Disclaimer: I wonder if it would do Greg really good, if I owned CSI and its characters. Doubts coming up there.

Rating: K+

Summary: Greg is in San Francisco, Sara is in Las Vegas, and they are both not completely happy with this arrangement. Sara works a lot, on one day too much, which leads to astonishing news for Greg. Sequel to 'Close distances'. SaraGreg

A/N: Another post from me today thanks to the amazingly fast beta by Emmithar. That will be the last "update" from me for the time being though, as I'm going on vacation and will leave Greg and Sara in peace for a while, a short while admittedly.

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Belonging

Chapter 1: Renewal

Sara heard the ringing of the phone already before she opened the door to her apartment. She entered quickly and marched into her living room, leaving her traveling bag standing near the entrance. Smiling to herself she picked up the phone, having a good idea who it was.

"Hey, Greg," she answered the call, sounding amused.

"You couldn't have known that it would be me," Greg pointed out.

"Who else would call me?" Sara questioned justifiably.

"Work?" Greg suggested.

"No, they'd rather call me on my cell, make sure to reach me even when I'm still on the go and all."

"True," he admitted.

"No, they haven't called yet," Sara ensured him. "I'm still off until tomorrow you know."

Greg chuckled. "Yeah, but has that ever kept them from calling you in on your night off?"

"Not really." What Sara did not tell him was that she was planning to go in to work tonight anyway. She did not see a point in spending the night alone at home. Going to work made much more sense; at least she would be spending the time useful then.

"I miss you," Greg said now. Sara laughed.

"I left just this morning," she pointed out. She had just arrived back from visiting Greg in San Francisco where he was working since he had quit in Las Vegas a couple of months ago.

"Too long," Greg argued, but Sara could tell that he was smiling.

"I'll come again in some weeks," she promised. "I have still a lot of vacation time saved up."

"I know." Greg laughed. "You never took a day off when I was still working over there."

Sara frowned, although she knew that Greg could not see it of course.

"And now you're frowning," he continued quickly. "But are breaking into a smile right now, aren't you?" he added. Sara laughed again, as Greg had been completely right.

"You're not much better with taking time off," she carried their discussion on.

"True. Do you remember the times when we both maxed out on OT?"

Sara grimaced. "Yeah." Then she sighed. "I miss working with you."

"So do I."

"You know what I forgot to tell you?"

"What?" Greg sounded curious.

"Catherine's the supervisor of days since this week."

"Wow, finally, this is what she wanted all the time," he was impressed. "Why now?"

Sara sat down on her couch, having been standing so far.

"Well, Ecklie wasn't exactly finished with his reforms after you left," she started to explain. Greg had not gone completely voluntarily. Ecklie had held the opinion that there was too much staff at the graveyard shift and that somebody would have to go. Sara had thought for a while that it would be her, since she had been standing on Ecklie's to-go-list anyway, but then Greg had quit surprisingly. He had claimed that he had not done it for Sara's sake but because he wanted to start somewhere new where he would maybe be seen as a newbie, but not as the former lab rat that was still often not really involved in cases like he had felt it to be at the Las Vegas crime lab.

"So when the swing shift supervisor left, he moved the supervisor of days to swing shift, along with another CSI, and made Catherine supervisor of days," Sara continued.

Greg chuckled. "She is on good terms with Ecklie right now, huh?"

"Yeah, but it's not as bad as it sounds," Sara ensured him. "And Ecklie's happy now that we're evenly and economically distributed as he likes to call it." She shook her head, once again although Greg could not see it. "There are three investigators at days, four at swing shift and four at graveyard." She laughed again. "Ecklie thinks it's great. We think we have a problem."

"Come on, Grissom has Warrick, Nick and you," Greg argued. "He's way better off than when Cath, Nick and Rick - I can rhyme - were at swings."

Sara frowned again. "Why?"

"Back then he had Sofia, you and, well, me."

"Greg, you did a good job. How often do I have to tell you that?"

Greg laughed nervously. "I just felt often kinda stupid. Part of the reason why I left, you know."

"Grissom isn't exactly generous with praise," Sara admitted. "But do you remember when he once said we two were making him superfluous?"

"Yeah."

"We were a good team, Greg."

"I know," he said quietly. Sara was silent. She felt some melancholy hanging between them and was trying to think of something to say to lift the mood again. Holding the phone still to her ear, she stood up, making her way into the kitchen in order to brew some coffee that she would need definitely if she wanted to get through the next night working.

"We're still a good team," Greg said now, more cheerful. "Even though it's not at work anymore."

"Yeah, you're right." Sara smiled, starting the coffee machine.

"I'll call you later," Greg sounded impishly now. "I'll give you some time to nap now. You'll need it, if you go in to work tonight," he said with a knowing undertone.

Sara grinned. "How do you want to know what I'll be doing tonight?"

"I know you," Greg replied simply. "Good night," he added. "I love you."

Sara did not understand why she was still hesitating at this point.

"I love you, too," she said finally. She could hear in the short bye he said that Greg was grinning, before he shut off the call. Sara smiled to herself while she laid down the phone, watching the coffee brew in the machine for a moment.

She was not exactly planning on following Greg's advice to take a nap before work, but went to clean out her traveling bag instead. She put her dirty clothes into the washing machine and then went out to pick her mail up from her mailbox. She opened the few letters she had received quickly, sitting down on her desk to read them. Once she was finished, she realized that the coffee had probably been ready since long but somehow she felt too lazy to go and get some. It was reluctantly that she laid her head on her arms on her desk, drifting off to a nap after all. The ringing of a phone woke her up. It was not the home phone that was still lying in the kitchen, but her cell phone, so Sara guessed directly that it was work.

"Hello," she said, noticing that she sounded tired.

"Hey, Sara. Are you at home?" her boss wanted to know. Sara could have told him no. He knew very well that she had been out of town to visit Greg; she could theoretically still be on the go, but she realized that she would not be able to lie to him, and she had had planned to go in to work anyway, hadn't she?

"Yeah, I'm at home," she replied.

"Can you-," Grissom started.

"Yeah, I can."

"We have a double in Henderson. I'll give you the address."

"A solo?" Sara asked.

"Yeah. We're a bit shorthanded, you know…"

"Yeah, I know," Sara admitted. That would be one long shift, if she had to work a double homicide alone. And that on her night off. That was really a nice welcome back. Not that she had actually planned anything differently.

TBC