A/N: Thanks to those who have reviewed, added this to their favorites and following. It's appreciated.

Ch. 5: There Are Two Paths

2009

Nevada State Penitentiary

The door at the end of the hallway opened. He heard the clinking of the keys on the guards belt and his footsteps. Putting the book down, he sat up in bed as the guard, Officer Rahm, opened the door for him. Out of the cell, he was cuffed around the wrists.

"You have a visitor," Officer Rahm told him before leading him down the long hallway and through the security checkpoints.

Rahm escorted him into the same room he'd been to before with one table, two chairs, and no windows. It was also very bright. He winced at the lights as he sat in the chair.

He cuffed him to the table as he asked, "Migraine?" When he gave a nod, he told him, "Once you're done, I'll take you to the infirmary."

"Thank you. Nice to know you live up to your name. Rahm does mean mercy, correct? Compassion."

Rahm gave him a surprised look before saying, "Yes."

He gave a nod as he asked, "If you don't mind me knowing, what's your first name?"

"It's Araf," he told him as he put his keys back on his gun belt.

Araf. He worked his mind around the Arabic name as he tried to form a connection to it's meaning. All he came up with was Louis Massignon, the Catholic scholar of Islam, who believed that the Christian concept of limbo was inspired by the Muslim interpretation of A'raf.

When he told that to Officer Rahm, he laughed and said, "Actually, I got it from the Hebrew definition, which means beautiful. The A'raf you're referring to is like a purgatory."

"Tell me about it," he asked. "If you don't mind."

Rahm walked over to the door and looked out the window as he told him, "When I woke up this morning, I did not think I'd be having to discuss religion, especially not with you."

"I love to learn. And since we're waiting for my guest to arrive…"

Rahm was silent for a moment as he looked back at him, hands on his gun belt. "It's the Muslim separator realm; borderland of sorts between heaven and hell, and it's inhabitants, their sins and virtues are evenly balanced. They're not entirely evil nor are they entirely good. Some describe it as a wall that contains a gate, and in this high wall live people who witness the terror of hell and the beauty of paradise. They can't get to either. Only with God's mercy will they be among the last people to enter paradise."

As he listened, he couldn't help but think that it sounded very much like a prison. His prison; not the one he was physically in, but mentally. His sins and virtues were evenly balanced and he was in limbo, trying to get to paradise. Buying a stairway to heaven, he thought with a smirk as the song lyrics entered his head.

~"There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold

And she's buying a stairway to heaven-"~

Rahm had gone back to looking out the window in the door and straightened as he told him, "Your guest is here. I'll be waiting outside."

He watched him open the door as Dr. Raymond Langston walked into the room. Officer Rahm left the room and shut the door behind him.

~"When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed-"~

Langston gave him a smile as he sat down in the chair across from him. "Hope I didn't pull you away from anything important."

He wrinkled his head at him as he tried to tell if he was joking or not. "Only my re-reading of "Of Mice and Men" for the third time."

"What's your takeaway from Steinbeck's classic," Langston asked as he leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs.

~"With a word she can get what she came for-"~

"To understand each other is to love each other. Only our lack of understanding leads to hate and violence. If we only listened more. No one listened or tried to understand Lennie. It's also about dreams, acquiring them and the lengths people will go to obtain them. But, ultimately, it's about loneliness. Soledad, the town near where the story takes place, is Spanish for "Solitude.""

Langston was smiling as he said, "You'd make a fantastic teacher."

~"Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven-"~

"Still can," he said as he leaned on the table. "You're not here to talk to me about literature."

"No, I'm not," he told him.

"Are you cancelling the lecture?" he asked in confusion. There weren't many reasons he could think of as to why Langston was there instead of being a WLVU.

"I wanted to talk to you in private today."

He didn't know what about, and he went to voice that uncertainty as he said, "I've been open with you-"

~"There's a sign on the wall, but she wants to be sure-"~

"It's about a more...intimate nature."

~"'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings-"~

Intimate? He shifted in the seat as he thought about that. If Langston wanted to get more personal with him, he wasn't going to give it up so easily. "Tell you what, you tell me about yourself, I'll answer anything you want."

Langston's eyes shot up as he said, "A quid pro quo?"

"Why not," he said. "I know a little about you from your book, "In Front of My Eyes.", about not seeing that your co-worker was an Angel of Death. He killed 27 people."

"And you were a serial killer and none of your co-workers saw it, and you killed more than 27 people. We should form a support group."

~"There's a feeling I get when I look to the west

And my spirit is crying for leaving-"~

He smirked. "Was that experience the reason why you decided to teach forensic pathology?"

"In a way," Langston said. "We're both scientists. We both want to understand death, we just went about it differently. Today, however, I don't want to talk about death with you."

~"In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees-"~

That caught his attention as he studied the doctor; he took in his words and his behavior, and remembered what he'd read in Langston's book. Analyzing Langston was no different than analyzing a story, looking for themes, similarities, differences, and what he concluded was that the man had more than a fleeting interest or professional curiosity. It was personal. "You said, during that first day, that you always start with the parents."

~"And the voices of those who stand looking-"~

He saw that Langston stiffened at those words as he placed his hands flat on the table. He was thinking. They both were. Finally, he told him, "Okay. I was an Army brat. My father was a soldier in the Korean War. He was an alcoholic. A drunk. He was violent. Abuse doesn't determine a person's behavior."

"I agree," he told him as he tilted his head at him in thought. "You want to know what separates us?"

~"And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune-"~

Langston shifted in the seat as he said, "I want to understand what makes one person take one path, the path of good, and another takes the other one, the path of evil, even though they came from the same place."

~"Then the piper will lead us to reason-"~

"There are many debates about nature versus nurture, Dr. Langston. I think the consensus is: there isn't one."

Langston smirked. "No, there isn't, is there?"

"We're all capable of anything. We're all human. It all comes down to choices."

"Do you think you could have changed your ways if you were given a different choice?"

~"And a new day will dawn for those who stand long-"~

He thought about that and tried to form an answer. He honestly had no idea. Shaking his head, he told him, "I've had many choices to choose from over the years. Many different roads I could have taken. It all led back to one. I guess, at the end of the day, we can't fight our nature."

~"And the forests will echo with laughter-"~

Langston then asked, "So, you don't believe it was nurture that made you this way? I talked to your therapist, Dr. Philip Kern, and he told me that psychopaths are born. Sociopaths are made. He believes you're somewhere in the middle."

~"And it makes me wonder-"~

Philip thought he was crazy? "He ruled that I was sane. I am sane."

Langston sighed as he leaned back in the chair and gave it some thought. "From my understanding, you would think that God made you this way. You also think that there isn't anything wrong with you, but there is. Insanity is extremely hard to prove in court, especially since you know right from wrong. Dr. Kern couldn't prove it, but that doesn't mean you aren't insane."

~"If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now

It's just a spring clean for the May queen-"~

He remembered Sara asking him once, a long time ago, if his logic was wrong. If he was worried that it was flawed. He never questioned his logic. Once he found the truth, that was all that mattered, and it made sense. It all made too much sense for him to be insane.

Did Langston think he was crazy? "What do you think?" He was going to make him work out his own conclusion. He wanted to know how Langston thought.

"I think, Dr. Grissom, that you were born without empathy. I don't think you were born a psychopath. I think you were made into one, whether that's a sociopath, I have no idea. I just know that you have no idea how to relate to other people. You say you were in love; I honestly don't believe you know what that means. You say you've told me the truth, but I know how much you had to lie to preserve your secret."

He shook his head. "I never lied-"

"Oh, come on-"

"Words are always up to interpretation. I may not have openly admitted to what I was doing, but I never lied."

~"Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run-"~

"Okay, let me ask you this," Langston said as he tried to course correct the conversation. "Are you sure it wasn't the Devil who made you this way? He is a trickster."

"Would that make what I have done easier for you to accept?" he genuinely asked.

"He is the one that brings darkness and evil."

He nearly smiled. He really liked Dr. Langston as he wasn't afraid to challenge him. "I'm not evil. As for darkness…"And sometimes goin' in the dark, where there ain't been no light", is needed."

Langston smiled as he said, "Langston Hughes."

~"There's still time to change the road you're on-"~

"Are you afraid to go into the dark where there is no light?" he asked. "Is that why you really want to know if we truly are different?"

That made Langston bristle slightly. "I want to know how far your darkness stretched. I was under the impression that you weren't sexually stimulated by your acts of violence. I heard you were involved in a certain type of relationship. BDSM?" he asked in an attempt to get his interview back on track.

And it worked as he blinked back in confusion. What? Who could have possibly-He felt himself smirk as the answer came to him. He pointed to him as he said, "You've been talking to Catherine."

"She had some things to say. You're still her friend." Langston waited and when he didn't give him anything, he said, "One could find an equal in that lifestyle. Was that what you were searching for?"

He shook his head as he told him, "I wasn't searching for anything in that lifestyle."

"So, you weren't interested in acting out your dominance in a sexual manner?"

"My dominance isn't about sex. I mean, it can be with other people."

"Then what was it about for you," Langston asked, trying to get him to answer his curiosity. "Because I can't wrap my head around you being domineering over another person, especially someone you're intimately involved with. A vulnerable woman-"

"Again, that wasn't what it was about, Dr. Langston," he told him as he glared at him. "This goes back to what I was saying earlier about understanding one another. You're not understanding, or listening-"

"I'm listening," Langston said, cutting him off. "You're refusing to answer."

~"In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings-"~

"I'm not refusing to answer, I gave you the answer," he told him.

Langston sighed in annoyance. He took a moment to gather his thoughts before asking, "Did violence enter into your sexual relationships?"

"No," he answered.

"Did acting out fantasies of violence enter into your sexual relationships?"

"No."

Langston was silent for a while before he asked, "In your sexual relationships, what role do you take? Dominate or submissive?"

~"Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven-"~

This was not anything he wanted to talk about with Dr. Langston, however, he knew it was why he was there and he wasn't going to leave until he got answers. But there was another reason he was willing to answer. He needed Langston to help him solve his problem.

So, he decided to answer, "First, you need to understand what both mean in relation to one another. Being a submissive doesn't mean you're beneath the dominant. In fact, the submissive is the one in control. They are the ones who can stop the interaction all together, not the dominant. The dominant is at the submissives behest. The dominant reads the submissive and responds accordingly."

