Title: 'til Time and Times are Done
By: 0creativity
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Genres: angst, romance, post-ep
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Destruction can be beautiful, whether you're strong or not.

Greg turns his body so he can look at Nick, shifts a little closer to his warmth, revels in the feel of Nick's strong arms holding him close. The wind picks up a bit and Greg shivers slightly, causing Nick to pull him even closer. "I wasn't sure if you'd still want to do this," Greg says and Nick shrugs the best he can, and then winces as a particularly sharp rock digs into his left shoulder but he doesn't say anything.

Greg knows by now that it never does any good to fish for information with Nick; either he feels like telling you or he doesn't. He likes to think that by now Nick would feel comfortable telling him anything, but the reality is they've both seen their fair share of dark days and neither one wants to burden the other even more by recounting the horrors of their own life. So he turns his head back towards the sky, watches as the meteors streak across the sky and he waits for Nick to find the words. They might come within seconds or minutes, or it might be days, weeks, months from now that Nick finally finds a way to express what he's feeling. It doesn't really matter to Greg, though, because he'll wait the rest of his life if he has to, waited for years to even get this so he's an expert at playing the waiting game and he's always been a patient man, anyway.

"I needed the space," Nick finally admits and Greg hates that he sounds so defeated. A rather large fireball moves across the sky and he runs his thumb across Nick's lips, traces laugh lines as he wonders when the last time Nick really laughed was. "You knew," Nick says quietly and Greg nods. "You always do, I guess." Greg nods again before wrapping his own arm around Nick and leaning his forehead against Nick's.

"Of course I do. They didn't make me a CSI for nothing."

Nick kisses him softly, tenderly, desperately tries to convey something words will never be able to. And of course Greg gets the message because it's the same one he's been trying to get across from the very beginning. Nick breaks the kiss, pull back a little so he can really look at Greg, who recognizes exactly what Nick's feeling because it's exactly how he felt after the explosion.

"It doesn't make you weak," he says softly. "And you know that. Remember?"

Nick shakes his head slightly and says, "No. It was different for you. It's always different for you."

"How? How could it possibly be different for me, Nick?"

"Because," Nick whispers as he runs his hand up and down Greg's arm. "You always knew. You just had to be reminded."

"And you? You've never known?"

The sky lights up as dozens of meteors shoot across the infinite black chasm of space and they both turn to watch the peak of the shower. Nick thinks of how he and Greg are, how they both seem to be drawn to each other, how everything that had ever happened in either of their lives somehow led them to this moment. He thinks about how it's almost like they each have their own gravitational force and they kept pulling each other in until they got so close they collided and the resulting explosion destroyed them both. But it doesn't really matter because, like the meteor shower, they've created something new and better and more beautiful than they ever could have alone.

Greg's hand takes hold of his and squeezes and he squeezes back. "I've never known what it feels like to be strong, Greg. I never had the chance."

"You're the strongest person I know," Greg says after a few moments of silence, the words spoken reverently in hopes that Nick will realize he really does mean it. Nick sighs and Greg can tell that he still doesn't believe it. He never does.

Nick watches the balls of light flash across the sky, watches as pieces of rock millions of years old disintegrate in the earth's atmosphere and he finds that it bothers him that destruction can be so beautiful. They're just pieces of rock, though, pieces of some distant moon or planet, perhaps, that somehow wove their way through galaxies and between other pieces of rock to miraculously arrive here at this very moment to provide some sort of confirmation to two star-crossed lovers who had also woven their way through their own obstacles to finally arrive in the other's life at exactly the right moment.

And he thinks, then, even if he never knows what it feels like to be strong, it doesn't really matter because in the end, everything ends up the same. He can only hope that his own destruction will be as beautiful as that which he's watching tonight.

He props himself up against a large boulder and takes Greg into his arms, kisses the back of his head and hums with contentment. Whatever happens, he thinks, it's sure to be beautiful so long as Greg's with me when it does.

And he finds a small bit of strength in that.