"THESE ARE SLASH STORIES - THAT MEANS TWO MEN IN ROMANTIC &/or SEXUAL SITUATIONS!"


Bring Me To Life
elfin


CHAPTER 1

In search of fruit and coffee, Nick pushed open the Break Room door, smiling when he saw Grissom sitting on the couch, frowning to himself over a book open on the low table in front of him.

"Hey, Gil."

His boss glanced up and smiled.  "How's the shoe print coming?"

"Slowly.  An office building means a lot of shoes."  He picked a red apple from the fruit bowl and turned to lean against the counter.  "There's one woman - a PA to the boss - she has thirty four pairs of shoes and can't remember which pair she was wearing two days ago, so we're having to check every pair."  He watched the amused smile touch Grissom's lips and smiled himself.  Then he noticed what his boss was eating.  "Chinese?  For breakfast?"

Gil looked down at his plate and back up, his surprised expression genuine.  "It's morning?"

Nick's turn to be amused.  "Yeah.  Thursday.  Just gone seven the last time I looked which was about..." he checked his watch, "...ten minutes ago.  How long have you been in work?"

"Two days?" Gil hazarded a guess.

"Ah, Gris, you should go home, get some rest."  Nick dropped into one of the chairs opposite the puzzled man.  "What the hell are you working on?"

The older man’s tone grew serious, although his exhaustion was starting to show through the cracks.  "The little girl who was found out in the desert."

Nick nodded, glancing down.  "Any progress?"

"Nada."  Gil sighed, sliding his plate onto the table and closing his book.  "Now you mention it, I feel like I've been awake for two solid days."

Nick leaned forward, reaching to squeeze the other's arm, smiling softly.  And for a moment it was just them - Gil and Nick - and they could have been anywhere but here.  "Go home.  Sleep.  You're not doing her or you any good by working yourself into the ground."

Gil hesitated, but finally he nodded.  "You pulling a double?"

"Just need to finish the shoe prints.  Want me to come round?"  Nick saw the smile only he ever got to see.  "Couple of hours."

Grissom nodded, realising that bits of him had suddenly found a reserve of energy.  "You do wonders for an old man," he murmured, holding the chocolate gaze.

"You're not old."

The argument, however, was and they dropped it.  Getting to his feet, Gil picked up his plate and disposed of the leftovers.

"Morning both," Catherine chirped as she strolled into the room, newspaper in one hand, mug of cold coffee in the other.

Nick groaned.  "You are way too happy for a morning."

"Cracked my case.  Greg got me a DNA match, Brass is on route to pick up my suspect and I'm off to bed."  She dropped the paper, an early edition of The Washington Post, to the low table and went to the sink, rubbing her shoulder deliberately against Gil's as she pushed her way to the sink.

He glanced at her, smiling smugly and she grinned back.  She loved the changes wrought in him by his otherwise unknown relationship with Nick.  Not that it was a secret.  It was just that no one else had asked yet.

Nick, meanwhile, had picked up the newspaper.  Absently he read the headline.  "FBI Legend Killed In Home."

Catherine nodded.  "I read that one.  Can't understand it.  Why break into a guy's house, kill him, then not take anything?"

Next to her, Gil shrugged.  "There are hundreds of reasons.  Maybe there wasn't anything to take, maybe he was disturbed."

"Oh, he was disturbed all right," Nick piped up. 

But Gil ignored him.  "FBI Legend?"

"Yeah."  Nick read the opening paragraph.  "'A top FBI Forensics expert was murdered last night at his home in Chicago.  Dr Alan Bloom....'"

The plate slid from Gil's fingers, cracking when it hit the floor of the sink.

Catherine and Nick looked up sharply.  "Gris?"

He crossed the room and took the paper from Nick, hands still wet.

Gil's eyes scanned the rest of the top paragraph in bold.  'Dr Alan Bloom was found by his wife in the early hours of the morning.  He had been stabbed several times.  Detectives found a long shard of glass next to the body but refuse to say what the significance was or whether the glass was the murder weapon.'

Nick was on his feet.  "Gil?  You okay?"

Catherine approached from behind.  "Did you know him?"

With the barest of hesitation, Gil nodded.  "Yeah.  A long time ago."  Taking the paper with him, he left the Break Room, still reading.  Nick watched him for a couple of seconds before opening the door and calling out,

"Gris?  You are going home, right?"

~~

Grissom knocked on the front door of the small suburban bungalow and waited.  When there was no answer, he knocked harder and louder.

Finally the door was opened and Jim Brass stood blinking in the bright morning sunshine, dressed only in a dark blue towelling robe.

"Christ, Gil, don't you sleep?" he muttered, automatically stepping back to let his friend into the gloom of his lounge.  The curtains were all drawn, they tended not to be opened more than twice a month.  "It works better if my body doesn't know what time of day it actually is," he explained needlessly as he padded into the kitchen almost on auto-pilot. 

Gil followed.  "Jim, I need a favour."

Brass stopped in his tracks.  There were a thousand come-backs, most of them involving how little sleep he’d had, why it couldn't have waited and a request for an apology at having his rare and precious rest disturbed.  But something in the other man's tone, something akin to anxiety, caught on that part of his brain that kept watch for criminal liars.  He turned and regarded Gil seriously for a long beat before asking, "Coffee?"

"Please."  Gil pulled out a stool from under the breakfast bar and sat down, reaching for a plastic tie that lay just within reach, playing it through his fingers.

Neither spoke until Jim placed two mugs of black coffee between them and sat down at the end of the bar.

"What's up?"

Gil hesitated, as if trying to weigh the consequences of what he was about to ask.  "An FBI forensics expert was murdered last night in Chicago.  He was a friend of mine once and I need to know what happened."

It was mind-boggling.  Not just that Grissom was in his home, a place he'd very rarely been.  And not just because he was obviously asking this particular favour about as far from on the record as it got.  But because Gil had an old friend in Chicago.  Brass tended to be of the same ilk as Grissom's team of CSIs; any information regarding Gil's life outside of work was like gold dust, and therefore to be collected and treasured.

"I'm sorry about your friend.  I'll do what I can.  What was his name?"

Gil told him, took the article he'd cut from the paper and unfolded it, handing it to Brass.

"Dr Alan Bloom," Brass repeated, as if he could learn something from just the dead man's name.  But it didn't ring any bells in his memory.  "Can I ask how you two met?  I mean, you don't usually associate with the FBI."

"At a conference."  And they both knew the explanation had come too fast.  If he was a suspect right now, he'd have given the cops every reason to believe him guilty.  "It was years ago, but we kept in touch for a while. I just..." he glanced up, meeting Jim's attentive gaze for the first time since he'd stepped into the house.  "I need to know what actually happened to him, not what the papers say happened."

Jim nodded.  "Okay."

"And... don't tell the others, okay?  My team?"

Shrugging, Brass agreed.  "Gil... listen, if there's something going on here...."  He trailed off, knowing he wasn't going to get any more from this intensely private friend.  Frankly he was flattered that Gil had come to him in the first place.  "I'll come find you tonight, at the lab."

"Thanks."  It was heartfelt.  "Thank you."

~~

As worried as he'd been, Nick found Gil at his townhouse a couple of hours after he'd left the lab, fast asleep, curled up almost in one corner of the bed.

It was an unusual position for his lover but he seemed to be sleeping peacefully enough so Nick left him alone.

Feeling completely awake he made himself a sandwich – unable to put a label to the meal – and dropped to the couch, picking up a journal from the coffee table.

He found an article about observation and was so involved that he barely heard Grissom’s cell phone ringing in the bedroom.  He heard Gil’s voice though and silently cursed whoever had disturbed his lover’s sleep.

A minute or so later, he heard the shower in the en suite and closed his eyes.  Much more of this and Grissom was going to collapse where he stood.

The shower lasted two minutes maximum and not long after that, Gil appeared in the doorway to the lounge dressed in loose light denim jeans and a black T-shirt.  It brought a spark of arousal to Nick's body and a spark of hope to his mind.  Both were short-lived.

"Hey, I didn't know you were here."

"Didn't want to wake you, unlike some people."  Nick met him half way to the kitchen and hugged him as he was hugged back.  A quick kiss then,

"That was Brass.  Remember that FBI agent from the signature homicide case?  Agent Culpepper?"  Nick nodded, smiling to himself.  At the time, the media had called the perp the 'Strip Strangler', the FBI had picked up on it.  A memo had gone round from Catherine stating that she didn't want to hear the term used by any member of CSI nightshift.  Nick could guess why.  "He's been found dead in his car, ten miles out of Vegas."

Nick couldn't help his gaping expression.  "You're kidding?  Let me come with you."

Gil kissed him again, shook his head.  "I'll be an hour at most.  Brass just wanted me to go look at something.  I'm coming straight back.  Stay here, get some sleep.  I'll be crawling into bed with you before you know it."  Still concerned, Nick knew he looked sceptical.  "I promise."

~~

Grissom crouched next to body of the FBI Agent.

Culpepper had apparently been driven out here in his own car and abandoned.  His fingers had been skinned, which struck them as odd.  There had been no other attempt to mask the vic’s identity, quite the opposite in fact.  The killer had drawn attention to his work.

But where their perp had vanished to, how he'd gotten away from the crime scene, what had killed Culpepper and why, all these things had been pushed to the sidelines for now.  For stitched to the forehead of their dead FBI agent was a note.


‘“Gil Grissom”, if I locked you in a room, cut off your foot and let the wound fester and infect, would you still be interested in the lifecycle of the maggots?’


Studying it with as much detachment as he could muster, Grissom took in the copperplate handwriting, the expensive paper and the presentment.

"The stitches look like sutures."  He glanced at Brass.  "Medical stitches."

"I know what they are."  The look Jim gave Gil told him that the cop couldn't have cared less if the note had been stitched, stapled or otherwise.

"Ah, Jim....  Don't start...."

"Someone's threatened you, I have to take that seriously."

"No, you don't."  Gil rose gracefully to his feet, knees cracking.  But before he could move away from the car, Brass was in his face, hand on his shoulder.

"Yes, I do.  I know you have some sort of death wish, Gil, but the last thing I want is to walk into a crime scene and see your blood soaked body sprawled in the middle of it.  I doubt your team would want that either."

Taken aback, Grissom regarded Brass with a hard stare but the other man refused to back down.

"What are you asking me to do, Jim?  I carry a gun."

"So did Culpepper."  Brass pointed into the car, where the agent's weapon was still in its holster.  "He never even had a chance to take it out."

"I won't live in constant fear of these people.”

Brass sighed softly.  “Do me a favour, okay?  At least live in awareness of them.”  Seeing that he’d pushed his luck as far as he could for now, he turned the conversation back to the evidence, back to familiar ground.  “Why take the skin from his fingers?”

“Under these circumstances, I have no idea.”

He turned as another Tahoe pulled up alongside his own.  For a moment he thought Nick had followed him out here but Jon Wicker stepped down from the vehicle.  Dayshift.  For now, this was Ecklie’s case.

“It’s better this way,” Brass told him carefully.  “Let Ecklie handle it.”

“You know my guys will be all over it when they find out about the note.”

Brass turned and bestowed a genuinely pleased smile on his old colleague.  “Yes, they will.  Because they care, Gil.  Remember that, okay?”

~~

As he’d promised, Gil climbed into bed with his lover just over two hours after leaving the house.

Nick woke immediately, turning onto his back, eyes searching Gil’s face.

“What?”

“I can’t hide from you,” he murmured softly, reaching to play with Nick’s hair.  “That used to scare.  Now… now it’s nice.”

Smiling, Nick lifted his head and stole a kiss.  “Don’t try to change the subject.  Tell me about Culpepper.”

Gil sighed softly.  “There was a note attached to his forehead, addressed to me.”

Nick’s arms went around him, pulling him down and turning until they were face to face.  “What did it say?”

Quietly Gil quoted the note, the words burned into his memory.

Nick's initial reaction was the expected horror, but to his credit he pulled himself together faster than Gil had at the scene.

"Okay, so who is it?  Zephyr?  An old case?"

"I don't know.  There was something familiar about something at the scene, like a light bulb going on somewhere but I can't pin it down."  He gazed at his lover, letting his tension ease for a while, and when he finally spoke it was nothing but a whisper.  “Make love to me, Nicky?”

~~

It was rare for the entire nightshift to witness a single post-mortem.  Dr Robbins felt as if he was on show and he didn’t mind one little bit.  But the reason behind his sudden popularity scared the shit out of him, not that he’d ever admit it.

Their victim lay on the slab, covered for now by a white plastic sheet from shoulders to ankles.  He’d had no dealings with Culpepper face to face while the man had been alive, he felt nothing more than he always felt for the victims he dealt with.

He glanced up at Grissom where the senior CSI was standing a little closer to Nick Stokes than usual and for a moment he imagined how he’d feel if it was his friend and colleague lying on the slab.  For a moment, he felt sick.

Taking a deep breath, Robbins began, “I photographed the note in-situ before removing it and bagging it.”  He pointed to an evidence bag on the work surface next to the door.  “It was stitched to his scalp at the front here.”  Leaning down he indicated six tiny, bloody holes in the centre of the victim’s forehead. 

The five CSIs glanced at one another.  Gil nodded.  “We’ll come back to that.”

“All right.”  Robbins drew back the sheet carefully and started work.

~~

Gil pre-empted the discussion, that he knew would happen as soon as they reached the Break Room, by telling Catherine he would work the case with her and Nick.

Robbins had mentioned that the skin had been removed from Culpepper’s fingers before death and that he expected the tox report to show succinylcholine, rocuronium or some other muscle relaxant in the man’s blood stream.  At that moment Grissom had seen the expressions on the faces of his team… the beloved features of his lover.

Now he was rounded on, Catherine the loudest of the pack.

“You are not going out there, Gris.”

Holding up his hand, he stated, “Whatever you’re going to suggest, don’t.  I’m working this one.  I’m not gonna hole up in my office while everyone else runs around trying to save my ass.”

“This guy is dangerous!”

“They’re all dangerous.  I’m not hiding.”  He met Nick’s dark, intensely worried gaze.  “Could you get the note to Greg?”

Nick held his eyes for a moment.  “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

~~

As soon as he read it, Greg made a face.  “I’ll work the note as priority, pull whatever I can from it.  Grissom’s getting protection, right?”

Nick sighed heavily.  “Officially, he won’t hear of it.”

“Unofficially?”

“I’m sticking to him like glue.”

Greg grinned, winking.  “No change there then.”

“Ha ha.”  But he jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder from behind.  “Warrick, you….”

“Sorry, man, didn’t mean to scare you.  DB, shrink at his office.  We’re on it.”

“Right.”  Reaching out, he tapped Greg’s arm.  “Anything on that note, you page me.”

~~

Nick wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  “That is the first time I’ve ever lost my lunch at a crime scene,” he muttered disgustedly.

Warrick patted his shoulder.  “Hey, the only reason I didn’t lose mine is because I didn’t eat yet.  And I don’t think I’m going to now.”

Spitting one last time, Nick straightened.  “At least this one didn’t have a note pinned to him.”

“Not a lot left to pin a note to, is there?”

Brass stepped out of the townhouse behind them grinning grimly.  “You two rookies okay?”  But when Nick turned to apologise, Brass waved him off.  “Don’t worry about it.  I’ll let you have that one.  But you do need to get photographs before we can move him.”

“Yeah.”  Taking a deep breath, Nick opened the rear doors of the Tahoe and took the camera from the bag, plugging in the flash.  “I’ll get them.  Nothing left to come up.”


Stepping into the doctor’s office, Nick found himself turning away again from the mutilated corpse.  In all his years of being a cop in Dallas and being a CSI in Vegas, he’d never seen anything as terrible or sickening as what lay on the desk before him.

Starting at the top, he photographed each wound in turn and then in conjunction with other wounds near by.

