Every Little Thing

Gil's not quite sure why, but he puts off going to the hospital, even though he wants to be there more than anything. He sits in his office, open files in front of him, staring into space. Through the closed door he can hear excited conversation and the occasional burst of laughter. The atmosphere is a lot different than the almost funereal silence that had dominated in the hours they'd been looking for Nick.

"He's safe. Nick is safe," he says firmly, trying to block his thoughts from racing through the endless what-ifs that he hadn't allowed himself to consider throughout the search. He should be feeling relieved, he is relieved, but at some level he's more scared now than he was before.

She's standing half inside the office, half hidden behind the door, as if waiting for permission, so he waves her in.

"Good." She makes a face, as if acknowledging how inadequate the description is. "All things considered. They've got him on an IV to take care of the dehydration and are treating the bites. He's on a respirator to help him breathe a bit easier, although they said they'll take him off that in the next hours. They kicked us all out and sedated him, so that he can get some sleep."

"Warrick dropped them off at their hotel for a few hours' rest. I guess they'll be going back in the afternoon."

"We need to finish writing the reports," he says, even as he's closing the files and stacking them tidily.

He raises an eyebrow. "You're actually telling me not to process paperwork right away? To allow it to build up on me?"

With his badge hanging around his neck he looks as if he's on official business, and he doesn't get stopped until he's almost at Nick's door. A nurse leans over the station counter and calls him.

She studies his badge suspiciously. "The police were here hours ago. They said they wouldn't be back until this afternoon. Anyway, Mr. Stokes is asleep."

"I just said that. Gil Grissom," he says slowly. They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel for these nurses.

"Doctors," she mutters, bustling around the station and gesturing to him to follow her. "Anybody with half a brain can tell that the poor boy shouldn't be left alone after what he's just been through, but do doctors understand that? Of course not." She stands at the door and waves him through conspirationally. "He's had enough sedatives to fell a horse, but he's still fretting. We can't make out a lot of what he's saying, but he keeps on mentioning your name, asking where you are."

She's still talking, but he's no longer paying attention, his eyes fixed on Nick. At first he thinks that it's better than he expected, because Nick only has an IV connected, then he realizes in shocked anger that Nick is restrained.

"He keeps on trying to scratch. He's got pustules over most of his body, a number of larger lesions and we're worried about infection. Don't worry; the restraints don't seem to be bothering him much at the moment."

How can they not bother him? he wants to yell at the woman. Don't you know what he's been through? He reins in his fury, not wanting to jeopardize his access to Nick. He walks closer to the bed. Nick's eyelids are swollen, every inch of his skin, even his ears, covered in bumps. Occasionally his whole body jerks and every now and then he mutters something in a hoarse, incoherent whisper.

"Talk to him, Gil. Let him know you're here," the nurse says softly, then leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

Nick jerks again, moaning slightly and Gil reaches out and lays his hand on Nick's shoulder. Nick's skin is burning hot.

He doesn't know what else to say. He just sits there, his hand lying lightly on Nick's shoulder, afraid to apply any pressure in case he hurts Nick.

Nick's hands jerk against the restraints and he moans again. Gil undoes one of the restraints and wraps his fingers around Nick's.

Nick still seems restless and Gil's not sure he's doing any good. Maybe Nick wasn't even asking for him. Gil doesn't think he's ever heard Nick call him anything other than Grissom or Griss. Even in the grave he called him Grissom. On the other hand, how many Gils is Nick likely to know?

Nick's breathing is rapid and shallow. How can he be resisting so much sedation? Gil had never thought of Nick as being particularly tough. Strong-willed, yes, that soon became obvious even when Nick was at his most laid-back, but not the kind of inner toughness that had kept him fighting in the grave, that keeps him fighting even now.

"You need to relax, Nick. It's OK. I'll stay with you. Just sleep, honey. Rest."

Is Nick a bit quieter now, or is it just his imagination? He leans over and sees Nick's eyelids fluttering, but he's not sure if it's a dream or Nick fighting sleep. He runs his thumb over Nick's knuckles, caressing them lightly.

"I'm glad you're here, Nick. I'm glad you're in Vegas. It's nice having you here."

