Title: The Ghost and Dr Grissom - The Prologue
Author: Dee
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4338
Pairings: Gil/Nick
Characters: Gil Grissom and Nick Stokes and all the usual suspects and more.
Warnings: Fluff and v.AU. There is a MAJOR character death, as if you hadn’t guessed.
Spoilers: There are vague references to old episodes.
Disclaimer: In my dreams they are like, totally mine!
Beta: jayceepat and podga for their invaluable help in the Americanisation of the fic and their insightful comments, which I may well have ignored! I thank high_striker for his wonderful icons. I am indebted to them all. Any errors are mine.
A/N: This is loosely based on a very old UK telly programme (there was a remake) called ‘Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)’. I know I have (unforgivably) killed off my favourite character but I hope the title is an indication that it isn’t ALL bad. However, I have separated The Prologue from the body of the tale because frankly it is v.v.sad indeed…and I haven’t put the rest of it into chapters yet!

Prologue.

It was an accident; terrible and tragic, unexpected, but mercifully very quick.

Gil, Warrick and Catherine were at a scene in the foothills where a climber had been missing but was now found, dead. He looked as if he’d fallen down a short sharp incline; right now his body was about ten feet above them and still inaccessible. Gil was assessing the scene and really couldn’t see why this incident warranted four CSIs. Nick had gone back to his truck to retrieve a rope.

“We’ll just secure the scene and wait for search and rescue to retrieve the body and then I’ll leave you and Nick to do the business.” He nodded towards Warrick.

“No problem boss man.”

Nick returned with the rope. “Are we waiting for search and rescue to get up to the DB?” and at Gil’s nod to his question continued. “Not that their search rescued him.”

“They do their best Nick and the search area was huge; no one was able to give the exact route he’d taken and that was his misfortune, though he may have been killed outright…it happens. If it hadn’t been for the walkers smelling the guy he may never have been recovered, so at least there will be reasonable closure for his family.”

“Yeah, Gris.” Nick accepted his lecture with good grace.

Just then the throbbing of the helicopter suddenly came within their hearing, always odd since it was so loud, but downwind and round the corner of a bluff.

Nick turned to look for it and as he did so he lost his footing and fell backwards, his arms flailing trying to remain upright but losing the battle as he as fell, the rope still in his hand. No one was close enough to him to help but three pairs of hands all shot out to help as he fell to the ground.

There was a sickening crunch as he hit the ground. His body was well padded with several layers of clothing to protect him in the chill air, with his CSI vest on top of all that. But his head was bare.

The three standing CSIs rushed the few feet and Warrick went to speak. “You clums….” but the words died on his breath as he looked down at his best friend.

They had all seen too many bodies not to realise immediately that Nick Stokes was dead. His eyes open and full of surprise, blood from his nose and mouth - but not flowing - and an immediate spread of blood beneath his head.

Warrick and Catherine just stood there absolutely unable to move. Their shocked expressions matching Nick’s.

Gil crouched down besides Nick and spoke his name, in vain, (or so he thought) “Nick, Nick?”

He put his fingers to Nick’s neck checking for a non-existent pulse. He crouched down further and pulled his flashlight out of his own vest. He shone it under Nick’s head and could see the rock. It was imbedded in Nick’s skull or actually it looked as of it may have missed the skull and entered the brain at the base of the skull at the very top of his spine. Gil didn’t know the depth of the wound but guessed it was several inches at least and that death had been instantaneous.

Gil suddenly uttered a cry, “Oh God.” And leaned back on his haunches as if it had only just registered that he’d been checking the body of his colleague, his friend, one of the happiest and kindest men he’d ever met. Dead. Here. In front of him. In the blink of an eye.

It was probably less than a minute since the fall and all three of them were quickly deteriorating into shock.

Catherine howled. “NO. NO. No. Nicky no. Please Nicky…no.” Her voice grew quieter but she started sobbing and turned into Warrick putting her hands on his chest trying to grab at his vest but finding nothing to hold.

Warrick was silent, but as Catherine scratched at his vest he put his arms around her and held her tightly. His dry unblinking eyes did not leave the dry unblinking eyes of Nick.

