Disclaimer: I own nothing of CSI
Super Surprise
When Nick got home from work on Monday morning he was happy to see that Jackie had taken the kids shopping with her mom, Jackie and the kids had the day off from school and they were making the most of it.
He wanted Jackie out of the house because he was trying to set up a surprise for her and he didn't want her to overhear what he was going to do.
He called his dad.
"Hey Poncho."
"Hey Dad, I need a favor, you know those cars that you collected that you have for each of us to sell whenever we want? I want to sell mine now."
One of Roger's hobbies had been collecting classic cars years ago, he'd had shops full of them at the ranch and eventually he decided that they were just taking up space and so he decided he'd be willing to part with them, but instead of selling them and keeping the money for himself he'd gift two of them to each of his children, whenever they wanted, no questions asked he'd sell them and his kids would get the money. Some of the cars were worth more than others so in order to make it fair and each of his kids got an equal amount he'd priced them all out and each of his kids would get $40,000, any extra money Roger himself would keep so none of his children would feel slighted, not that he suspected his kids would fight over money, they were all successful and hardworking adults and his kids had remained close to one another, even though they all lived their own lives, and with Nick living all the way in Las Vegas, but money sometimes tore families apart and Roger wanted to eliminate that possibility. He and Jill had always tried their very best to treat their children and grandchildren equally. The one variation of that had been the money spent on their children's weddings, but that was the kids' choice, however extravagant they wanted their weddings they could have them, and Roger and Jill would pay for it, it was just some of them wanted simple weddings (Nick and Jackie's being the most simple, yet still elegant and beautiful which was totally in line with Jackie's personality.) Jackie's parents had wanted to pay for their wedding and being that Jackie was their only child that made sense, so Jill and Roger had paid for their honeymoon, as they had for Matt and Amy's wedding because Amy's parents had wanted to pay for their wedding since Amy was their daughter.
Nick was the last of the Stokes siblings to request his cars be sold, his sister Robin had just cashed hers in the previous summer so her and her husband could take a trip to Greece for their milestone anniversary. Their daughter Leanne had not gotten a chance to cash hers in before she'd gotten killed in a car accident several years prior so Roger had sold the cars that he'd picked for her and with that money Roger and Jill decided to put $250 in each of their grandkids' college fund since Leanne wasn't married and had no children of her own at the time of her death and she had absolutely adored all of her nieces and nephews. They then donated the rest of her car money to a local children's hospital in her name, Roger and Jill hoped that their daughter was looking down and smiling in approval about how they decided to spend that money.
"I'll be sure to do that Poncho, the only thing I'll ask is if you and Jackie and the kids are ok? There isn't something serious medically wise or you guys aren't in any financial trouble or something are you?"
"Nope, actually dad, I want to surprise Jackie for her birthday and take her to the Super Bowl, since her team just made it yesterday, I could use the money in our Maldives/football fund but there isn't enough in it to afford a Super Bowl trip and so I'd have to dip into our savings a bit, which I would have done but if I don't have to, I'd rather not."
"You're a good man Nicky, it's obvious you truly love her, which I love for the both of you."
"Thanks, she's pretty easy to love."
"Yeah, she is." Roger agreed.
There was a brief pause on the line as both of them were lost in their own thoughts.
"Ok, send me over your account information and I'll have that money to you in just a couple hours."
"Really? That fast?" Nick asked.
"Yep, I'll just transfer over $40,000 from my checking account and then when I sell your cars I'll keep the money."
"Oh, I don't want you to have to use your personal cash." Nick said.
"That's how I've done it for all of your siblings, it's just quicker and easier that way, don't worry, the classic car market is huge in Texas, I'll have the cars sold in a matter of days, I guarantee that."
"Ok, thank you dad, I really appreciate this, and Jackie is going to flip. I can't wait to see the look on her face."
"No problem, I'm glad I'm able to do this for all of you kids. Let me ask you one question though?" He asked.
"Sure." Nick said.
"What would you have had her team lost yesterday, what would you have done for her birthday then?"
"Sat on the couch with her and comforted her as she cried as she watched the Super Bowl." Nick quipped.
Roger laughed.
"No, actually I had a backup plan, if they lost I was going to take her for a romantic trip to Napa in California for a weekend."
"She would have liked that too but knowing Jackie she'll like this more." Roger said.
"Way more, I was so stressed out watching that game, knowing that I had this huge thing planned for her but I had to depend on literal strangers to make that happen."
"I'm glad it worked out."
"Thanks me too."
"Ok, I'll let you go, and I'll let you know when the money is taken care of."
"Thanks again!"
"Of course, love you son."
"Love you to, Dad."
