VeritasVos Liberabit
Summary: Grissom seeks some late night guidance. Pairings? I'll leave that for you to decide. Stand-alone,one shot.
A/N: It's a little ecclesiastical, a little bit of a POV and a little angst ridden. I'll let you guys decide who is the wife and who is the elusive 'other woman'. I hope you too can be honest about my fic : )The title means simply :The Truth Shall Set You Free
Disclaimer: It's on my user page.
"Forgive me father for I have sinned"
Grissom is seated on hard worn leather, beside him is a priest. Someone he hasn't seen in a long time. But now more than ever he needs guidance, guidance he can't find in the books he reads or the woman he loves.
"We have missed you Gil" says the priest, he has a rich calming voice, this helps Grissom somewhat.
"I fell. I've hurt them both" he sighed wearily and the lines around his eyes seemed more pronounced
"What is troubling you?" the priest had dark grey eyes, that were insicive but not intimidatingly so. He didn't use the confession box because there simply was no need for it, the priest knew Grissom well and besides when Grissom had turned up so late at night, he had been seated at the front pew, staring silently at the flagstone floor. The priest had sat beside him and waited for his friend to speak.
"I love her, I love her more than I love my self. She changed me, you know that" said Grissom earnestly
The priest nodded "She is a wonderful woman"
"They both are" groaned Grissom. He shook his head and took off his glasses. "I'm in too deep. We have a family together."
"I have a son" he said suddenly and proudly
The priest nodded again "Do you plan on leaving your wife?"
"I could never do that to her. I could never put her through what...I just can't" his shoulders drooped down, his back was tired and tense, as if his thoughts were actually a physical weight upon his spine. In hindsight (how he hated that stupid word), in the beginning, he wished he had made his mind up faster, that he hadn't wasted so much time going back and forth between the two women. When he'd married his wife he'd thought that was the end of it. That he'd made the choice to be with her forever and ever, till death do them part, through sickness and health, he'd assumed that everything was cut and dry. Life would be simpler from there on out. How wrong he was. How so very wrong.
"The other woman...she is..."
"A co-worker of mine...I-I hate doing this to them. Everytime I'm with my wife at work, I can see her looking at me and I know how much it hurts her to be second best" he murmured almost to himself
The priest looked sideways at Grissom "A man once told me that there are things we won't always be able to comprehend, that when times are difficult even though you may not know the reasons, you do know what is the right path to take"
Grissom scoffed quietly, it was the expected answer and even though it made sense it gave Grissom little help. He knew what was the right thing to do but the right thing wasn't always necessarily the choice that would lead to happiness. He suspected that either woman he chose would still end up hurt and he would be helpless to stop it. What would make things worse was knowing that their pain was entirely down to him. Him and his damned indesisivness.
"I think I should go home"
"Whose home?"
Grissom didn't answer, he stood up and began to walk down the aisle, his footfalls on the flagstone steps were as loud as the guilt pounding in his heart. He was grateful for the outside air, it was cool, soft, but it did little to calm his inner turmoil.
He knocked on the door and she answered it, she was always there for him, no matter what time he would show up at her door. Grissom kissed her lips, the lips that weren't the ones he kissed on his wedding day, and he slept with her in her bed, his arm around her waist, his head nestled in the crook of her naked shoulder.
This wasn't the bed that his son would clamber into when he had been frightened by a nightmare, this wasn't the bed where his wife had nursed him when he was ill. He knew what he wasn't doing was right, he knew he should have asked for forgiveness but he was too far into this web.
For the first time in his life Gil Grissom didn't have all the answers. Closing his eyes and letting sleep over take him, Gil knew what he had to do.
It wasn't going to be easy but at least it would be honest.
