Merry (belated) christmas and Happy New year :)

Disclaimer: Santa failed this year, i still don't have them

x x x x

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Sir."

Catherine hated saying that. She knew from bitter experience that those words did nothing to ease the pain of losing a loved one and they always left a sour taste in her mouth. And this man had just lost his daughter. There were not enough words in the world...

X x x

"Stephanie was ... dealing with a lot." Dr Bonner said, choosing his words carefully. "She was a young woman with a lot of problems."

"Such as?" Grissom asked, leaning back in his seat.

"Schizophrenia, ADHD, paranoia. She was one of my more difficult patients."

X x x

"Steph was ... she was difficult." Mr Adams swallowed hard. "She'd never been quite right, ever since ... since her sister died."

"Could you be more specific?" Catherine pressed gently.

"Carla. She died six years ago. Steph ... she took it hard. That's when all of her problems started. The doctors say a traumatic event can trigger these things." He explained sadly, fighting back tears. "My wife, she couldn't handle her anymore. The stress, it got to her. She left a year after Carla...after the accident." Cath sighed. This line of questioning was not going to end well so she changed tack.

"I know this must be hard for you, but I need your help to understand your daughter's state of mind at the time she died." She said softly. He looked up slowly. The tears were still glistening but there was an unwavering hardness to his voice that had not been there before.

"My daughter was not suicidal."

X x x

"You think she committed suicide."

"Do you?" Grissom countered. Dr Bonner pursed his lips.

"At our last meeting she was detached, dissociative. She barely made eye contact ... and she only seemed to want to talk about her sister."

"And this was unusual for her?"

"She never spoke of her sister before. If I ever brought up the accident, she got angry."

"The accident?"

"Carla Adams drowned when she was 9. Stephanie was 11 at the time; she was the only person who witnessed it. They had been skating on a frozen lake at their holiday home. The ice broke, Carla fell through."

"And Stephanie never talked about this."

"Never." Grissom pouted thoughtfully.

"So then, that must have been a breakthrough." He suggested, but Dr Bonner's expression did not seem to agree.

"She had been making progress, learning to talk things through. And that day, she just seemed to have shut down. It was like she wasn't talking to me at all. This was a major step back."

X x x

"She'd been doing so well. She wouldn't have done this." He sobbed. Catherine's heart went out to the man; time and stress had obviously robbed him of all strength, but she could tell he had once been an attractive man in his youth. Probably a doting father and husband. It never ceased to amaze her how in such a short space of time a person's world could fall apart at the seams.

X x x

"Now, I know I had her file somewhere. Just one second..." Grissom rolled his eyes. So far the doctor had been very helpful, but his decidedly unkempt office was not helping right now, and he wanted to get back to PD to find out what Catherine had learnt from the decedent's father. "Hold on!" The doctor exclaimed, making Gil jump. "I think I had it in the copier room, I'll be right back." The man scuttled out, leaving Gil alone in his office. The entomologist glanced around, taking it in, reading him. The paintings on the walls, all contempory expressionist, the soft tones of a classical melody drifting from an old record player in the corner of the room and the old books lining the shelves all suggested he was a connoisseur of the fine arts. The bottle of red wine peeping out from the desk drawer supported this, among other things.

The files scattered disorderedly across his desk suggested he was an untidy cretin.

As his careful blue eyes cast lazily over the files, one name in particular jumped out at him. Without thinking, he grabbed it and turned the manila cover to the first page, all thought of confidentiality out of the window.

He barely got three words in before the door clattered open and Dr Bonner stumbled back in waving a folder of his own.

"Found it!" He beamed gleefully. Grissom hastily stowed the stolen file on his lap, out of sight, and accepted the victim's with a guilty smile.

But 17 year old Stephanie Adams, her blood still staining the bottom of a stairwell in a grungy downtown apartment block, was the last person on his mind right now.

x x x x

Leave a review, let me know what you think :) x