Nick got off the phone and immediately headed to his bank, he wanted to transfer money from their savings account to their checking account so he could start planning their trip, he would have to put everything on their credit card, which sounded like a bad idea but it would be fine since they were going to pay off the card immediately when the next statement came just like they always did, and he wanted to make sure he had enough money in their checking account just in case something hit a snag with his dad transferring the money, sometimes things didn't go as smoothly as you'd want them to and he wanted to make sure he had enough money in their checking account to be able to pay off the entire card balance because if they didn't pay off the balance in full the interest would be a killer. He would immediately put the money back into their savings account as soon as the money from his dad came through. He took out forty thousand dollars from their savings account which only left $18,300 in there, he hoped Jackie wouldn't check the account balances, it would ruin the surprise for one, but she'd also have a heart attack.
After that was done he went home to start planning. He found 2 game tickets with decent seats for $7,250 apiece, he bought them, and he found a hotel that was a fairly short car ride from the stadium that will cost them a total of nearly $2,000 for just a two night stay. He booked it. He did better on the flights (one of the perks of living in Vegas was flights were fairly reasonable) The total cost of the flight round trip was $1,300, not bad for two people. He thought of extra money they would need for things like food, other fun activities, and transportation, he figured $2000 would be enough for that since they were only going to be there Saturday night, all day Sunday, and they'd leave Monday early afternoon. He added that all up in his head, it was close to $20,000 which was very expensive but that would still leave them with about $20,000 of Nick's car money left, which they'd put into savings.
He could not wait until tonight to show Jackie the confirmation of the trip. Later that night after the kids had been put to bed Nick was ready for his surprise, but as luck would have it Sara called him to discuss a case, the call couldn't wait but when he got off the phone he was eager to tell Jackie, when he went up to the master bedroom where she was she had tears in her eyes.
"What's wrong?" Nick asked.
"I lost my ring." She whispered.
Nick looked down at her ring finger.
"It's on your finger, Jacks." He said looking at her like she was losing her mind.
"No, not my wedding ring, the ring you gave me with all the kids' birthstones on it."
Nick made a face, that had been another surprise that he'd been planning. Jackie had been wanting to add Nora's birthstone to it but hadn't gotten around to it yet so Nick decided that he would do that for her for Valentine's Day and he'd hoped she wouldn't notice it was gone for the couple days it'd be at the jewelers but obviously she had.
"You didn't lose it, I took it to the jewelers so they could add Nora's birthstone, it was supposed to be a surprise for your Valentines Day gift."
Her eyes lit up.
"Thank you, Nicky, I've been wanting to do that! Don't worry, I promise I'll act surprised when you give it to me on Valentines Day." She told him with a huge smile.
Nick laughed
"Thanks." He replied.
"I, uh, have one more surprise." He said as he handed her two sheets of paper.
She unfolded one of them.
"Plane tickets to New Orleans." She unfolded the other piece of paper. "A Hotel confirmation for New Orleans." She said.
"Look at the date on those." He told her.
She did and slowly her eyes went wide.
"Oh my God, that's when the Super Bowl is! Did you get me Super Bowl tickets?"
"Yes, I did." He replied with a huge smile.
She started shaking from head to toe.
"I can't…I don't even know what to say, except thank you, I'm so excited!"
He chuckled.
"How did you afford this? Super Bowl tickets are astronomically expensive, and I saw how much the hotel cost and the plane tickets."
Nick had never told her about his dad's classic car collection and the money he gifts his kids as a result, not because he was trying to hide it from Jackie or anything but in truth he just never needed a reason for the money so he didn't ever think about it. He explained it all to her now, she listened with her eyes occasionally going wide.
"So you spent your car money on me?" She asked, sounding genuinely touched.
"You are well worth it, plus I didn't spend all of it, I'll still have about 20K left, I figured we'd just put that in our savings account." Jackie shook her head in agreement, Nick knew she would agree with that.
"Thank you, Nicky, there is nothing I could ever do to repay you for this." She said as she leaned over and gave him a kiss as grateful tears welled in her eyes.
"You thank me for it every day, just by being you, and for being in my corner always but I'm not the only one that made this happen."
"Right, I'm going to call your dad this second to say thank you."
Nick laughed.
"You can do that, but my dad isn't who I meant."
"Who else?" She asked perplexed.
"Well, I think a certain quarterback, and his entire team's defense deserves a large part of the credit."
"Yes they do! Way to go guys!" She said enthusiastically.
She kissed him once more in gratitude before she got up to get her phone so she could call Roger and say thank you.
Later that night the couple was lying in bed.
"You know Jacks, I was thinking about something."
"What's that?" She asked.
"Well I was thinking that with a small portion of the left over car money we could do something fun for the kids. I was thinking that after we get back from New Orleans you and the kids could take a day off from school on a Friday and we could take them to the park, then for pizza and ice cream, and that night we could take them to the movies, then that Saturday we could get a room at that new hotel with the water park in it, and let them play all day in it. Then we could use that Sunday to just chill at home and relax after the fun couple of days, what do you say?"
"That's a great idea! They would absolutely love that! Let's do it!"
"Ok, great!
For now though, let's go to bed, I'm beat!"
"Me too, thank you so much for what you did, I love you so much and I am so excited!"
"You're welcome, love you too, good night!"
The End! Please read and review!