He wonders if Nick will want to stay after he's out of the hospital. One way or another, Nick seems to have had more than his share of bad luck in Las Vegas. And although Gil can't exactly describe how, Nick has changed over the past years, becoming harder to read. Gil realizes that he knows Nick less well now than he did five years ago. He doesn't even know if there's somebody in Las Vegas they should let know that Nick is in the hospital.

"I told Ecklie I wanted us all back in the same team. I missed working with you. And I need Catherine or you to get Greg off my back."

Actually he's fairly certain that Catherine won't be happy to join graveyard and run second to him again. It's a demotion, any way you look at it. But he wants Nick back. Nick is his responsibility, his comfort when cases don't go well, his motivation for showing up at work every day. Nick is his, even though he can never express it or act on it.

He leans his head against their clasped hands and closes his eyes. He's so tired. He wonders if Nick senses his presence even when he's silent, because he can't think of anything more to say.

Gil jerks awake when he nearly slides off the chair. He's not sure how long he's been sleeping. He straightens up slowly, the muscles in his shoulders and back protesting, and sees that Nick is awake.

"Hi, Nick" he says cautiously, wondering how he'll explain his presence and the fact that he's still holding Nick's hand.

Nick has been staring up at the ceiling and he turns his head on the pillow to look at Gil. His eyes are feverish, but he looks better.

Nick doesn't respond. He pulls at the restraint that's still on and at first seems puzzled, then quickly distressed, when he can't move his hand. Gil gets up and reaches over with his free hand to clasp Nick's wrist.

As if he didn't understand, Nick raises his hand. Gil starts to catch it, then freezes when he realizes that Nick isn't reaching for his own face but for Gil's, tracing Gil's cheek, then his temple, his fingers trembling slightly.

Almost instinctively, Gil reaches up and holds Nick's hand against his cheek. He doesn't know what's happening, or even if Nick is fully conscious or aware of what he's doing. He's still bending over Nick, holding both his hands, and he brings them to his chest. His heart is thudding slowly, almost painfully, against his breastbone.

Gil releases Nick's hands and stands up straight. "I'll get you some water," he says.

"Is he awake?" she asks Gil when he walks up to her station. "I checked on you about an hour ago and you both seemed dead to the world. He was sleeping peacefully."

"I need to leave," Gil says gruffly and the nurse looks at him sharply. "I have to get back to work," he continues, even though he's not sure why he feels the need to explain himself to her.

He walks down the hallway, until he's out of sight of the nurse's station and sinks down on a bench. He's tired and his back aches and he doesn't want to leave Nick, but he's not really up to being alone with him again just yet, especially now that Nick's awake.

An orderly is mopping the floor, whistling under his breath, and Gil recognizes the tune, Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds." He suddenly realizes that up until now, despite all evidence to the contrary, despite how often he repeated it to Nick over the last few hours, he himself hadn't really accepted that Nick is alive and safe. At some level he'd kept on feeling as helpless and desperate as he'd felt during the long search. Llistening to the orderly whistling the same tune over and over again, don't you worry about a thing, until he's moved so far down the hallway that he can't hear him anymore, the reality of Nick's rescue finally sinks in, filling Gil with calm. Every little thing gonna be alright.

"Back so soon," the nurse says dryly, as if she was expecting him, and he tries to stare her down, but she seems unperturbed. "You'll have to wait a while. The doctor's with him now. She shouldn't be more than five minutes or so."

He hangs around the station, studiously ignoring the nurse, until the doctor comes out. He opens his mouth to ask her about Nick, but the nurse beats him to it.

The doctor glances at Gil, as if debating how much information she should divulge, then shrugs. "Physically he's doing fine. The swelling is down. He's still a little dehydrated and running a low fever, and the pustules must be itching like crazy, but he should be out of here and back home in a couple of days." She hands the file over to the nurse. "I'm more concerned about his emotional state. He needs to get some uninterrupted rest, but I'd like us to avoid further sedatives if we can. Let's continue with the anti-histamines, which will also help keep him drowsy. Use the topical cream where necessary."

Once the doctor moves on, Gil walks back to Nick's room. Nick is lying on his back, his eyes closed.

He's hoping for a yes and steels himself for a no, but he's not prepared for Nick's complete lack of response. He waits for a few long minutes, then tries again.

