Disclaimer: I do not own the team. Title and quotes from Tennyson's In Memoriam.

Summary: Mourning is never linear. Gideon's death, viewed through an ongoing series of drabbles.

Our Father's Dust

54

"'Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine,/ To pledge them with a kindly tear,/

To talk them o'er, to wish them here, / To count their memories half divine;"

Garcia's expression is half excitement and half fear; "relax," JJ assures her. "This time I just came back to visit."

Somehow nobody has anywhere else to be, or pressing matters to attend to. The paperwork is finished miraculously early. An hour later they're occupying the entire corner booth of the closest bar.

It's been a while since they all went out together; far, far too long, actually. Some faces were here last time that aren't now. Some faces are new.

But the clink of glass on glass sounds the same as it ever did. Unexpectedly, the table doesn't feel empty.