Light Of Saturnalia Chapter 2: The Ghost of Past Realities, a csi fanfic

Disclaimer: It's been a year; hopefully, by now, everybody knows CSI: Crime Scene Investigation does not belong to me.

Author's Note: For Mr. Hathaway, b8kworm. I will resurrect another figure from my past, Magister Guderian, Salve! Thank you for the laughs. I bow to the beta goddess named Angie. ::shrugs:: There was never a stipulation that I had to make any sense to anybody other than myself. :) The inspiration is fairly obvious; a nod to great literature: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Summary: You have to decide where to go from here. You've just seen Cath die and then, happier than she's ever been in life.

Rating: PG-13

Archives: the Graveyard, mine. Anybody else, email me. I like to go visiting.

Pairing(s): G/C

Spoiler(s): Anything after LHB that involves Eddie.

Follows Business On Samhain and Conscious About Mabon.

***** ***** *****

Title: Light Of Saturnalia

Author: Laeta
Email: ladylaeta@yahoo.com

Chapter 2: The Ghost of Past Realities

A light slowly grew from one side of the infinite void, and it lit a circular spot at right angles to both Grissom and Eddie. Eddie stood and floated to Grissom's side, bringing the circle of light directly in front of them.

"Stand up, Gil. Tell me what you see."

Like a projected movie, the light shifted and changed to open inside Catherine's living room. He watched her glance at the phone before moving to the room's center. There were a number of different sized cardboard boxes, some with writing in black marker - "Tree", "Outside", "Ornaments". Lindsey worked out of that last box, carefully placing the crystal and glass decoration onto the fake plastic of the pine tree.

It was cozy. So warm that Grissom wanted to reach in and feel it burn. He could not stop himself from reaching, and suddenly, he was in the room. An invisible presence in the corner of Catherine's living room. Besides him, Eddie watched, too; his moment of weakness from Thanksgiving Day had passed. He watched his ex-wife and daughter impartially.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Look more carefully."

Catherine had glanced toward the phone again, as though she was willing it to ring. Vague teases of irritation showed in the manner she shook her head to force her concentration to the decorating process. Lindsey glanced in her mother's direction with worry.

She inverted their roles by saying a few gentle words. "He'll call. He always comes."

Catherine smiled gratefully, laughed a little, too, at her preoccupation.

"Who are they waiting for?" Grissom asked, as mother and daughter resumed their separate tasks.

"Don't you recognize anything about this?"

He shook his head. "Why? Should I?"

"They're waiting for you."

Shock widened Grissom's eyes to comic proportions. Eddie spelled it out for him.

"Year after year, they wait for you, Gil. Look," he urged Grissom yet again.

Catherine and Lindsey were finished: tree decorated, lights up, stockings hung. One box remained, which they treated so tenderly as they unpacked it. Slim picture frames emerged, close to twenty of them, each wrapped in their own soft cloth.

Before he and Eddie could watch them finish, the scene faded out and they were back in the room without bounds.

But Grissom knew what they were. After all, he had searched painstakingly, year after year, for each and every one of those frames. They bordered magnificent miniature stained glassed images, all biblical in nature. While Grissom could not give Catherine the beauty of their images in a church setting, he could give the next best thing.

Back when the majority of the world was illiterate, stained glass images depicting biblical scenes were the main avenue the Church used to spread their message. Their unique beauty as the sun shone through them instilled awe, hundreds of years ago and still today.

He first started giving them to Catherine as a way to share his faith, the same one he and Eddie remembered from their boyhood; the same one that Catherine's life rotated about as a child. Those were the days when the three coexisted together, rather than the fragmented segments between which Catherine buffered. Coming to Vegas, the things he and Eddie experienced, separately and together, brought a different coming of age for both men. The commonality was the loss of faith; the difference was the consequences.

He had introduced them and watched as Catherine's presence changed Eddie. Where Eddie became outrageously flamboyant, Grissom withdrew. Best man at Eddie's wedding, he wrote a double-edged eulogy for his funeral. Trying hard to remember the friendship, all he could recall were the disasters of adulthood and responsibility.

And yet, every year, he helped Catherine to array them in the window. Sometimes, Eddie would join them, telling whatever story he could remember that involved the scene in hand. More and more, he would be absent, leaving Grissom and Catherine to light the candles that shone behind each frame and colored the room.

He and Catherine took turns teaching Lindsey the stories, and they confided which ones meant the most. Catherine always loved the very first one - an image of the Virgin Mary with the babe who would soon create so much. She loved the miracle, even more so after Lindsey's birth.

Grissom turned to Eddie now, who leaned against the gray.

"Why did you show me that?"

"Just so you know what her life is like with you in it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Eddie ran a hand through his hair. "You gave her up for me, but she always needed you. She just doesn't know it yet. Neither do you."

"And that's supposed to change something?"

He shook his head. "No. You're the one who's supposed to change everything."

"How do I change something when I don't even know what needs changing?"

"I thought you had amazing powers of observation. What did you see in the living room?"

Grissom slowly rewound the little domestic scene he had just witnessed and spoke as he saw it. "Cath doesn't look happy. Whatever is going on, Lindsey knows."

"Try pinpointing what it is."

He tried; he really did, but it was too much to ask. Eddie simply shrugged and pointed to the growing light again. Somehow, Grissom knew it would be another scene, different yet intimately relevant to the situation.