"Then be my guest," Nick says, smiling tightly. "But I'm not very good company."

"If my reputation is deserved, that would make two of us," Gil says and Nick's smile broadens, then is replaced by a grimace.

"Don't scratch," Gil says, moving swiftly to Nick's side to capture his hands. He can feel Nick tensing, fighting to release himself. "Nick! Stop it. I'm sure the nurse will be here in a minute."

"Shit. Shit," Nick mutters, but stops struggling and Gil starts to release him, but suddenly Nick twists his hands so that he's now holding onto Gil's, gripping them with all his strength. "Wait," he gasps.

"Wait," Nick repeats. He takes a deep breath and slowly relaxes, but doesn't let go of Gil's hands. "Who did this to me, Grissom? Did you find him?" His voice is still hoarse and Gil can hear the underlying fear.

"He's dead. He blew himself up. You don't have to worry about him anymore, Nick. It's over."

"I'm positive. Anyway, he wasn't targeting you. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the wrong cop looking after you." He spits the last sentence out angrily, not sure if he blames Walter Gordon or Officer Michaels more for what happened to Nick.

Nick shakes his head. "He was by the car, throwing up. I shouldn't have wondered off." He's still holding onto Gil's hands, though his grip is looser. "Why? What was he after?"

"He blamed a CSI for discovering evidence that led to his daughter's arrest and incarceration. He wanted revenge."

"The itching almost comes in waves. I can ignore it for a while, then suddenly I can't. Where the fuck is that nurse?"

"Right here," Gil hears the nurse's voice sing out cheerfully behind him. He sees Nick blush a deep crimson and grins down at him, then releases his hands from Nick's grip and moves away from the bed in order to give the nurse some space.

The nurse administers the anti-histamine. "It should start working in a few minutes. Afterwards, if there are any areas that are particularly itchy, Gil can apply this ointment. Gently, Gil, you don't want to break the pustules."

"You're on a first-name basis with my nurse?" Nick asks after the nurse walks out.

"I think it would be more accurate to say that she's on a first-name basis with me."

"Huh." Nick ponders that for a while. He seems to be growing sleepy, his eyes closing. When one of his hands drifts up to scratch at his neck, Gil catches it again, but Nick doesn't fight him this time, merely laces his fingers through Gil's.

When Nick's parents arrive, Nick is dozing and Gil is sitting on the chair, idly leafing through a real estate magazine he found in the waiting room.

"There were some details I needed clear up, and then I thought I'd wait for a few minutes until you arrived. Nick seems to be doing better. Is there anything the department can do for you?"

"No, thank you. We saw the doctor on the way in and she said that Nick should be released day after tomorrow. We'll see how he feels, but I'd like to get him down home for a couple of weeks. He's too skinny," Mrs. Stokes says, looking worriedly down at Nick.

"Ma, you always think I'm too skinny. I'm fine," Nick says in a querulous tone. "And I want to stay in my own home."

Gil sees Nick flush and recognizes the mutinous expression. He should, he's been on the receiving end often enough. Part of him wants to stay and see how this plays out, but it's none of his business. "I've got to go. Judge, Mrs. Stokes, I hope to see you again sometime. Bye, Nick. Feel better."

He's almost at the door, when he hears Nick say "Griss" and he looks back at him.

Gil makes a dismissive gesture. "That's OK," he says, smiling awkwardly, and walks out.

A number of people from the lab visit Nick over the next few days, and according to all reports he's growing stronger and getting impatient with being cooped up. Gil never makes it back to see him again; the reshuffling of the shifts is causing a torrent of paperwork he can barely keep up with on top of the normal cases, and Nick seems to have plenty of company.

So he spends countless hours in the lab, pushing paper and drinking endless cups of coffee. On one visit to the break room for a refill, he walks in on Catherine and Sara giggling together uncharacteristically.

"Not that I know of. Apparently he had a big fight with his parents and sent them packing."

"Who knows? I overheard a couple of the nurses talking about it, but they clammed up when they noticed me," Sara says. "Grissom? Can you get Hodges to prioritize checking those fibers from the Wilson scene? He hasn't even started on them yet."

