Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or any of its characters.
Spoilers: Through Season 8 Finale
WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH
A/N: Thank you to jenbachand and toslover for the read thrus and help and suggestions. But I messed with it after they read it, so all mistakes are mine. Thanks also to Kristen Elizabeth for the encouragement; she rocks.

There was no pain.

Surprise, yes. But no pain.

I'm not sure if it's because of my current state or if it's still memories of all those years around gunshot wounds and dead bodies, but I know the first shot was the kill shot; the second one was just insurance. If there had been a trauma surgeon right beside me in the car, I still would have died.

The actual dying part was a little strange. It sort of felt like, well, it's indescribable in words. The closest thing I can think is like part of me, the "me" part, was pulled away from my body like two pieces of Velcro separating.

Yeah. Weird.

And this isn't what I thought death would be like. I guess I thought I'd see Grams first thing or a blinding white light or something. I didn't think I'd still be around, even just a second or two after I'd died.

But I'm still here: the ground is still wet, the neon is still glowing, my body is slumped over in the car. And while everything is just as it was a few minutes ago, everything has changed.

There are the same small puddles on the pavement, but I can see every molecule that makes up every drop of water that makes up every tiny puddle on the asphalt. I see how the safety glass shattered with the gunshot and how it's twinkling on the ground like a thousand diamonds. I can feel the neon moving in the "Pool" sign, I smell the steam billowing out from the ventilation system of the restaurant up the street and I hear the racing heartbeat of the stray cat huddled in a niche between the rundown buildings. Then I realize I can't see or smell or feel or hear; I'm not a body with eyes or ears or nose or nerve endings to feel anything anymore.

Yet, somehow, I am feeling everything.

McKeen is walking towards his car around the corner. It's a slow, sad walk. He never thought he'd be this man; a mole to a mobster, a murderer. He doesn't feel any triumph at having gotten away with any of this; he's just tired and unsure where it all went wrong. Didn't want to be a dirty cop, but there was a woman named Diana and I can see her in his mind the way he remembers her: white blonde hair and big blue eyes and laughing, laughing as she tells him "I love you." He had to save her and he got tangled up with Gedda and that was thirty years ago and it was a slippery slope and he slid, man, he slid.

He slides wearily behind the wheel. Leaning his head against the headrest he thinks at least he's free of Gedda now. He can put all of this behind him now that I'm dead and all he has left to worry about is Grissom, but in the end, he thinks that will be okay, too. He's covered his tracks pretty well and he doesn't have to worry about me remembering anything about Gedda's murder to tell Grissom. But, no matter what, he's done with killing. If Grissom does figure it out, he'll just eat his own gun. He's tired of the killing and the blood and not being the man he had always--

The sound of a scream startles him and he remembers he's just killed someone and he needs to get far away from here before he gets the call that brings him back. I could go with him, but I don't.

Instead, I'm back to my body and the screamer who is still screaming. A young working girl dressed in a red halter top and a black pleated mini skirt and stockings with too many runs in them. She has a bad case of acne she's tried to hide with too much make-up. Sierra, she goes by the name Sierra, but her real name is Amy. Even her pimp thinks she's 18 but she just turned 16 and she misses her mom so much, but she doesn't know how to go home. But the sight of my dead body and the blood may be just the ticket she needs.

"Call your mama, Amy. You're too beautiful and life's too short. Call your mama, girl. She'll bring you home." I can't speak without a body and I'm not sure how I can think without a brain, but I send that thought to her just as hard as I can. I hope, somehow, she gets it.

Then the two deputies from the diner and Nick come running around the corner, weapons drawn. And Amy is still screaming and when Nick sees my body I can smell his fear and nausea; I hear his brief panicked denial "Nooo!" and the thought that flashes through his mind iI must be dreaming. Then they're dragging my body out of the car, laying it on the damp pavement, and Nick starts CPR, yelling for me to stay with him.

"It's too late, Nicky. I'm not there any more." But he can't hear me over his own sobs. I wish I could hug him, I wish I could tell him what a good friend he's been to me, what a good man he is, how sorry I am for not always being as good of a friend to him. But that doesn't matter any more, because all at once I see, god, I see how we're brothers, more than friends. How all those nights laughing and talking, they were knitting our souls together and he never had expectations of me, never wanted anything from me but for me to be happy. And it's like I can see his soul as he's kneeling there, sweating and crying, trying to get the heart in my body to start beating again. It won't and the others have seen that, but Nick won't stop. I'm all around him now, I can taste his sweat and feel his blood being oxygenated. And just for a minute, I'm inside him, I am him and I'm telling him "Let me go, Nicky. I love you, man, but you gotta let me go."

