Title: Waltzin' Matilda
Author: Esynnaj
Author Email: vebesahchalarc@sbcyahoo.net
Category: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt-Comfort
Rating: FRAO
Pairing: Warrick/Gil
Status of Story: Complete
Summary: Matilda has taken Gil and Warrick wants him back.
Warnings: BD, non-con, violence, Het
Author Notes: Karen, here's what Matilda's been up to. It wasn't posted in your specified two hours, but was posted in less than a week.
Story Notes: Matilda is a character who previously appeared in my story called "Cheating Hearts" based on a challenge from Kaelleigh, just in case anyone needs to know that.

The man coming into the lobby of the forensic lab seemed very out-of-place from the first moment he entered it. He was inappropriately dressed for Vegas weather in a heavy sports jacket with leather patches on the elbows, rumpled black knit trousers and heavily worn brogan boots. Very short and stocky, with a tousled mass of graying, formerly blond hair and wide, troubled, very beautiful brown eyes, he was darkly tanned and had leathery, deeply wrinkled skin, signs of a hard working man who did most of that work outdoors. There was a look of utter bewilderment on a stoic and weary face as he paused uncertainly at the secretary's station, not unusual on someone from outside the Las Vegas police department who was trying to navigate its maze of subdivisions within divisions to find one particular person.

The secretary smiled at him and asked cheerily, "Good morning, sir? How may I help you?"

"I'm looking for Dr. Gil Grissom. They told me upfront I could find him here, that he hadn't got off work yet."

"Oh, he's still here," she said as she picked up her phone. "May I tell him what this might be in reference to?"

"Um, ah, well, see, I've brought his daughter to him that he doesn't know about yet."

That made the pretty temp's mouth drop open, almost causing her to forget all about telling Catherine, when she answered the phone in Grissom's office, who was waiting for him, much less what the matter concerned. The latter part was added as a hastily afterthought during the reminder of a short conversation. But by then Catherine had, as she perched on Gil's desk and he talked to Nick and Sara in the hallway, called out to him to let him know somebody was waiting for him in the lobby. But, by the time she'd gotten the rest of the message, Gil was already on his way out there. Snarling, "Oh, shit," under her breath, Catherine slammed down the phone while the secretary's voice still saying something to her, hopped off the desk and rushed after him.

He stopped so short on seeing who was waiting that she nearly ran into his back, had to skid to an abrupt halt. Upon hearing him mutter testily, "Oh, what in the hell is he doing here?"

Catherine peeked around him to see the person to whom he referred, querying, "Who is he?"

"That's Matilda Brookshire's father."

"He's whose father?"

Taking a deep breath, Grissom said, "Matilda Brookshire, the woman I met in Denver a few years ago."

"Oh, you don't mean that nutty bitch who came over here from the land down under, tied Warrick to your bed and maced the fuck outa him, do you?"

"That would be her."

"Yeah then, I wanna know, too." Catherine said, coming to stand next to him and peek around the corner at the older man. "What in the hell is he doing here?"

Stepping back to be certain he didn't get into the eyesight of Matilda's father, Gil shoved Catherine forward. "Go see what he wants."

"Me?" Catherine echoed, pointing at herself. "I should go see what he wants? Now, why on earth should I do any such thing?"

"Because... I don't want to. Now go."

"Gil, I'm pretty sure it's a personal matter between you and him. I don't think I should..."

"Well, I do. Go."

After giving Gil a glare then putting a smile on her face for Mr. Brookshire, she walked out to introduce herself to the man. "Hi. I'm Catherine Willows." Shaking his hand after he had struggled to get up like the gentleman he was, from the low chair he had been sitting in, she said, "Dr. Grissom's busy right now, but I'm also a shift supervisor. Is there anything I can help you with?"

Bobbing his head, he told her. "I'm Bill Brookshire. I've just got in from Australia and it's very important that I speak to Dr. Grissom."

"Are you sure there's nothing I can help you with?"

"Well, I'm... not sure. It's mainly about him. Maybe I should..."

Before he could get his thoughts in order and form them into words, Catherine had knelt in front of the wide eyed, self contained little girl the older man had sitting in a chair next to him and who was just as unsuitably and unseasonably attired as he was. "Oh my, this is really a cute little girl. What's her name?"

"Kathleen, Kathleen Brookshire. But we call her Kitty for short. It's for the baby that I've got to see Dr. Grissom."

Looking into the child's eyes, seeing how blue they were, how much they were like Gil's right down to the gray flints that would become so prominent in his when he was in certain reflective or negative moods, Catherine felt a chill coursing her spine. Standing up, she said, "Mr. Brookshire, you wait right here. I'm going to go get Dr. Grissom for you."

After a whispery, hurried, back and forth, snappish conversation peppered with amazement and disbelief on both sides, together, Catherine and Gil went back into the lobby and Matilda's father with a faade of smiles pasted onto their faces. As Gil said, holding out his hand, "It's good to see you again, Mr. Brookshire. How is Matilda doing these days?"

Bobbing his head again as he shook Gil's hand, Matilda's father said, "Not so good, Dr. Grissom, not so good at all. My wife died a few months ago. Then another one of Tillie's engagements fell through. But we've got other, more important things to talk about." With a nod of his head to indicate the pretty child sitting by him on a chair who was gazing up at them with wide, blue eyes. Then the man stated flatly, with a touch of aggressiveness, "Kitty is your daughter, Dr. Grissom. Yours and Tillie's, and that's a fact. I can't take care of her, not without my wife to help, and neither can Tillie. So I've brung her to you. You're her father and got a really good job. It's best for her to be with you. That's the best thing, all the way around for all of us."

Staring at the little girl without going any closer than he already was, Gil said quietly and carefully, "Mr. Brookshire, I don't... quite know what to say to you just yet about this. It's very sudden and unexpected."

"I'm sorry for that, but facts is facts. She's yours, Dr. Grissom, your daughter, I know she is. My Tillie's had her problems, but she's never been a woman who, who slept around with a lot of different men. She slept with a few, all she thought loved her. At the time she got with child, she hadn't been with anybody else for months and wasn't with anybody else for months afterward. My granddaughter is your baby. I'd stake my life on that."

Obviously having come with the expectation of skepticism about the fatherhood of the baby to whom his daughter had given birth, Mr. Brookshire very quickly was becoming upset. Not wishing to have matters escalate into an argument in the lobby, Gil calmed him by saying, "Mr. Brookshire, I am not suggesting otherwise. But, it'd be in your, my and Matilda's best interest that we be sure of all... implications of what you're telling me before we...."

"Implications?" Brookshire repeated with a frown. "Does that mean you're trying to say you don't believe me?"

"No. No, not at all," Gil hastily reassured him. "I just think we need to... sit down and talk about this, talk it all out. Then we can..."

Noting that the temp was gazing in their direction, very interested in their conversation, Catherine reached out and squeezed Grissom's arm. "Gil, I really think you'd do better to take this discussion someplace quiet and private. Like your office maybe?"

He turned toward her tentatively, now pale with his eyes clouded by mild confusion. "Um, yes, you're right. That would be better."

Moving forward, Catherine held out her arms and, while smiling winningly at the solemn child, said to her, "Honey, can I carry you? We're going down this hallway to have a talk with your Grandpa and I'd love to have such a pretty thing like you in my arms."Smiling sweetly, the little girl lifted her arms to let Catherine pick her up. As soon as they reached Gil's office, Catherine said, "I tell you what. Mr. Brookshire, would be all right with you if me and Kitty went and got her something to eat and drink? I'll bet you're hungry, huh, Kitty? How about thirsty? Would you like to come with me and get some juice, if your Grandpa says that's okay?"

With Mr. Brookshire nodding his approval and Kitty tightening her grip about Catherine's neck, Gil stepped back to invite the other man into his office as Catherine walked away with his granddaughter. "Please have a seat, Mr. Brookshire," Grissom said as he went around and sat down behind his desk. After they settled down and Gil had taken a couple of deep, soothing breaths, he said, "Now, I understand you're telling me that's my child, and I'm not intending to impinge either Matilda's or your honor. But I have to say, with this coming so long after she and I were... together; and then so briefly; that I need some clarification."

"She was pregnant when she came back home to Australia from Denver, Dr. Grissom, that's clear. But she was happy awhile, telling us how she'd met you and you two had fallen in love at first sight. But then she started having trouble getting in touch with you and started getting sick and all. We thought it was because she might have stopped taking her medicine and started checking to make sure she was taking it, but it was too late. Next thing we knew, she was gone. But none of us knew where until we got the call from your police here that she had come to Las Vegas and was causing you problems. It wasn't the first time Tillie had taken off and then something what like happened here went on with her. She falls in love all the time and the men think she'd make a good wife until they figure out she has the troubles of the mind that she does. Then everything goes to shit for her all over again, if you'll excuse me for saying it blunt. It happened real fast with you. She thought you'd make her a perfect husband, I guess, being a doctor and all. She thought she could build a good life with you, but she was wrong about that, like she's always been wrong about every other guy she picks out.

