Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Spoilers: None as far as I am aware

Rating: I've gone with T or PG-13 just to be safe. There's a use of the f-word about once and THAT'S ONCE TOO MANY! Swearing is overrated, kids.

Summary: GCR with a little WS. After an accident affects a team member, the team find themselves revisiting old memories

Once again, thank you so much for reviews. This is the last chapter and I hope it does not disappoint. You've been really great reviewers so thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter, sitarra, Bookworm0485, gckyr, D.M.A.S, DrusillaBraun, Daisyangel, Review1234, September and Lissa88. As well as everyone who's reviewed throughout and who have put this on their C2s or in favourites lists. It's always lovely to know people are actually enjoying this.

The next story you can expect from me will probably be entitled: Every Me and Every You. This isn't focused on any pairing, but is more of a case-fic which concentrates on each of the six main characters. The next GCR chaptered fic will probably be called Down The Aisle – look out for those. Or not, if you so wish :)

Thanks again. As ever, feedback would be fantastic but just reading it would be good. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx

- o -

Perpetuity. Chapter Thirteen. Daybreak

- o -

Warrick and Nick watched their supervisor with apprehensiveness. Noah had, apparently, been too much for her to go over again because she was extremely quiet and withdrawn: somewhere else completely.

"So what do you think? Cath?" Warrick prompted. Catherine shook herself.

"Huh?"

Nick and Warrick exchanged looks. "We just went through what we've got for this case, Cath." Nick said. Catherine frowned.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that – can you go over it again?" she asked, distractedly. Warrick shrugged.

"Okay..."

As they began to go over what'd taken them at least ten minutes to explain before, Catherine's cell phone went off. She jumped to her feet with an apologetic look at the two guys and stepped to the side of the room to answer it.

"Willows."

"It was Sonnet 81." a familiar voice told her eagerly down the phone line. "We were at Lake Mead, just about ten minutes from Echo Bay. Friday the 18th of November. 1995."

Nick and Warrick looked up as Catherine made a funny noise and saw her, hand over her mouth and eyes full of tears.

"Are you crying or laughing?" Gil asked.

"Both." she admitted, with a laugh through her tears.

"You know, you never treated us all to your version of the first time we slept together," he continued roguishly.

Catherine laughed some more, beginning to run down the corridors of the lab, out to her car. Warrick and Nick grinned at each other as she rushed from the room and sat down – let her have a chance to see him first.

"No way – I'm taking that story with me to the grave," she replied and heard his chuckle through the receiver as she started up her Denali.

"Okay then, while you're on your way over, I'll entertain you with what I remember of it, shall I?" he smirked and Catherine's car rolled out of the parking lot, making that well-worn journey to Desert Palms.

-

Catherine rubbed her eyes and yawned, stretching against the wooden back of the chair at her kitchen table.

"So anyway," she concluded sleepily. "It was their 17-year old kid who just went totally crazy with his dad's shotgun cos he was high. It just really gets you thinking, you know, about how you're raising them. Whether or not you're doing it right, and how will you ever know and stuff."

Gil traced the pattern of the tablecloth absent-mindedly with his fingers; it had been a very long shift.

"I mean," Catherine went on. "I'm never around enough. And then you have the fights, the divorce, all this messed up crap."

"You're doing fine," he assured her. "Both of you – better than fine. You just worry far too much; more than you need to."

Catherine laughed. "Perhaps. But no matter how many times you tell me that, I'll still worry."

Gil shrugged his shoulders. "Can't say I didn't try, though." He glanced at his watch and got up.

"I should go – let you get to sleep. I'm on again in about 8 hours." he said but, as he stood to go, she grabbed his hand.

"Stay." she asked him with imploring eyes and since when had he ever not given in to her? Gil sat back down but she didn't let go of his hand. Catherine stood up and led him willingly out of the kitchen.

"What are we doing, Catherine?" he questioned hesitantly when she stopped outside her bedroom door. She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Don't tell me you don't know," she replied. "What we've both been waiting for, for many, many years."

