Title: Not in Heaven
Author: podga
Pairing: Gil Grissom/Nick Stokes
Rating: R - death of child may be upsetting
Warnings: See above
Disclaimer: Neither making nor hope to make money from this. CSI, its characters, etc. are not my property (although I wouldn't mind owning a big ole Denali!)
Summary: Catherine and Nick investigate a suicide.

When Nick was a kid, he liked comic books. Daredevil was a favorite and so was Batman; his sister had told him that they both actually lived in New York City, only the comic book wasn't allowed to say so - and when he saw a picture of the Twin Towers in one Daredevil story, he knew it was true. When he was 9 or 10, he started to imagine that he became Daredevil's sidekick. If he was absolutely honest, he would have preferred being Batman's, because Batman had a lot of cool gadgets and cars and a cave, but he already had a sidekick. So Nick dreamed of going to New York and Daredevil would take him on and train him and protect him, just like Batman did Robin, even though Nick's problem wasn't as big as Robin's, who was an orphan.

---ooo---

By the time Nick arrives at the scene, the coroner's van is pulling away. He feels relieved he doesn't have to process the body of a little boy who was 3 months shy of his 11th birthday. He sees Catherine standing at the doorway looking out after the van, then she straightens her shoulders and turns back into the house.

He parks behind Brass' car and gets his kit out. Brass is crouched over a woman who is hunched over, kneeling, on the small patch of grass outside the home, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, as if she's afraid she's going to break into a thousand pieces. As he approaches them, he hears the harsh, racking sobs of the woman and Jim murmuring meaningless sounds meant to comfort.

He walks on up the pathway and into the house. It isn't very big and from the front doorway he can see most of it. The living room stuffed with dark furniture, the dining room behind it so small that he wonders how they fit the table and six chairs in it, the kitchen with old appliances, the staircase up to the second floor where three doors lead off the landing.

"Catherine, where do you want me to start?" he calls from the bottom of the stairs, guessing she's upstairs in the boy's bedroom. There's no response, even when he repeats the question. Worried, he goes up the stairs and sees her standing just inside the door of the bathroom, leaning on the sink and just staring into it.

"Catherine?"

She finally reacts, turning around slowly. "There's really not much of a crime scene to process, Nick. There's nothing here that points to anything other than suicide."

He feels like he'd been punched in the gut, exhaling in surprise and then finding it difficult to inhale again. He's seen worse, kids killing kids is probably worse, adults torturing and killing kids is definitely worse, but tonight, this feels worse to him than any other thing, and from the way she's standing, looking somehow defeated, he knows Catherine feels the same. He turns away from her and looks into the boy's bedroom, looking for something that will prove her wrong, something that will show that a 10-year old boy wouldn't take his own life, couldn't have been feeling sad and desperate enough to do so. He stares at the tall wardrobe, the rope tied to one of the small ornamental posts on the top corner edges, and he can't comprehend the scene, he's feeling slow and thick.

"But, but how...?"

"He tied a noose around his neck and just leant against it, until he strangled", Catherine says. Her voice is lifeless, flat. "He left a note. It's in Greek, his mom read it to me. He just said goodbye to her, that he was sorry and that he would see her again in Heaven."

Nick feels tears spring to his eyes. Desperately trying to contain them, he looks around the small bedroom, his gaze glancing off yet more dark furniture: a small desk, a bed covered with a colorful spread, a nightstand. Poor, but spotlessly clean. He kneels and looks under the bed, not sure what he's looking for, and sees three stacks of comic books. They look well-read and they slide into untidy piles as he pulls them out, one stack at a time. One has mixed titles, the second is mostly Batman and the third... The third is all Daredevil.

When Nick gets back to the lab, Dr. Robbins is finishing processing the little body and confirms death by strangulation. There's nothing to give even the slightest indication of foul play. Nevertheless, Robbins has sent a blood sample for a toxicological examination. Nick looks at the dark brown curls and long eyelashes lying against tan round cheeks, the ligature mark around the young neck, the healing scab on one bony knee, and his throat feels raw.

The mother's sitting on a chair in one of the interview rooms, alone, just staring at the table in front of her, her hands wrapped around a full cup of coffee that must have turned cold hours ago. She's no longer crying, her grief and desperation so deep that she can no longer even express them. Nick sees Brass further down the hallway, leaning against Grissom's door. He walks that way.

