A/N: This would have been up much earlier, but my friend and I are writing a story just for fun, and I got that plot line stuck in my head! Also, this is another unusual chapter for me. I really feel like I've gotten away from my original intent for the Retreat (that of having the team members talk, and get to know one another), but who's to say that people never deviate from their plans? Regardless, the events in this chapter take place before whatever is going to happen in tonight's season seven opener. And if what I think is going to happen actually happens, I'll incorporate that later on! Thanks goes to everyone who is continuing to read this story, and to: odeepblue (you'll find out soon enough), wraiths-angel (yup, you'll see 'em shop!), anneruhland (hey, tell my professors to stop assigning homework, and I'll write more! QTR (yer the bestest!), and The Lovely Desdemona (funny you should mention that, because a friend of mine was on an upside down roller coaster awhile back, and his harness failed. He was just sitting in the seat the entire time, terrified that he would fall out!).

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Disclaimer: I do not own any part of CSI or its characters. That honor goes to the good folks over at CBS.

Title: The Reason

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Present time, 7:30 am

"I don't want to talk to him," fourteen year old Lindsey mumbled under her breath, as she brushed her teeth early the next morning. "In fact," she continued, making sure to speak loudly enough so that her very tired mother could hear her. "I don't want to speak to any of them, and no one can make me!" Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Lindsey pouted. Life's not fair. Why bother even trying to change what's what? She asked herself, angrily setting her toothbrush down, and picking up her hair brush. Everyone that I love eventually dies anyhow, so I'm just going to continue living my life the way that I want to live it.

"Why don't you want to speak with him?" Catherine softly interrupted her daughter's thoughts, poking her head into the bathroom. "Or to any of them, for that matter?"

Lindsey scowled, not bothering to look up at her mother. "I just don't want to, okay? What's the big deal?"

"What's the big deal?" Catherine tiredly asked, raising a confused eyebrow. "You're my daughter, that's the big deal. I love you, Lindsey, and I want you to have everything that you want or need in life."

"Well I don't need Un— Gil calling me, that's for sure," she muttered, throwing her hair brush back into the cabinet, and storming past her mother, who was still standing in the doorway with a dazed expression on her face. And why the hell did I almost call him 'Uncle Gil?' It's not like he even cares about me anymore, either. He wouldn't even be calling me in the first place, if it weren't for my mother.

"Lindsey," Catherine sighed, following her daughter down the hallway and into the kitchen. "So then tell what it is that you need?" Walking over to the refrigerator, she pulled out a couple of raw eggs, setting them on the counter, while reaching for the frying pan in the uppermost corner cabinet. Glancing over her shoulder at Lindsey for the briefest of moments, Catherine thought that she saw a flicker of hurt on her daughter's face, before her eyes almost instantly hardened against her mother's concerned gaze.

"I need you to back off and leave me alone, that's what I need," the fourteen year old bitterly replied, before walking out of the kitchen, and toward the front of the house. Moments later, she flung the door open, slamming it shut behind her.

Catherine stared at Lindsey's retreating form, waiting for her to walk out of the house. Eventually, when she knew that her daughter was long gone, she picked up the eggs, and angrily threw them into the sink. "Damn it!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "Damn it," she whispered again.

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Present time, 4:00 pm

"I don't think that now is the best time to talk to her anymore, Gil," Catherine hesitantly told him, rubbing the back of her neck in frustration.

"Why not?" Grissom asked with a frown, holding his office phone to his ear. "Didn't we agree that I would speak to Lindsey today? Is she home from school yet?"

"Yeah, she's home, but she's—" locked herself in her room. "She didn't have a very good day."

"Did something happen to her?" Grissom cautiously asked.

Catherine sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. "She blew up at me this morning," she finally admitted to her friend and colleague, sitting down at the couch. "And then when she came home from school, she handed me a note from her teacher. She blew up at several of her classmates, Gil—" Catherine trailed off. "She almost started a fight, right then and there. The teacher cut her some slack, given everything that has happened to her in the past couple of years, but she made it clear that this would be Lindsey's last chance. What am I going to do with her?"

Grissom cleared his throat, closing the file that had been open in front of him. "You're going to let me talk to her, that's what you're going to do," he told her. "Can you put her on the line, please?"

