The Many Passages

By Emily Brunson

©2005

He doesn’t much care for Nick’s father. He’s had these flashes of insight before, although the pragmatist in him requires demonstrated proof before he will lean too heavily upon any kind of intuition.

In point of fact he isn’t quite sure what he’s doing here, except that he was invited, and had nothing better to do. What stands between himself and Nick is one of the things that defies rationality, resisting his mind’s prying inquisitive fingers, standing some distance to the left and smiling obliquely. At one time he called it infatuation; another, lust. This year it has no label at all, but has unfolded gradually, almost imperceptibly, revealing layer after sweet pink layer of complexity. Perhaps one term for it would be friendship. Another, more fraught term might be love.

In any case he’s here. Sitting at a linen-clothed table in one of his favorite restaurants, with Nick and Nick’s father, Andrew. "Call me Andy," Andrew has already told him, but while Gil nodded he thought, No, you’re much more an Andrew. Nick has explained that his father’s here on a brief business trip of an undisclosed nature, just overnight, and that’s all he’s said.

Gil takes a bite of excellent veal and listens to their conversation. Easy topics; it’s insight again but also rather obvious that Nick and Andrew have chosen safe subjects for the table. Family matters of the mildest ilk: How old are the various nieces and nephews, has Mary finished her Master’s degree yet, how does Cabe like Washington. It’s a surprise to hear about Nick’s older brother. Nick has mentioned his family’s political aspirations a few times, but Gil had no idea that Cabe is already in the House of Representatives.

"Where’s your family from, Gil?" Andrew asks him, sticking his fork into his fish. He’s complained about the food once already, but Gil notes he hasn’t had any trouble eating it.

Gil executes a smile. "Connecticut, by way of Tennessee and California. Before that, England, I believe."

"Someone’s poked around the family tree, huh? Always good to know where you come from."

Gil nods.

"Any relation to the astronaut?"

"None that I’m aware of."

Andrew grins.

It’s torturous, this polite conversation. He wishes he were anywhere else. And Nick looks hectic, his cheeks too pink, eyes brighter than they should be. Gil watches him covertly, curious as always. Nick has had three glasses of wine to Gil’s one, not really drunk yet, but regarding both his companions with a kind of manic gaiety that sets Gil’s teeth slightly on edge. Nick is overcompensating, and there’s no overt reason for that. Gil wonders what the reason may eventually prove to be.

Andrew launches into an unnecessarily detailed account of the Stokes family genealogy, and is still expounding on the topic when the wait person takes their plates. Nick’s food is rearranged and largely uneaten. He orders yet another glass of wine, and refuses dessert.

"You’ll have to come to Austin some time," Andrew says genially. He drinks black coffee along with Gil. "I’ll show you around, introduce you to some people. You know, they got a tip-top forensics lab down there. Bet they’d snap you right up."

They’d try, Gil thinks. But they’d never get me. "I’ll have to take you up on that sometime," he says with a smile. Perhaps around 2024.

"Nicky here was awfully hot to come work with you," Andrew continues. His look at his son is indulgent. "Well, hell, I told him, if you want to work at a great lab, why don’t you try for the FBI? But he said no, I gotta work with Grissom."

"We were lucky to get him," Gil replies. "Nick has been a real asset to our lab."

Nick’s cheeks get even pinker, and he hides his pleased smile in his wineglass.

"His mother and I wanted him to go to law school, like we did," and Gil thinks, Oh. "You know, Cabe was top of his class at Rice. That’s a tough school. Damn fine university."

"I didn’t do what my parents wanted, either." Gil keeps his eyes on Andrew while he says it. "They wanted me to be an educator. Couldn’t understand my interest in forensics."

"Well, you kinda teach now," Nick says. "Look at us."

"I suppose so." Gil smiles.

Andrew clears his throat loudly. "Told Nicky he could learn all he could up here, but eventually he’ll get his ass back to Texas where he belongs. Bring some of that expertise with him."

It stops conversation, but less for what he’s said than how he’s said it. Gil pauses in the midst of bringing his coffee cup to his lips. There’s a reminder in those words, but more: There’s a warning. Nick’s smile slips and falls, and in his dark eyes Gil reads something odd, gone so fast only experience lets Gil believe he saw it at all, that flash of terrible fear.

Then Andrew smiles, reaches out to squeeze Nick’s shoulder. "We all miss you, son," he says with fulsome warmth. "When you gonna come on home?"

A memory surfaces in Gil’s mind, watching Nick’s tense face. Amy Hendler, and a gun held waveringly but accurately pointed somewhere in the region of Nick’s forehead. Gil hadn’t been able to see Hendler’s face, but Nick’s expression was clear as if it had been only yesterday. That waxy, frozen look, the contemplation of his own sudden doom. The same as the look Nick now wears.

"I live here, Dad," Nick says in a small voice. "Come on."

"Well, not forever. We’ll make sure of that."

Nick produces a rigid smile, and Andrew doesn’t let go of his shoulder.

As if from a great distance, Gil hears himself announce, "I’m afraid I’ll have to be going soon."

Andrew glances at him, and for a second Gil sees calculation and deep, simmering dislike in his eyes. There’s no reason for it; Andrew doesn’t know him, they’ve only met two hours ago. But in that second of animosity Gil sees that he has been judged and deemed an adversary.

Fine, Gil thinks, letting a little of his recognition show in his direct gaze. I’ll play your opposite number. I can fill that role. Wouldn’t be the first time.

"I’m sorry to hear that," Andrew tells him, and the moment of antipathy is gone.

The bustle of paying fills a few minutes, Andrew ostentatiously taking the check when it arrives. That, too, is fine. And then they’re leaving, heading out to Nick’s immaculate truck. Gil sits in the back, since Andrew is obviously accustomed to riding shotgun. The drive back to Nick’s condo and Gil’s own vehicle takes place in silence.

He’s terribly relieved to say goodbye. Shaking hands, Nick’s cold fingers and Andrew’s warm ones, a grip harder than is absolutely necessary. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Andrew," Gil says formally. It’s easier to smile now that he’s about to escape. "Have a safe trip back."

"Will do. You take care now."

"See you later, Nick." He smiles at Nick, but a spasm of weird guilt makes the expression waver. Nick looks so odd. Smiling, and yet that look is back, that beseeching shine in his eyes.

"Later," Nick agrees, and looks at his feet.

Gil hears the front door close before he reaches his own truck.

Two blocks away, at a stop sign, he waits to put his foot back on the gas pedal. This compulsion is completely out of place in this context. It’s something he associates far more with casework than with anything personal, and yet he can’t shake it. He’s gotten away, yes, and he still feels relieved at that. But he feels guilty, too, and something else, something so disturbing he doesn’t want to look at it too closely.

There’s absolutely no reason for him to go back. None whatsoever. Nothing but this heavy sense of imminence. It’s the same feeling that took him to Syd Goggle’s laundry room, that led him back inside the Hendlers’ house. And that’s crazy, because this isn’t a case, this is nothing but the aftermath of an awkward dinner.

But he’s turning anyway. There IS a reason. He may not know what that reason is yet, but of one thing he is perfectly sure: These feelings aren’t born in a vacuum. Others call them hunches, but Gil is more direct: He may not understand, not completely, but there is evidence there, evidence he’s noted without realizing he noted it. Nothing really comes out of the blue. It all has a quantifiable basis.

His hands are cold as he turns the Tahoe into another parking space. This one is farther away from Nick’s condo entrance. Gil doesn’t question the decision. Now that he’s here again, the questions are immaterial. He’ll know soon enough why, but in the meantime every sense is on high alert. Even the early evening light seems oddly brighter, the smells stronger. The surge of adrenaline feels like a potent drug.

He walks slowly to Nick’s door. The condo has a private entrance, grass expensively kept alongside the walkway. The blinds are closed. They won’t have seen him coming. This too is what he’s suspected. His pulse speeds up, and the vague voice in the back of his mind pettishly asking why the hell he’s here is getting fainter. Another voice is taking over. One that urges caution, the tone he associates with hot crime scenes. Watch your back, Gil.

There are real voices, as well. He stops by the door, but it’s the windows that are letting the sound escape. Nick’s voice, high and tight, and Andrew’s deeper tones. An argument. Gil feels absolutely no surprise. His entire body is tight with anticipation now. He waits for the answer to why he’s here.

When it comes, it slams into him with so much force he actually staggers a little. It’s a full-body blow, a screaming flash of horrified understanding. Because Nick isn’t arguing with his father, no, that’s not it. Nick is begging, and now Gil knows that tone all too well, that imploring voice, "Daddy, please, don’t, leave me alone, for God’s sake, stop it."

With the hackles standing on the back of his neck Gil listens to Andrew’s reply. "Oh, come on, Nicky, stop whining." He sounds as if he’s smiling, and that makes Gil’s stomach lurch, the back of his throat burning with bile. "Don’t be such a bitch."

And Gil’s walking away, almost running, some part of his mind urging him to be quiet still, almost inaudible over the howling denial reverberating through his head. Around the corner he stops, and bends sharply at the waist. He’s breathing hard, panting really, little festive fireworks going off in his peripheral vision.

Nick’s fear. That possessive arm around the shoulder at the dinner table. Possessive, yes, very much so, and now Gil sees so perfectly he’s stunned that he hasn’t until now.

Daddy. But he called him Dad earlier.

His hands are shaking terribly when he takes out his phone, but it’s with rage, not fear. There’s no saliva in his mouth at all; he’s as dry as the desert surrounding the city. Catherine picks up after four rings, sounding tired.

"Call me back," Gil says tightly. "Give me five minutes, and call me on my cell."

