CSI Fic
Title: Fireflies
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: General Cast Effort (some GSR)
Rating: PG
Word count: 1180
AN: An alternative ending to Grave Danger, and what happened thereafter, in a series of drabbles. The title, cut bar and quote at the top are all from the song Fireflies by Fleetwood Mac. Grissom's quote to Sara is, of course, Shaksepeare.
Fireflies
'To be the last to leave, the last to be gone.'
Nick
Grissom acknowledged, days later as he pieced together the case for the Under Sheriff's personal report, that they really should have expected it. Walter Gordon had obliterated himself, of course there were explosives underneath the box he had trapped Nick in. Gordon had always intended for it to be both a prison and a tomb.
The Under Sheriff had received Grissom's account with only one hand, the other had been pinching the bridge of his nose as if to relieve an acute political headache. His opinion of the matter had been sanguine,
"It's a miracle we only lost Stokes and the paramedics."
(Before anyone could place a restraining hand on her shoulder Sara had complimented him on his sentiment and asked him to speak at Nick's funeral as he would be such a comfort to the bereaved.)
Grissom couldn't imagine how anything about the situation could be termed a miracle.
He remembered standing with his remaining team on the edge of Nick's cratered grave as embers from the explosion twirled downwards in suspended freefall. In any other situation he would have derived a certain amount of aesthetic pleasure from the erratic, firefly glow, of ash on the air.
Warrick
After Nick, Warrick had been the first one to go. Grissom had granted his request for a sabbatical out of sheer surprise, it had never occured to him that Warrick could even contemplate leaving Las Vegas. Later he found out Warrick only got as far as the Strip.
The team had thrown a 'Happy (Temporary) Leaving Party,' as Greg called it at a local piano bar. A whiskey mellowed Warrick had agreed to play and sing for them, his notes hanging rich and dark in the air.
By the time he finished and dipped his head in shy acknowledgment of their applause, Catherine was practically in tears and Greg was declaring emphatically to anyone who would listen that, 'that was soul, man.'
Grissom had just tilted back in his chair, allowing the last few bars of music to taper away gracefully into his memory, and wondered how on earth Warrick had ended up as a CSI in the first place.
Catherine
When the dayshift supervisor retired and Catherine was duly promoted Grissom was genuinely happy for her. Swing shift had proven her to be an able supervisor. Her ability to navigate political landmines, and manipulate the men who created them, further secured the job. She deserved the new, shiny monogram on her door. Catherine Willows - Day Shift Supervisor.
That's not to say Grissom didn't miss her. He missed having a woman on his team. Sara remained for a while, but in his cataloguing of the species Grissom had long since acknowledged that she was a rare creature, one not easily dissected. He missed the simple female arrogance of Catherine, the way she flirted in the hallway, the way she nurtured them all.
Of course he still saw her in the lab whenever one or both of them worked overtime. She still harrassed him about paper work. She even waltzed into his townhouse house unannounced on occasion.
Her hard lines and high gloss always jarred against his books and dead butterflies.
Sara
One day Grissom had walked into the breakroom to find Sara bent over a piece of paper, her body tensed and her eyes darkly concentrated. Adjusting his glasses he had moved too close and attempted to make sense of her cramped list of numbers, fractions and ratios.
"I'm calculating probabilities," she answered before he could ask.
"Probability, a number, a ratio of chance. And yet, 'It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.'"
"I am well aware of that."
She fixed him with a sardonic stare and Grissom had been unable to decide if he deserved that look or not.
She had stopped furiously figuring out her fate at least.
***
One week later Sara handed in her notice. Unlike last time it happened there was no unspoken temper tantrum in his office. Just an assertion that she had offers from, 'here and there,' his entirely inadequete well wishes and her sad, resigned smile.
Grissom had realised at that moment that Sara had finally grown up, and that he would never be able to offer up enough of himself to ask her to stay.
Later when Catherine heard about it through the office grapevine and phoned him angrily to ask what on earth he'd done, 'to set her off this time,' Grissom could honestly reply nothing, nothing at all
Greg
In his test of endurance against the department Grissom didn't count Greg. Greg was too young and too inexperienced to be fully enveloped by the team when the explosion happened. Besides, Grissom had never taken the boy that seriously.
