Title: This Is Me
Author: Sam
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Warnings: None save possibly spoilers for the ep "Who Are You?".

My god he looked so young.

Young and scared. Too frightened to move, barely able to speak. Only enough to plead for her not to do this; not to shoot him. Not to *kill* him. Like she had Faye Green. She hadn't shot Faye Green, but that was beside the point.

And the tears in his eyes. I don't think I'd ever seen such raw emotion, not even from Nicky. I know I've never felt such rage. Nick had been scared but so had I. I was...terrified.

Still am, I think.

That I hadn't paid enough attention to the evidence. That I had caught too late the innocuous threads of coincidental detail that warned me - shouted at me - that I had left Nicky in that house alone, not with a murderer...

...but a *murderess*.

Amy Hendler.

When confronted with Officer Tyner's bitter accusations (had it really been only a couple of hours ago?) that I had never faced true cause to pull my gun, I had firmly - and naively - asserted I hoped I never had to.

I take that back. I really had no idea at the time how arrogant I was, standing in the brightly lit sanctum of CSI labs, surrounded by cops, spouting righteous ideology. He was right; it hadn't touched me then, not like it did tonight.

Now I know what Tyner had been telling me, the thing he had tried to warn me of.

Amy Hendler.

I pulled my gun, ready to shoot, knowing in the back of my mind that I may have to. Never pull your weapon unless you intend to use it; the first rule of carry. I would have killed her, almost gladly, if she had harmed Nick.

And I wonder why that doesn't really bother me. Knowing I had been ready to take a life to save one. At the time I merely disarmed her, talking her down while making sure her attention stay on me, ignoring Nick completely after ordering him not to move. His hand had been on his gun the second her focus had wavered, only I never intended on giving her that choice. It was me or nothing.

I'm back now, Ms Hendler safely locked away in the back of a patrol car. Nick is facing the wall, crime scene forgotten for the moment. Lost in the wash. Trying to pull himself together before I return and he has to be official again. Once more be the analyst instead of a victim.

As it is I see the tears he wipes away. The left over panic he's trying to fight, determined noone will see; all evidenced by the rigid shoulders, set and braced against the world. Against a moment in time he should never have had to face. He wasn't ready for it.

Neither was I.

I see it now.

I see you Nicky.

My Nicky.

Oh I know he loves me, I've known it for a while. The sideways looks, the little smiles he'd flash, just for a second, when I'd manage to catch him off guard with a bit of trivia, or quote from Shakespeare. Or, god forbid, a *joke*. It had come to the point lately I'd found myself going out of my way to make that joke, yes and try to catch him in those little appreciations before he would turn away, afraid I'd see what I already had known. More than appreciation, more than admiration or respect.

His love for me.

If I had lost him tonight without ever telling him...without ever letting him see...

And there it was, my greatest fear. Until I heard his voice in the hereto unnoticed stillness of the house; a silence without purpose, pleading for his own life.

"Grissom?" It's hitched, wet and uncertain, small in a way that Nick should never have had to sound. I see the sudden tension, hear that moment of fear before he realizes it's only me.

He still hasn't turned; I don't think he wants to face the rest of the room just yet. The cops outside.

I know he doesn't think he's up to facing me at all. I'm not just the man he loves, after all; I'm the man he looks up; the man he never wanted to see him fail. How many times has he told me that? Shown me that? Case after case. Trying to prove to me - not his boss, his supervisor, but to me - how smart he is, how good at his job. How worthy of my faith in him.

He has it, but that doesn't matter now. He didn't fail, I did. I misread the evidence and it almost cost Nick his life tonight.

But I realize now it has opened my eyes; to a lot of things. Nick doesn ' t see me because he turns away before he can let something slip. And up until now I've simply been blind. Content to let sleeping demons lie, as it were.

"Gris?"

No more.

"Here."

I hold out my hand and he takes it, reaching backwards before he turns. His eyes are wet and red, no doubt despite his best efforts, and they don't want to meet mine, but they do and I hold on to that, too.

Maybe I should tell him what I see there. Or better yet...

...maybe I should finally let him see me.

end