"I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating, feverish; warmth because it couldn't be over-dreamed-that voice was a deathless song."- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Gilbert Grissom was a solemn man, one not to be stirred from his solitude, that of a lonely isolation away from all living things, minus insects. Yet as a human being could not become un-fixated with his own race. He wished to study them, learn from them, become one of them, so as not to be alone in his solitude as he was. He wished for one to capture his heart and love him like in the books he had read. He wished to become his own character, one to set him free from his disdain.

However when such a women had captured his heart, his soul, his mind, he could not give it away. He could not let go of the man, or lack of which, that he had been for the better part of a century. He had seen the pain he had caused her, the pain he had never intended to inflict. And even when she let down the walls she had too created, all he could do was hold her hand as she cried.

That was the night when he knew within his heart that he was indeed too late.

After that night he would only see her when assigning cases and if they worked together. There were no visits to his office or underlying meanings within her words and if there were any, they were cruel and not like they had been before.

He missed before; he missed how she would smile at him across a room, or simply just her reassuring presence within a room. He lingered upon his memories, the memories of his first glance of her, their first words to each other, the first time they went out together to debate over coffee, how young she was, how vibrant. How much she still was, how much more she had become.

Gilbert Grissom had feared the day when he would be no more but a memory to her. When she would move on and become the vibrant brilliant women she was with someone else, even though he had never had her himself he still somehow felt that right endowed upon him. He was frightened that someone else made her smile like that and laugh the way she now did.

With his memories he imagined all of what could have been between them, had he in-fact been human enough to love her back. He indeed loves her, but has not the courage enough to give it to her.

"Grissom?" asked a silky voice, one that had broken him from his remembering.

He looks up and takes in the image of Sara Sidle, the muse within his life.

"We're all going out later to celebrate Valentines Day and everyone wants to know if you're actually going to show or just say you will and not show up like you usually do."

She smiled her broken smile, or rather the smile that used to be broken and now was just an oblique grin. And Grissom smiled back at her. He knew the smile was not directed to him but rather to the man that the arm around her shoulders belonged too. But in any case the smile and the odd kindness within her voice was enough to give him hope that they could perhaps regain what they had first had.

And with that he gathered himself and stood, grabbing his coat and following Nick and Sara out the door to join the rest of his team. And he for the first time felt like a human being.

Her voice throughout the night, telling stories and conversing with her friends that surrounded her, was a voice that held Gilbert Grissom with its fluctuating, feverish, warmth because it couldn't be over-dreamed, her voice was to him was a deathless song, one that he knew within his heart would remain with him for the rest of his life.

And no matter if that song belonged to someone else, he could still dream of it and the warmth that it had endowed upon his life, the song and the women that had changed his life, that had made a man stir from his solitude and grasp at reality.


A/N: This story was inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's book "The Great Gatsby", from within it I related Gatsby to Grissom and Daisy to Sara. However I twisted it a wee bit for my story, I think you can see the resemblence if you have read the book. I may continue and throw in a lot of angst into the mixing bowl.

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