Langston stared at him for a moment and then said, "You want control, so are you saying that you were the submissive?"

He thought back to his relationship with Sara, and said, "I'm explaining how I came to understand how I behave, and why, in my relationship. You said I can't love; I beg to differ. It's not in a typical, usual way, I suppose, but I learned how to do it my way."

Again, Langston was confused. "So, you did dominate your sexual partners? Even the dominatrix?"

~"Your head is humming and it won't go-"~

Wait-What? He was making a mistake. Langston wasn't asking about Sara, was he? He stared at Langston in confusion as his mouth went dry. Heather? He was wanting to know about Lady Heather? Thinking back through their conversation, back to him realizing that Langston had talked to Catherine, he asked, "What did Catherine say to you exactly?"

~"In case you don't know

The piper's calling you to join him-"~

"That you had a fling with a dominatrix."

He closed his eyes and shook his head. Of course, she would think that. "Catherine likes to make assumptions."

"So, it was just an assumption?"

He gave a nod.

Langston looked at him like he didn't believe him. "Do you know a dominatrix?"

Again, he answered with a nod as he thought about his friend. He wasn't ready to voice anything pertaining to his friend just yet. It had taken him completely by surprise that Langston would ask about her that he was trying to get his mind to work out everything. There was only so much he wanted to divulge, and he didn't want to slip up. Heather deserved her privacy, and since Catherine only told Langston her previous profession, then he had to think that Langston didn't know her name or her current profession.

The more he thought about Heather, the more he missed her. He should write to her.

"Tell me about her."

~"Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know-"~

The wall over Langston's shoulder came into focus as his thoughts focused. Then, he told him, "Have you heard of the Special Relativity equation? It describes how time and space aren't absolute concepts, but rather are relative depending on the speed of the observer. Time dilates, or slows down, the faster a person is moving in any direction. It created a whole new way of looking at the world and our relationship to reality. Suddenly, the rigid unchanging cosmos is swept away and replaced with a personal world, related to what you observe. You move from being outside the universe, looking down, to being one of the components inside it. It's absolutely beautiful."

Langston was looking at him like he was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. "And what does that have to do with her? Or you?"

"With me...with all of us, our personal world is created by how and what we observe and how we take in that information. You call my viewpoint insane, but it's how I see the world. It's how I take in information. All of us have a different perception of reality. What it has to do with her...When I first met her, time seemed to slow down. That's only happened one other time in my life."

~"Your stairway lies on the whispering wind?-"~

GIL

2001 - 2003

~"And as we wind on down the road

Our shadows taller than our soul-"~

They had arrived at the house and were waiting to meet the owner of the fetish club where their victim had worked. With his back turned to the staircase, he examined the items in the foyer. The paintings, the sculptures and antique Victorian furniture. Brass and Catherine were bantering back and forth with one another.

Their voices suddenly became muffled and then gone. Turning to try to read their lips, he instead saw movement out of the corner of his eyes and when he looked upon the staircase, he stilled at the sight of the woman.

~"There walks a lady we all know-"~

As the world around him vanished into silence, all he had was his sense of sight. When he saw her, time seemed to slow as if she were moving in slow motion, but everything else in his head was moving at a million miles per hour taking in everything he saw.

Raven hair, crimson lips, and emerald eyes. She was dressed completely in black, like a shadow, or better yet, a silhouette, because he could already tell that she hid within the dark, just like him. That her persona was a well constructed identity and not who she really was underneath. His mother, with all her vibrant colors, could never have painted something so hauntingly reflective of his own heart. As he watched her glide down the steps, all he could think about was Marcel Duchamp's painting "Nude Descending a Staircase", despite the fact she wasn't nude. It was the fact that it was beautiful, like art. A perfect painting.

Words came to his mind, ones that weren't there before, as a poem formed in his head: "Lips made it seemed by perfectly crafted clay, a painted quick gaze, a glossy smile, one stroke was all it needed to be complete, a natural wonder that captured another...She could be more than a picture of a life once lived, a photograph of a lover once had, as still as she is, she could be painted a thousand times over again...What a lovely silhouette is she…"

He'd only written poetry for one other and it had taken him by surprise. He looked away to slow his thoughts in order to focus before they strayed too far from why they were there.

~"Who shines white light and wants to show

How everything still turns to gold-"~

The rest of his time that evening spent with her proved to him many things. She was highly intelligent and observant. She also wasn't afraid to challenge him, or hold back and make him work for the information he wanted. They were the same in a lot of ways, in the most important ways that intrigued him. He found everything about her and her mind, how she viewed the world, fascinating.

In all his years, he'd never questioned or challenged his views on relationships simply because he never cared to have any, sexual or otherwise. But his thoughts soon strayed to Sara and his inadequacies. There had to be a reason why she chose Hank over him, and the only answer his mind could give him at the moment was his lack of intimacy and sexual interest.

What did Father Powell say to him about the light going out for the Catholic? He stands in the dark and asks, "What have I done wrong?"

Father Powell said he still suffered like a Catholic. He had been partly correct for his suffering wasn't due to his beliefs or lack thereof. His suffering came from the fact that he didn't understand relationships. He didn't understand emotions. He didn't understand sexual attraction. There were two disconnects he knew to be a fundamental fact within his body: the disconnect that went from his heart to his mind and the one that went from his mind to his sexual desire, wherever that was located-Probably between his groin and naval, in the area where the Eastern believers of Hindu and Buddhism called the sexual chakra.

The area wasn't just the location of sexual desire, but desire in general. Impulsive desire: lust, gluttony, greed, and overconsumption of all kinds including alcohol and drug use. Or, the exact opposite: deprivation.

Her eyes followed him around her private room as he looked over the various items she had out on display as they talked. "Does this all fascinate you?" she asked.

"Yes. I find all deviant behavior fascinating in that to understand our human nature we have to understand our aberrations." He studied the mask in his hands as he tried to figure out what in the hell it was used for other than to hide behind.

He had a mask that he hid behind, but it looked nothing like that one.

"And you think what goes on here is aberrant?"

He wanted to smile at her use of the word "aberrant". He said "deviant", she used a synonym. Aberrant: departing from an accepted standard.

He never was one to follow standards, or the same moral codes as the rest of society, as he once alluded to while talking to Dr. Philip Kern, who was the department psychologist. He, himself, could be aberrant. He was good at controlling and channeling any emotion he did feel, but there were times when they got the best of him. Mostly anger. Anger could get the best of him if he let it. And it had.

Getting his mind back on track with the course of questioning and the reason he was there, he thought about Mona Taylor. She had whip marks on her back and ligature contusions on her wrists. He tried everything he could to keep his mind on the present but nothing seemed to steady his mind as he thought back to his childhood.

Seeing his father through the crack in the door at night. The creaking of the wooden floor under his feet as he neared the door. The light was on and it shined into his eyes as he looked secretly into the bedroom. His father with a belt in his hand and his mother crying silently. No screaming, no yelling, only her frantic hands telling him to stop. He had ignored her.

"Every job has its peculiar hazards," Lady Heather tried to tell him.

No explanation she could come up with would ever get him to acknowledge that this wasn't about anything other than dominance and pain, humiliation, embarrassment, and ridicule. Anyone with those desires could walk right in and inflict damage onto another.

He normally wasn't one to judge, but his mind couldn't let him get past what he saw as a child between his parents, and the connection to what he saw to have happened to Mona Taylor. He didn't understand it. Not in the least.

"Mona did. She died," he told her when she told him that no one who worked for her had ever sustained a serious injury.

"Not because she worked here, that's your assumption. What happens here isn't about violence," she told him, trying to get him to understand. "It's about challenging preconceived notions of Victorian normalcy. Bringing people's fantasies to life. Making them real and acceptable."

He gave that some thought and tried to connect it to something he could relate to and understand. "Like the theatre," he said when he was able to make the connection. He sat the mask back down and rubbed at his finger, trying to steady his mind to keep himself grounded, as he ventured around the room.

~"And if you listen very hard

The tune will come to you at last-"~

"It's people who don't come to places like this that I worry about. The ones who don't have an outlet. Say...someone like yourself."

She wanted to know about his outlets? "Oh, I have outlets," he told her. "I study bugs. I sometimes even ride roller coasters." He wasn't going to tell her about his more...aberrant outlets.

"And your sex life?" she asked, because she would. That was her area of interest.

"It doesn't involve going to the theatre," he told her.

Then she surprised him when she said, "In my experience, Mr. Grissom, some men go to the theatre...some men are the theatre." Then she told him about offering submission and control, whichever was required. "Sometimes a client doesn't know what he wants until I show him."

Was she trying to pander to his curiosity? Or was she trying to figure out which one he was? He had no idea, but that thought was there and it wouldn't leave his mind. She also referred to the people, men in general, as "clients". Was that how she viewed all men? Was he only a potential client to her? He quoted Marcel Proust, that "no man is a complete mystery except to himself."

"I bet he would have enjoyed himself here."

"Probably. No crime is a complete mystery, either. The whip marks on Mona Taylor were fresh."

That shocked Lady Heather as stood and told him that Mona was always dominant with her clients. Then she finally gave him something he could use in the investigation. Mona Taylor would sometimes see her clients off the books.

He spotted a mask in her armoire and picked it up. It was made of leather. It reminded him of a Bauta mask, which was fairly square and it covered the whole face, offering complete anonymity to the wearer. It also had the added advantage of a prominent nose and, beak-like, protruding chin. It allowed the wearer to be able to eat, drink and talk without removing the mask, thus keeping their identity intact.

He thought back to Mona Taylor. The bruising in her nose. A mask that cut off her ability to eat and drink because there was no access to the mouth. She wouldn't be able to breathe, unless through the nose...

"Does that one interest you?"

"Yes, it does. May I borrow it?"

That surprised her but she allowed it.

"It is thought the name Bauta comes from the Italian word "Bau", or "Babau"," he told her, "which is the Italian word for monster. The Italians had a saying "Se non stai bravo viene il babau e ti porto via" translated as "If you're not good, the monster will come and take you away"."

