Flashback 
 
Author: Eileen Thomson

E-Mail: indigotoast@yahoo

Summary: New NicFic

Rating: PG

Author's Notes: Thanks to Linda for her suggestions and twiddling.
It makes all the difference to the finished work. How I miss Suz
fixing my punctuation.

--+-- 

It all started to go pear shaped for Nick as he was walking over the
Smithfield Street Bridge to get to the Court house. He heard a car
back-fire, and he froze in time. He saw again the coffee cup bounce
in slow motion down the steps, and felt the bullet pierce his side.
His eyes clouded and he saw Melissa lying dead. The pain was real
and he could not catch his breath. Stunned, and lost in this awful
moment, he tried to stop himself from fainting. Standing clutching
his scar, holding on to the bridge, he waited for the horror to pass.

He knew this was bad. He also knew he would have to get something
done about it, but not yet. Today he was due in court, and a sweet-
ten-year old girl depended on his clarity of thought. It was
difficult to put things into perspective for the rest of his day,
but he managed. Evening came without another incident, and Nick gave
no more thought to the matter.

-*-*-

"I asked you to do this one way, and you have just ignored all my
instructions." Burton points angrily at the file.

"I don't take instructions from anyone when I'm dealing with one of
my own clients. If I had needed your advice, I would have asked for
it. As it happens, my client is very happy with the way I performed.
Has there been a complaint?" Nicks voice is low and bitter. He sits
slouched in the chair in the office, pulling on his bottom lip.

"No complaint, but I told you how to handle this!"

"And I handled it," shouted Nick, He jumps up and storms out of
Burtons office.

~*~

Jake sidles into Nick's office and holds up his hands. "Don't shoot
the messenger. I'm only here to give you the heads up. She's back!"

"Who's back," sighs Nick wearily, pinching his eyebrow as he does
when he is thinking.

"Shayla DeMarko!"

"Oh no. I'm out of here! If my father looks for me, tell him Alvin
phoned and I had to leave." Nick is speaking while gathering papers
into his briefcase, and moving at full speed towards the door.

Burton catches him just as he is about to leave the
office. "Nicholas, come into the conference room with me. I need you
to assist Ms DeMarko. Since you dealt with her the last time she was
here I thought you could take the lead on this."

"Dad I would rather you gave it to someone else. I feel I don't want
to prostitute myself for a client," Nick's tone is terse.

"Prostitute yourself, Nicholas, are you all right? That's a very
strange way to put things. This is business, and you got along well
enough with her on the last deal. This is what we do, we don't
choose clients, they choose us. Get a grip today, why don't you. If
you feel you need help, call on Jake. I know you are both busy, but
this is a big one Nicholas, we can't afford to pass it up. If Shayla
DeMarko moves her center of operations to Pittsburgh, we will be in
for a huge slice of the business."

In the conference room Shayla DeMarko sits waiting... Her father has
recently died and the business belongs to her alone, sadness hangs
draped round her like a dark cloak. Shayla has insisted on keeping
the business, regardless of the fact, that everyone thought she
would sell quickly... She is looking forward to working with Nick
again.

The door bangs open and Nick storms in trailed by Jake, he is not
going anywhere near Shayla without someone else around. He does not
feel up to the strain of trying to cope with her overtly sexual ways.

"What can we do for you Shayla?" As soon as he has said her name
Nick realizes that he's already gone wrong. "Ms DeMarko." Too
little, too late. She is dressed in black and Nick can see that this
is not the usual attire for Shayla. He senses that he has upset her
already.

Shayla is shocked and angered by Nicks tone. When she catches her
breath she replies frostily "Since my father's death, I am now the
sole owner of the Hathaway Glass and in control of the board of
Glasswork Inc.. I need to buy a company in Pittsburgh called
Glassil. They are up for sale, it's just a case of getting the right
price. If I get this company, I intend to move my base. This company
has the research facility I want." Shayla speaks of the only
business to help her control her hurt.

