Work Text:
Title - Explaining the Atheneum
Author - Madeleine
Category - Adventure/Suspense/Romance
Summary - Gil and Nick share a conversation about a past love of Grissom's. But in revealing his feelings he learns that she's in a spot of trouble.
Disclaimer - CSI and its characters belong to Anthony Zuiker and CBS Broadcasting Company. They're not mine, I wish they were, and I'm not making money off of them. The characters that ARE mine, however, should not be stolen. Thanks!
Explaining the Atheneum
by Madeleine
The café ·as small and patronized by a comfortable amount of people? it was away from the bright lights and greedy squeals of the main Las Vegas strip. Grissom liked to go there after work and sip slowly at iced chai or nibble on the exquisite honey eclairs. Today he shared the private booth with Nick Stokes, who sat watching him over the rim of his enormous coffee cup. Nick's eyes were locked on the CSI whose face lacked its usual intellectual glow.
"Something is rotten in the state of Grissom."
"Excuse me?" Gil snapped his head away from the window. "Oh," he managed a shy smile, discovered. Nick chuckled amiably, "So who is she?"
"You mean was, who was she."
"So I was right? It is a girl?" Nick smiled, triumphant as he set his cup down on the saucer?it was not often that he could finagle his boss into talking about the opposite sex. Gil looked down at
his own saucer, his forefinger tracing the blue vines that encircled the edge, the small yellow flowers budding on the leaves were faded, like his memories of her.
"She was a girl then, it was before all this," Gil motioned broadly, but meant his job and Nick knew it, "I didn't know anything back then, I had been doing this job for a while and I thought I had an idea of what I wanted my life to be, what I wanted me to be."
"She was hot, wasn't she?" Nick winked, breaking the end off of his biscuit.
"No, Nick, she wasn't hot," Gil replied with a light shake of his head, "she was beautiful?she was beyond comprehension." He stopped, staring down at the ice cubes that floated happily in his chai, a snort forced its way out his nose, "Yeah, she was beautiful and smart and funny. And a criminal."
Both of Nick's thick brows raised at the last bit of information, "You've definitely got my attention."
"She could pick your pockets clean in half a minute and be around the block before you knew what hit you?she never stole anything of mine, but occasionally she liked to trick me," Gil smirked, remembering those days fondly. He had felt so innocent, she was a thief, but it didn't matter. Nick chuckled, reaching over to steal part of Gil's eclair.
"So it ended when you found out she was a klepto?"
"She was a magician," Gil corrected forcefully. Nick could detect the sugary, foreign drip to Gil's voice as he reminisced, "You'd lose yourself in those gray eyes and the next second your wallet was clean and back in your pocket."
"So what happened?" Nick interrupted, "Usual relationship strain?"
Gil hesitated, his eyes reflecting those that passed by as he looked out the window, his distinguished features set in a hard, grim expression, "I lost too much of myself to her. I was scared, scared of the implications and the expectations. I just gave up, I let her go."
"You sure it wasn't because you had to keep buying new wallets?"
"She never stole from me Nick, not anything of monetary value," Gil avoided his partner's eyes, "She asked me to leave with her, to go to Australia, to go surfing and live on the beach and be poor together and forget about careers and civilization and responsibilities."
"Sounds romantic, so what happened?"
"She gave me the ticket, told me to meet her at the gate, she was going no matter what," there was a long pause as Gil's eyes focused on something across the street, he started his sentence a few times before finding the strength to say it all, "I sat in my bedroom staring at the wall."
Nick inhaled deeply, draining the last drops of coffee from his cup before turning it around slowly in his sturdy hands. He could feel the pain radiating off of Grissom; it wasn't easy for him to speak about her, but maybe it was good for him to let it out, to release all of the hurt he was keeping inside. And to think, Nick mused, he had always thought of Grissom as too serious to have a truly reckless and romantic relationship. He certainly quoted a lot of Shakespeare, but this was a shock, to learn that Grissom had an unresolved love and one that was causing him secret grief.
"I should have gone," Gil finished in a choked whisper.
There was a pause, Nick unable to dash his friend's lost dreams with a bitter slap of reality. He too had experienced those youthful relationships that were full of promise and excitement but he had little faith in their success.
"Oh well, she's probably married to some Australian body builder by now, wouldn't remember me," Gil forced a smile, taking a deep drink from his cup before setting it down roughly on the saucer. The jarring sound of the colliding porcelain made Nick jump a little in his seat.
"It sounds rash, it might've been a mistake," Nick knew the words were futile, but at least he could try. Gil shook his head.
"It was too much for me, how much she loved me, how much I loved her, the things I would've done for her," he dropped his head, exhaling a huge lungful of breath, "Why didn't I get on that damn plane Nick?"
"Because you didn't, I guess, because, well, you just didn't," Nick replied, swallowing thickly.
Gil reached into his trouser pocket and produced his wallet, digging through it before pushing a faded, torn picture across the table. Nick met his friend's eyes and absorbed the desperation he saw there? before glancing down at the photo. The girl smiling back at him was no girl at all, she was a young woman?beautiful, bright, her round cheek pressed to a much younger and vibrant Gil's. Nick felt his breath hitch as recognition washed over him, "Grissom?this woman is in custody, Warrick brought her in yesterday..."
They shared another look, Grissom's eyebrows furrowed deeply over his light eyes.
"...For murder."
END PART 1