The man’s skull had been crushed, possibly with the baseball bat that was lying a couple of feet away from the desk.  His right eye was lying on his cheek, plucked out with two blades – a dagger and a knife.  Both weapons had been left, stabbed into his face, above and below the socket.

They weren’t the only weapons left at the scene, still in the body.  A collection of blades had been sliced into the man’s flesh, including arrows.  Bones were obviously broken and along with the baseball bat there were several other suspects lying around.

It was the blood that was hard to stomach.  It was everywhere.  The walls resembled those in a slaughter house.  The carpet was soaked.  The doctor was definitely killed here.  At least they wouldn’t have to go in search of a second crime scene.

Warrick joined him just as he finished with the photographs of the body and started on the scene itself.  The second CSI took swabs and searched for prints, bagging all the weapons one by one.

“This is the worst, man,” he muttered, finally bagging his latex gloves.  “What kind of guy could do something like this?”

“Guy?”

“Come on, a woman couldn’t do this.”

Warrick considered that one.  “I bet Sara and Catherine could.”

“You think?”

“I definitely think.”

“Frightening.”

~~

Robbins glanced up.  “All right.  Chapter and verse, top to bottom.  Ready?” 

Warrick and Nick nodded. 

“Right foot stabbed with a triangular blade.  Left shin shattered with something hard and round.  Two stab wounds in the right thigh, one by a blade, the other by something narrow and blunt.  Stab wound through the left thigh with a blade.  Stab wound to the groin on the right side, stabs wounds to the chest, one on either side of the rib cage.  Left arm, wrist slashed, two stab wounds, skin torn from the elbow.  Right arm, fingers broken, forearm shattered, wrist stabbed, bicep gouged.  Left shoulder sliced open, right eye plucked out, skull smashed.”

“Good God.”

Warrick swallowed.  “I thought you said top to bottom?”

“Wanted to make sure you were paying attention.”

“Believe me, we’re paying attention.”

“So, do you want to know the significance?”

Both CSIs stared at the pathologist.  “Significance?”  Nick leaned forward, immediately regretting getting any closer to the body on the table.  “These wounds aren’t random?”

“No.  They’re specific.”  Robbins snapped off his latex gloves.  “If you’ll follow me.”


They trailed him into his office and waited while he scanned the spines of the books on the shelves.  Sliding one out, he thumbed through the pages then held it out to Nick.

The sketch was of a man, standing despite the many wounds shown inflicted upon him, weapons still in place.

“Wound man,” Robbins told the two as they stared.  “An illustration done in 1530 by Hans von Gersdorff.” 

Warrick took in the image over Nick’s shoulder.  “Our vic has these exact wounds.”

“Except they’re mirrored.  Right side on the left, left side on the right.”

“Oh, man.  This is one sick puppy.”

~~

Gil glanced up as Brass stepped into his office and closed the door with his ass.

“Got a minute?”

Nodding, Gil indicated the empty chair in front of his desk.  “Sure.”

“I’ve got that information you asked for, about Alan Bloom’s death.”  Jim took the offered seat.  “He was found in his hallway, a couple of feet from his front door.  He was stabbed once in the stomach and once in the groin, only the cut to his groin went up into his stomach; guts out.”  Jim paused, watching Gil’s reaction which was controlled but not entirely successfully.  “Sorry, Gil.”

But Grissom shook his head.  “Was there anything… unusual?”

“The shard of glass.  What the media vultures weren’t told is that the glass came from the mirror in the hall which had been smashed.”

Closing his eyes from a moment, Gil took a deep breath.  “Thanks,” he managed.

“Don’t mention it.”  Jim rose from the chair.  “Listen, if there’s something I should know….”

“He was a friend, that’s all.”

Brass wasn’t convinced but he knew the other man well enough to know he wasn’t going to get any more information from this particular source.

“Right.  Just be careful, Gil.”

~~

Nick stepped into the DNA lab and waited, tapping the beat of the hard rock out on the doorframe until Greg turned and saw him.  Reaching for the volume knob on the CD player, the young man smiled apologetically.

“It helps me work.”

Nick nodded.  “Sure.  Sorry to disturb but have you seen Gris?”

“About an hour ago.  He was in here studying the note,” he pointed to where the ominous piece of paper hung in its sterile bag.  “Said he was trying to recognise the handwriting.”

Frowning, Nick crossed the lab to the drying rail and peered through the transparent bag at the neat, copperplate handwriting.

“Did he say anything?”

“No.  He… was acting a little odd, you know.  Jumpy.  I haven’t seen him like that before.”

Whatever Grissom had seen in the note, Nick could see only a sick mind.

“Do me a favour?  If you see him, tell him to page me?”

Greg shrugged.  “I’ll ask him.  Best I can do.”

~~

"Cath?"  She looked up from the computer screen and smiled the smile she reserved for Nick.  "Seen Gris?"

"He went home early.  Migrane."

Nick's eyes widened.  "Alone?"

For one bizarre moment, the words, 'no, he took a beer with him' balanced on Catherine's lips.  "He said to tell you he'd wait up."

Nick frowned, then grinned.  "He did not."

She shrugged.  "Okay, he didn't.  But if it's any consolation, I don't think he went to his townhouse."

Nodding, Nick started to pick at something in the doorframe.  "If you don't mind... I'll go check on him."

"Good idea.  He did seem a little... wired, actually."

That was a surprise and he couldn’t help recalling Greg’s words.  "Gil?"

"Yeah, struck me as odd but then I'm not sure how I'd take something like that written on a note to me."

"No."  Nick hesitated for a moment before pushing away from the door.

~~

Gil's Tahoe was in his driveway, that was an initial relief.

But not until Nick peered into the darkened bedroom and found his boss and lover lying on his side, asleep on the bed, was he able to assure himself everything was all right.  For now.

Silently closing the door, he kicked off his shoes and padded into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich.  Now the knots were untying in his stomach he found that he was famished.

Snagging a soda from the fridge he took his makeshift breakfast through to the lounge and stretched out on the couch.  Not wanting to switch on the television and disturb his sleeping houseguest, he took up a book from the coffee table and let it fall open.

A photograph fell out, one of him and Gil taken at a barbecue at Catherine’s place two weeks ago.  She was the only one who knew about the two of them, their relationship.  They’d been seeing one another outside work for a month when Catherine had visited one day and seen two Tahoes outside Gil’s home.

Nothing odd about that per se, but when she’d knocked, she no one had answered the door and her suspicious mind had kicked into overdrive.  By her own admittance she’d thought it was Sara, but she’d gone back to the lab to find Sara working overtime having been there all night.

A visit to Warrick’s favourite haunt had confirmed his whereabouts and that had left Nick.

When she’d asked Gil straight out the following night, he’d come clean.  And she’d been happy for them.  Honestly, genuinely happy.  Nick privately thought she got a kick out of seeing them together, being witness to the private smiles on Gil’s face, to the small touches and delicate contact, never going too far in public but not ashamed of loving one another.

In his deepest, darkest thoughts he wondered if she ever imagined them together in their wilder moments – more than moments.  Hours.  Now and again, days.

The photograph had been taken by Lindsey, Catherine’s daughter.  It was of them together at the barbecue, Gil burning the sausages while Nick gave advice.  Their only touch was shoulder to shoulder.  But they were both laughing, both relaxed.  It was a wonderful photo.

Dropping it to the coffee table, he tried to work out whereabouts he’d been on the page when he’d put the book down two weeks ago.

~~

Nick woke to an arm loosely around his neck and a mouth making a meal of his throat.

Smiling contentedly he leaned into the wet caress, reaching back to run his fingers through the soft hair and over a smooth nape.

“Hey, how’s the headache?”

“Better.”  Nick shivered as a tongue traced along the line of his jaw.  “Thanks for letting me sleep.”

“I know what you need when you get sick.”

Gil eased Nick’s head to one side, nipping at the skin over the top of his spine.  “Not only when I get sick.”

Stretching his other arm back, Nick touched as much of Gil as he could, never being able to get enough of this man.  

“Come up here.”  Nick’s book was already on the floor, his page lost this time.  Gil picked it up and put it on the table while his lover scooted back on the long couch and made room for him.

Stretching out, Gil lay face to face, toe to toe, cock to cock with Nick, capturing his mouth and dragging him over to lie on top.


They were rested, showered, fed and ready to return to work before Nick brought up the events of the previous night.

“Listen, Gil… if there’s someone out there with a grudge….”

“Nicky.”  The warning tone was soft but unmistakable.

“I’m just saying it would be beneficial to my health if you’d not do your usual stunt of wandering off to meet the madman alone.”

Gil gazed at Nick, small smile spreading on his lips.  “I’ll try.”

Closing the gap between them, Nick leaned in and stole a chaste kiss.  “Do better.”  Gil watched him saunter off to find his jacket, still amazed at the ease of this between them.  “I didn’t tell you about Wound Man.”

The words, called back from the hallway, took a moment to register in Gil’s brain.

“Wound Man?”  He could hear the dread in his own voice. 

Nick heard it too and stopped, turned.  “A psychologist found in his home.  He had so many injuries, stab wounds, crushed bones….  Dr Robbins showed us this illustration in an ancient medical book.”


Nausea spread through him like a fire in his gut.  Swallowing back the bile in his throat, Gil fought the tide of hysteria that crashed over him.

He had to get out.  He looked at Nick and knew in an instant that he had to get away from the man he loved before he was hurt.  Killed.  Because of Gil.

Casting his eyes around the room he saw the keys to his Tahoe on the coffee table.

“I’m leaving.”

Nick stared at him, taken aback by the sudden change in his lover.  A change he’d never seen in this self-contained man before.

“Gil?”

“I have to leave, Nicky.  I have to leave you.”

Nick’s stomach lurched.  What the hell…?

But Gil was looking right at him.  “It’s over, Nick.  It has to be over.  This… everything.  It’s all over.”

“Whoa!  Jesus.  What the hell did I say?  What just happened?”  He watched his lover cross from the kitchen to the coffee table.

“Gil?”

“I’m sorry, Nicky, I’m so sorry.  I have to go, I have to get away from you.”

Nick shook his head, heading for the door, meaning to beat the other man to it.

“Gil, please!”  Gris had taken his jacket from the armchair, had it half-on, half-off.  "Don't!"  But his plea was ignored.  Gil snatched his car keys from the coffee table and headed determinedly for the door.

Tears blurring his vision, Nick grabbed Gil's hand hard as he went passed.  Gil stopped, turned, and with shock Nick saw that he too was crying.

Never before had he seen his lover in such a state. 

"Jesus, Gil... what's wrong?  Please, just talk to me."

Helplessly, Gil shook his head, trying to free his wrist.  Nick held on, aware that he was probably hurting his lover.  "I can't.  Nicky, please.  I have to leave.  I have to."

The desperate anxiety in the usually calm voice was starting to freak Nick a little.  "No!  I won't let you walk out on this, on us."

"You don't understand."

"Then make me understand!  You're not going, Gil.  You leave, I'll follow I swear."

"You can't!"  Taking a deep breath, trying to control the rising hysteria, Gil forced himself to relax slightly.  "Please. Nicky.  Trust me.  I love you, I won't let...."

"Won't let... what?"  With a calming sigh, he slid his hand down Gil's arm to link their fingers.  "Come on," he purred gently, "It's not like you to run.  Talk to me, whatever it is, whatever's scared you like this, we'll deal.  Okay?"

Trembling, Gil hesitantly followed Nick to the couch.

Nick was glad to sit down.  His whole body was shaking with the unexpected, sickening rush of adrenaline.  But he kept his focus entirely centred on Gil as the man perched on the edge of the sofa and folded his arms on his knees.  Raising one hand he started to bite his thumbnail.  His whole posture screamed self-defence.

Taking deep breaths, Nick didn’t speak.  He waited.

~~

Catherine finished her first coffee of the night and headed for the Trace lab.  Her envelope and still folded letter on white A4 paper was waiting for her. 

Ecklie had handed it to her on her way in.

The address on the envelope read ‘c/o Conrad Ecklie, CSI, Westfall’.

Ecklie, being Ecklie, had opened it on his way out at the end of the day, read the first line,


‘I’ve committed a heinous crime’

and had decided to hand it over to nightshift with the words, “Let Grissom deal with it, he gets on well with twisted psychos.”

The note to Gil the previous night had them all on alert and she’d decided to play it safe.

Wearing latex gloves, she opened up the letter with care.


‘Mr Ecklie,

I’ve committed a heinous crime.

I’ve lied to those who trust me most.

I’m not who I say I am.

Find me.  I’m lost.

Will Graham’

~~

The tears and the hysteria had turned to a more frightening stony coldness by the time Gil finished talking.

Nick was staring at the man he’d thought he’d known, completely ill-equipped to deal with what he’d heard.  He was still staring when he realised Gil was speaking again.

“…sorry.  You must….  Nicky… I never meant to hurt anyone.  It was so long ago I’d almost forgotten him and now… now he’s cost me you too.”

Nick frowned, attention shifting.  “Hey… no.”  He suddenly realised what his expression must look like, how Gil must have been reading his demeanour, how far the distance between them must have seemed to the man he loved.  He reached out, one hand settling on the back of Gil’s neck, the other wrapping over warm hands.  “You’ve still got me, Gil.  No one… no one’s gonna think any less of you.”

Blue eyes brighter than usual settled on him as if hoping against hope.
“I love you.  Don’t ever forget that.”

“Even after…?”

“Especially after.  Everything that happened to bring you to me… you’re a million to one chance and that’s something I won’t ever forget.”

With an incredible sigh of relief, Gil reached for Nick, wrapped his arms around his lover and held him tight, reassuring himself that what Nick had told him was true, he wasn’t alone any longer and wouldn’t ever be again.

“What did I ever do, Nicky?  What the hell makes me worthy of you?”

Squeezing tears from his eyes, Nick held on just as tight.  What Gil had told him this evening should have turned his world upside down but strangely it hadn’t.  Grissom was the same man he’d always been.

It was a long time before either of them let up and even then they kept their hands on one another.

“You must have questions,” Gil murmured softly, playing with Nick’s fingers in his own.

Nick shrugged, leaning his head on Gil’s shoulder.  “Maybe.  A couple.  But if you don’t want to tell me anything more….”

“Ask, please.  I need you to trust me again.”

With a sigh, Nick lifted his head for a moment.  “There is no one I trust more.”

“Then ask.”

~~

Sandwich in one hand, Catherine logged on to the computer and double clicked on the Netscape icon.  Going to Google, she typed in the name “Will Graham” and clicked ‘Search’.

A barrage of results came back, but it quickly became obvious that there were three major candidates.

There was an opera writer, a man who’d apparently been made artistic director of the National Opera..

An over-zealous student at MIT with a web site Catherine couldn’t begin to decipher.

And an FBI investigator who’d caught a serial killer named Hannibal Lecter. 

Of course, their note might refer to none of these people.  Selecting one of the links regarding the FBI investigator she waited for the web page – an old newspaper article - to load.

“Whatcha doing?”

Turning, feeling guilty for some strange reason, Catherine smiled at Gil and Nick as they stepped into the lab.  She handed them the bagged letter that had already been through the Trace lab.

They read it together and for a brief moment she was treated to a flash of the intimacy between the two men.

Gil handed it back.  “You don’t have to search on the Internet for Will Graham,” he told her.

She looked at him with a mix of infuriation and awe.  “Dare I ask why not?”

He hesitated.  The past meeting the present.  He was scared of what the future would hold and reaching back, he did something he’d never done before at work and probably wouldn’t ever do again.  He grasped Nick’s hand.

“He’s standing right here.  A very long time ago, that was my name.”


“Not everything’s a lie.”

They sat in the coffee shop, Nick and Gil sitting close on one side of the table, Catherine on the other.  Gil was on his second coffee, and the way he was touching the handle, the slight curve of his fingers, put in her mind the idea of a man who had once smoked.

