Bobby got the call at something like four a.m.
It was one of those odd, undeniable flukes of life, that night in May. Usually, Lisa slept over at Mrs. Kramer’s house so Bobby could work – she was a nice older woman, lived next door, was perfectly pleasant and loved children to bits – but Mrs. Kramer had gone up to Reno to visit relatives, and Scott (as usual) had been too damn busy to bother himself with parenting. A quick call to Ecklie and some bargaining later, and Bobby had four days off (and four doubles waiting for him next month). A small price to pay, he supposed.
When the phone rang, at something like four a.m. – Bobby never looked at the clock – he groaned and groped for it with his eyes closed, an automatic reaction. He was only half-asleep, certainly, but it was still annoying; he was aiming for a normal sleep schedule, and ringing phones would not help that endeavor.
“H’lo?” he slurred, pressing his phone to his ear.
“Bobby?”
There was something just odd enough about the edge to David Hodges’ voice that caught in the back of Bobby’s brain. David’s normal tone was one part biting and one part sardonically amused, but this tone was completely different. This tone sounded almost worried, which was disconcerting at best and downright creepy at four a.m.
“David, if this is a prank call, I will kill you.” He paused, his sleep-idled mind considering. “No. I’ll kill Jacqui. She’d be the one with the idea.”
For a moment, the line was silent, and Bobby forced his eyelids open. His room was dark – a natural darkness, not caused by blackout shades in the middle of the day – and he almost felt as though he’d found the one place in the universe devoid of all light and sound. A black hole in his master bedroom, perhaps. An interesting phenomenon, if he could ever get out.
“David?” he pressed, and his voice caught slightly. A silent David on the line concerned him. Actually, it terrified him. “David, what’s going on?”
He could hear the subtle sounds of speaking in the background, and a shuffling noise. “Hey, Bobby,” Greg Sanders said, and Bobby frowned into the darkness. “Did we wake you?”
Bobby sat up slightly, rubbing his bleary eyes and trying to find shapes he recognized in the black bedroom, sharpening his senses so he could rule out the possibility of all this being some sort of dream. “Yeah, you did,” he replied. “What’s going on?”
The new silence lasted a beat before Greg returned. His voice sounded far away, tangled up in something, not quite all there. “You should come in. It’s… It’s Nick.”
Bobby’s mouth immediately went dry, and he stared into the darkness of his bedroom. The quiet washed over him, deep and wide, and he sunk into it. “Bobby?”
“I’m here, Greg.” His own voice felt strange, detached, and he swallowed the lump rising in his throat. “What’s… What’s Nick, Greg? What happened?”
On the other end of the line, Greg sighed heavily, the rushing breath crackling against the mouthpiece of his phone. “He’s been kidnapped.”
==
There were many things Bobby never really wanted to experience. Dragging his four-and-a-half-year-old into work definitely topped that list. Also near the top, incidentally, was having his boyfriend kidnapped by some psycho who they knew nothing about.
The combination was painful.
The receptionist sent him an odd look as he burst into the lab only a half-hour after he’d gotten the call, Lisa clinging to his neck in her purple pajamas and whining that she wanted to go back to bed. The crime lab reminded him vaguely of a war outpost, everyone rushing this way or that and pressing past each other in the hallways. He tried to remain calm as he surged past the forms of strangers and friends until he made it to the break room.
Mia, for all her surliness, nearly covered both him and his daughter with water as she surged forward to greet him. “Hodges is in trace,” she informed him. “He said I should send you over there. I can watch her.”
Bobby set Lisa on the break room couch, and she peered up at him through sleepy eyes. “Daddy, why’re we at work?”
He froze at the question and cast a sideways glance at Mia. She twisted the cap to her water bottle – once, twice, then three times – and shrugged helplessly. Sighing, he crouched down in front of her and grabbed her hands, squeezing them tightly.
“Daddy’s got some stuff to take care of, baby doll,” he soothed, forcing himself to smile. She stared at him cautiously, and he wondered how old children had to be before they could tell their parents were lying to them. “Big, important, grown-up work stuff. But you listen to me, okay? Mia’s gonna sit here with you for a little while so I can do my work. And then, I’ll come back. Okay?”