Catherine doesn’t even pause. "Why?"

"Whatever I tell you, just agree. Understood?"

"Yeah, but –"

"Five minutes. No more than that."

"O-okay. Got it."

He snaps the phone closed, and slides it back into his pocket. With his hands clenched into useless fists he turns the corner again and strides back to Nick’s front door. Yes, now it is a case, now it’s professional, and he rings the bell without any hesitation.

There’s nothing, for a full aching minute. And then Nick’s opening the door. Surprise is first, but that doesn’t explain the ashy white of his face. His shirt is untucked.

With that perfect synchronicity of memory that sometimes surprises him in the worst situations, Gil says, "I forgot the files."

Nick stares at him, but he knows exactly what Gil is referring to, which is good. The Schirmer files, the ones Nick has taken home to study. Not Gil’s case, but that doesn’t matter. Nick has to do some of this himself. Fiercely, Gil wills him to do it.

"Oh," Nick says. His voice is still fluty. "Yeah."

The interior of Nick’s condo is as perfectly neat as his truck. Andrew Stokes stands near the leather couch, and Gil doesn’t have to meet his eyes to know they are filled with fever-hot annoyance. The air smells odd, like acetone.

"That was quick," Andrew says, unsmiling.

Gil regards him flatly. "Yeah," he agrees. "Forgot something."

"Did you."

Nick is at the desk, fumbling with the thick Schirmer files. Take your time, Nicky, Gil thinks, and walks over. "You need to get me up to speed on this," he tells him, schooling his voice to absolute calm. "Okay?"

Nick’s wide, half-understanding eyes turn his direction. "Okay. It’s – all there, though. Did – you get something new?"

Lots, Gil thinks savagely. Oh yes, many somethings. He nods. "I may need your help with it. You know the case better than anyone."

"Right," Nick says breathlessly. "Yeah."

And like a reply to a prayer he already made, his cell phone rings. He fishes it out of his pocket. "Grissom."

"Okay, I called."

"Yeah? Where?"

"This is insane. Why am I calling you? What in the hell is going on?"

Gil nods busily. "Right, I know the area. Yeah, he’s right here. Why?"

"You’re seriously freaking me out. Gil, TALK to me!"

"I’m not sure." Gil ostentatiously holds his hand over the receiver, feeling as if he’s taking part in a terrible play. "Something’s come up. I know it’s bad timing, but I could really use you, Nick."

"Nicky," Andrew says. A warning rumble that Gil completely ignores. He keeps his eyes on Nick’s white face, wishing he could make it an order. No. Let him do it. Do it, Nick.

Nick blinks, and glances at his father. "Sorry, Dad," he says in a voice so newly composed Gil wants to shout with bleak joy. "I’m first on this case. I told you I might get paged."

"I’m only here for one night, son," Andrew tells him, his voice flat and furious. His smile is cold. "Let someone else do the work tonight, what do you say?"

Nick’s already scouting around for his jacket. "I’ll make it as quick as I can." He shrugs into the jacket. His cheeks aren’t pink anymore, but the dull color of grout. "If I get held up I’ll call you, okay? Sorry."

Andrew says nothing at all, and this time his look at Gil is murderous. Jealousy, hot and palpable as a roundhouse blow.

"Thanks, Catherine," Gil says into the phone, and hangs up. Explanations – if they are ever forthcoming – will wait. He glances at Andrew, and smiles. And this time there’s no question Andrew sees what’s in Gil’s eyes. He draws back, and the jealous look is replaced with benignity.

"Be careful, Nicky," Andrew calls.

Nick nods, and the frantic look is back. "Okay."

Outside the hot air smells fetid. Gil walks fast, herding Nick a step in front of him. Nick cradles the Schirmer files like talismans against his chest, face half-hidden behind manila. He hesitates when he doesn’t see Gil’s truck, and flinches enormously when Gil touches his shoulder. The files spew out of his hands, a litter of paper and analysis printouts.

"Shit," Nick says, and drops to his knees, frantically gathering papers. Between them they stuff the papers back into the files, and Gil meets Nick’s dreadful eyes briefly before lifting his chin in the direction of his parking space.

He drives them to the same stop sign as the one where he turned earlier, what feels like about a year ago now, and turns again, this time south, driving aimlessly, eyes flickering, searching for a place to – what? Stop? Talk? What is there to talk about? Nick’s panting audibly, his body pressed against the passenger door. Some absurd part of Gil wants to warn him to make sure the door is locked before he leans against it.

He pulls into a parking lot about a mile further. Deserted, a church, Baptist, he thinks. He stomps on the brake with more force than he usually applies, and the Tahoe jerks to a stop with an offended-sounding squeal. The files in Nick’s hands bite the dust again, littering the floor.

"Nick," Gil says in a voice even he doesn’t recognize.

"Please," Nick blurts, and Gil shrinks back from that terrible juvenile tone. "Don’t say anything, everything’s okay, really. Really, it’s just -- You don’t know him, see," babbling without looking at him, speaking directly to the dash, "it’s not really what you think, just – please, you can’t say anything."

He isn’t even sure he knows the man sitting next to him. He has never MET this man. Cold with horror, Gil shakes his head. "Jesus God almighty," he breathes. "What has he DONE to you?"

"NO!" Nick shrieks, and claps his hands over his ears. "Don’t say anything! NO!"

In his life he can’t ever remember feeling this way. There’s been fear before, horror, terror even. Yes, a number of times. Times when he’s felt threatened, times when he’s known his own life was in dire jeopardy. But it all pales next to this. Nick is screaming at him to not say anything, but the truth is that Gil has absolutely nothing TO say, and even if he did he couldn’t say it, he can’t make his stunned tongue form any words at all. He is angry beyond the power of any anger he could possibly imagine feeling. His heart is beating so fast it’s a constant drumming in his chest, and he can barely breathe. It’s good he stopped. He can’t drive. He can’t THINK.

"Oh my God," Nick moans next to him, hands going to cover his mouth. "Oh my God, oh Jesus, oh my God."

He’s going to be sick. It’s not possible to feel this way and not vomit. He swallows again and again, and that litany is still going, until Nick slams his fists against the dash. And he’s out of the truck, shocking Gil all over again.

He doesn’t think Nick is even aware that Gil’s gotten out, too. Nick’s walking in a tight circle, hands grasping his head, as if he’s keeping it from simply flying off his shoulders. "It’s gonna be okay," he says, a new, reasonable voice. "It’s gonna be okay. It’ll all be okay."

Standing there watching, he can’t stop going over it. Nick invited Gil along not for companionship, not because he wanted Gil to meet his father. Not for any of the several reasons Gil previously considered. Nick in his own don’t-ask-don’t-tell way had invited him for protection.

He’s very sure his veal Milanese is going to make an encore appearance, but maybe he can postpone that. At least until he can stop Nick from his idiot circles around the Tahoe.

And then what? What exactly is he planning? Call the police? Spirit Nick away? What can he possibly DO?

Nick lumbers past him, crooning his panicked soliloquy, and Gil reaches out to grasp his arm. "Stop," Gil snaps, and his voice cracks. "Stop it, Nick, stop it."

"Take me back," Nick whispers between his fingers. His eyes are huge, staring imploringly at him. "Before it’s too late."

"Too late for what? Tell me! What will happen? What will he do?"

Nick squeezes his eyes shut and rocks back on his heels. He’s not even talking anymore, just making a high whining sound. Gil’s heard this kind of sound before. So many years ago and yet he’s never forgotten it. Rachel Benton, she of the sloe eyes and chic dress, upon hearing of the factory accident that had claimed the lives of twenty-four workers, her supervisor husband among them. She had made this sound. It’s not grief. It’s something else, something worse, and Gil can’t stand it.

He wants to put his own hands over his ears. "Nick, stop it," he says, crisp with authority. "Look at me. LOOK AT ME."

Nick’s croon shuts off as if Gil had sliced its throat. He regards Gil with his shiny eyes.

"Get in the car," Gil says as calmly as he can.

"You –"

"GET IN THE CAR!" Gil roars, and it makes him newly sick to see Nick’s flinch, but there’s nothing for it. He’s going insane, he may already BE insane from rage and sick horror, and it doesn’t fucking matter.

Nick reels to the open passenger door and climbs inside. Gil closes it behind him, and makes it behind the truck before his stomach finally can’t take it any longer. He puts his hand on the scorching-hot bumper and leans forward, and thinks oh-so-briefly, maybe this will help, before he vomits.

It’s over fast, and he wipes his mouth carefully on a tissue in his pocket before walking unsteadily over to the drivers-side door. His nose burns. He can’t look at Nick. He’s afraid he’ll lose whatever control he still has, which is very, very little. Instead he starts the truck, which hasn’t even been stopped long enough for the air conditioning to lose its cool, and heads for the exit.

Nick moans when Gil doesn’t turn the direction of his townhouse, but he doesn’t say anything. Which is good. Don’t talk, Nick, don’t tell me anything more yet. Let me get us to a safe place, safe for BOTH of us, and then, yes, we will do what we have to do. But I will kill us if you talk now. I won’t be able to drive. I won’t be able to do anything.

His nausea is gone along with the remains of his dinner, but the anger isn’t. It is the worst crime of all crimes to him. Worse than killing, worse than anything he can imagine. He has never been able to inure himself to it, no matter how many times he’s seen the results, no matter how hard he’s tried in the past to tell himself it did happen, it does happen, it’s a fact of life, even if it’s horrific.

He can’t afford to think. He wills his mind to blankness, steering by force of habit once on the familiar contours of the freeway. It is a case. It isn’t personal. Make it not be personal, make it not be NICK. He bites savagely on his lower lip and yanks the Tahoe into the right lane.