"No," Catherine hesitantly replied. "I mean, I can try, but I can't guarantee that she'll pick up," she added, getting to her feet, and trudging down the hallway to Lindsey's room. Softly knocking on the door, she glanced at the ceiling for a moment to collect her thoughts. "Lindsey?" she called out, cradling the phone against her chest. "Gil is on the phone for you, honey."

"I don't want to talk to him!" Lindsey shouted back, burying her head underneath her pillow.

"But he wants to talk to you, honey," Catherine tried again, almost pleading with her daughter to pick up the phone. "Just talk to him for a couple of minutes."

"No, and you can't make me!" the teenager instantly shot back.

"Did you catch all of that, Gil?" Catherine quietly asked him, trying to mask her own frustration.

"Yes, I did," Grissom replied, biting his lip in thought. "Do me a favor, though. I want you to tell her something for me, okay?"

"Sure, whatever," Catherine shrugged. But apparently, it won't matter. She's still just going to do whatever she wants to do.

"Tell her that I said 'the sun will come out.'"

"…What?" Catherine asked him in confusion, trying to figure out what those words, aside from the obvious, could possibly mean.

Grissom tried not to chuckle. "Just tell her that the 'sun will come out,' Cath, just like that."

Knocking on Lindsey's door again, Catherine cleared her throat, raising an eyebrow. "Honey, Gil told me to tell you that 'the sun will come out.' What, uh, what does that mean?"

Lindsey blinked. "What did he say?" she asked her mother, her query coming out in muffled tones.

Catherine furrowed her eyebrows in puzzlement, leaning closer to her daughter's locked door. "He said that 'the sun will come out.'"

Hell, no, Lindsey thought to herself, throwing her pillow down on the floor, and walking over to her bedroom door. Flinging it wide open, she immediately grabbed the phone from her mother, holding it against her ear.

Back in his office, Grissom listened to Catherine's side of the conversation, frowning, when he thought that he heard rustling against the phone. "Catherine? What's going on?" he asked. But he got no response. "… Lindsey?" he tried again. "Is that you? Are you there?"

"Do you honestly believe that you can get me to do whatever you want, Uncle Gil, just by reciting that one stupid line?" she muttered under her breath, refusing to make eye contact with her mother.

Catherine just stood in the middle of the hallway, watching her daughter with a dumbfounded expression on her face. Stupid line? What does that 'one stupid line' refer to? And 'Uncle Gil?' Thank God for small miracles, she thought to herself, taking a step away from her daughter, but staying in the vicinity.

The fact that Lindsey had referred to him as 'Uncle Gil' was not lost on Grissom, either, and the realization that a part of her still trusted him helped him feel a little bit more at ease with what he was trying to do. "Whoever said anything about getting you to do something against your will?" he calmly asked her.

"I'm not a little girl anymore, Uncle Gil, and that crap won't work on me like it used to!" Lindsey continued to shout at him through the phone.

"Lindsey, I know that you're not a little girl anymore, and I'm not trying to get you to do anything in particular. And for the record, Annie is one of the best musicals ever made."

"…What?" Lindsey asked, her face contorting into a look of pure confusion as she tried to figure out what Grissom was doing.

Whatever you're doing, Gil, keep it up, Catherine thought to herself, trying not to eavesdrop on her daughter's side of the conversation, but unintentionally doing so, none-the-less. Convinced that Lindsey was no longer going to throw the phone through the window, she retreated to the relative safety and comfort of her own bedroom, leaving the door open… just in case.

"Annie," Grissom repeated his statement. "Is one of the best musicals ever made."

Lindsey wrinkled an eyebrow, biting her lip. "You're still just trying to get me to talk, Uncle Gil, and I don't want to."

"… Oh?" Grissom questioned her, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "What makes you think that I'm trying to get you to talk?"

"I'm also not stupid, and you know that," she mumbled into the receiver, walking back into her bedroom, and throwing herself down on her bed. "You know damned well that you used to sing that song to me whenever you babysat for Mom."

"Is that a fact?" Grissom asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Uh-huh! Don't you remember?" Lindsey incredulously asked him. "'The sun will come out, tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow—'" she trailed off, her voice hesitating for a moment. Rapidly blinking to stop the tears from forming, she swallowed, biting her lip.

"'There'll be sun,'" Grissom finished her sentence for her. "What's wrong, Lindsey?" he prompted her, when he thought that he heard heavy breathing coming from her end of the line.