She was silent for a moment and then asked him, making him both appreciative of her intelligence but also concerned. "I'm always interested in what people think of when they view these masks. It's very telling." He didn't hear her words as she spoke them, but he read her lips as she said, "You see the mask as a way to hide a monster?"

That gave him something to think about as he left her room and then the house. He had a lot of reading to do.

~"When all is one and one is all, yeah

To be a rock and not to roll, oh-"~

His next visit to her house was during the day and he was alone. He had a lot on his mind and wanted a private conversation with Lady Heather. He'd done a lot of reading over the last couple of days. It wasn't only about her lifestyle but about sexuality in general. He had questions, but mostly he wanted her opinion about the lead suspects in the case.

She arrived with a tray and sat it on the table that was set for tea. It was an unexpected surprise but one he enjoyed as he said, "Afternoon tea. How nice."

"I like a bit of civility before dark," she told him as she set the table. "When all the needy little boys show up."

"Well," he said. "I'm a little needy myself today. My lab pulled skin cells from Mona Taylor's straws."

"A DNA sample? I have several clients in law enforcement," she explained when she saw his surprise. "X-X or X-Y?"

He couldn't help that she once again called them "clients". There was always a distance she put between herself and everyone else, especially those who entered into her house. It wasn't lost on him that he also kept a distance from other people as well. Only he called them by different names: colleagues, co-workers, and subjects. The occasional friend.

They talked about the case for a while as he showed her a picture, and she was impressing him with her powers of observation. She really understood human behavior in all the areas where he couldn't.

As she described the husband and wife that were his main suspects, he couldn't help but wonder if she was talking in a way about herself. "See how she's twisting away presenting herself to the wealthy alpha male? She's insensitive; he's insecure. That's a setup for matrimony, not passion." And then she said, "She wants the dominant male to choose her so she can stop being dominant."

"You're very good. You could work for me."

"You want to be my boss?" she asked.

"You never know. We both might learn something," he said and meant it. She could teach him a lot of things when it came to not only human sexual behavior but human behavior in general. She already has.

"Oh, I'm sure of that."

The way she said that made him think that she was talking about something other than working for him. He worked that over in his head and realized it was flirtation. Was she flirting with him? Why? The way she was looking at him made him highly self-conscious. In an attempt to distance himself from her, he sat down at the table, in the chair across from her, to put a physical barrier between them.

"I can read anyone who walks through this door and know their desires. Sometimes even before they do. Why do you think I selected china and table linens?"

"You like fine things."

"Or maybe I knew you'd like them. Same way I know you enjoy most of the superficial trappings of civilization."

He didn't like it that she could read him so well, but so could Sara. She'd told him that their relationship had also been superficial. That he would never let it go beyond the surface. And now, Lady Heather could see that too. Everything with him when it came to life was surface level. He didn't, and couldn't, allow anything to go deeper. Hell, he watched the same movies over again because they were predictable. He knew them well. They were surface level, mindless, entertainment.

"I'm that obvious, huh?"

"Only because you try not to be. You spend your life uncovering what goes beneath the surface of civility and acceptable behavior. So, it's a release for you to indulge in something like high tea when it seems, if only for a moment, the world really is civilized. The most telling thing about anyone is what scares them. And I know what you fear more than anything, Mr. Grissom."

It was extremely hard for him to keep his face stoic, to keep himself calm when everything underneath felt like boiling over the sides. "Which is?"

"Being known."

If there ever was an epitome of what he feared the most, it was those words. "Being Known." Around him was a wall, one that had been built and crafted over time, ever since he was a child, and there was no door, and no window, and it was miles high. Within that wall was not only his heart, but who he was, who he truly was. It was a dark place, a solitary place, but it was his place. It was where he wanted to be and thought he would always be: alone.

"You can't accept that I might know what you really desire, because that would mean that I know you. Something, for whatever reason, you spend your entire life making sure no one else does."

In her own right, she was truly an anthropologist. She studied humans, just like him, but in a very different way. His way was more scientific, analytical, and was less concerned about the personal aspects of human behavior. She was different in the way she did it and how she understood it. She was all about the personal, and the sexual, aspects of human nature. She genuinely intrigued him.

"You're attracted to me," she said after she refilled his cup of tea.

He looked out at the trees and the garden on her property. Her garden included, among others, perennial sunflowers and sedums, which attracted butterflies, chrysanthemums, and helenium. All autumn flowers. "You're intellectually stimulating."

She sipped her tea as she said, "There are six types of attraction-"

"Four," he said in correction.

Her lips smirked as she placed the cup down. "Looks like I am about to teach you something after all. There are six," she said in correction of him. "Sexual, romantic, emotional and intellectual attraction are the most common and what you believe to be the only ones. Three of which you don't have any use for."

She was correct. He had only thought of those four, and he was only interested in only one of them. The intellectual attraction. Connecting with people in any other way for him wasn't just hard, it was nearly impossible. What stimulated him, what attracted him, and the only connection he sought after from any other human being was purely on an intellectual level.

Maybe that was why he was also, in a way, interested in Paul Millander. It wasn't in any way shape or form a sexual attraction, but there was a connection he couldn't ignore that existed solely on the fact that he was incredibly intelligent. He thought that with Millander he had met, for the first time, his equal when it came to doing what they did. It was why he liked him.

"Intellectual attraction is devoid of any other type of attraction. It's only about a person's mind and not how they look, or their personality, or even if you care about them. That is your default."

"What are the other two types of attraction?" he asked because he had no idea.

"Aesthetic is one. It occurs when someone appreciates the appearance or beauty of another person, and it is also disconnected from any sexual or romantic attraction."

He thought about Sara. She was his definition of beauty. There was also an aesthetic attraction he had to the woman in front of him. But, in a different way. Both were masterpieces in their own right. Only one, however, pulled him in and threatened to destroy everything he was.

"The last one is sensual attraction; the desire to interact with another in a tactile, non-sexual way, such as through hugging or cuddling, or even kissing that isn't done to initiate sex."

Blinking back, he looked at the table, the tea pot and cups, as his mind reevaluated his relationship. There wasn't much to reevaluate. He knew the answer because there wasn't much to analyze. It was the most accurate description of what he enjoyed physically in a relationship. It was never about sex. However, he did like some form of contact. Hugging still made him tense, but he was getting used to it. And his preferred method of physical contact with Sara was kissing. Anything else was her choice.

"It's no mistake that intellectual, sensual, and aesthetic are all forms of attraction that don't go too far beyond the surface to form a real human connection or bond."

There was that word again: surface.

"There is no intimacy. There doesn't have to be any sex, or romance, and any emotional connection whatsoever attached to any of them. Oh, I'm sure sensual attraction could become sexual, or emotional, overtime, but only if you allow it. That requires either a lot of self-discipline or self-deprivation, or...a little bit of both. My only question for you is: why? Is it an actual flaw, a defect, or...is it on purpose?"

His eyes lifted to hers and he saw that she knew. Within two meetings, and over a cup of tea, she saw him for what he was. Not completely, not entirely, but enough.

And that terrified him.

When he didn't give her an answer, she said, "One of the most fulfilling relationships I've ever had was with a man who used BDSM to empower me and give me structure using it as a means, and we never once had sex. Because of that relationship, I found my power. That's why I do this. I want to help people find what they are lacking or missing. What you're missing is intimacy, and how to give it and accept it. If there is ever a time when you want to learn how...I can help you with that."

"I don't want to be your client," he strictly told her.

Leveling him with her eyes, she told him, "You won't be."

~"And she's buying a stairway to heaven."~

Two Months Later

Royce Harmon, Stuart Rampler, and now Pete Walker.

Standing in the M.E.'s office, staring down at the body of Pete Walker, he thought back to a year ago when he was in Paul Millander's warehouse, Halloweird. There was a model on a table, a face. One side of the face was normal, the other half deformed. "I c-c-call it "good versus evil"."

He knew better than anyone that everyone had two sides to who they were. The side they showed the world, and then the one they didn't. "He's telling me he's going to show me both sides."

Leaving the M.E.'s office, he thought about what Millander wanted to do, his purpose for resurfacing, and wondered if it only meant that Paul wanted to expose the "good" side of himself, or if he had the intent to also expose the "evil" side of him. Or both. Either way, he had to find him and stop him.

Their investigation led to Mulberry, which led them to Judge Douglas Mason, aka Paul Millander. As he sat in the jail cell for being in "contempt of court", he couldn't help but wonder if Millander was trying to make a point with putting him behind bars. As he stared at the wall through the jail cell door and leaned back against the wall, all he could think about was how Paul had been right; he showed him the other side to the serial killer. He showed him the Judge.

A Judge was powerful, but not untouchable. There had to be a way to prove that he was Paul Millander. Fingerprints. DNA. A birth certificate. Something.

The door opened and in walked Judge Douglas Mason. The persona presented before him was a man with confidence, power, and influence. The stutter was gone along with the meek and mild-mannered demeanor of Paul Millander. Judge Mason and Paul Millander: the good and the evil.

Grabbing one of the cell bars, Judge Mason left him his fingerprints as he told him when he said that he could run a DNA test to prove that he wasn't Paul Millander, "You know, if you keep that up people are going to start calling you crazy." He called for the guard and then told him, "I trust you won't go near my courtroom again." He turned to leave and then stopped before inviting him to dinner.

Taking the slip of paper with the address, he watched as Judge Mason left before Catherine walked in.

He was going to dinner.

At six o'clock, the police car dropped him off at the Mason residence. It was a nice, expensive, brick house in a suburban neighborhood. A Judge's house. There was a flower bed, and trees, and a pair of rain boots on the porch. He picked them up and examined the bottom soles as the door opened to reveal Judge Mason's wife.

"Mr. Grissom?"

Upon getting caught looking at the boots, he told her, "I was admiring these rain boots," before putting them back down.

The inside of the house was…"You have a lovely home."

It was warm and cozy, unlike the cold and chaotic environment of the Halloweird warehouse where he'd first met Paul. They have had the house since 1992. Nine years, he thought as he spotted the boy in the living room. He should have been surprised that Paul had a normal house with a family: wife and son. But he knew too well how looks could be deceiving and how someone could live two different lives.

