Title: Trilogy – Three: One to Go
Author: Dee
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1877
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Characters: Gil Grissom and Nick Stokes
Warnings: AU and fluff!
Spoilers: For S9.E09 – One to Go
Disclaimer: In my dreams they are like, totally mine!
Unbeta-ed: All mistakes will be mine.
A/N: A bit of an idea I had on holiday! Three episode related fics and snapshots of how the relationship is between Gil and Nick at that particular time.

Previous story in series - Trilogy – Two: Grave Danger

Sara was abducted, and unlike his own abduction some two years before, she was the target.

 

Then there was the shock of Gil Grissom’s involvement with Sara.

 

Sara’s abrupt departure was unexpected

 

But then so was the tragedy of Warrick’s murder.

 

Sara’s return for Warrick was followed by her second abrupt departure.

 

Gil Grissom wondered around like a lost soul for months on end.

 

But now he, too, was gone.

 

It was the end of an era.

 

Nick was sitting at his computer answering his mail and playing games...he should have be finishing an article he’d been writing but instead found himself listing, in his mind, the significant events of the past eighteen months.

 

He felt older.  He was getting on for forty now and since Warrick’s death had seemed to become older, as if his boyishness, if he could call it that, had been finally laid to rest.  If he was really truthful with himself, he was lonely.  He had work.  He had the gym.  He had his hobbies, but the bird watching and sketching had taken a back seat for a while, maybe he needed to reconnect.  He could go hiking and camp out...maybe rent a cabin now he was an older guy. 

 

But he should be more social, get out and meet people or he’d end up like Grissom.  He smirked to himself; Gris hadn’t been the lonely aging guy they all thought he was.  That was a shock.  Gil had been a really good friend to him when he’d been abducted and buried; he’d have never have made it through those first few weeks without Gil just hanging around, not doing anything any specific, just hanging.

 

Nick stretched up from his computer chair.  This was his first night off since Gris had left the lab.  He still slept during the day and worked or watched TV at night, it was only one night and not worth upsetting his schedule, but he needed to eat.  He wasn’t a good cook, he was adequate but he’d thought he could take a class, maybe he could meet someone that way.  And then she could cook for him.  He chuckled to himself.  He stopped.  He was doing that more often now, too.  Chuckling, mumbling to himself.  Jesus, he was getting fucking old.

 

As he made his way to the kitchen he felt around his eyes to see if they felt baggier than they had been.  The doorbell ringing nearly made him poke his eyes out.  His doorbell was mostly silent.

 

He walked over to it and swung it open and laughed out loud.

 

His visitor looked around himself and over his shoulder before he spoke.  “Am I missing something?”

 

“No, man, but I was just this minute thinking about you.  Come on in.   What brings you here?  Do you want a drink...a beer, coffee?”

 

Gil Grissom was taken aback at the questioning and ebullient mood of Nick.  To be honest Nick was surprised at himself, he seemed so happy just to have company he thought he was behaving a little desperately.

 

“A beer would be good.”

 

“I’ll get a couple.”

 

“You not at work tonight?”

 

“No.  Checking up to see if I’m drinking before work?”

 

“Oh, no.  Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”  Nick laughed and carried on to his kitchen.  Gil followed and leaned on the door jamb as Nick retrieved two bottles from his fridge.

 

“A glass, right?”

 

“Please.”

 

Nick poured Gil’s beer into a glass but took the bottle for himself.

 

“So to what do I owe the honour?”  Nick asked.  It must be two years since Gris had visited him.

 

“I’ve got a job for a number of weeks, in Toronto, lecturing.  I was wondering if I could entrust you with a key to my place and ask you to check the cockroaches every couple of days?”

 

“Sure...but...sorry.”

 

“What?”

 

“Well I thought you’d be...Catherine and me, that is, we thought you’d be going to Sara.  I don’t mean to pry, man.”

 

Gil looked quite shocked.  “Really, you thought that?  Both of you?”

 

“Yeah.”  Nick took a long swig of his beer to cover his embarrassment.

 

“It was never an option.  Sara has built a new life for herself and she told me she’s happy.  That told me didn’t it?”

 

“Sorry?”  Nick frowned, he had no idea what Gris meant.

 

“That she was unhappy here, with me, but when she left she found personal happiness and a new life.”

 

“I see.”

 

“I’m glad you do; perhaps you could explain it to me?”  Nick could hear the undercurrent in Gris’ voice, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.  Bewilderment?  Pain?  The pain of rejection?  Just confusion, perhaps, at not understanding.

 

“That was a rhetorical question, I hope.  I’m no good at relationships; I was thinking about that too, before you arrived.”

 

“We sound like a pair of old men.”  Gris laughed but it wasn’t altogether funny.