"It's just not true," she whispered, her anger suddenly gone, replaced with grief. "It's just not true. There won't be sun tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. There will never be sun again!"

"Oh, pumpkin," Grissom finally sighed, dusting the cobwebs off of the nickname that he use to use for Lindsey. "Oh, pumpkin," he repeated. "There's always the possibility of sunshine for tomorrow."

"No, there isn't," Lindsey insisted, angrily brushing away her tears. "It's going to be rainy every single day, for the rest of my life."

Grissom rubbed his chin, lost in thought for a moment. "Lindsey," he hesitated. "Sara was going to come by and pick you up a little bit later, and we were all going to take you out for dinner. What would you say if I just stopped by right now, and just the two of us went out?"

"I don't want to go out with any of you!" Lindsey sobbed, feeling embarrassed for losing her composure. "I just want you all to leave me alone!"

"We can't do that, pumpkin," Grissom softly told her, already standing up from his desk, and moving to the door of his office. "I'd like to talk with you," he continued.

"But I don't want to talk to you!" she replied, burying her head against her pillow, but not hanging up the phone just yet.

Grissom bit his lip, closing his eyes for a moment. "Well, will you at least come with me, and listen to me talk? I can't find anyone who will listen to me talk for as long as I want to anymore," he informed her.

Lindsey took a deep breath, trying to let the air out slowly. "Fine," she finally mumbled. "But I want ice cream."

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes," Grissom replied, hanging up the phone. On his way out of the lab, he dialed Sara's cell phone number. When she picked up, he cleared his throat. "Sara, I just spoke with Lindsey, and I'm going to take her out by myself. Would you please let everyone else know?" he asked her.

Sara raised an eyebrow, thinking about that for a second. "Are you sure that you'll be okay with her, Grissom?" she finally asked.

"We'll be fine," he assured her. "And I'll fill you in later."

"Later tonight?" Sara hesitantly asked him, swallowing.

"Yes, if that's okay?" he inquired. "And maybe we could… spend some time together?"

"I'll see you later on tonight, then," Sara replied with a smile, before hanging up.

"Right. Later tonight," he sighed.

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Present time, 5:00 pm

"Are you sure about this, Gil?" Catherine awkwardly asked him. "She hasn't left her room since she hung up with you. I'm not sure what's going on with her, but I'm not sure that it's good."

"I think she's feeling ready to talk," Grissom informed her. "And as much as I don't feel comfortable being the recipient of her talking, perhaps I can help steer her in the right direction."

"If you're sure?" Catherine again asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We'll be fine," Grissom assured her, hiding his surprise when Lindsey came barreling down the hallway, and immediately ran out to his car. Watching her throw open the door and climb in, he frowned. "I think we'll be just fine," he amended his statement.

"Well if you have any problems, just give me a call on my cell. And thank you, Gil," Catherine added, as he turned to go.

Grissom simply nodded as he slowly shuffled toward his car, giving himself time to think. Clearing his throat, he uneasily slid behind the steering wheel, tossing a glance in Lindsey's general location.

"Don't think that I'm going to talk to you, just because I agreed to go get ice cream with you," she informed him, definitely jutting out her chin, and staring out of her window.

"I thought that I was going to do all of the talking?" Grissom asked, raising an eyebrow, before turning on the car. "Like I said, it's not every day that someone agrees to listen to me. I was thinking that I could perhaps run one of my seminars by you? You'll be honest with me, right?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Lindsey noncommittally shrugged.

Grissom nodded, as he launched into one of his presentations on the life cycle of the Danaus plexippus, or the Monarch butterfly.

"That's stupid, Uncle Gil," she mumbled, sitting up straighter in her seat when she noticed that they were approaching the old-fashioned ice cream stand.

"Which part?" Grissom asked, frowning. "I thought that it sounded very intellectually stimulating."

"Yeah, but people always end up leaving you, and it's stupid to talk about them as if they care."

"People?" Grissom raised an eyebrow. "Or butterflies?"

"I meant butterflies," Lindsey mumbled, her face instantly blushing.

"But you said 'people,'" he pointed out.

"Well them, too. People always leave," Lindsey informed Grissom, trying her hardest not to sniffle.

Parking the car in one of the parking spots, Grissom rubbed his beard in thought, before finally replying. "All people eventually cease to be," he admitted to Lindsey, neither one of the two making a move to get out of the car. "But that doesn't mean that they ever completely leave us."

