A/N: I posted a chapter yesterday, December 25th. If you haven't read that chapter yet, please read before you read this one! This is a relatively short chapter, but it is sort-of a continuation of the last chapter. I also wanted it mostly to take place in Grissom's head.
Again, thanks everyone for reading!
Only two more chapters to go! And the next two are already written, they were the first two chapters I wrote for this story. There will also be an epilogue. So, three more chapters to go. Yay!
Ch. 11: The Dreams in Which I'm Dying
2009
Nevada State Penitentiary
"You don't want God's forgiveness?" Father Powell asked him.
He'd been caught up in his head, in his memories, and had barely heard the question. Taking a moment to think about it, he said, "There was a teenager, he was dying and his sister was keeping him alive with her bone marrow and blood. He killed her to stop her from further suffering. I asked why he didn't just kill himself. Suicide, he said, was an unforgivable sin. I told him that just because he thought God forgives murder, it wouldn't keep him out of jail. He said his death would."
"You think he should have killed himself?"
"No. I think there was another option he didn't see. His sister had her whole life ahead of her. Believing that God will forgive one sin over another, made him commit murder. In life, we learn, we try to understand, and we do our best with the truth as we know it. And God is the only one who can decide if we're forgiven or not. I chose to kill evil. I don't regret it. And when I die…I'll either be forgiven or I won't be. I'm okay with that."
"Are you planning on dying soon? Gil...are you suicidal?"
He nearly laughed. "I have no intention of taking my own life, Father. It's irrational. Eventually, the pain will stop. What's waiting behind the pain isn't death. It's understanding. It's life. We don't get one chance to live. We choose to live every day we wake up in the morning. But death can only happen once. And there's no coming back from that."
Father Powell tilted his head so he could see him through the slot in the door. Once his eyes met his, he asked, "Have you ever considered it?"
That was an interesting question. He had, but…not in most ways people consider death and suicide. At least, he didn't think. He never engaged in the act of it. He never wept or broke down emotionally at the thought. He never went through depression as it was clinically described. However, the thoughts were there. The question had been asked.
Focusing his thoughts, he told Father Powell, "I talked to a psychiatrist who told me about OCD related depression. The sufferers are high functioning. They don't exhibit the usual symptoms. They don't stay in bed all day, wallowing in their despair. They continue to go to work. They continue to go through the motions, but...their brains can't stop thinking about it once the choice presents itself. He said, "when an obsessive brain is presented with a choice, it can't shut off the clatter of the idea until it sees it through to its conclusion. The idea found its way in". I'm not OCD, but, with how my brain works…it was a question. I have to know the answer. I have to know the truth. It's the only way I know how to function. So, yes, Father, I considered it."
GIL
2007
He was left alone in the dark red room. His head tired, heavy, as he rested it against his arm. Sweat rolled down his face, his back, stinging the cuts and mixing with the drops of blood that slowly slid down his back. Feeling the floor under his bare feet, barely touching the wood as his arms stretched up above him and going numb.
In his head, noises played over like a broken record. Noises of voices that he couldn't focus on, sounding as if they were speaking over top of one another, while images of faces, ones alive, most dead, filled his head. Empty eyes staring back at him. All his victims.
The voices filtered out, one-by-one, until he was left with two voices. His own voice, and one other voice. A man's voice. What had he said? What did he say?
He said: "I don't know how to do this."
"My name is Ernest Edward Dell. I was born in 1946 in Ames, Iowa–"
"My name is Gil Grissom. I was born in 1956 in Santa Monica, California."
"-My life's been hard, but I don't complain. I never expected better. I'm good with my hands. I make things–"
"I have wanted death for so long, sought it out, lived and dreamed it for so long, ever since seeing my father on the couch not breathing."
"-I fix things. I'm a handyman. That's what I am. A man has a right to an honest day's pay. Me, I service the machinery of death so that people can eat. If that makes me evil, then so be it–"
"It was so easy for me because I didn't feel anything. I didn't understand and despite trying to, human nature, emotions, eluded me and I let it."
"-I'm not the sociable type. I know that. Spend any amount of time around people, you get your heart broke–"
"I could be left alone...I could be alone, to think and work and ignore people. Ignore connections. I could just focus on finding the truth and meaning, in my solitude. I could do what I always desired to do without fear of being known."
"-Treachery, hypocrisy. Promise of love. Look into the mouth of a person, and you'll find lies wriggling there like maggots waiting to grow wings–"
"I could kill evil, like pulling wings off flies. I didn't used to feel a thing. It was easier then, being able to fulfill my purpose."
"-The world has gone mad. A man could kill from sunup to sunset, and still his work would never be done."
"This...how I feel, it's what's going to kill me. This is how I'm going to die."
Six Months Prior
~"All around me are familiar faces–"~
He blinked his eyes open and saw a familiar smile and eyes watching him in the dark bedroom. The sunlight from outside the bedroom door was the only light in the room and he was so confused. Not with it being daytime, but with Sara being there. He was supposed to pick her up at the airport. Blinking his tired eyes open wider, he said, "What time's it? I set the alarm."
