Thanks for all your great replies. I really can't believe that there are only three chapters left to tell in the story, and I want to thank you again for sticking with me the whole hard way - - you've made the job of writing a lot easier with all of your considerate feedback.

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Chapter Thirty-nine: The Losses (GRISSOM)

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When the shooting started, he thought that it was his gun and almost dropped it. His hand slid over Sara's shoulder, slick with sweat and squeaking down her skin, and when the second shot came and he saw his weapon laying on the sheets like a dark stain, his lips parted to drawn in breath, and he knew. He couldn't turn his head to look at Nick, but his periphery was of an extended arm, tense with concentration, and a gun rocking back and forth in Nick's grasp as he fired - - and fired.

Nicky. He tasted blood and sweat, all over his tongue and between his teeth. A chicken pox of blood scattered over the sheets. Oh, Nicky.

No one spoke except for Flowers.

Grissom had heard his father speak just before he died. He had only been seven, and his mother had been away at work. The last words had come out yellowy and whispery, with a shuffling noise like old newspapers sliding together. He'd said, Tell your mother I love her, and then he'd died. Grissom - - who had been Gil, then - - had wandered around the house for an hour, feeling sleepy and nauseous, wondering why he hadn't been mentioned. His father had known the death was coming, had apparently predetermined his words, and he had been ill, growing old before his time.

Flowers was as young as Nick, and so unprepared for death that his last words were wet instead of dusty-dry, unplanned instead of rehearsed, and genuine instead of plotted.

"Red," he said, and Grissom didn't have to see him to know what he was looking at. Smeared all over his hands like finger-paint, and so grotesquely crimson. "I never bought red roses."

Grissom turned his head into the crook of Sara's neck so that he didn't have to see Flowers die.

"So you didn't have to," Nick said, sounding woozy. Grissom finally looked up and saw that he was pale, trembling, and weak-kneed. There was blood clinging to his face and shirt. Nick met his eyes and Grissom couldn't recognize anything there, as if Nick were fading away so rapidly that soon there would be nothing left of him at all. Flowers wasn't the only dead body in the room.

Nick's eyes were dark and slowly becoming expressionless.

"So you didn't have to," Nick said, looking at him.

Grissom looked at Flowers on the bed. He had died lying down, and was still soaked with his own blood. He looked like nothing so much as Lucifer, finally and irrevocably fallen, but still absurdly beautiful. He looked back at Nick, who was wrapped up in Warrick's arms and shaking so badly that he looked as if he might knock his feet out from under him from shivers alone. He looked back and forth between fallen angels, and wanted nothing more than to tuck his head away in the curve of Sara's shoulder and make this all go away by kissing her neck or her cheek. But Sara was pulling away from him already, standing naked and still bleeding to search for clothes. Before he could speak, she had found a bathrobe all made of silk - - Flowers's - - and drawn it tightly around her and cinched the waist. Her face was unreadable. Catherine was silent. Warrick was speaking, but so lowly that Grissom couldn't hear him. His lips were almost cupped to Nick's ear, and Grissom suspected that he was trying to soothe him, or comfort him, or condemn him. He had no way of knowing.

Nick was sapped of strength, Catherine was in shock, Sara wasn't speaking, Warrick's attention was all on someone else, and Grissom knew that he might as well have forced the gun into Nick's hand and straightened his finger on the trigger.

You killed someone for me.

You killed Flowers so that Flowers couldn't win and ruin me, but Nicky, you've done it just as well.

Two cops came through the door with their guns drawn, and Grissom looked at them and couldn't stop the growing feeling of disdain that rippled through him. They were too bright and clean in their crisp blue uniforms, and Grissom wondered how they looked in that room. Nick, with the bright sheen of blood still wet and gluey on his clothes and held against Warrick as if he wouldn't be able, otherwise, to find the strength to stand; Catherine standing with her knees locked and her face too pale; Sara wrapped up in silk with bruises starting to form on her face and the shadows starting to crawl into her eyes; Warrick staring down at Nick's shoulder; and Grissom himself, feeling dirty (how long had it been since his last shower?), tired (how long had it been since he'd slept?), and, most of all, old.

How much time had passed since he had come home to check his messages and heard them lined up, full of concern? Nick had been worried about him, then. Right now, Nick didn't look like he'd be up to worrying about anyone ever again. And Sara had been vibrant with anger, full of passionate intensity as she had tried to connect Lizzie Zimmer to their past.

There had been a world then.

Grissom had read The Lord of the Flies, and marveled at the end, when all the boys had become savages at last, when they were naked and covered in mud and blood, and they had finally been rescued by the epitomized Englishmen in their pristine white clothes, and tried to explain that in the end, their civilization had come to naught.

He knew he wasn't going to be the one to explain to the cops surrounding them and staring in amazement and distaste at this gathering. He knew he couldn't find the words.

He could tell them, We were okay until Greg died. Things were bad, but we could have held it together. After Greg died, we couldn't even try.

