Art Imitating Life
You'd be so perfect
with me but you just can't see,
You turn every head but you don't
see me.
-Aqualung
She was Mona Lisa.
"This isn't easy for any of us…" Grissom's words cut through the night, seeming sharp and too loud for all their gentleness.
Nick clenched his teeth behind his lips and worked the latex a little farther up his wrist, tucking it in fidgeting jerks under the edge of his watch. He didn't want to touch her. So cold, her sun kissed skin already tinged with blue, she wouldn't feel as he'd remembered. She wouldn't feel as he'd imagined.
"Bullet wound to the chest. Evidence of gunshot residue on her shirt – close to contact. Defensive abrasions on her knuckles. I'll swab them and see what Sanders can get."
"Nicky…I'll understand if you want dayshift to take this."
He laughed at this, a short, almost hysterical giggle. Somehow it was so much more comforting then Grissom's calm tones. "And have Ecklie fuck this up? No…I don't think so. She was one of us, and one of us is going to solve this."
But she wasn't one of them anymore, was she? No…now she was Mona Lisa, immortalized in haunting eyes and a secretive smile.
Grissom hesitated, then took a step forward to stare down at the body. She was lying perfectly straight, arms rolled palm up and legs extended. Her hair lay in thick chestnut waves on her shoulders, a single wisp blowing across her face in the summer breeze. She looked as though she might have just stretched out for a nap, cushioned in sand and blanketed by the stars.
Had Da Vinci ever seen the desert?
"Ok," Grissom agreed softly, but he still didn't move to touch her. He was acting as if he actually cared about her, Nick thought bitterly. As if he hadn't rejected her at every possible twist and turn.
As if he loved her.
She had been so adept at analyzing evidence, so unceasingly vigilant at interrogating suspects. But she had never noticed him, tucked somewhere between confidant and coworker, hidden deep under the darkness of a man who didn't deserve her.
You turn every head but you don't see me.
Grissom cast such a tall shadow in her sunshine. Nick had always looked up to him, strived to be the type of person he might value and respect. But none of it had ever been good enough – for any of them. He had always been only the warm to Warrick's cool, the soft to Catherine's hard, the question to Grissom's answer…
The beginning to her ending.
Had Da Vinci ever seen death?
It was beautiful.