Title: Rebirth
Author: Dee
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1037
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Characters: Gil Grissom and Nick Stokes
Warnings: AU and fluff!
Spoilers: Vague mention of events in S.11
Disclaimer: In my dreams they are like, totally mine!
Unbeta-ed: All mistakes will be mine.
A/N 1: selkie3 posted an entry in her Lj and in passing mentioned that she hadn’t read a fic where Nick…so I wrote one…

***

It was Jim who gave him the idea.

There wasn’t much comparison between their injuries.  Jim had hovered between life and death for several days; Nick had been able to walk to the ambulance.

But Jim had told him that when he’d fully recovered from his injuries he’d had a tattoo of the date he was shot put beneath the bullet wound…to remind him of his close brush with death.

Nick decided that he should mark the occasion in the same way but was then undecided about what to have done.  The date seemed a bit dry and anyway Jim had had that done and he didn’t want to copy him but he couldn’t decide what to have done. 

So he didn’t have anything done.

The months slipped by and the idea faded from his mind and he got on with his work, too busy to worry about anything else.  He put his life on hold and concentrated on getting over the disasters that he and the lab had endured and then something odd happened.

Sara told him in confidence that she and Grissom were divorcing.  That the marriage wasn’t working out…she didn’t elaborate and Nick didn’t pursue it.  Sara made Ecklie aware when she was finally divorced but otherwise kept the information to herself.

And then he met Grissom.  In the forum shops no less; a place he rarely frequented and a place he would never have expected to see Grissom.

“Gris?  Man, good to see you.”  Nick extended his hand and Grissom turned to him and smiled and took Nick’s hand in both of his.

“Nick.  Nicky.  It’s been too long.  How are you?”

“I’m good.  Yeah, real good.”  Nick thought for a moment about not mentioning the divorce and then decided he would.  No point in pretending he didn’t know.  “Sorry to hear about you and Sara.  It took me by surprise.”

Gil looked equally surprised at Nick’s mention of Sara.  “I didn’t think she’d told anyone…except Ecklie.  Did he tell you?”

“No, Sara did before she even told Conrad.”

“Really?  A measure of her trust in you, then.  Do you want to get a drink?  Reminisce?”

“Yeah, that would be good.  There’s a bar in there…”  He nodded towards the Planet Hollywood café a few yards from where they stood.

“Will we be able to hear ourselves think in there?”

“No idea.  We could try it for size.”

The men were pleasantly surprised by the muted music and sat at the bar nursing beers and staring at a silent sports screen, all thoughts of conversation apparently forgotten.

Nick didn’t feel uncomfortable.  He knew Gil Grissom of old, he could stay silent for hours but it wasn’t unpleasant, it was, in truth, relaxing.  Sharing space without the necessity of having to make small talk.  But quite suddenly Grissom broke the silence.

“We both had affairs.”

Nick was almost speechless…but managed to splutter.  “Really?”

“Yes.  Really.  You’re surprised?”

“Very.  You appeared to be pretty solid; well, before she left.”

“The mistake was that we both knew it was over then, after Warrick, but we still went ahead and married.”

“I’m sorry…for you both.”

“We learned our lesson the hard way, but we’re okay.  Did she tell you anything else about the divorce?”

“No.  Nothing.”

“I discovered another side to me, as did Sara of herself.”

“What was that?”

“That I liked men.”

“Oh.”

“And Sara likes women.”  He huffed out a laugh.  “Ridiculous that we should marry each other and then discover that we actually liked the same sex.  But that’s what happened.  Sara is with her new partner, an anthropologist at WLVU.”  Gil drank some of his beer.

“And you?”  Nick was smirking.

“He was a doctor with the Peruvian expedition.  He had…he has, a long-time partner and they have, apparently, an open relationship.  So they sleep around but are a couple.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be; he’s history.  You’re gay aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am.”  It was Nick’s turn to laugh.

“What’s funny?”

“You’ve never mentioned it before; I thought you didn’t know.”

“I knew.  I had no reason to mention it.”

“Fair enough.”

“Are you in a relationship?”

“Nah…they all fall apart.  Unsocial hours, the job.  A million reasons but always very valid at the time.”

“It was Sara who told me.”

“Told you that I was gay?”

“No.  No, like I said I knew.  Sara told me that Peter…the doctor, in Peru…”  Nick nodded.  “…was your double.  He wasn’t Texan, but near enough, Oklahoma.  She said when I got back to Vegas I should look you up.”

Nick was incredulous.  “Sara was…she was trying to fix us up?”

“I think so.  I wasn’t going to look you up, Nick, but meeting you here…it was just…”

“…fate?  I rarely come here but there’s a sale on at the Christian Dior store and they’ve got some killer discounts on jeans and tees.”

“I was supposed to meet my mother at the Trevi…but she texted me and said she couldn’t make it…some crisis or other at the college.  It is fate.”

“Have you got a booking at the Trevi?”

“Yes, I was on my way to cancel it.”

“Well let’s go together and discuss how fate just threw us together.”

“That’s a good idea.  Are you intimating, Nick, that I, we, have a chance…”

“I am indeed.  Here’s to Sara.”  He lifted his beer bottle and clinked it against Grissom’s raised glass.  

It was nearly three months later that Nick decided on the tattoo he was going to get to go over his shotgun scars.

A Phoenix rising out if the ashes. 

That’s what he felt like.  After the years he’d had…his abduction, Jim’s shooting, Sara leaving, Warrick’s death, Gil leaving, being shot and nearly blown up…he really felt as if he had risen from the ashes and was reborn, in the arms of a lover he never expected to find but whom he would love, he knew, for his lifetime…

The colourful bird rose out of the flames and ashes that licked around the wounds on his chest from above his left breast up to his shoulder.  He wore it with pride and happiness and as a symbol of his rebirth with Gil Grissom. 

The End