"Anyway, after we came and got her, we had to put her in hospital again cause she was hearin' the voices and what they seemed to be telling Tillie was she rightfully belonged here with you. We couldn't get that notion out her head. With her getting bigger and bigger with your baby, she just kept saying it was part of you that was inside her, but she didn't understand it was a baby. She'd always had high moral standards and never thought she would be havin' a baby without a husband. So she just pretended it wasn't a baby, just something good from you. My Tillie's tough, but tiny, as you know. So when she went into labor, she had a lot of problems and her doctor decided it'd be better for her to have a cae... that operation that cuts the baby out."

"A caesarian," Gil murmured.

"Yeah, that. Tillie was still in hospital, so my wife and me, we took the baby home with us. Matilda seemed to forget all about getting big, so, when she finally came home, we decided to tell 'er the baby was ours and she believed us. Then her mother died and she got bad again and her doctor put her in hospital again. But she'd got better and they gave her a leave that she didn't come back from. By the time we tracked her down, she was in Sidney and had found a new fella. Just seeing us made her problems kick up again and this guy did just like all the rest, dropped her flat. We took her home, but Tillie's smart when it comes to getting away from us and... it's all just too much, Dr. Grissom. When we found her that time and had to put her back in the hospital, my boys and me decided it would be better if Kitty's gone when she comes home this time. I got a ranch, Dr. Grissom, a big ranch. I don't have time to look after Kitty and Tillie like they should be looked after and still take care of my ranch. Not without my wife being there, I don't. Tillie's my baby girl and I'll always take care of her. I feel, with Kitty being your baby girl, then your job is to do the same for her."

"I see." Tapping a pen on his desk, Gil said, "Mr. Brookshire, I agree with you that, if your granddaughter is my child, I should take care of her. But I was with your daughter only the one time. I hope you'll understand when I ask, if it'd be all right with you, that we have DNA testing done, which will verify beyond any shadow of a doubt that your granddaughter is also my daughter."

"I think that would be best. Any man in your position should be sure about that, I guess. I'm not worried about any tests you wanna do. I know that baby's yours for a fact. You do what you've got to do." Mr. Brookshire stood up. "I'm staying at the Holiday Inn out near the airport. I'll stay there until you do your tests. Please do the tests as fast as you can. Then leave me a message there when they're done."

As the man started to leave, Gil got up hastily, saying as he came around to him, "I'll show you where Catherine's taken your granddaughter."

But Mr. Brookshire firmly shook his head. "No. I don't want to see her again. She's a good baby. She's little now and won't remember me or Tillie or her Grandma, if I leave her with you.It's best for her and me and everybody back home that this be a clean break."

"What? No. You can't just leave her here. She's your granddaughter. You've got to take her with you."

Brookshire was still definitively shaking his head. "No, no, I don't. I can't and won't. Yes, she's my granddaughter. But she's your daughter and it's your job to take care of her now. Being a Dad always comes first before being a Granddad. I've got to go home and see about Tillie. Kitty's yours. Go see to her."

No matter what Gil said, even as he followed the steadily walking away man from the building, on the verge of pleading with him to take the child with him, nothing could change his mind or make him stop shaking his head or stop saying the little girl with Catherine was no longer his responsibility but all Grissom's. While standing at the front entrance, watching the man drive away, Gil's only forlorn and repetitive thought was, "I am not going to be able to deal with this, I really am not."

When he went into the break room where Catherine was with Kitty, he sat down as far from them as possible and still be in the same room, which made Catherine cock her head and ask, "What's with you? You're looking very strange."

Waving his hands in bewilderment, Gil said hoarsely, "He's gone, Catherine. He's just up and left her here."

Catherine's mouth dropped wide open, for a moment, as she stared at him. Then she closed it and said, "He's what?"

"You heard me!! He's gone!! He's dropped her off like so much baggage and he's gone!!"

Quietly, Catherine said, "Gil, bring your voice down. You're scaring the child." Turning back to Kitty, she handed her the popsicle that she had been holding for her to lick, smiled and said, "You do it on your own for a bit, honey, can't you? I'll be right over there for a sec." Then she went to sit down at the table where Grissom was and ask, "Now, calmly and rationally, tell me what's happening."

"That's all there is to it. He said that's my baby and he didn't want her and he's left her here."

"With you," Catherine added with a note of finality in her voice.

"Yes, that's what he's done."

"Gil, that can't be all there is to it. Nobody just pulls a two year old girl out the air, claims it belongs to somebody and leaves her like this."

"Well, that man's done it!!" Gil said in an exasperated whisper. "That's exactly what that man has done!! As fast he got out of here, I would've had to call in the blue suits to stop him and I didn't want to do that. But we need to find the Holiday Inn he said he's staying at to get this child back to him. We've got to do that and do it now, before he hops a flight back to Australia."

"Hold on a minute, Gil. Just let's slow down. Suppose the baby is yours?"

Sitting up straight and stiff, Gil snapped, "That's not possible. I didn't... we were together just the one time."

Trying to keep a smile from coming onto her face, Catherine said, "Now, Gil. You know better than to say something like that. It sounds like something a teenager would say after getting his girlfriend pregnant after their first time. You're old enough to know how easy it is to get someone pregnant, especially when you don't use protection, which, I'm gathering, you didn't."

Gil stared at her a long moment, then jumped to his feet, gasping, "I can't handle this right now. I can't."

As he fled from the break room, Catherine stood up and called after him, shooting an arm out at Kitty. "But what do you want me to do with her?"

His voice floated back, "I don't know. I don't care. Do whatever you think is best."Then, Grissom was gone.

Catherine glared into Gil's dust for a moment then dropped her head and sadly shook it, sighing as she considered this brand new and very astonishing wrinkle. Gil's letting a mentally unstable woman into his life and bed, even as briefly as he had, was about to have serious and extensive repercussions. Afterward, she went back to Kitty who was placidly sucking on her , knelt down and said, "You know what, sweetheart? We have got a giant problem here. For such a little thing, it looks like you are about to be a very big, life changing thing."

She picked up Kitty and carried her to Gil's office but discovered it had to have been locked from the inside, for no amount of jiggling would open it. When standing at his door and calling querulously out to him earned no response whatsoever, she sighed and turned to head toward the locker room, hoping Warrick hadn't left the building yet. He hadn't, was having a carefree, laughing conversation with Nick which she was about to spoil. As she was coming up to them, Nick, noticing the little girl in her arms, grinned and said, "Hey, how pretty. Whose is she?"

Looking directly and gravely into Warrick's eyes, she said quietly, "She's Grissom's." Nick and Warrick both went stock still, just staring at her, and she gave them a quirky smile as she added, "At least, I'm fairly certain she is. Look at her eyes. They're just like his."

Warrick and Nick leaned in to do as she had suggested then leaned back with Nick whispering, "I'll be a motherfucker. They really do look like Grissom's. But, all that blonde hair sure isn't his."

"Nope, you're right about that. That, apparently, came from her mother and grandfather."

Warrick looked at Catherine and asked, "Cath, what's this about?"

"It's about Matilda Brookshire. I don't doubt that you remember her. Her father was just here and brought this little doll in to Gil, saying she was his and Matilda's. I don't think Gil's taking it very well, Warrick. He's locked himself in his office and wouldn't let me in. I really think you should go talk to him."

Glancing from her to Kitty, he said, "Yeah. You're probably right about that."

After Warrick had left, Catherine sat down on one of the locker room benches, sitting Kitty in her lap. Nick sat down next to her and fingered the little girl's almost white, wavy, soft and silky hair which was trailing almost to her waist. When he smiled down on her, she smiled back hugely and beautifully then held out both arms to him. Surprised, Nick held out his arms to her, she leaned into them and came willingly to sit on his lap. "Oh, you're not shy at all, are you, pretty girl? No, you are not, are you? You're a sociable little thing, aren't you?"

Catherine made a snorting noise. "Well, she sure didn't get that from Gil. That's the most antisocial man I've ever met in my whole life."

Warrick went down to Grissom's office and knocked softly, calling out. "Gil? Hey Gil, it's me, Warrick. Let me in, man." After a moment, he heard the lock clicking but the door didn't open. When he turned the knob and eased in, Gil was standing across his office, his back to Warrick, staring into the glass cage where his spider was. Warrick closed the door and locked it, then stood where he was without saying anything, patiently waiting for Gil to speak, which he was sure he'd do as soon as he was ready. After a few, mutually silent minutes, Gil finally said, in an even conversational tone. "Ricky, have you ever heard of the butterfly effect?"

"Sure. Everybody has. It's what happens when a butterfly flaps its wings in Kansas and you get a tsunami in Asia, like what happened in 2004."

"That's right. That... is right. What we've got here is one little unfortunate incident, really a big mistake on my part, that's escalating into a tsunami that just might ruin my entire life."

"Why should it do that, Gil?"

"Because... I am not ready to be a father. I know that sounds ridiculous for a man of my age to say, but it's the truth. It's patently impossible for that little girl to be mine. I don't believe it. I simply do not."

"Why not? You wouldn't be the first man to father a child as the result of a one night stand."

