. Attacked by a suspect and beaten. Train wreck. Plane crash. Starvation. Dehydration. Frozen to death. Drowning. Pretty much every scenario imaginable played out through my mind at one point in time, all of them sending me towards a state of panic so intense that I wasn't sure if I'd ever recover.

There comes a time in life when something happens and life forever changes. I've noticed through my job that a lot of people focus on the good changes and I had plenty of those, but here lately, all I could concentrate on was what had happened that was not so good. For me, it could be triggered by anything, small, medium, big or something so insignificant that it shouldn't matter but it does. It could happen instantaneously or the realization may accumulate through an evolution of experience.

I managed to stay in bed the rest of the night, but failed to sleep any more. Instead, the thoughts in my head were as knotted up and off balance as my life was becoming. The whole night as I lay awake in the bedroom, alternating between listening to the fan's hum or Anna's slow, rhythmic breathing, the question I kept coming back to was the same.

When would it ever end?

Day finally broke and I woke up early enough to start breakfast for everyone. Anna had developed an intense craving for strawberries after I got home from the hospital but thankfully my father had ran a few errands for us yesterday and had stocked up last night before he came home. I knew Anna was out of strawberries and the last thing I wanted to do was go to the store to get her more.

'No, that's not entirely true.' I caught myself thinking as I was holding on to the carton of strawberries, 'The last thing you want to do is go by work.' My thoughts earlier in the night were jumbled at best but the added stressor of having to go to work to pick up some forms I needed to fill out from my incident made me vomit more than once.

I let inertia close the refrigerator door for me as I reached in the dishwasher for the colander to rinse the berries off for Anna. As I let the water heat up, I ran my hands under the sink and the now steaming stream of water. The pain got to be so intense that I jerked my hand away reflexively, but immediately stuck it back under the hot water once again, forcing myself to live with the pain. I was burning my hand, but I didn't care. As long as I was focused on the physical pain of the hot water on my hand, the mental pain left behind by everything stayed in check.

My parents woke up first, closely followed by Anna. Her eyes brightened when I handed her a plate of freshly cut strawberries and she went to work immediately dipping them all in sugar finishing the plate before the rest of us finished with our breakfast.

Mom knew I had to run into town so she suggested Anna and I head out with me. I really didn't want them coming with me to the lab but Anna reminded me she had another ultrasound appointment to check to see how Thing was doing. After remembering the appointment, I told mom and Anna I'd drop them off at the doctor's office and I'd head to the lab by myself.

I let my mother drive us back to Las Vegas. I wasn't in a driving mood and Anna was forbidden from doing anything even remotely exerting. I let her ride in the front with my mother while I stretched out in the back seat of Anna's truck and closed my eyes as I drowned out the sounds of my mother and Anna talking baby talk. They bantered back and forth on the names and whether or not it would be a boy or if it'd be a girl. I told Anna not to tell anyone about Kristy in my dreams and as far as I knew, she had kept her promise. My mother was still convinced it was a boy so she and Anna debated back and forth on baby names even though Anna had already agreed that if Thing was a boy, I could name him Nick Junior.

Finally, we reached the Medplex where Anna's OB was. My mother parked near the front door but refused to let Anna out of the truck until I came back with a wheelchair. With her protesting rather loudly, she sat down and I let my mother push her inside after I told them to text me when they were done and I'd swing back by.

After I left, I drove as slow as humanly possible down the familiar streets that wound up at the lab. On the last stop light before I'd have to turn to get to the parking lot, my heart rate sped up and I felt something catch inside me. I choked down the fear once again when a car horn sounded, telling me that the light had changed colors. I flipped an errant wave to the driver behind me in a pathetic excuse to tell him I was sorry.

I parked at the west side of the lab, shaking so hard that if anyone saw me, they'd probably call 911 thinking I was having a seizure but I wasn't. I was just going stark raving mad.

My whole body had been shaking for two days straight because of what I was about to do. My muscles ached, my joints hurt, and in a desperate attempt to stop the memories, I had repeatedly hit my hands against just about every part of my body I could find but it didn't help. I had bruises up and down my legs and claw marks all over my arms from pinching myself until I drew blood but nothing helped. Thanks to pants and a few long sleeved shirts, I was keeping that part of my recovery under wraps.

