A/N: Here's another CSI fic! I'm enjoying this fandom. Feedback would be great, considering I haven't had much experience in the CSI fanfiction world. I'd love to hear how I'm doing: truthfully!
All mistakes are my own, please forgive them!
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"You won't give anything of yourself. To anybody. Got it? That's your problem."
-Lynn Kobleskas, Is Kissing a Girl Who Smokes Like Licking an Ashtray? by Randy Powell
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Grissom deals with death every day. It's an unavoidable part of his job. He's seen the tears of the friends, the grief of the parents, the angst of the lovers…
He's seen it all.
He doesn't want to be the one who finds her body sprawled across the floor. He doesn't want to be the one answering numerous questions about his whereabouts on Tuesday the 24th. He doesn't want to be the one holding back tears as he identifies her body.
He doesn't want to be the one who ends up alone.
So he watches her from afar, because he knows what can happen if he gets too close. He understands that death is around every corner and that the people you love can be gone in a split second without any notice.
This knowledge causes him to distance himself from others, to make sure he doesn't get attached. Many people mistake this for emotionless, or a cold heart. His colleagues especially tend to use this against him when they're angry. They don't realize how much those spiteful comments hurt him. But he doesn't let it show.
He's their role model, after all.
Subconsciously, he immerses himself in his job as a constant reminder that life really is too short. Day after day he is shown examples of innocent civilians who killed without warning.
And he deals with them objectively, just like he's supposed to. Sure, he has the cases that are 'special.' They all do. He just has fewer than the rest of the team.
Much fewer.
What he told Warrick was true. When he leaves CSI, there won't be any cake in the break room. He'll just be gone.
Because he doesn't plan on retiring. He's made this job his life, and without it, he'd be lost. He'd have no sense of direction, nowhere to go. No wife, no children.
Nothing.
And sometimes he finds it odd that he just assumes he'll never find someone.
'Someone.'
The more he says it to himself, the more cliché it sounds; the more unbelievable it becomes.
Every once in awhile, though, he allows himself to entertain the slight possibility that maybe he will find 'her.' Usually he does this at night, when he's lying in bed, safe in the false darkness that his bedroom offers his nocturnal sleeping pattern. It surprises him that he can only picture himself with one woman.
Catherine Willows.
She's the only woman he's scared of. Because she can make him do things and say things that he'd never consider otherwise. Somehow she puts him under some sort of spell, one he cannot fight.
He hides from everyone else. He doesn't let them know him. He won't give anything of himself. Because if he gives something up, he may never get it back, may never be whole again.
Years ago, he'd lost a large piece of himself. He'd made a mistake; let his guard down.
He wasn't letting that happen again.
Even after twenty-five years, he can still feel that small part of him missing. Most of him has grown back, and sometimes he can actually forget what has happened all those years ago.
He has the foolish hope that maybe one day that hole inside him will disappear.
But somehow he's never considered that maybe it won't go away on it's own. He's never considered that maybe she could fill that emptiness that lingers within him.
So she'll have to make the first move. He'll never have the courage to approach her. With others, it's easy. He's not as afraid of rejection. But with her… He'd have to come back and see her, every day. Then there would be the possibility that she would leave.
And that would destroy his seemingly unbreakable heart.
He's content with watching from a distance.
Because he'd rather have less than he wants than nothing at all.
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The End
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