Eccentric Seeming Emotions Chapter 7: Tears, 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; for b8kworm and Sun Mee who give me nothing but support. For Mark, I count everyday of my life with you in it as a blessing; always remember that. For the people who do or ought to belong to nagging.com - Angie, Manda, Marianne, and Rita. Will you ever cut me some slack? Thanks, Mena, for the song. Many, many thanks to Beth for permission to use Bleak; we did it! Thank you for inspiring me. There is no chronological order to these chapters; consider it a stream-of-thought.

Summary: Tonight, something had changed and he sincerely cursed the near perfect memory that made his job easier while his heart became a wrenched mess.

Rating: PG-13

Archives: the Graveyard, mine. Anybody else, email me.

Pairing(s): G/C

Spoiler(s): Butterflied.

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Title: Eccentric Seeming Emotions

Author: Laeta
Email: ladylaetayahoo.com

Chapter 7: Tears

Bleak and lonely, the depths of one's soul.
The deep abyss of emotion shattered before them in one explosive cry for help.
The screams - love is life; love is lost.
The reckless tumble of eccentric-seeming emotions quake as they erupt to the surface.
We fall.
Our life is our love and we have nothing without it; a mere carcass of emptiness.
Our now broken soul cries and the tears are our last emotions.

He gazed at the brunette victim, beautiful, young, but who had an air of knowledge about the world. Her personal history involved more names than Gil's plethora of insect friends. A pity that she strove so hard externally to find what was missing within herself. Perhaps she was as scared as he at the answer.

The unexpected empathy towards the victim unsettled Gil. It forced him to acknowledge the employee's face his mind had superimposed upon the too still one.

Sara's disgust at his choice to have Catherine with him felt good. In all honestly, blood splatter needed its expert; a convenient excuse to hide the urge to keep Sara from the crime scene.

With Catherine at his side, with her open admittance to the uncanny resemblance, he found he could work. So, burying emotion as internally as he could, he talked and thought aloud about the scene. Save a moment's bafflement over the feminine mind and her perchance for creature comforts, Gil processed the room before he realized it.

The spare bedroom, clean, unused, but lacking the stale, musty air of neglect hid a deep secret. If walls had eyes, he knew they would reenact Oedipus's sight without seeing punishment for the horrors they had witnessed. These walls held the clue to the killer but, amidst sparkling mementos, they could not reflect life like the eyes of a living soul could.

All alone in the silent house, he listened, hoping for a moment's peace. Instead, the mirror reminded him he had work to do. So, on his hands and knees, he began a systematic process in search of trace evidence. He felt no surprise at Catherine's appearance; his unacknowledged partner in all things, she was straight and steady when he lacked a heading.

In a phrase, a thousand and one memories pushed their way to the forefront of his mind. As they did often, he and Catherine had struggled for validation on their careers, searching for evidence in contaminated crime scenes and borrowing necessities from any nearby resource. As such, he readily succumbed to the small meal that she had ready.

Sitting at a table for two beneath the moonlit night sky, he stopped mid-action as his mind connected the pieces. It was a simple explanation and one much more comfortable to him.

Again, a ghostly face flashed through his mind's eyes, so similar to the deceased victim and yet altogether not as he isolated the variants. The sweeping arch of the zygomatic bone suspended delicate skin far more carefully; lips curved in a way reminiscent of - Catherine. Brown hair on a face so similar to hers could only mean one thing:

The victim was the daughter he and Catherine would never have.

Grief broke through within him, now unrestrained, his heart having recognized the lost soul before his mind. As for Catherine, she was none the wiser as they moved indoors to examine the bed.

Case closed to nobody's satisfaction and Gil finally allowed himself to voice the power women have over men. He himself lived from moment to moment of Catherine's brief interludes as an unattached woman. He knew he would have moved heaven, earth, and hell on the frivolous wish of his fantasized daughter. The daughter he met, not on a birthing bed but on the pyre of death.

.....

He walked a garden landscape in his dreams, turning instinctively at her call. In the distance, a blond-haired girl ran towards him. En route, her hair darkened to brown and she grew. She stopped before him, clothed in the blooming beauty of a woman.

She leaned to kiss his cheek and whispered, "Thank you, Father."

He held her desperately, in vain for all the unfulfilled wishes of his life.

Moved by love, his daughter commanded him with one word, "Cry", and he obeyed.