I had been here ten minutes and hadn't even thought about going inside. To keep from going insane, I stared at the building, concentrating at the faded lettering on the east side.

Las Vegas Criminal Investigation Services

I had passed by those words thousands of times but it was only now that the five plastic words on the side of the building made me break out in chills. I had made my mind up to leave Las Vegas and though I had tried to deny it to myself, I really would miss working here. This was my first home away from home and though I knew it'd be hard leaving Texas, everyone here welcomed me with open arms. I had to be crazy for thinking that though because it seemed like nothing but bad things happened to the people who worked here, with the vast majority of the bad things happening to me.

Amy Hendler. Nigel Crane. Renee Willis. Walter Gordon. It was one nightmare after another.

Maybe I should give moving back to Texas some more thought. Maybe it would help me heal. Anna and I hadn't decided on where to move to but we had decided to move. She didn't want to stay in Las Vegas any more than I did. The only thing she would tell me is she'd follow me anywhere, even if I was wandering around in circles with no direction which apparently was what I was doing now.

I wasn't looking forward to seeing my co-workers again. They'd probably know that sometimes I'm still in the box. Those times when I zone out and stare off into space. Those times when I drop things or jump just a little too much when I get startled. The way my father treats me and the way my mother babies me but I wonder if they know exactly how close they came to saying goodbye for good. I wonder if they know how close I actually was to pulling that trigger or that their goodbyes sometimes leave me expecting to wake up underground, encased in a Plexiglas state of hell rather than waking up in my bed, right next to Anna or waking up on the couch where I fell asleep watching a game on TV. I expect to wake up in my coffin, covered in ants and in a state of mind numbing panic that morphs into a state of psychosis from the toxins. How about being so dehydrated I was to the point of death and so desperate that I was ten seconds from killing myself. Or just to wake up dead, floating over my dead body, waiting until Anna wakes up or my parents come in to see my still form.

I saw the lettering on the side of the building a second time and it made me shiver despite the Nevada heat.

Las Vegas Criminal Investigation Services

I have my job to thank for the last thought. How many times did I work crime scenes that turned out to be nothing criminal? A wife of sixty years finds her husband dead in their bed, dying sometime in the night peacefully in his sleep. A newlywed comes home to find police officers in her driveway telling her that her husband was killed by a drunk driver on his way home. That time Brass and I had to drive to Henderson to tell a mother that her eleven year old son was killed in a bus wreck off Boulder Canyon Highway after a school field trip.

Or in my case, that time when Catherine, Sara, Greg, Warrick, Grissom or Ecklie would be the ones coming to my house to tell my wife that someone kidnapped me, stuffed me in a box and I shot myself when I lost hope.

Sometimes the expectation closes in on me like those Plexiglas walls. It sickens me with a feeling that reminded me that I was running out of time. I should know by now that the clock is always ticking down until we're dead. God knows I've dealt with that enough with my job. Everyone always has the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" regrets after a tragedy. For some of us, it comes sooner than later. For others, it comes later than it should have. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I can breathe and I'm fine, just like this morning. Sometimes, no matter how much convincing I do to myself, I step out into the fresh air and can barely hold on.

Sometimes it's bad – sometimes it's so bad that I just know I've lost it completely but sometimes it's good, like feather softness and cool breezes kissing my ant bitten skin.

Suddenly, I'm grateful – not again, because I never stopped – but just so much more. For now, and sometimes, and always because I know how frighteningly close it came to being never again. To never seeing Anna again. To never seeing Thing grow up. To never seeing my parents or my sisters or brother again. To have to live with the pain I caused them all after my death. To live with the thoughts they'd have about why I killed myself.

I could see Warrick throwing something in frustration in the morgue, "If he would have waited just two minutes longer!'

I could envision Greg, screaming at my lifeless body after Doc Robbins got done with the post, "God damn it, Nick! We were coming for you. How could you think we'd let you down?"

