Title: Gone
By: kyrdwyn
Pairing: gen
Rating: G
Disclamer: CSI, the characters, the places, and etc are the property of Anthony Zuiker, CBS and Alliance Atlantis. They did not condone this fic, and I am not getting paid for it - I write it because I enjoy it. Hope you all do too.
Summary: A CSI leaves the lab.

***

Catherine walked by Grissom's office; engrossed in the report Sanders had given her.  A few feet later, she stopped.  She looked up at the empty hallway, and then turned and backtracked to the office.  In the doorway, she stopped.

The sight that greeted her made her feel like someone had kicked her in the stomach.  The papers in her hand spilled onto the floor, unheeded.  In disbelief, she walked further into the room.  Her footsteps echoed off the walls and the shelves - the empty walls and shelves.

The jars of preserved bugs and miscellaneous things collected over the twenty plus years he'd been on the job were missing.  Someone had dusted the shelves so that there were no telltale circles of black among the gray layers of dust that had previously ruled the office.

The pegboard behind the desk was empty - all of the things that had been hanging on there were missing.  The hooks were all that were left, neatly arranged in two rows.  The diplomas and certificates were gone from the walls.  Even his giant fish corkboard was missing, the lighter color of the paint revealing where it had hung the entire time she'd known him.

But it was when she looked at the desk that she felt like someone was squeezing the air out of her lungs.  There were seven file folders neatly placed in the center, and nothing else.  No papers, no magnifying glasses, no jars of bugs or the fake latex hand he had kept as a memento from a case.  His terrarium with his orange-kneed tarantula was gone.   Even his nameplate was gone from the door.

There was nothing in the office to indicate he'd ever occupied it. 

Stepping around the desk, she glanced at the folders.  Two of them were case folders, the last two cases he'd been working on, she presumed.  One was blank, no markings of any kind to indicate its contents.  The other four were personnel folders.  One for each of the night shift team, all had been marked as 'Personal' and 'Confidential'.  She hesitated to open the one with her name on it.

"Eerie, isn't it?"

Catherine looked up as Brass' voice echoed in the seemingly cavernous office.  From this angle, she could see that even the singing fish was gone from over his door.  She looked at Brass, questions in her eyes and on her lips, but she found she couldn't get the words out past the shock.

Brass understood, though.  "I know," he remarked quietly.  "He didn't say a word.  Not to me, not to anyone.  I saw this earlier," he gestured to the office, "and went by his house.  There was a realtor there and a 'For Sale' sign.  I managed to get her to let me in - there's nothing in his house.  His books, his butterflies, even that damn uncomfortable couch of his, are all gone.  The realtor told me she'd gotten the call last week to list the house, and it was that pristine the first time she'd looked at it."

Catherine finally found her voice.  "Why?  Why didn't he tell us?  What happened…"

Brass shrugged, stepping forward into the office, looking ill at ease in the now unfamiliar room.  "I don't know.  Maybe he got tired of dealing with the sheriff.  Maybe a case finally got to him.  Maybe he found some young blonde and he's run off to Tahiti with her."

Catherine shot the homicide captain a disgusted look.  He gave her a wan smile.  "Okay, so maybe not the blonde."

"My god, he was right."  Warrick's deep voice sounded from the doorway.  Brass and Catherine looked at him.  Sara and Nick were behind their colleague, eyes wide with disbelief.

"Who was right?" Brass asked.

Warrick sighed.  "After the last conference Grissom went to - the one where he put me in charge of the shift - he told me he had done it because he wanted to make sure there was someone who could take over when he left.  He said that when he left, there wasn't going to be any cake in the break room, he was just going to be gone.  Like a ghost."

"He succeeded," Nick said, still looking stunned.  "But why?"

"We don't know," Catherine replied.  "Unless he left us the reason in one of these."  She pulled out the folders with their names on them, silently handing one to each CSI.  Brass moved to the desk to examine the case folders.

"Letter of recommendation," Sara said quietly.  "Nothing else."  She looked up at the others, and they all nodded their heads.  He'd left fairly glowing letters for each of them, but nothing to explain why he'd left.

Brass drew in a sharp breath as he leafed through one of the folders.  Catherine and the others looked at him. "Something wrong?" the senior CSI asked.