What did amaze him was that Paul had been able to pull it off for so long; living a double life. This was something he could never do, he thought as he eyed the pictures on the walls and tables of family holidays, smelling the dinner being cooked in the kitchen. He could never have a family life. In that regard, he almost regretted having to rip this family apart. Almost, he thought as he spotted Paul enter the room as Judge Mason: the family man.

It all seemed perfect to anyone on the outside, he thought as he ate dinner with the Mason's. But he could see the cracks in the perfect family portrait. From the way Judge Mason, Paul, silenced his wife and her changing demeanor to that of being submissive, but not in control. Judge Mason was the one in control. His son was also very quiet. This family had secrets.

And then Judge Mason voiced his thoughts as he said, "As a Judge, I don't want the outside world privy to my private life because they'll use it against me."

He stared over at Judge Mason as he heard those words being spoken to him but also at him. Was that a threat? He had been in his house once before but not since that night. He knew he had nothing on him he could use, or did he? Seeing the flash of light startled him out of his thoughts as he looked over at Craig who had taken his picture.

"You'll be safe now."

No, kid, he thought as he looked back at Judge Mason, he wouldn't be. He felt his cell phone ring in his shirt pocket and got up to answer it. It was Catherine. She had the results of the prints. Fingerprints matched Douglas Mason, not Paul Millanders'.

Of course, they didn't, he thought as he closed the phone.

"My prints came back sound?" Judge Mason asked.

That surprised him. He had left the prints on purpose in order to rule him out. Paul had been planting fake prints from the start, prints that weren't his own, and so he knew that if he was ever tracked down, and his prints ran, that he would be in the clear. This guy was good. He remembered thinking that before, how he actually liked the guy solely for his intelligence.

"I uh, I have to get back to my lab-"

Judge Mason stood and excused himself from the table as he walked over to him and asked, "Before you go, I want to show you something."

He glanced back at Judge Mason's family before following Judge Mason to a room on the first floor. It was an office of sorts. There was a desk and bookshelves, a fireplace and a recliner, and a radio. Judge Mason closed the door behind him and he watched carefully as he walked over to the desk and sat down, gesturing for him to sit in the chair in front of it.

"Have a seat."

Hesitantly for a moment, he walked over and sat down, back straight and feet firmly planted on the floor in case he had to get up quickly. Despite the warmth and comfort in the home, he didn't feel the least bit comfortable.

"Did you get my message?"

It took him a moment to work out what he was referring to, but there was only one message Paul Millander had wanted to send him. "Good versus Evil", showing him both sides. "I did. Is this your "good" side, Paul?"

"This is my home, Dr. Grissom, please, call me Douglas."

"Carl Jung has a lot to say about masking and developing personas to hide our shadow. The dark part of our personality. Is Judge Douglas Mason the persona that hides your shadow?"

Judge Mason smiled as he leaned back in the chair and explained, "You're one to talk. You are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. How would your colleagues react, do you think, to the knowledge that when you're not catching criminals, you're killing them?"

The clock on the mantle above the fireplace was eight thirty-two, the poker for the fire was approximately four feet away from him. Books on the shelves behind him were thick and heavy hardcovers. The phone and pens on the desk could be used as an immediate weapon. His only concern was whether or not there was a gun in the room.

"Is that why I'm here?"

"You're here because you got my message, and because I got the pleasure of seeing how you lived, I thought you would like to see how I live. How did you like my family?"

"I like them just fine. They don't challenge you and you like it that way."

"As I tried to tell you before, we're the same-"

"No, Paul, we aren't." He then told him, "Your father was an innocent victim and the two men who killed him weren't. Identifying with the aggressors turned you into an aggressor. You kill innocent men like your father instead of the aggressors. That makes you a bad guy, Paul."

Judge Mason's smile dropped slightly as he turned in his chair and opened a drawer. "My message," he said getting back on track, "wasn't only about the two of us." He pulled out several files and handed them over to him.

He took them and flipped one open and saw a photograph of Millander's third victim: Pete Walker. The photos were taken by a long-range lens, like one used by private investigators or police officers. "You were spying on your victims." He pulled out a photo and was taken back by what he saw. Pete Walker wasn't the boy scout Jim Brass had thought him to be after all.

"There's a reason why Pete Walker drove that route to and from Valencia, California."

Looking at the photo of Pete Walker burying a dead body, that of a young woman, he said, "He used it to dispose of his victim's bodies. Is this what you were wanting to tell me when you broke into my house?" He looked through the other files for Royce Harmon and Stuart Rampler. They all had two sides: the good that the world knew about and the evil that they hid from the world.

"I went to your house to find out what your evil side was, and I found it," he told him and that caused him to look up at him. His hands were in his lap and he was leaning back in the chair. Judge Mason made no move to get up as he said, "You showed me your Mr. Hyde. We also share a birthday. August 17th, 1956. So, you see, Dr. Grissom, we are the same."

The only reason he could think of as to why he wanted to show him the files was to get him on his side. And, he was. They were the same in a lot of ways; the flip side of the same exact coin. The conflict that caused him was twisting his mind enough to make it start hurting. "Even when I thought you were killing innocent men, I didn't want to kill you, Paul, in fact, I like you." Tossing the files down the desk, he told him, "But I can't help you. I won't dissuade my colleagues from doing their job. If they find something, they will come after you. And all this," he looked around the room they were in, "will cease to exist." He stood and Judge Mason didn't. "You want to stay out of prison, be smarter than me."

It wasn't the Judge that gave him a warm, nearly affectionate smile, it was Paul. It was remarkable that he could tell the difference. It was how his face and eyes changed. Paul said, "You c-c-can't be persuaded to look the other way? Or b-b-bought? You will do your j-job, regardless.". The Judge then told him, "I like that about you. It's admirable. I will see you around, Dr. Grissom."

"Thank you for dinner, Your Honor," he told him before opening the door and leaving the room.

The next night they arrived at Paul and Isabelle Millander's house along with firetrucks and an ambulance. They were too late. He stood staring at the house that was engulfed in flames and felt a breath leave his chest.

They had nothing, again.

Anything that could have given them the evidence they needed to prove that Judge Douglas Mason was Paul Millander would be reduced to ash and smoke. It was all gone.

And so was Paul Millander's mother.

Five Months Later

He awoke in the dark room to a burning in his chest as he panted for air. The remnants of the dream, or nightmare, faded away into nothingness as he sucked in a breath, and then another. Edmond shifted on the bed as he rolled over to look at him. Running a hand through his hair, feeling the sweat that coated it, he threw the blanket off and stood.

Leaving the room, he headed down to the kitchen. The sun was shining in through the windows and he flinched at the light. His head was killing him. Edmond went to the backdoor and waited for him to open it so he could go out into the yard.

He downed a glass of water but didn't take any medication as he instead grabbed the whiskey bottle and poured himself a drink before opening the door for his dog.

His townhouse felt cold and empty. Walking the floor, pacing with the glass in his hand, he got lost in thought.

"Walking pukes. Soulless, lost, useless, sick puppets. Little sheep looking for direction. Gullible...From an airplane they used to look like ants. And now...they're all ants all the time. You squash one...They all start running around in a panic."

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs was thought to help understand the motivations of human beings. That the needs of humans could be organized into a hierarchy. At the bottom was the physiological needs such as air, food, shelter, sleep, even sex. At the top was self-accusation: the desire to become the most that one can be. In other words, to feel fulfilled by doing what you were meant to do in life, and according to Maslow, reaching that level of hierarchy was extremely rare.

"I see you, Jane. Do you feel me? Do you feel me? You...you will never get me. No. Not the way he does. And we all get what we deserve. And I...I got a friend."

Isolation, living his life separated by others, like some voyeur who watched life instead of living life himself, had warped Nigel Crane's sense of reality and in his perceived view of the world in order to obtain self-accusation Nick had to die so he could become him. He found it all fascinating.

And frightening. In a way, he couldn't help but think he was on the same warped path as Nigel. People were no longer people. They were ants and flies and bees and nothing human about them. Just another species and his justification for killing some of them was the same justification he gave when he had to kill ants. Sacrifices in a war against evil.

"It's like he, he's...he's the kind of guy I always wanted to, um...to be. And that's why it's so great, because...we're friends now. I feel like I can count on him, you know? And you know what? I think if it came right down to it he would lay his life down for me. Ask him. A-a-ask Nick. Nick, would you let me stop your heart?"

Nick hadn't found Nigel fascinating. Where he could only think of Nigel's mind and how interesting it was, and relating it to Maslow's Hierarchy, Nick was shattered emotionally. His response, though correct and insightful, hadn't been what Nick wanted or needed to hear. Again, he was reminded of how he was not good at relating to people and how he didn't understand or care about their emotions or how they felt.

He realized that he didn't much care about their emotions because he never really cared about his own. The last time he thought about how he felt, it was after Sara left him. It had been a surprise to him when he found that he felt as if he were in love. And then he felt-when she told him that she was engaged to be married-a burning in his chest and head that could only be attributed to jealousy and hate, which led to rage.

Thinking about Maslow's and his own needs, he realized that he was a starved man, but his starvation wasn't due to lack of food, but a lack of intimacy and compassion. Maybe his view of love was skewed? Sara couldn't love him because he was unable to love her back. He couldn't be intimate with her the way she needed him to be.

What did he feel…?

~"Hey you, out there in the cold,

Getting lonely, getting old

Can you feel me?-"~

He felt empty.

He had accomplished so much, gained so much recognition for his work, even notoriety that he never wanted in his field, but he was good at his job, and yet that was empty. He didn't want awards and never cared to be recognized by his peers. It seemed that the only need he cared to obtain was self-accusation. It was all about his purpose in life. How he needed safety and financial security in order to have his freedom, and that freedom enabled him to do what he was meant to do in life. He'd told a suspect once that this career chose him.

And it had. There wasn't anything else he could do but find the truth. Evidence didn't lie and he would know the truth. Know who was good and who was evil. Know who committed crimes and who didn't. Then he used that to chase after evil to fulfill his desire to kill, and he used it to create his art, his appreciation of the beauty in death.

It all fed into one another. Symbiotic relationship.

Then once he knew the truth, once he had his answer, then he was left with a decision to make. One that Shakespeare himself had written in the most simplest of words: "To be or not to be". That was the only question he ever had to answer every time he found out the truth whether someone was good or evil.

