Rating: G
Warnings: ImpliedCharacter Death, Angst, Grief
Disclaimer: Characters within are property of CBS; story (and blame) is mine.
Spoilers (for those not in the US: Finale onward
Author's Note: I am not jumping on the angst bandwagon. I call this my Grief Mobile. Please do not stone me if you read this and it makes you sad – that's the whole point. I am still in my optimistic "Jorja Re-signs" bubble and you can't force me out of it. Angst is just banging on the door and refuses to let me turn it away. Trust me, I've tried. I am eternally indebted to ddangerlove for her mad beta skills and to gipsy for her support. Originally posted to Geekfiction on LiveJournal on May 21, 2007.


Grissom understood without dwelling on the particulars when it was he'd reached his breaking point. But it was when his heels clicked against the threshold of the mudroom that he'd realized he was in trouble and would have to call someone to help him out. He settled back onto his aching legs, brushing his damp palms against his thighs, and wondered where he'd left his phone. Pocketing his permanent marker, he chewed his lip for a few minutes and thought about which number to dial.

He weighed his options and settled on calling Warrick.

His eyes wouldn't pity and accuse the way Catherine's would. She wouldn't intend for it to be that way, but that would undoubtedly be the case if she saw him like this. He'd held secrets from her that she wouldn't understand; her eyes even now demanded answers he didn't have for her. Or rather, he had the answers; but his secrets were his and too jealously guarded now.

He couldn't face Nick again. The last time he'd seen Nick, he was sure he would be crucified. Tempers had flared and blame had been placed. Only a careful word from Catherine had preserved his life, he was sure. His sanity… well, he was certain some days that it had already been sacrificed in the interrogation room. He wasn't content knowing this, but he had come to an understanding within his own mind; it's why he needed his supplies.

Greg was unthinkable. Greg was a walking, breathing, open wound. Greg was too much like looking into the mirror and he was frightened – he, Gil Grissom, secluded for most of his life from real fear – he was frightened of what would become of them both if they acknowledged their feelings to one another.

Jim was soaking in his own grief. He had taken a sabbatical from his sobriety. The thought was not comforting to Grissom; his actions had affected so many people, not the least of whom had been Jim. The domino effect of "what-ifs" that the sight of Jim Brass would cause was not a conflict he needed while he was… working.

So he wandered throughout the quiet spaces of their home until he located one of the phones. Dialing Warrick's familiar number, he prepared what he was going to say very carefully.

"Hello?" The smooth tones of Warrick's best professional voice sounded a little tired; but then, who wasn't these days.

"I need a favor."

"Anything, man, you know that. What's going on?"

"I have some things I need from the lab."

Grissom kept his voice low and even, softly detailing the needed supplies that any CSI would have recognized. He was forced to approximate the numbers of each but felt sure that Warrick wouldn't mind returning to the lab later if necessary.

Warrick, for his part, wondered if they'd left Grissom alone too long. He sounded reasonable, but everyone knew he was on leave. And of course they all understood why. Warrick allowed none of his reservations to echo in his words. "Of course, I can get those. Is there anything else you need, man?"

Quietly, Grissom responded, "No, thank you Warrick." He would never have what he really needed.

He stepped carefully around the small yellow tags on the hardwoods on his way to answer the quiet knocking at the door. There were two beside the coat rack with his small, precise writing giving voice to his memories. He stepped over a third beside a small pair of sandals; the ones she had worn out to Lake Mead on their joint day off in April.

In actions akin to being underwater – slow, deliberate movements – he slid back the latches, turned the deadbolt, and opened the door to his home. Their home.

Warrick looked tired, but patient and dependable; he hadn't shaved in awhile, Grissom could tell -- but then, who was he to talk about appearances? He himself hadn't shaved since Sara went missing. Green eyes met blue, and an understanding passed between them that not many would have grasped.

They didn't ask how the other was doing.

"Come in. Did you find everything?"

"Yeah…" His voice trailed off at the sight before him. Grissom had never looked quite so… old, so tired. No. Grissom had never looked so broken. There was the one case that had come close to breaking him; it had obliquely, in retrospect, involved the one woman who could have caused such a break. But look-alikes were never the real thing; and that pain was a shadow of what the man before him was gripped by. Just as the murdered woman then was a shadow of the murdered woman now.

Warrick allowed himself to look away and, ever the investigator, took in the state of Grissom's home.

Evidence tags.

