Title: Hell (The Meaner, Nastier Canada)
By: Emily Brunson
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Pairing: Nick/Gil
Rating NC-17
Summary: The meaner, nastier Canada.

He started packing the day after the guys finished repairing his living room ceiling.

It didn't start out as actual packing. Just cleaning, going through things, marveling at all the shit he'd collected and kept lying around, collecting dust. And there was a lot of dust. Between Nigel Crane and the construction team he'd hired, even the dust was dusty.

A part of him was aware, though. Probably the same part of him that, when it came time to decide on a replacement door, chose one made out of metal. The same part that had him installing a security system.

Jane Galloway would've understood.

Work was all right. Nobody gave him shit about the newsletter anymore. There were a few cases that really absorbed him, gave him something concrete to think about.

But mostly Nick though about nothing at all. Or at least that was what he told himself.

The same day he spent investigating a double homicide -- jealous husband, cheating wife, boyfriend caught with his pants down, literally -- he realized he wanted out.

Everyone had been so fucking understanding. He figured maybe that was part of it. And Grissom, with his well-intentioned but totally awful explanation about how it hadn't been Nick at all, no, it had been some fruity scientist's theory brought to life by a lunatic.

Oh, it wasn't me, was it? Nick wanted to say. If it wasn't me, then who was it? You saying I just represent something? You boil it down to a theorem and suddenly it doesn't have anything to do with me?

It was hard to work with Grissom now. Hard to work with everyone. And when he woke up in the middle of the night, just about every night, with broken dreams of black-rimmed glasses and his own brains spattered all over his walls, he pretty much found it hard to work, period.

Catherine treated him like he was made out of spun glass. Way too understanding. Grissom was a fucking Vulcan, without any trace of understanding that Nick could see. Warrick, everybody -- too much. He hated going to work. Not the work itself, but the feeling. Like he had a bull's-eye painted on his back. Two times now. Two endless spans of time spent looking down the barrel of a gun and thinking about exactly what that bullet was going to do to him. Because he knew, oh yeah, crazy Nigel had it right. Nick knew.

He put the condo on the market two weeks later. He had to fight the buyers off with a stick; it was a good neighborhood, nice place, and he sold it two days later. That put him in serious packing mode, so he took off a couple of days, spent a long weekend alternately packing and throwing things away. A lot of things, in the long run. That's what they were, really: just things.

It was Sara who figured it out, when she cornered him at work and asked him if he'd moved.

"Do you blame me?" he asked bluntly.

The pitying look on her face made him feel almost dizzy with anger. "No," she replied with a sigh. "Look, Nick -- If you ever need to talk about --"

"That's okay." He made himself smile at her. "But thanks for the offer. I mean that," he added when she frowned. "Thanks."

He walked away before she could push any more than that.

But word got around, oh yeah, the grapevine was healthy and bearing lots of fruit. By the next day everybody knew Nick had Moved Out. Nick had Freaked, with a capital F, and that stands for FUCKED, my friends, Nick LOST IT.

The next day, his face burning with obscure shame, he asked Grissom for a couple of weeks off.

"Will it help?" Grissom asked him bluntly.

Nick shrugged. "I think so."

"It might be better if --"

"Look," Nick interrupted, his heart suddenly galloping briskly in his chest, "if you're gonna say something about getting back on the horse, you might as well save it. Been there, done that. It isn't helping."

Grissom regarded him with what Nick reluctantly recognized as understanding. "I was going to suggest a month," he replied mildly.

And damn it, he was by god NOT gonna cry in front of Gil Grissom, even if he felt like it right now. For the first time. Oh yeah, felt like it. "That'd be good," he said in a strangled voice.

By the time he got to his car, he didn't feel like crying anymore. Just getting away. What a goddamn relief.

He thought he'd visit a friend in California, but one day of Jim's relentless frat-boy good humor and Nick was ready to strangle him. He bowed out with a lame story about going up the coast to catch a seminar in forensic archeology and escaped.

Instead of Seattle, he drove southeast. Two days later he passed the Richardson city limit and let go of a sigh he didn't know he was holding. Home, then. Texas. Parents, friends, familiarity.

His folks were mystified but wildly happy to see him, of course. His work meant he didn't get home as much as they wanted -- or he wanted, for that matter -- and so he did the family thing, hung out with his dad and worked on the Mustang that would never be fixed up to his father's satisfaction, had lunch with his sister, complimented his mom very honestly on her cooking and ate like a pig. Met up with some friends and did Deep Ellum a few times. Got drunk more than a few times. It didn't help, but it felt like something he wanted to do, so that made it okay.

Grissom left a message for him the second week he was home. How'd the guy know where he was? Fucking spooky Griss, more of a psychic than that asshole guy in Nick's condo had ever been. Nick didn't return the call. Nothing to say.

He stopped doing much, that third week. He'd done everything he was supposed to do, and now his parents were getting a little curious about why he wasn't going back to work yet, and why he hadn't called Grissom or Catherine or Sara or Warrick. He slept a lot, stopped drinking after one hellacious hangover that had him re-enacting college by spending the entire next day sick as a dog.

But mostly he just existed, breathing and not doing much else. He wasn't hungry. Wasn't interested in much. He was there, and that was all that he could manage.

"What's wrong, Nick?" his dad asked one night, his tanned face creased with worry. "What's going on, son?"

"Nothing," Nick said remotely, and changed channels on the tv. Digital cable, not satellite, what a relief.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Don't worry."

But his dad did worry, and his mom, pretty much his whole family, and what had been comfortable, safe, was suddenly stifling. He packed the next morning without knowing he was going to leave, and damn it, there were tears in his mom's eyes when he hugged her goodbye, but what the hell was he gonna say? The truth? What WAS the truth? He'd lost his nerve? Had the balls scared off him by a lunatic and thought he might find them again in Texas, only he hadn't, and now he'd have to keep looking? Yeah, that'd fly. He could live with being scared. After a fashion. But he couldn't live with scaring his folks, any more than he already had, and so he split.

The day he was supposed to return to work, he called Grissom.

"Is everything okay? Where are you?"

Nick had to swallow, glancing around the pissant Maine boontown he had come to this morning. "I'm okay," he lied. "Sorry about today. I'll be back tomorrow."

"Take whatever time you need. Look, why don't you let us take you to dinner? Catch you up on things?"

Because I'm 3,000 miles away from you, Nick almost said, and found a hard, painful grin on his face. "Maybe tomorrow," he said guilelessly. "But thanks."

"Any time, Nick."

He took the ferry over to Nova Scotia and didn't call the next day. Damn, there wasn't a soul on the planet who knew where he was now. It was a weird, good feeling. A *free* feeling.

The next afternoon he stared at the phone in his motel room and felt the tears finally come back. Only this time there wasn't any stopping them. Grief flattened him, smashed into him like a Texas tornado, and he lay on the creaky bed and curled up and cried, cried so hard he finally had to stagger to the bathroom and throw up. And then cried some more, realizing he would sell his damn SOUL to talk to someone, to not be so goddamn alone.

He hit the speed-dial on his cell phone and tried to stop crying long enough to talk.

"Nick? Where the hell are you?"

Grissom didn't sound pissed. He sounded *worried*, and boy, that was all the damn tears needed to get started again. "Sorry," Nick said in a watery, foggy croak.

"Jesus, Nick, are you okay?"

Didn't even sound like Grissom, either. Never heard him sound worried like this. Will marvels never cease. "No," Nick croaked. "I don't think I am."

Sounded like Grissom was walking. "Where are you? I'll come get you, okay, just stay put."

His nose was running. "Canada. I'm in Canada."

A pause, then Grissom's thunderstruck voice: "CANADA?"

"I'm sorry," Nick whispered, flailing for the Kleenex box.

"Where are you? I'm coming to get you, all right? Where in Canada?"

You don't have to do that, he wanted to say. I'll be back soon. But horrifyingly he didn't say anything like that, instead all he could come up with was a watery "Okay. N-Nova Scotia."

"Christ. Tell me you're going to be okay until I get there, Nick. Tell me."

Okay? Of course he'll be okay, why wouldn't he be? "I'll be okay," he said waveringly.

"Tell me you're not gonna do anything to yourself. Can you do that?"

"Do anything?" he echoed, confused.

"Promise me you'll go to a hospital if you -- " And another wonder: Grissom's voice broke. Holy saguaros, Batman, the Las Vegas Vulcan sounds positively -- scared.

"I'm not gonna kill myself," Nick said, suddenly utterly terrified. But what if he was? Was he? Was this why he was here?

"Swear it," Grissom snapped.

"Okay, I swear."

"I'll be there tomorrow. Just -- don't do anything, Nick. Don't."

I won't, Nick wanted to say. But the words wouldn't come out, and he had no idea why.

He fell asleep around 3 a.m., but Grissom called a couple of hours later. And again, when he hit Boston, which was around noon Nick's time. And yet again, in Portland.

"I gotta rent a car. You okay?"

"Tired," Nick mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"Tough. I haven't slept in 52 hours. You gotta talk to me, or I'm going to drive off the road into the Atlantic."

So he talked, without any idea of what he was really saying. Telling Griss about California and Texas, and how he sorta wandered northeast until he hit Canada. Wondering if his car was still there in Portland.

Grissom sounded pretty fucking tired himself, but he kept Nick on the phone until he saw the motel, and then there was a knock at the door and Nick reeled over to open it.

"Hey," he said to Grissom's astonished face. And passed out cold.

 

Chapter Two

It wasn't much of a faint, but it was embarrassing anyway. Except he didn't really feel so much embarrassed as apologetic, because Grissom had a funny, grim look on his face that Nick had never seen before.

"I'm okay," he said, trying and completely failing to get up on his own. It took Grissom to haul him to his feet again, and even then the ground was doing some kind of gross pitch and yaw thing straight out of Perfect Storm, and it took all his energy not to puke, never mind walk unaided.

"No, Nick, you're not okay," Grissom retorted tersely.

That made him feel like crying again. Shit.

"Why'd you have to run? You should have told us."

"Told you what?"

"That -- That you were --" Yet another surprise. Grissom, stammering.

"I don't know." It wasn't a lie. Except for the part that was.

Grissom sat down in the single chair and reached up to rub his eyes, and Nick took in how tired he looked. Tired, kind of old. There seemed to be more silver in his hair these days. With a weird twisting feeling in his gut, Nick felt a sudden nasty hope that he'd put some of it there.

"Feel like you could eat something? You look like you dropped a few pounds, and unless I miss my guess, it's because you haven't had anything to eat. Sound about right?"

Mutely, Nick nodded.

"I don't suppose there are many delivery establishments here, huh." Grissom's voice was its dry best, and Nick forced a smile. "Okay, I'm going out for food. You'll be here when I get back, right?"

Nick nodded again.

Grissom regarded him steadily. "Your dad called me," he said.

"Oh."

"Your folks were pretty scared. Scared us, too."

Wow, how embarrassing. He felt his face heating up. "I just needed some space," Nick mumbled, looking down.

"I understand that. I do," Grissom added at Nick's startled look. "Although I don't think I've needed *this* much space."

"I didn't plan it," Nick said hoarsely. "Just kinda -- ended up here."

Grissom nodded slowly. "Then stay here, and I'll be back in a few."

"Okay."

He fell asleep, somehow, and the next thing he felt was a touch on his shoulder. With a garbled shout of terror Nick threw himself off the bed, only to fall over on the *other* bed and just sort of lie there, stunned.

"I'm sorry." Grissom sounded sorry, too, standing there with a sack in one hand and the key in the other, and a stricken expression on his face. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Nick tried to grab a breath. "S'okay," he squeaked, avoiding Grissom's all-too-intent gaze.

"I got Chinese. It was that or pizza."

The old Nick would have asked him why in the hell he didn't get pizza, but this new and not particularly improved Nick didn't much care, it seemed. He sat in the middle of the bed nearest the table, hands shaking too bad to manage chopsticks, trying to eat a little kung pao chicken and feeling Grissom watching, watching. Eating and watching.

When the food was not exactly gone but sufficiently picked-at, Grissom sighed. And here it comes, Nick thought, his stomach clenching. This wasn't *logical*, Nick, the Vegas Vulcan would say. Only Griss didn't really seem very Vulcan-ish these days, did he?

"You scared the shit out of me, Nick," Grissom said in a soft, weird voice.

Nick gave him a startled look. "I know," he answered hollowly. "I didn't think about that. I wasn't -- thinking much for a while there."

Grissom leaned back in his chair, and Nick didn't miss the way it was suddenly Grissom who didn't quite meet his eyes. "Feel any better?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Feel like coming back to work?"

Nick swallowed. "I don't know."

A tiny smile played about the corners of Grissom's mouth. "Just feel like -- being in Canada, is that it?"

"Something like that."

"Sara told me I should drag you back by your hair." Now the smile was a grin. "Catherine asked me if we could call the Mounties. I didn't think that would be necessary."

"No, no Mounties."

Grissom nodded slowly, picking at leftover rice. "So what now? Stay here? Work our way west?"

Nick's eyes narrowed. "'We'? Don't you have to go back?"

"Yes, I have to go back."

"But --"

"I didn't say I have to go back right now."

Nick snorted, shaking his head. "Gonna babysit me for a few days?" he asked harshly.

"Guess so. If that's what it takes."

"I'm a grownup, you know. I can --"

"--Take care of yourself, yes. I know." Grissom eyed him steadily. "But you've had a hell of a time, Nick. I'm not your babysitter."

"No, Grissom, you're my boss," Nick shot back.

"I'd like to think I'm your friend, too," came Grissom's soft reply.

Nick shrugged. "Okay, you're a friend. But I don't know what I want to do, okay? I don't --" He had to swallow; his throat was as dry as toast. "I don't know if I want to go back."

"That's fair. I can't say that I blame you."

"Oh really."

"Yes, really. Look, what is it with you and me about this? I've cut you every bit of slack at my disposal, not to mention --"

"I know," Nick interrupted, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. "I know. I'm sorry," he added stiffly.

Grissom didn't say anything else for a moment. Finally he said, "I've got to go get a room. Don't think they'll fill up, but you never know."

It felt like his heart was bleeding. What else could hurt his chest this bad? "Nah," Nick said as casually as he could. "Got an extra bed right here, and it's paid for. Why don't you stay here?"

When he met Grissom's eyes Griss looked uncannily calm. "Sure. Okay. If that's what you want."

And it WAS what he wanted, there was the real hell of it. Because it was Grissom he'd called, when the shit hit the fan, wasn't it? Out of all the people he knew, the people who loved him, or cared about him, it had been Griss whose number his finger had dialed. So yeah, that was what he wanted.

"Yeah," he said gruffly. "It's what I want."

 

Chapter Three

He's going to die. There's no question of if, but only when. Will he pull the trigger now, or wait a couple more minutes? Help's on its way, but it's going to be too late, way too late, he's never going to know how late because he's going to be dead, dead like he wasn't last year but almost was, dead like the vics he's photographed, gone, just a case number, nothing

Crane lifts the gun and Nick screams, doesn't even bother with crying because it's too late, the gun's going off and there's this weird feeling in his head, a hollow thump and this horrible lack, a vacancy where his brains used to be and

"NICK!"

He came to screaming, mindlessly struggling against whatever it was that was touching him, holding him, oh God it was Nigel, fucking NIGEL get your fucking hands OFF me you perv

"Nick, it's okay! It's okay, it's me, Grissom, listen to me. It's okay. Just a dream, all right? Just a dream."

Panting, heart banging against his ribs with panic, Nick fought for a second, and then Grissom's wonderfully calm, sane voice penetrated.

"Shhh, it's okay, Nick, it's all right. It's just a dream. He's not here. Just me."

Nick took in a gigantic whoop of air, and tried to sit up. "Wha --" he said dizzily. Grissom? But Grissom was in Vegas, and Nick was -- where, exactly? Maine, right? Wait, no, this wasn't Maine, this was Canada, Mounties, hair-pulling. Grissom.

"Gil," he gasped, and burst into tears.

Grissom didn't budge. Holding him, hard when he tried to break away because this was too fucking embarrassing, he hated to cry but he hated crying in front of anyone more, and yet he just didn't have the control, didn't want the fucking control. What he wanted --

-- was Grissom, there, and here he was, and it was okay, maybe not completely, but a shitload better than it had been. So he pressed his face against Grissom's chest and stopped thinking about it, and let go.

When he could think again, he became aware of two things. First, Grissom's tee shirt was soaked. And second, as screwy as it sounded, as unexpected as it was, Nick felt better, safer, than he had in weeks, right here.

He put his hand on Grissom's wet shirt and grimaced. "I'm sor--"

"It's okay. Relax. It's okay."

So here was a picture, a part of his mind told him. The part that sat back and offered its own lively commentary on everything. All cuddled up with the boss, ain't that sweet. Why don't you just call him Daddy and get it over --

"Shut up," he whispered.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said, sliding his arms shamelessly around Grissom's waist and closing his eyes to the feel of Grissom's hand stroking his hair. "S'okay."