"I got in early," she told him as he felt her hand on his face. "I turned off the alarm so you could sleep." Her hand rubbed over his cheek and jaw and he closed his eyes. He was so tired. "You shaved."
He smiled into her hand. "I needed a change. You like it?" Opening his eyes, he saw her grin before she kissed him. He figured that was a yes.
She rolled them until she was on top and deepened the kiss. His hands touched her skin and he realized that she was completely naked. It didn't take him long to get interested and excited as she moved on top of him. He missed her so much. She'd been gone for nearly a year. A lot could happen in a year, but one thing that didn't change was his love for her. He still wore his ring around his neck and called her every day. Read to her over the phone, sent her emails to help her through the week. She made sure he was sticking to his diet and sent him gifts, some for him, some for their home. He had a shelf dedicated to all the places she's been and pictures framed of all the work with animals she's been doing.
"I've missed you," she told him as she worked on getting his shirt and sweatpants off.
Once he was inside of her, he sat up as she started to move. He would normally take his time, making love to her as long as he could, but they both were so desperate for each other that he knew it wouldn't take long. His lips were on her lips, her neck and chest as she rode him hard and fast until they both panting in gasps of pleasure as they came. They showered together, lips and tongues twisting together as they cleaned each other off. Dropping to his knees, he made her come again with only his mouth.
As he stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, looking at his reflection as Sara moved around him, he tried not to think back as to why he decided to shave his beard off. Heather had said it was reflective of who he was on the inside. Something dark and mysterious that the beard had brought out. Ever since he killed Leon Sneller, he felt something change. It was no longer a mystery. Sara knew who he was and so did Heather. He no longer felt as if he was hiding from anything or anyone. He felt…
He felt.
That was a common occurrence lately. He was feeling more and more. Before, everything had always been cerebral. What did he think? It was never "what did he feel?"
What did he feel?
~"Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere–"~
It didn't stop. The death. The murder. The rape. Every day, it was all the same.
The miniature of the crime scene of Izzy Delancy's murder had been fascinating enough to keep him from feeling too much. It was something he could think about. Something to work on as he investigated the "miniature killer" as Ecklie and everyone else started to call the suspect.
Did he have a nickname? Would they give him one if he were ever caught? He hoped not. He would want to be put somewhere dark and quiet and left alone. Alone in thoughts, in his head, and deservingly so, had no contact with anyone ever again. Alone in his misery, in his emptiness, heart destroyed and left for dead.
~"Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression–"~
It was all so senseless. Kids killing tourists because they were bored. They didn't have any respect or value for human life. And because of that, Greg had almost been killed. He couldn't help as he stared down at Greg's bloody face and broken body, how much pain the young man was in.
He saw the victim who'd been beaten and the dead kid on the ground. It all seemed so pointless.
Then Greg surprised him. He had done everything he could, not only to save the tourists life, but for them to get the ones responsible. He scratched one of his attackers. They also spat on him, which gave them DNA. They had everything they needed to make arrests and put them away.
Teenagers. All of them but one. Boredom had caused them to commit murder. It had all been so pointless.
~"Hide my head, I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow–"~
"The truth is," he said as he shut his locker, gathering the attention of Warrick and Nick who were bickering back and forth with one another over whose fault it was and why the kids did what they did. "A moral compass can only point you in the right direction, can't make you go there." He was reminded of Luke Daniels, the teenager who told him that his God didn't exist in Sin City. "Our culture preaches that, uh, you shouldn't be ashamed of anything you do anymore. And unfortunately, this city was built on the principle that there's no such thing as guilt. "Do whatever you want; we won't tell." So without a conscience, there's nothing to stop you from killing someone. And evidently...you don't even have to feel bad about it."
He used to not feel bad about it because he knew he was killing for a reason. He had a purpose in life. He used to be able to kill without guilt or remorse because he was killing evil. He used to not feel anything.
Now, he couldn't stop it.
~"And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had–"~
He woke in a panic; his chest tight, lungs on fire as he breathed out a deep shuddering breath into the dark bedroom. His head throbbing from the dream he'd had that faded into the dark. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he felt her hand touch his back as he took a deep breath in, held it, and then let it out as he tried to slow his racing heart.
"Gil, babe, are you okay?" she asked as she sat up in bed behind him, her hands on his back and neck, rubbing the tension out of it.
She never used to ask. She told him once that he acted like they didn't sleep in the same bed. It was unreasonable to think that she hadn't noticed how hard it was for him to sleep at times, or when he woke in a panic, or when he didn't sleep at all as he left the room so as not to disturb her. He'd been living in denial, he supposed. Thinking she hadn't noticed, or that she was asleep, or that she didn't care.
