A/N: Thanks so much to Morgan for the beta. I hope you enjoy this. Oh, and yeah, character death. Review, if you please.
He gazes around the scene, observing them. It truly is a spectacle. If he were not so thoroughly engrossed in the situation, he would…well, he didn't know what he'd be doing. They were all working, but they were all morose. Not a kind word was exchanged between person to person. They were temporarily taciturn, shocked into the adjective by her absence. His mind seemed to be trapped in a haze. One of his younger, male colleagues sprayed Luminol on the surface. He did not doubt that it would glow fluorescent blue. It was where her arterial spray had been. It was odd how the words sounded in his mind. Her arterial spray. The spray of blood from her newly sliced artery. He shuddered at the image.
Oh, yes. He would be haunted indefinitely. He would be a shell of a man, lingering in the corner as the pallbearers lifted her mahogany solace up onto their shoulders. And then they would proceed, lost in a whirl of death. Death. The word lingered on his mind. How odd. It was a monosyllabic word, and yet, it held the futures of so many in its realm. Including him. He had always assumed that she was invincible. She had always reminded him of spider silk. Strong, yet delicate. It sounded like such an oxymoron. He heard a stifled sob. That—That's not allowed. You're only supposed to let your emotions come out when you're alone. Can't do it when you're on duty. His mantra, perhaps out of familiarity or instinct, caused his mental spotlight to shine on it.
He sank down onto something. He couldn't recall what it was. It was soft, flexible. He pinched the bridge of his nose. His emotional thoughts slipped past his mental blocks, shifting his focus, and causing his temples to begin pulsing in time to his heart. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She's not supposed to be dead. She can't be dead. She can't! I—I need her too much. With a strangled release of emotion, he quickly exited the building. The chill air of Las Vegas night seeped into his pores. It seemed to demand his soul.
The air bristled around him. Rain was coming. He could feel it. God was going to cry the tears he wished he could shed. He breathed slowly, smoothly, and methodically. He needed to control himself. He needed to reel himself in. He couldn't display emotion. Not now. He feared if he released it, the rest would flee through the newly opened gateway. And his saline tears would fall, drip onto cheeks unaccustomed, fall like every lost hope, wish, dream he had ever experienced. And he couldn't handle that. Not now. Not when her death was fresh in his memory. Brass would be there soon. He wasn't going to be lead CSI anymore, he feared. He was a witness. And he was a friend. Such an odd situation.
He couldn't be here any longer. He had to leave. Rambling an excuse about a break to his second-in-command, he quickly left. He headed for his home. He had no idea why. To expect solace from his home…it was a lost cause. There would be no solace for him there. It would all be impersonal furniture and stiff-backed chairs, reminding him that he was never home, his bed held him only a few nights. They did not require his presence. Duly reminded, he quickly exited. He needed to go somewhere. Anywhere.
It was unclear to him why he had come to the lab. Instincts, perhaps. He had always come to the lab. It was his haven, his only solace being work. The only work for him now was something he had to flee from. The lab was his only sanctuary now. He laughed weakly. The lab. The lab where her scent still wafted, her things still resided, her memory still lingered. Her writing, memorialized on evidence bags, was still fresh. Her comments about a case that had gotten her killed. His eyes fluttered shut a second. He needed a minute. Or a year.
Brass would be coming to find him soon. Immediately upon arrival at the scene, he would discover his only witness had retreated somewhere. And he would receive a phone call. Remembering what he had expected of witnesses, he expected himself to remember details, remember the basic actions. He didn't. He was surprised. He had to have remembered something from the incident. And his psyche, like a dark silhouette hiding in the corners, replied. You remember how she died. You remember the details. And like a flooding valley, the tide overwhelmed him, and everything returned to him. And suddenly, he didn't want to remember. He pinched the bridge of his nose even harder now. He couldn't handle this. The imagery was startling.
He remembered the dull glare from the shard, pressed threateningly against the hollow of her throat. He remembered the emptiness in the man's eyes. He had resorted to taking a hostage. No. This wasn't even akin to that. He was out to kill. The emptiness reached an abysmal point when the man curved the blade around. And he knew it was over. He had watched, aghast, and with horror, as her eyes retreated to his as the blood splayed itself across the window. He had shut his eyes then too.
He released a shaky breath. He wished he'd done something. He'd wished he'd taken more action than to weakly and politely ask the guard to open the door. As if the guard could do anything. He wished he'd done something remotely normal, like screamed, panicked, beat down the door. Something. He knew that somewhere, it cited that rash actions would only exacerbate a hostage situation, but…she was dead now. She was dead. It was his fault.
He remembered when he had concocted excuses in his mind. Yes, he was brilliant at concocting excuses. There was an excuse not to touch her, not to kiss her, not to tell her how he felt, and behind that excuse was another failsafe excuse. They all seemed trite now. And even he, the king of excuse making, couldn't find a phrase or sentence to excuse her death, and especially, excuse him.