And it kinda was okay, and he thought about how strangely great that was before he slipped back into the thankfully now-dreamless realm of sleep.

~~~~~

"So. Where to?"

Nick fumbled for his sunglasses. "Portland. My car, remember?"

"Right. Ferry?"

"Beats swimming."

Grissom laughed, and put the car in reverse.

Hell of it was, Grissom didn't seem to be anything but completely cool with waking up to Nick wrapped around him. And since Nick *wasn't* completely cool about it -- didn't know what to think of it, if truth were told -- that same coolness was extremely freaky in and of itself.

He'd had no idea how long Grissom had been awake. There was just the solid, unbelievably reassuring feel of a strong body next to his own, and then he was blinking at his boss, who he had evidently stuck to like a barnacle all night.

"Hey," Grissom said, looking sleepy and so not not-cool, Nick was immediately, extremely awake.

"Hey," Nick croaked, unbarnacle-ing himself. Even with the curtains drawn the sunlight was crucifying. "Shit," he mumbled, reaching up to rub his eyes.

"Don't. You'll make it worse."

"Uh," Nick responded idiotically.

"Shower. Coffee. Breakfast. In that order?"

"Uh."

"You're not a morning person, are you?"

"Are you?"

"Shower, Nick. I prefer conversing with people who are actually awake."

He took a long, blissfully hot shower and tried not to look at himself too much in the mirror while he dried off. Man, he looked worse than his high-school girlfriend had the morning after they broke up. Give raccoons a run for their money.

He put on his jeans and finally paid attention to how loose they were. Maybe Griss was right. He'd dropped a few pounds. He'd see to that, if he could just find his lost appetite.

When he came out of the bathroom, toweling his hair, Grissom had found coffee someplace and was talking quietly on the phone. Seeing Nick, he put his hand over the receiver and lifted his chin. "Catherine," he mouthed. Nick nodded, most of his brief content melting away.

In the tiny cafe adjoining the motel, Nick poked at eggs and potatoes and watched Grissom polish off a seriously huge omelette. "Most important meal of the day, huh?" Nick remarked weakly.

"S'really good. Want some?"

"No, thanks." He went back to poking.

A few minutes later Grissom sipped his orange juice and leaned back. "Eat, Nick," he said gently, another one of those tiny smiles on his face. "You said it, not me, remember?"

Nick forced a smile and made himself eat a bite. The little, nasty voice in his head sat up and said, You know, Nigel watched you eat. Sat up there and candid-cameraed the whole thing. Breakfast, lunch, whatever. Watched you take a crap. Watched you shower. Watched you jerk

With a revolted sound Nick shoved himself back from the table, scanning the room with absolute focus, looking for the bathroom. About one and a half minutes later he left what he'd managed of eat of breakfast in the toilet, and kept right on trying to throw up the lining of his stomach for a while after. When it seemed to be over, he clawed his way to a standing position, hit the handle on the toilet and reeled over to the sink. His mouth tasted utterly gross. He rinsed, and drank a little water, but when it gurgled dangerously he left it alone, too.

Just -- don't think about it. That's the ticket. Everything will be okay if you just. Don't. Think about it.

Back at the table, the dishes were thankfully gone, and Grissom had already paid the ticket. "Come on," he said mildly, touching Nick's elbow. "Let's pack up and hit the road."

Which brought them to now, and the sound of Gil's sweet laughter in the air, and back to the idea that this guy -- his boss, head honcho, brain trust -- had come three-fucking-thousand miles just to see if his sorry ass was still alive.

"Christ, this has been a real pain in the ass for you, hasn't it?" he asked, shutting his eyes.

"Yes, Nick," came Grissom's deadpan reply. "Major pain in the ass."

"Why didn't you send -- Sara, or Warrick, or -- " He broke off.

Grissom swung them out into traffic. "Would you rather I'd done that?"

Nick glanced at him, obscurely uncomfortable. "I didn't say that. I just -- They're not the boss."

"Humor me, and stop obsessing over it."

Nick caught his grin, and had to smile, too.

 

Chapter Four

Three days later they were in Quebec, and Nick was smiling a lot more.

"It's summer, right?" Gil asked, frowning at the clouds.

"Last time I checked."

"Huh. So we're just acclimated to Nevada, I guess."

"It's cold, Gil. It's 49 degrees. For June, that's cold."

"So it's not just me."

"Nope."

"Good."

"Of course you're from California, and I'm from Texas. What do we know?"

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Nick just grinned.

When he thought about it, he couldn't remember ever having quite as good a time as he had had, the past few days. Well, sure he'd had fun. But this was different, in ways that sort of made sense and sort of didn't. A different flavor of fun, maybe.

For one thing, Grissom's smarts were pretty interesting, if Nick got over himself enough to admit it. Griss had weird little factoids about everything under the sun. From the history of Niagara Falls to a bewildering treatise on the Canadian dollar that had made Nick's head hurt, the guy just had a shitload of info stored in his head. And far from being geeky and kind of weird, it was actually pretty cool.

"You need to go on Jeopardy," Nick remembered saying, a day ago.

Gil gave him a baleful look. "No, thanks," he said thinly.

"Why not? Make a ton of money, dazzle people with your intellect --"

"Don't go there, Nick."

"Face it, Gil, you're a fucking brain trust. Besides, it's not embarrassing to do Jeopardy. A friend of mine did it, couple years ago. Didn't win, but he did pretty good. You'd knock 'em out."

Gil just smiled. "Can you really see me on Jeopardy?" he asked, and Nick had to laugh, because no, he really couldn't, but shit, the guy was brilliant! Could you blame him?

But there were other things he discovered, too. Things like the fact that Grissom wasn't a Vulcan, after all.

"I'm sorry about the other night," Nick said later that day, in a diner in a minuscule Quebec town. His Nevada plates had caused quite a spectacle; even now he saw a few folks clustered around the back of his car, gawking. Anywhere else, he'd have been out the door, sure they were going to slash his tires or something. Here, well, he wasn't worried. Call it instinct, but these didn't look like the tire-slashing types.

Grissom glanced up from his plate. "Sorry about what?"

Nick put down his sandwich and considered the possibility that what the cafe called "ham," was known as "Spam" in the states. "In Nova Scotia," he said, wrinkling his nose at the sandwich. "I have -- bad dreams."

"Oh. Don't apologize." Gil was eyeing his own lunch with a similar look of opprobrium. "I'm just glad I could help."

And that was the hell of it, because Gil did help. And with a level of concern and honest caring that made Nick feel deeply and obscurely ashamed for the names he'd called Grissom in the past.

There hadn't been any more nightmares since Nova Scotia, that he could remember. But some bad moments, for all that. The creeping certainty that Nigel Crane's attentions had been based on something other than sheer emulation had made it very hard to just give up and move on. Nick felt more and more that -- weird as it sounded -- Jane Galloway had been the warmup. The appetizer. Nick himself had been the main course. And that was damned hard to stomach.

"You could be right," Gil had told him very matter-of-factly, the previous night. "I thought at first that you simply represented something to him. You were an avatar -- an archetype."

Nick looked at him. "And now?"

"I'm not so sure."

"More personal than that, huh."

"Maybe so."

Hadn't been quite as hard to hear as he'd imagined, but that was probably based on the fact that Gil had had his arm around Nick at the time, and that helped a whole lot.

Which led him to the third different flavor of this trip -- not the bubble-gum ice cream of laughter, but maybe something rich, and more sophisticated. Jamocha, maybe. If he continued the ice-cream analogy.

Every night there was a double hotel room. But every night so far, they'd only used one bed. And that was both alarming and something else, and between the two Nick wasn't at all sure which was more compelling.

Where to start? Why was this happening? From choosing Grissom to call instead of Sara or Warrick, to being wildly glad that Gil was there, to winding up in bed with him? Not that "bed" had any real connotations. It was just comfort. But Nick hadn't been comforted by much of anyone for a while now, and certainly not Grissom.

Certainly not a MAN, the nasty little voice inside him piped up helpfully.

Which still didn't explain why it just felt so damn good.

They didn't talk about it. At least there was that vestige of masculinity left to him. Grissom didn't make any comments on how Nick couldn't seem to sleep unless he stuck to Gil like a limpet. No rejection, no cute remarks, no censure. Nothing but an easy acceptance that had Nick guiltily wondering about Grissom's past -- and his own new-found tendencies -- and growing increasingly uncertain about -- well, just about everything.

"Penny for your thoughts."

Nick looked up and felt himself flushing. "Canadian, or American?"

Grissom shrugged. "Whatever."

"Just thinking."

"Yeah, that much I figured out on my own."

"What did he plea?"

Grissom frowned.

"Nigel. Guilty, not guilty?"

"Oh. I think his attorney's probably going with the insanity defense."

Nick snorted, giving up on the sandwich and focusing on his soda. "Think it'll work?"

"I don't know. Hard to say. The guy's at least somewhat insane."

"Somewhat? He's a fucking lunatic."

"Maybe." Grissom made the same gustatory decision and put his napkin on the table.

"Will I have to testify?"

"No one will make you if you don't want to. But the DA won't have much of a case without you."

"Yeah. Figures."

"Either way, he won't go to trial for months yet. Don't worry about it." He caught Nick's second snort and amended, "Not too much, at least. Better?"

"Guess so."

Outside the diner some people were still gawking. Nick smiled a little uncomfortably and unlocked the driver's side door. "Is it just me," he asked inside the car, "or are we some kind of fifteen-minute wonder here?"

Grissom fastened his seat belt. "As Americans, no. But the car? Yeah. How many people drive this far up into Quebec?"

"Good point."

The cool weather continued, and that night Nick shivered when he crawled into bed.

With the boss, the voice told him with mock innocence.

Whatever, he thought, and pulled up the blanket.

 

Chapter Five

By the time they passed Thunder Bay, Ontario, Nick was getting tired of driving. Tired of the car, tired of traveling. Which somehow didn't quite translate to "ready to go home" quite yet, but which made him feel antsy, what his mom would have called "a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs."

So he surrendered the wheel with a sense of relief, and tried not to think about anything at all.

"Tired of Canada?" Gil was smiling, like he'd been waiting to drive and was thankful Nick finally gave in.

"Dunno. You?"

"Sorta."

Nick frowned. "How long can you be gone?"

"Twenty minutes?" Grissom laughed, sounding so ridiculously young and, well, human, Nick couldn't help grinning, too. "Catherine's got things in hand. I think she's enjoying holding the reins."

"She's been waiting for you to get promoted."

"Then she's got some waiting to do. Because I'm not promoting anytime soon."

Nick smiled. "Glad to hear it."

"Know anyone in Minnesota?"

"Not a soul."

"Friend of mine lives outside Duluth." Gil made a face. "Nah. And we'd have to backtrack to hit Chicago."

"North Dakota?"

"Nope."

"Me, neither."

Gil glanced at a semi passing them at full blast. "What do *you* want to do?" he asked, facing forward again. "Any ideas?"

Nick slumped back in his seat. "Not really," he answered honestly. "Let's go back."

He could feel Grissom's sharp gaze on him. "You sure?"

"No. But what else are we gonna do? Calgary?"

"Whatever you say."

"Ever been to British Columbia?"

Grissom gave him another sharp look. "You do realize that's a hell of a long way from here."

Nick nodded. "Look, you know, I could drop you off at the airport, shit, I dunno, Minneapolis. You could catch a flight home. I'll be okay."

"You sure?"

Nick drew a breath to reply, and Gil continued, "Because I think you're better, Nick, but I'm not going to ditch you and find out you disappeared again. That's -- No."

"I won't disappear."

"No, because you'll be with me."

"Gri --"

"Weren't you calling me Gil a few miles back?"

Nick blinked at him. "Habit, I guess," he stammered after a moment.

"Call me Gil, okay? Because otherwise I'm going to feel like we're working, and this is my vacation, you know."

"God, I hope not."

"Why not? Road trip, see some serious country, good company -- what's not to like?"

"Let me count the ways," Nick replied dryly.

"Look, don't worry about it, okay? Just relax."

Riiight. He'd been sorta relaxed, but now his nerves were jittering like cold water on a hot skillet. Great work, Nick. Not only have you fucked up your own job, but now you're cutting into Grissom's, too. Gil's. Whatthefuckever.

"I sense you continuing to worry."

"What kind of strings did you have to pull to do this?" Nick asked tightly, feeling his jaw start to ache. "Don't tell me you didn't, because I know what kind of a place CSI is, and there's no way you could just disappear and people don't notice."

"Funny, that's exactly what I thought when you did it," Grissom shot back.

"Place isn't gonna fall apart because I'm not there. I'm a cog in the wheel. You're the wheel, Gil. You they'll miss."

Grissom's knuckles looked a little tight on the steering wheel. "Let me tell you a story, Nick. No, don't talk," he added when Nick drew a frustrated breath. "Just listen. Once upon a time there was this guy. Good at his job, well-liked and respected by his colleagues. A nice guy.

"One day something very bad happened to our guy. Something no one could have predicted, and no one could have prevented. And it hurt him a lot. And finally it got so bad that he took some time off."

"G --"

"Shut up. Now this guy's friends and colleagues were pretty worried about him. They understood what was going on, or at least they were fairly sure they mostly did, but they couldn't help worrying. After all, he was important to them. They *noticed* when he was gone. Like the hole where a tooth has been, the way your tongue keeps looking around for something that's not there anymore.

"So one day his friends sat around a table and talked about what they should do. Because, you see, they had to do *something*. And they talked about it, and talked some more, and nobody knew what to do. But when one of those friends had an idea, everyone agreed." Grissom glanced over at Nick, his eyes thunderously dark. "That's the key, Nick. The moral to this little story. Everyone AGREED. This was the right thing to do. And everyone also agreed that if they all worked together, this idea would work.

"So stop worrying, all right? We miss you, Nick. I miss you. And I want you back. I don't want to sit around and do nothing while you're in trouble. I can't do that. And don't think we didn't argue about who got to come. Because there's not a person on our team who wouldn't have gone in a fucking heartbeat. No one. I practically had to sedate Warrick to keep him from going on his own, and Sara was calling for plane tickets to Texas before we even knew exactly where you were. You got that?"

His chest hurt so bad, he thought maybe he was having some kind of heart attack. "Yeah," Nick wheezed without strength. "I -- I got it."

"Good." Grissom looked at him again, and some of the fierce emotion cooled a little. "Shit, are we staying in Canada or not? Did we decide that?"

Nick smiled a tiny bit. "Not really. How far to Vegas from here?"

"Thirty hours?"

"Wow. That far, huh."

"Yep."

"Home, I guess."

"Home it is."

A few miles passed in silence; not a bad silence, but somehow fraught, for all that. Finally Nick asked, "Whose idea was it?"

Grissom snorted a little. "Whose do you think?"

Staring straight ahead, Nick replied, "I think it was yours."

"Damn right it was."

Another mile, and Nick drew a difficult breath. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He could hear the smile in Grissom's voice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You talk to Catherine today?"

Grissom spat out toothpaste and shook his head. "She'll call if she wants. She's got the number."

"We'll be back by Sunday. Maybe you oughta call her." Nick shrugged out of his shirt.

"Tomorrow, maybe."

Nick nodded, and tried to sidle out of the way as Gil left the bathroom.

It didn't work, and later he thought that that was pretty much the moment the slippery slope became less of a stumble and more of a freefall.

Grissom's hand came out, just an automatic touch, but his hand on Nick's bare waist was like a caress from a cattle prod. Nick gasped, stiffening, and Grissom's touch tightened with quick concern. Thereby compounding the issue.

"You okay? What? What's wrong?"

It felt as if his entire blood supply had cleanly divided in half. Half went to his face, the biggest fucking blush he could ever remember experiencing. And the other half went immediately and most embarrassingly straight to his dick.

"N -- Nothing," Nick mumbled frantically. "S'okay." He stepped back, trying to do -- something, not sure what, either break Gil's dangerous touch or else maybe, what, he had no idea.

"Hey. It's okay."

"No, it's not," Nick whispered urgently. "It's really not."

He almost *felt* it when Grissom finally got the message. Hopefully it was because of their proximity, and not because of the spectacular boner Nick was now sporting. "Oh. Nick --"

"I need to grab a shower." He tried getting around again, only this time Grissom blocked him on purpose.

"What is it? Tell me."

"NO."

"You --"

"I CAN'T!" Nick cried miserably, his eyes fixed on the floor.

"Look at me. Do it, Nick, look at me."

Hot, absurd tears burned his eyes. He flickered a glance up and oh CHRIST, Gil's face was just too fucking close, it wasn't SAFE, didn't he get that? What did it take, a neon sign? "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

Then Gil reached out and pulled him close, and oh BOY if he hadn't figured out Nick's problem with Mr. Chubby by now this had pretty much given it away. But some rebellious part of him -- probably the part controlling his dick right now -- was overjoyed, so relieved it made him wordless, so intent it sent his own arms sliding around Gil's waist before his rational mind had a second to veto the action.

"Nick." Gil's voice sounded odd. Deeper, maybe. "It's okay. It's really okay."

It's not okay, his rational mind informed him coldly. It's most definitely not not not-okay.

Fuck that, his non-rational dick said, just before it sent him leaning forward, yearning with every cell in his body for something that he had no right to want. *I'm* in control here, not you, so fuck off.

The thing that shocked him then, the only thing that evidently had the power to break the spell of the non-rational, happened just after his lips touched Gil's. Because it felt so good he wanted to cry, but lookie here, Ma, Grissom's got a woody to match Nick's, and seems to be enjoying this -- say it, asshole, this KISS -- every bit as much as Nick is.

Which was the thing that suddenly made the rational take over, and had him pulling away with a broken, "No."

Chapter Six

"I'm sorry," Nick said from the other side of the room. Again.

He didn't have the nerve to look at Gil -- again -- and once again, Gil just said, "Don't be sorry."

Well, this was a pretty picture, now, wasn't it? The Younger Man, standing by the door in case he decides to bolt because holy SHIT, he realizes this could actually happen instead of being some kind of fucking perverted wet dream. And the Older Man, wise beyond his years, sitting Yoda-like on the bed, cryptic smile firmly in place. You know those young guys. Nervy things, don't scare 'em off. Draw more flies and virgins with honey than vinegar, right, Griss?

"Look, would you just sit down? You're making this into a very big deal, Nick."

Oho, the wise man speaks. Nick stopped pacing and stared at him, stung. But when he tried to speak, nothing useful come out. It IS a big deal. Is it? Evidently not. So ignore it and it'll go away? That was how he'd learned to deal, himself. Maybe Gil had, too.

Or maybe Gil-baby really didn't think anything had happened, but that was impossible, right? Because something had.

Was Grissom really that out of touch?

The man in question patted the bed. "Come on. Sit down."

Nick edged over and sat about as far away as he could without falling on the floor. When Gil didn't say anything else, Nick swallowed hard. "Okay, I'm sitting down now. Happy?"

"Honestly? Not particularly."

Nick nodded woodenly, staring at the bedspread on the opposite bed. "I didn't -- mean for that to happen. I think maybe I am kinda crazy right now."

"Understandably."

"I don't -- I don't usually --"

"I don't care."

Nick gave him a startled look, and Gil sighed. "Who was it? Elvis Costello? Said, 'Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.'"

"I, uh. What?"

"I don't care what you usually. All right?"

"Huh? I'm still -- Elvis Costello?"

"Never mind. Come here?"

Gil's arm around him felt so good, so right. Nick froze in place.

"Everything's okay, Nick." Gil sighed, pulling Nick against him. "If anything I said -- before -- made you feel as if this was your fault, I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"It wasn't just your idea, you know. I wanted to kiss you, too."

Nick clenched his eyes shut.

"If you don't want that, it's okay. I just want you to know that there's nothing wrong with it. That's all."

But there is, Nick thought desperately. Oh, there is.

"Talk to me, Nick, okay?" Gil sounded a little strained now. "I was never very good at ESP."

"I don't -- know what to say."

"Want me to stop?"

Nick sighed inside the circle of Gil's arm. Let go? No, he didn't want that. He shook his head.

"Come on. You're tired. Let's get some sleep."

He let Gil draw him down on the bed, not the same position as before. Before it had been Nick who clung to Gil. Now it was Gil who spooned up behind him, one arm looped around Nick's waist, hand flat on Nick's belly.

The panic was still circling, sniffing around, looking for a toehold. And his mind busily informed him, once again, of how this looked. You could sugarcoat it before, Nicky, you can sugarcoat it now, but what you KNOW is that you really don't want to go to sleep, do you?

With the same feeling as before -- feet slipping on loose scree -- Nick rolled over, coming face to face with Gil. Gil's eyes were soft in the dimness, all too easy to read. And it was all too easy to let go of his fear, let it dissipate in the warmth of Gil's body next to his own, and push himself over to meet Gil's ready mouth.

The joy was still there, a kind of incredulous WOW, but this time there was also relief, the feeling a dying man might have when he hit the morphine button yet again. It might not fix things, not forever, but it felt so damn good.

Nick made a soft sound deep in his throat, letting Gil pull him closer until their bodies lined up. The most thorough kiss Nick had ever known, the first time he could remember ever being the complete focus of Gil Grissom's fearsome attention. He felt a little like one of Gil's treasured bugs, only there was no pin sticking him to styrofoam. Just their bodies, connected at the mouth, hands, arms, legs. Groin.

Oh yeah.

Tears stinging tiresomely behind his eyes, Nick broke the neverending kiss and gasped for air. And then gasped again when Gil simply changed that terrible focus, kissing beneath Nick's jaw, to his throat, up to an ear and then to the vulnerable place where his jaw ended, a place other people had kissed, sure

other women, you mean

but never like this, never with this kind of singleminded enjoyment.

"God," Nick gasped without thinking, and flopped over on his back, bringing Gil with him.

Gil smiled an inch from his face, and bent to kiss his mouth again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He woke up early, not even dawn yet if the dark behind the curtains was any clue. For a second he had no idea where he was. There was absolutely nothing familiar in this room. No sounds, no outlines of furniture he could identify. Just dark, and a rising feeling of indescribable panic.

Someone sighed next to him, and Nick rolled away with a wrenching gasp, coming to rest on his knees at the edge of the bed.

Evidence, Nicky boy. Let's see. You have no clothes on. From the looks of it neither does Grissom.

Remember now?

You fucking faggot.

With a wounded sound Nick pushed himself back, but there was no more bed. Just a wall, the feel of his head thumping against sheetrock, and bedclothes tangled around one of his feet.

"Nick?" Gil said groggily, sitting up. "You okay?"

He fought the sheet until he could get untangled, and then scrabbled to his feet.

Inside the bathroom he closed and locked the door, hands shaking so badly even the thumb latch was a challenge. The bright fluourescent bulbs were absolutely unforgiving. Nick glanced at his nude body in the mirror

My, my, but you have that well-fucked look, my friend, that post-coital glow, should we say, FAG

and recoiled, averting his eyes and going over to turn on the shower.

"Nick?"

Shit.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Jesus, it was hard to breathe. Steam was filling the room, but his throat was closing up, and in the midst of everything else one thought popped into his mind, so sharp and horribly clear that he couldn't even begin to argue.

You're dying. You're gonna die, Nick.

Allergic reaction, maybe. Allergic to what? No, asthma. Been years since he fought with that, but he remembered now, that awful struggle to get air OUT, never mind in.

DYING. Call 911. Someone has to help me, please, HELP, help me.

He leaned against the sink and opened the door, revealing Gil Grissom's worried face.

"Nick!"

Good, Grissom would know what to do. He let Gil catch him, free now to be as terrified as his body demanded, because at least someone KNEW, someone could help him when he

DIED

"Breathe, Nick." Distant, cool words, but why wasn't Grissom getting off his ass and calling the fucking CAVALRY? His chest hurt, maybe this was a fucking heart attack, too young and nothing wrong but there WAS something wrong, he was DYING, couldn't Gil see that?

"It's a panic attack, Nick," came Gil's awful, reassuring voice. "Come on. Relax. Let go."

"Can't -- breathe."

"Yes, you can. I promise. Just ride it out. It's going to be okay."

He pulled against Grissom's hold but it didn't work. And he *could* breathe, after all, but with that realization came the shakes, huge terrible trembling that made him feel weak as a day-old pup.

Grissom's arms were strong around him, soothing voice still going. "It's okay, Nick, you're fine. See? Already better. That's it."

His cheeks felt cold and wet. "What -- happened?" he wheezed out.

"Later. Just relax, breathe. You're okay."

"Gil."

"I won't let anything happen to you. Just relax. Close your eyes."

Nick sobbed once, and let his head sag back against Gil's chest.

 

Chapter Seven

"We could take a break."

Nick glanced up from tying his shoes. "Huh?"

Gil sipped his coffee and kept staring out the window. Not much to see. Great view of the parking lot. "Explore. Take a day off from driving."

"What's there to explore in Iowa?"

"That's the thing. I have no idea." Gil turned a smile in his direction. "I've never been in Iowa. Terra incognita."

"Kinda boring terra."

"Maybe. Let's find out."

With a disgruntled feeling he didn't quite understand, Nick shrugged. "We're only two days from home. Can we afford to take a day off?"

The smile didn't falter. "Can we afford not to?"

"I'm okay. You said it yourself. Just nerves."

"Exactly. And the closer we get to Vegas, the worse they get. Don't they?"

"I guess," Nick mumbled.

"So let's sightsee. Go out tonight, do something besides sit in a car. What do you say?"

"Whatever you want."

His lack of enthusiasm was either dealt with or ignored, he couldn't say which. But they did sightsee. Des Moines wasn't that bad. Killed a few hours. Much bigger than he'd thought, and much more cosmopolitan. Interesting to see a city that wasn't quite as tacky as Vegas. Not tacky at all, in fact.

"A lot of people stopped here before heading west," Grissom remarked, gazing out the window at the enormous, ornate houses they were passing. "It was a primary staging area for pioneers."

"The Chamber of Commerce should hire you," Nick replied dryly.

"My family probably came through here."

"On their way to California."

"Yep."

Nick watched the houses go by, pretty, sure, what the hell, better than looking at Gil's concerned face.

And superimposed over that, another face. Not nearly so handsome, and a whole different flavor of caring. The terrible interest of a madman, maybe.

He leaned his head back against the seat and sighed.

They had lunch late, no crowds, which was a relief. He picked at his pasta and pretended he was eating, but hell, who was he trying to kid? Not like he'd been able to slip anything by Gil before, and for sure not now.

"Want to talk about it?"

Nick glanced over at Gil and shrugged. "I freaked."

"Well, yes."

His cheeks burned. "I don't regret it," he added hoarsely.

Gil smiled a little. "The freaking, or the other stuff?"

"The other stuff."

"Neither do I."

He speared a piece of chicken on his fork. "I think --" He set his fork down. "I think that's what Crane wanted, too."

"It's a possibility."

"It's fucking gross," Nick snapped, leaning back in his chair. "Every time I think about that whacko watching me, I mean, it just makes me sick. What does that mean?"

"It means you were violated, Nick." Gil's smile disappeared. "Nigel Crane mistook kindness for infatuation. To him, you and he were close. A lot closer than reality. You think you're wrong to feel sick about that?"

"I don't know. No." He looked at Gil. "You know what this is like, don't you?" he asked bluntly.

Gil took a sip of his drink and shrugged. "Close enough."

"So how'd you deal with it?"

"I didn't. For a long time."

"But you finally did, right?"

Gil's mouth curved in a smile that wasn't entirely pleasant. "Had to," he said briefly.

"So you freaked?"

Now it was a better smile, a real smile. "Not exactly. In my own way, yes."

Nick stared down at the napkin he held. "I don't feel like I'll ever feel safe again," he mumbled, and started tearing the napkin into long shreds.

Gil nodded. "Home's a sanctuary, it's where we relax, become fully ourselves." He pushed his plate away. "And when someone violates that sanctuary, it can be very hard to get past it."

"Next place won't have an attic."

"That's a start." Gil grinned. "Come on. Let's get out of here and go for a walk."

Outside the weather was gorgeous, warm and sunny, and Nick inhaled deeply before glancing at Gil. "Feel better?" Gil asked, still smiling.

"Think so, yeah."

"Good. Don't forget where we parked the car."

After some wandering there was a park, sprawling and not too filled with people. Nick sat next to Gil on a bench and leaned his head back, soaking in the sun.

"So that was a panic attack, huh."

Gil nodded, unreadable behind his sunglasses. "Yes."

"Weird. I was just sure I was dying."

"Textbook."

Nick squinted at him. "What happens if I have another one?"

"We'll deal with it."

"Thank you," Nick whispered thickly.

They had dinner that night at some out-of-the-way bistro, where the smell of good bread and savory things actually awakened Nick's dormant appetite. Or maybe his body was finally screaming, ENOUGH! Eat or DIE, you moron! Whatever the case, he cleaned his plate and caught Gil's approving look.

"I do eat, you know," Nick said tartly.

"I see that," came the grave reply, which made him laugh.

A couple of beers at a tiny microbrewery later, and Nick was ready to call it a night. Unsure whether or not Gil's sudden social turn had eased up or what, but he didn't object to going back to the hotel. And when Nick walked inside their room, a familiar sense of unease reared its head and made his throat feel tight.

"I'd offer a penny for your thoughts, but in this case I think I don't need to," Gil said softly.

Nick wrapped his arms around himself, shaking his head. "Sorry."

"I'll offer a dollar if you'll stop saying that."

Nick turned him a shaky smile. "I'll try."

Gil smiled back, and went to hunt down a tee shirt. "So what do you usually do when you get home?" he asked over his shoulder.

"I dunno. Check email, see if there's anything on tv."

"What do you watch?"

'Mostly sports, I guess."

"Now there's a surprise."

There wasn't much on, but they watched part of a nine-ball tournament, and it was so comfortable that whatever anxiety he still felt didn't seem very powerful when Gil kissed him. It was just a kiss. A very good kiss, in fact.

"Don't you want to see who wins?" Nick asked fuzzily, propped on one elbow while he let himself explore Gil's neck with his lips.

"I already know."

"You do, huh."

"Yep."

He caught a flash of Gil's grin before another kiss erased all thought of pool, and anything else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later, Gil paused, staring down at him. "What?"

"Nothing," Nick gasped, swallowing hard. "I'm okay. Christ, you're -- really good at that."

Gil gave him a tiny smile and leaned down to kiss him luxuriantly. "I was always an overachiever," he murmured against Nick's mouth. "Can't get enough of you."

When Gil drew back again, there was an expression on his face Nick had never seen before. "What?" he asked, feeling a little like Gil himself. "What is it?"

"You know you can set the limits, right? Tell me if I do something you don't want to do."

"S-sure."

Gil sat back on his haunches, stroking the insides of Nick's thighs where they lay open over Gil's lap. "I don't want to go too fast," he said quietly.

Nick's throat was suddenly very dry. "You want to fuck me, don't you?"

Gil nodded slowly.

"I've never --"

"I know."

Heart thudding in his chest, Nick blurted, "I don't know if I can do that."

"I won't make you. Trust me, Nick. I won't make you do something you don't want to do."

"Even if you want it?"

"Even if I want it."

Nick sighed, turning his face away. "I don't know what it's like," he said clumsily, feeling his cheeks burning. Gil's hands on his thighs felt almost unbearably good. Making him hard again, damn it. "I guess -- I thought about it a few times."

"That's promising." Gil untangled himself from Nick's legs and lay down beside him, on his side, head propped on his hand. "What did you think about?"

Rolling over to face him, Nick sighed. "I dunno. I start to think about -- it, and then every time I think about him."

"You can't be sure that's what he really wanted," Gil said softly, reaching out to touch his thumb to Nick's cheek. "I'm not sure you can boil it down to sex."

"I know. Just a feeling." Nick smiled, flushing harder. "Jeez, I can't believe I'm sitting here -- lying here -- having this conversation."

Gil smiled, too. "Can't say I planned it, myself."

Nick drew a deep breath. "But you thought about it? About me?"

"Give me a second to think about how to answer this without seriously undermining my authority."

"So you did."

"Yeah."

Nick gazed at him, recognizing the flush in Gil's cheeks with wonder. "Wow," he said weakly. "I had no idea."

"Good. Hopefully my professional image isn't too tarnished, then."

"Well, with me --"

"With the others," Gil interrupted with a sheepish grin, and bent forward to kiss him. A kiss that led to more kisses, and Nick had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out when Gil's thigh slid between his own.

"So this sex thing," he mumbled against Gil's neck. "Hurts, right?"

"At first, a little." Gil kissed him briefly and deeply. "Not forever. There's a reason why people keep doing it, you know," he added with a flashing smile.

"I -- Well, yeah. Hadn't thought about it that way."

"There are many other things we can do, Nick," Gil whispered, taking Nick's hand and sliding it between his own legs. "Many, many other things."

Smiling, Nick leaned forward to kiss him, inhaling Gil's harsh gasp when Nick took him in hand and stroked surely and easily.

 

Chapter Eight

By the time they hit the Nevada state line, Nick couldn't even lie to himself about how he felt. Scared shitless, and not just of Nasty Nigel, either. A more amorphous fear, a blend of the nutcase plus work plus finding a place to live, plus --

Well.

THAT.

Wasn't as if Gil hadn't noticed, either, although they didn't discuss it much. It probably wouldn't help, anyway, Nick thought, scanning the passing scenery with zero interest.

He glanced down at the speedometer automatically -- state animal ought to be a highway patrolman -- and then over at Gil. "Not too far," he said.

Gil nodded at the same time his cell phone beeped at him. What, seventh time today, or eighth? People had been calling a lot the past two days. The more overdue they got, the more strident the calls. Where the hell are you? What do we do with X? What happened to Y? Gil's jaw had gotten tenser by the hour, and Nick almost felt guilty about his own worries. Hell, Grissom had a unit to run. The wheel, not the cog, remember?

Probably Catherine this time, like the past three. Gil said something peevish to her and hung up. And sighed.

"I'm s--"

"Don't say it, Nick. If they can't manage when I'm not there, I'm a crappy excuse for a supervisor."

Nick refocused straight ahead. What, he was going to actually say, You sound like my boss again and not my -- whatever? Not.

"I have to go to the lab when we get in," Gil said crisply, as if they really were already back. Nick's stomach clenched. "Just to reassure everyone we're still alive. An hour, tops."

Nick nodded mechanically. An hour for Grissom meant eight; there was no way he could just drop by and parley for a few, and then split. If he DID do that, Nick would really start to wonder about him. Simply not in his nature.

"I mean that, okay? Just for a few minutes."

Nick looked at him, meeting Gil's steady, all-too-knowing gase. "Right," he said faintly.

"I'll drop you off at my place. You can catch your breath, and I won't be long."

Oh. "Okay."

"Unless you want to stay somewhere else?"

There was no reading Gil's intent; his voice was as casual as a stranger's. Nick digested that, and then managed a shrug. "I hadn't really thought about it," he said, changing lanes and passing a gawking carful of what had to be tourists. Foreign ones, maybe.

"Where did you stay after you sold the condo?"

"Uhh."

"Slept at the office?"

"Yeah."

"Would you like to stay with me?"

Nick felt his teeth grinding together in an effort to stave off whatever terrible emotion was clawing at his throat. "If you don't mind, sure."

"I don't mind, Nick. I'd love for you to stay."

"O-okay."

Two hours later they were back, and Nick looked around Gil's home as if he'd never seen it before. Well, had he? Surely he had. But it seemed entirely new now. Neat, not very remarkable. Comfortable, in a kind of distant way. Nick set his duffle on the floor in the front hall and straightened.

"There's beer in the fridge, unless someone broke in and stole it." Gil brushed past him with a busy smile, and dumped his own bag in a room Nick couldn't see, but figured was the bedroom. "Grab me one, too, will you?"

Nick edged cautiously into the kitchen, feeling like a thief himself, and got out two Shiner Bocks. Huh. Nice choice.

He'd wandered back into the living room when Gil re-emerged, on the phone again and carrying one shoe in his hand. "I told you, I'll come by in a few minutes. But I'm still on vacation, remember? So don't count on me sticking around." A pause, while he dropped the shoe on the floor, stuck his foot in it, and listened. "Nick's fine. Good." He glanced at Nick and smiled. "No, he's staying over here until he gets a new place. Well, maybe I'll wait and let him tell you himself. Look, I gotta go. See you when I get there."

Nick smiled weakly. "Catherine?"

"Yeah. I don't think she wants to be the boss anymore," he added, straightening the crease in his pants.

"You set the bar pretty high."

Gil looked at him, and then walked over, plucking the second bottle of beer from Nick's hand. "Maybe," he replied, smiling. "Welcome home, Nick."

"Thanks."

Gil studied him for a moment, reaching out to take Nick's free hand. "It's going to be okay," he said quietly, pressing a kiss on Nick's fingers. "Come on, sit down."

Later he thought he might always associate the rich, dark taste of Shiner with that brief few minutes on Gil's couch. And nothing even really happened. Only everything.

"One step at a time, okay? Bird by bird, Nick, just take it bird by bird."

Nick smiled inside the comforting loop of Gil's arm. "What quote is that?"

"Wonderful book on writing. That's the title: Bird by Bird. Anne Lamott."

"Is there anything you don't read?"

"Far too much to even consider. Lamott got the title of the book from something her father said to her brother one time. Kid was agonizing over a book report on birds that was due the next morning, that he hadn't even started yet. So her dad said --"

"--Take it bird by bird." Nick nodded, brushing his cheek against Gil's shirt. "I get it."

Gil sipped his beer. "And when you're ready to come back to work, come back. I don't plan to replace you, you know. Not unless you tell me to."

"No," Nick whispered roughly. "I'll come back."

"Good."

It felt both astoundingly weird and terribly reassuring to kiss him, back on home soil, back in a town he hadn't really known if he'd ever see again. The town he still wasn't sure about; the kiss, well. Pretty much felt great.

"I really have to go."

Nick sighed against Gil's throat, relishing the way Gil shivered in response. "I'll kick your ass if you stay all night," he murmured, smiling.

"Keep that up and I won't go at all."

"Promise?"

Gil drew back to kiss him once, firmly, on the mouth. His face was gratifyingly flushed. "You're really not playing fair, you know," he said in a hilariously plaintive voice.

Nick grinned, and shrugged. "I'd apologize, but."

"Yeah. Okay." Gil drew a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. "Okay. Sorry I didn't give you the tour, but it's very short anyway. If you don't find what you need, call me. All right?"

Mercifully the ridiculous blather that immediately popped into his head -- I need you -- didn't make it past his lips. Nick nodded. "I'll be okay, Gil. Go do your thing."

"Back in a few."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Someone touched his arm, and he awoke with a jerk.

"Hey, it's just me."

Nick blinked in the darkness. Shit, what the hell time was it?

The bed shifted when Gil sat down. "I see you found the bedroom," he remarked in a voice that just avoided innuendo, but only just.

"Thought you said an hour," Nick said muzzily.

"Well." Now there was a faintly guilty tinge to the words. "Not much more than an hour. You okay?"

That's called deflecting, Nick considered saying, and then let it go. "Musta crashed. I smell food."

"I brought back some takeout." Gil brushed Nick's cheek with his fingers. "Hungry?"

"I guess."

He trailed behind Gil out to the dining room, where he sat down and stared at his kung pao chicken.

"So how was work?"

Gil fished out a piece of broccoli with his chopsticks. "Some things never change," he said through his food. "One thing's for sure, Nick; we'll never be out of a job."

Nick nodded, and poked at his food with a fork. "How's everybody doing?"

"Fine. Told me to tell you they miss you."

He feigned interest he didn't feel while Gil talked about the cases they were working on, something hilarious Warrick had said, Catherine's latest ex-related woes. It registered, but somehow it didn't, too. He felt as if Gil were relating stories about strangers, just anecdotes, with no real impact.

Gil ran out of gas finally, working on his food while Nick faked same, and finally put his chopsticks down. "You're tired," he observed mildly.

Talk about a keen grasp of the obvious. "Yeah. More than I thought, I guess."

"Go back to bed, okay? I'll be in in a minute."

With a sadness that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, Nick trudged back to the bedroom. Pretty basic, but Gil had a comfortable bed, and that was primary, he supposed. His skin prickled with sudden nameless dread, and he sat down hard on the bed's edge.

Well, now's a shitty time to have another freakout, Nicky boy. What do they say about making your own bed? Lie down, boy.

And spread 'em.

He stifled whatever sound was trying to get out of his throat, and stood up fast. The room was way too small suddenly. The condo was too small, hell, the fucking CITY was too small. Couldn't fucking BREATHE here.

"Nick?"

This time the sound made it out anyway; a strangled kind of yelp that made him feel like laughing hysterically at the same time that he felt his throat immediately closing up. Oh CHRIST, not this again, no no FUCK NO

But this time it didn't help when Gil came over. Nick pushed at him wildly, staggering back against the far wall. One hand went to his throat, and all that was in his head suddenly was digging his nails in and getting it OUT, whatever it was that wasn't letting him breathe, that was CHOKING him.

"Nick, stop it." Strong hands on his wrists, pulling, and he snarled something and pushed again, hard, but Gil held on anyway.

And something inside him shivered and broke, like a glass shattering on concrete.

He struggled inside Gil's arms, panting and shaking his head, and in the midst of it all he could say was, "I don't want to be here, please, I don't, please just let me GO, please."

"Jesus, Nick," Gil said hoarsely. His arms were shaking, too. "It's okay, baby, it's okay."

"It's NOT okay!" Nick dug his hands into Gil's shirt, pulling until the fabric started to tear. "It's not fucking OKAY!"

"No, it's not, is it." Gil's grip loosened, and Nick clung harder, irrationally.

"Gil," he gasped. "Oh God, I think I'm going crazy."

"Sssh. You're not crazy, sweetheart, you're not. I swear to God you're not."

"Don't let go of me," Nick whispered fiercely, blinking away tears. "Please, please don't let go?"

Gil's arms linked around Nick's waist. "I won't. I promise you."

"I don't know what's happening to me. Gil, I'm so fucking scared."

"Just breathe, Nick," Gil murmured, rocking him gently. "Hold on, and breathe. That's it."

After a long, blank moment of nothing but the reassuring solidity of Gil's body against his own, Gil said softly, "Come on. Lie down. You're so tired."

God, he was tired, and yet every muscle in his body burned, too, jittery with a fear he couldn't even begin to quantify, much less really understand yet. He let Gil lay him on the bed, and managed to loosen his death grip on Gil's shirt long enough for Gil to slip out of it and lie down next to him. And then it was so much like that first night, the first time in too long that he'd felt truly safe, that he clung with mindless, frantic strength all over again.

"Sleep," Gil whispered, one hand smoothing down Nick's back in long even strokes. "Nothing's going to happen to you tonight. I won't let anything happen. Close your eyes."

He breathed in the clean smell of Gil's aftershave and did so, gratefully.

 

Chapter Nine

It was a perfect day. Not too hot, yet, and of course no humidity; Dallas might be humidity hell, but Las Vegas would probably implode if the average humidity level passed fifteen percent. All in all, a great day to be outside.

Nick poked at the coals on the grill and squinted. Time for the chicken? What time had Gil said he'd be back? Four hours ago, or five?

Ah, what the hell. He picked up the plate and started laying chicken breasts on the grill, breathing in the savory smoke.

By the time Gil actually did get back, the sun was almost gone, the neighbor's dog was whining at the fence, and the chicken looked and smelled fantastic.

"Hey, good timing," Nick called, seeing Gil at the back door. "Hungry?"

"Starving." Gil walked outside. "Damn, you never told me you could cook."

"I can't." Nick grinned, forking the last piece of chicken on a platter. "I can grill, though."

"That smells fantastic. Thank you." Gil came over and kissed him soundly. "So I guess you found everything you needed."

Nick nodded, covering the grill and reaching down to close the vents. "I figure I better do something other than occupy space, you know? Called my dad for his recipe. Come on, I got a salad, too."

Gil ate hugely, and Nick took one bite and felt a wave of sweet homesickness wash over him. So this was Dad's secret recipe. Tasted just like home.

"It's all in the marinade," Nick said when Gil gave him a wide-eyed look of approval.

When most of the food was demolished and the rest put away, Nick handed Gil another beer and went back out on the patio. A great day had turned into a gorgeous evening, desert-cool and tangy with lingering cooking smells and the aroma of mesquite. "So how was work?" he asked, sipping his beer.

"Pretty much exactly the way I left it. SSDD."

"Same shit, different day, huh."

"Yeah. You ought to come see everybody. They'd love to see you."

Nick's replete smile faded. "Yeah," he agreed softly. "Yeah, I'd like to see them, too."

"How's your dad doing, anyway?"

"Good. He's back in Austin now, court's back in session."

Gil nodded, but didn't say anything else.

"I've been thinking about work," Nick said finally.

"Oh?"

"I do want to come back."

"Well, you know you can, anytime you want."

Nick nodded. "I appreciate that."

"Personally I think your boss is a candidate for sainthood."

"How much can I laugh before you fire me?"

"Try me and see."

Nick grinned and glanced at Gil, absurdly pleased to see the relaxed look on Gil's face. "How about next week?"

"Next week would be great." Gil took a step closer and slid his arm around Nick's waist, and Nick felt the constant hard knot in his chest loosen a bit. "Hey, at least we have the same schedule."

Nick turned and gave in to the hug he'd wanted all evening. "Yeah," he whispered, closing his eyes and leaning against Gil. "That's good."

Later, inside, he toweled his hair and watched Gil grind coffee. "Doing anything tomorrow?" Gil asked, tapping the ground beans into a filter.

"Supposed to go look at a place. 10:00. Not much besides that."

Gil glanced at him. "Looking at apartments?"

"Yeah. Think I'll hold off on buying anything again. Considering right now I'm about tapped out."

"You know you can stay here. Long as you like."

Nick nodded awkwardly. "I just -- You know, once I go back to work --" He trailed off.

"You'd just as soon not telegraph it to everyone."

"I don't mean it that way."

Gil smiled. "It's okay. One step at a time, right?"

"Right."

So strange. When Gil kissed him, it seemed as if all his worries were ridiculous. Of course everything would be all right. As right as this felt, this completely unexpected, disturbingly fantastic connection. Work was just work. Nigel was in jail. And when Nick leaned into Gil's embrace and fell into another obliteration of a kiss, the last of the hard kernel of pain in his chest melted away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Wanna go with me?" he asked the next morning.

"You want me to?"

Nick nodded sleepily, letting his hand drift over Gil's bare chest. "It'll probably suck anyway. Just a rental."

"Of course I'll go."

"We don't have to go yet."

"Good," Gil murmured, pressing a kiss on Nick's mouth.

Suddenly very much awake, Nick made a muffled sound and pushed himself up, slinging one leg over Gil's hips and straddling him. "Do that again," he whispered, and Gil grinned and did just that.

"So I rent this place," Nick continued, kissing his way around Gil's stubbly jaw to his ear. "But that doesn't mean --" He sucked at Gil's earlobe for a moment. "--I have to actually stay there." A nip. "All the time."

"I'd be -- very disappointed if you did," Gil said in a strangled voice.

"So when you get tired of me --" He kissed the tender skin of Gil's throat leisurely, and felt Gil's hands stroking his back, long slow arcs that started at his waist and went down to the place they'd only played with. "--I got someplace to crash."

"Not gonna happen."

Nick smiled against Gil's skin and slid downward, nibbling one of Gil's nipples and grinning at the way Gil sighed and arched his back. "You say that now," he replied, elongating the sibilant and watching Gil's nipple harden, "but the crazy guy might get a little annoying --"

Gil grasped Nick's shoulders, hard, and Nick broke off. "You're not crazy," Gil said intensely, frowning at him.

"I was just kidding."

Gil arched up and kissed him hard. "Don't sell yourself short," Gil murmured. "You're the one with the old guy."

Nick raised his eyebrows. "You know, you're right," he said in a reflective tone. "I mean, why should I settle for all this, when I could date some bowhead from Waxahachie and have six kids instead? Man, I'm glad you pointed that out to me, because for a minute there I thought I was doing pretty good...."

Gil's face colored nicely. "You're doing really good, and I wish you'd keep going."

"Is that a hint?"

"Should I make it an order?"

"Ow. You pulling rank on me, Grissom?"

"Jesus. Whatever it takes. *Stokes*."

Nick grinned delightedly. "Whatever you say, sir," he whispered, and slid a little further down.

Considering the fact that he had about as much experience sucking cock as Gil did as a fraternity president, he thought he was picking up the technique pretty well. He waited for the sarcastic internal commentary, but for once the nasty voice was silent. Thank God. Because this took some focus, after all.

"Shit," Gil groaned, hands tense at his sides. "You've been -- s-studying."

"I have a great teacher. I know what you wanna do. Do it."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Come on, baby. Fuck my mouth."

A little part of him still marveled at this, and probably would for a while yet, but it hadn't taken long to find out he kind of enjoyed Gil taking over, at least in some areas. It felt weirdly good to feel Gil's hands holding his head steady, to just -- take it, grabbing a breath when he could and just --

Okay, the swallowing part was still a work in progress. Sorta choked him, and the taste was going to be, um. Acquired. But it rocked to hear Gil come. Noisy and completely uninhibited, total about-face from the public persona, Mr. Freeze.

Crazy to be proud of making some guy come, but then this wasn't some guy, was it?

He held the tip of Gil's softening cock in his mouth, until Gil finally opened his eyes and blinked at him.

"I really like that look," Nick said softly, and licked his lips.

Gil smiled woozily. "Come here," he said in a hoarse voice.

"Yeah, I really like it." Nick crawled back up to blanket Gil with his body, and got a slow, sated kiss. "You like it?"

"I like it," Gil whispered. His fingers trailed down Nick's spine while they kissed again. When Gil's hand reached his ass Nick drew a sharp breath, an unexpected shiver of -- something, something not at all bad -- making him arch his back. "You like that?" Gil asked smokily, mouth quirked in a smile.

Nick nodded, shivering again as Gil's hands cupped his ass, gently kneading. "Can't keep -- your hands off that, can ya?" he managed.

"Nope. Come here."

He kneed his way up the bed, steadied by Gil's grip on his ass. Christ, his dick had been hard before but now it felt like he could probably hammer fucking NAILS with it, and there was Gil, just eating him up like he was candy --

Nick threw his head back and groaned, because as great as it felt to get his cock sucked, it was somehow just as great or maybe even better to look down and see his dick disappear down Gil's THROAT, and if he watched too much he'd just blow his load in a millisecond, JESUS H. CHRIST.

Gil's fingers stroked past his asshole, and Nick felt a jolt of heat sear through nerves he hadn't ever thought much about, a warm wash of sensation from his ass straight to his dick.

"Ah, FUCK."

Gil chuckled and the sensation was indescribable. And then something was IN his ass, a warm, slim, slippery fingerlike something, that didn't feel bad but felt mindbogglingly GOOD, and Nick's brain melted.

Only gone a few seconds, but MAN, what a way to go. He tried to breathe, still flexing and jerking in hectic tandem, and finally Gil let him go, dick and ass both, which was probably necessary for continued cognitive function but that didn't mean he had to like it, DAMN, wish that few seconds could last HOURS, fucking DAYS.

Somehow he got himself untangled from sheet and pillow and managed to lie down without falling off the bed, all twitches and limp muscles, and Gil pulled him close against his side and kissed him. Weird to know that was his come in Gil's mouth. So weird it was sort of hard to think about.

"So," Nick wheezed, collapsing bonelessly.

"So." He could almost hear Gil's grin.

"So that was my ass."

Now Gil laughed. "Among other things."

"Not too bad."

"Not too bad?" Gil yelped indignantly, and Nick snorted laughter. Raising himself on one shaky elbow, he made a considering face.

"I guess I'd be willing to give this thing a try," he murmured, feeling his heart do a little skip in his chest.

"Would you, now."

Nick nodded slowly. "Yeah." He didn't feel much like laughing anymore. "I would."

Gil locked eyes with him, a potent gaze that made Nick's chest tighten up again. "So would I," he whispered.

 

Chapter Ten

"I can't decide whether to hug you or kill you."

Nick grinned a little shakily. "All things being equal, I'd rather you hugged me."

Catherine did, a tight squeeze that felt awfully good. "Welcome back, Nick," she whispered urgently. "We've really missed you."

"Thanks, Catherine. Good to be back."

All the greetings had been some nuance of the same flavor as Catherine's, and Nick felt as if he just might come unglued from being so pleased. No huge party or any shit like that, thank God. Just some hugs, some handshaking, a clap on the shoulder from Warrick that had kinda hurt but felt pretty good for all that. Even Sara got a little sentimental, and then told him he almost owed her the plane fare to Texas. That made him laugh, and everyone else, too, so it was really okay.

"Canada?" Warrick asked, shaking his head. "Shit, man, why didn't you just head over to Europe? See something really interesting? I mean, if you're gonna hit the road anyway."

Catherine shook her head, too. "Nah. Bahamas."

"I like Canada," Nick said with a smile. "Nice people."

"Put some serious mileage on your car."

"About ten thousand miles, give or take a few hundred."

Warrick whistled. "Noooo thanks."

Gil cleared his throat. "Okay. Assignments."