It was hard for him to tell her what he dreamed about and why he had panicked. There were dreams where he was the killer who killed, but then there were dreams where he had been the one killed. Over and over again, he died in his dreams. His killer changed often.
This time, he dreamed of two deaths. Sara's death. And his own. The one who killed him was himself. He committed suicide by drowning himself. He wanted it more than anything. He couldn't live without her.
What did Conrad say? That there were consequences? With every action there was an equal and opposite reaction. Cause and effect. He was having an effect on others, but others were equally having an effect on him. He never cared about the consequences. He never thought about it, and when he did, he was fine with it. There was a saying, "Between the Devil and the deep blue sea, come Hell or high water". It was an idiom, like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
He was stuck as he felt like he was being beaten down and dragged through the sharp edges of his past. Through the death, all the people he's killed, and toward the edge of the cliff. What was waiting for him at the bottom of the cliff? What were the consequences? Prison? Sara's death? His own?
Those thoughts caused him to panic. He couldn't get it out of his head. He couldn't stop the fear that he was going to get her killed.
Someone had to pay. Everyone paid a price. That was life.
"My only fear, Gil, is that you'll get hurt, or killed, or end up in prison."
Sara had told him that. Losing him was her fear.
Nick had been put in a box. Greg nearly beaten to death. Heather's daughter had been killed. Jim had been shot and nearly died.
It was all spiraling. He was falling and he didn't know how to stop it.
~"I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take–"~
Later in the evening, as he was cooking dinner for Sara, his wife, before he left to go to work, he couldn't imagine the pain he'd feel if he lost her for any reason or in any way. It was a sickening thought. One that he couldn't get out of his head. He'd envisioned her death once, by his own hands because of Dr. Lurie's heartbreak, and he had murdered Lurie because of it. He'd acted irrationally due to his love for her.
He didn't know what he would do if it became a reality.
He had so many questions in his head. So many painful thoughts, uncertainty, and fear. It was all consuming and it rendered him mute. He couldn't talk to her. He tried, but the words couldn't come out. How did he say it? Where did he start?
Did she even want to hear him tell her that he dreamed of their deaths?
Probably not. No one wanted to hear those words.
~"When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world–"~
Sara put the book down as she got up to walk over to him. He'd stopped chopping the vegetables as he got lost in thought as he watched her. Her hand rubbed along his back as she stepped up beside him.
"You've been awfully quiet today."
Smiling slightly, he told her, "Got a lot on my mind," before refocusing and going back to chopping the vegetables as she grabbed a drink out of the refrigerator.
Then she started talking to him about the African lions. There was a conservation group that was dedicated to all aspects of the lions conservation, research, and management across Africa. "There are fewer than 20,000 lions remaining across all of Africa," she told him. "They've lost over 80% of their historical range. It's not just poachers threatening their lives but the loss of their natural habitat." She watched him as he tossed the vegetables into the heated oiled pan before saying, "There's an opening. I'm thinking of going."
He gave a nod as he smiled over at her. "I think that's great. You've always talked about going to Africa to work with the lions. This is your opportunity."
It also got her away from him. If she was away from him then she was safe. That was all that mattered.
"~Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday–~
Carl Fischer was responsible for the death of a little boy named Lucas. As he walked down the police station hallway towards Jim's office, he rubbed his throbbing head as he heard the shouting match between Carl and Terrance Crowley ignite.
He heard Terrance yell out "You're gonna fry" as Carl lunged towards him screaming out, "You drove him right to me, you bastard! You did this! You did this!"
"I'll kill you!" Terrance shouted back as the two police officers tried to pull the two men apart.
Brass rushed past him to help Officer Metcalf who was having a hard time restraining Carl Fischer. In the room across from him he heard Margaret Finn and Brad Lewis, the two lawyers, argue with a police officer. Their voices echoed down the hall and vibrated in his head as the hallway felt like it was tilting sideways. He was tilting right along with it. Falling and drowning in the chaos of it all. In the fact that it never stopped.
"Where is Carl Fisher?" Margaret Finn asked. "You can't take him to County–"
Brad Lewis cut in as he said, "Mr. Crowley's civil rights were violated. This department is racist!"
"Excuse me," Miss Finn said, cutting Mr. Lewis off, "I was here first. My client has been detained illegally–"
"You cannot charge Mr. Crowley–"
He shut the door to Jim's office and closed the blinds before turning off the lights and lying down on the couch.
~"And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen–~
Another child gone, taken too soon, as the world kept spinning. Life kept moving, people kept yelling, blaming someone else, and hating. Wanting. Needing.
"It was innocent," Carl tried to explain. "He wasn't feeling well. He laid his head in my lap. I touched his hair. I didn't want to...I loved him. I loved Lucas, and he loved me."
"Is that what you think?" he asked in confusion. How could he have thought that? It didn't matter why he thought it, it wasn't going to bring Lucas back. "Then why didn't you help him? He told you he hit his head. He was in pain. He had a concussion, Carl. You must have known that. I'm sure he was dizzy, probably had no appetite. Maybe he was even slurring his words, but you didn't care about that, because you wanted what you wanted."