Nick is ghostly silent. Gil risks a glance, and sees Nick’s hands still covering his mouth. His eyes are closed.

Gil’s sidearm is in the glove box. The fact pulses at the front of his mind. With a yawning sense of new horror he registers how tempting that is. Oh God he has so rarely ever wanted to use it, and now it would be so easy. Turn around, become the vigilante he has never, ever allowed himself to be. Even when he’s felt the temptation. Never like this. Never even close to this. This hot eagerness.

Instead he heads north, and five minutes later there is the convenience store signaling his turn, the endless rows of town homes that when he first arrived tended to confuse him after a long night of work. Today it’s as natural as breathing, the curving street, his own mailbox. He pulls the Tahoe into the driveway and stops.

Nick doesn’t move. "Get out," Gil says. "Nick, get out of the car."

"He’ll hurt you," Nick whispers. He stares straight ahead. "You don’t know what he’ll do."

"He can try. Come inside. Come on."

"I’m sorry I got you into this. Oh God, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have invited –"

"Nick, inside. Now."

Nick’s mouth snaps shut, and he opens the door with a jerky motion.

Gil unlocks the front door with such force he comes close to breaking the key off in the tumblers. Inside it’s cool and familiar, and he breathes deeply through his nose, still smelling vomit.

"You weren’t supposed to see," Nick says.

"I’m aware of that. But I did. I did see, Nick." Gil walks inside a few steps, turns to look at him. "And not only can I not unsee it, but I won’t. Do you understand me?"

Nick sidles along the foyer wall, his bright too-knowing eyes trained on Gil. "It may already be too late," Nick tells him, in a flat voice. "I don’t know yet. God, I don’t KNOW."

"Too late for WHAT?"

"To save you," Nick whispers.

"Bullshit," Gil says roughly. "How long has he been doing it? Since you were a child? Even now? Jesus CHRIST, why haven’t you SAID anything?"

Nick’s expression is suddenly ugly, lips twisting in a snarl. "It’s YOU who doesn’t understand," he spits. His hands clench at his sides. "You think you KNOW? Fuck you! You don’t know SHIT!"

Gil backs into the living room, and Nick stalks after him. "Then tell me," Gil says in a lower voice. "If you didn’t want me to see, why did you invite me to dinner?"

A flicker of uncertainty appears in Nick’s eyes. "I wasn’t thinking," he says, shaking his head and blinking. "I must not have been thinking, that’s it."

"You were thinking," Gil tells him sharply. "You were thinking that if I were there, he might not do it this time. Weren’t you?"

"Oh Jesus." Nick shakes his head again, and again. "Gil, please, please, don’t do anything. He’ll win, he always wins, he always will."

"You can’t go back there. I can’t let you." Absurdly, in the midst of feeling so angry it’s almost like a lobotomy, his eyes are stinging with tears. Useless, ridiculous tears. "I won’t let him win this time, Nick," Gil says brokenly. "I can’t."

Nick looks appalled, edging almost close enough to touch him, even a hand sneaking out and then pulling away again. "It’s okay," he tells him. "It’s okay."

"God DAMN it, it’s not okay!" Gil wheels around, walking fast over to the couch and then back a few steps. "I can’t think," he says, more to himself than Nick. "I need to think, and I can’t."

"I gotta call him." Nick has his phone out. His face is waxy white again. "Maybe he’s okay. Maybe he’s not flipping."

"No. Don’t call him. Don’t."

Nick gives him a wan smile. "But I have to."

Gil strides over and puts his hand on the phone. "Don’t," he says, hearing the cold in his own voice and unable to warm it. "Don’t play into his hands."

They struggle a little for the phone. Nick’s hand is so goddamn cold. And then the phone squirts out from between their grasping fingers and bounces on the floor, skittering under the couch. Gil doesn’t know if it’s broken. He certainly doesn’t care. He keeps Nick’s hand and holds it fiercely between his own.

"Stop," he whispers. "Stay here, just stay. Don’t do anything."

Nick’s face crumples. His mouth keeps opening and closing, but he’s not saying anything, and Gil keeps holding his hand, gazing imploringly at him.

"What? What is it?"

He keeps expecting Nick to – do something, cry, perhaps. God knows Gil’s close to it. But Nick’s eyes are dry, flat disks of panic. "What am I gonna do?" he says, barely audible. "Oh Jesus what am I gonna do?"

"Nick –"

"He knows," Nick plows on, wrenching his hand away. "He knows, I know he knows. He knows you know, oh God, Gil, why’d you have to come back? You shouldn’t have come back, it would have been okay, don’t you see? And he’s going home tomorrow, and it all would have been okay, but now, now I don’t know, I don’t KNOW." He bumps up against the couch and stumbles, but it’s as if he didn’t feel it. "I have to go HOME, God damn it, if I go now maybe he’ll –"

"What will he do? Tell me that, Nick. What was he doing when I got there? Can you say it? Can you TELL me that?"

Nick is silent, eyes dropped to study the floor, and Gil grins savagely. "Because when I came back, it sounded a lot like he was about to –"

"No," Nick snaps instantly. "I won’t talk about that."

"But you don’t deny it?"

"Don’t talk. Stop talking. Please, oh fuck, just stop TALKING!"

It sounds familiar, and Gil feels a sudden giddy urge to laugh. What was the movie, Guns -- No, "Bullets Over Broadway." "Don’t speak. Don’t – speak." He stifles a spray of helpless giggles, shaking his head. "Oh, Nick," he says in a strangled voice. "God almighty."

Nick gazes at him briefly, expressionless as an empty sky. Then he walks away, in the direction of the bathroom.

He wonders if Nick’s going to be sick, but there’s no sound of it. Just silence, not even the toilet flushing. After a few age-long minutes Gil steps up to the door. "Nicky. Let me in. Talk to me."

The door isn’t locked. Inside Nick is standing very still, staring into the mirror. Gil walks two steps inside, pauses. "What can I do?" he asks hoarsely. "Tell me."

Nick turns slowly. His smile is beautiful, and so achingly sad. "Nothing," he says calmly.

"That’s not –"

"Listen to me." There’s a new tone to Nick’s voice now, tense and adult and acidic. "You think you understand," Nick enunciates crisply. "You don’t. You have no idea what you’re doing. Messing with things will only make it worse for everyone. Do you understand that? Are you listening to me?"

Gil swallows. "I don’t believe that."

"Tough," Nick snaps. "This is my fault, I agree, for getting you involved in the first place." A spasm of fear darts over his features, and is gone. "Now I have to do triage, and you have to listen, okay? You think he can’t do what I say? Think again. Other people –" He breaks off, and the fear is back. This time it sticks.

"Other people what? Tried to help?" Gil stares at him. "Is that what you’re telling me?"

"I made a mistake," Nick says after a silent moment. He shakes his head slowly. "Living here, I -- I forgot." He manufactures a small, terrible smile. "Do you have anything to drink?"

Gil blinks at him. "Sure. Haven’t you had enough already?"

"No."

In the living area Nick walks to the bar. "Want something?" he asks, sounding so natural for a moment that Gil is newly disarmed. "Oh. Scotch." Nick reaches under the bar. "This seems like a good day for a single malt, don’t you think?"

"Frankly, no," Gil says stonily, although actually it does sound good. Wonderful. If he’s ever needed a drink, it’s now.

"Tell you what." Nick’s hands are invisible, pouring the whiskey behind the bar. "We’ll have a drink. Or maybe two or three. And then I’ll tell you a few things. Things you need to know."

"Nick."

Nick’s upper lip curls. He doesn’t look at Gil. "And then you’ll understand." He recorks the bottle, tucks it under his arm, and walks around the bar. He’s carrying two brimming shot glasses, holding one out to Gil. "Here."

Gil’s hand is trembling spasmodically. Scotch trickles over his fingers. Just a few drops. "Jesus."

"Bottom’s up." Nick’s cold dark eyes meet his briefly, and then he downs his drink.

The Scotch tastes harsh on Gil’s tongue. And Nick’s slopping more in his glass, ignoring Gil’s headshake. "Mud in your eye." His eyes glitter. "Drink it. Drink it, goddamn it!"

It makes his stomach turn. He has to pause, and force it down, and Nick’s shiny dangerous eyes seem to twirl, giving him a mad, gorgeous look. "That’s a good boy," Nick whispers. "Come on. Sit down."

Nick steers him to the couch, and sits in the chair opposite him. His body is tense with manic energy. Gil stares at him. "Nick," he says weakly. "What things do I need to know?"

Nick pours another shot. He doesn’t offer to fill Gil’s glass again. "Only one, really," he says, and empties the glass before glancing at the label on the bottle. "This is good stuff," he remarks. "I don’t usually like Scotch."

"20-year single malt." Gil swallows acid. "You’re drinking it like lemonade."

"Yep." Nick slams the shot glass on the table. The resounding crack makes Gil flinch. "What you need to know – ALL you need to know," he corrects – "is that I’m right. Okay? I’m right, Gil. You have to trust me."

"You’re wounded," Gil whispers, and shakes his head. "I don’t trust you. You can’t see it anymore. Can you?"

"You haven’t seen anything yet," Nick says. He grins, but his empty eyes shine with tears. "I know I’m right about that."

"What did he do? To the ones -- The ones who tried to – help you?" The whiskey’s gone to his tongue. The words seem to dribble out like warm caramel.

Nick’s grin fades. "Some other time." His hand goes up to press against his temple. "I’ll tell you. Sometime."

