"Here we are". There was a finality in Greg's statement. It was not a declaration of physical geography. Rather, it was a reflection of the state of mind that the two men found themselves in.

"And where is 'here'?" asked Grissom with typical severity in his tone.

Greg was in no mood for philosophizing. "I don't know. You tell me. Where is 'here'?" he asked impatiently.

"It's everywhere and it's nowhere" came Grissom's response.

"How cryptic" offered Greg.

"How apropos" countered Grissom.

They sat in silence for an eternity. A lone car flashed paced the diner's window into the impending night.

"So it goes," said Grissom in his quiet, non-plussed manner.

"Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ­Slaughterhouse Five" Greg answered.

Grissom smiled absently, as if remembering a joke he'd heard in his youth. He was a thousand miles away in a world that had no boundaries. "Very good Greg. I always knew you had more potential then you were willing to exhibit."

"Did it ever occur to you that perhaps you were stifling my growth instead of allowing me to flourish?"

Grissom cocked his head to the left. "Is that how you feel?"

"I'm a scientific person too, lest you forget. I observe only the facts and extrapolate my conclusions accordingly. I don't postulate how things could, or ought to be".

"You seem angry Greg".

"And you seem oblivious Grissom".

Grissom shrugged indifferently. "Perhaps oblivion is the last bastion of sanity".

Greg's face flushed angrily. "That is such a crock Grissom and you know it. You aren't that oblivious; you can't be. You choose not to see things – that's different from oblivion".

Grissom shook his head slightly as Greg's voice continued to rise and echoed lightly off the walls of the diner. "This you should always keep - no one else wants it," he said.

"What?" Greg was confused by the sudden shift in conversation. They had been starting to talk (at least Greg thought they were on the brink of it anyways) and Grissom suddenly swung the conversation in a completely different direction.

Grissom repeated. "This you should always keep - no one else wants it"

Greg rubbed his face tiredly. "Grissom, I don't-"

Grissom made a small, disappointed noise in the back of his throat. "And I thought that perhaps you were finally ready to challenge me in a battle of wits. How wrong I was. You see, it's a riddle Greg. 'This you should always keep - no one else wants it' – the answer should be simple, all things considered. The answer is: your temper. That is what you should keep, because I certainly do not want it."

Greg slammed his fists down with resounding force. "Must you always speak in riddles?"

"Would you rather I speak in rhyme?" Grissom replied, looking almost amused. He seemed to be enjoying this.

"God! Would you please just talk to me? You owe me that much."

"Quote your price". Grissom was grinning like the Cheshire cat now.

Greg closed his eyes. The room felt like it was spinning and he felt as if any control that he had ever had was evading him. This was wrong. This was all so, so wrong.

"How did it get like this?" he whispered.

Grissom straightened in his chair and began to wax Seussian. "How did it get so late so soon/ It's night before it's afternoon/ December is here before it's June/ Goodness how the time has flewn/ How did it get so late so soon?"

It was more than Greg could handle.

"Damn you!" he cried as he leapt to his feet. He grabbed the older man by the shoulders and yanked him to his feet.

"What's the matter Greg?" taunted Grissom. "Don't you have a sense of humor?"

"Not about this!" Greg cried, tightening his grip. "I came here to talk to you, and all you do is mock me! You always do this Grissom! You speak in allusions and analogies and I guy like me is lucky to keep up. We're here now, Grissom. We're everywhere and nowhere. We're living in the past, the present and the future, all at the same time. Say something. Anything. Say something that I can understand!"

Grissom's eyes displayed no emotion.

"So it goes," he whispered.

"Noooo!" cried Greg. He drew his fist back and threw it at Gil Grissom's face with all of his strength……………….

SMACK!

The noise and the pain reverberated in his head. He sat up dazedly and looked around.

The diner had vanished. In its place was a darkened hotel room, and the remains of the bed from which Greg had just fallen out of. With his head aching, he forced himself to focus. It was all a dream. An ugly, awful, all-to-real sort of dream. Greg pulled himself into a more comfortable position and grimaced as the ringing in his head increased. Scowling at the night table that had broken his fall, he dragged himself to his feet and stumbled towards the bathroom. He flipped the light switch, blinking hard against the intrusive fluorescent lighting. He assessed the damage to his head through narrowed eyes. He groaned as he leaned in for closer inspection. There was sizable lump already starting to make its presence known on the right side of his head, just above the eyebrow. It was already turning a fantastic shade of purple, and would no doubt look even more spectacular come the morning.

Why did I have to go pound for pound with an end table, tonight of all nights? Greg thought to himself as he shut the light off and stumbled back towards the bed. He was meeting Grissom in less than fifteen hours. He tried to push the remnants of the dream from his mind and get back to sleep.

"So it goes," he murmured unconsciously as he drifted back into a restless sleep.

A/N – to make things easy, anything that you recognized in here doesn't belong to me. It belongs to CBS, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Theodore Geisl, etc. Please don't sue.