“I wasn’t ever in the FBI.  I gave lectures on forensic psychology at Quantico while I was still at college.  The Chief of Behavioural Sciences, Jack Crawford, took a liking to me.  We became friends, more or less.  There was a killer in Baltimore, we couldn’t find a connection between his victims, couldn’t catch a break.  Jack suggested I consult with this forensic psychologist, a local doctor…” he hesitated, tasting the name on his lips as he had done when he’d explained all this in much more detail to Nick earlier on.  “Hannibal Lecter.  We started to work together on a profile and we became close friends.”

“One night, I went to his townhouse with an idea about the killer, about his signature.  I had no idea I’d just unmasked Lecter until he stabbed me with a letter open.”

Catherine blanched. 

“He almost killed me, put me in the hospital for months.  When I was released, I ran.  From Baltimore, from Jack Crawford, from Will Graham.  I’d died for a minute on the floor of Lecter’s study.  I imagined I’d left Will Graham lying bleeding to death on the carpet and left it all behind.  I had FBI contacts in the Federal Witness Programme who sorted out the paperwork and the computer records, built me a past.  I changed my name, picked up the second part of my degree course and went back to University, became an entomologist. 

“Jack Crawford tried to contact me a couple of years later apparently, set off a couple of alarms in the FBI computers.”  He shrugged.  “I got a job in LA and the rest… you know.” 

For the first time since they’d sat down, he looked up and met Catherine’s stunned gaze.

“Cath?”

She stared at him for a little while longer before a smile touched her lips.  “You’re even more brilliant than I thought,” she told him softly, meaning it, reaching across the table to touch his hand where it rested against the mug.  “Everyone has a past, Gil.  Yours is just more complicated than most people’s and that doesn’t come as a real surprise.”

He was stunned and it showed as he squeezed her hand.  “Thank you.”

Nodding vaguely, she glanced from his uncertain face to Nick’s watchful gaze.  “Are you two okay?”  The two men shared a look, and she knew they were.  “Okay – don’t get mushy on me.”  At least they had the decency to look embarrassed.  “So I have to ask, how dangerous is this guy?”
 
“The ‘Wound Man’?”

“Yeah – the body in the morgue.”

“He did that to one of his first victims.”

Understanding touched her features.  “Okay, so he’s killing again, leaving you notes and honking great clues.”

“A man called Alan Bloom was killed in his home in Chicago yesterday.  He was close friend of mine once.  He was stabbed twice and a shard of glass was left on the body, a shard taken from a mirror that had been smashed.”  Gil paused for a deep breath.  “Like I said, after I disappeared, Jack Crawford tried to contact me, wanted me to go back to work.  The perp they were after killed two families and a young woman before vanishing.  His MO was to smash mirrors and cut his victims using the pieces.”

Catherine took all that in.  “I’m sorry about your friend.”

He nodded.  “I hadn’t spoken to him in a very long time.  He was the only thing I regretted leaving behind.  He was also the one who wouldn’t only have understood and encouraged me, he would have bought me the one-way ticket.”

Grissom’s beeper interrupted their unscheduled break.  He read the text scrolling on the pager and sighed.  “The Sheriff.  I have to go.”

Catherine took point out of the coffee shop, Nick hung back and for a moment kept Gil with him just outside the door.

“Do me a favour?”

Gil looked at his lover, surprised.  “Anything.”

“Don’t run this time.  Don’t leave me not knowing what happened to you.”

Hurt in his eyes, Gil actually reached to grip Nick’s arms in firm but gentle hands.  “I had nothing to hold me in that life, Nicky.  This time, I have you.  I swear to you, I won’t ever leave you.”

~~

The Sheriff had wanted to talk about their co-operation with the FBI regarding Culpepper’s murder.

Gil had agreed complete co-operation by his team and it went without saying that dayshift would be availing themselves to the FBI too.

It was a short and unusually civil conversation and Grissom was back at the lab within the hour.  There had been a hit and run which Catherine had sent Warrick and Sara out to.  She’d wanted to keep Nick back but a shooting at a store had needed someone to attend and she’d taken him with her.

So Gil found himself the only nightshift CSI around.  Not wanting to be alone he found Greg in the Trace lab and simply watched the man work, talking with him now and again, even learning a couple of new techniques.

He loved to learn and before he knew it, Sara and Warrick were back with evidence.  Wanting to do something helpful, feeling a little out of sorts, he offered his services as delivery boy and collected orders for sandwiches before popping out to the deli.

~~

Catherine was about to leave at the end of her shift when she received a call from Brass.

An SUV had been found out on I-15, not too far out of town.  It had crashed into the central reservation and the driver rushed to hospital.  Brass apparently couldn’t get hold of Gil.  Catherine reluctantly agreed to meet him at the scene.


The central reservation had come off worst from the accident.  It surprised Catherine, then, that the driver had been injured as badly as Brass had described.

“Who found it?” she asked the homicide captain as she peered into the cabin of the vehicle, seeing the blood splatter on the window and dashboard. 

 “A Carl Marriott, businessman, driving home from a late dinner.”

Catherine nodded.  Chances were high this was just an accident, no need to hassle the poor guy any more than his own family was probably going to do when he got home. 

The SUV’s windscreen was cracked, the airbags hanging from the centre of the steering wheel and the dash on the passenger side. 

Walking around to the back of the vehicle, she shone her torch at the ground.  The skid marks on the verge looked consistent with an accident.  With a sigh, she opened the trunk of the black Tahoe.

Something spilled out, dropping against the rear bumper. 

“Oh, God….”

Dropping into a crouch, she instinctively reached to cradle the head of the body that had fallen half-out of the SUV.  Automatically she pressed two latex-covered fingers to the throat, searching for a pulse and not finding one. 

Only then did she mentally pull back to take in details, to beat herself up for messing up a crime scene, to look at the man whose head she was still needlessly supporting.

And her whole world tilted.

 “No… oh God….  Gil, no….”  A second later she was searching again for a pulse, dropping her case to the ground and dragging the body of her boss and friend out of the trunk.  She heard Brass question her actions from a long, long way away but didn’t reply.  Instead she pushed Gil’s head back, stuck two fingers into his throat to check his airway, and began CPR.

Brass recovered just as admirably from seeing his friend lying dead on the sandy verge.  He ran back to his car, called for an ambulance then returned to Catherine’s side, linking his fingers one hand above the other over Gil’s heart.  At Catherine’s nod, he pressed down hard on the man’s chest with the heels of his hand, cracking a rib or two of Gil’s, his whole being focused on one thing – restarting Grissom’s heart.


David sat in the driver’s seat of the Coroner’s van watching Brass with Catherine.  Somehow he had to work out how to tell Al Robbins, his boss, that it was Gil Grissom’s body lying under the white sheet when they arrived back at the morgue.

He didn’t envy the other two having to tell the great man’s team that their boss was dead.  The CSIs worshipped Grissom.  The shock wave of what had happened here tonight was going to spread far and wide.

What was worse was that despite the lack of visible wounds and blood, Grissom had been murdered.  No one died of natural causes in the back of an SUV.  The accident wouldn’t have through him into the trunk of the vehicle.  David was facing doing a full autopsy on a man he’d worked with and admired.

He saw Brass and Catherine fall into a hug of mutual comfort and a tear escaped his eye.  Sighing softly, he swung his legs into the van and pulled the door closed.  It was up to him now to do everything he could for Gil Grissom.

~~

At the same time that Gil’s body was pushed into the morgue on a metal gurney, Catherine and Brass arrived back at the lab.  They’d managed to keep the tragic news from reaching here before they had.  Now they had to tell those who worked for Gil that their beloved ‘Gris’ was dead.  Or rather, Brass did.

Catherine had to tell Gil’s lover.

They walked together along the corridor, neither of them holding up well.  They could see into the Break Room, could see Warrick, Greg, Nick and Sara sitting talking quietly, munching on fruit, Greg reaching a spoon deep into an apparently empty tub of Ben & Jerrys.

Brass hung back when they reached the glass doors.  Catherine took a deep breath and hoped her makeup was covering her earlier tears.  Then she closed the distance and opened the door, stepping into room.

“Nick, could I talk to you?”  She was impressed at how steady her voice sounded.

He looked up, and Catherine’s heart ached at the destruction she was about to wreak on this young man’s life.  Nothing would ever be the same again.

Innocently, blessedly ignorant, he nodded and rose, frowning a little at Brass as he stepped out into the corridor and the Homicide detective passed him going the other way.

Tilting his head, Nick saw his colleague’s face and saw the pain there.  “Cath, what’s going on?”


Leaning back against the closed door, Brass looked at each of the three in turn.  There was no gentle way of putting it, no way of saying the words that would make them any less painful to hear.  “Gil was found dead tonight.”

Three pairs of eyes stared back, uncomprehending and completely unbelieving.

“He was… in the back of an SUV that was involved in an accident out on I-15, five miles from where Culpepper….”  What did it matter?  He trailed off.

“Grissom’s… dead?”  Warrick was on his feet now, obviously not knowing what to do next.

Brass nodded.  “I’m sorry.”  He heard the waver there and hoped he could hold it together long enough to make it back to his office before the tears started.

Seeing the expression on Sara’s face, he suddenly doubted it. 

“No….”  She was shaking her head.  “No.”

Greg simply glanced from Warrick to Sara to Brass and back, obviously not believing what he was hearing. 

But Warrick was staring out into the corridor where Catherine was hugging a sobbing Nick.  “How?” he murmured.  “Tell us how.”

~~

Brass found Catherine with Nick in one of the briefing rooms. 

They were sitting on the couch, neither speaking.  He watched while Nick wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.  It was pointless.  The tears were simply replaced by more.  Unstoppable.

“We ran the SUV’s plates,” he told them softly, “not that we needed to.  We should have just checked against our own records.”

Lifting her head, Catherine regarded him through reddened eyes.  “Why?”

“It’s Ecklie’s Tahoe.”

Nick’s head snapped up.  “What?”

“I honestly can’t believe that Ecklie had anything to do with this but it discounts the possibility of his team taking over the case.  The Sheriff asked me if I thought he should bring in a whole other team from elsewhere.  I told him I’d ask you.”

Catherine let out a deep breath, shook her head slowly.  “I don’t think we should handle this, Jim, I don’t think any of us are in any state….”

“We have to.”  Nick’s tone was unsurprisingly determined.  “We owe Gil… everything.”  He closed his eyes for a moment, mentally trying to scrape together the remains of his self-control and failing.  “We have to find out what happened… who… murdered….”  He shattered as the word passed his lips.  More tears came, streaming from his eyes, sobs hitching in his throat.

There was no way he was going to be able to look at the evidence subjectively and both Catherine and Brass knew it.  None of them were.  But there was no need to say that out loud.  Nodding, Brass closed the door silently as he left the room.

~~

Al regarded the body of his old friend through tear-filled eyes.

“This shouldn’t be you,” he told Gil’s inert face.

David joined his boss.  “You don’t need to be here,” he said, “you shouldn’t be here.”

Leaning heavily on his crutch, Al nodded.  “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

Even naked there were no obvious injures anywhere on the body, no clear-cut way to conclude how Grissom had died.  The tox report would be back in a couple of hours but meanwhile the autopsy had to go ahead.

Touching his hand to his friend’s cold shoulder, Al took a deep, shuddering breath before turning to leave.

Taking up the scalpel, David cut into Grissom’s left side, half way between should and pectoral, the top of the ‘Y’ incision.  A second later he was yelling for the adrenaline shot, pressing down hard on a sterile patch covering the wound he’d made.

The bleeding wound.

Gil Grissom was still alive.

Positioning the needle, David brought the syringe down hard, stabbing Gil in the chest, straight into his heart.  He pressed down on the plunger.

~~

Nick wasn’t sure if he should be doing this or not.  But he wanted to say goodbye.  He needed to see Gil one last time.

David almost ran into him as he raced through the corridor up to the Crime Lab.

Startled out of his grief for a moment, Nick reached out, steadying them both.  “Jesus….  What’s the rush?”  Coroners in a hurry were never something Nick could understand.

“He’s alive!” David blurted out.  “Grissom, he… he woke up.”

Mouth open, eyes wide, Nick barged passed the other man and ran the rest of the way to the mortuary, throwing open the door as he lunged inside.

Dr Robbins looked up.  “Hush, he needs quiet right now.”

Nick practically fell against the cold metal work surface, needing to steady himself.  He could see the rise and fall of the chest as Gil breathed with the help of the oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth.  And he stared at that small movement, watching it lest the moment he turned it would stop.

“He’s… alive.”  Nick could see it perfectly well, even through the blur of tears in his eyes, but he wanted – needed – a doctor to confirm it.

Robbins nodded.  “He’s alive, Nick.”

Al was sitting on a stool next to the metal slab.  Gil had been wrapped in a blanket, his head pillowed on a second, folded blanket.  Nick could just make out the top of a stark white dressing taped to Grissom’s chest over the rough sutures in the wound David had made.  The coroner was holding Gil’s hand lightly, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the back of it.  Soothing.

“He has to be kept quiet and calm,” Al explained softly.  “The ambulance is on its way.”

Once he was sure he could walk, Nick stepped up to the table and took Grissom’s other hand while he stroked his own badly trembling fingers over the greying hair.

“Gil….”

“He’s unconscious, possibly in a coma.” Al told him, “I suspect someone gave him something very nasty and it brought on bradycardia.”

Nick had to think for a moment.  “Slowing of the heart beat.”

“Some drugs can also lower the body’s core temperature.  It’s possible to slow the heart and cool the body so much that an EKG wouldn’t pick it up a pulse, to all intense and purposes he’d appear dead.”  Like Nick, he took reassurance from the slow rise and fall of Gil’s chest.  “Until David started to cut into him.”

~~

Al had called Catherine, certain that he could quickly give an explanation for Gil’s miraculous revival better than Nick could right now.

She wanted to come to the morgue but the ambulance had already arrived.  Best that she tell the others then meet Nick at the hospital.

Nick travelled in the ambulance with Gil, letting go of his hand only so that the medics could slide in an IV needle and hook up a drip.

Catherine got Greg to fax his initial analysis of Grissom’s blood – a task that he’d taken upon himself - to the hospital so that by the time the entourage arrived, the chemical in his system had been identified and an antidote was waiting to be plugged in to the IV.

Sara, Warrick, Catherine and Brass met Robbins at the hospital but there was nothing they could do but wait.

It was an hour before Nick emerged from some double doors looking dishevelled and uncomfortable in the white scrubs but basically a lot happier than he had been.  His tears had been replaced by pale exhaustion but his smile was enough to reassure them all.

Catherine prevented the barrage of questions, pre-empting it. 

“How is he?”  Nick’s outfit told her what he confirmed.

“He’s in Intensive Care.  He… he had an allergic reaction to the antidote but they counteracted that….”  Nick nodded.  “They say he’s going to be fine.”

The news took a few minutes to sink in.  They’d gone from Grissom being dead to his having cheated that fate.  There wasn’t one of them not feeling the rolling emotions there were plastered over Nick’s face.

It was a while before anyone spoke, alone as they were with their own thoughts, their own heartfelt relief.  Nick briefly hugged Catherine before by some mutual, silent agreement she followed him back through the double doors and along the corridor.

At the same time, temporarily adopting Grissom’s paternal role to the team, Brass suggested they went to the café for a coffee.  Right now they needed the caffeine and the company.


There were machines, but no sounds.  Gil looked so small lying on his back on the hospital bed under the heated blanket, an oxygen line running across his face, the two narrow tubes in his nose, IV line in his hand and an empty catheter bag hanging at the end of the bed.  There was an oxygen monitor on the end of his finger, ECG and EKG wires snaking out from under the white sheet and white medical gown.

But he was alive and it was all that mattered right at that moment because Catherine had believed they’d lost him and she could hardly credit how empty the world had felt for a short, terrible time.

Leaning down, she touched her lips to his forehead, telling him she loved him, they all loved him.  She was sure Nick had already done the same.