The hardest one to imagine would be Anna, alone in our home, holding our baby in her arms as she cried, "I'm so sorry you'll never know your daddy."

It made me physically ill to think about Anna and our baby. Every time I let my thoughts drift down that dark and twisty road in my head, I felt myself getting sicker and sicker. I felt my stomach jump at a flash of memory of me holding that gun closely followed by a vision of Anna rocking our baby as tears streamed down her face. She'd be in Thing's room in that rocking chair that my mother had found, holding him to her as she cried along with him, screaming profanities at me for widowing her and abandoning my son.

Then again, maybe I should have died in that damn box. I felt the fingers on my right hand twitch just slightly. I flashed back and felt the metal against my skin once again as I held on to that gun, trying to find the inner strength to kill myself, but I couldn't do it. My fingers had twitched on the trigger countless times and it caused chills to run through my body at the thought of another pound of pressure on that trigger and I wouldn't be in the parking lot at work. I'd be in the morgue. Anna would be a widow. Thing would grow up without me.

Trying to get the feeling of that gun out of my hands, I opened and closed the fingers on my right hand as I finally shut off Anna's truck and opened the door, taking my time in standing up.

Feeling my surroundings starting to become fuzzy, I sat back down and shut the truck door to hide for a little bit longer. The ability to walk had temporarily abandoned me, leaving me instead with a massive case of vertigo. Despite the bad things that had happened during the years I have worked here, this job has given me a lot. I established myself as someone other than "Judge Stokes's son." I made a life for myself and a damn good one at that. I have some great friends and have made some really good memories over the years, but most importantly I met Anna. I met Anna and we made it through hell multiple times and we always found our way back to each other.

I didn't want to be here, but Grissom told me he needed to see me before I started in on my therapy. Apparently Ecklie had a new rule that any post duty incidents needed to be handled by a city approved therapist. Grissom said he'd get me the list in an email, but since my release from the hospital, getting him to return any phone call to any member of my family was next to impossible. I had called Judy earlier and she said he was in his office and would keep him inside the building until I got there.

Now I just had to go inside.

I didn't want to be here and didn't want to face the looks of my co-workers as I passed by them. I'd know what they were thinking. They didn't even have to say it out loud.

'Poor Nick. Buried in that box!'

'How did he survive for that long? He must be so lucky!'

I snickered at that one, "Lucky." I exhaled sharply and the snicker turned into a sarcastic laugh, "Lucky to survive being eaten alive by ants and not being able to sleep without nightmares. Yeah, I'm lucky alright."

"Nick?" Someone was knocking on the window, "Is that you?"

I straightened my composure and looked out the window, relieved to see it was Bobby Dawson and not Sara or Catherine. Last thing I needed was to be mothered or smothered. I was getting enough of that at home. "Bobby." With him staring at me, I didn't want to sit in the truck too much longer, "You startled me."

He moved out of the way so I could open the door, "Sorry about that. I saw you sitting here and I wanted to see if you were okay."

"Yeah…" My mind started to race as I tried to think of an excuse as to why I was sitting outside for so long, "I couldn't find my ID badge. I thought I tossed it in the truck, but I guess I was wrong."

Bobby clearly saw right through my excuses, "Getting up the nerve to go inside wasn't going so well, was it?"

I shook my head and knew better than to lie more, "Yeah. Grissom was supposed to get me the post incident forms in the mail, but the last message I had from him was that they were in his office. He wanted to see how I was doing." The sun was glaring off one of the panes of glass on the front of the building by now which caused me to squint at the glare, "My parents are still in town and Anna had a doctor's visit, so I dropped my mother and her off and said I'd be back later." I turned around to face away from the glare on the building and faced the busy highway behind the lab, "I just didn't think going inside would be this hard."

"Want me to get everything for you?" Bobby stuck one of his arms through the shoulder straps of the backpack he was carrying, "Keep you from having to go inside."

It was a tempting offer, "Thanks, but I need to do this." Needing and wanting didn't make the door open. I had to take the first step. I had to be the one to do this on my own. I had to fight and stumble my way over there and push the door open then take a step inside and it scared the hell out of me.