One of the cops wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "What the hell happened here?" he asked, looking in wide-eyed wonder at them all, as if he'd never seen anything quite so strange or quite so dangerous as this tightly-locked circle of bloodied, battered scientists huddled around a dead body on formerly pristine sheets.

Grissom looked around. "We were okay until Greg died," he said absently, looking at Sara. She had sat down on the bed next to Flowers's corpse, and he was wondering if she liked seeing him dead. He decided that he wouldn't blame her. "We couldn't hold it together after that."

"Sir?"

"There's been an accident," Warrick said suddenly. His hand was now on Nick's shoulder, and as Grissom watched, it contracted in a sudden squeeze. His voice was level, gravelly. He didn't hesitate even once. "Flowers - - the guy on the bed - - tried to touch Sara again. Nick told him to stop, and he wouldn't. Nick didn't have a choice. He fired."

The second cop, a little older and a little wiser, frowned. "Are you sure that's how it happened?"

Sara touched the silk edge of her bathrobe. "That's how it happened," she said.

She still wasn't looking at Grissom. She had let him touch her to the point of nearly kissing her neck when Flowers had died, but now she was focused entirely on the two officers. He was so glad to hear that the strength was still in her voice that he couldn't be jealous at the way she had moved away from him. He ought to say something, for Nick's sake, to add to the alibi they were constructing, and he dimly recalled a time when he would not have done this, for Nick or for anyone - - he would never have told these lies to save someone else's soul. He would have said that the law would prevail, and that Nick would win his freedom through a trial, because if the circumstances were understood, no jury would convict him for killing such an infamous killer. There had - - or so he remembered - - been a time in which he would have chosen to believe these quietly told lies instead of quietly telling his own. He would have done all of this without the faintest whisper of an idea that he should do anything else, but that was before, and he had already lost too much. He had lost Greg, had probably lost Sara to any purpose of love, and he refused to lose Nick.

And he wouldn't place his trust in these so pristine officers, who looked so close to turning up their noses at his crime scene. He didn't have the courage or the foolishness or the goodness to believe anymore.

He spoke up, hearing the dry scholarly tone in his voice. "If you have a room full of eyewitnesses telling you the same story, you don't have a case," he said. "Flowers threatened her, attempted to rape her, and Nick responded. And no one in this room will see him punished for that."

The cops were nodding, beginning to accept this story.

But Nick said, "That's not how it happened. I just killed him."

"Nick - - "

"Sorry," Nick said, tilting his head to smile at Warrick. "But I did. And maybe it's better this way." He held out his gun to the youngest officer, who, looking bewildered, took it. "Just give me a minute," Nick said, all charm, and then, without waiting for a response, turned back to Warrick.

"Let me know how it ends, okay?"

"Sure," Warrick said. His voice was shaking. "Yeah, we'll let you know."

"Nicky, please," Grissom said, and swallowed.

He couldn't say now that he wished Nick had never even stepped into that room. To say that would be to make Nick's sacrifice meaningless, and that was something he refused to do. He stepped forward, instead, and held one of Nick's hands in his own. Nick's fingers were like ice, but still somehow warmer than his own, and he could feel himself start to thaw. All the feelings were coming back, as if he had been on hold for so long and was now suddenly swept away. He hoped that he wasn't going to cry. This late in the game, if he hadn't cried before, he couldn't stand to start now.

"Hey, it's okay," Nick said, squeezing Grissom's hand. "I knew what I was doing. Just one thing - - can I ask you a favor?"

Catherine laughed.

It was an unusually harsh sound, but Grissom knew exactly what she was thinking and didn't have to look at her to verify. She was thinking that, after what he had just done - - for Grissom, for them - - Nick could ask whatever favors he wanted.

"Go ahead," Grissom said. His vision was blurry. "Tell me."

"I have some money put away. I don't know how much it would take - - hell, right now, I can't even tell you how much I have saved - - but I want to be out for the funeral, okay? Greg said . . ." Nick's eyes were closed, and Grissom wondered if he were fighting back tears himself. "Greg said that I was going to be the one he'd blackmail into giving his eulogy. He was joking, I think . . . but it was after the explosion . . . so I didn't laugh. I want to do it. I promised him."

We were okay until Greg died, Grissom thought again, and let go of Nick's hand.

"And I'm promising you," he said evenly. "You'll be there."

Nick nodded, and slid his hands behind his back to be wrapped in steel. The officer led him outside, but the older one stayed a moment longer to look them over without an evaluating, steely gaze.

"Now, Thompson and I aren't going to write down what was said in this room," the man said. He ran a thumb over his salt-and-pepper mustache and bit down, hard, on a yellowing thumbnail. "I've been hearing a lot of things about what's happened lately, and I think you people have been through enough shit, that boy out there included." He continued to gnaw at his thumb, eyes fixed particularly on Grissom. "You take care of yourselves. You're getting old before your time."

"He's not going to be convicted," Catherine said. It was the first thing she'd said since they'd identified Sam Braun as Flowers's employer. "No jury in the world would send him away for putting two shots in a serial killer, and especially not under these circumstances."