"Okay then." he answered with a smile and kissed her.

They fell into the room together and, between unbuttoning his shirt, Catherine glanced apprehensively at the open door.

"Shut the door," she whispered. "Lindsey's got a friend sleeping over."

"Oh really?" he raised an eyebrow as he kicked the door closed. "Well why don't you have a friend sleep over, too?"

Catherine collapsed on the bed entwined with him before replying. "Mmm – good idea, I'll just give Ecklie a call."

Gil chuckled and shook his head. Catherine would always, at the very least, go one better.

"Oh don't tell me you're not the kinda guy who's up for a threesome, Gil." she said with a laugh as belts, shirts and jeans came off.

"You have such a dirty laugh!" he stared in wonderment at her only causing her to laugh again.

"And you," she returned, poking him in the chest with a finger, "didn't give me a straight answer." Catherine leant in to kiss him back when a small voice piped up from the doorway.

"Mommy?" a six-year old Lindsey Willows stood by her mother's bedroom door.

"Oh Jesus," Catherine muttered, wrapping the sheets around her and throwing a blanket to Gil who hurriedly did the same.

"Mommy, can I have a glass of water?" Lindsey asked, apparently unaware of what was going on.

Catherine slipped on the nearest shirt which didn't happen to be her own.

"Of course you can, sweetie," she told her daughter. "Although maybe next time you should knock on the door first..."

Gil muffled his laughter with a pillow and felt Catherine jab him sharply with her elbow before she stepped out of bed. Taking the little girl's hand, Catherine led her into the kitchen and Gil couldn't help but smile at Lindsey's inquisitive voice that drifted from the kitchen.

"Mommy, were you putting Uncle Gil to bed?" Lindsey enquired, looking at her mother with her round blue, innocent eyes.

"Yes, baby – sort of." Catherine replied uncertainly.

It literally was just sleeping together. Catherine returned to bed after putting Lindsey back to bed and struggled to suppress her own laughter as she buried her face in the sheets with a groan.

"Oh Christ – the kid's gonna be in therapy before she hits sixteen, I know it." Catherine muttered. Gil grinned in the darkness and drew her close to him.

"See? Worrying far too much," he mumbled tiredly.

"Perhaps."

He silenced his alarm as soon as it went off, some hours later and turned to check that Catherine hadn't woken up. He'd left her still asleep, a note stuck to the fridge – the note that was now pinned on the hospital wall between a photo of he, Catherine and Lindsey at a park in '97 and his pathetic results from his first visit to the LVPD shooting range – and a kiss on her forehead that she didn't feel.

After his 10-hour shift, he came back to her; he always would. It never mattered where they went without each other, or how far from home they travelled by themselves – the point was that they would always find themselves coming home to each other. It was how it was, how it was meant to be and nothing, apparently, could ever change that.

-

This time it was Catherine sprinting down from her poorly-parked car and dashing through the network of hospital corridors. It was Catherine who burst into his hospital room having left work with no explanation. She flung her arms around him as he stood on crutches by the hospital payphone and didn't care when her cell phone clattered to the floor.

"I have missed you so, so much," she whispered into his shoulder. He held onto her with his one free hand, balancing precariously on the crutch.

"So..." he looked at her, straight into the clear blue eyes he knew so well. "Are we having a girl or a boy?"

"I don't know," she replied, making to bury her face back in his chest but he stopped her, one hand gently on her cheek.

"Catherine..."

She rolled her eyes and smiled. "A little boy." she relented. Gil beamed at her and kissed her, remembering how that felt, remembering everything about it.

"I think," he said, unfurling a fist to reveal a delicate silver necklace, "I think this is yours." And he clasped it carefully around her neck.

For the first time ever, as she looked at the tiny locket with its intricate carved lettering, she smiled a genuine smile and was happy.

- o -

(Well I rarely leave a story without its happy ending.)

Thank you.