Title: Memorial
By: Caster
Pairing: slight David/Greg
Rting: G
A/T: Hopefully you'll take a moment to read this little note before you dive in, because this fic isn't like anything I've ever written before. As a matter of fact, this won't have anything to do with forensics or case files or any of the usual CSI related goodness.
This is about World War II.
It's a reflection of what happened and I can only hope that I handle it with as much delicacy as it appropriately deserves. It's written very strangely, like broken fragments or puzzle pieces that don't make sense until you put them together, so I apologize if it's hard to understand.
CSI characters inspire me. I can get inside their heads and manage to write, so I'm using the show as a vessel to express my horror and endless sorrow for what happened in Europe, America, and Japan. I would have liked to have finished this in May (May 1945 is when Germany surrendered unconditionally in Rheims, France) as a sort of tribute, but the world will always carry this war with it, no matter what the year.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: David Hodges' grandmother has a fragmented account of World War II.

***

They say it has been six decades.

That's what she always says when he sees her. Annetka, David Hodges's grandmother. She says it as she gazes up at her white ceiling and rests among delicate comforters, her bones frail and her hair silver. Her eyes gray. Her flesh thin. Her soul damaged.

It does not feel like sixty years.

He watches her as she lies in her bed, surrounded by vintage memoirs. Photographs she has kept, even before the war. Maps. Books. A silver hairbrush her father gave her when she was very young, before the Germans took him away.

I do not think it will ever be over. The war will always be a scar on the world.

He doesn't know why she keeps the war with her. Clippings of yellowed newspapers litter her desk drawers. They're bent, shuffled, read and reread, some of the words smeared by teardrops. There are photos of her dead childhood friends, her long gone family members. He gently asks her why she insists on saving them, but she never answers.

…

It's something that never should have happened. It haunts the world; it reopens a gaping red scar for every generation that's born. Only the soulless do not mourn it.

The Holocaust.

David doesn't know how to respond when she speaks of it; he simply listens instead. It's hard for him to swallow despite the fact that he's heard it many times before.

Nineteen thirty nine. It is a painful year for me to remember. The hangings were bad, the shootings, yes. But when those Jews were burned alive in Bedzin, I could not sleep for days. I thought that if I was not a Jew then I would be able to get through it unscathed.

The way she ends it –I thought I would- is always the open ending of her story, offering alternate conclusions that are less dark and more hopeful, but David knows what really happened.

…

"Some say it never happened."

Greg says it in passing, blurts it out, not realizing the implication of the words while in Annetka's presence. David watches, horrified, as she grabs her hair brush –the one her father had given her- and hurls it at him with a strength neither man knew she had. It knocks Greg straight in the head and the look on his face is one of shock, then regret. He knows his mistake.

Get out! You say that is never happened? I was there! I saw it! Women raped, beaten, I lived it! Get out! GET OUT!

Greg tries to give her brush back, her one possession she loves above all. His words are lost as he tries to explain himself.

"I only meant- I don't know what I meant, only that some say it, not me, I know it happened, my grandfather-''

She reaches out and grabs her clock, throwing it as he rushes out of her room, missing him by inches. When they hear the front door slam and Greg starting up his car, David can't help but feel utterly destroyed.

She cries.

I am sorry.

…

She talks of nations and time but never of God. When he asks, there is anger inside of her.

God? David, there is no God. And if there is, He is a psychopath. He is demented. He is no God of mine.

Some tell her that if she doesn't believe in Jesus, she won't go to Heaven when she dies. Her gray eyes flash with fury when they speak to her like this.

Oh, I won't? I've been through hell once. I wonder if I can go through it again? You did not see what I saw! You didn't see the soldiers and camps! How can I believe in God after this? What sort of God puts His children on Earth only have them suffer for so long? What is the point?

Two million Jews and so many others. The entire world seemed like a slaughterhouse during the war. No place was safe. And where was God then?

David usually calms her. It's his belief that she has earned the right to believe whatever she wants.

…

Where is that friend of yours, David? Did I scare him off? Perhaps I was a bit strong. I shouldn't have thrown things.

David denies this, wanting to soothe her discord. The truth is that Greg can't look him in the eye anymore. He's too humiliated. When they do speak, it's usually Greg trying to apologize for the hundredth time.

"Tell her I'm sorry. I mean, really, I am. I didn't think about what I was saying. I'm just so used to blurting it out. I should have thought it through. Tell her."

David doesn't tell her that what he feels for Greg is more than friendship, because not even Greg knows.

Tell him I'm sorry. You should both come see me again. I would love that.

…

She wasn't a Jew. She wasn't a Gypsy. She wasn't a lesbian or mentally handicapped or a political activist. She was Russian. Russia is her homeland. She looks far off when she speaks of it.

