Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Spoilers: None as far as I am aware

Rating: I've gone with T or PG-13 just to be safe. There's a use of the f-word about once and THAT'S ONCE TOO MANY! Swearing is overrated, kids.

Summary: GCR with a little WS. After an accident affects a team member, the team find themselves revisiting old memories.

There's been some truly great feedback from you guys, so I'll say it again: I really appreciate it. Thank you to Lissa88, sitarra, xcatch, Lynh (do you mean that he's been OOC? It's okay if that's what you mean but, seriously, y'all gotta tell me these things! If I'm not doing this right, I'd really like to know so I can get it right the next time round, especially after this chapter because things start getting a little more intense), cherishedcrush, TheSiriusSparrow and Daisyangel (three times!). Thanks also to DruisillaBraun, janisha, Ladybug07 and TheSiriusSparrow for putting me on story alert. Anyway, yes, keep on reading, keep on reviewing. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx

- o -

Perpetuity. Chapter Eight. Strike Two

- o -

A broken wrist and collarbone, three broken ribs all on the right side and a fractured femur; Gil painstakingly wheeled himself around his small and empty hospital room, the drip on the IV stand trailing reluctantly behind. It'd been a month since he'd woken up from the coma and since then had heard all about his apparent escapades. How he'd saved that Warrick guy's ass a while back when he screwed up on the job. How spiky-haired Greg had spent his first few years under him striving for his approval until he finally settling into the job he was clearly meant to do. How the only person Catherine ever shot and killed had been trying to kill him – and that she didn't regret it.

He leant his head back and gazed around the walls. It'd become a very strange thing. He 'remembered' now, but only because of what he'd been told. When he studied the walls, the photos of himself surrounded by strangers who loved him against backdrops he couldn't recognise, he got an eerie feeling of knowing he'd done these things, but having no memory of them whatsoever. He sighed and rolled his way back to his bed. He wished, he wished so much, that he could remember.

"You," came Sara's voice from the doorway accusingly, "shouldn't be out of bed this much."

"Guilty," he smiled, holding up his hands in surrender. "But I was bored; I wanted to explore my surroundings."

"Yeah that sounds about right," Greg commented.

It was just the two of them this time – the only time he ever saw the whole group together now was the odd weekend or early morning when nobody was working. Everyone else came at random times, using every minute of their free time to try and colour the vast blanks in his mind. He felt guilty every time. They put so much effort and hope and time into him and still got the same reaction: an apologetic shake of the head and a helpless shrug.

The pair of them helped him back into bed as he struggled to hold back the wince as his healing ribs complained.

"So what are you going to tell me about today?" he asked, smirking like a child on Christmas. Sara and Greg smiled; everyone taking this in a light-hearted way was certainly making it easier on everyone. It was funny, they told themselves, that Gil couldn't remember. It was funny.

"I was thinking perhaps I'd tell you about the first time I met you," Sara suggested and Gil settled back into the pillows.

"Go ahead."

-

It was certainly disheartening at the very least to glance around the room and find every desk occupied by elbows upon which tired heads slouched and bored eyes observed. There wasn't anything he could do but go on talking. Sure, if they remembered anything he said in the lecture, it would be just the words – they would never bother with the meaning. Sometimes he wondered why they came. Sometimes, he wondered why he bothered. And sometimes, someone would come along and remind him of the answers to all those idle questions.

The students filed out of the lecture hall, not even attempting to conceal their gladness at its end. Gil sighed and, rolling his eyes, began to shuffle back through his notes. Forensic Entomology – well, he couldn't exactly expect anyone to love it as much as he did.

"It was amazing," an enthusiastic voice came from in front of him. Gil looked up to the student standing in front of his desk: backpack loosely slung over a shoulder. She smiled broadly. "The lecture – it was pretty great."

"Well – uh – thanks," he replied, uncertainly; he wasn't used to actually getting praised for his talks, usually the most gratification he got from his part-time job was when, occasionally, a student didn'trun out of the room as soon as the bell went.

"I mean it," the girl went on. "I really had no idea that you could determine time and method of death with such accuracy just by studying insect activity on corpses. Can you really do that?"

"Would I lie to you?" he returned. The girl grinned and looked nervously at the floor, a curtain of her brown hair falling down across the right side of her face.

"I'm Sara," she told him, looking up again. "Sara Sidle."

"Pleased to meet you, Sara," Gil courteously held out a hand. "It's always nice to know someone actually listens."

"I always listen; I love your lectures," she blurted out before falling silent and turning a deep shade of pink. The poor kid looked so embarrassed at her confession that, when she raised her head finally and breathlessly asked if he'd like her number, he had said yes, just to put a smile back on her face.

