Fic: The Wall || Side One
Title:  The Wall
Author:  theohara
Rating:  NC-17
Length:  17,339 words
Spoilers:  Through Grave Danger.
Pairing:  It's all about the Grissom.  References to GSR and pre-series GCR, though.
Summary:  Grissom likes Pink Floyd.  Wonder why?  A series of Grissom-centric vignettes through time.
Warnings:  Pretty much everything I could possibly warn you about except slash and character death.
Notes:  The structure will make much more sense if you've heard Pink Floyd's album, The Wall.

Side One: (1960 - 1994)
Side Two: (1996 - 2006)

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1 // In the Flesh? // 2005

       Tell me - is something eluding you, sunshine?
       Is this not what you expected to see?
       If you wanna find out what's behind these cold eyes
       You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise...

Sara turns from the panes of the observation room, searches his face, chews her lip.

"Hey, Grissom... you, uh... you wanna talk about it?"

And Grissom startles, blinks, flashes bewilderment; she's broken into his deepest focus, and it takes him a moment to remember where he is, who she is, why she's making words at him.

When he finally turns to her, he's frowning, raising a single eyebrow.  "In case you hadn't noticed... the case is solved, Sara."

"Yeah, but..." She stops, already regretting, and tries on a smile.  "Look.  When I had my... my thing, before.  It... it helped.  Having you, uh, listen.... right?"

He doesn't move, doesn't react, and she's shrinking by the second, bravery crumpling.

Deep breath, and...

"I just... I just wanted you to know that I'd like to be there for you, too.  Y'know... if there was ever something you wanted to talk about."

Now, he tilts his head, stares at her quizzically.  "Why do you say that?"

"I dunno, I just... well, it seemed like this case was, um, bothering you.  Y'know, a little more than usual.  And now, well... now you know why certain things bother me, so I thought..."

"Sara, I'm your supervisor.  When you have an issue that interferes with your work performance, it's my job to help you handle it.  When... if... I have an issue, I'll take it up with mine."

Sara's eyes flash; she holds up her hands.  "Right.  Wow.  Okay.  Consider me put right back in my place."

Grissom's pager goes off; he glances at the screen.  "Well, right now, your 'place' is at a B&E in Henderson with Brass.  Take Greg."

She gapes at him.  "That's it?"

"Brass has the address." Grissom turns back to the interrogation room, all interest in the conversation seemingly lost.

Sara opens her mouth, shuts it... opens it again, closes it with a snap.  Huffing in disgust, she heads for the locker room.

She doesn't see Grissom turn to watch her go, doesn't notice the longing on his face, the sudden softness of his eyes.

"Dammit," Grissom whispers, turning back to the window.  "Dammit."



2 // The Thin Ice // 1960

       Momma loves her baby, and daddy loves you too.
       And the sea may look warm to you babe
       And the sky may look blue
       But ooooh babe
       Ooooh baby blue...

Gilbert is investigating the properties of tides.

It had taken Patricia Grissom a solid hour to figure out what, exactly, he was up to.  He'd draw a long line in the sand... and stare at it.  Draw another line beneath it... and stare at it.  It wasn't until she'd noticed that the lines cooresponded with the highest point of the ocean's reach that she'd figured it out.

The other children are playing in the surf, splashing each other with water, challenging each other to feats of daring, inventing games.  Gilbert's ignoring them, seemingly unaware of their presence, lost in his own little world, chubby little fingers wrapped around his digging stick, eyes on his lines.

They'd worried, for a while, that Gilbert was deaf.  Patricia's own hearing is almost gone now, like her father's before her, and that had given the worry teeth... but the doctor says his hearing, for now, is fine.

"He can hear you," the doctor had grinned.  "He's just not listening."

Her little boy is beautiful -- brown curls bleached near-blonde by the sun, big blue eyes, a mischevious smile.  He's an easy child, too, quiet and undemanding, spending hours amusing himself, reading anything she'll let him, investigating the world.

There's something ethereal, something strange, about Gilbert -- what her friend Janet calls an "old soul".  He's bright, that's indisputable -- reading before he could properly talk, quoting TV, radio, and books before he could string his own sentences together.  He sends her into fits of giggles by using long, complex words he's picked up from reading, but doesn't know how to pronounce.

She thinks that's one of the things she'll miss the most, when the sound finally goes.

But she can still hear the sound of metal crumpling beside her, and knows that Jack's finished another beer.

She turns to him, and finds him staring at Gilbert, his jaw set in the way she's come to dread.

"What in the hell is he doing?" Jack mutters.

"He's measuring the tide going down.  Like a science experiment."

She says it with pride, but she's not surprised when Jack snorts and shakes his head. 

Jack's disappointed in Gilbert, and rarely bothers to hide it.  He comes home from his business trips with gifts -- footballs, plastic soldiers, toy guns -- that Gilbert tries to play with, shooting nervous glances at his father to make sure he's doing it right.  Jack hauls Gilbert out to the front lawn to throw balls around, hailing the passing neighborhood kids in his booming voice, inviting them to join the game while Gilbert freezes up, blinking in helpless horror.

Their one commonality is baseball, and even then, Patricia suspects that Gilbert loves the statistics, the physics, more than the game itself.  He sits beside his father on the couch, yelling when Jack yells, cheering when Jack cheers.

"Goddamned stupid Cubs couldn't hit their own ass with a toilet seat," Gilbert had carefully parroted one night, the words sounding foreign and bizarre in his high, lispy toddler's voice... and Jack had roared with approving laughter, rumpling Gilbert's curls with one hand.

"Damn straight, son," he'd chuckled.

Gilbert had looked at him as if he were God, and Patricia hadn't had the heart to correct his language, not then.

But here in the present, Jack lets out a sigh, gestures out at the beach with his beer.  "Kid still walks like a friggin' fairy."

And Patricia's lips tighten, keeping harsh words back.  Jack's spent the last four visits home trying to train Gilbert to walk "right".  Round and round the living room, Jack barking instructions, Gilbert's huge, whipped-puppy eyes.