Gil leans forward. It’s an effort to focus. More than it should be. "Tell me now," he manages, and clears his throat. "What -- I feel –"

"I’m sorry," Nick whispers. The tears are gone; his eyes are dry, and squinted with remorse. "I really am, Gil. I’m so sorry I dragged you into this."

Gil watches him stand, feels the room tilt a few degrees to the right. It isn’t just his tongue. His head is spinning, eyelids dragging down as if weighted. "You – You did some – " He can’t make the words work any longer.

Nick towers over him. He touches Gil’s shoulder, gently pushes him back. Gil sags against the cushions.

"Relax," Nick says in a low, seductive voice. "It’ll be okay. I promise."

"Put something." It comes out "shomething." "Drink."

Nick bends low, presses a dry kiss on Gil’s temple. "Close your eyes," he murmurs.

Can’t, don’t want to, you NEED me, Gil thinks, but his too-large tongue won’t work, his brain won’t work. He gazes up at Nick’s sadly smiling face, and his traitorous eyelids slide closed.

He claws his slow way to wakefulness, feeling as if he’d dozed off while bobbing in the La Brea tar pits. His neck is stiff, popping painfully. He’s still on the couch. For a moment he has to think: Was he reading? Did he doze off watching the news? He can’t remember.

In the midst of rubbing his dry, burning eyes, he thinks of Nick, and makes a hoarse sound. It’s morning, it’s the next DAY. He’s sat here all night, slept, and Nick is gone. Long gone.

His mouth is sticky-dry, filmy, foul-tasting. Booze and old sickness and underneath it, the unmistakable cottony feel of drugs, that opiate aftertaste he associates with his worst headaches. He’s been drugged. Nick drugged him. Somehow, with those two shots of Scotch, or maybe just the first, no way to be sure now.

He’s too startled to be angry yet. When he stands, the room sways around him for a moment and then stabilizes reluctantly. Coffee. He’s still so sleepy, and it’s been hours, so incredibly, horribly long. The sun coming in his windows is the wrong angle, tilting west instead of east, cheery morning sunshine. He’s lost so much time.

In the bathroom he urinates, staring at the medicine chest. There’d been enough time. He takes Darvocet for his headaches, usually, but those are caplets. Nick couldn’t have had time to grind a few up. Nor would they have worked so infernally quickly. He zips his pants and flushes and goes to open the chest. No, not Darvocet. He still has MS Contin, capsules. He’s used morphine only once, maybe two years ago, and the bottle’s nearly full. How can he tell? But there are no other choices.

He’s lucky to be alive. How much did Nick give him?

Coffee revives him. He’s not 100%, won’t be for some time, but he’s more alert, and the bitter aftertaste in his mouth is gone.

He dials Nick’s number slowly, carefully. It takes him a moment to understand why another phone in his house is ringing. He walks over to the couch, stands there, and remembers where Nick’s phone is. Not broken, but still under the sofa, where it had fallen hours ago.

He doesn’t have Nick’s home number handy. Hardly ever uses it. He closes his own phone and hunts for his keys. It’s early yet, and Sunday; traffic isn’t likely to be bad. He shouldn’t drive, but what choice does he have? He has to know. He has to know if Nick is all right, what his horrific excuse for a father has done. Nothing seems too extreme. He doesn’t know Andrew Stokes, doesn’t have a bead on him, not really. Nick’s right: Gil doesn’t know. But he’s learning.

The sun crucifies him. He wants nothing more than to go back inside his house, crawl into bed, sleep off the tiredness that’s sunk into his very bones. He doesn’t want to see Nick. He doesn’t want to know. But he must.

Traffic is light, and he makes good time. Nick’s condo is deserted-looking, quiet. No one is around. Nick’s truck sits in its usual space.

His hands are cold when he rings the doorbell. Once, and again, and he waits without impatience. Nick is here. Andrew, he’s not so sure about. Nick has said he was leaving today.

The door opens finally, and Gil swallows. For a moment he can’t make out Nick’s face; it’s too dark inside, too bright outdoors. But he hears Nick’s voice clearly.

"I’m sorry," Nick says.

"You son of a bitch," Gil whispers. He’s angry suddenly, furious, and his heart skips a beat, settles into rapid pounding. "Jesus."

Nick’s dark, sad eyes meet his own, and break away. "I’ll make some coffee."

There is no sign of Andrew. Nick turns away, walking into the kitchen. "You shouldn’t have driven," he says in a toneless voice. "It won’t have worn off completely yet."

"Where is he? Already gone? When?"

"About an hour ago." Nick pauses at the counter, back still turned. "He took a cab to the airport."

"Christ." Belatedly he thinks about what must have happened. Must have. "Look at me."

Nick is silent for a moment, and then shakes his head. His hands jerk while he sifts coffee out of a can, and black grounds scatter over the white counter.

"Look at me!" Gil roars.

Nick flinches. When he turns, his face is ghastly white, dark circles beneath his eyes. His mouth works, but he says nothing. There is no need. Gil swallows bile.

"I’m sorry," he says after a moment. "Nick. Please tell me he didn’t -- He didn’t –"

He can’t say it, and Nick can’t listen. His kabuki face bleaches even paler, and he leaves the open coffee can on the counter and walks past Gil. He moves like an old man, exhaustion and defeat in his slumped shoulders. He sits slowly on the couch, and winces.

Please cry, Gil thinks, walking slowly in Nick’s wake. Please react, do something. I need to see you do something I recognize as human. Something that makes sense to me, when nothing else does. Nothing at all.

He sits gingerly in a chair. "What did he do?" he asks.

Nick’s dull eyes consider him without comprehension.

"To the ones who tried to help."

"Oh."

Belatedly he realizes how it sounded, and fights down an acid surge of horror. "Did he threaten them? Bully them?"

Nick is silent so long Gil wonders if he remembers the questions. Then he says, in a slow tired voice, "My father doesn’t threaten."

"He didn’t –"

"He destroyed them," Nick says coldly. "Completely."

Gil forces a nod. "How?"

"You act as if there were a lot. There weren’t." There’s sweat on Nick’s face.

"And you’re afraid he’ll destroy me, too."

"He will."

"He told you that?"

"Didn’t have to."

"Why –"

"I won’t tell you what you want to know," Nick interrupts. He swallows and shifts on the couch. "Not because I want to protect him. I just won’t." His eyes bore into Gil, as dark as his father’s and as difficult to read. "Don’t ask me."

Gil shakes his head. "I won’t. I promise."

Nick swallows again and says, "I see it in your face. You won’t let it go." His artificially frozen expression wavers, shimmers like a mirage in the distance.

"I can’t. I can’t, Nick. Look what he’s done to you."

"You know I was a cop. In Dallas. Right?"

Gil nods.

"My partner, he –" Nick clears his throat, cocks his head to the side. Gathering himself. "He was one of the ones who tried to do something, all right? Want to know where he is now?"

"No longer a police officer, I take it."

"Hard to be when you’re dead."

Gil’s eyes widen.

"Officially it was suicide." Nick sounds crisp as fresh paper, crackling. "Blew his fucking brains out. But that was after somebody reported him for abusing the kids. His wife ran a daycare out of their house. He never even got formally charged, but it was already enough. He got suspended from work, his wife filed for divorce. Randy ate his fucking gun not long after that."

"He didn’t do it," Gil breathes.

"Fuck no, he didn’t do jack. But that’s all it takes, see? Just a few whispers in the right ears. If you know the right people. That’s it." Nick gives him a wintry smile. "Kind of ironic, don’t you think? Randy finds out about my dad, and ends up suspected of child molestation? Crazy."

Gil stares at him, almost too horrified to speak. "It’s monstrous."

"Yeah, well," Nick agrees in a hard voice. "So are a lot of things, Gil. You know that."

"You have to –"

"Have to what? Report him? Been there and done that. Want to know the first time? I was twelve. I told our priest. He told me to do penance for lying about my loving parents. Fifty Hail Marys. I told him I wasn’t lying, and he made it sixty."

"Jesus, Nick."

Nick’s too-bright eyes flick away. "And then he told my dad," he adds hoarsely. "After that, I didn’t try to tell people. Okay? I knew better."

"Your -- Your mother, your sisters –"

"I don’t know. They know. Of course they know."

"But –"

"They know better than to leave Granddad alone with their kids," Nick says. He’s staring at his hands. "You don’t talk about it. You just know."

Gil stands, so fast his head spins. "I’m calling the police."

Nick doesn’t move. "Go ahead," he says dully. "But you won’t win. Randy didn’t, and you won’t, either."

"I can’t sit here and do nothing," Gil snaps. He steps away from the couch, strides over to the breakfast bar, and back again. "You’re describing a pattern of long-term abuse, Nick, and not just of yourself. You have siblings, and they have –"

"You don’t get it." Nick’s bottomless eyes are alien, like the stare of some long-lost sea creature. "As long as he has me, he won’t do it to them. All right? That’s the deal."

A surge of nausea brings sweat to Gil’s brow. "Are you saying what I think you’re saying?"

"It’s not so bad since I moved. A few times a year. I can do it."

"God almighty."

"He’s on the short list for the Supreme Court. Pretty sure he’ll get a nomination in the next couple of years, if the administration doesn’t change. You have no idea who he knows, Gil. He knows everyone."

"I don’t give a shit who he knows, I don’t care if he’s in cahoots with the goddamn President, this has to be reported!"

Nick doesn’t nod. Doesn’t appear to react at all to it. His eyes have narrowed, focusing on Gil with alarming clarity. "My brother’s in the U.S. House of Representatives. You think a scandal about his father and brother will do his career any good? You think he wants this to come out? Think again."

