Gil hated waiting. He watched some television. He did some research on the internet. He tried to read a book. He called Brass one more time, but the detective hung up on him. He thought about driving over to the mansion, but he knew better. Besides, he couldn't leave Lindsey, and he didn't want to bring her into danger. Twice he got up and checked on her, as she slept peacefully in his bed. He even went to feed the spiders, once, before remembering that they were dead. He checked his watch for the tenth time. One a.m. One-thirty. One-forty- nine. He took his watch off and stuck it on the bookcase. Whatever was happening, it had to happen without him and in its own time. Finally, he put on some soft music and laid down on his sofa, thankful for the gift of the new stereo. He kicked off his shoes and tried to unwind. The minute he closed his eyes, he saw her: standing in the courtroom and hanging onto Jim's arm, hiding her fears behind a face of stone; the hurt in her eyes when he admitted the affair; the touch of her hand on his cheek, when she picked him up at the jail; her gentle fingers on his skin, as she bound his wounds; the way she felt in his arms, when they made love. It was love, not just sex, he had to remind himself.

Sleep overtook him, and he awoke a couple hours later to the sound of gentle knocking on his door. He put on his glasses, grabbed his watch and glanced at it, his heart racing. Good news does not come in the middle of the night, he thought.

Sara was standing on his doorstep, in the cold night air, shivering. She wore a light jacket and blue jeans and held a lit cigarette in one hand.

"I thought you quit?" he said, running a hand through his rumpled hair and frowning paternally at her.

She dropped it and put it out with the toe of her boot.

"Occupational hazard," she said. "Can I come in?"

He stepped aside.

"It's 3 a.m. What are you doing here?" Worry punctuated his voice.

"Violating a direct order," Sara said, glancing around. "You know how that is. Problem with authority figures, and all that. You're still up, I see."

"I couldn't sleep. Lindsey's in my bed."

Sara nodded.

"Can she hear us?" she asked, glancing towards the bedroom door.

"What happened?" he demanded to know.

"Cath's in the hospital. She wasn't hurt, but she's pretty shook up. Sam Braun is dead."

Gil stared at her a second, as if just waking from a nightmare.

"How? When?"

"Jim shot him. In Catherine's bedroom."

Gil crossed his arms as if protecting himself from some invisible onslaught. He leaned back on his heels, an image jumping to mind.

"Did he...?" He couldn't finish the question.

"He didn't have the chance, but to hear Jim tell it, it wasn't for lack of trying."

She was studying his reaction, waiting for the emotion she knew had to come.

"Oh god." Gil paled and sank into a chair, eyes closed, the wind knocked out of him.

Sara sat down across from him. She started to reach for his arm, then thought better of it. Instead, she leaned towards him, speaking softly.

"Braun was killed while he was... While he was on top of Catherine, in her bed. He... She was soaked in his blood and hysterical. Jim knew you'd be upset and he didn't want me to tell you," she said. "But you had to know. That's the violating orders, part."

Gil pressed his fingers to his forehead, trying to keep his hands from shaking, partly out of fear and partly out of rage. The depth of his emotion startled Sara, who was unaccustomed to it. She recalled the way she'd found him after his tarantulas were killed, sitting on the floor and unable to even look at her. She got up the nerve to rest her hand on his arm, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "Tell me what to do, Grissom. Let me help you."

"Where are they?"

"Desert Palm."

"I gotta go there." He got up, slipped on his shoes and grabbed his jacket. "You stay with Lindsey?"

"Sure," Sara said, smiling weakly. "What are big sisters for?" If there was sarcasm in that statement, Gil didn't hear it.

"Thanks," Gil said, heading out the door. "I owe you one."

As the door closed behind him, Sara sighed.

"You owe me a hell of a lot more than that," she said.

She called in her location, sunk into the sofa and turned on the television.

Gil hurried down the emergency room corridor, looking in every room for Catherine. She wasn't there. They had moved to her intensive care. Why? He rushed there, brushing past nurses and doctors without looking back. Through a large window, he saw her, and he froze. She was resting on the bed, pale, eyes closed, her hair matted to the pillow case. She was wearing a hospital gown and covered in a blanket, her face peaceful and an IV in her arm. Jim Brass stood next to her, his dress jacket on his arm, his half-buttoned shirt covered in blood. He was gently stroking her head and speaking to her.

Catherine never gave any indication that she heard him. Gil turned towards the door, but was stopped by Vince Fromansky.

