God's Will
Author: Michelcz
Disclaimer: CSI doesn't belong to me. It belongs to Anthony Zuicker. Same is it with song God's Will which is performed by Martina McBride.
Spoiler: season seven, episodes Fannysmackin' and Post Mortem
Character: Greg Sanders,OC
Summary: Who is Greg Sanders inside?
A/N: I wrote this story like a reaction to Fannysmackin' and Post Mortem episode. I think that it was a bit meany work from the scenarist. I hope you will like it. Write me a review, please.
I met God's Will on a Halloween night
He was dressed as a bag of leaves
It hid the braces on his legs at first
Greg Sanders, yeah that's my name. But now I want to be someone with no name. Someone who could live without any shadows behind his back. From the moment when the whole situation happened I haven't managed to sleep. If I try to close my eyes and relax, I can see it all again. It' s going in the rounds and sometimes it' s without end. I tried to block these memories but I wasn't able do it. It' s nightmare which is trying to shadow me.
His smile was as bright as the August sun
When he looked at me
As he struggled down the driveway
It almost made me hurt
So I'm sitting on the couch in the break room now. I can see people around me who are prepared to fuss over me, I know they're trying to help me but I need to have some time off. OK, I know that Grissom told me that I can have leave but I was… I thought that I needed to be here. I need to find some control over this life of mine. I must find it cause someone in my life depends on it. So I'm sitting here and trying to go over memories of last seven years.
Will don't walk too good
Will don't talk too good
He won't do the things that the other kids do,
In our neighborhood
I came into this lab from New York through California where I lived successfully for twenty-three years. I was able to juggle my athletic carrier and scientist at high school. Yeah, I know my mother hated it cause she thought, even today it' s same, that I could have some serious injury and die. She comes from the old Norwegian family. She believes in the ability of her mother's psychic power. His gram had an premonition about his death during football match. So I wasn't allowed to play football like others boys, even though he didn't feel like an outsider. I managed to be a captain of chess team and be famous among peers of mine. They knew I wouldn't let them down when they needed something. I liked to be in the center of their attention. I tried to hide my frustration with my parents. I tried to be different from them. I figured out that I can only escape if I go to study at university somewhere out of San Gabriel. I found a way. I had left for Stanford University.
I've been searchin', wonderin', thinkin'
Lost and lookin' all my life
I've been wounded, jaded, loved and hated
I've wrestled wrong and right
He was a boy without a father
And his mother's miracle
I've been readin', writin', prayin', fightin'
I guess I would be still
Yeah, that was until
I knew God's Will
Stanford. It was the ticket toward his freedom. He knew it at the moment he discovered it. He was over the moon about his acceptance. He had been thinking all summer before the time of his departure had come. He had been thinking about a challenge which was in front of him. He had suffered through a high school. He was so lost during the time in San Gabriel.
I came at university, and I found that it was the best thing in my life, or I was thinking it at that moment. It was before I discovered someone who had changed all my life. I managed to enroll into chemistry classes. I have been dreaming about it from the moment I was seven years old. I was happy little boy who had received the best present ever. My grandpa Olaf gave me chemistry kit. He knew that I will be happy although he was in big trouble with my overprotective mom.
At the first moment when I entered the lecture hall and I saw her, I knew that I had found my fate. I had been feeling a connection with her on the first sight. I knew she saw me when I entered. She looked at me however she didn't show any interest in her face. Although she had looked be out of my category, I decided that I will capture her heart and never let her go. I needed to show her that she is my soul mate, my fate, destiny, simply everything important for me.
I was excited when I was paired with her for lessons and I found her name. Name which had sounded like a crystal diamond, Kaetlyn, Kaetlyn Jennifer Waterfall.
Will's mom had to work two jobs
We'd watch him when she had to work late
And we'd all laugh like I hadn't laughed
Since I don't know when
It took months to convince her that she could believe me. She could have a fate in me and my charming person. Everyone had thought that I was and am a guy of one night stands. They were able to see this side. The side which has been showing how funny, charming and came-day-go-day person, I am. They couldn't see through that mask but Kaetlyn managed it. She had found I hate to be known as a shag-boy. She had found my own face and she started to like it. I felt that we started slowly falling in love with each other. It was the best time of my life.
We were together for four years and all the time we were making plans for our future. We had been dreaming about a family of our own. We knew how we will have named our children long time before it happened. Yeah, it had happened in the end but we had to go through a lot of obstacles in our lives.
