He didn't stand on the roof but sat in the basement, alone, as he always was. He knew everyone went up to the roof when they needed some time apart. Everyone went up there and looked down at the world below and felt better about their lives. Everyone went up and looked down, but not him. He went down and looked up. Because while all of them might feel alone from time to time, he knew the truth: he was alone. Always alone.
He wasn't entirely sure when he started to really feel lonely. For him, work, his bugs, and a calamari and a beer were enough for him. He conversed with his co-workers and he geniunely liked them all for different reasons. But things weren't the same for him anymore. The world was not growing cold or dark, merely silent. He was always one to weep at the sounds of silence. The surgery wasn't conclusive. The doctors were hopeful. Hopeful, but never sure. Science was supposed to be about facts, sense and reason, which was why it always appealed so much to him, but he found that in the medical world, nothing was ever sure. There was always hope, but never lasting results. They didn't know if it had worked. He would just have to wait and see. Wait and see. . .
It seemed to him that he had spent an eternity waiting for something. Someone, maybe? The last woman he had let enter his life romantically had been Terri Miller, but that hadn't worked out. Now he was in a holding pattern and used to it, maybe even comforted by it's familiarity. To go out with a woman on a date would be to break the pattern, break the comfort of some unequivocal truths in his life. He hated the uncertain and the unsure; he spent his life trying to fit puzzle pieces so nothing would ever be incomplete.
And yet Sara. . . He didn't know where Sara fit in. She was just a colleague. . a friend, to be sure, but nothing more than that. If she felt more than he had meant. . .but he did have some sort of feelings for Sara, feelings that could not be easily categorized or catalogued in the recesses of his mind. There were times when he thought maybe his feelings for Sara did go beyond the professional boundaries. He wasn't sure. The thought of dating her did actually intrigue him, even with the potential unhappiness that could result. He liked Sara, more than just a co-worker, more than just a friend. But when she asked him to dinner. . . No, an automatic no, with no wonder or thought about it. They used to go and get something to eat all the time, just as friends, but things hadn't been the same in the last year. It must have been him who had pulled back because Sara was the one trying to push forward. "It might be too late", she had said, and he had been confused, wondering what she had been talking about.
Now, he was sitting in the basement of CSI, next to the morgue and the dead bodies, and he understood what she was saying. The ball was in his court, so to speak. If he wanted something to happen, he would have to make the move, and soon, because she wouldn't wait forever. But he hadn't even known she had been waiting. And yet, hadn't he? Hadn't he known all along that there was something between him and Sara that was more than met the eye?
He tilted his head back and put a hand to his eyes. Even the dim light in the basement was bothering them. He used to get migraines about once a year but lately they had been increasing in number and frequency. He knew not all migraines were related to stress, but he was pretty sure that the ratio between weight on your shoulders and frequency of migraines had a positive correlation. And if it was just Sara, maybe things would be okay, but it wasn't just Sara, and it wasn't just loneliness.
The deafness, of course, played a significant part. He didn't turn away from deaf people in fear, didn't view them as being different, handicapped, but he was so. . .afraid that he would lose his hearing forever. He had been hiding it all year, of course, but if he did become completely deaf, he couldn't be a CSI anymore, he knew that. He had explained it to the doctor; a significant part of his role as a crime scene investigator was hearing, and if he couldn't hear, then he couldn't do it, and that was that. It was all over for him. And if he wasn't a CSI, then what was he? Who was he? His job had become too big a part of his life, too large a part of his essence to be just chucked away. He wouldn't survive, not being who he was. He would just slowly wither away and die.
And death. . .he was afraid of it. He didn't want to die yet. There were too many puzzles to be completed, too many crimes to be solved. Too much life to die just yet. And if that's how he felt, he wondered how Greg must have felt. He knew, just by talking to him, that Greg was sure he was going to die. How would he have felt, being in that position? It wasn't a wonder that Greg's hands were trembling. But he hadn't seen a decrease in the workload he could handle and there hadn't been any mistakes that had been made because of his trembling hands. Greg seemed to be okay, coping. Still, he wasn't sure, and that bothered him. He liked unequivical truths, and if it was one thing he knew he could count on was Greg listening to his horrible music in the lab, dancing around, making bad jokes, and learning. He saw Greg as a very young, very intelligent man who could be capable of achieving very great things in life. He was just waiting for the day Greg turned from lab worker to CSI; he knew Greg had the capability to be an excellent one. But he worried about the young lab tech. Maybe he really hadn't come to terms with what had happened yet, in the explosion. Maybe something inside him was broken. Maybe Greg wasn't the only one who was broken. Maybe they all were. Maybe that's why they had chosen to live this life, go into this career. After all, Catherine had her past, exotic dancing and a dead husband behind her, and Warrick had his gambling and Holly Gribbs on his head. Brass had Ellie. He wasn't sure what haunted Nick, Sara, or the Doc, but something must have. Something haunts everyone's dreams. That was natural. He didn't mind that. He also knew that's why everyone went up to the roof. It made him smile, if only bitterly. They all went up to the roof to think, to clear their heads, each of them thinking they were the only ones who had to do so. But he didn't go up to the roof. Because as upset and broken as they may have felt, he knew they weren't really broken, just a little bent. They'd move on. They'd live. They went up to the roof and breathed in that air and things were just a little bit better. In the end, everyone thought they were alone but none of them really were. They all went to the roof, but not him. He went to the basement. Because he knew one thing, one thing that none of his co- workers knew. He was alone.
That's how the stories end these days. Most people live these hectic lives and start to despair, and in a moment of calm, they think of all the good things and move on. They survive. They aren't alone. They are the good guys. Things will get better someday and they will get their happy ending. They are very much alive. Their thoughts are from above. But every now and then you get one person or another who wasn't like that. He used to go up to the roof to think but clarity and optimism didn't reach him even in the heightened elevation. Slowly and slowly, he faded more and more from view, until he was less living than dead. And only the living belong on the roof. The dead are held in the morgue and the nearly dead in the room next door. That's where he belonged. He wasn't meant to have a happy ending. Because "some were born to sweet delight" and "some were born to endless night", as a good poet, William Blake, once put it. More than any other reason, that's why he worked grave shift. Not better pay or he just liked the hours-but the truth. He was born to endless night. He was made to be alone. But it still hurt sometimes. He thought about crying and didn't. On rare occasion, he would allow himself tears, though he knew none of his co-workers could believe it. But this day he didn't cry. There was no point in tears for who you were and what you couldn't change. He was Gil Grissom, slowly going deaf, slowly dying. He was very, very much alone and nothing would ever change that. His thoughts came from below. Fin