Grissom flinched at just hearing Warrick say that. Then he said, so softly that Warrick barely heard him, "I didn't even get a chance to cum inside her, Warrick. She was the only one who... got off. I didn't. I was still... erect after we were lying down next to each other and never did have an orgasm. I never ejaculated inside her at all. We were together only that one time and I never did really have... intercourse with her, not like I do with you. So I simply don't see how that can possibly be my child."

Walking slowly toward Gil, Warrick told him quietly, "Gil, you're a well educated scientist, man. You know a guy doesn't even have to ever get inside a woman for her to get pregnant. You lay your dick anywhere near her vagina and all it takes is one, stubborn, tiny sperm finding its way up there. Hate to say it, but whenever a man gets that close to the goods on any woman, especially if penetration is involved, you're always a taking a chance she might get knocked up. Haveta cum to do that."

"Well, I still don't believe it. I just don't believe that's my daughter."

"Then we need to get proof one way or the other. We can ask the Doc to run some DNA tests on both of you. That should give us all the proof we need." Warrick had gotten near enough to Gil to put a hand on him and found he was trembling like a leaf. He moved about until he was in front of Gil and, very gently, he wrapped his arms around him. "Gil, relax, it's gonna be okay. However this turns out, it's gonna be okay. You've got to relax. This isn't anything to get so upset about."

Laying his head on Warrick's shoulder, Gil whispered, "I've never once thought I'd be a father. I never thought I could be a father. I've never considered it could be possible for me to ever be a father. This's too much. This's just much too much."

"No, it's not. Together, we're gonna get through this just fine."

"No, we're not, no we're not. This is good enough reason for you to leave me. You'll end up leaving me over this."

"That's such a stupid thing to say, I'm not gonna even dignify it by talking about it. I'm gonna act like you never said it. You come on. Let's go take care of this, get it all of it straightened out. Then we'll go home. Whatever the test says, afterwards, we'll work out whatever we have to do together."

Taking on the circumstances as if it was a case that had to solved, Nick and Catherine went to talk to Mr. Brookshire and got as much information from him as they could, which was not much more than he had told Gil. He gave them Kitty's birth certificate listing Matilda as her mother but her father as unknown and a whole file that was copies of Matilda's medical records, including a notation by her primary psychiatrist of his recommendation she not be told Kitty was her daughter until she was more mentally stable and able to distinguish reality from fantasy. Her parents had uneasily agreed to that, under the assumption that her schizophrenia was soon to be controlled by medication. But, as soon as Matilda would become stable, believing she was well enough, she would stop her medication and lie about it. She'd done that numerous times but always seemed to think the present time would be the one in which she would be cured. Of course, that was never the case. Each and every time, she would suffer a relapse leading to an ensuing hospitalization. So now, her father firmly believed Matilda would never be able to effectively become the proper mother for her daughter that she should be. He was adamantly convinced Kitty was better off with her biological father.

And that was how everything turned out to be. As Matilda's father had been certain, that was the fact of the matter. Kitty's blood test revealed her genetic profile as having too high a number of matches with Grissom's, inclusive of a 99% chance of him being her father.

Within fifteen minutes of receiving that information, Matilda's father was contacting the airline he had come to the States on, making his arrangements to return home. Within fifteen minutes of receiving that information, Kitty's father collapsed in his office and was only allowing Warrick to attend to him, while he endured a blinding migraine that ended with him having leave work and to go home.

As Grissom remained in unyielding denial of fatherhood despite the evidence to the contrary, Warrick and Tina took over, making Kitty an addition in their lives like Juny, Warrick's son by another woman, and the twins to whom Tina had given birth, and to whom Warrick had given the right to his name and love, just as much as both were Juny's birthright. Gil couldn't bring himself to pick Kitty up, only could watch her when she was about as if she was a rattlesnake about to attack him or a boa constrictor about to suck the life from him. Everybody was patient with sure he could eventually come around to realize what a sweet mannered and lovely little girl his daughter was. No one tried to force his paternal duties on him, but took loving care of Kitty themselves until Gil was prepared to do it for himself.

Five weeks after Kitty had come to him, Gil was having breakfast with Sara and Warrick after they got off work, Catherine having gone home to Lindsey and Loki, Juny's handsome, attorney uncle who had moved in with her. To ease the tension which had been continuously building up in him over the past few weeks, Sara and Nick were talking about anything else other than Gil's current state of affairs with Warrick studying him intently as he had been every since Kitty's arrival, attempting to come up with any method of reconciling Gil to fatherhood and its attendant accountability. They were involved in this when they became aware of a commotion at the front entrance which the restaurant's staff members were attempting to quell. The CSI crew tried to ignore it until the first shots were fired and the screaming and running in terror in the opposite direction began.

All of them stood up, Sara, Nick and Warrick all simultaneously reaching for guns which they did not have on them, as they weren't policemen required to carry one at all times, had just gotten off the midnight shift and thought they were each about to head safely home. They all had moved toward the scene of the violence but Gil came to a sudden halt when he saw a mass of golden hair flying furiously about a slim, short, delicate figure.

"Matilda," he whispered to himself.

About the same time he spotted her, Matilda saw him. Shrieking at the top of her lungs, as she had been since she had come into the restaurant already agitated and angry, waving the gun around, which had prompted the staff to try to stop her, whirling about like a spinning top, she screamed, "Get away from me!!!" And she ran straight at Gil, stopped and slammed a bottle down on the counter of a booth several spaces down from them. She shouted at them. "Gilbert, you are mine!! You're mine!!! Come to me now before you make me do something awful!!!"

Sara snarled, "That bitch is crazy and she's not gonna get away with this!!"

When Sara surged forward, Matilda, without blinking an eye, raised the 38 that looked so much too big for her slender wrist and fired, the bullet sending Sara flying from her feet and crashing into wall behind her. Matilda took several fast backward steps to keep distance between herself and Warrick, when he began to quickly move toward her, his apparent intent, the same as Sara's had been, to tackle and bring her down. Snatching a glance at Nick who had ran to and was kneeling next to Sara, she said with a quiet smile in the silence of the gunshot's aftermath, "As you can see, I've practiced since we last crossed paths, Mr. Brown, and this is not a starter pistol, like I had then. I've learned a lot about guns since then. This one will kill."

Again she indicated the bottle she had brought with her and sat on the booth's ledge. "Please do what I said. I want you to drink this now, Gil. I won't ask again. If you don't do as I wish and do it now, as much as I don't want to, I will have to shoot another one of your friends. That'll be Mr. Brown, since he's the one worrying my nerves the most. I'd really have to make sure I stop him by shooting him in the heart, right in the heart. Please don't make me have to do that."

Everyone hesitated, but with Matilda's voice spiraling upward and increasingly out of control, her trembling finger tightening on the trigger of her gun, surrounded by a sense of unreality and suddenly suffocating fear for his lover, Grissom moved to pick up the bottle, even as Warrick stepped toward him, saying in a low, warning voice, "Gris, don't..."

But Gil sternly shook his head and kept on walking. He lifted the bottle, uncapped it and briefly turned it up. As soon as he stopped drinking, Matilda said, "Please drink all of it. It'll only make you feel good. It's nothing that'll hurt you. The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you. I love you." After Grissom obeyed her, so that she'd know he had drank all of what was in the bottle, Matilda said, "Turn it upside down and shake it please." Again, he complied with her command. "I thank you for that. Now walk out in front of me, please." As soon as they were through the front door of the restaurant, Matilda took the hooked iron rod she'd had in her hand at arrival and expertly weaved it through the door's handle and jammed against its frame, effectively blocking that way of departure. She gave Grissom a perky and pretty smile as she waved him out to the parking lot. "I did that well, didn't I? You learn how to do such things as that when you grow up on a gigantic hog farm, like I did."

After urging him into a small, two-door, nondescript, dark blue sedan, she swiftly drove three blocks away, very seldom taking her eyes off him and never once not pointing the gun at him, leaning it sideways on the steering wheel as she drove. By the time she reached midway into an alley to park next to a brown van, Grissom's head was spinning and he was so woozy, she had to help him clamber to his feet and climb into the passenger side of the van. Once he had, she leaned him forward and locked his wrists into handcuffs which were attached to a metal bar that had been welded to the dashboard. Then she hopped into the driver's seat and went on the road again, taking him, as he lost consciousness, into the unknown for unknown reasons.

Warrick hit the door as soon as Matilda and Grissom were out of sight of it, greatly frustrated when it refused to give. Whirling furiously about, he demanded of the frightened restaurant employees, "Where's another way out?" already striding in that direction as several of them pointed trembling fingers toward the kitchen. As he headed for it, the owner hastily shoved a fancy colt 45 into his hand, saying, "Here. You may need this for protection."

As he ran out, Nick was already on his cell, calling the cops for Gil and the paramedics for Sara. Running hard, Warrick managed to get back around to the front of the building, the decorative gun in hand, just in time to see and hear the car carrying Matilda and Grissom away from him screeching out the parking lot. He steadied the weapon to fire, but there was a woman with two children strolling down the sidewalk who were barely able to get out the way of the speeding car then he dared not shoot for fear of injuring them and still not being able to stop Matilda. But he did get the license plate number then, frustrated, stalked back to the restaurant.