And I feel it in him, the release, where he hears me without knowing he hears me and he lets me go; it's like a balloon releasing its air. I am floating away and I can see him, how beautiful he is and I know he loves me and this is going to hurt him, but he's going to be okay. He keeps doing CPR, but his heart isn't in it anymore, but he won't let himself quit.

It doesn't matter any more though, because the ambulance is pulling up and the EMTs are pushing Nick aside. The dark sedan that pulls up behind the ambulance is one I know and I can already feel Brass's pain. He stands there in the dark, silent way he has and I feel every pain and disappointment he's ever had in his life and I don't know why he's not been driven to his knees long before now. But then I see all the things he loves, Ellie's dark eyes and a childish laugh from fifteen years ago and a mumbled "I love you, Daddy" from a voicemail less than a year ago. An old woman with liver spotted hands, patting his cheek and telling him "You're a good boy, Jimmy." The glorious reds and yellows of a sunrise over a rice paddy in Vietnam that made him forget, just for a second, his feet had not been dry in months.

"You're right, Jim. I am lucky." I don't want him to feel bad; he was right and he's a good man. "Thank you. For everything."

And then Grissom's there, rushing forward, but stopping when he sees the slight shake of Brass's head and he sort of wilts. The scientist is at war with the man; he's automatically looking at the scene on the atrial systole of his heart and horrified at the sight of my death on the ventrical systole…the beat of his heart making up who he is: CSI and friend.

All of my character defects, all of my flaws, they died with my body. However I am here, right here and now…I am only love. Some sort of energy made up of love. This man standing before me, he has loved and believed in me more than anyone else other than my Grams. He saw something in me I didn't even see, believed in me, when the evidence should have told him I was too much of a risk. But he put his faith in me anyway and I love him. He is a beautiful man…one of the most beautiful souls I have ever known. Standing there, I can see him as he really is and it's even more than I've ever seen before.

The mind that sought from a very young age to make sense of his world through science and reason. And a heart open to the beauty of the world around him. I see his fingers as a child, forming the signs for "I love you, Mommy." I can smell the summer day in the garden with his father. I taste the tears he shed when he held his golden retriever, Lucy, as the vet put her down. I can feel how his heart leapt the first time he saw Sara, big brown eyes, messy pony tail and coltish legs.

He's thinking about Sara…he's thinking about Nicky and how he'll have to tell Tina and he hopes Catherine has her radio off so he can get to her first and Greg won't be going to California, afterall. But he's mainly thinking about Sara and how he has to call her and tell her. He wonders if it will make what she's going through worse and will she know he needs her?

I try to think what thought I want to send to him and I can't think of anything good enough. There's nothing that I can say to him that will have enough meaning for how much I appreciate who he is and what he's done for me. There aren't the right to thank him or let him know how much I love and respect him.

So, I don't. I just gather all of the feelings together and send a wave of love his way.

I don't know if he felt it and I don't know if I can do what I want to do next. This is all new, y'know? But I'm going to try.

I think of love and Grissom and Sara and I feel like I'm floating and there she is…she's sleeping. The place she's staying is on the ocean and she's sleeping with the windows open so she can listen to the ocean while she sleeps.

"Hey, girl." I know I'm not really speaking and she can't really hear me, but I am sending the thoughts and words her way, anyway. "Things have come full circle." The walls are white, the linens are white; the only color is the dark fall of her hair across the white pillowcase. "He needed you when Holly died, but he's going to need you more now." She shifts in the bed and I'm feeling the pull of the night and the ocean; but I make myself stay just long enough to send the whole message to her. "It's time to start living again. Life's short. It's short but it's so, so beautiful." If I could breath, I know I'd be inhaling deeply, taking in the salty air. "Go home to him, Sara. Love him. You'll get through this together."

Slowly, her eyes open and for an instant I wonder if she sees me. But then she blinks and I know she can't see me.

A second later, the cell phone on the bedside table begins to ring.

And I know she's going home and they're all going to be all right.

So, I let go for the final time and float away, into the air, into the ocean. I am the ocean and the air and the sand and the stars. I never leave; I will be with them always. I am the moonlight on their face and the sunshine surrounding them.

Love never ends.