Title: Illuminations
By: sillygirl8406
Pairing: GilNick
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Series: 1) A Season in Hell
Note: Hey, it's been rumored through the CSI mill and other sites that Grissom has Asperger's Syndrome. I don't know if it had any baring or not, but after I looked it up, it made a lot of sense and explained Grissom almost to the letter so I decided to use it in my story, as I did many things that were talked about or rumored but never explained. Hey, in my story it all works.
Summary: "Ecstasy, nightmare, sleep in a nest of flames."-"A Season in Hell", Arthur Rimbaud.
***
Gil had stopped talking.And Nick panicked.
Nick feared for a long time something like this would happen. All those times at work when he caught a look from Gil that said something was wrong. Or all those times when Gil was gone without telling anyone or planning actual vacation time or calling in sick his last year before Robert happened. He feared Gil was burning out, but he wasn't expecting this.
Gil was built to breakdown when he went head-to-head with his emotions. It was in his nature because emotions couldn't be controlled; therefore, Gil couldn't be controlled.
Nick kicked the underside of the steering console and hit the steering wheel. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Gil had stopped calling him, stopped e-mailing him, and now, Dr. Evans said that Gil had snapped.
"Hello," Nick asked into his phone as he pulled onto his street. It was seven in the morning and he was ready for bed.
"Nick, Carl."
Nick smiled at the now familiar voice of Doctor Carl Evans, but the strain in the other man's voice quickly registered with him and he blurted out what had been bothering him for the last two days. Gil had been there for only eight days; his two weeks wasn't even over yet, and Gil had contacted him every day, except for the last two days. "He hasn't called. What the hell is going on up there?"
"Nick. He snapped the other day. Destroyed his room then he stopped talking to everyone."
Nick almost dropped the phone. He spun his truck around in the middle of the street and headed for the interstate. "He snapped!? Why?"
"We were in a session, one minute he was telling me about a case he worked on, the next...he stormed out of my office and went to his room and shut the door. He hasn't come out since."
Nick swallowed the rising bile in his throat and focused himself to concentrate on the road. He had a five hour drive ahead of him. "And you're just calling me now?"
"We gave him time to come around, but he hasn't. He won't come out of his room or talk to anyone, Nick. Can you get here?"
"What in the fuck do you think I was doing? You just told me Gil had snapped and you expected me not to come?" Nick knew he was biting Carl's head off for nothing, but he was pissed. He was angry at himself, Gil, the doctor, and the whole fucking world.
Nick didn't drive below eighty-five until he was pulling onto the street the hospital was on. He slowed down and pulled into the parking lot. The engine barely stopped moving when he jumped out of the truck and ran to the entrance.
Gil had snapped. He'd stopped talking.
Nick tracked down the familiar nurse but didn't sign-in or even stop running; his mind was on one person and he had to see him. He had to. As he rounded the corner he saw the slim form of Doctor Carl Evans standing outside Gil's door talking to another man. When he neared the men he stopped running, but kept a quick pace, and panted for air.
"Nick, I advise you not to go in there. It'll only upset you," Carl said in a calming voice.
Nick didn't need to calm down, he needed to see Gil. The sliding window in Gil's door was closed so he couldn't look inside. "I want to see him, now."
"Nick...Nick!" Carl tried grabbing him but he wasn't as strong as Nick.
Nick was determined and he wouldn't stop until he plowed through the two doctors and into the room. The door wasn't locked and was he was glad he didn't have to kick it down. An arm was wrapped around his shoulder, another his waist, but he pushed through them and into the room then quickly closed the door.
The room was completely dark but the sun light lit up some of the room through the closed blinds. The bed was tipped over; sheets and the blanket were tore up and laying everywhere. A tray with untouched food was on the floor against the wall just inside the door. The dresser was dumped over and the drawers were thrown across the room, some were broken. Clothes were sprawled over everything.
Nick saw all this, but no Gil. He noticed the closet door cracked open and hesitantly walked toward it. As he creaked open the door he could hear soft breathing. When the sun light streamed into the closet from the crack, his breath hitched.
Gil was in the back of the closet, leaning up against the wall, staring off into space with his knees up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. His blue eyes looked dull and unfocused instead of alive and sharp.
He went the four feet into the closet and knelt down next to Gil and waved his hand in front of his eyes, nothing. Gil's skin felt cold and clammy, sweat was soaking his shirt but Gil didn't even move when he was touched. Not a flinch of recognition of another person in the room, not a flicker of the eyes; absolutely nothing.
"What happened," Nick muttered to himself.
He wanted to throw up and leave. Just get out of the room and find a quiet place to cry and think, but he couldn't get up off the floor. Nick leaned back against the wall next to Gil and out the open closet door and around the sterile white room. The idea of Gil staying in that room made Nick shiver.
It was no place for an intelligent, vibrant human like Gil, but here he had been for eight days. Gil was prone to claustrophobia after a while, that was why he bought a townhouse with wide, open rooms and every wall was decorated. As Nick glanced around the room from his position in the closet, he could imagine Gil staying up every night in this room willing his claustrophobia away. It was eight days of blank walls and no air, and no reading material or television. It was just Gil alone with his thoughts after every session. It was no wonder he cracked.
Gil could make himself sick with just a thought. And now Gil had made himself break with all of them.
He looked at Gil and studied him. Gil's eyes slowly came into focus and something flickered across them, then it was gone. Nick swallowed hard and slowly reached over and rubbed Gil's shoulder. This time the muscles under his fingers tensed and Gil's eyes blinked, but he still wouldn't look at him. Instead his eyes darted to the floor and didn't look back up.
"Gil," Nick said, his voice barely above a whisper so not to startle the older man. "It's Nick. I know you can hear me. If you don't want to talk, that's fine, but whatever's bothering you, made you this angry, you can tell me."
He watched at Gil's jaw tensed and clenched even tighter and his throat moved back and forth as he swallowed hard. Gil's breathing started getting shaky and his hands fisted his pant legs, clenching and unclenching. The muscles in his back and shoulders were so ridged and hard they could have been made of stone. Every muscle in Gil from head to toe went on high alert.
Nick sighed in defeat knowing Gil wouldn't come down from whatever state he was in for a while. They had to be patient and wait it out. He didn't withdrawal his hand until he leaned the few inches in and kissed Gil on his temple. "I still love you," he whispered in Gil's ear.
He slowly got on his feet and forced himself on weak, heavy legs to go to the door. He needed air. The door opened and he wasn't surprised to see Carl leaning against the opposite wall.
"I didn't want you to see him like that." Carl said as he adjusted his glasses on his nose.
Nick nodded because Carl understood. The doctor, who was quickly becoming a friend, knew where he and Gil were coming from. Carl had a partner he loved and cared about. "I had to."
Carl nodded. "I know. If that was Jake, I would have steamed rolled my way through that door too. That was Doctor Martin--who was here earlier--he's with the board. I had to follow procedure with him standing right there."
Nick smiled and leaned against the door once it slowly clicked shut. "What case was he talking about before he stormed out."
Carl thought back. "The Walter Gordon case, he said it was the most personal and emotional case he had to deal with. So, I asked him why...He didn't get to why."
Nick stared at Carl then looked away and blinked back the tears in his eyes. He nodded and swallowed around the still urge to throw up. "Coffee?"
Carl pushed himself away from the wall. "I'll buy," he joked because the coffee in the clinic was free.
Nick wanted to smile at the lame joke but he couldn't even bring himself to look at anything but the floor or walls leading to the cafeteria, or think of anything but Gil sitting in the closet and staring off into space like...like there was nothing happening outside his own mind. The aroma of food and sterile metal filled the cafeteria and Nick had to blink back and wait to get used to the smell. It was worse than the aroma in the lab.
Carl went over to get the coffees while Nick just sat down and stared at the table. He was at a complete loss of what to do. Never in his life had he dealt with something like this. All he knew was that he'd do anything to help Gil. Anything. Even if he needed to dig Robert out of his grave and kill him over again and again he would.
Nick stared at the coffee cup that was placed in front of him and tried to figure out which of the five hundred questions he had going around his head to ask first.
Carl took a long sip then started. "If I had known he would react that way, I wouldn't have said anything. It was the first time I think he seemed like he wanted to talk, but he just didn't know how. So, I pushed and...fuck," he exhaled and rubbed his face, tipping his glasses to one side as he did so.
Nick nodded and felt sympathy for the doctor. It was against policy for doctors to get attached to the patients, but from the first time he and Gil stepped foot into the clinic they knew it was different. The doctors and nurses were proud of their relationships with the patients and said it was one of the reasons why they had such a high recovery rate. "I was taken and buried alive in a plexi-glass box. Gil and the rest of the team had to watch on a computer screen and...I almost died, they showed up just before. But Gil, he had confronted Gordon and gave him the ransom he asked for. Gordon didn't want it. The money was a ploy; he really wanted to take out himself and the police. He blew himself up in front of Gil."
Carl was listening and watching Nick closely. He breathed out and shook his head. "I couldn't image what that was like for the two of you. You seem okay now?"
Nick glanced up at Carl and saw remorse in his hazel eyes but also the look of a concerned friend. Nick gave him a weak smile and finally lifted the cup and took a small sip. "Yeah, I'm fine. We weren't together then, but...It was still hard. From my side it was the anger and fear of being buried and almost dying, and the thought that somehow I had disappointed Gil. Wondering why me? But from his side," he shrugged. "He never talked about it. I tried to imagine how I would feel if that was him, but...it's not the same as it actually happening: seeing what he saw and the complete, overbearing sense of helplessness."
Carl slowly nodded. "So, he never talked about any of it, at all?"
Nick swallowed hard and stared back down at the table. "He said he should have been the one in that box; that he should have died."
Carl was staring at him confusion. "Do you know why?"
"He felt guilty for what had happened, thought it was his fault. Not the abduction but Robert killing those men," Nick quickly added from the inquisitive look on Carl's face. He took a bigger drink of his coffee, almost downing it, and then faced the doctor again. "What the hell happened to him?"
"Right now, it's hard to say. He's been in that closet for ten hours, after he spent three hours destroying his room." Carl leaned forward on the table and dropped his voice. "Gil has a lot of different problems, Nick. This is more than just about Robert. It has dated back all the way to his childhood. I mean, finding your father dead on the couch is not something that you can just get over, even if Gil swears it is. For him, it does feel and rationally seem like he's getting over something because he just completely blocks it out." He took a quick look around him. "Have you heard of dissociation?"
Nick nodded. "It's when people block off certain things: thoughts, emotions, sensations, or even memories." He stared at the doctor in understanding then shook his head. "Shit, is that what's going on with him?"
Carl nodded. "Among other things; his dissociation started off as a defense mechanism when he was a child. I'm surprised he lasted this long without having to seek therapy. He learned to hide it behind work and his quirks; instead of people saying "He needs help" it became "He's just being Grissom, the enigma"."
"We contributed to this," Nick asked defensively.
Carl shook his head. "By the time he got to Vegas and became supervisor he was already in that hole and started to bury himself in it. He has used emotional detachment his entire life until it just became his life. His heart is trying for the first time to actually feel and not shut down and that is pushing him even more and more over the edge. If this continues, it might cause more problems then it solves."
"What kind of problems?" Nick was starting to get a sinking feeling in his stomach about this whole thing. This wasn't right, hell, nothing seemed right anymore.
"In extreme cases, anything from chronic amnesia to a complete mental breakdown, sometimes even DID." Carl finally sat back and looked around the cafeteria.
Nick realized that Carl was probably making sure nobody heard him. Doctors weren't allowed to divulge information to just anybody, and since he and Gil weren't married or anything, Carl wasn't allowed to tell him much of anything. But Carl just told him everything. He blinked back at the trust Carl had just given him. If he wanted he could sue or end Carl's career right then and there. He sat for a moment thinking of everything that was said. "What do we do? I mean, it seems that the talk therapy sessions aren't working. Gil has never talked about anything personal until he feels like it...which is hardly ever."
Carl stopped looking around the cafeteria then he stood. "Let's take a walk."
Nick grabbed his cup and threw it away on their way out of the room. As he walked along side Carl to the back exit, Carl started talking in a whisper.
"Everything in Gil's life went wrong and he dealt with it the only way he could. He stopped. He stopped loving, he stopped trying to have social interactions, he stopped trying to relate to other people, and he chose to be oblivious to the world around him because it was so much better than experiencing it." He opened the back door and they went out into the yard. "Yeah, Asperger's makes it hard for him too, but it usually gets better and less consuming as a person gets older. By the time they reach adulthood, most symptoms are gone and they can relate better to other people, but of course that's only given if they had it treated. From everything you told me and his past medical history, I assume he had adequate treatment. So, this is an unusual situation."
Nick glanced around the area. The employee parking lot was just twenty yards away and the loading docks to the medical clinic were just to his right, but he was glad to see no one else around. "So, what can we do about this?" He shifted from one foot to the other and wrapped his arms around himself. California in the winter time was cold; despite the palm trees.
Carl stared off into the distance and frowned deeply. "Intense therapy." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Nick. I know I said that he should only be here for the two weeks and go back home, but intense therapy and staying here and getting treated are the only possible solutions."
Nick was going to lose it on the sidewalk. He shook his head at what Carl just said and refused to see that as any solution. "No." His arms got tighter around his body as he breathed through his nose so not to get sick on the concrete. "H-he can't stay here." His voice was strong and commanding, but on the verge of breaking. "This place has already caused him to do...that!" He threw an arm in the direction of the door. "The Biology department at UCLA is expecting him back next week! He could lose his job if he stays!"
Carl watched as Nick blew-up in his face in pure, uncontrollable anger. "What do you think will happen if he goes back like this? And I'm not talking about his job. A job is a job and he can get another one, but he can't get another you, Nick. If he goes back with you now and you two continue the way you have been then you can kiss your relationship goodbye. If you don't end up leaving him, he'll leave you. Is that what you want?"
Nick rocked back on his heels stunned at the doctor's outburst. He blinked around the tears that were swelling up because he knew what Carl said was the truth. The lump in his throat was getting tighter and he tried to swallow it down before he spoke. "You're right," he choked out. "But, but I don't want Gil to be changed. Yeah, it's frustrating as hell when he doesn't talk, but I fell in love with him. I just...I just want to be able to help him, to make him know that I really do care and that I really do love him."
The door to the clinic swung open and a nurse called out, "We've got a Code Red, Dr. Evans."
Carl turned to face the nurse then started for the door. "Who?"
"It's Dr. Grissom, he's gone."
Nick felt his stomach drop and he was right on Dr. Evans heels as they both ran down the hall and up the flight of stairs. The alarm was going off but Nick didn't hear it over his own pounding heart. As they entered the second floor Nick was shaking from rage and could barely control the urge to yell at everyone on staff who was gathered around Gil's room.
Two Security Officers rounded the other corner and met up with them in front of the room. Nick didn't pay attention to the conversation as he hurried into the room and looked around. The closest was empty and the clothes that were before sprawled over the room were gone. "Shit," he mumbled under his breath. Outside the room he heard Carl tell the officers to block off the exits, but Nick was staring at the open window above the bed.
As he approached the window and looked out, it was pretty sickening to think Gil jumped. Was it a ploy? If it was, Gil was still in the hospital, if not, he was probably injured and limping down the street with a broken leg.
Nick ran into Carl as he hurried out of the room. "I don't think he jumped from the window, but I need to make sure. He still might be in the building," he yelled over his shoulder as he hurried to the stairs.
He took the door out the back and rounded the corner to the side of the building below Gil's window. He hugged the wall as he made his way toward the area below Gil's window and peered around. There were no footprints of any kind or disturbances around the area. Shoe impressions would have been made in the soft soil that was drying from the storm they had that morning if Gil had jumped.
As he reentered the building he was greeted by two Security Officers who were watching both doors. Carl was coming toward the front looking worn down but energized just the same.
"Any luck?"
Nick shook his head. "He didn't jump that's for sure. Could he have gotten out any other way besides the front?"
Carl looked around the lobby and nodded. "This isn't a maximum security hospital, Nick. Nor is it even minimum security. Everyone's here for minor issues and voluntary. If a patient exhibits violent behavior then we don't handle them."
Nick frowned and nodded. He already knew that, but it was frustrating to think Gil could just pack up and leave that fast and not be seen. "Security cameras?"
