Title: The Secret Formula
Author: Dee
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3708
Pairing: Nick/OMC Gil/Nick
Characters: Gil Grissom and Nick Stokes
Warnings: AU and v.fluffy!
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: In my dreams they are like, totally mine!
Beta: My everlasting thanks to podga
A/N 1: stokesgirl issued a challenge a couple of weeks ago for a Gil/Nick fic following Gil’s scene with Catherine at the end of ‘Young man with a Horn’, where he says, ‘Yeah...I think it's time to up the ante’. I don’t think there were more any rules…I haven’t followed any anyway!
A/N 2: I’ve already written a fic called ‘Upping the Ante’, so this had to be called something else.

When he’d said to Catherine that, ‘yeah…I think it’s time to up the ante’, Gil hadn’t really had a plan at all.  But afterwards, when he’d thought about their walk along the Vegas sidewalk, he’d thought that maybe he should do something.

 

For years he’d allowed himself to be slowly drawn into what other people had wanted of him and for him.  He’d gone along with it because, in the end, it was just easier.  He’d never done easy in his life, but suddenly it was as if the fight had left him and easy became acceptable.

 

He’d scoffed at the mid-life crisis theory, but in retrospect, more than anything, he thought that approaching fifty years of age had had more of an impact than he’d cared to admit at the time.

 

And then there was Nick Stokes.  How did he figure in all of this?

 

Saved from an almost certain death with moments to spare.  His kidnapping had been so arbitrary, it had completely blindsided all of them.  They’d all been damaged in some way by that one act of complete barbarism.  It had made a difference to all their lives, whether they acknowledged it, or not.

 

The team had been reunited and Nick had returned.  He was mended. On the surface he was mended and Gil had never taken the time to look beneath that surface. Maybe he just didn’t want to; maybe he was scared about what he might find.  But sometimes Gil tried to imagine how he would have reacted in the circumstances.  To the incarceration. To the almost certainty of one’s own death.  To rescue.  To rebirth.

 

He didn’t know.  But he had a very real admiration for the man who did know, and who’d seemed to have just moved on.

 

Gil had comforted Sara.  Except it hadn’t been that at all.  It was him who’d needed the comfort.  After years of self-imposed isolation he suddenly needed to be needed and who better than someone who knew him and wanted him.  Though he was uncertain as to whether she’d ever needed him.

 

Even as it happened, almost in slow motion, he’d known it was for the wrong reason, but he’d made a move and he was honourable, he would follow through.  He made a commitment to stay.

 

But it hadn’t been easy; it wasn’t until he’d taken a sabbatical for a month that he decided that it was a path he could and would take.  He had missed her; although it may just have that he’d become used to having someone to go home to after having, for so many years, just four walls for company.

 

And then it had all gone wrong, not them exactly.  Outside influences.  If they’d been left to their own devices they would have probably carried on quite happily; although happily was not quite the right adjective.

 

It turned out to be too simple a premise: on their own with no outside influences.

 

Gil knew he’d been utterly absorbed by Natalie Davies.  Her warped genius had both horrified and fascinated him. But he’d never dreamed, no one would ever have suspected, that Sara would be abducted, because of his relationship with her; hidden from his work colleagues but seemingly conducted in full view of Natalie Davies.

 

It was Nick.  Nick all over again.

 

Unlike Nick, Sara hadn’t recovered.  It brought back spectres of her childhood that she’d believed she’d dealt with and it gradually pushed her further and further away from him.

 

She left.  She left the lab.  She left their home.  She left him.

 

He wasn’t certain, absolutely, in which order she’d done it, but he had expected her to come back to him.  Healed.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

 

What actually happened caused him the most physical and mental anguish he’d ever experienced.

 

It was his proximity to it; despite dealing with death all of his adult life, he had never experienced a violent death at first hand.  A colleague, a friend.  Warrick had died in his arms.

