"I love you, know that this love is forever, Gil. If something happens to me, promise you won't retreat back into that closed off, walled in, workaholic I fell in love with all those years ago. There's someone out there who loves you also, she'd only be too happy to share her life with you. Don't shut her out," Angela felt heavy as a lead weight, and it was causing her to sink farther away from the site of his handsome face. She tried so desperately to hold on to the world, as she knew it, before she sank completely into the pit of darkness that was swallowing her up.

Her voice had been weak and a bit slurred, but, he heard every word she said causing his heart to sink in his chest as fear rose up through him. "Angela, I can't promise to feel something for someone I don't love. Besides you're going to be fine, I refuse to let you go anywhere," he went pale as she slipped back to sleep.

Her hand had grown so cold in his that he found himself promising her he would let Sara in, and begging her not to leave him. He prayed not willing to lose the love of his life. He knew there would never be another heart he could ever hold as close a he held hers.

A nurse came in to check her vital statistics. She ran, quickly, out of the room, only to appear a few short seconds later with the doctor in tow.

The doctor checked Angela thoroughly, "can we step out into the hall, Mr. Grissom?" The doctors overall demeanor was decidedly grim.

"It's not good, is it?" Grissom knew before the words were spoken that his heart was about to crumble into a million tiny pieces.

"I'm sorry she's just not responding. We're going to do another CAT scan. I believe her concussion was much worse than the first films showed. I can't be sure until we look again," the doctor wasn't helping the emotional breakdown, Grissom, was about to have.

Memories tangled with thoughts of how he would go on, if he were to actually lose her. Pictures of their times together flooded into his mind, how happy she had made him, he felt lost and so alone.

Angela sat next to him, on the bench he collapsed into. She reached up to wipe the lone tear that had managed to escape from the corner of his eye. She couldn't feel his skin or caress his soft beard. She gazed at him as the dark tunnel pulled her away from him. "Remember you don't have to be alone. You promised. I love you," she could no longer see his handsome face for the darkness had folded around her.

He saw the doctor saunter through the double doors, he braced for the worst, hoped for the best.

"Mr. Grissom, I hate to have to tell you this, but, she's gone. We'll have cause of death once the autopsy is performed. Again I'm so sorry," the doctor waited for any questions he might have.

Numb, but, still able to think, "can I request the doctor to perform the...," he choked back the tears needing to see to it she was taken care of properly. "Please, send her body... My God. Send her body to the crime lab," he sank back onto the bench, his voice weak and trembling. "Can I see her." He was no longer able to stop the tears.

"Yes, please, this way," the doctor led the way to Angela's remains. "We'll see to it that her body is sent to the crime lab for the autopsy."

Gazing down upon her, there was still a hint of color in her cheeks, he scooped her cold, limp hand into his. Bringing her hand to his face, he ever so gently rubbed his beard against the cold satin of her skin. He bent down and kissed her forehead watching a teardrop fall near the spot where he had just pressed his lips.

"Angela, I love you. Don't leave me," he wanted to wrap himself around her and hold her forever.

TBC