“They said he should wake up in the next eight to twelve hours.  It’s not a coma it’s… something else.  He’s healing.  Listen, Cath, he has bruising, all across his shoulders.  It looks like he might have been hit with something, like a length of pipe.”

Catherine thought about that.  “Hit then… poisoned?  Do you know how?”

Nick shook his head.  “Sorry.  He’s given us all a couple of heart attacks in the last two hours.”

“His system just needs time,” she whispered, turning to the man at her side.  “You need to rest, Nicky.”

“Yeah, later.” 

She didn’t argue.  “Want to come for a coffee?”

“Nah.”  She watched him reach down, touch Gil’s warming fingers.  “I’ll stay here for a while.  Just….”  He looked at her.  “It scared the shit out of me, thinking I’d lost him.”

“I know.”  There was nothing else she could say.  “We’re here for him, Nicky.  And for you.”

He wiped tears from his eyes as he nodded.  “Thanks.”

~~

Catherine found the small group sitting by the window in the café.  There was no one serving at this hour, but the coffee machines were 24/7.

The conversation halted abruptly when she appeared and only one question was important.  “How is he?”

Catherine pulled up a seat, sipping the strong black liquid as her fingers burnt on the plastic cup.  “Alive.”  She could hear the utter exhaustion in her own voice.  “They have him on every monitor none to man but he’s going to be okay.”

“Where’s Nick?” Sara questioned quietly. 

“With him.  He wants to make sure he talks to him as soon as he wakes, find out what happened.”

“You don’t think….”  But she trailed off.  She had no idea how to ask this.  “Nick wouldn’t….  I mean, he admires Grissom, right?”

Catherine and Warrick were frowning at her now, Brass’ eyebrows furrowed over the top of his coffee cup. 

“Wouldn’t what?” Catherine asked slowly.

“You… spoke to him separately, when you told him about Gris being… dead.  Brass told the rest of us but you took Nick out of the room.  You weren’t… I mean, you don’t….”

Brass’ eyes widened then as he caught on, and Catherine almost spat out her coffee.  She knew about Nick and Gil, tonight she’d told Brass because a murder enquiry always managed to dig up every detail about the victim’s life and she’d known it would come out at some point in the near future.  She’d wanted to spare Nick from being told his lover was dead along with the people who’d only worked for him.  All right, they cared for the man, admired and respected him.  But Nick loved him, shared his life and heart with him.  He’d deserved to be told separately, with the acknowledgement of what had been between them.

But Gris wasn’t dead.  Finding out had been one of the most incredible moments of her life.  She’d understood suddenly why people believed in miracles, why so many turned to religion.

Unfortunately, she’d also succeeded in ‘outing’ Nick and Gil.

“We don’t think Nick had anything to do with what happened,” she told Sara, not expanding on her words.

“So why deal with him separately?”  She knew she was getting pissy now but the shock and emotion were setting in.  “What about me?  Didn’t think I’d be upset?”  She took a deep breath.  “Sorry.”

Catherine shook her head.  “We’re all exhausted.  Let’s go home, get some rest and come back to it tonight.  We have the SUV back at CSI, we don’t know where the primary crime scene is and we won’t until Gil wakes up.  According to the doctor, that could be hours away.”  She was glad Sara didn’t ask why, then, Nick was at his bedside waiting.

She detoured into the Intensive Care Unit on her way out to the parking lot.  Nick was asleep on the sofa in the family room and Catherine left him.  It would do him the world of good even if he only snatched an hour or two before anxiety woke him and sent him hurrying back to Gil’s side.  She knew the drill, knew the emotional rollercoaster Nick was on right now.

Peering in through the glass panel in the main door she watched Gil sleeping too, surrounded by monitors that wouldn’t let him fall.  For a moment she was taken with the need to go inside, to tell Gil how much he was loved, how desolate the world had seemed for the short time they’d been without him.  But he wouldn’t want to hear it.

Murmuring ‘good night’ to the glass, took the image of him breathing with her.  He’d still be breathing in the morning.

It struck her as an odd thought.


Brass was waiting for her next to her Tahoe as she’d asked him to.  Warrick had driven Sara and Robbins back to their cars at the lab.

“What’s up?  Apart from Sara putting two and two together and coming up with eleven.”

“A couple of things that might just be coincidence.  An FBI agent was killed in Chicago a couple of days back….”

Jim nodded, “Gil had me look into it for him.  Dr Alan Bloom, stabbed in his home.”

“Right.  He was an old friend of Gil’s.  Then the note found on Culpepper’s body addressed to Gil.  And yesterday someone sent a note to Ecklie spouting bollocks about Gil.”

Brass looked at her, eyebrows asking the question.

“Ecklie couldn’t even be bothered to read it, passed it to me.  It concerned Gil’s past.  And now, tonight, someone tries to kill him.”

Frowning, Brass shook his head.  “Okay, this is going to sound odd, but if someone wanted Gil dead there are easier ways.  Why not just shoot him?  Why go to all the trouble of framing Ecklie and leaving Gil alive.”

“It’s only thanks to the speed with which we work that David realised he was still alive.  Left too long he would have died.”  A sobering thought.  “Gil mentioned a man called ‘Hannibal Lecter.’”

Brass paled.  “In what context?”

Not wanting to give too much away, Catherine simply said, “As a name that could be connected to Culpepper’s murder.”

But Brass was shaking his head.  “You’re mistaken.  It doesn’t surprise me that Grissom knows about Lecter, he collects cases, but ‘Hannibal the Cannibal’ is ancient history.  He’s a lunatic who escaped a maximum security jail years ago and fled the country.”

She couldn’t say much more without giving Gil away, and it was too soon to say that some serial killer from the FBI’s Top Ten Wanted was the man behind any or all of the open cases they had at the moment.

So she nodded.  “Need a lift?”

~~

Conrad Ecklie regarded the FBI agent standing at the front desk.

“Agent Jack Crawford?”  The stranger smiled, shook his outstretched hand.  “You’re here about Agent Culpepper’s case?”

Agent Crawford must have been in his 50s, perhaps even 60s Ecklie guessed.  He had an edge about him, like someone who knew that evil truly was a part of the human condition and so was all around him.

“I was told to meet with a Captain Jim Brass, but the LVPD sent me here.”

“Yes, we’ve had a difficult night, I’m afraid.  One of our own CSI supervisors was… almost killed tonight.”  He didn’t want to think about how he’d felt when he’d heard the news, didn’t want to analyse the emotions he’d experienced hearing of Grissom’s ‘death’, hearing the SUV had been his own, stolen from the CSI parking lot after he’d driven home in his wife’s car.

“I’m sorry to here that,” Crawford put in.  “No possible connection with what happened to Agent Culpepper, I hope?”

Ecklie wondered if that was really what he hoped.  A connection would give them a stronger lead.  What was the sacrifice of one CSI when an FBI agent had been killed?  For the first time in as long as he could remember, Ecklie felt a brief spark of sympathy for Grissom against a dark backdrop of envy.

“No, no connection.  If you’d like to follow me, I’ll tell you everything I know about the circumstances surrounding Culpepper’s death.  My team are working the case as we speak.”


They sat in Ecklie’s office, a tidier version of Grissom’s, and the day shift supervisor explained about the crime scene, the evidence they’d collected and finally the note.

He told Crawford what it had said, but the FBI agent wanted to see it and so Ecklie had to go find it.  David Hodges – the lab tech who had transferred from night to day shift not too long ago – handed it over in its protective plastic bag.

When he got back to his office, he handed it to Crawford who took one look at it and took out his cell phone.

Ecklie heard one side of the conversation.

“Starling?  Crawford.  Sorry, I didn’t… listen I need….  I know, but I think we might have found him.  No, I don’t….  Not right now.  I just need you to fax a copy of the letter to me….  Don’t give me ‘what letter?’….   Thank you….  Oh, yes, hang on.”  He moved the small cell to his shoulder and glanced at Ecklie.  “Fax number?”

Ecklie grabbed a post-it note from his desk, it already had the number scribbled on it.  He handed it nicely to Crawford, starting to wish – just for a moment – that he was more like Grissom.  He was sure the other supervisor would have thought up some witty snit to throw back at the overtly polite agent.

Crawford had ended his phone call and was asking where the fax machine was.  Ecklie led him back to the reception desk where they waited.  Less than five minutes later, the machine beeped into life and a single sheet of A4 scrolled slowly through.

It looked to Ecklie to be the first page of a letter that spanned at least two.  He watched as the FBI agent compared the fax to the plastic-housed note, watched the expression on the ageing man’s face.  Watched it light up then darken in the space of a heartbeat.

Then Crawford met Ecklie’s inquisitive regard directly and said, “Mr Ecklie, you have a very dangerous man here in Las Vegas.  From here on in, the FBI will be taking over the case.”

Ecklie floundered.  This was beyond him.  “Of course,” he managed after a couple of attempts at speech.  “What can I do?”

“You can tell me who ‘Gil Grissom’ is.  His or her life might be in danger.”

“It is in danger.  He’s the CSI who was almost killed tonight.  He’s at the hospital.”

~~

The first thing Nick felt was pressure on his fingers.  He sat up immediately, smile touching his lips and tears pricking his eyes.

Grissom blinked a couple of times before opening his eyes fully and gazing at Nick.

“Welcome back,” Nick murmured softly, making sure he stayed in Gil’s line of sight.  “Thought we’d lost you for a while there.”  He couldn’t stop the tears now.

“….”  Gil parted his lips but no sound came out.  He stuck his dry tongue between them, tried to whet them, tried again to speak.  “Nicky….”  It was nothing more than a rough whisper but utterly beautiful it captivated Nick for a moment.  Standing, he leaned around the doorway to the ICU nursing station and was immediately joined by Nurse Norda Ratchett.  She was a large black woman who had found Nick after the crisis of Gil’s allergic reaction to the antidote and simply offered him some words of reassurance and a tissue.

Through the hours he’d been around the unit, Nick had heard her shout at the other nurses, curse the doctors and give some unknown person on the end of a phone line a very hard time.

But around Gil she was the gentlest of people.

“Hey,” her manner was as easy as if Gil had just woken from a night’s sleep.  She approached the bed, studying her patient’s blinking eyes for a second before starting in on the checks.  Pupil dilation, temperature, blood pressure, ECG, EKG, IV, urine – a routine she carried out flawlessly while all the time talking to him.  “Can you tell me what your name is?”

Gil pulled his dry lips apart and said, “Gil Grissom.”

She glanced at him, smiled and looked across at Nick who’d hung back.  “Can do you do something for me, Honey?”  Nick nodded, stepping forward.  “There’s a freezer behind the desk.  Could you fetch a bag of ice chips?”

“Sure.”

It took him less than a minute to fetch the ice, but when he got back she was just tucking the sheet back around Gil’s legs and saying, “…out of here in no time.”  She saw Nick and nodded.  “That’s great.  Gil’s thirsty so just let him suck on a chip.”

Opening the bag as he came closer, the watery blue eyes fixed on him and snatched his breath away for a moment.

“Gil….”

A small smile touched parched lips as Nick perched on the edge of the chair and let an ice chip slide into his lover’s mouth.  It was eagerly sucked on, eyes closing, while Norda checked the IV line.  It was the final check and she stepped back from the mattress.

“Now you just take it easy, Gil,” she told him gently.  “Your system’s had one hell of a shock and it needs time to recover.”

She hovered for another moment before walking around to lean over Nick’s shoulder and speak quietly, “He’ll be out of it for a while.  Give him ice chips if he wants them.  Reassure him.  I’m going to tell the doctor he’s awake, he’ll want to examine him, do the same checks I’ve just done.”  She tilted her head, read the expression on Nick’s face.  “Don’t worry, Honey.  Although he’ll be sick of us within twenty-four hours, the more we bother him the faster he’ll get out of here.”

“He’ll hate it.”

“I know.  This place is worse for people who cherish their privacy.  But we’ll do everything we can to maintain his dignity.  And he’s got you, Honey.  He’ll be just fine.”

Nick was left alone with his lover, more grateful than ever to have the privilege of loving this man.  Gil silently asked for another chip, communicating with his eyes, with his fingers under Nick’s where the younger man’s hand was covering them.

Nick popped one between the dry lips, desperate to kiss him.  Instead he made do with telling Gil he loved him.

Gil smiled before his eyelids drooped closed.

It could have been minutes later, could have been an hour, Nick was trying not to fall asleep but his eyes kept closing of their own accord.  He heard raised voices, one of them Nurse Ratchett’s, the other one male, authoritative.  He thought there was a third, quieter, more reasonable, that sounded a lot like Conrad Ecklie.  But it didn’t make sense.

Gil didn’t seem to notice the ruckus.  He was sleeping now, fingers lax under Nick’s.  Sitting back, Nick tuned out the voices and watched his miracle sleep.


“You have to let us see him!”

Hands on her hips, Norda shook her head.  “No, I do not.  He’s my patient.  He’s sleeping.  This is the Intensive Care Unit, Gentlemen, and I advise you to leave.  Now.”

Ecklie put a hand on Crawford’s arm.  It was immediately shaken off.

“He’s not in any danger here,” the supervisor tried to defuse the situation, “is he, Ma’am?”

“No, he isn’t.  A member of his team is with him, I believe he’s armed.  Mr Grissom’s quite safe.”

The news that perhaps their only witness wasn’t going anywhere didn’t placate Crawford.  Their perp was more than capable and more than likely of skipping the country without anyone realising he’d ever been here.

“We need to question him,” he insisted.

“You can’t question him when he’s sleeping, now can you?”  She eased up a bit.  “He won’t be much use to you at the moment anyway.  He’s only just regained consciousness, he’s woozy and he doesn’t really know where he is.  Give it twelve hours, please?”

Ecklie nodded, agreeing.  And Crawford knew he didn’t have a choice.  “Okay.  We’ll be back.”

Norda smiled at their retreating forms.  “’I’ll be back.’”

~~

Sara stepped into the DNA lab just in time to duck the flying test tube as it crashed into the sink.  It shattered on impact but as least the fall out was contained.

"Greg?" she asked carefully.  Everyone was a little jumpy tonight, and after the events of the previous night who could blame them?

"Nothing!" he growled out, pushing back from the microscope, his chair slowly wheeling backwards, coming to a stop before he collided with anything.  “These hairs have no tags.  So no DNA.  There’s nothing on the note, nothing on the letter to Ecklie….  Nothing!”

“No prints?”

“No prints anywhere.  I need ice cream.”  Getting to his feet his gaze settled on Sara.  “How’s Grissom?”

She smiled sadly, nodding to herself.  “He’s in Intensive Care.  But he’s alive and he’d say that was a step in the right direction.”

~~

Nick wasn’t sure how long he could exist on coffee and adrenaline, so it was a relief when Catherine appeared at his side in white ICU scrubs.

She asked about their ward’s progress and Nick tiredly told her he’d woken once more, sucked down a couple of ice chips and fallen asleep.

Watching him as he spoke she could almost see the exhaustion in his face.  “I want you to go home, Nicky.  Call a cab, go home, sleep, eat, shower, change.”

He shook his head.  “I can’t, Cath.  You have to be at work.  Actually, so do I….”

“Ecklie’s lent us one of his team, so has Brabant.”

“But three of us out….”

“It’s one night, Nick!  They’ll cope.  You need to sleep.  And… I need to be with Gil for a while.”

He understood that at least.  “Okay.  If you’re insisting.”  Pushing to his feet he indicated the ice bucket on the bedside locker.  “The doc said his brain is still trying to reset, or something.  He’s not said anything more than my name so far but apparently he should start to recover pretty fast.  If he wakes, just give him ice and talk to him, reassure….”  He shrugged apologetically.  “Sorry.  You know all this.”

Hugging him briefly, Catherine promised she wouldn’t leave Gil’s side until Nick got back.  But he had to promise in return that he’d get at least 6 hours sleep.

