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The hospital is quiet, or at least as quiet as a hospital can be. Inside the doors of the ICU ward, there's an eerie feeling floating around, like the world's not completely asleep, but not completely awake either, and I can only hear the sound of my own footsteps. I open the door to the room, knowing and dreading what I'm going to find. The door slips from my fingers and it closes softly after me. But I only have eyes for the person on the bed.
Nick. My precious Nicky. So pale, so still, with cables and IVs hooked on him... the movement of his breathing and the constant beep of the heart monitor the only signs that he's alive, that he's still here... but it's not enough, I take his hand and feel his pulse... yes, it's here... Intellectually, I know it's silly, that's what the heart monitor is for, but it's my heart, not my mind that I need to reassure, and for that I need to feel his heart beating under my fingertips.
I take my coat off and sit on the chair by his bed. I'm still reeling from what happened tonight, from the moment my heart almost stopped beating in my chest...
// "Gil!", Nick shouted, "Behind you!"
Gil turned quickly, just to see a car coming by, the driver and the rear passenger both aiming automatic weapons in his direction. Next thing he knew, Nick was pushing him out the way and taking the bullet meant for him right in the chest, falling to the ground with a scarlet flower of blood already forming on his shirt.
"Nick, no!!" he screamed, in an unusual show of emotion. Getting up, he ran to Nick's side and searched for his pulse, relieved to find it still steady. "Where's that damn ambulance?" he shouted to nobody in particular.
"On its way!" Jim shouted back, keeping his calm during his friend's unusual outburst. "They'll be here in a couple minutes!"
"Don't leave me, Nicky," Gil murmured to himself. "Don't leave me, please." //
"Hey, Nick" I whisper softly, taking his hand between mine, needing to feel the reality of him. "I don't really know if you can hear me, and perhaps it's better if you can't, but there are some things I need to tell you." I allow my fingers to wander softly through his hair. As I suspected, it's like fine silk, soft and beautiful like the rest of him. Like his dark eyes that always make a person feel like they were the centre of the universe when he looks at them, the strong jaw and the delicate mouth, and the lines that appear each time he smiles that dazzling smile that could light up all of Las Vegas by itself.
"Damn God, Nicky, you scared the hell out of me tonight! Do you have any idea of how I felt when you stepped in and took the bullet? Do you know how much my heart hurt when you went down like that? It was like my world shattered in an instant."
In fact, I don't know who scared people the most today, Nick by getting shoot or me by reacting to it. They must think I hit my head or something. I snapped at Cath and Warrick, almost bit a piece off Sara, lost my patience with Greg and dressed down poor Archie... yeah, I know I've been a total and complete jerk. And by doing that, I scared and worried them. Because that's not me... or at least the part of me that they know. I'm the supervisor, I'm supposed to keep a cool head and work everything objectively. But I didn't. My emotions were all over the place and I let myself be ruled by them, not even trying to control myself. The only thing I was able to see was Nick... Nick lying in the street, not moving, blood pooling around him...
It was finally Catherine who confronted me, took the evidence away, put my jacket on me and sent me off, telling me to go see Nick and not to come back until I resolved whatever I needed to. Really, I swear that woman is psychic.
"I know you won't believe me, but there's nobody in the world more important to me than you. I wasn't looking for it and I sure as hell wasn't ready for it. But you snuck up on me, from that first day when you walked into Jim's office, fresh off the plane from Dallas..."
// "You know Jim, when I told you we needed more people I was thinking about someone more experienced." Gil pointed out.
"Experienced CSI are not that easy to come by, Gil." Captain Brass said, exasperated. "He may be young, but he has potential. His supervisor in Dallas told me he was very sorry to see him go."
"Why's he leaving, then?"
"It seems that his parents are big names there and the kid wants to prove himself. And, anyway, I thought you liked teaching."
"That's not the point here, Jim."
"Give the kid a chance, Gil."
"You know I will."
"So you just wanted to bitch to me a little, eh?" Brass asked, rhetorically, and Gil just grinned.
Someone knocked the door.
"Enter!" Brass called.
The door opened and in the doorway stood a very handsome young man, about Grissom's height, with short black hair and dark eyes.