Taking off his shirt, so all he had on was his tee, and using it to remove the bar in order to disturb whatever prints might be on it as little as possible, he grimly took it with him as he went back inside then over to Nick and Sara, asking. "How is she?"

"I don't know," Nick said worriedly. "She's passed out and there's a lot of blood. Where's Gil?"

"She took off with 'em in a little blue Geo Prism, heading west." He had put his shirt back on and stuck the gun into the waist band of his jeans, grabbed his jacket as he fished for the keys to his Tahoe. "I'm going after them."

Snapping a look up at him, Nick sharply told him, "No, you are not. You're staying right here. She's got a loaded gun and already shown she'll use it. You are not a cop, Warrick. You'd only be endangering Gil by heading out after that crazy bitch and maybe end up getting him and yourself shot. So, you just stay right here and that's an order." Hearing sirens coming in the distance, he added, "The real cops are already on their way. Why don't you step outside to be there to tell them which way she went? That'd be the most helpful thing you can do right now."

That, of course, did them little good. Matilda's rented car was discovered twenty minutes later in the alley where she had left it with nothing personally connected to her remaining in it except her, Grissom's and another set of unidentified fingerprints. Warrick made casts of the tire treads from two other vehicles that had recently been driven through the grit in the alley, soon placing both as coming from automobiles larger than a car, one with a wheel base indicating it had to have been at least the size of a commercial van and the other possibly an SUV or large jeep. Four hours later, having not taken any down time since getting off the midnight shift or Gil having been kidnapped, and with Catherine having been informed of Sara's injury and gone to the hospital to join Tina in watching over her, Nick returned to the lab with Warrick where they were going over the meager evidence they had with Greg, trying to piece together Grissom's probable whereabouts from that.

Rubbing his temples hard with a hand, Warrick was muttering, as he read over a file that had just been delivered to him, "That was one helluva chemical mixture she gave Gris. This analysis says it had three different kinds of strong barbiturates in it, cloral hydrate which is usually used to make people pass out, Lithium, one of the drugs she had been taking for her schizophrenia, and some sort of herbal concoction that's supposed to be aphrodisiacs. Guess she gave it to him so he wouldn't be able to struggle much and would... get... excited."

Hearing the aggravation in Warrick's voice, knowing what he was imagining Matilda meant to do with Gil and hoping to relieve some of it, Nick said quietly, "None of that stuff really works, Warrick. At least, I've never heard about any of that stuff pretending to be aphrodisiacs working."

"I don't give a damn about that. All I care about is she made Gil drink the shit and it may be lethal with all what she put in it. It could be hurting him. She had to have gotten it from somewhere here in Vegas and we need to find out where."

"She didn't have to get it here. Most chemicals probably won't show up on x-ray equipment. Unless all her luggage was searched, it wouldn't've been found, even if she brought it with her through international customs," Nick said. "We can still check around and see if she purchased it after getting into Vegas." Then Nick sat up as another thought came to him, proposing the first vehicle they were assuming she took off in with Grissom may have been a pick-up. But they eventually arrived at the conclusion that was unlikely when Warrick said, "No. Uh-uh. She's not a pick-up truck type of person."

After giving him a glance for so firmly expressing that opinion, Nick asked, "Why wouldn't she be?"

Sighing while restlessly and repeatedly running his fingers through his thick hair, Warrick answered with a frown, "Because... while she had me tied to that bed three years ago, she went on and on about how she was sick and tired of ranch life and all that went with it, including having to drive trucks all the time. She kept saying, if she ever got the chance, she'd never get behind the wheel of one again. So I doubt if she'd do it now."

"Okay. So it wasn't a pick-up. Let's say it was the SUV or jeep. She had only been in the country for less than a week and doesn't know anyone here besides Gris, according to her father. We weren't able to find any record of her renting anything other than the Prism and her father says she doesn't have enough money or credit in her own name to buy one. So, how'd she manage to get something else so fast?"

The mumble came from Greg as he was peering through a magnifying glass at the piecemeal corner of a partially destroyed card which had been found in Matilda's car, "Pretty woman like her, you get a guy blinded like all that blonde hair, those soft, little female ways of hers and that kickin' accent, he'd let her borrow anything." Unaware Nick and Warrick had turned to look at him, he added, "I also bet she's rode off into the wild blue yonder in the van, not the other thing. Cause, wherever she's taking Gil, it's out of the way and she's not planning on coming back for some time. She had to stock up and probably knew she could get more in a van than a jeep or sports vehicle."

When the silence from the other two men was extended, Greg looked up, blinking, to ask curiously, "What?"

"Nothing, man," Warrick said. "That's a couple of good ideas you've got there and I just wasn't expecting you to come up with 'em."

"Well, thanks... I think."

Nick put in, "So, figuring she's borrowed a van, next we should figure out from where and who she got it. But that still doesn't tell us where she's gone, except, like Greg said, it's probably out the way."

"But, if we can backtrack who she's talked in the last few days, maybe, since she doesn't know much about this country, someone gave her some suggestions as to some out-of-the-way places."

"That might work. We should also figure out where she was in the four days between the time she got to Vegas and checked in at the motel out on the Strip she was staying at." Shifting papers around on the table they were perched at on stools, Warrick said as he spread them out and stood up, "Okay. Here's what we definitely have got. We know where she rented the car, we know the motel where she'd been staying and we've got an address for the shop where she brought the gun. Let's start with those three places, then work backwards to figure what she was doing for the four missing days."

"We should also check at the airport. She probably took a cab from there to the city and maybe one of the cabbies might remember her."

With a derisive grunt, Warrick said, "She'd be hard to forget, with all that hair, her fluttery mannerisms and the accent."

Nick pointed out, "This's too much ground for us to cover by ourselves. I'll get Brass to detail a couple of detectives to get on some of this, if they haven't already." With a weary and wry grin, he added, "Guys, let's get this right. Catherine just about busted a gut, trying to decide if she should come help us or stay with Sara and I don't wanna do anything that makes her lose faith in us."

"I am not worried about whatever the hell Catherine may think," Warrick said flatly. "The only one I'm worried about right now is Grissom."

The next time Gil was aware of anything, it was a very sprightly and sweet, lilting humming buzzing about in his ears from several different directions. Moaning a little and his head hurting a lot, he opened his eyes a slit, trying to keep any bright light from increasing the migraine he was certain was coming down on him. Also trying to bring his hands up to his aching skull, when he made the attempt, he found his arms were bound above his head. With panic beginning to set in, opening his eyes wide while arching nervously around to peer at the comfortably padded cuffs that were holding his wrists, he discovered he had been laid on a queen sized bed in a small, dimly lit, rustic seeming room. Pale blue silk sheets were under him and a colorful down comforter was over him. Turning his head to the left, he saw a bright, crackling fire with actual cast iron pots hanging down from it on moveable iron poles with hinges attached. Turning it to the right, he saw Matilda gazing at him, with a happy and contented smile on her face.

"And a good afternoon to you, Gilbert Grissom," she said cheerfully, skipping over to the bed. "Did you sleep well?"

Gazing directly into her large, brown eyes, Gil took three deep breaths to calm himself then asked in as even and non-provoking voice as possible, "Matilda, what is that you think you're doing?"

Cocking her head prettily as she sat on the bed by him, she gaily and dangerously spun the gun she'd used to shoot Sara around on her forefinger and said, "I merely had to find some way for us to be alone so we could talk and I didn't think you'd do that on your own. I know you don't like it being this way, but it's really the best way for us to have a serious discussion about our future life together without interference from anybody else. Honestly, you've really got too many people in your life trying to keep you from being with me. I've also got far too many in mine who are determined, for some ungodly reason, to keep us apart when both of us know we belong together." When she reached out to stroke his cheek, it was all he could do not to cringe away from her and the gun she was handling without ample respect in fear and disgust. Resting the gun in her lap on the checkered pattern, gingham dress with short, bloused sleeves she had on, she leaned over to give him a lingering kiss and whisper, "Now we've got all the time in the world to really get to know each other, just you and I together alone."

Then she whirled away, dancing lightly about on the shiny, planked floor her arms held out wide, as she exclaimed, "Isn't this a lovely little place? A friend of mine I met when I was in Denver that time with you told me about it. I was telling her about us having fallen in love at first sight and you being from Las Vegas and she told me about how she and her husband owned this cabin up in the mountains near San Bernardino. I was thinking about how that was just about a 150 miles or so west of Las Vegas a few weeks ago and everything just fell into place. It was like I had an epiphany, a vision of what I had to do. She and I have been corresponding on the Internet and I told her how hard things have been for me lately and how I just wanted to get away from everything. After a little conversation and manipulation of a sort, she finally picked up on the fact I wanted the cabin for a few days, if she wasn't using it, and viola, here we are. It's perfect for us, isn't it? The sky's clear and wonderful and you can breathe in clean air all deep, just like you can back home, on a cloudless summer night. As soon as you've gotten used to everything, I'll take you outside so you can really see how right I am. You're going to love it up here as much as I do, Gil."