Gil draws a breath, and Nick barrels on. "Then there’s my mom. She’s the D.A., and she plans to stay that way after next year’s re-election. Don’t ripple the water, Gil," he says viciously. "That’s the first goddamn lesson you learn in the Stokes family, and it’s the one you better get through your head. Right now."

"Nick –"

"NO!" He roars it, a voice much like the one Gil heard last night and loathed then, too. "No, see, this is what you need to know!" Nick stands, grinning now, shaking his head. "You want to know if my own goddamn father fucked me last night? Sure! But it doesn’t fucking MATTER!"

Gil stares at him. His mouth is so dry his tongue has cleaved to his palate, feels like a dead piece of meat. A high whistling noise has started in his ears, and a remote part of his brain wonders if that’s courtesy of his surgery, or perhaps the fact that he just might faint. He can’t tell. The room is spinning slightly.

"What does matter, Nick?" Gil whispers. "Does anything?"

Nick’s expression crumples. He licks his lips. "I want you safe. That’s all I want."

"I’m fine. I’ll be fine."

"How can you be sure? You don’t know that. You don’t."

Listening to Nick’s broken whisper is worse than anything else, almost. He hates that cold tight tone from earlier, but he can’t stand this. He walks to the couch, sits and ignores the way Nick immediately edges away. "You don’t have to protect me, Nicky," Gil says in his gentlest voice. "I can take care of myself."

Nick utters a strange sound, somewhere between a cough and a bark, and it takes a second for Gil to recognize it as a sob. "That’s what Randy said."

"I’m not Randy."

Nick doesn’t say anything to that. His body still cringes away, and his hands come up to cover his face. If he’s crying, Gil can’t tell. There are no more weird sobs.

"Nick, I think I should take you to be examined."

Nick gapes at him over his fingertips. "What?"

"Just in case. Insurance," Gil adds gruffly when Nick’s confounded look doesn’t change. "Evidence."

Nick swallows audibly. He’s still staring. "You’re kidding, right?"

"Absolutely not. You know this, Nick, you know procedure. After an assault the first few hours are –"

"No."

He knew that would be the answer, but he presses on. "If our positions were reversed, it’s what you’d be saying to me right now. You know you would. Because it’s the right thing to do."

Nick’s fingers are trembling. His cheeks have taken on a faint greenish cast. "I can’t," he whispers. "Oh, I can’t do that. No."

Gil closes his eyes for just a second, and then gazes grimly at him. "So that’s it? He walks?"

"I can’t do that. I can’t."

Hating himself, Gil asks, "What will he do when he gets home, Nicky? Do you know? Can you be sure?"

"I don’t – understand."

"How sure are you you’re the only one?"

Nick draws a sharp breath and recoils, flattening himself against the arm of the couch. "Oh, no," he says flatly. "No."

"You’re not there. You can’t watch him 24/7, you don’t even see him more than a few times a year. Do you think it goes away the rest of the time? This urge? You think all he needs is a few quickies with his son and that does the trick?" His tone has gotten sharper, and he can’t make it easier, can’t keep the horror and disbelief out of his voice, disbelief at Nick’s absurd fantasy of being a protector, being the buffer between a monster and everyone else. "Think again. Men like that don’t stop, not usually. If you can’t see it as his son, look at it as an investigator. Recidivism is rife with sexual predators. Do you really think he can stop with you? Do you?"

He’s yelling it by the end, and Nick is cringing, his dark eyes wide and hollow in his ghastly-pale face. "He promised," Nick says, voice high and strained. "He told me. He promised me, he swore."

Whatever it took to get into your pants, Gil thinks viciously, but can’t let those words out. "I know he did," he says instead, nodding. "But how can you be sure? Even if your family knows all about this –" And he has to halt for a second, bump, because stumbling over that fact again brings it home worse, his family KNOWS, they have always known, and no one has done anything about it, nothing. "Even so," he says hoarsely, "there’s no way to be sure. Not without 24-hour surveillance."

"I told him," Nick blurts. "I told him I’d -- If he ever did that, I’d KILL him, he can do whatever he wants with me but the kids, no, NO, he WOULDN’T."

"You’re hundreds of miles away," Gil says gently. With self-loathing hot in his veins. "You’d never know."

"NO!" Nick’s standing, flying off the couch and looming over him, hands bunched into fists. "NO!" he screams in Gil’s face. "I don’t accept that! That’s not TRUE!"

Forcing himself to stay very still, Gil lifts his chin. "Maybe not. But is there any way for you to know for sure, Nick?"

Nick stares at him for a long, utterly silent moment. The fists are gone; his arms hang limply at his sides. The hollows under his eyes look dark as lampblack.

"The answer," Gil says slowly, "is no."

Nick’s head trembles, like a flower on a too-long stalk, whipped by a breeze. He whispers something Gil can’t make out, but he isn’t looking at him now. His gaze is aimless, floating around the room without seeing anything. The green is more pronounced in his cheeks.

"Nick," Gil whispers, with creeping horror. "Oh, Nick."

When Nick takes a step back his knees buckle, and Gil launches himself, faint, no one with color that deathly can possibly be anything but in the midst of fainting. But Nick’s hand comes up, almost absently, fingers lifted in a polite warding-off gesture as he turns. He walks slowly away, and Gil follows, on guard for what, he isn’t at all sure. In the bedroom Nick sits on the edge of the bed and falls over rather than lies down. Those staring dark eyes unblinking, blank with something too dreadful for Gil to adequately categorize.

Gil kneels by the bed, knees thumping on the carpet. And so he’s very close when Nick’s lost look turns to the worst, oldest grief Gil has ever seen.

"No," Nick moans, and squeezes his eyes shut. "No, no, no, no, no."

Sitting back on his haunches, Gil swallows, watching Nick curl into the smallest ball he can make, knees pulled up against his chest. His feet are bare and vulnerable-looking, little tufts of hair on his toes, and Gil feels a lurch inside his chest, something massive turning over, hotly painful.

"I’m so sorry, Nick," Gil whispers.

Nick coughs a sob, and then another, and Gil leans his forehead against the edge of the mattress and closes his eyes, too.

It takes a long time for Nick to stop. And it’s never the kind of crying that Gil erroneously expects, never a complete breakdown. It’s a defeated kind of weeping, extraordinarily tired, and it just keeps going.

Gil stays, because he can’t do anything else. He may not be able to help, but he can’t leave. It’s unthinkable. And so he listens, and watches, and waits, retreating to the comfortable wing chair in the corner, observing from the shadows.

When Nick finally sits up, Gil blinks.

"Nick?"

"Okay," Nick says in a thick, congested voice. His back is rigid. "I’ll do it."

Gil nods, even though Nick can’t see it. "Okay."

Nick doesn’t speak again. He shoves his feet into a battered pair of sandals, visibly considers putting on different clothes and rejects it. Without quite meeting Gil’s eyes he nods, and they walk to the door.

Outside, the daylight is cruel, burning Gil’s eyes and revealing Nick’s pallor anew. He has the look of someone just emerging from a desperate illness, on the mend but nowhere near healthy yet. His eyes are swollen from weeping, bloodshot.

He looks like shit, and Gil doesn’t feel any better than Nick looks. He allows himself a tiny sigh while he unlocks his vehicle, and waits for Nick to climb in before closing the door carefully.

He goes to Highland rather than Desert Palm. It’s a smaller ER, not the major trauma center, and as far as he knows Nick has never been a patient here. Certainly Gil hasn’t. The likelihood of them knowing anyone is, if not remote, at least lessened.

Nick remains mute while the clerk gets him registered, letting Gil answer the usual fusillage of questions, the showing of the insurance cards, the privacy notices. "Can you make him no-info?" he asks, and the clerk casts a fast look at Nick and nods.

It’s not crowded. About fifteen minutes later a nurse calls Nick’s name, and they go back.

What follows burns itself into Gil’s mind, the longest, worst few hours in recent memory, and maybe ever. It isn’t the repeated explanations, or the tense talk with Don Breedlove, a cop Gil knows well and Nick, too. Those are bad enough.

But the worst is Nick. He’s been passive since agreeing to this, and he’s still passive, letting the nurse do his thing, putting on a gown, taking it off again for the photographs Don has to take. Gil doesn’t stay for those. He can’t. Even if Nick wanted him there, which he doesn’t, Gil couldn’t watch that.

Don looks tired and old when he emerges from Nick’s room, and he doesn’t say anything. Just shakes his head and walks over to the nurses’ station to call in something to dispatch.

And Nick doesn’t want Gil there for the examination, either. So he stands outside, sipping a cup of horrible coffee and trying not to listen to the sounds Nick makes, audible through the curtain, the doctor’s low voice and Nick’s thick replies, and a hiss of pain that makes Gil’s testicles draw up sharply, makes him want to cross his legs and cover himself and hide, because he knows full well what was done to make Nick sound like that.

But finally the ER doctor is done, the evidence is sealed away, the cop and the camera and those precious red plastic bags are long gone. And Gil leans against the wall in Nick’s tiny room and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Ready to go home?" he says softly.

The cheery print on his hospital gown looks ridiculous next to Nick’s drawn face. He’s lying on his side, a sheet clutched around him, and he nods slowly while tears slide across his face, dripping off the bridge of his nose.

When he helps Nick dress, he sees part of what he hadn’t wanted to see. The imprints of fingers on Nick’s hips, faint but clear. A bite mark on his shoulder, a bruise on his lower back, over his left kidney. Andrew didn’t beat him badly. Gil’s seen far, far worse. But few of those other marks have ever made him feel as sick as these do.