"Captain Brass?" he asked, hesitantly, entering the office.
"Yes, Captain Jim Brass. You're Nick Stokes, aren't you?" Jim stood up and asked, holding out his hand.
"Yes. Nice to meet you, Captain." Nick answered, shaking Jim's hand and smiling.
"You can drop the captain, boy." Jim allowed, grinning, and, turning to the still-seated Gil, he added. "That's Gil Grissom. He'll be your field leader."
"Wow. I've heard a lot about you, Mr. Grissom. I'll love to work with you." Nick exclaimed, beaming, turning his dazzling, sincere, 100-megawatt smile to Gil, who suddenly felt his heart speed up, his breath catch in his throat, and had to force himself to keep a neutral face in spite of all the scary things his body was experiencing in a second.
Finally, after what it seemed to him like hours but probably where only seconds, he stood up and took the offered hand.
"Nice to meet you, Nick. Welcome to the CSI." he said, succinctly. He knew Brass was giving him an odd look but ignored it. //
"Would you believe that, until I meet you, I've never fallen in love? Not once? Not even a high school crush. Never knew how that felt. And never felt the urge to discover it, either. The whole teenager exploration phase? I missed it completely and didn't regret it. I'm not a virgin, not at sex, but what people call love was a theoretical concept to me... until you arrived." The best and most frightening day of my life at same time.
"Handsome as hell, dark eyes I could lose myself in, fun to be around, giving off charm and sympathy in buckets, and with a heart way too big for your own good. You took me in and made me your friend. For the first time, I found myself wanting to go to work not only for the work itself, but to see you, to speak with you... just to be beside you. My heart was doing flip-flops when I saw you, my knees went weak and I had difficulty speaking when you smiled at me.
Everything I was feeling was so new, so strong, that I didn't knew how to deal with it, because I wasn't prepared to. All the science, all the theory, even my scarce sexual experience didn't help me deal with the signals my body and my heart were sending me. I was scared as hell, plain and simple. I was used to being alone, it was comfortable and easy not having to depend on anybody else. Loneliness I could handle. You were the last thing I thought about before falling asleep and the first thing I thought of when I woke up. It was like you had conquered my life and I didn't knew where I stood anymore.
So I did the only thing I knew, I retreated inside my walls, trying to quash all the feelings I didn't know what to do with, to recover my balance, my control. But it was useless, because all the shields would come crashing down when you looked at me. So I tried to push you away, to be hard with you, to make you not like me that damn much." It hurts, it still hurts...
"It was childish and it wasn't fair, but I needed the distance, no matter how small. I felt like I was falling into a deep hole and would keep falling because I had nowhere to grab on. I tried to find any excuse, no matter how small, to try to talk myself out of loving you, out of needing you. Like the night Kristy Hopkins was killed. I know you think I was angry at you because you slept with a call girl but, in fact, I was jealous. Jealous that she had what I couldn't, jealous that she knew you the way I wanted to know you..."
// "You told me you weren't dating her." Grissom said, slightly accusing.
"I wasn't 'til last night after I broke up her fight with this guy, uh ... Jack." Nick answered, nervous and worried.
"And Ecklie's at her house now."
"Yeah, and I can tell you what he's going to find. My fingerprints and my DNA." One strike, two strikes, directly to the heart. Gil felt his heart squeeze painfully in his chest, and only his iron-clad control prevented any of this from showing in his face.
"What were you thinking, Nicky?", Gil asked.
"I wasn't," answered Nick.
'Obviously,', thought Gil, but refrained from saying it out aloud. Nick looked miserable enough.
"We had a connection, you know? A chemistry thing, I guess. She was irresistible, man." Nick got a faraway look in his face while he was remembering. Gil closed his fist hard under the table, the pain allowing him to regain control of himself. When the others left, he was not surprised to find blood oozing from three small half-moon shaped cuts in his palm. //
"And then you'd throw me a curve ball, and everything I managed to talk myself into believing was torn down in an instant. Like on the evaluation day. Do you have the slightest idea of how I felt when you told me you only wanted my approval? It was like having everything you want at your fingertips, just to realize it's not really being offered. I was just a second away from kissing you senseless, from confessing everything and to hell with the consequences, when I was able to catch myself ...
