It's a Tuesday and he's not sure why that should matter, but it does.

Perhaps it's because it makes this situation all that much more eerily familiar: him, her, a Tuesday, and this bar. Except there are twenty years in between the juxtaposition he forms in his mind.

He looks over at her as she crouches on the floor, examining something that he can't see from his distance. He quickly looks away again; fully aware of the situation, of the evidence that requires his attention.

With this being the place of their first meeting, he's not sure if it was accidental or unconscious design that caused him to allocate this assignment as he has. But then he doesn't often understand why he makes the decisions he does - despite his post-analysis.

He wonders if she remembers their first encounter. He reasons that she probably doesn't. There was no sign of recognition when he told her where they were to go; there were no uncomfortable looks or hesitation. But then, he's not sure if he was expecting them.

Sometimes he doesn't know if his subconscious is fooling him into believing that the situation occurred. Asleep, his supposed recollections tease him in an indecipherable phantasmagoria; in the waking hours the memories persist, creeping up on him, assaulting him unexpectedly with such vivid imagery that he's confident that the encounter wasn't a fantasy of his own making.

And when he looks at her, he doesn't know whether to hope it happened, or whether to hope that it was the product of an overactive imagination.

The only thing that can unequivocally be proven about that night was that extensive quantities of alcohol were devoured in this very bar.

The evidence being the hangover he awoke with the following day, the lack of cash in his wallet, and a hazy remembrance of entering the bar.

After that, the realities of the night are less certain; recondite memories punctuated with blank moments, faded by the passing years. But now the details seem clear: his mind has filled in the blanks and repeated the sequence over and over until it has become almost an actuality.

In truth he remembers very little about the night, but the reasons for his recklessness with alcohol are as clear as ever.

It was the night of his father's funeral.

And, instead of dealing with the emotions, he wanted to obliterate the existence of them. Alcohol could excuse his irrationalities and could serve to mask his feelings; it could assuage the almost claustrophobic crushing force he felt inside.

The guys from the lab had been surprised when he'd agreed to go out with them. He knew they always asked out of pity: poor, neglected, Gil, who had always been too different to fit in.

He surprised them yet further with the competitiveness he showed with his drinking; matching them shot for shot of the vodka, tequila, whisky, whatever was cheap or what anyone dared to try. He can still remember with amusement the looks on their faces as he accepted their challenge of tequila slammers: five in a row.

Of course, by the time they'd reached the bar - their sixth of the evening - none of them were especially in control of their senses.

He hadn't minded it; the alcohol had allowed him to be free of his usual social constraints; his immutable barrier had been briefly lifted, and he talked to the guys and even complete strangers almost entirely free of his awkwardness.

And then he saw her.

She was standing, talking, laughing with some friends. All the women were attractive, admittedly, but there was something about her specifically. The way her body moved as she walked to the bar; it seduced him without her even acknowledging him. Her hair, the way she held herself, the way she leaned in close to speak to the bartender, flirting and laughing with him.

The alcohol hadn't freed him from his realisation that people like her, the popular, confident people of this world, would never associate with people like him.

He stood alone at the bar, near to their group, watching her unashamedly as he sipped at his drink.

At some time during the night, she must have noticed him; with some discernible curiosity she watched him as he watched her.

Her approach to him didn't astonish him but only because of the belief that she wasn't approaching *him*, there were plenty of guys in his vicinity. And if she was, it was for some reason other than the one he would have hoped for.

She startled him when she began to make conversation. She was new in town, she told him, just arrived from Seattle. What startled him more was the ease with which he fell into conversation with her, teasing, bantering - it felt almost as if they were old friends.

And later, as she almost hesitantly explained that she was going to go home for the night and would he like to join her, he had little problem in accepting.

Retrospectively, he realised that she must have been as drunk as he was and that those were never conditions for responsible decision-making.

The inevitable occurred, but as they gasped and tumbled their way through the actions, each finding release of their own situation in the other, he felt a real connection and passion that he had never felt before. And he almost fooled himself into believing that this was it, that there was far more to it than just a one-night stand.

But as he awoke alone, confused, and hung over, to the unfamiliar surroundings of her apartment without understanding how he had arrived there, he accepted it for what it was.

Through the days and months following, he had vague recollections of the night, and eventually he put it to the back of his mind where he kept his unhappy childhood memories guarded, a place that kept the memories hidden so that denial could set in.

Their second meeting is the one which both of them have officially accepted as their first.

It was in the cafeteria at UNLV several years later as she studied for her class and he had a few minutes to spare for lunch before he was scheduled to lecture. There had been nowhere else to sit, and he'd asked her if she minded if he joined her. Engrossed in her work, she muttered to the affirmative, and it was only as he sat that it struck him that he'd seen her before. It was mere moments before he realised where.

He didn't mention this to her. He didn't make conversation with her, not even as he recognised the book from which she took notes.

She eventually looked up, noticed him reading the book. "Sorry, I've been ignoring you," she commented apologetically.

"Don't worry, it looks as though you've got a lot to do," he replied.

"I'm Catherine," she said, ignoring the obvious dismissal. "And you are...?"

"Uh, Gil. Gil Grissom."

"And what are you studying, Gil Grissom?" she enquired politely. He almost wished that she would return to her book.

"Uh, I'm about to do some guest lecturing on the use of entomology in forensics."

They spoke a little more before she looked at her watch. "I've got to get to class. Nice to meet you, Gil Grissom, no doubt we'll be seeing each other again soon," she smiled.

He found out soon after what she meant as he quickly located her on the second row of the lecture theatre.

He's not sure how their friendship escalated from that moment, but it was rather more to do with her intervention than his own.

And now as he glances back over at her, he sees that during his preoccupation, their distance has decreased.

"So have you ever been here before, Grissom?" she asks, teasing, interrupting his reverie.

"Once, a very long time ago," he comments.

"Let me guess, you were a newcomer to the city and believed the advertising that this was the most happening place in town?" she smiles, amused, almost disbelieving.

"I believe there was some amount of alcohol and coercion involved," he remarks. "Did you frequent this place in your misspent youth, then?"

"Once or twice. When I was a newcomer to the city and believed the advertising that this was the most happening place in town," she notes wryly. "It wasn't so bad - I suppose like most places it depends on the people you're with." She pauses, taking photographs of blood on broken glass. "Or the people you meet."

He says nothing. Because he doesn't want to fool himself into believing that she remembers. Instead he feigns preoccupation with the shattered glass which adorns the floor.

"The first time I came here I met this guy. I don't remember his name, or what he looked like, or if anything happened. All I can remember is that he watched me all night from the bar." She smiles with the recollection. "Funny, I'd completely forgotten about that until tonight."

And the moment passes and she doesn't make the connection that he does. And as he realises that she really doesn't remember, he decides that he's okay with it. He makes a conscious decision to put his recollections aside, render them merely an imaginary scenario. And, if everything goes to plan, they'll get an actual first time, one that should be far more satisfying than his half-recalled fantasy. He briefly, almost imperceptibly, smiles to himself and then gets back to work.

The End