She nodded slightly, her bed-messy curls bobbing. “What if your work takes a real long time?” she asked as he released her hands.
“It won’t, baby. I’ll make sure of that.” He leaned in and landed a kiss on her cheek. She smiled at him as he rose to his feet, a wide, innocent smile, and he forced himself to keep smiling until he turned around to face Mia, and the doorway looming behind her.
“She’ll be fine,” Mia assured him, walking forward to pat him on the shoulder. “We don’t have anything for me to work on right now, anyway. And if I have to go back into the lab, I’ll take her up to reception.” Her hand tightened, a comforting squeeze. “He’s going to be okay.”
Bobby only realized that he was nodding dully after he left the break room, nodding to himself as he slipped past stranger after stranger and into the trace lab, unnoticed. The lab was busy, but also eerily quite, free of the laughter and chatter he’d become so accustomed to. He slid the door to the lab shut behind him, and when he turned back around, both Hodges and Greg were staring at him. They were cautious stares, as though both men expected him to explode in a fiery ball at any wrong movement.
“Hey,” he greeted, his hands finding their way into his pockets.
“Hey.” Hodges nodded his hello, and Greg’s head bobbed, too, a silent acknowledgement. “We’re just kind of waiting, now. Haven’t heard anything.”
“Less than anything, really.” Greg smiled weakly and just looked at him, his eyes very steady and sincere. Bobby leaned against the evidence counter, watching his friends watch him. “It was a junk call. Some kind of entrails, and…” He shrugged slightly, hands in his pockets. “Cath and Griss went to the scene. Warrick, too. The rest of us are just kind of – ”
“Waiting,” Hodges finished. His eyes were steadily focused on Bobby’s face, never inching away. “Listen, Bobby, if you need anything, I can – ”
He shook his head, effectively shutting his fellow technician up. “I’m fine,” he said in a voice that waved red “liar” flags. Greg sent him a sympathetic look, and he wanted desperately to repeat himself – maybe if he said it a second time, he’d believe it better – but his vocal chords faltered and left him to make a strangled half-sound. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. “I just want to know how it happened. Hell, even just what happened. I mean, Nick got – ”
The door burst open, just then, and they all jerked their heads around to see Conrad Ecklie striding into the lab, a blaze of neatly pressed, tailored suit and shiny tie. “Would anyone like to tell me why there is a child in the break room?”
Bobby flinched and then forced himself to raise a hand. “She’s mine,” he admitted sheepishly, and Ecklie’s glare immediately flicked in his direction. “Sorry. I came in to help, and – ”
“Well, you can take your daughter and yourself back home, Dawson,” he interrupted, his tone smooth and even. “You needed this week off, and you got it, so the last thing we need is you and your kid in the way of our investigation.”
Greg bristled and shot Hodges a tense look. “Hang on, now, Ecklie,” he countered. “Bobby can help us out. You said yourself that we need as many hands on deck as we can get, and – ”
“We don’t need a ballistics tech, and the days tech is here, anyway.” Ecklie sent Greg an angry look. “I don’t know if you noticed, Sanders, but one of your buddies is missing, and the last thing we need is an extra body and his kid interfering with the search and rescue.” Greg’s expression shifted suddenly from shocked to wounded, and Ecklie sighed. “Look, I want to find Nick as much as the rest of you,” he continued, “but the fact is – ”
“The fact is that Bobby will be fine.” Bobby jerked his head over to see Grissom standing in the doorway, still wearing his field jacket and baseball cap and looking surprisingly calm. “I just saw his daughter, and she fell asleep in the break room. I don’t think she’ll be interfering with anything, except sitting down on the couch.”
Ecklie shot him a very annoyed look. “Do you want him in the way?” he questioned sharply. “Because I thought you wanted Stokes to be found.”
“He won’t be in the way,” Grissom said matter-of-factly, as if he were pointing out a well-known fact. He won’t be in the way, and the Earth is round. If Bobby’s traitorous lips were actually allowing him to smile, he would have beamed at Grissom. “We could use the help.”
“We don’t need help,” Ecklie retorted, sounding an odd combination of ticked off and worried. “We need a miracle. Even you can see that, Gil.”