 

But Nick really did laugh.  “I was thinking that too...”  But he stopped laughing when he remembered Warrick.   “...but it seems that I’ve aged since Warrick died.  Like something of me died with him.”

 

Gris nodded, quite vigorously. “That’s it, exactly, Nick.  Exactly.”  He took a drink from his glass and settled back in his chair.

 

They sat in companionable silence for some minutes.  Then Nick had an idea.

 

“Gris?  Gil.  Yeah, I’m old enough to call you Gil now.  When you get back from Toronto, do you want go out somewhere...a meal, the movies.  You know, just hang?”

 

Gil smiled and nodded.  “I’ve just been thinking the same thing.  I would like to take you out for a meal anyway, for looking after the girls and my house.  So I think it would be a good idea.  I’ll be staying in Vegas, you know, I’ve been offered a  part-time teaching post at WLVU.  I start next semester, general Forensic science, not entomology.”

 

“That’s great.”

 

“I’m pleased.  There was something else though, Nick.”  Gris hesitated.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“I’ve also kind of put myself on the market for consultancy work and other lecturing...you know conventions and that kind of...”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Well, some of it may overlap with my work at WLVU and I’m loathe to give it all up and well, I asked if I could provide a...kind of understudy, would they be okay with that and they said they would and I thought of you and wondered...”  He looked across at Nick, almost pleadingly.

 

Nick was stunned into silence, his bottle hanging somewhere in mid air.   “Wow.”  He took a couple of deep breaths and puffed out his cheeks.  “Do you think I could do...”

 

“Yes.  I do.  I thought of you immediately.  It might not happen very often.  Or at all, if I don’t get any more work, but I’ve already had quite a lot of interest.  What do you say?”

 

“Yeah.  Yeah.  I think I’d like that.”

 

“Good.  Yes.  Thank you.”

 

“I could come and attend some of your classes and see how you go about it and then keep prepared with the syllabus.   Give me something to do.  Yeah.”  Even as he spoke Nick warmed to the idea and as he’d just said, it would give him something to do.”

 

Gris grinned.  “I didn’t even have to beg.”

 

“Hey...Gil...have you eaten?”

 

“Not since lunch, no.”

 

“Come on, then, let’s go out,  I was just going to get something anyway; you want a pizza, Italian, Greek, Indian, Chinese?” He laughed.

 

“Mexican?”

 

“Mexican it is; I know a place.”

 

---ooOoo---

 

It was seven months later and Catherine was looking for somewhere to eat, with her Mother.  There was a little Bistro they both liked, it was off the beaten track, but she hadn’t booked and it was always busy.

 

She looked through the window to see if there were any spare tables and there were and she was just going to get her mother from the car when something, or more accurately, someone, caught her eye.

 

Sitting in a booth at the back of the restaurant was Nick, talking animatedly with none other than Gil Grissom.  She looked at them talking and laughing and there was something about the scene, something she couldn’t quite place but then she saw.

 

Nick’s hand and forearm were resting on the table and as they laughed Gil reached over and covered Nick’s hand with his own.  Nick turned his hand over and they held hands and looked at each other.

 

Call her a hopeless romantic, but Catherine knew exactly what that look was.  Love.  Without a shadow of a doubt.  As she continued her covert observation she saw Gil lift Nick’s hand to his lips and kiss each of his knuckles and while he did he was looking over the top of his glasses at Nick.  Nick positively glowed and Catherine grinned like an idiot, her nose pressed up against the glass.  And she realised that Nick looked young again, and as she thought that she realised that he’d looked like his old self again for some months, like he used to before Warrick...before he had the troubles of the world on his shoulders.

 

Funny.  Catherine had always been sure that Gil was gay and had been very surprised when she’d found out about him and Sara.  She’d never been convinced it was the grand passion it was supposed to be...they’d been together for two years and neither one of them had ever seemed any happier than they’d ever been.  It just didn’t add up.  It was obvious, at least to Catherine that Sara had chased Gil relentlessly, until he was worn down, but then she failed to keep him interested.  So she’d left.

 

But Nick?  That was a turn up for the book, although she never doubted that Gil could be persuasive when he wanted to be.  She supposed Gil’s mood for those last months in the lab had been because he’d failed, not necessarily with Sara, but had failed to find a lasting relationship and just like herself, he wasn’t getting any younger.  But now he’d obviously made up for lost time.  They looked like a couple and Catherine was still grinning at her discovery.

 

Catherine had known who Gil had always wanted...from the moment she’d seen Gil first set eyes on Nick, even if he didn’t know it himself.   She’d known and it had taken him, how long?   Ten or twelve years, but he was a very patient man and obviously he’d been prepared to wait to capture his prize. And, boy, had he hit the jackpot...

 

Nick Stokes.

 

The End