Carl gave a small smile at that. "I've got an officer checking that out now. Follow me."
Nick followed behind Carl and into the back office and security room. An officer was already in there rewinding the tape and pressing play.
"An orderly checked the room maybe five minute after you two left. Nothing. So, I'm starting it from when you guys left and on." The officer said as he watched the tapes, fingers hovering over the buttons.
Nick nodded as he watched himself and Carl leave the hallway and round the corner. Nothing happened for a good minute or two, then the door barely opened and Gil looked out into the hallway before he slowly exited the room with his duffel bag in his hand. His breath caught in his throat as he watched the scene unfold before him on the screen. A feeling in him grew as he watched the screen; something wasn't right. And it wasn't just because Gil was clean shaven and thinner, much thinner since the last time Nick saw Gil only eight days ago.
Nick got closer to the screen and studied Gil's every move as he made his way the opposite direction, toward the camera and down the back stairwell. "Do you have cameras in the stairwells?"
"No, but we have them on the first floor." The officer said and started up the other television at the time Gil had entered the stairwell on the second floor.
Five minutes passed and Gil never exited the staircase. Nick was studying the screen like it was a foreign object. "Where the hell is he? He wouldn't go up if he was trying to leave."
Carl shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense to me either. Officer Sheroan, check all the floor cameras just outside the west staircase. See if he did go up."
Officer Sheroan did as he was told and started rewinding every tape from each floor's camera.
Nick watched the monitors intensely, waiting for any sign of his partner. He kept looking at his watch every other minute and shifting is weight from one foot to the other. It had been ten minutes since Gil left his room, and still nothing. "We're wasting time. The more minutes that tick by Gil is getting further away."
"Every car in the parking lot is accounted for and we have officers outside searching. He couldn't have gotten far."
"Yes, he could," Nick shot over at Carl. He looked back at the videos and pushed away from the wall. There wasn't anything on them. How could there not be anything on them. Not one thing. "Do you have cameras for the lower floor?"
Carl shook his head. "Not everywhere, just certain areas. I do know that there are no cameras facing the west stairwell, but there is one facing the elevator."
Officer Sheroan quickly moved to another chair and pressed a button, causing the image on the screen to rewind. Nick stared at it until he saw what he was waiting for. "Freeze it."
The tape froze and Nick smiled to himself, but felt anything but satisfaction. Gil was on the screen, but just barely, he was staring at up at the camera from the corner of the hallway, half in the shadows, half out. "Rewind some more and play it."
The screen rewind for a few seconds then played. The dark hallway was empty then Gil appeared at the corner, glancing over his shoulder, startled, then forward. Gil went to step into the hall with the elevator then stopped, eyes staring at the camera.
Nick swallowed hard as he studied Gil's appearance and movements again. "Something's wrong here."
"Tell me about it."
Nick sighed. "No, I mean...something's wrong with Gil. It doesn't seem right, he doesn't seem right."
The screen showed Gil staring intensely at the camera for a few more moments then disappearing back in the shadows.
Nick straightened. "Keep watching those cameras. Is there anyway that Gil could have gotten outside from down there?"
"Yeah, there are hallways that go to the loading docks out back."
Nick was out the door and sprinting for the back door before Carl even finished his sentence. The door banged open as he exited the building and jogged over to the loading platform and up the stairs. A door led back into the building at the end of the platform and when Nick went to open it the door wouldn't budge. "It's locked."
Carl stood at the bottom of the stairs. "It's only locked for those who are trying to go in, not for those who are going out. Gil could have exited that door from the lower level."
Nick looked around the area but nothing seemed out of place or disturbed. However, there was a camera above the door.
Carl's cell rang and he answered it. "Dr. Evans speaking. Thanks, Don." He flipped his phone shut. "That was Officer Sheroan; he says he can see you. Also, he watched Gil leave from that door about two minutes after he abandoned the elevator hallway. That was around the time we ran back into the building."
They had just missed him. Nick swallowed hard as he nodded and looked back around the area. The main street could be seen from the platform, as well as a metro-bus pulling up and leaving a stop just at the corner. "I want those tapes, all of them."
Carl nodded. "I won't even ask for a warrant."
***
Flashback: Day 1Gil stared out the window at the city around him. The streets were different, slanted, and a Trolley was going down the road and around the corner. San Francisco. Great. Just...fucking great. He never liked this city. Nothing about it appealed to him, definitely not a mental hospital in some weirdly designed glass building with a metal detector and two guards just inside the door.
Four years ago he remembered being at a conference in a hotel just down the street. The Golden Gates were okay, Alcatraz was stunning, and the food was descent. But the people. And he thought Las Vegas was bad. The people in "San Fran" rubbed him the wrong way, at the wrong time, and they didn't care.
Then he thought he was going to explore around the city and wound up in a very weird, very leather, gay club that he didn't even remember the name to. Yeah, he was bisexual, but he was terribly uncomfortable in that place and the surrounding neighborhoods that he vowed to never go back. Even though Josh the Drummer paid for all his drinks because he thought he was cute.
Plus, he didn't think the Cliff hotel would allow him back after he got plastered in the hotel bar, was half-walked/half-dragged back his room, and then somehow during the night undressed and needed to go to the bathroom and mistook the door out of his hotel room for the door to the bathroom. What that Latin bellboy had thought when he rounded the corner to see him in front of his door, blushing so red it filled his whole face, neck and chest, with a US Today magazine covering himself he'd never know.
His grip on his duffel bag handles grew tighter as Gil took a glance around the clinic. The white walls and smell of sterile metal made his stomach turn. There was a reason he hated hospitals or anything remotely close to them. The smells, sounds, feel, and overall environment was enough to make him raise his defensives to severe red alert and he had to force his legs to move as Dr. Evans showed them around the building.
The staff seemed nice enough. Dr. Evans explained how unlike most clinics, the staff were friendly people who wanted to help by not only doing their jobs well but by being friends with the patients. Nick seemed to enjoy that aspect as he smiled over at him and wrapped his arm around his waist. On the other hand, he didn't enjoy that aspect at all. The last thing Gil wanted to do was become friends with these people. Even Dr. Evans irked him, and he didn't even know why. It was just a feeling.
There were five floors which included the lower level, but Gil was never to go down there. That floor was for 'Hospital Personnel Only'. He did have freedom to walk the upper floors and even outside around the yard if he wanted to. That was a comfort, but just a little. The handles were hurting his right palm and dug grooves into his skin but his grip didn't cease until he entered his "room" behind Nick and glanced around it.
A frustrated sigh escaped him and he dropped the bag where he stopped walking. Nick turned and faced him once Dr. Evans was out of the room. Nick's smile was reassuring and confident that they did the right thing.
Gil sighed at that confidence but put on a small smile of his own so Nick wouldn't panic.
"What do you think," Nick asked him, looking around the room.
Gil shook his head. "I think I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth."
Nick frowned at him in confusion.
Gil shrugged. "The Who."
Nick chuckled then leaned down closer to him and brushed their lips together. Gil froze in shock at the near kiss, but the need and want of that kiss from Nick overrode any thoughts he had of kissing in public and he leaned closer and connected their lips. Nick smiled and moaned into the kiss before making it deeper and longer.
Minutes later he watched as Nick straightened from the passionate kiss and a small frown formed on his swollen lips. Nick had to leave and Gil didn't want him to. Even if he did agreed to this he knew it was a mistake, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was feeling helpless.
"What does Nick Stokes mean to you? How do you feel when you see him in that coffin? Does your soul die every time you push that button? How do you feel, knowing that there's nothing you can do to get him out of that hell? Helpless ... useless ... impotent?" The voice of Walter Gordon filled Gil's head and he closed his eyes quickly and breathed deeply.
Nick's arms circled around him and held his shaky body against his steady one. "Hey, it's okay."
Gil slowly opened his eyes and nodded. It was a good thing Nick thought his moment of weakness was from him leaving. The truth would hurt Nick more. He finally stepped away from Nick and looked around the room again. It was all white and empty, except for one bed and one dresser. He frowned deeply and went over to the window and opened it halfway. Patients could have it open during the day, but after seven they had to close them.
That was when he would need it open the most.
9999999999
Gil stared down at the "hospital schedule" in his hand and sighed. "Are you serious?"
Dr. Evans nodded. "Those are the only rules we have. 8 AM is breakfast, 1 PM is lunch, 8 PM is dinner. No one out of their rooms after 11 PM, no windows open after 7 PM, and you have to sign-up every day for times to use the phone and the computers in the lab room."
Gil frowned and shifted his weight, highly annoyed. "I work nights. I sleep during the afternoon and I'm awake during the evening hours. Can something be arranged to where I can leave my room and use the phones after 11?"
"Gil-"
"Dr. Grissom."
Dr. Evans smiled. "Dr. Grissom, we can't break these rules. They are set up for everyone here, including staff."
"Yeah, you have staff here in the evenings. Officers who can escort me if they want too."
Dr. Evans stood his ground and shook his head while he shrugged. "I'm sorry, Dr. Grissom, there is nothing I can do. You're going to have to get used to this schedule. If not, you don't eat, use the phones, computers, and you're going to be extremely bored in your room doing nothing."
Gil sighed and threw the sheet down on his bedside table. This was ridiculous. He hated being controlled and now he was in a situation where he was controlled every day. Shit. "I can still read during the night can't I?"
"Of course."
Gil nodded and picked a book out of his duffel bag. 'The Aeneid' by Virgil was always a good read.
"You have three hours until your first session. Remember, every day at 5 PM is your session."
Gil absently nodded as he opened the book at his book mark and scooted back against the headboard of the bed and started reading.
9999999999
Gil studied Dr. Evans' office. Degrees lined the wall behind the doctor. He was surprised to see a certificate from St. Martinus University in Curacao on the wall. That information was filed away in his memory as well as the Degree from the University of Chicago then he continued on with his observation. The office consisted of bookshelves with mostly Psychology books filling them. He did spot several chemistry books and a few fiction novels stored in different places. With exception to a phone and a pad in front of the doctor, the desk was perfectly clean.
The last thing he wanted to do was talk to someone he didn't know, yet alone a psychologist. He breathed out and glanced at the clock again. The hour was almost up and he hadn't said a word, but Dr. Evans had to know some things about him already. Nick was talking the doctor earlier and that scared Gil more than having to talk himself. People always thought that they knew him when they really knew nothing. That bothered him more than anything, but he wasn't the kind of person to correct their illusions.
Nick even had his own illusions about him. How else could Nick believe so strongly that he loved him? From his stand point it didn't make sense. Nick had it in his head that he was a mystery that needed to be solved, helped, and loved. He wasn't a mystery. "No man is a complete mystery except to himself." A long time ago he told that to Lady Heather. No, he was misunderstood. And that was the problem.
Dr. Evans was watching him and that made him uneasy. He was the one that was supposed to be observing someone and trying to figure them out. Lady Heather had studied him and figured him out quicker than anyone he'd met. In the long-run that had been what destroyed their relationship from being anything more.
His mask of neutral expression was safely in place and he was hoping his eyes didn't give him anyway. He was sure they weren't because he had mastered the art of the "innocent look" for years. His own mother never knew what he was really thinking, but she wasn't a psychologist. Dr. Evans might be able to see pass the blankness of his eyes and see his soul. Bile rose again and he painfully swallowed it down and stared at the desk and only glanced at the doctor when he heard him shift in his seat.
"Time's up."
The clock on the wall told Gil their hour was finally over. He quickly stood and exited the office without saying goodbye to the doctor and walked to the elevator. Once the doors closed in front of him he finally sighed and let his shoulders slightly fall with his relief.
The elevator beeped as the doors opened. His room was at the end of the hallway. Dread filled him as he entered the room and closed the door. He didn't want to sleep there or anywhere in San Francisco. He wanted to be home with Nick, curled up on the couch or in their bed, but instead he was sitting on a hard cold bed and staring at the white tile floor. The ache in his chest didn't ease, even after he undressed down to his boxers and pulled the sheet and blanket over him.
There was no comfort in the room, just uneasiness. His heart started pounding faster as he kept his eyes open and glancing around. It wasn't even dark yet but he already couldn't breathe. The air was getting thicker and his hands shook as he pushed the covers off of him. Cold air hit his nearly naked body as the covers flew off but that didn't kept him from sweating and choking on the thick air he was trying to get down to his lungs.
Against the clinic's rules he opened his window and breathed in the fresh air. He stayed kneeling on his knees as he watched the sun completely descend into the distance. Once it was completely dark out and his eyes grew heavy, he lay back down and pulled the covers over him again. His claustrophobia started creeping up his body again but he was able to will it away and drift into a troubled sleep.
An hour later he woke sweating and screaming into his pillow. Images of Gordon and Robert torturing him as Nick watched faded from his foggy head. He stumbled out of bed and paced the room. The images of torture and death were so strong in his mind he could actually smell the stench of blood in the air. That smell made him gag. The closet door was open and he took a deep breath and went in it and sat down. It was the only place that didn't make him sick.
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His pace gained speed as he rounded the corner for the umpteenth time. He'd lost count after the tenth time he rounded the corner and passed his door. The muscles in his legs ached, stomach ached with tightness, and his arms were numb. Sweat coated his back and chest as he jogged around the hall.
Thoughts were racing through his head just as fast as he was running. He couldn't stop them from flooding his thoughts. No book had helped, 'The Aeneid', 'Macbeth', 'I, Claudius', not even 'Entomological Evidence: The Utility of Arthropods in Legal Investigations' had been able to drown out his screaming mind.
His mind was actually screaming. Mostly for him to stop running since he hadn't ran in years. There were Nick's screams from in the box mixed with Robert's scream after he had burning Robert in the cabin, but what was screaming most, what filled his ears and drained his blood and made it run cold, was his own. A young man's scream of innocence and blind faith growing into an older man's scream of uncertainty, insecurities, and anger. So much anger was boiling in him, from the depths of his inner being to the clenching of his fist as he rounded the corner.
The clock read 2:17 as he passed under it to the other corner, down the connecting hall, then back around and pass his door again.
2:19 in the AM; it took him exactly two minutes to round the four halls, and he started running at 1:30, so...
Damn, he was tired. His steps came to a stumbled stop and he collapsed against the wall and slid down to the floor. The pounding in his head started to increase and his muscles tightened and he couldn't move. His chest felt like it was about to explode. He shouldn't have done that, but he couldn't sleep, think, or even breathe in that room. He had to wear himself down.
Maybe he just gave himself a heart attack.
His chest was pounding furiously as he sucked in air and tried not to cough it back out. That didn't last long as he doubled over on the floor coughing and straining to breathe. Tears welled in his eyes from the pain and tiredness. His body tired to shake away the cramping pains but his muscles were retracting and tightening so tight it was like he was crumpling in on himself. The pain was relentless and no amount of will power could get the muscles to relax and stretch.
A high-pitched squeal of pain filled the hallway before he gave into the blinding pain and fell unconscious.
***
Present timeNick watched again for the twelfth time as Gil exited the back door on the loading docks, go down the stairs, and then out of view. His body ached from tiredness and his eyes burned from watching all the tapes again, in order from the time him and Dr. Evans left the hallway to Gil disappearing out of sight around the building toward the street.
A cold cup of coffee sat untouched next to him and his stomach growled for food. He sighed and leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. They had nothing. Gil had been missing for three hours and there was nothing that pointed them in a direction. The metro-bus was a dead end. No one paid attention to a grown man getting on or off a bus. And even though there were supposed to be working cameras on the buses, none recorded the activity. It just looped around unless something happened then the tape recorded when the driver pressed a button.
Nick finally stood cracking his back and rubbing his legs and then left the room. Carl told him he could stay and sleep at the clinic so he didn't have to spend money on a hotel room. He was given a room at the end of the first floor hallway.
As he walked down the deserted hall, the nagging feeling that he was missing something resurfaced in his head along with the feeling that something wasn't right. It was a notion that he couldn't get rid of, so he kept hanging onto it. In all his years as a CSI he could always trust that feeling, and most of the time he was right.
And how the hell did Gil shave in two minutes? Wasn't that physically impossible? It didn't make sense, nothing about that tape made sense. It was off, something...everything wasn't right. And how did Gil look skinner from when he saw him in the closet? It could have been the fact he wasn't paying much attention to Gil's body, and the fact Gil was huddled into himself, but he was sure of the beard. Gil had a beard when he was sitting in the closet. Then two minutes later he didn't...right?