"Simply nagging him like you always do isn't working this time?" Catherine asks innocently and as Sara turns on her, Gil spots his opportunity to escape.

The following morning finds him sitting in his car in front of Nick's house, tunelessly humming "Three Little Birds" over and over again. Every little thing gonna be alright. He's been here long enough to decide that the neighborhood watch isn't as diligent as it should be; somebody should have called the police on him by now. And the tub of ice cream he bought at the supermarket has probably turned to soup. Still, he can't get himself to get out and walk up to Nick's front door. He starts the engine, then turns it off again. He's just visiting a member of his team who's been recuperating for a few days. It's normal. No big deal.

Finally, he gets out of the car and walks to the door, then realizes he's left the ice cream and almost turns back to get it, even though it's almost certainly past salvaging. He takes a deep breath and rings the doorbell.

"Hi, Nick," he says when Nick opens the door. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by and see how you're doing." It doesn't come out as smoothly as he'd hoped.

"What were you doing in the neighborhood?" Nick asks, not moving from the door. He hasn't been shaving, he's wearing an old T-shirt and boxers, and his bare arms and legs are still covered with pustules, but he seems better than he did in the hospital.

Gil follows Nick into the living room. The blinds are drawn and the room is cool. It feels good after the heat of the car. Nick motions to an armchair.

"Here you go." Nick watches with raised eyebrows as Gil gulps down the entire glass. "Can I get you more?"

Nick shrugs. "I wouldn't know. Doctors said not to move out of the house for a few more days." He sits down on the couch.

Now that Gil has the chance to observe him more closely, he can see that Nick has dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks are sunken.

"I think your mother was right. You're getting skinny," he says evenly. "Are you getting enough to eat?"

He wishes he hadn't sat in the car for so long; at least he could have forced some ice cream on Nick.

"I'm fine," Nick says. "Hospital food. You know. It takes a while to get back into form."

"Grissom, I'm fine. I don't know if you've heard of it, but there's this thing called the Internet now. You can get pretty much anything you need."

Nick's venomous tone catches Gil by surprise. He's almost ready to apologize and get the hell out of there, when an alarm goes off in his brain. He gets up and, before Nick has a chance to react, walks into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator.

Gil looks into the empty fridge, then back at Nick, who's now leaning shakily against the door jamb.

He lets the door swing shut and props himself against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms.

"I don't give a damn. I don't have to explain myself to you." Nick's fists are clenched.

Nick looks down at his fists as if surprised, and slowly relaxes them. He's visibly trembling.

Gil approaches him slowly and puts his hands on Nick's shoulders. He's not sure what to say that will calm Nick down and finally he just pulls a resisting Nick closer into a hug. For a split second it feels awkward and the wrong thing to do, but then Nick sags against him, wrapping his arms loosely around Gil's back and dropping his forehead on Gil's shoulder.

"You're not eating," Gil murmurs into Nick's ear. "Are you sleeping?" He feels Nick shake his head, Nick's breath hot and damp on his shoulder.

Gil strokes Nick's neck and back lightly, continuing to hold him close. "Have you talked to the doctors about this?" he asks and Nick shakes his head a third time.

"Nick. Look at me." Gil cups Nick's jaw and gently forces his head up. "Why not?"

"Because I don't need to." Nick's eyes are lifeless, flat. "I get through these things alone."

Nick stares at him resentfully. "You should know. You were around for two of them."

"Really? Why? Because I was supposed to guess that something even worse might happen to me? Well at the time those were the worst things I could imagine. And I worked through them. And I will now, as well."

This time Gil lets Nick go, not because he wants to, but because he feels he has no right to hold onto him. "I didn't realize. I'm sorry, Nick."

Nick wipes his eyes angrily. "Don't be. Anyway, you're the last person I would have expected to realize, and nobody else did either."

"But I'm here now," Gil says slowly. It's a stupid remark and it means nothing, because he doesn't know how to help Nick. Nevertheless he repeats it. "I'm here now."

"That's why the nurse let me see you and stay with you that first night; you'd been asking for me."

Nick shakes his head. "No. You're wrong." He seems to be getting angrier, although Gil doesn't understand why.

Nick stares at him, then suddenly the fight goes out of him and his shoulders sag. "I need to sit down," he says wearily and walks back into the living room, leaving Gil standing there.