He watched Gil with a mute sense of admiration. With all that had gone on lately, he'd sorta forgotten Gil was the boss, for all his teasing. Now, watching the guy in action, he felt both appreciative and vaguely confused. How exactly did he behave now? Same as before all -- this? Exactly how did he manage that?

But he nodded easily enough when Gil paired him with Sara for the evening, listened like always to the details of the case, and it felt pretty much like always to go to work.

Sara drove, which suited Nick just fine. He was having enough of an adjustment to simply go forward.

"I know you know this," Sara said abruptly, after about five minutes of amiable -- or what Nick had thought was amiable -- silence. Now he was wondering. She sounded strained, and kind of pissed. "But you scared the shit out of us."

Nick glanced uneasily at her. "I'm sorry about that," he said awkwardly.

"You know what we did the night you didn't come to work? Sat around and fought over which of us was going to try to find you." She kept her eyes on the road, but her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "You could have warned us, Nick. I wish you'd told us."

Shame, scalding and painful, made him fidget. "What was I gonna tell you, Sara?" he snapped with a lot more anger than he'd realized. "I don't know when I'll come back? IF I'll come back?"

"Yeah," she shot back, casting him a fierce glance. "That's exactly what you should have told us."

"Well, I guess not all of us are as clear as you are, okay? I told you what I knew."

"You told us you'd be back to work. And you didn't show, Nick! What were we supposed to think?"

He felt suddenly exhausted. "I don't know. I wasn't -- thinking real well."

"At all, you mean."

Nick swallowed. "No, I guess I wasn't."

"Shit, Nick, I'm sorry. I don't -- I don't mean to accuse you," Sara said carefully. Still driving, still white-knuckled. "Okay? I know you've had a rough time. But we have, too. I think you ought to know that."

"All right, I know now. Happy?"

She sighed. "Happy that you're back. Yes. Very happy."

"So would you maybe cut me a little slack here? Want me to kiss your feet, what?"

Her mouth quirked in a reluctant smile. "Kiss Grissom's," she returned, looking over at him. "He *freaked*."

Nick's heart stumbled in his chest. "Freaked?" he echoed weakly.

"I mean, all of us did, but he flipped. If you'd come in the next day he would have fired you, Nick. He was PISSED."

"Oh."

"Which for him I think was really just scared. You know, I don't think I've ever seen him scared like that. We thought you were dead."

"I was AWOL, not dead."

"Yeah, well. The shape you were in? We thought about it."

His skin felt as if it were crawling off his body. "Okay," he whispered, staring out the window at nothing. "Consider me informed."

They didn't say much after that. The work kept them busy, and Nick did his best to keep the conversation safely official. And it was really not hard, because this was a classic locked-room mystery, and it absorbed both of them.

"So she never left?"

The cop working the case -- Samuels, something like that -- shook his head. "Security cameras all over the building, didn't see a thing. And her colleagues say she told them she was working late." He shrugged. "But if she's here, she's invisible."

"Who made the call?" Sara asked, frowning.

"She did."

Nick blinked. "From here?"

"Yeah. Said someone was in the office with her."

"Custodial staff?"

"All cleared out by nine. Call came in at 9:14. All accounted for."

"So what did the cameras see?" Sara asked.

"Nobody's looked at all the tape from the whole building," Samuels answered a little stiffly. "But the tapes from this office between 9:00 and 9:30 show the call, and then she goes into that room there --" He lifted his chin at an executive-looking office near the windows. "--and she doesn't come out. And she ain't in there."

"What about the lobby? Security?"

"One security guard. My partner's talking to him downstairs. But he says no one left after the janitors, at least not by the front or back exits. Which leaves the garage, underground."

"And?" Nick prodded.

"If you think we'd found anything down there, don't you think I'd have told you?" Samuels returned acerbically.

"Maybe it's an X File," Nick murmured as he and Sara started unpacking equipment. "Woman vanishes from ten-story office building."

"Nobody just vanishes, Nick."

"Lighten up, man, it was just a joke."

But he had to admit it maybe hadn't been in the best of taste, considering he'd done his own vanishing act not too long ago. So he settled for working the case instead.

By 1:00 in the morning they'd done everything they could do with the offices. And there was absolutely no trace of Terri Brodie. Well, trace, sure. Lots of traces. But no Terri, alive, dead or in between.

"So either she left, and no one saw her." Sara plucked at one of her gloves restlessly, eyes flickering around the room. "Which would be tough to do, but not impossible. Or she's still here, and we just haven't found her yet."

"Or someone took her with them," Nick added absently.

"Who? The Invisible Man?"

"Who said it was a man?"

"Car's still in the garage. No signs of struggle anywhere."

"What about the roof?"

She glanced at him. "Check it out? I'm gonna call Grissom, tell him what's up."

Nick shrugged. "Suits me."

He dusted the door to the roof, but nothing came clear, of course. Wouldn't think that many people used that door, but enough had to make identifying any single print pretty damn tough. He stowed his brushes and went outside.

Had to admit Vegas at night was pretty special. Flashy, but impressive. Nick stood for a moment, taking in the terrain, and then did a circuit around the roof. If she'd jumped, for whatever reason, she hadn't hit the ground, so he felt pretty sure it wasn't a suicide. Why'd he think she was dead, anyway? No evidence for it. But the feeling persisted. Maybe just worst expectations, who knew.

His cell phone beeped at him, and he took it out without thinking, still looking out over the skyline. "Yeah."

"Find anything?" Gil asked.

Nick blinked. "No," he replied after a beat. "Roof looks clean. Can't get prints off the door, and it's too dark to see much detail."

"If we haven't turned anything else up by then we'll have a look in the morning. Sara didn't turn up anything in the garage."

"I think this is a dead end. Whatever happened, happened in that office. That's where we have to focus."

"So focus, Nick." He could hear Gil's smile. "Let me know what you find."

"Will do." He waited for Gil to hang up, and then stood there for a minute, digesting it. Might have to start dividing the two faces of Gil in his mind. Work was Grissom, not Gil. Work was work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey."

Nick looked up and smiled. "Hey."

Gil leaned against a locker, hands in his pockets. "Ready to get out of here?"

"Way ready."

Everyone but Sara was already gone, and Nick didn't really want to butt heads with her any more than he already had, so he took a cue from Gil and followed him out. The sunshine was punishing, bringing the vague headache he'd had all night to the forefront.

"How'd it go?" Gil asked, safely inside the car.

Nick reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Fine."

"Ow. I heard Sara read you the riot act."

"Who told you?"

"Catherine."

"How'd she know?"

"I've asked that same question a few times myself over the years." Gil smiled and steered out into traffic.

"She was pissed."

"She has a hard time showing her feelings. She'll get over it."

"Yeah." Nick drew a shaky breath. "I knew that girl was dead," he said abruptly. "How'd I know that?"

Gil was silent for a moment. "Maybe because all too often, the people we're looking for end up that way."

"I guess."

"I shouldn't have sent you on that one." Gil shook his head. "First day back, and --"

"Come on, Gil," Nick interrupted harshly. "I'm a big boy, and I've worked lots worse cases than that one. What, you gonna baby me forever? Can't happen. You know that."

A moment of silence, and Gil said, "Point taken." A bit stiff, but hey.

"At least it's over."

Gil didn't say anything to that, and he didn't have to. They both knew it. Same shit, different day. There'd be something else waiting for them tomorrow. Probably worse, but what could you do? Keep your head down and focus on the evidence, wasn't that what Grissom always said? There were worse ways to work.

But it didn't lift his spirits, regardless. The fact of Terri Brodie's violent and painful death just sat there, staring him in the face, and he couldn't just shove it away. He watched the city go by outside the car, ordinary people, people who didn't have to find dead women stashed in air vents, or listen to the fucking cries of innocence from guys who were so guilty they might as well have five-foot neon signs flashing over their heads.

Truth was, evidence SUCKED. And that meant that one hell of a lot of people were rotten to the core, since it was their evidence that he hunted all night. Like reading spoor in a jungle, predatorial droppings like souvenirs of sickness.

And he wanted to come back to this?

Should have stayed in Canada.

"Don't do this, Nick," Gil said softly.

"I'm not doing anything."

Gil didn't bother replying to that one. "Let's go home."

But Gil's townhouse didn't feel much like home. Not yet, maybe not ever.

"Here," Gil said, holding out a bottle of beer.

"Drinking before noon." Nick took it gingerly. "What a life."

"We just put in fourteen hours, Nick. We deserve it." Gil sat down next to him on the couch and took a long pull off his own beer. "Talk to me. All right?"

Nick shrugged, feeling muleish. "What do you want me to say? I'm glad to be back?"

"Say whatever you feel."

He glanced at Gil's concerned eyes and flinched. "I'll get used to it again," he muttered. "Just a hard night."

"Sara?"

"Part of it, yeah."

"She's got a good heart. She just -- Well."

"Yeah."

"Coming back tomorrow?"

Nick frowned at him. "Well, yeah," he said. "I said I would, didn't I?"

"Yes, you said you would." Gil leaned back against the cushions, half-turned in Nick's direction. His gaze felt all too penetrating. "But you're worrying me."

"Well, stop worrying," Nick replied harshly, and took a sip of the beer he didn't want. "Just need to get my feet under me, is all. Get back in the groove. I'll be all right." He forced a hard smile and saw it register in Gil's slight recoil.

Neither of them said anything for a while. And finally Nick set his beer on the table. "Gonna grab a shower," he said vaguely.

Maybe it was bad Gil didn't say anything back. But right now he just didn't much care.

Chapter Eleven

By the end of the week, he acknowledged that something had to give. It was either him or the job, and he wasn't sure which.

Wasn't sure if it was the job at all, if the complete truth were told. Because the work didn't seem so bad after that first awful night. Not particularly great, but definitely no return to the clenched teeth and pounding tension headache of Terri Brodie.

Sara eased off, started to act a little less pissed and more like a colleague again, and that was good. Whatever the other folks felt, they didn't show it. Status quo, after another night or two. Nick's disappearing act was already history, and there was work to be done.

Which didn't solve one particularly nagging problem Nick hadn't given that much thought to until now.

"Tell me how I'm supposed to act around you now," Nick said on Thursday afternoon.

To his credit Gil took the question pretty seriously, instead of saying something meaningless, like, "Oh, just be yourself." Riiiight. "At the office? Professional You know the answer to that."

"I guess." Nick shook his head and flopped down on the sofa. "Everything feels so different now."

"Well, it is different. You don't think I ask myself the same question?"

"You do?"

Gil smiled at him, and even from across the room Nick felt the power of that connection like a hard blow to the chest. "About every ten minutes or so, when I get the urge to do something untoward and highly unprofessional."

"You too?"

"Oh, yeah."

Small as such things went, maybe, but it felt pretty damn good even so. And Nick was ready for something that felt good, in the midst of feeling so uncertain -- say it, Nicky, BAD -- at work.

He'd never in his life been so relieved to see Friday come and go. Gil noticed, of course. Kind of hard not to. Waking up with Nick wrapped around him like a tight-fitting suit of clothes was probably a dead giveaway.

"One step at a time," Gil murmured, stroking Nick's bare back. "You did fine. Don't worry about it."

Nick's voice was muffled against Gil's chest. "I was barely there."

"Was your work bad? You know it wasn't. The rest -- adjusting -- give it some time. All right?"

The thought didn't exactly fill him with confidence, but right now, comfortable, warm, and as safe as he ever felt these days, it wasn't too hard to let it go. He turned his head and met Gil's kiss with vigor.

He got up early on Sunday, thinking vaguely of how he should go to Mass, but time for Mass came and went and he was more preoccupied with other concerns.

"So you took the apartment?"

Nick nodded over his coffee cup, scanning the sports section. "Deposit plus two months' rent. I'm tapped. Is it payday yet?" He grinned at Gil, but Gil wasn't smiling back, and Nick put the paper down. "You pissed?" he asked after a moment.

Gil shook his head. "Why would I be pissed?"

"Well, you don't look happy. It's just a place, you know, I gotta get my stuff out of storage before it gets too crappy."

Gil smiled this time, but it wasn't too convincing. "I know. I went to see it with you, remember?"

"Okay. Whatever." A faint tingle of anger crept down his spine.

"You need your own space. I respect that."

Nick stared at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's not supposed to mean anything, Nick," Gil replied, looking a little alarmed. "You think I'm going to tell you no?"

"Forget about it. Look, I better get a move on." He slugged the rest of his coffee.

"Want me to help?"

It disarmed him; he sat back in his chair. "Sure," he said slowly, warily. "If you want to."

"Wouldn't have offered if I didn't. Besides, I have a truck."

It took all day, but they got most of his stuff into the new apartment by dusk. Nick stared around the living room, wiping sweat off his forehead. "Man, I thought I got rid of everything I didn't absolutely need. Why's there still so much?"

"You're not a monk, Nick. It's okay to have belongings."

He glanced over at Gil, who looked pretty hot and tired, too. "Hungry?"

"Starved. I'd even eat pizza."

"Good, because that's what we're having." He grinned, and this time Gil grinned, too.

They ate in companionable silence, and by the time he polished off the fourth slice Nick felt kind of sick, and wonderfully tired. "I'm gonna pop."

"Please don't."

He glanced at his watch, or rather the place where his watch usually was, and then remembered he'd taken it off when it got caught on something and hadn't ever put it back on again. "What time is it?"

"Nearly ten."

"Shit. Well, at least it's all here. Someplace," he added, glaring at the piles of boxes.

"Okay, I'm gonna leave you to your boxes," Gil said, stifling a yawn. "I think I'm too old for this."

"Didn't do too bad," Nick shot back, grinning.

"Yeah, well, next time hire a moving company? If not for you, then out of consideration for my back?"

"That's right, you old guys don't heal up so fast, do you?"

Gil snorted, but still smiled. "You gonna be okay here?" he asked, pausing at the door.

Nick nodded. "I'll be okay." Without thinking he stepped closer, and Gil took the hint and kissed him slowly.

"You sure?" Gil murmured, pulling Nick into a warm hug.

"Yeah. Still gotta do some laundry, anyway."

"Okay. Call me if you feel like it."

Looking into his eyes, Nick felt as if that might take about five minutes, but he made himself nod again. "Ditto."

He watched Gil drive away, and even after he was gone he just stood in the doorway, trying to feel as if he'd done the right thing.

It was past midnight when his stuff came out of the dryer. By then he'd managed to put a few things vaguely in order, at least some kitchen items and the bed. Hell, he could fill the dressers up later. This was enough for one long-ass day.

He sat down on the edge of his bed -- his own bed, the one he'd bought with his own money a few years ago -- and held the heap of warm, sweet-smelling sheets in his lap.

Oh no. No no no. No freaking out in the new apartment, Nicky.

He made the bed with mechanical movements, trying to ignore the way his heart was pounding way too fast inside his chest. Mind over matter, this was NOT scary, in fact this was kind of cool, always liked new places, made you look hard at stuff when you tried to make it fit in a new apartment. No problemo.

In the middle of poking through stuff in one of the boxes in the living room, in spite of having decided at some point earlier he'd worked hard enough, he felt something close over his throat. And he KNEW what it was, but knowing evidently didn't have the power of stopping, so he rode it out best he could, pacing around, doing all the stuff Gil had told him to do. And how Gil knew so much, well, he hadn't considered that much before, had he? Just keep on repeating to yourself, Nick: It's not real. Nothing bad is going to happen. You're not going to die. It's just a panic attack. Keep breathing, baby.

He found his watch around three in the morning, plopped inside a box of computer crap, and put it on with hands that shook so bad the clasp was almost too much. But it was only when he grabbed his keys that he realized he couldn't stay here. Not yet, hell, maybe not ever. Didn't want to, and it didn't matter if he needed to. Wasn't gonna happen.

He locked the door behind him and felt like crying.

Gil answered the phone after five rings, sounding so tired and sleepy Nick felt about four inches tall. "Nick? Whass' wrong?"

"Maybe it wasn't such a good idea," Nick choked out after a couple of failed attempts.

"Where are you?" Gil sounded a lot more awake, suddenly.

"Outside."

"Here?"

"Yeah."

He was already kind of half-crying by the time Gil got the door open, and it was such a relief his knees went wobbly at Gil's touch. "It's okay, Nick, come on in."

"Couldn't stay there anymore," Nick mumbled into Gil's shoulder. "Sorry I woke you up."

"Stop saying you're sorry."

"Okay."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He felt like apologizing again when he saw Gil's face the next morning. The guy looked done in, and it was incredibly weird and not altogether bad to see Gil Grissom so damn human. Nick himself felt like the dog's lunch, and he didn't have to nursemaid a neurotic panicky lover.

Lover. Oh wow. Guess that's the name for it, huh.

"Maybe you should call in," Nick ventured, watching Gil pick at his breakfast.

Gil sighed, propping his chin on his hand. "Maybe I should retire. Getting too old for this."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"You want to talk about what happened?"

Nick tucked into a slice of toast. "Nope," he said indistinctly, reaching for his orange juice. Swallowing, he added, "Besides, isn't like you don't already know."

Gil nodded, reaching across the table and covering Nick's free hand with his own. "It won't always be like that. It'll get better."

"Yeah. I know." He squeezed Gil's fingers and smiled. "But thanks anyway."

"My pleasure."

Just when Nick was starting to think he wasn't hungry for bacon and eggs but maybe something a little more -- untoward -- Gil's cell phone rang. "Hold that thought," Gil said, sitting back in his chair and opening his phone. "Grissom."

Well, maybe eggs weren't so bad after all. Funny how he felt so hungry lately. Making up for lost time, maybe? What the hell, gain a few pounds back and make his clothes fit again.

"What did you say?"

Nick looked up sharply. Gil's face was thunderous, lips set in a thin line while he listened. Eyes flickering up at Nick.

"What?" Nick asked hoarsely.

"And can you tell me just how in the FUCK that happened?" Gil nearly snarled into the phone. "Oh. Great. Just great."

His belly felt quick-frozen. Never heard Grissom use that word before. Not the cursing type, for the most part. "Gil?" Nick croaked out.

Gil shut the phone with an angry snap, staring unseeingly at Nick. Opened it again. "Jim, it's Gil. Look, I'm sorry I -- Can you get me a patrol car over here? Just in case? Right. Good. Thanks."

"Patrol car?" Nick gazed at him, shaking his head slowly. "What's going on? Why do you need the cops?"

"Nick." Gil sounded like he was strangling. "Listen. Something's come up."

Without thinking Nick stood up, so suddenly his thighs wobbled the table. "Something that made you call the cops?" His voice sounded tinny in his own ears.

And oh, God DAMN he hated that solicitous worry-look Gil got. "Nigel Crane's attorney got him a new hearing, with a different judge," Gil said softly, standing up, too.

"Oh," Nick said clearly.

"Nick --"

"Tell me."

Gil's face looked odd. Almost tragic. Bizarre. "The new judge overruled the original decision. He granted bond."

He couldn't think, all of a sudden. The words didn't make any sense. Bond. "What does that mean?"

Gil's jaw tensed. "God, Nick, I'm sorry," he said unevenly. "The DA should have called me -- us -- but --"

"So he's out?"

"Yeah. He's -- out. Until the trial."

"I see," Nick whispered. And sat down hard when his knees folded under him.

Chapter Twelve

Gil held out a cup of coffee, and Nick took it with icy fingers. The warm cup felt good.

"Better?"

"I'm okay," Nick muttered, sipping the coffee. Christ, he was tired of saying that. Wasn't doing a real good impression of being okay, now, was he?

"Why do you do that?"

He glanced at Gil, now sitting on the couch next to him. "Do what?"

"Give yourself such a hard time for being human."

Flushing, Nick looked down again. "I'm sick of being scared all the time," he said curtly, shaking his head. "I'm tired of -- all of it. The guy's a loser, but all you gotta do is say his name and I'm flipping out. Stupid."

"He nearly killed you, Nick. Loser or not. Don't you have a right to feel afraid?"

"Yeah, but when does it stop? When he's in prison? When I move to Timbuktu?"

Gil shrugged. "It stops when it stops. It doesn't work on a timetable. Fear's a reasonable response. Without it you'd let your guard down, and if the need for fear is still there, you can't afford that."

"Whatever happened to 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?'"

"Edgar Watson Howe said, 'A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.'"

"Is there any subject you can't find a quote about?"

"Hypothetically, yes."

Nick smiled tightly. "So give me a helpful quote about how you get your balls back after having them scared off."

"I don't have one for that."

"Figures."

"You've already faced up to your fears, Nick," Gil said in a terribly gentle voice. "You came back, you went back to work, you survived. Today was a shock. Probably won't be the last one, either. But you didn't head to Canada this time, did you?"

"Not yet," Nick muttered, trying not to smile.

"Nigel Crane is a sick man, and a dangerous one." Gil met Nick's glance steadily. "He's also a known quantity. Do you see what I'm saying? You know who he is, and you know what he is. Don't you?"

Nick paused, swallowing. "As much as anyone does, I guess, except maybe his shrink."

"Do you think what happened two months ago is going to happen again?"

"No. No, not really." Nick stared down at his cup of coffee. "I think -- It's like I'm afraid of things I can't explain. Like he'll do something else, something I didn't anticipate. It's the things you don't know that get you."

"So anticipate. What's he thinking, right now?"

"You think I know that?" Nick shot back hotly.

Gil nodded. "Yes, I think you do. Think about it. What's his agenda?"

"He's -- fixated on me," Nick said in a dubious voice. "That's what the shrink said, anyway."

"And?"

"And he's got this weird idea that he's going to -- hell, I don't know, be me. He wore my CLOTHES, for god's sake."

"So right now, he's out on bail, able to do what he wants to a limited extent. What's he thinking?"

Nick gave him a wounded look. "Why are you asking me this? What the hell good is this supposed to do?"

"I don't know." Gil kept regarding him with the same steady gaze. "Demystify him, Nick. I don't say you have to understand why he does what he does. I don't think you can, or anyone else, completely. But if it's the things you don't know that scare you....?"

Nick nodded slowly. "I'm not even sure he's still -- fixated."

"But you assume he is."

"After you left the room, after he'd been arrested. He -- tried to look at me, through the glass. He knew I was there. He kept saying, 'I am I, who am I,' over and over again."

"I heard that, too. So what's the worst thing that could happen?"

"I don't want to say that," Nick whispered.

"Are you afraid he'll kill you?"

His throat ached. He shook his head after a long moment.

"Tell me, Nick. Say it out loud."

"I think I'm scared he's -- not going to kill me."

Gil frowned at him. "What?"

"He was going to kill himself," Nick continued hoarsely. "You know that. But now -- With all that's happened, I just feel like he's got this bizarre idea that I can make him -- feel something."

"Feel what?"

"Complete?"

For all his control, Gil's face was very pale. "How do you think he might do that?"

"He didn't touch Jane Galloway in a sexual way. I think that's what he wanted from me. With me."

"And that's what you fear."

"Yeah." Nick nodded jerkily. "I don't think I'm wrong, either."

"You probably aren't. But that's not going to happen. Even if he gets it in his head to try, he'll never have the opportunity."

"He's not stupid, Gil. He's smart. Smarter than I am. I can't anticipate --"

"You can't anticipate everything, no. But you can be prepared."

"Like a good Boy Scout, huh."

"Exactly like one."

Nick shrugged. "I already carry my piece."

"So you're armed, and you're prepared to use your sidearm if necessary."

"Oh, yeah."

Gil's hand was warm and good on his shoulder. "When he came for you, you were alone. That's something else that's different."

Nick drew Gil's hand down to hold it in both his own. "I don't want you in the line of fire," he said hoarsely.

"I won't be. Although I can tell you, if I have the chance I'll take the shot myself."

Nick glanced up at him. The glint in Gil's eye made him feel absurdly good. "Thanks."

Gil took his hand back and used the arm to pull Nick close to him. "I'm sorry I can't undo what he did, Nick," he said in a low voice, one hand slowly stroking Nick's back. "I'm sorry I didn't see it for what it was. But you think I'll take the chance that it could happen again? No way in hell. Never. Ever."

Throat terribly tight, Nick murmured, "I'll give you a dollar if you'll stop saying you're sorry."

"Make it a hundred and I'll think about it."

"S'not your fault."

"No. But Canada was."

"We're not in Canada anymore."

"No. Feel better?"

He thought about lying, but didn't. Fine, right as rain, thanks for the pep talk, Ace. "A little, yeah."

"Good."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The hell of it was, he still had to go to work. Gil would have let him take some time off, but what good would it do? He could either sit at home and stew in his own juices -- something he figured wasn't going to make things any better -- or go to work, focus, business as usual even when it wasn't. He opted for the latter.

He was dusting a hotel room -- alone, but Catherine was in the hallway -- when his cell phone rang. Too absorbed in the mundane minutiae of fingerprints to think twice about answering, but the voice he heard changed all that, and fast.

"You moved out."

Nick froze, still holding the brush he was using to dust for prints. His throat wouldn't make any words. Just this transfixed silence.

"You know, I'm sorry about the damage. But it wasn't my fault. If that other guy hadn't been there things would have gone a lot more smoothly. You know that, right, Nick?"

"How'd you get this number?" Distantly startled at how calm he sounded. Maybe Griss was rubbing off on him after all.

"Where are you now, Nick?" Crane's voice was terribly, awfully calm. "I found your new apartment, but you're never there. Are you? Where are you staying? With a friend?"

The brush finally dropped from his numb fingers. "None of your goddamn business," he whispered.

"You came to work with your boss today. Is that who you're staying with?"

He should hang up. It would be so easy. Should be, and yet he just sat there, frozen, heart skipping so fast inside his chest he could barely hear anything but his heartbeat and this familiar, loathed voice.

"Did you have fun in Canada, Nick?" Nigel asked sweetly.

"Listen, you sick fuck," Nick said, voice warbling. "You'll be back in jail in an hour. Even your new lawyer won't be able to get you out this time, not after you --"

"Now come on, Nick, you can't just dismiss me like this. Look at all we went through together. I told you: You really need to work on your interpersonal skills." The spookily merry laugh made Nick's stomach lurch. "They can't put me in jail if they can't find me, now, can they?"

"Leave me alone," Nick whispered, fighting down nausea.

"Aw, you know I can't do that. We're connected, you and me." A pause. "Till death do us part, right, Nick?"

He heard Catherine's voice, from about fifty miles away: "Nick? Nick, who is that?"

But it didn't matter, she was too damn far away, and it didn't stop him from listening, from hearing, when Nigel added, "Don't feel bad, Nick. Nobody can keep us apart forever. See you soon."

He felt someone taking the phone out of his hand, but not fast enough. Catherine's concerned face seemed somehow murky, as if the room were filled with smoke.

"Slower, Nick, you're going to hyperventilate." A soft touch on his shoulder, barely noticeable.

He blinked away the fog and shook her hand off. "I'm okay," he said distantly. His head felt terribly lightweight, but something new was curdling in his stomach. Something that felt much, much better already. "I'm really okay."

"I'm calling Grissom. We need to get you to a --"

"No."

Catherine stared at him, and Nick drew a long breath and made himself shrug. "That won't be necessary. We have work to do."

"Screw work," Catherine shot back, face wrinkled in a frown. "You don't have to --"

"Yes, I do." He reached over to pick up his forgotten brush, marveling at the absolutely lack of a tremor in his hand. "I can handle it."

And yeah, he could, right? Because if Nigel fucking Crane showed up now, he was very, very sure of what would happen. No need for cops, or lovers, or bosses, or anyone else. This was between himself and Nigel, and it was only going to happen one way.

He registered the feel of his sidearm, warm under his jacket.

He fully intended to be the only one left standing.

He smiled easily at Catherine and went back to printing.

Chapter Thirteen

He might have reached a kind of peace with the situation, but the moment he saw Gil's face back at the lab, he recognized Gil hadn't.

"What did he say?" Gil asked tightly, jaw muscles so tight Nick could practically hear the stress. "Tell me."

"Whoa, calm down. Nothing happened. Just a phone call."

"Just a phone call for now," Gil shot back.

"Maybe." Nick shook his head. "He doesn't know where I'm staying. So we got nothing to worry about."

"Nick, that phone number is brand-new -- he shouldn't have been able to get that, either!"

He hadn't thought much about that. "Well," he hedged, "I don't think --"

"Who needs to think?" Gil snapped. "Have they picked him up yet? He's going back to jail."

"I don't know. Don't think so."

Gil's eyes widened. "You don't know? You called the DA's office, right?"

Nick shook his head. "It's not a big deal, Gil, we don't --"

"Wait a second." The minute Gil gave him the full force of his anger, Nick felt like running. God, the guy was intense. "You're telling me you didn't TELL them? Are you INSANE?"

Possibly, he thought about saying, but another glance at Gil's thunderous look made him think twice. Nick looked around Gil's office, and said in a low voice, "I'm armed, informed. He's not going to sneak up on me."

Gil leaned against his desk, face aghast. "Jesus, Nick," he said in a softer, wilder voice. "Don't you get it? He already HAS."

Rebuffed, Nick swallowed hard. "I'm not going to let him keep doing this to me," he managed. "I can't live like this. Let him try. At least it'll be over."

The anger evaporated; now Gil looked old, and wounded. "Don't say that, please. Just don't."

"Why not? It's the truth!"

Gil didn't reply to that. Without meeting Nick's eyes he fumbled his way into his chair, sitting as if he were suddenly utterly exhausted. Well, probably was, come to think of it. God knew Nick was.

Coming over to the desk, Nick leaned on one hand. Putting every bit of fierceness he still possessed into his voice, he said, "I can't run away this time, Gil, and you know it. I'm not going to live my life this way. It's like you said: we have to anticipate. I'm anticipating!"

"Are you?" Gil replied hollowly.

"You want me to hide behind uniforms instead? Not even be able to do my job because --"

"I want you ALIVE, Nick," Gil snapped, pushing himself out of his chair and leaning forward for emphasis. "That's what I want. That's ALL I want!"

"I am alive," Nick murmured helplessly.

Gil drew a long breath. Nick could see his arms shaking, the way his throat worked for a second. "All I want is for you to stay that way, Nick," he said finally, in a trembling voice. "Don't give up. Please."

"I'm -- not giving up."

"You sound like you are. Jesus." Gil closed his eyes.

"I just want my life back, Gil," Nick said in a stricken voice. "It's all I want. I can't -- let this guy live my life for me. I can't."

"Then let's call the DA's office. Put Crane back in jail."

Nick nodded stiffly. "He said -- they wouldn't be able to find him."

The words hit Gil hard; he made an inarticulate sound and sat down again. "Do you have any idea," he began slowly, not meeting Nick's eyes, "what would happen to me, if something happened to you?"

"Nothing's going to --"

"You don't, do you?" The anger and fear drained away, leaving Gil white-faced and terribly calm. "You have no idea." An awful smile twisted his lips. "Neither do I."

"Gil, please, listen to me." Nick circled the desk, perching on the edge next to Gil's chair. "I'm gonna be okay. Nothing is going to happen. I can handle phone calls. They're just words."

Gil shook his head slowly, reaching up to rub one temple. "Maybe you can, but I'm not sure I can."

Nick smiled shakily and reached over to touch Gil's shoulder. "Bird by bird, man. Isn't that what they say?"

Gil snorted and didn't smile, but the old look faded a fraction. "I should kick your ass for this," he mumbled, covering Nick's hand with his own. "All the way to Texas. Call the ADA. If not for you, then for me?"

"Okay," Nick agreed, meeting Gil's anguished stare. "Let's do it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Didn't take long for word to get around. Nick's Nemesis was back. Maybe it was the way he himself behaved, though, because no one else got as completely thrown by it as Gil. Just a fact of life: Crane's out, back on the chase, and we'll deal with things as they come up. In the meantime, there's stuff to be done.

The ADA, Henderson, did all the right things, and soon enough there was an APB out on Crane. Wouldn't do much good, Nick knew; unless the guy wanted to be found no one would find him. Might be a lunatic, but he was a smart lunatic, a cagey son of a bitch, and Nick had no doubts that one phone call wouldn't be the last contact they had. He kept a bullet chambered in his sidearm, made sure he wasn't alone, and did his best to stay wary. What else could he do?

Gil, now. That was another matter.

It was frankly startling to see how hard this was on the guy. Hadn't it been Gil doing the Rock of Gibraltar impression, not so very long ago? But now it was Nick taking up the slack, vaguely surprised at how easy it was. How good it felt. Nice to be de-neutered, to get his balls and his nerve back. And just in time, because Gil was jumping at shadows, almost completely unable to let Nick out of his sight for more than a minute or two. Which didn't lend itself to easily concealing what was becoming a serious non-professional relationship.

Gil didn't say much on their way home early that morning. It was a new mood, one Nick didn't completely understand, but enough to know there wasn't anything he himself could say, either. The knowledge was right there, staring him in the face: Gil was as vulnerable as Nick was, in different ways, and this latest development had pushed him in a direction he hadn't had to deal with lately. Maybe never. Nick wasn't sure.

Who knew what Gil's background really was? Oh, sure, degrees, qualifications, personal quirks that revealed themselves over time. But what about the guy's emotional crap? Where in the hell did he put all the shit Nick knew for a fact he must carry around 24/7?

One thing was clear: Gil wasn't saying. Not now, and Nick wasn't about to try to guess when -- if ever -- he would say. So he sat silently in the passenger seat, waiting for some kind of clue.

It came in the way Gil grabbed him the minute they were inside. As if taking Nick in his arms was something he'd wanted to do as badly as a man dying of thirst in the Gobi grabbed for water.

"It's okay," Nick mumbled, crushed up against him so tight his ribs sang out with vague distress. "It's gonna be okay."

Gil didn't say a word, but pulled away enough to give him a frantic set of kisses, hard ones, not loving but voracious and oddly panic-stricken kisses. No idea what else to do; Nick just let him do it, reassure himself if that was what he was doing: Yes, I'm still here, still alive, staying that way, too. Right here, right now.

In the bedroom he tried to help Gil take his clothes off, but finally just stood there while Gil stripped him, aroused and kind of scared in the face of this bizarrely erotic focus. There wasn't a part of him Gil didn't touch, fondle, kiss: neck, chest, arms, fingers, belly, hips. He stepped out of his pants and felt Gil capture one foot, kissing the arch wetly and making Nick hiss with startled pleasure.

"Gil --" he gasped.

"No." Gil stood so fast it made Nick's own head spin, grabbing him and pushing him down on the bed. "No," he repeated, and pulled his own shirt off without unbuttoning it first. A couple of buttons bit the dust, clittering on the floor.

Oh, Christ, this was going way, way too fast, and yet there was a weird sense of abandon to it, like he cared less and less when Gil mashed him against the mattress, greedy too-hard kisses and Gil's clothed crotch glued up against Nick's bare one. What he cared about was wrapping his legs around Gil's hips, pushing up until it hurt, and hearing Gil's strangled growl of pleasure.

"What do you want?" Nick wheezed, pushing Gil back an inch or two, panting like he'd just run full-tilt for ten blocks. "What do you need? Tell me."

Gil's eyes were dark and glistening with lust and anguish and tears. "Everything," he rasped, grinding their dicks together.

He's going to hurt you, some part of him said, what was left of that still soft voice of reason. He's going to hurt you, fucking you, and he'll never get over it. You will, you know you will, just like you know for a stone fact he won't. Ever.

"Stop," Nick whispered, prying his hands free and putting his palms on Gil's oven-hot cheeks. "Stop, Gil. Slow down."

Staring down at him, Gil made a terrible sound deep in his throat and shook his head. Nick held harder, forcing him to be still. "Listen to me, Gil," he said fiercely, as gently as he could. "Listen to me. We can do this, I want to do this. But not like this. Not now."

Gil made another broken sound, and Nick arched up to kiss him, fast and hard. "I'm right here, man," he continued, pulling until Gil lay on top of him, panting but for the first time easing off a little, listening. "Right here, and not going anyplace. Believe it. But you don't want it to be like that. I know you, I know you don't."

He had no idea how long they just lay there, naked and clothed, both hard and scared and wheezing like a couple of asthmatics who left their inhalers at the office. But there was a moment when he felt Gil finally let go, almost saw the terror and desperate need morph into honest feeling instead of angry lust. Gil rolled to the side, still wrapped in Nick's arms, and buried his face in the crook of Nick's shoulder.

With a sense of distant wonder Nick petted Gil's hair, combing his fingers through it, listening to Gil bark a few harsh sobs. "He didn't get me," Nick crooned, almost to himself. "I won't do that to you, Gil, I swear to God. I didn't know I was doing that to you, but I do now, I swear I do, and it won't happen again. It's okay, it's all okay."

He's not a Vulcan, that tiny voice whispered. How could you ever have thought that? But you never will again, will you?

"It's all right," Nick whispered, blinking back a few tears of his own, and closed his eyes, letting his calming touch say what words simply couldn't, anymore.

Chapter Fourteen

Gil slept late, his turn apparently. Nick lay there in filtered white Nevada sunshine and watched him sleep, a hushed moment of inspection. In sleep Gil's guards came down: mouth soft, lines of focus and thought smoothed out. Dark eyelashes making sooty shadows against his skin.

What a strange, awful, wonderful time it was, wasn't it? So weird, to feel so good. It wasn't enough to recognize how unexpected it was, how unlooked-for. It felt more like considering some completely alien concept. He could never have anticipated this. Of all the things to take him by surprise the past couple of months, none compared to now. No fearful flight could match this fluttering, almost painful sense of astonished joy he felt now.

If this was what love was like, he had something in common with Gil. He'd never been in love before.

He lay on his side and watched Gil wake up. Slow, syrupy-tired sleep into muzzy-eyed wakefulness.

"Hi," Nick breathed.

Gil's mouth curved in a slanted smile. "Hi yourself," he replied in a sleepy voice.

Nick reached out to touch the place on Gil's cheek where the pillowcase had left a dent. "Feel better?"

"Yeah." Memory flickered like a movie over Gil's features, and Nick smiled.

"This is nice."

The momentary tension bled away, thank God. "It is, isn't it?" Gil murmured, covering Nick's hand with his own and bringing it over to kiss his fingers slowly. "Really nice."

"Want some coffee?"

"Not really."

"Neither do I."

Funny how words seemed so important, and yet turned out to be vastly overrated. The angle of the sunlight changed, sliding over the sheets until it shone on the east wall, but time itself had stopped. Nothing else really mattered. Nothing outside. Nothing could touch them here.

There was love, after a while. The kind of passion that didn't obliterate, heat that didn't scar but felt wonderfully, achingly intense. Ignoring Gil's faint protests Nick explored Gil's body, taking a kind of absurd sheepish pride in marking out various places that got more of a response than others. The hollow over Gil's collarbone, the warm furriness of his armpit. Watching the way Gil shrank away when Nick kissed a ticklish place, rumbling laughter tinged with blessed heat, and listening to the urgent sounds he made as Nick skirted his hard cock, nuzzling his hipbones, the insides of his thighs, the place where his dick met his balls. No such thing as time, anymore. Time simply didn't matter.

He kissed the tip of Gil's cock and smiled slowly, watching him from between Gil's tense thighs. Kneed his way back up the bed and kissed Gil's open mouth, reaching with one hand over to the bedside table, inside the drawer.

Gil drew an expectant breath, seeing it, and Nick shook his head slowly. "I want it, baby," he whispered almost noiselessly, vaguely resenting the crackle of plastic.

Without any real thought he smoothed a condom on Gil's dick, taking his time but not too teasing now. No, this wasn't the time for that. This was the time for this.

It was Gil who opened him up, fingers slick with lube and so deliciously, terribly gentle. Kissing him when he winced, smiling against his mouth when the wince turned into slow sticky pleasure.

He turned on his side, briefly mourning the position while Gil's sure hand caressed Nick's hip, urging his thighs apart. He made a strangled sound when Gil pressed into him, listening hard to the whispered assurances, the pauses while Gil let him get used to it, letting him set the pace even when Nick felt the thrum of energy in Gil's body, the urgency in his hardness.

But it didn't hurt at all then, felt strange and briefly naughty and then just flat-out GOOD, slow strokes deep inside him and back, not quite out again, sweet motion that woke up parts of him that had always slept before, now shivering and flexing with more and more intent urgency. We LIKE this, do that again, yeah, THAT, oh SHIT, yeah, again, again, YES.

He didn't even recognize his own voice, this taut anxious cajoling, begging Gil to do that faster, deeper, all the WAY man, YES, and then Gil's rumbled laughter and obliging more intent thrusting, meeting the way Nick tried to push back with pushes forward. The room and the city and everything else, EVERYTHING, went away, left them blissfully alone with just this, the feel of Gil's cock INSIDE him, the feel of his own hand stroking himself to the same fantastic, mind-erasing rhythm, until he coughed a sharp sound and tensed up, here and THERE, heard Gil's hoarse curse when he felt it, too, and they came almost the same time, two tense bodies locked in one shuddering long moment of absolutely YES.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Holy cow," Nick said some unknown amount of time later.

Gil's arm tightened around him, his chest shaking with a chuckle. "Yeah."

"Man," Nick mumbled, blinking blearily at him. "Why didn't you TELL me?"

With a theatrically studious look Gil shrugged. "I don't even have a quote for that one."

Nick leaned forward an inch and kissed him luxuriantly, tightening the grip of his leg thrown over Gil's hips. "That," he mumbled against Gil's mouth, "was amazing."

"It was, wasn't it?" Gil kissed him back, one hand cupping Nick's still-quivering buttock. "I told you there's a reason people keep doing it."

"Mm-hmm. How soon can we do it again?"

Gil laughed, kissing him again briefly. "Considering I'm an old guy and we have to be at work pretty soon?"

"Yeah." Nick nuzzled beneath Gil's jaw.

"How about tonight?"

"That better be a promise."

"Absolutely."

Reluctantly Nick levered himself up on one elbow, looking at the clock. "Man, it's late," he breathed, surprised. "Hey, can we call in sick?"

"Well, no."

"Damn."

Another chuckle. "I know. BELIEVE me."

"Take a shower with me?"

"Oh, no."

"Aw."

"Not if we want to make it to work. No way."

"Damn," Nick repeated, smiling gently.

When he got out of the shower Gil had sandwiches ready, and Nick bolted his and made another while Gil ate, trying very hard not to give in and tackle the guy again. He got dressed while Gil had his turn in the shower, which gave him the distinct pleasure of being able to watch Gil naked, hunting for something to wear.

"You don't have to do that on my account, you know," Nick said in his smokiest voice, and got a flustered glare in return.

The closer work got, though, the more he could put this new level of awareness where it belonged, banked, not gone but relegated to a controllable degree. He was strapping on his sidearm when the doorbell rang.

"Want me to get it?"

Gil shook his head, moving to the foyer. "Shift change, checking in. Grab my jacket, would you?"

It was the no-talking that made him go still. No greeting, just the sound of the door opening, and then silence. Nick frowned and looked past the hall closet door.

"Hi, Nick," Nigel said, smiling. The revolver in his hand didn't waver, held an inch from Gil's temple. "Miss me?"

Chapter Fifteen

The room did a nauseating duck-and-roll, and he blinked away a fog of utter terror. "No. Please, no," Nick whispered almost soundlessly.

"You've really disappointed me, Nick." The business end of the revolver pushed against Gil's temple, and Nick saw him brace himself. Nigel's calculating smile widened. "I turn my back for just a little while, and this is where I find you. Bad, bad boy."

Part of his brain stood back, guaging how far away they were, how close his weapon was, how long it would take to draw it. Too fucking long; Gil had about a millisecond to spare if it came to that, and the fastest draw west of the Mississippi couldn't match that. Plan B, Nicky. NOW.

"Go, Nick," Gil said in a strangled voice. "Get out."

"Let him go. Please, Nigel. You got me, okay? But don't hurt Grissom. He's not a part of this."

"No, he's not," Nigel agreed, still smiling. "But that didn't stop you from fucking him, did it? It's all your fault."

"I know," Nick cried. "Jesus, please, just -- let him go. Don't make him pay for my -- mistake." He caught a glimpse of Gil's horrified expression, and ignored it. "I'll go with you," he continued frantically. "Anywhere you want. I'll do anything you want me to do, just -- don't hurt him. Okay? Please?"

"Nick --" Gil started, and Nigel pulled back the hammer.

A part of him died at that moment. He saw Gil dead, just like he'd seen himself. That elegant, fiendishly complex brain, sprayed all over the walls.

No. No way.

"You win, Nigel," Nick said in a broken voice. "And you know it. Please, please just -- let him go."

"You're a coward, too, aren't you, Nick?" Nigel shook his head slowly.

"Okay, I guess I am." Nick swallowed hard. "So let's go, and -- And you can -- finish, okay? But it's just me and you, right? Grissom's no part of it, he doesn't belong with us. Right?"

He tried not to look at Gil before the door closed behind them. Didn't want to remember Gil that way.

Nothing to be done about how Gil remembered him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Gil. Come on. Drink this."

He didn't bothering looking. "I don't need coffee, Catherine," he said quietly.

She sat down next to him and sighed. "So talk to me, then. Okay?"

"There's nothing else to say. I told Brass everything."

"Well, tell me. Any idea where they went?"

He shook his head slowly, staring at the fireplace. "None."

"Did you see Crane's car? Anything?"

"No. By the time I got to the door they were gone. Found the two cops, called Brass."

"Gil --"

"There isn't anything else," he interrupted harshly, glancing at her. "Nick went with him so he wouldn't kill me. I'm still stuck on that part."

Her expression crumpled a little, but he saw the way her chin stuck out. It was a lot harder to faze Catherine than he'd ever even given her credit for. "I have to ask you these questions, Gil," she said softly. "It's hot right now. But you know as well as I do: The longer we wait, the colder the trail gets. If we're going to save Nick we have to move NOW. You have to unstick yourself. There just isn't time."

He could feel his cheeks flushing, but no denying the truth in what she said. Said it often enough, himself, hadn't he? "I'm not sure I can," he whispered.

Warrick hove into view. His face was pinched, as grim as Gil had ever seen. "Got some tire prints," he said tersely. "Sara's running a DMV check, see what vehicles are registered to Crane."

"Neighbors see anything?" Catherine asked.

Warrick shook his head. "Say they didn't. How they missed him capping those two cops remains to be explained. But no one's saying anything."

"What about Crane's attorney? Anyone talked with him yet?"

"Her. She says she has no idea where he might have gone."

"Figures." Catherine sighed. "Maybe we --"

"Hold on a second." It felt as if he were speaking with a mouthful of molasses, and his brain wasn't going any better, but he had their attention. "Where's Nick's car?"

Catherine stared at him. "Parked. I guess."

"Did you see it?"

"No, but --"

"You assume Crane took off in his own vehicle. But to my knowledge he drove a company van. Did he even have a car?"

"The DMV --"

"Fine, run the check," he interrupted curtly. "But Nick parked on the street. If you didn't see his car out there, it isn't here. Which means --"

"-- Crane might have used that one." Catherine nodded crisply. "Got it."

"Lemme make a call." Warrick dug out his cell phone and walked away a few paces.

"Gil, I hate to say this, but you know we have to --"

"Yeah. I'm -- I'll get out of the way."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. He ignored it.

Outside the evening was cool, the kind of crisp desert chill he usually enjoyed. Tonight he would have given anything for warmth. Something to defrost the part of him that had frozen in absolute dread only an hour ago.

Without thinking much about it he veered away from the clots of policemen and oglers, skirting the sidewalk and heading down the street. Nowhere to go, but anywhere he didn't see Nigel Crane grabbing Nick every time he opened his eyes would do. The moon sounded real good about now.

He was sitting on the curb about two blocks away when Warrick found him.

"Griss?"

Gil didn't look. "Yeah."

"Thought you -- Never mind. State trooper found Nick's truck on the interstate, about ten miles out." He held up his hand when Gil whipped around to stare at him. "Nobody inside. No sign of struggle, nothing. Like they just abandoned it."

Gil swallowed. "Probably did."

"Sara's on her way out there, and I'm about to head out. You wanna come?"

Gil shook his head slowly. "No. I think --"

Warrick squatted not far away, gazing at him. "What?" he asked with a frown.

"I think when they get where they're going, Crane will let me know. And if you and Sara find anything, you know where I am."

"He had a gun?"

"Two, if you count Nick's piece. And Nick's been carrying since he came back."

"Okay. Listen, did you think of anything else, anything that --"

"I've told you everything I know, Warrick," Gil said quietly. "There isn't anything else. Until he calls -- if and when he calls -- all we have is evidence." He smiled a little, bitterly.

"Cath's gonna stick around, and Brass isn't anywhere near finished, either. But listen, you call me, all right? Anything. You got it."

"Thanks, Warrick. Go check out N -- the car."

"I'm there."

Funny thing. It was so cold out here that it kind of felt good. Numb fingers to match the numb shell where his heart had been just a little while ago. Kind of poetic, in a horrible way. Because right now he knew what hell was like. Hell wasn't hot. Hell wasn't brimstone and fire and magma.

Hell was ice-cold.

Chapter Sixteen

He tries to remember all the right things to do. When Nigel ditches Nick's car, he tries to leave stuff behind. Something, anything to -- what? Show them where they're going? He has no idea where that might be. How can he leave a clue he doesn't have?

Off the road there's another car, late-eighties-vintage Olds, with an engine that sounds surprisingly healthy. Inside is immaculate, lovingly kept, faint smell of perfume. Someone's loved this car, until it passed into Nigel's sociopathic hands. And now Nick should do something. SOMEthing. But Nick's brain has gone on vacation, someplace a long way from where he is right now. All he can feel is dull anxiety, worrying about not being able to remember what he should do.

"Comfy?" Nigel asks, smiling at him from behind the wheel.

"Why are you doing this?"

"After all we've been through, you have to ask? Come on, Nick, you already know."

Nick looks away, leaning forward a little to give his bound wrists an inch of room. "You can't get away with this," he says faintly. "You got no idea who you're dealing with."

"Well, we'll have to see about that." Nigel puts the car in gear and eases them out into highway traffic. "But I'm pretty sure we'll have all the time we need." He pushes his glasses up and smiles again.

How long has it been since they left? An hour? Probably less. But he can't see Gil's face in his mind's eye anymore. He can remember what he looks like, but it's like listening to a witness give a physical description: a sum of features, but no face. No recognition.

More than anything else, that terrifies him. Everything else can go, Even the good stuff, it's okay. But not that. Please, please GOD not that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His house felt alien now. He couldn't really tell that things had been gone through; his team had been as considerate as they could be and get the job done, and so his things were put back in place, neatened, straightened. But he could feel it anyway. Invaded. Labeled and categorized.

Gil reached out to push a CD back into its slot, and didn't let himself sigh. Just wait. You can't do anything but wait right now. There's no information. No reason to think this can't still work out.

His feet felt heavy, numb as he clomped around the house. It was day now, sun shining. Things still went ON, that was the hell of it. Didn't the world realize everything had STOPPED? It wasn't right that life moved on while he waited. Shouldn't happen. Shouldn't be allowed to happen.

Outside he could still hear voices. Jim's low voice, Catherine's higher one. What they were saying didn't matter. All that mattered was ... what exactly?

All that mattered was someplace he couldn't find, and until he did he wasn't sure he'd wake up from this paralyzed stupor of perfect, poised dread.

His phone rang and he uttered a thin cry before grabbed it.

"Grissom."

Gil bit his lip savagely. "Yeah, Warrick."

"Got tire tracks out here." Warrick sounded winded, and flat as death. "About 200 yards from Nick's car. Looks like Crane had a getaway vehicle stashed."

Motion caught his eye, and he darted a glance at Catherine, coming inside. "Print them and find that car," Gil said shakily. "Now, Warrick."

"I'm there, man."

Catherine studied him when he hung up the phone. "What?"

"Tire tracks. Possible getaway vehicle."

"You're sure it's Crane's?"

Gil eyed her wearily. "I'm not sure of anything right now."

"Want some coffee? I'd ask you to go get some rest, but I'm not into wasting my breath."

"Coffee. Sure."

He sat in the kitchen and let her do it, and took the cup she handed him without saying anything. The coffee tasted bitter and appropriate.

"Talk to me, Gil."

He waited until she sat down opposite him, and shrugged. "He won't kill him," he said bleakly. "Not for a while. Maybe never."

Catherine's face was very pale. "He's killed before."

"As a means to an end. A means to Nick. He's got Nick now; he's got what he was after."

"We're going to find them. You know we will. Soon."

He met her gaze squarely. "I hope so."

"He's living here now, isn't he?"

Gil set the cup down. "Yes," he agreed. "Since we got back."

Catherine nodded slowly. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

"Crane's a very intelligent man. A cunning man. I don't think he cares if we catch him. I think ..." Gil broke off and looked down at his coffee cup. "You know what I think."

Her fingers touched his wrist lightly, a fast squeeze. "Drink your coffee. Gonna be a long day."