Nick shook his head as he opened the door to the room he was saying. He couldn't be sure of anything right then, he was too tired. He kicked off his shoes before he stretched out on the bed. After he slept for a few hours he would call Vegas. He was going to need help if he was going to find Gil.
As he tossed around the bed for what seemed like the hundredth time, he finally found a comfortable spot. Before he could drift off to sleep a memory surfaced in his mind. It was of him and Gil during their first night at the house together and alone.
He let out a small sigh then stood and walked around the kitchen island. He wrapped his arms around the older man, resting his chin on the tense shoulder and watched as Gil cooked. A small, loving smile spread over his face when he realized that Gil was cooking his favorite foods.
When Gil had gotten home earlier, he could tell that something was bothering the older man. Gil had gone to his Uncle Ed's house to give them some of his mom's things. It was supposed to only take an hour at best. That was three hours ago.
"What's wrong, Gil," he asked as he started rubbing at Gil's sides.
Gil didn't say anything as he reached over to turn on another burner to start the Macaroni.
He sighed into Gil's shoulder but didn't stop his light touches. "What do you want," he quietly asked against the solid shoulder.
The question had thrown Gil off because he felt the muscles stiffen more in his arms. Gil turned his head to look him in the eyes. He froze at the intense blue eyes staring back at him.
"You know what I want, Nick," Gil said with a lost, somewhat pleading looking in his eyes. "I think I made that perfectly clear before."
He knew what Gil was talking about. They had talked about it before and he had wanted to think about it first. It wasn't that he didn't trust Gil to top him, make him his, it was that he had only tried it once in college and that wasn't a memory he would like to remember. Also, he was used to being in control and pleasing his partner and not submitting himself, but this was Gil, and they were in a homosexual relationship.
Gil was studying him closely before he tilted his head back a little and kissed him on the cheek. He felt a surge of lust fill him at the light, teasing caress of Gil's lips on his skin. Gil gasped as he suddenly attacked his mouth; he was devouring Gil's lips. His lust was growing into passion and need. Gil moaned and leaned into the kiss as it got deeper and stronger. He loosened his grip so Gil could turn in his arms, which Gil did before his own arms encircled his body and pulled him close.
He hissed and rocked into Gil's hips as he felt the bulge in Gil's pants rub against his leg. His hands found their way into Gil's hair and traced along the back of his neck. Gil had his hands moving too, but they slid further down and tenderly groped his ass. A deep rippling groan escaped from their pressed lips and tangled tongues. He instantly pushed back against the gripping hands.
Moments later, Gil finally relinquished his mouth and gasped in air. "Nick."
"Gil," Nick chuckled and gave Gil a quick kiss again. "I think the chicken's done. Either that or we should be evacuating the house."
Gil looked confused before he turned and saw the smoke coming from the skillet. "Oh..."
While Gil attended to the burnt fried chicken he grabbed a towel and fanned the smoke away from the smoke detector.
"Fuck." Gil sighed and put the pan in the sink. He took the towel from Nick and wiped his hands on it.
The look on Gil's face made his heart ache for a brief moment before the silliness of the situation caught up with him and he had to laugh. "Wow, I didn't know I could kiss that good."
Gil stared at him with a raised brow and an serious look before it faded a he smirked. "It wasn't the kiss," he said as he walked by him and slapped his ass with the dish towel. "I was distracted by that."
He yelped at the sudden whip of the towels against his back thighs before grabbing Gil and pinned him against the counter. "After dinner," he said with a mischievous smirk. "I'll do whatever you want."
Nick wiped the unshed tears out of his eyes before he stood and left the room. He couldn't sleep and right then, he didn't want to.
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Nick headed for the cafeteria as he dialed the number for his field office. The ringing came to an abrupt halt.
"Los Angeles Crime Lab, this is Joe Lee--"
"Joe! It's Stokes."
"Supervisor Stokes what can I do for you?"
Nick was still caught off guard at the 'Supervisor' title, and being head honcho. "Listen, I'm taking some time off. I have personal family business to take care of so everyone is on deck until I get back. Okay?"
"Got it. More overtime for the posse while the star gets dragged off the side and—"
Nick flipped his cell phone shut and shook his head. That guy was worse than Greg at times. And he never thought he would ever meet anyone who could come close that that guy.
Now, he had one more person to call. He took a deep breath and hit his speed dial and waited with a growing bitterness in his chest and throat. As the voice came over the line, he swallowed the rising bile down and cleared his throat.
"Catherine...Cath....Hey!" The line went silent after Nick yelled into the phone; he had to yell because Catherine would not stop talking. All he managed to get out was "Don't panic, Gil is missing", then chaos. He breathed against the phone and rubbed the bridge of his nose, a habit he picked up from Gil. "Listen, I need you to call Brass and have him keep an eye out for him"
"Do you think he'll come to Vegas?"
Nick shook his head as he spoke and took his cup of coffee from the lady behind the counter with a gentle smile. "I don't know, but at this point I'll call up fucking Alaska if I could."
"I understand. Hey, Nicky?"
"Yeah."
"Do you need me to come out there and help you look for him?"
Nick smiled into the phone. "Thanks, Cath, but no. Don't let anyone else get wind of this either, okay? The last thing I need is for everyone on Graveyard to jump in their SUV's and hightail it here."
Catherine laughed despite the situation. "I was thinking the same thing. Ecklie wouldn't be to happy if all his CSI's left."
Nick chuckled. "I don't think so either. Just, keep an eye out for him. I have no idea where he would have gone. An officer is checking on our house in Santa Monica, hopefully he just wanted to go home."
"I hope so too. When are you going back?"
"Probably tomorrow, I don't know. Whenever I'm satisfied that I've covered all my bases here I suppose."
"Okay, be careful Nicky. And don't worry, Gil wouldn't runaway, not from you."
"Let's hope. Bye Cath, take care." He flipped his phone shut and headed down to Dr. Evans office.
The lobby was bustling with people who were there to visit their loved ones as he made his way across the hallway to Carl's office. The door was open so Nick walked right in and smiled at the doctor and sat down in the chair in front of the desk.
"Okay. Call me when you arrive, bye." Carl hung up the phone and turned to face Nick. "Any luck?"
Nick frowned and shook his head. "I got a hold of Catherine; she's a CSI in Vegas, and she's going to keep an eye out for him there along with an officer."
Carl smiled and nodded. "That's wonderful. You sure they'll really look for him?"
Nick gave Carl a quizzical look. "Well, it's the least she or anyone in Vegas can do. We're like a family out there so I wouldn't be surprised if everyone in the lab and department finds out and the whole state would be on the look out."
Carl gave a tight smile. "I'm...sorry, Nick. I wish I could be more helpful in this situation, but I've got a clinic to run and patients to look after."
"I know. Just, letting me stay here was enough."
Carl nodded then looked over Nick's shoulder. "Uh, I have an appointment now, Nick. Why don't you come back later?"
Nick glanced over his shoulder to the man standing in the doorway. "Okay," he said once he faced the doctor again. "I'll be back later or you can come find me when you're available."
"Will do."
Nick nodded and went to leave the office. On his way pass the man coming in, the man bumped his shoulder hard causing Nick to spin around a little. "Hey!"
"Nick," Carl stood and smiled reassuring. "It's okay, he does that, pay him no attention. Ernesto, sit. Nick, I'll talk to you later."
Nick watched as Ernesto sat down before he turned back around and headed back down the hall.
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"So, there's nothing you can do?!"
Nick knew he was being irrational. Gil had come to the clinic voluntarily; why would the police help him out in finding him?
The officer he was yelling at just stood and stared at him, taking the abuse like a good veteran. "Sir, if this man was here voluntary and he's not a violent threat to the community then there is nothing we can do. He's not a runaway, he hasn't been abducted, and quite frankly, this man sounds very rational and intelligent granting him no threat to this community. I'm sorry, but there's nothing we or this department can do."
Nick's jaw clenched and his hands rubbed through his hair so not to deck the officer. "Fine, fine. I understand." He turned and left the police department without saying 'Thank you' to the officer and stormed to his truck.
He didn't know where he was going, just that he was pissed off and his hands were shaking with rage and his leg wanted to push the gas pedal so hard until it broke. Gil was still missing. He looked at his watch. It'd been more than 48 hours, and he had nothing. Catherine called to check in with him saying that no one has seen or heard from Gil since two weeks ago when him and Nick both called to tell Warrick happy birthday.
Nick turned the truck a sharp left into a vacated parking lot and came to an abrupt halt against a curb. His vision was blurred with unshed tears and his hands were shaking to severe to drive. His head dropped back against the headrest as he rubbed his eyes and face. A headache was forming and starting to throb at his temples so he rested his head on his folded arms resting on the steering wheel. The muscles were twitching under his forehead. He just wanted Gil back. Wanted take him home and never think about therapy again. He could live with Gil not talking to him if it meant he would be there with him forever.
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Catherine walked through the maze of the police department with ease pass the wondering victims or suspects and uniformed officers and detectives to the office of Jim Brass. She was tired, frustrated that another day went by that she didn't get to spend time with her daughter, and Brass called her over to his office while she was on her way home to finally sleep and maybe see Lindsey before she left to go stay with a friend. "This had better be good," she barked at Jim as the door slammed shut.
Jim raised his brows at the woman before him. Catherine did not look happy with her hands on her slightly bent hips and tight lips. "Well aren't you 'Little Miss Sunshine' this afternoon."
"I don't have time for this, Jim! I was finally on my way home to see Lindsey when you called. So, if you're not dying I would like to continue on my way."
A sarcastic comeback quickly formed in Jim's mind and nearly came out before the seriousness of the reason he invited Catherine to his office clouded his mind. He let the sarcasm drop as he reached over and placed on tape recorder on his desk. "I'm not dying, but I bet there will be somebody else killed today." He pressed 'Play' on the recorder and leaned back in his chair and waited.
After the tape clicked off, Catherine stared hard at the recorder then up at Brass. "I'm going to kill him."
"We need to call Nick, Cath. And we can't even find him to be able to kill him."
Catherine let out a deep breath and shook her head. "I can't believe he did that...and to Nick!"
Jim nodded his agreement and stared at the recorder himself, perplexed and unsure of what to say. "I know. It's...soooo Gil that I want to hit him myself, but we can't do anything about it except let Nick know about it and hope for the best."
Catherine looked up at Jim bright eyed and a sly grin. "Let's give it to Archie and see what he can get off it. There might be a clue to where he is."
Jim took the tape out of the recorder and tossed it to Catherine. "Here, and make a copy of it for Nick. Let me know what turns up, even if it's nothing."
"Will do," Catherine said as she turned and left the office.
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Carl stared down at Nick who was dead asleep on a cafeteria table. His heart broke at the sight of the other man. Tear tracks could be seen going down Nick's face, dark circles were present under his eyes from lack of sleep, and stress lines could even be seen in his sleep. Nick had shown back up at the clinic only a half-hour ago looking worn down and dead on his feet, he didn't want to wake the other man, but he had no choice. Nick wouldn't want to be left out of the loop on his partner's disappearance. "Nick. Nick, it's Carl."
Nick shifted and mumbled something in his sleep. Carl shook him gently as he could. "Nick, I need you to wake up."
One of Nick's eyes opened and peered at Carl. They were bloodshot and cloudy, unfocused. He reached up with a lazy right hand and rubbed at his eyes and opened them both. Confusion was laced on the Nick's face and in his eyes, before he slowly came out of his sleepiness. "Carl? What is it?"
Carl shook his head, debating on what to say and how to say it. "Nick, Jim Brass called with the LVPD, you need to hear the voice message he sent me."
Nick was out of his seat and heading down the hall before Carl even finished talking.
"Nick!" Carl caught up with him. "It's in my office."
"Thanks." Nick was racing down the hall and turned into the doctor's office. "Where is it?"
Carl came walking in behind Nick and up to his phone. "On my voice mail; hang on and I'll play it for you. Detective Brass also said that the original copy of the tape is being processed by...Archie?"
Nick was nodding as he watched Carl dial numbers on his phone then hit 'Speaker Phone'. The voice that played brought tears to his eyes, the message brought anger.
~"Las Vegas Police Department, this is Shirley. How may I help you?"~
~"Hello? This is Dr. Grissom. I-I, uh...tell Detective Brass that, to tell him...I-I'm sorry. And--" the line was cut off for a moment as the phone hit something metallic. There was a muffled noise then Gil saying from what seemed like far away, "Shit." The phone jumbled around for a few seconds before Gil could be heard clearer again. "S-sorry," there was another muffled sound from Gil sounding like, "Fucking clumsy," before he could be heard clearly through the phone again, "That's it. Just tell him...tell Nick that, and don't...I'm fine and I don't want to be found..." There was a deep sigh then, "Fuck."~
The phone went dead then the dial tone filled the room. Nick stared at the phone, jaw slack and head numb. "What?" He looked up at Carl, "What just happened?"
"He sounded..."
"Confused. He sounded..." Just like he did when he was drugged up to his eyeballs and unaware of anything except for the sun shining on him and burning his skin. "God damn it!" Nick pounded the desk and was grabbing the phone and before he realized it the phone was breaking against the opposite wall.
"Nick," Carl was saying to him. "Calm down. Everything is--"
"Don't," Nick yelled as he turned to face the doctor. "Don't." His voice was much calmer but still shaky. "I want to see everything. Everything that Gil said, did, didn't do, eat, drink...I want it all, right now. I want to know why the hell he left. Where he went. Can you do that?"
Carl stared at Nick for a moment before shaking his head. "Nick, you know Patient/Doctor confide--"
"Can you do it?" Nick was burning holes in the doctor just from his stare.
Carl shifted from one foot to the other then finally nodded. "Fine, yes, but I can't be liable for anything you find or how you react to it. You're going to have to sign--"
"Whatever I have to sign, I will." Nick placed his hands on his hips and waited.
Carl gave Nick one last look before he sighed and went to his file cabinet. He used a key to unlock the second drawer and pulled out a file and handed it to Nick. "I have all our conversations on tape," he said as he bent down and unlocked the last drawer. A small covered container was handed to Nick with cassette tapes filling it. "The first day...Gil didn't say anything in our meetings. You'll want to start on 'Day Two'."
Nick looked at the file and the container and nodded. "I'll be in my room."
***
Flashback: Day TwoGil stared at the ceiling in his room and let out a deep sigh. He was a prisoner. All his books were taken away, no more Virgil or Shakespeare; even his crossword puzzles were gone. Dr. Evans called it punishment for being out of his room after 11 or whatever time lockdown was, for causing a havoc for other patients, and causing the nurses to actually do their job and help him. That wasn't what they actually said, but it was close enough. He was being treated like a 5 year old who disobeyed their parents when told to go the bed and not stay up late and watch television...or run the halls until he was so worn out and cramped up he couldn't walk anymore and passed out.
Hannibal Lecter never had it so bad. At least Hannibal could amuse himself with killing other patients in his mental hospital.
And why was he thinking that?
He rolled over on his stomach and stared at the tile on the floor instead, at least it had a weird white and black pattern compared to the pure white plaster ceiling. The walls were concrete and it was cold in the room, concrete didn't hold in the warmth.
San Francisco sucked, the clinic lied, and he was missing Nick.
Nick. There was a thought. He had a chance to call Nick today but he was too busy being given drugs that he didn't want to take for the painful cramps in his legs and soreness in his feet. Every so often a nurse would stop in to make sure he was okay, but he was alone and it wasn't the good kind; he was lonely and desperate for the touch and accent of his partner, friend, and lover...his Nicky.
A tear slid from his eye, down his nose, then dripped to the floor. He missed his chance to call Nick. To hear his voice for the first time since Nick left. God, how it hurt. That pain was worse than the physical ache his muscles were in. Maybe he could e-mail Nick.
That thought forced him to his feet and he grunted in pain the whole six steps to the door. "Hey," he yelled down the hall.
A nurse stopped her walk and turned around and started her way to his room. He shifted and leaned against the doorframe until she stopped in front of him. "When does the computer lab open?"
"It's open now."
Gil smiled for the first time in days. "Great. Can I use it? I want to e-mail my p...friend."
"Of course. Do you need assistance?"
Gil shook his head. "No, just directions."