Not that he even seemed like the same person anymore. For a while Greggo had been engulfed in a cocoon of mourning. He had emerged stronger and more focused, but his face had hardened and lost some of it's elasticity. He wore less ridiculous streaks in his hair now.
Greg did still call Grissom, 'bugman.' Given that one of the last images they had of Nick was an abstract face covered in fire ants, Grissom found this admirable.
Brass
"So to what do I owe this pleasure?"
Grissom tilted his glass in a cheer towards Brass, the scotch licking the side of the glass in amber flames.
"I thought I'd better buy you that drink before I retired."
Grissom's eyebrow rose in the kind of unspoken acknowledgment that is only acceptable between two aging men.
"When?"
"After winter, I like to work on Christmas day. Gets rid of the good cheer, you know?"
Brass raised his glass in return. Grissom allowed himself to feel slightly bereft.
"Can I ask why you decided now was the time to take flight?"
Brass blew a long draft of air through his mouth, a myriad of answers in a gruff sigh.
"To be honest Gil, I was trying to outlast you. Then I realised you're going to be at the lab forever. You should call Al Robbins and arrange to have your funeral in the morgue. I just didn't have the stamina."
Brass smiled ironically. Grissom nodded once in defeat.
Grissom
Everyone always thought Grissom's favourite insect was the butterfly. It was undeniable that he loved them, but it was merely in the same that any man enjoys capturing something free and beautiful and opening it up before himself.
In truth, when it came to entomology, Grissom was indiscriminate, he loved all insects.
However, in his later years, he did develop a particular fondness for the firefly. He took to researching them, his eyes forever caught by their glow. Lampyridae family, of the beetle order Coleoptera, a hardy beetle that possessed the enviable ability to light up and draw attention to itself, like a spark of fire in the night.
He once considered starting a firefly collection to sit alongside his pinned butterflies. He quickly decided against the idea, it would be impossible to capture the effervescent life, the essence of the firefly behind glass.
For the same reason he never kept a picture of his team in his office.
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: General Cast Effort (some GSR)
Rating: PG
Word count: 1180
AN: An alternative ending to Grave Danger, and what happened thereafter, in a series of drabbles. The title, cut bar and quote at the top are all from the song Fireflies by Fleetwood Mac. Grissom's quote to Sara is, of course, Shaksepeare.
Fireflies
'To be the last to leave, the last to be gone.'
Nick
Grissom acknowledged, days later as he pieced together the case for the Under Sheriff's personal report, that they really should have expected it. Walter Gordon had obliterated himself, of course there were explosives underneath the box he had trapped Nick in. Gordon had always intended for it to be both a prison and a tomb.
The Under Sheriff had received Grissom's account with only one hand, the other had been pinching the bridge of his nose as if to relieve an acute political headache. His opinion of the matter had been sanguine,
"It's a miracle we only lost Stokes and the paramedics."
(Before anyone could place a restraining hand on her shoulder Sara had complimented him on his sentiment and asked him to speak at Nick's funeral as he would be such a comfort to the bereaved.)
Grissom couldn't imagine how anything about the situation could be termed a miracle.
He remembered standing with his remaining team on the edge of Nick's cratered grave as embers from the explosion twirled downwards in suspended freefall. In any other situation he would have derived a certain amount of aesthetic pleasure from the erratic, firefly glow, of ash on the air.
Warrick
After Nick, Warrick had been the first one to go. Grissom had granted his request for a sabbatical out of sheer surprise, it had never occured to him that Warrick could even contemplate leaving Las Vegas. Later he found out Warrick only got as far as the Strip.
The team had thrown a 'Happy (Temporary) Leaving Party,' as Greg called it at a local piano bar. A whiskey mellowed Warrick had agreed to play and sing for them, his notes hanging rich and dark in the air.
By the time he finished and dipped his head in shy acknowledgment of their applause, Catherine was practically in tears and Greg was declaring emphatically to anyone who would listen that, 'that was soul, man.'
Grissom had just tilted back in his chair, allowing the last few bars of music to taper away gracefully into his memory, and wondered how on earth Warrick had ended up as a CSI in the first place.