"I am so sorry for your loss." Nicks words stumble out of his
mouth. "Please sit, can we get you something to drink, some tea or
coffee?" Nick phones for the refreshments to give himself time to
think, and continues. "I'll get in touch with the owner of this
company today. Have you a figure in mind or would you like me to
sound them out."

"Let me explain this to you. This is a company built up by one
family. It has strong values and is an old fashioned company," says
Shayla, "it was established sixty years ago, but it has kept up to
date with all the latest breakthroughs in glassmaking. They have a
Molten Ceramic section, which is what I need. They have gone far
beyond others in development of laser strobe cuts. The thing which
will win the sale for me over competitors is this. I am willing to
give a guarantee not to release any of the staff for a period of at
least three years. Everything is there for you including the price I
think we should offer. Look it over and see if you agree.

Nick is surprised to hear Shayla speak so knowledgably about the
business, he had thought she was a bit of a lightweight but now
could see that he might have to revise his opinion. "It's not a good
thing to give out that kind of guarantee. What happens if the
business falls off, if trends change? You can't give a written
agreement like that. The Unions would clean you out if you needed
to get out of it.

"Please Nick see to this for me. I will have to go I don't feel up
to this just now." begs Shayla. "Please excuse me. I won't wait for
the tea."

Nick unbends at her apparent grief and offers, "I'll start right
away on this. Please allow us to take you to dinner tonight."

"Thank you. Will you have been in touch with Glassil and set up
appointments by then?"

"Yes."

"Then I`ll see you about 8. Is that all right? I am staying at the
Great Western Parkway. Will you pick me up there?" asks Shayla, and
she leaves the room, not waiting for an answer.

"Thanks Nick, that's my weekend plans just ruined, you didn't even
ask if I was doing anything." Jake says.

"Please Jake, I just don't feel able to cope with Shayla at the
moment. Do me a favor and give me the time I need to get this done
and be rid of her."

"Nick, are you feeling okay." Jake looks over his shoulder as he
leaves the room, and notices that Nick is pale and worn looking.

"I'm, fine. Really I am. Just be here for me on this one." As soon
as he is alone Nick starts to phone the owner of Glassil.

The door bangs and the receptionist brings in the tea trolley.

Nick jumps up in shock. "Leave it," he shouts, "leave it, and get
out." He drops to his knees in pain, holding his side. He breaks out
in a sweat and his breath is coming in sharp gasps. He can feel the
blood on his hand, he can see Melissa he can hear himself speak to
her, everything is fading away when he hears Jakes voice.

"Nick! Are you all right?" Jake is trying to get him up on to a
chair.

"I tripped over. I'm fine. Jake close the door."

"You need to see a doctor Nick. You don't look very well."

"I have an appointment Monday,' Nick lies. "I'm sure it's nothing
serious; please keep this to quiet. Just be here for me. I'd
appreciate it."

-*-*-

When Nick gets home later that day there is a message on his
answering machine from Jake. He won't be able to make dinner; his
mother has been taken into hospital. Nick curses his bad luck and
considers phoning Shayla to cancel but the idea of losing that
amount of business stops him.*I'll cope, just be firm and things
will be all right.*

Nick is not feeling at his best, but gets into the car and goes to
pick Shayla up. He has booked a table at the `Original Oyster House'
in Market Square, because he knows she likes sea food. The thought
of eating makes him squeamish, but he toils on.

The evening is not going well, when some one in the kitchen drops
something with a crash. Events plummet downhill into the
nightmarish. Again Nick is paralyzed in the torment of the
flashback. He drifts away and cannot control his fear. He comes to
woozily, standing outside the restaurant with Shayla holding him up.
Her leg is between his and he is resting most of his weight on her.

"I'm sorry," he slurs, "I'm so sorry."

"Nick, I need you to give me the car keys." Her urgent words barely
penetrate the fear clogged mist in his mind.

