I guess you've all seen S13 ep 12 or you wouldn't be reading this! ;) Just a quick one-shot story, if you liked it, please review as I love getting them! :)
They had never been real friends. They had been polite towards each other because they were colleagues, but they had never really talked. And yet he was on his way to talk to him right now. Greg sighed. He knew talking to Hodges wouldn't be easy, but it was just something he had to do. Why? Because he had promised he would. And that promise meant more to him than the fact that he and Hodges had never been friends. He took a last deep breath before he walked into the Trace lab and cleared his throat to get Hodges' attention. The Trace lab tech immediately looked up. "Oh, hey, Greg. Sorry, I don't have your results yet, I'm still working on something else."
"That's not why I'm here," Greg confessed. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"
With his eyebrows raised up high, Hodges looked at him. "You want to talk to me?"
"Yeah… If you have a moment."
"Sure, I guess…" Hodges shrugged his shoulders. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Elisabetta."
"Ah."
It was just one word, but Greg clearly heard in it that Hodges wasn't surprised he wanted to talk about her.
"You know about her?" Hodges asked, taking off his gloves while looking at him. Greg gave him a small smile. "I think the entire lab knows about her by now!"
"Great, so what is it you've come to talk to me for? I doubt you're here to congratulate me!" Hodges said, using one of his famous sarcastic voices.
"Hey, if you're happy, then I guess I'm supposed to say congratulations!" Greg said with a half-smile. "But if you're not happy, then… well…"
"I'm very happy, so thank you for your congratulations," Hodges said, sounding very annoyed already. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, actually…" Greg hesitated for a moment, he knew this was going to be the most difficult part of the conversation. He took another deep breath before blurting out: "Are you sure you really love her and that you trust her? That she's not using you and that you're not being fooled by her?"
If a simple look could kill, Greg knew he would have been dead already, killed by the way Hodges looked at him.
"Yes, I love her and I trust her and if you don't, then just stay out of my personal life!" he nearly shouted angrily. Greg raised his hands to try and calm him down again. "It's not about your personal life, I just want to know for sure this is really what you want! We're talking about getting married here, not about just going out on a date!"
"I'm very well aware of what we're talking about here, thank you very much!" Hodges snapped at him. "Now get out of here, I don't need to hear anything else from you anymore!"
"I have just one question and then I'll be out of here," Greg promised him. "Just tell me one thing that she has done to prove to you that she really loves you."
He was afraid Hodges would just tell him to get out again, but to his surprise the lab tech said: "When I came back from Italy, she sent me a bouquet of white roses, one rose for each day we spent together in Italy. She had attached a little card to every single one of them with a word or a little memory of our time back in Italy. Is that something a woman who doesn't love you would do? I trust her, Greg, and I love her. And I know everything seems really strange right now, but I really want to spend the rest of my life with her and I know she wants to be with me as well. So I'd appreciate it if you could just drop the subject and we can go back to just talking about evidence, okay?"
"Okay," Greg quickly agreed. "I just wanted to know for sure that you really trust her, that's all. Morgan told me she did in a good word for you at Immigration and I just wanted to be sure before I did the same thing."
Surprised, Hodges looked at him. "You'd do that for me?"
"Hey, you just wanted to talk about evidence!" Greg reminded him with a smile while he started to back out of the Trace lab. Hodges rolled his eyes. "Just forget about that for a moment, okay? You'd really do that for me? But… why? I mean, it's not like we've been the best of friends!"
"No," Greg confessed. "But you are friends with Morgan and since she really cares about you, I guess I'm willing to try and be friends with you too. That is if you want to give it a try as well of course."
"Sure, but… I still don't really understand," Hodges said, shaking his head. Greg smiled at him. "I think you do, Hodges. Call me when you have my results, okay?"
He started to leave the Trace lab.
"Wait!" Hodges immediately called out. He looked at Greg, his eyebrows frowned together. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that you're not the only one with a secret, Hodges," Greg told him with a smile. "We're just planning on keeping ours for a while longer!"
And then he left the Trace lab to meet his girlfriend and tell her she didn't need to worry about her best friend any longer.