"Come on." Bobby started towards the door, "I'll walk with you. It helps having a friend."

With him leading the way, I felt my pulse quicken as we started towards the door. An errant horn honking in the background startled me and as I turned around to see where the noise was coming from, I backed into a holly bush on the outside of the building. The spines on the end of the leaves brushed against me and made me jump back when I felt them stab me in the back of my arm. It took everything I had not to throw up all over the concrete.

"Go." Bobby turned me around towards the parking lot, "I'll go get what you need and bring it out to you. Go sit down."

I didn't have to be told twice.

Ten minutes later, Bobby was coming out the door with one of the swing shift tox techs and one of the other print techs from the day shift. He kept their eyes and focus diverted away from me and once they were both in their cars, he doubled back and headed my direction, forever thankful he led them away from me. I motioned for him to get in on the passenger's side of Anna's Xterra and unlocked the doors. He handed me a manila envelope with my name scribbled on the top of it, "Grissom wasn't even in his office. I saw that tacked to his fish cork board and figured it was what you needed."

"Mmmm…" I opened the envelope and glanced down at the forms before throwing them over my shoulder, "I'll look through those later."

"It gets easier. It takes time, but it does get easier."

I chuckled to myself, "Time."

"Nick…" Bobby exhaled sharply, "I could sit here and tell you I know what it's like to be in your shoes. I could tell you everything will be just fine and we can both laugh at our problems and what we've been through, but it doesn't help. It won't help. I was never buried alive so I don't know what it's like to be you and I'm not going to pretend to know what it's like. I will say that I've been in a similar state of mind as the one you're in now. It took me a lot of time to move past it."

"What happened?" I saw his brow furrow as he rubbed the side of his jaw with his hand, "I mean, if you want to tell me."

"I was robbed and shot."

I was surprised, "I didn't know."

Bobby smiled, "Yeah, it's something I keep under wraps. No one knows about it here. Before I came to work for the LVPD, I was working at a lab in Washington, DC for the capitol police and then transferred to the Tampa Bay Police then finally wound up here in Las Vegas. The shooting happened while I was in Tampa Bay. I was waiting on a bus after I had gotten off work when some guy shoved a gun to my neck and tried to relieve me of my laptop and my iPod. I knew better than to fight and handed both over. He started to run away and I thought I was in the clear but I wasn't. He turned around and shot me before he ran off again."

Damn. I had no idea why this story struck me the way it did, but it hit a cord. I finally found someone, besides Anna, who knew what real trauma was, "What happened?"

"I died and was buried. Funeral was great. You should have been there." Bobby started to laugh when I covered my mouth in a pathetic attempt not to laugh at his blatantly obvious interjection of sarcasm, "It was a rip roaring event; the social event of the season. We brought the house down." He had to stop his story when I started to laugh so hard, I started to cry and for once, crying like this felt damn good, "Seriously, I recovered." He waited a few more moments until I composed myself before he could finish his story, "I needed surgery to repair the damage the bullet did but after therapy and a move to a new location, I started to get better. That's also why I continued to work in ballistics. Had it not been for one of my partners at the TBPD, my shooter wouldn't have been caught."

"So, there's hope for me?"

Bobby nodded, "Of course there is. It will be a while before you are fully yourself, just as it took time before I stopped shaking every time a stranger approached me, but it did happen. It will happen for you, too."

I got a text message and knew immediately from the ring tone that it was Anna, "I'll let you go pick Anna up. Tell her I said hi."

I thanked Bobby for his time and for saving me from going inside and watched as he left me alone in the parking lot. Before I backed out, I sent a text back to Anna, telling her I was on my way.

Time. Time. Time. Time. It was what everyone was telling me it'd take and I was out of time.

