The beginning of this chapter explains what happened before the plane crash. Italics indicate a flashback. Enjoy!
Nick could hear the arguing coming from DB's office before he had even turned the corner. He recognized the voices right off - DB's, followed by Greg's - both equally angry and upset over whatever it is they were talking about. Nick didn't want to eavesdrop, but the level of their voices really left him no choice.
"If you weren't planning on going, then why did you say you were excited to go to Hawaii when I asked you two days ago?" DB questioned.
"Because I am going to Hawaii, for my cousin's wedding, not this stupid conference. I told you two months ago that I was going for the weekend to her wedding. When you asked if I could go to the conference, I told you again that I had the wedding. You chose to ignore it, or forgot, or whatever."
DB sighed so heavily Nick could hear him from down the hall as he approached hesitantly.
"Why can't you go to the conference too? It's on the same island. The last day is Sunday, the day of the wedding, and it'll be over by one in the afternoon. You can make the reception, be there the whole night."
"I don't want to go to the conference, first of all, and second I don't want to hang around a stupid conference when I could be spending time with my family. I don't want to miss the actual wedding and just show up for the reception. You're missing the point."
"No," DB argued, "you are. I was under the impression that you would be going to this conference. We're regarded as being the best lab in the country Greg, we have to send someone, and as a promising young CSI with room on his resume to fill, I figured you would jump at the chance."
"Then send Morgan if it's about wanting to level up," Greg retorted.
"Morgan is attending the sherrif's fundraiser with Ecklie this weekend. Sara is in Peru with Grissom, and Finn is staying here with me to help run the lab and work cases while everyone else is away. We've had to pull guys from days and swing to help cover shifts this weekend because everyone is apparently so damn busy. We have to send someone to this conference Greg."
"I'll do it," Nick said as he finally reached DB's doorway to his office. Both Greg and DB looked up at Nick with surprise at his sudden appearance.
Greg smiled slightly at his friend's offer to help and turned back to DB. "See? Nick will do it."
"Nick just went to a conference in Hawaii last summer," DB recalled. "I remember because he was the only one I hadn't met yet."
Nick shrugged his shoulders. "So what? I liked Hawaii, it's not like you're sending me to Alaska. Someone has to go, right? I've worked here a lot longer than Greg, as a CSI anyway, and you have no one else. Don't make him miss his cousin's wedding just to prove a point. I'll do it, it's fine."
DB agreed, happy to have someone going, and secretly glad it was Nick because of his experience. It was all handled relatively effortlessly; Nick was going to stay with Greg in his hotel because as it turned out, the conference was in the hotel just down the street, and Greg's family had booked him a suite even though he was attending the wedding by himself. The conference was Friday through Sunday, and Greg was planning on leaving Thursday night anyway to arrive when the rest of his family did. So they flew down together, and would fly back to Vegas together on Monday.
The flight to Hawaii was, without question, better than the flight back, which landed them in the ocean and ultimately stranded on the island. But they obviously didn't know that was going to be the outcome. The departure flight was late, so they slept most of the way down. When they got to their hotel, they checked in and fell asleep almost instantly. For the next few days, they rarely even saw each other. Nick was running around to meetings and lectures while Greg was helping out with any wedding things he could and spending time was his rather large family. When their busy schedules finally wound down late at night, they would hang out for a few hours and watch a movie or a game, and then fall asleep and do it all over again the next day.
On Sunday, Nick was returning to the hotel from the final aspects of the conference. The reception for the wedding was taking place in the hall of the hotel, and it just so happened that as he was coming in, Greg was in the lobby talking to his cousins when he spotted Nick and ushered him over. After some urging from Greg and his cousins, Nick decided to stay at the reception, meeting Greg' entire family, including Greg's newly married cousin Michelle and her new husband, Joe.
Greg was just beyond buzzed, and Nick couldn't help but smile at seeing his friend so happy surrounded by his family. Greg introduced Nick to his youngest cousin, Jenna, who was two years younger than Greg. After Jenna flirted shamelessly with Nick for as long as she could before she was taken away for pictures, Greg sighed heavily and turned to Nick.
