Disclaimer: Nothing from CSI is mine. Don't think it is. I am purely using this as a character study.

A/N: Now I know one-shots like this have been done before and I totally understand why you would not want to read this. I just wanted to take a crack at something like this. I think i did an okay job, but that's just my opinion. Review if you want to. I enjoy feeback, but I won't beg for it. This is NOT a romance between Greg and Catherine in case the two characters threw you off. I'd like to think of it as kind of a character study. I may not do it like the others who do character studies; this is just my interpretation. Please don't be mean if you don't like it. Just don't read it. Its actually quite simple. Okay, I am done wasting your time.

~CSI~CSI~CSI~

Greg Sanders lay hurt and very much alone in his hospital bed, eyes staring blankly at the empty doorway in front of him, Grissom's words still echoing in his ears. "You tell her you risked your life to save someone else's, and I think she'll be very proud of you." But no matter what he said, no matter how much his boss tried to convince him, it wasn't true. This kid was hurt; he may not make it out, all because Greg couldn't sit still, because Greg was impatient. Everyone, including his family, told him it was a vice. But did he listen? No, never once in his life did he listen. Not even a mother could still love a person like that, a person who had attempted murder...

Tears burned the backs of his eyes as he thought of his mother but he quickly squeezed them away. He wouldn't cry. He just wouldn't. He didn't deserve the luxury. Not someone like him after what he did…

Everything hurt... not only physically anymore, that part was bearable, but his heart was heavy as the weight of what he had done dug deeper into not only his heart but his soul. All the morphine in the world couldn't stop that kind of pain.

How long had it been since someone came in to visit him? Hours probably... Maybe even days… There wasn't a clock in his room. And at the minute he didn't feel like watching TV... It was too normal after what had happened. But he didn't blame them. They probably didn't even want to see him. He was sure he wouldn't want to see someone like him.

Why didn't he wait? Why didn't he listen to his gut when it screamed for him to wait for backup? He was just too damn stubborn for his own good. This was all his fault. All his fault...

But his thoughts didn't get any deeper than that because a woman appeared in the doorway. "My baby..." she whispered staring wide-eyed at him. "My God, my poor baby." His mother, Dianna Hojem-Sanders, ran to her son's bedside. Her messy, haphazard curls bounced as she moved away from the door and quickly towards him. It was still brown with very few streaks of grey and no one would doubt that these two were mother and son. "What happened to you?" she asked, tears in her eyes.

"I was..." he started, not even able to look his mother in the eye. Clearing his throat he continued in a low voice with his eyes still staring adamently at the floor, "I was out at a crime scene."

"Why were you out there?" she asked confused. She thought her son was still in the lab. Why had he never told her? Greg winced knowing that it would have to come down to her actually finding out. She'll be so disappointed in me... he thought sadly. I didn't listen to her when I should have. She's my mother, for Christ's sake!

"I was promoted," he whispered, "into the field. I didn't tell you because I thought you'd be upset..." He closed his eyes and hung his head low in shame, preparing himself for the trademark, "Gregory, I don't know why you didn't listen to me..." But it never came. Instead she gently touched his chin, just like she used to do when he was little, and lifted it to look him in the eye.

"I could never be upset with you, baby," she said back to him. "No matter what." His sad, broken brown eye met his mother's soft hazel ones and he knew she still loved him. But would she be so understanding when she heard all that he had done? To a college kid no less? She gave a small nod, telling him to keep going. She wanted to know how her baby got hurt so badly. He was far more hurt than just what she could see on the outside, but being his mother, she always knew no matter what.

"But how do you know, Mama?" he used to ask when she told him things he didn't understand. "How do you know that's right?"

"A mother knows," she would always reply with a smile.

"I don't get it," he pouted with a confused expression on his small ten-year-old face.

"When you're older, you will," she answered, still with the smile peeking through her pursed lips. "Now go out and play. You need some color, young man." He would just sigh and run outside to ride his bike and she would chuckle softly to herself. A mother does always know... And she knew her only son was hurt beyond what anyone could see.

"There was a mob beating this guy up," he continued tearing her from her pleasant memories and back into the dreadful reality she was living with her boy. "I tried to break it up but one guy stayed. He came at me with a rock and I hit him with my car..." Desperately, he tried to keep the tears that wanted to fall in his eyes but his mother's presence made that extremely hard for him to do. His mind told him to stop saying anything but the look in his mother's eye told him he had to keep talking even as his voice trembled. "They don't know if he's gonna make it... I'm so sorry, Mama," he whimpered. He said it again in Norwegian then fell apart in his mother's arms. All the emotion he had pent up inside himself was released as he sobbed.

His pained cries echoed around the white room and with each sob, he clung tighter to her shirt and buried his bruised face deeper into her shoulder. "Shh..." she whispered in his ear. "It's okay, baby. It's okay." She rocked back and forth gently rubbing circles around his back, letting her own tears fall onto her son's violently shaking body.