"Sorry, Grissom. Orders from Brass. No one goes in there."

"But...." Gil started to object.

"No one."

Scowling, Gil went back to the window, his hand pressed against the glass, staring at Catherine and waiting impatiently until Brass looked up and saw him. The detective gave Catherine a kiss on the forehead, grabbed a paper bag and joined Gil.

"Let's talk," Brass said, leading Gil to an empty, adjacent waiting room.

He motioned for Gil to sit down on the vinyl covered sofa. Both men looked ill beneath flickering florescent lights.

"How is she?" Gil asked, leaning forward anxiously.

Brass sat in a chair across from him, setting the bag on a small, magazine cluttered coffee table between them. He looked tired and shaky. He couldn't shake the image of Braun on top of Catherine, one hand pinning her down, his knee between her legs, his hand.... And the look of terror on her face. Killing Braun had been easy. Living with that image, that was going to be difficult.

"Resting. And that's how she's going to stay," Brass said. Gil's attention was glued to the man's bloody shirt.

"I need to see her, Jim," Gil told him.

"I know, but I can't let that happen. Not yet."

"Why?"

Jim sighed and pulled two videos and four DVDs out of the brown bag.

"These are yours," he said. "I managed to secure them from the house. If I were you, I'd destroy them, immediately."

"What are they?" Gil asked, frowning.

"One video is you and Carol."

Gil took a deep breath.

"The other video is you and Heather, through her window or going in and out of her house, complete with soundtrack. We found the Heather tape playing when we got there. The Carol tape was on top the television."

Gil was too shocked to respond.

"The DVDs," Brass spread them out, "are of Catherine: from the news conference, coming and going from her home, while she slept in her bedroom at Braun's place, in her shower. He had her suite under complete surveillance. He watched her every minute. We found these in a desk drawer."

Brass waited expectantly for Gil to say something. He could see the battle of emotions raging in the man he had once called his friend.

"These are evidence," Gil said, reluctantly putting the items back in the bag and shoving it towards Jim. "They belong to you." He couldn't meet Jim's eyes.

Brass stared at him.

"Don't get self-righteous with me," he snapped. "I killed a man tonight, and I'll probably lose my career over it, all because of these! Braun is dead. We have Eckley's tapes. Case closed. We don't need them. Get rid of them and never let Catherine see them, again!" Gil realized Brass was doing this for Catherine, not for him. When he finally looked the detective in the eye, he saw something he hadn't expected, Jim's complete devotion to Catherine. He's the better man, Gil thought, then quickly drove the thought from his mind.

"Again? When did she see them?" Gil found he was sweating and nauseous. He couldn't bring himself to think about Catherine's reactions to the tapes. He was fighting the image of her struggling hysterically under her father's attack.

"Braun probably showed the videos to her, right before he tried to rape her. As far as I know, she doesn't know about the DVDs. And you're not going to tell her. She can't take anymore."

Gil turned away, pounding a fist into the palm of his other hand and struggling with the guilt and anger that threatened to overwhelm him.

"I told you not to send her back in there!" he said, raising his voice at the detective.

"Now, you listen to me...." Brass began, waving a finger at Gil.

"No!" Gil shouted. "You listen! Catherine moved into that house because Braun was blackmailing me. I begged her not to do it, but she wouldn't listen. He made a move on her last night, that's why I didn't want her going back in. But you trumped me. Well, I've carried this burden alone long enough. There's more than enough blame to go around, Jim. Sam's to blame for starting this whole thing. Eckley's to blame for screwing with us. I'm to blame for what happened to Carol. And you're to blame for what happened tonight."

Jim bit his lip, his own guilt gnawing at him.

"I want to see her, Jim," Gil said. "I need to see her, and she needs to see me."

"She won't know who you are," Jim told him. "She's suffering from what the doctors are calling a short-term, stress-induced psychotic episode. She doesn't know where she is or what she's saying. She's confused, Gil. She's talking gibberish. They have her heavily sedated. She could be this way for a day or a month. Once she comes out of it, she could suffer a major depressive disorder."

A sense of loss flooded through Gil. He'd lost her. Just like that.

"What does that mean?"

"It means months of therapy and medication for depression. It means loss of appetite, problems sleeping, fatigue, lack of interest in anything. Bottom line, I don't know when, or if, she is ever going back to work. Hell, I don't know if she'll even be able to parent Lindsey, again."

"You're talking about a nervous breakdown."