And Gilbert's been trying, really trying.  She's watching him now, coming up the beach in his signature, unconscious stance -- weight on his toes, arms unmoving at his sides, hands angled out and splayed in a graceful, fashion-model pose... and she watches him remember that his father is there, watches him frown at himself, rock back onto his heels, bring his arms up, and stride the rest of the way in his ludicrous, desperate-to-please impression of a properly manly walk.

"Chevy Mystery Show?" Gilbert asks, eyes wide and hopeful.

And Jack turns to her.  "You let him watch that shit?  You know how obsessed he gets."

"Jack..."

"Whaddya gonna do when this one goes off the air?  Kid acted like the goddamn world ended over Roy Rogers."

Even now, Gilbert's eyes light up at the mere mention of the name.  Thankfully, Jack doesn't notice.

"Don't suppose there's any point in me putting my foot down," Jack sighs.  "You're just gonna let the kid do whatever he wants soon as I leave, anyway."

And Jack turns back for the house, Gilbert trailing after... heels-first, arms pumping. 

Walking like a man.



3 // Another Brick In The Wall, Part I // 1962

       Daddy's flown across the ocean
       Leaving just a memory
       A snapshot in the family album
       Daddy, what else did you leave for me?

The last sound that Patricia Grissom ever hears is the sound of her cheekbone breaking.

Even that, she may have felt more than heard; it felt like a loud snap, like a sickening crack.

The rest of the beating is silent, and it's almost distracting; she'd never realized how powerful the sonic component of this was.

The thuds, the sound of flesh on flesh, Jack's heavy breathing, the slaps of palm, her muffled, tiny whimpers.

All gone, now.

Jack's never been one to go for the face before.  He's a man of kidney-punches, wall-slams, bruises easily hidden by everyday clothes.  He's never dared to give her a black eye before; she thinks tonight might be the first.

Jack's rage has grown exponentially over the last few months; she's suspected, and tonight confirmed, that he's started dipping into his own merchandise.

She's in no position to fight back... huge and ungainly, gladly taking the face-hits.  She's not the one she's worried about; her arms stay wrapped protectively around her swollen stomach.

She can't scream.  If she screams, Gilbert will wake up, come to investigate, try to help.

And then Jack's behind her and she's slamming into the kitchen counter, over and over, and she feels the first cramp deep within her, the warm gush of blood on her thighs.

Her world re-centers, moves within; her mind is scrambling, calculating angles and damage, measuring pain.  She barely feels the kitchen table when she hits it, doesn't notice that she's slumped to the floor.

Jack pauses, fist still raised, staring at her dress as it blooms dark crimson, hiked at an awkward angle up her splayed legs.

For a moment, he almost looks sorry.

It passes quickly -- he's in motion, hurrying to their bedroom, throwing things into his old army bag.  Another cramp hits, and she doubles over, clutching the leg of the kitchen table, white-knuckled.

"Jack," she whispers... at least, it feels like whispering, the right amount of air to push, the right feel of her muscles... "Jack, I need to go to the hospital... Jack?"

He closes the door behind him so violently she feels the floorboards shake.  There is no sound.

The pain is getting worse, more regular, and she knows this pain... but it's too soon, so many months too soon...

There is a small, sweaty palm on her face.

She looks at her six-year-old son, his eyes wide and frantic, and wonders how long he's been calling her name, how long he's been downstairs.  His lips move, and he watches her face... and then his hand, covered in her blood, clumsily makes the sign for "hurt".

"Go upstairs, Gil," she says, and from the way he blinks, she's afraid she shouted it.  "Mommy's fine."

He shakes his head emphatically.  Her Gilbert is many things -- stupid is not one of them.

"I can help," he signs, and it's her turn to shake her head.

"Upstairs," she says.  "Now."

He doesn't move, and she shoves at his shoulder; he recoils, eyes wide and stunned.  She points upstairs.  "I mean it."

She can barely get up -- and Jack's taken their car.  She thinks, longingly, of the telephone she'd almost had installed, unable to justify the expense when she'd been so close to totally deaf.  The houses around them are empty for the winter, the closest neighbor miles away.

She closes her eyes, rests her forehead on the cool metal of the table leg.

She'll get through this.

It's a little girl, impossibly tiny, impossibly perfect, still warm, and she almost laughs aloud at the horror of it when she finds herself testing the temperature of the water with her elbow, like she does for Gil.

She turns around from the sink and nearly screams to find Gil watching her.

He doesn't react -- just holds out the carved wooden box she'd bought him for his birthday, the one he's been keeping his baseball cards in.

There are no baseball cards in it now.

He's lined it, carefully, with his own security blanket.

It's too much.  It's too much.

She stands -- frozen, staring, numb.  She doesn't protest when he sits the box down on the counter, when he takes her daughter out of her arms, when he places her reverently in the box and tucks her in.

She can't be letting her six-year-old bury his little sister.  She can't be watching her son carry the box out of the house, talking to... it... her... it... in words she can't hear.

It's too much.



4 // Happiest Days of Our Lives // 1963

       When we grew up and went to school
       There were certain teachers who would
       Hurt the children in any way they could...

Gil is locked inside the show-and-tell closet, and he's not quite sure how he got there.

There'd been a worksheet.  That part is very clear.  He can remember it, the purple mimeographed math problems, the pleasant smell of the paper and ink.  He likes math.

There'd been instructions -- they were to work the left-hand column of problems, quietly, in their chairs.

Gil is very good at a lot of things.  He's a better reader than anyone in the class -- when they have to read aloud, not only does he not stammer and hesitate over the words, he actually does proper inflections.  And he knows what the word 'inflections' means.

They were supposed to memorize a poem for English class and recite it.  All the other kids had picked "Tyger, Tyger" by William Blake -- it'd been right there in their reader, and it was gratifyingly short.

He'd picked "Renascence" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. 

After the first five minutes, the teacher had made him go sit down.

She'd been annoyed, and that's when he'd realized that he'd been supposed to pick "Tyger, Tyger". 