The worst one of those obstacles was Kaetlyn's family. She had been a heir to one rich old family. They didn't believe to me. They didn't believe that I ain't a male version of gold digger person. Even more they hater were so intense, I don't know how it all happened but they were successful in their campaign against me. We started to be at each other's throats almost everyday. We were fighting for the rest of our time together before we had split up. What took years to be built, was ruined during eight short weeks. She had broken my heart. I was hurt so much that I needed to be on other side of the States. I couldn't bear be near to her and watched her how she is going to find somebody else and maybe marry him.
I needed to run away. After the graduation I caught the first plane and flew in New York where I found a sanctuary here. It was also place where I was found by 'brains huntsmen'. I received an offer to work for the second best criminal lab in the America. After almost year in New York I moved away in Las Vegas where I finally found a peace for my soul. At least I thought it for some time.
'Hey Jude' was his favorite song
At dinner he'd ask to pray
And then he'd pray for everybody in the world but him
When I came in Las Vegas lab I knew that it won't be easy. Although I was full of enthusiasm and eager to start live for new challenge. I started out as the resident lab rat, sitting quietly in a lab of mine working away on the loads of evidence and DNA the CSIs brought in, usually responsible for making discoveries about pieces of evidence that would crack a case open. I loved every minute of it but I started to desire more and more to go in the field. I wanted to be an investigator and I was determined to work it out.
I had been full of energy which was a remainder of his former relationship with Kaetlyn. She was only one who could have been possible to calm him down . I loved her for it and I love her also in this moment. She was the best thing which could happen in my life. No wait, I've got a second best thing in my life now. I've got something which had made me smile every morning. I mean 'my mornings'. It's something special. It was the most precious gift in my life which I could received from someone who was special to me. Someone who loved me with all heart. Someone who I loved to the end of the life. Someone who will live in my heart for the rest of my life.
I've been searchin', wonderin', thinkin'
Lost and lookin' all my life
I've been wounded, jaded, loved and hated
I've wrestled wrong and right
He was a boy without a father
And his mother's miracle
I've been readin', writin', prayin', fightin'
I guess I would be still
Yeah, that was until
I knew God's Will
It was almost four years from the moment he had split up with Kaetlyn. He had been thinking that he'd move on. But suddenly one day he had a mysterious visitor in the lab. Kaetlyn came back into his life and had found out how much it was a lie. Despite the long time and long distance which was between them he could say that all his love for this one woman was back in the second when she had entered his life again.
His heart was full of life which had been forbidden to him for a long time. He could feel butterflies in his stomach even though he would tell anyone else that's only girlish feeling. He had been fighting with it all the time he was in Las Vegas. He had become a good time boy one more time as he had been at the university. He went out a lot and had lots of one night-stands with girls without faces and names.
One day, a receptionist Judy came into his lab with a note, he'd a visitor in a lounge of the lab. After a while, when he showed there, he could see who was his visitor. Kaetlyn Jennifer Waterfall. He had frozen for several minutes. He wasn't able to speak, listen or react on everything what had been happening around him suddenly.
When he got over the shock he seens her. He was able to look up at her. He had tried to find right words. He couldn't say anything coherent to her. He stood here and he had stared at her. She had been so calm under his piercing gaze. After a several minutes he told her he will end his shift in two hours. He gave her address of CSI's favorite diner and said that he is going to be there after the shift. He turned and went back in his lab with these words.
Before they moved to California
His mother said, 'They didn't think he'd live'
And she said each day that I have him
Well it's just another gift
How he had been sitting in a break room and he had been poring in the memories from his past. Despite all the bad things in his life he couldn't be more happy now. He had felt that he hadn't a right to be. He was and will be for the rest of his life. He was lost in his past one more time.
When he came in the diner after the shift and he had found out that she had been waiting for him here, he was happy. As he could say she had been there for two hours. He slowly walked to the booth where she was waiting for him. After their greetings he asked her directly why she came in Las Vegas and how she managed to find him out here. He had been trying to leave no tracks all the time. He thought he was successful.
She told him she was lost without him but she had been stubborn and couldn't admit it herself. She didn't want to show any signs of the weakness. She believed that her family was right about him whole time. She believed in it even though she was almost crazy without his presence in her life. She tried to date others men. Men who were allowed by her family. She did it until the time she found out that her family lied her. Until she had discovered that they were the reason why they split up. So she hired the best private detective to find him and she was here.
