Chapter Four

Thanks once more to Ghibli for beta duties.

II

The past was the future, was nothing but the pieces of a puzzle ever being laid anew. There was the present and the present held Grissom and a bed and nothing to do but consider the puzzle.

The puzzle was a work of what ifs and he was carefully tracing the threads with his mind.

If he removed the piece that was the car hitting him, almost killing him, the piece that held Sara's shadow back in his life went also. If he removed the piece that was his leaving when she needed him the most, her shadow would be her and his life would have a different goal. If he removed the piece that was him asking her to come to Las Vegas, she would always have been the fantasy and he would have been safe, but always living a little less. If he removed the piece that was his father's betrayal, his whole life had to be repatterened and perhaps with no Sara at all.

Sometimes, he thought that maybe it would have been the best of all. But that was the thought of fear, of memory.

"Never give away what you can't lose," his mother signed, her hands caressed by the setting sunlight as they sat in the garden, him with a glass of caught crickets, she with the book she had been reading to him.

"Did you? To father?" he signed, wondering if there was a sign where there wasn't truly a word for someone you loved and hated both, wanted to never see again and to come back still, wanted to never forgive and forgive even so.

"Yes."

She smiled distantly, faintly, a smile of loss and pain and Gil Grissom felt another piece of the child in him die with the smile.

Never give away what you can't lose.

He wouldn't forget.

He hadn't forgotten, but sometimes, he wished he had. Perhaps he'd been able to give her what she wanted then, when she had needed it. Perhaps he'd been able to comfort her then instead of fleeing at her loss.

She hadn't forgiven him that. He hadn't forgiven his father. And the puzzle remained ever formed and the what-ifs were pointless.

"Grissom, what have I told you about brooding?" a bright voice sounded from the door.

"Save it for the retirement home when there's nothing else to do."

"Except ogling the younger nurses," Catherine corrected and stepped into the room. She was smiling, but he could detect a slight fatigue in her eyes nevertheless. It had probably been a long couple of days. "How do you feel?"

"Like a car ran over me," he replied dryly, but not without a small wince.

"Well, it only hit you, but close enough," she said and sat down. "Warrick's coming later. Uhm... Don't be mad at him, but I think he called Sara and..."

"I know," he interrupted. "She called."

"She what?" Catherine stared at him, obviously trying to figure out what other delusions he'd been having.

"Ask the nurse if you need evidence," he said dryly. "Sara called."

"Sara called," Catherine repeated, still sounding slightly sceptical. "And?"

He closed his eyes, feeling an overwhelming desire to give the mess to Catherine and ask her to fix it, as a mother would. "I almost asked if she could come back. She won't."

"Oh, Gil." Catherine sounded half exasperated, half sad. "She can't come on your bidding even if you wished to. If she came to you, it would give you all the cards and quite frankly, you've had them for fat oo long. She was always the one making the effort, even from the start."

"You noticed?"

"Even the dead noticed, Gil."

"Oh."

The chill of the morgue as he entered was matched only by the warmth as he saw her curved back, staring intently at the face of death. As intently as she had stared at his lips after dinner yesterday before kissing them with a taste of onions and Sara. As intently as she had stared at him when he had knelt before her in only skin and laced his fingers in hers.

Sara did everything with intensity and he wondered how long he could stay afloat and not drown in it.

"Should I be envious?"

She didn't look up, but he could feel the glimmer in her eyes nevertheless. "Yes. John Doe is getting all my attention today."

"What does he have that I don't?"

"A broken neck and a rather nasty head wound."

"Don't think I can match that."

"Nope."

"And when he's buried and I have brilliantly solved the murder, do I have a chance then?"

"When I have brilliantly solved the murder, I'll consider it."

"I'm at your mercy now?"

"Fair's fair, Doctor Grissom," she replied and for a moment, six years of waiting and rejection hung between them. "Luckily for you, I fancy your bugs."

He laughed, he couldn't help it. She finally looked up, and her eyes were a beacon as he walked towards her, feeling ridiculously happy and silly and almost young.

Maybe he could drown as long as she kept kissing life into him.

"What are you thinking of?" Catherine asked, looking at him intently.

"Age," he said truthfully, without adding the rest. He had never asked Catherine just how much she knew of what had happened between Sara and him, and he had in a sense returned the courtesy with her and Warrick. But he suspected Catherine knew enough to understand difference in age had bothered him.

"Oh, please don't start reminding us all of your age. Then I'll be reminded of mine and none of us want that."

He tried to smile, but it was more of a grimace of pain.

"You should rest. I'll come back later," she said hurriedly, getting up. "Try to restrict the brooding."

"Look after the lab," he muttered, fighting the urge to close his eyes.

"Leave it all to me, Gil," she said affectionately, patting his arm. "Leave everything to me."

"Yes," he agreed, if only because he hadn't the strength to fight her.

It occurred to him after she had left that everything could be a very, very dangerous word.