Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…

"Hey, hold up. There's one more thing I want you to see before we leave," she heads deeper into the cemetery and like an obedient child, I follow.

We weave back and forth among headstones until she stops just in front of one. She suddenly turns around to face me. "Does May 17, 2001 mean anything to you?" she asks stoically.

I look up at the trees that are barely swaying in the wind. There are very few dates that instantly mean anything to me—the day I married Eddie, the day Lindsey was born, the day I divorced Eddie, the day Sara walked out of my life…and May 17th wasn't one of those dates.

I look back at her, shaking my head, "No, that date doesn't ring a bell. Should it?"

She steps aside and points down at the marker, "It does to him."

It's a plain marker, nothing extraordinary or extravagant. It simply reads 'Gilbert Grissom, August 17, 1956 - May 17, 2001.'

I sink to my knees and run my fingers over the letters of his name and the date of his death. "Gil's dead?" I whisper. "How?"

"Remember Syd Goggle?"

"I shot him. He was the Strip Strangler," I answer flatly. Then it dawns on me. "Oh, no."

"Oh, no, is right. In the world you remember, you were there and kept him from killing your good ol' friend, Gil Grissom. Only in this reality, you don't exist. Grissom still butted heads with the FBI and was still removed from the case. Only the likes of you and Sara weren't around anymore. There never was a sense of family on the team without you around. So, just like no one ran to Nick's rescue, no one was there for Grissom. Instead of you shooting Syd Goggle and saving Grissom's life, Syd Goggle beat Grissom to death with a shovel. Grissom hadn't bothered to tell anyone where he was going or his line of thought on the case since he was suspended. No one noticed him missing. In the meantime, Syd Goggle killed three more people before the FBI finally caught him."

I'm just sitting there shaking my head in disbelief when she continues speaking.

"His death was sorta ironic though. Grissom's specialty was entomology. Goggle dumped his body on an ant hill. Those ants had picked his skeleton clean by the time the FBI found it. Of course, the coroner didn't have to do much work to confirm the cause of death. The fragmented skull that was found with the rest of the remains—if you want to call them that—confirmed that he was beaten with the shovel. The problem though is that there was no way of telling if he was dead when he was dumped on that ant hill. You know how tricky head wounds can be."

I turn around and she's walking away from me. I give the letters on his name one last brush of my fingertips before choking back tears and murmuring, "I'm sorry. I should have been there."

I catch up to her and she says acerbically, "Yes, you should have. You should have been there for him, for Nick, and for Nancy. But you weren't. So suck it up, we still have some more people to visit."

"Fine, let's get this over with. Who's next?" my patience with her are wearing thin.

She cocks her head to the side and taps her finger against her lips, "Who do we want to see? We could visit Sofia. No, she's going to be interesting. We should save her for later. We could drop in on Warrick. Nah, he'll be a bit preoccupied. Maybe you'd like to see how Brass is doing? Or maybe even dear ol' Dad?"

"What about Sara? You didn't mention Sara. I want to see how Sara is—find out how her life is," I urge. "Let's check in on Sara."

She just waggles her finger in my face, "Oh darn, we should have gone to Grissom's funeral. You could have seen her there. She did show up for that." Her eyes light up like those of a child on Christmas morning. "I know exactly where we're going."

A/N: Grissom is dead. And many of you have asked about Sara—I've mentioned her—consider that an offering appeasement for now 