Gil follows Nick after a few seconds, and finds him lying on the couch on his side with his legs drawn up. His head is resting on one arm, the other arm wrapped around his knees. Gil goes to him and squats next to him, so that they're face to face.

"Nick. Why don't you go to bed? It has to be more comfortable than this," he says, concentrating on practicalities he can address.

He finds the bedroom easily enough and sees that Nick must have spent at least some time on the bed, because the sheets are full of bloody spots, where some of the pustules ruptured. He spends some time searching closets and drawers and finally discovers one clean bottom sheet in the dryer. Nick is using the top sheet on the couch and apparently he only has the two sets. Gils makes the bed and throws the used sheets into the wash, then goes back to Nick.

"What about the pustules? It looks as if some of them burst open. Did they give you something for that, so that they don't get infected?"

"Neosporin. I'm OK, I took care of most of them. On my arms and legs, where I rubbed against the sheets."

"There's a couple on my back I couldn't reach. But they're not bleeding anymore, so it's OK."

With a resigned sigh Nick sits up, then turns his back towards Gil and raises his T-shirt. Gil studies his back, but Nick is right. Everything seems to be healing. Gil runs his fingers lightly along the knobs of Nick's spine and Nick shivers and straightens up and away from Gil's hand, then lets his T-shirt drop again.

"You just don't let up, do you?" Nick asks. "There might be a box of spaghetti, but there's no sauce or cheese. Or butter."

"If I don't, you'll probably pick the lock. Just take the key. It's hanging on the door."

When Gil lets himself into the house thirty minutes later, Nick is lying on the couch in the same position as before, watching TV.

"Fine," Nick answers without interest. He pushes himself to an upright position, and takes the bag Gil hands him. He only eats about half the burger and leaves the fries untouched, but he drinks the entire milkshake. Gil silently offers him his own milkshake.

"I bet you could get all those answers," he says, setting the empty cup on the floor and lying back down.

Nick smiles a bit. "No, probably not." For the first time he looks more relaxed and after a while Gil sees his eyes fluttering shut.

"Yes, I do know that," Gil responds in a humble voice and Nick suddenly laughs. They smile at each other across the room, the tension between them momentarily forgotten.

Nick gets up and goes to the bathroom, then he returns to stand at the living room door.

Gil is taken aback. He didn't expect to be given a choice. He looks at Nick, trying to figure out what's behind the question, but Nick seems absorbed by the trivia show on the TV again.

Nick shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "You can come and lie down in the bedroom." His eyes don't move from the TV screen.

At a loss for words, Gil continues to stare. Out of nowhere, he remembers Sara asking him if he'd like to come sleep with her. Somehow he doesn't have the courage to ask Nick if he just said what Gil thought he did, liked he'd asked Sara so long ago.

Nick clears his throat. "Well, I'll see you later." He finally slides a quick look at Gil, then turns around and goes to the bedroom.

Gil gathers up the food containers and chucks them in the trash, then returns to the living room and sits on the couch after moving Nick's sheet. He mutes the volume of the TV and zaps through the channels, stopping at a golf game. He doesn't recognize any of the players and he's never been that interested in golf anyway, so he can think undisturbed.

He tries to remember what Nick was like after the two previous incidents he'd mentioned having worked through. For the life of him, Gil can't remember having seen any change in Nick's behavior, especially not after Amy Hendler. He might have been a bit quieter right after Nigel Crane, but then he'd been injured, as well, and he'd seemed back to normal within a couple of weeks. He thinks of Nick fighting the sedation that first night in the hospital and that first realization that Nick was tougher than he, or anyone in the team, had ever imagined.

When Nick first joined the team, Gil had had his doubts. He'd seen Nick as a guy who got by easily on charm and good looks, who had never had to try too hard for anything in his life. Not the kind of person who makes a good CSI. As time went by, he revised his opinion about a lot of things - Nick's intelligence, his perseverance, his innate kindness - and saw Nick grow more mature and self-confident, but he'd never glimpsed that inner core until barely a week ago.

The only trouble is that things sometimes have to bend, otherwise they break. Given the right conditions, one blow too many, even steel can shatter.