 

Sara came back.  She held him and helped him but she couldn’t stay, she had to leave.  She wouldn’t stay and he couldn’t leave; he didn’t know why, he just couldn’t do it.  Maybe he just needed some familiarity in his life…to keep him going.

 

He couldn’t make her happy, it was as if her happiness was so elusive he had to search and dig for it and prise it out, and unlike the evidence in a case, he just couldn’t do it on a personal level, however much he tried.  He wasn’t sure he did try that much.

 

But now, all he could feel was resentment.  She didn’t have to work.  She didn’t have to continue to expose herself to the death and depravation after her abduction.  She didn’t have to leave in the first place.  But she still chose to leave rather than stay.  To leave Las Vegas?  Or to leave him?

 

He didn’t really know the answer to that question.  He was shattered when she left again; leaving him to mourn on his own when she knew that he needed her.  It hurt. It hurt a lot more than he ever expected.

 

And now he was going to up the ante, but he had no idea how, or even what he was going to do.

 

The first guideline he established for himself was that he was going to take his time.  He was in a state of flux and the last thing he needed to do was rush.  He would think about this, long and hard.  He never rushed anyway, but now it was imperative that if he was going to make some major change in, and with, his life then it had to be a lasting change that was the right thing for him to do now, and to carry him forward to the rest of his life.

 

When he had announced to his team that he’d been thinking, Riley’s sceptical look had caused him to add, more than I usually do.  Although it was right.  He had taken the time to decide what he wanted to do.

 

First, and foremost, was to leave the lab.

 

He was going to stay in Las Vegas, maybe travel a little and do some work here and there but always have a place to come home to, even if he was back to just the four walls.  He was too old to become a gypsy with no roots so maybe he could become a gypsy with roots.

 

That idea appealed to him.

 

But before he started his new adventures there was one thing he needed to know.   He wanted an answer to a question.  A particular question.

 

How did one person move on from such a life altering event as being abducted and buried alive, and another person didn’t?  He knew it that it involved individual basic character traits, but was there something else?  Something perhaps almost indefinable?  He needed to know.

 

Which was why, some weeks after he’d left the lab, late one Saturday afternoon, he made his way to a particular condo and knocked on the door.

 

He waited a few moments before a laughing Nick Stokes opened the door to him and stood mid-laugh, mouth agape.

 

“Grissom?”  Nick appeared to be staggered at the identity of his visitor.

 

“Hello, Nick.”

 

“Hello.”

 

They stood staring at one another for a few moments and then spoke at the same time.

 

“I hope you don’t…”

 

“What are you doing…sorry, you first.”  Nick took a deep breath, as if to steady himself, as he waited for Grissom to speak again.

 

“Nick; sorry for just turning up out of the blue, but I had hoped I could have a word with you, but…”  Gil had quickly realised that Nick had a guest, or guests  “…you have guests, perhaps I could see you another time, if that would be okay?”

 

“No, no, he’s just leaving anyway, so yeah, come on in.”  Nick stood aside and waved Gil into his condo.

 

Nick’s guest, a man sitting on the couch stood up, smiled and said, “Hello.”

 

“Ed, this is Grissom, Gil Grissom, from work, well used to be.  Gris, this is a friend of mine, Ed Moriarty.”

 

“Pleased to meet you.”  They shook hands and Gil took in the mop of curly blond hair and the bright blue eyes, he was about Nick’s age and about his height too.

 

“I better get going or I’ll be late.” Ed smiled at Nick.

 

Gil saw that the men, standing opposite one another, hesitated for a fraction of a second, but then Nick relaxed, leaned forward at the same time as Ed, and they kissed briefly, on the lips.

 

Gil stood very still and then watched as Ed left, waving a hand towards Gil as he went out of the door.

 

“Later.”  Ed said to Nick and Nick nodded and smiled at him.

 

“Can I get you a drink, Gris?”

 

“A coffee, maybe?  Whatever you’ve got.”