Passing the court house Nick takes a turn for the worse, and Shayla
has to stop the car. She needs Nick to give directions to his house,
but he is unable. She thinks of phoning Burton, but she still does
not know what is wrong with Nick, and she fears that he may have
taken some thing. She knows that he is on probation. "Nick, Nick,
you have to tell me, should I take you to hospital?"

The fear in her voice rouses Nick momentarily, and he
mutters, "home, take me home." He manages to hang on and give
directions, although they get lost more than once, when Nick drifts
too far away.

At the front door Shayla props Nick up and struggles to help him
inside. She decides that the best thing for her to do is to get him
into bed. Then she can watch over him and see he gets no worse. She
staggers up the stairs, trying to get Nick to stand up, coaxing him
all the way. She lowers him on to the bed and taking off his shoes,
she puts him, still dressed, under the quilt.

Nick wakes in the middle of the night, and sees Shayla, asleep in a
chair beside the bed, wrapped in a cover. He turns over and drifts
down deep into the dream once more. He can't get out of this place.
He is covered in blood, but it is not his, and he is screaming…He
wakes again and Shayla is holding him. "Nick you must tell what is
wrong."

Nick wraps his arms round her and pleads, "don't let me go, please,
don't let me go."

-*-*-



In the morning Nick wakens and realizes that Shayla is beside him.
He tries to turn but finds he is under a sheet and she is over it.
It stops him moving too much.

He turns over with difficulty and puts his arms round her. "Shayla?
You awake?"

"How are you?"

"I guess I've been better. Thanks for last night. I forgot how kind
you are."

"As opposed to ... how sexy I am?" Shayla laughs. "You're not
getting out of this Nick Fallin I have to know what went wrong last
night. It scared me. I also need to know if you are up to this deal,
Nick I don't want to loose this."

Nick sits over breakfast, and tells Shayla as much as he thinks is
prudent about Melissa and Buck. "The flashbacks came on suddenly
yesterday. I'm not sure what I need to do about them."

"You need to talk to some one! Nick, you are not stupid, you know
this is just post traumatic stress. Talk to someone who can help!"

"I'll think about it," says Nick, never intending to, but hoping to
put Shayla off in the mean time.

-*-*-

"I'm going to Hathaway Glass this morning. I'd like you to come with
me. I have an idea. You will have to take me to the hotel to get
changed first, that all right?"

Nick is casually dressed and going into a working factory is a new
experience for him. This is some thing out-with his normal domain
and he is interested in all the things happening round him. There
are just a few men working on the shop floor as most things are
automated. Nick stops by the two men who are blowing the glass. He
is amazed, and looks on in wonderment at the beautiful work they are
creating.

"Nick, I want to show you something." Shayla leads Nick to a small
area in the back of the workshop. "We get groups of visitors in this
factory. It helps promote the products here. The pieces we do here
are really art work, but this is what we allow the visitors to see
being done."

Shayla delights Nick by telling him he can assist her in making him
a marble for himself. "What do I want with a marble?" he asks with a
laugh.

"The marble is going to be your reality. I know damn well you have
no intentions of going to see a doctor. So I'm giving you my fathers
cure for everything."

She walks him through the technique of `lamp work' and shows him how
to gently heat the tip of a glass rod. Then, shows him how he can
add different colors of his choice to the mix. This she tells him is
called a gather. When he has enough glass gathered, she removes it
from the main body of the rod. She cuts it into a mould and spins
the mould back and forth in her fingers and keeps it in the flame.
All the time she talks to him about the process Nick is fascinated
that she knows so much. Once the marble is a nice sphere and Nick
has finished rotating it, watched carefully by Shayla. She takes it
and turns it out of the mould and puts the marble under a blanket
just as the glow begins to wear off.

"Don't peek, Nick," she says as Nick goes to look at what he had
helped to create. "You'll ruin it if you don't let it cool
naturally. I'll leave it to be finished by one of the guys. You'll
get it tomorrow."

"Thanks for a great day, I really enjoyed it. I'm surprised you know
so much about the actual making of the glass."

