Story post: Ghost, 1/?
Hi. I'm new! Sort of. To the fandom, not to the show. Not to fandom like, in general. Just this one. So this is my first time here, and therefore it is only appropriate that it be a first-time story. It's going to take a while to get there, though. I like to go slow, when I can.
Anyway. I hope you like. =)
Title: Ghost 1/?
Authors: alienseas
Category: first time, drama
Rating: G (for now)
Pairing: Nick/Gil
Spoilers: Grave Danger, and possibly bits of the rest of S1-5 along the way.
Warnings: Work in progress
X-post: oh_no_nicky, grisslash
Summary: When Grissom leaves CSI, there isn't any cake in the break room. He's just gone.
It took three days; not to find him, because he wasn't trying all that hard to hide, but to get there. To get leave time from Ecklie (ten seconds to ask; a day to wade through the paperwork), to convince Warrick and Catherine he wasn't going off to have a breakdown, to talk Greg out of packing up and coming with him. To work up the nerve to tell Sara. Nick had been through a lot in the past couple of months, enough to make most of life's little roadblocks seem about curb-height in comparison. Still and all ... Sara Sidle wasn't just any roadblock.
To Nick's everlasting surprise, nobody seemed inclined to argue much. Even Sara didn't have much of anything to say about it. Maybe that was because he told them his plans all in a group, once he'd truly made up his mind; that was where Sara was always strongest. Or maybe she was just done. Nick could understand that, too; maybe better than anybody else on the team. He'd been close to done with Grissom more than once himself. He just wasn't any good at staying done.
Warrick even helped a little, digging up some credit card info and checking for recent activity. In less than an hour they had a timeline, a route, and a pretty good guess at a destination. Greg, once Nick peeled him off the ceiling and gave him a good (if not purely professional) shake that made his teeth rattle in his head, stepped right up and got them an address. It took about fifteen minutes, once Greg managed to sit down.
Catherine didn't help, but she didn't hinder, either. She smiled sadly and patted him on his arm, which made him kind of nervous; all that sympathy, and things hadn't even gone to hell yet.
Nick didn't let any of it make any difference. He accepted the help he was given, which was more than he'd expected if a little less than he'd hoped for; he realigned his days and nights; he drove off into the sunrise. Six am, heading east. Part of being a man, Nick had always been taught, was getting up at a God-awful hour for any and all road trips, regardless of when you had to be there.
Three days to get ready, three days to get there, if he didn't really push it. He didn't plan to; he could've hopped a plane if he wanted, booked a hotel and waited for Gris to catch up. By car he had a day's head start; more if he drove longer hours than Nick wanted to, and Nick was not about to bet against that. He'd seen Grissom tired once, maybe twice in five years of OT and doubles. Warrick thought maybe it was protein from the bugs; Greg had an elaborate theory that owed equally to cyberpunk and Satanism. There had been nights Nick crawled out of the lab after a double with his eyes half-shut and his knees half-jello, morally convinced his boss was half man, half machine.
When he was awake and well-rested, though, Nick knew it was just Grissom. The guy had an iron will, and that was bedrock truth. If he decided he needed to be awake for three days, he'd die before he let himself be tired. There'd be no catching up to him on the road, not for Nick; not when he'd been sleeping 14-hour days since they pulled him up out of the ground, sleeping like -- pardon the expression -- the dead.
It was all right. There wasn't any deadline, and the long road gave Nick plenty of time to think.
~ ~ ~
In the middle of the second night, Nick's cell phone rang and vibrated on the nightstand where he'd dropped it. He pushed himself up through miles and miles of sleep, rubbed it off his face, and opened up his eyes. The room was bright enough to read in, electric blue light from the sign outside slicing through the useless blinds across the windows. He grabbed the phone, took a few seconds to remember how to work it, then flipped it open.
"Stokes," he said; or something that sounded like it. He cleared his throat a little bit and tried it louder.
"Uh, Nick?"
"Greg?" Nick blinked, rubbed his eyes again. "Do you know what time it is?"
"Threeish? Who cares? Listen, I got you an update on Grissom's credit card activity if you want it."
"We know where he's going, Greg. You found the address."
"Right. I did." For a second, that old smug sound was back in Greg's voice, and Nick couldn't help smiling into the stillness of his room. "But I found something else, too."
"Is this something I'm going to regret knowing, once I know it? His hotel pay-per-view habits aren't really relevant to the investigation."
"Investigation? Is that what we're calling it these days?"