A slight noise from the doorway causes him to look up and he sees Nick standing there.

"No, that's OK. Do you think that when you get a second chance, you should change things?"

"If choices were so obvious, it seems to me we'd already be making the right ones the first time around."

He hesitates, unsure of how much he wants to tell Nick, how much he wants Nick to know about him. "Did you know I was going deaf a couple of years ago?"

"No," Nick answers startled, but even as he says it, it's obvious that he's starting to remember and understand certain incidents. "I just thought... I don't know, that you were more absent-minded than usual for a while there."

"Well, at any rate concentrating on something other than what the rest of us were at the given moment," Nick explains carefully, barely suppressing a smile.

"Anyway. I had corrective surgery and it was successful. When I thought I was losing my hearing, being able to hear music, and birds, and the wind blowing through leaves, seemed like the most precious thing. But after a few months, I stopped remembering to appreciate these things. It was all normal again. The other things in my life were important as well, and they didn't become less important by comparison afterwards."

Gil nods, conceding the point. "I just don't think you should feel obligated to question everything you've done, change things, or regret not doing so. Hindsight isn't always 20:20. We get through life the best way we know how. That should be enough."

"Yeah. I guess so," Nick says, sounding unconvinced. He rubs his hand over his hair, making it stand on end, then gets up looks down at Gil. "I'm going back to bed."

"Come with me, Griss. I'm finding it hard to sleep when I'm alone, even with the lights on." He says it lightly, ruefully, as if he's admitting to a character flaw that people might find surprising, even slightly ridiculous, but of no real consequence.

"We get through life the best way we know how," Nick repeats Gil's words smiling tightly, but his dark eyes are somber. He holds his hand out and Gil takes it reluctantly and allows Nick to pull him up to his feet.

"OK." Nick stretches out on his stomach on the right side. "Just wake me up when you need to leave."

Gil takes off his shoes and lies next to Nick, trying to put as much distance between them as possible without being too obvious about it. "I snore," he warns Nick and Nick laughs.

Gil wakes up feeling disoriented and wondering why he wore his clothes to bed. It takes him a few seconds to remember that he's not in his own bedroom, but in Nick's. He rolls onto his back and turns his head. Nick is still asleep on his stomach, his face turned away from Gil. A rush of tenderness engulfs Gil and he lightly touches Nick's nape, warm and slightly damp from sleep, tracing the hairline.

Nick lifts himself on his elbows and looks at Gil, his eyes still heavy with sleep. "Time for work? Isn't it still early?

Gil isn't convinced, but he doesn't want to push further. He sits on the side of the bed and puts his shoes on.

Nick smirks. "Well then, you'd better call first, make sure I'm in," he says ironically, then drops his head on the pillow again.

For a few days they fall into an odd routine. Gil goes to Nick's house after work. Sometimes Nick has prepared food, sometimes not. Sometimes he seems glad to see Gil, others he appears to barely tolerate his being around, although he never asks him to leave. Sometimes Nick wants to hear about the cases coming up at the lab, becoming involved and asking questions, others he lounges apathetically on the couch, just staring at whatever's on the TV. Gil wonders if Nick wouldn't rather have somebody else around, someone livelier, or less connected with work. He wonders why nobody else seems to visit Nick, but speaking to Warrick one day, he realizes that Nick has told everybody that he decided to go stay with his parents for a few of weeks after all.

After the first couple of times, Nick no longer asks Gil to sleep over, he just seems to assume that he will, and so Gil stays, but always as if it's a last minute decision. Sometimes Nick sleeps peacefully beside him for six or seven hours in a row, but more often than not he seems to be fighting nightmares that never quite wake him, but don't let him rest either. At first Gil wakes him, but Nick claims he can't remember what he was dreaming about and either gets up or falls back into the same restless sleep. Afterwards Gil experiments with putting his hand on Nick's back or shoulder or holding his hand, like he did in the hospital, to let Nick know he's not alone, but that doesn't work much better. A few times he simply starts talking to Nick in a low monotone, telling him about the first play he ever saw, describing roller coaster rides and explaining why fireflies glow and for a while Nick grows more quiet, breathing deeply and evenly.

