She never thought she'd find herself in that position again. Yet, before her eyes, the same scene was being re-played. Gil was lying on the floor, and a beast armed with a baseball bat aiming for his head.

This time, she didn't even stop to think.

In less than two seconds, the bat was on the floor, looking as innocent as the one Lindsay kept forgotten in her closet, hidden from view along with her now embarrasing dolls, make-up and clothes becoming her new and most desirable hobbie. It was the blood stains that will soon mark it as 'evidence of a crime' the only detail that made this bat stand out from any other children's toy.

In less than two seconds, she had done it again. She had seen life through the eyes of a killer*.

She helped him stand up, and took a closer look to his wounds. He had probably a fractured arm from his attempt to shield more delicate organs from harm but no other worrying wounds were visible. He looked shocked and disoriented. Adrenaline was still racing freely in his body giving him the weird sensation that this was surreal and blocking all pain from manifesting, she could tell for his uncaring rubbing his now purple forearm, and his eyes still fixed on the man lying at their feet.

She couldn't believe she had done it again. She couldn't believe he had made her do it again. As she helped him out of the room, up into the ever glowing streets of Vegas where the medics and half of the city cops were waiting, she couldn't help but feel cheated.

He had once promised her he would never cause that much pain to her again. He would never put her through the nightmares, the death dreams*, the anxiety and guilt she had been through before. "Never doubt, never look back" had always been her way to survive. Her safe place to go back to when she couldn't face the past. He had promised, over the white immaculate sheets that covered their exhausted bodies, that he would never let her go back to that motto. That her life will never need a new beginning.

A dumb-yet-pretty looking and annoying high-pitched-voice reporter from a TV news show, probably called something as stupid but good selling as "Murder Live!*" or "Inflammable*" approached her, trying to beat the rest of the media on getting the first words of the heroine of the day. The whole of the population of a small and forgotten city in Nebraska*, being the only ones to appreciate this girl's talent. Their town's celebrity. Even though she would claim she had been raised by wolves before admitting such unglamorous origin.

Fuck off was all she wanted to say but even in those occasions, she was cold enough to just push her away, and mutter "no comments". The night had been too long already. And she felt like a hundred years older than the previous day.

"Ain't you going with him?"

Capt. Brass seemed truly surprised she didn't climb on the ambulance immediately.

"Don't you need my statement?"

He could read the disappointment in her eyes, and her tiredness. And she knew he would be the first one to admit this time, things had gone one step too far. Neither tried to discuss the matter, instead, for the next thirty minutes, their minds were focused on a man named Alan, whose mother had taught to hate beautiful women, and who made a dozen Vegas girls pay. And on a bloody baseball bat that a kid had named "Hugh" after some absent father. A kid she had had to shot down tonight.

And those were the thoughts Catherine had gone to bed with that morning.

*** *** ***

It took three days and a personal call from Grissom, forced to stay at home by doctors till his arm and broken ribs improved for Catherine to talk to him again. And it had taken all his power of persuasion to make her go see him.

She saw his face lit up when she came into his room, and attempted a smile that died before it was ever born, then she saw the fear in his eyes. His remorse. He knew he had lost her the minute he saw her face.

"Been told you'll be back soon" said an emmotionless Catherine.

He sighed, and understood. She no longer would be cheerful Catherine. No "Get well soon" cards, flowers or chocolate. Not even the same friendship. He had ruined it all for not doing the only thing she had ever asked him to do: "Do not scare me like that ever again" and he had promised her, and sealed his promise with a kiss. The kiss that had changed both their worlds in an instant. The kiss that had tied them up as lovers. The kiss with he tried to promise her forever and made them realize it had been there always*.

"Yeah".

She stood by his side in an uncomfortable silence till he took her hand and pulled her down to sit on what had been their bed for the past six months.

"I scared you, huh? I'm so sorry."

And a single tear rolled down Catherine's cheek. She would never again allow him to get more of her.

"Never doubt..." and the line stayed suspended in the air, never fully coming out of her lips, but the heaviness of it's meaning filling his room with an unbearable atmosphere of deception and hurt.

November 16th* had been the day Catherine killed a man, saving the life of her lover once more. November 16th* was the last time she let this man touch her broken heart ever again.

- Fin.