Title: A Wonderful Life
Author: lildreamer
Rating: T
Pairings: eventual Grillows
Spoilers: Goodbye and Good Luck, Cockroaches, Lying Down with Dogs
Summary: A CSI twist on the classic holiday movie.
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or any of its characters. They are the property of CBS and Anthony Zuiker.
All right, on with the story…Grissom walked into his condo in a dizzy silence, a million thoughts running through his head. The more he allowed the angry voices to reside in his mind, the more disoriented he became.
How could you let this happen!
You let her die!
You ruined everything!
This is all your fault!
Catherine did her best to assure him that everything would be okay. That it wasn't his fault. But if it really wasn't his fault, why did he feel so guilty?
He stripped off his shirt, kicked off his shoes, and shed the rest of his clothing. A minute later, hot water stung his skin as he stood in the shower. He let the water flood down his back and cascade over his head, fighting back tears that threatened to add to the flow.
Twenty minutes later, washed, dried, and under control, he crawled onto his bed and closed his eyes. He wouldn't be needed again for a few hours. He would need to be his best then and a quick nap would do him some good. The problem with sleep was the more you waited for it, the more reluctant it was to arrive.
He tried to empty his mind but his thoughts, like bees in a bottle, were impossible to control. Still he refused to give in. He wasn't moving from the bed. A mist of memory swirled in his brain…
A shriek pierced the silence.
All heads turned toward the kitchen door.
"Noooooooo…"
"What the heck?" Catherine was the first to move.
They could now hear a woman weeping in the living room. "Please…"
"Shut up!" A man shouted.
Catherine brushed past Warrick, skirted around the kitchen counter, slid to a stop at the doorway, and gasped. Cheryl Bennet, the owner of the house, was standing in the middle of the room arguing with a scruffy looking man that bore a striking resemblance to her husband. Grissom stood beside her, caught in the crossfire. Brass, Sofia, and a handful of cops poured into the room, ready to take action should the argument get out of hand.
"Just shut up and end this stupid game!"
"Hey, what's your problem, man?" Brass said, one hand traveling down toward his sidearm.
The man turned on him, trembling from head to foot. "Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
"You pig!" Cheryl snarled at the man.
"You think I'm a pig?" the man asked, whirling around to face her. "Boy, you haven't changed one bit."
"What the heck are you talking about?"
"She's so full of lies that she can't even tell a simple truth. She's incapable of telling the truth." He saw the hatred burning in her eyes and spread his arms wide, challenging her. "Go ahead, I dare you. But don't stand here lying to my face."
Cheryl settled and took a step toward him. "You want me to be honest, is that it, Kyle? You think that'll just fix everything? Okay. I did hate you. I still do hate you because you never forgave me for killing them. You didn't have the guts to stop me from killing them, and you've never had the guts to accept it. I think that makes you as guilty as me."
Her admission sucked the air from the room. Brass was the first to recover.
"You killed your father?" he asked.
Cheryl ignored the question, eyes drilling Kyle. A slight smile found her face. It was as if the rest of them weren't there; this was a private forbidden conversation between husband and wife.
"You little b—"
"Shut up, Kyle, before I throw up on you," Cheryl said coldly.
Kyle suddenly screamed, a terrifying howl of rage and fear mashed together as one. He jumped forward, wrenched a gun from the belt of the nearest officer, swung it up in line with Cheryl's head, and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
The gun bucked in his hand. Cheryl's head snapped back, eyes perfectly round with shock.
Boom, boom, boom! He emptied the gun into her chest.
She dropped back on her seat beside Brass and Grissom and flopped facedown before Catherine had time to comprehend the extent of the damage.
"Oh my—" Grissom dropped to his knees beside her, checking her vitals.
He turned her over. Blood pooled under her. There was no way she could survive this.
He pushed himself slowly to his feet, staring down, face white. He staggered backward; then he turned and fled the room.
Cheryl was dead. Murderer or not, she was really dead. Killed right in front of a dozen witnesses.
And by the look on Grissom's face, Catherine wasn't sure that he wouldn't try to take his own life. Sofia stood in shock with her gun pointed at the floor; Kyle slowly sank to his knees beside the woman he'd killed as an officer slapped a pair of handcuffs around his wrists; and Catherine ran out after Grissom.
"Grissom! Wait, Gil!" She raced through the foyer and crashed through the front door just as it was closing. "Please, Gil…"
She got halfway through the front door before pulling up. Grissom was there, on the landing, sitting on the steps. The paramedics had just arrived and were rushing past him to get inside. But that didn't concern Catherine very much. Grissom was all she cared about now. And Grissom was falling to pieces.
She sat down beside him and folded her legs back to the side. He remained quiet, his head in his hands.
"Gil."