Gil doesn't think that Nick is getting any better, if anything he's worse, and Gil himself isn't holding up so well anymore; he's constantly on edge, worried about saying or doing the wrong thing in a situation that's all wrong anyway. He lies beside Nick in the dark bedroom, considering and rejecting various options and interventions that might help Nick, then helplessly reconsidering them, and he hasn't gotten more than three or four hours of sleep per day for the last two weeks.

Finally, after the third double shift in as many days, Gil can't handle it any more. Instead of going to Nick's house after work, he heads over to his own. He's asleep before his head hits the pillow.

At first the ringing sound is just part of Gil's dream, then it yanks him up through layers of sleep. He blindly reaches for the phone, knocking a couple of books off the side table before he manages to pick it up.

The moment Gil hangs up, the sense of guilt he's been determinedly suppressing since he made the first turn that would take him to his own home, rather than Nick's, overwhelms him. He pushes it back, covering it with anger. If Nick wants to deal with things alone, then he should damn well deal with them alone, not drag Gil into it as well. Or, at very least, stop being so selfish and realize that Gil doesn't have limitless resources. Gil knows he's being unfair, that he's also pushed himself on Nick, needing the daily contact at least as much, if not more, than Nick seems to, and for far baser reasons, but he doesn't feel like being fair. Even under the circumstances, he's done with being fair.

To try and sleep again seems futile, so he gets up and takes a shower, then goes to the kitchen. Most of the food in his refrigerator has turned into a lab experiment and he realizes that, except for a few cups of coffee, he hasn't had a meal in his home for the past two and a half weeks. Fuck it. He's not that hungry anyway. He sits at the kitchen table and stares moodily into space, the tune he's hummed so often over the past days echoing in his brain. Don't worry about a thing. Yeah, right.

When he hears the doorbell, he has no doubt as to who it is, and he realizes he's been half-expecting this from the moment he hung up on Nick. He doesn't want to answer, but his car is parked outside and Nick will know he's at home. His anger turns into resignation and he goes to open the door.

Nick is standing outside, holding a pizza box and a six pack of beer. He proffers the box uncertainly. "I thought you might be low on supplies," he says.

Gil takes the pizza and when Nick holds out the six pack, he automatically accepts it as well. Nick thrusts his hands in his pockets. He's thinner than ever, his jeans riding low on jutting hipbones.

"Why me?" Gil asks. It's been a question that's nagged at him off and on since that first night.

"You said I'm the last person you'd expect to realize what you're going through. Maybe you're right. So why me? Why not Warrick, or Catherine, or your family?"

Gil sets the pizza and the beer on the table near the door, coming to a sudden decision. "I'm not what you need, Nick," he says deliberately. "I don't know what you need to get better, but I'm definitely not it."

Nick's mouth is pulling down at the corners. "And you don't need me," he says thickly, through stiff lips.

He expects Nick to offer some protest, some resistance, but Nick just nods jerkily, turns on his heel and leaves. Gil shuts the door and then leans his head against it, closing his eyes, feeling overwhelming relief and a deep despair at the same time. Every little thing gonna be alright. He repeats it doggedly in his brain, trying to silence every other thought. Every little thing gonna be alright. Except it doesn't look like it will be, at least not any time soon. If ever.

When Nick comes back to work two weeks later, it's almost as if he'd simply been away on a long vacation. He's put on weight again and he looks fit and rested. He responds to people's expressions of concern and relief lightly, as if they're making too big a deal out of everything.

Gil has no idea what happened to Nick after that afternoon on his porch. He drove by Nick's house on the way to work that same night, and he saw the lights on, but he didn't stop. After work, he drove by the house again and noticed that the automatic sprinkler was on, but otherwise the house seemed still and abandoned. He rolled to a stop across the street, concerned about Nick, but at the same time unwilling to get involved again. At one level he'd convinced himself that this was the right thing to do, that as long as he was hanging around, Nick wasn't getting the help he really needed, but deep down he knew that he'd run away in a confused act of self-preservation that was both undeniable and unforgivable. After a few minutes, he drove away, a tight band constricting his chest and making it almost impossible for him to breathe. The next night at work he heard Greg mention to Catherine that Nick was back in town and had called him to organize a guys' night out, and he told himself that he'd done the right thing after all.

