A/T: I see you've chosen to continue. Excellent! And I hope I haven't lost my CSI edge. Have I? Is this really any good at all? I almost didn't post it because I was certain that this was just my mindless rambling at work. Well, there's no harm it trying!

Disclaimer: See part one.

Pieces

I.

I don't remember agreeing to this understanding that we've made.

For six years, we've been dancing around the issue, as if maybe ignoring it would make it disappear.

Sometimes you look at me and I wonder what we're doing. Why are we waiting? What's stopping us?

Is it me? It must be me. And I think to myself It's always me.

II.

I saw you before you saw me.

The first day you came here, to this lab, I saw you and I felt like all the nights before that moment had been swept away from my life, as if this is where my existence really began.

You looked up and smiled at me through the glass walls; the woman that was found shot in her home two hours ago whispered He's the one. That's him. That's who you've been looking for all your life.

She was standing next to me. She spoke as if she knew for a fact that her words were true.

But I told her that she wasn't allowed to be there; I didn't want you to see her, to see the dead, to become like the rest of us.

I wanted to give you the chance to be as normal as you could for as long as time allowed.

III.

Your body. That fire. It ate those walls; shattered them and created smoke and a glittering floor.

And I saw you lying, lying where you were supposed to be standing. And I wanted to tell you to hold on because you had too much to live for.

Here. I've found your sickness, your stigma. Some call it trauma or the violent insistence of memory, but I call it never being able to return to who you were.

IV.

A huge ache has swallowed up the world and we're in the middle of it. The wars, the bombs, the guns, the rape, the kidnapped innocents who will never see the sun again. What bothers me the most (although I try to hide it) is the complete disregard for life that humans have developed.

I always ask What if human beings were incapable of deception and violence?

And you always say Then we would no longer be human beings.

I resist the urge to fade away. When I do begin to weaken, you wear a bright color to wake me back up again. You shake me. You walk down the haunted lab corridors, singing a song so I can hear your voice and you can lead me back home.

V.

Our narrative is one that wasn't. Our love story was meant to be told, but we've been interrupted by the world.

So we continue to try and correct the things that disrupt our train of thoughts, our string of words, our dwindling confidence for the future.

You look me in the eye and I see
the world and
your vigilance and
myself at war with myself.

But this isn't a love story told in the stars.

VI.

In the coffin, I was haunted by unknowns. Would I see you again or would I see the sun or is this how it'll end?

Not even the ghosts could help me down there.

I felt the heat of Hell against my back.

At the hospital afterwards, your presence was my oxygen and health. I heard bits and pieces of conversations. The flitting of my consciousness.

You were there. Constantly. You wouldn't move, even when Grissom told you to return to your job. I had seen you. Dirty, tired, beautiful, saying being here is my job.

I saw your colors; through the haunted corridors of my mind, you were singing a song and leading me back home.

VII.

After the hospital, I kept waiting for you to grow tired of our affections that, according to our past, don't exist.

But there you stand, patient. You ignore the ticking of clocks, the passing of seasons, the changing of years.

All you're doing is waiting for me to let you in, whispering

All you have to do is open the door.

You're wearing a baby blue button up and the sleeves are rolled up to your elbows. It's untucked, your jeans are worn, and your hair is flat. You're tired and pained but you look at me and smile while the sky's glow makes you appear like a man not meant for this world, but the next. I want to ask what you're doing at my truck, what you're waiting for. Time doesn't wait, time's always ticking away and maybe, a long time ago, I was someone you could have found attractive or fun. But I'm tired now, and I feel broken, like someone's taken another gun and actually pulled the trigger this time.

I don't want someone to have to put me together. I'm not worth that much anymore.

"Hey Nick," you say, smiling for the first time since the beginning of shift. Your smile is infectious and I feel the corners of my lips lift.

I wonder how many chances I probably missed. Chances I should have taken; would take, now that I know better. So scared that I'd ruin everything that I didn't realize I'd still end up with nothing in the end.

"Hi," I echo. This case has killed me. All I want is a plane ticket out of here. With you, preferably, but I'm a dreamer.

"Tough case," you mutter and I nod in agreement. Tough. Tough enough to tip the scale, make me want to stop this job altogether. "You going to be okay?"

No. No, I won't be okay, but too many people have asked me this question. My intended answer –my lie- is stale.

You quietly look at me and I know what you're thinking. Our ability to understand each other's thoughts is frightening sometimes, uncanny and strange in a way that has me running scared. Not from you, but from myself. I hate not understanding things, and you're still such a beautiful mystery to me. You make me wonder why I bother lying to you. You'll always know the truth.

I just nod instead.

I feel nervous pinned beneath your muddy eyes. It's as though you recognize that I'm a million fragments of what I should be. They're yours, the fragments, if you want them. You can have them. I belong to you, but you don't know that.

And in the middle of the parking lot, you place your arms around my waist. I drop my bag, too tired fight you anymore; ever since I saw you, I've been walking uphill against the wind. You offered so much while I kept denying anything existed between us. You always surprise me, always keep me going, and even though you say we're fated, I know we can't keep disregarding what connects you and me. My natural tendency to shy away from your touch seems silly now, although there are probably uniforms watching or a lawyer gawking, I don't care, and neither do you. People search for what we have all their lives, and we're actually trying to overlook it.

"I love you," you whisper.

And maybe, in the beginning, we would have gone about it differently. Maybe we would have had dinner or coffee. Perhaps, like other people, we would have dated. Your forehead is pressed against my chest and I feel like maybe I could die.

"I love you," you repeat, "And I don't want to waste our lives anymore."

Other people would have probably gone about it another way, but they aren't us and the world we try to solve doesn't understand anyway.

My arms find their way around your neck and I settle against you; you, the only one who can save me now.

No big finale. No proclamations of love. No audience to cheer us on. Our love story is no big production and that's exactly how I want it.

I'm yours. I've always been yours. Surely you know this.

The wind carries the voices of the ghosts and they say

We're glad you've finally found your truth.

(Always) Continuing.