Mrs. Parker hadn't said that, though.  She'd just said a poem.  He'd already memorized "Tyger, Tyger", the first time he'd read it -- so what was the point in that?

There are things he's not good at, too.  Tying his shoes.  Catching balls.  Understanding the games the other kids play.

And telling left from right. 

His momma says that you can tell, because the left hand makes an "L", but that doesn't really work either.  They both make an "L"... it just depends on how you point your hands.

So he'd brought his hands up to his face, palms up, and saw which one made an "L", and did that column of problems.

He'd turned in his worksheet before most of the other kids, gone up quietly and laid it on Mrs. Parker's desk. 

Sometimes, if you were the fastest at math, she'd give you a jellybean.

There were no jellybeans today; she'd looked at his paper, her nose crinkling up, her eyebrows going down.

"Gilbert Grissom," she'd snapped, and her bright-red fingernail had gone tap-tap-tap on the column of problems he didn't do.  "What is this?"

"Math?" he'd said honestly, and for some reason that had made her angrier.

"Do you want to go back to Kindergarden?" Mrs. Parker asked.

"No, ma'am," he said, then thought he'd better clarify: "I didn't like Kindergarden."

And that had gotten him snatched up by the arm and hauled down the hallway, down to Mrs. Baumgardner's room, the Kindergarden, where he really, really, really didn't want to go, because Mrs. Baumgardner said he read too fast and yelled at him because he didn't color within the lines.

He'd caught a little bit of conversation between Mrs. Parker and Mrs. Baumgardner.  Apparently, he'd guessed left wrong... but what Mrs. Parker seemed really mad about was that the right-hand column had been multiplication problems, not addition, and they weren't doing multiplication yet, and he'd gotten them all right.

But everyone knew that multiplication was harder than addition.  Multiplication was for third-graders.  So wasn't that a good thing, that he could do harder problems?

And then he'd been put in the show-and-tell room, and the door had closed, and he'd heard it lock.

Which didn't make sense either.  How was locking him in a room going to help him figure out which was left and which was right?

He wonders if maybe he should tell his Momma about this.  Locking little kids in rooms is what the bad guys do in his books.  But if he tells her, she'll want to come talk to his teacher, and the last time that happened everyone had started flapping their hands at him, pretending to do sign language and bellowing in slurry voices.

It wasn't his Momma's fault she talked so loud, or that her voice had started to sound funny.  How was she supposed to know?

Worse, after they'd stood around him in a ring doing that, he'd gotten mad and yelled for them to stop making fun of his Momma... and when they wouldn't stop, he'd shoved Eric Barnes as hard as he could.

Eric had started crying and run to the teacher and he'd been the one who got in trouble.

He'd had to stay inside at recess and watch out the window while Eric Barnes and the other boys had burned ants with a magnifying glass.

It's boring in the show-and-tell closet, and eventually, he starts to read the dictionary.

He learns that "left" can also mean "sinister".  He already knows what "sinister" means.

Gil knows his left from right after that -- he just thinks sinister, and he sees that worksheet.



5 //  Another Brick In The Wall, Part II // 1969

       We don't need no education
       We don't need no thought control
       No dark sarcasm in the classroom
       Teachers leave them kids alone...

He gets to every class about five minutes early. 

The coveted back-row seats always fill up first, but he has a system now.  He moves efficiently from class to class, blowing past the clumps of chatting students in the hallways.

He never raises his hand; the teachers never call on him.  Every new year, for the first few weeks, the new crop of teachers will notice his unwavering hundreds on tests and try to draw him out, use him as an example.

They all give up eventually, though.

He reads in class -- openly or furtively, depending on the teacher. 

This class, it's furtively.  Miss Townsend is new and enthusiastic, big on cooperation and teamwork.  They've had endless group assignments... and for a few minutes every week, he gets a taste of what it must be like to be popular.  All the other students want in Gil's group -- it's well-known that he'll willingly do all the work on the project for the privelege of not having to talk to the other group members.

He takes his back-row seat, begins the arrangement of book-inside-textbook.  He's been trying to read the classics, lately; he'd finished The Scarlet Letter on Tuesday, The Metamorphosis the Sunday before.

Today, he's snagged a D.H. Lawrence off his mother's bookshelf, and he's already regretting it.  Apparently, no one ever told D.H. to show, not tell... the book's boring, and preachy, and although he usually makes himself finish books like this just to make sure he understood what the big deal was, he's pretty sure this one's going back on the bookshelf tonight.

Still, any book is better than watching Miss Townsend diagram sentences, and he's just flipped a page when George Fuller, apparently as bored as he is, randomly decides to shove him in the shoulder.

His books -- both of them -- go flying, and Gil slides out of the wooden seat, landing on his ass against the pea-green linoleum.

He just sighs, and stands back up.  The entire class is howling with laughter, and George is making that smug little hee-hee-hee snorting hyena noise.  Gil takes a step, reaches for his English book...

And then sees Miss Townsend, holding the D.H. Lawrence, her eyes huge and shocked.

"Filth," she whispers, staring at the book like it's crawling with germs.  "Gilbert Grissom -- where did you get this... this thing?"

Now the class is hushed, riveted, their eyes flicking between the book in Miss Townsend's hands and Gil.

"At home," he says, confused.  Does she think he stole it or something?

"Your mother," Miss Townsend shrieks, "Lets you read dirty sex books?"

The class gasps.  Miss Townsend puffs up, slightly; she seems to be enjoying her audience.

Gil just blinks.  "It's a dirty sex book?"

"Oh, don't you take that tone with me, mister," she crows.  "Principal's office.  Now."

In the end, he is suspended, and the Principal confiscates his copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover, shaking with righteous wrath.

It's interesting, how Miss Townsend and the Principal are acting.  It's almost like they're in a play, or maybe having a contest to see who can look more scandalized and affronted.  They both keep shooting looks at the book, weird little gleams in their eyes.

It's not until he's walking home, kicking pebbles on the side of the road with his Keds, that he gets it.

They were both trying to prove to everyone that they weren't the kind of people who read dirty sex books. 