He shook his head and walked off before Grissom the chance to respond, his tailored suit disappearing around a corner. Bobby found himself glaring at that corner as though it’d done something personal to offend him, and only managed to soften his expression when Grissom – Gil Grissom, of all people – touched him lightly on the shoulder. “I’ll have Hodges fill you in,” he said conversationally. “Welcome to the team.”
“Yeah,” Bobby managed, nodding. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me,” Grissom replied with a half-shake of his head. “We just need the help.” His gaze drifted past Bobby and towards Greg, hovering there for a moment. “We’re meeting in the conference room,” he told him, jerking his head toward the door. “See you in five.”
Greg nodded curtly as Grissom turned and wandered off, and Bobby watched him, too, until he was out of sight and undoubtedly on to finding the other CSIs. A hand landed on Bobby’s arm as he watched the hallway with unfocused eyes, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Greg standing right next to him, staring into his face. “We’ll find him,” he vowed. “We will.”
“I know.” His wondered idly if he really sounded like that – choked and caught in the back of his throat, suspiciously weak. “Go to your meeting.”
For a moment, the other man stared at him, his gaze even and honestly concerned. “Go,” Bobby repeated, gently pulling his arm out of his grip. “David’ll give me something to do.”
Greg nodded slightly and, after casting his eyes back at Hodges for a moment, exited the lab in the same direction Grissom has gone. Bobby watched him leave, too, whirling around the corner, and was only vaguely aware of Hodges moving to stand beside him.
“I’m not an optimist,” he admitted quietly, and Bobby refused to let himself look away from the hallway. His stomach twisted violently as he watched Catherine and Warrick walk past, talking in hushed voices and completely unaware of being watched. “I’m not going to say – ”
“You don’t need to,” Bobby said, and dropped his eyes to the floor. “I know.”
==
Lisa had, indeed, fallen asleep in the break room, and Bobby joined her shortly after, sinking into a chair with a mug of coffee and watching her sleep. Someone – he guessed Mia – had draped an extra lab coat over her, and she almost looked peaceful, her thumb stuck in her mouth and her chest rising and falling in an even, comfortable cadence.
Bobby had no idea how long he watched her sleep, sitting in the hard-backed chair. His mind drifted from one thing to another: Lisa’s questions before he left her with Mia; Nick grinning over breakfasts; the ballistics reports he knew he was behind on; the sound of Nick’s voice, sleep-roughened in the afternoon; Greg’s eyes staring at him in the trace lab; Nick, somewhere out there, possibly dead. Every vision of Nick caused him to feel nauseous, almost dizzy, but it seemed the harder he tried not to think about it, the more he did.
“Daddy?” questioned a little voice suddenly, and Bobby jerked his head up to see Lisa staring at him, realizing belatedly that he’d been asleep. His coffee mug was cold to the touch and he set it down, shaking his head to clear it. “Daddy, you fell asleep.”
“Guess so,” he admitted, his mind swimming even as she clambered onto his lap and flopped against him like a limp rag doll. “Have a good nap?”
She nodded, her curls bouncing. “Do we go home, now?” she asked, peering up at him. “I wanna go home.”
He shook his head distractedly and smoothed her hair, the ringlet curls soft to the touch. “I… I still have work,” he told her gently.
“Big D came in and said you were sleepy,” Lisa pressed, reaching up to pet his hair like he was petting hers. He forced a little smile and propped his chin on his fist, watching her carefully. “If you’re sleepy, you should be sleepy at home. In a bed.”
“I wish,” he muttered, and she dropped her hand from his head, just looking at her. He forced his smile to return, but his mouth felt tight, miserably forced. “Just a little longer, and then we can go home.”
Lisa smiled and nuzzled her face into his shoulder. “Will Nicky come?”
The question caused Bobby to blink at her. “What?”
“Nicky,” she repeated insistently. “Will he come? He said he’d make me pancakes next time he came over.”
He tried to smile, but the attempt was absolutely futile, and he resigned himself to frowning at her and trying to hold back the dread and pain that was rising in his throat. “I don’t know, baby doll,” he informed her, leaning his cheek against her curls and breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo. “I’ll let you know.”
