Disclaimer: Borrowed. Not mine.
A/N: A post-ep fic from season 4.
Spoilers: Everything through season 4.
Capsule
It's devastating, going through old photos of the two of them. It's devastating and still he does it. He pulls out the photos because he needs this, or thinks he needs this, or he needs but doesn't need, wants, but doesn't want this. Whatever this need or conviction of need is, he can't summon the will to stop himself. The capsule has opened.
He's been playing at the thought since he arrived home. It's been circling his mind since he left work. Round and round. Consuming his thoughts. Never yielding. He's been going about his after work routine and thinking. Ever since he left that confessional…
Confessional. He supposes in a way it is. Not a confessional where the confession remains private, but a confessional of sorts. They try to tie up loose ends in that room, to get a suspect to speak, to purge himself or herself of guilt.
Confessional. He wonders if it is his Catholic upbringing that brought the word to his current consciousness, or the way certain practices or beliefs, customs or rituals have lingered from it.
Confessional. In the best scenario, it was. Today… Today, that best scenario hadn't played out. A killer went free. HE went free. HE went free and that bothered him more than anything…almost anything. Not enough evidence. To know who the killer was and to watch that killer walk out of that room a free man. They knew and killer still walked, and it wasn't like other cases where the killer walked, but…more. It was more and the more made that confession so much more important. The confession they did not get. That day, the small room divided off from that other small room hadn't yielded a confession.
Correction. The room had yielded a confession, only it was the wrong person doing the confessing. It was the wrong man unloading his burden.
It was appalling to compare them. Sickening. Awful. Awful, not to compare himself to the killer, no, but the victim to her. It was hideous to suspect her. Hideous, but he did. He did and he didn't, not really. He knew she would never do to anyone what the victim had done to others. Offer and then withdraw the offer. Bestow a gift in return for a gift. Mislead. Give and then take. To take. She would not do that to him, not intentionally. He knew that. It wasn't a lack of trust in her, not really, that kept him from her. It was that he would be gambling the life he knew on something infinitely unknown. He had built his life around work and to risk that would cause a shift in him. He would no longer be the man he knew himself to be. He couldn't be that man. He couldn't be him and be willing to take such a risk, to risk what he'd given his life. His existence would change. His thoughts… His feelings… Essentially, he would be risking his life.
For a life with her. His coworker. His employee. His junior. She is so young, even still, and he…he can't hold any claims to youth any longer. So, he denies what he wants not to admit is true. That the depth of her feelings does not merely skim the surface but submerges far, far below. That they aren't ordinary colleagues, or ordinary friends. That theirs is not an ordinary relationship, but…more.
There are too many reasons for him to abandon the thought of starting a life with her. He's known this for some time and so he's tried to stow away his feelings. He would like to bury them for good, but the best he is able to manage is to push them aside. He places those feelings, those barely acknowledged emotions, not in a compartment, because even for a man who likes to compartmentalize, they would be too easy to access there. No, somehow, inadvertently, he's managed to place all those emotions, those wishes, that longing, into a time capsule. He's stuffed it all in there and now, every once in awhile, he feels the need to open the capsule, to examine how he once felt and to see if anything has altered, to see if the things he's placed in there in times past still mean the same now, to see if he can summon the ability to move on from those lingering dreams of her, to see if he's changed, or at least see if something else has.
Nothing ever does. He just stuffs more in because, against his better wishes, he can't help but want and wonder a little more each day. The feelings he first placed in the capsule and has been placing in ever since are still there, only…more. He would like to seal a tight lid on that capsule, but still, it opens. Time passes and it opens, leaving him with a recollection of how each and every moment spent with her once felt and he finds himself feeling those same things all over again. He can try to hammer that lid on, but still, it opens.
He sees her again after so much time and the capsule opens.
She sits before him and cries over a case and the capsule opens.
She touches him and the capsule opens.
He finds out she is seeing someone else and the capsule opens.
She issues him an invitation he cannot accept and the capsule opens.
She stands before him, so near to him, beneath him, and the capsule opens.
She…
He sees…
She…
He doesn't want to think about that last one. He doesn't want to think about it, but it is all he's been able to think about. He still sees her, sees her in that room, the room he would not let her enter. Moreover, he still sees himself. He'd like to deny, or to pretend, to banish those images and hurl those reawakened feelings into exile, but he can't. He can't pretend any longer. His illusions have all but vanished. He's had to admit something to himself, acknowledge something, something about him and something about her and it's devastating.
It's devastating.
It's devastating to go through the pictures of the two of them and still, he does it. He's discarded the photos taken of the team so that he's left with only those of the two of them, photos to obliterate those last lingering illusions and it's devastating. They are devastating.
Going out to do a field study during a seminar. Someone had been photo documenting the seminar. He looks young then, like he's almost young enough to be with her. She's so young in the photo though, far too young and full of so much life. He's looking at the evidence, his mouth open in explanation of what they are seeing. Her smile is brilliant. Her eyes are alight and burning with intensity, but she's not looking at the evidence. She's looking at him.
At a crime scene. He's bent over a body, examining a small, six-legged visitor that he'd plucked from the body with his tweezers. She's crouched beside him. He's looking at the beetle. She's looking at him.
Another from that first seminar. The meet and greet. Every jacket has a small, sticky name tag on it with either first names or surnames with titles. His says Grissom. Hers has both her names, written in that barely legible scrawl. With a half smirk, he's looking around at all the fascinatingly intoxicated occupants of the room. With a full and genuine grin, she's looking at him.
The annual LVPD/lab ball game, both in their ball get-ups. After finding out he was a fan of baseball, she's taken it upon herself to learn everything about the game. He's giving her pointers. They are caught in the photograph looking uncommonly relaxed, almost content. Close, almost intimate. His face is an odd blend of amusement and earnestness. Hers is full of wonder and captured interest. He's looking down at the score card. She's looking at him.
Again, a crime scene. He's wearing a curious expression. Her expression belays curiosity as well, but also some bemusement and some softness. He's looking at the intriguing piece of evidence. She's looking at him.
Another crime scene, so similar to so many others, to let his mind describe it would be superfluous. Another shot of him looking at the evidence. Another shot of her looking at him.
During a foggy afternoon in San Francisco. They'd gone for a coffee and ended up spending the day together. She'd asked someone to take a photo of them. He is smiling, but it is small…reserved. She's grinning wide. He's looking at the camera. She's…
She's…
He takes the photo and sets it aside. He needs to keep one photo out because he's admitted something to himself, acknowledged something, and this will be the sum of that acknowledgement. When thoughts of her are lingering, he will have this photo, this photo from when she was so young and he, nearly so, and their relationship was still in its carefree, almost innocent youth. This will be the one he keeps out, the one free of the capsule, the one he'll put on his bookshelf, or his fridge, or somewhere he can see it. He'll put it somewhere accessible and when he feels lost and lonely and full of longing, he'll look at it. He'll look at it and remember a time when they were almost young together.
When the capsule opens and he remembers all the words and the glances, and when he feels the ghost of her fingers on his cheek and can't keep from yearning for her, he'll have this photo to look at, and it has to be this photo and no other. It is the only photograph he has where she's not looking at him.