The nurse comes back in when Nick is dressed, and hands over his discharge papers and a sheaf of prescriptions. Gil already knows what they are. Antibiotic, in case of infection. Pain killers. Ativan. At least Nick’s soundless weeping has stopped for the moment. Otherwise Gil isn’t quite sure the doctor would let him leave.

"Come on, Nick," Gil murmurs. "Let’s go."

He takes him back to his condo before making a trip for the prescriptions. And Nick’s out like a light when he returns. Asleep on the couch, so deep he doesn’t even twitch while Gil walks around, puts away his few purchases, rummages for a blanket. It’s early yet, but he’s pretty damn sure Nick didn’t sleep last night. Maybe it will help.

He tucks the blanket around Nick’s limp form, and lowers himself into a nearby chair with a sigh of relief. He’s nearly as tired as Nick, and now that it’s done, that interminable ER trip, his own eyelids are sagging.

If Nick moves during the night, Gil doesn’t know about it. The chair is perfectly comfortable.

He never ends up explaining it to Catherine. She asks, but he shakes his head. "I’m sorry," he says honestly. "I can’t tell you right now. But thank you for doing it."

"Still don’t know what I DID," she grumbles, and her wary look isn’t pleased. But she desists, and that’s what counts.

Nick steadfastly refuses to take any nights off. He’s still quiet, still reserved, but he shows up the next evening at his usual time, and although his colleagues pick up on it, it’s easy to dismiss as a bad mood, nothing more. Gil keeps Nick at his side that night, working a rather dull pair of investigations, robbery and missing person. Nick does the work. There’s no zest in it, but there’s no crumbling, either.

It’s only at the end of it, when Nick’s stolidly clocking out, that Gil thinks how much experience Nick must have at doing just this. Coping. Pretending it was all right. Putting on his game face. He’d be an expert by now. It must be as natural as breathing.

It ruins any good feeling Gil might have had left. Chilled, he stalks out behind Nick.

He never actually says to Nick, "I’m staying with you now. For the duration." Nor does Nick ask. It just works out that way, driving Nick home and staying. It isn’t like anything he’s felt with Nick before. Before, it was the most gingerly of things, abortive stabs at physical intimacy that were never quite consummated. He’s kissed Nick before, exactly twice. The second time was a week before Andrew’s arrival. They’ve never slept together.

Now, that may never happen. But Gil doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. He has other fish to fry.

He runs the DNA himself, the day after Nick’s ER visit. Greg is mystified and obviously curious, but a bleak look from Gil and he mumbles something about needing a fresh cup of coffee and banishes himself to the break room. The report spits out not long after. Gil doesn’t have to look at it. Only keep it, save the results. Will he need them? Will Nick? He doesn’t know yet. But if so, they’re right here.

Back in his office, he stares at his monitor, his own cold coffee forgotten at his elbow. Andrew Stokes’s life scrolls down in front of him in vivid color: education, employment history, judicial appointments. Papers he’s written, seminars he’s taught. Accolades. Political affiliations, memberships, fraternal groups. And the personal: wife, so many children, grandchildren. A photograph probably taken sometime when Nick was in college, if his youthful look is any indicator. A beautiful family, array of smiles just like Nick’s own, all those expensive white teeth and strong jaws. They look happy, all of them. Gil can’t make out the shadow in Nick’s young, strong grin. He looks perfectly normal. They all do. Down to the panting dog lying next to Nick’s kneeling form.

Gil stares at Nick’s mother, and thinks, You knew. Even right there, posing for the camera, you knew. And you didn’t do anything about it, did you? Didn’t want to upset that perfect applecart. You had your own career to think about, your older son’s. He was already a lawyer then, with political aspirations. You didn’t want to screw that up. Not even if it meant your younger son paid for it with his body. His soul.

He swallows an acid ball of hatred and keeps scrolling down. Stokes’s record is good, albeit not the most consistent. He’s a Republican, of course, and his decisions have mostly been aligned with his politics, staunchly conservative, no precedent-setting for him. No scandals, but a couple of disorderly conducts, Harris County, back in 1995 and 1997. Aside from those hastily resolved situations, Gil can’t find anything remarkable. Nothing to indicate that Andrew Stokes’s real interests were anything but solid, family-man, dependable all-American male.

There is nothing on the computer to use. Nothing on microfilm, nothing in the Bar Association. Nothing at all. Stokes is completely clean.

His hand shakes the tiniest bit as he reaches for the phone. It rings four times before Brass picks up.

"Hey, Jim." Gil clears his throat. "Mind coming by my office?"

He can hear wind scrubbing the mouthpiece of Brass’s cell phone. "Be a little while, I’m out in the boonies right now. Can it wait?"

"Whenever you get the chance."

"What’s going on?"

Gil glances back at his screen. Staring at Andrew Stokes’s smiling photographed face, he says, "I’ll tell you when you get here."

"Okey-doke. Gimme an hour."

"Good."

He’s had two more cups of coffee by the time Brass arrives, looking wind-blown and cheery. He grins at Gil. "You’ll never guess who I just met."

Gil produces a polite smile. "Who?"

"Tom fucking Jones. Can you believe that?" And Brass does a little snap thing with his fingers and keeps right on beaming, and Gil has to laugh, because it’s just about the silliest thing he’s ever seen.

"I hope he wasn’t the victim."

"Naw." Brass plops down in the chair. "His manager. No big deal, but anyway."

"Did you get his autograph?"

"Does a bear shit in the fucking woods?"

"I’ll take that as a yes."

"Damn straight." Brass laughs, and shakes his head. "So," he continues, although the grin is slow to fade. "What you got?"

"Mind closing the door?"

That makes the smile slip faster. Brass gets up and closes it, and when he sits again the smile is gone. Gil feels a moment’s pang of regret. Brass doesn’t grin nearly often enough. It’s weirdly charming.

"Spill," Brass says gruffly.

"This will be delicate."

"I gathered that."

Gil licks his lips carefully and leans back in his chair. "It has to do with Nick Stokes."

Brass’s eyes narrow. "He in trouble?"

"Not precisely. It’s more complicated than that." Gil shifts, has to swallow. "His father was in town last weekend. Andrew Stokes. Did you meet him?"

"Didn’t have the pleasure. Why?"

"You’re aware Nick’s father is a Texas State Supreme Court justice?"

"I am now." Brass lifts his chin. "Why so cagey, Gil? What’s going on?"

Gil meets his curious stare. "While he was here, Nick’s father sexually assaulted him."

For a very long moment Brass doesn’t even react. Just keeps on looking at him, waiting for a punchline Gil is late in delivering. When Gil doesn’t add anything, Brass blinks, and blinks again. "What did you say?" he asks in a funny, prim voice.

Gil slips a file folder out from under the stack on his desk, and slides it over. "It’s all here. DNA results, photos. I took Nick to the ER last night. There’s a copy of Don Breedlove’s report."

Brass’s fingers touch the folder, but he doesn’t pick it up or open it. His bluff features have gone noticeably paler. "Wait a second. You said – sexually assaulted. RAPED him? His FATHER?"

Gil nods slowly. "There’s more."

"Jesus fucking CHRIST."

It takes some time to tell it all. He’s prepared a somewhat sanitized version in his head, but abandons it, and long before he’s finished Brass looks old and sick and horrified.

"I have – convinced Nick," Gil concludes carefully, "that pressing charges is not only in his best interest, but those of his family. Not to mention anyone else Andrew Stokes comes into contact with. Considering the fate of Nick’s former partner back in Dallas, I’m sure you can see he wasn’t too enthusiastic about the idea."

"It’s not just abuse we’re talking about."

"No."

Brass slumps in his chair. "Could be conspiracy charges in there, too. God knows what else. This guy is a JUDGE?"

"I know."

"Fuck. How’s Nick? Christ, I saw him in the hall on the way here, he looked fine."

Gil nods slowly. "He’s not fine, Jim."

"Course he isn’t."

"If Nick’s conspiracy theories are right," Gil adds, "the character assassination Randall Dewbre experienced firsthand might hit me next. I want you to know that; Stokes is already suspicious of me. Very much so."

"I got your back," Brass says tightly.

"And Nick’s?"

"You gotta ask?"

"Sorry."

"Don’t be. Son of a bitch. This is gonna be ugly, Gil. Ugliest yet."

"I know," Gil whispers.

"Okay." Brass’s fingers tremble slightly as he gathers up the files. "I got some calls to make. Don’t you or Nicky go anyplace for a bit, okay?"

"We’ll be here."

He doesn’t pretend to work. It’s impossible at the moment, and he can’t pretend to care, either. He’s just waiting for another of these many shoes to fall.

Going for another cup of coffee – what, his fourth? fifth? – he sees Nick sitting in the break room. Silent, motionless, an automaton someone forgot to turn on. Warrick and Sara are there, quiet, watchful. Something has happened, some sort of conversation, and Gil thinks he knows what that must have been like. What’s wrong, Nick? Anything we can do? And he can see Nick shutting down, unable to reply to that. Unable to process it, caught inside his own coping mechanisms, well and truly stuck.

"Nick, you mind joining me in my office?" Gil keeps it low, pleasant, unthreatening. Not risking a glance at their colleagues.

Nick stirs, gives a robotic nod.

The DA calls about half an hour after Gil has installed them both in the relatively safe haven of his office. In that time Nick hasn’t spoken. He listens when Gil tells him about the conversation with Jim Brass, but doesn’t react. Just sits, doesn’t nod, occupies space. Waiting, for what Gil himself isn’t sure.

Bailey sounds tired, and tense. "You’re serious about all this, Gil?"