~~~~~~~~~

Setting some kind of lab record, Warrick called back just before eleven. The phone jerked Gil out of a useless, repetitive set of images.

"Tell me this will pan out."

"Better. I got make and model. Oldsmobile, either a Cutlass or a Ninety-Eight. Old, between '85 and '90."

"There are ..."

"Got something else. Report of a 1989 Cutlass stolen two days ago. And you're not gonna believe where it came from."

Gil drew a fast breath. "Tell me."

"9448 Monterey Drive. Sound familiar?"

His lack of surprise felt faintly surprising. "That's two doors down from me."

"You know ‘em?"

"No, I -- I don't know most of my neighbors."

"Sounds like he's throwing it in your face."

"He is. I'll let Brass know."

"I'm gonna see what Sara got out of Nick's car."

Nothing, Gil thought numbly, and made himself say, "Okay."

Brass looked a lot more energetic with an actual vehicle to track. If he thought the same things Gil did ... and they'd been working together so long Gil was pretty sure he could tell ... he mercifully didn't say them. But facing Catherine again, all his composure felt like water dripping through his fingers.

"He's had hours. They could be anywhere by now. Anywhere."

Catherine didn't bother contradicting him. "What does he want, Gil?" she asked instead. "Where will he go?"

"You think I know that?" Gil exploded, flinging his hands in the air.

"I think you know Nigel Crane about as well as anyone can," she returned steadily. "You're close to Nick, you know the situation. What's Crane going to do now?"

He paused in the middle of turning away, and sighed. "Get some distance between them and us," he said after a silent moment. "And then ... I don't know. I can't think about that."

He flinched when Catherine touched his shoulder, but didn't move away. "I know," she said softly. "But you have to."

"He's escalating." Gil stared at her, fighting to keep his cool. "Stalker psychology won't work anymore. He's left stalking behind."

"For what?"

"I don't know."

Chapter Seventeen

He has no idea where they are. All his desperate, probably futile attempts to leave clues are fucked: he was blindfolded for a long time, ever since they passed a highway patrol car and Nigel got nervous. Hands tied behind his back, ankles tied, and a piece of cloth that stunk of motor oil tied over his mouth. He's trussed like a Christmas turkey, and by the time they get wherever it is they're going, he's completely lost.

When the blindfold did come off, it was dark. They'd turned off the highway about an hour before, near as Nick could figure, and bumped along some kind of shitty road until they came to a halt somewhere. Quiet as death outside, no traffic, no sounds except desert noises, undisturbed. Nigel had untied his ankles to let him walk, but it wasn't until they were inside that he took off the blindfold.

Seeing it, Nick wasn't any surer of anything. Some kind of house, cabin, something, spartan, just a few items of furniture and nothing revealing. Looked more like a hut than anything else.

And then Nigel pushed him down on the rickety cot in the far corner, and that's where Nick is now. Hands numb and useless, still tied, and he isn't sure he doesn't want the blindfold back. Anything to keep from seeing the manic look on Nigel's face.

"Well, it's not much," Nigel says with a hint of humor. "But I guess it'll do for the night. I hate driving at night, don't you? Can't see the hand in front of your face."

Nick recoils when Nigel sits on the edge of the cot. Stressed metal creaks loudly. "I'm really glad we have some time together," Nigel continues easily. "I mean, we weren't nearly done before. There's so much more I wanted to say to you, you know." He smiles. "You know what I mean, don't you?"

"No," Nick says hoarsely. "I have no idea what you mean."

"Oh, of course you do." Nigel keeps on smiling, and reaches out to touch Nick's chest. "You know exactly."

Nick shrinks back until he hits the wall, but there's nowhere else to go. "Don't touch me," he says with less anger and more fear than he wishes.

"You let Grissom touch you." Nigel is staring at his own hand, stroking over Nick's pecs. "I saw the way he touches you. You really have no shame, Nick."

"Don't," Nick rasps desperately, trying to sit up, kick him, SOMEthing. "Don't fucking TOUCH me."

Nigel's fingers seek out his nipple, and he tweaks it gently. Nick makes a sobbing sound of disgust. "You like to be touched here," Nigel says, tweaking, tweaking. "See? Your nipple's hard." He turns a little and smiles broadly. "I know what else you like. I mean, of course I do. You know that."

He's trying to think of something to DO, but his brain is frozen solid, a big useless chunk of dread. Nigel's unbuttoning Nick's shirt, baring his chest. Nick thrashes away from him, and it occurs to him that rolling over is no better, not when Nigel's touching him, and he rolls back, panting with sudden panic.

"Please," Nick says brokenly, feeling his eyes sting with tears. "Please don't do this, please, Nigel, don't."

Nigel leans forward. His eyes gleam in the light from the one dim lamp. He tongues Nick's bare nipple, a warm wet swipe, and Nick coughs and flails to one side, banging against the wall.

"Don't be shy," Nigel says, pulling Nick's arm so that he's on his back again. "I mean, this is me. You know me. And I know you. We're meant to be together, I knew it the moment we met." He grins and takes his glasses off. "So you don't have to play coy."

Nick grits his teeth as Nigel goes back to work on his nipple. Because he does like this, his nipples are a fucking erogenous zone, and his nerves can't tell the difference between one warm mouth and another. They just know it feels good. And they're in direct communication with the nerves in a more southerly part of his anatomy, which should NOT be interested, should be limp as cold fettuccine, but simply isn't smart enough to know that.

Nigel smiles down at him and unbuttons the rest of Nick's shirt. "You take good care of your body. Beautiful muscles." Nigel's hand caresses Nick's ribs, sliding down to stroke his belly. "Do you work out every day?"

Nick's panting with horrified dread, and he just stares at Nigel.

"Seriously, you know, because I always wondered how long it took to get it. And how often you have to work out once you got it." He's still smiling, a jarringly friendly look that goes in complete contrast with the odd light in his eyes.

Nick licks his dry lips. "If you'll untie me, I'll tell you," he says waveringly.

Nigel wrinkles his nose. "Maybe later. I think you better stay like you are for the moment. You're so nervous."

"Let me GO, you FUCKER ..."

"You have a really dirty mouth." Nigel's smile is gone, but the eerie dancing expression in his eyes is brighter. "Are you afraid I'm going to rape you, Nick?" he asks, sliding his hand further down to touch Nick's belt buckle.

Nick glares at him, mute with fear.

"Because, well, I guess I AM," Nigel continues with a little laugh. "I mean, not like you'll mind. Will you?"

"I mind," Nick says, shaking his head. "Jesus, please, don't do this, Nigel, please."

"Well, remember, you made it all be this way." Nigel's staring down at him, but his hand is warm over Nick's crotch, squeezing him just a little through his jeans. "Didn't have to be like this. I tried, you know. But you screwed it up."

In Nick's life he can only remember feeling like this once, and the memory is suddenly crystal clear, sharp as a fragment of freshly broken glass inside his mind. His eyes fill with tears. "No," he whispers, shaking his head slowly. "Oh, no, please, no."

"It's the way it has to be, Nick," Nigel says with a regretful shrug. He rubs harder, and Nick feels the tears trickling cold down his temples.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His cell phone rang at exactly six.

Up until that point he hadn't shaken the frozen feeling. And that was very much okay, because he didn't want to. Cold made it possible to think -- albeit slowly -- and he was very much certain that a thaw would mean he had to feel again. Once that happened, rational thought would become a distant memory.

So when he picked up the receiver, he knew what to expect. Not only of Nigel Crane, but of himself.

"Gilbert. That is your full name, right?"

Gil held the receiver so tightly his hand ached. Good. Let it ache. "As a matter of fact, no," he said coldly. "Where have you taken Nick?" The cop doing the trace made a keep-him-going motion.

"You know, I wasn't just a cable guy." He could hear Crane's slightly adenoidal breathing, but nothing else, nothing whatsoever. "We can chat like this all day, and no one's going to finish the trace, Gil. You mind if I call you Gil?"

"Does it matter?"

"Nick's just fine, by the way. He sends his love."

The room seemed to have gone darker, somehow; all he could see was black, and all he could hear was Nigel Crane's voice and the terrible thump of his own heart. "Do you know what I'm going to do to you when I find you?" Gil asked calmly.

"Mm, I can imagine. You like games, Gil?"

"No."

"I do. I always have."

"No GAMES, Nigel, you fuck --"

"All right, all right." Crane made an impatient sound. "Fine, but see, here's the game. It's really simple. But it's going to be fun. I promise." He giggled. "Hide and go seek. You know how to play, right?"

Gil closed his eyes. "Let me talk to Nick."

Crane breathed out through his nose, an amused snort. "Nick's kind of tied up right now. He cries like a girl, did you know that? So emotional."

"I'm going to kill you, I swear to God." His hand clenched the phone so hard it should have snapped. He wanted it to snap.

"Wellllll, we'll have to see about that." Crane sounded incredibly calm. "Now I have to tell you the rules. We're going to hide, and you're going to seek."

Gil glanced at Brass, who looked as if his face were carved from solid granite. "You ..."

"Don't interrupt, it's really impolite. We're going to stay right where we are until tomorrow. And if you're smart enough, and if you love Nick more than I do, you'll find us before tomorrow morning. But if you don't." A titter that sent an acid chill shooting up Gil's spine. "Well, we won't be here anymore."

Gil flashed a look at the cop sitting near him, and wanted to scream when the guy shook his head. "How do I know Nick's all right? Put him on the goddamn phone, let me hear his ..."

"I'll let you hear him, don't worry. You should check your email, Gil. I sent you a present. Oh, and there's one more thing. If anyone but you finds us, well. I mean, it'll be your fault. You'll make me do it. You know that, right?"

Gil swallowed. "It'll be me, that much I promise you," he said in a cold, distant voice that didn't feel like his own at all. "Believe me."

"Why don't you just accept that he's better off with me?"

"Because he's NOT," Gil said hoarsely.

"You're wrong. But I think you'll see that. I mean, Nick and I are together now. You couldn't keep us apart. You tried, but you can't mess with fate, Gil."

He paused, and nothing would come to Gil's frozen lips. No words, not even air. Just sheer, absolute horror.

"See? You can't deny it. But I have to go now. I gotta make us some food. I think Nick's hungry. Don't worry, I'll take care of him. Bye, Gil."

He listened to nothing for a heartbeat, and then shot the uniformed cop a look that made the guy's face go a little pale. "Where?" Gil choked out. "Where are they?"

"He's on a cell," the policeman said haltingly. "And he's bouncing his signal all over the goddamn world. I got five ..."

"Are they still in Nevada?"

"That much I got, yeah."

Gil rounded on Brass, who looked ten years older suddenly. "Find him," Gil rasped, clenching the phone in both hands. "Jim."

"We're gonna. State highway patrol's looking, and with the car ID, it's just a matter of time, that's all."

"Nick doesn't have time. Nick's all out of time."

Brass didn't say anything to that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

His home computer was in his study, what doubled as a guest bedroom on the rare occasions when he had overnight guests. Now he was thankful he'd put it in there instead of in the great room. No one reading over his shoulder. No one watching. He shut himself away and didn't have to think about them.

He didn't know, then, just how impossible thinking of any kind would become.

Crane's email was just one of about fourteen he downloaded, with a single attached file. A huge file, Jesus, what, a photo? His skin clumped with so much gooseflesh it felt like a cramp. He clicked on the icon and stared at the file. Not a photo. No, Crane was going one better than that.

Video clip.

Gil clenched his icy hands briefly, and double-clicked the file.

He didn't have much use for video on his home computer, but he made sure he had the capability. Handy for when he worked from home, the rare times he didn't simply stay at the lab as long as was necessary. But even with DSL the download took what felt like about fourteen years. Massive file, long. He couldn't bear to think of how long it might be. How long he'd have to watch what Crane was doing. Doing to Nick.

The image was obviously from a hand-held video camera. Skittering a little, then stabilizing into a familiar face.

"Hi, Gil," Nigel Crane said into the camera, using his thumb to push his glasses up. "Now I know you're worried about Nick, and all, but I think this will make you feel better. Because see, I know what it's like to care about him. I do." He smiled, a wistful expression that made Gil want to smash his fist into the monitor. "I don't blame you, not for that. But this is so you can see that this is what's meant to be. Nick is ... he's my soulmate, and keeping us apart was wrong. So maybe you can see for yourself, you know."

Gil flinched when the picture jumped, and then focused again. He made a sound deep in his throat, a startled grunt.

The room was as bland and featureless as a cell. Blank wall, planks really, not even panels. And in front, a narrow bed. And Nick.

He thought maybe it was his experience with horrifying situations that let him sit still as long as he did. Some obedient filter, used so often at work that it trotted right out here, too, obligingly letting him see without flinching at first.

So he took it in, his eyes kept seeing. Nick was naked, and a part of him died seeing that. But another part saw other things. The cords wrapped around Nick's wrists, tight enough to cut into his skin. Tied together but also fastened to one end of the rusty bed, a length of rope long enough to give a few inches of play but bringing his hands well short of anything else.

Ankles bound as well, but differently; separate, and one tied directly to the bed while the other had a much longer length of rope attached. His rational mind took it all in, busily taking inventory, while his eyes went to Nick's face.

Gil made a broken sound, unable to look away. Nick's gaze was fixed somewhere off-camera, somehow clear even in the less-than-perfect image. Not blank; no, Gil could have seen blank and perhaps that would have been better. Not all right, but better. But Nick's shiny eyes were like an animal's, staring at the hunter into whose trap he'd fallen, and even the horrified expression on his face didn't matter next to that.

And then Crane walked into the picture, and Gil sat back so fast he nearly toppled his chair over.

Crane wasn't naked, but the way he approached Nick was predatorily sexual.

His fingers touched Nick's bare flank as he walked around him, and Gil shrank again at Nick's harsh gasp.

"It's time, Nick," Crane said sweetly, circling around to perch on the edge of the bed, behind him. "It's gonna be beautiful. You'll see."

