Disclaimer: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation does not belong to me. The characters are full of inspiration, intelligence, and intrigue that I can't help but borrow them a short while. I heartily enjoy the show and its premise. The events of this story are mine, but the characters are definitely not.
Author's Note: This is for b8kworm. Thank you for watching CSI in the first place. Thank you for getting me hooked. You know that I'll make you sorry for it.
Archives: ShipperworldCSI, Working Love, mine. Anybody else, email me. I like to go visiting.
Pairing(s): Gil/Catherine
Spoiler: None this time.
***** ***** *****Title: To Lose Control
Author: Laeta
E-mail: ladylaeta@yahoo.com
Chapter 4: Vain Imaginings
He watched her sleep while the sun trekked higher to its zenith. Never had he seen her sleep this deeply before. Her lips curved into a smile and he wondered what she dreamed. Like he did earlier that morning, his finger traced the line of her jaw. The jolt of electricity returned to traverse his body and he knew that he would have to tell her someday why it was always so easy for him to give up his control to her. She would realize that habit sooner or later and, when she did, he would have to bear his soul. Fervently, he wished for the latter so he would have more time to prepare. Then, just as desperately, he wanted sooner so his jumbled emotions would straighten themselves.
Whenever he thought about that future conversation, he was terrified but he could not stop himself from imagining it. The situation was cathartic in the way people gawk at a crime scene; you can not believe the crime happened but you are helpless to look away.
His watched beeped the hour and he realized that he had been sitting on her bedroom floor for just under an hour. The peaceful surrender he experienced there before her bed and observing the rhythmic breathing of her sleeping body was distracting, to say the least. His body begged for sleep; his mind demanded the same; his heart wanted her to waken so he could confess his feelings for her. Two against three; those odds brought a reluctant Grissom to his feet. He tucked the blanket more securely around Catherine and, with a last, lingering look, he left the room.
Twenty minutes later, he re-entered Catherine's house with a long-stemmed white rose. Pausing in the kitchen to write a note to her, he propped both objects up on the mirror of her vanity. With thoughts still lingering on Catherine, he drove home; once there, he promptly fell into a myriad of visual depictions of his uncontrollable emotions.
Four hours later, he woke slowly, yearning to linger in his dream state. He was fully awake in a matter of seconds and lay staring at the ceiling. His dreams did not help him at all; they centered on the various outcomes of that future conversation with Catherine. Sometimes it really was detrimental to have a logical, scientific brain. He had dreamt of all the possible results; some were not so bad, some ended with a broken heart, and some left a pleasantly accelerated heart beat.
The only thing that did not change from dream to dream was his words. Of course, the manner of his wording and the actual words themselves differed, but every time, they meant the same thing. He knew Catherine very well, but he could not predict her response to his declaration. Did he really want to? Perhaps it would give him false hope; that was not so bad. Or perhaps he would lie to her because he feared her reaction; that was not helpful. Blinking, he acknowledged that he was back in that cathartic state of mind.
He gave himself to the moment; a feat rare for him. Would it actually be so bad to imagine what it would be like to explain himself to Catherine?
He would have to admit that she had been right on many accounts. Namely, everything he did in life was meant to exercise control over destiny. He could not separate work from his personal life because one was neatly ordered while the other was a nonexistent mess. He choose a career path that would aid in his thirst for knowledge. They say: "to know is to name" and he desperately needed the illusion of knowing. A long time ago, he thought that if he knew everything then nothing could ever take him by surprise. He hated surprises; the divorce of his parents blind-sided him as a young child and the death of his mother had caught him by surprise. Even his attraction to Catherine initially stunned him.
Crossword puzzles were a pathetic excuse of control. They were structured and he had to force answers to fit other the clues yet they were a pastime that reinforced the vast pools of information stored in his brain. Investigating crimes were a similar type of puzzle; the clues were evidence that fit to only a single combination of answers.
He accepted the promotion to nightshift supervisor because that gave him more control over everything in the lab. Ambitious he was not nor was he overbearingly intolerable like Ecklie, but the promotion was enough to satisfy a little of his need for control. Every morning when he left work, he would remember that he was leaving a well-oiled structure and entering the world of unpredictability. A world where fate and destiny still played their cards with omnipotent abilities.
He would need to explain that losing control to her was not nearly as bad as when she slipped control away from between his own fingertips. When that happens, it is never difficult to voluntary give her control. It was always the initial act that carried the most amount of fear.
It was like a cliff. Below was the cool, clear, blue water that promised to soothe his too warm skin. Remaining at the precipice meant being burned. Above him existed the cloudless sky that promised peace, freedom, and - hopefully - happiness beyond comprehension. For so long, he had been toeing the line, too indecisive to choose: remain or jump?
Then, one day, he was pushed off the cliff and had been falling ever since. They say not to look down because vertigo has a tendency of frightening people and causes nausea. However, he could not look up because, in doing so, he would acknowledge that he had been falling in love with her.
He had been able to trust Catherine during that fateful trip along Route 66 in the first place because he had already lost control over his heart. She thought his act of giving up control to her over that weekend was his first. She was far from right; it was practice by that point.
Without knowing, he had jumped off his protective cliff, which crumbled as his feet left farewell prints upon the earth. Early on, as he gazed at the water, he realized that the distance from here to there was ever increasing. Infinity lay between him and the only way to extinguish the smoldering love he had for her.
On the other hand, he craved the courage to look up at the heavens. He wanted to soar and feel the wings of love lift him to the sun and burn him. He did not care if this would be the last time he would ever fall in love; he never wanted to again. Catherine was so special; he did not want to live without her. She had been there and coaxed him into situations never before imagined to force him to live. Without her, life could not matter.
Grissom contemplated his last thought. "Without her, life could not matter." Now was the time to make a decision; he was past the time for ignoring his feelings. On one way, he would fly; in the other, he would stay alone and burned from his stay atop the cliff for the rest of his life. He knew from his observations of people that love always left scars.
With a sigh, he contemplated his choices. Maybe he was vainly imagining the rest of his life, but heedless of the consequences, at this single moment at least, he would make a conscious decision. In his mind's eye, he turned and gazed into the cerulean promise of the sky.
Chapter 5: Destiny Is A Beautiful Thing
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© RK 12.Nov.2002