And since they'd felt the need to work so hard to prove that they weren't... they probably were the kind of people who read dirty sex books. 

Or really, really wanted to.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" -- Hamlet -- and now he gets it.

Back at home, he heads for his thick book of Freud, and finds "projection". 

He smirks.  He was right.

He forgives preachy old D.H. on the spot.  He reads Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Kate Chopin... he burns through the banned book list.  It's the principle of the thing.

Normal, he decides, is overrated and probably non-existent, an artificial social club which he has no desire to join. 

Normal is, by definition, not genius.

George Fuller corners him by the water fountain, asks him if he has any more dirty sex books.

And Gil smiles, and raises an eyebrow, and doesn't say anything at all.



6 // Mother // 1972

       Mother's gonna keep you right here under her wing.
       She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
       Mama's gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
       Ooooh babe ooooh babe oooooh babe,
       Of course mama's gonna help build the wall. 

His mother still loves to dance.

He doesn't quite understand the way it works, despite looking it up; she swears she can feel the vibrations.  He'd moved the rug, set their stereo on the floor, fiddled with the knobs until she nodded.

And he can't deny the evidence; she'd been deaf for years when this album was released, but she's moving in perfect rhythm, swirling around the living room.

He's been a little worried about her, lately.  The artists that come to the house are getting younger and younger, her nightly drink turning into her nightly drunk.  She's dyed her hair, started wearing it down, long curls falling to her waist; she doesn't look very much like a mother, anymore, or at least not the way he's always thought of her, with her hair in a chignon and her sensible dresses.

He's wondered if, possibly, his mother is in love.  He's seen her looking at the artists, wistfully; she's started dressing like one of them, long skirts and dripping bracelets, started using their words.

And he's watching her now, bare feet moving in time, skirt sweeping the floorboards.  Her fingers curl elegantly, her liquor glass dangling; from the smell and the glassy look in her eyes, he'd say she's stoned.

"Come dance with me," she says.  The strangely-accented tone he thinks of as home is more slurred than usual, and she's holding out her empty hand.

"Mom," he protests.

"Don't you 'Mom' me.  Come here."

And he does, letting her fold himself into his arms, resting his hands awkwardly on her shoulders.  He's taller than her, now, and he still can't get used to it; she smells like one of the girls at school, a sharp, powdery perfume and lipstick and pot.

It makes him uneasy.  She used to smell like clean sheets and cinnamon and Pond's cold cream.  He misses that smell.

He guesses this is a midlife crisis, or menopause, or something.  He just wants it to be over.

"Do you have a girlfriend, Gil?" she asks, looking up at him. 

"I don't have time for a girlfriend," he replies, enunciating carefully.  He can't sign and do this at the same time.

"A boy your age should have a girlfriend.  I know about boys."

He has no idea what that means; the song ends, and he pulls away, but she tightens her arms around him.

He sighs.  Maybe she doesn't know the song ended.  Maybe she doesn't care.

"You're so old," she whispers.  "You've always been so old.  You've never really needed a mother."

And he wants to tell her that she's wrong, that he does, that he needs her, needs her and her cold-cream smell and the days back when her moods made sense to him... but she's not looking at him anyway.

Maybe she doesn't want to know his answer.

"You've never been afraid to be alone," she says.  "Not like me.  You've always been stronger than me, always."

And that's wrong too.  He tries to lift her chin, make her read his lips; her head stays stubbornly downward.

He wants out of this one-way conversation, out of this room, out of this dance; there's a sudden but undeniable prickle of wrong that's seized him, something electric and uneasy.  He has chores he needs to be doing; there's wood to split and their lunches to pack and the laundry to finish, and Mr. Gerard says he'll let him assist tomorrow if he shows up on time, and...

His mother is kissing his chin.

It should be okay, but it isn't, it really isn't, and he doesn't know why, the sense of wrong building up within him, and... he's being insane, isn't he?  This is his mother.  She's drunk, yes, but mothers kiss sons, she's always kissed him, he's overreacting, and you know what, this is what happens to you when you work at the job he's working, you start to look at everything weirdly, that's all this is, he has to calm down and be rational.

She kisses him on the lips, and her mouth is a little bit open, which isn't how she normally kisses him at all, but it's okay, it's okay, she's drunk and her motor skills are a little off, she probably doesn't realize that she's done it and this is lasting way too long, this is lasting way too long...

He pulls back awkwardly, and she smiles.  "You've grown up so much."

Which is a normal mother thing to say, and he just needs to get through this, this one night of stoned and drunk and weird and then this will all be a bizarre memory he'll squash down.  He's just overreacting, being melodramatic, and the panic that seems to be taking him over is just... well, it's him being weird, that's all.  Weird and kind of sick.

He takes a step back, looks her in the eye, signs that he's going to go finish chopping the wood.

"Don't go," she pouts, catching at his wrist.  "Gil, don't go."

He shoots her a weak smile and walks to the shed out back, leaning against the wall, taking deep breaths of cool night air.

That was weird.  But it's over.  It's over.

He grabs his axe, heads out for the woodpile.  He has stuff to do, anyway.



7 // Goodbye, Blue Sky // 1974

       Did you ever wonder why we
       Had to run for shelter when the
       Promise of a brave, new world
       Unfurled beneath the clear blue sky?

"Dr. Gerard says you never go home," Marie says, tapping ashes in the grass outside the lab.  "How come?"

"I like work," he replies evenly.  "Can I have one of those?"

She extends the pack, then retracts it, eyes narrowing.  "Waiddaminute.  How old are you, anyway?"

"Seventeen."

"You don't go to school."

He shrugs.  "I got my G.E.D."

"Well then," she teases... but she hands him the pack.

He lights one, passes it back.  "So... how old are you?"

"Twenty-two.  Whole cop family, but my dad pisses himself when he thinks about me out there with a gun," she laughs.  "So -- I'm stuck here, bein' a lab rat.  Whaddya do for fun?"

"I dissect things."