Nick's eyes clenched shut when Crane reached over to stroke his hip. "Don't," Gil heard Nick say in a warbling, awful voice, flinching away, trying to roll away from him and coming up short against the ropes. "Please, please don't do this. Please, don't."

"You like this position, don't you?" Crane was smiling, fondly. Hand sliding down to Nick's panting belly. "I saw you, I know you do. But it'll be even better this time."

Nick sobbed harshly, pulling at the ropes until his muscles stood out in sweaty relief, and Gil stabbed at his mouse until it somehow found the video program's pause button. He reeled up out of the chair without thinking, nothing at all until he thudded against the far wall. And stood there for a second, the sound of his own breathing like a high mosquito whine in his ears, until his knees suddenly went out and he sat down hard, flat on his ass.

"Gil?"

He couldn't even distinguish it at first, just another noise to match the pounding of his heart, the senseless buzz in his ears.

"Gil, let me in. Are you okay? Jesus."

Catherine. He sat bolt upright, a new spasm of horror like ice inside his bones.

She can't see this. No one can see this, I have to see it, I owe it to Nick to see it, but NO ONE ELSE CAN SEE IT.

"I'm all right," he said, barely blinking at the thick croak that had replaced his voice.

"Gil, please, you have to ..."

"NO!" he roared, and surged effortlessly to his feet. Pure adrenaline, no more shakes. "Stay the hell out of here!"

She didn't say anything else.

He made himself walk back to his desk, studiously not-seeing the image paused on the monitor. The chair made a faint offended squeak as he sat down. After a long, blank moment he reached for the mouse again, and unpaused the video clip.

Later he found out the clip was only six minutes long, roughly. Six minutes, long enough to do what? Take a leak? Masturbate? Not long at all.

Six years. Six hundred years of tape, six millennia of watching a psychopath rape the only person in his adult life ever to mean more to him than his work.

He thought perhaps if it had been only pictures, he could have borne it. But it wasn't. It was audio, as well. And it was Crane's voice, and Nick's, that stayed with him that night, and so many after. Crane's voice, gravid with unspeakable pleasure: "God, Nick. It feels so good. Doesn't it? I knew it would, I knew it would be perfect. And it is."

He tried to mute the sound after he heard Nick scream for the first time, but he couldn't find the right button. And so he paused it again, and this time held a fierce conversation with himself. Look for clues. Don't look at what he's doing. Just look at the ROOM. Where are they? What other sounds can you hear? What's going on besides ... it?

But there wasn't anything else, his ears refused to HEAR anything else, eyes blind to everything but the awful spectacle on the bed, the creak of springs, angry shriek of rusty metal, and above that, like a hellish descant, Nick's high cries of pain, and Crane's hated voice. Telling him how GOOD it was, how RIGHT, and never once seeing Nick's agony.

He was crying, too, even before Crane sped up, dug his fingers into Nick's flesh and pushed him down onto the bed. He wept with Nick, soundlessly, and because he had to keep watching, because he was going to see this, he was going to KNOW what happened so that he could exact his vengeance with the same brand of utter heartlessness Nick was experiencing, he saw what happened when Crane came. He saw Nick's tears shut off like a hand firmly turning off a faucet, and the look of blank despair that took the place of horror. In the midst of Crane's noisy orgasm, he saw Nick break.

When it was over, he turned off the computer with numb hands, and then sat very still. He didn't feel like crying anymore, either. Wasn't sure what he felt. Numb, or maybe ... only very still. Listening, for a voice that was only in his mind. The voice that would tell him what to do.

And it came, a short while later. It came in the way his heart eased from its frantic thunder, still fast but no longer out of control. It arrived with heat, warming his frozen hands and setting his blood free again, hissing in his ears, racing through his veins.

When the voice spoke to him, its tone was rage.

He opened the door to his office and stepped into the lamp-lit dimness of his living room. Catherine and Brass stood near the door, in conversation that died away with Gil's arrival.

Catherine opened her mouth, and Gil shook his head once.

His keys were where he'd left them, days, ages ago, sitting on the foyer table. He picked them up and reached for his jacket.

"Gil?" Catherine sounded throttled behind him. "Where are you going?"

Gil shrugged into his jacket and glanced at her. His smile made her eyes widen.

"Where I should have gone hours ago. To find out who Nigel Crane really is."

Chapter Eighteen

He's had a song going through his head for hours. It was probably a dream; he woke up with it playing, and it's played steadily ever since. A woman's sweet voice, maybe his mom's, and a stupid nursery song he can't remember his mother ever singing. His mom hadn't been the singing type, more likely to read him a fable with a moralistic ending than to spend time crooning a children's song.

But he hears her anyway. "Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird. If that mockingbird don't sing, Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring."

He listens, and keeps his dull eyes on the landscape passing by the passenger-side window.

Nigel hasn't tied his wrists today. Nick isn't sure if it's from concern or confidence. Maybe it doesn't matter. His wrists are rubbed raw, and the song inside his mind plays to the same tempo as the slow throb of pain, the blood singing in his ears. Nigel doesn't think Nick's going to make a break for it, and he's probably right. Nick's not going to do much of anything right now.

Nigel touches Nick's limp hand and Nick gasps, but doesn't do anything else.

"You're awfully quiet today," Nigel says, sounding petulant and a little worried. "What's wrong?"

Nick watches the desert go by with his dry, tired eyes, and doesn't say anything at all.

If that looking glass gets broke, Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat.

"Don't you like the new car?" Nigel takes his hand back, but now he sounds more like himself. Like the person who woke Nick up this morning from his heavy nursery-rhyme sleep. Energized, busy, excited. Nigel laughs. "No wonder people make a living stealing cars. I mean, it's so easy, you know?"

In the midst of almost featureless, repetitive desert, Nick can see the rusted-out hulk of an unidentifiable truck. Old, very old. Model T, maybe. His dad would know. "Fuck you," Nick says softly.

"Now, now, Nick."

"Where are we going?"

Nigel pats his shoulder. "You'll see."

The door isn't locked. He could open it, fast. He's not feeling all that great, but he's got a feeling that he could still move pretty damn quickly if he had to. Open the door. Jump out. Except they're traveling at least seventy.

So he'd probably die. But wasn't that preferable? How bad did he want to live, anyway?

Except he wasn't sure he'd die. Not right away. So he looks away from the beckoning door handle, back at the disappearing Model T. Rusting away, steel bones lying silent and dead in the middle of desert nothing.

"Hungry?"

Nick doesn't look at what Nigel was holding out. More shitty convenience-store food, left over from yesterday. He's hungry, which surprises him; shouldn't his body be shutting down the way his mind already has? But he shakes his head.

"What are you waiting for, Nick?" Nigel sounds angry, now, that petulant kid-voice Nick already hates. "Waiting for your knight in shining armor? See him anywhere? Do you?"

Nick swallows and keeps his eyes on the road.

"Guess he didn't try hard enough, did he?" Nigel continues, switching back to jovial, lord-of-the-manor satisfaction. "In fact, he probably didn't try at all. Did you think he would? Did you really think he'd come looking for you? Because I don't think he's the type, Nick. He's not like me. He doesn't know you the way I do, he doesn't care. I came back for you. Didn't I?"

"Shut up," Nick whispers. He looks at Nigel's smiling face and feels his aching hands knotting into fists. "Shut the fuck up."

"It's okay," Nigel tells him, smug smile in place. "I know it's hard to accept. I mean, you probably thought he was a nice guy. It's hard when your preconceptions are so wrong, isn't it?"

As much as he knows Nigel's wrong, he can't not listen. Because he's been missing for a while, gone, and no one HAS found them. No one is here. No one but Nigel, no Gil, no cavalry to rescue him.

What brings stinging, tired tears to his eyes is the companion idea that maybe, just maybe, no one is ever going to rescue him. Ever.

"I thought I wanted to be just like you," Nigel says, shaking his head. "But I'm better than you, aren't I, Nick? Stronger. Smarter." He laughs merrily. "It's you who should try to be like me."

Nick closes his eyes and listens.

If that horse and cart fall down, you'll still be the sweetest little baby in town.

*

"You're right, of course. He's definitely escalated from his previous methods."

Gil nodded tightly. "So ..."

Kane held up his hand. "But Crane killed his previous fantasy object. He changed his focus to Nick, made Jane Galloway a kind of sacrificial offering. So we're not dealing with just a stalker. This goes way beyond that."

Gil shot to his feet and strode across the office, braking sharply at the window. "I KNOW that. But my question is, where is it going? I can't FIND him until I know that!"

"I don't have a crystal ball, Gil. You asked me to help you analyze his actions and mental state, not start soothsaying."

Staring sightlessly out the window, Gil nodded again. "So analyze."

Behind him, Kane's chair creaked loudly. "I'll do the best I can, considering you've given me about ten minutes to look at all this information," he replied testily. "Stalkers live inside a very tidy delusional world. Most spent their childhoods in emotionally arid situations, possibly abusive ones. Crane's parents are evidently deceased, no siblings. He lived until recently in an attic, living vicariously by peeping into other people's lives." The chair creaked again. "You said he referred to Nick being the sort of person he always wanted to be?"

"Yes. It's on the last videotape."

"I need to see that."

"I'll get you a copy today." Gil turned away from the window. "Keep going," he added, lowering himself into a chair.

"This particular brand of psychosis tends to lend a kind of reassuring quality. I'm not so bad, since he or she finds me good. Mind you, the object of this person's delusion may not even know the person exists. It's delusional, but it's very real for the stalker. In this case, Crane. And when it has an erotic component, it can be that much stronger.

"Crane's delusion has blown everything out of proportion. To him, the perception of kindness he saw in Nick has become love. But he fears that, too, that closeness, and I'd be surprised if the delusion lasts very long now that he's got Nick with him. The minute he feels threatened ... the minute he feels that Nick is literally rejecting him ... he could react very badly."

"He's got what he thought he wanted," Gil said slowly, giving Kane a direct look. "What happens when he figures out he doesn't?"

Kane's genial face was sober. "He may not figure that out," he replied. "Right now he's elated. He has his delusional object at his side ... what more could he want? If he can manage to shape Nick's responses in ways that mesh with his fantasy, he can persist for some time." He shifted again, and the chair skreeked loudly. "And you're a part of the delusion now, Gil. If I'm reading you correctly."

"He said it was a game. He's playing with me." Gil had to clear his throat. "He thinks Nick really wants to be with him, but he can't help lording it over me."

"He perceives your relationship with Nick to be the aberration," Kane said calmly. "He's vindictive enough to rub your nose in it, but don't lose sight of what's true: you're peripheral. Important, but nothing like Nick. Crane is triumphant; he wants to make sure you know what you've lost."

"They'll hide again tonight. They're on the move now, but they'll go to ground again. I have to find them. Tell me where he'd go."

"I can't do that. I wish to God I could. Believe that."

Gil studied his hands, tightly laced in his lap. "Will he kill him?"

"What do you think?"

Gil looked up and shook his head after a moment. "What I think ... I've been wrong before, Phillip. Wrong about Crane. There's no room for errors, not anymore."

"Tell me," Kane urged.

"It's all he cares about," Gil said slowly. "Having Nick. He doesn't care about anything else. Not the ramifications, not being caught, or arrested. I don't think he plans to survive it."

Kane nodded. "What does he want?"

Gil faced him bleakly. "He wants to eat Nick's soul."

*

The lab was oddly quiet today. Lots of people around, but they didn't say much, and when they did it was in hushed voices, as if they hated to break the glassy silence. At least around him.

He found Sara hunched over a microscope. She flinched a little when she saw him, but recovered fast.

"Anything?"

She shrugged. "Nick's vehicle's pretty unrevealing. I found a lot of stuff, but think of all the places we go. There could be trace evidence from a dozen different crime scenes. It's sorting out what shouldn't be there that's the challenge."

"Narrow it down," Gil said tersely. "Anything you can't link to a place Nick's been in the past two weeks, tell me. Wherever they're headed, it won't be a surprise for Crane. He'll have been there before, planning. Don't rule anything out, Sara. Anything could be vital."

She nodded. "I know," she said softly. "If it's there, I promise. I'll find it."

Gil paused, and gave her a halting thank you before turning away.

His cell phone started ringing a few feet outside his office. He answered with hands that shook in spite of his resolve.

"Got the car," Brass said in a flat, triumphant voice. "Highway patrol just called. Trooper found it, near a convenience store. Keys still in the ignition. They were headed north."

"Any sign of them?"

"Not yet."

Too much to hope for. "I'm on my way."

"Take 93. Store's at the junction with 168."

He was climbing into his car when his phone rang again. This time it was Catherine, sounding winded and jittery.

"I got a look at the getaway car. Not much, but the tires are covered in caliche."

Gil nodded and started the engine. "East of Desert National Wildlife Refuge, there are a few caliche roads. They stayed off the highway last night. Get people searching those roads."

"They're already looking."

He drove blankly, familiar with the highway, ignoring the speed limit. If anybody clocked him, they didn't stop him, and it was just as well they didn't try. He wasn't about to pull over.

The roadside convenience store had just come in sight when his phone rang for the third time. Catherine again.

"A trooper just called in. Found three possibles."

"It was old, looked abandoned." Gil made out Brass standing with hands in pockets next to a highway patrol car and the Cutlass, and finally hit the brakes. "Very basic, might not be much more than a glorified lean-to. Where are you?"

"Watching you pull up," she said, and waved at him from the Cutlass's open door.

He slung the Tahoe into an unruly skid next to the patrol car and hung up while he climbed out. Brass lifted his chin at him.

"Clerk inside ID'ed Crane." He flapped a copy of Crane's mug shot. "Came in about three hours ago, bought some food and left."

"Any sign of Nick?"

Brass shook his head. "She can't remember seeing anybody else in the car. Says she wasn't looking hard, though."

Gil walked over to the Cutlass, automatically taking in the coating of desert dirt, the caliche Catherine had already seen. Catherine glanced fast at him and went back to dusting the passenger-side dash.

"Anything?" Gil leaned against the door.

"Lots of stuff." Catherine sniffed and sat back in the seat. "I got a lot of prints, and some garbage. All of it pretty new." She looked at him. "Some blood," she added neutrally. "Trace only. Dash, and the handle here." She pointed to the passenger handle.

"That's Nick's," Gil replied remotely. "So if they left the car here, what are they driving now?""

"Nobody's reported any missing vehicles around here." On any other case he thought she'd have added some kind of quip there about taking a magic carpet. Thankfully this time she didn't.

"Trust me, there's a missing vehicle. Any customers still in the store?"

"Not that we've found. Besides, it was three hours ago. They'd have left by now, or tried to, and noticed. Called it in."

"Not if they couldn't call it in." He stood up straight and glanced over at Brass, who was headed their way. "We need the cabin, Jim."

"Trooper says he's looking at some kind of shelter over by the southeast entrance to the preserve. Got a lot of footprints, and recent tire tracks."

"Take me there."

"Grissom." Warrick came around the far side of the store. "Got something for you. Round back."

Gil strode over to him. "What?"

Warrick lifted his chin and turned to retrace his steps. "Wouldn't have seen it the first time around. Hey, Brass, you guys check the dumpster?"

"Yeah. Why? We miss something?"

"Yeah," came Warrick's dry reply. Approaching the dumpster, he pointed. "Wasn't in the dumpster. Behind it. Wedged in tight."

Gil stepped over to the store's back wall, and made a face. "Body." He looked at Brass, who sighed.

"Think we found our missing missing-car owner," Brass said heavily.

Chapter Nineteen

His time sense is royally screwed. He figures it's the middle of the afternoon, but exactly what time, he has no idea.

Nigel's been tense for a while now. He has all kinds of tells that reveal it: the way he taps the steering wheel with his fingernail, or the reflexive pushing-up of the glasses, when they don't need it. Afraid of pursuit? What pursuit? Since they turned off on this buttfuck two-lane excuse for a highway, they haven't seen a single vehicle. Not a house, not a goddamn gas station. Just desert.

So it's insane to do what he does, a few minutes later. But insanity's fine. Anything is better than just sitting there, waiting for whatever Crazy Nigel has in mind next.

He gets his chance when they have to slow down for a crossroads. Another miserable piss-ant highway, making an X with theirs. He puts his hand on the door handle and leans right, and a second later he's rolling on hot asphalt.

Everything slows down. He's scrambling to his feet at the same time that he can hear Nigel shouting something, bringing the car to a shuddering halt a few yards past the intersection. He's done some stuff to himself, jumping out like that. It doesn't matter. He's OUT. And there's nothing out here, NOTHING, but that car can't make it off-road. Not in this sandy, rocky soil.

Nick spins around and grins at Nigel, standing by the driver's-side door. "FUCK you!" he screams, almost dancing where he is, doing a little jig on the shoulder. "Fuck you, you sick FUCK!"

"Where are you going, Nick?" Nigel's voice doesn't sound right. Not nearly upset enough, not pissed. Sort of ... amused, and that makes Nick feel dizzy with rage.

"I don't care!" he yells back, and steps backwards, toward the expanse of desert behind them. His right ankle is throbbing, and he hops for a second, stupid fucker, just calm down, nothing BROKEN, so leave me alone.

He shuffles off into the dirt, and when he looks down to just make sure that fucking ankle is actually working, he sees the shredded right side of his jeans. And seeing it makes his stunned nerves shock back into life. He's left a whole lot of skin behind on that hot asphalt, and not just his leg but his arm, got a nice case of road rash there, and his ankle isn't just bleating with pain, it's squealing now.

He takes another step and his ankle goes a different direction from his leg. He hits the dirt hard, right over on the side that's already hurting.

"There's nowhere for you to go."

Nick glares over at Nigel, who's standing too close now, hands on his hips. He looks exasperated, and a little worried, but neither of those expressions is the one Nick wants so desperately to see. He wants to see disappointment, not this mild look of triumph.

"That was so stupid," Nigel adds, shaking his head. "What were you thinking?"

Nick crab-crawls backwards, wincing when he puts his reaching hand on something spiny. "Let me go," he says, hating the whiny, weak sound of his own voice. "Please. Just let me GO."

"And leave you out here to die in the desert? Is that really what you want?"

He can't look away from Nigel's face. That satisfied, knowing expression. Probably didn't figure Nick would do what he's just done, but he's not that surprised. Hard white sunshine glints off his glasses. He holds out his hand. "Come on, Nick. Get in the car."

Nick slaps his hand away, skin crawling with revulsion. "Fuck you," he grates, and uses his good left hand to lever himself back up again. His ankle is a howling misery now, maybe not broken but definitely at least sprained, and he's limping like a three-legged dog. But he IS moving.

Up close, the desert isn't just sand. It's a lot of ground cover, too, nothing like grass, nothing you can WALK on. It's weeds, and low-growing cactus that scrapes his ankles, catches in the hem of his pants. Things that trip him, rocks, and holes in the ground. It's better on the shoulder. Someone's going to drive over that heat-shimmering horizon soon. Somebody in a pickup truck, with a shotgun slung across the back window. Someone who would see, and stop. And then he wouldn't have to walk anymore.

He can hear the low thrum of the car's engine next to him. Pacing him, rolling along with a faint sound of tires crunching through gravel and blown sand.

"This is silly, Nick. And see? You've hurt yourself. Why did you do that?"

He grits his teeth and makes his legs go forward. The sun is so fucking hot. He's thirsty, and suddenly he's bone-deep tired. His ankle is killing him. The right side of his body feels like it's been sprayed with acid; it stings, and worse when he sweats.

The car moseys over in front of him and stops. Nigel looks out the window at him and pushes his glasses up on his nose. "Get in the car, Nick," he says calmly.

Nick stares at him, and fights down a sob of absolute fury.

*

"Doesn't look like much."

Gil nodded distantly. "No."

Just seeing the place made his hackles rise. Not sure yet that this was The Place, but it had to be. Warrick was already going over the tire tracks.

"Might take some time to make sure these are the right ..."

"I'll know," Gil interrupted. "When I see the interior."

"Grissom."

He looked around briefly, and took in Warrick's drawn expression. "You gotta show us the video, man," Warrick continued heavily. "You're the only one who ..."

"No," Gil shot back curtly.

Inside, the cabin was just as dilapidated as the outside had promised. Gil took a step forward and stopped cold.

Nick had been here. Nick had been here only hours before, just a little time. Why hadn't he gotten here sooner? Soon enough to stop it? There was the plain, bare-plank wall, and there was that rusty bed. Just standing there, existing, but he'd seen it before with a horrible burden, heard it squeaking, those rust-reddened springs screaming the same way Nick had

Warrick touched his elbow, and Gil's frozen moment shattered. He staggered back, coughing out a groan, and stumbled back to the porch.

"Jesus," he heard Warrick say, and then Gil leaned over the railing and did something he hadn't done at any crime scene in more than twenty years. Threw up hard.

*

"It's a late-model Ford, Escort." Brass sounded perfectly normal, but his fingers clenched the steering wheel a little too tightly. "Black, blue interior."

"You already told me that."

"Just making sure."

Gil looked back out the window. Three in the afternoon. His mouth still tasted foul. He still felt sick, but it wasn't his stomach anymore. He was sick on a cell-deep level, poisoned with disgust and fear.

No doubt that the cabin had been Crane's first hideaway. It'd be hours yet before Catherine could get the evidence back to the lab and get results, but Gil didn't need them.

"I recognize it," he'd said to Warrick, after what he could grasp of his composure returned.

Warrick handed him a battered tissue and tactfully didn't say anything about what he'd seen. "This was the place in the video."

Gil nodded. The chirp of his cell phone startled him, and his hands shook when he answered it.

"Got the make and model of the car," Brass told him.

"I'll meet you back at the store."

When he hung up he spared Warrick a fast look. "Go over it, see what you can find," Gil said over his shoulder, already digging for his keys again.

"Where are you going?"

"To find that goddamn car."

Now, surveying the relentlessly empty stretch of highway ahead, he wondered about that.

"We got every trooper in the county scouring the same area," Brass told him. "How far could they have gone?"

"Look at it," Gil replied softly. "It doesn't matter how far. What matters is that we don't know where. We don't even know which direction."

"They were headed northeast. It's ..."

"At the time. Now?" Gil snorted. "They could be anywhere."

The beep of his phone saved Brass from having to laboriously cough up another reassuring sentence. Gil kept his eyes on the horizon when he answered, scanning for blue cars.

"Are you having fun, Gil?"

Gil stiffened. "What do you think?"

Crane chuffed a laugh. "It's all about the chase, isn't it? The hunt, finding the clues to answer the puzzle? This is what you love. You should be thanking me."

"We know what car you're driving. There are people looking all over for you. It's not just me." He could feel Brass staring at him, and ignored it. "You killed the driver, Nigel. Why'd you kill him?"

"Killing's not so hard, Gil. Once you get used to it." He paused. "Aren't you going to ask about Nick? Or was he just a little piece of ass to play with, huh?"

Gil sat up sharply. "I already know you won't kill him," he made himself say, fighting to keep the horror out of his voice. "And I know we'll find you. It's just a matter of time."

"Well, you better tell Nick that, because he has had a VERY tiring afternoon. I don't think he trusts you anymore, Gil." Crane had a smile in his voice. "You're not exactly a knight in shining armor. Where's the rescue, huh? Has it ever taken you this long to find a missing person before?"

"Let me talk to him, please." He hated the quaver in the words. "Put Nick on the phone."

"Maybe later. I think I better go now. Oh, and Gil? It's not blue."

"What?"

The line went dead, and Gil sat there for a second, long enough for Brass to draw a breath to ask him something, and then Gil slammed his fist on the dash hard enough to leave a round impression. "Stop the car!"

"What the ..."

"STOP IT!"

Brass stomped on the brakes and before the car had even completely stopped its shimmying halt, Gil flung himself out the door. "God DAMN it! MotherFUCKER!"

Dimly he was aware that Brass had gotten out, too. But all that mattered was wanting to HIT something, to throw something, and he almost threw the phone before some small voice inside snapped that it was his only link to Nick. He walked a ragged circle, fast, three times before he could make himself look over at Brass.

"What'd he say?" Brass asked him, almost unbearably calm.

Gil swallowed, but there wasn't any spit in his mouth. He was as dry as the ground they stood on.

"Call in," he said thickly. "There's no point."

Brass frowned and shook his head. "What the hell are you talking ab ..."

"He got rid of the Escort. We have no idea what they're driving now." Gil glared at him a moment, long enough to see the comprehension cover Brass's face, and then closed his eyes.

"We lost them."

Chapter Twenty

Maybe it's the failed escape, or maybe it's everything, but he stops paying attention for a while. The ropes are back, a sensible act on Nigel's part but pretty much unnecessary too. Nick's very, very aware that there's really no place to go, even if he could get up the nerve to try something again. He's too tired and he hurts too damn much to even think about it at the moment.

At sunset Nigel stops them, and leaves the car for a while. Comes back with keys, which means a hotel, or probably motel, come to think of it. It's murky enough that Nick can see a few things while Nigel drags him out of the car, but it's a fast shove into an over-air conditioned room, and then they could be anyplace. The brief glimpse felt like a city, but it could be anywhere for all Nick knows. And what does it matter?

Nigel deposits Nick on the further of the two double beds, and makes a face. "You look awful, Nick," he tells him, with another infuriating shake of his head. "I hope you realize what a stupid, stupid thing that was to do."

"Eat me," Nick replies pallidly.

"You need a bath." Nigel pulls on the ropes around Nick's wrists, absurdly careful considering Nick's skin is already pretty much hamburger. "Hate to say this, but you don't smell so good."

It would be nice to summon up a caustic reply, but sitting down, wincing as the circulation needles its way back into his hands, he just doesn't give a fuck. He avoids looking at the road rash that's replaced his entire right side. Doesn't need to; he can feel it, and that's plenty.

"At least you didn't bang up your face." Nigel touches Nick's cheek, and Nick flinches dully away. "If I go run you a bath, will you promise not to do anything else stupid?"

What does it matter, Nick tries to say, but it doesn't matter, so he doesn't. Nigel smiles and touches his face again, and this time he lets him. It doesn't matter, either.

The bath is like swirling around in hydrochloric acid. Every fucking INCH of him hurts, stings, aches, or throbs, and it's making him look at himself, too. The arm and leg, well, no surprise there, but his ankle is a goddamn mess. It's about three times the size of his uninjured ankle, and he's starting to wonder about the sprained-not-broken idea.

"Silly, stupid Nicky." Nigel reaches down and prods Nick's swollen ankle, and Nick makes a garbled sound of pain. "What if you'd broken it? You think we can go to a fucking HOSPITAL?"

Nick recoils, and Nigel's hand comes out of nowhere, slapping him so hard his head smacks against the tile.

"What were you THINKING?" Nigel isn't shouting, he's hissing, and gazing at him Nick would rather have shouting, because suddenly Nigel isn't disgusting, he's something else entirely. Nigel's face is pale, with hectic red blotches on his cheeks. "Don't you GET it? That wasn't in the PLAN!"

Nick licks blood out of the corner of his mouth and whispers, "Fuck the plan."

It hits him, at about the same time he feels Nigel's hand on his head, that that was probably stupider than jumping out of a moving vehicle.

He doesn't have time to get much of a breath before Nigel pushes his head underwater. Then it's all about AIR, and fighting when everything's wet and soapy and slippery, and his ankle bangs against something, probably the tap, and the pain makes him lose a big part of the tiny sip of oxygen he actually had to start with.

Nigel yanks him back up again, and Nick draws a frantic gasp of air that sounds like shredding cloth. "How fucking STUPID can you be, Nick?" Nigel says, no longer that snakelike whisper but a furious grate, still not yelling. Don't want the neighbors to hear, no, Nick thinks woozily. Then Nigel bangs Nick's head against the tile again, and hisses, "STUpid" one more time before ducking him back under the water.

This time he comes up coughing out soapy-tasting water, and Nigel has a smile on his face. A non-lethal smile. "Come on," he says, wiping soap off Nick's cheek. "Let's get you dried off."

He hasn't been truly scared since that morning, but he's scared again. And it makes him mad, too, like before, but before he didn't really think about the fact that Nigel could decide to kill his ass dead. And actually do it. So he's shaking like a fucking leaf while Nigel wrestles him out of the tub, so solicitous, helping him hop back to the bedroom.

"You know, you really make this a lot harder than it has to be." Nigel rubs the towel over Nick's shoulders, deftly patting the scraped parts. "We could be having a nice dinner someplace, you know that? Filet mignon, potatoes with rosemary. A nice Merlot. But you haven't even got anything to wear!"

Nick coughs and doesn't say anything, and Nigel leans forward and presses a hot, loathsome kiss on his mouth.

With a cry of shocked disgust, Nick pushes hard. Nigel reels backward, his face comically surprised, but catches himself on the other bed. The surprised look morphs into anger.

"You know, if I didn't know you as well as I do," Nigel says icily, wiping his hand across his mouth, "I'd say you liked it this way. Do you, Nick? You like it rough?" He climbs to his feet and steps closer, grinning when Nick draws back. "Because I can DO rough. Not really my thing, you know, but yeah. Just ask Jane."

Nick swallows and says, "I can't ask Jane, Nigel. You killed her."

Nigel looms over him and unsurprisingly backhands him. A tickle of rage surfaces in all the fear, and Nick tries to get up and punch the shit out of him, but his ankle wails and goes the way of all flesh, crumpling under him and sending him sprawling back onto the bed.

And then Nigel's on him, horrible eager hands on his skin, a fast brutal pinch of Nick's left nipple before Nigel's pushing him down on his stomach. The bedspread smells like bleach.

"Never would have pictured you this way, Nick," Nigel remarks breathlessly, one hand mashing Nick's face into the mattress while he knees Nick's legs apart. "But you know something? I kinda like it."

Nick thrashes furiously beneath him. Not gonna do any good, but he's already been down this road, and he's by god not gonna just lie there and take it.

"Just remember," Nigel pants. "You wanted it this way. It was your choice." He laughs, a brittle machine-gun series of "hahs," and leans on Nick's back while he shoves his dick into Nick's ass.

It hurts, yeah, okay, it hurt before, it hurts now. And a part of him is desperately sick, wanting to cry, scream, throw up at how godawful it is. But there's another part of him that's incoherent with rage.

And even after Nigel's done, after he's shot his wad and pulled out, and it's over, the rage stays. It's only going to be worse after this. Worse, and worse, until finally Nigel doesn't let him out of the water, until he drowns, or Nigel does something else, because he has no control at all, he's a goddamn psychotic maniac and there's no telling WHAT he'll do next. There's no rescue. There's no Gil anymore. No cops waiting to bust down the door. There's him, and there's Nigel.

He lies limp on the bed and listens to Nigel's prattle as he wets a washcloth and starts cleaning up the mess that's Nick's injured ass. And he just lets the rage cook. Because there isn't anything else. Not anymore. He's not going to survive this, that much is clear, but he'll take Nigel with him on the way. Maybe not tonight, and maybe it won't be tomorrow, either. But he'll see that surprised look on Nigel's dead face before he goes.

And that, brother, you can take to the bank.

*

He wasn't sure when he'd started feeling cold again. Sometime in the evening, sometime after they'd come back from the desert, tails between their legs. Foiled. Outsmarted.

But his hands were cold when he told Brass to take him back to the townhouse, instead of the lab. And he dropped his keys, opening the front door, because his fingers were like slabs of ice, with just about as much flex to them.

There were people there, of course. Cops, Brass, even Sara, looking pinched and woefully unhappy. He didn't pay much attention. He was tired. Cold and ungodly exhausted. Not sleepy, just tired. To the bone.

He shut the door to the bedroom, and lay down on the neatly made bed. Blessed quiet. He couldn't even hear the voices outside, nothing but the throb of his own heart, the faint hiss of the ceiling fan. Not that he needed a fan, since he felt as if he had just come in from the Arctic. But he didn't care enough to turn it off.

Nick liked the fan. Always had to have air moving. Not because he was hot, he always said. Just liked the air to move.

Gil closed his eyes. So where was Nick now? Another shitty cabin someplace, listening to Nigel Crane's horrible voice telling him how lucky he was, how they were destined to be whatever? Was he being raped right now? Was he even alive anymore?

It sank in, that moment, that he might not BE alive, that at some point between that phone call and now, Nigel Crane might have snapped. Done what Phillip Kane had warned he might do. Turned on the object of his delusion, the way he had with Jane Galloway. Hurt Nick, killed him. And all this would have been for nothing. Too late, too late by far.

He pressed the palms of his hands against his closed eyelids, hard. Dead. Nick could be dead now.

Jane. Jane Galloway.

Someone knocked softly on the door, and Gil flinched. "Here," he said hoarsely, sitting up.

The light from the hallway hurt his eyes. "Sorry," Sara said in a clipped voice. She held up his phone. "You got a call."

Gil nodded slowly, and reached out to take the phone from her hand. "Thanks," he said. "Close the door behind you?"

She nodded uncertainly, and ducked out again.

He let it ring a couple of times more before he opened it.

"That was fun today. Don't you think?"

He asked the first thing that popped into his head. "Is Nick alive?"

Crane sounded honestly perplexed. "Alive? Of course he's alive. Although he's a little worse for wear. He's been a really bad boy, Gil. I'm surprised you let him get away with being so foolish."

"What happened?"

"Well, ruined his clothes, for one thing." A spookily merry laugh. "Does he keep his clothes at your place? Or does he keep some of them at his new apartment? I was wondering just how that worked, you know. Did you fuck him at his place, or only in yours?"

Swallowing, Gil grated, "None of your fucking business, you cocksucker."

"Oh, Gil, LANGUAGE. You never struck me as the cursing type."

"Fuck you."

"Now Nick, I mean, he has a potty mouth. But you? Isn't that beneath you? The scholarly, scientific type? But wait." Another giggle. "Your smarts haven't been enough to figure this out yet, have they? Not smart enough, Gil. Not nearly smart enough."

His hand was so cold he couldn't feel the phone, and he held tight from an irrational fear it would simply squirt out of his nerveless fingers. "Just let me hear his voice," he said, hearing the desperation and not caring. "Please. Show me he's alive."

"I TOLD you he was. Why don't you believe me? I haven't lied to you, Gil. I'm a man of my word."