The anger in me kept building up and I slammed the heel of my hand onto the steering wheel, over and over again until I heard a crack. Not seeing any damage to Anna's truck, I took in a deep breath of air, filling my lungs to the point of pain and let it out in an angry scream. No one was in the parking lot to hear my agony or my string of profanities escaping my mouth. When the rage that was built up inside of me was finally gone, I collapsed forward and rested my forehead on the steering wheel and let the deep, choking sobs escape me. Finally after about five minutes of sobbing, I started the truck and backed up and slowly made my way out of the parking lot before someone came outside looking for me.

Pulling onto the highway to get to the Medplex, the panic attack started to subside. My thoughts were jumbled in my head as I kept bouncing back and forth between ideas. Did I want to stay here? Did I want to move back to Texas? Should I just give it all up and move to Hawaii and sell coconuts? I was tired of sitting at home and having my parents worry over me. They were supposed to head back to Texas next weekend, but that still left about ten more days with them at home. Jillian and Allison had gone home a few days after I came home from the hospital, but it was still unnerving to have my parents watching over me, knowing what I put them through.

Anna had filled me in with what she knew about what my parents tried to do when I was trapped, including the press conference Ecklie set up. Against her will, Anna was on screen, but didn't say anything. She said she heard the mayor say something about "garnering sympathy for Nick since his wife is pregnant." The more I thought about that, the angrier I was. It was bad enough that Anna was in that position because of me, but for Ecklie and the undersheriff to use her was just wrong.

One thing I have noticed after all this was that it was weird for people who still have feelings to be around depressed people like me. Sure, I put on a good front and smiled when I was supposed to, but what I really wanted was to be left the hell alone. They try to help me have feelings again so things can go back to normal, and it's frustrating for them when that doesn't happen. From their perspective, it seems like there has got to be some untapped source of happiness within me that I've simply lost track of, and if I could just see how beautiful things are…Well, I know how beautiful everything is. Before this, I had a great life. Now, I've been given an excuse of a life and I've got to make the best of it, or so I keep being told.

It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared. The problem might not even have a solution. But I'm aren't necessarily looking for solutions. I'm maybe just looking for someone to say "sorry about how dead your fish are" or "wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though."

My dad was in a sour mood when we got home, telling my mother he might have to head back to Dallas before she did. I let it pass as I went to lie down on the couch to take a nap as Anna headed back towards the bedroom. An hour later, my mother was waking me up, telling me dinner was ready and that my father was going to fly back to Dallas, probably tomorrow which had my mother visibly upset. I knew why especially as my parents cast glances at each other as they mentally debated about leaving me alone, "Mom, dad, I'll be okay. You don't have to stay here if you don't want to."

"I know, Nicholas." My mother put her hand on my shoulder as she sat a plate of food in front of me, "We just don't want to leave you or Anna yet."

I noticed Anna's spot at the table was empty, "Where is Anna?"

"She's taking a nap." My father sat down between my mother and me, "She told your mother not to hold dinner up." Without another word, my father picked up his fork and knife and went to work sawing the pot roast my mother had made into bite sized chunks.

Two hours later, my father had packed up his suitcase and had left it by the front door. I told him I'd take him into town tomorrow to catch his flight back to Texas. I tried unsuccessfully to get my mom to fly back with him but she did mention she wouldn't be here too much longer. I can't fault her for that. I haven't lived at home in some years, but I understand that no matter how old I am, I'll always be her baby. If anything, Anna being pregnant had taught me that. I felt an immediate bond to that baby inside Anna from the instant she told me she was pregnant and it only grew more intense as the pregnancy progressed and with each ultrasound photo she showed me.

In a way, I was glad my mother would be here and my father would be gone, but in a way, I wish they'd both go back to Texas but that'd come soon enough. In the meanwhile, I'd have to make due with what I was given and that was my mom and Anna hovering over me, though Anna was slightly better about letting me have my space when I needed it.

As night fell, my parents went to bed and Anna only briefly came up front for some water before sitting down on the couch beside me. I put a pillow in my lap and she immediately fell asleep, still holding my hand. I turned on the TV and flipped through channels at record breaking speed, not seeing anything even remotely interesting to watch. I eventually settled on The Weather Channel before throwing the remote on the end table and carrying Anna back to bed. She mumbled something incoherent at me as I covered her up and kissed her gently on her forehead before she shifted in her sleep and sighed as I left the room.