Nick's hand actually moved before he caught himself, ready to whack Greg on the arm or the head or whatever part of him was closest. "Greg," he said evenly. "What have you got for me."
"It's just that if it's an investigation, that implies there was a crime, in which case we're all just way out of our jurisdiction, instead of misusing state funds to violate the rights of a private citizen for personal reasons. Are we making up a crime?"
"Cold feet? It's a little late for that, don't you think?"
"No, no. Not at all. I'm just making sure I have everything straight for my memoirs."
"Information, Greg. You called to pass some along?"
"Right." Nick could almost hear him shifting gears. "No pay-per-view sleaze, thank God, I don't think my fragile spirit could stand him being that normal. But he's doing some business from the road; yesterday afternoon he set up newspaper delivery to the address yours truly found for us. I called the distributor, played the cop card --"
"You're not a cop, Greg."
"What they don't know won't hurt them any. Anyway, I got some phone numbers, including a new cell number, which explains why he's not answering his old one. Uh, more than just not wanting to talk to any of us did. Anyway, voila! Phone records. You want the whole list, or just the good stuff?"
"Hit the highlights, please."
"There's only one highlight. Two calls to Chicago, five minutes for the first last week, 45 minutes for the second. The Illinois State Police, Division of Forensic Services, confirmed with Mr. Grissom's personal assistant -- that would be me -- that he had a phone interview yesterday, and will be meeting with sundry elevated law enforcement officials a week from Tuesday. The lady who answered the phone, she, uh. She seems to think he's got it pretty much wrapped up, Nick."
Nick's hand was cramped around the phone. He shifted his fingers, trying to work out the kinks, and tried to think of something to say.
"I guess he's planning to stay a while," Greg said finally.
"I guess so."
"New phone, new house, new job."
"Well, none of us thought he'd ever retire." Nick sighed, and rubbed at his eyes. "I guess we were right."
Greg worked his way through a silence of his own; his voice was steadier the next time he spoke. "You turning back, Nick?"
"No," Nick said, looking at the clock. By the time he got back to sleep, it would be time to get up and get himself back on the road.
"It's kind of worse, isn't it? I mean, it's clearly not the job he's bailing on, you know? It's us."
Nick ran a hand through his hair, and back down over his face. "I'll call in tomorrow night from the road," he said. "I've got still got a ways to go."
~ ~ ~
end pt. 1. Feedback welcome! =)
Anyway. I hope you like. =)
Title: Ghost 1/?
Authors: alienseas
Category: first time, drama
Rating: G (for now)
Pairing: Nick/Gil
Spoilers: Grave Danger, and possibly bits of the rest of S1-5 along the way.
Warnings: Work in progress
X-post: oh_no_nicky, grisslash
Summary: When Grissom leaves CSI, there isn't any cake in the break room. He's just gone.
It took three days; not to find him, because he wasn't trying all that hard to hide, but to get there. To get leave time from Ecklie (ten seconds to ask; a day to wade through the paperwork), to convince Warrick and Catherine he wasn't going off to have a breakdown, to talk Greg out of packing up and coming with him. To work up the nerve to tell Sara. Nick had been through a lot in the past couple of months, enough to make most of life's little roadblocks seem about curb-height in comparison. Still and all ... Sara Sidle wasn't just any roadblock.
To Nick's everlasting surprise, nobody seemed inclined to argue much. Even Sara didn't have much of anything to say about it. Maybe that was because he told them his plans all in a group, once he'd truly made up his mind; that was where Sara was always strongest. Or maybe she was just done. Nick could understand that, too; maybe better than anybody else on the team. He'd been close to done with Grissom more than once himself. He just wasn't any good at staying done.
Warrick even helped a little, digging up some credit card info and checking for recent activity. In less than an hour they had a timeline, a route, and a pretty good guess at a destination. Greg, once Nick peeled him off the ceiling and gave him a good (if not purely professional) shake that made his teeth rattle in his head, stepped right up and got them an address. It took about fifteen minutes, once Greg managed to sit down.
Catherine didn't help, but she didn't hinder, either. She smiled sadly and patted him on his arm, which made him kind of nervous; all that sympathy, and things hadn't even gone to hell yet.
Nick didn't let any of it make any difference. He accepted the help he was given, which was more than he'd expected if a little less than he'd hoped for; he realigned his days and nights; he drove off into the sunrise. Six am, heading east. Part of being a man, Nick had always been taught, was getting up at a God-awful hour for any and all road trips, regardless of when you had to be there.