To be the killer he knew he was underneath. Or, not to be. And if he stopped, would it ignite a different, new desire, to take its place?

Question: What need would he turn to in order to fill the emptiness?

There were so many questions and no answers until he made a decision. Until he tried to stop.

He had to anyway, it was getting harder to hear as the world left him before coming back again. He was withdrawing into himself more and more due to his inability to hear. And unless he changed that, soon he would be gone.

Lost in his own world... Unable to hear and feel. Empty.

Five Months Later

~"Hey you, standing in the aisles

With itchy feet and fading smiles

Can you feel me?-"~

There were many things that people had which motivated them that he did not have. One of them was greed. He wasn't motivated by money.

He worked the scene with Warrick at the casino where-according to Brass-the best poker player in the world Doyle Pfeiffer died while playing a high stakes poker game. "No river card," he told Warrick after going over the hands on the table. "Burn one, turn one."

Warrick tossed the top card aside and flipped over the second card under it. "Ace of spades."

He nearly smirked, "The Death Card."

After about half an hour with processing the poker table and chairs, Warrick asked him, "How is it that you know so much about poker?"

A while ago, after the Mona Taylor case where he'd met Lady Heather, he remembered Catherine telling him that he was supposed to tell someone about himself when they asked or when they told him something personal. He'd been slowly trying to open up more to his colleagues who were getting more and more attached to him every day. Warrick was someone he instantly liked from the moment they met; he didn't know why, but he knew that Warrick had his own demons and maybe that was why he gave him so many second chances. Aside from the fact that he was a great CSI. "It's how I financed my first body farm in college."

"You're kidding. Wow. I'm impressed. I mean, the fact that you sat at a table with actual living beings," Warrick said and he didn't know if that was meant as a joke or not.

There was truth in that, so he figured it wasn't a joke. "Well," he told him as he sealed up the evidence bag with the green chocolate candies inside of it, "poker's not a game of interaction. It's a game of observation. I used to study people. And then I guess I uh..." He knew what caused him to stop playing. People started to bore him. "I got bored." Humanity also started to bore him. The only person around at the time that had interested him was Sara. "Now I study evidence."

"What I don't get is it's not like we've never talked about gambling before. How come you never mentioned it?"

Warrick was curious because he himself was a gambling addict. Of course he would want to feel like they had something in common. A connection beyond their work. Most people wanted a connection to other people.

Again, he was reminded that he wasn't like most people. "Same reason a good player hides his "tells"," he told him.

Warrick nodded in understanding as he said, "He doesn't want to be exposed."

In other words, he didn't want to be exposed. "Don't forget to take these chairs back to the lab."

"I'm on it," Warrick said as he started tagging the chairs. "Would be nice to get a little help. When do you think we'll get a new hire?"

"When a good one comes along."

~"Hey you, don't help them to bury the light

Don't give in without a fight-"~

Another motivating factor that didn't interest him was power and control. The kind that inspired most serial killers who wanted to dominate their victims while they controlled them and asserted their power over them. Sadists.

John Mathers was not the Blue Paint Killer as the newspaper called him. He was a copycat or a partner to the real murderer of Charlene Roth. They had a serial killer on their hands, one that laid low for 15 years. That took dedication and an enormous amount of willpower, especially if it had been an obsession, or the only way he could live and feel fulfilled in life.

It was getting harder for him to keep from imagining death in his head. Even harder when he saw it every day. The real Blue Paint Killer could have found another way to exert his needs over the past 15 years, and he couldn't help but wonder what it was and if it had been enough.

He paced around Jim Brass's office as they went over the case.

Brass was thinking the same thing as him except his thoughts turned down another path as he said, "I keep racking my brain going over these unsolved murder cases and I keep coming back to the fact that they're fifteen years apart. That means he's either out of town or in the joint."

Jim couldn't imagine that it could have been a third option. Deprivation. Self-deprivation. What did Lady Heather say about him and why he deprived himself of intimacy? It took self-discipline or self-deprivation. Or both. Their serial killer was like him. Disciplined and could deprive himself of his calling in life in order to obtain something else.

He was trying to obtain a human connection, a bond, and friendship. He was trying to find out if he could love. What was the Blue Paint Killer trying to obtain from his deprivation?

"Why wouldn't he take his business to some other college if it was only about young girls?" he asked Brass. He wanted to see how a cop's mind thought because all his mind could think about was being the killer.

"It's got to be personal. He wanted to kill those girls."

He had the same thought earlier when he was at WLVU campus examining the painted blue railing. The killer was waiting for the right girl. He sighed and sat down in the chair and looked over the file again.

There had to be something.

"I mean, I don't know much about bugs," Brass suddenly said, "but most animals hunt in their own backyards."

"True of insects as well," he said as he tossed the file into the desk. "You know why?" he asked Brass as he tried to relax in the chair.

Brass shrugged, thinking out loud, "It's where they feel most comfortable."

"And where they can blend in the best."

He thought about himself and how he blended into both worlds he had his feet firmly planted into. Being the outsider at work left him to be the ghost in his personal life where he moved about unnoticed, whether it was in a casino with the sharks and whales, or on the streets with the tourists or the homeless, or into the suburban neighborhoods or into the slum motels off the strip. Hug the walls, keep to the shadows, never draw attention.

He even went to the campus and painted a railing with the same mixture of paint and motor oil as the killer. While he did it, he imagined himself as the killer as he watched the college students walk by him. He had been ignored, but he didn't ignore them as he watched all of them. It was easy to be ignored and to just observe, even in the middle of a college campus walkway.

He was good at blending in until he wasn't even there. "Like the insects," he said, referring not only to the Blue Paint Killer but to himself, "he blended in."

"Yeah," Brass said as he let out a deep frustrated sigh and opened the bottom drawer to his desk. "You off the clock?"

Was he? "I guess." He was the boss. He watched as Brass pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses. It didn't surprise him at all that Jim kept booze in his desk drawer. He kept a lot of things in his desk drawer, but alcohol wasn't one of them.

Brass passed him a glass and took a drink. It burned down his throat and it helped to sooth the urge growing in his own head. He wanted to find the Blue Paint Killer before they did so he could kill him. It was an urge, his desire, and it would not go away.

Alcohol could help.

"He's going to kill again."

"Yeah," he said and realized he'd said it pertaining to himself. Refocusing his thoughts, he said, "And all we've got is a partial fingerprint and an M.O. that may lead us in the right direction," he said before taking a drink.

"You know sometimes in this job I'd rather be lucky than good. Maybe next time we'll get lucky," Brass said before taking a drink.

"I don't believe in luck," and he didn't. It wasn't luck that kept him alive or out of prison. It was his mind and his attention to detail. His ability to plan and to think and to adapt. HIs ability to imagine himself as the killer in order to be the killer. His memory. All those things were what he believed in. Not luck. "My only real purpose is to be smarter than the bad guys to find the evidence that they didn't know they left behind and make sense of it all. Makes me very uncomfortable to realize that this guy may be smarter than me."

He finished the drink as Brass finished his, and then he asked for another.

~"Hey you out there on your own

Sitting naked by the phone

Would you touch me?-"~

Then there was lust, sex. Something everyone else needed and drove many to murder or cheating, infidelity. For him, there was no interest. If anything, it mostly repelled him further away, unless…

He'd seen their looks. They tried to hide it, but he was very observant as well. If she wanted to keep his secrets, he had to let her know that he could keep hers.

He ended the kiss with a knowing half smile as he looked into Lady Heather's eyes. "You're very good at perception, and so am I. I know why you let me kiss you."

"Oh, you do? Then tell me."

"I have no intention of sleeping with you."

Her eyes widened slightly but there was a tug at the edges of her lips, like she'd been caught in a lie. And she was lying. "Most of your clientele are men. You're the dominatrix host, you have to make them think you desire them. You don't."

"Then who do I desire?" she asked with a hint of humor and a little bit of worry.

"The blond woman in the third room on the left." At her surprised look, he asked, "Are you two lovers?"

She nearly smiled as she told him, "We are."

They continued to look at one another, both knowing exactly what the other wanted, though for him, he didn't know why. Maybe she would tell him her reasons, but he knew his. "We'll proceed if you agree to one stipulation...Can I take pictures?"

She was rubbing at her necklace and looked across the hall. Turning his head, he saw the blond standing in the doorway. Once he looked back at her so he could see her lips, she answered, "You may."

He smiled as he turned to head out to his car. He grabbed his Nikon and his personal rolls of film before returning to the house. Going into Lady Heather's bedroom, she shut the door and he saw the blond standing in front of him.

Introducing her to him, Lady Heather said, "This is Sally Mills, my partner."

"Pleasure to meet you, Sally, I'm Gil Grissom," he told her before taking control.

This was what he didn't understand that Lady Heather needed and wanted from him: to dominate. He was absolutely fine with it as it was what he wanted to do. Maybe that was why; she saw it in him. It wasn't about control; he wasn't the one in control. If there was one thing he understood very well from what he'd learned about the relationship between the dominate and the submissive, it was that the submissive was the one in control. Always. He was purely at their behest despite being the one seemingly with all the power in his hands. He held no power here unless they wanted him too. And since power and control was something he wasn't motivated by, being put in this dynamic was sort-of a release. He always had to be in control in his work, his personal life, and maintaining all that control was exhausting. He hated it.

Maybe that was the lesson she was teaching him here and now; why she agreed. To show him he could let go in the right circumstances, and with the right person. He didn't have to be in control all the time. He could have the release he wanted, and this was how.

He first took pictures of them individually and then together; at the start clothed and them being free to show how they viewed their relationship. Lady Heather the dominatrix, Sally her submissive. Then it turned gentler and more passionate until they were both nude on the bed.

Through it all he took photos as he instructed their movements and positions, at times trying to get the best mixture of light and shadow, contrast or saturation, whatever it was his mind wanted from that moment. There was laughter, kissing, cuddling and sex and he memorialized it all on film.

~"Hey you with your ear against the wall

Waiting for someone to call out

Would you touch me?-"~

Hours later, he instructed them that he was done and for them both to shower.

"You can watch," Lady Heather told him as she and Sally ventured into the bathroom together.