He was happy but also sad at the same time. He had been able to be without her for last four years. He felt her vital presence in his life from the second when she stand before him in a lounge of the lab. He couldn't think about the moment when she'll decide to leave him and she'll go back to her family. He had been afraid of the moment like this one all time. Suddenly he was pulling into it. He couldn't fight against it but also he couldn't bear again if she leave him one more time.
However she felt it, and said it. She said that she left her family and wants to be with him. It's on him what the rules will be in their relationship. She will accept everything.
And I never got to tell her
That the boy showed me the truth
In crayon red, on notebook paper, he'd written
'Me and God love you'
He said a marriage. So they got married same day and were blissfully happy. Greg didn't said nothing about it in the lab. Only one person knew about it and it was Grissom cause he needed to be inform about changes in his life. He had to give another kin into his personal folder which was in Grissom's hand. He knew it but he never said anything about it. He was an enigma for Greg even more after this.
He didn't think that he can't be more happy in his life that he already had been/was. One day he found that it isn't true. He had been promoted as a CSI level one. He was excited cause everything came after the case when he had thought he absolutely made a mess in it. His highest level of happiness had been fulfilled when he had came home with news of the day. He received something better than was his promotion. He had received the greatest gift in the world. His wife was pregnant. His wife was pregnant.
They lived day by day during the times of Kaetlyn's pregnancy. They loved talking to their unborn child. They didn't want to know what it will be. It was meant to be surprise for them. Everything went great during the seven months of pregnancy. This pregnancy how her doctor said, was almost textbook one. The word almost was something what had worried him but it was only he. Kaetlyn was happy and nothing couldn't change it.
One day when he had been on his way back to the lab from the worst crime scene he had ever seen, he received a disturbing news. The Desert Palms hospital called that his wife was brought with intense contraction and there wasn't enough time to stop a labor. He needs to come in hospital as soon as it was able. He paled and started to shiver. In this moment he was glad that Catherine was the one behind a wheel. She saw his reaction to a call. She asked only where he needed to drive. When he said a word hospital, she had paled a bit too, especially when she didn't know why he was called there. She was aware of the lack of time. So she drove towards the hospital through shortcut she knew from the times of her marriage with Eddie.
I've been searchin', prayin', wounded, jaded
I guess I would be still
Yeah, that was until...
Catherine was soon before the hospital. She didn't stop car when Greg quickly opened door on the passenger side and jumped out of the car. He ran like a madman across a parking lot to the entrance of the hospital where he had disappeared. Catherine quickly parked her Denali and hurried to catch her younger co-worker but when she came in the hospital building, she had found out that it will be absolutely impossible for her: She went to ask a nurse in the admission room where she can find Greg Sanders. She had been sent on the fifth floor. She was confused. She didn't know what to think why Greg had been called to be present in maternity ward. She had been thinking about it all way up until the moment when she stepped out of the hospital elevator and asked first nurse who she saw where she can find Greg Sanders. The nurse told her that he's with his wife and she must wait for other information from doctor in case she's a family.
Catherine had been waiting for two hours when her mobile phone started ringing. She had looked at the screen of the mobile phone and saw Grissom's name.
"Cath, where are you? I'm waiting for your and Greg's arrival in the lab. Did you find something else in a crime scene?" Grissom asked her.
"Hospital. We're in hospital," she answered simply.
"What? Why are you in hospital?" he started to sound alarmed.
"Greg was called by hospital….," she had been telling him when their conversation abruptly ended. Gil Grissom hung up.
She tried to call his mobile phone back but he didn't take his phone although he didn't turn it off. She wanted to start it one more time when she saw how Greg emerged from the door of the room at the end of the hallway. She shut her phone and went straight to him. However she didn't see normally cheerful smile in Greg's face. He had been pale. His T-shirt was covered blood. He had been violently shaking and crying. She hurried to him and caught him into her embrace. She could feel how he tightly wrapped his arms around her. She held his shaking body in her arms and tried to calm him down a bit.
She didn't know how long they had stayed in the embrace. She only knew that he had stopped sobbing. He started slowly pull away from her when she heard someone running through the hallway towards them. She had looked up and saw that the person, who had been running towards them, was Grissom. He had been breathless when he started throwing questions at Greg.
"Greg, what's happened? I thought that it all will happen next month," he asked Greg.