Shayla laughs. "Nick I can blow glass. I'm an artist; I create and
design in glass. The men you saw working, are blowing glass to my
specific designs. My dad had me taught when I was very young. The
love of it never left me. When I went to art school I found I knew
more than some of the tutors. This is my life." She pauses, "Wait
here, I want to give you something."

She comes back and hands him a box filled with polystyrene
chips. "With love from me to you." she quips. "What you hold is the
reason I need that factory in Pittsburgh. Not any factory will do.
This one has something special, which will compliment my work. This
piece incorporates a new patent we have, but their research is going
to revolutionize glass art, and I want to be at the top of that
tree."

-*-*-

When Nick gets home he opens the box and finds a most unusual glass
swirl. It is about eighteen inches high and colored inside, with
some purple light streaks and with other strands Nick can't quite
make out. He puts it on the table in his bedroom window.

Later that night, he wakes from the nightmare and again, he feels he
is loosing himself. He grabs for the phone and calls Shayla, just
before the terror starts to take him over once more, and he fades
out. He comes to at the front door. He can hear Shayla banging and
calling his name. He struggles to open the door before falling into
her arms.

"This is too much Nick, you have to see someone. Why didn't you
phone your father?"

"I don't want him to try and force me into something I can't do yet.
I'm sorry Shayla, forgive me?" Nick allows himself to be led
upstairs and put to bed. "Don't leave me," he pleads. "I feel better
when you are here."

The next morning Shayla is up and away early, she is going to look
at some property.

Nick goes upstairs and stops at the door of his bedroom. The
sunlight has just reached the room and it is catching the glass
swirl. The whole room is awash with bright dancing colors. Nick
slides down the doorframe and sits in complete wonderment at the
beauty. As clouds pass in front of the sun the light dies, and then
when the clouds pass it is again brought up to dazzling
exquisiteness when it is caught once more. Nick is mesmerized. It is
at once soothing and heart lifting. He feels drawn into the pulsing
colors.

-*-*-

"The deal is not going too well. Your offer is being rejected out of
hand. How do you want to proceed?"

"What is the problem, is it just the money." Shayla asks.

"No. I don't think the old man wants to sell to a woman. That's just
my take on it, but I don't think I'm far wrong." Nick sits pulling
his lip deep in thought.

"Nick, what will I do?"

"Give me a day. Are you still serious about giving them the
guarantee of three years employment?"

Nick, my company can cover this small one without feeling the
glitch. This is going to be research and no more. Glassil could fold
tomorrow and my company could carry the loss. That won't happen, but
all things considered it would make little difference, I need this
company more than you think.

"Okay. Then wait until I set up another meeting." He mutters under
his breath. "I'll want to do it here, and I think I'll have to
borrow my Dads office."

Old Mr. Werner comes to the meeting very unwillingly. Nick sits him
in the chair facing the window. Shayla is seated at his left and
Nick sits behind Burton's desk. He looks at his watch and begins the
meeting.

"You know that my client has now put forward a proposal which will
give guaranteed work for three years to all employees in Glassil?"

"I don't want my company to be swallowed up by a large firm, which
is not interested in the purest forms of glassmaking." Mr. Werner
says. Choosing a point he thinks Nick and Shayla will be least able
to defend.

Nick nods for Shayla to answer him.

"At Hathaway we have done some deep research into materials which
will liquefy in the warmth of sunlight. With the combined research I
want to find a way to improve on the reflective properties."

Nick looks at his watch, and prays for the sun to stay out. As it
comes creeping round to the window, the sun catches the swirl which
Nick has placed there on a small table.

Shayla is still talking, It is expensive, only pearlash can be used
and this." She places a small vial on the table and explains, "This
is the new patent from Hathaway…"at first she does not notice the
change in Werner's demeanor.

The sunlight grabs the colors and flings them around the room with
abandonment. The room is soaked and dripping, with the lights
pulsing from within the glass. Werner rises and goes over to the
window. Nick places a chair by the art work for him. The old man
puts his finger over the loops and watches with interest the effect
the shadow has on the flowing light.