Suddenly she stopped and froze, facing him, eyes wide and seeing things unknown to Gil and possibly unknown to Matilda. Her arms were still out, just hanging out in the air away from her sides as her long dress settled from whirling about her calves, still swaying as she finally blinked, dropped her chin and gazed at him with the look of one who was yet seeing something far, far away. "His eyes are still that pretty, pretty green, aren't they, Gil? I saw that in the restaurant and that made it real hard for me to shoot him, when that's certainly what I should've done. And he still talks in that low, sexy voice. You're still with him, aren't you, Gil? You were never able to get Mr. Brown out your blood, were you? You still have the fever for him, don't you?" She lifted the gun into both hands to gaze down on it thoughtfully with a short, definite nod of her head as she added, "Oh, I definitely should have shot him dead. I can tell he's really going to be a terrible crimp in our relationship. It'll be much better if I go back down to Las Vegas in a few days and get rid of him. Then you won't have to worry about him anymore and can devote all of your attention to me." Her upbeat smile returned as she made that decision. "Yes, that will be the best thing for me to do. I'll do that for the both of us. If he's dead, then you'll stop thinking about him and I'll stop seeing those emerald eyes and hearing that voice of his in my nightmares, always messing with our happiness. Then, he won't be able to keep us apart like he's been doing. He's the reason we're not together."

She came back to the bed to bounce up and down on it, lightly, on her knees, smiling at him merrily. "And what's best of all is, Gil, my Dad's millions and millions of miles away in Australia. Even if he figures out that I'm in the States and comes after me, he won't know how to find me. He's not smart that way. He's a great farmer but doesn't know much about anything else, other than cockroach races. That's a good thing, a very good thing. I don't owe him anything anymore, not one solitary thing. He worked my mother to death and was trying to work me to death on that bloody farm. Well, he and my brothers can have it. I don't even want my share of it." With a giggling yelp, she leaped on him, laid out full body on him, wriggling around happily as she declared, "All I've ever wanted with all my heart was you and I got that, Gil!! I've finally got you all to myself. Give us a kiss, why don'tcha?"

Grissom, who had been staring at her in silent horror, as if she was some slimy alien creature with scales and tentacles, quickly turned his face as far away from her as he could, with shudders of distaste rippling throughout his entire body, when her tongue peeked out from her mouth and she tried to insert it into his. Matilda was quite insane, but she was still intelligent and intuitive enough to recognize revulsion when she saw it. When she did, Gil instantly realized he had made a wrong move, for she sat up on him with a bottomless fury coming into her eyes to slap his face back and forth numerous times hard enough to redden his cheeks and bring a harsh ringing to his ears. Then she leaned back down on him, pressed the gun to his temple with her finger on the trigger, and hissed in a voice that was no longer light and cute but gone icily dark and demonic, "I said, give us a kiss and I meant it. Open your mouth."

Very unwilling but fearful for his life, he obeyed her and she dipped down, spittle from her anger unpleasantly moistening the contact while she delved into his mouth, swiping wildly around inside with her tongue, as he tried to prevent the nausea rising into his throat from turning into vomit that would spew out his lips and certainly would be more of an annoyance to her than what he had already done. Then she sat back up on him, staring for the longest while at the wall above his head, before she finally said, after a deep breath, looking down on him lovingly as she caressed his face, "I've got to tell you something really important, Gil. Dad took something I am sure was truly precious from me while I was so sick right after I came to Las Vegas and tried to get Mr. Brown out our way that first time. Problem is, I simply can't seem to remember what it was and nobody would ever tell me," she told him with wonderment in her voice.

"I was in hospital for so long, over a year, and came home to find Mom had a new baby. That was strange because my youngest brother was already seventeen and Mom had swore over and over and over, she'd lay right down and die before having any more kids. Dad never seemed to love my little Kitty and Mom was getting too sick to look after her, so I did. And, oh, I loved her so much. I took such great care of her. She became mine most of the time. Maybe Mom may have had her, but Kitty was my pretty, pretty, my own little precious. She filled up a hole in me and I was happy for so long. Then Mom died and I got sick again and while I was sick, Dad... emptied me out again. When I got out of hospital that time, he had taken Kitty away and I couldn't find her. I looked and looked but I couldn't find her anywhere. Nobody would ever tell me where she'd been taken to. Nobody would tell me anything and that all made me start remembering Dad and the doctors had taken something else from me when I had been in hospital before although I couldn't remember exactly what that was. Mom was gone, then so was Freddy, this guy I was supposed to marry. He called me a crazy cow and told me to stay away from him or he'd call the law. Daniel, the first man I was engaged to, put a restraining order out against me when all I wanted to do was talk to him, and find out why he didn't want to be with me anymore. Oh Gil, every single guy who has ever said he loves me up and leaves me, Gil. Even worse, right after Freddy left me and before I could get over that, Kitty was gone. But I needed something in my life and that's when I made up my mind to get you back into it."

Peering owlishly down at him, she hit her own chest so hard, Gil was sure she had to have bruised herself, and whispered intensely, "They ripped my soul out of me, when Dad and the doctors took whatever that was from me that first time. It was a part of me that was a part of you, too, Gil. I know it, way down deep inside my very bones. I can feel it from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. Just like Dad did when he gave Kitty away, what they took from me was you in me and me in you and they tore us apart that first time, made me half of what I should be. So, whatever it was they took, I want it back!!! I want it back!!! I have got to have it back!!! And you're going to give it to me!! You're going to give it to me right now!!!"

She hurdled off him and raced to a tiny refrigerator, snatched it open, pulled out a bottle similar to the one she had forced him to drink from before, then ran back to the bed. Watching her unscrew the cap, Grissom was just able to gasp, "No. Don't," as she grabbed his chin, tilted the bottle against his mouth then started trying to pour the liquid into it, commanding that he, "Drink it!!" When he refused to open his mouth, she clenched her fists, hunching over like a crone while screaming wildly and formlessly. Madly, she searched for the gun, finally found it, grabbed it and jammed it against his mouth, brutally twisting until she'd managed to force it between his teeth. Then she sloppily tipped the bottle's syrupy contents inside Gil's mouth, uncaring that she was forcing him to choke and gag, as she shrieked in a horrifying, unending chant, "Drink it, drink it, drink it, drink it, drink it!!!!"

He was still hearing her when he, swallowing with sputtering difficulty to prevent himself from being drowned where he lay, once more lost consciousness, still could hear her raving as he faded away. Grissom's last thought as blackness overtook him was he must find some way of talking rationally to a crazy woman or he'd never survive this to be with Warrick again.

Nick and Greg hadn't been home but had been snatching sleep whenever they could in the lab or in vehicles as they and Warrick were separately chauffeured aboutby uniforms as they went various places trying to gather leads that would take them to Gil. Warrick however, had yet to close either eye in more than 24 hours, was running on sheer adrenalin, anger and fear, was riding close to an explosive edge without Grissom there to ease him away from it. Finally, Catherine, having returned to the lab after having assuring herself of Sara's well being, cornered him as he was yelling at a lab tech for not getting him the information he wanted fast enough and demanded, "Stop, Warrick!! You're not helping Gil by acting like an asshole!!"

Being yelled back at got his attention and after glaring at Catherine for several tenuous moments, everything in him deflated and he sagged against the wall into which she had shoved him.Tears rose in his eyes and he said carefully, attempting to control a huskiness rising in his voice, "But I can't take much more of this, Catherine. It's been almost 24 hours and we're no closer to finding him than we ever were."

"Yes, we are. We've found the guy at the motel she borrowed the van from. I talked to him and he says she said she just wanted to use it to go pick up a few things from a nearby store. But she never came back and went he got up the next morning, her car was also gone. But she left a note for him at the desk saying she'd bring it back in a day or two, which probably means she plans on coming back from wherever she's at. Greg said she mentioned to the pawn shop owner that she bought the gun from that she was going into the mountains with her boyfriend and she wanted the gun for protection. Greg also told me he sold her several different kinds of metal objects, several pairs of handcuffs and a soldering gun without even getting suspicious. I'll tell you one thing about that pawn shop guy, though, as soon we get Gil back, I'm gonna get Brass to investigate that bastard and find out how he thought selling a gun to a dingbat with only a passport for identification was the right for him to do."

Seeing Warrick's misery in his eyes, Catherine gave him a quick hug and whispered, "Try not to worry. I'm pretty sure she's not planning to hurt Gil. I think she took him to... try and convince him how much she loves him, how much they should be together. She doesn't want to hurt him at all."

"Catherine, the bitch is nuts. There's no telling what she'll do to Gil, once he tells her he doesn't want her."