Gil now knows enough to realize that Nick isn't alright yet and that he's only presenting the face everybody expects him to. He's careful when making assignments, so that it doesn't appear as if he's trying to protect or to avoid Nick. If Nick has chosen to stick it out and to play this role, then the least Gil can do is support him. Nick doesn't appear to bear any ill will towards him, even invites him to come along and celebrate Warrick's wedding, and Gil accepts, eager to revert to the normality, the safety, of the casual professional friendship they'd had in the past.

Sometimes he finds himself missing those long mornings and afternoons at Nick's house, the hours he spent lying next to him. At the time, Gil never let himself imagine anything different than the reality that Nick, for some unknown reason, had latched onto him in an effort to get through those first days, but now he occasionally still wonders why Nick chose him and if things might have evolved differently if only he'd had the courage to wait them through.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Nick says to him as they walk beside each other, scanning the dirt road for any indication of what might have led to two cars colliding head on in the middle of nowhere, killing both drivers.

Gil wipes at the sweat rolling into his eyes with his wrist and squints in the bright sun, trying to tell if what he sees glinting dully a few yards away is a piece of evidence or simply a can somebody tossed out of a passing car. He walks over to it, Nick close at his heels.

It's just an old beer can that's obviously been out there weeks, if not months. Gil picks it up anyway and rotates it slowly, feeling the rough corroded texture of it, examining it minutely.

"And I think that when you get a second chance, you should change things. You should try, at least."

"I doubt it," Gil says, squatting down to check a tire track. He stands back up and looks back at the accident site. "They were playing chicken."

Gil hesitates for a second, taken aback not by content of the admission, but by the fact that Nick is making it in the first place. "You can see from the tread marks that he accelerated right here, right about where he would have first seen the Toyota coming from the other direction. And then he just kept on going, no attempt to swerve at the end. Only the other guy didn't swerve either." He pauses and looks directly at Nick. "No, Nick. I don't."

A light breeze has kicked up and he takes off his cap and runs his fingers through his hair. The two mangled cars and the CSI truck and police car parked next to them shimmer in the heat.

Gil shrugs. "It depends." He takes a last look around. "We're done here," he says, putting the cap back on and pulling the bill low over his eyes.

Nick reaches out and grabs Gil by the elbow in order to stop him from walking back to the truck.

"You were partly right, Gil. What I needed - what I need - to get better isn't you. But I do need what I think we could have together. Since I met you, I can't remember a time I didn't."

They're alone, in the middle of the desert, the two cops guarding the scene visible, but too far away to matter. Just Nick and him. And suddenly Gil feels as if it's always been the two of them, and that somewhere deep down, he's known it all along. He swallows convulsively, dimly understanding that Nick is offering him a second chance of his own, and that he'll never get a third one.

"That afternoon... That afternoon, I lied," he says roughly, unable to look Nick straight in the eye.

Nick smiles. "I know. I didn't it know then, but I figured it out later. Or at least I hoped I did."

Two years later, on a holiday in Ireland, several pints of Guinness allowing them to exchange confidences that under any other circumstances they'd consider too embarrassing, Nick will tell Gil that he first fell in love with him at the party for Lindsey Willows that never happened, when Gil said that they'd play with the Chem Lab sets later. Gil will pretend to remember that incident, and he won't be able to pinpoint when he first realized his own feelings for Nick. "You just wormed your way into my heart," he'll say. Leaning against the bar next to each other, their shoulders occasionally touching, they'll joke in low voices meant just for each other's ears, each blaming the other for the many weeks it took to move from the conversation in the desert to their first kiss, for the missed connections, the too subtle hints, the mutual hesitations in making the first concrete move.

And when Nick asks him, Gil will immediately say that he thinks of "Three Little Birds" as their song, and Nick will be puzzled, because he doesn't really like reggae, and because the first time they'll make love (one summer morning with the temperature in the high nineties and Nick's A/C out for the count, their bodies slick with sweat and their skin salty to their lips and tongues) Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" will be playing on the radio.

Title	Every Little Thing
Author	podga
Pairing	Gil/Nick
Rating	PG-13
Disclaimer	Characters don't belong to me and I don't make money off of them
Summary	Grave Danger Aftermath