// "Look. Grissom I know this is a bad time to bitch to the boss but, uh, I've been a CSI Level 3 for nine months now. I was a CSI before Warrick. Warrick works D.B.'s solo. Why can't I?" Nick asked.
"Repeat after me. Silk, silk, silk." Gil answered.
"Silk, silk, silk?"
"What do cows drink?"
"Milk"
"Cows drink water. They give milk. A simple riddle. Common sense disguised in a puzzle of words, but an excellent barometer for evaluating someone's readiness."
"Look, I'm not one of your suspects you can trick, okay? If I'm not ready, be a man -- tell me I'm not ready."
"You're not ready." Gil deadpanned.
"You know why I took this job? Honestly? I wanted to pack heat, walk under the yellow tape, be the man ... but mostly, because I want you to think I'm a good CSI."
"And that's the reason I have to hold you back. Anybody who's great at anything, Nick, does it for their own approval not someone else's." And though he really believed in what he was saying, Grissom's heart almost broke at the desolate expression on Nick Stoke's face. //
"I will never tell you any of this when you're awake," I choke out, my throat suddenly feeling tight. "Because I'm a coward, a hopelessly scared coward who prefers to keep being your friend rather than lose everything by telling you the truth, because I know there's no way you can return my feelings. You're young and handsome and charming and full of life and... everything... and you have all ladies you want at your feet and, even if you liked guys, you'll have a lot more options than a geeky supervisor with horrible social skills on the wrong side of forty. An old man that prefers to keep adoring you from a distance instead of seeing revulsion or pity in your eyes." I feel the tears burning in my eyes, rolling down my cheeks, falling on our joined hands, reflecting my misery back to me with distorted cruelty.
"But please, Nicky, get well, and get well soon, because even if you'll never know, I love you, Nick Stokes, and I'll always love you and I don't know what I'll do if you never wake up, because life would no be worth living anymore if you're not in it."
"I love you too, Gil Grissom," a raspy voice says and I freeze. Slowly, I look up and yes, he's awake and he's looking at me with something that, if didn't know better, would swear is love. He has pulled the oxygen mask out of his face and he's smiling, smiling at me.
"How much did you heard?" I whisper, not daring yet to spoke aloud.
"Enough," Nick answers, squeezing my hand. "Did you heard me, Gil?"
"I heard, but I'm not sure I understood correctly." God, please, just this once...
"I love you, Gil Grissom, and have loved you for a long time, even if you don't believe me, it's true" He tugs at my hand, forcing me to stand up and get closer to him. "And I'll keep saying it to you 'til the day you believe me, even if it takes the rest of my life."
"How can you love me?" I know that's awe, and disbelief, in my voice, but I can't help it. It's everything I want, and it's everything I fear at same time.
"Because you're handsome," I snort, but he cuts me off. "Yes, you are, believe me. And you're caring, and you're so intelligent, yet so clueless about some things at the same time... You always try to do the right thing, even if you sometimes won't admit it... Because you're the best man I ever met and I love you."
I'm speechless. You got another first, Nicky, you're the first one to leave me without words. There's nothing I can say, because I'm torn between giving in, and fearing it will be just another dream. He chuckles, mirth dancing in his eyes.
"You're doing a great impression of a fish, Gil, but as fun as it is to watch, if you don't come here right now and kiss me, I'll never forgive you."
Kiss you? You said kiss you? Yeah, you must have, because your hand has found its way to my neck and you're pulling me down to you. Sure it's not a dream?
"You're not dreaming it, Gil," Nick says, softly, as if he can read my thoughts, before closing the distance between us.
The first touch of lips is tentative, no more than a caress. The second is less tentative and, yes, your lips are parting under mine and I dive in, and, God, you taste so good, you're so hot, so good, so perfect... Perhaps dreams do come true for forty-something-years-old CSI supervisors after all, because no dream has ever felt like this. It feels hot and moist, it feels loving and passionate, it feels like love and it tastes like hope and future.
Perhaps it's time I start to believe.
- END -