"One track guy, huh?  You should come down to the Brew & Cue tonight.  My boyfriend's in the band."  She pauses, giving proper weight:  "He's the lead singer."

"That must be interesting," he says politely.

"You got a girlfriend, Gil?"

He flinches, but she doesn't notice.  "I don't have time for a girlfriend."

"Oh, man.  You sound so old when you say that!"

"I'm not... old," he whispers, suddenly unsteady.  "I'm just a kid."

"Yeah, well, you don't act like one.  Working all the time, dissecting stuff for fun -- that's old-guy stuff.  Trust me, kid -- it'll make you weird.  Come to the bar with me, live a little, act your age."

He blinks.  "My age is too young to drink."

"Which is exactly why everyone your age spends all their time trying to get people my age to get them into bars.  Come on, Gil."

"Okay," he whispers.  Then, louder:  "Okay."

Marie gets him in and gets him a beer, which tastes sort of like the worst thing that could ever happen to bread, but it makes his head feel far-away and pleasant.  He beats her at pool and loses horribly at darts, and it's sort of fun to watch the people and make up stories for them.

It's all okay until Marie comes back to their table and grabs his hand, yanking him from his seat, spilling beer down his shirt.

"C'mon, Gil," she spits.  "Let's get out of this hellhole."

He stops in confusion.  "I thought your boyfriend's band was coming back on?"

"That asshole is not my boyfriend."

And suddenly she's backed him up against the bar, and she's kissing him like crazy, mouth wide open and moving her head all over the place, her hands all over him.

"What... what do you..." he sputters.

"Oh, for Christ's sake," she groans, grabbing his hand and putting it on her ass.

He wrenches his mouth away.  "Are you trying to make your boyfriend jealous?"

"Sssh!" she screeches, yanking at his hand again, hauling him outside the club.  "Look, do you want this or not?"

"Want... what?"

She rolls her eyes.  "I thought you were supposed to be smart.  Wait a minute -- are you gay?"

His jaw drops.  "You, uh... you're saying you want to...?"

"Look, if you don't, I mean..."

He swallows hard.  "No, I... I've been curious..."

That makes her snort laughter.  "Jesus Christ, you are such a nerd.  C'mon."

She tastes like stale beer and onion rings and cigarettes, and all the beautiful books he's read fall crashing away at the reality of it -- the awkwardness, the fumbling, their harsh breath in the cramped backseat, the way her tongue invades his mouth, the way their noses keep colliding and he has to swallow back the spit.  He wants to be gentle, to learn, to investigate... but her hand's fumbling down the front of his pants, making rough, short little jerks in the available space, and her ring is scratching his stomach and pressing painfully against him.

And then she's wriggling out of her underwear, twisting awkwardly on the seat, batting her eyelashes at him in what he thinks is supposed to be seductive... and there's this... smell in her car, something that tickles something lost and buried in the back of his mind.

"Is this your car?" he asks suddenly.

"Isn't that the girl's line?" she laughs, still trying to unhook her panties from around her ankle.  "But, nah.  It's my mom's."

And then it hits him, what the smell is.

It's Pond's cold cream.

Gil lurches forward, pulling the door handle, falling into the parking lot, vomiting.



8 // Empty Spaces // 1980

       What shall we use to fill the empty spaces
       Where we used to talk?
       How should I fill the final places?
       How should I complete the wall?

"High of negative fif-teen!" Krieger crows, slapping the dashboard.  "How you like them apples, California Boy?"

Krieger has more civic pride than anyone Gil's ever met.  He speaks of Minneapolis the way other men talk about their gorgeous, bitchy wives... a sort of fierce, survivor's awe.

Gil's been here four months, and he's still stunned by it.  The snow, the bitter cold, the darkness.  He'd wanted to be far away, wanted something completely different... and he's gotten it.

Krieger lets him out in front of his apartment; Gil stamps snow from his shoes, sighs as it spreads over the foyer anyway.

His apartment is cramped and underfurnished and a little gloomy, but it's his, and he drops into his secondhand armchair, opening a beer, letting the night dissolve.  He didn't know what was worse -- defrosting the corpses, or having to listen to Krieger call them "bumsicles".

The letter is sitting on the coffee table, right where he left it.

He sighs, shaking his head, reaching for the envelope, ripping it open.

He can always tell which version of his mother has written him by the handwriting.  This letter, on gallery stationery and written in fluid, sure strokes, is warm and maternal, concerned with the cold and the state of his coat, full of anecdotes about artists and patrons and neighbors, wondering if he's coming home for Christmas.

He puts this letter in a drawer with the other ones like it, makes a mental note to write her back.

The other letters -- the ones that are barely legible, the ones that accuse and taunt and insinuate, the ones that threaten and plead...

Those, he burns.

It's a ritual, almost; the careful setting of his ashtray beneath the range hood, the scrape of his lighter, the way the paper curls and blackens, thin lines of orange chasing around the edges, shrinking, vanishing.

Begone.  You're not here.  You don't get to be here.

He loves his mother, helplessly... doesn't blame her.  He's separated her, divided the memories up, sorted them.  There is his mother, warm and good and safe, and the Other.

The Other, he can hate, can fear.  The Other, he can lock his door against, lying in bed staring at the ceiling as the doorknob rattles, trying to ignore the whispers.  He can hate the way the Other smells, liquor-breath and sweat; he can hate the way the Other talks, slurred and hissing and vindictive.

It makes it easier.  It makes everything easier.



9 // Young Lust // 1986

       Ooooh, I need a dirty woman.
       Ooooh, I need a dirty girl.
       Will some woman in this desert land
       Make me feel like a real man?

His head is pounding, he can't find his pants, and there's a naked stripper cutting up cocaine on his coffee table.

Oh, Gilbert.  Welcome to Vegas.

He licks his dry lips and surveys the room, which remembers far more about last night than he does.  He finds his pants at the end of a long clothing trail that begins at the door, with his keys and her scarf.

He feels a perverse need to set a yellow plastic "1" on them.

He puts on his pants, instead.  First problem solved.

Now he just has to deal with the gorgeous, naked one.