After the nurse told him how to get there he waited for her to round the corner before he made his way down the hall to the elevator. Hopefully no one would see him or try to tell him he couldn't e-mail Nick neither. As the doors closed in front of him he decided to tell Nick about this damn place and that he wanted to leave. Hell, he could leave whenever he wanted. Right?
A Security Officer was sitting at a desk just inside the lab door as Gil entered. "You have 5 minutes on a computer. No more, no less, no exceptions."
Gil raised a brow at the man before he found a computer in the back and 'kind of' private. It took him a second to determine which one of Nick's e-mail addresses to send to, home or office, before he choose office as that was the one most frequently used. He began typing then noticed a change in light and looked behind him to see the guard standing behind him.
"It's protocol to view every e-mail going in and out of the clinic. We had one patient a few years ago that sent a very violent and hit-list to a family member who came in here with a gun and tried to take out the whole lobby of people. It wasn't pleasant."
Gil stared at the man for a long moment before looking back at the screen. As he began to type again all the things he wanted to tell Nick about the clinic was pushed to the back of his mind. The guard was leaning over his shoulder reading every word he wrote which sparked a sense of uneasiness and frustration that he had ever felt in his life. He wanted to turn around to tell the guard off and tell him to BACK UP but he couldn't, he was actually afraid too. His fingers slipped on a few keys making him backspace before he continued because his hands started to shake with rage. He didn't put his usual weird signatures at the end and instead settled for just 'Gil', before he hit the 'Send' button. He pushed back a little too hard from the computer, hitting the guard with the back of his chair before he stood up and left the computer lab.
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8 AM is breakfast, 1 PM is lunch, 8 PM is dinner. No one out of their rooms after 11 PM, no windows open after 7 PM.
Gil repeated the schedule for the clinic as he wondered to the cafeteria. It was going on 1 PM, that meant food, probably very, very bad food and lukewarm coffee but he was hungry so he didn't care.
8 AM is breakfast, 1 PM is lunch, 8 PM is din—
He stopped walking as he saw the sign on the cafeteria door: 'CAF... Closed until 5 PM'. His jaw dropped. What the hell? Why was the cafeteria closed? He looked around and didn't see anyone around, not even a janitor. The doors were locked and the lights were out in the dinning room.
His pulse was quickening and his hands clenched and unclenched, nails slightly dug into his palms as they clenched into fists. 5 PM was his meeting with Dr. Evans, he couldn't eat, again. Before he thought about it his fist collided with the door, making it move slightly, but nearly breaking his bones. He stormed off down the hall with the suspension that everyone in the clinic was conspiring against him.
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"Why is the cafeteria closed?"
Dr. Evans looked up at him from his desk with a neutral expression. "The cafeteria is closed?"
Gil stood in front of the desk unwilling to give into the formalities of being courteous and stuffed his hands in his pockets so not to hit the doctor for giving him the 'innocent look'. "Yes. I was unable to eat breakfast because of I was asleep in the nurses station and then at one o'clock, there was a sign on the door saying the cafeteria was closed until five. It's five and I'm here for our appointment instead of eating."
Dr. Evans leaned back in his chair and gestured to the chair in front of the desk. Gil didn't waver. "I had no idea that the café was closed, Gil. I've been in my office all day and I forgot to even eat lunch myself. We've had problems before, I'm sure there was a perfectly good reason, and dinner will be served in just three more hours."
Gil stared at the doctor. Since Nick left him alone at the clinic, nothing was what it seemed, not the doctors, nurses, staff, even the rooms felt different after the first day. He never put stock in instinct or intuition, but he couldn't shake the overwhelming feeling of something being wrong; he just couldn't prove it. Maybe he was being paranoid and just irritated that he was there and that made everything feel that way, he wasn't certain. He was certain, however, that he didn't trust Dr. Evans as far as he could throw him, and with his back aching like it did, that wasn't very far.
Gil reluctantly sat down in the chair across from the doctor. He watched as the doctor wrote something down in his file, placed a tape recorder on the desk, and then leaned back in his own seat again.
A dull ache could be felt in his hands and he glanced down to see purple and blue bruising around his knuckles of his right hand from where he punched the door. He shouldn't have done that, he just...couldn't help it. His control was slipping and so was his irritability level. There were suddenly things that usually didn't faze him that were starting to make want to hit things, like the cafeteria being closed. And the 'rules' of the clinic shouldn't be causing him so many problems. He had rules at work he had to follow like being there at a certain time and leaving at a certain time, even though he hardly ever left when he was supposed to.
8 AM is breakfast, 1 PM is lunch, 8 PM is dinner, be in rooms by 11 PM, and no opening the windows after 7 PM.
He had no freedom here; that was the problem. No freewill to eat when he wanted, to be where he wanted to be, and to do what he wanted to do. How was a place like this supposed to help people?
It was equivalent to being in a controlling relationship again. The only difference was that what he did wasn't determined by a man anymore, but an entire system of people. Controlling people. People who made Robert look like a fucking saint.
He swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat before his eyes shifted to the floor. A deep, frustrated sigh escaped him before he shifted in his seat again and looked around the room. Just like the day before, he studied every item in the room. His eyes kept going back to the Degrees hanging on the walls.
"Crescat scientia; vita excolatur."
Dr. Evans was startled for a moment before recovering. "What?"
"Crescat scientia; vita excolatur. It means 'Let knowledge grow from more to more; And so be human life enriched'. It's the motto for the University of Chicago. I thought since you got a degree from there, you would have known what it meant," Gil said matter-of-factly, and he was grateful that his voice was steady as usual when he really wanted to lash out at the doctor.
Dr. Evans gave a tight smile. "I was only there for Graduate school; I didn't pay attention to the school itself."
Gil wasn't expecting that, but he nodded. "What Graduate school?"
"Pritzker School of Medicine," Dr. Evans said just at proudly as he looked.
"I've got to admit I'm impressed. I only went to Chicago for lectures and forensic training, but I was so captivated by the University that I ended up spending more than the two weeks I was supposed to be there. I ended up staying there three months shy of two years," Gil shrugged out the last statement like it'd explain everything, which it sort-of did.
"Do you miss living there?"
Gil shook his head. "I don't like the cold."
"Is that why you moved to Vegas? To get away from the cold?"
Gil glanced down at the desk then shook his head before meeting the doctor's eyes again. "I moved to Vegas because of the job I was offered."
Dr. Evans shrugged. "I just assumed since you're such a huge baseball fan that you would have stayed in Chicago because of the teams."
Gil blinked back at the doctor before crossing his legs at the ankles. "How do you know I'm a baseball fan?"
"Mr. Stokes told me a lot about you, Gil. He's my only source of information for you, since you don't like talking about yourself."
Gil wondered just how much information Nick told the doctor. He gave the doctor a hard look before he glanced up at the clock. It had only been a half-hour, and it was only Day Two. He shook his head and closed his eyes against the forming migraine that was beginning to blur his vision and pound at his temples.
It was only the second day. He had twelve more days to go.
A sharp sting was forming behind his eyelids and his chest began to ache. He wasn't going to make it for twelve days. The silent treatment would only last for so long. The doctor knew how to get to him. Dr. Evans knew everything about him, well, everything Nick told him, which was a lot.
It wouldn't be long before the doctor exploited his weaknesses and made him talk, or made him snap.
"You fear being known, Gil."
The sudden words made Gil's head snap up to attention. That statement spoke volumes of him, and Lady Heather had once told him that same thing. He was afraid of being known, because it was too dangerous for him.
"It's hard to hide forever, Gil. You've mastered the art of not showing your emotions, your fears, but you're not as strong as you used to be. You've been violated, someone was able to break you down and take away everything you've spent years trying to build up."
Gil knew his face was solid, expressionless as always, but his eyes always gave him away. And tears were still present, begging to be let free. The doctor was right. He let that happen. He let Robert in, take away his control, and now he was trying to reestablish himself but now Nick was in his life and it was harder to put those walls back up.
"And you know what, Gil. Nick told me that it wasn't your fault, but he's wrong. You knew he was wrong. It was your fault. And now, look at where you're at, in a mental institution. Why are you here, Gil?"
Gil blinked away the stinging tears in his eyes and cleared his dry throat. "I...uh...I need help."
Dr. Evans smirked and shook his head. "No, Gil. You're here because Nick put you here."
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Gil stared at the ceiling in his room, unblinking and unmoving.
"Don't hate me for this, Gil. Please, this was the only option I had to make you..." Nick choked on a sob and he began to rub his back.
"I'd never hate you, Nick. You didn't do this...I brought it on myself." Gil relaxed into Nick as those words played back in his head. He didn't do this to himself. It had been growing for years and now...Now he was with someone who instead of just leaving, stuck with him and made sure he got the best help. "Thank you, Nicky."
Nick sobbed louder but Gil swore he felt Nick smile on his shoulder. When Nick pulled his head up and looked at Gil, all he saw was the same loving compassion that had always been there. And it wrecked him to see the tears still forming and falling from those eyes.
"We, you, have to pack. I'll help." Nick nodded to himself then turned and pulled Gil with him toward the guest room. "Ten minutes, doc?"
"There's no rush," Doctor Evans called from the other room.
Nick nodded into his neck. He tried to rub away the tremors and tension still present in Gil.
"What if he tries to tell me that we...our relationship is wrong or isn't worth it."
Nick raised his head so he was eye level with Gil. "He won't." Gil's look was concerned at best and he was trying not to cry. Nick wondered if Gil ever would.
"How can you be certain?"
That conversation he had with Nick before they left played back in his head. He was telling Nick the truth when he said he wouldn't blame him. It was his fault. At least he thought it was. But, he was never good with people, with relating his feelings or with understanding them. Was he wrong?
He shook his head at that notion. Nick didn't do this. Nick was just the one to pick up the phone and call around to different clinics. Nick was the one that talked to Dr. Evans, and Nick was the one to convince him to leave work and go to San Francisco. Nick drove him there and told him everything was going to be okay.
Nick was controlling him.
Stop it.
Gil pressed his hands against his closed eyes and shook his head. Nick wasn't controlling him. The clinic was. Nick had nothing to do with it. What Dr. Evans had said in there meeting was wrong. He knew that. He knew what was going on.
But why did it sound so right.
Dr. Evans smirked and shook his head. "No, Gil. You're here because Nick put you here."
Gil shook his head. "No. Nick just took the necessary steps to get me the help I need. I'm the one who...who can't seem to trust anyone. I'm the one who blames himself for murders that I had nothing to do with. Nick, just...he loves me. He cares."
"Nick wants to change you, Gil. He wants you to be someone you're not. He just found the perfect way to do it."
Gil stared hard at the doctor then stood up. His fist pounded the desk and he was staring down at the doctor who was still seating in his big-ass leather chair. "Nick is not to blame for me being here. He's done nothing but try to help me."
"Why do you feel the need to have to defend Nick?"
"Because Nick can't defend himself, because Nick isn't the kind of guy who wants to hurt somebody."
"Then why can't you trust him? Why can't you see Nick as Nick and not Nick as a potential Robert, Gil?"
Gil went to speak but nothing came out. His eyes slightly softened as he thought about that. Why couldn't he see Nick for Nick? It wasn't...That didn't make sense. It wasn't logical for him to think that way, but he was. He didn't know why, he always just did. Robert screwed him over in a huge way and it was hard for him to trust anybody else. But, Nick was...Nick. Nick was stalked and buried alive and saved his life more than once and who could kiss him like no other.
Nick who reminded him of Robert and who he feared would just control him the same way.
That was fucked up. He was the screw-up, not Nick. So, why didn't he trust Nick?
That was what he was here for, to figure that out. Dr. Evans didn't mean it; he was just pushing Gil's buttons to get a response. And it worked.
Smart man.
Gil looked up at the clock. His hour was up. As he turned to leave, the doctor called after him.
"I'll send a nurse up to your room with lunch, Gil. I really didn't know that the café was closed earlier."
Smart man. Gil was a smart man too; he caught on to what the doctor was doing and knew that tomorrow would be the same. Dr. Evans would attack Nick's character, blame him, make Gil furious enough to defend him, stating all the reasons why Nick wasn't like Robert and never would be. It would make him see how foolish he was being, how irrational his concerns and fears were. But it hurt. It hurt to hear those horrible things about Nick, those accusations that the doctor was saying about the man he loved.
He hated it, hated therapy. He really hated Dr. Evans more because he took his books away.
A nurse had stopped by after the meeting and gave him a tray of food then later that evening he had dinner. Now it was going on 11 and he couldn't stand not having the window open, or the right to take a walk in the halls, and he couldn't read. He couldn't work on a crossword puzzle. He couldn't...breathe.
He quickly sat up and panted for air. The burning sensation in his lungs finally eased, but his chest was still aching and his head was pounding with a forceful migraine that was threatening to make him sick to his stomach.
The thought of taking any kind of drugs made him feel nauseous as well, but he couldn't suffer like that any longer. His whole body was shaking and he was craving a cigarette and his head felt like it was made of stone and his legs like Jell-O.
The lock clicked as he opened his door and looked out. The halls were deserted, just like the night before, and the lights were dimmed. As he made his way down to the nurse's desk he peered through the windows of the other rooms and was startled to find that the doors with open windows were empty. Some rooms he couldn't see into because the windows were covered and locked.
Why would the window covers be locked?
Come to think of it. He hadn't seen a patient on this floor. He'd seen them downstairs going in and out of meetings and at dinner he saw every patient in the clinic, but he never saw anyone on the floor, not even during the day when you could walk freely around the place.
The nurse's desk was empty, not a single nurse was on the floor. Gil let out a sigh. Damn. He had a migraine and couldn't get anything for it. Just...great.
As he turned to walk back to his room he saw a nurse coming from the other direction, toward him.
"Can I help you?"
Gil smiled at her and hoped she wouldn't just tell him to go to his room and leave her alone. The nurse was staring at him with sharp eyes and a tight smile. Her name tag said Betty, and Betty smelled like nicotine. She must have been on her 'smoke break'. "I have a migraine. Can I have my prescriptions for it? I'm sure Dr. Evans told you about it."
Nurse Betty nodded and went behind the desk. "Dr. Grissom has frequent migraines. He takes...Depakote. Two every six hours or when needed. Correct?"
Gil nodded. "You have a good memory. Uh, am I the only patient on this floor?"
Nurse Betty glanced up at him as she wrote something down, she was probably documenting that he came and asked for his medication when he was supposed to be sleeping. "No, but there are only a few patients on this floor. Nine to be exact. The patients who need the most supervision are downstairs. Second floor is for new patients like you, the two weekers. Everyone else is upstairs on the third floor or fourth floor."
Gil nodded and waited for Nurse Betty to get his prescriptions. After five minutes of paperwork and a phone call, he was handed two pills and a bottle of water.
"Keep the water. Do you need help back to your room?"
Gil shook his head as he took a big gulp of the water. "No, but I do have another question. When will I get my books back?"
Nurse Betty gave him a confused look. "Why were you're books taken?"
"I was out of my room after 11."
She nodded and looked through her files. "I have no record of your books being taken away or where they are. Did Dr. Evans order it?"
"Yeah," Gil said as he watched as she looked through his file again. How could she not know? He was still wondering why they were taken away to begin with. Wasn't nearly dying punshiment enough?
"I'm sorry. I don't have that information. You could ask Dr. Evans tomorrow about it." She gave him a sympathetic smile and shrugged.
Gil rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation but nodded anyway. "Okay, thanks."
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The Depakote numbed his head, but everything else still hurt. He tossed in the bed again and stared into the dark room. A while ago he got his breathing under control to where he wasn't having a panic attack from the closed off room, but his chest was still heaving up and down.
Against the clinic's rules, he had his window open but it still didn't help. The air was cold, he was shaking, and there was no light. He was used to sleeping during the day, sometimes he welcomed the sun into his room as he slept, and it warmed him up and made him feel safe. The room he was in now wasn't safe. And he could still smell the blood that coated his nightmares. The blood had poured from his body as well as Roberts' and Nicks'.
How he dreamt of killing them both then himself he'd never know, but he did. He woke up screaming just a few seconds after he'd dosed off. It was like a bad adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, except Romeo didn't kill himself, he killed Romeo. So, maybe it was more like Macbeth than Romeo and Juliet?
He needed sleep. That was all there was to it.
A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, and yet I would not sleep.
Macbeth, Act Two, line...He didn't know.
