Title: Just Two Guys Having Breakfast
Author: podga
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: CSI and its characters do not belong to me. I write and post for fun only. Nick's invitation to Grissom is quoted directly from Season 8, episode 8 "You Kill Me".
Summary: Nick issues an invitation.
Warning: Light spoiler for "You Kill Me"

I don't know the rest of the team's theories on living their lives. I've never really discussed it with them. Not with Warrick, who's the closest thing to a friend I have in Las Vegas, not with Sara, who went through some of the same experiences as me, not even with Catherine. We're all aware of how totally random death can be, how it can catch you unprepared at any given moment, yet none of us seem to take any care with our lives, acting as if we have forever to make our decisions or pursue the things that will make us happy. Hell, I've cheated death at least four times that I know of, and probably more (because who can know about the drunk driver who ran the stop sign seconds after you crossed it, or the mugger who decided not to pull a knife on you and to wait for someone more vulnerable?), and I still can't bring myself to act on certain things. Maybe you can't really live any other way; maybe to openly acknowledge one's mortality in a job like ours simply leads to despair, rather than to the active pursuit of happiness. Or maybe I'm just saying all that because I'm a coward, and always have been, about certain things.

Gil looks up at me, his expression neutral. As usual, I don't have the faintest clue what he's thinking. I used to think I knew. I used to think that nobody understood Gil quite the same way I do. Sometimes I'd go home at the end of a shift and imagine all sorts of conversations with Gil, all ending with some variation of ‘Nick, I never realized how well you know me. I don't have to pretend with you'. I used to be so sure that one day we'd actually have one of those conversations, and that it would lead to more between us. A lovelorn teenager has more sense than I did back then. Back, before Gil told us that Sara was the only one he'd ever loved. Back, before I found out that they'd been having a relationship under everybody's nose.

That discovery alone should have turned me against Gil. I'd never thought of him as being perfect, but to have an affair with a subordinate is beyond any definition of acceptable behavior. And Gil had always been so rigid and absolute about protecting the lab and its work, so ethical, so demanding of the rest of us, especially of me, that his actions hit me like a personal betrayal of the worst kind. Nobody else seemed to feel the same way, though. They all took it in stride, as if they'd been half-expecting it, and I didn't hear a single negative word uttered, not even during the frequent lab rat bitch sessions, where nothing and nobody is sacred.

I didn't blame Sara half as much as I did Gil. After all, it was clear that this couldn't have been a relation of equals, and, from the first months she joined the team, we all knew that she'd been head over heels with him. I didn't go so far as to think of her as a victim of circumstance, but there was no way she would have refused the chance to be with Gil. I know I wouldn't have.

And then Sara up and left and I got to thinking about things differently, especially since Gil didn't seem too torn up about it. Maybe Gil hadn't set out to do what he ended up doing. Maybe he was just as human as the rest of us, and he'd gone looking for something that Sara just didn't have to give. Not that I've done such a great job of reading Gil so far, but there are a couple of things I'm certain of: First, Gil needs someone that can be strong for him, that won't rely on him too much and that will give him his space. And second, that Gil needs someone, and that if we, if I, let him retreat back into his shell, he'll never come out again.

Which brings me back to the active pursuit of happiness: For a number of years all I'd seen is the reasons I couldn't be with Gil. Many of those reasons still exist, maybe all of them still do, but I've come to realize that a relationship with Gil may not be an all-or-nothing proposition. It doesn't have to be a full-blown affair or a promise of happily-ever-after. Maybe the secret to happiness is simply taking the chance at a beginning, no matter where it leads.

"We don't have to talk about anything in particular," I say. "Just two guys having breakfast."

His expression changes from neutral to puzzled.

"I just don't think it's good for people to be alone too much," I continue.

It's not like I was expecting him to leap up and accept my invitation (especially not after my mouth ran away with me, and I implied I'd wait around for an hour for him), but his total lack of reaction unnerves me.

"If you want to, cool, if not, cool. Whatever," I say nonchalantly and think I make a pretty good pretense of sauntering off. I'm tempted to look around again, but don't. Taking chances doesn't mean letting go of the little dignity I have left at this point.

Frank's is hopping and the waitress keeps giving me the hairy eyeball as I linger on and on, nursing a cup of coffee and occupying a booth for two. At first I was sitting with my back to the door, but about half an hour in I switched sides. An hour and five minutes. He's not going to show and instead of drinking more coffee and getting all wired, I should just go home and sleep. I look around to find the waitress and motion her over, and when I look back, Gil is sitting in front of me.

"Sorry I'm late," Gil says, for all the world as if he'd agreed to the appointment. "I got sucked into Hodges' CSI game."

I tell myself it's the coffee that's making my heart beat too fast and I smile at him. He smiles back fleetingly, then looks down at the menu.

Just two guys having breakfast. And maybe a beginning.