Disclaimer: Dead Like Me and CSI are both trademarked products, characters used for unpaid fun.
Author: hazeleyes57
Rating: PG
A/N: It definitely helps if you have seen the series 'Dead like me' and understand the premise. In short, the grim reaper doesn't have time to do the whole job himself, so he has 'undead' to help him. They can be seen by the living, be touched, eat, drink and even be merry. They are assigned souls to collect by Rube (an excellent Mandy Patinkin), the father figure, who hands out post-it notes with the first initial, surname, place and time of death of the souls to be taken. 'George' played by Ellen Muth, is their latest (reluctant) recruit, a victim herself of an unfortunate death (hit by debris from the Mir space station, namely, a toilet seat).
Although this fic has character death, it's not in an angsty awful way, and on a personal note, it cheers me to see a positive view of the 'next step'.
Out of Time
The ER doctors worked on Sara as Grissom looked on. He turned a despairing face to Rube.
"She's going to make it, isn't she?"
Rube looked at him, seeing now what he had missed before the explosions. He transferred his attention to the dark haired woman lying on the medical gurney. Medical staff surrounded her, doing their best to keep her alive.
"You're the man of science. What do you think?"
Grissom looked on as the doctors tried to stem the bleeding from dozens of wounds peppering Sara's body. He refused to admit even to himself that it was unlikely that anyone so close to the epicentre of an explosion could survive.
"She has to live. I…she…is important to me."
Rube's half-smile was wry as he looked back from Sara to Grissom.
"So important that even now you can't say it, can you? What kind of love is that?"
Grissom was curiously unconcerned that this man knew how he felt about Sara. He continued to look at her, but spoke to Rube.
"Love. Such an abused word. 'I love pizza; I love my car'. What I feel is more. She is the better half of me." He shifted uneasily, the truth he had hidden from himself now revealed. "We…I thought we had more time. She said that I might figure it out too late. I needed more time...just a little more time."
This last came out as a whisper, but Rube heard.
"How long have you known her?"
Grissom half-smiled and shook his head slightly.
"Known her? I doubt I could claim to know Sara, but I first met her fifteen years ago. I have worked with her here in Vegas for five years."
Rube raised his eyebrows.
"How much more time did you need?"
Grissom glanced at him briefly; the irony was not lost on him.
"It was stupid, I know."
Rube nodded slowly.
"Yes, but we've all been stupid at some point. Makes us human. But, sadly, sometimes we don't get a second chance."
Both men were silent for a few minutes, an oasis of calm in a frenetic room. Grissom frowned as he absorbed Rube's words.
"Do I get another chance?"
Rube pointed to the next gurney along from Sara's. Grissom moved closer and looked at the patient. He was shocked to see his own bloodied face in front of him. He stared at the trauma staff around Sara. No one was attending to the person, no, to the body on this gurney. He was oddly calm about his own death; perhaps he would get angry later. He looked over to Rube.
"So I'm dead?"
"Yes." Rube gave a single slow nod. "You ran out of time."
Grissom was silent for a moment, alone with his thoughts. He stirred, a little anger creeping into his voice.
"I ask you again. Does she make it?"
Rube was not unsympathetic. He looked at the floor for a time. He sighed. It wouldn't be the first time that he had bent the rules.
"I'm sorry."
Grissom struggled to get his words past the lump in his throat.
"Soon?"
Rube looked at his watch.
"Not long now."
Grissom moved closer to Sara's body – no, to Sara and reached out to touch her face. His hand dissolved into white mist and reassembled when he withdrew it. The feeling was most strange.
The same strange feeling suddenly shot all the way through him as the trauma doctor behind him took a short cut through his non-body in order to reach for Sara's chest to start compressions. Reeling, Grissom could only look on in horror as they worked.
"She's arrested! Hand me the defib!"
Grissom stood helplessly by as they battled to save Sara's life. Never in his life had he felt so useless.