Dropping a kiss to Gil’s forehead, murmuring that he loved him, Nick left without looking back, like it was the most difficult thing he’d ever done.  Catherine ached for him, but his collapsing on them wouldn’t help anyone.  Dropping into the vacated seat, she reached to pick up Gil’s still fingers, warm from Nick’s grasp, and hold them lightly.

It was comforting being here, hearing his soft breaths, seeing the readouts on the ECG and EKG, watching his little twitches now and again.  Grissom could be a pain in the ass.  He made their professional lives more difficult by refusing to play at politics.  They often missed important departmental matters when he missed meetings, one or two of them had missed the odd conference because he preferred experiments to paperwork. 

But she treasured his friendship, his knowledge and his advice.  Like Nick, she knew that working with the country’s best – one of the only - forensic entomologists was a privilege and a gift.

And she loved him dearly.

She recalled finding him in his office one night, staring at his laptop, a far away look on his face.  Terri Miller had married, had informed him by email.  Although not upset, he’d seemed a little lost and she’d realised that despite his often cold and withdrawn façade, he could be lonely sometimes.

It spurred another memory, the night after he’d finally worked up the courage to ask Nick out for breakfast.  Gil walking through the corridors, humming softly to himself, beaming.  His relationship with Nick had done him the world of good, had changed him in some ways.  He and Nick.

Lost in her memories as she was, it surprised her when a rough voice said her name.

“Catherine?”

Snapping out of her revere, she leaned forward.  “Good evening.”  Smiling, she squeezed his hand gently.  “Want some ice?”

“Yeah.”  His eyes followed her movements.  “Nick?”

“He was exhausted, I sent him home to get some sleep.”

“Good.”  Accepting the ice chip, he turned his head to one side and slipped back to sleep.

~~

Norda checked in on her favourite patient when she came on shift.  She was surprised but glad to learn that Nick had gone to get some sleep.

“He won’t stay away long,” she noted in the middle of chatting to Gil while she did her checks with as much thought for his dignity as she could.

Catherine could only agree with her.

“He should sleep.”

Both women looked at their ward.  Gil was glancing up at the locker, eyes brighter, clearer, voice not as rough.

Catherine was first to address him.  “Ice?”

“Thanks.”

Norda stood back, let him suck on the chip as he looked around the room from his limited viewpoint.  She knew not to rush him and was glad the other woman knew it too. 

“What happened?” he asked Catherine eventually.

“Why don’t you tell me what you remember?” she responded gently.

Gil’s brow furrowed and when his eyes closed she thought he might have fallen back to sleep.  But after a minute or so he looked straight at her.

“I don’t know.”  He sounded frustrated with himself but before Norda could jump in, Catherine reassured him.

“It’s all right, Gil.  After what you’ve been through we don’t expect you to remember a lot.  Whatever you can give me….”

"I remember... kissing Nicky as we left my house."  A tiny smile touched his lips.  "But I guess that could be any night."

Catherine beamed, radiating the joy she felt at his words.  "Yeah.  But that's okay.  It was a really busy night, you offered to go over to the deli to get sandwiches."  It was a rare occurrence, one she hoped might jog a flash of memory.

But he just gazed at her.  "Unusual."  She could have sworn he was teasing.  "I'm sorry, I...."  But something was revealing itself to him.  The ghost of a smile faded from his face and right in front of her eyes he became agitated, upset.  Norda saw it too and was about to end the impromptu interview when he said, "I was walking across the parking lot towards the Tahoe….  Something hit me across the shoulders.  I… fell forward but didn’t.  And the next thing… something over my mouth.”

Catherine had tightened her hold on his hand and was reaching to touch his face now, wanting the information but not at the high price of his recovery.  "Easy, Gil."  Still, if he knew....  "Do you know who it was?"

"Lecter.  Cath, it was Lecter."  His eyes widened and beside her the ECG started to beep a warning.

"No more," Norda told them.  "You need to rest, Gil."

But he was trying to sit up.  "Nick.  Nick's in danger... where is he?"

Rising to her feet, Catherine stroked her hand over his hair, easing his head back to the pillow.  "He's safe, he's just gone home.  But I'll call him, okay?"  She tended to agree, Nick might well be in danger if this Lecter guy had it in for Gil.  "Relax, he's fine, he's fine."   He sank back to the bed, eyes closing, but she thought it probably had more to do with his body's refusal to provide him with any more of its rapidly dwindling energy reserves rather than her ability to purr soothingly.

Leaving him in Norda's capable hands, Catherine ducked out and practically ran through the hospital until she was outside.  Switching on her cell she dialled Nick's number - first his cell, then his home, then Gil's home.

Nothing.

No answer.

She rang Brass and got him on the first ring.

"Catherine?  What's...?”

"Jim, you have to go over to Nick's place.  I think he's in trouble, I think the same guy who attacked Gil might have gone after Nick."

She heard a pause, then a car engine kicking into life.  "I'm on it, Catherine.  He's probably just sleeping but I'll check."

She wished she could feel as calm as he sounded.  Had she disturbed him at a crime scene?  Briefly she wondered how busy the skeleton CSI team was tonight.  "Thanks.  If he's not at his place, check Gil's."

"Sure thing.  I'll get him to call you."  Brass hung up and Catherine was left to worry.

~~

Wanting to be close to Gil, he'd driven straight to the townhouse from the hospital.  They basically lived together between his place and here anyway, both had clothes in each other's wardrobes.

Nick let himself in with the key Gil had presented to him a couple of months ago like an engagement ring.  Dinner, candles, a velvet-lined box... Nick couldn't help but smile at the memory.  The second exchange hadn't been quite so romantic - Nick had handed over a copy of his own key wrapped in a sheet of paper with his alarm code scribbled on it.

He hadn't been hungry, so he'd just collapsed onto the large bed and slept, wrapped up in the sheets, hugging Gil's pillow to him, breathing in the scent of his lover.  He'd been too tired to think or feel.

But a couple of hours later he woke to a sense of growing anxiety.  The butterflies in his stomach were making him feel physically sick and he knew he had to return to the hospital.

Stripping quickly, he took a quick shower and threw on a change of clothing, making sure at least that the pants and sweater were clean.

He was pulling on his shoes when the doorbell rang.  He froze for a split second, bent double, fingers paused with his laces.  No one ever called on Gil, not even salesmen.  The only visitor he could ever remember was Catherine on his last birthday.  The bell rang a second time, and he found himself wondering how doorbells managed to convey the level of agitation of their ringer with that single annoying buzz.

Heart pounding, he let go the vice grip on his laces and reached for his gun where it lay on the glass dining table.  Silently, he wrapped his fingers around the weapon and drew it out of the holster towards him.

The doorbell rang again, and this time was enhanced by three loud knocks on the door.

Bringing the gun to his side, Nick cocked back the safety.  He imagined he could hear his own heart pounding against his ribs, feel each shallow breath his took burn into his lungs.  He thought about Gil, lying helpless and still in the hospital bed and he determined to get the man responsible.  Was that the man person outside the door now?  Did he know he'd failed?  That his victim was still alive?  Did he think Gil was home or was he after nearest and dearest?

Slowly bringing the gun up, he rose and side stepped toward the door, aimed, ready to fire.

Another ring.  Another hard knock.

"NICK?!"

Lowering his gun, closing his eyes, Nick let out a heartfelt sigh of relief. Brass.  It was only Brass.

What the hell was Brass doing here?  His thoughts immediately returned to Gil. Oh no... no no no.  He couldn't be dead.  Not again.  Please God, not again.

Reaching out he opened the door and saw the expression on the captain's face.

"What's happened?  What's wrong?"

Brass breathed his own sigh of relief.  "Nick.  Thank..."

But Nicky waved him quiet.  "What's wrong?" he demanded.

"Nothing!  Nothing's wrong."  He saw the gun in the other man's hand.  "Is it? Nick?"

"What?"  Confused now, he frowned at the cop.

Preferring the patience option, Brass asked, "Why the gun?"

"I thought you were someone else."

"Who?"

"Someone bad."

"Oh."  The penny dropped.  "Oh!  No.  Gil's awake, he was...."

Nick's eyes widened.  "He's awake?!  Why didn't Catherine call?"

"Probably because she thought you needed the sleep?  He was worried.  He thought the same guy who attacked him might come after you.  So, you're getting an escort back to the hospital where Gil's already got 24 hour protection."

It took a moment to sink in.  Nick stepped back, letting Brass into the townhouse for a minute while he finished getting ready.

"Nice place you guys got here," Jim observed.

Nick let the smile touch his lips.  He felt a stab of pride at being Gil's lover and found he liked people knowing.

"Thanks."  He grabbed his coat from the sofa.  "Let's go?"

~~

Crawford returned to Desert Palm by himself at around nine that night.  He’d been almost glad that they hadn’t been able to speak to Gil Grissom the last time they’d been here.  This man could be his only witness to Hannibal Lecter’s return to the US, he wanted to question the man alone, without Ecklie asking all that he couldn’t answer.

There were questions that wouldn’t ever be answered.  Why was one of the most dangerous men ever allowed to escape?  And how – how! – did he do it twice?  Flew out from under the very noses of the FBI.

All those years ago, Lecter had killed nine people; patients, students, even a census taker, simply because they’d angered him in some way.  And then he’d stabbed an FBI investigator, almost killed him.  Will Graham would have died had Crawford not followed him to the doctor’s townhouse that night.

Sometimes, when he got drunk and started to brood, Jack wondered about Will, where he was, if he wished he’d died at Lecter’s hands.  He hoped the man was all right, happy.

The nurse – Norda – who’d been on earlier was nowhere to be seen.  Peering through the glass, Crawford could see a woman sitting by Grissom’s bedside and assumed her to be the man’s wife or girlfriend.  Donning a white gown and a cap to cover his hair, Crawford pushed open the door and stepped into the ICU.

Catherine turned at the sound of footsteps and saw the stranger.  “Hello?”

He flashed his ID.  “Agent Jack Crawford, FBI.  I’m investigating Agent Culpepper’s death.”

She gave him a smile.  “Catherine Willows, Criminalist.”  So he’d been wrong.  She was a colleague.  Crawford was impressed that Grissom engendered such loyalty, such… care in his staff.  Holding out his hand, she reached over with her left and shook it awkwardly, not letting go of Gil’s hand.  “He’s not really up to questioning right now.”

Crawford looked for the first time at Gil Grissom where he slept amongst the medical technology.

“Oh my God….  Will?”

~~

Nick stepped into the small room and immediately his face lit up with a gigawatt smile.

“Gil….”

He was at his lover’s bedside in a moment, reaching for Gil’s hand, mirroring the other’s smile.

“Hi, Nicky.”

Fingers grasping, stroking, Nick leaned down and stroked the short salt and pepper waves.  He opened his mouth, desperate to say something but no words would form.  He wanted to kiss Gil so much, feel those full lips alive under his.

Gil lifted a weak arm and touched his free hand to Nick’s face.  “It’s okay.”

It was all he needed.  Carefully, Nick covered his lover’s mouth with his own and flicked his tongue over the dry lips.  Gil’s own tongue met Nick’s, stroked inside the other’s mouth.

Nick perched on the edge of the mattress as he lifted his head, hands not leaving Gil.

“I was so damn scared I’d lost you.” 

For a long minute, Gil didn’t speak.  Nick saw in his eyes that he didn’t know to respond.  Then he said, “I’m sorry.  I remember being attacked but after that….  I don’t know what happened.”

“You were poisoned.  It slowed your heart to the point where you were declared legally dead.”  He took a deep breath, determined to hold it together.  The last thing Gil needed right now was him flying apart. 

But Gil was looking down now, and Nick watched as he reached to touch the sterile gauze over the wound the coroner’s scalpel had made in his chest.  He paled, if that was possible, and for a moment Nick thought he was going to be sick.  But instead Gil looked up, a terrible expression on his face.

“It’s okay.  You’re alive, you were always safe in Al and David’s hands.  They would always have found you.”

Horror slowly melted into affection.  “I love you, Nicky.”

“I love you too.”  He knew his fingers were restless around Gil’s, knew he was still trying to persuade himself that this was real.  Ironically, he hadn’t believed it when Catherine had told him Gil was dead either.  But he was feeling warm skin against his own now.  He couldn’t help the smile that returned to his lips.  “You should be resting.”

“I am resting.”  But Gil closed his eyes anyway.  “I’m lying in bed with my lover.”  It was only a matter of seconds before his breathing evened out into sleep.

Nick gazed at the beloved features for a long time before he looked around in slight confusion.  “Where the hell’s Catherine?” he murmured, just to himself.

~~

“He told you about me?”  Jack Crawford stared thoughtfully into the murky depths of his coffee.  There were sitting in one corner of the cafeteria, as private as they could get in such a public place.

Catherine nodded.  “He told us everything.  Not his whole team, just Nick and myself.”

“Nick?”

“Nick Stokes.  He and Gil… they’re close.”

Crawford smiled to himself.  “I’m… glad he’s okay, glad he’s happy and healthy.  I had no idea what had happened to him.”

“You tried to find him.”

“Once.”  To his credit, he looked Catherine in the eyes when he added, “I needed him and he wasn’t there.  He ran and I’m glad he did.  I went to see Lecter then.  He refused to talk to me, asked me about Will….  I don’t know what happened between them but whatever it was, the last time I saw Will he was lying in a hospital bed.”

“Ironically.  The technician at our lab has been trying to find us some forensic evidence.  I’ve called in, told the rest of Gil’s team that our parking lot is the primary crime scene for the attack on Gil but I don’t think they’ll find anything.  All we have is a name, Mr Crawford.  A serial killer from the past, two dead bodies and a man lying in Intensive Care.  Give us something to help us find this guy.”

Jack almost laughed, but he stopped himself just in time.

“You won’t find him.  The last time he disappeared, he left one agent trapped and another one half-dead.  Clarice Starling was put on paid leave for six months after Lecter abducted her then abandoned her unharmed.  Paul Krendler was on life support for a year because Lecter sawed off the top of his skull and fried his frontal lobe with garlic as they all sat down to dinner.  Had I known where Will was I’d have warned him.”

Catherine took it all in.  “So this time he’s killed a doctor and an FBI agent.”

“He was getting Will’s attention, scaring him.”

“Then he doesn’t know him very well.”

Crawford drank down his coffee.  “Lecter may go after anyone close to him.”

“Yeah.  We’re putting Gil and Nick under protection.”

“Nick?”

“Nick’s Gil’s… partner.”

Crawford’s expression was one of interest, as if suddenly something was falling into place.  “Partner?  Boyfriend?” 

“Yes.”  Her tone was defensive, protective of her two friends.  Crawford was regarding his empty mug thoughtfully.

“I didn’t know.  I thought….”  He shook his head.  “I never really knew him.”

She shrugged.  “He’s a difficult man to get to know.  We need to know what Lecter wants.  If we can’t find him, we need to bring him to us.”

“He was in your parking lot and managed to poison and abduct your supervisor without anyone noticing.”

“He won’t get near Gil again.  No way.”

“I hope you’re right, I really do.”  Pushing his mug across the table’s surface, he said, “I’d like to speak to Will but I have to go back to Baltimore for a couple of days.  Knowing you know who he is means I can breathe easier and I don’t think he’s likely to tell me any more than he’s told you.”

Catherine could only agree.

“Lecter’s either already gone or he isn’t going anywhere.  Please, take care of Will.”

~~

 “Give it another twelve hours and if your readings are still stable we’ll get rid of all the tubes and wires and move you to a more private room.  Okay?”

Gil nodded carefully.

“You’re doing well, Gil.  Those shoulders are going to ache for a little while, and you need to bear in mind that your system has had a real shock.  We’re going to keep you here in the hospital for another forty-eight hours at least, just to keep an eye on everything but I don’t expect anything else to go wrong.”  He completed his checks and perched on the edge of the bed.  “You’ve got a question.”

