Last chapter guys. I can't believe it, it was only supposed to be five chapters and it's turned in to lots more…It took me ages on how to write this one... I really wanted to avoid sloppy soooo hopefully I did. Originally Iwas like lets do this but then if i did that with sara and grissom then it would take the focus away from the actual point...so...meh...and god I prey I have not anti-climaxed...Also guys, first multi-fic to be compleated...YAY!

disclaimer: I dont own any of the characters from CSI nor The story of Huckleberry Finn by M.Twain... is it by mark twain? Or did he do lord of the rings?

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave me comments:

-LarkinRoss, CSigurlie07, dark-girl-faith-sidle, Dybdahl, imz, Lacerta418, LadyJess,. myralee8, SGBS4L, shania1277, Tessa, Veronica10, KittyDoggyLover, Rhosslynne, Tashira Ronin, red lighting, sye04 and labyrinth.of.my.mind

You people have been so encouraging and so wonderful, I feel there aren't enough thanks for all you've done. The response to this story has been great and it means so much that not only are people reading it, but taking the time to tell me what they think. Your comments was what kept me at my keyboard typing, when I really should be doing other things, like revising or cleaning my room.Well, this was more fun... I am gonna miss writing it... Anyway thank you sooo much again and I hope you all have a great summer.

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You were reading an article. It was a cover story, an interview with the mother of the two DeLucca Brothers. Her grieving portrait was there, alongside with two photos of Philip and Richard, which were taken several years before, in happier times. It was written, "my son's were sensitive and Richard took his brother's murder hard. He was driven to this. He couldn't sleep at night, he could not eat and his bowels were never right anymore… I hope they are happy now! Those bloodsuckers, who hide behind the law, I pray to God that if there is any justice on this earth it is exacted in the right place and on the right people, soon." It was the summertime now, over a year ago since the incident at the park and you were about toturn nine. After the suicide of Richard DeLucca, all the rapists accepted prison sentences, thirty years each, with no possibility of parole and agreed to no trial. No trial. Mr Grissom and Catherine and Nick had come to tell your mother. No trial. Your mother was so grateful she burst in to tears.

You and your mother stayed strong. Your mom once told you once, after a nightmare, that when you're afraid of something, what you want more than anything else is to make it go away. You had wanted your life back like the way it was before you went to the park, before you came to Las Vegas. You had wanted your life back to the way it was before you found out that there was something to be afraid of. You wanted to build a high wall and live your old life behind it. But you realised, it wasn't your old life, it was new one with a wall around it. You broke out of, but only recently you had begun to wear dresses again. Mom had been working her way out of her the violent experiences but she realised that she would remain a victim of it until she recognised the violence in herself; her willingness to give up the idea of being a victim followed in her realising that by withholding of passion and love and pleasure from herself, was a form of self-violence.

You prepared to turn the glossy page of the magazine over when your Mother covered your eyes with her hands, telling you to guess who she was. It was wonderful. She had promised you that were going to be a little girl again and she was never going to let you go. You chucked out fake guesses and until you cried out happily 'Mommy?' and she wrapped her arms around you. You felt as though your stolen childhood have been given back to, gift-wrapped and full of glitter and sparkles.

You could play again and this time, Momma could play with you.


"They judged it was him, anyway; said this drowned man was just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair- which was all like pap- but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had been in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all."

Gil, Lorena, a bed, a table and dimmed sweet and softlamp were the only things left in the beautifully blank lilac room. Everything else was either sold, packed or in San Francisco. Sara and Lorena had their very own house with a garden, where Lorena could run like a bush fire, picking up daises. Sara had picked a three-bedroom house for it's large, mystical garden and Sara would be able to follow Lorena's laugher until she jumped out and surprised her, infant arms filled lavender.

"They said he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think of something."

Lorena wiggled forward, smiling with anticipation.

"I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap…"

Gil looked up from the book to find the child's wide blue eyes gazing up at him, her small pink mouth hanging and curved at the edges.

"This isn't too scary for you is it?" The child looked verypale in the lilac rooomand very pretty and her blue eyes seemed to big and bright for her small face. Her brown hair was carefully plaited and shivered down her back.

"No. It's good." She was in total awe.

"I remember how I used to picture that river. When I imagined it, it was all kind of dark and swampy…I'd get so scared." Lorena drew her knees and wrapped her arms around them and Gil imagined the songs of the swamp, the songs of the birds and the sound of water moving, and the leaves all around, waltzing to a faint and uncertain breeze that he had pictured as a child.

"But I liked it too. And my Mom would get under the covers with me and read these parts."

"I bet she is nice, your mom."

"Yeah, she is."

"My mom is too. My mom's great."

They smiled at each other.

"Do you want me to go on?"

"Yes please."


"I can't believe this is it. I'm not ready to say 'Goodbye.'"

Sara removed herbrown sunglasses even though thesun was a bright yellow shining stone and few clouds stretched across the heavens like long silvery-white veils. She wanted him to know she was completely dry eyed. Her face was sad and she didn't bother to disguise it. She had spent yesterday and this morning saying goodbye. She would have melted if everyone were there when she packed her final things and drove off. Her arm was aching as she was carrying a large bouquet of daisies and zinnias and lilies and roses and gladiolus and other flowers she didn't know the name of, lots of different colours. They were beautiful but they would be dead before she got to San Francisco. Sara, Jamie and Lorena were road tripping back.