Carl wanted what Carl wanted and everything else be damned, even Lucas's health and well-being.
"You're not listening to me," Carl pleaded. "I didn't want to hurt anyone. I need you to believe me."
He couldn't believe him because he knew how it felt to want something without considering the consequences. "I don't," he told him. "You had choices. You made the wrong ones. And now this little boy is gone."
He had choices. He's had so many choices. As he stared at the swirling ceiling above him in nauseating pain, he kept his left leg planted on the floor as he tried to steady the room and stop it from tilting too far, he closed his eyes and fought back the noises in his own head.
Question: Did he want what he wanted even if it cost him everything?
He didn't know the answer to that question. It all made his head hurt.
He needed a break. He needed time away. He needed to do something else before he made the wrong decision. He didn't want to make a choice that would lead to Sara's death. He did want to be blinded to it due to his own need and desire. He didn't want to be the reason for her downfall and death.
A couple of weeks later, the miniature killer struck again. Then, again, but by the third time, they had more evidence and a viable suspect.
He was in his office, working on closing that investigation when Catherine walked in. She'd been working a case with days that had gone well into the night. She sat in the chair across from him and told him all about the case, and Max, as she laughed. "I'm sorry. It's horrible, but it's really funny. It's horrible and it's funny." When he only stared at her in confusion and disbelief, she asked him, "Are you okay?"
The life of Max, the man who had woken up one day and accidentally killed his wife and a neighbor, was the most depressing thing he'd ever heard in his life. The man's wife was dead, the neighbor dead, all by accident. He wasn't a killer, had no intention of killing anyone ever, and now he was double murderer. The man has killed his wife, and Catherine was laughing about it.
"A guy kills two people before breakfast that he had no intention of killing when he woke up that morning. By all accounts, he's led a meager life, an unnoticed life. And then all of a sudden, in a flash, it's over. And now, for him, the real suffering begins."
He was suffering too. He was drowning. The tide was pulling him under and it was getting so hard to breathe.
Catherine shook her head at him as she said, "You're tired."
He was tired. He was so damn tired of all of it. "Yeah," he said as Greg walked into his office.
"Hey, Catherine, nice seeing you again. Grissom, guess what I found?" Greg asked.
"Mankind has reached a new evolutionary plateau, and starting tomorrow, no one will rape, murder or maim again?" he bitterly asked.
Greg stared at him along with Catherine as he said, "That's…No."
"Too bad," he said before Greg told him about the disposable cell phone call that'd been made.
Minutes later, as the SWAT team entered their prime suspect's house, Erine Dell, with Jim Brass leading the charge after the suspect, he sat in his office and listened to it on his police radio until he received a notification of an email.
On December 8th, 2006, at 12:32 am, Ernie Dell sent his confession for the murders of Izzy Delancy, Penny Garden, and Raymundo Suarez to his inbox. It was a live feed from a webcam. Clicking it on, he saw the image of the man who appeared on his computer screen. As he listened to his words, he couldn't help but think that they were the same person in a lot of ways. Both held no faith in humanity. Both had been broken by life.
Both were suffering.
"...Spend any amount of time around people, you get your heart broke. Treachery, hypocrisy. Promise of love," Ernie Dell was saying as he heard on the police radio informed him of the movements of the SWAT team clearing the house room-by-room. "Look into the mouth of a person, and you'll find lies wriggling there like maggots waiting to grow wings. The world has gone mad. A man could kill from sunup to sunset, and still his work would never be done."
Ernie Dell picked up a gun, put it to his own chin, and pulled the trigger. He jumped back at the sound but what shocked him the most was how much he understood. Those words spoken by Ernie Dell could have been his words.
"A man could kill from sunup to sunset, and still his work would never be done."
It would never stop. And if it didn't stop, then would he have to kill forever? Would it ever end? Was he even doing any good killing evil? What was he stopping? Did it matter?
So many questions and no answers.
He wasn't stopping a damn thing. It kept going. The world kept spinning. People kept murdering and raping and–
He knew the answer. It was a simple answer and one he's always been aware of but ignored because he wanted what he wanted.
Answer: It would only stop when he stopped breathing.
~Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me–"~
Taking a sabbatical to teach had been the choice he made. It got him out of Las Vegas for a while. It got him away from the constant thoughts of murder. As he walked the halls of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, he couldn't help but think that he was back to being a ghost. The students all ignored him for the most part, except for those in his class, which weren't too many students but enough for it to qualify as a course.
College was still college as he remembered it to be. Bright young minds excited to learn, hallways and quads full of students laughing and socializing and music playing from stereos, cars, and bars around the campus. And him, walking through it all, undisturbed, unnoticed, and ignored.
Lost in thought, thinking.
