Title - Explaining the Atheneum
Author - Madeleine
Archive - Yes please :)
Feedback? Anyone? Please?! :)
E-Mail address - minnas_varwa@yahoo.com
Rating - This particular installment is PG (language)
Category - Adventure/Suspense/Romance
Spoilers - None
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 was small and patronized by a comfortable
amount of people– it was away from the bright lights and greedy squeals of the
main
"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