Title: The Pilgrim
By: nicky69
Characters: Gil Grissom, Other
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Death of canon character
Summary: Every year at the same time Gil Grissom takes a journey.
Author's Note: Please note this story contains spoilers for the season 5 episode Grave Danger. Betead by the lovely elmyraemilie, ant mistakes you find are my own.

Every year around the second week in August, with a minimum of fuss Gil Grissom cleans up his office, feeds his bugs and passes his current case files off to another CSI. Because Gil Grissom is going on vacation.

He tries to make his getaway before someone asks the inevitable question, "Where are you going?"

It's usually Jim or Catherine who dares to question him, trying to find out just what it is he gets up to at the same time every year. But the only answer that they ever get is one eyebrow lifted in that infuriating Grissom way and the cryptic reply, "Where the heart is."

He stays in the same hotel, the Hotel Crescent Court, every year. It's become a habit really, for the place holds no memories for him. It's simply a way-station on his journey.

He arrives around eight in the evening; his flight was delayed, again. So he orders dinner from room service and grabs a quick shower before turning in for the night. He has to be up early in the morning.

Making his way through the post dawn light, he finds that his thoughts are consumed by memories of the past. Memories of days spent in the company of friends and lovers now long gone. Days when hope was not lost, nor the world nor he so cold.

Finally spying his cut off, he guides the rental car to a spot in the parking lot, way in back. Rolling to a gentle halt, he gathers his things.

He has forgotten how beautiful it is here, how restful. This early in the morning the sun is just beginning to warm the air and the gentle buzz of insects mixes with the occasional cry from the songbirds.

The path is familiar below his feet, leading him ever closer to his destination.

Reaching out to touch rough stone, his fingers trace the inscription placed there by a grieving family.

"Beloved Son and Brother."

They had been too late, that night. He had been too late. Too late to save his colleague from a harrowing, lonely death.

No, that wasn't right. They had been more than colleagues, they had been friends.

They should have been so much more.

So here he stands, lost and bereft. His heart, though dead, is still beating on. It does not understand that it died too, with his love.

Raising his eyes to the heavens, as if to speed his message onward, he whispers, "Happy birthday, Nicky."