"Why is the mother still here? Aren't we releasing the body to her?" he asks. Grissom looks up at him from over his glasses and Brass just sighs heavily.

"She doesn't want the body", Grissom says. "She wants us to prove that it was a crime, otherwise she doesn't want the body".

"What? Why?"

"Apparently, Mrs. Nikolaidou is Greek Orthodox. If her son committed suicide, he can't be buried with Greek Orthodox rites and his soul will never go to Heaven. So she needs this to be a crime." Brass explains in a flat monotone.

Nick looks from Brass to Grissom and back, thinking of little Alex's note, his face reddening with anger.

"But he's a little boy, he couldn't have really known or understood what he was doing!" he protests vehemently. "What kind of a religion loads this guilt on a mother instead of comforting her?"

Brass just shakes his head.

"Religions aren't democracies, Nick. They have rules and the faithful follow those rules and therein lies their comfort" Grissom says mildly.

Nick centers his anger and frustration on Grissom, even though he knows he's not being fair, even though he realizes that Grissom is looking at him with sympathy.

"How can you be so calm about this? How can you sit there, lecturing me about religions, about rules being more comforting to a mother than believing her boy will go to Heaven? "

Grissom stares at him for a second, his eyes angry and opens his mouth to say something. A split second later, he withdraws into himself, closes his eyes and exhales. He looks at Brass and calmly asks him to leave the room and shut the door behind him. Nick doesn't look at Brass as he walks out. Then Grissom turns back to Nick.

"Sit down, Nick" he says in a hard voice.

Nick is starting to feel ashamed and vaguely horrified at his outburst. Why does he always lose it with Grissom? He sinks into the armchair in front of Grissom's desk, swallowing hard. He looks at Grissom's hands, clenched together on the desk, then at his own, hanging loosely between his knees.

"Uh, look Grissom..." he starts.

"Shut up, Nick" Grissom says hotly.

Nick looks up surprised and realizes that Grissom hadn't really calmed down a minute ago. In fact, he's even angrier, a fiery flush rising up from his collar, his blue eyes blazing.

"Griss..." Nick tries again, only to be interrupted again.

"I've had enough" Grissom says furiously. "I've had enough of everyone thinking I'm this... this robot, of everyone accusing me of having no feelings. I've had enough of trying to be understanding and accepting when people, my subordinates" he adds in a nasty tone, "think they can judge me and tell me to my face that I don't measure up. Just who the hell do you think you are?"

Nick just gapes at him, unable to come up with a single answer. In fact, his thoughts seem frozen and he feels like he's drowning in the stormy depths of Grissom's eyes. "I..." he stutters, "I..." But he can't continue, he doesn't know what to say, he can only stare at Grissom helplessly, suddenly aware of his heart thumping against his chest slowly, heavily.

Grissom is still angry. He gets up from the desk and strides around it, standing in front of Nick and staring down at him. Nick wants to get up, he feels vulnerable staring up at Grissom like this. He wants to tear his eyes away from Grissom's, but he can't. Abruptly Grissom bends down, placing his hands on the arms of Nick's chair, his face only inches from Nick's, and Nick slams against the back of the seat in reaction, still staring into Grissom's eyes.

"Nicky" Grissom says quietly and suddenly, as quickly as it came, his anger is gone. Nick can feel Grissom's warm breath against his lips, can smell the coffee Grissom was drinking. He can see the deeper flecks of blue in the blue irises, and he goes very still, his heart still thumping until he thinks it's trying to burst from his chest. He senses more than sees Grissom's forearms tensing as he gets ready to push upright again, and unthinkingly, instinctively, he reaches his hand up and rests his fingers lightly against Grissom's cheek.

Grissom's breath hitches on an inhalation, almost a hiccup, but he freezes and doesn't move. Nick finally manages to break eye contact, so he stares instead at his fingers lying against Grissom's cheek and he sees them stroke along the beard down towards the neck, feeling the softness of the skin, as if on their own volition. He's sitting awkwardly, pressed against the back of his seat, his head tilted back, his arm reaching between the two bodies up to Grissom's face, yet he doesn't feel awkward. He feels scared and wonderful and a bit nauseous, as well.

"Gil" he whispers, and his voice sounds odd in his ears, rusty, like he hasn't spoken in days. He clears his throat and tries again, but this time it's almost soundless, just a breath of air.