 

“I could do with coffee, I’ll put the machine on.”

 

Nick came back in a few minutes later and nodded towards the couch.  “Please sit down, you look out of place, man.”

 

“Oh, thank you.  I’m sorry to have interrupted…”

 

“…no problem, he really was leaving or he’d have been late for work.”

 

“Are you okay, Nick, not hurt or anything?”

 

“I’m fine, why do you ask?”

 

“I can smell antiseptic, I thought maybe you’d cut yourself or something.”

 

Nick laughed.  “That nose of yours is a very finely tuned instrument. It’s Ed, he works at the hospital, in the ER.  He always smells like that and he hasn’t worked since last night and he’s had a couple of showers and a change of clothing…he’ll be pissed when I tell him!”

 

“Then don’t tell him.” That seemed the obvious solution to Gil.

 

“Can’t not tell him, man, he needs payback for when I've been at a stinking scene and he’s complained that I stink just as bad.”

 

“At least he smells clean.”

 

“Whose side are you on here? You don’t even know him and you’re taking his side.”

 

“Sorry.”  Gil chuckled and Nick smiled at him.

 

“It’s okay, you’re right.  So why are you here?  I've lived in Vegas for what, gone twelve years now, and this is the first time you’ve ever visited.”  It wasn’t said with malice, but Nick’s meaning was quite clear.  Gil had never bothered with him before today.

 

“I’ve been thinking…”  Gil saw Nick’s eyebrows rise and he smiled.  “…I know, I know, but I have more time on my hands now, so I’ve been thinking more.  I’ve been thinking about Warrick, and about you, and Sara.  I wanted to ask you about how…about how you coped with everything, Nick.  What makes you able to accept and move on?  Almost seamlessly, it seems to me.”

 

Gil saw Nick’s features set into a not quite blank, more guarded expression, as he’d spoken. And he continued to look at Gil for a few moments before he spoke.

 

“Coffee’s ready.  Usual?”

 

“Yes.  Yes, thank you.”

Nick came back a few minutes later carrying two mugs.  He put them both on the coffee table in front of the couch and sat down.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?  You know.  After everything that’s happened to you, Nick, you’ve come back.  You’ve come back.  Stronger even.  Is it your character, as I suspect it is?  Or is it something else…something else that makes you, helps you, cope?”

 

“Why do you want to know this now?  Now you’re gone.”

 

“I’m not gone. I’m here.”

 

“You’re being obtuse.  You know what I mean.”

 

“The lab?”

 

“The lab.  Your job.  Everything you worked for.”

 

“I’d had enough.  You see in the end, I couldn’t cope.”

 

“You?  I can’t see…well I suppose I can, everyone has their breaking point. But Sara, hasn’t she helped?”

 

“Helped?  How?”

 

“Well you’re with her now and that’s what she…what you both wanted.”

 

“I’m not with Sara.  Why would you think that?”

 

“Catherine told me…like she knew; I thought you’d told her.”

 

“No.  Maybe she was looking at it through rose tinted spectacles.”

 

“Maybe.  So why do you need to know about me?  Why now?”

 

“Because I couldn’t cope.  I haven’t coped.  Sara didn’t cope.  You did, and I wanted to know how, to see if it would help me.”

 

“Gris, if this is the way you feel, shouldn’t you be talking to a professional, not to me?”

 

“I have…and it helped a great deal…well, about Sara anyway.  It was Heather, she…”

 

“…Lady Heather?  You took professional advice from Lady Heather?”  Nick could hardly control his voice he was so surprised.

 

Gil was indignant that Nick had obviously assumed that the advice he’d taken was about sexual matters.

 

“Heather’s a therapist now.  She was able to talk me through some problems and made me see what I wanted.  I suppose it was like the analogy, I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.”  He didn’t mention that Heather was a sex therapist, because it wasn’t about the sex.

 

“Oh.”