Gil was gasping, trying to get a deep breath into his lungs. He had dealt with death all his life, even as a child he’d been fascinated by the very end of life. He’d attended prisons and witnessed capital punishment at first hand, he’d seen Catherine kill a man that had, in turn, saved his own life, and he’d sat with his mother as she slipped slowly and he’d hoped, painlessly, into unconsciousness and then death.

But he’d never witnessed something as stupid and unexpected as a friend dying in an accident in a matter of what, two seconds? Gil didn’t know that he was crying; tears ran down both cheeks and dripped onto the front of his clothes. Nick, Nicky; ‘Stokes’, as his vest declared - was lying dead before him.

The next hours passed in a blur. The search and rescue team emerged from the helicopter to the surreal scene and it didn’t take them long to realise what had happened. They immediately called it in and within the hour police, paramedic, and another search and rescue, helicopters were lined up.

A sheet had been placed over Nick at Gil’s insistence – he wasn’t about to let just anyone see their friend. Scene contamination or not, the three of them could attest to the accident.

The day shift had been roused to deal with the fallen climber and Ecklie himself appeared to deal with Nick, only to be physically held back by Gil.

“No one, Ecklie, no one but me is touching Nick. I’ll process, on my own, when everything else has been cleared. David can pronounce death and I will stay with Nick as he’s taken back to the lab and while he’s autopsied. Me, Ecklie, no one else. It will be the last thing I can do for him. Preserve his privacy and his dignity.”

Ecklie waited a few moments and as if he fully understood Gil’s need to do this last rite for Nick, he nodded. “Shall I deal with his family and the press?”

“The press. Keep it quiet as you can ‘til I’m back and I’ll call his parents…they know me. It’s only right.”

Ecklie nodded again and looked down at the sheet covered body. “He’s had some close shaves hasn’t he? His luck finally ran out. It’s almost like God was determined to get him one way or another, and like you Grissom, I don’t believe.”

Two thoughts came to Gil as Ecklie walked away.

Firstly, that Nick had been in more scrapes and near misses than everyone else put together. Holly Gribbs had died from gunshot wounds inflicted at a scene – but it was her first shift.

Nick had been close to death four times, twice from guns held to his face, once by being thrown out of a second floor window and once while incarcerated in a casket underground with a diminishing supply of oxygen and an increasing supply of fire ants. He had survived to die in a freak accident, that no one could have foreseen or guessed, or imagined would happen; with no chance to prevent it.

Gil’s second thought was. ‘How does Ecklie know I’m an atheist?’

Gil was true to his word. All personnel were moved away. The climber would be processed later, since he’d been dead for several days at least it wouldn’t make any difference. Warrick and Catherine would be flown back to LVPD. Their trucks would be driven back by other LVPD staff. Gil would accompany Nick’s body in the Paramedic’s helicopter. Not usually offering to fly the dead since they were in no rush, they’d made an exception for Nick.

David arrived. He pronounced the climber and then moved to Gil’s side and looked down at the sheet. “Come on David, let’s do it.” Gil put his hand on David’s back in a comforting gesture.

David’s eyes were swimming with tears and Gil bent down and pulled the sheet from the upper part of Nick’s body. Nick’s eyes remained open but had already developed the opaqueness of the dead. His healthy skin colour had given way to a deathly grey pallor and the metallic smell of the blood on his face and beneath his head assaulted their nostrils as it began its rapid decomposition.

David knelt by Nick and opened the clothing that he could and pulled up the jumper and tee to expose Nick’s abdomen. He felt for a pulse on Nick’s neck, just as Gil had done. He then inserted the thermometer into Nick’s abdomen to check his liver temperature. He withdrew it after the requisite time and looked at the thermometer. “Death occurred about two hours ago.” He looked at Gil as tears coursed down his face.

“Two hours and ten minutes ago. Yes.” Gil replied.

Forty minutes later Gil was on his way to the LVPD helipad with Nick.

When they touched down there was crowd waiting for them. They were all wind blown by the rotors of the helicopter, but stood silently as Nick’s body was gently laid onto a gurney. They formed two lines on either side of him as the gurney was wheeled indoors followed by Gil. Most were openly crying. Nick was liked by all, and loved by many, of his colleagues; they would be very hard pressed to find anyone who didn’t actually like him.

Nick was taken to the morgue. At the doors Doc Robbins waited, and held them open as the paramedics delivered their precious cargo. Gil followed them in and thanked them for their kindness and thoughtfulness. They waved him off, Nick Stokes was known to them.

