Wow, doing way better than I expected! Okay, hate to say it, but this is kind of a filler chapter - - Grissom's musings. The conversation in the parentheses are from my story "Introduction to Management," but you don't need to know anything about that to understand what's happening. So, yes, this is a lighter chapter in terms of plot - - but in the next one, we get to meet Greg's father.

**

**

Chapter Five: The Wake and the Memories

There was nothing for him to do.

The gunshot residue was making its way through ballistics. Trace was working on the lukewarm beer. Catherine's blood samples were slowly running through the DNA queue - - with no help, Martin from days was pulling doubles, and was cranky and sensitive to harsh words. Grissom sat helplessly in the break-room, his eyes closed, remembering his charge through the lab when Greg hadn't pushed his case with the Anderson baby forward in line, telling him that he was backlogged with an FBI special request. His emotions had been running unchecked, and though he still didn't regret insisting that Zachary Anderson's case be reassigned to the front, he suddenly wondered where he had found the energy. He had been running on sheer adrenaline since Brass had told him about Greg, zipping from lab to hospital to lab to scene and then back again, and now he couldn't even work up the strength to rise out of the chair, let alone demand that the samples from Greg's case be given precedence over other evidence.

Sara had phoned in an hour ago, midway to the airport to pick up Greg's father and make sure he found his way to the lab. Grissom wished he had gone with her - - anything would have been better than waiting for something to happen while time stretched on endlessly.

After some insistence, Catherine had gone home to Lindsay. He had let Warrick and Nick stay, suspecting that they would burn out just as he had, and they were up on the roof now, undoubtedly pacing to burn off steam and frustration.

So while Catherine mothered, Sara drove, and the two younger men talked, Grissom thought of the possibilities. He condensed them into the smallest words possible, settling his emotion to the side, not that it was hard, with his exhausted mind too tired to summon up feeling.

Greg could die.

Greg could linger in his coma.

Greg could wake and still not be well.

Greg could wake and be fine.

Quite frankly, he wasn't sure which one of the first three he feared the most. The first was stuck in his mind, the same scenes playing over and over again like a broken record. The phone call that would stun him into silence and bewilderment, the flat words he had heard often and used himself, "I'm sorry for your loss." The funeral, the black clothes, the crying. Greg, lying in his coffin in a suit he never would have worn when he was alive. It horrified him in a bleak, senseless way, and he couldn't forget its existence, lurking on the horizon with taunting plausibility.

The second possibility had horrors of its own, and a film in his head to accompany it. The lingering silence of the phone lines, the continuous reminder that there had been no change, the hospital visits that dwindled slowly as the weeks and months went by, and eventually became an honorific once-or-twice-a-year occasion. The realization that, if it happened that way, he would eventually sit in a hospital room, watching the young man - - who would have grown older - - slumber without end, and realize that he had forgotten why Greg was important.

Maybe that was more terrifying than a death.

Third possibility. He was a scientist, and he moved with precision, cutting through the sluggish revulsion of his mind, which was embarrassed to be considering these things. Greg could wake up and not be quite the same person he was before the attack. With merciless fear, he imagined slurred speech, awkward motion, piecing together everything he had ever seen or heard was a result of brain damage. An awkward, trembling feeling of hope followed him, however - - the doctors themselves had said that brain damage was unlikely.

Fourth and final chance. Not quite enough possibilities to be a roll of the dice, but almost.

It was the fairy tale possibility, the one he didn't have an image of, because it was impossible to imagine. He wondered what had gone wrong with him, that he had no trouble seeing Greg's death or his own pain, but he couldn't comprehend a happy ending. He wanted one; but couldn't consider it. Expect the worst, he had heard Catherine say before, that way you would never be disappointed and you could sometimes be pleasantly surprised. He found it impossible to do either - - he couldn't envision the best and he couldn't decide which of the first three possibilities was the worst.

He rose and fixed a cup of coffee, then reached into the top shelf for creamer. His hand bumped into something with an unfamiliar shape, and, his fingers quickly assuring him that it wasn't something likely to spill or explode, pulled it down. It was a foil-covered paper bag, heavy with weight, and decorated with a design he didn't immediately recognize. A pale blue post-it note was stuck to the front.

The handwriting was neat, legible, and not immediately recognizable.

"Grissom," he read aloud. "Consider this an open invitation to stop searching for my secret stash of coffee. Happy early birthday and I hope you enjoy." He bit his lip at the scrawled signature. "Greg. Of course." He flipped the bag over and examined the Blue Hawaiian label, thinking of Nick and Warrick and remembering a rooftop conversation he'd had himself, almost a year ago.

(Blue Hawaiian does miracles for calming you down.)

(Coffee isn't supposed to calm you down, Greg. It has caffeine. It's not a sedative.)

(This does both. It's like a miracle. It calms you down and jazzes you up at the same time.)

A miracle wasn't a cup of coffee, Grissom thought, his hands heavy with the bag. A miracle was a bullet that flexed instead of killed.

It was a miracle he was determined not to waste.

His first genuine smile in hours grew as he scooped coffee and added water. If he ever needed calmed and energized all at once, now was the time. His mind, working with him instead of against him, reminded him of the rest of his team on the roof, and while the pot was simmering, he climbed the stairs and pushed open the door into the warm heat.

Warrick, a shapeless shadow in the overhang's darkness, leaned against the wall, jaw tight. Nick was balanced on the ledge, his hand scratching the back of his neck.

They shifted at his entrance. "Anything?" Nick asked, his voice hoarse. "The results?"

"No."

"What is it?"

Grissom was torn between laughing and crying. "I made coffee," he said. "Why don't you come down?"

Warrick's eyes widened. "You okay, Grissom?"

"I'm fine. I'm feeling particularly motivated right now. I'm going to drink a few cups of coffee and pace relentlessly around the lab until Greg's evidence is processed."

"That's your great plan?" Nick asked, but he was already standing, stretching, and a small smile was starting to appear on his face. "That's the schedule for today?"

"Why? You don't like it?"

"I love it."

"I'm with that," Warrick said, clapping hands with Nick. "Let's get some caffeine working and find the son-of-a-bitch."