"That's what it is."

Gil looked down at the floor.

"When can I see her?" he asked.

"When she asks for you," Jim said. "Not one minute sooner."

Their discussion was interrupted by Catherine's half-sister, Nancy, who showed up wearing a parka over her pajamas, sneakers, and a look that could kill.

"Where is she?" she demanded to know.

"In ICU," Jim said, "resting."

"No, not Catherine. Lindsey."

Gil looked up at her.

"At my place, sleeping," he said.

"Alone?" Nancy asked, shocked.

"No. I'd never leave her alone. Sara is there."

"Good," Nancy said. "I'm picking her up. You can bring her clothes by this afternoon, after three."

Gil stood up.

"Catherine entrusted Lindsey to my care," he argued.

Nancy glared at him.

"My sister entrusted a lot of things to your care," she said. "And look where it got her."

She stomped out of the room and down the hall, Gil staring after her.

"Well, don't just stand there," Jim yelled. "Go after her! Unless you don't care if you lose Lindsey, too!"

Gil bolted out the door and chased Nancy down in the parking lot.

"Please, leave her with me. Just for awhile," he begged, grabbing her arm. She yanked herself away from him. "She's been through so much and she feels safe with me," he said. " I'll take good care of her. I promise." The words sounded lame, even to him.

Nancy flew into a rage.

"You? You would take good care of a child? You screw around, you live with spiders, you have a one-bedroom bachelor pad, you don't know a damn thing about children, much less teenage girls, you've been involved in a rape and murder, and your best friend is a dominatrix! Who the hell are you to raise a child?"

Before he could come up with an answer, Nancy was in her car and gone.

"But I love her," he said to the wind.

Gil, gritting his teeth against the cold, his hands shaking, called Sara.

"Nancy is coming right over for Lindsey. Make sure she's ready, okay?" Loss. He didn't want to let her go. Why did he have to feel this loss? Why did that little girl matter so much to him? He didn't know. He couldn't think about it, now.

"And, Sara, tell Lindsey.... Tell Lindsey that Uncle Gil loves her very much, and I'll see her soon, okay?"

Alone in the dark parking lot, his breath hanging in the air, Gil looked up at the moon. It was barely a sliver, a thin fingernail dangling in the predawn sky. Only eight hours earlier, he had been eating pizza with Catherine and Lindsey. Only eight hours earlier she had forgiven him and kissed him. It had been a peaceful and normal moment in an otherwise insane month. Now, they were both taken from him, and he didn't know where to turn. Gil had always said he believed in a god, but not in religion. Now, as he looked at that moon, the only thing he could do, the only thing left, was to pray. "I don't care what it costs. I'll do whatever you want. Just bring her back. Just make her whole, again."

He returned to the ICU, only to be met by an even more upset Jim Brass.

"They won't even let ME see her," he sputtered.

"What are you talking about?" Gil asked, his eyes piercing his reflection in the widow to her room and resting on Catherine.

"Only family allowed. No one else. That includes me... and you."

Jim's shoulders were bent with exhaustion, and he was as close to crying as Gil had ever seen him. Gil stopped a doctor exiting Catherine's room, to question him.

"Sorry. Can't discuss it," he said. "Patient confidentiality. Unless you're the husband."

Gil shook his head. No, he wasn't her husband.

"Then you'll have to take it up with the family," the doctor said, leaving the two men stranded in the hallway, a pane of glass between them and the woman they both loved.

Later that day, Gil stood over the dead body of Sam Braun at the morgue.

"Did you get the short straw?" he asked pathologist Al Robbins.

"He's responsible for Carol's death," Robbins said. "Cutting him up will be a pleasure."

The doctor didn't know about Gil's role in Carol's death. Gil decided to keep it that way. He needed all the friends he could get.

"He didn't kill her, you know," Gil said. "He only loaded the gun."

Later, alone in his apartment, Gil took a large metal aluminum bucket, filled it with newspapers and lighter fluid, and started a fire. He took the first cassette and pulled the tape out, then dropped it in the flames. He did the same with the second tape. Then he took sandpaper and rubbed the DVDs, putting every ounce of energy he had into erasing them, as if he could somehow erase history. He added what remained to the fire. He knew it was a crime to destroy evidence, but no one was going to stop him, and no one was going to arrest him. All they wanted to do was close the book on Sam Braun. And all he wanted were Catherine and Lindsey back in his life.

-- TBC--