Shifting to try to get comfortable after the doctor’s checks, Gil glanced at him.  He was exhausted just by the quarter hour examination he’d been subject to. 

“Will there be any… side effects?”

The doctor shook his head.  “No.  I’m expecting you to make a complete recovery.  You might find you tire easily for the next couple of months until the poison works its way out of your system but that’s to be expected.  One thing to be aware of is that your bodily fluids may contain traces of the poison and the antidote.  You have a steady partner?  Nick?”  Gil nodded.  “Might want to consider using a condom for a couple of months if you don’t usually.  Neither of you should be in any danger but if you’re subject to drug tests as a part of your jobs….” 

The doctor shrugged but he noted that his patient’s eyes were already closing, almost against his will.

“There’s nothing better than rest for you,” he murmured.  “Don’t worry about sleeping when you need to.”

Rising, he could see Nick hovering outside the door and smiled to himself, waving the other man inside.  He gave him the condensed version before leaving the two alone.

~~

CHAPTER 2


Closing the front door of Gil’s townhouse, Nick finally released a deep, tense breath.

A couple of steps in front of him, Gil turned and smiled a heady mix of relief and heartfelt thanks.

Dropping the overnight bag he was carrying, Nick drank in the beloved man before him.  Dressed in the black and emerald shirt and black jeans that had been the only clean clothes Nick had been able to find that morning, Gil looked almost edible.

In the four days since the attack, sex had been the very last thing on Nick’s mind.  But now they were home, he just wanted to convince himself that everything was okay.  For a moment he imagined burying himself in Gil’s body and staying there for a very long time.

Gil was reading the look on his face, he knew, and he flushed.  “Sorry.”

But Gil shook his head, retraced his steps and wrapped Nick in his arms, holding him tight and close.  Nick slide his own arms around Gil’s body, feeling the contradictions that it was – hard and soft, age belying strength. 

Nick would have been happy with just cuddling, he told himself fiercely, but Gil’s mouth covered his insistently and he took very little persuasion.

Gil’s tongue tracing the curve of his lips was a sensation he could never get enough of.  He loved the way the older man nibbled him gently, the tiny bites sent thrumming shocks straight to his groin.

When he could bare it no longer he sucked Gil’s tongue into his mouth, caressing with his own as his lover explored the arch of his palette and the ivory walls of his teeth.

Gil hummed softly, sliding one hand between them and cupping the bulge in Nick’s jeans in one hot palm.

With some difficulty, Nick pulled back.  “Gil, you should….”

“If you tell me I should be resting that’s exactly what I’ll go and do.”

“Just concerned for your welfare.”  But the skilled mouth now caressing his throat was playing havoc with his self-control.  “Oh Jesus….”

“Nicky.  Please.”

How the hell could he say no?  Taking Gil’s hand he led the way to the bedroom.

Kneeling up on the unmade bed, he drew Gil to him, pulling him into a kiss, letting his fingers roam the shaven cheeks and jaw.  Recently the depth of his love for this man had scared him shitless but now they were back here together the fear evaporated leaving a need so raw it hurt.

Easing Gil back to the mattress, Nick leaned over him, not breaking the kiss but starting to unbutton the thick shirt.  He ran teasing fingers over pebble-hard nipples and swallowed Gil’s moans.

After a short time, he left the open mouth, kissing and nipping his way over the jutting chin, lapping at the cleft there in a way that drew a long groan from Gil’s chest.  He trailed the tip of his tongue over the subtle Adam’s Apple to swirl in the hollow of his lover’s throat.  Hands reached for him but he gently pushed them away, glancing up to meet blue eyes dark with arousal.

“Let me.”

Gil’s only consent to submit was to move his arms to his sides and tangle the sheet in his fingers.  Nick smiled.  He continued down until his lips met his own fingers and replaced the on Gil’s left nipple, suckling then licking before a quick bite to the hard flesh.

Gil whimpered softly – one of the sexiest sounds Nick had ever heard – but resisted the urge to touch.  Smiling proudly around the nub of flesh, Nick started his hands wandering downwards again. 

He brushed over the soft belly, once flat now showing signs of Gil’s lack of interest in fitness.  Still, so many days spent fucking one another senseless was firming both bodies in all the right places.

For a moment, Nick stroked his fingertips along the scar that went down beyond the waistband of Gil’s jeans. 

“You told me got into a fight….”

Gil lifted his head and smiled wryly.  “What do you think I was fighting over?” he asked quietly.  “The stride reach of a tarantula?”

Nick shook his head.  “I thought maybe… you do have a temper when you’re pushed.”

With a smile and a sigh Gil looked adoringly at his lover.  “I break coffee pots.”

Not wanting to lose the mood, Nick dropped a kiss to each nipple in turn and moved on to circle Gil’s belly button suggestively with his finger, dipping in once, delighting in his lover’s throaty response.  Once again he swapped his tongue for his fingers and busied himself unfastening the black jeans.  Sliding his hand inside the waistband of Gil’s briefs, Nick carded through the soft, dark pubic hair, staying well away from the thick root of Gil’s cock for now.

He wanted to see what he’d so lovingly uncovered and so he knelt up, raking his eyes from the achingly beautiful face, open mouth, the rise and fall of a hard chest, nipples red from Nick’s assault.

He pulled Gil’s jeans down and dumped them on the floor, a little surprised to see the usually long, thick erection only slightly interested. 

Gil reached out, stroked one hand down Nick’s arm.

“It’s just the drugs.”

Nick nodded.  “Drugs, stress, exhaustion….”

“I want you inside of me.  I need to feel you – need….”  He trailed off hoping his plea was enough. 

It was.  Nick knew.  There was an intensity in their love-making that was live affirming.  They were addicted to one another.

When Gil fucked it was always slow, deep and incredibly powerful.  With Nick it was almost brutal but tempered with an overwhelming love.

Stretching his own clothed body over Gil’s naked form, Nick covered his lover’s mouth with his own, sliding his tongue passed the warm, welcoming lips as he lowered himself.  He felt Gil arch up and smiled to himself, wondering about the sensations of the denim of his jeans rubbing against the sensitive flesh between Gil’s legs.

After a few lazy minutes, Nick rose back to his knees and stripped slowly, his eyes never leaving Gil’s.  He dropped his shirt to the carpet before edging back to stand and drop his pants. 

He reached into the bedside drawer, fetching a tube of lubricant and dropping it to the mattress.  When he looked back, Gil’s gaze had settled hungrily on his engorged cock and Nick grinned, stroking his hand over it before lying back down on the bed, legs tangling with Gil’s, face to face with his lover’s groin.

Gently, he took the semi-erect cock into his mouth, bathing rather then sucking, lavishing the beloved flesh with long strokes of his tongue, easing the foreskin back to lick the sensitive crown.

Gil’s back arched and he moaned deliciously, humming softly as his cock was released – harder now – and Nick’s skilled mouth moved to his balls, sucking first on one, then the other.

Nick’s hands pushed on Gil’s thighs but the older man didn’t need the instruction.  He spread his legs wide, bending one knee.  Nick’s tongue lapped greedily at his perineum before sliding back to rim the tight ring of Gil’s anus.

Long fingers stroked over Gil’s belly and thighs, pressing into the muscles, further relaxing him until finally Nick rose up and stretched out over Gil’s body once again.  Gil’s hand shot to his head and jerked him down for a kiss that sent Nick’s senses reeling.  Gil sucked on Nick’s tongue avidly like a starving man, tasting himself on its tip.  Nick kissed back just as deeply, lifting his head only when he was released.

“You’d make a lousy subordinate,” he told Gil with a knowing grin, “So fucking demanding.”

“And what do you demand of me?”

Nick kissed him again – lightly and quickly.  “Turn over.”

Rolling under Nick’s body, Gil closed his eyes and sighed at the flurry of feather-light kisses placed across his bruised shoulders, barely touching.

Nick’s hand grabbed and squeezed his ass, massaging the cheeks as once again Gil parted his legs ready for his lover. 

Settling between strong thighs, Nick drew the tip of his tongue down into the crack between Gil’s buttocks, rimming him further, coaxing the resistant muscle into submission.  It gave way slowly, allowing the firm, wet tongue to slip just inside.

Gil groaned and tried to push back, but all he could do was give himself over to Nick’s slow fucking.

Taking his time, Nick went deeper, holding Gil’s buttocks apart with still-massaging fingers.  He continued until Gil felt completely relaxed in his hands before replacing his tongue with his lubricated middle finger.

Gil howled softly as the unforgiving digit pressed inside, hooking slightly, finding his prostate with practised ease and stroking it mercilessly.

Nick watched, cock throbbing with an aching need, while Gil’s fingers clutched at the sheet and his ass clenched.

Rising a little, Nick dropped an almost chaste kiss to the small of his lover’s sweat-sheened back, licking at the salty skin.  He heard his name in an obscene string of words and sent his index finger to join the first inside Gil’s body.

Reaching for the lube with his free hand, Nick knelt up again and squeezed some over his cock, throwing the tube to the floor and spreading the gel over his hard erection before carefully dislodging his fingers.

“Roll onto your side, Gil,” Nick instructed, voice low and intimate.  As he was obeyed, Nick pushed Gil’s top leg up, the knee bending of its own accord as he spooned behind and slightly over his lover, positioning the head of his cock and pushing steadily into the hot channel.

Gil uttered a small sob that Nick knew as his response to the pain of penetration.  He didn’t pause but continued to press up and in, stopping only when he was completely sheathed, his balls against Gil’s flushed ass.

Nick’s position allowed him to rest deep inside his lover and he reached across, searching blindly for Gil’s hand.  Gil laced their fingers together, holding their hands against his belly.

After a long time, just as he thought he might explode, Nick began to move.  He tempered his usual rhythm, trying to mimic Gil’s preferred pace.  It took all his self-control but his lover’s adoring sounds, the arching of his back to meet every one of Nick’s long, slow thrusts, made it worth the patience.

Desperate for this not to be just for his own climax, Nick started to move their joined hands down between Gil’s legs, under them both, but he met with resistance.

“No, Nicky,” it was just a whisper.  “Just this.  Please.”

Kissing as much of Gil’s hot back as he could reach, Nick murmured, “Anything for you.  Love you, Gil.  So much.  So damn much.”

Not losing the slow pace, Nick moved in and out, never completely leaving his lover’s body, using sweeping strokes over Gil’s prostate, feeling the gentle shudders drive through the man beneath him.

Sweat dripped from Nick’s forehead to Gil’s back; tiny, moist kisses. 

Each thrust took Nick one step closer to the edge and he could feel his orgasm building, starting in his balls and in the pit of his stomach.

He felt Gil grasp his captured hand suddenly and press it into his stomach.  Gil’s head came back and a long, low moan was forced from his lips.  The sound tipped Nick over.  He pressed into Gil as deep as he could go and came hard, pulses of semen coating the slick channel as Nick told his lover over and over how he felt, how much he loved him.

It was a while before Nick had the strength to move.  He could feel his own come surrounding his softening cock and with a deep breath began to lift himself from Gil’s back.  A hand clamped itself to his thigh awkwardly.

“Stay, Nick, please?  Just for a little while.  Love to feel you there.”

Nick actually felt his sated penis twitch in response and groaned as he settled back.

“You okay?” he murmured.  He stroked Gil’s back, his side, chest and stomach, wherever he could reach.

“I am now, Nicky,” came the contented reply.  “I’m home.”

~~

When it finally hit, it hit hard.

Nick had taken a week of leave and his first night back at CSI was Gil’s first night home.  Brass had wanted him to stay somewhere else, just until Lecter was caught.  But Catherine and Grissom had decided that the only way to end this was to draw Lecter out.  So Gil was home.  Nick was at work.  Everything looked as if they’d relaxed security about the CSI supervisor.

They hadn’t, of course.  Still, even with the marksmen in place and Gil ready and armed, Nick didn’t feel any happier.  He was worried sick that he’d go home after his shift and find his lover dead on the floor of his townhouse.

He was less stressed as he had been since spending the afternoon in bed with Gil, but leaving the house had started an anxious niggling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t seem to rid himself of.

One moment Nick was walking through the CSI labs, along the glass walled corridor, heading for the A/V lab.  The next moment he was back in the morgue, Gil's body lying inert on the slab in front of him.  The stark white sheet covered him up to his shoulders, where it had been folded neatly back.  Skin translucent under the harsh lights, lips grey, eyelids closed against the blue eyes that once shined like diamonds, now were faded.  Dead.

Reaching out, Nick sought to touch his lover one last time but the illusion vanished and he stumbled, hand catching Greg's shoulder.

"Hey!"  The young man jumped but the moment he saw Nick's face he grasped his wrist and supported him as best he could.  "Hey, Nick!  Come on, man, stay with me."

Breathing in shallow pants, Nick nodded slowly and put out his other hand to brace himself against the glass wall of the Trace lab to his right.  "Sorry," he muttered.  "For a second there...."

He didn't know how to explain what he'd seen - or imagined he'd seen - but Greg didn't need him to.

"Don't apologise.  Jeez, after everything that's happened I'm surprised none of us have turned fruit loop."  Letting Nick support himself now, Greg glanced at the evidence bag in his own hand.  "Let me deliver this to DNA, okay, and I'll meet you in the Break Room.  Think we could both do with five minutes down time."

Nick nodded, smiling although he was sure it looked like the grimace he felt.

The Break Room was empty and he was glad for that.  Legs like jello took him as far as the nearest armchair and he dropped into it, closing his eyes when his head hit the low back of the chair.

The image of Gil lying still on the slab floated in front of his mind's eye and although he knew his lover was alive and recovering, at that moment he couldn't shake the terrible feeling of dread and grief that had overwhelmed him when Catherine had told him the news.  He knew now how it would feel to lose Gil.  He knew the horrible emptiness in his heart, the sickness in his stomach, the dull ache of just being alive when Gil was dead.  How painful would it be now to carry on?  To continue loving the man who'd become everything to him?

Yet, how much more hurt would he suffer if he left?  Would it still be so difficult to breathe whenever he remembered?  And could he really live, knowing he'd turned his back on the love that was freely given to him?  Gil loved intensely, with his entire soul.  He lived the same way.  Nothing the man did was a half-measure.  Being the only witness to the sensualist Gil hid from the outside world was more intoxicating than any drug he'd ever found.

Gil was a heady addiction, one that had seemingly taken over Nick's life, his reason.

He couldn't leave.  Not now, not ever.  The pain at the end would have to be worth the incredible life he would share before.  No more hiding.  Whatever the rest of the world thought, whatever Ecklie and Mobley and Warrick and Sara thought, he loved Gil.  He treasured the fact that Gil loved him back.  It wasn't to be ashamed of, it was to be celebrated.

By the time Greg stepped into the room, Nick was breathing far more easily.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.  Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be.”  Greg pulled a tub of Ben and Jerrys ice cream from the fridge and grabbed a spoon from the drawer.  “How’s Gris?”

“He’s home, relieved to be away from the poking and prodding of doctors and nurses.”

Greg listened with empathy.  “I know it was driving him nuts.  When I went to see him he asked me if I’d brought any interesting video games.”

Nick grinned.  “He hates hospitals, hates feeling less than completely independent.”  He put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.  “Norda told him he was the worst ICU patient they’d ever had.”  It was all the conversation Greg was going to get.

Brass found him an hour later.  Everyone else had left him sleeping.  Someone had even found a small plush elephant to tuck into the crook of his arm.  Catherine had probably taken a Polaroid.

Unable to do anything but smile, Brass made himself a coffee and sat down.  The rest of Gil’s team - the two secondments had returned to their usual shifts – drifted in one by one and Nick woke slowly. 

Once Nick had sat through an interrogation regarding Gil’s condition, Catherine took charge and started to update everyone on what they had.