Sara had thought he was leading her on, an idea that would leave her chasing false hopes for years to come but, as she retold the story, she laughed at herself and joked about it. You could do that when you'd moved on; you could do that when you were happy. She leant forwards in her seat, now and asked him if, when he remembered, if he'd be the one to give her away at her wedding. He agreed, of course he agreed, but he wanted to tell her not to hold out for anything - when would he remember? There didn't seem to be an end in sight.

-

Greg and Sara had left. The sun had long since sunk beyond the horizon, plunging the city of Las Vegas into a darkness only salvageable by the neon lights that studded every built surface. Gil was asleep in his room, alone again after another tiring day trying in vain to re-find his routes. He couldn't. He didn't remember his first encounter with Sara and, though she spoke of it animatedly, he could tell he'd hurt her again by not being able to remember.

That was another thing he so hated about this whole business; when he told them he couldn't remember, there'd always be that flash of hurt across their faces as they told themselves that they weren't memorable to him, they weren't important to him. It wasn't that at all, they all knew it, but it never stopped them feeling it.

But behind Gil's closed eyelids that night, echoes of events began to unfold for the first time since – for the first time since he could remember...

-

"Oh crap – can I borrow your tweezers?" Catherine muttered, finding she must've left them back at the lab. She was out on the field for the second time ever and things weren't going well if she'd already forgotten part of her kit.

"Sure," Gil answered, vaguely, waving a hand towards his kit as he pored over woodchips by the doorframe of the scene. "They're in the inside compartment."

"Got 'em," she responded, triumphantly and then paused. "Ooh – who's Sara Sidle?" Grissom turned and saw her holding up a slip of paper.

"Girlfriend?" she suggested mischievously.

"No! No – student," he corrected her. Catherine raised her eyebrows with a cheeky grin.

"Wow...scandal," she teased him further. "Is that what her parents are paying tuition for or is it...extra-curricular?"

"She is not a girlfriend," he asserted and Catherine rolled her eyes.

"Jeez, Gil – I'm gonna have to find you a girl, aren't I?" she remarked. "Then you and her can come out with Eddie and me."

Right – of course – Eddie, a man for whom a lack of any real business didn't seem to prevent him from flaunting flashy printed business cards. Eddie was a suave, smooth-talker with slicked hair who had swept suddenly upon them and snatched up Catherine before he even had a chance to protest. He was everything Gil was not and, though it wasn't that part of it that bothered him, it drove him crazy.

"I don't know why I've never seen you with girlfriend," Catherine went on. "Why wouldn't any girl love you?"

Grissom flinched slightly, turning back to his work. She just didn't seem to realise – it was her, it would only be her and that was the problem. When she pondered why any girl couldn't love him, she said it so platonically it hurt.

-

It hurt now. Lying asleep, Gil was struggling to breathe and unable to wake up from the dream. He tried to shout from beyond waking that he remembered. He remembered! He wanted to scream it and run, run home to Catherine and Lindsey, back up the path in the front yard, through the white front door – Number 55 – he remembered.

-

"In fact," Catherine continued. "You haven't been on a date with anyone since I've met you. What's the deal, Gil?"

Grissom looked pained, he glanced up at Catherine who stood above him, hands on hips and waiting for an answer. If it was an answer she wanted then she'd get the answer. He'd tell her it's because he'd fallen in love with her. Because he'd suddenly found someone who made him understand the meaning of that. He'd thought love was just a concept, something inferior to his scientific scepticism – but it was so different now. Why hadn't he been on a date with anyone? Because there could never be anyone else but her. There could never be anyone else.

He opened his mouth to tell her, finally, the truth.

-

A nurse strolled down the corridor, on her way out home. She heard the rasping breaths coming from the room and looked in to see the patient's chest convulsing. The man was unconscious and drawing in every gasp in vain. The nurse swore quietly and sprinted down the hall to fetch the doctor.

-

"Grey," their supervisor stepped into the room and barked sharply at Catherine who jumped. "Will you stop standing around chatting and process the bathroom?" Catherine blushed.

"Sorry," she muttered and hurried from the room. Gil closed his mouth and bit down on his tongue.

"You too, Grissom. Back to work."

-

"Mr. Grissom, you've had a collapsed lung," the doctor loomed over him. "We've put a tube in your throat to help you breathe but we'll take it out once we're satisfied you're stable, okay?"

Gil nodded, as uncomfortable though it was to move his neck with the plastic shoved down it. The doctor smiled warmly and disappeared again. Then Gil closed his eyes and went back to sleep. That night, he dreamt of nothing and, when he woke the next morning, remembered nothing of the night all over again.

- o -