"Yes they do," Lindsey argued, silent tears sliding down her cheeks. "My father died, my best friend died last year, Detective Brass almost died; my mom might as well be dead, for all she cares about me."

"What do you mean?" Grissom quietly asked, tilting his head to the side in order to better study Lindsey's face. "Your mother loves you very much. Do you know how I know that?"

"How…?" Lindsey sniffled.

"Because she talks about you all of the time."

"But I don't want her to love me, and I don't want to love her!" Lindsey suddenly yelled. "It'll hurt all that much more, when she finally dies!"

Grissom furrowed his eyebrows, wondering if Lindsey knew something about Catherine that he didn't know. "She's not sick, is she?" he prodded her.

"No, but—"

"Then let her love you, and let yourself love her. People die, as you know, pumpkin, but that doesn't mean that we need to stop living in the here and now."

"But it's so hard," Lindsey whispered, turning to look at Grissom. "It's so much easier to make everyone hate me, and then when they die, I won't have to miss them," she continued, her voice hitching in her throat as new tears slid down her cheeks.

Grissom reached across the center consol, and very carefully brushed a few of Lindsey's tears away. "But they'll miss getting to know the real you," he pointed out. "And you'll miss out on life." Lindsey quietly stared down at her feet, taking a deep breath to control her shaking. "Lindsey," he hesitated for a moment. "I really think that you should get some professional help… someone who can help you deal with everything that has happened in your life thus far."

"But I don't want to see anyone special," Lindsey swallowed. "Can't I just keep talking to you, Uncle Gil?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not," Grissom slowly shook his head from side to side. "I'm not equipped to help you process some of your issues. If you had a question on the dung beetle, or the butterfly, or any other insect, for that matter, I could lend you a hand. In this case, though, I really think that you should talk to someone else. Your mom can help you find someone good," he added.

Lindsey sniffled, nodding her head. "I'll think about it; that's the best that I can do right now. But Uncle Gil?" she then asked.

"What?"

"I just want to go home now. Would that be okay?"

"Of course," Grissom tried to smile at her, before turning the car back on, and pulling out of the parking lot. "Can I, uh, tell your mother what happened tonight…?" he hesitantly asked her.

"I guess so," Lindsey mumbled, resting her head against the window. "And tell her that I don't hate her, either," she added. "Okay?"

"Okay," Grissom agreed, "Although I think that you should tell her that yourself."

"I'll think about it," Lindsey whispered, wiping the rest of her tears away, and glancing over at Grissom. "And thank you, Uncle Gil. Next time that we go out, I want a banana split, with a lot of sprinkles on it. Okay?" she asked him, as they pulled into her driveway.

"You got it," Grissom nodded at her, watching her as she bounded out of the car, and up to her front door. Slowly following her, he gave Catherine a slight smile, when she appeared at the door.

"Are you okay?" Catherine asked him. "You're home kind of early," she pointed out.

"We're fine. Lindsey really needs to see a counselor of some sort, though," Grissom quietly informed her. "She's still upset over Eddie's death, and she believes that if she can get people to hate her, she won't have to worry about them when they die. She loves you, Catherine."

"Yeah?" she softly asked, rubbing the back of her neck. "Well she sure has a funny way of showing it."

"She's just a scared little girl, who wants you to love her, and who is afraid that you're going to die on her."

"I'm not going to die, though!" Catherine protested. "Not anytime soon, that is!"

"That might be so, but she needs to believe that, too. She knows that you haven't given up on her, so make sure that you don't," Grissom advised her, slowly turning around so that he could leave. "Oh, and one more thing. She herself asked me to tell you that she doesn't hate you."

"Really?" Catherine asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Really," Grissom confirmed. "So just find her a therapist, and go from there."

"Thank you, Gil," Catherine sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. "I really appreciate everything."

"That's what friends are for," he chuckled, before shuffling back to his car.

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Present time, Sara's apartment

Knocking on Sara's door, Grissom waited for her to let him in. When she finally did, he raised an eyebrow at her. "You still have toothpaste, I presume?"

"The kind that will make your breath smell minty-fresh," she smiled at him, stepping aside so that he could join her inside of her apartment.

"Then I think that I might need to borrow some later tonight, if you wouldn't mind?"

"if that means that you're spending the night, then of course," Sara teased him, closing and locking the door behind him.

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TO BE CONTINUED 