"Hopefully, he won't be dumb enough to tell her any such thing. Gil's smart. He'll know it'll be better to play along with her than piss her off by making her deal with reality. That's the best chance he's got to save his life. Now," she handed him a slip of paper and said, "here's what I want you to do now. Go into Gil's office, close the door and make an overseas phone. Brookshire's father called and left a message with Ecklie's secretary saying he may have a piece of information that may help us. He wouldn't give it to her, and Ecklie was impatient and rude to the man when he got on the phone, which made Mr. Brookshire shut down altogether then hang up. So call him, Warrick. Make nice with him for Gil's sake, all right? When he was came to Vegas a couple of months ago and left Kitty with Gil, he honestly didn't seem like such a bad sort to me. He just seemed like a guy who was crumbling under the heavy load he had to bear and wanted out from under some of it. Call 'em and see what he's got said. It might be the break we need."

It was. Fifteen minutes later, Warrick came running into Catherine's tiny office, wild eyed and nearly combusting with nervous energy. He slammed a piece of paper down on her desk and nearly shouted in triumph, "I know where he's at. The Brookshire woman has been emailing and trading instant messages a woman who lives in Wisconsin that's got a cabin up in the mountains near San Bernardino. Matilda asked if she could use it for awhile. She's been telling this woman she and Gil were married. That's where she was those missing four days. She took a flight out to Wisconsin under the name Matilda Grissom, then stayed overnight with this woman. The woman's name is, umm, Sherry Patterson, and Matilda got keys to the cabin from her. That's where they're at, Catherine, that's where they're at!!"

"You got an address?" Catherine demanded, already rising from her desk.

Warrick picked up the paper to impatiently wave it under her nose. "I've got an address and directions. Can we go now?!!!"

"Hell, yeah, we can go now." As they swiftly walked out the door, she said, "I'll call Brass so we can meet up. He needs to ride up there with us and arrange for the locals to provide back-up." While Warrick went to get their transportation, she passed the break room where a very exhausted Nick had been trying to catch a few winks. Rushing in, Catherine slapped him upside the head, startling him awake, and said, "Get your ass in gear and let's go. We've found Grissom."

When Gil awakened for a second time, Matilda was humming again and flitting all over the cabin, busily cleaning areas of it that really required no cleaning. She was wearing a thigh high, soft, silk robe, its pale pink coloring complimenting her lightly tanned, lightly freckled complexion and revealing such nicely turned out legs, that they looked longer than her short stature would have indicated they could be.As he stirred, she turned toward him and said playfully, "Look at you. You are finally awake, you sleepy head, you. That's good. Now we can get down to business." Perching on the bed next to him, she, very lightly, flicked the feather duster she had in her hand against his face. "It wasn't very polite for you to upset me the way you did. We've really got to have to work matters out so you don't do that again. That wasn't a good feeling. I never like it when it comes on me like that, when people upset me like that. Please don't make me go there again."

"I won't, Matilda," Gil promised very quietly and calmly. Feeling very thick headed and disoriented, sure he might've been too dizzy to walk if he had been forced to get onto his feet, he asked, "What's that you've been giving me?"

"Oh, I promise it won't hurt you. I tried it, in the same proportions, on two of my brothers on separate occasions and it didn't do anything except make them woozy, after they woke, and go off to rut with some of the neighborhood girls. What mainly put you to sleep was the cloral hydrate. But it had a very lightweight barbiturate in and a little of the benzodiazepine medication my doctors give me." Giggling a little, she added, "But what it mostly had in it was an invention of my own design. It's rumored, Gil, that Spanish fly can immeasurably strengthen and increase the libido. I also put a bit of Catuaba, Maca and a few other herbal sexual enhancements or stimulators in it." Grinning slyly and flirtatiously, she hit him gently with the handle of the duster as she said. "I put some horny goat weed in it, too, just in case. While that might have been a bit of overkill, we want all your equipment in proper working order, like it was in Denver, don't we? You remember how wonderful that was, don't you? Gil, those two days we spent there were absolutely the loveliest of my life. You made such beautiful love to me, better than anybody else ever had. It had to have been same for you, wasn't it?"

Closing his eyes, recalling the two days he'd spent with her with a sinking feeling, Grissom spent a few useless seconds fervently wishing they had never happened. It had been a betrayal which had nearly lost Warrick to him, and that was unthinkable. Portions of his mind immediately and automatically shut down, dodging even an insinuation of that. That was a lifelong habit with him, an avoidance technique that had once been used to keep everyone out of his life and his heart. Now, however, he was using it to keep Warrick in his life and heart. Sternly reminding himself that he needed as much of his mental faculties as he could rally in his drugged state, he forced his eyes open, gazed calmly at her and said, "Yes, Matilda, it was the same for me. I've never forgotten those two days and never will. Meeting you changed my life in more positive ways than you could ever imagine."

He did not tell her, the positive changes had been that he began to learn how to trust Warrick enough, so he could let him fly free and feel secure Warrick would not leave him for greener grass and younger, fresher pastures, but always return to Gil and his homefront. After having spent separate good times with friends, Warrick's world always still remained Grissom centered. Before the night or day of fun was done, he always came lovingly back into Gil's arms, and no one else's, and Gil was now convinced, at long last, he always would. He did not tell Matilda that having sex with her, which was all they had done, had been incomplete and unsatisfactory. It merely taught him how ecstatically glorious it was to make true love with Warrick. He did not tell her any of that, simply said, "You have many wonderful qualities, Matilda, and all I hope for you is that you be happy."

After a glad little hop, she hugged him tight and, while kissing him all over his face, told him excitedly, "You see there?!! You do love me!!!"

"Yes, Matilda, I do love you. About the same time that I met you, and because I met you, a friend of mine gave me books about various kinds of love and a couple of those categories perfectly fit us." He did not go into those primary categories of love, Eros, which was mere infatuation, generally based on a first impression and frequently on no more than the physical, Philo, or love for all humankind, and Agape, which was unconditional and totally unselfish. He did not add that one of those categories, Eros, which was where she was at, meant what she felt for him was flighty and insubstantial. He didn't inform her that the love he felt for her was as close as to Philo, what all men and women should feel for all other men and women, as he could come, given their current, very unfortunate circumstances. So he just told her with a weary smile, "That's often the best any of us can get."

"Oh, it's much better than that. It's all we need. I think we're ready to move on to the next step. But let's get it a little warmer in here before we do that. I don't want you to catch cold." She hurried about to turn up the thermostat and build up the fire, swiftly increasing the heat in the cabin by twenty degrees. Returning to stand by the bed, Matilda divested herself of her short robe to show she had nothing on under it. Twirling for him a moment, she struck what truly was quite a sexy pose then asked, with a sultry smile, "Do you look what you see?"

"Matilda," he said, very honestly, "I do indeed like what I see."

"I knew you would!!" She ran to the bed, flipped the quilt covering him back, revealing his nudity, and jumped onto the bed with him. Giving midway down his body a glance, her hands fluttering aimlessly, the look on her face, for all the world, like that of a little girl who was searching for something she had misplaced, she grinned widely as she grabbed Gil's upright penis and triumphantly shook it. "See there?!! The horny goat weed and all that other stuff worked!! You're ready for me!! Your body wants me!! You like me!! You really, really like me!! And very soon you'll love me as much as I love you, I know you will."

Having said that, she swung to kneel above him, legs spread to either side of him while still holding tightly onto his cock with one hand. Then, hissing a little, her long hair falling like a wavy, golden veil about her, an angelic looking creature with demonic tendencies, Matilda lowered herself on him, sinking down swiftly until he was fully locked inside her.

"Don't do this, Matilda," Even in the numbed, drugged state he was in, Grissom was completely disbelieving of what was happening to him, struggled to move away from beneath her, discovered for the first time, that his ankles had been tied together as well as his arms had been. "Please don't do this. You'll regret it later. You're a good woman. Don't let this be a final legacy between us. That you're forcing me to this will hang over us forever and spoil whatever might have been. If you'll put a halt to all of this now, perhaps we can come to a better understanding of ourselves later. Build a relationship suitable to the both of us. But if you don't stop, that can never be. I swear to you, I'll never be able to forgive you for this."

After panting a bit, head bowed, both hands curling into the hairs on his chest, listening to him but not hearing him, Matilda whispered intensely, "Yes, you will, you'll forgive me. You're not able to hate. It's too strong an emotion for you. That's why it's so difficult for you to love me as you should. You aren't a man who capable of powerfully feeling. But I am capable of that and will love you enough to equalize the love you can't give me. All I ask of you is that you love me, as much as you can. I'll do everything else that's required."

She sat up straight on him, peering at the wall behind them with an eerily concentrated directness. Then she began thrusting up and down on him with that measured, uncertain and jerky motion of a woman who was unaccustomed to riding astride a man and not sure she was finding it much to her liking, but was still determined to carry through with the course she had set for herself. "Finally," Matilda whispered, more to herself than to Gil, never taking her unswerving gaze from the wall, "I will be whole again."