~"Hello, teacher! Tell me, what's my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me–"~
Even most of the other professor's left him alone. He was glad. He needed time to think. Time to breathe and find his purpose in life again. He felt like he lost a lot over the last couple of months, his purpose was one of them.
Was there a point to it anymore? Had all of it, the blood he'd spilled, the bodies he'd buried, been for nothing?
He'd stopped shaving as it was something Sara did for him. He was missing her more and more with each passing day. She was still in Vegas, having not yet left for Africa. There had been some delay in her ability to leave. She had to renew her passport and get the necessary vaccinations before she could go.
He had sent her a gift, a butterfly cocoon and hoped she'd appreciate it. He'd be back in Vegas before it emerged, and he'd get to see her surprise when she saw the papilio cresphontes, the Giant Swallowtail butterfly. They were very rare, and he couldn't believe that he actually found one of their cocoons.
As he sat at his desk in his office late one night, he wrote her a letter. One full of his unspoken declaration of the love he had for her. He quoted her Shakespeare as he couldn't get himself to quote her any of his own thoughts.
His thoughts weren't of love. He couldn't focus on anything other than his dreams. Of the blood on his hands and the blood on hers. She said she was okay with making the decision if he needed her to make it. She was okay carrying the burden along with him. She had married him.
Through it all, she became his wife.
~"And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had–~
He didn't mail the letter. He couldn't. Stuffing it into his book of William Shakespeare sonnets and poems and plays, he stood from the desk as he rubbed his head and paced the floor.
The question entered his head and wouldn't leave. What was he doing? Better yet, what had he done?
He'd been so wrapped up in his want, his need, and desire, and his happiness that Sara still loved and accepted him, that he didn't consider the consequences. He was blind to them. Blind to what it was doing to her, or what it would do to her.
What kind-of husband was he to put all that on his wife? He made it her decision, gave her the control, and that was supposed to be okay?
~"I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take–"~
Putting his own life in danger, putting his own life in the crossfire of arrest or death by cop was one thing, but he had brought her into it, willingly. He had brought Heather into it. Now she was culpable, an accessory. They both were. They were both guilty by association. And he let them be. He allowed it to happen.
Why?
Because he wanted what he wanted.
Like Carl Fischer, like the miniature killer Ernie Dell, he'd been consumed by his own desire that the choices he made were spreading out and hurting those around him. Like a virus. He had a virus inside of him. A beast. And since he was patient zero, that meant he was both the cause and the cure of the disease that was impacting those he loved the most.
He was dragging his wife through the dark with him. His friends. He was causing Jim to suspect him of murder and damaging their friendship.
Question: Could he stop the beast?
~"When people run in circles it's a very, very
Mad world, mad world."~
Las Vegas
Reentering Las Vegas, he got off the plane as he felt his heavy legs carry him out of the airport and to an awaiting taxi. He didn't call Sara. He couldn't see her yet. His troubled mind couldn't handle her eyes on his at the moment. He needed something else first. He needed to think, but most of all, he needed to feel pain.
There was hate burning inside. It had started in his heart and spread out and up into his head. It wasn't hatred for another person. It was hatred for himself. He hated everything that he was, except for her husband. He didn't hate the man Sara loved. It was that thought that kept him there. That thought that kept him breathing another day.
He had never really ever considered suicide before in his life. But that thought swirled around as he considered the question whether or not he could stop the beast that raged inside his head. His death would permanently stop him. The monster could be silenced once and for all.
It wasn't logical. It made no sense. Suicide shouldn't have been an option because there were other choices. Life was all about choices. He was never one to act impulsively unless out of anger or rage. Then he could be impulsive, but his mind wouldn't let him act impulsively against himself. It questioned everything too much. It asked him too many questions, too many why's. And since he had no reasonable answer to the question of suicide, he didn't go through with it. It didn't become anything more than a question.
But he'd been startled that it'd even been a question at all. And that was why he wanted what he needed right then. That was why he gave the taxi driver Heather's address instead of his own. Getting to her house, he got out and grabbed his luggage out of the trunk, tipped the driver, and then walked up to the porch. He left the luggage by the door as he entered the house since he saw the front door had been left open.
He found her in the garden. Looking around, he asked her once she spotted him standing there, "Where's Sally?"
Heather stood, putting down the gardening tools as she told him, "Away visiting family. What're you doing here?" She asked and as he went to speak, she saw it in his eyes.
Even though it was no longer her profession, she was still his dominant. She could still read him better than anyone, even Sara, and she had no problem continuing this relationship with him. It was their dynamic. She helped to lead him, guide him, and protect him through this life he led.
That was why she chose on her own to take his hand and led him up the stairs. It was why she chose on her own to protect him from Jim Brass's suspicions. He kept blaming himself for putting this on her, of bringing her into his life, but in the end, he realized she chose it by remaining silent. She was responsible for her own actions and inactions just as he was, as Sara was, as all of them were with their choices.