The three of them were alone. Doc Robbins limped to the side of the trolley.

“I’ll help you Al, but I’ve got to tell his parents first. The press’ll be all over this and it would be unforgivable if they heard from any other source.”

“I’ll stay with him Gil, don’t worry, no one will be allowed in, Ecklie came down to tell me and Jim said to call him if there are any problems.”

“I don’t think there will be, Ecklie has spoken to everyone and said it’ll be just be me and you.”

Just at that moment there was a knock on the door and Ecklie pushed one of the swing doors open. “This is his file with his parents’ numbers in. I figured you could do it down here out of the glare of the offices.”

“Thanks Conrad, that’d be good. Thank you for taking care of this.”

“He was one of us Gil, one of us.” He handed the file to Gil and nodded at Al and looked at the covered body as he had at the site. He shook his head, sighed and then left.

Al pointed to his office with his crutch. “Go in there and I’ll start the coffee, we’ll both need it, Gil.”

Gil took off his CSI vest and the jacket that he had on beneath that and sat at Al’s desk. He opened the file and looked at the names typed out.

Judge William Stokes.

Mrs Jillian Stokes.

Their baby was dead. He was thirty five, but he was their baby. Gil remembered when they’d come to Las Vegas when Nick had been abducted by Walter Gordon. ‘Pancho’, the Judge had called him and Gil had used the nickname to gain his attention when they’d found his burial site and unearthed his casket. His mother had called him ‘Baby’ when they were in the hospital and Nick had been happy to be his ‘Momma’s’ baby. He hadn’t been embarrassed at all. Just loved.

Gil bowed his head and groaned. He must do this now, straight away, or Ecklie would end up doing it and that would be wrong. So Gil took several very deep breaths and picked up Al’s ‘phone and dialled the number for the Stokes’ family home. They had both gone to work. Gil managed to get Judge Stokes’ office number and ‘phoned that number.

If he thought seeing Nick die before his eyes was hard it paled into insignificance delivering that news to his father. Judge Stokes was ‘old school’ and regained his composure after a short time. He thanked Gil. Thanked him for telling him his son was dead.

He said he would make arrangements to come to Las Vegas to collect Nick and bring him home. Gil said he would make the arrangements at his end if Judge Stokes let him know which flight he and, he presumed, Mrs Stokes would be on. When they’d sorted the broad details of what would happen Gil thought they both seemed to be talking about a stranger - perhaps in denial, or shock, or both.

Gil paused and could hear Judge Stokes’ breathing, it was erratic. But, Gil felt he should say something. “Judge, your son is one……was one of our finest. He combined the skills he needed to be an outstanding CSI with a kindness and understanding for the victim that was unrivalled in this department. I cannot tell you how much I…how much we will all miss him. He’ll never be replaced…never……”

“Your kind words mean a great deal to me Dr Grissom. I must go now and do my duty, sir.”

“I understand…no, actually, I don’t understand, at all……”

“The lord moves in mysterious ways, Dr Grissom, we must accept that.”

“Yes Judge.” Is what Gil said, ‘…bullshit…’ is what he thought, ’…if the Lord did anything why didn’t he choose to screw over a few who really deserved it.’

“Good day Dr Grissom…tell Pancho we’ll be there soon.”

“I will, I promise.”

The call ended and Gil put his head in his hands and thought about when he’d asked Nick ‘to promise’, the time he’d called him ‘Pancho’.

His misery was interrupted by Al putting a mug of coffee on the desk by his elbow.

“Good coffee here, but I’ve ruined it with a load of sugar, figure you need it.”

“I probably do. Thanks.”

Gil picked up the ‘phone again and dialled Ecklie’s number and briefed him about his promises to the Stokes’s. Ecklie agreed to it and said that he would arrange for a car to pick them up and to bring them here, a hotel overnight and a mortician to prepare Nick for transport home.

Gil found it strange that Texas was suddenly Nick’s home. He knew Nick visited often and was close to his huge family but somehow he thought that Nick considered Las Vegas his home now. Well, it had been.

After recovering his composure a little, he started to prepare Nick for his autopsy. He couldn’t remember being so gentle with an adult, such reverence was usually reserved for children. Perhaps he saw Nick as a ‘child’, his ‘son’, never just a colleague or employee; Nick was more…to everyone.

