She had fallen asleep beneath the stars countless times that week, cool air drifting over her body as she lay upon a pallet of sheets, silken waves of color, spread over the balcony expanse. Her bedroom had proven to be nothing but a haven of fitful sleep for several weeks, cotton bedsheets and down comforter heavy against her fevered skin, too heavy when the angry nightmares caused her body to thrash about wildly...her hands would claw at the sticky sheets and she would fly out of bed, awake after a scant few hours of sleeping.

And he wasn’t there to rub her back as he always did, strong fingers working the knots out of her tension-filled shoulders, rubbing jasmine oil into her skin. He’d always kissed the spot between her shoulder blades...a peculiar ritual, as his lips would caress the delicate tattoo etched into her skin. Ballet slippers, pink ribbons curling into a bow and dangling several inches down her spine. She’d been a dancer of another variety, although childhood dreams were rife with images of prima ballerinas, flowing tutus of icy blue, toe shoes striking the hard, worn wood of a stage bathed in lights. Her stages had been bathed in light...cheap, smoky lights, catching her best features and distorting them for a purpose she’d never imagined she’d strive for...pure, unadulterated lust.

Sleeping on the balcony was the only way she felt safe, anymore...free, surrounded by the unconfining world...gripping her pepper spray and butter knife beneath her pillow as the only form of protection she desired. He didn’t exist in the world, anymore...so without him there was no pain...and without him there was no need to hold the pepper spray in her shaking fingers every night. She’d stopped feeling the need to sleep with a light on, and when he’d ceased in calling her each night, she’d stopped being afraid.

This night, she couldn’t sleep at all, curled up inside the downy yellow sleeping bag, the color of daisies keeping her encased and protected inside a cocoon, from the chilled night air. It was over now, the end of a saga and the beginning of a bumpy road. Therapy, consoling, nightmares...all of it was rearing up and filling her days and nights with encounters of heartache and salty tears, dropping onto her violet pajama top and leaving their stains until the laundry whisked them away. Lindsey still didn’t understand...didn’t cease the countless queries of ‘Why, Mommy?’, and ‘Daddy loved me, didn’t he? Why did he go away, Mommy?". She had the answers to questions that had nothing to do with anything, knew why blood fell a certain way, and what it all meant when it did... But she didn’t know how to tell her daughter the truth. How to tell her that with everything Mommy could do, Mommy couldn’t bring Eddie Willows back from the dead. And that fact hurt more than any attack on her person ever could.

"Catherine." The soft sound of footfalls made her turn her head, and she propped herself up on slender elbows to swivel her head in the direction of the sounds. The sillouette in her bedroom doorway, between the open french doors, had paused and was looking down on her. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew he would be sympathetic, regretting that he couldn’t do more to help her at the moment she quite possibly needed to be helped. For although she no longer loved her ex-husband...she had loved him once, and would carry the memory of that love through every homicide, murder, or suicide she would investigate. Every drug addict, every band follower she would ever encounter...all would remind her of Eddie...and her daughter’s face, so innocent and pure, would keep the memory of Eddie in a happier light. He was the man who had given her that life...and she would always be grateful to him.

"I’ll be there in a minute." He wanted her to come to bed...he’d wanted her to come to bed every night, but she’d resisted, and remained in her silent vigil on the balcony, watching the moon and the stars and the waving tree branches that lined the street. It was time, however, to say goodbye to the man in the moon, and leave her wishes with the stars...but only the ones that hadn’t yet come true. "Grissom...do you ever wonder where all the time has gone?"

"No." Gil Grissom smiled, stepping through the doors and onto the small balcony, his bare feet making little sound on the concrete surface. "When there are moments like these, Catherine...with you...I don’t ask where time has gone...I cherish the moment at hand."

"Then I’d do well to adopt your attitude." She crawled out of the sleeping bag and accepted the hand he extended to her, grasping her small fingers in his and pulling close for a comforting kiss. "Let’s go to bed, Gil...and promise that you’ll keep me warm."

"Always." He started ahead, her hand still grasped in his, and paused as she turned back, chin tipping upward, eyes capturing the moon in their depths as her lips formed the words she’d been wanting to say for so long, and the time had come at last to speak them.

/We'll see you again someday, Eddie/...

"Until then...goodbye." She whispered, and the words alit on a gentle night breeze, soaring into the sky to rest among the stars...and remain there, always.

-The end