She cuffed his hands together, bound them after she'd removed his shirt, and lifted them into the air as he was lifted slightly up off the floor. He was in so much. Hated himself so much, that this was the only way he could think of to release it. It had to come out somehow.
"I will keep whipping you until you either say your safe word or you break down. Do I make myself clear?" she asked.
"Yes, Lady Heather."
He heard the crack of the whip before he felt the sting of the whip against his back.
Time stopped existing and he had no idea if he broke or not. He didn't remember. All he remembered was the pain. The sweat that stung the cuts from the lashes on his back as he felt the blood that dripped down his skin. Then he realized that he never broke. He had held it all in. He also never said stop.
He didn't say anything.
He had gone mute. He disappeared in his head, into the screaming of his victims, and all the voices. Into Ernie Dell's confession.
He was speaking. He was saying something. His words that were once jumbled in his head, spilled out of his mouth, as he muttered out, "I don't know how to do this…My name is Gil Grissom. I was born in 1956 in Santa Monica, California. I have wanted death for so long, sought it out, lived and dreamed it for so long, ever since seeing my father on the couch not breathing. It was so easy for me because I didn't feel anything. I didn't understand and despite trying to, human nature, emotions, eluded me and I let it. I could be left alone...I could be alone, to think and work and ignore people. Ignore connections. I could just focus on finding the truth and meaning, in my solitude. I could do what I always desired to do without fear of being known. I could kill evil, like pulling wings off flies. I didn't used to feel a thing. It was easier then, being able to fulfill my purpose. This...how I feel, it's what's going to kill me. This is how I'm going to die."
"Grissom?" a voice was talking to him, trying to get through, but he didn't know who it belonged to.
He was alone. In his head, in the desert of his mind, all alone in the dark. It was him against the beast. And he was being devoured. The beast was killing.
"Grissom? Can you hear me?"
This was the only way. He had to stop. It was going to kill her. The beast was heading right for Sara, he knew it was. It had nowhere else to go. It was a virus. All it could go was out.
"Sara," he said as his vision focused and he saw the person standing in front of him. Heather looked concerned as she looked at him. "I need her."
SARA
~"There are things, I have done
There's a place, I have gone–"~
Her phone was ringing. Pushing up into a sitting position, she looked around for the cell phone as she got up off the yoga mat. Turning the music down, she walked over to the kitchen counter and saw a number she didn't recognize. Answering the call, she said, "Hello?"
She was surprised to hear the other woman on the phone. It was Gil's friend Heather. "Grissom's at my house. He's asking for you. Can you come?"
"I'll, uh…I'm on my way." She hung up the phone and quickly changed clothes, grabbed her keys and bag, and then left the townhouse.
The drive out to Heather's house was only thirty minutes, but from the worry she'd heard in Heather's voice, it felt so much longer. She had no idea what was going on. Gil was at her house? When did he get back to Vegas? She was expecting him back tomorrow.
Getting to the house, she was greeted by Heather at the door, and she let her in. She was dressed in all black, with a black sweater wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair was no longer black but looked to be her natural auburn red color.
"He's upstairs. I'll take you to him," she said as she showed her the way.
As they walked, she couldn't help but to finally talk to Heather about all of this. She wanted to know what their friendship really consisted of. "This is the fetish club he told me about, isn't it?"
"It used to be many things to many people," Heather told her as they climbed the stairs, "that used to be one of them. I don't do that anymore."
Looking over at her, she said, "He told me that you were a dominatrix. Were you his?"
Heather didn't even hesitate as she answered, "I was. I still am. I assure you, Sara, it is purely non-sexual. You've met my wife."
That didn't mean anything, she thought as the jealousy once again gripped her chest. "I have, but you can't honestly think I believe-"
"Do you trust him?" Heather stopped walking as she turned to look at her.
She stopped in front of her as she heard the question. She absolutely trusted him. "Yes, I do."
She regarded her a moment before nodding. "Then trust him. You know your husband. How he is. We have an intimate relationship but there is no sex between us."
Heather knew they were married. Did Gil tell her? No one else knew that. "But you have an intimate relationship."
She sighed as she asked her, "Do you have friends? People you are intimate with who isn't your husband?"
"That's not the same-"
"It is the same," Heather said, cutting her off. "We're friends. I just so happen to also be his Dominant."
That was what she didn't understand. She thought she did, but maybe she was wrong. It was only her assumption. "Why?"
Heather gave her a knowing look, as if she knew all her fears and concerns. Trying to put them to rest, she told her, "He asked me to be."
"For how long?"
Giving it some thought, Heather told her, "It's been five years." Then she turned around and started walking again. It was a big house and they were on the second floor but she led her to another, thinner, staircase that went up to the third floor.
As they climbed the steps, she asked, "You said this place used to be many things to many people, what is it to him?"
"This is his safe place," Heather told her.
His safe place? That made her heart hurt as the implication of that hit her in the chest. He came here to feel safe. He didn't feel safe anywhere else? "I should be his safe place."