Rube laid a hand on his shoulder to try to turn him away from the young woman's gurney. Now that Grissom had acknowledged the news of his own death, he ought to be on his way to his afterlife.
Grissom angrily shook him off, then looked at him, vaguely surprised.
"How can you touch me and they can't?"
Rube shrugged.
"I don't make the rules. I just collect the souls."
Grissom looked at him sharply,his words sparking a memory.
"You touched me, before the explosion. You took my soul then?"
"Yes."
"And Sara's?"
Rube nodded to where George was sitting and waiting impatiently.
"No, George was assigned to Sara. We don't get to decide."
"Who does?"
Rube's expression was one of mild resignation. He thought that he might as well continue, having already said too much.
"Upper management. All I get is the list; first initial, surname, location and ETD."
Grissom gave him an odd look.
"You are given our time of death and a location, and yet you don't do anything to prevent it from happening?"
Rube shook his head, his voice pragmatic.
"Can't. If we didn't collect the souls, the body would still die, but the person would suffer the death, and go on with their journey as they were at the time of their death. If we saved the body, the soul would die inside and that, my friend, you pray you never see. George over there had a terrible death. Nothing of her body was bigger than could be held in two hands by the time they got to her. As it is, to us, she looks as she did while she was alive. Much more humane, don't you think?"
Shocked, Grissom could not find the words to tell him how horrendous it sounded.
Rube clapped him on the shoulder, irritating Grissom beyond measure.
"Come on, it's time now for you to go on with your journey."
Grissom looked at him with disgust as he shrugged off Rube's hand.
"I have no intention of going anywhere. I'm staying right here until I know what happens to Sara."
Rube's expression hardened into the paternal features that had chastised George on more than one occasion.
"You can't do that, you have to move on."
Grissom features set into the bland, solid immovability that had so often peeved Conrad Ecklie.
"Really? Just watch me. I'm a lapsed Catholic; maybe there isn't anything for me to 'go on' to. I'm staying here, until I see that Sara is alright."
Grissom turned his back on Rube and watched Sara's face.
Rube waited for a few moments, his face thoughtful as he regarded his reap. He moved to the other side of the large room where George was waiting. She was slumped, probably uncomfortably, in one of the plastic bucket seats so generic to hospital waiting areas. She looked at her mentor with an 'I told you so' expression.
"Refused?"
Rube nodded.
"For the moment."
George looked across to her 'reap'. Give them their due, the staff were really trying. She glanced at her watch and climbed to her feet. She had just started to move a little closer when the double doors of the ER opened to admit a woman and a young man, both obviously terrified at what they would find in this room, but trying to hide their fear.
"Catherine, I don't think we're allowed in - "
The woman rounded on him in her fear-fuelled anger, her kit case swinging wildly as she turned.
"Then you just GO, Greg. I'm not leaving until I see Grissom."
Greg's anxiety about his colleagues outweighed his fear of Catherine's ire and what he would find here. He stayed.
An ER nurse hurried over to try and prevent them from coming any closer, but Catherine was ready for her. She pointed to her ID.
"CSI crime Lab. We're here to process your patients before you destroy any usable evidence."
The Nurse had seen too many badges in her life to get overly excited about another one, but she did understand the need to collect evidence.
"Well, okay. You can start on the other one, he's over there."
The Nurse's almost careless wave in the direction of the solitary gurney told Catherine far more than she ever wanted to know. Her legs turned to water and her vision tunnelled, making the terrible scene retreat momentarily. She gulped air, ruthlessly shoving her personal feelings aside. She would not screw this up and ruin any chance at catching whoever was responsible for this. It would be her gift to Gil.
Grissom heard the commotion and saw Catherine's white face. Despite his fear for Sara, he wished he could spare Catherine this, wished that he could tell her that he was okay. He laughed mirthlessly. He was dead, but he was okay, how to explain that one?
He looked at Greg; sorry too that he wouldn't get to see this young man fulfil his potential. Grissom watched Catherine walk slowly towards his former self.