==
When the flash drive and cassette tape arrived at the lab, Bobby could do little more than watch from the hallway as the CSIs bustled around and worked to find a clue. Bits and pieces of what was really happening filtered to him through the steady pulse of people – strangers and friends – coming in and out of the break room for coffee and snacks.
“It’s a live feed,” Archie said quickly, stirring three packets of sugar into a half-mug of coffee. “I just started the trace. I’ll try to get you in, to see it. But right now, I gotta go.”
Mia refilled her water bottle from the Brita pitcher in the staff fridge. “His parents are coming,” she told Bobby, her eyes drifting towards Lisa. The little girl scribbled some sort of drawing onto some scratch paper with a ballpoint pen. “Grissom and Catherine are going to meet with them.”
“The department will not negotiate with terrorists,” Ecklie finished, addressing the assembled night shift crew and the few others who had given up their early mornings to come in and do what they could. He shoved his hands in his pockets and gave a shrug that tried to be disinterested. “I’m sorry.”
Time passed in the most surreal flashes as he tried to focus, shrugging on the coat that Lisa had been using as a blanket – apparently, it was his, from the ballistics lab – and trying to think clearly. He helped Hodges run some trace but kept glancing over his shoulder; he stopped in to check on Mia but couldn’t stop staring out in the hallway. His uselessness was coupled, constantly, by Lisa popping her head up from her drawings and asking him why they weren’t home yet, and if they were done working, and why wasn’t she at preschool today?
It was after another trip to check in on Lisa – who had managed to find cartoons on the break room television and was watching them while munching on vending machine M&Ms – that Bobby nearly ran into the older couple in the hallway. “Sorry,” he mumbled, averting his eyes toward the floor as he stepped around them. “I wasn’t watching – ”
“I’m sorry, young man, but we’re lost.” A hand landed on his arm, and he looked up into the woman’s face. She was old, older than his mother, with a kind face and gentle half-smile. His gaze drifted to the man at her side – tall and thin, with silver hair and a serious expression – and he tried to smile. “We’re looking for a Mister Grissom, and the receptionist’s directions…” Her voice caught, and she pursed her lips.
There was a spark of dampness in her eyes, just one spark, but it was enough for realization to dawn in the back of Bobby’s mind. He swallowed, hard, and tried to smile back. “He’s in the conference room,” he told her, reaching up to pat her on the hand. Her half-smile grew, and she wiped her eyes with manicured finger. “Just around the corner, actually. Would you like me to walk you – ”
“Thanks, son, but we’ve got it,” Mr. Stokes cut him off, moving to wrap a protective arm around his wife’s waist. There was kindness somewhere deep behind his serious façade and, beyond that, a touch of Nick. “You have a good night.”
He nodded and watched the Stokes’ pass, uncertain of what to do or say. He watched for a moment longer before following them in long strides. By the time he rounded the corner, they’d disappeared into the conference room, Catherine on their heels, and shut the door.
“Hey,” Archie said from behind him, and he turned his head to see the A/V tech at his shoulder. “Got a minute?”
Bobby nodded shallowly and followed Archie back down the hall, unsurprised when they ended up in his laboratory, in front of a computer monitor. A mostly-white internet page covered the screen, emblazoned with the words “you can only watch.” Archie slipped into his seat and glanced at him. “You… You want to see?” he asked, his voice suddenly much more cautious than it’d been in the hallway. “Because, you don’t have to, I just thought – ”
“No, I do,” Bobby replied, moving closer to the computer screen. He watched as the cursor moved over the word “watch,” and then inhaled sharply.
There, in full color, was Nick. He laid back against something that looked remarkably like clear plastic, his eyes closed and his head twisted to the side. His lips were moving, mouthing something that might have been words but could have been nonsense.
For a long moment, Bobby couldn’t move. Something rooted him to that spot, standing in the A/V and staring at the damned feed. He watched Nick’s eyelashes flutter, his nose wrinkle, and the wrinkles on the side of his face crinkle. Everything that made Nick who he was cemented in his memory, overtaking his senses, staring until his vision blurred and Nick became a mass of colors.