"So," she says casually, razor blade moving in precise motions, "What do you do?"

He's a little mesmerized by it, the way she turns the lump of powder into tidy lines.  "Look, uh..."

"Catherine," she says helpfully.  "Or Cath, or Cat.  Most people call me Cat." 

She doesn't seem hurt that he forgot.

"Catherine," he smiles awkwardly.  "I, uh, this isn't anything that I normally do..."

"Sure, sure."  She waves the hand without the razor blade dismissively.  "You want in?"

In?  He's already been in.  Then he realizes she's referring to what's on his coffee table.

"Oh, ah... no.  No, no thank you, uh, Catherine."

She tilts her head up at him, grins.  "Trying to stop, or trying not to start?"

He thinks of a wooden box that had once contained baseball cards, and has no idea how to answer that question.

She shrugs off his silence.  "You married?"

And he blinks, horrified.  "No!"

That makes her laugh.  "Didn't think you were.  So... what do you do?"

"I'm a criminalist for the LVPD.  Just transferred from L.A.."

And now, she freezes.  "You're a cop?"

"No, no, not a cop.  A criminalist.  You can, uh... keep doing your... thing.  I'm not going to call Vice."

"How is a criminalist different from a cop?"

"I process evidence.  Fingerprints, traces left behind at the scene."  He smiles.  "I solve puzzles."

He's caught her interest.  "Like how?"

"Well... why did you think I wasn't married?"

She tosses her hair over her shoulder.  "No tan line from a ring.  And no offense, but your apartment screams bachelor."

"Screams bachelor... how?"

"Your furniture doesn't match, nothing goes together.  Nothing that doesn't serve an immediate purpose... well, except for those dead bugs framed on the wall."  She grins.  "Which no woman in her right mind would let you decorate with."

He raises an eyebrow.  "Go on."

"Your fridge is full of petri dishes and beer.  Again, no woman would let you get away with that.  And you don't have women over, normally."

"What makes you say that?"

"The condom hunt," she replies without a trace of embarassment.  "Guys who get laid regularly, or hope to, keep them by the bed, maybe in their wallet.  You had to go find yours."

He takes a seat in the chair across from her.  "Anything else?"

"Well... sure, yeah.  Figure you like bugs, duh.  Bugs on the wall, books about bugs.  Petri dishes, probably some kind of scientist.  Your furniture's cheap, your books are expensive... figure you're the kind of guy who cares about what he cares about, and the rest of the world can go to hell."

At his encouraging nod, she continues.  "You don't drink that much, 'cause the six-pack's stuck to the fridge shelf.  You can cook -- I've never seen a guy with so many cookbooks -- but you don't, 'cause your trash can's full of takeout boxes.  Table next to the most worn-out chair's got your reading glasses, bunch of different books you're in the middle of, no remote control -- you barely ever watch TV, you read all the time, and you're trying to quit smoking."

Grissom startles.  "How'd you know that?"

"Out of sight, out of mind, right?  You've got your cigarettes, lighter, and ashtray on the top shelf of that bookcase.  They'd be in your pocket, or right by where you sit, otherwise."

Catherine leans forward, grins at him.  "You want me to keep going?"

He laughs.  "You want a job?"

She snorts, and goes back to making lines.  "So that's what you do?  Look at rooms, figure out what happened?"

"Sort of.  I don't think I'm quite as good at it as you are, though."

She shrugs.  "Reading a room's part of my job, too.  How do you do fingerprints, anyway?"

He reaches out, takes her hand by the wrist, presses it into the glass of his coffee table.  "I'll be right back."

She watches with interest as he twirls the brush across the table, smiles with delight as her own palm appears, glowing with Red Creeper against the darkness of the glass.

"That's wicked," she says, and flashes him a smile.  "You have a pretty awesome job."

He raises an eyebrow.  "Uniforms are nicer-looking at yours, though."

She snorts.  "I'm betting you get groped less."

"You'd think," he drawls, "But you haven't met our print tech."

"Hey," Catherine laughs.  "You're gropeable.  I'd know."

"You know... if you're interested in this stuff... you might enjoy this."  He crosses to a bookshelf, pulls down a copy of Fundamentals of Forensic Science, holds it out to her.

She squirms uncomfortably.  "Over my head."

And he smirks.  "Catherine?  I doubt anything is over your head."

She's on his doorstep a week later, book clutched to her bosom like a prize.  "You got any more of these?"

He invites her in for coffee, lets her roam his bookshelves.  He stands back, watching her; she's so bright against his drab belongings, sparkle and clatter, the only life in his apartment.

"I bet you've got some kick-ass stories," she chuckles, fingernail caressing the spine of Forensic Anthropology.

She listens like a little kid, leaning forward in her chair, eyes wide.  She asks intelligent, probing questions.  He's just gotten done with a story about his new boss, Jim Brass, when he feels her toes slide beneath the cuff of his pants.

He raises an eyebrow.  "Is storytime over?"

And she grins.  "For today, maybe."

He takes the petri dishes out of his refrigerator, stashes his bug collections in the closet, buys the things she likes to eat when she wakes up in the morning.  He wants her to like his apartment, like being there, like him.

It's a little bizarre, trying to court a woman you slept with before you knew her name.

Catherine's outgoing, ferociously so... intelligent, ferociously so... hell, Catherine's just ferocious, period. 

Cat.  Everyone calls her Cat.  Bright gold hair and red, red fingernails and dazzling white teeth, ripping and clawing through life, dragging him with her.

Frankly, she terrifies him.  But... he likes it.

She makes him laugh and loosen up, drags him to clubs and pours alcohol down him until he feels fuzzy and free and friendly.  Suddenly, he can talk to people, look them in the eye, keep up with the conversation.  The music isn't too loud and the strobe lights aren't too distracting and the people aren't so stupid.

He feels like maybe he can become someone else, someone who actually belongs in the world... that maybe Catherine's the key.

And even if he can't... for her, it's worth pretending.