So, he did. He leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, as he watched them shower together. It made him want to smile as he saw their happiness. It nearly cleansed the week of death and blood away from his memories.

After Sally dressed and left the room, and gave him a surprise kiss on the cheek, he and Lady Heather were left alone in her room. She changed into a black outfit, long gown, and was brushing her hair out as she said, "You fascinate me."

He was sitting on her bed, staring at the floor, as he thought about the pictures he'd taken. The pictures flipping through his mind like images in a slideshow. "How so?"

She sat the brush down and turned to face him. "Most people would have gotten sexually aroused by watching two people having sex."

He looked back down at the floor as he told her, "I've never been accused of being like most people."

"Is everything with you cerebral? You know, delayed gratification can become no gratification if you wait too long."

He nearly smiled as he glanced up at her. "Who says I'm waiting?"

They looked at each other a moment before she said, "There are three possibilities. Well, five, but I know you aren't gay and you haven't been castrated." He had to bite his lips to keep from laughing before she continued, "So, you're either physically unable to due to a medical condition, you're a religious fanatic, which isn't correct either or else you wouldn't be here, or…Are you Asexual?"

He never really considered what he was. He didn't seem to care to know the answer to that particular question. Was he? If to be asexual meant not having sexual attraction, then it was a possible yes. He really had no interest in having sex with anyone. It was the last thing he thought about and considered in his daily life. There was never a time when he actively went out looking for someone to have sex with, ever. Even when Sara lived with him, he never thought about it until she made it clear that she wanted to have sex with him.

Not to say he didn't like it, he did. He also liked kissing, his preference actually. Wasn't that the sensual attraction Heather had told him about? When he was with Sara, he never considered his own pleasure and only focused on making her happy. His happiness came from her happiness. It was the same with pleasure.

"Grissom?"

He blinked back and looked at Lady Heather as he tried to answer the question. He really had no idea. He had a libido, but all mammals had a libido. He sighed and shook his head in frustration with not being able to decide on an answer. He liked having answers.

Finally, he told her, "I never considered it before now."

She smiled slightly as she said, "And now that you've considered it?"

Giving it one last thought, he honestly told her, "I've come to the conclusion that it is unimportant and not vital to my understanding or sense of self."

She was silent a moment before saying, "In other words, the answer is a possible yes."

He sighed, shoulders sagging, as he said, "I guess for most people, identifying and expressing their sexuality is a form of freedom and a way of understanding themselves and gaining acceptance and inclusion from others. A desire to not feel so alone. But, as I've said before, I've never been accused of being like most people. Expressing myself sexually doesn't feel like freedom to me, in a way, it's the exact opposite. For me, being alone is freedom. I desire only two things in life: anonymity and autonomy."

"Which brings us back to your fear of being known." She hesitated a moment before saying, "You consider this a private affair. What if someone from the LVPD stops by? Are you concerned with what people might assume or say?"

"Let them talk," he said with a shrug. "I answer to no one but myself."

She stood and as she moved in front of him, stopped, and then asked, "Can I touch you?"

He took a moment to reach a decision and gave a nod, letting her know it was okay.

She reached out and lifted his chin. "Can I kiss you?"

He gave another nod.

She gave him a kiss on the lips. "The sun's coming up. Would you like to stay for breakfast? I'll put on some tea."

"That'd be lovely, Lady Heather, thank you." He watched as she left the room before his mind thought up the pictures he'd taken. Then he took notice of his body's responses to the stimulus he had viewed between the two women, or lack thereof.

It didn't respond to the nudity; there was no signal to his brain to activate his sexual interest or desire in any sexual way. It was no different than him observing a nude body in the morgue. Detached and uninterested in the sexual nature of the human flesh.

It was like looking at art.

It wasn't the art he wanted to make, but it was still beautiful.

~"Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?-"~

The only motivational factor that held any prevalence was fear. He had a lot of internal fear.

"You fear me because I've committed the one unforgivable act...I know you. And I know that in your heart, you don't believe I did this."

Heather's words echoed in his head as he stepped out of the closet in into his home office, which he used as his dark room, and shut the door. In his hands were three photos. The first photo was of Heather and Sally standing together, arms wrapped around one another in a display of passion. Both dressed in their Victorian attire, in Heather's hand a whip. The second was Heather alone in a pose that conveyed dominance. The final photo was of Sally alone in a pose of submission, yet, she was in control as her head wasn't bowed but looking straight ahead.

He had more photos of the two lovers in much more intimate and passionate positions with one another, but those were the three he wanted to draw for them as an apology.

He attached the three photos to the corkboard that was above the desk against the wall and then grabbed three sheets of linen art paper that he'd aged using tea, his charcoal pencils and several small glass vials of oil paint. Picking up a pencil, he started to draw.

Two weeks later he encased the drawings into three wooden and gold Victorian frames he'd bought off eBay and packaged them. Writing the address on the package, he put the names of the recipients down: Heather Kessler and Sally Mills.

It was a Saturday morning, nearly an hour after his shift ended, when he received a letter from her in the mail. Going to his home office, he sat down in the chair and reclined back, crossing his legs at his ankles, as he read the letter.

Dear Grissom,

These masterpieces are hauntingly beautiful. They speak louder than words ever could. You're a wonderful artist. I only wished you would have personally delivered them yourself so both Sally and I could thank you in person, but I understand why you didn't.

Apology accepted.

- L.H.K.

P.S. I thought you would appreciate a letter over a phone call. After all, you can't see my lips over the phone, but you can on this letter.

Under the last sentence, she'd kissed the paper, leaving an impression of her red lipstick-colored lips. He nearly laughed.

It was the simple fact that she took his hearing loss into consideration that made him accept the offer of being a friend. And she was someone he wanted to be friends with. He didn't have many.

~"Open your heart, I'm coming home-"~

She opened the door when she saw it was him and smiled. "You got my letter."

"I did, thank you."

Her eyes were drawn down and she saw his dog at his side. "And you brought a friend."

Looking down at Edmond, he told her, "I've been busy and neglecting him. Thought since I was going out-"

"You're both welcome in my home, come in."

She led him into her house, into a room with a couple of Victorian style loveseats and a fireplace, a bookcase, piano. Above the fireplace he spotted his frame drawings of her and her love. Edmond wandered over in front of the fireplace and laid down. Turning, he walked over to the books she had and skimmed over the titles with a smile. There were vast collections of novels along with books on sexual behavior, psychology, and art.

"Not what you were expecting?"

"On the contrary, exactly what I was expecting. You know, a year ago when I mentioned Marcel Proust, you acted like you've never heard of him." When he turned to look at her, he saw her look and smirked, "Is there ever a time when you're not catering to your clientele?"

"At the time, I thought you wanted to be the smartest one in the room. I soon realized that you don't mind being one-upped...by a woman," she added pointedly as she sat down in a chair. "Men on the other hand," she said and left it at that.

As he told her before, she was an Anthropologist. She studied people to learn about them, understand them. Much like him, but in a different capacity. Her eyes never left him as he moved across the room, over to the loveseat and sat down.

She crossed his legs and hands as she waited. She knew he wasn't there to hear about how much she loved his drawings. "Why are you really here?" she finally asked him in case he needed the prompt.

He stared at the floor, and then the fireplace, his dog, as he rubbed his hands together as he thought about the question. It'd been simple and he figured most people could have answered it quickly without much thought. He thought about everything, maybe that was his problem.

"Grissom," she asked again, "why are you really here?"

Finally, he opened his mouth and said, "My personal life is very important to me, as it would be for anyone...Being Supervisor of the Night Shift, not only is it more responsibility but also a target on my back. I guess, I don't like the thought of my life being under the microscope. More probing eyes, more scrutiny."

"Nothing you say in here will get out there," she reassured him.

He licked his lips as his mouth went dry. This was so hard for him. He wasn't good at verbalizing his inner thoughts without the use of a quote or parable, or song lyric. It made sure that he kept a distance from his own feelings when he could just quote a Shakespearean sonnet or Proust. "Our, um...this, has forced me to look at my life more closely. And I realized that I gave up a long time ago."

"Gave up on…?"

She was going to force him to say it. Most would try to put words in his mouth, but she was very professional. She knew how to word her questions to get her clients to voice their own thoughts. "The personal. Friendships."

"No attachments."

"I watch them, my team, get closer every passing day. I watch them easily console one another in difficult times. I'm always struck by how easy it is for them to simply offer-" He went to open his mouth a few times, trying to work out the thoughts running through his head to form the right words. "Comfort. Consolations. Emotional support."

"Do you want what they have?"

He shook his head in uncertainty.

"Grissom, do you have any friends? Is there anyone that knows you?"

"You." When Heather gave him a look, he told her, "I have several friends, but no one who knows me. I, uh...I never needed them before. Connections make my life harder."

"You can't easily walk away."

No, he couldn't. Shaking his head, he let out a breath as he thought about the family that had built itself up around him without his permission. How did all this happen? Heather was quiet as she took a moment to think. It was very quiet in the room. He could hear the clock on the mantle ticking the minutes away. The crackling of the fire.

"You can't speak these words to just anyone," she suddenly said, breaking the silence. "Especially not to the people, or the person, you care about the most. Having your co-workers look at you daily with the knowledge of who you are, your secrets, it would be too much. And a lover-"

He looked up at her and saw her eyes on him.

"Or girlfriend, someone you cherish, never. It's impossible because you fear judgment. People like you, the emotionally unavailable, need a neutral party. Someone not connected to their everyday personal life to talk to and share what's on their mind. No judgement. No conflict. No expectations. No love. The only thing offered is understanding and acknowledgement. It's a safe place." She told him, "That's what you want this...relationship to be? You want this to be your "safe place"? You do know that if you open up to me, it will create intimacy?"

He tried not to respond to her words, keeping himself calm and face as stoic as possible, but he was once again surprised by her enlightenment.

"And intimacy is your biggest aversion."

It was his choice. And he made it the second he decided to drive over to her house with his dog. "I don't know how to...express my love properly. I don't understand intimacy. I want to learn how." There was no judgment coming from her and no conflict. She had told him the truth. This could be his safe place. He could talk to her and be open with his thoughts, even how he felt.