"I am." Gil takes a deep breath. "So is Nick."

Nick doesn’t look up.

"All right," Bailey says slowly. "You may be interested to know – I certainly was – that Justice Stokes is already the subject of two separate investigations in Texas. Very hush-hush, as you might expect."

"Same charges?"

"Related. A young boy’s family, in Austin. And one of his clerks. The former is expected to lead to a formal accusation very soon."

Gil swallows. "Does he know about this?"

"Almost certainly. I’ve spoken with the Travis County DA. The additional charges from Stokes fils would add a great deal of substance to the case, needless to say."

Gil nods. "Yes," he murmurs. "Yes, it would."

"The crimes are separate, and should be prosecuted separately. It’ll take my office a few days to dot all the i’s and cross the t’s. Is Nick able to come in for some questioning?"

Gil gives Nick an uneasy look. "Most likely, yes. Tomorrow?"

"Nine o’clock?"

"We’ll be there."

"I don’t imagine I need to tell you this will be the shitstorm to end all recent shitstorms."

"No."

"All right, then. See you in the morning."

"Thanks, Tom."

He hangs up and sees Nick staring at him, mouth tight. "What did he say?" Nick’s voice is rusty.

Gil nods. "Andrew Stokes is already under investigation, Nick," he says slowly. "One of those may well result in an indictment soon."

He can read nothing in Nick’s dark eyes; they’re unrevealing as glass. "Oh."

"We’ll go see Bailey in the morning. He’ll have some questions."

Nick looks down, studies his hands as if they’ve suddenly sprouted several extra fingers. After a long moment he says, "I think I need to go home."

Gil’s stomach sinks. "Of course," he whispers. "Let’s go."

Halfway to Nick’s condo he says something strangled about pulling over, and Gil sits frozen in the driver’s seat while Nick throws up by the curb, silently and efficiently. When he climbs back in there’s no sign that he’s just been ill, nothing but the faint odor. He doesn’t look at Gil, just gives a slow nod, and Gil puts the truck in gear and turns back into traffic.

The artificial calm breaks a few feet inside his door. Holding a beer he’s just taken from the fridge, eyes bright with tears. "You were right," Nick says in a hitching voice. "You were right, he was doing it to other – people, other b –boys. All along."

Of course he was, Gil thinks tiredly, but doesn’t say it. He walks nearer, and takes the bottle from Nick’s trembling fingers before he can drop it.

"How could I have been so st-tupid? I believed him. So fucking stupid."

Without thinking, Gil sighs and touches Nick’s tight shoulder. "It’s over now," he says gently. "This time it’s really over."

Nick makes a thick sound and steps against him, and although there is nothing Gil can say that will make any difference whatsoever, there is comfort in holding him, in pretending for just a moment that he might be able to make things better.

All too soon that moment is over. He nods when Nick mumbles something about going to take a nap, doesn’t remind him that it’s nearly midnight and most people actually sleep at that time, instead of napping. Whatever Nick needs, he’ll get right now. No questions asked.

Tom Bailey keeps them in his office for nearly two hours. It’s not all questioning; that part is dispensed with comparatively quickly. But there are machinations going on, maneuvering with law enforcement and prosecutorial staff in two states in two different time zones, and although neither Gil nor Nick is privy to the specifics at this point, both are aware of the activity. They drink good black coffee in the DA’s immaculate office, help in such ways they are requested, and otherwise sit in silence.

When it’s done, Gil drives them to Paco’s, unannounced, for an early lunch. Nick picks at his taco plate, nibbling a bit of this and that, thirstily downing four tall glasses of iced tea. Gil can’t make much headway on his own food, either, but they can’t afford not to eat. Nick is already looking vaguely diaphanous from not-eating, and he vomited again this morning before they set out for the courthouse. Losing a few pounds won’t hurt Gil, but he hates to see the hollows in Nick’s drawn cheeks.

Carefully unwrapping a praline, Nick says, "I don’t think I’m gonna be much good at work for a while."

Gil takes a measured sip of his coffee. "I can arrange for some personal leave. It’s not a problem."

Nick regards the praline with dull disinterest. "Are they going to arrest him soon?"

"I don’t know. I’m sure Tom will let us know before that happens."

"They’re gonna freak," Nick whispers, shaking his head, and Gil realizes it isn’t the lawyers Nick is referring to. It’s his family. "They’ll call me. I don’t think -- I don’t want to hear them. I don’t even want to know they’re there."

It’s on the tip of his tongue to say, however gently, that that will be well-nigh impossible to prevent. If Nick’s family wants to reach him, they’ll find a way.

But instead he nods, and says, "Let’s get your phone number changed. Both numbers."

"Okay."

It makes a little busywork that afternoon, constructing what barriers they can for Nick’s privacy. It’s Nick’s idea to take out a TRO against his father. Not much of a chance that Andrew will show up now, at this late date, but Nick is firm, and Gil’s in complete agreement. Needed or not, it makes Nick feel better. And who knows what Andrew might ultimately be capable of, once he discovers all that’s been going on? If in fact he doesn’t already know, and privately Gil is none too sanguine about that.

He finds out what else Andrew has been up to when he arrives at work that night. Tired, fighting off an incipient cold, and worried about Nick, he nods silently at Brass and waits for him to explain his presence in Gil’s office.

Brass lets him sit, and then sighs. "Okay."

Gil’s eyes narrow. "What is it?"

"The name Mark Zaragoza ring any bells?"

Gil gapes at him, while his skin clumps into gooseflesh. So this is how it begins. Why hasn’t he seen this coming? He knew. Nick warned him. Oh yes, he knew.

Brass’s sad eyes close briefly. "Thought it might."

Gil reaches up to take off his glasses. His fingers only tremble a little. "Who wants to know?"

"The family’s pushing to reopen the investigation into his disappearance. Evidently it was never solved."

"No," Gil says after a moment. "It wasn’t."

"You two were involved."

"For a time, yes. Just before I moved here. He disappeared when we’d been dating about four months." He leans back in his chair. "Mark’s family was always convinced I must have had something to do with it. I was cleared early on, but it didn’t seem to matter. His father swore he’d see me fry for it."

For a second he sees Mark’s face, clear as a photograph: Mark, who had been so very much like Nick in so many ways, young, idealistic, hiding such terrible secrets. Gone so long now, he’d mythologized in Gil’s mind, but really, how well had he known him? Certainly not well enough to have been any use to the countless police who’d hunted for him later. Yes, Mark had had secrets, and kept them so well that they had perhaps been his undoing, ultimately.

He stirs, and shakes his head. "It’s a feint," he says slowly. "Stokes is just rattling the first saber. There will be others."

Brass looks glum. "Imagine you’re right about that. Anything else you wanna tell me before I find out the hard way?"

"If you’re asking whether or not I have skeletons in my closets? I’m sure I do. But nothing strikes me as being particularly damning. It will be trumped up, Jim. It won’t be real. But that won’t matter in the long run. The damage will be done."

"Not if we get there first," Brass says hotly.

I’m not sure that will matter, Gil thinks, and doesn’t say it. "I hope you’re right," he murmurs.

They get the call two days later. Tom Bailey, a curt conversation in which Gil learns that an indictment is being brought in Texas against Andrew Stokes, Esquire, on charges of child endangerment and statutory rape.

"A day or two. Add in our incest charge – that’s a third-degree felony in Texas." Bailey sighs. "Cat’s out of the bag soon, Gil. Is he ready for this?"

Gil reaches up to rub the bridge of his nose. "I’m not sure. I suppose he’ll have to be."

"All right, then. I’d advise getting an unlisted number sometime soon."

"He’s already done that."

"Glad to hear it."

He hangs up and goes to look for Nick. It’s baking hot outside, the sun already beating down mercilessly at 9:30am. Nick is sitting in the shade beyond the corner of the building, bare feet in the grass, smoking a cigarette. He’s started up again sometime in the last week, and Gil doesn’t have the heart to remind him of how difficult it was four years ago for Nick to shed that particular monkey off his back. If a pack-a-day habit is what it takes to get Nick through this horror, then so be it. They’ll worry about carcinogens another day.

"Was that the DA?" Nick’s eyes are invisible behind his sunglasses.

Gil nods and leans against the brick wall. "They’ll bring the indictment very soon now."

Nick takes a long drag off the last of his cigarette and stubs it out in a tiny ashtray he’s brought with him outside. "Okay."

"How are you feeling?"

Nick snorts, and regards his pack of smokes, visibly considering another. "My dad’s about to be arrested for sexual assault," he says coldly, shaking out a cigarette. "I’m about to add charges myself. My family’s gonna hate me for the rest of their lives. How am I feeling?" He sticks the cigarette between his lips and clicks his lighter. "Use your imagination," he mutters, exhaling smoke.

"What –"

"Listen, Gil, why don’t you go home?" Nick stands, brushing off the seat of his jeans. "Get some sleep. I’ll be all right. You don’t have to babysit me forever."

Go home? He can barely remember what his house looks like. "I’m fine," Gil says mildly.

"You’ve practically been living here. I mean, man, it’s not like I don’t appreciate it, because I do." Beneath the sunglasses Nick’s face is flushed. "I just. You don’t have to put your own life totally on hold just because mine’s fucked."

"If you want me to leave," Gil says in a careful voice, "I will. Whatever you think."

Nick takes another hit off his cigarette and shakes his head. "I’m not -- I don’t want you to leave," he mutters. "Just feels like -- I dunno. A burden."

It is, but Gil’s smile is completely honest. "I don’t mind. I mean that, Nicky. I’m in this for the duration."