He was breathing, but nothing more. Frozen from the inside out. The silence stretched, and Catherine sat beside him feeling his tension, hearing his breathing. It broke her heart to see him this way. She wondered if it would be appropriate to put a hand on his arm but immediately decided it wouldn't.
She took a calming breath. "Gil, this isn't your fault…"
He held up a hand to silence her. "Don't." He lifted his head, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. "Just—just don't. Okay."
She looked at his haggard face. His hair wasn't as neatly combed as usual. His blue eyes looked more desperate than enchanting now. The man needed rest.
"I know you've been through a lot lately with Sara leaving then Warrick acting out. I know it's hard—"
"I don't think you have a clue about how hard it is!" Grissom snapped, facing her with a wild-eyed stare. "You don't know what's it like!"
She stared at him, taken back. "Gil…"
"If you haven't noticed, we live in a world where the ability of one human to be cruel to another has been raised to a whole new level. I mean, just last month I went to a house near Lake Mead. A man had murdered his wife. Not just murdered. No, that wasn't good enough for him. He had to go to the next level. He strung her up by the wrists from the ceiling and beat her to death with a baseball bat. You think what happened back there was bad. It was nothing compared to that crime scene. My job is to make sense of it. Find clues. Put the lowlife away for good. I've been trained to be detached, but how do you stay detached in a room that has blood spatter on every surface and a corpse beaten beyond recognition hanging from the chandelier?
"Last week, I helped nail a person responsible for the death of a newborn baby left inside a dumpster at WLVU. We got the killer. It was the child's mother. She was seventeen. Seventeen! By my count, that's two lives wasted."
He stood, running a hand through his hair. "I live in a world where passion is measured with a rape kit; anger by blood spatter; hatred by the caliber of automatic weapon used." He paced then flung his arms wide. "I live in a world where child abuse is no longer shocking and is mentioned on the evening news only if there's time after the discussion of which starlet is back in rehab."
Catherine didn't move. She sat there like a rock, listening patiently. "I live in a world where we have to ask questions like 'What do we do with an eleven-year-old murderer?' and 'Whose responsibility is it to care for drug-dependent babies born to parents too stoned to know when to feed the child?' I live in a world where junior-high girls beat another girl to death because she made a face at them."
Catherine fought back tears. She had no idea the heavy burden her friend was carrying. It seemed as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. She reached out her hand and put it on his arm.
"My life is a mess, Catherine. And I've had enough, I've seen enough, I want it to end. I don't care anymore."
"Your life's not a mess, Gil. Your life is beautiful."
"My life was beautiful. It was great. It was whole…" As he spoke, a gurney covered with a white sheet was rolled out of the house, the coroner in tow. A pale, limp hand slid from underneath the sheet. He frowned as they walked past. "Now, that is my life. And it can't be fixed."
Catherine stood, desperately wanting to reach out to him. "No, you don't mean—"
He stepped away from Catherine, picked up his kit and started back to his Denali. "I wish—I wish I'd never become a CSI."
Grissom heard the ringing long before he awoke. It sounded like a high-pitched laugh. Or an intermittent scream.
His eyes somehow managed to open. Moonlight shone through the window. Where was he? Home. His mind started to drift. He would have to get up eventually and go to work, but at the moment he felt as though he'd met the wrong end of a rhino charge. He closed his eyes.
There was that sound again.
His eyes snapped open. The phone was ringing. He stumbled out of bed. Not fully awake, he snapped up the receiver.
"Yeah…I mean, hello."
"Hey, Gil. It's Jim. We got a 4-19 down at the Strip."
He was fully awake now. "I'll be right there."
Seven minutes later he was dressed, his hair was combed, and he was ready to go. The early morning air felt cool on his clammy skin. One o'clock. The underworld was only just beginning to stir, the nightcrawlers coming out of their hiding places.
He started the car and headed west, merging with the steady flow of traffic. As he neared the Las Vegas Strip, he counted three tour buses, a line of taxis, and a stream of cars in the area. Weary but exited tourists made the brightly lit street a beehive. Even in the middle of the night, the city was buzzing with activity. If New York is "the city that never sleeps," then Vegas is the city where the word 'sleep' doesn't appear in the dictionary.
Five minutes later, he reached the casino that now held a crime scene. Several police cruisers were parked in front of the building, the red and blue lights adding to the neon lights that lit up the entire street. A few officers were guarding the entrance; one was on the radio. Brass was standing by the doors talking to a young valet. And judging by the presence of a couple of Denalis parked on the premises, the rest of his team was already here.
He found a place to park, shut off the engine, and grabbed his kit from the passenger's seat. He took a deep breath, preparing himself for the chaos of the street and climbed out of his car—
Wrong. All wrong
He froze where he stood, hardly breathing, nothing moving but his eyes as he scanned left and right, taking in scenery he wasn't ready to believe.
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