"I agree," Heather said and when she saw her doubtful look, she told her, "I mean it, Sara, you should be, and that's what we've been working towards."
"He talks to you about us? About his life? He should be talking to me–"
"He can't–"
"I'm his wife, he should–"
"But he can't. Do you know why?" Heather asked as they stopped in front of a closed door. Turning to look at her, she said, "He loves you."
She nearly laughed at that. "If he really loved me, he should talk to me."
Heather smiled slightly as she told her, "I agree, but, like I said, he can't. He can talk to me because…he doesn't love me. And there lies the distinction between us that you need to remember. You mean too much to him. He doesn't want to disappoint you. He doesn't want your judgment. He fears you, more than anyone in his life. Quite simply, you terrify him. His fear of losing you is crippling. People like him, you can't force it. You can't make him become someone he isn't. If you give him an ultimatum, he won't be able to choose. And you will lose him. So, whatever you feel towards me, towards this place, you need to leave out here before you go in there," she said, gesturing to the door. "He's hurting and he's in a very confused place in his head. He's too far gone, inside of himself, and I can't reach him. Right now, he needs you."
She looked at the closed door and suddenly felt out of her depth. She didn't know what to expect. "What, what do I do?"
"Just, be his wife," Heather told her. "Trust him. Listen to him. That is, if he speaks. He shut down completely and hasn't said a word, other than asking for you." Heather left her alone as she headed back down the hallway.
Standing in front of the door, she took a breath and then opened it. She saw him immediately, lying on the bed, facing away from the door. His back was red, beaten raw with shallow lashes over his skin and spots of blood.
~"There's a beast, and I let it run
Now it's running my way-"~
"Good God, Gil," she said as she shut the door. There was no lock on it but she doubted they'd be disturbed.
On the dresser across from the bed, she spotted a towel and washcloths, along with a bowl of warm water. There were bottles of ointments and gauze. Be his wife, she thought as she took the washcloth and dipped it into the warm water. She took her time cleaning his back. He didn't say anything, didn't even let out a hiss of pain as she touched his back with the cloth. The cuts weren't deep, and were mostly superficial, but some would leave scars, like the ones he already had.
~"There are things, I regret
You can't forgive, you can't forget–"~
She was reminded once again of her scars on her arms and the reason they were there. She hadn't cut herself in a very long time. All the pain she felt, all the pain that had been built up in her head and in her heart, was gone. Every so often, she'd feel it, but whenever she did, whenever there was doubt inside of her, Gil would soothe it away.
And because of that, she learned how to soothe it away when he wasn't there. She learned from him how to beat the pain away, how to heal herself. It came out through other ways. It came out through Yoga, through running and kickboxing, through making love with him. It came out through taking care of herself.
~"There's a gift that you sent
You sent it my way-"~
This was the way Gil's pain came out. He beat it by literally being beaten. By bringing the pain out through the surface instead of keeping it underneath. Much like she used to do with the cutting. Heather really had, and was, helping him. Putting that act in someone else's hands prevented him from taking it too far. Prevented him from ending his life, much like she'd almost done.
A little further, Gil had said as he ran his thumb over her wrists, and she would have killed herself.
"What did you do?" she asked. It wasn't an accusation. She genuinely wanted to know what he'd done to have caused himself so much pain.
~"So take this night
Wrap it around me like a sheet-"~
She finished cleaning his back, the cuts, and put the ointment on the open cuts, before placing the gauze over his back. Looking into his eyes, she saw the distance in them, how dark they were. He often got that look in his eyes when he was thinking in his head and ignoring the world around him. Around his neck was the chain with his wedding ring. He didn't take it off before the session. That could have been why Heather had known they were married, or he could have told her.
~"I know I'm not forgiven
But I need a place to sleep
So take this night
And lay me down on the street-"~
Placing the towel on top of the blanket, she rolled him onto his back, on top of the towel, and then laid down next to him. She rested her head on his chest, heard the beating of his heart, as she rubbed a hand over his bare chest until she started to drift off to sleep.
~"I know I'm not forgiven
But I hope that I'll be given
Some peace-"~
She felt him stir under him. Opening her eyes, she looked up at his face and saw his eyes watching her in confusion. His arm wrapped around her body, rubbing at her arm and shoulder before he looked away, back up at the ceiling. He still didn't say anything, but at least he was aware that she was there with him.
He'd gotten like this a few times before, but never for this long. She could understand Heather's concern. If she hadn't had been used to it, she would have thought he'd gone completely catatonic. Gil's only way of confronting things, personal things that really mattered to him, to deal with things, was to think about them. He didn't usually talk things out, unless apparently with Heather. He didn't have a beer with a friend, he didn't write it down in a journal. He worked it all out in his head, which caused him to get very quiet and very still.