Neither of the Sanders saw the blonde woman standing in the doorway, her hand covering her mouth crying silent tears of her own. Catherine Willows never thought that she'd see something like this happen to Greg. Spunky, lively, goofy, Greg Sanders. She had never seen him upset like this, ever. Not even when she had told him it was her fault he was blown up. He just made a joke, laughed and told her it was just an accident. Of course she saw he was having a rough time adjusting when he got out of the hospital. His hands shook when he handed her the results she asked for and she felt guilty. How could she not notice something like that? Even Grissom could see it.

When she asked him about it, he'd tell her it was nothing. It was passing already. Not much longer from then would the bandages be off and he would be back to normal. Catherine said that she would always be around if he wanted to talk about anything, but he just shook his head, said thank you and sent her on her way. Catherine didn't buy it for a minute, but he always hid it. Now it was out in the open for anyone passing the hall to see.

When a case was tough on her or anyone else, he would always be there for a laugh. She would always look forward to getting her DNA evidence because no matter what, he would be blasting his terrible music and doing something stupid, though she would never admit it to anyone else that she was eager to see him. Even when he moved out into the field he said something obnoxious at a crime scene that she would laugh about later when she really stopped to think about what it actually meant.

That was the Greg she knew. Not the man that now lay sobbing in his mother's arms.

When she heard the call over the radio, her heart nearly stopped. She was just getting over the trauma of what happened to Nick nearly two years previous, and Brass getting shot the year after that. Now someone was telling her Greg Sanders was among the victims of the most violent mob she had seen in years? Impossible, it was completely impossible. Their team had already gone through so much. She hands shook as she pulled to the side of the road and took deep breaths to steady herself before going up to the crime scene tape.

When she had gotten there, Greg was lying in a pool of his own blood with Sara leaning over him gently stroking his hair. Sophia told her she was the first responding and that Greg was going to be okay. Yeah physically, she thought bitterly. But what is he going to be like emotionally after an attack like this? He was shaky after an accident that happened in his own lab, but this was a direct attack on him. Was this going to be just like Nicky? He was certainly not okay after what happened to him even though he said he was… But she was pulled from her thoughts with the sharp chirp of her cell phone.

"Hello?" she had answered slightly monotone, still processing the shock of what she was seeing before her eyes. They were loading Greg carefully into the ambulance with Sara hovering close behind.

"Catherine," Grissom said. "We have a suspect down at PD. I want you to go interview her."

"Okay," she replied. The whole time she interviewed that poor excuse for a woman, her thoughts were on what this mob did to Greg. That's where most of her animosity came from when she spat her sentences and questions at her. Greg was like her surrogate son, older brother to her daughter, Lindsey… Oh, Linds… she thought. She'll be devastated.

Then her thoughts drifted back to the several times her ex and late husband Eddie had dropped her young daughter off at the lab. Catherine was off to a crime scene and the only person she could get to watch her was Greg inside the lab. He was reluctant at first, most of the time, but when she came back to take her home she could tell he had fun as did she even though he tried to say he didn't. So whenever she was dumped at the lab, she'd ask, "Do I get to see Greg?" Catherine would just nod with a smile and take her to his lab.

Even now as a teenager, Lindsey adored him. Greg was the second person, next to Warrick but that was only because he was there with her at the house, to see her after she was kidnapped a few weeks ago. It was much to her surprise of course that he still talked to her, but because she eavesdropped on their conversation (though she would never tell Greg or Lindsey; they would both slaughter her), she knew they talked almost every other week.

It was kind of sweet he still cared about her and it nearly broke her heart at the thought of her daughter's reaction to his injuries. That was one of the first things she was telling her when she got home. But as his cries got louder she was pulled from all of her memories.

Not being able to just stand there and watch any longer, she moved into the room, the staccato rhythm of her heals not alerting the two to another presence. Her own mothering instincts took over and she sat on his bed and placed her hand softly on his back.

He sniffed and pulled his head up from his mother shoulder. They made eye contact and she whispered, her cheeks visibly wet and her hands trembling, "I'm so sorry, Greg."

"Catherine," he managed to choke out through his sobs, slightly embarrassed she found him like this.

"It's okay," she whispered taking a hold of his good hand.

He nodded, his voice no longer working. Not even caring she was there anymore, he continued to cry, both in his mother's and Catherine's arms. The former didn't care either that she was there, knowing, after their previous visit nearly four years before, she cared very much for her son and she was a mother herself. Greg thought Catherine was like his second mother.

So both women sat there, holding and comforting a shaking Greg, not knowing what else to do to help him, Catherine still crying along with him.

~CSI~CSI~CSI~

So that was majorly angsty. I hope you liked it. If you did, pop down in the review box. If not pop down in there and tell me why. Just don't be nasty about it. Thanks for reading! ;)