The rain fell in sheets outside his window, swift and unyielding death to the bright chalk drawings a child had so proudly drawn on the sidewalk just outside his townhouse. He didn't hear the drops pounding on the roof above him, only saw the clear, plump prisms as they shone beneath the light of the streetlamp outside.

It was a distant dream, to hear the sound of her laughter, her voice, the musical scale of tones ranging from pleasure to a pain deeper than many were capable of understanding. He hefted the glass of scotch in his hand as he pictured her face, felt the vibration of the ice cubes hitting the sides. Would she forgive him, he wondered, for pushing her away when all she wanted was to help him? More importantly, if she forgave him, could he forgive himself?

"No," he heard his own words, suddenly clear as the rain roared and the ice clinked, a break in the silence at last. "No, I don't think I could."

"I wasn't going to have the surgery." Grissom spoke hurriedly, lips moving despite the flurry of movement from his fingers. He could hear the tone in his voice changing, a crack of anxiety betraying his calm, and felt a surge of gratitude that the woman he spoke to couldn't hear it.

"And why not?" There were very few memories of his mother's voice, only tendrils of recollection, commanding tones calling him for dinner and breaking through his concentration. Eventually the calls had faded, his mother's hearing gone with time, and with it any voice in the Grissom household.

As he stared across the living room at his mother's smiling face, Grissom tried, fleetingly, to connect a voice with the words from her fingers, and failed. It had been too long, he admitted to himself, and the unfairness stung his thoughts like a thousand bees.

"The chance never came to you. Would you have taken it?" She knew from previous talks that he felt it unjust that she'd never had the opportunity for surgery, before the condition had affected her completely.

"If it were meant to be, I would have." She replied, fingers skillfully dancing through the air. "But I've survived without the choice, and I never would have been allowed to better myself in other ways. Your life is your work, sweetheart, and if it's better for you to keep the ability to hear...then I know you'll make the decision that's right."

"I know it's not rational, but-"

"You're too rational, sweetheart. I blame your father for that." She laughed, the sound a balm to Grissom's diminished hearing. "But ask yourself this, before you make your decision. Is it rational to lose everything you love?"

He lifted his hand to reply, but as he did, her words slowly began to sink into his mind. Was it rational to lose...everything?

"You look better on camera."

"Yeah, right." She didn't accept his answer, and he'd known for most of the day that nothing, save for the truth, would tear Catherine Willows away from him. Under no circumstances could he give her what she needed- the truth about what was going on with him- and he hoped that somehow he could make her understand.

"You do politics, Catherine- remember? I'm better where I am." Canvassing neighborhoods with the aid of the computer, checking for patterns wherenone had previously been evident. Away from people, away from the discomfort of knowing he was hiding a secret from the few people that were closest to him, and knowing that with each passing day, his skills as a CSI would further diminish. "I'll be here if you need me."

"Sure." Without looking, he could see the confusion, manifested in stormy clouds that rolled over the summer-sky blue of her eyes as they searched his face. Out of his peripheral vision he could see it all, the cascade of her honey-cinnamon curls as they framed a porcelean face bathed with light from his computer screen.

He imagined that what she saw was considerably different. A face weathered with age, head topped with curls of salt and pepper- more salt than pepper at this stage of his life. Eyes trained diligently on the screen before him, irises a cool, calming blue. The details of his case were running rampant in his brain, pushing considerations of daily maintenance away into the far reaches of his thoughts. His responses were always distant when he was mired deep within a case, and even now he barely granted her a glance- something he knew was only one cause of her frustration.

"Catherine-" Guilt at last triggered an urge to apologize, although as he turned his head he knew that she was gone. Could smell the faint scent of her soap and shampoo in her wake, and was convinced by the fading click of her heels that she had left him angry.

Catherine's face was obscured by the battleship grey of a locker door, and for a moment Grissom entertained the thought of disappearing before she saw him. Leaving a message at the desk would be the easy way out, the way to escape without having to admit something was wrong. She'd already been given the clues- he didn't know if he could handle watching her piece together the puzzle.

When he told her, it was plain in her eyes and the wrinkle of the skin around her eyes that she was worried. A frown settled upon features that had seen enough frowns in her recent days, brow producing deep creases that he could never remember seeing before. Somehow, he knew it was important that he saw them now, and that he never wanted to be a cause of the wrinkles that marred her beautiful skin.

"Good luck." He meant it, wishing more that he could accompany her on the case, and not be whisked away to Desert Palms with his heart in his throat. He heard her reply cut off, and wondered if it were due to the desire to not say what she had planned, or if his world were once again silenced without warning. She might have told him good luck, he thought, and offered the strength he knew was so characteristic of Catherine Willows. Or she might have wanted to tear into him, and he knew he couldn't have denied her that right if she had.

But when he made the decision to take one more second, to turn back and let her say what she had to...she was gone.

Rarely did he dream, or recollect a dream, coming into the waking world as alert as he lived each day...and to swim out of the fog of anesthesia presented Grissom with a challenge he grasped readily. He wanted to make sense of the soft vibrations, the whirring hum and peculiar, rhythmic thumps which so diligently worked their way through the fog that enveloped his mind.

"...the first grasshopper gave a jump in the neck of the bottle and went out into the water,"

"...he was sucked into the whirl by Nick's right leg..." The light stung his eyes as they pried themselves open to break the dark. Not only was the fog lifted, but he realized that the silence was as well, and the pain of the ordeal disappated as his eyes found Catherine's face beside him. Eyes red-rimmed, a smile of relief touching her lips as she reached out to touch his hand. "Are you reading 'In Our Time', Catherine?"

"I'm glad to see you're still caught up with your Hemingway. You were out for so long, I was afraid they might have nicked something else up there." She could attempt humor, but there was no escaping the tremor of anxiety beneath her words.

"Were you here the entire time?" The answer was plain in her rumpled clothing and smudged makeup, black mascara drawing faint gray rivers down her cheeks. "Lindsey?"

"She's with Nancy. You needed me now." The simple declaration touched him, and he curled his fingers around hers. Awkwardly his mind saught out words to say, something to convey his gratitude for what she had given him.

None came...and none would ever come. None greater than "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

- The End