“Bobby,” Archie whispered, and minimized the window. The shock of Nick disappearing caused him to blink and clear his vision, and when he did blink, moisture came with it. “Bobby, listen, I – ”
He shook his head and turned around as quickly as he could, pushing past someone in the doorway – Sara? Warrick? Greg? He couldn’t tell – and letting his legs propel him down the hallway. When he reached the back door, he pushed it open and surged outside, surprised by the sunlight. He shielded his eyes and walked into the alley, staring at the familiar surroundings as though he’d never seen them before.
He was on his third slow circle outside the door – pacing meaninglessly, rubbing his face, trying to wake himself up from this nightmare – when he looked up and saw a silhouette looming there, harsh black against the morning sunlight.
“You saw the feed.” Grissom stepped out of the lab and onto the pavement, stopping only long enough to prop the door with the coffee can Jacqui had stashed out there as an ashtray. “He’s doing alright, as well as – ”
“I know, I know,” Bobby cut him off, and pressed his eyes shut. He sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Grissom. I didn’t mean to storm out. I’ll…” He opened his eyes and looked at the pavement and Grissom’s sensible shoes. “I’ll take Lisa and go home.”
He glanced up just in time to see Grissom nod slightly, blue eyes watching him carefully. Bobby frowned, not particularly enjoying the scrutiny. “You’re welcome to stay.”
“I’m not much help,” he replied with a snort. “I should go home. Get my daughter to school, and go to bed.”
“Stay.” Grissom almost made it a command, and his blue eyes locked Bobby’s gaze, staring him down steadily. “Nick would want you to stay.”
Bobby watched as he turned around and started up the two steps to the door, pushing it open with ease. “Hey, Griss,” he called. Grissom glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks.”
Grissom nodded, and then stepped back into the lab.
==
Bobby and Archie stood on the curb later that evening and watched the caravan of vehicles squeal their tires as they pulled out, sirens blearing and lights flashing long strips of color into the darkness. Five frantic phone calls to Scott had left Lisa in his capable hands, and – as much as Bobby hated to admit it – his ex had actually been mildly sympathetic as he whisked the confused preschooler away.
Lisa had hugged him, hard, before going with Scott. “Tell Nicky I’ll have his pancakes tomorrow,” she said. It’d taken all his willpower not to squeeze her to his chest in the middle of the reception area and refuse to let her go. Instead, he’d kissed her on the cheek and handed her off to Scott – wrinkled pajamas and all – before going back to the trace lab.
He was in the trace lab, now – his new stronghold, now that the cavalry had burst out of the parking lot – and watched idly as Hodges swabbed every nook and cranny of the “practice box” – Hodges’ inappropriate name, not his. He hadn’t been back to the feed since bursting out into the alley, and now, every time he even so much as glanced towards the A/V lab, Archie minimized the window. He hadn’t had to listen very hard to hear the words “fire ants,” though, so he was grateful for that small favor.
“These nodes are just weird,” Hodges muttered as he shook the tiny vial containing the trace scrapings before popping it into the GCMS. The machine buzzed and whirred, and he leaned up against the countertop. He looked almost casual about it, arms crossed and hip against Formica. “They’d have to serve a purpose, right?”
“Right,” Bobby agreed offhandedly, his attention not on the goings-on around him but rather on the cell phone clutched between his hands. He turned it over in his grip and then stared at the offending Caller ID, waiting. Greg had promised to call as soon as they found Nick, and even if the CSIs and police officers had only been gone for ten minutes, it already felt like hours. He listened to the GCMS and thought of all the events of the last twenty-four hours: the four a.m. phone call; Ecklie’s scolding; Lisa’s questions; Grissom’s wisdom; Walter Gordon blowing himself up; meeting Nick’s parents in the hallway; “you can only watch”; flowers; fire a –
“Call Catherine.”
