Fic: Ghosts, Chapter 10 (CSI, Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes / ?)
Title: Ghosts, Chapter 10
Fandom: CSI
Pair: Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes / ?
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Feedback: Always Welcome
Spoilers: Play With Fire
CSI Las Vegas Main List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
“Doctors did an amazing job, didn’t they?” Darren grinned and let Nick run his
fingers along the lines of the scars. “You can hardly see them, unless you come
really close. You came close.”
“It’s you.” Nick stated and just stared at the faint lines. ”How…. I talked to
Greg on the phone. How did you….?”
“I should be really disappointed in you.” Darren tilted his eyebrows and pulled
his shirt back on. “I still can’t believe you bought that. Your call was directed
to my phone. Simple as that.”
“Then… Who’s in Lyon?”
“Darren.”
“What?”
“Darren went to France under my name, and I came here under his.”
“Wh-wh-why? Why would you do any of this? Darr-” He stopped himself. “Greg,
why the hell did you do that?!”
Greg went to the kitchen, humming as he poured himself some coffee. “Isn’t
this an old cliché? The part where the evil genius reveals his plan. You want
me to cackle menacingly?”
“No, I want the truth.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“From the beginning. You survived the explosion, I know that, but why did you
pretend to be dead? And why did Grissom lie to us for you?”
“Didn’t you ever wonder why Catherine got away with so little consequences?
When I was in the hospital, I was angry. To all of you. And especially Catherine.
Do you know how much willpower it took to listen to her babbling her explana-
tions and showing up in my room with that phoney look of sympathy. My mom
got me the best lawyer money could buy to sue the hell out of both the lab and
Willows.”
“I never heard about that.”
“Of course you didn’t. Grissom came to me and asked me to consider. If I did it,
it would have destroyed Catherine life. Career down the drain, nobody would hire
her after that and she would pay compensations for the rest of her life. You have
no idea how tempting that sounds. Anyway, I wanted to make a total break from
everything here. So I told him my terms.”
Greg downed the rest of his coffee in one gulp. “He pulled some strings to get
me to the CSI training in Frisco after I had recovered completely. And he told
all of you I was a goner.”
Nick shook his head in disbelief. “I understand that you wanted away from Vegas,
but why couldn’t you just tell us your leaving?”
“Because then some of you would have tried to contact me. Probably out of guilt.
I told you: Total break.”
“Then why did you come back?”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with something that presses you day
after day, year after year…. Sometimes it’s in the background, but it’s always
there.” Greg paused. He turned to look at Nick and tilted his head. “Well…. I
guess you do.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it’s like to live something you want to forget. But you’ve had
decades to get over it. You were nine back then…. How old are you now?”
“I didn’t tell anyone about that, except Catherine. How do you know about that?”
“This is just like old times. Everyone assumes I don’t hear what goes on around
me. Well… I have my sources. And you don’t wanna talk about that, do you?”
“No.”
“Finally it just got to me. I just wanted to make her suffer. I wanted to make
her scared. That was when we got the idea.”
“We. You mean you and Darren.”
“Yeah. We were both in the same training group in San Francisco. We talked
about our lives and thought about different ways to do it. Then I got the job in
France, and it all came together. He took my place and I took his. If somebody
figured out Grissom lied, he would think I was living in Lyon.”
“How did you…”
“Get the job in the lab?” Greg chuckled. “I contacted Grissom. He got me a position
in exchange for silence. If I happened to slip that he had manipulated the report
about the explosion and Catherine’s part in it…. That could have pretty nasty conse-
quences.”
“So you blackmailed him.”
“I made him a favour, and he made one for me.”
“And he made sure the case report went conveniently missing, and your personnel
records were sealed.”
“See ? You get it when you put some effort to it.”
“I get it, but I don’t get why you did all that to torment Catherine.”
“Don’t you?” Greg gave him an amused look. “I wanted her to feel what it’s like
when you can’t run away. When you have to face the same nightmare every day.
What I did to her was nothing compared to what she did to me.”
Suddenly his face turned serious. “But she wasn’t supposed to get hurt like that.
I told you it wasn’t part of the plan. I could never do something like that intenti-
onally. It was….” He started laughing. “It was an accident! You see the irony here?
That’s exactly what she called the explosion. An accident! Well… Maybe it was faith
intervening. Giving her a little remainder of how accidents can happen. Just like
that.”
He sat down on the couch and lifted his feet on the coffee table. “Any question?”
“What are you doing now?”
“You mean: Why am I telling this to you? Don’t you guess?”
“I don’t want to guess. I want you to tell me.”
“It’s simple. I`m telling you because there’s nothing about the whole thing that could
be connected to me. The letters were delivered by paid, nameless nobodies, same
thing with the phone calls. There’s nothing you could do to find any of them, and no
way to connect them to me.”
“You….” Nick ran his fingers through his hair. “You manipulated all of us.”
Greg threw his head back against the headrest. “I knew you would get to that sooner
or later… Next thing you want to know is: Did I plan going to bed with you.”
“Did you?”
Greg got up from the couch walked to the window. “You know I always hated blackout
screens. I need them, but they always look so ugly….”
“Greg.”
“No. I didn’t plan it. When I came back it never even occurred to me that it could
happen. I was here for years and you hardly even remembered I exist after I gave
you your results.”
“I need my results to do my job and don’t try to change the topic. Are you still
going to do what you told me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you came here for a reason, and when you’re done you’ll leave.”
“I didn’t say that. I said I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“G….” Nick sounded like he was about to choke. “I spend three years regretting
that I never made a move. I got a second chance, and now you’re leaving again.”
“Nick, none of this was part of the plan. This just happened and have no idea
what to do about it.” Greg was still turned away from Nick, but his voice had
gotten shaky. He wiped few tears from his cheeks. “Just…. go. Please.”
Nick waited for a minute, but Greg wasn’t going to say anything more. “Okay.”
He walked to the door. “But I’ll come back. You’re not leaving me again.”
--------------------------------
Five hours later sun was gone and the neon lights were lighting up the city. Cathe-
rine’s neighbourhood was dim. Most of the resident were asleep. Nobody saw
how a man dressed in black skulked around her house to the backdoor. He pulled
out a lock pick and started working on the lock. It opened easily and he walked
in carefully. He pulled the ski mask lower on his face and headed to the bedroom.
TBC