 

They sat in silence for a few moments and then Nick moved and Gil jumped, but he’d just stretched over to the coffee table for his coffee.  Gil did the same. They sipped their coffees in silence.

 

Nick broke the silence a few minutes later.

 

“What do you want to know?”

 

“I don’t want to rake over the details, Nick, about your abduction.  But you came back to work within three weeks.  The therapist signed you off as fit for duty.  You had a few moments, I know.  But after what you’d endured your recovery seemed, I don’t know, perfect.  You were fully functional and coped, even dealt with Kelly Gordon when she came back.  How did you…your motivation, I guess that’s what it would be called, how did you motivate yourself to move forward?”

 

“My motivation?”  Gil didn’t speak because he knew that Nick was being rhetorical.  He was thinking, and his brow was furrowed, a few more lines on it now that he was older.

“My motivation for coming back to work.  If I hadn’t come back that day, the day that trailer was trashed, I don’t think I’d have ever come back.”

 

Gil was incredulous at what he’d just heard.  “Never?  Never come back to work?”

 

“Nope.  I was sick…vomited every day for weeks before I came into work, but I couldn’t sit at home.  I had to work, bills to pay.  I had to get back in the saddle.  That’s what Cisco always says: fall off the horse, get right back in the saddle.”

 

“You never gave any indication…”

 

“I lied to the Doc.  Said I was fine, he believed me.  And I said it to myself so often that in the end I believed me.”

 

“Jesus, Nick.  But are you?  I mean are you fine, okay?”

 

“I think so, don’t you?  You must, because you came to ask me how I did it, like there’s a secret formula.”

 

“Yes.  I did.  We all did, Nick.”

 

“Then it worked.”

 

“But there must have been more, Nick, there must have been more.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Warrick’s death; you were distraught.  I know you very nearly killed McKeen, but you seemed to pull yourself together so much easier than everyone else.  You didn’t go and see the Counsellor who came in, did you?”

 

“I didn’t.  No.  I could’ve killed McKeen that day and that frightened me; that I could have easily become as bad as him, as bad as the perps we deal with.  I miss Warrick every day, but I deal.  I set up the college fund for his son. I go see him regularly and you know he’s so much like Warrick, it’s scary.  At least he has a son to keep him alive.  Not much chance for me now.

 

“Maybe that’s the biggest change in my life that happened because of Walter Gordon.”

 

“What is?”

 

“I’m gay.”

 

“I gathered.  I never knew.”

 

“Nobody did.  I would not let myself be gay, a queer.  I’m from a Texan, God fearing family, and they don’t do homosexuality.  And neither did my fraternity.  So when I recovered and stopped being sick I thought I really ought to do something I want.  Oh, I know Daddy wanted me to be a lawyer and I wanted to be a CSI and I got my way, but this was wayyyy different.  I knew I was different when I was a teenager.  But it scared the living shit out of me.

 

“So I never did anything about it.  Never.  I bought some gay porn DVDs once and then destroyed them; I was frightened of being caught.  But Walter Gordon…that was way worse than being queer and I survived.

 

“Remember Cassie?”

 

“Yes I do.  You found her.”

 

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?  There was this young woman called Sage, a friend of Cassie’s Mom and she was, I don’t know, kinda mystical and she said I would be okay.  Like she knew what had happened.  Anyway when I got back to Vegas, I looked up a support group for gay men and I went along, before I could change my mind.”

 

Nick finished his explanation and they sat in silence again, back to sipping their coffees.  Gil was thinking about what he’d just heard.  He put his coffee mug down and turned towards Nick.

 

“Okay, so let me sum all this up.  You got back on track through sheer personal will power.  And you used the experience to turn your life around.  All on your own.  No medication?  No therapy?”

 

“Yeah, that’s about it.”

 

“So I've been moping around trying to find the answer to my own problems and I've been wallowing in self pity, going round and round in circles instead of moving forward.”

 

“I don’t know, have you?”

 

“Yes, I have.”