10 // One of My Turns // 1988

       Day after day, love turns gray
       Like the skin on a dying man.
       Night after night, we pretend it's all right
       But I have grown older and
       You have grown colder and
       Nothing is very much fun any more.

He comes back from the bar with his Scotch and her screwdriver, and there's a man sitting in their booth.

This isn't unusual -- Catherine seems to know everyone.  But there's something about the way this guy is sitting, something about the way he looks at Catherine, the way Catherine looks at him, that gives him a funny stomach-twinge.

"Gil!" Catherine calls, motioning him over.  "Gil, I want you to meet Eddie.  Eddie Willows -- Gil Grissom."

"Hey, man!" Eddie says, slapping his hand into Grissom's.  "Cat's told me a ton about you.  You're the guy who's making her into a nerd, huh?  Never see her out anymore, now she's gone all night school on us."

"Shut up, Eddie," Catherine laughs, but there's not nearly enough malice in it for Grissom's taste.

"And what do you do, Mr. Willows?"  Grissom asks... and there's the malice. 

Catherine shoots him a sharp, disapproving look, but Eddie just laughs.

"Music producer, my man.  Making my way up in the world -- you heard of Vicky Marsters?"

Grissom sips his drink.  "I haven't."

This actually seems to be the answer Eddie was hoping for.  "Well, that's all about to change!  She's gonna be huge.  Introduce you to her sometime, Glen, you can say you knew her when."

"It's Gil, Eddie," Catherine tugs on his sleeve.  "Gil, not Glen."

"Oh," Eddie shrugs.  "Yeah, you look like a Glen, man.  Hey -- I'll be right back."

"I look like a 'Glen'?" Grissom smirks when the man has left... waiting for Catherine to grin at him, waiting for them to laugh, together, at the coked-out, ridiculous, pretentious little "music producer".

But Catherine doesn't even turn around.  She's watching Eddie walk across the bar.

When he's out of sight, she turns back to Grissom like she hadn't even heard him.  "Hey, Gil -- can I borrow some books this semester?"

"Sure... which ones?"

"Uh... Chemistry and Crime, Introductory Ballistics..."

She's still rattling, but he's quit listening, his brow furrowed.  "Catherine... those are textbooks."

"Well... yeah.  That's why I need 'em."

"I thought your scholarship came through?"

"It did, but, uh..." Catherine smiles, embarrassed.  "The thing is, Eddie's cutting this demo, and it's just one of those industries, y'know, you've got to put money in to get money out..."

"You loaned that guy your textbook money?"

"It's not so much a loan... it's a business opportunity."

He recognizes a direct quote when he hears it, and his eyes narrow.  "You, uh, you and this guy... I guess you're pretty good friends, then."

But Catherine's stopped listening to him, staring across the bar at Eddie with enchanted eyes.



11 // Don't Leave Me Now // 1989

       Ooooh babe, don't leave me now.
       Don't say it's the end of the road.

Catherine's practically vibrating, her pencil hitting her textbook like machine-gun fire.

He looks at her over the tops of his glasses, and she smiles apologetically.

"Nervous?" he says gently. 

"About the test?  Um, I guess.  Well, not really.  I just... words, y'know?  Hard to read."

She's been like this more and more lately.  Coking up to party, coking up to work, coking up to study.

He can understand it, sort of.  She says it makes her feel alive, makes her world brighter, more exciting.

And he can't really judge, when that's why he's addicted to her.

He tries another tactic, runs his fingertips down her arm.  "If you wanted to take a break..."

"Yeah, um, Gil, about that..." Catherine pulls his hand from her, pats it.  "Look, uh... Eddie doesn't know about our, um, benefits.  And things are getting kind of serious, so..."

He blinks.  "Benefits?"

"Yeah, y'know.  Friends with benefits."  She grins.  "I need to cut back on your benefit plan.  You're not upset, are you?"

She's talking, he's fairly sure it's in English, but the words aren't making sense.  He's reminded of the grown-ups in the Charlie Brown cartoons... wah-wah, wah-wah-wah-wah.

She's staring at him.  She looks concerned.  He has to make words.

"Are you, ah.  Are you... breaking up with me?"

"Breaking...?" Catherine starts to laugh, and then her eyes fill with horror.  "Oh my God, Gil, you didn't... you thought... oh my God, Gil, I'm so sorry..."

Pity.  That's what he's seeing.  Pity.

She feels sorry for him.

Laugh, Gil.  Dammit, laugh.  You can get out of this with whatever's left of your pride intact, but you have to start laughing, right now.

He does, and Catherine startles... startles and then relaxes with a great breath, slapping his arm.

"Dammit, Gil, you really had me going there for a minute!" She throws a hand to her chest, fingertips like blood drops against the white of her skin.  "You are so bad!"

"There's a sucker born every minute," he intones solemnly.  He forces his muscles to obey, raises his eyebrow the proper fraction, curls his lips in the proper smirk.  

Barnum -- not the perfect quote, but his brain isn't exactly firing on all cylinders.

He pauses, reconsiders darkly.  No -- it is the perfect quote.

"You scared the shit out of me," Catherine laughs, then looks at him soberly.  "You know that would have just killed me, right?  I'd never want to hurt you, Gil, you've been an amazing friend, an amazing mentor..."

And that word -- mentor -- hits him straight in the solar plexus.

Mentors wear pilled, faded cardigans and pull their pants up too high and wear their glasses on a chain around their neck.  Mentors smell of library and aspercreme and have skin like old tissue paper.

He's thirty-two and she's twenty-five, and it's never bothered him before. 

But that word... that word makes him feel ancient.

He'd been right there with her, in her world.  Okay, maybe he'd been lagging a few steps afterward, but he'd tried, dammit.  He'd made the right jokes and drank the right cocktails and held his own in conversations he would have sneered at before.  He'd learned the name of everyone on Cheers and who plays for which football teams and why the skinny ties are going out.

Mentor?  He'd made her scream his name, her fingernails digging into his scalp as his tongue worked on her.  He'd learned every inch of her skin, caught her ladybugs in gently cupped palms to share, brought her coffee in bed, held her when she cried over her murdered friend. 