The urgency in Hodges’ voice snapped Bobby from his reverie, and he glanced up, surprised to see raw panic in his friend’s face. The trace technician surged forward and pulled his cell phone right out of his grip. “David, what the Hell – ”
“Explosives.” It was the only word out of Hodges’ mouth before he pressed the phone to his ear. Bobby’s eyes drifted automatically to the Plexiglas coffin on the countertop, and the metal nodes on the underside. His chest tightened. Of course, explosives. What else would they be for? He couldn’t pull his eyes away, even as much as he wanted to; he just sat and watched that box, and imagined it splintering as it blew sky-high, dirt, plastic, and ants flying through the air, along with pieces of –
“He’ll be okay.” Hands landed heavily on his shoulders, and he pulled his gaze from the box to see Hodges staring down at him. For the first time, Hodges appeared absolutely resolute, his jaw set and his eyes even. “They are going to save him, Bobby.”
“You’re not an optimist,” he reminded Hodges bitterly. With the GCMS quiet, it felt like there was nothing in the lab except a stifling silence, and it swallowed Bobby whole. “You said yourself – ”
“They are going to save Nick.” Hodges’ grip on his shoulders tightened as he repeated himself. “They’re at the site. They know where he is. They are going to save him.”
Bobby desperately wanted to argue, but he didn’t; he sat there, staring at Hodges, wordless. His head swam, his chest swelled, and he realized blearily that he hadn’t really slept for a full twenty-four hours. He finally sighed and dropped his eyes to the floor. “David, I… I can’t….” His throat caught and he stopped himself, studying the tile carefully.
“Don’t be stupid.” It was a command, and it echoed against the glass and tile of the walls. Hodges shook him slightly and he jerked his head up, ready to argue, but something flashed in the brown eyes holding his that demanded he not fight back. “Nick is going to be okay, and I know that you know it. Okay?”
He nodded, and pondered pulling away when, suddenly, the cell on the countertop rang, a clattering mockery of an old-time telephone. Immediately, he sprang from his seat and grabbed the phone, flipping it open and smashing it to his ear. “Greg?”
“We’ve got him.” Greg’s voice came quickly, a breathless rush of words. In the background, Bobby could hear a thousand things, but most pressingly, the howling of an ambulance siren. “Cath and Warrick are with him. But he’s okay.” Greg exhaled, hard, a wash of relief. “He’s alive.”
In front of him, Hodges smiled almost smugly, and it was only then – not a moment before – that Bobby realized his face had broken out in an enormous grin, a grin so wide that it hurt his cheeks and teeth. “Told you,” Hodges stated plainly.
Bobby tried to glare, but found all he could do was keep grinning.
==
He arrived at the hospital only a short time later, Hodges and Archie flanking him. The Intensive Care Unit waiting room was brimming with people – the CSIs grouped together in one corner, the Stokes’ hovering outside the room, Ecklie fending off the press near the doorway – and Bobby let it all soak in gradually, swept up in the action and the excitement around him.
Minutes flew by as he settled onto a couch, Hodges feeding his exhaustion with brimming cups of cheap coffee while Archie called as many people as he could think of – Jacqui, Ronnie, Mia, and even Scott – to fill them in on what had happened. The minutes turned to an hour, and then two, as faces both familiar and otherwise started to drift away; the press got bored, several CSIs went home to get rest, and Ecklie rushed off to update the sheriff and other administrative types about the results.
The doctors came out and took the Stokes’ into the room just as Hodges handed him his third or fourth cup of coffee. “You know,” he commented as he sunk back down into the couch, “I’ve heard that sleep’s actually good for you. You should try it sometime.”
Greg sent him an annoyed look. “Really, Hodges, show some class,” he shot. “Sympathy isn’t a weakness, you know.”
“It’s okay,” Bobby replied, forcing himself to smile weakly. The door to Nick’s room closed, and, for some reason, he couldn’t pull his eyes off the thin beam of light from underneath. “He’s right. I should sleep.” He glanced down at the murky liquid. “In a while.”
“Well, I’m going to do it now,” Archie said, and rose slowly from his seat. He looked about to add something else but words were replaced by a large yawn, and smiled at his own exhaustion. “Night, guys.”
They nodded a collective goodbye, watching as Archie left. Hodges joined him in his retreat shortly later, and then Greg, leaving Bobby to sit alone on the couch with his half-empty cup of coffee. The steam had long-since drifted away, leaving him with lukewarm sludge, but he drank it anyway, watching the line of light underneath the door.
