Those Halcyon Days
Disclaimer: CSI is not mine. Never has been and never will be.
Rating: M (character death: suicide)
A/N: Believe it or not, I used to be a total GS shipper… but I got tired of watching him jerk her around while he made up his mind whether or not she was worth it. As those of you who have read my other stuff will probably have guessed, I'm a happy little NS shipper now. So this fic is the final revenge of a frustrated GS shipper.
CSI CSI CSI
Retirement.
Somehow, it never seemed like it would actually happen. Not to me. I thought I'd go on forever, die in harness.
Of course, that's not what happened. Thirty-five years, give or take. Thirty-five years, and then a pat on the back, a handshake and a check, and it's all over.
I take a hit of my bourbon.
But, in a way, it was over long before that. It was over the day Nick and Sara left.
Did I even realize back then that that was the end of the halcyon days? Did I ever let them know just how much they meant to me; Catherine and Warrick, Nick and Greg? And Sara? Especially Sara. Did I ever tell them that they were my family?
I look at the photo of her in front of me. Not the most recent one, the one that arrived with the last happy Christmas card. I don't want to see that one, that Sara, the happy wife and mother.
No, this is a Sara from those halcyon days, taken about a year after she arrived in Vegas. Those big, brown eyes, that gap-toothed smile. She didn't smile so much in those last days. I suppose that should have warned me.
I take another hit of the bourbon.
Would it have made a difference if I had said yes? If I had accepted her invitation to dinner that time, if I had made another invitation in turn? Could I have given her what she wanted, what she needed? Could I have figured 'this' out?
I didn't even try. Instead, I gave her a plant, and a textbook. I told myself that it was because I was her supervisor, that I had to keep my distance because of our professional relationship.
It was because I'm a coward.
I lacked the courage to go after the one thing that might have made a difference, the one thing that might have meant something.
I was afraid that it would change my life.
And what is my life worth now?
I take another swallow of the bourbon.
My life was my work, my work was my life. Now that I have no more work I have no more life.
I have no more Sara.
I have no more halcyon days.
I have nothing.
Well, I have one thing. I look at it, dark and sleek. I know what it can do. By God, do I know. I've spent my life learning, learning all the ins and outs.
The ins and outs. Hah.
This is my out.
It will be messy, and I feel a vague sympathy for whoever will work this scene. It will probably be someone I knew, someone I trained. But not Sara. Sara is far away now.
One last swallow.
Then I put the barrel of the gun into my mouth.
Oblivion.