Chapter 36: And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine
Gil parked in the back alley of the large Walgreens on the Strip. As he closed the car door, he sighed and saw his breath light up the air in front of his eyes very briefly. The sky above him was an array of neon colors from the lights of the Strip and he heard the faint holiday carols coming from the souvenir shops nearby. He stepped onto Las Vegas Boulevard and out of the shadows of the back alleys. He suddenly felt exposed and got the feeling that there were eyes on him, watching his every move. Frowning, he fought the urge to turn back. He hoped instincts wouldn't fail him this time.
Looking left and right, he started his walk.
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She didn't know for how long she had been walking under the blinding Strip lights. She walked, her hands perched in the pockets of her slacks, her heels dragging along the pavement.
She sighed and saw her breath light up the air before her very briefly.
The night sky above her was a mix of dirty orange and dark yellow, pulling from her thoughts back to her old days. To her sometimes unmentionable yet useful past. She remembered Eddie, the nights that she had to run away from him and the time that she spent with Gil as a result. Gil again.
She shook her head, trying to be free of him for once.
As she walked mindlessly, Catherine realized that she had never taken time to just be herself and taken time to be alone with her thoughts. The time to realize what she had been missing all this time.
The time that Grissom had taken so often. Too often.
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He had never been a firm believer of fate and had always thought that he held the reins to the sled of his life. He thought he had done everything to cause all the events that had ever happened to him and had not done all the things he should have done because he was at fault. He also used to think that the fatalists were simply people who refused to take responsibility for their actions and blamed it on a force other than their own.
But it was this once that he wanted to put faith in serendipity. Utter blind faith.
Because he knew that if he and Catherine were going to find each other this time, it would be by chance, just as it had been the first time around. He realized he hadn't done anything in his life to deserve to meet her on that day twenty odd years ago.
He realized she had changed him and still did, in more ways than one.
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Observing the tourists, workers, police officers, mothers, grandfathers, teenagers and the lovers, she realized that she was out there fishing for advice from the cold winter Vegas air, rather than the man that she knew she was supposed to be looking for.
She pulled out her cell phone from the pocket of her blazer and saw that she had no calls that she had ignored, that she had inadvertently missed. She wondered if he even cared about her whereabouts, if he had even heard about the fact that she needed time only because of him.
She started to become angry. She started to cry.
Wiping the tears away from her eyes with her jacket sleeve, she hoped her mascara wouldn't run.
'Control yourself.' She thought, as she drew in another deep breath.
She realized that he made her become true to her emotions and true to herself, in more ways than one.
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What would he say if he did find her here? What words would allow him to adequately express how he felt?
'Catherine, I love you.'
They were simple words, words that required no thought. For once in his life, he could cut to the chase.
Listening to the sound of feet scuffling by him, he kept his eyes fixed onto the pavement, in fear that if he looked at where he was going, something would catch his eye and prevent him from going where he was truly meant to go.
He followed his instincts and wanted to go where his feet led him. He wanted to genuinely believe that he would find her because he wanted to believe that the place that his feet were meant to be was where she would inevitably be.
He was afraid of the fact that he was willing to go anywhere, for as long as it took.
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She didn't know what she was doing out on the Strip. She didn't know why she wasn't running to his house to confront him and she didn't know why she had to postpone the wedding. She didn't know how she could lie so easily to Ian about Gil and she didn't know how Lindsey had not asked questions when she told her that she needed time to think about the wedding. She didn't know what she was thinking and what she planned to do later tonight.
She still didn't know what she was feeling for him when she looked up and stopped, dead in her tracks.
He was walking with his eyes on the pavement, not looking up, his hands perched in his jacket pocket. She saw his breath light up the air in front of him and she drew in a cold breath of her own.
She wondered what kind of a game God was playing with her because she knew she was losing everything because of it. She was losing her conscience, her thoughts, her words and her sanity but she was giving up her heart just to be in it.
She knew that their eyes had met for a brief second when he looked up but it was too late.
She saw everything: the red and yellow lights of the car, the car skid, his body flailing from the impact and the way his struggling body fell against the hood of the black sedan. She watched as his body slid down the car and meet the pavement.
She only remembers reaching for him and feeling his warm skin. Everything else, a blur.