“There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed.”
― Kate Douglas Wiggin
It wasn’t easy for Nick to leave home, especially after his fight with Ryan. He still didn’t understand why Ryan was so upset about him joining up. Nick didn’t have the smarts Ryan did in order to do what he wanted – try and help others – so this was his way of doing that. Basic Training itself was like an extreme phys ed class, was all he could think of how to describe it when he wrote home to his little sister.
It was noted readily enough that he had a gift for leadership, and this helped him move up in rank as he worked overseas, eventually making his way up to Sergeant. What that meant, was that he commanded a team of about five, and was responsible for overseeing them in their daily tasks. He was also expected to set a standard for lower-ranked soldiers to live up to. In letters home, he wouldn’t mention what he had been up to, or his status in the military. Instead, he would focus on answering questions (though if they were about what he had been doing, he was quite generic about his answers), and tried asking them what was going on. He wrote more often to Liv than anyone else, still trying to be a good older brother for her even though he was away.
His service record was fairly exemplary, and while some might consider some of the actions he took reckless, others considered them heroism, and he was rewarded appropriately. Somewhere at home, he still has his medals, though the only person close to him to have ever seen them was his captain, Alyssa Ortiz. For a while there, he had a hard time defining their relationship. There was a definite attraction upon their first meeting, but they rarely had time to act on it, other than the occasional opportunity to knock boots, as it were. Until the time he got caught and buried alive under rubble, he had no idea how much she cared, until he saw her face after he was found and pulled from the rubble.
The war itself was hell, of course, but his time trapped in that rubble, knowing for sure he would die by suffocation or being crushed if he couldn’t be found, was the true hell. In that agony, he had his Awakening, and through some miracle was able to be heard, and guide others to finding him. From that night onward, and for quite some time, he would have nightmares about being trapped; nightmares that developed into claustrophobia.
The shrapnel that hit him had been due to a landmine. They had been travelling slowly across a road, sweeping for them. One was missed, and a vehicle rolled over it. In the ensuing explosion, three of his men were killed, the remaining two survived with no wounds. As luck would have it, he had been in just the right position to have his knee shredded by a flying piece of shrapnel, disabling his ability to walk nearly completely. Medics told him later that he was luck his leg didn’t need to be amputated because of it.
Alyssa managed to visit him a few times. It was during one of these times that they got caught kissing, and she got into trouble for it. Paperwork for his service discharge had already been filed, so he didn’t get more than stern looks and a talking to, but she would go on to get a court-martial and a demotion, having to work back up to the rank of Captain, and be under more scrutiny.
He was flown into an army hospital that could accommodate him – it just so happened to be at Fort Campbell, Tennessee. He stayed inpatient for a time there, until a proper repair surgery and some recovery could be done. When the hospital deemed him fit to just do outpatient, he moved into a motel that rented by the week, and stayed for a few months in order to do the outpatient rehab. When they deemed him fit, he was still left needing a knee brace.
During these few months, he kept in contact with Alyssa, as they had decided to try a long-distance relationship for a while, until such time Alyssa could get a reassignment and they could try living together and having an actual relationship. Sadly, it was a few weeks before he completed rehab when she said it wasn’t working out – that she couldn’t do the long distance thing, and wanted to focus on her career.
Nick sunk into deep depression, barely managing to drag himself in to finish rehab. Once he completed it, he booked a flight home to Las Vegas, not bothering to tell anyone he was heading home. After arriving in Vegas with the few possessions he has, he books a few days at a local, non-strip motel while he apartment hunts, not being able to bring himself to see his family yet. He does, however, get set up with the VA and get some prescription pain pills. He also starts drinking heavily.
It takes a while, but he is able to secure a nice apartment in a decent part of town, and he moves in. It is only after securing the apartment that he heads to see his family, making sure that he’s sober enough to do so before he goes. While happy to see them, he mentions nothing of his time over there – not the good, and especially not the bad, feeling that it’s a personal matter. The most he mentions is that he was injured, but that he will be alright. Happy to have him home, they help him furnish his apartment and give him his old truck, but have him promise to come over on Sundays for a family dinner.
Bored at home with little to do, he enrolled in school, hoping it would pass the time and interest him in something, anything to helpful the depression or the pain. While he had some interesting classes and managed to obtain a certification in music technology, he didn’t continue, instead looking for work as something to do, managing to find a job as a valet at the Montecito. While at work or at school, he would mostly live off the pain pills when he could sneak them, as a way to numb himself. When out with friends, he would drink, and when at home, he would drink to excess. Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at things), he was a very functional alcoholic, so no one noticed his problem for a long time.
He spent two full years drinking heavily and abusing his pills until his family held and intervention and begged him to go into a rehab facility. The only thing that convinced him to go was his little sister’s tears about the situation. As much as he didn’t want to, he went to rehab, and while there began an AA program. He considered it a third personal hell to have experienced in the past five or six years. After thirty days, he was out, and gifted with a service dog to help him out, his family having assumed his problem was due to PTSD.
Being clean and sober was far from easy for him. The six months he spent being clean was another kind of suffering altogether due to his pain, and he could never begin to describe the cravings he had to anyone, nor would he want to. It wasn’t until he started his sessions with Charles that he felt okay drinking again, though still over indulging from time to time. The pain left when Endrik fixed his leg. But the drinking? He still craves it more than he lets on, and still feels like it’s a necessary tool at times to deal with the stress in his life. But, he still makes the effort – more for the sake of those around him, than anything else.