He cleared his throat awkwardly.  "I, ah, recognize the name of this victim.  I worked on a case years ago where she was the perp.  It was just after I moved here - one of my first cases as a Vegas detective.  I was there for the arrest - at her bridal shower.  She was lucky - the DA let her plead to a lesser charge.  She could have spend the rest of her life in prison if a jury didn't like her."

Sara looked down at the folder.  "I worked this case.  She'd been out of prison for about six months.  Was really trying hard to stay out.  She had a steady job, she avoided all known felons, and missed only one meeting with her parole officer - and that was because she'd been dead for two days.  But I thought this case was closed - I had the killer, but he was dead when O'Reilly went to arrest him.  Suicide."  She pulled one of the other folders out.  "Here - this is his case.  I worked it too.  Turns out he was her son."  Sara shrugged.  "He was born while she was in prison.  Near as we could figure, she must have been pregnant when she was arrested.  She gave him up for adoption soon after.  He didn't have a happy home life with his adopted parents.  According to some personal papers we found, he blamed her for that.  He managed to track her down, then killed her.  As for why he killed himself, couldn't tell ya.  O'Reilly and I were just glad he never managed to track down his father, or he might have claimed another victim.  The mother listed the father's name as unknown."

Brass closed his eyes.  "Her son.  That definitely explains it." 

"Explains what?" Warrick asked.

He opened his eyes and stared at the other four people in the room. The explanation stuck in his throat.  Silently, he willed them to put it together so he didn't have to reveal something he'd kept secret for so many years.  He silently blessed Sara when she opened the third folder - the unmarked folder -  and gasped, her hand coming up to cover her mouth.

"What?" Catherine asked impatiently.  She was still trying to make sense of this upheaval, this complete and abrupt disappearance of someone who'd been a constant in their lives for years.

Silently, Sara held the folder out to them, tears in her eyes.  She looked at Brass, and he nodded.  She closed her eyes, but he saw the pain that flickered through them.  Not the pain of hurt or betrayal, but an empathic pain for what her friend and boss must have been feeling when he read the report she just had. 

"Grissom was her fiancé," Catherine said softly.

"And her killer was his son," Nick said slowly, almost disbelievingly.  "She never told him?"

Brass shrugged.  "I don't know what he did or didn't know.  He was shook up by her arrest, though.  Took a two week leave and hid out at the apartment they shared.  Some neighbors of his called the cops a week later, and they called me from the place."

Brass didn't go on.  He didn't want to tell them about that particular scene. He didn't know if they would have understood.  He had, and Catherine might.  To a man like Grissom, finding out his fiancée had been involved in a crime was akin to infidelity.  He'd taken it hard.  Brass had barely known Grissom at the time, but the apartment that night had shocked him. 

It had been a wreck.  Furniture and pictures and knick-knacks smashed, pieces strewn on the floor.  The couch had torn to shreds, stuffing spilling out of the slashes.  The handle of a butcher knife was sticking out from a throw pillow.  It was a custom pillow - a wedding present, Brass had guessed, with their names and the date.  Today's date, he had realized.  That night should have been their wedding night; Grissom and his bride should have been ensconced in a bridal suite at a hotel, feeding each other champagne and strawberries.  Instead, she was in a cell, eating institutional meatloaf.  As for Grissom, he was sitting on the floor near the couch, drinking what looked like his third bottle of scotch.  He wouldn't look at Brass.  Instead he was looking at a photograph of him and his fiancée.

Unable to leave the man alone, Brass had dismissed the uniforms, reassuring them that there wasn't a crime, and when one of them had voiced her concerns over Grissom's mental state, he'd assured her that he was going to stay.  They'd finally left.  Brass had helped himself to a beer from Grissom's fridge and settled down on the floor near him, pushing splintered wood from what looked like an end table out of his way.

It had been a rough night, for both men.  Grissom was far from sober, far from coherent, and far from calm.  Brass still considered himself fortunate that Grissom had taken his anger out on inanimate objects.  He also thought it was lucky that his fiancée hadn't made bail.   Grissom was usually a levelheaded person.   He thought before he acted.  He'd rarely gotten upset before that night. But liquor and anger were a dangerous combination in any man.