“Okay.  Agent Culpepper, found in his car ten miles from Vegas.  He was stabbed in the back and the skin taken from his fingers.  Warrick, anything on the car?”

Warrick shifted against the cupboard, arms crossed.  “Nothing.  Only prints were Culpepper’s.  No hairs, no fibres that didn’t belong in the car.”

Sara spoke up next.  “There was nothing on the body to say where he was actually killed.  We don’t have a primary crime scene.”

“We’re sure he wasn’t killed in the car?” Nick asked, not having read any of the reports yet.

Sara gave him a look, but Warrick stepped in before she could make one of the wisecracks that seemed to be her usual response to anyone these days.

“Not enough blood,” he explained simply.  And Nick nodded.

Catherine glanced around the room.  “Okay.  Number two, Doctor John Cribbs, forensic psychologist.  Killed in his office in the style of ‘Wound Man’.”  Nick’s stomach turned at the reminder.  “Plenty of blood, definitely the primary crime scene.”

Warrick nodded.  “No fingerprints on any of the weapons.  All we have is that the instruments were all of Italian make and probably purchased over there.  We know that Hannibal Lecter was living in Italy before he came to the states, we have no idea how or if he got the instruments over here.”

“Okay.  Number three, Gil’s crime scene.  Our own parking lot.”

“Here we had a break,” Sara piped up.  “We found a length of piping; eighteen inches long, two inches in diameter.  It was lying under Grissom’s Tahoe.  Greg ran fibres found on it and matched them to the shirt Gris was wearing when he was attacked.  There were no fingerprints but we have linked it to a construction site behind the Galleria Mall over in Paradise.  They’re using the same piping on the site.  No other construction site in Vegas is using that type of piping.”

Brass took his cue.  “We questioned the workers on the site.  No one remembers seeing anything unusual.  No one remembers any vehicles that shouldn’t have been there.  Same here, we questioned everyone who works here, no one saw anything out of the ordinary.”

“But… we know who did this,” Sara commented.

“We need to be able to find him,” Catherine qualified.  “We have his name but the FBI’s wary of putting his face on the news in case it causes a panic.  Some people apparently know the name ‘Hannibal Lecter’ very well.”

“We’ve checked every hotel in the greater Las Vegas area and in Paradise.  Obviously he wouldn’t sign in using his own name but we’ve collated our findings and I’ll be running them passed Gil when we’re done here.”  He glanced at Nick and Nick gave him a quick smile.  “Maybe he’ll recognise a name, something significant.”

Sara frowned.  “Is someone going to tell us the connection between Gris and this madman?”

Catherine hesitated.  “Gris uncovered some evidence for the FBI that led to Lecter’s initial arrest,” she told the room in general.  Only she and Nick knew the truth.  Brass suspected there was more to it but he wasn’t about to ask.  She wasn’t sure if Warrick and Sara had bought it, but Warrick at least was nodding.

“So what now?”

“Now we wait,” Brass told him.  “There isn’t anything else we can do.  This guy’s evaded capture for so long it’s second nature to him.  The only card we hold is Gil.  Lecter wanted him dead, he’s still alive.  We guard Gil and hope that Lecter comes after him again.”

Sara stared at him.  “Are you insane?  This guy killed Gris.  I mean, he was dead.  He would have been dead if David hadn’t shuffled him to the front of the queue!  You’re talking about using him as bait!”

“We have several snipers watching his home.  He has a panic button on a wristband he’s wearing and he’s well armed.”

It wasn’t enough.  “Shouldn’t someone stay with him?”

Catherine glanced at Nick and he nodded slightly.

“Nick will be staying with him during the day.”

Warrick regarded Nick with a smile, as if the final part of a puzzle had at last fallen into place.  But Sara still wasn’t happy.

“Nick shouldn’t have to do all the babysitting.  We could pull some sort of rota.”

“It’s not a chore, Sara,” Nick reassured.

“Still….”

“Leave it,” he warned gently.

“What if he doesn’t show?” Brass asked, bringing joy to the world as was his wont.

Catherine had to admit that the possibility was a definite one and that she hadn’t thought that far ahead.  “I don’t know.  We just stay on our guard, ensure Gil doesn’t go out alone for now.  He can look after himself we just need to make sure Lecter doesn’t get close enough to do any more harm.  FBI Agent Crawford is coming back to Vegas tomorrow, he knows Lecter of old and can help us out on this.  For now, we have to get on with our work.”  She glanced at the papers in her hand.  “Nick, RTA out on I-15.  Check that it is?”

He took the sheet, nodding.  “No problem.”

“Thanks.  Warrick, I need you to cover a suspicious DB out at Lake Mead.”

“You got it.”

“Sara, stay on the crime scenes we have for Lecter.  There must be something, he must be somewhere in Vegas.”  She nodded, happy at least to be the one on Grissom’s case.

~~

Nick rang Catherine an hour later to report that it was indeed an accident.  He told her he was popping back to Gil’s to check on him and she told him to stay.  It was a quiet night, if they needed him they’d call.

Gil was curled onto the couch when Nick let himself in having first called to warn his lover he was coming home.

“Discovery Channel,” Nick observed as he collected a kiss.  “Miss much?”

“A spider marathon,” Gil complained, switching the television off when Nick dropped onto the sofa beside him.  “You’re back early.”

“It was quiet.  I was worried about you.  They all are.  They’ll be happier when they can keep an eye on you themselves.”

“They’ll drive me crazy.”

“They love you.”  Nick reached up to stroke his fingertips over the greying hair at Gil’s temple.  “Just not as much as I do.”  Gil looked at his lover for a second before turning his head and pressing a kiss to Nick’s palm.  “Let me get you a drink.  You hungry?”

“Listen, I’m supposed to be looking after you!”

“I’m not sick.”  He got off the sofa and headed around into the kitchen.  “Brass came to see me, ran some names passed me.  They’re looking for Lecter in Vegas but they won’t find him.”

“They’re not expecting to.  They’re using you as bait.”

Gil laughed.  “They want to dangle me on a hook in front of him?”

“You’re already dangling, Gil.”

There was no answer to that.  “Coffee or alcohol?”

Nick glanced at his watch.  It was just gone two am.  “Bourbon?”  He was considering bed, sleeping with his cell phone under his pillow.  His body clock was so screwed up it hadn’t a clue what time or day it was.  Meals were never labelled in Nick’s daily life, he usually tried to remember which one he had had last and ate accordingly.

He often wondered about Greg who seemed to live on ice cream.

Gil handed him a Bourbon on the rocks and sat down again.  “Sure you’re not hungry?”

“I’m never sure if I’m hungry or not.  I think I need to sleep though.”

They relaxed together, Nick opening his arms and Gil turning, settling into them with his back to Nick’s chest.

“Nick… there’s something I want to know.  I’ll never remember and… I hate not knowing.”

“Anything, Gil.  Just ask.”

"What happened at the hospital?"

Even with his arms full of his living, breathing lover, it still wasn't easy for Nick to recall.

"You had an allergic reaction to the antidote they were giving you.  You were in the ER.  One minute you were lying quietly and the next... all these alarms started sounding, every monitor around you making these deafening noises like screams...." 

He hadn’t wanted to ever relieve that moment but he knew he wouldn't ever forget the cacophony, the dread that had almost paralysed him. 

"You died again, 'flatlined' as Norda put it later.  And suddenly there were all these people all over you like a swarm.  Doctors yellin'...." 

Resting his cheek against Gil's head, feeling fingers stroking his arms reassuringly, he took a deep breath and managed a wry smile.  "They shot you through with enough electricity to power the Monaco on Fight Night.  I remember one of the nurses had a syringe with a needle as long as your arm...." 

His smile disintegrated.  "And then I heard beeps, like on ER when they revive the patient and everyone goes quiet for a second.  But nothing went quiet."

Gil sat up when he felt Nick's tears touch his cheek.

“The worst couple of minutes of my life."

Hand on Nick’s shoulder, Gil told him, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Nick shook his head.  "I'd lost you once.  To have you taken from me again, before I'd even told you how much I love you, knowing how it had felt when you weren't there...."

Gil just sat, touching his lover, wishing he knew what to say.  The grief was still too raw even if he had come back from the dead.  He understood that it hadn't mattered then who'd killed him, what had happened, what the evidence could tell them.  All that mattered was that for over an hour Nick had had to face life without the man he loved.  Gil couldn't bear to imagine how he'd feel if he lost Nicky.

“Let’s go to bed,” he murmured softly.


They made love slowly, Gil’s cock taking a lazy interest, Nick’s consummate skill bringing him to a gentle orgasm after a time.

They lay awake afterwards, Nick’s head cushioned on Gil’s shoulder, hand roaming over his lover’s chest and stomach.  His fingers touched the start of the pale scar tissue.

“It was worse than you said, wasn’t it?  He got close enough to do this to you….”

Gil picked up Nick’s hand, lifting it, holding it.  “I loved him.  I thought he loved me.”

Quietly spoken yet Nick heard it loud and clear.  He wasn’t sure if he’d been expecting the revelation or not.  “Perhaps he did,” he murmured, “maybe he just couldn’t stand the idea of jail.”

A tear touched Gil’s eye and he let it fall.  More and more these days Nick surprised him.  “Whenever I’ve told myself that, there’s a part of me that laughs, like I’m fooling myself.  I thought he was the only one who would ever know me.”  Dropping a kiss into Nick’s hair, he added, “I was wrong.”

“Have you ever talked about him before?”

“No.  When I woke in the hospital and Jack told me what he was, what he’d done… I felt… that it was my fault somehow, that I was responsible for the people he’d killed.  All the time we were… close, he was murdering and I had no idea.  I lost all confidence in myself, in psychology as a forensic tool.”

Nick wasn’t the jealous type, certainly not when it came to ex-lovers.  But the thought of Gil in the hands of a mass murderer made him feel sick.  He snuggled closer, wrapping himself more possessively around the other man.

Appreciating the sentiment, Gil wrapped his arms tighter.  “I don’t think he’s trying to kill me.”  He didn’t have to see Nick’s face to know the expression there.

“He did kill you.”  Nick hadn’t thought it needed pointing out until that moment.

“But he didn’t.  I’m still here.  What if he knew how you guys would all react?  What if he knew my body would be sent to the head of the queue for posting?”

Nick lifted his head, resting his chin on Gil’s chest.  “You’re saying you think he was relying on the Y incision to bring you out of it?"

“If he wanted me dead, I’d be dead.  Alan, Culpepper, Cribbs.  They’re all dead.  Before them, Lecter had killed at least eighteen people.  He doesn’t make mistakes.  I’m alive for a reason.”

“I wish that made me feel better.”  Lying back down, Nick thought about it for a couple of minutes.  “You think he’s showing you… that he has power of life and death?  Or do you just think he’s trying to scare you?  Somehow he worked out where you were and came after you.  But why?  After all this time….”

Nick could feel that Gil’s breathing had evened out, could hear the steady beating of his heart in his chest. 

“No one’s going to take you from me, Gil,” he whispered, closing his eyes, knowing it would be some time before sleep came.

~~

Despite the annoying ringing of his cell phone, Gil was reluctant to abandon the warmth of Nick's side of the bed. 

Nick had left for work a couple of hours before.  Sharing a long, anxious kiss, Nick had made him promise he wouldn't leave the house without taking one of the security team with him.

Gil hated the constant vigil being held outside the building, but the memory of waking in the hospital and seeing the tears in his lover's eyes had left him with no option but to make the promise.

His phone continued to ring and finally he turned over and reached for the cell.

“Grissom.”

“Will?” 

After so long, he still recognised the voice.  “It’s Gil now, Jack.  Will Graham died a long time ago.”

“I know.  I feel responsible for his death.”

Gil sighed.  “I don’t care what you feel responsible for.  I’ve nothing to say to you.”

“You’re in danger.”

“Thanks to you.  Go away, Jack.”

“Wi… Gil, listen to me, please….”

“No.”  He hung up the call and for a moment he stared at the phone, as if daring it to ring again.  But it stayed silent.

Angry with himself, with the situation and with Crawford, Gil threw the phone across the carpet and dropped back to the bed.  But he knew he wouldn't find rest now, not even in Nicky's warm patch.

So he got up and padded into the en suite for a shower. 

Standing under the hot, brittle water, Gil closed his eyes and enjoyed the harsh massage across his shoulders and back.  He let his mind wander, thinking about being somewhere away from Vegas, somewhere alone with Nick.  They’d talked about getting a cabin somewhere, taking a week off and spending it in the mountains.  In the last couple of days his priorities had been all turned around and he just wanted to spend some time with his lover.

He imagined them, spending their days outside, soaking up the sunshine when usually they only saw the moonlight.  He thought about nights spent in bed, making long, slow love to one another, the woody aroma of barbecue and earth hanging in the air.

It sounded like paradise right now.

With a soft sigh, he turned the stream of the water to a less painful beating and reached for the shower gel.  He wanted to feel Nick’s hands on his body and recalled one of many showers taken together, soapy hands, sliding skin, wet kisses, slick sex that always left them both sated and happy.

No one had ever made him feel as Nick did.  And as corny as it sounded, it had meant that Nick had been his first.  Before this had started he’d only ever topped, had been an anal virgin, as Nick had so politely put it.

But one night, early on, he’d watched Nicky’s handsome face as they’d made love and had found himself wanting – needing – to feel what his lover felt.  The urge to have Nick buried deep inside him, as he’d been then inside Nick, had almost overwhelmed him and he’d begged for the first time in his life, a throaty, arching plea.

Nick hadn’t wanted him begging, just willing.  He’d been so gentle that any pain there might have been was muted by the incredible sensations of pressure, of being filled and claimed, by the rolling waves of pleasure crashing over him.

Despite not being able to sit down for most of that night’s shift, Gil had been a convert.  He loved to have Nicky inside him.  He loved to open up completely to the man he loved, the man he knew loved him back just as desperately.

He soaped up and let the water run over him.  His own shampoo was empty so he used the apple stuff that Nick kept at the townhouse, the scent going straight to his groin.  With a self-depreciating sigh, Gil took his errant cock in his hand and brought himself off to powerful images of his lover playing out in his mind.


Naked except for the towel he was rubbing his hair dry with, Gil went back into the bedroom.  He caught himself in the mirror and stopped, smiling.  Whatever Nick saw in him, he’d often doubted that he was loved for his body but his lover had almost managed to convince him that he was – in Nick’s eyes – ‘absolutely gorgeous’.

He sucked in his stomach, thrust out his chest, then laughed at himself. 

Dropping the towel to the floor he grabbed a warm blue shirt from the wardrobe and pulling on a pair of black jeans he padded barefoot down to the living room.

"Hello, Will."

Same words, different voice.  A terrible voice.  Gil's head snapped up, his whole body freezing in instantaneous panic.

For a moment he couldn't hear, speak or breathe.  The paralysing shock rooted him to the spot and he could only stare at the man standing in the centre of his lounge.

"Only it's Gil now, isn't it?  How very imaginative.  How long did it take the FBI genius' to come up with that one?"

"My idea."  It was ridiculous to answer the question, rhetorical as it obviously was.  But his brain wouldn't process anything more intelligent.  Suddenly he knew how Nick had felt when Nigel Crane had dropped in through his ceiling.

“You did?  It’s ironic, don’t you think?  It means ‘joy’, I believe.  What on earth made you chose it?”

Gil didn’t answer.  Hannibal Lecter - one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted - was standing in his living room.  The last time they'd been face to face, Lecter had stabbed him, cut up through his gut, had been about to slice out his heart and eat it when Gil had shot him.  Will Graham had died that night to be revived, reborn.

Lecter smiled affectionately.  "Nothing more to say to me?  It's been so long."

He couldn't get the words passed the constriction in his throat.  He could barely breathe, never mind speak.

Lecter was walking around his living room, studying the things he had on display, things that gave little or nothing away about who he was.