He sat up on the side of the bed and rubbed at his eyes. It was a bad sign when he couldn't remember Shakespeare. The tile floor was freezing his feet as he made his way to the door. The hall was still empty and the nurse wasn't at the desk. It was almost two in the morning and he felt like he pulled a double and was running on pure adrenaline, but he wasn't running on adrenaline only the fear of falling asleep without something strong to keep his nightmares away.
But alcohol was a bad thing to have in the hospital. Drugs, however, were easy to come by, especially when the nurses forgot to lock the cabinet. He grabbed his prescription of Depakote and dumped a little under a handful in his palm. He wasn't going to take them all at the same time; he just needed a few more to knock him out.
He noticed the nurse's lab coat hanging on the back of the chair as he went to walk away. It smelled like nicotine and sweet perfume as he searched one pocket then the other. His hand felt something in the second pocket and when he pulled it out he smiled when it was a pack of cigarettes and lighter. He pulled out four from the pack the lit one before he put the lighter and pack back in the pocket.
The smell of cigarette smoke used to make him gag, it used to make him feel sick and start coughing in fits of pain, now, it made him relax, helped him to sleep, and hurt a little in his chest, but he could deal with that hurt. He couldn't deal with the nightmares of killing Nick, the doctor telling him that Nick was to blame for him being there, or not seeing Nick for two weeks.
He could deal with the thought of maybe getting cancer and dying. That was actually a comfort to him in a weird way.
Like a crime scene. Surprise, you're dead. I'd prefer to know in advance that I was going to die. I'd like to be diagnosed with cancer, actually. Have some time to prepare. Go back to the rain forest one more time. Re-read 'Moby Dick.' Possibly enter an international chess tournament. At least have enough time to say good-bye to the people I love.
Words spoken to a person he trusted, one of the few people he trusted. He trusted Sara, Catherine, and Jim. Those three people were easy to trust; he didn't tell them much, they didn't pry, and he could love them as more than just friends. There was a difference. They couldn't hurt him like a lover could, like a partner could, like Nick could.
Nick didn't know about that conversation, and he never would if he had any say. Nick knew of other conversations, the ones they had with each other, but the ones he had with other people are private and just between them, no one else. Not even Nick.
He took a long, wonderful drag off the cigarette in his hand before blowing the smoke out the window in his room. The air was freezing but he took off his shirt anyway and didn't bother to put his socks on. He shivered at the cold air that was hitting him as he knelt on his knees, folded his arms on the windowsill, and then rested his chin on his forearms. The pills were placed between the bed mattress and the box spring; he didn't want to risk them being taken away. If he was going to get any sleep, he was going to need them.
The view from the window hadn't changed since last night. It was depressing. A cab came to a stop across the street and let out two people, male and female. There voices were so loud he could hear them from across the street. They both sounded drunk, and from the way the guy almost tripped in the street, he was definitely drunk.
He had to hand it to them that they both didn't seem to care that they were walking by a building that housed the crazy and depressed.
As he looked back up at the skyline of the city, he wondered what Nick was doing, which was probably supervising the crime lab. Nick could be checking his e-mail and smiling because he had e-mailed him earlier. Nick would then frown at the short paragraph that barely told of his time so far, the fact that he didn't call would also cause Nick heartache, and the signature of just 'Gil' with none of his usual weird signatures that always made Nick laugh and e-mail him back with a weirder signature.
But Nick wouldn't see that as there being something wrong at the clinic. Something wrong with him.
Nick would laugh, shake his head and say: "That's just Gil."
***
Present Time~ "I don't like the cold. I moved to Vegas because of the job I was offered. How do you know I'm a baseball fan?"
"Gil? Why are you here, Gil?"
"I...uh...I need help. No. Nick...can't seem to trust anyone...blames himself for murders that I had nothing to do with. Nick, just...he cares."
"He wants you to be someone--"
"He's done nothing--"
"Why do you feel the need to have to blame Nick? Why can't you see Nick as Nick and not Nick as a potential Robert, Gil?" There was a long pause. "I'll send a nurse up to your room with lunch, Gil."
The sound of the door clicked shut.~
Nick listened the to tape over and over again. His stomach turned again at the words that were spoken. Did Gil really think that? He shook his head and sighed into the empty room. There was something wrong with this whole situation, Gil would never say that...Would he?
He rewound the tape again but this time he plugged in the headphones into the tape player. Once the tape stopped he pressed play. As he listened to it the stranger the conversation got.
What was that clicking sound?
He rewound and pressed play again. Clicks could be heard throughout the tape like someone was taping the speaker every other sentence that was spoken. The file was next to him and he picked it up and re-read what was written in the notes for that day.
~Dr. Grissom seemed distant at first being generally uncomfortable. Lately, he has become more dissocialized from what was going on around him and has started talking to self then accusing this doctor of how I knew something when I never spoke. Irritation is increasing and he has become hyperactive. Drugs again? Something more serious mentally?~
Nick frowned down at the words written on the page. Gil, talking to himself? Yeah, everyone talked to themselves when they were alone but Gil would never just talk out loud like that around people. He was at the clinic because he couldn't talk to people.
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"Arch, please tell me you have something."
Archie continued to listen to the tape, hands pressed hard against the headphones and eyes trained on the screen. He quickly pressed a finger against his lips motioning for Catherine to be quiet before the hand went back to pressing at the headphones. A few seconds later he pulled them off and pressed stop. "Water. I heard water in the background, but it wasn't running. It was waves breaking."
"The beach. Arch, they are in California," Catherine said as she sat down next to the Lab tech.
"No, this was different. It was like the waves were breaking against something solid then splashing back in the water. Rocks, or a dam maybe."
Catherine looked over at the tech. "You can tell that?"
Archie smiled. "Years of experience."
"Is there anything else your years of experience can get out of that tape?"
Archie frowned and shook his head. "Silent, besides the water. Cath, I hate to put a damper on this search, but Grissom's the best at forensics. If he doesn't want to be found, we're not going to get anything that can pin-point him."
"Archie," Catherine sighed and turned toward him. "If Grissom didn't want to be found, he wouldn't have called. Look harder, maybe there's something we're missing. As Gris would say, 'the silence is just at important as the noise'."
Archie nodded. "I'll do my best Cath."
"That's all I'm asking for."
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Nick picked up the tape for 'Day 5' and replaced it with 'Day 6' in the cassette player. For the whole hour there was no sound except for the occasional sigh and the same clicking noise. He pulled the headphones off and threw them down. This was getting ridiculous. There wasn't anything in the tapes except for Gil not talking and when he did talk it was of nothing important because Gil shuts down when pushed.
The second day was so far the only day that Gil actually said something other than talk to himself about something trivial in the clinic. He sighed and picked up the headphones and put them back on his head before he lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The tape played and for the first 5 minutes there was silence, again.
Then Gil cleared his throat.
~"Uh...I, hate Nick."~
Nick bolted up so fast the headphones came out of the cassette player and Gil's voice filled the room. He stared at the tape as it played and felt the blood drain from his face and hands go cold.
~"He, he's trying to change me. He's controlling...controlling what I do by...putting me in here. It's his fault, not mine. Everything was simpler before I, he came into my life. Nic--...he's being just like Robert except he's doing a better job at hiding his control over me. Instead of breaking me at home, he's breaking me in here, changing me. I...hate him for that."
"Gil?...Why don't you come back tomorrow, okay? We can discuss--"
"I don't want to discuss anything with you."
There was movement then the door shutting.~
The tape clicked off.
Nick couldn't breathe. Gil...hated him? Why, how was that possible? He felt his stomach turn but he didn't move to get up. He couldn't move. His legs were heavy and his brain stopped functioning properly. Gil was gone. Gil hated him. Gil...didn't want to be found.
Nick choked out a breath as the tears started to run down his face. He did what he told himself he'd never do: he pushed Gil away for good.
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Catherine couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Nick, you can't give up like that."
"Cath there's nothing else I can do here. I'm going back to Santa Monica."
"And what exactly are you going to do there," Catherine asked, but she had a pretty good idea. Nick was devastated; she could hear it in his voice. She wouldn't to do something to not make it quiver like that, but the only way to do that was to find Gil, drag his ass back to Nick, and he have him explain himself until they were all satisfied; then beat the hell out of him for scaring them all like that.
"I...I don't know. Work, that's all I can do right now."
Catherine stopped in front of the A/V lab and watched Archie hard at work. "Okay, but can you do me a favor. Send me the tapes and video from the clinic."
"Cath, I've looked over everything and--"
"Maybe you missed something. I'll give them to Archie and see if maybe he can find something on them. Your judgment--"
"Is just as biased as yours, Cath. This is personal to all of us that know him, but there's nothing we can do except wait for him to come back."
Catherine sighed and closed her eyes. Nick really had given up on Gil. That was bad, a very, very bad sign. "Yes, you're right, but our equipment isn't. The LA lab is good, but we're better. All I'm asking for is to let us take a look at it. Okay?"
After a long pause there was a sigh then, from a very soft and defeated voice, Nick said, "Okay. I'll have it out this morning."
"Thanks, Nick," Catherine said before she flipped her phone shut and sat down next to Archie. "So, why'd you beep me?"
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Nick packed up his over night bag that he had for work and threw it over his shoulder. He was going back home to Santa Monica. It was strange to think of that as home without Gil. After all, it was Gil's house. Gil's mother left it to him, but Gil wasn't living there. He was living there alone.
He rubbed his face with his free hand as he made his way down the hall. Tears were threatening to escape but he had to hold it together or else he wouldn't be able to make the five hour drive. The tapes and surveillance footage were on the way to Vegas; maybe Archie could pick up something he couldn't. He doubted it.
"Leaving, Nick?"
Nick nodded and came to a stop in front of Carl. "Yeah, there's nothing left for me here. I've looked over everything."
Carl was nodding with a somber look on his face. Nick realized that the guy was looking older, maybe more tired. "I wish there was more I could do--"
"Why didn't you tell me you caught him stealing pills from the medicine cabinet?"
Carl stumbled through his words and looked down rather sheepishly. "I didn't want to upset you." He looked back up at Nick. "We were dealing with it. Nick...I know how hard the first weeks are and upsetting you wasn't very high on my list of things to do. Besides, it was just between me and Grissom, no one else knew about it. I tried to handle it in the meetings..."
Nick nodded. "Yeah, I heard." That particular tape was hard to listen to. Not only was it sketchy in how it would jump for conversation to conversation because Gil was avoiding answering anything forthright, but what was said. "Was he taking cigarettes as well?"
Carl shrugged. "If he was, we didn't know about it."
Nick sighed. He knew Gil was; he had to have been because Gil was addicted. What in the hell was he going to do. "Thanks, Carl, for everything. I'll...keep in touch."
Carl finally gave a tight smile. "Good luck. Nick, I don't think he meant anything he said. He is...he was agitated and angry at a lot of things. Don't blame yourself for this."
How could he not blame himself? He was the one that decided to do this, he was the one who called, and he was the one to force Gil to do something he didn't want to do. Nick just nodded and turned on his heels and walked down the hall, threw the lobby, then out the doors.
***
Flashback: Day ThreeGil's teeth rubbed so hard together he thought they would crack. His jaw clenched and unclenched with his fist as he stared ahead. It was 5 AM, he didn't get any sleep, and Doctor Evans called him down to his office to talk. Yet, Dr. Evans hadn't started talking yet. He had been writing for the last twenty minutes in the file in front of him. The clock ticked over the door, rain drops hit the window, and his head was about to explode from all the noise outside the door. What was going on out there at 5 AM?
Just breathe, Gil thought, he didn't need to let this get to him. But it was getting to him. Before he was woken just minutes after he finally fell asleep, a migraine had been forming while he stared around his dark room. There was no outside simulation to affect him, the thing that was causing him stress were his own thoughts.
He had let a weakness be seen by someone he didn't even trust! Sure, it was exploitation, but it worked and he should have never let it work. He should have stayed quiet.
"Why did you take the drugs out of the cabinet last night?"
Gil nearly jumped at the sudden voice. He sighed and glanced down at the desk before looking back up and focusing on the doctor. Security cameras must have been pointed that way. Why wouldn't they be? "I went to ask the nurse for another one, but she wasn't at her desk; I saw the cabinet unlocked, so I decided to take a few. They're my pills and I'm a grown man, I don't need to be told when and when I can't have my medication."
Dr. Evans sighed and leaned forward, crossing his arms on his desk. "Yes, you are, but we distribute them when necessary. Gil, you have a history of substance abuse--"
"That wasn't my doing. I was addicted to a drug that I was being given unknowing by someone else; I wasn't consciously drugging myself. I'm fine, and I know what does and doesn't help with my migraines. I've had them for years." Gil leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at his ankles. He was getting tired of this. He wasn't a child who couldn't think for himself. He wasn't here for that anyway, he was here because Nick...
Shit. Stop. Stop thinking that. He was here because he needed to learn how to get over what happened to him in the past so he could focus on Nick and their future together. Wow, did that just sound like some fucked up Disney movie or what?
"Gil?"
Gil blinked and tilted his head to the side. Maybe he could wait this out and go to his room, grab a cigarette, and stare out his prison window into the free world and think about Nick and being next to him in bed and hearing him softly breathe as he slept. That was a good memory.
"Did you think you would get away with it?"
What was he, five? Gil looked at the clock again and bit his tongue. Were the clock hands even moving? He rubbed the bridge of his nose and turned his attention back to the desk.
"You get away with a lot being Supervisor, don't you? I bet also being the only child you're used to getting your way. Now, you don't have a choice and it's driving you crazy. And this isn't the first time, either. But, it is the first time in a really long time that you've had your control taken away. Was the first time this maddening?"
Gil glanced up at the doctor and smiled to himself. He figured the doctor out the second day he was there. The doctor was trying to push him. When Gil was pushed, he snapped. He wondered if Nick also told the doctor that. The incident that happened in Nick's parent's house came to mind. Nick had figured it out, but he wasn't the only one. Catherine had pushed him before, and so did Ecklie just before he smacked a coffee pot out of his hand.
He didn't like confrontation directed toward him; it scared him because he knew he was capable of violence when pushed that far, so he spent a lot of time avoiding it and in doing so, avoided people who cared about him. Nick was being let in, and that wasn't good. He had known that the minute he let Nick live with him, but he ignored it. And now he was paying for it.
"Or, was the first time so exciting that it terrified you?"
Gil stiffened and his jaw clenched so tight he was sure his teeth did crack. How could he even suggest that? I wasn't excited about that fuc...He shook his head. Relax; this is what Dr. Evans was trying to do, get you rattled so you'd have another outburst. "When do I get my books back?"
"Stop avoiding the problem."
Gil felt his hands clench again into fists. He needed a cigarette, desperately. It was itching in his bones he needed one so badly. His eyes closed and he blocked off the occasional sounds around him. His chest was starting to hurt, hands were shaking slightly, and his head was throbbing. It was either his migraine getting worse, or he was having a panic attack. Shit, he hoped it wasn't a panic attack. He hadn't had one of those in months. Not since...well, it was before Salt Lake.
He tried to breathe steady through his nose and out his mouth but it was ragged and uneven. Just a few more minutes and he could leave. Just a few more minutes and he could leave, just a few mor—
Gil's eyes flew open at the sound of a loud bang in his ears. He looked over and saw Dr. Evans standing at the door, hands in his pockets like he didn't just slam the door shut.
"Wake up, Gil. I'm not through yet."
Gil flinched back momentarily at the tone in the doctor's voice. That wasn't normal. If Nick knew what was really happening at the clinic he'd be back in Santa Monica by dinner time. That thought made his stomach grumble with anger and hunger. He hadn't eaten that much since he got there. Only two full meals, maybe. And it was only Day Three.
Dr. Evans was sitting at his desk again and he didn't even notice that he had moved from the door.
"Gil, I asked you a question."
Gil frowned and shook his head. He didn't remember a question being asked.
"Let us figure out why you hate Nick."
"I don't hate Nick," Gil said matter-of-factly. He didn't. How could he?
Dr. Evans seemed taken back by that. "Of course you do; why else would you treat him the way you do?"
Gil went to speak but stopped. Damn it, Dr. Evans was trying to get him to fall into his trap again. He was too smart for that.
"Is it because he's not as...intelligent as you?"
Gil shook his head involuntarily.
"So, you do think he's not intelligent."
