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.

Thanks again, reviewers! I've been epically busy lately so sorry if the next chapter comes a little slowly. You've been really great with reviewing though – please keep them coming in, feedback is always fantastic in any shape or form. Thanks goes to D.M.A.S, DrusillaBraun, sitarra, Lissa88, gckyr, cherishedcrush and TheSiriusSparrow. Please keep reviewing, all, if you have time. But most of all: enjoy! Love LJ xXx

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Perpetuity. Chapter Ten. Strike Three

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The nurse took the two-year old's hand.

"We can take your daughter to the Family Room," she offered. "It might be better." Catherine nodded and smiled at the little girl who stared appealingly at her mother, frightened of the stranger's hand in hers.

"Go on, Lindsey – it'll be alright," she assured her softly. "Go with the nurse; I just need to talk to the doctors, okay, sweetie?"

Lindsey nodded reluctantly and, thumb in mouth, trailed away behind the nurse. Catherine watched her until she disappeared around the corner and winced as another wave of pain passed through her. An intern dragged an ultrasound machine close to the bed.

"Okay, let's find out what's going on, Ms Willows," the doctor said calmly and moved the ultrasound scanner across her skin. There was a long silence before Catherine couldn't stay quiet any longer.

"Where's the heartbeat?" she demanded, sitting up with frantic eyes. "Can you find the heartbeat? Is everything okay?"

The doctor didn't speak for a while. Catherine felt her own heart plummet; she already knew. After that, from that deafening silence up until when her tiny son was delivered, there was a gaping hole in her memory – a blur of fear, pain and emptiness.

-

Gil sat back in his chair, waiting to see if CODIS would find a hit on the DNA he pulled from a scene earlier in the day.

"Got anything?" Jim Brass swung by. Grissom opened his mouth to reply when he was cut off by his ringing cell phone.

"Not yet," he said and walked over to the corner of the room to answer his cell. "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Mr Willows?" a female voice came down the line. Gil paused.

"Yes..." he answered, not sure why.

"Mr Willows, this is Desert Palms ER – we have your wife Catherine here..."

"Oh Jesus."

Grissom ran, ran as fast as he could, down the bustling corridors of the Crime Lab. He'd never driven any faster in his life and didn't even bother parking straight or locking his vehicle. He leapt out of the driver's seat and sprinted into the hospital.

"Where's Catherine Willows' room?" he demanded at the reception desk. The clerk looked at him vacantly for a moment.

"Uh..."

"Where is she?" he snapped impatiently. The clerk began to shuffle uncertainly through charts and papers. Unable to hang around any longer, Gil sighed exasperatedly and darted through the corridors, peering into every room. Then he saw her, between hospital sheets, small and scared. He made to go in when a nurse stopped him suddenly.

"Excuse me, sir – you can't go in there." the nurse told him firmly.

"What do you mean I can't go in there?" Gil said irritably. "I need to get in there."

"I'm sorry sir..." the nurse grabbed his arm but Grissom shook him off. A nearby doctor looked up at the scuffle.

"Are you the father?" the doctor asked, coming over to see what the trouble was.

"Of course I'm the father," he answered so crossly and firmly that he almost believed it himself. The doctor nodded and led him away from the door.

"In which case, Mr Willows – I'm afraid I have some bad news for you.."

-

Sobered by the news, Gil tentatively and quietly pushed open the door. Catherine was lying with her back to him, curled tightly on the bed and facing the plain white wall.

"Catherine..." he began softly, not knowing what else to say. She cleared her throat, steadying it.

"Go away, Gil." she told him in a dead voice. He didn't go away, instead he took a few steps forward.

"Catherine, I came as soon as they called me." he continued.

"Well I'm sorry for dragging you out here," she retorted resentfully. "You can go now."

Sure, she'd given them his number when they asked if she wanted them to phone her husband, but it was too late now. It was too late and she wanted to be alone.

"They told me what happened." Gil went on, taking a few more cautious steps forward. He could see her face, stony and fierce, glaring at the wall and eager for him to leave.

"Good. Now go." she uttered forcefully through gritted teeth. He went around to her side of the bed and knelt in her eye-line. She didn't look away but fixed her cold and angry eyes on him instead.

"Get out, Gil." she repeated as her voice began to shake. She tensed her jaw and stared defiantly at him. He reached out a hand, placed it gently on the side of her face that wasn't dug deep into the hard mattress and saw her flinch at the contact, her lower lip starting to tremble unwillingly.

"It wasn't your fault, Cath."

Yes it was, Catherine thought bitterly. She'd said she didn't want to wait. She'd said she was impatient. She got what was coming to her. It was all her fault.

"It wasn't your fault." he whispered, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

"Go away," her voice was constricted and quavered uncontrollably. He scooped her into his arms and held her tightly. "Go away. Go away."

Catherine sobbed into his shoulder; her whole body shuddered violently and she cried and cried, all the time telling him to leave. He didn't. He stayed. And, as he held her until she fell asleep, he stared over the top of her head at the plastic box standing in the opposite corner of the room. A switched-off incubator with a lifeless, blanket-wrapped bundle inside. One tiny, tiny, perfectly-formed foot visible from the edges of the bundle. Perfect, but far too small to keep going.

Gil clenched his teeth and stared straight ahead at it: at the unmoving child, at the miniscule fingers forever-curled gently around the blanket fringe like the last attempt at a goodbye wave, at the label on the box which announced the 16:43 entry to and exit from the world: a momentary stint from their only Noah Willows.

-

"Mom..." Lindsey spoke up finally. "Mom, I remember." Catherine smiled at her daughter, through the tears running down her face.

Gil looked at his wife, realising how much it had taken her to retell the story. Sara gripped tightly onto Warrick's hand and Greg found he had blood in his mouth from biting down on his tongue. They had had no idea. Grissom blinked back tears that Catherine hadn't been able to keep from coming; she was clearly shaken from revisiting the memory. She looked hopefully up at him, through tear-blurred eyes. That was what broke his heart all the more when he shook his head slowly and murmured:

"I'm so sorry, Catherine – but I don't."

Catherine swallowed hard and looked down at the floor for a very long time. Then she looked up, blinked further tears away, wiped her eyes on her sleeve and put on a smile.

"That's okay," she croaked before repeating it in a stronger voice: "That's okay. I don't blame you."

She smiled around the room then got up and immediately left it in a painful silence.

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