Tis a Gift to be Free

Devon Pierce

Spoilers: For Gedda (Character Death)

I haven't written anything in years. Please be gentle. I'm skerred.

Welcome back, Jorja.

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Walking into Warrick's funeral, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that she was walking into her own.

It was stupid, of course. A reunion with people you had spent the last eight years of your life with wasn't at all the same as having those same people stare at your corpse. The dread and uneasiness that she felt still made it seem as though she was no longer a part of that group, that life.

When she had heard the news, she was sitting in the same place where she always talked to Grissom. The low stone ledge outside the house she called a home, but a place that seemed anything but. She had moved back to San Francisco to escape her demons, but those demons had followed her inside. She realized too late that changing your location didn't necessarily mean changing your situation, but she kept waiting for that lightning bolt of an epiphany that she knew lurked around the next corner.

Those demons sat next to her on the plane, in the taxi from the airport, and now they walked beside her into the church.

When Grissom brought her to Vegas to investigate Holly Gribbs' death, she thought she had him pegged. A vaguely anti-social addict that was apathetic to anything but his own problems and compulsions. There was a disconnect between the two CSIs, or so she had thought. After all, her work meant everything to her, and Warrick's just seemed to get in the way. When she handed the tape to Grissom, she had felt disappointment, but also a twinge of superiority. Definitely a aura of judgment. She'd never let weakness manifest itself in that way. She was better than that; she had too much self-control.

Seven years later, she was still mopping up the aftereffects of her weaknesses.

Subconsciously, she smoothed her hands over the side of her skirt, and then immediately wrinkled the fabric again as she tensed. How had she gotten to a point where the sight of the back of Nick's head made her want to flee? She had spent hours practicing what she would say. Quick hugs for everyone. Condolences. Some questions about their work, while carefully avoiding questions regarding hers. It should be easy; these were her friends.

She stepped forward with forced confidence and tapped him on the shoulder.

Warrick, ironically, had been her first real friend on the team. Unlike the others, he had never seen her as an interloper, most likely because he had always felt like one. Talks in the break room had turned into conversations on the phone, and several months later became discussions at a bar or in their apartments. When Grissom pulled away, she pulled Warrick closer.

Not in a romantic sense, but because he became the only person who could identify with how she felt. He knew.

There had been one drunken, sloppy kiss after a holiday party. They still laughed about that.

They had laughed about that. Now he was dead.

Nick wheeled around and his smile reached all the way up to his red-rimmed eyes. the hug was genuine, and instantaneous.

Neither spoke for a moment, and then, "Sara, we've all missed you so much."

She gave her best smile and felt herself tear up. "Same here. I'm...so sorry."

Not for not being there when he died, but for not having wanted to be there. Two months after she left to chase ghosts, she had a new one chasing her.

"He'd be so happy you were here."

"I couldn't miss it. I haven't slept since Grissom told me the news."

Nodding, Nick pulled her into a nearby pew. "Everyone else should be here soon. We're both a little early."

He had no idea how early. She had arrived in Vegas almost 12 hours ago. Six of those hours were spent in her room at New York, New York and the other six she had spent staring across the street at a house she couldn't bring herself to approach.

Warrick had always been her sounding board when it came to Grissom. Having no female friends, he because the closet thing to a confidante that she had. He was the first to know that she and Grissom had shared more than a professional courtesy to each other, and he was the first to know when that had become renewed. Warrick was the one who answered her calls in the time in between.

And Warrick was the one that knew about their engagement. He died being the sole heir of that knowledge.

Sara exuded happiness afterward, and Warrick had picked up on it almost immediately. She and Grissom had spent almost two hours discussing their newfound commitment and his breath had barely cooled on her lips before she found herself confiding in the one person she knew would take in the news and not let it back out. And in the only person who would be unconditionally happy for her. No one else in her life fit that description, and she had lost her smile only for a moment.

"Sara?"

Greg's voice broke her out of her reverie and she reached into his hug. Behind him stood Catherine, whose smile looked forced before she sat down behind them. She didn't have time to reflect on that before Greg jumped in with his litany of questions.

He didn't notice that she avoided half. They fell into easy conversation as she kept her eyes on the people filing in behind them. The doors were closing, the organ music was increasing in volume, and she returned a subdued wave to Hodges as he and

Wendy hurried to find a seat across the chapel.

A white casket sat at the front of the church, closed. the killer had not afforded Warrick's friends and family one last look before he would be loaded into a hearse and then into the ground. A large canvas backed photograph showing him in life was propped on an easel in front of the pulpit. Sara observed with some amusement that Warrick looked vaguely annoyed by the hoopla.

The pastor moved forward, ribboned Bible in hand, and Sara suddenly felt the urge to flee. Something was wrong, this was wrong, and she needed to get out of this church that was now spinning around her...

The outside air hit her in the face like hot breath and she swallowed back the bile that had risen in her throat. She leaned against a fountain and squinted through the sun as a few stragglers hurried into the church.

She found what was missing. What she was missing.

Stepping forward, she didn't meet his eyes. They embraced and she lost it. Sobbing, she felt his hands sliding up and down the sides of her silk blouse and she could only hold on tighter. Grissom murmered unintelligible but comforting words into her hair and she felt some solace for the first time in months.

Grissom's capacity for forgiveness astounded her. They had talked on the phone many times since she had left, but there was always that safety net of the end button. Now she was here and he was here and they were together, and it was like she had never left. He could have walked past her, although even she recognized the absurdity of that. But he didn't have to envelop her as freely as he had before she threw away their home, their life.

The music was now loud enough that they could hear it in the courtyard, and the two of them sat at the base of the fountain, hands clasped and eyes pointing in the opposite direction of where Warrick lay.

"He wouldn't have liked this, you know." Grissom's voice was raspy, but matter-of-fact.

"I think he would have appreciated the thought."

Shrugging, he glanced back at the door. "The sermon aspect, I mean. He was always more of a two-word epitaph type of guy.

Brevity was always one of his strong points."

"If he even wanted a grave marker at all. I think he would have liked his ashes spread over the strip."

"Maybe the floor of the Tangiers."

Sara laughed, her voice cracking. "I can't believe he's gone, Gil. When you called...I never got to say goodbye. You know, when I left. He knew there was something up. He reached out to me, and I left."

"You needed to leave, Sara. He'd understand that. I understood that. As hard as it is sometimes, I still do."

Someone was playing Amazing Grace on the bagpipes now, and they sat in silence. Grieving for Warrick was easier out here. It was easier together.

"I'm not good at funerals. I didn't go to my father's. I didn't even realize there had been one until a social worker mentioned it when she came to place me. I watched sitcoms on an old black-and-white T.V. while they buried him. I never got to say goodbye then, either."

Nodding, Grissom stared at the side of her head. "I don't think grief is a public event. When I die, I don't want a large gathering. Just you and whatever family we have left."

Sara felt her heart clench at the sentiment and for the first time realized that by leaving to overcome the loss of her family, she had almost lost her future. Her family was here.

The sun was setting and the church was cast in an odd glow. A small flock of birds flew in front of the steeple, and she felt at peace.

Warrick was at peace, the mourning would soon end, and the investigation into his death would soon consume Grissom and the others.

She didn't know if she was ready to come back, but she was ready to bury her ghosts just as they were about to bury Warrick.

A good investigator, a good man, a good friend had died, and she owed it to him to live in the present and not lose herself in the process.

Grissom squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. They sat there, together, until the doors opened and pallbearers moved Warrick to the waiting hearse.

He was dead and she was still alive, and together, she and Grissom walked to his car.

The investigation would begin today.

Warrick wouldn't want it any other way.

FIN