Title: Ashes to Ashes
Author: Battus philenor
A/N: This is a character death piece, so please don't read it if you don't dig those. This is unbetad, so all mistakes are mine completely.
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine… still.
"…dust to dust…"
There was more, but Grissom had stopped listening as he stood by the pile of overturned ground; he had to. Attempting, with a sneaky shoe clad toe, to lift the corner of the green carpet which was laid over the dirt, he couldn't see what, if any bugs were present in the soil and that seemed to bother him. So many things about the week leading up to this moment had bothered him.
A loud squawking in the tree just to his left grabbed his attention. The birds there fighting, or maybe they were mating; it was hard to see through the full foliage of the warm spring day. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes between the two poles. On one end you had attraction and on the other was repulsion, complete opposites and yet so close when observing from afar.
The amount of passion was the same, the energy and spirit put into both hate and love. After all, how long had he put all his energy into pretending not to love the woman lying before him now, in that box? So strongly sometimes that he was certain she thought he did hate her. The Hamlet quote, "Thou doth protest too much, methinks" had entered his mind on more than one occasion. For how could he not have loved Sara?
The passion and compassion exuding from her every pore, sensitive and sensual, just and justified in all she did; his beautiful Sara. The sting of tears however, did not threaten, so he tried his damnedest to concentrate on the bugs instead, anything to occupy his mind which would just not grasp that she was gone. His handsome little creatures that had given him comfort over the years when he couldn't get it elsewhere, even they seemed to be failing him today, the day he was burying Sara.
Burying Sara. The thought screamed of a finality he needed, there was no turning back from burial. He hoped that the overwhelming decisiveness of it all would make the dreams stop. That from the moment they tossed the first shovelful of dirt on her casket, all of the daydreams and nightmares of her walking into his office as if nothing had gone so terribly wrong, would end. The symbolic handful of earth thrown over the mahogany would literally end his brain's effort to continue on as normal.
He honestly didn't need the distraction; it had been less of an obstacle to move on while she was still present than it was turning out to be with her gone. Moving beyond Sara was a task much more difficult than he had imagined.
He found himself wondering how to work odd new facts he'd learned into conversations with her, dazzling her with his quirky intellect. He'd contemplated discussions regarding some of her old unsolved cases, momentarily and subconsciously reaching out to her before he remembered she was gone. He'd mentally berated himself for laughing at a sitcom joke on the evening before her funeral. How could he laugh when she was no longer there? How could he do anything without her there?
Holly had been a hard enough situation to get through. A woman he'd known so briefly had left him feeling hollow, hurt, responsible. He now feared the loss of Sara having known the effects of losing Holly and he wondered when they would kick in. The waiting was eerie and quite disconcerting. Waiting for grief to strike was puzzling and made him question his sanity.
He found himself worrying that there was something wrong with him. He should be happy that he wasn't grieving. He had no desire to think about Sara and berate himself over a love lost. At first he was thrilled over his non-reaction to her death. Memories and what ifs were not productive at all. But now he found himself worried, wondering if one day he would not just breakdown completely; faltering while performing a normal everyday activity, stumbling and crumbling with an awed audience.
He could hear the imagined whispers now, commenting on his timing, relieved somewhat that he was human after all. The thought of losing it without notice alarmed him. Over the last few days he'd tried to force thoughts of her, to hurry the grieving before an unannounced meltdown occurred. No tears came. Blame steered clear. Strength flowed from him; he was a rock to others who were grieving.
So now instead of tears and regret, only anger filled him. Not for her leaving him before her time, but for making him see his true self; for forcing that mirror up and holding his head firmly to look only at his reflection, his soulless reflection. He was not angry that she left him, he was angry that her leaving brought his lack of feeling to light.
For years he thought he'd loved her, only now that she's gone does he realize that it must not have been true. Only now does he see that his true feelings are evidenced by his lack of grief.
His anger increases, he can feel his heart racing, his pulse thumping in a manic rhythm. His fingers wander to his wrist as he absent-mindedly begins to take his pulse there. Counting he comes up with a number, an erratic number signifying a danger zone for his heart. He begins re-counting as he flashes back to a day a few years prior.
An all day event of sweating and cutting and destroying a home. Bloodied walls and insects seeming to betray what he knows to be true. The science cannot fail; it can't falter and leave them with nothing. His blood pumps quickly, is pushed through his body at an alarming rate. Stepping outside he begins to count as he's doing right now, only then she followed him.
She was there, talking to him. The sound of her voice alone lowered his pulse rate, yet seemed to make his heart skip at the same time. And then she touched him. Her hand was on his face and she was touching him. She'd done it without thought, a simple reaction to his anger and distress; she reached out and comforted him. "Chalk" her only response as she attempted to cover her actions with a weak excuse of brushing dust from his face. He watched her then, her brown eyes pleading with him not to call her on her miscue at work. The hint of a gap-toothed smile threatening to unravel him right there in the middle of a case.
He can once again hear the priest, he's winding up the service, her service. His hand goes to his cheek now where he can still feel the warmth of her hand. He jumps as one of the fighting, mating birds squawks again, the sound not a harsh birdlike disruption, but a whisper of a squawk, reminiscent of her feeble excuse.
The warmth under his hand burns his face now. His body shakes in response as he knows she's there, touching him again as she did years before, comforting him. Dampness can be felt seeping under his fingers. He pulls it away from his face quickly, looking at it with disbelief as a chill replaces his hand on his cheek. Dropping to his knees, anger leaves his body in a rush as the tears continue and he knows now that she's gone.
End
Battus philenor