~"There's a game, that I play
There are rules, I had to break–"~
It could last hours. The last time he did this, it lasted nearly two hours. He'd laid in bed one day, when he should have been sleeping, and thought. He didn't know she was awake, but she was. It'd been after a rough case, he'd told her, and riding a rollercoaster didn't help. The ritual of the Japanese tea ceremony didn't help.
He never told her what it was about, what had disturbed him so much, but whatever it was, he couldn't sleep. That was before he presented her with the engagement ring. She'd heard on the news that a CSI had been abducted and nearly killed and she had wondered if that had been the reason.
~"There's mistakes that I made
But I made them my way-"~
She didn't know. He wouldn't tell her.
His breath caught in his chest, like he'd been hurt, and she looked up and saw his eyes closed. His fingers twitched against her skin as he let out a strained breath. Rubbing a hand over his chest, trying to settle him, she closed her eyes and hoped he could feel her comforting him in his sleep.
There wasn't anything else she could do until he woke up from whatever nightmare he was living in.
~"So take this night
Wrap it around me like a sheet
I know I'm not forgiven
But I need a place to sleep-"~
She drifted in her own restless sleep. Every move he made woke her and she had to check to make sure he was okay. He had rolled over at some point and his arm was wrapped around her body as his head was buried in her shoulder. Running a hand through his hair, she felt him breathe out easier, less painfully as he relaxed.
~"So take this night
And lay me down on the street
I know I'm not forgiven
But I hope that I'll be given
Some peace-"~
She woke to darkness in the room, the sunlight that had been coming in through the window was gone. The day had faded into night. Gil wasn't due back to work until tomorrow night since he'd arrived a day earlier than planned. Letting out a deep breath, she stretched against him as she felt his warmth, his hands on her lower back, rubbing in small circles.
Trying to focus her eyes in the dark, she saw his eyes open and on her. Reaching up, she rubbed over his bearded face and felt him smile. He was awake, no longer asleep and no longer trapped in his head. Smiling, she said, "I've missed you."
He kissed her forehead and then her face, and then her lips. She didn't mind him with a beard, but all that scruff on his face had to go. "When was the last time you shaved?"
"The last time you shaved my face."
"As soon as we get home, that's coming off."
He chuckled as he kissed her again. It was a soft, lingering kiss, but not one to excite anything sexual. It was comforting, loving, and telling her it was okay. That he was okay.
She wasn't going to ask even though she wanted to ask. She wanted answers. She wanted to know why he thought he had to do this. She wanted to know what he was thinking. She wanted to know why she wasn't his "safe place".
"I'm sorry." She had no idea what he was apologizing to her for. Gil never apologized. He didn't need to.
"You don't need to apologize–"
"Yes, I do," he told her.
"Some peace-"
Since she really couldn't see him too well in the dark, she couldn't see into eyes. His hands rubbed over her back, up to her shoulder, before he placed a kiss there. She wasn't going to rush him. It always took him time to speak to her. It was time he needed to gather his thoughts into words. She was patient.
He let out a breath as he told her, "I should have never asked you to take the burden from me. I've compromised you."
"Gil, it was my decision. I could've said no. I could have walked away. I still can."
"But, you won't."
She didn't know if he wanted her to or not. It didn't sound like he was disappointed in her decision to stay. It was definitive. It simply was. She wouldn't, because she loved him.
"I trust you with my life," he told her. "I have to trust you with this." She thought he meant with the burden of deciding on whether or not he killed or not. She was surprised when he continued, telling her, "I wanted to die. I thought about it…I didn't want to be a burden to you anymore."
"You're not a burden," she told him as fear gripped her. She had known without him even speaking, she'd know what pain he'd been suffering through. She'd seen it in the way he let it out. "Gil–"
"I know that now," he said, cutting her off. "I would never–...I'm afraid I'm going to lose you, Sara. One way or another, and it's…It scares me. I want you to leave so that you'd be safe."
Of course, he would think that. Believing that she was in danger presented him with a problem to solve. The only way to solve that problem was for her to leave. It got her out of danger. His mind worked that way. He was always trying to find the answers and solve the problem.
"From you?" she asked.
He let out a deep breath as he answered, "Yes. I would never hurt you, but…my actions, what I've done, the consequences will hurt you. I can't do that to you."
Swallowing the sadness in her throat, she felt like this was a separation. She didn't want it to be. "If you want me to go, I'll go, but just know that this isn't goodbye."
"You're my wife," he said. "One soul, remember. Whether I'm there or not, I'm with you." He kissed her again and she felt the wetness on his face. Wiping the tear away from his face, she pulled him tighter to her as she kissed him back.
This wasn't goodbye, she knew that. He just needed her away from him at the moment. Whatever it was he was going through, it wasn't over. All he wanted was for her to be safe.
And all she wanted for him was the same.
~"Some peace."~
TBC…
Disclaimer songs used/mentioned: "Mad World" by Michael Andrews & Gary Jules. "This Night" by Black Lab.