“They’ll be in for a while,” a familiar voice stated plainly, and Bobby glanced up just in time to watch Grissom sit down in a nearby chair. He blinked and glanced around the waiting room, surprised to find it empty except for them. “You should go home.”
Bobby glanced back down at his coffee cup, staring at the liquid. “I will,” he assured his boss with a half-shrug. “I just thought I could…” He stopped himself, shaking his head.
“Probably not tonight.” Grissom leaned back in his seat, sipping his own cup of coffee. “Go home, Bobby. Get a good night’s rest, and you can see Nicky tomorrow.”
Nodding, he swirled the coffee around in the cup, the dark brown biting the cream-white cardboard. “Grissom – ”
“Go home, Bobby,” he repeated, hauling himself to his feet. Bobby nodded again, staring down at the coffee cup still. “Get some sleep. You need it.”
Bobby pulled his eyes away from the coffee cup and watched as Grissom walked off, his familiar figure disappearing down the hallway. A few moments later, when the door to Nick’s room remained closed, he stood up, too, and followed him out.
==
Bobby woke up the next morning after sleeping almost twenty-four hours, still feeling like a man who hadn’t slept in weeks. Checking his cell phone messages resulted in several filled with worries (most notably from Jacqui), a few offering child care for Lisa (most notably from Jacqui), and even one permitting Bobby to take as much “personal time” as he needed to thank him for his “hard work” on the kidnapping case (that had been Grissom). His refrigerator was stocked with neatly-labeled casseroles (all in Jacqui’s writing) and a messily-labeled pie (that was Greg; “apple” was spelled wrong), and he puttered around the house for most of the day, not completely sure he could handle going to the hospital.
When he arrived, he discovered that Nick had been moved to a regular room. When he found the correct floor, the Stokes’ were standing out in the waiting room, talking to a doctor. He smiled awkwardly and left the flowers he’d brought with an orderly.
Lisa came home that night, greedily devouring the pie from Greg and chattering busily about her fun times at Scott’s. Bobby pretended to listen intently to her even as he watched the news with the closed captioning on, watching as the anchorwoman prattled on about the heroic rescue of a local crime scene investigator.
The next day, once Lisa was off at daycare, Bobby drove up to the hospital and walked right in to Nick’s room, finding it blissfully silent. Nick slumbered comfortably on the hospital cot, bluish-white hospital bedclothes against stark white sheets, and his breath caught as he took it all in; even three days later, there were still blinking machines at his bedside and an IV drip running from a bag and into the back of his hand. Even the bright sprigs of flowers – Bobby recognized his amongst the many – and the colorful balloons did nothing to offset the bleak witness of the room.
Closing the door behind him, Bobby walked over to the bedside and sunk into the chair, there, watching Nick sleep. He looked peaceful, even covered in bright red marks from the fire ant bites, and his hair hung messily onto his forehead. The familiarity of the vision made Bobby smile, despite himself, and he reached out to touch Nick’s hand. The skin there was real, rough and warm, and he squeezed the fingers in his own grasp.
The contact caused Nick to murmur nonsense and stir, and Bobby swallowed the lump in his throat. Familiar eyes opened slowly – almost too slowly, if the pounding of his heart in his chest was any indication – and, when that gaze met Bobby’s, Nick smiled his wide-toothed, charming-Texan smile. “Hey there,” he said, his voice quiet and hoarse, but not without its tell-tale twang. “Long time no see.”
Just seeing Nick awake, his fingers rubbing against his own, and hearing Nick’s voice reverberate through the room… It was all too much to bear. Tears he’d promised himself he’d ignore and push away suddenly bit at his eyes, and before he knew it, he was leaning down and pressing haphazard kisses to the skin of Nick’s hand. His lips brushed against pock marks from fire ant bites, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Nick was alive – undeniably, unabashedly alive, mussed hair and shining eyes and all those things that made Nick himself – and he was physically here, not in some box in the middle of nowhere. He could do more than watch, now. He could act and respond. And –
“Bobby?”