"I didn't say that!" Shit. What was he doing? He was coming to Nick's defense again was what he was doing.
Dr. Evans raised a brow at him and wrote something down before continuing. "What were you implying with the head shake then?"
"That I think Nick is a very intelligent man."
"But, not as quick as you. It takes him a while to...realize simple things that you realize."
"We're different, it doesn't mean anything." Gil gripped the side of the chairs but didn't avoid the doctor's eyes like he had been doing. This was going too far. Why was Dr. Evans attacking Nick's character for anyway? He was the screw-up, not Nick. Nick was at home working, taking care of things and the house, not in this God forsaken place being interrogated like a criminal.
"But you do have the tendency to think you're better than most people, right? So, why isn't this any different."
Whoa, what? He didn't think that. He was very open-minded about people and—
"You have been known to judge someone without knowing them, correct? Or knowing them but still judging."
Gil stared at the doctor and shook his head. He hadn't done that. Had he? No...but, he was cornered by Catherine one day for judging her a few times. But that was different, wasn't it? He sighed and leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling.
He was tired.
The session was over and it was about time. He took his time at standing, filling more exhausted than before, and quietly left the office.
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Gil's hands shook as he raised the phone to his ear. He was finally able to call Nick. It had felt like months since they last talked, and this was his chance to get out of there and go home. He wanted to go home. He needed to go home more than he needed a cigarette. Pick up, pick up, pick..."Nick!"
"Hey, Gil! I've missed you so much."
Gil smiled into the phone and sat down in the chair next to the table the phone was on. "I've missed being there. How's work?" Great, the first thing he wants to talk about is work.
"It's going. I enjoy being in charge," Nick laughed. "We've got a rookie, CSI I out of Fort Worth. The look on his face when I told him who my dad was could make the priceless commercials. I've never seen someone go so white over a name."
Gil could, but he wasn't going there. Not now, now he was thinking and talking to Nick and he was happy.
"How's the clinic? Making any progress? I talked to Dr. Evans yesterday and he said everything was fine, just having communication problems. Boy, I can only imagine."
Gil's voice caught in his throat. Dr. Evans called Nick yesterday? Why didn't he tell him that? What did they talk about? "Uh," he cleared his throat. "Everything's...fine, Nicky. I just...miss you."
Was his voice shaking? He felt his eyes burn before he realized they were tears threatening to fall. He quickly wiped his eyes and looked around the room where he was and spotted the guard watching him. He really hated this place. He couldn't even have a private phone conversation.
"I know; I've missed you too. Guess what I did? I fed Puff yesterday without shaking in my boots. I think he's growing attached to me because he doesn't try to bite my hand off anymore."
Gil heard the humor in Nick's voice and it made him smile for a brief moment. "That's great. You didn't kill any of my other bugs did you?"
Nick laughed for a good few seconds before saying, "No. They're all still alive, unfortunately...just kidding!"
"Are you working tonight?"
"Yeah, just got back a couple hours ago and was about to lie down before you called."
Nick was doing fine. He was sleeping and getting up and going to work. He was cooking meals or ordering out and eating like always, and he wasn't freaking out over not getting what he wanted or when he wanted it. Gil pinched the bridge of his nose so not to start getting upset and wanting to cry again. This was hard. This was... "I'm sorry, Nick. Why don't you go to sleep and we'll talk later. I have...a meeting to go to."
"Okay. Don't be late, just...get better and try. That's all I want. Love you."
Gil sucked in a breath and nodded into the phone again. The tears were starting to come down. "Yeah, okay. Bye, Nicky." He quickly hung up the phone and rubbed his face.
What was he going to do? The only thing he could do was to submit to the therapy. He had to give himself up and do whatever the doctor told him to do.
Or, he could run.
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Gil wet his lips with his tongue before he brought the cigarette up to his mouth. He didn't want to think, but that was all he could do. When he woke up panting and throwing his covers off he wasn't surprised at the thoughts that were swarming through his head. Nothing was working to calm them; he couldn't shove them down into the abyss. They kept coming back with more force and rage than before.
Earlier, his books were brought back sometime after dinner; at least he thought it was after dinner because he was so wrapped up in his thoughts he forgot about eating. The cigarette was a sad substitute for food, but it was all he had besides the migraine pills, which numbed him to the point that the lights from the parking lot weren't hurting his eyes anymore.
He had left his room again because he felt trapped and he couldn't breathe. The closet was his safe haven in a weird way, it gave him time to feel like he was on the outside looking in again, and not in the middle of something that made him want to throw up. That could be the lack of food talking though, but he doubted it. He'd gone days before without eating and felt just fine.
But the closet didn't work, instead it made him have a panic attack and it took all the strength he had left to get out of there, down the steps, and out into the parking lot. He shivered and took another drag off the cigarette. Why couldn't he stop thinking? He watched the cigarette burn down to the butt before he flicked it into the nearby trash bin.
He was having more time to just think, that was the problem. He was bored and there was nothing to do except fill his time with thoughts that weren't about crime scenes. They were ugly thoughts that consisted of him and Nick.
"You have been known to judge someone without knowing them, correct? Or knowing them but still judging."
He didn't get that then while in the office because his head was pounding, but it hit him as he stood outside in the cold staring at the ground. He was judging Nick. Nick was being judged and compared like he was the bad guy in the relationship. Nick wasn't the bad guy, he was. He was the one hurting Nick, Nick had never hurt him.
But Nick was hurting him too. Nick was telling that doctor things; divulging things to Dr. Evans that he would never tell a soul except to the man he trusted most. Nick was breaking that trust. Was it really to help him or was it to help break him?
He felt sick.
When did he start blaming Nick for all this? Why was Nick even a factor? It wasn't his fault. Nick had done nothing but help him, he even saved his life, and he was placing blame on him. God, was he even worth Nick? Maybe he really didn't deserve Nick. Could it be he was trying to see Nick as a Robert because that was what he knew he deserved?
Gil wrinkled his head in confusion and shook his head. That was nonsense.
He signed and leaned back against the building. His eyes closed involuntary as he listened to the occasional car going by on the street or distant talking of people walking home or to another bar. Then he heard the door to the clinic open. He held his breath and waited to be pulled back in.
When he barely opened his eyes and glanced over, Nurse Betty was walking out the door and lighting up a cigarette. She didn't even see him there by the door, yet. Nurse Betty stopped in front of the door with her eyes shut and inhaled the cigarette smoke before breathing it out then looked around the parking lot.
Gil stayed against the wall behind her and rested his head on the bricks. This was awkward. He felt like Hamlet spying on Claudius while he was praying.
"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below, words without thoughts never to heaven go."
Except he wasn't planning on killing Nurse Betty, he just wanted to go back into the clinic and try to go to sleep. He muffled a yawn, hoping it wasn't heard by the nurse, but she turned around at just that moment and froze.
Shit.
How was he going to get out of this one? Flight or fight went through his head but he shook it at that notion, Nurse Betty wasn't threatening him, in fact, she was starting to relax once she saw it was him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and let out a deep sigh.
Nurse Betty eyed him for a moment then went back to smoking her cigarette. "Cold?"
Gil opened his eyes that he didn't even know he shut and nodded. "I know I'm probably in trouble again, but I just...can't sleep here."
Nurse Betty nodded. "I won't be able to either. This place freaks me out most of the time."
Gil chuckled. That was an understatement for him. It made him downright nauseous. "I, uh..." he held up the other cigarette he had in his palm. "Took this from you."
Nurse Betty looked at him then laughed and shook her head. "At least now I know I'm not going crazy. Need a light?"
Gil nodded. That'd be great seeing how he wasn't going to be yanked back inside and strapped to his bed so he wouldn't get up again. Would they actually do that to him? That was it; he wasn't going to read 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest' ever again, especially not after this experience. "Thank you," he said after his cigarette was lit.
"Welcome."
Nurse Betty kept eyeing him making him shift from one foot to the other. It was a little unnerving.
"It's okay; if I was going to alter the guards I would have done it already."
Gil gave a small, tight smile before leaning back against the wall. That was a comfort, yet uncharacteristic of him because as a CSI he should be irritated that the nurse wasn't following protocol but now he could careless. There were a lot of things now that he could careless about that as Supervisor and CSI he was strictly intolerable.
For some reason the air got warmer now that somebody else was standing with him. He still felt lonely and depressed, but the night was more tolerable. And, he wasn't thinking about much anymore except about the nurse standing out with him. His eyebrows rose at that thought. All it took to get him to stop thinking was someone, or thing, to focus his attention on. Small talk didn't come natural to him, so he was struggling with something to say that wasn't...a put off.
"How are your migraines?"
Well, that was a start. Gil shrugged. "It's better now. My head feels a little numb, which is a good thing."
Nurse Betty nodded. "If you ever need any more; just ask."
That interested Gil in more ways than one. Was she hitting on him? Who did that in a mental hospital? He could be crazy. "Uh...thanks?" What did someone say to that?
"It's not what it sounded like."
Okay. Gil tilted his head and waited for her to continue.
"Um, this isn't going well, is it?"
Gil shrugged. He guessed not, but he didn't know how it was supposed to go. In all rationality he was supposed to have been dragged back into the building and strapped to his bed.
Nurse Betty was actually blushing. "I meant that I like helping the patients on my floor. I have access to your file, and all the patient's files. I like to know who I'm looking after. You, Dr. Grissom, don't need someone hanging over your head all the time. Unlike some patients here, you're not a threat to yourself. So, I'm not going to hound you if you need your medication."
Gil was staring at her trying to figure out if she was serious or not. She sounded serious, but her actions were...something he should disagree with. It wasn't professional for her to do that. She had orders to follow and...Why was he complaining? She was right; he wasn't a threat to himself. "That's very...considerate of you."
Nurse Betty shrugged. "This clinic got its reputation for all the good we do, which includes helping our patients...anyway we can."
The way she said that made Gil stiffen and look at the door. If that wasn't an offer, he didn't know what was. And that was crossing so many lines he couldn't even count them all. "I'm...tired." He raised the cigarette and took one last drag before he put it out and threw it away.
He had the door halfway open when he heard her say over his shoulder, "This is just between us, Dr. Grissom. Don't worry about it."
The door shut and he was running up the stairs. What the hell was that about?
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Day Six
Gil ran around the corner for the twenty-second time. This was how his nights went: he slept for a few hours before waking up and having a cigarette, sometimes he would take a migraine pill, most nights he would run the halls until he was too worn out to do much else, and then he got a few more hours of sleep.
The meeting from the afternoon spun around his head. It was getting harder and harder to control what he said anymore. He was beginning to actually feel comfortable talking to the doctor about a few things. How he hated it, but a one point he found himself wanting it. Needing to hear something that could get him one step closer to having a happy, satisfying future with Nick.
Nick. He had wanted to call Nick earlier but forgot all about it. How could he forget to call Nick?
He rounded the corner for the twenty-third time and looked at the clock. It was almost 4 in the morning. As he rounded the hall to his room he spotted Nurse Betty coming through the doors, he almost tripped.
She had left earlier in the evening because she had a date so she wasn't going to be in until later that morning. The outfit she wore announced that she had come to the clinic straight from the date she was on. It was red and long with slits on the sides to expose her legs.
Why the hell was he noticing?
He knew why, but it still irked him as wrong. He was bi, but he was in a relationship. A relationship he was very content and determined to get back to. His pace picked up and he rounded the corner and stared ahead at the door at the end of the hall.
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After all this time he still wasn't used to Dr. Evans office. It was mostly the decors that always interested him. Dr. Evans had something new in his office every day; today it was a new coffee mug; sometimes his power of observation even freaked him out.
He had the gift of memory, he knew that, but to remember everything about a room was sometimes disturbing. Memory was sometimes a curse. It was one of the reasons he had some many hobbies. Remembering every detail of someplace or someone caused him many countless days of unrest. He had to wear himself down to be able to sleep.
"Where'd you get that coffee cup?" That questioned even surprised him, but it had a very unique design on it.
"Bermuda, actually. My boyfriend Rob got it for me."
Gil stiffened at that name. It was the first time he heard the name of Dr. Evans partner. And it was not a name he wanted to hear again. True, it wasn't Robert, but still.
"So, Gil. Let's get started shall we."
Gil nodded. The sooner this meeting is over the sooner he could get back to reading. He was just entering Book IV in 'The Aeneid'; the tragic story of Dido and Aeneas' love affair was one of his favorite stories. It was incredibly sad, yet...amazing to read.
Dr. Evans smiled. "Okay. Let's start where we left off yesterday. I wanted you to try something for me, remember?"
Gil nodded. "You wanted me to try to explain why, in my head, I think Nick is..."
"Like Robert," Dr. Evans finished for him. "This is kind of an experiment, okay? It's called Projection, and it helps you by letting you hear your fears out loud and for you to realize that what you're feeling toward Nick isn't true. Understand?"
Of course he did, Gil thought. "Let's get this over with." The last thing he wanted to do degrade Nick, but if it was going to help.
"Okay. Now, tell me why you think you should hate Nick."
God. Gil closed his eyes. He could just keep talking without thinking. He didn't need to think. "Uh...I, hate Nick." Fuck, this was hard. "He, he's trying to change me. He's controlling."
"How?"
"...controlling what I do by..."
"Putting you here, maybe?"
"...putting me in here. It's his fault, not mine." Gil swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. He was telling lies about Nick and making them sound truthful. Please, Nick, please forgive me. "Everything was simpler before I, he came into my life. Nic--"
"Don't use his name, it might make this easier."
Why the hell didn't you tell me that before? Gil sighed. "...he's being just like Robert except he's doing a better job at hiding his control over me. Instead of breaking me at home, he's breaking me in here, changing me. I..." he felt the tears starting to stream down his face, "...hate him for that."
"That's good. You did a good job, Gil. Why don't we continue with...Gil?"
Gil shut down. He couldn't believe he just did that. He just said he hated Nick. The tears were coming now without restraint. How could he? Nick was wonderful. Nick was beautiful. Nick was...everything he wasn't. Yet, he just degraded him, told lies about him. He didn't hate Nick. He hated himself.
"Gil, look at me."
His eyes focused on the doctor at that command.
"Nick doesn't deserve you."
Gil gasped and shivered. His lungs started burning and he couldn't breathe. What did he do?
Fists pounded into the chair as he stood and walked away from the desk. A rage was pouring through him like no other that he'd ever felt. The urge to hit Dr. Evans welled in him but instead he banged his head on the door instead. What did he just do? Dr. Evans was right; he didn't deserve Nick.
He wasn't worth Nick.
"Why don't you come back tomorrow, okay? We can discuss--"
"I don't want to discuss anything with you," Gil said before he moved away from the door to open it.
As soon as it closed behind him he ran up the stairs to his floor and pushed open the door to his room. Once the door was closed he collapsed against it. Tears were still streaming down his face. A painful tightness clenched his chest and his hands shook. He wanted nothing more than to just hide in his closet and ball like a fucking baby for degrading Nick like that.
Instead, he stood leaning against his door until the turning of his stomach made him rush out of the room and to the community bathroom. He retracted into the toilet until there was nothing left but bile. It wasn't like there was much food anyway. When he found out the clinic was putting pills in the food because the patient didn't like taking them, he stopped eating all together.
Nurse Betty told him a lot about the clinic. Unlike most people at the clinic she didn't lie to him. She actually told him the truth over the nights they spent smoking outside the clinic together.
After he regained his composer he stumbled over to the sinks and rinsed out his mouth; he even used the liquid soap to clean out his mouth. It tasted horrible, but he needed his mouth to be clean. He gargled with hot water five times before he felt good enough to go back to his room.
As he exited the bathroom he ran right into Nurse Betty, causing her to drop the files she was carrying. He lost his footing and stumbled to the floor, taking the nurse with him. The sound of his head hitting the floor echoed through the hall causing him to black out for a brief moment.
"Oh my God," Nurse Betty yelled after she regained her footing and saw him on the floor. "Are you okay?"
Gil wanted to laugh. He was anything but okay. Not only was he hating himself and his whole entire body ached, now he head was killing him. "No," was his simple reply. Fuck.
His head was throbbing from the contact it made with the floor, he was surprised that he didn't go unconscious. Hands were helping him off the floor as his legs forgot how to work and his equilibrium was way off. If he swayed anymore he would be running into the walls.
