Title: November Afternoon
By: Tayla
Rating: PG
Category: Vignette
Spoilers: "Slaves Of Las Vegas"
Summary: Gil reflects on the past.
Disclaimer: CSI and its characters belong to Anthony Zuiker and CBS broadcasting Company. No infringement is intended. This story is written for entertainment purposes only and the author makes no profit.
Authors note: Feedback please. All constructive criticism will be accepted graciously.

Grissom was sitting in his living room staring out the front window. It was a Sunday evening and his day off. And he had actually taken the day off instead of finding an excuse to go in to the lab.

He reflected on the past week at work. Meeting Lady Heather had certainly been an experience. An unnerving experience. She had told him that she knew what he feared most. He feared having people know him too well. Odd that a total stranger had been able to read him that well.

But then again most of the people in his life now were strangers. Lady Heather had been right about him. He didn't let anyone get too close. He supposed that he could call Catherine and Jim his friends if only by virtue of the fact that they had worked together for so long. It's impossible to work with some one for years and not find out some things about them.

For instance, he knew about Catherine's problems with Eddie. Had even been a shoulder for her to cry on when she had caught him cheating. Gil met her at the bar when she had called him. Drove her home and stayed with her until she slept it off.

And Jim sometimes got to crying in his beer about his broken marriage. He missed being able to see his daughter. She blamed Jim for the break up and sided with her mother at every turn. Gil would listen as Jim would ramble on about what he should have done better.

As Gil watched the sun go down on his lazy Sunday, he realized that his `friends' had let them into their lives. They cared for him and let him see a bit of what made them laugh and cry. But he couldn't let them in to his life.

They didn't know about the broken relationship in his past. How many times in the past while Catherine was talking about something that Lindsey had done, or Jim had brought up a memory of Ellie doing the same sort of thing had he been tempted to tell them. To show them his deepest pain. To let them comfort him as he had tried to do for them.

But he never told them.

He didn't want to think about his past. He did everything he could to keep his mind occupied so that there wouldn't be room for the memories. How many subscriptions to various journals and magazines did he have? At least a dozen. He read voraciously every morning when he came home. And when he ran out of magazines there was always the Internet. Researching subjects that he knew about and subjects he didn't know about.

He had gone into a chat room once. No big deal. Just other law enforcement people talking about their jobs and lives. He did all right talking about the job part but couldn't really get into talking about his life. Not even anonymously to strangers on the `net.

That's when he started to realize that he didn't really have a life. He had a job. A vocation really. He took great satisfaction from solving crime. Not so much for justice sake, He rarely let himself get so attached to the victims and their families to crave justice. He usually confined his efforts to the intellectual pursuit of solving the puzzle. He didn't usually let he emotions get involved. Of course there were exceptions. Every once in a while he would get a little emotionally involved. Just enough to prove to himself and his coworkers that he was still human after all.

Of course waking up the human part of him always opens the door for the memories to return. He never seemed to get them buried deep enough. They were always there waiting for a chance to resurface.

That was when he drank too much. If he went out with the gang and they noticed he was drinking more that usual they just assumed it was because of the case. And he never drank so much that he couldn't get himself home. So his friends didn't worry about him too much. Of course they didn't know that he continued when he got home. The binge never lasted long. Only a day. Then he managed to stuff the memories back down and get himself back together in time to go to work.

That's what he was doing on this cold November evening. Sitting on his small sofa with a beer in front of him. The six pack was almost gone. There was another waiting in the fridge if he needed it. This time it wasn't a case that had brought the memories up. He had been cleaning. Dusting books, and something had fallen out of the pages of on he hadn't read in a long time. He doubted he would ever read it again. But it sat on his shelf. He couldn't seem to get rid of it. He had the book in his hand and was dusting it before he realized which one it was. And then the flutter of something falling to the floor.

Now he sat. And drank. And occasionally looked at the something that he held in his hand. It was a photograph. A much younger Gil. And a small boy. Brown hair like his mother but with clear blue eyes staring out at the camera from under the bangs falling across his forehead. Gil took another pull of his beer bottle.

"Happy birthday, Ritchie."