Nick pulled his hand from the desperate grasp, fingers brushing against Bobby’s cheek. It was the same rough hand Bobby knew so well, and he wiped the pad of his thumb over the dampness there. “Hey, Bobby,” he soothed, “it’s alright. I’m – ”
“Love you,” he blurted out without thinking, the words dribbling off his lips and into the emptiness of the white-washed hospital room air. Nick blinked brown eyes and looked thoroughly surprised, but his hand didn’t move. “Nicky, we all thought you’d – ”
“I know.” Nick didn’t sound as casual as Bobby thought he was trying to, but a smile still stretched his mouth and made his dark eyes gleam. Bobby stared up at him, mentally willing the dampness blurring his gaze to go away, but also finding that it wouldn’t. “I’m here, aren’t I?” His fingers were warm against Bobby’s face, a very physical affirmation of the fact that, yes, he was. He was there, right beside him, and not going anywhere.
He nodded, and then frowned. “How are you?” he asked, just as suddenly as his other outburst. “Do you need anything? I could get you something to eat or – ”
“C’mere,” Nick commanded suddenly, cutting him off. He pulled his hand away and patted the edge of the bed. Bobby regarded said bed-edge cautiously, and then their surroundings; it was shockingly public, given Nick’s penchant for being secretive and closed-off about the nature of their relationship. He patted the bed again, his eyes locked with Bobby’s, and Bobby finally rose from the hard plastic chair and allowed himself to sit on the bed at Nick’s side.
Nick’s hand traveled from the sheets and up his back, rubbing the fabric lightly. “Thought about you,” he murmured, sounding almost far away. Bobby stared down at him, almost surprised. “The whole time.”
Nodding distractedly, he pulled his eyes away for a moment, and caught sight of a face in the thin window on the door. The blue eyes and glasses were unmistakable. He very nearly waved the other man in, encouraged him to come reconcile whatever had gone on at the site, but he shook his head. Bobby smiled, at least slightly, and turned his full attention back to Nick and the warm hand against his t-shirt.
Nick sent him a strange look, and then reached up and took a handful of his shirt. “I said c’mere,” he repeated, tugging on the offending shirt. Bobby frowned slightly, but it was now four days: one day underground, and then three days of awkward recovery, of avoiding Nick’s parents as he hovered outside with the other lab techs. It’d been four days without Nick. The tugging wasn’t strong enough to pull him over, but he pretended it was, and hesitantly allowed himself to lay beside Nick, promising it would only be a brief moment of comfort before he got up and left.
Nick’s hand ghosted over his face again, warm and very real, and this time, his voice was a whisper. “Love you.”
The smile he received in return was a genuine smile – part charm, and part just deep-rooted joy. “Love you too, Bobby,” Nick replied, and Bobby smiled back.
==
In a few months, Bobby knew, everything would return to normal and the world would turn in its normal way. He and Nick would return to their “we don’t really know each other that well” dance around the lab, the other techs would stop sending him concerned glances, and Greg would finally stop showing up at the house with poorly-prepared tuna casseroles and “appel” pies. In a few months, when all was said and done, Nick would be back at work and life would be back to normal.
Nick was given a full month of personal time off from work, complete with a long list of caveats: he needed to see a psychologist twice a week, keep up on a regular regimen of medications, eat well, and – above all – talk about what happened. Greg and Hodges made fulfilling these requirements much easier by stealing Nick’s spare key off Bobby’s key ring and raiding his apartment, delivering a month’s worth of clothing, books, and bird documentaries off at Bobby’s house late one afternoon. And, as it happened, Nick followed all the rules perfectly, though Bobby sometimes suspected he only did it to avoid getting lectured, but hey, whatever worked.
Two weeks into Nick’s recovery, Grissom stopped by the ballistics lab just as Bobby was cleaning up before day shift. His expression was the same one he always wore, mild disinterest with something more bubbling behind it, and he rested a hand on the doorjamb. “Hey, Bobby.”
Bobby glanced up. “Oh, hey, Grissom,” he greeted. “Need something?”
He shook his head, pausing for a moment. “No,” he finally replied, as casually as he ever did. “Just wanted you to tell Nicky we miss him.”
Despite himself, Bobby smiled. “Will do, boss.”
