I'm ba-ack! After nearly a year long sabbatical or whatever you'll call my excuse for massive writer's block, I've returned to my favorite hobby. I've endured many annoying false starts, but this seems to be the most promising start to a multi-chapter story. This is all I have at the moment, and it seems to stand well enough on it's own for now. It definitely has more to it, I assure you. I'll do my best to update, but as I said, this is truly all I have right now. Hopefully you all enjoy it and the surprises and heartache that I'm going to introduce. I promise not to be too cruel.

Amanda

Nick watched regretfully as Catherine approached the headstone. She slowly knelt in front of it, lowering her head into her hands. He shouldn't have brought her here. He shouldn't be enabling the pain.

What the hell was he thinking? If he hadn't brought her, she would've come on her own. She would have found a way. This was a place of old pain, old tragedy, but a place where she seemed to find some kind of solace.

He looked up when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Somebody was watching them from far off in the distance. The person was too far away for Nick to identify anything other than gender, but the man's stature... it was familiar. He knew it so well. Nick looked back down to the headstone that Catherine was kneeling in front of, and when he looked back up a moment later, the man was gone.

Convinced it was his imagination, Nick moved to stand beside Catherine, placing his hand on her shoulder as a show of comfort and support. He didn't know what else to do. He couldn't say anything. He was seeing his dead best friend while visiting his grave. He had to believe it was his imagination or else he may have to face that he might be going a little crazy because of the grief. It had been three years since Warrick was murdered. Gedda was dead, most of his lackeys were in prison, and now Nick had nothing to focus on but the fact that his friend was dead, and there was no way to bring him back.

But then why did he still feel like he was being watched?

Catherine blinked back the tears that came every time she visited this place. The pain should have lessened after all this time, but then again three years wasn't that long. Though it seemed that nineteen years of her daughter's life just flew by. Lindsey was excited as hell to get out of Vegas when she went off to college in Massachusetts. Her baby had gotten into Harvard, and now Catherine was truly alone.

No, not alone. She had the team. Though she couldn't even say that with the same conviction that had once defined her. The only ones left were Nick and Greg. Ray Langston was doing well, but he just didn't fill the void that Grissom, Sara, and... God, she couldn't even think about it. She missed him too much. A rogue tear slipped down her cheek, and dozens more followed suit.

Through the cloudy haze of moisture glazing her eyes, Catherine was barely able to make out the flakes of snow drifting down, disappearing into the earth just as quickly as they fell. Winter in Nevada never ceased to amaze her. After the one hundred degree days of summer, she would never have expected it to ever snow in Las Vegas. But here she was on Christmas Eve, kneeling in front of her friend's grave, thinking about how she would never be able to celebrate with him again.

She wished things had turned out differently. She wished he hadn't done all the stupid, ridiculous things that led to his death. She thought that maybe if he had confided in her, she would've been able to change his fate. But now she could only weep, Nick's hand on her shoulder, supporting her in spite of his own grief. She could only think of the woulda-coulda-shouldas, instead of accepting what she had done.

She could only, through the thoughts of sorrow and regret and intense loss, wish him a distant and half-hearted Merry Christmas.