"Here, let me get the door."
Nurse Betty's voice sounded like it was coming through in static. The room rotated around him, his vision blurred and kept fading around the edges. Maybe he was concussed...contused?
The bed felt good below him so he shut his eyes...
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"I think he's waking up."
There were noises around him, deep breathing and shoes shuffling on tile flooring. A throbbing, sharp pain filled his head and his body felt distant because it wasn't hurting but relaxed and just there. That was unusual.
"Nurse, back up please, give him some air."
Dr. Evans. And how he hoped that was all a dream. He sighed before moaning in pain at the sharp jolt that shot through his head. This was worse than a migraine.
"Can you here me?"
"Hello, is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone at home?"
He wanted to laugh because the first thought he had was of Pink Floyd. Maybe he was laughing because his chest was starting to hurt and his couldn't breathe. Or, maybe he wasn't. His throat was aching raw as he kept coughing, chest heaving, and he couldn't move. Why couldn't he move?
Something was holding him down. Fuck, he was strapped to the bed. No...he reached a hand out and felt arms and hands. Someone was holding him down.
A scream filled his ears and he thought it was his until he realized he was twisting someone's arms.
"Dr. Grissom, let go!"
It was Dr. Evans. Did he have his arm or...He let go and heard a woman gasp. Nurse Betty, he had grabbed her arm. Oh, fuck...he grabbed her arm. Panic set in as he realized that it was incredibly dark, and he wasn't seeing a damn thing. Were his eyes even open?
"Relax, Gil. I have a mask over your eyes so the light won't irritate your head. You have a concussion. Do you understand?"
Gil wondered how the doctor knew what he was thinking. He didn't remember talking, at all. He would now though. "...yes..." His voice was rough and it hurt to talk. How long had he been coughing? "...want to see..."
"The light in the room is very bright. You've already passed out twice when we were trying to wake you earlier. The lights kept making your head hurt worse till the point where you went unconscious."
When had he woken up twice? He didn't remember that.
"Dr. Grissom, we are going to administer a shot, okay? It'd help your head. Do you understand?"
Of course he did, but he didn't want drugs. Drugs were...bad, but the pain was too much. He had tears forming in his eyes because of the intense pain in his head. "...ok..."
More of Pink Floyd's lyrics filled his head: "Okay, just a little pinprick, there'd be no more 'Ahhhh', but you might feel a little sick."
"Gil?"
Gil wanted to answer but his breath hitched and he couldn't breathe. The needle hurt going into his arm and he was freaking out because he couldn't see! He kicked toward the direction of the doctor and connected with something solid. It wasn't the doctor though.
"Gil, calm down..."
"Get the fuck away from me," Gil managed to get out of his dry, raw throat.
"Nurse--"
"Out!" Was that his voice? It sounded so...primal. "Get...out!" Gil reached up and took the mask off his eyes and threw it in front of him.
When he opened his eyes the light coming from his ceiling made him cringe back in pain, but he caught a glimpse of where the doctor was and he was on his feet and plowing into him before he realized what he was doing.
He opened his eyes just in time to see himself and Dr. Evans crash to the floor. This time he didn't hit his head but instead landed on Dr. Evans. His hands reached for the doctor's collar and he grabbed it hard and tight. "Out," he heard himself growl before he let go and stood on wobbly legs.
Dr. Evans was staring at him in shock and fear as he stood and motioned for the nurse. "Let's leave. Gil..."
Gil didn't wait to hear what the doctor had to say before he stumbled into the closet and fell to his knees. He was worn out, dizzy, and extremely glad he had a shot of whatever they gave him because his head didn't hurt anymore. He heard the door close as he stayed knelling on his knees and breathing hard.
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His room made him sick. It was a cold, concreted, sorry excuse for a room. So, he destroyed it. The stuff in his bag was the first to be thrown across it. He had hoped he'd be getting out of there in two weeks, but he had blown that by attacking the doctor. But the doctor had him say he hated Nick. He said he hated Nick.
Next was the dresser he didn't use because he didn't bother to unpack because he was supposed to be leaving in seven days. A drawer cracked against the wall, breaking partly in half, another one followed but landed before it hit the wall and tumbled across the black and white tile floor. The dresser slammed to the floor before he made his way to the bed that hurt his back and he barely slept in and pulled it off the spring. A migraine pill and cigarette fell to the floor and he picked them up. He had forgotten about those.
He dry swallowed the pill and put the cigarette behind his ear. Nurse Betty wasn't at work that day. So he didn't have anyone to give him a light. Hopefully she wouldn't stay mad at him for twisting her arm. He didn't mean to do that, but he had finally snapped. This clinic made him snap.
After an hour of kick broken wood and his stuff around, he walked heavily to the closet and sat down. The wall hurt his back to rest against, but he didn't care. He wanted to run, but his door was locked. Nurse Betty didn't care if he ran or not around the halls when he couldn't sleep, but she wasn't there. Dr. Evans was keeping his eye on him now. He couldn't leave his room unless he was instructed to do so.
"I know what it means to be alone, I sure do wish I was at home. I don't care what the neighbors say, I'm gonna love you each and every day. You can feel the beat within my heart. Realize, sweet babe, we ain't ever gonna part."
Zeppelin. He huffed out a laugh as he rested his head against the cold wall. How he wished those lyrics were true.
His breath hitched in his chest and tears burned his eyes. He said he hated Nick.
***
Day EightNick was staring at him, shaking his head slightly with a lopsided grin. "Jerry Garcia? Gil, we're not naming the dog Jerry Garcia." His voice was strict but his eyes were twinkling with amusement.
They, well Nick, wanted to get a dog. Nick's reasoning was if he could have a Komodo dragon in the basement, he could have a dog in the living room. There had never been an animal with fur in his mother's house before. Now, it was their house and Nick wanted to get a dog. How could he argue with that?
The only problem was...the name and type. Nick wanted a German shepherd and he wanted something that didn't shed a lot of fur.
"Nicky, just imagine a lab running up to you yapping..."
"Gil. Stop. You named the first and only dog you had 'Pink' and your Komodo dragon is named 'Puff'." Nick's stare got more intense and his arms circled his waist more and pulled him closer. "No more 70's band singer's names."
"Technically--"
Nick laughed into his shoulder. This was good. Felt good.
They were in bed, a forgotten copy of 'Chemicals Affecting Insect Behavior' lay on his lap, both of them were half-naked with only boxers on, and Nick was wrapped around him from the side.
He remembered Nick's words from earlier: "I'll do whatever you want."
He could still see the look in Nick's eyes, the warmth of his breath against his ear, the way his arms slid down his sides and under his shirt as they stood together in the kitchen. Nick was giving everything to him. Not just his heart and soul, but also his body. That thought alone kept him from taking Nick up on that offer just yet. The last thing he wanted to do was to make Nick think that that was all he wanted from him and the other gifts were for nothing.
But...he was a man. And as a man he was prone to stop thinking rationally and cognitively when Nick started messaging his chest, stomach, and with each caress of his stomach a hand would drop lower and lower into his boxers.
A ragged breath escaped his trembling lips as he leaned against Nick and started kissing the strong, board shoulder of his partner. The hands caressing his chest found their way into his boxers and he froze at the light touches of fingers skimming his hardening cock. He gasped against Nick's collarbone and shivered into the younger man's body.
Nick shook and moaned into his ear, it was then that he realized his own hands were having a mind of their own. They were roaming over Nick's chest, nipples, and up his neck and into his hair. He captured Nick's lips in a slow, passionate kiss.
He didn't want it to end.
But, Nick wasn't helping him to drag it out; he was painfully hard and had a growing warmth course through his body. If Nick was still willing to let him fuck him then they needed to do it now. Right now. "Nick," he breathed out in-between kisses. "Stop or..." fuck, this was a losing battle.
The hand that was pumping his cock stopped abruptly but started to lightly caress it again.
"Sorry, got a little carried away."
Nick was so close to him he couldn't see pass the brown eyes staring into his, but he could tell Nick was blushing slightly. "I'm...not as young as I used to be."
Nick chuckled and kissed him on his forehead then his temple on down to his jaw line and back to his ear. "I meant what I said earlier, Gil. I want you."
To make his point clearer, Nick shifted against him and he could feel Nick's erection slid against his thigh. He closed his eyes against the feeling and tried to breathe regularly. Okay, he could do this. Nick wanted him to do this. Nick wanted to feel his thick cock in his tight ass and bringing him to ecstasy and back. He could do that. "Turn around."
Nick stared at him for a moment before nodding and giving him a sweet, soft kiss on his mouth. "I trust you."
His breath caught in his chest at that statement. Nick turned around, mending his back and the rest of his body into his. With quickness his arms encircled the younger man held him. Instead of the urge to fuck Nick until they both came crying out in their flood of passion, he wanted to let the tears fall that started stinging the back of his eyes.
Nick trusted him. Nick loved him so much he was willing to give himself over to him without a hint of fear.
He was going to do this right and make it better than good. Hopefully, if he succeeded, Nick would feel how much he loved him before, during, and after their passion was over. Nick wouldn't feel hardly any pain, and when they came, it'd be as sweet and beautiful as Nick was.
One of his arms let go of Nick and reached over to grab the lube off the bedside table as the other stayed trapped between Nick and mattress and rubbed at the quivery chest of his younger lover. "You okay, Nicky?"
Nick nodded on his shoulder. "The anticipation is killing me."
He kissed the nape of Nick's neck in reassurance, feeling the goose bumps that formed under his dry lips. His tongue tried to wet his dry lips but he quickly learned it was dry as well. After a minute he finally got the cap off the lube and started to chuckle at how clumsy he was being. "I'm usually not like this." He felt like explaining. "But it's not every day I get to do this."
Nick glanced back at him from over his left shoulder. "If you don't hurry up, I'm not going to make it myself, Mr. I'm-not-as-young-as-I-used-to-be."
Nick barely finished his sentence before he claimed the lips with his own. As he drove his tongue down Nick's throat he drove a slick finger into Nick's ass. Nick nearly bit down on his tongue but quickly relaxed as he let his finger stay still and not move so Nick's inexperienced muscles could get used to it.
That felt...amazing. He turned his finger slightly and went toward the general area of his destination. When Nick bucked back into him and a hand clenching down on his forearm he knew he hit the right spot.
Their lips finally came apart and Nick gasped s loud into the empty room that if they had neighbors they would have heard. "Gil."
The way it was spoken caused him to shutter as he worked the muscles in Nick's body. This was going to be something Nicky remembered for the rest of his life. He added two fingers and began to really stretch the muscles out. Nick was going to think about this night and smile, and hopefully look back on it and say to himself: "This is when I knew Gil loved me."
There would be no pain in their love making. Never. It'd be about showing how much they needed and wanted each other more than words could express or words carved into gifts. This was their defining moment. His time to prove to Nick how beautiful he was. How cherished and loved he was. How...he stole his breath away.
There were suddenly three fingers in Nick that were causing the man to whimper and wither next to him. Nick's fist clenched and unclenched the sheet and he was chanting something so soft he couldn't hear from his position behind the younger man. He wanted to hear Nick.
The muscles were ready, Nick was ready, and he didn't know if he could last pass getting him cock in Nick. It didn't take long for him to prepare himself and line up his body behind Nick's shaky one.
"Ready?"
Nick turned his head toward him; tears were silently streaming from his eyes. "More than I've ever been."
Nick leaned up and kissed him deeply before turning his head back and pushed back against his body and gave a silent plea. That was more than he needed to hear and as his cock enveloped Nick's waiting, welcoming body, his tears finally started to fall.
Now that felt...like heaven. Like, he was completely content. He was home.
For the next couple minutes nothing could be heard except their mutual breathing, gasps of pleasure, and moans of contentment. A slow rhythm grew faster and faster as their bodies continued to glide and guide each other into the growing intensity ready to burst.
Everything was building, it seemed like his whole body was going to explode into Nick. His grip tightened around the hot, sweaty body of his lover as his hips pounded faster and harder. Nick was trying to speak, trying to let something out of his throat besides deep, ragged breaths, half gasps, and sounds he'd never heard before, that could have been coming from his own throat.
His body suddenly grew tight and his orgasm hit before the thought it would. It slammed into so hard his legs jerked as did his hips. A yell of deep, profound pleasure was muffled into Nick's shoulder blade and he was still coming into Nick.
He was barely aware of the stiffness of Nick's muscles, his spasms of pleasure, or his name being yelled out before he let the relaxed state of his body take him into sleep. Later, he would wake and clean up the mess they had made while Nick slept, but now he let his arms stay wrapped around his lover as they both closed their eyes and sighed in contentment.
As he slowly began to focus on his surroundings again, something wasn't right. There was someone beside him. He didn't want to see who it was...It could be Dr. Evans trying to manipulate him again. From his position in the closet he could see the door still shut and how badly he had lost control destroying his room. The floor was safer to look at. It was dull and didn't give off a hint of what he had done.
"Gil."
It was barely above a whisper but it stung his heart. His breath hitched just slightly before he tried to get his breathing under control. During his daydreaming, the images were so clear and real he found himself getting aroused when all he wanted to do was remember a time when Nick still loved him and he thought for certain he actually did love Nick.
His knees pressed hard against his chest as he tried to steady his breathing. Instead of calming he was getting more and more agitated.
"It's Nick. I know you can hear me. If you don't want to talk, that's fine, but whatever's bothering you, made you this angry, you can tell me."
It was Nick?
He wanted to look up. He needed to see Nick's loving eyes and hear him tell him everything was going to be okay and that the last six...or whatever days he'd been at the clinic weren't going to happen again. He needed to hear Nick tell him they were going home. They were going to be together forever and nothing in this world could stop that.
But...that wasn't going to happen. It couldn't happen now. He swallowed hard around the growing lump in his throat that was threatening to strangle him and release the tears that were burning behind his eyes. He said he hated Nick. He said it with such truth that it burned itself into his heart. The constriction in his chest was getting tighter and his hands unwilling clenched and unclenched his pant legs.
A hand rested on his back shoulder blade and he wanted to melt into it, but instead he stiffened and plead that Nick would leave. Then, Nick leaned against him and placed a single kiss to his temple.
"I still love you."
It took all his strength to wait until he heard the door close before he choked on a sob and let the tears that were burning his eyes fall.
He didn't know how long he stayed folded up, knees pressed against his sore eyes, and let his walls break as he finally let all the pent up anger and sorrow out in choked sobs and shivering spasms with nothing to comfort him except the cold concrete wall. How he wished he would have told Nick, said something to him, anything so that Nick was there to wrap his strong, warm arms aground him instead of using the wall as support so he wouldn't fall to the floor and cave into himself. He probably wouldn't be able to get back up.
He had to get up. His legs felt like they were going to give out at any moment but he made it out of the closet in just two steps. If he was going to get out of here he had to straighten this mess out. It didn't take long before he had his stuff packed back in his bag, the bed was easier to put back on the frame, but the dresser...forget it. It was broken and there was no way he could put that thing back together.
He was going to run. That decision was made, but now he knew exactly where he was going to run to. Nick was still there and he bet his truck was parked in the parking lot. He flipped through his keys that were stuffed away in this bag and flipped through them before stopping at the one he needed. It was the key to Nick's truck.
The guards and doctors would be searching for him when they found out he was gone. So, he needed to change his appearance. Even the slightest change could throw them off, especially at first glance, most of the time that was all anybody did, just take a quick glance at somebody and never really taking in what they looked like. Eyewitnesses weren't reliable, nobody observed something long or well enough to get their features right. The beard had to go.
It took him a moment to finally test the door knob to his room. He really didn't feel like jumping out the window. What if he broke a leg or something? To his surprise and relief, the door inched open. The hall was empty of everyone and thing, except the security camera in the corner of the hall. Hopefully Officer Sheroan wasn't in the security office watching his attempt at escape.
As he entered the stairwell he knew for certain Officer Sheroan wasn't watching him on camera because him and a couple other guards he briefly remembered as Gains and James were advancing the steps in front of him. Shit.
Before he could back away or try to make a break for it up the stairs, Officer Gains had grabbed him on one side while James held is other. He tried to struggle and break free but he was weaker than these men and there were three of them. A fist connected with his stomach knocking the air out of his lungs.
"Calm down, Dr. Grissom," Officer Sheroan whispered into his ear.