"You haven't sent any more video. How do you expect me to trust you?"

"Trust the evidence, Gil," Crane whispered. "It doesn't lie, does it? Nick believes that. Do you?"

"Please," Gil gasped, shutting his eyes again. "I need to talk to him. Just one word. That's all."

Crane didn't say anything for a second. "Man," he murmured finally. "That's really, I mean, pathetic, Gil. Don't tell me you've given up. The game's afoot, is it not?" He paused. "You're really taking all the fun out of this, you know. I never thought you were a quitter."

"I'm not QUITTING!" Gil roared, flinging himself off the bed. "God DAMN you, Crane, you just ..."

Crane's laughter cut him off as cleanly as a knife would. "That's better," he murmured, his smile audible. "Because I wouldn't want to know how Nick would feel if he thought, you know. That you didn't care anymore."

And like a knife, the words pierced right to his soul, and it took everything he had not to simply sit down hard, right there. Because Nick just might be feeling that way by this point, and who could blame him? "He knows I care," Gil whispered, wishing he felt them, too.

"Well, maybe. I think I'm gonna go now. But I really hope you pull out of this slump soon, Gil. Tick, tock. Better hurry before Nicky decides to something else as stupid as today."

He'd drawn a breath to say something, no idea what, but closed his mouth when the line went dead. And in the midst of all of it, Crane's hated voice and the fear that felt like something living, closing his throat, slowing his blood to a treacly crawl, he thought again: Jane Galloway.

When he opened the door, he saw too many people, and heard nothing. Utter, glacial silence.

He only had time for Catherine. "I need all the files on Jane Galloway," he said curtly, grabbing his jacket. "Everything we got, every single atom of information, evidence."

"It's all at the lab." Catherine shadowed him, with the rest of his depleted team at her heels. "Gil, what ..."

"Go back to her apartment. See if you can find anything else. Anything."

She caught his arm at the door. "Gil, Jane Galloway's apartment's been cleaned for a month, there's probably someone else ..."

"Don't TELL ME that!" he thundered, rounding about and glaring at her. She took a step back, eyes wide. "I don't give a good goddamn if the PRESIDENT lives there now, you take that goddamn apartment down inch by inch! You got that?" He didn't wait for her reply.

Outside it was Brass who caught up with him, while he jammed his key at the lock on his truck. "Hold on, Gil," Brass said in a low, urgent voice. "Don't freak on me now. Calm down."

"Calm isn't doing the job, JIM," Gil spat, finally manhandling the door open. "Nothing is, no one is. Don't tell me to CALM DOWN."

"Well, going on a rampage isn't going to do any better. Don't make me take steps, Gil." Brass's face was taut and unhappy. "Don't make this worse than it is."

"Worse?" Gil stared at him, and then coughed out a miserable, harsh laugh. "WORSE? You tell me ... just how in the name of all that's holy could this possibly get WORSE than it is already?"

"By you flipping your lid and doing something you KNOW you'll regret later. That's how."

"What I'm doing," Gil said icily, "is working the case. And at the moment you're either with me, or you're against me. Which one is it, Jim? You gonna help me find Nick? Or you gonna stand in my way? Because I will run over you. So help me God, I'll flatten you like a goddamn bug."

Brass said nothing for a moment, and then nodded once, sharply. "Okay, Gil," he said in a mild, neutral voice. "Have it your way. But you're taking me with you. Got that?"

Gil didn't spare him a look. "Just don't slow me down. Anything else is up to you."

Chapter Twenty-One

They hit the mountains late the next day. This isn't Nevada anymore, but Nick doesn't actually know where it is, exactly. Maybe Colorado; he's seen a lot of Colorado plates on passing cars. Must be. He knows Colorado, been there dozens of times. The cabin, the place his dad bought when Nick was four. He can't remember a summer as a kid that they didn't spend a month or two at the cabin in Colorado.

Thinking about his dad, his family, fills him with a funny sense of remote sorrow. He's not going to see them again. Never get a chance to give his dad shit about working on that goddamn Mustang. Listen to his mom's stories about the crap she runs into at the DA's office. He has two nephews on the way that he's never gonna meet. It all feels so distant. Do they even know what's happened? Did Gil think to call them? Did anyone?

Not that it would matter. His father would freak, and call in all his markers, the ones he's preserved for years against such a time as this, the ones he doesn't think his children know about. It's not about money, but power, and Thomas Franklin Stokes, Esquire, has power. Some of it's his, and some of it's the power of the information he's gotten over the years. It's who you know, Nicky, he told Nick once, years ago. Right after graduation, had to have been. Back when he thought Nick was going to do the right thing and head off to law school after college. Before Nick threw him a curve ball and became a cop. It's who you know, and who knows you. That's the way it works, when you come right down to it. All the good works in the world won't do as much for you as an advantageous connection. That was how he'd put it. Advantageous connections.

A number of Tom Stokes's connections were in various governmental agencies. If he knew by now, they'd have all gotten terse phone calls. Tom's grit accent completely gone, making him sound like the highly educated, excruciatingly intelligent man he really was, telling them how it was gonna play out. And if Nigel had taken them into Colorado, well, the FBI could safely get involved now. They would, too, if Tommy had anything to do with it.

But what difference did it make? That branch of the cavalry wasn't going to arrive any sooner than Gil's, and there's been no sign of Gil lately.

He's coughing a lot. His ankle still hurts, still looks like a fat black and blue piece of shit, but it's the cough that bothers him. It hurts, starting this morning, and it has a kind of rumbly, wet sound that some part of him knows isn't good.

The only good part of it is that it's driving Nigel nuts.

"Would you STOP it?"

Nick coughs again, only partly on purpose, and just shrugs.

Nigel throws cough drops at him. The last of a big bag he bought earlier today, when Nick's hacking really started getting on his nerves. "For God's sake. At least use a tissue. I don't want to catch that."

Nick thinks about telling him that if he hadn't wanted Nick to get sick, he probably shouldn't have washed the interior of his lungs out with soap and water. But he doesn't bother. Doesn't matter.

It's getting dark, and that adds to Nigel's tension. Nick has had a number of occasions to notice that Nigel can't see for shit in the dark. It's part of Nick's plan. What there is of a plan, that is, which isn't much, yet. But he's filed that bit of information away, yessir.

Another good thing about the cough is it seems to disgust Nigel on some level. He didn't fuck Nick last night, even let him sleep alone in his motel bed, and that was such a relief Nick didn't even mind waking up with a fever. Rather cough up a lung any day than get cornholed by Nutty Nigel, and that's a fact.

Ahead of them is a blurry cabin-shaped form. It solidifies as they get closer ... probably more solid for Nick than Nigel at this point ... into a fairly decent summer cottage. The overgrown foliage suggests it doesn't get constant use, but it's well-built, kind of pretty. Someone has done a folky burned-wood plaque by the gate, with a shaky capital G on it.

"Home, sweet home," Nigel says, stopping the car in the gravel driveway. His face is smug. "I think we'll take a break here, what do you think? Tired of driving."

"I'm tired of your face," Nick replies, and coughs hard.

Nigel doesn't say anything to that.

When he's stopped coughing this time, Nick hobbles after him. His ankle is still gimpy, but it's a little better now that it's tightly wrapped in Ace bandages. Nigel made a fast Wal-Mart run the day before, with Nick hog-tied back at their motel room. Ace bandages, clothes, food that didn't have to be cooked. The only thing he left off the shopping list was antibiotics, and right now Nick thinks that might be the one thing he actually needs more than anything else. He's hot, really hot, and his chest feels like he's got a sumo wrestler sitting on it. Tight, and painful.

"Not bad." Nigel surveys the tidy living room with all the dignity of a fucked-up potentate. "Cozy."

"Whose is this?" Nick asks, fighting down another cough. Great that it pisses Nigel off, but it's hurting a little too much to make it worth it.

"A friend's."

Nigel builds a fire in the stone fireplace, and Nick almost gets comfortable sitting there, baking his legs in front of the fire while Nigel putters around the kitchen. Pretty soon there are baked beans and franks, not Nick's favorite meal on the planet but good enough. He isn't really hungry, but he packs some of it away anyway. Gonna need the fuel.

That night, lying in a strange bed with Nigel snoring behind him, he stares at the far wall and thinks. Thinking isn't as easy a proposition anymore as it might have been, but he's still got a few gray cells firing. He'll scope it out tomorrow. Won't take long, just a good look around. Figure out where the road is, maybe find a path that isn't accessible by car. And when it gets dark, he's going to do ... something. That part isn't clear yet. The part that is, is the part that makes it bearable, feeling Nigel's goddamn jism drying on his ass cheeks right now. That's the part that's going to make this escape attempt more than an attempt.

It's the part that's going to let him wring Nigel's skinny neck before he goes.

*

There were a number of moments when he thought he'd taken a wrong turn again. Chased another red herring, bought more swampland. But he kept going, because to stop was to quit. He didn't dare stop. If he stopped he had to think, if he thought it would only be about what might be happening to Nick right now, and he flat-out couldn't afford that. Nick couldn't afford it.

So he kept on. And his people were following. Cautiously, mincing around him like he was a ton of poorly laid TNT underfoot, but they were there.

"Okay." Catherine looked exhausted, dark smudges under her eyes attesting to the approximately 48 hours since anyone had slept. He hadn't told them to go without sleeping. He was, but they didn't have to. But they were, Catherine was, and somewhere deep in the back of his mind, where he'd hopefully remember it someday, he made a note to tell her how much that meant to him.

"We have every single particle of this woman's life dissected. Ask me anything. I've got her damn social security number memorized. I know who she dated in high school. I know what sports she played. I know what her favorite goddamn pizza is."

He glanced at her and nodded. "Good. Then we're about even. It's here."

She banged her fist on the table. "WHAT'S here? Jesus, Gil, what are we LOOKING for?"

"I don't know yet." He regarded her. "But I'll know when I find it."

Catherine rubbed her fingers over her eyes. "Listen to me. Please? Just for a second?" She looked at him. "Please."

When he nodded stiffly, she sighed. "I'm not saying I want to stop. All right? But we can't keep it up, Gil. I can't keep hiding what we're doing. You gotta realize that."

"Hiding what?"

"Jesus. Everything. Do you know how much hot water we're in over trashing Jane Galloway's old apartment? If that warrant was real, I'm Betty fucking Ford."

Gil looked back at his stack of photocopies. "I'll take care of it. Later."

"Don't you get it? If y ... we don't stop railroading our way through everything, there won't BE any later."

"The answer's here," Gil replied distantly. "Somewhere in Jane Galloway's life. Or death. It's here. We just have to keep looking."

"Christ. Okay, Gil." She stood up, knees popping loudly. "You keep on looking. I believe you. But I have a daughter I haven't seen in four days. I have to go home. I am going to do what I can, but I'm not riding this train all the way to hell with you. There are other ways."

"Yeah," he agreed, watching her. "Ways that don't work."

"They're YOUR ways, Gil. They're the methods you've used your entire career. Not this ..." She flapped her hand at the masses of paper and files and computer printouts littering the kraft table. "—scrabbling for anything we can get our hands on, legally or otherwise."

"If it's all we have, then it's what we work with."

"Okay. Do it, Gil. Go to town." She picked up her jacket, and stepped closer to him. "But I miss him, too. I want Nick back. I want it so bad I can't remember ever wanting anything in my life so much." Her eyes were bloodshot, and they looked worse by the second. "And maybe I don't know what you're feeling right now, but I think in my own way I do. And I know you. I KNOW you know this isn't the way. Nick wouldn't want you to sacrifice your career for this. Don't let it all go because Nigel Crane drove you to it."

He gazed at her for a long moment, unable to get any words past the gigantic lump that had formed in his throat. "My career means nothing," he rasped finally, watching tears make their glassy way down Catherine's drawn cheeks. "Not if it costs me Nick." He cleared his throat. "Now. Go see Lindsay."

She nodded slowly. "Call me when you find something. You know where to find me."

"I'll do that."

*

By three that morning he'd worn everyone out. Even Brass had finally dozed off on the break-room sofa. Coming back from getting his hundredth Pepsi out of the machine, Gil stopped and watched him. Had he actually said what he'd said, that terrible moment in the driveway two days ... nights ... ago?

He could feel it adding up, like a grocery list: the totting-up of his debts, the many apologies he would have to make, the gratitude he must express and could not, not yet. Jim stood up and took it, and Gil wasn't sure he'd have done the same thing in Jim's shoes. Could hardly bear to consider it.

Back in his office, he sat down heavily behind his laden desk and popped the top on the Pepsi without looking. Finally he swiveled his chair and went back to his computer.

Jane Galloway's hard drive was a nightmare. A less organized person Gil had never come across, but only in the electronic sense. A slew of word processor files, email, webpage bookmarks. Lumped together, no sense to it, nothing to distinguish one thing from the next.

He'd had high hopes when he saw that she kept a journal. Spotty, and nothing for the last two months of her shortened life, but regular enough to give him pause. But even with that wealth of information, he couldn't filter out anything that connected. Plenty in it about her life, her job, her boyfriend, her family. She'd been close to her family, yes, actually loved that boyfriend if her entries were to be believed. But none of it tracked, none of it spoke to the kinds of things he was searching for.

It had taken outright lies to gain access to her legal documents. Jane Galloway had died a relatively well-off woman, thanks to a hefty inheritance a year ago. Both parents killed in a plane crash, another stupid accident chalked up to inexperienced amateur pilots overstretching their limits.

He took out the papers again now, and flipped through them tiredly. Talk to me. Tell me what I need to hear. They lay voiceless on his desk, the black type staring back at him like sulky children, closing their mouths and refusing to give.

He wasn't sure exactly when he got the idea. Halfway through the Pepsi, for whatever that was worth. But it was a tickle that became something more almost immediately. He sat up sharply, brow furrowed with concentration. His glasses slipped down his nose and he pushed them back up impatiently, thumbing through paper until he came to the page he wanted.

Ten minutes later he found it.

He had his phone in his hand to dial Catherine's number, and then put it down again. No. No, Cath had done enough. So had Jim, so had everyone.

He typed out a fast email to Catherine, and hit send before he had time to edit or proof what he'd said. No need. It was sufficient.

He left the page on top of the stack. They'd find it easily enough, and he'd circled what they'd want to see. He hit the lights as he left, shrugging into his coat.

By daybreak he was headed east, and he found a thin, lethal smile on his face. He sipped perishingly hot coffee bought when he'd gassed up the Tahoe. Motor oil, but it was perfect.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The first thing he thinks when he wakes up is that all his plans are fucked. Because he's frying. He's so hot the goddamn covers should be smoking.

Nigel's already up, invisible in the kitchen, humming some little off-key ditty and sounding so content it makes Nick feel nauseous. The weather's turned during the night, from clear cheery summer to damp cool rain. Normally he likes rain, but this isn't on the plan, either. Plans. He's got ‘em, Nigel's got ‘em. Trick will be seeing whose plan works out first.

Nigel's taken his clothes away again, so he wraps up in a blanket and makes himself get up, wandering shivering out into the living area. Ankle is much better this morning. There's another fire built, thank God, maybe Nigel's cold-natured or something ... cold to go along with the insanity? ... and Nick heads for his wing chair by the fireplace.

"Feeling better?"

Nick doesn't look at him. "No," he says foggily.

Nigel sits opposite him, eyes unreadable behind his glasses. "I think you did this on purpose."

"Did what?"

Nigel snorts. "Got sick."

Nick doesn't give him the withering look he wants to let fly. Just sighs. "Yeah, Nigel, that's right. I did it on purpose."

"I hate that tone of voice. So rude."

"Yeah, well, blow me."

"That what you want?"

Nick swallows and coughs boomingly. "What does it matter what I want? Since when have you given a shit what I want?"

"No, really." Nigel pushes his glasses up and leans forward. "You miss your precious Gil, Nick?"

"Yeah." Nick nods tiredly. "Yeah, I miss him. So what."

"You think he misses you?"

Nick meets Nigel's gaze. "Yeah," he says, although there is a moment when he wonders if he DOES think that. "I know he misses me. That what you want to hear? Or you want me to say he doesn't?"

"You really don't get it, still, do you?" Nigel shakes his head, pursing his lips. "Gil's gone. He gave up. He didn't have what it takes to keep going. Why do you think that is, Nick? You think he's still gonna charge in here and rescue you?"

"No. I don't think that's going to happen, no."

"You don't see it. But that's okay. We have time." Nigel glances around the room, Cheshire smile in place. "We have this nice place to stay, and all the time in the world. You look too warm. Why don't you get rid of that blanket?"

"Fuck you."

There's a gun in Nigel's hand then, so smooth Nick can barely believe the guy was capable of it. "I insist," Nigel says very calmly.

Nick's mouth has gone dry. The same creepy, angry/happy look on Nigel's face as that night in the motel room, the same as that horrible night in Nick's apartment, when he thought Nigel was going to shoot him, instead of himself. A prickle of icy dread skitters up his spine. "Doesn't mean anything when you force me to do it," he says, in a much shakier voice than he wants.

"Force has its own attractions, Nick, haven't you guessed that?" Nigel gets up, still holding the gun pointed at Nick's head. "Get rid of the blanket."

It's much colder without the blanket. The fire's no use. He's freezing, and not all of that is from the temperature.

Nigel smiles, and walks over to the bag of crap he brought in last night from the car. "You really surprise me, you know that?" He's still got the gun in one hand, and rummages with the other in the sack. "You seem so ... All American, so wonder bread. And yet you keep making me do these things. Why don't you just admit you like it this way?" He fishes out a wadded-up length of rope, and turns to face Nick again. "Deviant, Nick. Admit it."

Nick's pulled the blanket back over himself while Nigel's turned away, and the smile shivers off Nigel's face. He moves spookily fast, lashing out with the gun before Nick can do more than goggle at him. The nose of the gun catches his cheekbone, smacking his head to the side. An immediate pulsing rose of pain blossoms in his cheek.

"And you made me do that, too. Stupid. God, you're so stupid, how do you LIVE?" Nigel drops the rope in Nick's lap and grabs Nick's chin in his free hand, squeezing tight. "How do you like knowing all of this is YOUR FAULT?"

Nick blinks away tears of pain, and coughs wretchedly. "Same way you do," he mumbles. "Live, knowing you're a fucked-up ... loser who ... couldn't meet people without putting ... cameras in their goddamn attics."

The slap doesn't surprise him. All of a sudden nothing feels at all surprising. Only gonna play out one way, Nicky boy. Might as well just grit your teeth and deal, because your chance is gonna come. Remember that.

When Nigel finishes with the rope, Nick's tied so tight to the chair he can barely breathe, much less move. It takes everything he has to keep his shit together now. Bare-ass naked, and so terribly exposed.

Nigel gives him a terrible, calculating smile. "Better," he says, running his fingers over the soft skin of Nick's inner thigh. "What do you want, Nick? Want me to suck your cock?" He touches Nick's limp dick. "You did ASK me to, after all."

Nick glares over Nigel's head, fixing his gaze on the far wall. Lousy paint-by-numbers painting on the wall. "I want you to eat shit and die," he says.

Nigel prods at Nick's asshole, and he flinches. "Or you want me to fuck you again? You like a cock up your ass, don't you."

"Can barely feel yours, asswipe," Nick tells him breathily.

"Maybe you'll feel this."

The tears come back when Nigel puts Nick's cock in his mouth. Because he's getting hard, with Nigel's finger poking his prostate and his brainless dick reacting to that warm wetness. Nigel rubs inside him again, and Nick's tears feel cool on his feverish cheeks.

*

At about the halfway point, he wonders if he shouldn't have flown instead of driving. It's so goddamn far. Over 700 miles, and it'll slow up once he has to leave the interstate.

But at least he's moving. Good thing he's kept the Tahoe in good shape, because he's pushing hard. No cruise control ... it feels better to punch the gas himself, passing so many cars he's practically driving with one eye on the road and one on the rear-view mirror, eating up the miles, not fast enough, but as fast as he can.

He stops in Richmond to gas up and get more coffee, and again in Grand Junction, this time for gas, coffee, and pharmaceuticals. Aspirin for the headache, and caffeine tabs. He's becoming aware of just how tired he is. He's had a near-miss just past the turnoff for Moab, and countless moments when the road has blurred in front of him, eyelids crapping out on him, sagging, so damn sleepy.

And every time he jolts awake with Nick's voice in his ears. "Hurry up, damn it, you old geezer. You think I can wait for you forever? What do you think he's doing while you fart around drinking shitty coffee and dodging traffic? Playing mah jongg?"

He starts to see signs for Aspen. Jane Galloway's parents' cabin is tucked away between Basalt and Snowmass, and it's mid-afternoon now. Evening comes earlier in the mountains. He pops another Vivarin and squints at the road ahead. It's started raining.

And….

At the same time Gil downs his latest dose of the medication so well known to truckers and college students, Nick is staring out the window of the cabin. The rain's let up for the most part, but the gray weather persists. It lends a mournful look to the trees, the dark exclamation point of the road beyond Nigel's stolen car.

It's occurred to him that all his plans might be fucked up, not because the opportunity isn't there. But because his body is crapping out on him. He can tell by the prickly feel of his skin, the way he shivers with teeth-chattering force, the fever's worse. It hasn't helped that Nigel's mostly not let him cover up today. Much less rest. Between Nigel and his own secretive, desperate planning, he hasn't had much time to himself, just to relax, sleep, let his body do what it needs to do to get over this.

A spasm of coughing bends him at the waist, and he stops thinking about anything but how bad it hurts now. He used to do volunteer work, back in Dallas, and a year of that was at one of the hospitals. He remembers what some of those folks sounded like. That godawful rattling cough. It's bad, he's not sure what it is exactly but that's one thing he does know, a cough like this is trouble, and that's spelled P-N-E-U-M-O-N-I-A, brothers and sisters, can you say amen?

It lasts forever, and when forever is over he's so short of breath he wonders if this is maybe it. Maybe he's just gonna go down now. Drowning in his own damn snot.

But he gets a breath, finally, and when he's blinked the tears out of his eyes he looks back out the window. He's not really sure what he's looking for anymore. Maybe it's a way out. Maybe it's someone coming in. But that isn't going to happen. No matter how much he wants to see it. It isn't there.

And….

He hits a pothole at the turnoff for 82. The Tahoe jumps and shimmies, and for a second the steering wheel becomes a living thing, fighting him hard, jerking completely out of his hands at least twice. He pulls over when he's gotten control again, and just sits there, shaking. God, he's so tired. He's familiar with working tired, but never this bad. He's nauseated with it, his bones ache with exhaustion. All he wants is to just lean his head back and close his eyes. Just for a few minutes. You can hold out a few more minutes, can't you, Nick? Because I'm on my way, I'm coming to get you, but it's too much. It's just a little rest, that's all. Just a cat nap.

A truck's horn shocks his eyes open. For a second the misty rain looks like a human being, walking across the highway. It looks at him, and waves, and then a spatter of rain on the windshield blurs his view.

And….

Nick whispers, "You can do it. You can fucking DO this, asshole, just keep it going a few more minutes. That's all."

Nigel looks up from stirring another endless pot of beans. The cabin's air is noxious; they've both had the farts all day, and by tonight the oxygen's going to have to fight off the swamp gas. Except that won't matter. Will it? If he can just keep it going a little longer.

"You look tired, Nick," Nigel says, and pushes up his foggy glasses. "Why don't you sit down? Drink some cocoa. I made some for you."

Nick watches him, and then catches himself on the table when a cough rips through his chest.

And….

About the time he hits Emma, the rain cuts off like magic. Sky's not clear, but at least that ceaseless, dangerous rain is gone. In the fading sun the highway is gleaming black, even the oil-slick rainbows gone, washed completely away. The air through his open windows smells delicious, clean and squeaky with negative ions.

He glances down at the hand-drawn map he's been referring to. Please, Jesus, let me be right. Because if I'm not, that's it. I can't do anymore. I'm finished.

And then Nick's finished. It's all finished.

He rubs his stinging eyes and accelerates.

And….

Nigel spoons beans onto Nick's plate. "Eat. You'll feel better."

"You fucking lunatic."

Nigel dishes more beans onto his own plate, and walks back over to the stove. "Only people with small minds use profanity this much, Nick," he observes neutrally. "And I think you have a very, very small mind."

Nick limps over to the counter and leans against it, hearing his breath wheeze and groan in his chest. His wrists are still tied, but at least they're in front of him. "What next, huh?" he asks without caring. "How long are we gonna stay here? You think they won't find us here? They will." He starts to add something else and has to stop, when a cough rumbles out.

"I don't think so." Nigel smiles cordially at him and makes an after-you gesture. "Have a seat, Nick. Don't let it get cold."

"Fuck you. I'm not fucking hungry." He grits his teeth against another cough.

"Suit yourself." Nigel shrugs, and steps back over to the table.

And….

He's lost. Completely. But he's going the way his cruddy map indicates. This has to be it. This thin sliver of road, trailing off into tree-eclipsed darkness.

Or the next one.

He pulls over to the side of the road, what there is of it, and puts the Tahoe in neutral. Christ Jesus, he isn't sure which one it is. All Jane's talk about this and that and nothing about how to FIND the goddamn CABIN. Just the instructions in the bequest, the sketch of the location. And his own fumbling drawings.

He takes a deep breath of the gorgeous air, and makes his trembling hand put the truck back into drive.

And….

It occurs to him right then. So stupidly simple, he has to marvel for a second at how it's just fallen into his lap.

"I think we'll probably stick around here a week or two," Nigel says through a mouthful of shitty canned baked beans. His spoon clicks against his teeth. "What do you think?"

Nick reaches out and slides his fingers around the handle of the cast-iron pan. Camp equipment. Cast iron was always good.

"Feels good to be free, doesn't it?" Nigel asks him, and turns in his chair.

Nick grasps the handle tightly and nods. "Yeah," he replies hoarsely, voice thick with phlegm and a mad kind of glee. "It feels fucking GREAT."

There's time to see the surprise on Nigel's face before the cast-iron pan hits him. The side of his head, a sound like a ripe pumpkin tossed out of the back of a pickup. Rich and heavy. Beans spatter on the table and the floor.

Nigel's mouth opens in a perfect "O," and he slides out of his chair.

And….

There are lights on the road ahead. Cars. More than he's seen on this stretch of crappy road since he turned off the interstate. Gil rubs his eyes and focuses.

There. Two cars, unrevealingly dark in the sludgy twilight. Gil stomps on the brake and the Tahoe shimmies to the right, sliding on wet leaves and coming to rest at a drunken tilt.

He climbs out and his knees buckle, sending him reeling to the ground. Only to stagger back up again, because he can hear voices. Men's voices, excited. The crackle of a radio.

"Hey! Hold it right there!"

Gil braces himself on the Tahoe's hood, and stands up straight. A man appears from around one of the other cars, waving his hand. "Just back up and go back the way you came," he calls in a thin, high voice.

Gil shakes his head and lumbers forward. The man catches his arm and yanks hard, and a flashlight suddenly sears into his eyes.

"Christ almighty, you're the guy, aren't you?" The man ... cop, something, Gil can't tell, just sees the uniform as a blank official-looking outfit ... turns his head. "Mike! Think this is that Grissom guy!"

And….

The floor is slippery with bean juice and blood. So MUCH blood, for the first time in a long time Nick really smells it, hot and coppery and disgusting.

Nigel blinks up at him and says, "Wha." His voice is mushy. He's smiling.

Nick coughs out a horrified sound and reels into the living room. It's gone almost completely dark outside, and there are lights between the trees. He's killed him. Oh Jesus, he's killed Nigel, or will have killed him when the maniac finishes dying. He drops the pan and it hits the wood floor with a hollow clang.

On the porch the air is crisp and cold. He shudders with a bone-deep spasm of either terror or fever, he can't tell which. And heads for the trees.

And….

"We got the call about an hour ago," the trooper says excitedly, still holding Gil's arm. "Jesus, man, you drove that whole way?"

"Nick," Gil croaks, and pulls his arm free. "Where's Nick?"

"Cabin's up there." The second trooper points uphill, and Gil can see lights there, too. Trickling between the trees. "We just got here, no ..."

Gil puts his foot forward and hears a scream.

And….

Just where the trees start, he puts his weight on his sprained ankle, and something snaps. Sliding in wet slick leaves, shooting out from under him, and there's another dull crunch when he hits the ground. Pain like lava shoots up his leg, pain like nothing he's felt in ages. He screams, the pain in his throat nothing next to the hot torch of agony that's taken the place of his leg. His head thumps on the ground, and the pain fades into nothing at all.

And….

"Nick," Gil whispers, and begins to run.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Just beyond the row of trees at the end of the short driveway, he found Jane Galloway's family cabin. So ordinary, to have been the focus of so much attention the past couple of days. The front door stood open, letting a bar of yellow light out into the solidifying night.

All his exhaustion was gone. He was tight with energy, bounding up the steps, skidding on the living room floor. Looking down, he felt a shock of recognition: red liquid, blood, almost certainly. Blood mixed with something else. An old cast-iron pan, black from many years of use.

"Nick?" Gil shrank against the near wall, eyes darting around the room. Nothing. No sounds, but the fire crackling in the fireplace, the footsteps of the troopers following him inside.

"Sir, you oughta ..."

He waved a hand at the nearer of the two men, and looked through the door to the left.

"Oh jeez," he heard the trooper say in a breathy voice.

In the midst of the cheery little kitchen, Nigel Crane's body was grotesque: splayed bonelessly near the table, half-covering a tipped-over chair lying on its back. The body was unmarked, but the head -- Gil drew a fast, panic-stricken breath. That's what the pan had been used for. The side of Crane's head was stove completely in. The coroner's observation flashed in Gil's mind. A human could survive that. Maybe. But not without gross deficits, and probably ...

Just as the human part of him snarled something gleeful, horribly elated that NICK did this, Nick had the wherewithal to grab that pan and cave Crane's head in and make his escape, Crane opened his eyes.

"Fuck, he's still alive." One of the troopers brushed by Gil, startling him. "Call EMS, for god's sake."

Gazing at Crane's unblinking stare, Gil said, "It's a mortal wound."

"How do you know?"

Gil ignored it. He knelt next to Crane, ignoring too the way beans and something that was probably bits of brain squished under his knees. "Tell me where Nick is," he said hoarsely.

Crane's right eye had filled with blood, and stared unseeingly somewhere over Gil's head. But the other was terribly aware. "W," Crane said in a thick voice. His left hand rose and fell at his side, still holding a spoon.

"God damn it, tell me where he IS!" Gil roared.

The eye didn't blink. "Why?" Crane breathed, and to Gil's horror he saw a tear slide down to disappear down Crane's left cheek. "Why'd ... do that?"

Fighting down a feeling of frenzied disgust, Gil shook his head. "Why'd he do this? You're asking me WHY?" He coughed out a laugh that sounded much closer to sobbing. "Don't you get it?"

"Puh." Crane licked his lips. A twisted little smile formed. "Perfect. Was. PER-fect."

One of the troopers squatted at Crane's other side. His broad homely face was drawn with shock. "Jesus, leave the guy alone. Can't you see th ..."

"You're an insane little man," Gil said, keeping his gaze locked with Crane's good eye. "And you're going to die here. Was that your perfect plan? Or was Nick supposed to die first? Where is he, Crane? Where'd he go?"

A quiver ran the length of Crane's body, but the smile stayed on his lips. "Nuh. Never fuh- forget me now," he whispered. "Will you."

With a sound of disgust Gil lurched to his feet. "There's another man here," he said harshly, scouring the two troopers with an anguished look. "Here, or somewhere near. I have to find him, he's probably hurt, and ..."

"The guy who did this?" The first trooper stood up as well, his face taking on that flat, calm look so many cops cultivated to good effect. "This is murder, Mr. Grissom ..."

"No," Gil shot back fiercely. "Self-defense. I don't have TIME to explain it, don't you get it, THIS is the kidnapper!"

He didn't wait around for them to register their surprise. Calling Nick's name, he sprinted through the cabin. It wasn't large, and it didn't take long to see that wherever Nick had gone after he made his final play for freedom, it couldn't be here. The first trooper was speaking agitatedly into a radio and there were more lights outside, but Gil didn't care. He skidded out onto the porch, surveying the dark woods with fear so thick in his throat he could taste its acrid flavor.

"Probably made a break for it." The other trooper, older and a little less startled by the turn in events, came up next to him. "That was him? That yell we heard?"

Gil nodded. "It wasn't far," he blurted, staggering off the steps into the wet leaf-covered driveway. "He's here. We just can't SEE him. NICK!"

"Here."

Gil flinched when he felt the trooper's hand on his arm, but took the flashlight and clicked it on. The thin beam of light seemed all too weak against the thick darkness.

"We'll take the right. You go left." The trooper sounded wonderfully calm. "We'll find him."

Casting the flashlight about, Gil wondered about that. The forest around them was hushed, inky-black, and he could clearly hear the voices of other people down the driveway, probably reinforcements arrived after getting the first troopers' calls. None of it mattered.

"Nick?" Gil called, not so loud any longer. "Nicky, honey, just say something. Show me where you are. It's okay now. It's gonna be okay."

He slipped on more wet leaves, but caught himself on a tree branch. There was a hint of a path, there to the left. More of a simple break in the solid line of trees, but it was where he'd have gone, if he'd come barreling out of that cabin himself. He shone the flashlight at the largest tree, and his heart stuttered in his chest. Broken twig, and fresh. Yeah.

It was age-long minutes until he saw another clue. The footprints in the muddy ground, short and then elongated. A skid-mark.

"Nick!"

He saw him a few feet further. Bare leg gleaming pale in the darkness. Mouth dry as paper, Gil slid down the short incline and grabbed another tree trunk to steady himself. "Oh, sweet Jesus," he heard himself moaning. "Nicky."

It didn't register at first that Nick was naked. There was only relief, like a warm blanket around his soul, and its harsher companion: shock. Nick lay sprawled on his side, eyes closed. Gil knelt clumsily, the flashlight's beam jittering in his trembling hand.

"Nicky," he crooned, ghosting his free hand over Nick's slack jaw. "Come on, honey. Wake up. Open your eyes."