When all Nick’s clothes had been removed Gil stared at the body lying so still and cold. He was magnificent. He worked out, less than he used to, so his muscles were well defined but they weren’t bulging. His chest was smooth and hairless, his genitalia were perfectly proportioned and his legs straight and true – even his feet were elegant.

Gil puffed a small laugh out and looked at Al. “Perfect specimen, Doc, what do you think? There are times when I’m at a loss, at a complete and utter loss, at the arbitrariness of our lives. Why did he survive so much to die so uselessly? Why?”

“If I knew the answer to that, Gil, I’d be very wealthy or possibly a God. We see the worst all the time and yet here’s Nick, and he’s got to be one of the best. I don’t know anymore than you. I survived an auto crash thirty years ago losing both legs and a couple of organs and hovered between life and death for weeks. The guy driving hadn’t got a scratch on him but died from a broken neck. The guys in the back both walked away from it. It was an accident, like this, random.”

Gil listened to Al and knew he was right. Life was random; death was random, unless you chose otherwise.

The next hour passed in a haze. The autopsy confirmed what they all knew. Blunt force trauma, - oh, the irony - to the back of the head. Death was absolutely inevitable, the damage too extensive and immediate. Gil had known that, as had Warrick and Catherine.

What they didn’t know and were sure Nick wouldn’t have known, was that he had cancer; Al had nearly missed the small abnormal cluster in his right temporal lobe.

They’d have it biopsied, of course, but Al was almost one hundred percent certain – he’d seen the type before. On a hunch he checked Nick’s liver and found the same sort of clusters in several places. Al’s opinion was that Nick would have had no idea or symptoms at this early stage; he was also fairly sure that it would have been a death sentence.

The information stunned Gil.

Did the lord move in mysterious ways? Give him a cancer that would kill him slowly and painfully, or do it quick and get the same result. To tell his parents?

Gil didn’t even consider not telling them, they had the right to know everything and withholding evidence wasn’t something he could ever do.

“You do know, Gil, that it’s a possibility, very remote I must admit, but Nick’s seemingly senseless fall could have been the result of a momentary loss of balance, the first symptom he might have experienced.”

Gil leaned on the edge of the autopsy table; this seemed to be just one piece of information too much. He looked at Al and shook his head.

“Let’s finish up here and tidy him up for his parents.”

“Shall we put him in scrubs or just cover him up?”

“Don’t know, Al, don’t know anything anymore.”

“I’ll sort it, get David to help, you should get back into the lab, see your friends, I bet they’re all waiting for you.”

Gil nodded and stripped off the surgical gown he’d worn, he collected his stuff from Al’s office. “Thanks, Al, for everything. Nick, I think, would have liked to have thanked you himself.” He looked down at Nick and took hold of an icy hand. “Your Mom and Dad are coming for you Nick; they’ll take care of you.”

Al smiled, faintly, and wondered why he hadn’t become an obstetrician, much more of a good news job than the one he’d got.

Gil was so weary he could hardly make it to his office. When he entered he saw that his kit, left at the scene, was now standing on his desk. Ecklie followed him into his office.

“No one will leave until they’ve spoken to you. I ordered them, they refused. Come and speak to them Gil and then I’ll get someone to drive you home.”

Gil rested against his desk for a few moments and rubbed his eyes. He then looked up and nodded to Ecklie who moved out of the office. Gil followed him to the break room which was crammed with his team and, as far as he could se, all the graveyard staff and some others too.

The forlorn faces looked at him as he entered.

“I have no speech or anything much to say. You all know Nick, our Nick, died from the blow of a jagged rock to the base of his skull, penetrating his brain. It was instantaneous. I know…I was there. It was just an accident. It was…just an accident. Go home now, rest up and remember that Nick loved his job like we all do and…well…go home now….. There’s nothing more to be done.”

Several people were crying again and Gil suddenly had had enough, he felt claustrophobic in the room with so many people and his breathing was becoming laboured. He turned and left, his team detached themselves from the others and followed Gil. They filed silently into his office behind him.

“I took good care of him with Al.” He said, with his back to them. “It was the least I could do. His parents will be here later today and will take him…home with them tomorrow. I think we should meet up with them as a team just to pay our respects, perhaps before they leave with…Nick.”

