A/N: Most people were unhappy with Grissom after 9x02 (I was one of them), but he's still my favourite character on CSI. I'm not going to just justify his actions, but I've written something that might explain his actions in The Happy Place.
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI.
Parallels
"We can literally walk in the footsteps of Darwin."
She placed her palm on his chest, and started to play with a loose button on his shirt. He took her hand with his without thinking – like a reflex, the simplicity and the comfort of the moment – her body next to his, the quiet crinkled of the sheets, her hand in his – brought back a distant memory.
"She offers us a new life with her, but we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her."
He thought he couldn't do it; he couldn't risk his career for her. But here he was, lying in bed with the one person he risked it all for. And she did show him a wonderful life, so wonderful that nothing could even compare.
But could he risk everything again, throwing away the one thing he worked for his entire life for her?
The phone rang again, breaking his reverie, but this time it wasn't his. She lifted her head and reached for her phone, her hand still under his. Pausing for a second to check the caller ID, she answered with a smile in her voice.
"Hey, Greg."
When she shot out of bed and pressed both hands to the phone, as if she couldn't hear him clearly on the other side, he knew that something was wrong. Her face was ashen, and he could see her hands trembling.
"I'll be right there," she whispered, her voice breaking as she shut the phone.
"What is it?" he asked urgently, his mind flashing to Catherine lying dead in some alley, or Nick's lifeless body in the morgue.
"Pamela Adler is dead," she said, her eyes hollow and glassy – haunted.
For the first time since she returned, he saw the ghosts of her past cloud her eyes and felt her desperation fill the air around them.
The generic offering of 'I'm sorry for your loss' didn't even cross his mind, and he touched her bare arm briefly instead. "Come on, I'll take you there."
The Galapagos was the last thing on her mind, but not his.
"I couldn't do it," his defeated voice rang out through his mind, but he pushed it out of his head and flipped open his phone while Sara wrapped a dark jacket around her shoulders, choosing to deal with it later.
--
"Sara, you have to consider the possibility that the husband made up the story to justify his actions."
"No, absolutely not."
"I'm not saying he didn't love her, he loved her so much that he kept her alive for eight years. You're still a scientist."
He almost let a 'right?' slip out after 'scientist', but managed to hold his tongue. Sara was looking at him as though she didn't recognize him, and he realised with a tinge of loss that she really did believe the husband was telling the truth.
The evidence meant nothing to her now; she was acting like a friend of the husband, not an impartial CSI.
This was the reason Sara couldn't stay, and the reason he didn't want her to – she was going to be broken down once more, bit by bit, by the things she saw.
"You risked it all, and she showed you a wonderful life, didn't she? But then she took it away."
He never really got over the fact she left him with nothing more than a letter and a goodbye kiss, the pent-up anger flaring up and consuming the rational part of his brain.
"Maybe he couldn't. Maybe he needed her to leave him."
He foolishly allowed his mind to wander back to his conversation with Dr. Lurie, drawing parallels between them again. He was confused – was he talking to Sara, the woman he loved, or Sara, impartial ex-CSI?
Was he speaking to her as Grissom the supervisor or Gil the boyfriend?
Just as fast as the words slipped out and his anger flared up, he closed his mouth and felt the anger ebb away, but the damage was already done.
"Who are you talking about right now?"
"I don't know," he wanted to say. "I really don't know, Sara." Instead, he looked down, defeated and thoroughly confused.
--
"Have you ever loved someone so much that you would kill for them?" Scott questioned, the anguish in his eyes raw.
Grissom cocked an eyebrow in his direction, but didn't speak.
"But then she took it away and gave it to somebody else, and you were lost. So you took her life."
"I did. And even if Lexi can't be with me, she's better off without her. She promised me everything, and then she took it all away!" Scott started to sob, the anguish palpable in the air.
He stared at Scott, whose weeping face morphed into Lurie's cold, hard stare.
"I'm still here."
The dragging of a chair against the hard floor shattered the brief hallucination, and Scott was taken away, leaving him alone in the cold interrogation room. Left alone with nothing but the swirling thoughts of death, parallels and love.
Lurie killed Michael and Debbie because he couldn't stand the thought of her with anyone else.
Scott killed Paula because he couldn't stand the thought of Lexi living with her.
Grissom killed a relationship because he couldn't stand the thought of Sara suffering in Vegas, waiting for him to leave with her.
Because he couldn't walk away, and she had to be the one.
--
He loved her, but before he opened the door to his apartment, he wished the place would be empty.
He didn't want to face her without an answer, as cowardly as it sounded, and he didn't want to see her cry because of him.
The door swung open, revealing an empty apartment. That bubble of relief was replaced immediately with an empty, dull ache of knowing he would have to return every night to an empty apartment once more. The knowledge that he had hurt her so badly she left without leaving him anything did nothing but intensify the pain.
All of them, Scott, Lurie and himself, risked it all for the one thing they loved, and all ended up losing everything. Only he was left with a light at the end of the tunnel, one that flickered dimmer and dimmer as time passed, but the old question presents itself once more.
Can he risk it all for her?