This fic was inspired by a dream I had. Read on.

Disclaimer: I don't own C.S.I., blah, blah, blah..

There was always something unique about you…I never knew what until now.

You truly are, deep down inside, the natural happy sunlight in our world of harsh sterile fluorescent lights. I watched you when you first started out as a rookie. I thought Grissom was kidding. You didn't look like a lab tech. At first I thought someone had left their teenage son to roam free.

I was wrong.

I soon learned to know the sound of drums and guitars blaring out of a stereo in the DNA lab. We never could figure out how you could concentrate like that, acting like the fat dude from Bowling For Soup (It's your fault I like them) as you handled an important DNA sample. You were like some reckless do-do head from "Jackass." One of these days you were bound to screw up for sure.

I was wrong.

It was like watching a child grow when you boundedaround with results from a sample. You felt pride in your findings and were always ready for more. Your witty jokes and brazen grins were enough to keep us through the night. I watched you as you danced with a certain headdress on one occasion for no apparent reason, and thanked the skies to have you here. At least when everyone else aroundmeturned hard from all the crime, you would always be the young, jovial, crazy lab tech with the teenage porcupine hairdo.

I was wrong.

When I saw and heard the flare of orange and shatter of glass, time stood still. I was convinced that I was dreaming, and wondered if I had slept through my alarm again. I wasn't dreaming. A bit of glass had cut me on my cheek, and soon I was being pushed outside by Hodges, who was actually concerned for once in his life. A stretcher was being wheeled out to the ambulance, but it wasn't the joking, grinning funny man that I knew. Whoever it was, they looked dead. I thought that maybe you would walk out of the building behind us, safe and smiling.

I was wrong…

I look discreetly over at you now as you gaze over at the workers as they try to repair the damage. Your face is serious and your jaw is rigid. In your eyes was such rage and fear and sorrow that I had to look away. You always said that you were nearing thirty, but I never believed you. Before, you looked like a poster boy from Seventeen. Now I noticed the dark circles under your eyes and the fatigue in your posture. Somewhere along the road, that young lab tech grew up. He grew more serious, and I saw him less and less until he disappeared entirely. I never thought about how life would be like without being bugged nonstop by a spiky-haired goofball…I guess I thought he would always be there…

…But I was wrong.

THE END

I actually had a character'sPOV for this. Think you can guess who it is? (hint: It's not who you think it is!)