Grissom finally stands up straight, breaking the contact and backing away slowly, until he's half-sitting against his desk. He puts his hands behind him on the desk, almost like he's hiding them, and looks at Nick and his eyes are heavy, his face still flushed, although it's no longer in anger. Then he dismisses Nick in a calm voice: "You can go now, Nick."

Nick stands up and shoves his own hands deep into his pockets. He thinks for a second, then instead of stepping to the side and away, he steps forward, invading Grissom's personal space.

"I'm sorry, Grissom" he says quietly. "I was angry and I lashed out, but you didn't, you don't deserve what I said". Grissom doesn't acknowledge the apology; in fact he seems fascinated by the top button of Nick's shirt and doesn't allow eye contact. Nick takes his hand out of his pocket and touches Grissom's cheek again, this time with the back of his fingers. Grissom still doesn't look up, but Nick could swear that Gil tilts his head slightly, increasing the pressure against the caressing fingers.

Then Nick turns around and walks out of the office.

Gil used to love swimming. He used to love the repetitive motion, cleaving through clear, cool water. He would keep his head as low in the water as he could, turning his face up on the right side to draw a rapid breath, children's shrill voices, the splashing of the swimmer in the corridor next to his, a burst of clear, sharp noise in his right ear as it came out of the water. Then his face back in, exhaling though his nose, all noises muffled again. When he had been younger, he had wondered if that's how his mother heard the world, as if her ears were always under water.

After the surgery, he went back to the pool again, but it was never the same for him. Instead of relaxing him, the muffled noise made him uneasy. He broke his rhythm, because he needed the reassurance of that brief defined burst of sound in his left ear as well, and turning his head up to breathe at every stroke was too quick, but every third stroke was too long. So little by little, he stopped swimming.

---ooo---

After Nick walks out of his office, Grissom sags back against his desk, his shoulders slumping. He feels hot, flushed, as if he's been running. He raises his hands in front of him, and they are shaking slightly, an almost imperceptible tremor. He takes a deep breath and consciously relaxes them, but even as he starts to regain his balance, Catherine walks in after a peremptory knock on his door.

"Catherine, come in", he says a bit sarcastically. He can't get used to the fact that she simply strides into his office as if it were her own. He can't say it really bothers him, but she could at least wait for permission when she knows he's actually there.

Catherine grins unrepentantly, then collapses in the armchair diagonally in front of where he's still leaning against the desk. Not the one Nick had been sitting in. Her expression changes and she rubs her forehead slowly, her hand partly hiding her face from Grissom. He's quiet for a while, waiting for her to speak, but as the silence draws out, he feels he should say something to her. She beats him to it.

"Tough case", she sighs.

Grissom nods in agreement.

"Mrs. Nikolaidou's gone. She left Alex's body here. We'll need to contact another member of the family, she's just not being reasonable about this."

"Yes, well. I don't think she's capable of reason at the moment." Grissom pauses and thinks for a while. "There are no indications that..."

"It was suicide", Catherine interrupts. "The toxicology results came back. Nothing, it's all normal." She rubs her forehead again, then takes a deep breath, almost like trying to hit a reset button that will wipe away the last few hours. "Anyway. Got anything else for me, Gil? Otherwise I'll get back to the Raymond case."

Grissom turns back to his desk and shuffles through the papers. Two cases: both can wait for dayshift. He makes his decision.

"Catherine, I want you to look into ‘why'. Why would a 10-year old boy commit suicide?"

She raises an eyebrow. "You want me to look into ‘why'", she repeats doubtfully.

He nods. "And get Nick to help you."

"You want two CSIs to look into the ‘why' of a case where the ‘how' proves no crime has been committed", she elaborates, looking for confirmation.

"Maybe the ‘why' will point us to a crime" Grissom says, hiding his own doubt behind the voice he uses for lecturing and pointing out the obvious.

Catherine doesn't look very convinced, but she just says "Yeah, OK" and walks out of the office.

A couple of hours after shift ends, Grissom decides to pack things in. He's been working on a case with Greg, painstakingly sifting though evidence requiring his full concentration, but tonight's he's finding it difficult, although he thinks he's putting on a good act. But it does take him longer than it should to finish the task to his satisfaction. He already sent Greg home over an hour ago, no sense in him (not to mention the city that will cover the overtime) paying for Grissom's transgressions.