Three days to get ready, three days to get there, if he didn't really push it. He didn't plan to; he could've hopped a plane if he wanted, booked a hotel and waited for Gris to catch up. By car he had a day's head start; more if he drove longer hours than Nick wanted to, and Nick was not about to bet against that. He'd seen Grissom tired once, maybe twice in five years of OT and doubles. Warrick thought maybe it was protein from the bugs; Greg had an elaborate theory that owed equally to cyberpunk and Satanism. There had been nights Nick crawled out of the lab after a double with his eyes half-shut and his knees half-jello, morally convinced his boss was half man, half machine.
When he was awake and well-rested, though, Nick knew it was just Grissom. The guy had an iron will, and that was bedrock truth. If he decided he needed to be awake for three days, he'd die before he let himself be tired. There'd be no catching up to him on the road, not for Nick; not when he'd been sleeping 14-hour days since they pulled him up out of the ground, sleeping like -- pardon the expression -- the dead.
It was all right. There wasn't any deadline, and the long road gave Nick plenty of time to think.
~ ~ ~
In the middle of the second night, Nick's cell phone rang and vibrated on the nightstand where he'd dropped it. He pushed himself up through miles and miles of sleep, rubbed it off his face, and opened up his eyes. The room was bright enough to read in, electric blue light from the sign outside slicing through the useless blinds across the windows. He grabbed the phone, took a few seconds to remember how to work it, then flipped it open.
"Stokes," he said; or something that sounded like it. He cleared his throat a little bit and tried it louder.
"Uh, Nick?"
"Greg?" Nick blinked, rubbed his eyes again. "Do you know what time it is?"
"Threeish? Who cares? Listen, I got you an update on Grissom's credit card activity if you want it."
"We know where he's going, Greg. You found the address."
"Right. I did." For a second, that old smug sound was back in Greg's voice, and Nick couldn't help smiling into the stillness of his room. "But I found something else, too."
"Is this something I'm going to regret knowing, once I know it? His hotel pay-per-view habits aren't really relevant to the investigation."
"Investigation? Is that what we're calling it these days?"
Nick's hand actually moved before he caught himself, ready to whack Greg on the arm or the head or whatever part of him was closest. "Greg," he said evenly. "What have you got for me."
"It's just that if it's an investigation, that implies there was a crime, in which case we're all just way out of our jurisdiction, instead of misusing state funds to violate the rights of a private citizen for personal reasons. Are we making up a crime?"
"Cold feet? It's a little late for that, don't you think?"
"No, no. Not at all. I'm just making sure I have everything straight for my memoirs."
"Information, Greg. You called to pass some along?"
"Right." Nick could almost hear him shifting gears. "No pay-per-view sleaze, thank God, I don't think my fragile spirit could stand him being that normal. But he's doing some business from the road; yesterday afternoon he set up newspaper delivery to the address yours truly found for us. I called the distributor, played the cop card --"
"You're not a cop, Greg."
"What they don't know won't hurt them any. Anyway, I got some phone numbers, including a new cell number, which explains why he's not answering his old one. Uh, more than just not wanting to talk to any of us did. Anyway, voila! Phone records. You want the whole list, or just the good stuff?"
"Hit the highlights, please."
"There's only one highlight. Two calls to Chicago, five minutes for the first last week, 45 minutes for the second. The Illinois State Police, Division of Forensic Services, confirmed with Mr. Grissom's personal assistant -- that would be me -- that he had a phone interview yesterday, and will be meeting with sundry elevated law enforcement officials a week from Tuesday. The lady who answered the phone, she, uh. She seems to think he's got it pretty much wrapped up, Nick."
Nick's hand was cramped around the phone. He shifted his fingers, trying to work out the kinks, and tried to think of something to say.
"I guess he's planning to stay a while," Greg said finally.
"I guess so."
"New phone, new house, new job."
"Well, none of us thought he'd ever retire." Nick sighed, and rubbed at his eyes. "I guess we were right."
Greg worked his way through a silence of his own; his voice was steadier the next time he spoke. "You turning back, Nick?"
"No," Nick said, looking at the clock. By the time he got back to sleep, it would be time to get up and get himself back on the road.
"It's kind of worse, isn't it? I mean, it's clearly not the job he's bailing on, you know? It's us."
Nick ran a hand through his hair, and back down over his face. "I'll call in tomorrow night from the road," he said. "I've got still got a ways to go."
~ ~ ~
end pt. 1. Feedback welcome! =)