Title: Never Ending
Author: Mac
Rating: PG
Summary: It's two days before Christmas Eve and all is not well.

Archive: Just ask before doing so, I want to know where it ends up. The Graveyard Shift archive is the only one that needs not ask.

Disclaimer: Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, et al own the characters of CSI. The song excerpt is from "Happy Xmas" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I will only claim this story. No profit is being made off this.

Author's Note: Part of the 12 Days of Christmas project on the Graveyard Shift. I'd like to thank Angie and Rita for their help with this.

The Christmas lights blinked on and off, shrouding the room in splashes of primary and secondary colors. First red, then green and yellow, and finally blue. The far side of the room hosted a tiny hand-painted village. Electric candles glowed in the window. The only thing missing from this ideal scene was snow falling outside.

The activity in the room was anything but festive. Two police officers passed through the doors, walkie-talkies blaring out orders from tiny speakers. The living room was the staging area. Through the windows red, blue, and white lights from the arrival of more squad cars out front filtered in, interfering with the blinking lights of the imported Christmas tree.

A hint of citrus was noticeable as movement caused a small breeze to be created. The odor traced from the evergreen that had been picked with hopes that the two house cats wouldn't scratch the fresh wood. The crime scene was in the back bedroom.

The tap on his shoulder brought him back to the task at hand. It was two days before Christmas, his shopping wasn't anywhere near completion, and he now had a murder to solve.

The two-member team stood at the door and surveyed the room. Like the rest of the house, it too was festively decorated in deep shades of red, forest greens, with gold and silver metallic highlights. But instead of the feeling of comfort that was evident through out the house, this room exuded feelings of foreboding, almost oppression.

Amidst Winnie the Pooh wrapping paper, brightly colored ribbons, and sections of comics saved over the year for the festive holiday season, the reason for their presence was neatly wrapped on the floor. The body lay sideways in a pool of darkening crimson fluid, hands tied in front with ribbon and secured with black electrical tape. The cooler night air ruffled the red and green drapes that hid the open window. Wordlessly the couple began to process the room, starting from the door way and working inward and back.

They turned their attention to the body that lay in the middle of the floor after clearing the doorway. The pool of blood stood out against the sand colored carpet. The radio that the victim had been listening to continued playing festive sounds of the holiday, serving as background music to the grisly scene. The coroner silently entered and examined the body, declaring Joni Louc dead.

The declaration was astonishingly somber coming from the coroner who had on previous occasions been cheerful at the approaching season. The body was photographed and removed allowing the two CSIs to continue working. Normally they would have bandied about ideas for what happened, or talked about something else. But this time they worked only in silence, both afraid that the harsh reality of the victim's family celebration turned to a nightmare would break them down.

The radio had faded into almost nothingness as far as they were concerned, becoming part of the menagerie of sounds that surrounded them.

// So this is Christmas
// And what have you done
// Another year over
// And a new one just begun*

The words lingered in the air, haunting them. A sharp click quickly followed and the radio fell as silent as the dead. She looked up at the abrupt loss of noise and observed her co-worker silently for a moment or two. He resumed his task without explanation and hoped that she would too.

The room was processed quickly, neither saying a word. She loaded their equipment as he spoke with Brass. She shut the hatch and waited for him to approach the car. He was quieter than normal and seemed more melancholy. She noted the bags around his eyes earlier that evening and worried that he wasn't sleeping well or at all. She looked at him carefully and noticed what worried her most. It was almost as if he was fading away. Maybe not physically fading, but emotionally. He was withdrawing more and more into himself lately, not showing the same passion he had for cases before. Something happened to him earlier in the year, but she didn't know what it was.

They arrived back at the lab in the same silence that they had left three hours earlier. For the first time in three hours, he spoke to her.

"Cath, could you drop off everything?" He left, not waiting for an answer. She watched his retreating form, bewildered. The words assaulted her ears like a slap on the face. They weren't harsh, but they were devoid of any emotion. He sounded like he was just giving up.

She dropped the evidence off and worked on wrapping up another case. Glancing at the calendar on the wall she noted that she still needed to buy him something for Christmas. They've been exchanging gifts for years, not that Eddie knew. His gifts to her were usually found in her locker, meticulously wrapped in brown paper and twine, and were always practical. She usually gave him small novelties that she hoped would interest him. She had managed to find a series of figurines that featured different bugs. She would place the gifts on his desk when he was out of the office knowing that he wouldn't find it until after she had left for home.

He didn't place the gifts out in public, preferring to place them on a shelf in his office at home, which meant that the shelf was hidden from areas that were privy to other eyes. This year she was at a loss for what she could get him. She couldn't find any bug figurines that fit him.

She picked up the files she was working on and headed for his office. On her way, Greg hijacked her to give her the results of the fiber analysis.

"The cloth fibers you found are from a pair of blue jeans," Greg explained. "None of the major companies have a database to compare the chromatogram against, but I'd say it was from a pair of Wranglers or Levis."

"Thanks, Greg." Catherine took the results that he handed her and left the lab. The fingerprint lab would be her next stop, but first she wanted to check in with Grissom.

His office door was shut and locked. She didn't see any lights filtering through the blinds to suggest that he was still there. No noise could be heard either. The last time he didn't speak for hours on end he was quietly suffering from a migraine in his office. But usually she could hear soft piano music or the sound of waves gently coming in. As much as she wanted to hunt him down, she knew that she had to stay and fill in for him. Sometimes he could be so infuriating.