Nick moaned softly in his sleep and Gil tightened his arms around the blanket-clad man, brushing his cheek against the dark hair.  He didn't want to think about the dreams haunting them at night.  His were bad enough, so bad he hadn't slept in three days.  Nick's... he was sure only exhaustion and medication were keeping Nick from spending his nights wide-eyed in front of the Discovery Channels.

Gil stared at the muted programme; 'Jurassic Park' special effects backing up yet another theory around the extinction of the dinosaurs.  Underneath the set the VCR's glowing green clock read 02:34.  He'd forgotten just how long nights could be.

There was nothing he could do and that was a problem.  Gil liked to be 'doing'.  When Nick had been missing, he had had things to do, like processing evidence - searching for non-existent fingerprints and invisible DNA. 

Making the ransom drop would go down as one of the worst times of his life - not that the entire night wouldn't qualify.  But listening to Gordon talk about Nick so callously, then to have to watch him take his own life and leave them with nothing, such an utterly selfish, useless move.... 

He held Nick a little tighter and one bite-covered arm snaked out from under the blanket to reach across his stomach.  Gil watched him for a minute or two, hoping he would settle back to sleep.  Nick took a deep breath and shifted his head against Gil's chest, but he didn't wake properly. 

Stretched out like this on his brown leather sofa had been the compromise.  Asking Nick to share his bed, however innocent the request, had sounded too forward in his head, so he'd decided on the sofa, aware of the cricks he would have in his back in the morning.  He didn't really care.  As long as Nick was comfortable and above all safe, Gil knew a great chiropractor.

They didn't know if Nick was going to be okay.  Physically he would heal.  Mentally Gil knew he probably wouldn't, not completely, not ever.  But he hoped he could help Nick to be able to at least function day to day.  It might be a very long time before the accumulated phobias receded, days before he was able to get into an SUV without winding the window down and looking like he was about climb out of it at any second, weeks before the glass warren of the lab didn't feel like an extended version of the plexi-glass box, months before he could attend a scene even with two cops and a fellow CSI watching every move he made.

But what about them?  How long before he could bear to let Nick out of his sight for anything longer than the time it took to take a piss?  How long would it be until he could send Nick out (if he even still wanted to do the job) on assignment with a CSI other than himself to cover his ass?

Would things ever be normal again?