He tried to resist, put all of his strength into that effort. But because of the overloaded, medicinal cocktail Matilda had forced on him, his mind was too fractured. He was unable to marshal the psychological defenses that would have enabled him to command his body not to respond. He made an attempt to think of cold showers, of his mother, of anything that would take his thoughts off what was being done to him then cause his body to deflate. He tried to think only of Warrick, but that had the opposite of the desired effect he wished for, as in each and every one of the mental pictures he drew of his lover dissolved into their making love together, rather than him being taken against his will by Matilda, which made it even more impossible to lose his erection. Much, much sooner than he would have ever wanted, Gil's inborn, male, biological urges overwhelmed him and, with an appalled moan, he felt his testicles drawing up into his groin in preparation of ejaculation. He could not, no matter how hard he tried, prevent it, and cried out despairingly as his body gave up the fluids he could not keep within.

Sensing that, feeling his body shuddering in release under her was more than enough to bring on Matilda's climax and delighted, she laughed aloud, flinging back her head so her thigh length, silken hair softly swept both their bodies. She bent over him to quickly kiss him, ignoring the fact that he irritably snapped his head away to the side to avoid her lips, the peace welling up in her enough to stop her from being annoyed by anything he did. "This was wrong," Gil whispered hoarsely, trying to maintain an even breathing pattern. "This was wrong on every level."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Gil. I don't and never will." She sat up straight with a happy smile, pressing her hands to her flat belly. "That emptiness I felt inside, Gil? It's gone. It's all gone. I knew it would be, if I could get with you again. You've filled me, given back to me whatever it was that Dad and the doctors took from me. I thank you for that, I really do." She leaned down to kiss him again, only managing to hit his cheek when he once more whipped his head away. "Sleep now, sweet love, my sweet, sweet love. You're deserving of your rest. After you wake up, we'll talk more. I promise, we can work everything out." While climbing off him, that being a quick and efficient process, Matilda was patting him lovingly and maternally and smiling as if they had the perfect relationship. After lying down close to Gil's bound form, putting an arm over him, she snuggled near and murmured, "Sleep, dear heart. Morning is coming soon and you'll see things in a much clearer light."

But morning didn't bring that conversation of clarification that she thought would come. Instead, less than two hours later, morning brought Brass calling out a police presence and kicking down the cabin's door. Several county sheriff deputies rushed in as he stepped away and to the side, out of their way, his gun held at ready, as his sharp eyes coolly surveyed the scene. Warrick was heatedly and determinedly pushing his way through the deputies and Brass snapped at him, "I ordered you to wait outside, Warrick!!"

"Not a chance," Warrick snapped as he spotted Gil and stalked furiously toward the bed onto which he was tied. Matilda had risen, shrieking at the top of her lungs while she twisted about on the bed, wildly hunted the whereabouts of the gun she had thoughtlessly mislaid. Seeing it, she lunged for it but was prevented from being able to reach it by a deputy who grabbed it first. Frustrated by that circumvention of her goal, still screaming crazily, she launched her nakedness straight at Warrick, both hands forming claws as she aimed for his throat. Catching her by her arms, his lips curling into a snarl, Warrick pivoted in one smooth movement and, using her own momentum against her, sent Matilda crashing into two of the deputies. He'd put so much infuriated strength in the shove that both officers went down under her in a tangle of scrambling legs and arms. But, even with the deputies grabbing at her, Matilda got away from them to charge Warrick again. This time, his eyes flamed with emerald anger, he backhanded her so she flew from her feet and into the air to land almost ten feet away. Immediately swarmed by three of the county deputies who began wrestling frantically with her, Matilda fought them with the strength of one possessed. Although she was very small and delicate, the much larger deputies had an almost impossible task in their attempt to contain the crazed woman. Matilda still didn't give up the good fight until two more of them had been forced to join the pile trying to bring and keep her down.

Warrick instantly forgot about her and went to Gil, instinctively covered his nudity up with the quilt then reached for the ropes on his wrists as he demanded, "You're all right, aren't you?"

Turning his head into Warrick's shoulder, so vastly relieved to see him that tears were coming into his eyes, Gil whispered, "I'm fine. I knew you would come for me and you have. I knew you would."

Matilda was struggling mightily against the trying desperately to charge the bed to get back to Gil even they were holding onto her arms and body, trying to keep her back. At the same time, she was shrieking at Warrick, "You get away from him!! He's mine now!! Forever and ever, he's mine!! He doesn't belong to you anymore!! He never properly did!! He's mine!!! All mine!!!"

Eyes blazing again, Warrick lifted his head to inform her exactly how wrong she was about that, but Gil said tiredly, "Please don't. Let it go, Ricky, just let it go."

Only Gil could have pulled him away from that righteous indignation. Warrick turned back to Gil and away from Matilda, proceeded to ignore her and the ruckus of the cops trying to subdue her as if none of them were in the cabin. The foremost and only thing that was on his mind was seeing to Gilbert Grissom's comfort and his rescue from the insanity of Matilda Brookshire.

An hour later, Gil was dressed and on his way back to Las Vegas in Warrick's Tahoe. He huddled in the corner of the passenger seat for a time, Warrick snatching worried glances at him until he finally crept over and laid his head in Warrick's lap, curling up on the seat. Automatically, without any words spoken, Warrick began to tenderly stroke him and never stopped until an hour and half later as they pulled into their garage at home. After helping Gil into the condo and sitting him down in the living room on the sofa when he refused to go to bed, Warrick sat down next to him and let him have his lap again. As he had, while they had been driving home in the SUV, Gil again went peacefully to sleep and Warrick sat patiently there for the four hours it took for him to awakened, finally clear headed, without a migraine and freed from the drugs he had ingested.

Warrick was asleep and lightly snoring, slumped down with his head on the back of the sofa, when Gil next opened his eyes. Giving him a wan smile, Gil got up and went into the bathroom. By the time he had finished taking a long, hot shower and stepped out, Warrick was awake and waiting for him, sat on the toilet, as he held up a towel for him to dry off with. After studying Gil a minute, as he rubbed himself with the towel, he said softly, the first words they'd spoken in several hours, "Let me do that for ya."

For a time, Gil just stood still and allowed Warrick to efficiently towel him, kneeling down to reach his lower extremities. Then, when Warrick stood back up, with a soft and relieved sigh, Gil laid his head on his chest and was still again, just wanting to enjoy the closeness of his man and the security being home with him once and again lent him. For a very long time, they did not move or speak. Then Gil said quietly, rubbing his hair into Warrick's shoulder, "Get the lube."

Warrick was startled and stirred before managing to regain his stillness. But it had become different as he said to Grissom, "Gil, man, you need to rest. You've been through one helluva bad day and should..."

"Warrick, I'm old enough to know exactly what I need. Please get the lube." Still rubbing his head against Warrick, and doing it so hard, his hair was leaving scrape marks on his skin, Gil sighed and whispered, "You don't know what she did to me..."

"Yes, I do," Warrick told him, just as softly.

Gil raised his head to look into his eyes and, seeing nothing but love shining there, was eased even as he asked, "You do?"

"The signs were there, man, on the bed. It was all spotted up. Nobody could've missed them."

Gil put his head back where it had been. "Jesus. They've probably got their CSI crew there now, recovering evidence. Everybody's going to know."

"It doesn't matter," Warrick said, beginning to caress Gil's arms. Don't you even go worrying about it, cause I'm not. What's important is you're safe and back home with me, where you belong. And that crazy bitch is in jail where she belongs."

"She doesn't belong in jail, Ricky. She belongs where she can get proper medical care and she won't receive that in jail or prison."

"Gil, she's been and out of hospitals for decades and it hasn't done any good. She's more nuts now than she was the first time we had a run in with her."

"Life's been hard for her. Another fiance jilted her and her mother died. Besides that, Warrick, she appears to think Kitty's her sister. She's never been told the truth about her birth, must have been too sick at the time to realize anything about her own pregnancy and delivery. Apparently, after her mother died, her father brought Kitty to us instead of trying to raise her himself. But Matilda somehow senses Kitty isn't her sister. By some sort of maternal intuition, emotionally if not intellectually, she knows Kitty's her daughter. She loses everyone she loves. She craves any sort of human connection and each one she attempts to have fails her. Every lover she's ever had, including me, has deserted her. It's terrible, all she's had to suffer."

"Gil, you were never her lover. Yall had a one night stand and she read more into it than there was. None of this is your fault and don't start thinkin' that it was."

"Warrick, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Please get the lube." When Warrick didn't move and said nothing, just remained stubbornly silent, Grissom smiled at his lover's protectiveness, even as it was purporting to protect Gil from himself, and said, "Please do as I say. It's important to me."

After a moment's contemplation, Warrick reached out a long arm and got a tube from the medicine cabinet. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Give it to me."Warrick jerked slightly and hissed through his teeth as Gil opened his jeans, reached into them and pulled his organ out. Without raising his head off Warrick, he squirted some of the lube onto it and more onto his own hand then started a long and slow stroking, massaged Warrick until he had sufficiently widened lengthened and hardened. Listening pleasurably as the taller, younger man's breathing slowed and deepened, Gil pushed Warrick's jeans down until they were about his hips then said, "Sit down on the commode, if you please." As he spoke, Gil was shoving Warrick toward the toilet, steadying with his left hand so Warrick could not fall as he shuffled backwards with his jeans crumpling to his knees and continued to still jerk him off, slowly and surely, with his right hand. Steadily advancing on Warrick, he whispered, "I can't wait to do this right. I need you in me now, out of love, to make up for what she did to me out of an obsession. So just sit down and let me have you as I wish to have you."