Her back to everyone else in the room, Catherine was unable to stop her eyes from filling. Sheer willpower prevented the salty drops from falling from her lashes as she braced herself for the task ahead. She placed her kit bag carefully on the floor and picked up her camera.
The first couple of photographs felt as though they were going to be shaky, but Catherine refused to let her grief take hold. She repeated the shots, trying to stay detached from the thought that this was the body of her co-worker, her mentor and her friend. She peeled the white sheet
down to Gil's – the victim's – feet and snapped the necessary shots.
Greg was frozen to the floor, his feet unwilling or unable to take him to see what he did not want to see. To see it – him – would make it real. The dull roaring in his ears drowned out the sounds of activity around him. Everything seemed to be moving very slowly as he turned instead to look in Sara's direction.
There was precious little comfort to be had there either. A scene in countless medical dramas, movies and documentaries was being played out in front of him, a scene both familiar and newly terrible. Sara had been stripped of her CSI jacket and her black pants. Her once white shirt lay ripped open and darkened with blood. In between the rushing bodies Greg glimpsed Sara's bloodied bra and irrationally wanted to rush over and cover her from prying eyes, to preserve her dignity while she could not.
Rube remained where he was as Grissom moved closer so that he could see Sara's face. Knowing what he knew now, he was grateful that Sara would not have to live with the scars that she would have had if she had survived. He also now saw the wisdom of Rube's words about the timing of a soul's collection. It would not have made any difference to his perception of Sara, she was always beautiful in his eyes, but it might have made a difference to her. Eternity is, after all, a long time.
"Sara? Sara, can you hear me?"
Grissom ignored the movement of medical staff around and through him, remaining steadfast at the head of Sara's gurney. He filtered out all extraneous sound, concentrating only on Sara.
'300'
'Clear!'
Bodies step back, a dance often rehearsed. The whine of building power and the solid 'thump' of its discharge.
Sara's body arches up in tetanic spasm and flops down again. The doctor holding the paddles glares at the flat line on the monitor,his thoughts obvious.
Come on dammit, fight woman!
'350!'
'It's no good, her BP's falling, 70 over 40. She's crashing!'
'Not on my shift! 350 now!'
'Clear!'
Sara's response is reduced, her body not reacting so strongly this time to the shock.
Grissom leaned in.
"Sara, honey, it's okay. You can leave now, it's going to be alright."
Only a few feet away, Catherine had stopped what she was doing, unable to think about her job while the awful scene unfolded around her.
The flat line alarm continued its irritating sound, an audible testament to a terrible fact.
Sara was dead.
'Okay, we're done. Call it.'
'Thanks everyone. Is anyone waiting? Family? '
Grissom found curious comfort in the fact that he had died first. To have been alive and heard that Sara was dead would have destroyed him. He looked up and frowned as he saw Greg's devastated features.
Grissom turned to Rube, then nodded towards Greg and Catherine.
"Can't you tell them anything? Tell them it's okay?"
Rube shook his head, his expression implacable.
Across the room George stood up from the uncomfortable plastic seat and moved to stand beside her reap. Sara looked around in mild confusion, wondering how she had got here. The last thing she remembered was turning to hear what Grissom had been shouting about. She hadn't been able to make out what he was saying above the noise from the aftermath of the explosion. She saw Greg and Catherine and started to move towards them, until she spied Grissom over by the vic on the gurney. She veered towards him instead, relieved that he was okay too.
George dropped back, a brief nod from Rube halting her pursuit. She frowned at him in puzzlement, her face pulling a 'huh?' expression.
Grissom watched Sara walk towards him, her face alive with curiosity. It was as Rube had said, she was whole and unaffected.
"Hey, Gris, who died?"
Grissom shook his head wryly, his mouth hitched at one side. Before he had chance to answer, Sara looked past him to the bloodstained body beside him. Her jaw dropped.
"But that's...she looks like...Jeez, she looks just like me."
TBC