She gave a nod and said, "I'm going to ask you a series of questions, and you can answer if you want. If not, I'll continue on. How do you feel about people in your life?"

"What'd you mean?"

She nearly smiled. "Have you lived alone your entire adult life?"

"No."

"How did you feel with someone in your personal space?"

How did he feel about Sara living with him? "It was frustrating at times, when uh...my plans were interfered with. I guess I was used to my own company and having someone else accompany me on a daily basis was unsettling. I stayed gone a lot. With work, I work a lot anyway, but...There were times I chose to be gone for days at a time when I knew she would be there over the weekend."

Her eyes rose at the use of the pronoun "She". "You became annoyed with her presence? Did you feel like she was encroaching on your boundaries?"

His only answer to that was, "Yes." That was how he felt. Encroached upon. "It was suffocating," he told her without taking his eyes off his dog. Edmond closed his eyes and rested. He felt safe too. It'd been a while since he last slept peacefully in his bed. It was too quiet at times, other times he couldn't get the racing thoughts in his mind to stop. Then there were the times when his desire was too much as he dreamed of death, or killing, and he woke up covered in sweat.

Paul Millander was still out there, masquerading at Judge Douglas Mason. He could give into his need and go kill him right then. But, he couldn't. He didn't want to. He could track down the Blue Paint Killer and kill him. But he had no leads.

"Is she no longer living with you?"

"She, uh...met someone else. They're engaged. She's probably married now."

"She didn't choose you. And you feel…"

"Empty," the word tumbled out of his mouth without much thought. He didn't need to think about it. It was the feeling he's had for a very long time. Without being fulfilled, he felt empty. "I'm hopeless, aren't I?" he asked in defeat. He felt hopeless.

"No, you're not hopeless. You're just comfortable and used to being alone, but obviously you want more or else you wouldn't be feeling so empty. Is it friendship you're looking to gain or...a relationship with someone else?"

It was then that he looked out the French doors that led out into the yard. Through the blinds he saw the sun setting and the trees and the vast open desert and the mountains. And the clouds in the dark purple and orange sky that looked like some beautiful imagery his mother would paint. Then he thought about Sara.

He glanced away as he felt a shift inside. That's what it felt like, a shift in his stomach, his heart, and in his mind. His entire world changed at the thought of her. It went off balance.

"Can I ask you something?" When he looked over at her, she asked, "When was the last time you had sex?"

Without hesitation he told her, "I don't do one-night stands."

Heather regarded him a moment before saying, "That wasn't what I asked. Interesting how you took the question. Do you date?"

"No, but it doesn't matter if I did. It always ends the same."

"You came to that conclusion due to your past attempts?"

"That's all I have to go by," he told her. "Shakespeare said, "What's past is prologue." I take in consideration my past to predict my future."

She smiled and said, "Your past tells you that there would have been no second date. And since you don't have sex on the first date-"

He rubbed his head, suddenly feeling very defensive and not knowing why. This was why he never considered having therapy sessions. Answering these types of questions wasn't something he wanted to do. He felt himself start to blush slightly and looked away, saying, "I don't go out to find someone to have sex with. That's not what I'm interested in."

"What are you interested in?"

Sara. He shook his head. He didn't know.

"Were you in a sexual relationship with her?"

He stared at Heather as he said, "We had sex, but...It wasn't strictly sexual."

"Did she initiate it or did you?"

"She did. She always did."

Heather was silent a moment as she gave that some thought. "I was right about you. Connecting sexually is extremely difficult. And with your rigid boundaries...There's usually one reason why someone has as rigid boundaries as you do. Abuse. Whether it be sexual, emotional, physical, or all three. Were you abused?"

He stiffened at that question and kept his eyes on the floor. He couldn't look at her as he thought back to his childhood. About Father Thomas and his mother and her emotional disconnect and neglect. Her emotional unavailability bred his own.

"I see. Maybe you're not asexual, just repressed. Tell me, have you ever been in love?"

He looked at the floor as he felt his world go off kilter, his head was spiraling. Spiraling down. Helter Skelter. He wasn't going to lie to Heather now. He didn't lie. It wasn't in him. Lying wasn't in his nature and he never learned how to do it. It made no sense to lie. If he didn't want someone to know something then he simply didn't say anything.

"Intimacy is hard for me. That's why I'm here," he said in way of answering.

"You know, most people are willing to compromise intimacy for sex."

"I'm not."

"Never?"

His irritation was growing as he heard that accusation. Working his jaw, trying to release the tension, he said, "No."

Heather stared at him a moment and smiled slightly. "How? I mean, how do you abstain? It's not just sex you deprive yourself of, but human connection. If it wasn't, you wouldn't need my help to find it."

How? How did he...That was a lot to think about. Working his mind over that question, he tried to explain the best he could without using a quote. Sara had been upset with his constant use of quotes to answer a question about how he felt. In order to get out of that habit, he had to try to at least put his thoughts, his feelings, into words.

Forming an answer, he told her, "By attaining mastery over one's passions, reason, will, and desire can harmoniously work together to do what is good."

And for him to do what was good was what was burning away at his self-control. Killing evil was doing good, but at the same time it was causing him great despair. It was causing him to become just another monster and killer. He lost connection to his humanity and people. He didn't know how to love or how to be intimate. He never did know how.

How could anyone love him back if he couldn't love them properly?

Heather broke him out of his thoughts as she said, "You can't have sex without intimacy. Yet, you have an aversion to it. You don't want to be known. You fear vulnerability. It's hard work trying to get to know someone enough to feel close enough to be emotionally intimate with them. It's even more difficult when you need that intimacy in order to desire a sexual relationship. It must be frustrating and confusing being a walking contradiction. It has also caused you to live a solitary life. So much so that you get annoyed, frustrated, and feel like you're being suffocated when people enter into your personal space-"

"I've managed just fine," he cut her off from whatever conclusion she was about to draw from all of that.

"If you did, you wouldn't be here talking to me."

She had him there. He wasn't managing. He was hiding. Coping by taking solace within his own mind instead of putting himself out there. He put on a mask and hoped no one saw through it. She did. Heather saw through it.

She saw him and it changed everything.

"I don't envy you," she told him. "I bet it's terrifying waking up at fifty and realizing that you never really lived."

"I'm forty-six, not fifty." He heard Heather chuckle and looked over at her.

Semantics. He wasn't getting any younger. It just occurred to him that his father had died at fifty. Was that why?

Question: Did he fear his own mortality?

"Did she choose to leave or did you choose for her?"

"What?"

"The woman that lived with you. The one you love but couldn't allow her to know it. The woman that made you question your relationships. I can read between the lines very well. I can also read people, and I read you loud and clear. You never told her how you felt. You never got close to her. She left. But, did she love you? Did she want to stay?"

"I…" he shook his head in confusion. "I don't know. We never talked about it. But uh...I told her that she could leave and I would support her in her decision."

Her eyes rose at that as she said, 'You're a natural dominant, Grissom. You pay attention and you adjust yourself accordingly. I suspect you could have made a great partner, if only you had been intimate and opened yourself up. I think she could have loved you back, but you never asked because...You don't think anyone can love you."

Her words entered his head and he immediately thought of Sara. Did he get it wrong? He made the conclusion that Sara didn't choose him, that she had chosen Hank over him. What if it was because he wasn't the one doing the choosing. He had let her make the decision instead of him being the one to decide.

Question: Did Sara want him to choose her because he was her dominant?

He had to get away from those thoughts right then. He couldn't let himself drift off down that path.

"You want to learn how to be intimate and love in your own way?" she asked him as she leaned on her knees and leveled him with her eyes. "You have to accept the fact that you are dominant, and that is something that will never change. Then, you have to learn to relax your boundaries to allow someone, the one you want the most, in."

"How? How do I do that?" he asked Heather in complete bewilderment.

"The same way anyone learns to do anything," she said as she leaned back into the chair, "one step at a time."

~"But it was only a fantasy

The wall was too high

As you can see-"~

Walking through the lab, he spotted Greg in one of the evidence rooms. Handing a file over to Nick, he told him to go wait in his office that he needed to talk to Greg.

Nick took the file and said, "Alright, boss. Hey, I'm gonna grab a cup of Greggo's Blue Hawaiian. You want a cup?"

"Yeah, thanks," he told him as he went to step into the evidence room when he was shocked by a blast wave that knocked him backwards.

He flew back onto his back and hit the floor as glass rained down on top of him. He felt the heat of the flames on his skin as his arms came up to shield his face. Through the fog in his head and ears he realized what had happened. The evidence room had exploded. Feeling the shards of glass on his face, he didn't wipe it away but instead sat up and rolled over to let gravity do its job. It wouldn't get all the glass off but if he scrapped then the glass pieces could cut into his face. He checked over his body and didn't see any real damage, but his back hurt, and his head was dizzy.

His hearing was gone but that wasn't anything unusual. Blinking back against what felt like tears but soon realized was the water from the sprinklers, he looked around, toward the evidence room where he'd last seen Greg Sanders and saw the destruction. His eyes formed a path of the explosion and his eyes followed it and that was how he found Greg.

He was on the floor in the hallway. He wasn't moving.

Nick was nearby, lying on the floor. Getting to his feet, he stumbled over to Greg and knelt down as he heard a muffled voice. It was his voice. He checked Greg's pulse and was asking Nick if he was okay when he saw him move.

He couldn't hear his words, but he saw his lips move. "How's Greg?"

"He's alive."

Helping the EMT's that arrived, they got Greg onto the stretcher and out of the lab. He watched as they put him into the ambulance before it sped away.

Looking around, he saw everyone outside in shock, and tears, and panic, and pain. He wasn't any of those things. He was concerned for Greg. He was upset that he was hurt. Upset that Nick was hurt and getting his hand and face stitched up. He didn't understand shock or panic. He wasn't paralyized by external fear. He understood rage. And anger. And frustration. He understood that in the face of a crisis he was always calm and steady, and level headed. He was stoic, unfeeling, so he could think. So he could do something.

And right then, he stopped trying to be what he knew he couldn't be. He would never be able to wear his heart on his sleeve like Nick. He would never be able to fight his addiction like Warrick could. He would never be able to understand relationships like Catherine. Or friendship like Brass.