Nick's wrists were tied tightly in front of him, and a look at Nick's right leg made Gil's throat close up. This was the source of the scream, then: an untidy break, yellow fading bruises supplanted by the shine of bone from Nick's shattered leg. Of course he'd fallen. Hadn't Gil himself tried to, at least twice already? And Nick had been bound, and running. Running for his life.

He sat down hard and tried to get words past the enormous knot in his throat. "Come on, sweetheart. It's all right now. Everything's all right."

Nick made a thick, questioning noise without opening his eyes, and then coughed. The booming sound chilled Gil's blood in his veins. Revise that: not just a broken ankle. Nick was sick, too. Under Gil's anxious fingers Nick's skin was fiery hot.

And then Nick opened his eyes, and Gil froze.

No recognition there. Nothing but pure, animal terror. Nick coughed again and rolled, thudding up against a tree trunk and drawing a breath that sounded like tearing paper. Not even the pain of his fractured ankle seemed to register. Just fear, and blank determination.

"Nicky," Gil said unsteadily. He didn't dare move. "It's me. Gil. It's okay. It's over, Nicky. It's all over."

Nick gazed at him with flat, shiny eyes, pushing himself up with his bound hands. "Nuh," he whispered, so eerily like Nigel Gil wanted to scream. "No."

Instead of screaming his horror he tried to smile. "Yes. It's gonna be okay, honey. You made it. You did it."

Nick shivered all over, whether from fear or the fever, Gil couldn't have guessed. But the glassy look faltered when he blinked. "You're not here," Nick croaked, breath rumbling audibly in his chest. "You can't be here."

"I am, I swear to God, Nick. I'm right here." His throat felt as if he'd swallowed ground glass. He reached out to touch Nick's right hand. "I got here ... as fast as I could."

Nick's hands were unnaturally hot, not chilled like Gil's, cold in the damp. "No. You're not real."

"Believe it. I'm real, Nicky. I'm real."

Nick coughed, face contorting with discomfort, and sagged a little on the wet carpet of leaves and pine needles. "Guh. Gil."

Oh Jesus God. Now he was seeing other things. The bruises on Nick's face. All over his side, what in God's name had Crane DONE to him? And under all that, so thin, and baking with fever. Gil fought down a surge of useless, choking grief and nodded. "I know," he said thickly. "I'm here, honey."

Using a kind of control he wasn't even sure he still had, he waited to let Nick touch him. Creeping to him, dragging his useless leg behind him as if he didn't really feel it. But a little cry of terrible sadness fought its way out anyway, when Nick laid his head against Gil's chest.

"I'm really tired," Nick said in his rumbly voice, and then stiffened with a wracking series of coughs.

Closing his eyes, Gil wrapped his arms around Nick's shoulders. "I know," he mumbled, feeling the tears squeezing down his cheeks. "I know you are. It's over. Everything's gonna be all right." He sat in silence for a moment, and then added, "State troopers are right over the hill. We need to get you to a hospital, honey."

Nick didn't say anything, a limp hot weight in Gil's arms. But he flinched when Gil called out, and again when the sounds of feet clomping through underbrush reached them.

"It's okay," Gil blurted, feeling Nick's muscles tighten as he tried to sit up. "They're here to help, that's all. That's all, I swear to God."

With febrile strength Nick sat up anyway. Gil's eyes were getting used to the murk; he could see the hectic red on Nick's cheeks easily. "No," Nick said in a flat voice. He regarded his bound wrists with a distant look of annoyance. "No."

"Mr. Grissom?"

It wasn't even that loud, but Nick reacted as if one of them had fired a gun over his head. He barked a short, harsh cry and tried to get to his feet, broken leg dangling.

"Nick, no." Gil shot up, every nerve shrieking. "No, it's okay!" He reached out and Nick uttered another wordless shout and flinched away. Teetered, and would have fallen if Gil hadn't thrown himself at him, catching Nick's reduced frame a lot more easily than he should have.

"NO!" Nick shrieked, writhing with Gil's arms looped around his waist. "Get them AWAY from me!"

Clasping him tight to his chest, Gil said urgently, "It's not Nigel, Nick. Nigel's dead. Remember? These are the good guys. No one's going to touch you, nobody is going to do ANYTHING you don't agree to. I swear to God. I'll make sure of it."

Nick drew a sobbing breath and then stiffened as he coughed. When it was done Gil didn't budge. "But you're going to have to go to the hospital, okay? I'll be with you every single minute. I'm not leaving you. Not for a second. I swear." He cast a searing look over his shoulder. The older trooper met his gaze alertly. "He needs an ambulance."

The man nodded crisply. "Already here."

"Hear that, Nick?" Gil turned back to him, lowering his voice. "You know the drill, okay? But I'm right HERE."

"I want to go home," Nick said hoarsely. But his body was a little more relaxed in Gil's arms. "Take me home."

"I'm going to, just as soon as we make sure you're okay. That's a promise. Can you do this for me? Can you let them take care of you?"

"Don't want to," Nick whispered.

"You don't even have any clothes on, and you're sick, and hurt. You need their help. But I'm right here."

Nick sighed. The sound made Gil's chest hurt. "I thought you weren't going to come. I waited, and you didn't come. And I finally -- I killed him?"

Gil swallowed and hugged him as fiercely as he could allow himself. "You did great, Nicky," he said thickly. "You kicked his ass."

"Yeah. Guess I did."

Gil closed his eyes tightly. "Let's go home, honey."

Chapter Twenty-Four

Gil came home late. Nearly noon, which was pretty much a double shift.

Not that it was that surprising. After their return from Colorado Gil had put off going back to work, until Nick had finally told him in fairly scathing tones that he was driving him nuts sticking around the house all the time, and besides, he had a unit to run. So Gil had hemmed and hawed, and the next night he got his briefcase and headed for the lab.

Understandable that he would stick around longer than protocol actually required, too. He'd been gone a while. People would want news, and to catch him up on things. So Nick got used to the long hours, and found he didn't mind it so much. He had his own crap to take care of, anyway.

He was considering whether or not to just keep on watching mindless tv, or maybe try to take a nap, when Gil finally breezed in.

"Sorry, sorry. Took longer than I planned." He touched Nick's shoulder on the way by, and went straight for the coffee.

"It's all right," Nick said, hitting the mute button on the remote. "Been there, remember?"

Gil came back with a cup of coffee and sat in the chair across from the couch. "So how are you doing today?"

Nick gazed at Gil's concerned face and shrugged. "Doing all right. Kinda bored. Tell me about work."

"The usual, really. Time-consuming, but nothing extraordinary."

"Ordinary's okay."

Gil smiled and sipped his coffee. "Three burglaries, two deaths through misadventure, and one apparent homicide. And a partridge in a pear tree."

Nick summoned up a smile of his own. "Misadventure?"

"Ever heard of the Darwin Awards?"

"People who died in really stupid ways? Yeah, I read a few of those."

"We had a serious candidate tonight."

Nick went on smiling and listening to Gil's description of the guy who hung himself trying to string an antenna from his house to a neighbor's tree, and felt a part of his mind shifting off to the side, observing, commenting. Hadn't seen Gil look this relaxed since ... when? About three months ago? Sounded about right.

It had taken a lot longer to get back to Vegas than either of them had planned. Far from being a simple decision, there had been too damn many complicating factors. That fucking broken leg, for one, which had required some surgery to pin back together again. He was slated to get the cast off in a week or two, and man, that wouldn't be a day too soon.

But it was the human factor that put the real speed bump in the road. Human, as in family.

"Come home, Nick," his father had said, that second day in Nick's cool Denver hospital room. Face twisted with old grief, still looking worried. "We can take care of you there."

He'd still been pretty out of it with painkillers, but he remembered his immediate reaction. "I think I better go back to Vegas, Dad. But thanks."

When his mother got into the act, it got harder. Dad didn't cry, but Mom did. And so did Jamie, which made it even worse. He could resist most of his sisters, but not Jamie. But somehow he stuck by his guns, and a week later the doc pronounced him well enough to travel, so he sent his family back to Texas. They kicked and screamed about it, but there was a weird part of him that simply sat there and wouldn't budge. Vegas was where he wanted to go. Needed to go. And as much as he really did love his family, they were getting on his last nerve. Just wanted to get home, get back in the swing of things, and put this entire shitty episode behind him.

And finally Gil had caved, too, and went back to work. There were visits from friends, which felt awkward in odd ways, constricting. But not unbearable. His various bruises and scrapes healed up, although he had a pink scar on his jaw that might stick around. Sorta rakish-looking, though, he thought privately. Not so bad.

Things were going pretty well, in fact. So what now?

He blinked when Gil waved his hand at him. "Still with me?"

"Yeah. Sorry, just thinking." Nick sighed. "So you gonna crash, or you want something to eat first?"

"I could eat, yeah. What have we got?"

"Want breakfast for dinner?"

Gil smiled. "Sure."

Nick busied himself in Gil's capacious kitchen, gathering various ingredients. Unlike his objection so very long ago to Gil regarding his lack of cooking skills, he wasn't that bad. No Cordon Bleu crap or anything, but he could rustle up some decent grub. By the time the bacon was just curling up in the pan, Gil reappeared, changed into jeans and an ancient UCLA sweatshirt.

Nick cracked eggs into a smaller skillet and looked over at him. "So how'd that thing with Warrick go?"

"The hearing? I think it went really well. At least that's what he told me." Gil freshened his coffee and leaned against the counter. "He asked about you, too," he added with a crooked smile. "Said it was boring with nobody to compete against."

Nick snorted and added a little cheese to the bubbling eggs, keeping an eye on the bacon. "Hey, put that on paper towels, would you?" He lifted his chin at the other pan.

When the bacon was draining and the eggs were just about perfect, Nick stuck four slices of bread in the toaster, and smiled a little when he felt Gil move up behind him.

"This feels so good," Gil murmured, and Nick blinked and the room shattered around him.

"It feels so right, doesn't it?" Nigel puffs in his ear. "Just like I always knew it would."

The red light on the camera is like a baleful blinking eye, watching, documenting everything. Nick's hypnotized by that; he can't look away, even though the thing Nigel's doing to him hurts, hurts bad, good Christ, it feels like he's stuffed a huge red-hot poker into Nick's ass. And it doesn't matter what he does, nothing matters, nothing STOPS it, it just keeps on going, Nigel's horrible languid pleased voice and his hands all over Nick's goddamn body. And the watchful silent eye of the camera, a mechanical observer getting the whole fucking thing in tape.

Nick pulls against the ropes on his wrists and sobs, and thinks if he could only FIGHT, get free and hammer the son of a bitch with his fists until Nigel was nothing but a bloody ruin on the floor, but he can't. Yanks anyway, and the coarse rope bites into his skin, a negligible pain compared to the agony in his goddamn ASS

He was already screaming when the cabin faded back into Gil's clean, airy kitchen, but his mind was still back there, still feeling that weight on him, those hands touching him, and so he reared back and got one hand behind him and PUSHED, and staggered away.

Pans clattered, making him start with fresh fright, and from somewhere in the room Gil's voice grated out a surprised curse and what might have been an anxious question of some kind. But it didn't register, nothing was really registering. The air smelled foul, like sex and shit and mildew, and Nick's gorge rose. He swallowed bile, and navigated out of the kitchen with his hands, his eyes clenched shut.

"Jesus, Nicky," Gil gasped behind him. "What happened?"

Fresh air, he was suddenly lusting for open air, something to clear the stink out of his nostrils, wash away Nigel's SMELL. Wasn't even here, fucker was dead, pushing up daisies, but that was his reek Nick smelled, and his own odor, a cloying sweet miasma of sweat and terror.

Outside on the patio the air was bitter cold, and Nick inhaled until his lungs felt bloated, coughing a little.

"Nick." Gil sounded so strange. Beyond frightened. Soft and bewildered. "Talk to me, Jesus, what just happened?"

His cheeks were cold, and he wiped tears away absently. "I'm okay," he whispered. "I'm okay. I'm okay."

"I'm so sorry. God, I didn't mean to scare you. I just ... I didn't DO anything, and you ..."

Too close. Gil was too goddamn CLOSE, and Nick whirled, every nerve shrieking that same demented chorus of terror. "Don't touch me!" he bellowed, and coughed out a painful sob. "Don't! Stay away from me, you fucker!"

Gil's face looked ghastly in the pallid early morning light. "Okay," he said softly, hands up. "I'm staying over here. Nothing's gonna happen. I promise."

Glaring at him, Nick wrapped his arms around his chest and backed up until his butt hit the patio table. "He wouldn't stop," he gasped, shaking his head. "He just wouldn't STOP. I coulda stopped him. I coulda done more. But I didn't, and he kept on GOING."

"Oh Jesus," Gil said in a faint, high voice. He looked sick, and suddenly old. "Mary, and Joseph."

Nick closed his eyes.

*

He took his time cleaning up the kitchen. Any appetite he'd had before was long since fled, shocked out of him, leaving only the slow acid burn of nausea in his gut.

The eggs had fried onto the heating elements on the stove. He pried what he could off, and regarded the remnants tiredly before simply turning away. It could wait. It could all wait.

In the living room, Nick sat as still as a Grecian tableau, face as blank now as it hadn't been an hour ago. Gil hung back. No more flashbacks, at least none caused by him, no matter how inadvertently.

"Nick?"

Nick's blank eyes wandered slowly up to look at him. "I'm okay," he said hoarsely.

Who are you trying to convince? Me, or yourself? Gil made himself nod. "Want to talk about it?" He edged his way into a chair, feeling like a hunter trying not to scare off a deer.

"No."

"I'm sorry. I didn't ... realize I was sneaking up on you like that. I shouldn't have done it. I'll ..."

"Forget it," Nick said in his hoarse gravelly voice.

Gil closed his mouth and sat very still.

"I'm stronger than he is," Nick added after a moment, eyes flickering down to the floor. "Why didn't I fight more?"

"Oh, Nicky. Please don't do this to yourself."

This time Nick's gaze felt like blistering water sloshed in his face. "Do what?" he snapped. "Don't think about it? Don't think about some fucking pansy loser tying me up and fucking me up the ASS? I coulda broken his neck with one fucking HAND, man! My goddamn SISTER could have kicked his ass!"

"Stop," Gil said hoarsely. "Stop it. You did everything you could do. You KNOW that."

"Do I? Well, hell, you SAW it! You saw what I did. Lay there and fucking TOOK it!"

"He tied you up. How ..."

Nick leaned back on the couch and smacked the back of his head against the wall. The dull meaty sound made Gil's stomach turn. Nick coughed a frozen, bitter laugh. "You know what it feels like to know you SAW that?" His throat worked when he swallowed. "You watch the whole thing, Gil? You get off on it?"

The breath he had just taken left Gil's lungs in a startled whoosh. "What?" he asked stupidly.

Nick turned his head slowly, keeping his fiery, unrecognizable gaze locked on Gil's face. "How many people watched that tape? You give it to Archie, huh? Getting all the gory details? ‘Hmm, let's zoom in on this bit, need a little more detail.'"

"No one saw it but me, Nick," Gil said. His lips felt frozen. "No one did, and no one will. I deleted the file when we got back."

The fury in Nick's eyes faltered, and he looked away. "Whatever."

"Don't do this, don't ... hate yourself. You won, Nick. You got away. Remember that, if you remember anything."

After a moment Nick shrugged. "Yeah," he whispered.

Gil stirred and saw Nick flinch. "Why don't we get some sleep? We're both tired."

"Go ahead. Think I'll just crash out here."

"Nick ..."

"Don't tell me what to do," Nick said in a soft, vehement voice. "I'll decide what I do. Got that?"

Gil nodded carefully. "Got it."

The bedroom felt ghostly without Nick's presence. Even after he lay down, his eyes wouldn't stay closed. Listening, for what he couldn't say. Terribly aware of Nick in the living room, silent, nerves strung so tight Gil could almost hear them, humming like high-tension electrical cables.

At some point he fell asleep, no idea how long. So when Nick screamed, it took Gil a second to figure out if it was a dream, or real.

Another high-pitched yell and he was rolling out of bed, hair standing on the back of his neck. That SOUND, holy Mary mother of God, that awful, horrified SOUND.

When he got to the living room he smelled it. That high acetone reek of flop-sweat, terror, the smell he associated with victims, crime scenes, especially the fresh ones. Heart jittering in his chest, Gil reeled over to the couch.

"Nick. Nick, wake up, honey. Wake up, it's a nightmare."

Nick gave another terrible squawk when Gil's hands touched his arm, and sat bolt upright. For a moment his eyes held nothing of recognition in them; only horror so profound Gil felt his balls clenching, trying to crawl up inside his body. NO ONE should look like that. No one should FEEL like that.

Then Nick's eyes focused, and filled with tears. "Gil," he warbled.

He'd held Nick so few times since they'd come back. Had been afraid to do it, only letting Nick make most of the gestures. And Nick was the one who'd reached for him this time, too, but that didn't matter at all. What mattered was clasping his arms around Nick's bow-tight back, and the welcome, terrible feel of Nick's tears hot and fierce against his neck.

"It's okay," Gil crooned, leaning against the back of the couch and letting his hands make small, slow circles on Nick's back. "You're safe. You're home."

Nick didn't nod, didn't say anything. His arms locked around Gil's neck, and the next sob rippled through him like a seismic surge.

Chapter Twenty-Five

They went out for dinner on Sunday night. It felt like a small victory to Gil: a nice meal, in a social setting, just like normal people. And this Nick was familiar. A breath of times past ... the Nick Gil remembered from months ago, when what was going to happen had yet to come to pass.

"Cheers," Gil said with a smile, and held up his wineglass. He waited for Nick to nod, and then sipped. A good, smoky Chateauneuf du Pape. Delicious.

Midway through his coq au vin, Nick stopped smiling, and Gil felt the tenuous thread of normalcy shivering and fraying.

"You okay?" he asked, setting down his fork.

Nick gazed at some point just to the right of Gil's eyes, and nodded. But he wasn't, and Gil's appetite faded and dissolved.

It wasn't the busy restaurant that had brought the clouds back. Nick didn't struggle with crowds. He always seemed most comfortable around lots of people, weirdly enough. It was something else, possibly a variety of somethings, and Gil felt tired just thinking about what it might be tonight.

"Want to go home?"

Nick drank the rest of his glass of wine and shrugged while he refilled it. "If you want to."

"Let me get the waiter."

After he'd paid for the meal they'd only half-eaten, he watched Nick negotiate the maze of tables on the way out. The cast had come off his leg two weeks ago, but he was still using a cane, slow to trust his newly knitted bones. There were times, like tonight, when Gil wondered about the limp. Real, or fabricated? Either was equally possible.

By the time they got home, Nick had reverted to glassy silence, sitting motionless in the seat until Gil got out, and then following. Passive, waiting to be given instructions that Gil was increasingly reluctant to issue.

And then lashing out, an hour later, as if letting one of his other brand-new, diametrically opposed personalities out of its kennel.

"I didn't say I wanted to leave."

Gil regarded him as calmly as he could. "No, you didn't say anything at all. I wish you had."

Nick's face was flushed, and drawn with sudden ugly anger. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like. You should have said something."

"Look, YOU wanted to go out. Wasn't my idea."

Feeling suddenly exhausted, Gil nodded. "All right, Nick. Have it your way."

Nick followed him into the kitchen, a dogged, familiar stranger at his heels. "Why don't you give me a script next time? Then I can figure out what it is you want me to do, and you can drop this fucking disappointed act."

Gil took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and uncapped it, avoiding Nick's angry gaze. "You don't need a script," he said distantly. "Do what you want. I never asked you to do anything else."

"You want me to leave? Is that it?"

"No. But if you want to leave, I'm not going to stop you."

He risked a glance, and saw hurt, and more anger, and too many other reactions to quantify. "It's your choice, Nick," Gil added. "That's all I mean."

"I didn't say I wanted to leave," Nick retorted furtively.

"Then don't. But I can't keep doing this tonight. I'm tired. You're tired. You think I want to fight with you again? It's all we do."

The flush was gone from Nick's cheeks; he looked exhausted. "I don't want it, either. I'm sorry."

Gil set the water bottle on the counter and walked over to him. Nick kept his eyes on the floor, but reached out, his touch cold, and Gil let him slide his arms around his neck. "Then let's stop," Gil whispered, touching Nick's waist carefully. "All right? Let's stop."

Nick nodded after a moment, and said nothing at all.

That night, standing by the bed, he watched Nick's sleeping face twist with the power of his dreams. Nightmares. Nick hadn't slept a night through since the night of that flashback. Nothing seemed to help. Not Gil, not the medications ... and there were plenty of those these days.

Gil sat down heavily in a chair and swallowed. Medicine couldn't give Nick back what Nigel Crane had taken away. Nor could Gil, or Nick's own family. And these days, all Gil knew was that Nick was a stranger. A stranger with a familiar face, and so many splintered avatars of himself that Gil was no longer sure which was real. If any.

He was desperate for answers. And in Phillip Kane's dim, comfortable living room, two days ago, Gil had asked the question he'd dreaded.

Kane met his gaze squarely. "It's somewhat dissociative behavior, Gil," he replied in a gentle tone. "It's not that uncommon in victims of extreme trauma and prolonged stress."

Gil studied his fingertips without seeing them. "The many faces of Nick?"

"I'm not suggesting true multiple personalities. What I am suggesting is that post-traumatic stress disorder is very, very real, and has many different manifestations. In order to fight the onslaught of memories, the patient pushes them away."

"So how do I help him?"

"Encourage him to get therapy. Be there for him, as much as you're capable. And don't become part of the problem. You didn't create this situation, and you can't solve it, either. You don't get well, Gil. He does. Maybe you can help with that, probably you can. But ultimately it will be his journey."

Perhaps, but for better or worse Gil was along for that ride, wondering when, if ever, Nick would find himself again. The nightmares plagued his sleep, until he began avoiding sleep entirely, spending two or three days in a coffee-stimulated artificially awake state. It only made his paranoia worse, every noise startling him so badly Gil had more than once spent long, terrible hours trying to calm him down again. And when he did finally crash, the nightmares were still there.

A part of Gil's mind, never revealed to Nick, took absent notes of what he increasingly thought of as almost separate identities. Angry Nick, whose tirades left Gil feeling as if his skin had been flayed from his bones. The grieving Nick, rarely allowed to surface when Gil was around but sometimes creeping out in quiet moments, revealed in terrible flashes of tears and an appalling level of self-hatred. Flagellating himself, cursing his own inability to have stopped what Crane did, a terrible rain of self-abnegation that made Gil feel simultaneously angry and helplessly grief-stricken.

And the robot, of course. The Nick who was a distant observer, cool and remote and all the more disturbing for showing no response at all to anything, good or bad.

He thought perhaps it was only that the real Nick was in there someplace, as well, that kept Gil from walking away himself. Hated himself for the impulse, but he had to accept that it was there. Nick was the walking wounded, and being around his continuing pain and rage took a terrible toll. Love was not enough. Not when Nick loathed himself with such agonized ferocity.

But there were times, like earlier that night, when Gil felt as if there was hope, after all. Times when Nick seemed almost comfortable, as relaxed as he ever got in this post-Nigel Crane era in their relationship. And if there was no return to physical intimacy, at least there was communication.

Now, in the near-dark, he watched Nick's hands knot into the sheet, sweat shining on his brow, and finally got up. Playing out as it always did: Nick's indrawn breath, a muffled cry of horror, and Gil, waiting for Nick's eyes to open, recognize him, see that it was just a dream. And wonder if this, too, was only another fantasy.

*

Winter took him by surprise. Always seemed to do that. Enjoying fall, not quite so roasting hot as usual, and then without transition, overnight, a kind of harsh, biting cold that felt like a smart slap in the face.

This particular freeze took the trees by surprise, too. Driving, he saw perfect circular piles of leaves around the tree trunks. Some were fall-colored, but a lot were still green, lying there like big verdant "O's" of botanic shock.

He stopped at a traffic light and closed his eyes, rolling down the window and relishing the needling wind on his face. No snow, of course, but the cold was refreshing. Knifing through the fog in his mind, bringing him right there, in the moment.

A few blocks further he pulled into the parking lot. As always, there were plenty of spaces. Not a lot of folks here this time of day, and as far as Nick was concerned, that was just fine.

Not too long after that he sat down in the familiar comfortable leather chair, and drew a deep breath.

"So how are you, Nick?"

Brautigan was looking even more casual today than his usual. Wrinkled henley shirt, jeans that could use a wash. But it all felt so familiar. Terribly so.

"All right," Nick said.

"Sleep all right?"

He shrugged. "About the same."

Brautigan's amiable smile faded into an even more familiar expression: vague concern. "Nightmares?"

Nick looked past his shoulder, at the window. The brief spate of wintry sunshine had gone away, and the city outside now looked washed out, grubby gray, like underwear gone too many times through the washer and dryer. "What do you think?" he asked distantly.

"Not every ..."

"When is this going to start helping?" He kept watching the gray day outside, wishing with part of his mind for more sunshine. "That's what I'm here for, right? Help? So when does it start making a difference?"

"Are we on a timetable here?"

It was meant lightly, probably, but it hit him hard, the way so many things seemed to these days. He gazed at Brautigan and watched the last of the professional smile disappear entirely. "Yes," Nick said baldly. "I want my life back. If you can't help me with that, then I need to find someone who can."

Brautigan stirred, blinking slowly. "I'm your therapist, Nick," he replied evenly. "Not a magician. I can't wave a wand and make things the way they were. It's only been two weeks. All I can do is help you move forward. And that's what you're doing."

"I can't remember what it felt like," Nick said after a moment. "Before. I can't remember what it was like to sleep. To not ... wake up, and think, There it is again. It's all still there."

"It will be there. You can't erase it."

"Then what the fuck good are YOU?" Nick said harshly.

Brautigan sat back. "You mad at me? Because I can't do more?"

"I don't give a fuck about you."

"Then who are you mad at?"

Nick shifted restlessly, feeling an ache in his bones that had nothing to do with the weather change. "We went out for dinner last night," he said.

"And?"

"Nothing, I guess. I'm not sure why Gil puts up with all this shit. It's not his problem." Nick looked back out the window.

"What happened last night?"

"I think I'm going to leave."

Brautigan's homely face finally registered a little surprise. "You've only been here a few minutes. Why don't you stay? I think you need to stay."

Nick turned back to him and shook his head slowly. "No," he said, registering a distant sense of wonder. "No, I think you don't know what I need." He stood up and suddenly felt like smiling. "Nobody does."

Now the shrink looked definitely uneasy. "Then tell me. Work with me, Nick, I'm on your side."

Now that his mind was made up, he felt oddly solicitous. "It's okay. I know you probably do know what you're doing. But this isn't gonna cut it for me. Thanks anyway."

He already had his hand on the doorknob when Brautigan spoke again. "Give it some thought. You can talk to me any time you want. I'll be here."

Nick smiled a little, facing the door. "I'm done talking, I think."

Outside he took another deep breath of the bracing air, and found the smile still on his face.

Chapter Twenty-Six

"Tell me you're not saying what you just said."

Gil sat back and stared at Brass, who looked desperately uncomfortable, in an impassive sort of way. "I don't make the rules, Gil," he said slowly. "I just enforce ‘em."

"This is one rule that should be thrown out the window," Gil snapped, shaking his head. "And you know that. Jesus God, where does it all end? When does he get to stop paying for someone else's criminal acts?"

"Look, if it were up to me, you know it'd be different." Now Brass looked noticeably unhappy. Not quite meeting Gil's eyes, although he tried. "I'm sorry."

"That doesn't help."

"I know. Best I can do." After a silent moment he got up and walked heavily away.

He tried Nick on his cell phone, but got nothing. Par for the course; Nick didn't answer more than half the time. But the prickle of fear was immediate and impossible to shake off.

He bumped into Catherine in the hallway, and didn't even look at her to apologize. Just beat it to his office, where he stood looking around wildly, no clue what he had come here to do.

"What's wrong?"

Gil flicked Catherine a glance and shook his head. "Just gets better and better. I need to run an errand. Cover for me?" He reached out to pick up his coat.

When he looked at her again she was leaning against the door jamb, hands in her pockets. Her face was grim. "Nick?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

He shrugged into his coat, hands already starting to shake. Damn. "His shrink called Jim and told him Nick fired him today."

She blinked. "He fired his psychiatrist? When did Nick start seeing a shrink?"

"It's required," Gil said briefly. "He has to have a clean bill of mental health before he can come back to work."

"And he fired him. Which means --"

"Yeah. Which means." He considered grabbing his briefcase, and then let it go. "I'll be back after a while. Call me if. You know."

Catherine nodded slowly. "Of course. I know."

The clouds had finally begun spitting out an apathetic sort of half-rain, half-ice mixture, and the roads were treacherous. Not below freezing quite yet, but it was dark, and it occurred to him that one thing neither he nor Nick needed was Gil laid up in an ER because he had a wreck on slick streets. He toned it down, chewed the inside of his lip, and made it home within half an hour.

He walked in on a much bigger storm than the one half-assedly brewing outside.

"Nick?" Gil called, thunderstruck.

The front room was messy. Not completely trashed, but well on the way. CDs strewn around, no order, as if someone had gone through them, looking for something, and just walked away when they did or didn't find it. Nick's coat lay on the couch where he'd evidently thrown it, not bothering with the hall closet. Books on the coffee table, a notebook, other things Gil didn't take the time to identify. His heart sped up, instant shock reaction.

"Nick!" he bellowed, and heard something hit the floor in the bedroom. When he got there, he just stopped. Clothes everywhere, Jesus, had Nick just thrown the whole contents of both their wardrobes everywhere? Couldn't even tell what was his and what was Gil's anymore.

And then Nick came out of the bathroom, holding his black toiletries bag, and Gil felt as if he'd suddenly taken a stiff jab to the solar plexus. What, had he been just saying how Nick needed to pass a psych evaluation? This man looked as on the edge as anyone Gil had ever seen, which was saying something. Hair mussed and spiked as if Nick had spent an hour running his fingers through it and then just left it as is. And his face, dear Jesus, that expression. A mix of rage, and terror, and something even darker Gil couldn't even begin to name.

Nick stopped short when he saw him, what color he had draining from his cheeks. And then shook his head sharply, as if telling himself something. He zipped the bag and threw it on the bed.

"Nick, what's going on?" Gil asked strengthlessly. "What are you doing?"

Nick didn't look at him, face clenching with another spasm of fear/anger/something else. Visibly trembling, he shook his head.

"Please, honey, talk to me. Come on, let's go in the living room. Sit and --"

"Don't order me around!" Nick shrieked, voice high and terrible. "Don't tell me what to do!"

Swallowing, Gil put up his hands. "I'm suggesting, not ordering. I swear. If you don't want to --"

"You don't know." Nick rubbed his hand over his hair, and Gil noted exactly how it had gotten in the shape it was in. "Why do people keep telling me to do things when they don't KNOW?" He barked a high, sharp laugh. "Blind leading the motherfucking BLIND! I don't need your HELP."

"Then would you -- tell me what's going on? Please? Nick, Jim told me you aren't going to see Brautigan anymore, and look, we can find another psychiatrist, you know that. But all this --" Gil broke off, panting a little. "Jesus."

Nick gave him a brittle smile. "I want a beer." He brushed past him, quick-stepping out of the room.

Feeling like a dazed child following a seriously unstable Pied Piper, Gil trailed after him. Watching him get a beer out of the fridge and take one swallow before setting it aside and visibly forgetting it was even there. Pacing into the living room, brushing his hand over the pile of CDs, taking it back to scrub his matted hair again.

"That guy was a moron," Nick said abruptly, stopping behind the couch. His stillness was all the more disconcerting when compared to the earlier activity. "That's not going to help me."

"What is, Nick?" Gil took a pair of careful steps in his direction. "Tell me what will help. I'll make it happen."

"You CAN'T make it happen! Don't you see? Aw, FUCK, nobody fucking GETS IT!"

"So explain it to me. Tell me what I'm missing here."

Nick swallowed, and shook his head. "I can't," he said in a softer voice. "And you don't see that, either, do you?" He paused, and then produced another awful smile, so desperately sad Gil's throat hurt to see it.

"What were you doing, tonight? Before I got here?" Gil glanced around the messy room. "Were you looking for something? At least I can try to help you find it."

"You know what Nigel said to me? That night the psychic guy came to my apartment?" Nick kept staring at nothing, voice steady and tired. "He said he wore my clothes because -- he couldn't remember which were mine and which were his." His jaw tensed. "And I was looking through all this -- this STUFF, and all of a sudden I didn't know, either. What's mine and what's yours. I mean, I looked in the closet and I couldn't remember. Some of it's mine, but I can't TELL."

"I can --"

"No." Nick shook his head slowly. "That's -- not it. Not all of it. I don't know."

Throat tight with useless grief, Gil said, "I don't, either, Nick. I wish to God I did. I don't know how to help. But I want to. I want -- to do what you need me to do. Tell me what that is."

Nick's face worked, lips trembling. "I have no idea. I don't even know who I fucking am anymore." He glanced at Gil. "You don't, either."

It hurt, and worse because a big part of him knew Nick had it right. "No," Gil said softly. "I probably don't."

Nick reached up and touched his tousled hair. "Go back to the lab. I'll be okay."

"Jesus, Nicky."

"No, you fucking GO!" Nick spat, face going red. He stood up straighter. "You go, because that's what you DO. And I'm gonna stay here and do what I do and be whoever the fuck I am, and that's the way things are, get it? Just leave -- me -- ALONE."

"Okay." Gil forced himself to nod. "All right, I'll go. If that's what you want."

Nick's face twisted again with that same grief, but his voice was harsh. "For what it's worth, yeah. That's what I want."

*

He never knew how he got through that night. Afraid to call, afraid not to call. Wanting to go back home, and not daring. The dichotomy made his head hurt, and his heart hurt worse.

Catherine stopped by not long before the end of their shift, looking tired and almost as worried as Gil felt. "What's going on, Gil?" she asked quietly, shutting the office door behind her. "How's Nick?"

The question had no answer. He took off his glasses and held them in his hands, staring at them without seeing them. "Not good," he said in a hollow voice.

"Why don't you go home? We've got it all wrapped up here, it's not like --"

"He doesn't want me there."