"Butterflies.  You became an entomologist, didn't you?  How strange a choice.  Did you imagine yourself changing?  Did you relate, then, to the killers you ran from?  The Red Dragon and Buffalo Bill as the media referred to them?"

It took a genuine effort to push the word from his lips.  “No.”

Lecter turned to look at him, eyebrows raised.  “But you reinvented yourself.  You were a brilliant forensic psychologist, why work so hard to be something else?”

Gil put his hand out to steady himself against the wall, fingers brushing the edge of a frame holding tiny insect bodies.  “I wasn’t brilliant.”  He shook his head, voice dropping to a whisper.  “I didn’t know you, didn’t see what you were under the lies.”

Hannibal nodded slowly.  “Ahh.  You think everything I said to you was said to gain your trust.  You think I seduced you to blind you.  You don’t believe for a moment that I might have meant my words.  That I loved you.”

Swallowing, Gil shook his head, forcing the words, “Not for a moment.”

Hannibal took a step toward him and he instinctively stepped back. 

Lecter paused, assessing.  “But you were so attractive.  Your mind – eidetic, empathic – you knew me as no one else did.”

The words opened up wounds he’d imagined long healed.  “You stabbed me,” he said steadily, voice tight.  “You killed me.  Twice.”

“In Baltimore, I had no choice.  You were going to unmask me.  Not even the way you felt for me would have stopped you, would it?  You weren’t going to let me go, you were going to shoot me.  Surely you’d grant me the same chance?”

“Everything you said to me was a lie.”

Hannibal frowned.  “And what about you?”

“I never lied to you.”

“You didn’t trust me.”  A cruel glint sparked in the strange, intense eyes.  “You wouldn’t let me fuck you but you’ll let your new friend….”

“Shut up!”  Taken aback by the force of Gil’s sudden anger, Lecter fell silent.  “Don’t talk about me like you know me and don’t cheapen what I have now.  You can’t touch me anymore.”

Something dangerous flashed in Hannibal’s maroon gaze.  “I don’t know whether you noticed, Gilead, but you spent the last week in hospital.”  He smiled – a snake’s smile – at the surprise that crossed his captive’s face.  “Who was it who first said, ‘you can run but you can’t hide’?  There are records, William,” he stressed the name, “a paperwork trail for anyone who cares to follow it.”  Closing some of the distance between them, Lecter effectively trapped Gil between himself and the wall.  “It means ‘testament’.  I found you.”

“You… had no choice in Baltimore.”  Gil struggled to hold it together.  “What about last week?  Why did you…?  Why not just kill me and be done with it?”

For the first time, Gil saw Hannibal look… uncomfortable.  “I didn’t want you dead.” 

“Then why?”  When no answer was forthcoming, Gil raised his voice.  “Why did you kill me?”

With a step back, Hannibal distanced himself.  “I….”

“Why?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“WHY?”

“I wanted to hold you again.”

For a moment, all he could hear was his own heart pounding.  “What?”  He couldn’t believe what he’d heard.  “Tell me you didn’t say that.”  He listened to the pain in his own voice but was powerless to control it.

“Don’t do this.”

“Tell me!”  He stepped forward and Hannibal backed away.  In this strange dance, Gil began to lead.  “Back in Baltimore you’d have eaten my fucking heart!”  The hysteria was creeping in now, around the edges of his mind, sharpening his tone.  “You killed me!  You destroyed me once, is that why you’re back?  To do it again?”

“No.”  Uncertain.  So unlike the serial killer the world knew.  “Will, listen to me….”

“No!  Don’t call me that!  Why did you kill me?  Why the hell did you want to hold me again, when you never held me all those years ago?”

“Jesus, Will….”

Gil sighed, shook his head and looked away too.  “Why did you come here, Han?”

The balance changed.

Lecter raised one hand and with lightening speed he wrapped his fingers around Gil’s throat and slammed him back into the wall between the lounge and kitchen.  Glass shattered, the precious corpses of butterflies and insects disintegrated into Gil’s hair.  He felt his scalp tear on a couple of the pins that had been used to fix the bodies in place.

His first reaction was to try to escape.  But his air was being cut off and his head was starting to feel like it was stuffed with cotton wool.  He raised his hands, desperately trying to loosen the clamp around his throat, clawing at Lecter’s fingers while the other man held on with grim determination.

The fight started to leach from him.  The edges of his world were black now, closing in with alarming speed.  And slowly, so slowly, his eyes closed….

Oxygen flooded into his lungs the moment Lecter released him.  Desperate to stay alive, his body took in all the air it could handle, burning it into his system, rejecting the waste and leaving Gil panting harshly.

When his vision cleared, something shiny caught his eye.  Balanced between them in Hannibal’s hand was the twin of the stiletto knife that Lecter had used to slice him open so long ago.

"You recognise it."

Gil swallowed, nodded.  Tears were pricking his eyes; pain and terror, agony and fear.

Slowly, Lecter palmed the handle and trailed the tip of the blade down over Gil's shirt, following the unseen path of the original scar. 

"I did love you.  I didn’t want to but I couldn’t help myself.  You fascinated me.  Your revulsion for yourself was almost as strong as your revulsion for the men you hunted.  I used to treasure the way you looked at me, with such adoring awe.  When you looked at me that night, when you saw through the mask, I saw more than fear in your eyes.  I saw grief.  I knew you’d never let me go and so I tried to kill you.  You fought back and I’m almost… relieved that you did.”

“Why?”  It was nothing more than a painful whisper, but Gil needed to know.

“I think… I’d have regretted killing you.”

Stepping away, Lecter dropped the knife so that it clattered on the stone tiled floor.

“I have to go.  I’m leaving the country, you know how it is.”  His tone suggested that the intimacy was over.  “You pay me the courtesy of not hunting me down, the same courtesy you’ve paid me all these years, and you’ll never see me again.”

Gil lost the fight with his emotions over his iron control.  Tears blistered over his face.  “Why did you kill Alan?”

“To find out where you were.  I thought our dear Jack Crawford would go running to protect you.  But he didn’t.  I didn’t realise he hadn’t a the faintest clue where you were.”

“And Agent Culpepper?”

“I chanced on a series of newspaper clippings.  On Ebay of all places.  He’d stolen your glory.”

Leaning heavily against the wall, Gil croaked, “It didn’t mean anything.”

Lecter shrugged.  “He gave me somewhere to pin my note.  You know why I killed the psychologist, Cribbs?”

A weak nod.  “’Wound Man.’”

“Yes.  To scare you.  Childish, I know.  I enjoyed watching you.”

Taking a cell phone from his pocket, he reached out to touch a hesitant hand to Gil’s shoulder.  “It’s almost over,” he said gently.

Flipping open the phone, he pressed a single key and waited.

“Mr Stokes?” 

The curl of dread in the pit of Gil’s stomach tightened.

“My name’s Hannibal Lecter….  He’s here.  I think he needs you.”

Gil tried to snatch the phone but Hannibal slapped his hand away hard.  He considered calling out but what was the point?  Nothing was going to stop Nick coming over now.

“And Mr Stokes, you would be well advised not to say anything to anyone or to make any fuss when you arrive.  Come alone and without alerting the men outside and you have my word, you and… Gil will be perfectly all right.”

Lecter snapped the phone shut.

“Will he come?”

Gil closed his eyes and nodded once, defeated.  “He’ll do everything you say.”

“Good.”  Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he closed in on Gil.  “Then this truly is goodbye.”  Hannibal was quick.  One hand shot around the back of the greying head, the other clamped the cloth – covered in chloroform – over Gil’s mouth.

He fought, struggled, but it didn’t last long.

Lecter lowered him to the floor, going with him, cradling his head to lay it against the wall.  With a small sigh of regret, Hannibal swept his hand lightly over Gil’s hair and touched a kiss to his forehead.

“Take care, Will.”

Only when he looked up did he see the blood on the white paint.

~~

One hand on the butt of his gun, Nick opened the door to Gil’s townhouse and called his lover’s name.

When there was no reply, he took three steps inside and peered around into the lounge.  He saw the man slumped against the wall.

“Gil….” 

Pulling his gun, he crouched down, scanning the scene for another person.  “Dr Lecter?  It’s Nick Stokes.  Dr Lecter?”  There was no other sound in the quiet townhouse.

Hugging the walls as best he could, checking around each corner and behind the sparse furniture, Nick made his way slowly and carefully to Gil’s side, reaching to check for a pulse the moment he was in range.  He was relieved to find it regular and strong.

He looked around him, watchful of any movement, but they honestly seemed to be alone.  The blood on the wall, the smashed glass and tiny dark corpses scattered around Gil hadn’t escaped his attention, and he tenderly if awkwardly checked the wound on the back of his lover’s head.

There was blood, but most of it had been smeared into the greying hair by his slide down the wall.  Nick could see the reflection of light off tiny glass shards and he thought he could see the head of a pin caught in the wound, but he couldn’t be sure.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, he sprinted back to the front door, yelling the call sign before lifting his cell phone from his jacket pocket and calling for an ambulance.

~~

Once again the CSIs rendezvoused at the hospital, waiting for a doctor to come to speak with them. 

Brass was heading the search around Gil’s house, having put out an APB to everyone he could think of.  But he knew in his heart that they wouldn’t find Lecter.

Nick found Catherine and Warrick sat drinking bad coffee in reception. 

“He’s okay,” he reassured them quickly.  “Minor concussion due to a small head wound.  Lecter knocked him out with chloroform, which didn’t agree with him.  First thing he did when he came to in the ambulance was throw up over one of the medics.”

Warrick didn’t bother to hide his smile.

“They’re checking him out then releasing him.”

Catherine’s eyes widened.  “After a concussion?”

“The RTA Sara was called out to?  They’re swamped.  I’ve been given instructions, I have to make sure he follows them to the letter.”

“Good luck with that.”

Nick opened his mouth to answer Warrick’s smart remark, but the double doors behind them were pushed open and Gil stepped through, a little unsteady.  His hair was mess, his shirt untucked, but apart from that he looked none the worse for his ordeal.

Not caring what anyone thought, Nick was at his side in a heartbeat, sliding one arm around his lover’s waist, smiling at the expression of gratitude on the haggard, exhausted face.

“You okay?” he murmured, reading the pain hidden in the blue eyes.  But Gil nodded.  “Want to go home?”

“Could we… maybe go to yours?  Just for the night?”

Nodding, Nick tried to keep the worry from his face.  “No problem.”

They walked together to where Catherine and Warrick had hung back.  Catherine reached out to rub his arm and Warrick gave him a wide grin.

“Cops are searching all the way from your place to the airport,” he told Gris.  “They’ll find him.”

But Gil shook his head, feeling more tired than he had in a long while.  “No, they won’t.  He’s gone.”

None of them questioned him then and it made him wonder if he looked as bad as he felt.

~~

EPILOGUE


It was almost dawn by the time Nick had Gil curled around him in the large double bed at his home. 

He hoped his lover would find some rest, but Gil’s mind was racing and he was having trouble finding the peace he needed right now.

“If you want to talk about it,” Nick offered quietly, “just say whatever’s going through your head?”

Gil remained silent for a couple of minutes, but eventually he started to speak.

“He told me… that he’d loved me.  I don’t know if to believe him or not.  I’ll never know.  He did it all to remind me he was still alive.  He killed Alan, Culpepper and Cribbs just so that I’d know… I could change my name, my home, my life and he’d still find me.”

Nick waited before prompting, “You said he’d gone.  He isn’t still after you, is he?”

“No.”  He tightened his arm where it lay around Nick’s middle.  “When he called you… you shouldn’t have come.”

“How can I not have, Gil?  I love you.  You’re… you’re my life.”

He sighed softly.  “I knew you would.  Didn’t think there was any point in trying to dissuade you.  But if he’d hurt you… I’d have killed him with my bare hands and I think… I think he might have let me.”

Nick felt a shiver drive through his lover’s body and hugged him closer.  “You need to sleep, you’re exhausted.”

Gil fell silent again, but a few seconds later Nick heard and felt the emotions crash through the barriers his lover relied so heavily on.  He just held the older man, cuddling him, murmuring nothings into his hair, minding the wound on the back of his head.

Finally, Gil cried himself out and found the rest he so desperately craved.  But Nick stayed awake, long into the morning, a thousand different thoughts circling around and around in his brain.

When he finally slept, he dreamt of blood.

~~

As private as he was, as separated from his team as he’d always tried to stay, a warm feeling flooded Gil when he was welcomed back to work.

Over the last week they’d not only faced the task of processing him, of searching through evidence that would eventually convict his killer, they’d worked untiringly to find the man who was threatening his life and his sanity. 

Through Nick, he understood how painful that had been for them.  He’d tried to imagine how he’d react to finding one of them at the centre of a crime scene and that had led to him giving a very surprised Catherine a very big hug the first time he saw her.

She held him, further surprising them both by being unable to let go for a minute.  “You’re my friend, Gil.  I won’t ever forget you falling out of that SUV, holding your head and knowing….”  It would take a while, like everything else, before that memory was filed away.

“I’m sorry, Cath.”  It was all he could say.  Like with Nick, he couldn’t take from her what she’d been through.

She stood back, smiling at him.  “You’re alive and you’re here.  You haven’t done anything wrong, don’t apologise.”  She ran her hands down his arms.  “How are you?”

“I’m… fine.  Exhausted,” he gave her a wry smile.  “All I’ve done is get out of bed.”

Catherine glanced at him questioningly and he had the decency to look sheepish and shrug.  She bit back a chuckle.  “How’s Nick?”

“Dealing.”

She nodded and he shrugged.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.  You have nothing to be sorry for.”

He sighed, shaking his head.  “I do.  I brought this on you all.”

“Stop it!  No way is it your fault that a madman you helped put away escaped and came after you.  It doesn’t matter what you were called back then.  If you were still Will Graham, we’d still love you, we’d still be here for you.  You’re always here for us.”  Taking a deep breath, he glanced longingly at the door of his office.  She saw it and smiled.  “Go see your bugs.”

~~

It was an hour later that Nick knocked on Gil’s office door and pushed it open.  His boss was reading through the reports that his team had filed in the few days he’d been away.  But he dropped the folder when Nick stepped into the room.

“Hey.”

“Having fun?”

“No one fed my tarantula.”

Nick’s eyes widened.  “He’s not….”

“No.  He was just hungry.”

He didn’t ask how Grissom knew, just took in the sight of his lover – his boss here – sitting behind his desk.

“Did you… want anything in particular?”

Nick smiled, “Nope.  Just here to drool.”  Leaning over the desk he closed the distance but not completely.  Just enough to whisper ‘I love you’ before Gil’s desk phone rang.

“I love you too,” he mouthed as he reached for the receiver.  Nick smiled, turned and left him to it. 


Back in the corridor to the right of Gil’s office, Sara stood very still, watching Nick walk off towards the garage.  She hadn’t seen anything, not really, just intimacy.  And finally the pieces had fallen into place.  She felt stupid.  She knew she hadn’t seen it before because she hadn’t wanted to.

Leaning against the wall, she closed her eyes. 

~~

They fell into bed as the world around them started the day.

Their love-making that morning had an almost frantic edge to it that neither one of them questioned.  Nick buried himself inside his lover, Gil’s unending stream of words and sounds coaxing him to a hard orgasm before he rolled onto his front and welcomed Gil as deep as the other had taken him.

Sleep was once again a long time coming.  Gil had snuggled into Nick’s arms, Nick’s hand drawn unstoppably to the soft, greying hair.  They were comfortable, exhausted, but because Gil was unsettled, Nick too was unable to quieten his mind.

“Gil?”

“Sorry.”  The other man tried to pull away.  “I’ll go sleep in the lounge.”

Nick held on to him.  “Don’t be daft.  I was just thinking… tell me about Will Graham?”

There was a pause.  “Why?”

“Because who you are was built on who he was.  I’d like to know him.”

Smiling to himself, Gil nodded once.  “Will was someone who gave everything he was to everything I did….”




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