After Warrick had complied, Gil hovered over him awhile, deep kissing him as he continued to masturbate him. Then he straddled Warrick and sat down to mount him, sinking down on him, with a small, serene sigh, in much the same manner Matilda had done on him but for much dissimilar reasons and, in his effort, specifically designed to achieve a much greater and very mutual satisfaction. Hummed, high and keening, eyes closed, head turning passionately up toward the ceiling, with all of his body pressed tight against Warrick, loving the fullness he was experiencing, Gil began to lovingly and luxuriously rise and fall, rise and fall, any internal bruising of the spirit and soul which had been caused by what he had been forced to undergo at Matilda's hand being cleansed away, just as a shower had cleaned the physical evidence of her second passing through his life from him.

He heard Warrick make a strangled, ecstatic sound, felt Warrick's arms loosely surround him and start to slowly caress him then begin stroking with more urgency. He had to open his eyes then, lowering his head, desirous of seeing as well as hearing and feeling his lover. Warrick realized Gil needed to do all the work, so tried frantically not to move, to allow that. But even the darkness of Warrick's chocolate brown skin couldn't keep Gil from seeing the flush coming onto it as his passion increased nor not sense Warrick's increasing desire to meet his easy, rhythmic movements with speedier ones of his own. Warrick wanted to say something, to give Gil any kind of verbal expression indicating the sensations he was experiencing. But Gil hushed him by sealing his mouth with a series of voluptuously spun out kisses which left him only able to endure his escalating, quivering physical reactions to his lover's administrations that were inevitably leading to a climatic explosion.

When that came, Grissom also swallowed the sounds of Warrick's outcry, breathing them inside himself and taking them down to hold on to their purity. He held on to those sounds, gloried in the shudders cutting through Warrick as he approached completion and fell over into it with his whole physique straining, then going rigid, when Warrick's semen was released and flooded Gil's insides. That was enough for Gil to join him, shivers racking him as his own sperm additionally plastering their torsos together. Then, sighing softly, he relaxed on Warrick and laid his head, once more, on the comfort of a broad shoulder.

There was now, as Gil still preferred for there to be, silence and a graceful segue from their lovemaking to sweet, complete togetherness. There was nothing warped or demented about this, as it had been with Matilda. She was a naive innocent who had become too needy for love from an outside source and was too incomplete within to receive it in a healthy manner. Her mental disability was immaterial to that. What that had done was cause her to response with severe inappropriateness to her pitifully unsuccessful search for happiness. Warrick, for all of his emotionalism and temperamental, reactionary ways, had never searched for happiness. He had simply always assumed that happiness was what he was due, believed it would come to him in good time. Consequently, he had made himself readily available for it to show its face and had been prepared for its advent with the coming of Gil Grissom.

In this, Gil was far more like Matilda. He had wished for happiness but always regarded himself as a man who'd never find it and had resigned himself to life without it when Warrick had come blazing into his sphere to turn every notion he had set for his future on its ear. Although he had never looked very hard for happiness, that had been, he sometimes was aware, because he'd thought he didn't deserve it, just as he was sure, deep down, Matilda felt she didn't deserve it and despite herself, unintentionally sabotaged every possible relationship she might've had. Gil had done that for many years, right up to and including his latter year endeavors with Terri Miller and Lady Heather. He would have done the same with this one except Warrick had been too obstinate and persistent to let him slide away, for which he was going to be forever thankful.

"That," he murmured to Warrick, "was perfect. It was quite, quite, what I needed."

Laughing quietly, Warrick said, "Well, that's real good. Can we get up now? I might've been able to sit for hours with your head in my lap, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna do it with your whole body on me while we're sitting on a toilet."

Smiling, Gil stood up slowly, breathing in deeply and regretfully as Warrick fell out of him. Rising as well, Warrick swiped the damp towel up from the floor to use it to wipe the both of them down a bit. Then he took Gil's hand and led them to Gil's bedroom, undressed and climbed into bed with him. It took less than five minutes for both men to fall asleep and neither awakened until the sun had passed its noonday point, at which time their shrilly ringing telephone sent Grissom's hand, but not his head, flapping about from under the covers to find it and silence it.

He pulled the receiver back under the covers, mumbling, "This's Grissom." After listening awhile and muttering drowsy replies, he leaned over to put the phone back on its base and hit Warrick's arm to awaken him. "That was Tina. She wanted to know if she could bring the kids back over. She switched shifts with someone else, so she could be off work and spend as much time as she could with Sara, but has to go in for the afternoon shift. Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah, it is," Warrick said, leaning up on an elbow and rubbing an eye. "Is it okay with you?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

Looking over at him, Warrick asked, "Are you sure? Can you handle having Kitty around so soon after this... thing with Matilda?"

"Of course I can," Gil said simply. "She's my daughter."

Warrick grinned. "That's the first time you've called her your daughter. I hadn't been sure if you could ever get to that."

Admitting, "It's still going to take some adjustments on my part. I've never thought of myself as a father. That I'd actually become one had never crossed my mind."

"You don't seem to have any problem acting like a father with the twins or Juny. You adopted Juny and you're the twin's godfather. So you're almost as much their father as I am and you're doing a helluva job at being that."

"No, but I believe that's because they were your children, so still your primary responsibility and obligation, not mine. I never imagined I'd have any of my own."

"What, you figured you were sterile or something? I know damned well it wasn't cause you weren't 'doin' it. For a guy who keeps on saying how socially inept he is, from what I've seen of you with the local women, like Terri and Sophia or even Sara, you used to be more of a ladies' man than you claim to have been."

"No, Warrick, I never thought I was sterile. I just... assumed I'd never have any children myself. Don't ask me why because I don't know. It was just the way I had always felt. Speaking of Sara, however, how is she? I hadn't even thought to ask until now."

"Sara's fine. The bullet took a chunk outa her side and cracked a couple of ribs, but that lady's made of cast iron. Catherine said, as soon as she got stitched up and put in a room, she was biting at the bit, all antsy to come help find you and tear Matilda a new butthole. She should be coming home some time in the next couple of days."

"That's good. I want to go see her before she goes home."

"We can do that, but there're a few other things we've got to see about, Gil. There won't be any talk about not pressing charges against Matilda this time. She shot Sara and kidnapped you. That's not to mention what else she did to you."

A shiver went through Grissom and he snapped, "And there won't be any mention of what else she did to me. I don't want there to be. There is no logical reason to mention it, so I'd rather not. I want to put as much of this as I can behind me."

Hearing the edge in Gil's voice, Warrick let that particular portion of Matilda's kidnapping alone, for the time being. Being raped surely could not have been pleasant for Grissom, despite the fact of it having been a woman and not involving pain. He had still be tied down and drugged so he could not resist, which meant it'd been a power play on Matilda's part, just the same as if it had been a man attacking a woman or another man. For most men, being raped involved pride issues which most women may not understand but that Warrick, as a man, totally understood.

"Whatever, man. I just wanna be sure she goes down for shooting Sara and taking you."

"She will," Gil promised. "I hope her mental condition is taken into consideration by the court, but I do intend to see to it that she goes to court. Let a judge decide if she's competent or not. We gave her one chance to leave us alone and she didn't take it. I don't believe we'll come out as well a second time, if we let her get away with such behavior again."

"Nope, I don't think we would either. So far as I'm concerned, even Australia's not far enough distance to put between us and that crazy lady. Since there's no way for me to get her off the planet altogether, a judge keeping her locked up in a hospital or prison for the next five or six decades would suit me just fine." Warrick put up his hand to let it start drifting up and down Gil's arm as he asked, "Just one thing, Gil. She didn't use a condom, did she?" As Gil turned a frown on him, Warrick clarified that question with, "Only reason I ask, man, is, if she had sex with you, she might be pregnant again. What're you gonna do if someone shows up about nine months from now with another baby and says it's yours?"

Gil closed his eyes and sighed deeply. "I don't know. That's a complication I don't even want to consider. As it is, I have to worry about her getting her sanity back, remembering the truth or being told the truth of everything and returning to take Kitty from me right when I've finally fallen in love with the little girl. Don't you worry about that with Lolita and June?"

"Hell no," was Warrick's instant response, delivered with a brief, snorted laugh. "Our little Lolita doesn't backtrack like that. Once Lola makes any decision, it won't matter whether it's good or bad. She'll stick with it like it's been super glued." Warrick grinned as he looked back over at Gil, still lazily stroking him. "We are a pair, aren't we? One thing you've gotta say about us, the women we've been with in the past sure as hell haven't been boring."

Grissom gave his own snorting laugh. "The most I can say about us right now is, whatever bridge we may have to cross in the future due to those women or anything and anyone else coming up in our lives, we'll cross them as we get to them and run the crossings with style and success. Now get up. Our family's coming over."

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