By dawn, Grissom had passed out, his last words startlingly coherent - a rejection of his fiancée and every other woman on earth.  Brass had stayed, trying to alleviate some of the damage.  When Grissom had finally regained consciousness, he curtly told Brass to leave off trying to repair anything.  A few days later, Grissom had gotten rid of almost everything in the apartment and bought his townhouse, buying all new furniture.  Nothing to remind him of his past life with her remained.

They had never spoken of that night, never acknowledged that Brass had seen a side of Grissom the man kept hidden behind his science geek exterior.  Over the years, as they'd both risen in the ranks of their jobs, they'd remained on good terms.  Even while Brass was the other man's boss, they'd shared mutual respect for the others abilities.  But the memory of that night remained with them both of them.  And Brass knew that Grissom had never forgotten what he'd perceived as a betrayal by the woman he'd loved.

Now, all that had been dumped on the man again, this time with her death at the hands of her son.  Their son.  Grissom must have wondered about the young man's paternity, and had a DNA test run.  The shock must have been devastating.  Grissom had spent his entire life working with cops.  To him, committing a crime was an anathema.  It was why he took his fiancée's arrest so hard.  But now his son had one-upped his mother's crime by killing her.

Grissom had never gotten over her.  She was the reason most of his relationships in the years since had gone nowhere, Brass knew.  Grissom was afraid of betrayal - a betrayal of his beliefs.  He saw his fiancée in every woman he was romantically attracted to.  Now, with her return and death at his son's hands, Grissom would be feeling guilty and angry and betrayed all over again.  Guilty over not being there for his son; angry that she had never told him about their son; and betrayed by the actions of a son he had never known.

"So, what, Grissom just takes off for parts unknown, just because of this?"

Brass didn't respond to Catherine's question.  It was harsh, but it was born of the pain they all felt. 

Belatedly, Brass realized that Grissom hadn't wanted his past life to become known.  He had called Brass earlier that day and asked him to meet him at his office.  He had been on his cell phone - not unusual for Grissom.  Yet he hadn't been calling on his way to work, he'd been calling on his way out of town.  The files had been left for Brass - the case files so he'd understand why, and the personnel folders to distribute.  Brass hadn't even looked at the files - too alarmed by the empty office to think straight.

Sara sighed, causing all of them to look up at her.  She looked back and shrugged.  "Grissom is Grissom.  It's obvious none of us really knew him.  So yeah, something like this could make him take off.  And did."  She turned to leave the office.  "There's not much we can do now."  She left.

Warrick and Nick followed her a few minutes later, both looking as upset as Sara had been.  Catherine and Brass were alone again.

"We weren't supposed to know why," she stated bluntly.  Brass shook his head.  She sighed.  "Sara's right.  Ten years on the job with him, and I thought I knew him well.  I didn't know him at all.  I think you may have been the only one who knew him."  She left the office then.

Brass sat down heavily in Grissom's chair.  No, he hadn't known the man well at all.  If he did, he would have guessed something was wrong over the past few weeks.  Grissom had hid the signs well, but in hindsight they were glaringly obvious to Brass.  The agitation over little things, the jumpiness over case details, the way he snapped at people who had done nothing to annoy him - he'd been that way after his fiancée's arrest.  Brass just hadn't seen them, had attributed them to some other cause.  But the stress had finally gotten too much, and Grissom had apparently decided the only way to deal with it was to leave the place where too many memories remained.  Brass couldn't blame him - he'd done the same thing.  Grissom had twice lost the woman he'd loved, and lost their son before he'd even known about him. 

Brass stood, picking up the three folders that remained.   There was a folded slip of paper underneath one of them.  He opened it, recognizing Gil's handwriting.

Jim -
I know that you realize I'm gone.  I don't if I'll return.  I thought I had gotten through it, before.  But this is - well, it's something I can't deal with in Las Vegas.  So I'm leaving.
I can't tell the others.  I don't think they would understand - but you were there.  You know.  I'd prefer if you didn't tell them about the past, but I'll understand if you have to.
I've left them letters of recommendation.  They're good CSIs, they shouldn't be held back by my problems.  Make sure they get them, please.
Jim, thank you.  For everything you did then, and everything now.
- Gil

Brass sighed heavily as he turned off the lights and left the room.  Silently, he wished the other man luck in his quest.  He knew it wouldn't be easy to deal with.  And he knew, in his heart, that Grissom would never return to Las Vegas.

***