With the TV droning on in the background, I went outside to Anna's truck to get that packet of info that Bobby had brought to me earlier. After tearing open the end of the packet, I found more paperwork inside asking me to fill out what happened to me. I snorted and threw that aside and continued shuffling through everything, eventually stopping on the part about the psychologist visits. According to what was written, I would have to go to five mandatory sessions then anything after that was strictly voluntary. I remember after Anna got shot, I had to go to a few mandatory sessions then but it wasn't worth it to keep from going. I was just so relieved that she was okay that it didn't help me any to talk about my feelings and I was already thinking this wouldn't be any different. Not really wanting to look through the papers anymore, I stuffed everything back inside the ripped envelope and went to lie back on the couch, reaching for a pillow to cover my face.

My stomach grumbled and I threw the pillow off my face and got up to see what was left in the fridge. People had been bringing over cakes, casseroles, pies and food since I got home from the hospital. Since there was no way we'd eat everything everyone brought over, Anna and I had given some of the food to Bryan and Cathy, who happily accepted on our behalf.

Reaching blindly into the fridge, I pulled out a ceramic bowl of corn left over from dinner last night. As I reached for it, my thoughts were back on what happened to me. I don't claim to know why this happened, but when I saw the bowl of corn, something snapped and then that thing twisted through a few permutations of logic that I don't understand and produced the most confusing bout of uncontrollable, debilitating laughter that I have ever experienced. I was still in the middle of laughing uncontrollably at a bowl of corn left over from dinner earlier that I never heard Anna approaching behind me.

"Since when did corn become so funny?" I almost dropped the bowl when she startled me, "Sorry."

"Jesus. You're like the twins in 'The Shining.' One minute, no one is there and the next, there you are."

She shrugged, not really having a response for my sarcasm and I didn't blame her. I let the door to the fridge shut on its own again and dug a spoon out of the drawer and started eating cold corn, straight from the bowl while Anna gave me a look, "What?"

Once again, she answered me in a shrug, "I've just never seen you eat cold corn before." I dug the spoon deep into the bowl and produced a heap of it on the end and offered it to Anna, who accepted, "I still prefer it warm though." She wiped a bit of juice from the edge of her chin with the back of her hand and motioned for me to give her another spoonful which I did.

The two of us stood in silence in our kitchen, enjoying a bowl of cold corn for a few moments, not really feeling the need to break the silence which I found comforting. That was one of the things I loved about Anna the most – she didn't need to constantly be talking when silence overcame us both. She was as content as I was to just enjoy being together without having to fill the dead space with idle chit chat about nothing.

When we had finished the bowl of corn, I tossed the spoon into the sink and it hit with a loud clang but I was gentler with the now empty bowl. I pulled on Anna's hand and brought her to me, but I could tell that she was still confused by the fact I was first laughing at then eating a bowl of cold corn in our kitchen. As I tightened my grip around her shoulders, she finally returned the hug, with both arms and I felt her sigh as she rested her forehead on my arm. She and I both couldn't think of anyone who was in the state we were both in and after everything that had happened who would have been so considerate of feelings while still so badly needing someone to show and be shown the sort of affection that hugging entailed. Anna wasn't afraid to let me know how she felt about all of this, but I was having a harder time showing emotion than she was. Part of it she wrote off as being pregnant and crying at everything, but part of it was a deep concern she had for me on a level no one had ever had for me in my life up until this point in time.

A/N: So, I had originally decided to give up on FFN and move all my stories to Archive of Our Own after almost all of my stories were deleted, but after discussing it with some FFN members who begged me to stay, I'll be posting my stories on both places for the time being.

My CSI Facebook story was a casualty of the mass deletion but I'm happy to say, I'm working on it again. If you haven't subscribed to me as an author alert, please do. I hope to have the first chapter up by the end of May. It's about halfway done. I've got a full backup of it thanks to a FFN member who kept it but I'm rewriting the earlier chapters to match the later ones. So to those who are asking, Gilbert G, his straw hat AND his tarantula will return soon.