Catherine
When the dayshift supervisor retired and Catherine was duly promoted Grissom was genuinely happy for her. Swing shift had proven her to be an able supervisor. Her ability to navigate political landmines, and manipulate the men who created them, further secured the job. She deserved the new, shiny monogram on her door. Catherine Willows - Day Shift Supervisor.
That's not to say Grissom didn't miss her. He missed having a woman on his team. Sara remained for a while, but in his cataloguing of the species Grissom had long since acknowledged that she was a rare creature, one not easily dissected. He missed the simple female arrogance of Catherine, the way she flirted in the hallway, the way she nurtured them all.
Of course he still saw her in the lab whenever one or both of them worked overtime. She still harrassed him about paper work. She even waltzed into his townhouse house unannounced on occasion.
Her hard lines and high gloss always jarred against his books and dead butterflies.
Sara
One day Grissom had walked into the breakroom to find Sara bent over a piece of paper, her body tensed and her eyes darkly concentrated. Adjusting his glasses he had moved too close and attempted to make sense of her cramped list of numbers, fractions and ratios.
"I'm calculating probabilities," she answered before he could ask.
"Probability, a number, a ratio of chance. And yet, 'It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.'"
"I am well aware of that."
She fixed him with a sardonic stare and Grissom had been unable to decide if he deserved that look or not.
She had stopped furiously figuring out her fate at least.
***
One week later Sara handed in her notice. Unlike last time it happened there was no unspoken temper tantrum in his office. Just an assertion that she had offers from, 'here and there,' his entirely inadequete well wishes and her sad, resigned smile.
Grissom had realised at that moment that Sara had finally grown up, and that he would never be able to offer up enough of himself to ask her to stay.
Later when Catherine heard about it through the office grapevine and phoned him angrily to ask what on earth he'd done, 'to set her off this time,' Grissom could honestly reply nothing, nothing at all
Greg
In his test of endurance against the department Grissom didn't count Greg. Greg was too young and too inexperienced to be fully enveloped by the team when the explosion happened. Besides, Grissom had never taken the boy that seriously.
Not that he even seemed like the same person anymore. For a while Greggo had been engulfed in a cocoon of mourning. He had emerged stronger and more focused, but his face had hardened and lost some of it's elasticity. He wore less ridiculous streaks in his hair now.
Greg did still call Grissom, 'bugman.' Given that one of the last images they had of Nick was an abstract face covered in fire ants, Grissom found this admirable.
Brass
"So to what do I owe this pleasure?"
Grissom tilted his glass in a cheer towards Brass, the scotch licking the side of the glass in amber flames.
"I thought I'd better buy you that drink before I retired."
Grissom's eyebrow rose in the kind of unspoken acknowledgment that is only acceptable between two aging men.
"When?"
"After winter, I like to work on Christmas day. Gets rid of the good cheer, you know?"
Brass raised his glass in return. Grissom allowed himself to feel slightly bereft.
"Can I ask why you decided now was the time to take flight?"
Brass blew a long draft of air through his mouth, a myriad of answers in a gruff sigh.
"To be honest Gil, I was trying to outlast you. Then I realised you're going to be at the lab forever. You should call Al Robbins and arrange to have your funeral in the morgue. I just didn't have the stamina."
Brass smiled ironically. Grissom nodded once in defeat.
Grissom
Everyone always thought Grissom's favourite insect was the butterfly. It was undeniable that he loved them, but it was merely in the same that any man enjoys capturing something free and beautiful and opening it up before himself.
In truth, when it came to entomology, Grissom was indiscriminate, he loved all insects.
However, in his later years, he did develop a particular fondness for the firefly. He took to researching them, his eyes forever caught by their glow. Lampyridae family, of the beetle order Coleoptera, a hardy beetle that possessed the enviable ability to light up and draw attention to itself, like a spark of fire in the night.
He once considered starting a firefly collection to sit alongside his pinned butterflies. He quickly decided against the idea, it would be impossible to capture the effervescent life, the essence of the firefly behind glass.
For the same reason he never kept a picture of his team in his office.