"This is something I don't know about." He says.

"It is something my other company Hathaway Glass has just patented,"
Shayla repeats, "I want to work with your molten ceramics and lasers
to enhance it. I think I can get it to oscillate the light in time."

The old man is impressed, he knows now that this is a very serious
girl, not one to be toyed with. He feels that at last he can hand
over his life's work. "Give me this piece along with the deal and
the company is yours." He looks up slyly at Nick.

"No." Nick says, "the piece is mine, and I'm not giving it up.'

"Tell me what you see within the design." The old man challenges him.

Nick pauses to think what he is saying. "I wish that I could have
given a piece like this to my mother when she was so very ill near
the end of her life. The beauty of the piece is over whelming. When
I'm in the office and the sun comes out I put it by the window,
because it calms me. I feel it wash over my soul and I find peace.
It's mine." He says stubbornly.

"And the deal will go through." Werner says, "But I would like, with
your permission, to have a clause put into the agreement to allow me
to visit the factory to assist in the development progress. This is
way too interesting for me to leave to you young ones."

"Done," Shayla says, "your input will always be welcome

Shayla hugs Nick. "Thank you. You really are very sly you know." She
pulls head down and kisses him softly on the lips. "I have something
for you, here is your marble. My dad said he sometimes believed that
the world had gone too far into fantasy, and he used to carry a
marble round with him. He said it was reality. Like you did
yesterday, he made it out of sand and soda and arsenic. This is what
kept him grounded when the company took off first, and kept him
grounded when bigger competitors tried to take us over. Now here is
the one you helped to make yesterday. When you feel the present
slipping away hold onto the marble, it represents the here and now.
It won't cure you but it may just ground you enough until you get
yourself sorted.

-*-*-

Burton and Judge Tilson are in the Club deep in discussion when Nick
comes in.

"Nicholas, my boy. You look so pale, are you sick?"

Nick tells them of his flashbacks. He leaves nothing out and tells
them he will on no account see anyone until he has tried this. "I
don't want to see a stranger. We are the three who planned this
debacle, and we are the ones who are best equipped to sort out the
mess it caused. I know that talking about it will help. I know that
I have been trying to put Melissa out of my mind, without dealing
with the trauma of her senseless death. I need the Club to step
forward and help one of its own.

"Nicholas you should seek professional help."

"How much could I tell anyone about this whole affair, and just how
much of it was legal," Nick asks quietly. "I would like you find
help for me. Get me through this. If it doesn't work then, I will
consider other means." All the time he is speaking he is rolling the
multi-colored marble between his fingers.

"Leave this with me for a day" says the Judge, "I'll get something
sorted out and I'll let you know what is to be done. Nicholas, you
will have to talk to someone, and I mean to see this happens. I
don't want the responsibility of anything happening to you."

~*~*~

Two days later Nick sits in the Club, nervously waiting for the man
he has been asked to meet. He does not want this at all, and the
thought of talking to anyone about his feelings for Melissa pains
him. He starts from his reverie at the sound of the familiar voice.

"Nick Fallin? We never met but I'm judge Barr. I worked with Hegget
on the Collins case. To put you at your ease, I'll tell you I was
trained as an MD before I ever thought of becoming a lawyer. I have
kept up with the newest thinking, and have been interested in post
traumatic stress since Vietnam. Now I know mostly about what
happened to the case you're worried about, so that saves a lot of
stress for you. What is the marble for?"

Nick is completely thrown by the question. " Ahh...This is my
reality. I made this, well, I helped to make it. When I feel myself
slipping away I hang on to it."

"Does it help?

"I think so, I'm not sure, and to be honest I just think I'm just
being a bit superstitious about it, I like having it near me."

"Whatever gets you through, son, just whatever works! Tell me about
Judge Stanton's dog."

"I met Mellisa through Bart .. the dog. He is a beautiful dog,
andMellisa was a beautiful girl. You know she looked like Marilyn
Monroe when she was Norma Jean…



The End