Her expression was almost comically surprised, and he found a small, grim smile on his face. "I think," he added slowly, "maybe he needs some space. And I can't refuse him that. I'm not helping him."

Catherine sank down into a chair. "Talk to me, Gil. I know I can't help, either, not really. But -- you can talk to me."

This time the smile didn't feel quite as grim. "I know, and I appreciate that." He set the glasses on his desk. "I don't know what to say. I'm out of answers. I've spent my entire life on the outside, looking in. Nick needs more than that. And I can't give it to him."

"You just about killed yourself finding him. I'd call that giving."

"That was the easy part," Gil said softly.

They sat in silence for a moment. "I'm sorry," Catherine said finally. "I know it isn't much. But I'm sorry."

"I know. I am, too."

He finally left sometime after dawn. The rest of his crew had already cleared out, and the place was filling up with day-shifters, with cups of coffee and sleepy eyes and bits of conversation: what did you guys do last night, did you hear about, what happened with, I can't believe he. None of it made any sense. Nothing made sense any longer.

In a life filled with so much self-imposed solitude, he had never felt as alone as he did now, in the midst of all these people.

The weather had cleared a little, and the brittle white sunshine made him wince and grope for his sunglasses. He turned on NPR and didn't listen, instead watching the cars, the way the traffic worked itself into constant, shifting patterns, like a kind of jerky modern choreography so complex it took distance to make it out. Fractals of automobiles. Hypnotizing.

He shook himself out of it in time to make his exit, and rolled the window down to clear his head. It made him colder, but his brain still felt foggy, sludgy, just a bunch of neurons firing in idiotic bursts, conveying no information at all.

Nick's car wasn't parked in its usual space in front of the house. He thought he knew, then. But his numb fingers took the keys from the ignition, and shut the Tahoe's door behind him. Inside, the house was neater, CDs mostly put away, Nick's coat gone. In the closet?

"Nick?" he called, not loudly. Just saying the name, questioning the silent air. No reply. Empty houses felt empty. Empty houses knew when they were empty, and whispered their loneliness, if you only listened.

The clothes were gone, too. Not perfectly neatened, but definitely not the maelstrom of -- what? Only a few hours ago? No.

In the kitchen he found the note. Tucked up under the coffee grinder. Nick would know that that was Gil's first stop when he got home. Good cup of coffee, not to wake up, but to relax. Feel like work was done.

There wasn't much to it. It only took half a minute to read. And then Gil looked up, and saw Nick's abandoned beer on the counter.

"Oh, Nicky," he whispered. Useless acid tears stung his nose. "Please, no."

In the bedroom closet, Nick's duffel bag was missing. And the clothes he couldn't tell from Gil's, gone. Gil wavered over to the bed and sat down hard.

"Don't follow me," the note had said. As if Nick were speaking the words to him, he heard that voice. That Texas-flavored tone, misleadingly soft, like covering steel with velour. "I have to do this. It doesn't matter if you don't understand. Just trust me, and let me do what I need to do."

Gil lay back without planning it. Memorized words playing like a tape loop in his weary mind.

"Crazy as it sounds," in Nick's crabbed handwriting, "I do love you. But I'm tired of being crazy. N."

The pillow smelled like Nick. Gil pressed his nose against the pillowcase and closed his eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

He didn't realize it was Thanksgiving until very late in the day. Too busy trying to stay warm. He'd thought he knew what cold was, before; after all, strange as it sounded to those unfamiliar with bizarre Texas weather patterns, Dallas got its share of ice and occasional snow. But this was arctic cold, almost: bitter, unending cold, sinking icy claws into his very bones. At least at the moment. And he was pretty sure it would get worse before it got better.

His Thanksgiving dinner was a little off, but not much. Roast duck, and something that was almost dressing, even if there wasn't any sage in it. The restaurant featured a few items for those whose Thanksgiving holiday fell much later in the year than most, and he didn't have any trouble ordering.

Outside the window, the first few flurries of snow bustled while he finished his dinner, sipping a rather sour glass of wine. Not many patrons, which suited him just fine. After all, late November wasn't exactly the height of the tourist season. In fact he wasn't sure Manitoba HAD a tourist season, but regardless, this wouldn't be it. And Thanksgiving had come and gone more than a month ago in this country.

He ordered a cup of coffee by pointing at it on the menu, and drank it watching the soupy darkness swoop down outside. It got dark early, and between that and the snow, he'd probably better head back to the hotel soon. Only a couple of blocks, but it wouldn't be a pleasant stroll. The waitress took his money, still smiling a little nervously at his silence, and gave him some change. He left it all on the table.

No one was about as he hustled back. Hands dug deep in his pockets, resolving that tomorrow he'd get a better hat. Something that covered his ears, which right now were so cold he wondered if he could just snap his earlobes off if he tried. Not that he did. Ugh.

His room had a fireplace, one of the reasons he'd chosen this place. And once he had a decent fire going, it felt amazingly comfortable. Decent room, some warmth, good food in his belly -- he wasn't that picky any longer. This would do.

Toasting his feet as close to the fire as he could get and not set them aflame, he let his eyes drift over the room's few furnishings, and his mind drift much further away than that.

Hadn't been such a hard decision, where to go. Hell, he figured Gil probably knew where he was. Well, at least the country. But the eastern part of Canada felt too raw now, too much of a reminder of the last time he'd hit the road, cut out, boogalooed his way the hell out of Dodge. So instead of that, he went pretty much due north, skating a little through Saskatchewan before finding himself in neighboring Manitoba.

Right now, his family would be recovering from one of his mother's spectacular Thanksgiving dinners. Turkey, not duck. Sweet potatoes, some obligatory vegetables like a penance for all the other stuff. A million desserts. Pecan pie flavored with Kahlua. Pumpkin pie with a taste of bourbon in the whipped cream. More than that. There'd be a million people there, of course. All the kids, and just that would have made a crowded table, but there were spouses, and grandkids, and idly he estimated that was probably somewhere around twenty-five people, give or take. Everyone came to Highland Park for Thanksgiving. Didn't matter if you had to fly 4,000 miles to do it; it wasn't a holiday you missed.

But he was missing it. For the first time in his life, no noisy crowded meal in his parents' house. He hadn't completely deserted. He'd called this morning, and spoken for a short time with his mom and dad. Voice rusty, a little from emotion, a lot more because he didn't talk much these days. Didn't talk at all if he didn't absolutely have to. Muteness was oddly liberating. He could listen, but no one expected him to say anything. And he didn't have anything to say, so that was cool.

Listening to the logs crack and pop in the fire, he wondered if he was going to feel lonely. Should. Holidays were for family, right? Except he didn't feel lonely. Alone, yes, by choice, but not uncomfortable. Just -- calm. No pressures at all.

When the fire had burned down to comfortable red embers, he stripped off his jeans and sweater and crawled into bed. Kept his socks on. Damn feet were still cold, even after roasting by the fire for an hour. He wasn't really sleepy. But it felt good to bundle up, about five blankets lying heavy and hugging him.

The calm was new. He'd been on the road now, what? Three weeks? Closer to four now. And it was only here in this Manitoba town that he'd reached anything like equilibrium. And not too confident of that, either, because he'd had calm moments before, and lost them. Swept away in seconds, when weird waves of panic came out of nowhere, no easier to fight for all that they were so fucking familiar these days. There were whole days when he felt nothing at all but anger. A kind of black, tinfoil-biting rage that made him a reckless driver, flooring the accelerator and flipping the bird to anyone who slowed him down.

And long spaces, when memories of all that had happened over the past three months came back and there wasn't anything he could do but endure them, try slowly to wrap his mind around them and still keep moving.

Oddly, the thing that occurred to him more and more often lately was a byproduct of those memories. No one could understand what had happened. He thought he did, at least a little, now, but the shrink really couldn't. Gil couldn't. As much as Nick believed he'd tried -- probably tried as hard as he damn well could -- it just couldn't happen.

But it was against his better judgement to leave Canada that first time, he recognized that now. Not because he feared Nigel so much then. No, he hadn't had a clue what real fear had felt like, back then. But it hadn't been time to leave yet, and as much as he could never regret the time spent with Gil, that heady, disbelieving, often uncomfortable and just as frequently eye-opening time, he couldn't forget that, either.

Gil hadn't understood why he'd cut and run, and it was only now that Nick was beginning to, himself.

So here he was, back in Canada. Wondering at the wisdom of traveling in what was rapidly becoming dead winter, but here nevertheless.

He slept heavily, no dreams for once, and awoke to brilliant sunshine. Padding over to the window, he looked out at a complete change in the weather, last night's snow already quickly melting under the gleaming sun.

Might have been the weather, probably was, but it put a lift to his step that hadn't been there in a long time. In the tiny breakfast room, he ate cereal and pondered the atlas he carried. Move on? Stick around here? His money wasn't exhausted, but it wasn't as if he were made of cash, either. Holidays, everybody could use some extra help. He wondered if they'd need him to talk much. Well, he could still do that. Just didn't much feel the urge on his own.

He was already back in his room, considering if he had anything appropriate to wear for a job hunt, when he remembered this was Canada. No work visa, no permits of any kind. Did they even require such things? No idea.

Staring at passably clean khakis, he decided to give it a shot anyway. Worst they could say was, No citizen, no visa, no job, right? Wasn't like it would cost him anything either way.

At about eleven he saw a help-wanted sign in the window of a liquor store, and walked in. The only employee he saw was a man, probably sixty if he was a day, who looked a little tired and grumpy. But he gave Nick a workaday smile. "Help you?"

"I was going to ask you that, sir." Nick put on a smile of his own. "Still hiring?"

The man's smile slipped into something a little more believable: relief, and curiosity. "Matter of fact, yeah," he said, leaning on the counter. "You a crook?"

Nick blinked. "Nossir. Too damn honest, I've been told."

"Huh. Can you work nights?"

"Any hours you want."

"American, eh?"

"Yessir. I'm just looking for some work to get me through the holidays, if you want the truth."

The man nodded slowly. "Always close up after New Year's for a couple weeks anyway. Get the hell out of here, defrost someplace south. Got any references?"

"Nossir. Not here."

"No work permit either, I don't guess."

Nick felt his face heating up, and wanted to roll his eyes at himself. "Nossir. No permits."

"Just drifting through town? Where you staying?"

"The Belle Fleur."

"I find you stealing anything, I'll kick your ass. Or get my son to do it." That smile revealed yellowed teeth. "Folks say I'm mean, but I ain't nowhere near as mean as him."

"I'm not gonna steal anything from you. I just wanted to pick up some extra cash. I promise."

"Work three till closing. Closing's eleven, or whenever the place empties out. Don't look like much right now, but it'll pick up later, believe me." The man paused, regarding him intently, and then stuck out a calloused hand. "Ralph O'Rourke."

Nick took his hand and pumped it briefly. "Nick Stokes."

"Got an accent on ya."

He smiled. "Texas. It kinda stuck."

"Well, Texas, come back at three, I'll show you the register, and you show me you can do a decent day's work. Pay's once a week, if you last. Long as you don't have any objections, that'll be cash. Easier on both of us."

"Cash works just fine, Mr. O'Rourke."

The yellow teeth showed again in a surprisingly humorous grin. "Mr. O'Rourke. Hah. See you at three, Texas."

"Thank you, yessir."

*

He worked six days a week at the store. It was pretty hard work, he found; O'Rourke hadn't been kidding about the crowds. Between hauling out crates of bottles and restocking, waiting on a whole lot more customers than he would ever have thought possible in a town this size, and basically being on his feet from three in the afternoon to about midnight, at the earliest, he was hurting for the first week.

But hard work had one thing definitely going for it: You didn't have much time to mope around when you ran your ass off all day.

There were some bad moments, admittedly. He'd thought maybe the dreams -- face it, nightmares -- were maybe done, but a week after starting his job he woke up in the middle of the night screaming, and flailed around for Gil for maybe five full minutes before finally realizing Gil wasn't there. Nobody was there. He didn't go back to sleep that night. And most nights were some variation thereupon, after that. Back to the grind, but in the daytime he could pretend, because nobody knew the truth. If his boss noticed the raccoon rings under Nick's eyes, at least he didn't say anything.

By the time the snow got serious, he'd learned how to handle most of the work. He only called O'Rourke by his family name about two more days, and then O'Rourke -- who owned and ran this pseudo-family establishment pretty much by himself most of the year -- gruffly told him to call him Ralphie, since that was what everybody else called him and he was likely to look around wondering who Nick was referring to if he didn't as well. So Ralphie it was, and he wasn't a bad boss. Pretty content to let Nick do the heavy work, while he sat behind the counter and talked. And could the guy talk. Good thing Nick was into listening these days.

"You don't say much, do ya?" Ralphie asked, one Tuesday afternoon when the heavy snow was keeping all but the most die-hard brandy fans out of the store.

Nick put away the last two bottles of cheap-ass sparkling wine and straightened, rubbing his back. "My mom always said listening was a virtue," he replied with a crooked smile.

That made Ralphie just about fall off his stool laughing. "You'll be a candidate for sainthood pretty soon, then."

He didn't say much, that was true. Not much to say. He was cordial with customers, and carefully polite to Ralphie's son. George O'Rourke was big, big, big, tall and just about as far around, and even louder than his father, although without nearly as much interesting to say. As Ralphie had mentioned in Nick's first sorta-interview, George was mean. Didn't take a nuclear physicist to see that much for himself. He was the kind of guy who used his mouth to inflict hurt when he was in public, but probably didn't hesitate any longer than it took to make a fist in private before dishing out an entirely different kind of pain. His pale, desperately meek wife only appeared once, when George had to fill in a few hours at the store. Brought his supper, and didn't flinch at George's rapid-fire castigation of her cooking skills, appearance, and finally her utter lack of a functioning brain.

Witnessing that made Nick feel almost hallucinogenically angry, so after barely keeping himself from slugging the fat asshole so hard he'd hit the street and bounce on his lardy ass, he stayed out of George's way as much as possible. Not sticking around, wasn't like he LIVED here or anything, and what, did he think he could really take a guy who outweighed him by a good 100 pounds, with fists approximately the size of beachballs? Nope, don't court trouble. Just get some cash, earn your run-out money, and don't make too many waves doing it.

Christmas was two ticking days away when Molly Gottfried walked in.

Nick had the store to himself that evening, as it happened. Business was brisk but not killing him yet, and he was mulling over whether to stay through New Year's or maybe just bail after X-mas and see where the roads were clearest, when someone cleared a throat in front of him.

"Oh," Nick said dopily. "Sorry. Can I help you?"

The woman smiled, and Nick thought the expression turned a pleasant face into an almost beautiful one. "I need a few things I don't see in stock," she told him. "Champagne, for one. Not this stuff."

"Real champagne." Nick found himself smiling, too. "Keep it in the back. Anything in particular?"

"Dom, if you have it."

He hadn't sold a bottle of that since he started. "Sure. One?"

"Three, please."

He got the champagne for her, and then several bottles of wine not quite as expensive but no Raspberry Ripple, either. When he finally had all her purchases lined up on the counter, he tried not to wince at the total, and took her credit card.

"I don't recognize you," the woman ... her card said her name was Molly ... said. Her eyes were almost gold, he saw. Hazel, but they looked gold to him. "You're American?"

He nodded and waited for the machine to spit out her receipts. "Texan, but lived a few other places."

"Molly Gottfried."

"Nick Stokes." Her hand was cool and firm in his own. She had a wedding ring on, he noted. "Nice to meet you. Haven't seen you, either."

She took the receipts and signed one of them. "I live in Toronto, actually. But this is home. My parents are still here."

"Home for the holidays, then," he said, feeling a little stupid again.

"Yes. Thank you for your help." She gave him another smile, this one really gorgeous. "Happy Christmas."

"Me ... Happy Christmas to you. Hey, you want me to give you a hand with those?"

"Sure. My husband would kill me if I dropped the Dom."

He carried her wine to her car, a new Expedition, and set it in the back. When he finished, Molly was studying him with a little too much curiosity. "Help you with anything else?" Nick asked.

"I'm sorry, I was staring. I do that." Her cheeks took on a little more color, but her eyes were still serious. "This may seem a little out of left field, but do you have plans for Christmas dinner?"

He blinked. "Well. Nuh, no. No, I don't. But ..."

"Why don't you join us? Just the four of us, my husband and my folks."

"Y-you don't even know me," he stuttered.

She gifted him with another luminous smile. "I'm a great judge of character," she replied lightly. "Our house is listed under my father's name. Gottfried, only one in the book. I didn't take my husband's name," she added, still smiling. "Christmas Day, noonish. Come if you want."

He made himself nod, and realized that he was one step away from crying. Stupid, but his throat had a lump in it the size of Nevada. "S-sure. I'll do my best."

When she touched his hand, he nearly lost it completely. "I hope so," Molly said in a low voice, brow creased. "You shouldn't be alone at Christmas."

"No," he agreed in a strangled voice. "I'll ... be there."

"Wonderful. I'll look forward to it."

He waited until he couldn't see the big black SUV before stirring and realizing he was freezing his ass off. Inside the store he warmed his hands up under the tap in the dingy bathroom, and then blew his nose a couple of times. Staring at himself in the mirror, he saw someone else's face.

Throat tight with tears, he whispered, "Merry Christmas, Gil."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"You like?"

Nick looked up from his loaded plate and nodded, mouth too full to talk. Joyce laughed, and even though he was blushing enough to set his face on fire, he didn't mind that they all laughed. It wasn't mean laughter. In fact, he was pretty sure there wasn't a mean body between the four people he was having this odd Christmas dinner with.

He tried not to just wolf down his food, and kept listening while they talked. Joyce and Robert Gottfried were not that far from his own parents' ages, and it felt incredibly nice to just be around family. Even if it wasn't his own.

He'd arrived pretty much at the stroke of noon, feeling ridiculous and carrying the fruitcake he'd furtively had overnighted from Corsicana. Paid way too much, but he couldn't bring booze, and he had no idea what else to get, so there you had it. A hulking man answered the doorbell, and introduced himself as Brad Josephson, Molly's husband. His handshake nearly crushed Nick's fingers, but his grin was all welcome, with no questions at all.

There wasn't that much chitchat before the meal, but they didn't seem to be restraining themselves just because he was there, so he didn't worry too much. And then there was about a truckload of the best home-cooked food he'd had since his last time at his mom's table.

"We're the Law & Order couple," Brad told him through a mouthful of turkey. "She's the lawyer, I'm the cop."

Nick nodded gamely. "Toronto, right?"

"Yeah. What business are you in?"

Nick sipped the wine he'd sold Molly two days ago -- and she had good as well as expensive taste, because it was just about the best wine he'd ever had -- and cleared his throat. "None at the moment, I don't guess." He smiled awkwardly. "Kinda looking around at the moment."

Brad nodded, his brown eyes taking it all in with that easy cop authority Nick was very familiar with. "Looking this side of the border?"

"I like Canada. I don't know, I just ended up here again."

Molly looked up. "Again?"

His face got hot once more. "I was here a couple of months ago. Nova Scotia, mostly."

"Just traveling for fun, or business?"

He couldn't think how to answer that, so he settled for a lame, "Just wandering around, mostly. Fun."

Molly's mom changed the subject after a moment, and Nick delved back into his food, thankfully. When the meal was finally done, Joyce shooed them into the living room and flatly refused to have anyone get up to help -- as she said, "I'm not cleaning yet, just making coffee, so stop looking guilty." And the coffee was just as great as the dinner.

But finally he felt them looking at him again, even though there weren't any more questions at the moment, and he started feeling just a little edgy.

"By the way, I heard congratulations are in order," Robert rumbled in his very deep voice. Nick followed his gaze to look at Brad, who had a dopily pleased expression on his face.

"Not chief yet," Brad replied, ducking his head a little, and then wincing when Molly elbowed him. "Cracked a big case. Didn't even do the hard work myself; a lot of that credit goes to the lab."

"Don't sell yourself short." Robert sipped his coffee, but his eyes were focused on his son-in-law. "That man killed six women. Knew it was a case that could make your career."

"It was all ballistics, trust me."

Molly glanced over at Nick. "Sorry. My dad's a retired police officer, and they tend to talk shop."

"It's okay." Nick smiled. "I was a cop myself, a while back."

That got everyone's attention; he suddenly felt like a spotlight had been trained on him. "Really?" Molly asked, eyebrows lifting. "Where?"

"Dallas. But I switched over to criminalistics after a few years."

Her smile was slow and weirdly triumphant. "I knew you weren't just a liquor store clerk," she pronounced.

Brad looked happily astonished. "You're a crime scene investigator? You're shitting me."

"No, man, that's what I do." Nick's smile faltered. "You know, before I came here," he added awkwardly.

"Well, hell, come to Toronto," Brad said instantly. "I bet between Molly and me, we could get you fixed up."

The faintest prickle of dark anxiety made Nick's stomach turn over. "I appreciate it. I don't ..." He broke off when the prickle gained strength. "I'm kinda taking ... a break," he mumbled, feeling sweat pop out on his forehead. Aw, hell. Do NOT lose it here, Nicky boy. Not now.

"It's tough work," Molly said evenly, her eyes too knowing.

"Every time I'm at the lab I hear about how understaffed they are." Brad was actually leaning forward now, like a bulldog just getting his jaws around a big bone. "You got training, you got experience ... I mean, what are the odds?"

Two things popped silently and instantaneously into his mind. First, these were nice people, and it would suck to ruin the good holiday mood. And second, he was about to, if he didn't get the hell out of this room pronto. "I think all that great food just hit me," Nick said, stomping on the panic. His smile felt jittery and fake as hell.

Molly had a hand on her husband's arm, and Brad looked back and forth at them like a tennis spectator. "Bathroom's down the hall, second door on the right," she said smoothly.

Less than a minute later he closed the door, and sat on the closed toilet seat of Joyce Gottfried's immaculate bathroom for his first panic attack of the holiday season. Ride it out, Nicky, remember what Gil used to say about this shit. It's not REAL. And even when the claws loosened on his throat, and the apocalyptic delusion crept away, still hissing angrily, he couldn't get it all back together at first. His reflection in the mirror showed him a guy two steps ... small steps ... from entirely losing it. Tears, green face, the whole nine fucking yards.

He splashed water on his face, kept on breathing, now that he felt as if he could do that again. Flushed the toilet after a minute, since that was his excuse for being in here in the first place.

They're nice people. Very nice people. And they don't know you. So be nice back, thank them for their kindness to a really fucked-up stranger, and get the fuck OUT of here.

When he wandered back into the living room, he was greeted by a quartet of too-polite smiles. Way to cover your ass, right? Place practically smelled awkward.

"Guess I should hit the road," Nick said with a smile no less forced than the ones he saw. "Thank you for dinner. I really appreciate it."

He shook hands with Brad and Robert, and then Joyce, who clasped her other hand over his and pressed it hard. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Nick," she told him warmly. "I hope we'll see more of you."

He nodded gamely and turned to get his coat.

"I'll walk you out," Molly said mildly, holding it out.

Outside the light had taken on a dusky tone, and he glanced at his watch, amazed at how late it had gotten.

"I'm sorry Brad made you uncomfortable." Molly jammed her hands into her pockets, squinting up at him. "He gets pretty enthusiastic."

"It's okay. I'm sorry if I freaked you out."

"You didn't."

He ducked his head. "Thank you for sharing your Christmas with me. That was ... pretty special."

"Well, you struck all of us as a pretty special guy."

"Not so much."

"Something happened, didn't it?" she asked softly. "Back in the states."

He slowed, avoiding her eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, you might say that."

"What will you do now? Are you going to stay here?"

"Till New Year's." He shrugged, feeling a growing lump in his throat. "Probably hit the road after that."

She nodded, watching him intently. "Where will you go? Back to Texas?"

He blinked at her. "Texas? No. No, I live in Las Vegas now. Nevada." The wind whipped up a froth of dry snow at their feet, and he winced. "Hey, look, it's freezing out here. And I gotta get going. Go back inside, okay?"

"I'm Canadian," she told him in a marvelously dry tone. "This isn't that cold."

He smiled, and held out his hand. "Thank you again."

Her grasp was firm and warm. "It was my pleasure. We're here until the 30^th. Why don't you give us a call, if you want to have a drink sometime? Brad will be frothing at the mouth to talk to you again."

"Do my best."

She cocked her head to the side. "We don't know each other, not really. But sometimes talking to an almost-stranger is a little easier. No preconceptions."

"Yeah," he agreed, suddenly a millimeter from bursting into tears. "I'll remember that."

"Night, Nick. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Molly."

He waited inside the car for her to duck back inside, and then drove down the street. But he had to pull over a block further, because he couldn't see the road anymore. He laid his forehead on the cold steering wheel and closed his eyes. The tears felt icy on his cheeks.

*

The day after Christmas was so busy he couldn't even tell there'd just been a holiday. And by the end of the week business was so heavy that Ralphie's asshole son was there, too, which only made matters worse in Nick's book. His jaw had a steady ache in it from clenching so hard all the time, and this was George in a good mood, making money.

New Year's wouldn't come a millisecond too soon.

The phone in his room rang for the very first time the next morning. It was early, but he was already awake, shocked out of sleep by nightmare images of Nigel and Gil, and Gil's living room, and that gun that hadn't gone off but did, nightly, in Nick's dreams.

He picked up the receiver with a wary frown. "'Lo?"

"Nick, it's Molly. I hope I didn't wake you."

"Molly. Hi." Nick sat up, blinking away the fog. "Nah, it's okay. You doing all right?"

"We're leaving tomorrow. I just wanted to ask you the same, I guess." She coughed a rueful-sounding laugh. "Between me wondering where you'll be by next week and Brad with visions of beefing up the CSI unit, you've been a frequent topic of conversation. I hope that doesn't freak you out."

He had to smile. "No, don't worry."

"Let me take you to lunch. My treat."

"Today?" Nick stood up, wincing when his bare feet hit the cold floor. "Well, sure. I mean, I gotta work this afternoon. Busy as hell."

"I'll pick you up. Noon? I'm leaving Brad here. He'll just want to doing more recruitment."

"Noon. Yeah, that's fine. Okay."

"See you then."

He broiled in the shower as long as the hot water held out, trying to cook the lingering fear-smell out of his nostrils and the ache from his muscles. Molly was on-the-dot punctual, and took him to a ferny little bistro-type place down the street from Ralphie's. When she saw his dubious look at the menu, she laughed. "Have a club sandwich. It's great."

"I'll take your word for it."

He listened to her talk about Toronto, and Brad, and her work, and Brad, and a whole lot of other things plus Brad, and the food really was pretty good, even if he wasn't really hungry. So he wasn't quite ready for her to set down her fork and give him a steady look.

"So where are you going, Nick?"

He put down his nibbled sandwich and shrugged. "Thinking about heading back south, actually," he said, without any idea of where it was going. "Too cold this far north. I'm a Texas boy."

Molly smiled faintly, but didn't bite. "You want to talk about it?"

Nick sat back. "About what?" he asked slowly.

"About what it was that Brad said, that sent you into such a nosedive?" she added gently. "It's not my business, I know. But you look -- lonely, Nick. You look like somebody who could use a friend. And I just want you to know: if you want to tell me, I'll listen."

What little remained of his appetite fled. He took a sip of his soda. "It's a long story." He forced a faint smile. "Some bad things happened."

"What happened?"

"I -- caught somebody's eye, I guess you could say. Somebody that was very dangerous." He paused. "I don't think I've ever tried to actually tell anyone this. Feels bizarre."

She nodded. "What did he do?"

A pain had blossomed, right in the center of his chest. Like he'd swallowed one of the ice cubes in his drink. "He hurt me," he said bluntly, meeting her eyes. "And it's taking some time to get over it, I guess. I hit the road."

"I'm sorry, Nick. I could -- see that, a little. What about family? Friends? Did you tell them?"

"The first time I went to Nova Scotia was three months ago." He let the questions pass by. "And I guess I thought -- coming back to Canada, you know? It's like this euphemism me and Gil have. Canada."

"Who's Gil?"

The icy pain in his chest got bigger. "Somebody who tried to help," he said thickly. "And he did, for a while. Saved me, I guess. But he couldn't fix everything. And I couldn't let him keep trying to do that. So I left."

She nodded again, slowly. "You miss him?"

"Yeah," he croaked. "Miss him a lot."

Molly sat back a little, picking up her tea. "Has it helped? Canada?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

She cocked her head to the side. "Brad's just come off a very big case," she said abruptly. "Some might call it a career-making case."

"Serial killer, right? The one your dad was talking about?"

"Brad worked that case for over two years." Molly picked up her tea, but didn't drink, staring at it. "That's most of our marriage. I don't think I can remember a time when it didn't touch everything in our lives. So when he made the arrest, for me it was like, Okay, now our real lives can start. He's getting promoted, that goddamn case is done. Let's get on with it, right?"

Nick nodded carefully.

"I had to work late one night, didn't get home until close to midnight. And when I got there he was sitting at the kitchen table. Just sitting. No drink, no book." Her lips quirked in a strained smile. "First thing I thought was that the guy had gotten off on a technicality, and I just hadn't heard about it yet. But when I asked him what was going on, he said, ‘I don't know what to do now.'

"I didn't understand that. Not at first. But he kept on talking, you know, and I started to realize that Brad felt like that case identified him. He WAS that case, he lived for that search, ate, slept and breathed that search. And when it was gone, he felt like it took a part of him with it."

"What'd you do?"

"Other than slap him silly? I told him cases don't define us. People don't define us." She gave him a straight look. "What defines you, Nick?" she asked baldly. "The guy who hurt you?"

"Of course not," Nick shot back, ruffled. "I never said that."

"No, but you're living it. Is it over?"

"The case?" He drew back. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "He's dead. I guess it's over, but --"

"You mind if I quote something?"

He could see she didn't understand why it made him grin, but he just shook his head. "Nah. I don't mind."

"'We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.'" She shook her head slowly. "Recognize it?"

"No."

"T.S. Eliot. A guy who knew something about trying to find your way back. I'm sorry, this is pretty presumptuous of me, I realize."

He sat very still. "I liked it."

She smiled. "Brad says quoting things is an excuse for not saying them yourself. Which I guess is true. Are you looking for what that man took from you? You think you'll find it in Canada?"

Nick looked down at the remains of his sandwich. "I guess I am."

"I'm sorry for what happened, Nick. I don't know the details, and I don't think I need to. I can see it. But is selling beer really going to help you find yourself? Running from pain doesn't make it go away."

Another ghostly tingle of anger made him shake his head. "I know that. Facing it didn't, either."

"I should go," she said quietly. "I apologize. I'm ..."

"No," he interrupted in a gruff voice. "But maybe I just needed some breathing room. Maybe Brad just needed a little time to understand that something really important to him was over."

Molly's cheeks colored, but her smile was amused and ceded him the point. "Touche. That's pretty much what he told me."

"I'll go back. Maybe soon, I don't know. But I was tired of being rescued. I think I need to rescue myself. This is my way of doing that." He shrugged and grinned. "Although no, selling beer wasn't exactly on the game plan."

She nodded. "I do have to go," she said slowly. "If you keep on exploring and ever find yourself in Toronto, look us up. Okay?"

"Thanks," he said warmly, meaning it. "You're on."

"Why do you keep doing this? You doin' it on purpose? Is that it?"

"No, George."

"Yeah, you do. Just to fuck with me."

Nick stood stock-still, watching. Listening to his heart thump in his chest, the slow boil of tired anger in his veins. George wadded up the paper bag that held his maligned lunch, and threw it in the trash.

"You know what you're good for, Julie?" George asked, one lip lifting to reveal his eyetooth. "What's that?"

Julie kept her eyes down, hair flopping forward to hide her face. "No, George," she whispered.

"Nothing, that's what. Fucking nothing."

"Hey," Nick said in a stronger voice than he'd imagined. "Lay off, man."

George's flat eyes flicked his direction. "Excuse me?" His voice dripped with disbelief. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me, cut it out." Nick shook his head. "Why you such an asshole all the time? It's just a sandwich, not ..."

"Commentary from the hired help." George grinned now, but it was the same kind of emotionless malevolent look he'd recently leveled at his wife. "Well, guess what, asshole? You're fucking fired."

Nick found a smile on his face. "Suits me."

"Ain't yours to fire."

Both of them turned, with almost identical expressions of surprise. Ralphie wadded up a receipt and drew a long, noisy breath. "George, this is my business. Ain't even leaving it to you when I finally kick off, because you want it, and I think it's about time you didn't just get everything you want."

George's face had gone an alarming shade of dusky red. "What in the fuck ..."

"You got a mean mouth and a meaner fist," Ralphie continued heavily. "And I ain't proud that I never said anything to you about it ‘till now, but that's as may be. You're my son, and I love you, god help me, but you're the sorriest son of a bitch I ever saw, too, and that's a fact. You don't fire my help, and if I hear you say one more nasty word to Julie, I think I'll make me a few phone calls. See how the constable feels about it."

George's mouth opened, but nothing came out. Nick had a moment of amused pity at the look of absolute befuddlement that wreathed George's apoplectic features.

"Maybe it's best you do clear out, Texas." Ralphie sighed again, and opened the till. "Holiday season's pretty much over, and things'll be back to normal soon."

Nick nodded, and looked at Julie, who stood with wide eyes, almost as stunned-looking as her husband. "You can do better," Nick told her baldly. "A lot better."

She just stared at him.

He took the money Ralphie handed him ... from the number of bills, a lot more than his weekly pay ought to be ... and stuffed it in his pocket without counting it. Then he held out his hand. "Thanks, Ralphie. Been a pleasure. Mostly."

Ralphie shook his hand fast. "Yep. You gonna head back to Texas, Texas?"

"Think I better go further west than that. You take care."

"You're the one that better take care," George said in a thin, furious voice. His ham-sized fists were bunched at his sides.

Nick regarded him coolly. "I've faced worse than you, and made it," he said calmly. "Trust me."

"I'll see to it," Ralphie interjected. "This ain't your concern anymore. You hit the road, all right?"

Nick nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

Outside the snow gleamed in bright moonlight. He crunched his way to the street, and stopped by the curb to look up. Beautiful night, in spite of the killer cold. The moon shone like a disk of polished mother-of-pearl.

A smile on his face, he put on his gloves before beginning the walk back to the hotel.

END

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