TITLE: The Course of Time
BY: Demon Faith
FANDOM: CSI: Vegas
PAIRINGS: Nick/Greg, Sara/Warrick and Gil/Cath implied.
SPOILERS: 'Play With Fire'
NOTES: After watching the spectacular 'Enterprise' AU episode, Future Alternate Universes are on the brain. But I did mention to Kyla that I'd try some Nick/Greg for this challenge before I give slash up for Lent, so CSI it is.
writers_choice challenge: time

***

The wind carried the scents of cinnamon bagels and rich coffee up to the balcony, and Nick breathed in the aroma like a dying man. A diet, Greg said, a detox diet with no bagels and no coffee and a morning run. Right past the bagel stand. His husband was a sadist.

He liked to come out onto the balcony in the mornings, if he could stand the temptations from below – he liked to watch the people and the places he knew so well. There was the police department, where Brass still pushed paper and acted like running the town was no big deal, just a job. The Strip, a glitter of glass, spreading and evolving until it more resembled a separate city, a 'den of iniquity' as Gil would surely say.

The world changed pretty damn fast when you watched it from above, and didn't Nick know it. Ten years it had been, ten years since they'd moved into the high-rise with a view and everything had just flowed on around them like nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

Sara Sidle-Brown, a lecturer in Forensic Science at the University. She always brought her simulators and her term papers over for them to play with, to debug. Nick could never work out how he'd ever passed these papers without Greg to gently tease him into the answers, to solve the puzzle three steps ahead of him and pretend he hadn't at all. His mother had always told him to marry up.

Warrick Brown, the champion of LVPD's crime department. The junior CSIs never knew what hit them when Warrick quoted Classic Grissom and let them make their own mistakes gracefully. Nick had never managed grace under pressure, but he liked to think he was learning.

Catherine Grissom, FBI Forensic Consult. Nick knew Gil had taken it as a personal insult when his wife had defected to the Feds, but Catherine loved her job and the travelling it allowed her to do. She dropped by with cake and gossip every month like clockwork, and they both allowed her to mother them and forget time had ever passed. Cath had a way of sucking them into her time warp, and it did them both good to leave the past in the shadows. For a while, anyway.

Gil Grissom, author of the greatest forensic treatises to grace the 21st Century. And Nick made no exaggeration in his praise. His books were required reading on Sara's courses and every crime lab in the country held copies on the shelf. Nick had them all, and he would laugh when he recognised his own actions in the chapter marked 'Never, under any circumstances...' Greg had offered to expand on that principle in his own book, but Nick shot him a look and it remained only as an impish smirk.

And finally, Nick Stokes...

The door to the veranda clattered open, and the gentle grate of wheels on stone grew louder as Greg joined him. Hands resting lightly on the wheels, he looked up at Nick and smiled as blindingly as he ever had.

"You're up early."

"I was admiring the view."

"You were admiring the bagels."

Nick grinned and looked down, his own time course solidifying before his eyes. Nick Stokes, Greg Sanders' husband, and kindergarten teacher. He had plenty of practice at home, that's for sure.

Nick rested his knees carefully on the chair, flicking the brake almost casually, and kissed Greg good morning. He played idly with the soft brown hair, and sighed.

"D'ya ever wonder...if maybe, things had been different..."

"Nope, never."

Nick frowned at him, but Greg just laughed.

"The lab exploded," Nick flinched, "I gained some wheels. We have fun, we do our jobs, and you're here with me. It all turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself."

Greg grinned at him with only the barest shadows in his eyes, and Nick let go of the past and embraced the present, who yelped and muttered about sentimental old Texans with too much time on their hands.

In those arms, Nick could only agree.

***