DISCLAIMER: I do not own CSI, any of its plots, its characters, or anything else already copyrighted by Mr. Zuiker. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fan fiction...I'd be writing the episodes.

Warnings: none

Author's Note: Enjoy!

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Back to the flowers, back to loneliness, deeper than before. He saw his mother again, and she could hear and speak! But how? How could that happen? His scientific mind just ran in circles, trying to comprehend everything that was happening. Every once and a while, he could swear that he heard a familiar voice talking to him, softly chuckling or felt a small shock in his hands. Once he even thought he heard a baby crying. And that one sound that wouldn't go away; a soft, solid beeping noise kept in beat. Music maybe? No, even Grissom knew it was his controlled heart rate. The coma kept his heart under a soft, steady, slow beat.

One of these endless days, if they could be even called that with the absence of sleep or light and dark, something caught his eye. Walking, he bent down and picked something up. Handling it as if it were evidence in a crime, he studied the object for a moment. It was a picture. A man and a woman, noticeably younger than the man, stood side by side in front of a stone building, as if in a university or city. The scenery was instantly different around him.

The moment he looked up he was in a different place. Holding the picture carefully, he found himself on a stage, facing a crowded auditorium in what seemed to be a college. A man stood in front of him closer to the front of the stage, and even from behind he could tell it was himself. This was the lecture in San Fransisco years ago. Walking up to the front of the stage, he stood on the side, confused, as everything began to move quicker, as if somebody was pressing a fast forward button in the memory. At normal time, finally, everyone was gone, except Grissom, his younger self, and a young brunette woman. Striking him, Grissom realized it was the woman from his dazed memory, and the woman in the picture he held.

"So are we still up for our dinner plans tonight?" The woman spoke, her voice attracting him like a moth to a flame, and he couldn't help but move closer.

"Yes, I believe we are. Now, you picked and showed me around the first time, so tonight it's my turn." His voice sounded...happy. An unusual joy flooding his face as he mischieviously grinned back at the woman. "Eight o'clock?"

"Eight o'clock, Dr. Grissom." Wishing to stay longer, he lingered with his younger self, endulging in the memory. How could this woman not have stayed in his mind? She was radiant, intelligent by the topic he was teaching, she was so much like himself. The fast forward motion happened again and he found himself following him and this woman around all night. Anytime he might have mentioned her name, it was vaugue, muted. But this didn't bother him, because he was reveling in a time in his past he could not remember, but found a woman he could enjoy. As the sun rose, he watched himself pack his hotel room, and wake a slumbering brunette woman from the night before and she began to cry.

In a flash, they were in front of the lecture hall at the college again, the three of them. "Gil, don't do this to me. I've had a really great time and all and I really wish it could've lasted longer. Just don't prolong the inevitable."

"Come back to Las Vegas with me. We've got an opening, and we can still be together, and you'll have a job. Please, I can't do this."

"Gil, I can't! My family is here, my friends, my job. My life is here, Gil. And I'd have to move all that."

"I would for you." She was silent, and he was looking down, face ashen at this encounter. "Please."

"Dr. Grissom! I was told to tell you that your cab is here!" Turning, Grissom watched as another student came up to them. "I very much enjoyed your lectures this week, Dr. Grissom. It was so insightful to have an expert such as yourself giving a week of your time to help us."

"Well, you're welcome David. Thank you, I'll be to the cab in a moment."

"Oh, well, I was also told to tell you that your flight has been moved up, and you'll be late if you don't hurry. Your bags have been loaded into the cab already, too. Hey, how about a picture of you and your star pupil of the week for the school newspaper? C'mon, what would it hurt?!" Obviously faking a grin, his younger self draped an arm around the woman's shoulders in a professional manner and she smiled as well. "Thank you, sir!" As soon as the young man was out of earshot, him and the woman started again.

"I've got plenty of personal days built up. I'll miss this flight and we'll fly back together, as soon as you're ready. Please, don't do this to me. Don't do this to us, what we can have, what we can discover through us."

"Dr. Grissom, you heard David. They said you'll miss your flight if you don't hurry. This way, sir." Brushing past him, the young woman made her way over to a cab, waiting. The pain of realism washed up on his younger self's face, and his own. The woman was in no way coming back to Vegas with him, and she would not let him stay in San Fransisco. At reaching the cab, he blatantly held out a hand. "Miss Sidle, it has been an honor, a pleasure."

Taking the hand, she shook it and bid him farewell. "Likewise."

"I hope we can meet again," he whispered, eyes glistening. He quickly let go of her hand and ran it back through his hair, nodding his head respectively towards her. Stooping into the cab, his memory closed the door, and the cab lurched forward. Hurt eyes gazed back longingly, both from the back window of the cab and the lone woman standing in front of the lecture hall, eyes only pouring icy tears in the middle of summer when all had left her presence. And late into the evening, she stood staring after the cab that would never come back to her. And Grissom stayed with her, but not for long. Rewinding, he watched as all he had witnessed flash before his eyes again before a large white flash ended the rush.

Back in the field of flowers, he stood in the middle of the empty spanse of beauty and could only find beauty in the woman staring back at him in the picture he tightly gripped in his hands. Deathly soft, he ran a finger across the vision of the woman, whispering, "Miss Sidle."