| Short, depressing Grissdeath!fic |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|10:21 pm] |
A man lay, bleeding, in an alley in Las Vegas, his blood diluting and disappearing in the torrential downpour of a late winter rain. People pass, many glance down the alley, not seeing the poor man, not hearing his near-silent cries for help as he struggles to stay conscious.
“Help... please...”
It wasn't my intention to walk home that night. The weather channel had been forecasting rain that night for the entire week, and Vegas was under a flash-flood warning. I had every intention of driving.
When I'd woken up that morning, however, it was a bright, breezy, sunny day, with a high temperature of 75. My better judgment was sent packing as I put on my light winter jacket and started out on my bike. After all, it was only a few miles to the crime lab, and I was sure that my co-workers would get a kick out of me riding a bike to work.
I arrived early for my weekly day shift, when my team and the day team switched shifts so we could make better use of the resources either team had to work our cases. My team enjoyed these days, but I didn't. It meant I had to interrupt my routine. And the routine is the only thing that kept me reasonably sane.
I got off my bike at the front door and took my helmet off, rubbing a hand carelessly through the mass of gray hair that covered my scalp. As I was wheeling my bike into the building, I heard a familiar set of footsteps coming up behind me. “Hey Cath,” I said, not bothering to turn around.
“Gil, are you actually riding a bike?” I heard the shock and mild amusement in her voice. I scratched my head and shrugged. “I didn't know you knew how.”
“Of course I do, who doesn't?”
She chuckled and walked past me, calling back, “I'll be in the ballistics lab if you need me!”
“Mr. Grissom, good morning!” the receptionist called as I approached the desk, “you have a message from Sara and a message from Warrick.”
“Thanks,” I replied as she handed me the notes. I read them as I walked my bike back to my office; notes in one hand, middle of the bike's handlebars in the other. I heard a few idle conversations stop as I passed people in the hall, hushed whispers falling on deaf ears. People think I don't understand the basics of human interaction.
I do, all too well.
Griss,
I can't do this anymore. I'm so sorry.
There's just no way I can keep on keeping
this secret. I love you, I always will.
Goodbye.
-Sara
My car broke down, I won't
be in until, at earliest, four
thirty. -Warrick
I tossed the notes on my desk and let my bike fall to the floor, which it hit with a clattering bang. I heaved a sigh and looked at the note from Warrick, avoiding Sara's note. Warrick was going to be late, and I was working the case with him. Nick and Cath were working their case together, and now Greg had his own case.
“Sara...” I breathed, a sigh escaping my lips and forming her name.
“Hey, Grissom,” a voice, Greg's, called from my doorway, “everything okay? We heard a crash.”
I could feel my shoulders tense up. I couldn't let them know what was going on. “Oh, I knocked my bike over. No big deal.”
The shift went off like normal. Warrick showed up only a few hours late, and everyone avoided the subject of Sara like the plague. We pushed off an interrogation until the early half of the next week, and, although I was invited by Nick and Cath to come to dinner, I politely declined and mounted my bike.
It had just started raining as I pulled out of the Crime Lab's parking lot. I almost wished I'd stayed late to work, but that note from Sara still lay there on my desk. I couldn't bear to throw it out.
I decided to take a shortcut through the alley behind the diner that my friends were to be gathering that evening for coffee and 'the best breakfast in town!,' hoping that maybe they'd still be there (they had, after all, left the lab half an hour before I had), and that maybe they wouldn't mind me joining them after all. The rain was cold and sharp against my back.
As I readied myself to turn around the front of the building, a crack of thunder boomed through the alley and I found myself falling forward. My bike crashed to the ground, its sound muffled by the rain and my own body hitting the pavement. Dazed, I felt a sharp pain surge through my body, localizing somewhere near my stomach.
I looked up and saw a kid who couldn't be much older than fifteen, take my bike and wordlessly ride off. I choked out, “help me.”
It was hours before anyone noticed the man laying in the alley. By then, it was too late. He'd all but succumbed to the wound to his abdomen.
His friends were walking to their cars when they noticed the ambulance. Sara recognized his loafers sticking out from the bottom of the stretcher.
They'd been trying to throw him a surprise party for the promotion he didn't know he was getting. |
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