Okay I know I said I wouldn't back for a while, but I watched this small music movie someone made and it inspired me. Belovedtigershark, made a video called Burnt. Saw it and thought I'd write about Greg's thoughts if he ever handled a burns victim, don't know if they've made one yet, personally I think they should. Anyway, enjoy and please review.
"How's it going Greg?" Grissom asked, walking into the lab room. He took in the suddenly distant man, hands shaking as he looked over the photos and the evidence around him.
"Fine." He said, barely above a whisper.
"Greg? Are you sure you can handle this?" Grissom asked, suddenly remembering what Sara had warned him about.
"Yeah." Greg answered, starting to write as he picked up some evidence, a burnt metal bar with skin charred onto the end.
"It'll be hard, for the family." Grissom said, nodding to the picture in front of Greg. Greg looked down upon it, his eyes suddenly shining. A young man, no older than eighteen lay in the picture, on the burnt floor. His peeled face turned up into a silent scream of horror, eternally staring from the shell left.
"Yeah." Greg agreed. Grissom nodded grimly and turned to look for Sara to see if she would help Greg with this case. He had thought it would be a good process of getting Greg to get over what had happened a few years back at the lab. "He must have been in such pain." Came a weak voice.
"You can't think that." Grissom said, turning to look at Greg.
"I suppose." Greg agreed, his face suddenly hidden in the darkness of the dim room. Grissom turned back to the door and continued until he reached the doorway. He paused as he heard something else said by Greg.
"What did you say?" Grissom asked, turning back towards Greg.
Greg looked up, his eyes distant, staring off into another time. "Eternal fire, burning. Glass scattered about and the pain of the flames upon your body. That image will never leave you, forever burnt upon the brain, scorched into the mind, scaring deeper than the wounds that lie upon the skin." He blinked, coming back to Grissom and stared at him with empty eyes. "Forever there in your mind when the flames come back. "His eyes flashed with pain, as he looked Grissom in the eye. "You'll never forget it."
Greg…" Grissom was at a loss as to what to say.
"And nothing anyone says can ever make it better." Greg sighed, standing up and collecting the evidence into the box. He walked past Grissom and out the door.
"Greg?" Grissom called, stopping the man in his tracks.
"Give it to Sara." He said, more gruffly than he intended.
"I'll just end up giving another one away." He said, finally turning to Grissom, a stay tear falling down his cheek. "I'll manage." He said, continuing down the corridor.
"I thought he could handle it." Grissom said to the team as he sat in Brass' office, a glass of whisky in his hand.
"And he will." Sophia said. "It'll just take time." She murmured to him.
"He'll manage." Nick agreed, smiling sadly as he watched Greg coming out of the interrogation room further down the hall. An officer came out with a teen in cuffs.
"Why!" Screamed the mother of the dead man, her husband clinging onto her. The boy just dropped his head and was led to the cells.
"I'm so sorry." Greg said, holding the woman's arm.
"How could you every…know!" she shrieked.
"Because I've been there before." He whispered, yet another stray tear sliding down his face. The woman met his saddening gaze with her own. "He's lucky he went so quickly." He said sadly, squeezing her arm carefully and nodding.
With a sigh he stood up straight and walked past Brass' office, but the others could see the tears that fell and pain in his eyes.
Catherine took a shuddering breath and felt a hand on her shoulder. "Its not your fault." Warick whispered. She nodded silently.
"He'll heal in time." Brass said quietly, unsure whether he even believed.
"Time will tell." Grissom finished, gazing after the lonely man, no longer the bouncy lab tech, but a solemn CSI like the ones watching him. Alone in a job of pain, the only help to some victims family who want answers; at the sacrifice of their own lives.
'Time will tell.' He thought to himself once more. 'I hope'.