He wishes Nick would take the glasses off. Without seeing his eyes it’s impossible to say how it affects him. "Okay," Nick says after a long moment. "Okay. Cool."

For the first time in what feels like a very, very long time, Gil feels a flicker in his belly, a tingle, like he’d like to kiss Nick. Turn those two long-ago kisses into three, and maybe more. The wrong time for it, most definitely, and he isn’t sure there will be a right one again. But it’s not an unpleasant feeling. Life goes on, it seems, even when you believe it won’t. What was between himself and Nick, before this all started, is still there. If he could see Nick’s eyes right now, he knows that is what he’d find. The knowledge gives him a gentle surge of relief.

"Want a beer?" he asks.

Nick glances at his watch. "Little early for that, doncha think?" But his lips tremble into a tiny smile.

"Not if you’re on Grissom Standard Time."

"Oh, is that what this is?"

"At the moment? Definitely."

"Okay."

He waits for Nick to finish his cigarette, and then lets him lead the way into the condo. The phone is ringing. It wipes away Nick’s smile, as if it had never been. Only a handful of people have Nick’s new number. None of those, with the exception of Gil himself, is a person who is likely to have good news.

Gil pauses, and Nick gives a tired shrug. "Beer’s sounding better and better."

Something – some suspicious part of him – keeps him in the living room, rather than going to get beer out of the fridge. Keeps him watching, listening, while Nick picks up the phone. Nick’s face is expressionless, and after a greeting he says nothing at all, listening with all appearance of focus.

And then all the color goes out of his cheeks. He takes his sunglasses off belatedly, and they dangle from his fingers, trembling and then dropping to the carpet.

"Oh," Nick says into the receiver.

"Nick?" Gil asks anxiously. "What is it?"

The receiver thuds on the rug, too, as Nick turns very slowly to face him. This time there’s no last-minute recovery. His head tilts a fraction to one side, his gray face slack, and then his eyes roll back in his head and Gil darts forward, a smooth catch beneath Nick’s limp arms when he faints dead away.

He never learns what it was that Nick heard on the phone, besides the obvious facts. He never finds out how Elizabeth Stokes got her younger son’s new phone number, although he can imagine a DA could find a way if she put her mind to it.

Nick doesn’t ever tell him. The hard cold facts are plenty. There will be no indictment, no criminal charges or civil ones, either. Sometime between six and seven o’clock this morning, Andrew Stokes locked the door to his chambers, put on his robes and his Rice alumnus pin, took out the service revolver he’d kept in his desk for an unknown period of time, and put the barrel in his mouth. Death had been instantaneous.

Gil doesn’t know that yet, holding Nick’s limp form and crooning to him, begging him to open his eyes, wake up, Nicky, come on, let me see you’re okay. Even when Nick does come around, his eyes are blank with shock. He says nothing, not when Gil sits him up propped against the front of the couch, gets him water and finally a hefty shot of brandy. Nick’s mouth sags open, giving him a vaguely imbecile look, but he doesn’t cry, doesn’t do anything. Just sits, staring into space, completely checked out. Nick has left the building, folks, nothing to see here.

His own phone rings ten minutes later. Tom Bailey, who gives him the news in tight, shocked tones. Andrew is dead, a suicide, couldn’t face the fall of his abusive house of cards, and now all the rules have changed.

Gil hits the disconnect button, and Nick utters a low, hoarse sound, a moan unlike anything Gil has ever heard before. It raises the hairs on the back of his neck.

It startles him when Nick starts to cry. Crying, over the death of that monster? He expects Nick to lead the group dancing on Andrew’s grave. But instead Nick curls up on his side on the rug and weeps, and Gil struggles to his feet and backs away, until he bumps into the counter of the breakfast bar.

Nick’s grief doesn’t ease with the passing of the minutes. He wanders to the bathroom, and then the bedroom, and Gil is helpless, completely unsure of how to help. Of whether or not he or anyone else can help. He’s glad when Brass shows up just before noon. His tense features say everything to Gil: he’s heard, he knows all of it. Gil stands aside and lets Brass come in.

"Nick here?"

Gil nods tiredly. "In the bedroom."

"How’s he taking it?"

"Not well."

Brass snorts. "Thought I’d be joining you for a chorus of ‘Ding, dong, the bastard is dead.’"

"Not yet, I don’t suppose."

"Yeah," Brass admits after a moment. His shoulders slump. "I’d trade a kidney for a beer right now."

"No need."

They drink in the kitchen, both attuned to the invisible presence in the bedroom. When half his bottle is gone, Brass clears his throat. "He gonna be okay?"

Gil considers the question carefully. "In time," he says after a moment. "I hope."

"Can’t believe the motherfucker ate his gun." Brass sighs and leans against the counter. "Ask me, got off way too easy."

"I agree."

"Least this way Nick doesn’t have to get up and testify. Not much need for it now."

Gil nods. "Andrew won’t be hurting anyone else again in that way, no."

"Why’d he wait so long? Jesus, Gil. Nick’s thirty-four years old. Don’t try to tell me he doesn’t know right from wrong. Can’t believe he didn’t head for the PD on his eighteenth goddamn birthday, spill the whole fucked-up story."

Gil pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and sits with a sigh. "I’m no psychologist, Jim," he says slowly. "But you have to remember Nick learned the consequences of telling the truth early on. However – misguided, naïve it may sound to us, he thought he was taking care of people by not telling."

Brass slumps into the chair across from him. "What kind of person," he begins, and doesn’t finish the sentence, taking a huge swallow of beer instead.

"I don’t know," Gil whispers. "I don’t think I ever want to know. A monster."

"Got that right."

When the beer is gone, Gil peers into Nick’s bedroom. The crying has stopped, but he can tell Nick is awake.

"I better head out," Brass says awkwardly, behind him. "Lemme know if you need anything?"

Gil gives a curt nod. "Thanks, Jim."

Nick doesn’t move when Gil walks inside. His eyes are open, staring blankly at nothing, but when Gil pulls a chair close, that shocked gaze slowly travels over him.

Gil doesn’t smile. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he says, "I’m sorry, Nicky."

Nick swallows audibly. "I’m not," he says in a hoarse, congested voice. "Don’t be."

"You never had that beer. Or would you like something stronger?"

"Stronger."

Gil nods. "Come on. I’ll make us something."

He waits for Nick to uncurl himself off the rumpled bed, and follows him out into the living room. In the better light, Nick looks godawful, hair sticking out in twenty different directions, clothing wrinkled. But his color isn’t green anymore, and for that Gil is thankful.

It’s two drinks – stiff drinks – before Nick says anything else. Looking at Gil, puffy eyes pleading. "What do I do now?" he asks hoarsely.

Gil shakes his head. "I don’t know, Nicky. Go forward. What else can you do?"

"You think they’ll tell the truth? About why he did it? Why he k- killed himself?"

"What, in the media? I don’t know. It depends on how much information ends up being released."

Nick nods. "They’ll keep it quiet. You’ll see. Everybody’ll say what a great man he was, all that, and nobody’s gonna know what he did."

"It’s possible," Gil agrees softly.

Still nodding, Nick sighs heavily. "I’m really tired."

"I know, honey."

"It’s really over?"

"I think so. He’s gone. He can’t hurt you again, or anyone else."

"Yeah," Nick whispers. "Yeah."

Unsurprisingly, Nick doesn’t attend his father’s funeral. As he tells Gil the morning of the services, he would be persona non grata in any case, and even if that were not so, he couldn’t go out of principle. Celebrate the life of a man like that? No way. Instead Gil drives them to Tahoe, and by the lake, wind whipping pink roses into his cheeks, Nick smiles for the first time since that terrible evening of veal Milanese and telling gestures.

There are reminders, of course. The plaintiff’s family in Austin isn’t so quickly mollified, and news of a pending indictment finally reaches the press. But whether it’s the power of Nick’s well-connected family, or simply that not as many people care about the doings of a justice in Texas, it isn’t the sensation it might have been. Gil’s pretty sure Cabe Stokes might have to kiss his re-election chances goodbye, but stranger things have happened. Next year this will all be very old news, and Cabe’s constituents may keep him around. Who can say?

But Nick’s early resolution to simply disown his family wholesale doesn’t waver. He’s facing forward, and as he tells Gil one morning after work, it isn’t as hard to do as he’d feared it might be.

"They didn’t give a rat’s ass about me when they could have," he says flintily, chewing on a toothpick, struggling against the renewed need for a cigarette. "Why should I?"

Gil can think of no reply to that. It’s just the truth.

And two weeks after that well-attended sham of a funeral, there is a third kiss. A poor one, awkward and too brief, but Nick’s eyes shine with humor and love after, and that’s plenty.

Later, when Gil’s lost count of kisses and doesn’t much care about that fact, Nick sighs. "I’m kinda messed up, Gil," he says softly, fingers pressing Gil’s hand against the center of his chest. "I don’t know how to – do this."

Gil nods against Nick’s hair. "There’s no one way. We’ll figure it out."

"I was thinking about maybe talking to somebody. Therapist or something."

"I think that’s a great idea."

Nick leans against him. "I want to apologize to that kid in Austin. Every time I think of him -- I feel guilty. If I’d said something sooner. Maybe that wouldn’t have happened."

"Maybe not. But it might have. You can’t know for sure."

"No."

Gil pulls him closer, and says, "Whatever you decide to do, Nick, I’ll be here. Your friends will be here. You won’t be alone."

This time when Nick speaks, it’s in a foggy voice. "Thanks," he whispers.

"One step at a time. It’s all any of us can do."

Nick nods, but doesn’t reply. Gil closes his eyes and breathes in the smell of Nick’s hair.

END

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