You have Russian blood in you, David. Some are not proud of this. Did you know that Russia liberated Maidanek? It was a concentration camp. They came. The Russian history has been bloody, torturous, but what country's history is not? They came. That is all that matters now.

…

Greg is quiet as she talks. His eyes are cast down. David has finally managed to convince him to come; Annetka had felt so bad about how she had acted and desperately wanted to apologize to him.

But this wasn't the Greg that David knew; Normal Greg was loud, obnoxious, energetic. This one was refined, poised, cautious.

Annetka looks at her grandson who's looking at Greg. She had baked and tried to make it as pleasant as possible for her new visitor.

Tell me about yourself, Greg.

So he speaks of his grandfather.

…

David has the worst dreams. It's because of Annetka's stories and he wants to escape them, but he knows he can't leave her alone. She needs him, needs human contact. Besides, she's his grandmother. He loves her. He just hates her past.

The sterilization of women, David. That was dreaded among us. The Nazi's didn't want any woman to get pregnant, so they would inject us.

He often wakes from an uncomfortable sleep, images of women being injected in places that were never to be touched. Sometimes he throws up.

…

Greg comes often now. When Annetka and Greg are alone, David having gone to the kitchen, she asks him, You and my grandson. You are only friends?

Greg laughs. "What else would we be?"

She feels her heart break all over again.

…

She doesn't know he can smell cyanide until he tells her. It was a simple phrase; David was speaking as he made the two of them lunch. He spoke of work, his cases, and he just happened to mention it.

Gas chambers at Auschwitz in Poland used Hydrogen Cyanide. Did you know that, David? Maybe that is why you smell it. Maybe that is part of me inside of you. Maybe that will be your memory of the war.

…

He never asks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sometimes, however, she speaks of it.

Almost two hundred thousand people died. Dropping the bombs was not an easy decision for America, David, but it had to end.

She still looks regretful as she stares out her window, watching the birds eat seed that she had spread on her yard. The dead mothers and children in Japan hurt her the most; they were innocent, just trying to live their lives.

But what would have happened had they not dropped the bomb? What action would Japan have taken? How would history have changed?

Was it necessary? At the time, yes. Sometimes necessity and righteousness cannot go hand in hand.

…

David, about your friend Greg. Is he more to you than just that?

David is frozen, paused in a state of suspension. He looks over at her. How can she ask the question so candidly, so naturally? He shakes his head to deny it. He doesn't want her to know his true feelings.

Don't lie, David. You are my grandson. I can tell.

In the camps, lesbians wore black triangles and gays wore pink. That is where the pink symbol comes from.

You should tell him.

During the war, many did not have that luxury of such a confession. This is your chance.

…

They say it has been six decades.

She says that, always. He listens. The only way for her to live is speak of it, to count the days. She would die otherwise.

And what does it matter if has been six decades or six minutes? I understand that the war is over, David, and I have no choice but to carry it with me. The question is whether you and the generation born after you understand.

"We understand," he says. "We know it's over."

No, David. You do not know. Because after that war came many more. There will always be another waiting to be fought.

He cannot speak. He never knows what to say. He's never sure whether she's asking a question or waiting for a rebuke or making a statement or lecturing or reliving the past in her mind.

There are two wars now.

"There's only one in Iraq, Nana."

Yes. That is the first one. The second is in Africa. Her frail hand searches the bedside stand, grasping for the papers she had stored in there earlier.

Here. Take these. Tell people. The war in Africa is silent and no one is helping much. They say Africa is the second Holocaust.

Many people regretted not helping us when they could have.

They swore they would have come sooner if they had only known.

…

David doesn't know what losing someone to a war is like, but he never wants to find out.

Instead, he waits until shift is over, leaning casually against the building until Greg emerges. Greg is walking slowly, tired and aching and somewhat broken. David wonders if Greg is as haunted as Annetka.

"Greg?"

Greg seems to brighten at the sight of David, although the other man wonders why. David doesn't think himself particularly good looking or charming. Still, he quickly dismisses these thoughts.

He approaches the young CSI and presses his lips again Greg's. No unnecessary words. No explanation.

Greg doesn't pull away and that makes David feel better, because he's not sure what he would have done had Greg rejected him. Instead, the blonde simply wraps his arms around David's waist and whispers, "It's about time. How long were you going to keep me waiting?"

…

There will be some sort of memorial for Africa, David. Oh yes, just as there has been for every war that has come. It will be made out of cold stone and marble.

People will honor it and they will tell themselves that if they only knew what was happening there, they would have stopped it.

That is how they will sleep at night.

That is how they will live with themselves.

"I'll come back as soon as I can with as much as I can. In the meantime, you've got to hold."
-General MacArthur, speaking to General Wainwright, March 1942

(Keep holding.)

FIN.