He couldn't feel what they felt. And it was for a reason. He couldn't do what they could, just as he knew that they could never do what he could do.

He was this way for a reason. It was time he stopped trying to be what he wasn't. He had to find his own way, and a part of his way, was the only path he knew. The only thing he knew.

~"No matter how he tried

He could not break free-"~

Jason Kent had killed Alison Carpenter. He also killed other women. In 1987 he'd been known as "The Circle Killer".

And all he had on Jason Kent was a hand width drawing. He knew what Brass had told him, "He was going to walk." There wasn't enough evidence for the DA to even bring up charges.

The lab explosion had destroyed everything else they had.

But they knew. They all knew the truth.

He knew the truth.

His only question was how.

Jason Kent would think that he had gotten lucky, but for men like him his luck could only take him so far until another body or until evidence was found. He would be paranoid. He would think that it would only be a matter of time before he was back in prison.

And prison was the same as death.

Flight or fight. The most powerful options in human beings when it comes time to make a decision based solely on instinct.

There was a reason why ex-cons couldn't make it on the outside after being in prison. They were institutionalized. Within one year, half of all convicts released from prison were back in prison. Within three years, another thirty percent. After ten years, almost all of the convicts released within a year of each other were back in prison. Recidivism rate for any convict to commit a felony after release from prison was nearly seventy percent within the first three years after being released.

Jason Kent had murdered a woman within months of being released. He would kill again.

It was in his nature.

As it was in his.

Suicide was also an option.

~"And the worms ate into his brain-"~

He entered Jason Kent's halfway house room by using the fire escape. The room was small with only a bed and television on the same table used to eat meals. A kitchenette with a microwave and tiny refrigerator and a single burner. One chair, one door, one window, and one lamp. A bathroom with a tub and shower.

Mr. Kent was asleep in bed. Pulling out the syringe, he injected it into his neck. There would be no struggle as he moved him from the bed, across the small wooden floor, and into the bathroom. He wondered what Paul Millander would say to him if he saw that he was about to murder a man by making it look like suicide in a bathroom.

He left Mr. Kent on the floor of the bathroom as he walked back into the other room and yanked the sheets off the bed. Ripping them into strips, he tied the pieces into a rope, end to end, and then made a noose.

By the time he got back into the bathroom, Mr. Kent's eyes were open and he was watching him but he couldn't make a move to stop him. He grabbed Mr. Kent's hands and rubbed them over the rope, getting his epithelial skin cells all over it.

As he wrapped the noose around his neck and then went to hoist him up so he could tie it off to the railing for the shower curtain, he asked him, "Have you read Lucretius's poem "De Rerum Natura"..."On the Nature of Things"? Probably not. Lucretius believed that nature experiments endlessly across life, and the organisms that adapt best to their environment have the best chance of surviving. Living organisms survived because of the commensurate relationship between their strength, speed, or intellect and the external dynamics of their environment." He tied off the rope made of sheets and watched as Mr. Kent started to struggle to breathe as his feet barely touched the floor. "It's about our nature, and how we are made to do the things that we do. Marcus Aurelius expanded on that and said that "a man's true delight is to do the things he was made for". I was made for this. It's the only way I can be fulfilled and the only way I know how to survive."

As he watched Mr. Kent's body fought until his last dying breath, he closed his eyes as he felt the desire that he'd been denying himself for nearly a year finally ease and fade away into the emptiness. And in that emptiness was a sense of satisfaction because he knew in his mind that he'd done good.

Going through the rooms and out onto the fire escape where he left his field kit and camera, he grabbed it and went back into the room. He took a picture of Jason Kent's dead body before he made sure that no one would find the evidence that he didn't want them to find and then he left the same way he came in.

~"Hey you, out there on the road

Always doing what you're told

Can you help me?-"~

He needed surgery. A stapedectomy. It would require him to take time off work despite it being an outpatient procedure. He'd be dizzy for a few days, and experience vertigo and headaches, which he already had headaches so that wasn't a problem. His problem was that he would have to have cotton balls and gauze over his ears for a week. Then after that week there would be drainage from his ears. He wouldn't be able to strain himself for about four weeks. No lifting, no driving until the doctor told him he could drive, no bending over. There was a lot of physicality he wouldn't be able to do for his job for a month or more.

Two months could be the possible timeframe before he could return to work without any symptoms or evidence that he'd had surgery. And since his only concern was for his co-workers to not know, he put in for a two months leave.

Catherine had figured it out, but she had known him the longest.

Seeing her at the hospital was a surprise. "What are you doing here?"

She stepped into the room as she told him, "I just wanted to see you. And I didn't want you to go in without wishing you good luck."

He should have told her what he'd told Brass; he didn't believe in luck. However, she was there and he knew it was because they were friends. Getting up as he saw the nurse approaching with the wheelchair behind Catherine, he told her, "Thank you...for being here." He would also need a ride since he'd gotten a cab from his house to the hospital. He wouldn't be able to drive after the surgery. Pointing to the wheelchair, he told her, "I don't need that."

Walking around the wheelchair, he headed down the hallway toward the operating room.

Catherine gave him the ride home and came in with him. She greeted Edmond as she petted over his head and scratched him behind his ears. She was saying something but he couldn't hear her. Reading her lips, she said, "I do get a kick out of it every time I call him that."

She must have called him "Eddie". He smiled as he said, "Told you," as he headed to his couch and sat down. He was feeling dizzy and extremely tired.

"I talked to the doctor," Catherine was telling him, "And I got the rundown of your recovery. You'll be sleeping a lot."

It was impossible for him to hear anything. He just had surgery; there were cotton balls stuffed into his ears and gauze covering the cotton balls, and yet...Catherine wouldn't stop talking. She knew that he could read lips so that was probably why she insisted on talking to him. He smirked slightly as he told her, "Aren't you jealous."

"I am, actually. Being in a drug induced coma sounds pretty good after the case we just had."

Catherine had found out that Sam Braun was her father; she'd told him in the car and realized that was probably her real reason for being at the hospital. She liked to dump all her personal baggage onto him since she didn't think he had any of his own.

"And I know you wouldn't want anyone else to know about this, so my lips are sealed. For all they know, you're off doing entomology research."

"You don't have to lie for me, Catherine," he told her as he kicked off his shoes and propped his feet up on his coffee table and sunk down into his couch cushions.

He closed his eyes and all he heard was silence. The world was gone and all he was left with was the comfort of his couch, his dog by his side as Edmond jumped up to put his head in his lap, and the haze the pain medication induced in his mind was enough to make him forget about everything for a while.

He felt like he could finally sleep.

~"Hey you, out there beyond the wall

Breaking bottles in the hall

Can you help me?-"~

Two weeks later the gauze had been removed and he no longer had to have cotton balls in his ears, but he was told it would take time for his hearing to be one hundred percent. There would be times when it would be hard to hear and other times when everything was too loud. Currently, everything was too low, too soft and quiet.

Part of his recovery was walking, and it was a good thing that he had his dog. He walked every day but he couldn't go up to the mountains. The change in altitude could damage his ears until they were fully recovered. They went to the park and he tossed him the ball as he spotted another dog owner doing the same. Edmond found a friend in the black Labrador Retriever and they were playing tug-of-war with a frisbee.

As he watched his dog, the owner of the lab tried talking to him and he did his best to be polite. He tried, but after a moment he said to him as he pointed to his ears, "I had surgery on my ears recently and I can't hear very well. Unless you know sign language," he said at the same time he signed the words, "I'm not able to understand you."

The guy-whose name he did not care to remember-made a face and then seemed to apologize before walking over to his dog. He got the frisbee away from the lab but Edmond wouldn't let go.

"Edmond, aus!" Edmond let go of the frisbee and looked at him. "Lass es. Hier," he commanded and Edmond ran over to him and jumped up to him. "Platz. Sitz." As Edmond dropped down and then sat down, he saw the other man watching him. "Braver hund, Eddie, so ist brav."

The guy said something and he read his lips, "You trained him well."

He had no idea how well. If he wanted, he could tell Edmond to bite the guy or better yet, to attack him. The guy wasn't a criminal that he knew of, or someone who was a threat to him, so he did say any of those commands and he took the leash and clipped it on Edmond's collar. It was time to go home.

As he went to walk away, the guy stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. When he turned around, he was holding something out for him to take. It was a business card. His name was Roger Shapiro. He was a lawyer.

He and his wife lived only a few blocks from him. "If Edmond needs a friend, or if you need a dog sitter. Give me a call."

He gave a nod and pocketed the card. That could come in handy. He was hating having to leave Edmond alone all night when he was at work. Once they got far enough away, he looked down at his dog and asked, "You want a friend?"

Edmond panted as he looked up at him. He figured that was a "yes".

When he got home, he let Edmond off his leash and he went into the kitchen. He saw Edmond at the door to the lower floor, scratching at it. There was no one down there, he hadn't used that room, or the bottom floor, for over a year.

Going to the door, he used his key to unlock it and when he opened it was surprised to see the light on. He stilled as he looked down the steps and thought to go get the gun that had belonged to Paul Millander out of the safe in his hall closest when a shadow appeared in the light across the floor and then a figure.

He blinked back as he saw Sara standing at the bottom of the steps. "Sara?"

~"Hey you, don't tell me there's no hope at all-"~

She did still have a key. He told her to keep it, just in case. And she knew the alarm code to his security system.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

She spoke but her voice was muffled and he couldn't see her lips. He had no idea what she was saying.

Pointing to his ear, he told her, "I've had ear surgery...Hang on," he said as he walked down the steps. Edmond had already rushed down them and was at her feet as she petted him.

Getting to the bottom of the steps, he looked into her eyes and saw pain. She was in pain? Did someone hurt her? Reaching out, he touched her cheek as she suddenly leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Right then, he didn't care what she'd said or why she was there. He was just glad that she was. Wrapping his arms around her, feeling her warmth, he breathed his first breath of relief in a long time.

~"Together we stand-"~

Then she spoke, "I've missed you. I've missed you so much."

~"Divided we fall..."~

Her words were so loud they shattered his mind and echoed down into his heart. He had missed her too.

~"...We fall…

...we fall…

...we fall..."~

TBC…

Disclaimer: Songs used/mentioned "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin and "Hey You" by Pink Floyd.