"Grissom...It's not 'goodbye'… it's just a... 'see you around.'"

Gil wrapped her so close and he felt Sara trembling and listened to her sweet breath.

"She's a wonderful girl, Sara. You did great," he whispered.

For an age it seemed he held her close as if someone was going to steal her. Gil watched the leaves of the overgrown trees waved to and fro continually as Saea saw her brother and daughter walking down the stone steps carrying the final things.

"It's gonna be good having you back in San Fran. My timing is always a little better when you are around."

Grissom found himself letting her go at the sound of a males voice and sweet girly giggle. His body grew cold, so cold it was as if some northern winter had found him in the gentle heat and had driven in its teeth. His mind was running rampant and undisciplined at the glorious idea of loving her…no letting her know that he loved her. Sadness came to him, as pure as pure love, and then pain, a pain true as pain.

Sara and Grissom looked at Jamie who was shoving the last boxes in to the back of the SUV. The light was picking up the auburn highlights in dark hair and his freckles werepopping uplike pus filled spots on his slightly tanned face.

"You wanna do the honours?" He showed Sara the key but she shook her head.

"Be back in a minuet, then we can get going."

"A minuet. That's not enough time."

She looked up at him, "It's not enough time, Grissom." Sara's hair was prettily dishevelled and her eyes glistening as if moons and suns were rising in them.

"Lo! Come say 'goodbye' to Mr. Grissom."

She was hugging a book. Gil bent his knees so he was at eyelevel, blue on blue.

"What's that?" Lorena looked to her side and realised that he was adressing a book covered in cut out pictures of lovely flowers and seasides and rainvows and fairy princess ladies with long curly hair. There was a group photo of the four members of the Sidle family. Lorena had varnished it with PVA glue.

"That's my journal." She handed it to him and his eyes looked at the colourful collage cover.

"It's a good idea, I always wished I had done that but I'd always get too lazy."

He fliped it in his palms to see if there was anything on the back. There wasn't and he handed it back.

"Maybe one day I could read you mine."

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"That would be great."

The little girl stepped in to his embrace. She pressed her face in to his, her face nestled against his neck. Her breath came choked as if in sobs and he clasped her even tighter. Lorena wondered how to let someone go, how was she supposed to feel good about life, instead of listening to the breaking of her heart? The hardest thing she would ever have to learn was how to say goodbye.

"You take good care of your Mom."

Lorena looked down at the ground and then back up at him as he stood up. The sunlight was behind him and the sunbeams were so white, and strong it looked like Apollo's sphere had been placed on Gil's head.

"Go sit in the car, baby."

Lorena took a deep breath and twisted her neck up to her mother, pouting in protest but moved away.

Sara's face was pensive and soft and but no tears meandered down her cheek. She looked at Gil, one last time.

"You know…" Sara swollowed painfully. "I'm wasn't just your subordinate. I was also just a girl…standing in front of a guy…asking him to love her…" Sara was begging Gil to say something but he kept quiet. She sighed but smiled as well.

"See you around then." Sara turned away quickly, as though that was the only way to do it and she walked up to her car and sat in the back with her daughter. The noise motor of her car faded as it headed down to road until it reached the end and turned right.

Gil was so utterly unhappy that he hardly knew what he was doing and at one point it struck him that what he had done was mad. She had giving him a moment, perhaps the only moment left to give and he had tried to be heroic. He had forfeited her and his future happiness. They would keep in touch and hewouldvisit her when he could.Now her love and wisdom and strength had been carried far away, away from him. Age would enlarge her soul and make her glow. And he wouldn't be a part of that.

He couldn't be.


You would never return to Las Vegas. Not even with your own daughter, years later in another world. Even though you would have incredible and fond memories of Las Vegas, you hated it. It may be a city in the desert, a city on the edge of combustion and broiling in the summers with hot whistles for wind but it was cold, corrupted and brittle place, full of emptiness and desolate, dead hopes and crumbling dreams. In San Francisco you valued listening to your CD's in the room right next to your mothers, annoying her with boy bands that had blonde hair and pouted constantly. You valued playing soccer with your friends in the street. You didn't realise how soon you'd be reading your journal to Mr. Grissom and you underestimated how touched he would feel. You were just a little kid and you didn't ask anyone to make you special, but he did.

You were nine, holding on to precious moments and believing in every fairy tale you were ever told as you stared out at that sea you had seen in your dream of dreams. You loved open space and the freedom and the hot sun and the sea breeze. The silver sand would sparkle when you would look down at it and to have the sand on your bare hands was lovely.You would recall how thee waves of the sun were the clearest amber andhow you wantedto count each bubble in the waves because they were like glittering pearls.

You didn't know what would happen next. You didn't know who you were going to be or what you were going to learn but you knew that life was about asking questions, like your mother did, not about knowing the answers. You had to focus on what was over the next hill; it was the asking of questions that kept you going. Wanting to understand even though you knew that you would never know the answers

You would beat on, like the boats against the currect, borne back ceaselessly in to the past and sing to your own little girl, "Further along we'll know more about, further along we'll understand why. Cheer up my brother, and play in the sunshine…we'll understand it by and by."


well that's it guys...please tell me what you think. Again thank you to everyone who has commented and read the story... Thankyoux