"Maybe so," the cop said. "Probably so. Good luck to him."

No one had to mention the obvious, that Nick's career was finished even if his life wasn't. Grissom's throat ached from suppressed laughter - - was this his fault, now, having ruined all that work Catherine did saving Nick during the Kristy Hopkins case? Nick had blown away all the skin cell matches with two carefully aimed and fired shots.

"You might want to clear out now," the cop said gently. "I'm going to take Thompson and the boy back to the station, and you can follow, if you want."

Warrick and Sara both nodded, although Grissom didn't know how she expected to go after Nick dressed in one of Flowers's fashionable silk robes and nothing else.

He touched her shoulder, and she didn't flinch away from him, just reclined against his arm until he was almost embracing her. This was the girl that he had kissed but never slept with, touched but never told her that he loved her. He had asked if she loved him, and she had said, You know I do. Feeling her warmth on his skin, he wasn't sure if he knew anything anymore. He loved her, but his heart was so efficiently broken that he wasn't sure if it were safe to touch her. She might shatter like china underneath his fingertips. She was still Sara Sidle, but he had loved her because she had been everything he could not bring himself to be - - alive, unbroken, whole, focused, strong - - and she might still be all of these things or none of these things. Only time could tell. He couldn't. He never had been able to read between the lines when it came to the people he loved.

Catherine was nodding, too, and Grissom wondered if there was a drumbeat in the room tapping along to a rhythm that his ears, even after the surgery, couldn't pick up.

"No, Catherine," he said, as softly as he could, "you can't go with them. We have to go and find your father."

He knew the very second the words were out of his mouth that he had made a mistake. He should have used any other name - - called him Sam Braun or even Flowers's boss. But calling him Catherine's father sounded like an implication, as if he were blaming her, as if it had been her fault.

Her lips tightened. "Sure, Gil," she said. "My father. All right."

One more person I think I just lost.

But he didn't have time to try and patch things up. After they arrested Sam Braun, maybe. After that bastard was behind bars and sealed for the rest of eternity for the crime of daring to break into pieces the only thing in his life he had ever respected as being complete, he would have time to apologize to Catherine. He would have time to bail Nick out of prison and plan for a trial. They would sit in Gil's townhouse and eat takeout Chinese while they discussed lawyers, tactics, and possible jobs for Nick after it was over and he was cleared. He would have time to see that haunted look in Warrick's eyes melt away. He would have time to love Sara again, to put his hand in hers and take her out for dinner. He would have time to put flowers on Greg's grave - - but not white roses. Never again white roses.

He looked to the officer. "You're going to have to come with us," he said. "You're going to need to arrest someone who might not go so willingly." He nodded at Warrick, and directed Sara to him with a nudge. "These two will ride with Officer Thompson and Nick back to the station."

"She might want to find some clothes - - "

"She can wear whatever she wants," Grissom said. He rubbed a hand over his face and grazed a knuckle across his temple. "I don't care how you have to excuse that in your report. Chalk it up to emotional distress or whatever you want, just let her go. Nick's a friend." He looked to Warrick. "When they're done checking him in, will you take her to a hospital?"

"Yeah," Warrick said. "You going to be okay?"

"No."

"Guess not. Me neither."

He shook hands with Warrick, and felt his own squeezed so tightly that all the bones threatened to snap in protest. Released, it immediately began to redden. He turned to Sara and, before he could think about whether or not he should offer a hand or hug her, she kissed him on the cheek and leaned against him, leaving him no other options. He wrapped his arms around her.

He barely heard what she whispered in his ear, but barely was enough.

"I still love you."

And then he was alone in the room with Catherine, and the officer, who introduced himself as Roger Dawson, had gone out to tell his partner to go ahead and take Sara, Warrick, and Nick to the station. Catherine put a hand next to Flowers's body.

"Do you think he deserved what he got?"

"Flowers? That and more."

"I don't know," she said. "People have faulty wiring sometimes. People make mistakes. I keep thinking about what he said before he died - - that thing about red roses. Red roses are for passion. Eddie used to buy them for me and tuck them between the comforter and the sheets so that when I came home and rolled down the covers, I had a whole garden growing over my bed." She laughed. "My marriage didn't have a lot of love, but it had enough passion. And passion burns out quickly enough, but at least it's something to fill you up inside. He didn't even have that. Just white roses."

"White roses are death."

"I think if you've been alive in Las Vegas over the last two weeks, you'll have learned that white roses mean death. We've been all over the news."

"I haven't been watching."

"They showed the cross in the parking lot. And some ambitious gopher managed to sweet-talk his way into the morgue when Robbins was off-duty and get some pictures of Greg and Lizzie Zimmer. The department's suing the networks for airing them."

"Catherine," he said, "I'm sorry about what I said about Sam."

"Apology accepted," she said tonelessly. The smile she gave him was just as lifeless. "Don't worry, Gil. I won't let you kill him - - and I'm not even carrying my gun."