When he gets outside, the sun is high and the heat almost a physical blow. He reaches for his sunglasses, squinting towards his truck, when he sees a man standing beside it, and he freezes in mid-motion. His heart thumps once, then continues beating, albeit in an irregular pattern. His eyesight isn't what it used to be, but he can still easily recognize the man as Nick.

Grissom walks slowly toward his truck, trying to use the distance to compose himself, think of something to say, but it's too short. So when he reaches the truck, he stands on the driver's side and looks at Nick over the hood. Heat vapors seem to dance off the hood in the air between them. Grissom just stares at Nick, taking in the dark brown eyes that are shaded by the bill of the LVPD hat he's wearing, the square jaw, the light blue shirt that's open at the throat. Nick must have been standing there for a while, because Grissom can see the rivulets of sweat running down his face and the column of his throat, the damp darker blue spots along the collar and the front of Nick's shirt, where it sticks against his skin. For a few seconds (maybe longer?), Grissom concentrates on Nick's mouth, the upper lip shiny with perspiration, until Nick licks his lips nervously and Grissom's eyes snap back up to stare somewhere beyond Nick's left shoulder. He realizes he's still holding his sunglasses in his hand and he puts them on.

"Nick" he says finally, but his voice sounds all wrong - gruff, tense, almost angry - instead of calm and inquiring as he had intended.

Grissom can only see Nick's upper torso and head over the hood of the Denali, but he can tell from the way the tilt of Nick's shoulders changes that he's shifting his weight from his left leg to his right. He also seems to be digging his hands into his pockets. The movements bring Grissom's eyes back to the smooth, slightly glistening throat showing over the vee of the open collar and again he has to force his eyes away. He feels safer behind the sunglasses, but he doesn't want this, this exposure, this uncertain waiting. He's too old for this, he thinks suddenly and impatiently, too experienced, too tired, too... wrong. At the same time, his feet remain firmly rooted and he waits for Nick to speak, not knowing what he wants to hear him say.

"Grissom" Nick starts, then corrects himself: "Gil." He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down (and Grissom's eyes behind the sunglasses follow the movement). "Catherine and I went back to talk to the mother and the neighbors. Catherine told me that it was you who instructed her to stay with the case and keep me involved."

Grissom nods absently.

"So we talked to the mother. We talked to the neighbors. There's nothing there, Gil. He was just a very lonely little boy, with an imaginary friend who wrote him letters from Greece, a bike he called Pigassus and stacks of comic books he couldn't really read because he'd only been in the US for 6 months. Mrs. Nikolaidou's been here 5 years, works 2 shifts a day and she finally put enough money together to bring her son from Greece, but he stayed in the house alone a lot, a latchkey kid. A neighbor was cleaning out her son's bedroom after he went to college, and she gave Mrs. Nikolaidou the comics for Alex."

"Maybe the school", Grissom says, but Nick shakes his head, his expression almost tender.

"There's nothing there, nothing to keep two CSIs occupied, no other answers to be found." Nick looks away for a second, then back at Grissom. "Gil, did you keep the case open for me, because of what I said to you?"

Grissom sees the nervousness in Nick's eyes. He sees the hope there as well, and now he can't pull his eyes away from Nick's, slowly starting to understand. He feels like he did when he was swimming, the muted sound, hearing the outlines of noise, guessing at the source of it, then the sudden clarity, when everything became unambiguous.

"It was because of what you said to me, but not last night, Nick. Years ago you told me that we had to understand the reason something happened, even if the evidence seemed conclusive. I still don't know if you're right, but this time I wanted there to be something else, something that would give everyone, the mother, Catherine, some closure." It's not quite the whole truth, but it's not a lie either.

Nick nods. "You know, even if we had found some crime which led Alex to suicide, it would still be suicide. His mother still wouldn't be able to give him a Greek Orthodox burial; she'd still believe his little soul is barred from Heaven."

Grissom breathes in deeply. "Things are what they are, Nicky" he says carefully.

Nick just nods. Then he grins a bit crookedly: "See you at shift tonight, Griss."

"See you, Nick", Grissom responds and watches Nick nod again and then walk towards his own truck.

Grissom climbs into his truck, turns on the engine and the AC and sits there for a while, the cool air rushing into the overheated cabin through the vents with a strong noise that soothes him. "Things are what they are", he repeats softly to himself, only when he applies the phrase to Nick, it's a promise, even a welcome surrender to the inevitable, not just an empty consolation.