 

“We’re not all the same though, are we?  What works for me might not work for you, or anyone else.”

 

“But you sound as if you made it work.  It didn’t come easy but you just got on with it.”

 

“Yeah.  No big mystery anymore.  Are you disappointed?  Did you want there to be more?”

 

“I don’t know what I wanted.  I think I knew it was your strength of character, but I thought there must have been something else…that secret formula you mentioned.  But it was all you, all strength of your character.

 

“I am disappointed, Nick, disappointed in myself.”

 

“You’ll get over it.  More coffee?”

 

“Have you got anything stronger?”

 

“I got some Jack D; vodka, beer?”

 

“A Jack Daniels, over ice?  Would that be okay?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Nick went off to get the drink and Gil let his head fall back against the back of the couch.  If it was all so simple why hadn’t he realised that he just needed to get a grip and stop dithering and move on?  He’d never been one to procrastinate.  So he needed to stop, right now, and move forward.

 

“Here you go.” Nick gave Gil the drink.

 

“Thanks.  You’re not joining me?”

 

“No.  I’m going out later.”

 

“I’m sorry, I’m holding you up.”

 

“No, you’re not.  It’s my night off and I’m going out to a club, but not until about eleven.”

 

“A club?  Without Ed?”

 

“Ed?  We’re breaking up.  It’s not working.”

 

“Really?  Looked good to me.”

 

“So did you and Sara.”

 

“Touché.  But you’re still friends.”

 

“Actually that’s the problem.  We’re great friends but we both want something…more; if we want to be together as a couple, there needs to be more, passion…love.  More.”

 

“So you’re saying that friendship is not enough?”

 

“No.  Not for me and not for Ed.”

 

“Isn’t it supposed to be the basis of a loving relationship…friendship?”

 

“Friendship; but with that something extra…you know I’m talking out of my ass here.  I don’t know what the extra is…I’ve never felt it and apparently neither has Ed, but we both know that we haven’t got it…does that sound stupid?”

 

Gil looked at Nick for a few moments and then smiled. “No, Nick, that sounds like a sensible adult decision made by two level headed people.  You put me to shame.

 

“I didn’t think you were a clubbing person.”

 

“I’m not.”  Nick laughed.  “This isn’t a disco club, it’s off strip and it’s mostly a jazz club, small, intimate.  New acts trying to make mainstream.  There’s a Diana Krall wannabee on tonight.  I like that style…well I do now, Ed’s a big fan, he found the club in the first place.”

 

“A gay club.”

 

“No, it isn’t; it’s a you can be who you are and nobody gives a damn kinda place.”

 

“The best kind.  Are you meeting up with anyone?”

 

“No; it’s also a be on your own and no one will bother you unless you want to be bothered kinda place.”

 

“I like jazz.”

 

“You do?  I figured you were a classical music aficionado.”

 

“That too.  I like almost any genre, if it’s good.”

 

“I don’t see you liking country, man, no way.”

 

“The classics, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson in his heyday…”

 

“…okay, okay I believe you.  Although I’m not absolutely certain you are really Grissom!”

 

“I am, I promise.”  Gil downed the remainder of his drink in one go.  “I’d better get going.  Thank you for being patient with me; I really had no right to come over here, barging in on your private life after so long.  But you are an exceptional young man.”

 

“Hell, Gris, I’m neither exceptional nor young.  I’m just an ordinary guy trying to hold my shit together anyway I can, just like everyone else.”

 

“You’re not like everyone else, Nick.  You have successfully overcome personal trauma that very few people have faced.  That is exceptional. I’ll give you not young though, you must be forty.”

 

“Thirty eight!”  Nick laughed.

 

Gil had got up and made his way to the front door.  Nick followed him and opened the door.  Gil held out his hand to shake Nick’s hand.

 

Nick took it and held onto it, he smiled at Grissom who smiled back.

 

“You want to come to the club with me?”

 

“I would love…  Are you sure?

 

The End