The glaring yellow tags were set randomly throughout the room; one on top of a book, another by a coffee mug, more on the bookcase by a stack of CDs and magazines. Judging by their placement, Warrick estimated that Grissom had started towards the back of the house and was working his way into the kitchen. He realized what it was Grissom was doing.

He was processing his life with Sara.

"I ran out of tags," Grissom said calmly. "I went through both of my standby kits. I didn't want to use… hers… so I started using post-it notes. But they seemed so… transitory. I needed more evidence tags."

The quiet desperation hiding behind the words was not lost on Warrick. So he nodded, accepting the motivation implicit in this line of reasoning, and handed over the evidence box containing the department camera and the blank tags that Grissom had requested. "What number you up to?" Not a doubt in his mind that that it must be somewhere in the hundreds.

"I had to stop with 257. I ran out of tags, ran out of post-it notes. I… I started with her shampoo. It came to me that one day I was going to have to… put it all away. One day, someone is going to make me throw her things away." Just under the surface, the anger, the futility was boiling. "I couldn't live with the thought that she would be taken from me again, a piece at a time. So I saw her shampoo and I thought, this is evidence. She was here, in my shower, in our shower, our bathroom… this was hers, something uniquely hers, something that I know was hers."

He paused, and gestured with stained hands to the scattering of bright yellow tags, unaware of the tears escaping his eyes. "And so I started… processing… the scenes that made up our life."

Grissom shuffled his way to the bathroom after days of staying in bed staring sleeplessly at the ceiling and walls. He had gotten to the point where he couldn't face the recrimination he saw – real or imagined – in the face of their dog, so he'd asked Greg to take him to the boarding kennel. He was paying a small fortune every week for someone else to enjoy the sweet, sad company of the least judgmental and most affectionate "person" left in his life. How pathetic had he become that he couldn't even comfort an animal, that he was forced to send him to someone else to mourn?

He made his way into the bathroom and tried to meet his own eyes in the mirror; hoping against all hope that she would come up behind him, use some of her sandalwood lotion on her sweetly sensitive skin; that maybe she would ask him to rub it on her instead. But the lotion bottle sat, unused, on the countertop, next to her hairbrush, her deodorant, her unopened tube of lip gloss. He was tempted -- as he had been since Sara went missing -- to open it, to see what color she would have worn on Friday… But of course he didn't.

Everyone knows you can't tamper with evidence.

It was the tube of lip gloss that caused him to finally break down; he buried his face in his hands and wept for his loss. Taking a marker from the bedside table, he returned to the bathroom and marked on her side of the counter; "Sara was here," and circled the small black tube. He later returned with tags, bindles, and bags and began the consuming process of collecting evidence.

He wasn't really certain about the timeline after that. All he knew was that it became as vital as breathing to record the minutiae of her life in their home. He found himself combing her pillow for loose hairs, labeling the individual contents of her junk drawer, and searching her photo albums for pictures of them, together.

He had the substantiation of her life; proof of life, existence of her presence in their home. It was everywhere. It was in the coffee mug on the end table from breakfast, the lone slipper peaking out from under her side of the bed, the earmarked page of a volume of poetry. But of course, with every confirmation he received, the emptiness pressed more fully on his heart; until he realized that the only thing he could do was take stock of what they had and weigh it against what he'd denied them for so long.

So many missed opportunities to cherish and be cherished.

And now he stood here, in a family room that would never know "family," trying to explain to Warrick why he was treating his home as a crime scene. Why he felt it was necessary to photograph the details of her day-to-day activities, why the fibers and hair had to be bagged and preserved. Why he was – and would always be -- alone, but he couldn't do this alone anymore.

"I don't think I really called you for the supplies. I called you because I needed you to see her. To see her like I did. Will you… talk through the evidence with me?" Grissom's eyes pleaded for understanding, for acceptance. And miraculously, he could tell Warrick understood. He didn't ask why, or when, or how; or any of the other questions Catherine or Greg would have demanded from Grissom.

For Warrick's part, all he needed to know was in front of him; this man had loved this woman, and now he was broken. The damage, as intended, was irreparable. All he was left with were pieces of a life that in some way could be measured and quantified and proven to have existed. So he had locked himself away from everyone and everything else for the last three weeks -- and labeled and tagged and bagged the evidence of Sara's existence.

And now Warrick was going to help him out.

Cautiously placing his hand on Grissom's shoulder, he asked, "Where do you want to start?"