Catherine came up behind Gil and wrapped her arms around him so that she lay against his back.

“You did good Gil; you did more than we could have done for him. He’d be proud, our Nicky, and we all are too.”

Gil couldn’t speak. He nodded. Ecklie brought up the rear. “Okay, go home. I’ll have you all paged when I know when the family will be here for you to meet. It’s been a bad day, a real bad day.”

They all left as quietly as they’d come. Ecklie put a solid hand on Gil’s shoulder. “You’ve done more than enough Gil, come on, I’ll take you home.”

Gil chuckled to himself. Nick would have laughed uproariously at the ‘new’ Ecklie - being all solicitous and caring. Or maybe not.

He raised no objection and followed Ecklie to his car and sat silently as he was delivered to his front door. Luckily Ecklie knew to be quiet as well – there really wasn’t anything to say. Gil’s truck was behind them being driven by a lab rat.

He didn’t invite Ecklie in and Ecklie made no move to follow him just watched him enter his townhouse and waved as Gil looked back towards the car, the lab rat sitting where he’d been sitting, and then drove off.

Gil walked into his cool house, closed the door and leant against it. He was so exhausted and he couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so helpless. He squeezed his eyes shut and saw the fall, heard the crunch and saw the surprise in Nick’s eyes.

He then put his hand to his mouth and rushed to his bathroom. His head hung over the toilet bowl as his stomach expelled its contents. Fluids, coffee, nothing else. He sank to his knees and retched until his stomach hurt, his throat hurt, his chest hurt and his heart had splintered into a thousand pieces. His eyes hurt as tears coursed down his cheeks, hot rivers on his dry skin. He was sobbing in jerks. He pushed himself to his feet and made an attempt to clean around the toilet with some toilet tissue and then flushed.

Gil took off all his clothes as he stood there and hauled himself under the shower, shuddering as the cold water poured over him – he hadn’t waited for it to warm up. He stood, leaning forward, braced against the wall and sobbed uncontrollably. He made some semblance of washing himself down and when the water ran cold, he turned it off and got out. His sobbing had subsided leaving him shaky and bleary eyed. He dried off and cleaned his teeth, just like everything was normal. He took a piss, washed his hands; got a glass of water and moved to his bedroom.

He sat on the side of the bed and put his water down and looked down at his legs and feet, they worked alright but he was bandy and his feet were old and misshapen, nothing like the elegant legs and feet he’d seen, not long ago, on the body of Nick, ‘Nicky, my boy’.

He started sobbing again; heavy uncontrollable sobs and he fell sideways onto his bed, grabbed a pillow and hugged it to him as he curled into a foetal position. His broken heart breaking into even smaller pieces. He lay for a long time like this, he couldn’t remember ever feeling so empty and bereft, even his mother’s death hadn’t caused this reaction and he’d loved her so much. Maybe it was the shock, the unexpected, the sight of it. He didn’t know.

What Gil wasn’t aware of was the comfort he was being given; he suddenly, it seemed to him, felt a little better, his sobbing quieted and the tears dried up, he stretched out on the bed and pulled his blankets up around him and felt rested, almost. A calm, pleasant feeling overtook him and he began to drift off to sleep. He fell asleep and dreamed pleasant dreams, as a very young boy with his mom and dad on the beach near their home, trying to learn how to cartwheel.

As a student at school receiving the highest scholarly accolade they had to offer, with his mom smiling up at him. At university graduating top of the class with his mom and…Gloria…smiling up at him. This was a good dream he hadn’t thought of her for years. Having discovered the joys of sex late in his university life, he’d made up for it with Gloria - like the bunnies in the lab.

Gil was smiling in his sleep and looked relaxed and content as the hours slipped by.

Would he have been so relaxed and so content if he’d known that Nick Stokes had stroked his hair and rubbed his back muttering soothing sounds, like a mother would to a baby, as he’d cried into his pillow?

Would he have been so relaxed and so content if he’d known Nick Stokes was practising walking through walls, in his townhouse, as he slept?

Would he have been so relaxed and so content if he’d known Nick Stokes was lying on his bed next to him, head against his headboard and hands linked behind his head contemplating his death and this very strange turn of events.

Possibly not……

End of the Prologue