He caught the needle being passed to Officer James before it clicked in his head what was going on. They were going to drug him and carrying him back to his room or to another room and strap him down. No, this couldn't be happening. He needed to get away, get to Nick and be safe and tell him he didn't mean it. None of it.
The sting of the needle going into his arm made him cry out, not because it hurt, but because it wouldn't be long until he was doped up to the point he couldn't walk.
"Now," Officer Sheroan was speaking to him. "Take these stairs all the way down to the Lower Level, hang a right and follow that hall around to the hall with the sign pointing toward the Loading Docks. Take another right and follow that hall until you get to a staircase that leads up to the doors. Once outside head toward the street. Do you understand?"
No, but he nodded anyway. The arms released him and he stumbled down the stairs as fast as he could go with his bag clenched in his hand so he wouldn't drop it. When he got to the last step he stumbled off the stairs and nearly slammed into the wall he was going so fast.
He didn't understand what was going on or why the guards did that and told him how to get out, but he wasn't in the state to argue. Whatever drug they gave him didn't make him collapse yet, but kept his eyes sharper than before and his mind from thinking clearly about anything.
When he got to the hallway in the lower level he took a heavy, uncoordinated step to the left instead of the right and headed the opposite direction down the dark hall. It wasn't until he came upon the hallway with the elevator did he realize he went the wrong way. The security camera was pointed in his direction and he stopped and stared at it. Why did he feel like Nick was watching him through that camera?
"Wrong way, Dr. Grissom."
He whipped his head around and saw a shadow of somebody down the hall. He was being followed. He took one last glance at the camera before turning around and running on heavy, unfocused legs back the other direction. After a few turns in the halls he came to a stop as his feet ran into the staircase forgetting that they had to lift up to be able to climb them. His entire body was dead weight by this point and he could barely get his own legs up the steps before banging into the door at the top and out into fresh air. There were more stairs he had to go down but he made it off the platform without falling and injuring himself.
Just as he rounded the corner he heard a familiar voice echoing through the empty parking lot. It was Nick's. His legs stopped moving and he went to turn around to head back that direction when he was caught from behind. A firm hand over his mouth prevented his scream from being heard and he was dragged backwards. His vision blurred violently and his body seized its struggle.
It would be nearly six hours later until he woke up.
9999999999
Present Time
"Thanks, Nick," Catherine said before she flipped her phone shut and sat down next to Archie. "So, why'd you beep me?"
Archie had a smile plastered on his face. "A few things Catherine. First, listen to this." He hit play and there was no noise except for howling into the phone, like wind was blowing into it.
"It's wind, Archie. Wind blows every where." What was his point, Catherine asked herself. There was nothing significant about wind.
"Yes, it is wind. And cold wind at that."
Catherine shook her head. "How do you know that?"
Archie beamed over at her. "Next sample." He pressed play.
It was the sound of Gil on the phone, shaking. He dropped the phone and it banged around, he cursed under his breath and picked it up again, whispering about being clumsy. But, there was more. Gil's teeth were clattering together, hand was shaking, and the wind was blowing into the phone. Wow. "Okay, so he's standing outside where cold wind is blowing on him, next to a place with a body of water. This really does help us Arch. He could be anywhere."
"Sample Three."
The tape started playing and in the background there was a faint sound of...a carnival or something. There was a voice, barely cutting through the wind and noise of the music, "Come ride...Ferris Wheel...Family and Friends gat..." before the voice was broken off by the phone dropping.
Catherine couldn't believe it. "You deserve a promotion."
Archie just laughed. "Grissom didn't hire me for nothing you know. Now, all you have to do is find someplace that's close to a body of water that has a carnival or at least a Ferris wheel next to it, and that's really cold right now."
"Chicago."
They both turned to see Sara standing in the doorway. She gave a weak smile and held up a case file. "I came by to give this to you," she motioned to Catherine. "It's about our murder case. Why is Grissom calling from Chicago?"
"How do you know he's in Chicago?" That was the million dollar question Catherine was after. She was slightly upset that Sara had heard what was going on, but she didn't actually think that this secret could be kept under wraps that long. This was the crime lab.
"Um, well. It's February, Chicago is pretty cold now and the wind there is furious this time of year. The waves breaking against something solid, that could be anywhere, however the main clue was the Ferris wheel. Not many places have that right next to or close to big bodies of water for fear of storms. The only place I can think of that has all those elements this time of year is the Navy Pier in Chicago," she shrugged out. "So, my question is why is Grissom calling from Chicago? I mean, he hasn't been there since his early twenties..."
Catherine knew her eyes went wide. Gil was in Chicago. They had a starting point. "Thanks, Sara. Archie, don't let this get out to anyone else." She didn't even want it to get out to Sara, but Sara knew something no one else knew. Sara knew a little more about Gil's past then anyone else. Maybe even more than Nick. "And get a hold of Brass and fill him in, okay? Follow me," she motioned for the younger woman to follow her. Once they were both in her office and away from the rest of the lab, she turned to Sara. "How'd you know that about Grissom?"
Sara smiled for a moment. "During a lecture he gave in San Francisco, he talked about preserving crime scenes in the winter and he gave us an example of a case he was assisting on during his time in Chicago. Granted he was only a rookie and just learning about forensics, but he knew a lot about the city like he had lived there for a while."
Catherine shook her head in amazement. "Do you memorize everything that man says? Not that I'm complaining but that's kind of scary."
Sara shrugged. "I still had a crush on him then, but..." she shrugged.
Catherine was surprised that Sara was this okay with everything. She thought for sure the younger woman was going to go ape shit over Gil and Nick, but she was surprised to see understanding coming from Sara and not hatred. Maybe Sara and Gil talked about all this before or something. And Sara and that Chris guy were apparently in a strong relationship. Huh... "Okay. Listen, Sara, I'm going to need your help with something. And, it can not get around the lab. Believe me, if it did...well, all hell will probably break loose. Got it?"
Sara turned around and shut the door to the office before sitting down in front of her. She nodded and sat back ready to listen to everything that was about to be said. Catherine sighed and leaned back against her desk. "The reason Grissom called from Chicago is..."
9999999999
Hours Earlier
The room was different, yet familiar. It wasn't concrete but instead wooden and his feet were cold as he padded his way from the bed he woke up on to the window that was locked shut. He tore the curtains open and he blinked back in surprise. There was snow on the ground and the view wasn't one he'd seen in years.
How did he get to Chicago?
The neighborhood was familiar, he was just a few miles from Lake Michigan and if he was correct, just up the street was the University of Chicago. He was off of South Indiana Avenue by Washington Park and...He was in his old apartment.
He backed away from the window and looked around the room. It was the room he shared with a girl he was training with when he stayed there for those two years. The fear he was feeling before when he woke up in a strange place was starting to build again. This wasn't a strange place anymore. This was a place of his past that no one knew about except for him, the girl he was staying with, and...
No. He shook his head. There was no way this was possible. How could he have done this?
Robert was dead.
***
Hours EarlierHe was staring out the window in shock when he heard the door open behind him. Gil let out a deep sigh and turned to face the person who brought him there. The faces of Officer Sheroan, James, and Gains surprised him. As he stood in-front of the three guards, he realized he shouldn't have been shocked to see them there; they were the ones to drug him and were probably the ones who grabbed him outside the clinic, but...why?
Before he could speak Officer Gains tossed him a cell phone, he barely caught it before it could hit the ground.
"Call your department and let them know that you don't want to be found."
Gil raised a brow at the men before he glanced back at the cell phone. It was pre-paid phone. There was no way it could be traced especially if he only made one call from it before it was disposed of, but did the guards know that? "Why?"
"Don't ask questions just do what you're told." Officer Sheroan crossed his arms; his left hand started tapping the butt of his gun.
"If I don't want to be found, then I don't want to use this phone."
Officer Sheroan stopped tapping the gun and glanced over at the other two men who shrugged in confusion. "What'd you mean?"
Gil wanted to smile, but he wanted to survive more. "Cell phones are e-911 capable, which mean they are equipped with a GPS chip. Even if I use a calling card...the phone could still be traced even when disposed off." He used his best innocent/confused look he could conjure up and waited for the guards to either agree with him, or...maybe shoot him.
Officer Gains spoke up. "What can you use then?"
Gil let himself smirk this time. "A payphone."
9999999999
Present Time
"Warrick, tell me something good," Catherine smiled as she sat down beside him. By now word was out all over the crime lab and police department about Gil and Nick and the call from Chicago. And to her surprise, Catherine was grateful. More people working with them the better their chances were they would find Gil.
"I think I know where the call came from. The calling card that was used threw me off, for a second." Warrick typed in a few buttons and a screen came up of the city of Chicago. "I've never been fooled by one of those 866 numbers and I never will be again. The caller ID said 'Unknown' but the AT&T computer says otherwise. The only payphone near Navy Pier that dialed the LVPD's number at that time was here," he pointed at the screen as it zoomed in on the Pier and Lake Michigan.
Catherine smiled. "This verifies that he is indeed in Chicago."
"Actually it just verifies he called from there, it doesn't mean he's sticking around. Gris knows if we wanted to find him we could trace his call." Warrick sat back and rubbed his face. "I don't like it anymore than you do, Cath. Nick's my best friend and I love him as a brother, but..."
"This may not help him, or us."
"I'm not even sure we should be doing this to begin with. Yeah, I'm pissed at Grissom, Nick is hurting, but is hunting him down like this the right thing to do?"
Catherine was about to speak when Archie appeared at the doorway.
"I've cracked the case."
Catherine followed after Archie with Warrick on her heels. "Arch, this is not an official case and we are off the clock."
Archie shrugged. "So, I'm still getting paid." He sat down in his chair in front of the computer and clicked the overhead on.
Catherine and Warrick both stared at the video surveillance footage from the clinic that arrived at the LVPD Crime Lab just two hours prior.
Warrick was the first to ask the lab tech what the hell was going on. "What am I looking at?"
"The hallway."
"Arch." Catherine shook her head and sighed. "It's empty."
Archie smiled to himself and nodded. "Yes, it is empty of people, not of evidence. Nick said in his notes that exactly two minutes after he left the room, Gil left."
"That's what the time says at the bottom. Only two minutes passed," Warrick crossed his arms and waited for the punch-line.
"The shadows say otherwise. The sun moves approximately 15 degrees every hour, if Gil was only in that room for two minutes then the shadows wouldn't have changed, but they did."
Warrick glanced down at Archie and shook his head. "There is no possible way you could tell the shadows moved 2 degrees."
Archie smiled and looked over his shoulder. "Ay, but I can, and it's more like 2.5 degrees, and I had to know where to look. Not every surface is reliable; for instance, the walls are too big and blank that there's nothing to base the movement off of. But, if I have a starting point..." he moved the camera and focused on the nurse's desk at the end of the hallway.
"I can't believe this, a pencil?" Warrick was moving closer to the screen.
"A pencil. See how the shadow of the pencil is stretched across the desk," Archie drew a line over the shadow on the computer and it could be seen on the overhead screen. "Now, two minutes later that shadow should have been in the same spot, only moving half a degree." He fast-forwarded the tape.
"I'll be damned," Warrick whispered under his breath. The shadow had moved about 2.5 degrees.
"Now," Archie was really smiling now. "I calculated ten minutes onto the time Nick left that room, and subtracted it from an hour." He drew a circle around the shadows of the pencil then connected the lines in an angle, making it look like a pie chart. "Say this is 2.5 degrees," he wrote the angle in-between the two lines. "If I fast-forward the tape like so," he pressed the fast-forward button.
The CSI's watched as Archie made his calculations on the angle.
"Then 50 minutes later the shadow should be right here, at 15 degrees," Archie waited a couple more seconds then pressed stop.
Catherine smiled and shook her head. "The tape was altered."
Archie leaned back in his chair and stared up at the screen. "I so broke the case."
"What about those cassette tapes," Warrick asked Archie as he turned back around.
Archie looked over his shoulder at Greg in the other room. "Your CSI 2 is handling that." He stood, stretched, and then grabbed his coffee cup. "If Greg can't find anything, send it my way." And with that he left the room and headed to the break room.
Catherine watched him leave then shook her head. "Is it just me or did Archie suddenly become more cocky."
Warrick shrugged and smiled over at her. "He broke the case. That clinic is hiding something."
"Yeah, and Nick, somehow, missed it."
9999999999
Nick sat in the driveway in front of the house and stared ahead at steering wheel. It took all the strength he had left to drive that far and make it home in one piece. He was tired, stressed beyond his usual point of no return, and his body felt drained and worn-out. The last time he slept more than a few hours was three days ago before he got the phone call, before he found Gil in that closet, before he heard on a taped confession in a doctor's office that Gil hated him.
He couldn't go into that house. Not now, maybe not ever until Gil came back, but he had to. He had a life. After years of working in the crime lab he was now a Supervisor; he couldn't just walk away from that.
A deep, frustrated sigh escaped him. He didn't know what to do. The reasonable part of his conscience was telling him to go inside the house, get some sleep, and go to work tomorrow. The other part was telling him to get a hotel room and then get as far away from the memory of Gilbert Grissom as possible. He still loved him, probably always would, but this, he didn't know how to live with. Not yet, anyway.
The door popped open and he turned the ignition off and pulled his keys out. He might as well get some sleep then decide what to do later. He had a unit to run and crimes to solve.
9999999999
Gil didn't remember making it back to the apartment, he didn't remember crashing on the couch, and he definitely didn't remember anything other than fuzzy glimpses of light and shadows moving around in front of him before it was replaced with darkness.
His he was throbbing when he woke and the apartment was pitch dark. He didn't know how much time had passed before he tired to get up off the couch. Everything felt numb except for the pounding in his head. The air in the apartment was stile, letting him know that it was just him there. He shuffled blindly toward the direction he remembered the kitchen to be, after bumping into counters and a table he found what he was searching for and opened the refrigerator door. The light hurt his eyes but he could manage it while he pulled out a bottle of water then made his way back to the couch.
He downed half the bottle of water before lying back down. Covering his head with his arm, he went back to sleep.
It didn't take long before he figured out if he was there to be killed or if it was just Part One in fucking with his head. It had to be Part One.
He had the apartment to himself and if he didn't take into account the cameras, locks on every door, and bars over every window then it was kind of cozy. He cocked his head at one camera that was positioned the in bathroom and shook his head. There was no way he was going to be able to do anything in the bathroom without being watched.
A shiver went down his spine. That was just wrong. He grabbed a towel and placed it over the camera before looking at his watch. Within a minute the door was being opened and Officer James was pointing a gun at him.
"Just checking," Gil shrugged and pointed to his watch. "I don't like being watched while I shower or..." he gesture toward the toilet.
Officer James frowned and lowered his weapon. "I guess you can have the towel over the camera while you're in here, but only when using the facilities and no more than five minutes. Any longer and I'll be stationed in here myself."
Gil raised a brow in disgust but nodded. He couldn't argue with that. It normally took him five minutes to shower anyway, sometimes less.
The apartment had one of everything in it. One couch, one recliner, one coffee table in the living room, one bed in the bedroom, one table in the kitchen, and one door leading out of the apartment. He sighed and sat on the couch and propped his feet on the coffee table. There wasn't much he could do except wait and think. Again with the thinking. His head was starting to pound with a migraine and he didn't have anything to take for it.
His eyes closed against the spinning of the room and he rubbed his temples. By now the team had to know where he was. He just hoped they decided to ignore what he said and come looking for him.
9999999999
Greg felt someone was watching him before he noticed Catherine and Warrick standing in the doorway to the A/V Lab Room 2. He smiled at the two people standing in the doorway and waved them over.
Catherine was talking to him, but he couldn't hear them because of the headphones on his head. He took them off quickly and caught the last of what Catherine said.
"...tampered with. Did you get anything off the tapes?"
Greg tossed the headphones on the table and leaned back in his chair. "Tampered with is written all over these tapes. The clicking sound that Nick noted on every tape is actually the clicking of the stop button. Pieces of every conversation is missing and some, if not a lot, of what was said were cut to sound differently."
Warrick leaned against the table. "How can you be sure?"
"Intonation...The inflection of Grissom's voice changes, sometimes, dramatically from one word to the next. It's unnatural for a voice to change that quickly," Greg said before he took a big gulp from his coffee.
"We've got to tell Nick."
Greg nodded with agreement with Warrick. Nick deserved to know what they had found out.
***
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