All that was -- benefits?

He'd loved her, shown her in every way he knew how, and she'd had no idea.  He'd paused in front of jewelry stores, smiling wistfully, thinking maybe on her graduation, that would be a good day.

He'd loved her more than he'd ever loved anyone, and she hadn't even noticed.



12 // Another Brick In The Wall, Part III // 1990

       I don't need no arms around me
       And I don't need no drugs to calm me.
       I have seen the writing on the wall.
       Don't think I need anything at all.

"Let me get this straight," Jim Brass says.  "You want me to hire the stripper who broke your heart."

"She has the makings of an excellent criminalist," Grissom replies.

"Yeah, yeah.  Gil, you've been moping around here like a lovesick teenager.  And that's when you didn't have to see her every day.  And now you wanna work with her?"

Grissom sits, silent as a stone.

"Or... wait, is that what this is?" Brass presses.  "You think you're gonna get her back this way?  Blind her with science?  News flash -- they don't take you back once they've failed you in Biology."

"Very amusing, Jim.  Didn't figure you for a Thomas Dolby fan."

"I'm a man of hidden depths, Gil, a man of hidden depths.  And speaking of, let's talk about some poetry in motion... say, around a nice, shiny pole?  We gotta deal with the scum of this city every day.  Now, how's she gonna do that, when most of the scum of this city's seen her in pasties and a thong?"

"That's discrimination."

"That's fact."

"She graduated with honors."

"From UNLV.  We're the number five lab in the country.  We can have our pick of CSI's.  Experience, Ivy League degrees."

"She's good, Jim.  She's a natural.  She has... instinct."

Brass lets out a smutty chuckle.  "Oh, I'm sure she does."

Grissom sighs.  "Jim..."

"Alright, Gil, let me break it down for you.  You know why we're the number five lab in the country?  You.  You, and your weird little brain, and your weird little bugs.  I like being the number five lab.  I'd like to be even higher.  And I'm smart enough to know that the way I do that is to keep you happy, and your eyes on your work.  So explain to me why in the hell I'd want to put a woman on your team that makes you miserable."

"We're still friends.  It isn't like that."

"Your solve rate's gone to shit.  You wear any more black, they're gonna make you an honorary member of The Cure.  You scare the lab techs."

"I always scare the lab techs."

"Yeah, well, now they're scared you're gonna jump off a bridge."

"I can be professional."

"That's not what I'm worried about.  I'm worried about you."

"I want her on the team, Jim.  She'd be good for the lab.  I'm prepared to do whatever I need to do in order to make that happen."

Brass searches his face, sighs.  "I'm not starting her as a CSI.  There's another opening.  Assistant lab tech."

Grissom shakes his head.  "That's not the best use of her talents."

"I've taken your recommendation into account.  Assistant lab tech's what I'm offering.  And if I come in and find you screwin' her on the print table, I'm gonna have to slap your wrist.  Show me you can separate personal stuff from work, we'll see."

Grissom's jaw clenches.  "I can separate personal stuff from work.  I'm good at... separating."

"Good.  Good.  Show me."



13 // Goodbye, Cruel World // 1994

       Goodbye cruel world,
       I'm leaving you today.
       Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
       Goodbye, all you people, 
       There's nothing you can say
       To make me change my mind.
       Goodbye.

"You wanna talk about it?" Robbins says quietly.

Grissom shakes his head, raises his glass.

Doc Robbins' beard is getting greyer by the day; he strokes it now, tipping his head.  "Wager a guess.  You mad at her, or worried about her?"

"Neither," Grissom huffs.  Then, reluctantly:  "Both."

"Well, your anger's your business," Robbins shrugs.  "The worry, maybe I can help with.  If she gets off the stuff now, the baby should be fine.  I saw this all the time at the clinic, believe me."

Grissom snaps a paper coaster in half.  "Her husband's a scumbag."

"Well, he did get her into detox.  That speaks well for him."

Grissom's eyes snap up.  "You think I didn't try that?  I offered a million times, Al.  Hell, she was barely doing it until he came along, anyway."

"No one's judging you, Gil.  You're her friend, he's her husband.  It's just different."

Robbins watches as pain flashes over Grissom's face, and his own face falls. 

"Ohhhh.  Oh, I didn't know.  Well -- you're certainly a master at hiding your feelings."  Robbins smirks a little.  "When you're not drinking, anyway."

"I can separate personal stuff from work," Grissom growls.

"Obviously.  Er, Gil... it's not... there's not a chance it's yours, is there?"

And Grissom laughs, short and bitter.  "Not a chance in hell."

Robbins nods slowly.  "So it's been over for a while."

"Not like this," Grissom sighs.  "She wasn't pregnant, she wasn't married.  I thought... have you met the guy?  You should see the way he talks down to her, Al.  It's like he can look right through all that intelligence and just see her tits."

"Actually, Gil, the tits are on the outside... technically speaking..."

"You know what I mean."

"Nice guys finish last, huh?"

"I took her to her first ultrasound," Grissom says suddenly.

"Well... that was nice of you."

"Nice," Grissom scoffs.  "Eddie forgot to pick her up.  I'm her Lamaze partner, because her winner of a husband can't be bothered.  I took her crib shopping."

"Wow," Robbins marvels, "You're the best girlfriend ever."

Grissom frowns.  "She said as much."

"Gil... if this is bothering you... why are you doing it?  I'm sure Charlotte or Jacqui or Jenna would take her crib-shopping.  Can't you just tell her?"

Grissom shakes his head, stares into his drink.

"I'm actually... I've been... well, I've been a little worried about you, Gil.  You've been cutting yourself off, and I guess now I know why, but... I don't know if this is good for you.  You numb yourself enough to work with her, I can understand the need for that.  But you do this... you numb yourself enough to get through this..."

Robbins sighs.  "Sometimes you can't come back from numb."

Grissom raises his head, looks up at Robbins with cold, flat eyes.

"Who says I want to come back?"

-----------------------------------------------------------

Flip to:  Side Two: (1996 - 2006)