"She's like a sister to me," he told Nick. "We've had a lot of fights. Her parents got divorced, and she acted out for a while, and we went a little while without talking, but she means so much to me. If I got to pick a sibling, I would pick her. She's always been there for me, even though we fight over the stupid mistakes we've both made. She used to sleep with all of my friends just to make me mad and to prove that she could. We've been through a lot," he added quietly.
As the reception faded to the last few straggler guests, Nick and Greg and everyone else staying at the hotel staggered upstairs to their rooms for the night. Exhausted, Greg fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, only vaguely aware of the fact that Nick didn't seem to be going to sleep any time soon. The next morning, they ate breakfast with Greg's parents and the remaining family members before boarding their flight later that afternoon back to Vegas.
They had been in the air for almost two hours before the flight crew realized something was wrong. The stewardess that had been flaunting herself in front of Nick - and why had that made Greg so jealous, he couldn't figure out - had been gone for longer than her usual five minutes between checking to see if Nick wanted anything. Nick's eyes had just closed as he rested his head against the window when Greg shook him awake.
"What?" Nick whined.
"I think something's wrong," Greg had replied.
Nick perked up at the sound of the worry in the younger man's voice. He looked around, noticing the tension building among the flight crew. It wasn't long before they had to announce that there was a problem with one of the engines, and that they would be making an emergency water landing, but not to worry because the coast guard was on its way to pick up all the passengers and return them to safety. Being told not to worry of course spread panic like wildfire through the plane. As the descent began, Nick and Greg locked onto each others eyes, too afraid to look away. The plane hit the water roughly, causing Greg to hit his head, hard. Before he really knew what was going on, Nick was pulling him out of his seat, then out of the plane into the lukewarm water. The waves were rough and it was so dark, too dark to see anything other than Nick, who was holding on to him so tightly. The last thing either of them could remember was helping the mother and her kids that had been sitting in front of them into the basket that brought them up the waiting coast guard helicopter as the storm began. Nick had lifted Greg into the nearest life raft and then pulled himself in before collapsing next to the younger man and passing out from exhaustion accrued from fighting the rough sea.
"How many people do you think died?" Greg asked softly. They had been on the island now for eight days, and were just now talking about the plane crash that landed them there.
Nick sighed heavily. "I don't know. Probably a decent amount. The water got real rough so fast. There were a good number of people still in the water with us when they dropped the rafts. I doubt if they all made it."
"You shouldn't have even been there in the first place," Greg commented sadly. "I should have just gone to the fucking conference."
"It's not your fault," Nick argued. "I volunteered. I wanted to go."
"Why?" Greg asked.
Nick effectively fought the urge to tell him it was because he wanted to help him out to get his attention and to spend a weekend in Hawaii with him, even if it wasn't in the exact fashion that he had fantasized about, it was better than nothing. Nick didn't say that, because he didn't understand why he wanted to say that.
"Because you're my friend," he replied, "and I wanted to do you a favor. If I had known how it was going to end up, I-"
"You wouldn't have gone," Greg said, cutting him off.
"I wouldn't have let you go, either," Nick added.
Greg looked over at Nick and was surprised to see such honesty and loyalty in the other man's eyes. He had always wanted to be as close with Nick as they were becoming now; he just wished it hadn't taken them being stranded on an island to get it accomplished. He would never admit it, out loud or really even to himself, but there was no one else in the world that he would rather be stuck with than Nick Stokes.
"You think really loud, you know," Nick said with a small smile.
Greg frowned. "Oh yeah? Are you a mind reader?" he asked.
Nick scoffed. "I wish. That would make our jobs a hell of a lot easier. But I don't think I'd want to know what people really think of me," he mused.
Greg smiled himself and looked from Nick back out at the slowly rising sun. "I don't know," he said, "I think you'd be really surprised."