"Believe me, Grissom. I was thinking same thing but it happened now…" Greg answered.
"Greg, what happened during your wife's labour?"
"She died. She died. My Kaetlyn is dead," he answered weakly.
"What?" Catherine and Grissom said unison.
"My wife died after she gave birth to my son. They forgot tell her that her last blood test had some anomaly erythrocytes. They didn't think that it's nothing important. They murdered her."
"Greg what we can do for you," asked Gil.
"You both already did it. You are here with me and for me. It's enough in this moment but I ……" he didn't say it because someone interrupted their talk.
"Mr. Sanders, you can visit your son now. We transferred him in the nursery. I will go with you and show you a way?" a nurse told him.
"Grissom…" he said.
"Greg, go to see your son. We'll be waiting for you," he told him softly.
"Thank you, guys," he said weakly and turned around to follow a nurse on their way into the nursery.
Catherine had been standing with crossed arms over her chest and looking viciously at Grissom. They didn't talk for a moment. They had been looking at each other. In Catherine's case she had been silently glaring at him and throwing murdering gazes at him. He had been stoically looking back at her. He was absolutely calm. Calm as if it wasn't Grissom. She knew him for a long time and could read in his posture and eyes but everything had been screaming calm. He had been looking into her eyes. He had been watching how she had woken up from her stupor and started her little performance.
"Gilbert Grissom," this started sounding quite bad for him, "how long have you known about it?" she asked him.
"From the beginning."
"From the beginning. Is it all what are you going to tell me?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah. From the beginning. Jesus, it's so funny but you know so many words now," she told him. "Where did you lose your textbooks words? You're able to talk more and when you have an opportunity, you like to do it."
"I'm answering only so much as you asked me."
"You're doing what. Oh, you decided to give me accurate information, aren't you?"
"Right."
"Bollocks. You're avoiding my questions and me from the moment you entered hospital. Are you trying to show me a new side of Gil Grissom? Personal part of your complex personality even though you're the one who has been telling me whole time that you don't have one. You must be punished."
"Catherine …" he started talking to her but he was interrupted.
"Don't start with Catherine now. It doesn't affect me as you could know after the last several months you're living with me and Linds, instead of living in your sterile condo."
They were stuck so much in their argument that didn't see Greg who has been heading back to the place where he had left his two colleagues. He had approached them silently and watched them for a few moments. He had been surprised by the information, he heard. His two co-workers are finally together. Despite the sad situation of his life, he had to smile. He was pleased for them. They had finally found peace.
"You will sleep on the couch for next two weeks," Cath finished her ranting.
"Cath!" was suddenly heard unison.
She didn't react at Grissom's voice and turned her attention to Greg.
Greg took her hand into his and said.
"Cath," was heard his soft voice, "it isn't his fault. I asked him to promise me that nobody will find it out. I didn't think about it as if it was something special. I only married a woman who I met several years before I came in Las Vegas. We had some bad blood between us. Everything had suddenly been alright one day when she had come back into my life. I wanted only live it."
"Greg, you could have said something to me," she was telling him and gently squeezed his hand.
"Cath, I know that I could do it but I needed to have a separate life out of the lab. By the way, guys, congratulations. It was about time that you finally got together. Everyone around you could see it but not you two. You are meant to be. You are one soul, one person in two bodies. You are behaving this way all the time I know you, guys."
"Thank you, Greg," Grissom said who had been carefully walking to Cath and firmly wrapped arm around her waist. She didn't protest against it how he had been afraid.
"It's sad that in the day when you have to celebrate a birth of your son, you're also grieving for your wife. If you will need anything, don't hesitate to call us at any time."
"What did you name your son, Greg?" Cath asked him only few seconds after Grissom told him those words.
"Nathaniel… Nathaniel Gilbert Sanders," he said proudly. "Nathaniel like a present from God."
I met God's Will on a Halloween night
He was dressed as a bag of leaves
I know that I need to go home to my son. I need to give him a hug and hold him in my arms. He is everything in my life. He's a reason why I live. Why I can breath and get up day by day.
He has three fantastic people in his life. Uncle Gil who is trying to bribe him to be an entomologist, Aunt Cath has been spoiling him from the day one she saw him in a hospital nursery and Lindsey. Lindsey is the girl who he's going to marry one day how he told us during his birthday. He could have been only two years old but he already know what he wants in his life. He was like his mom. He had taken after her.
He is Sander.