AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been sitting on this one for a few months now, pieced together from what I'd planned as three separate projects featuring exposition on some of Greg's past as well as more development of the OC from my first piece (not required reading to understand this one but it might help in some areas).
Not sure if I love it or hate it. I usually don't upload until I'm finished, but in this case I figured I'd let you all have a look and check out any feedback you might have first. I certainly hope you might enjoy it (again, I'm a writer of dialogue, character studies, and humor first and foremost, though I hope to maybe do a story complete with a real mystery one of these days!).
Set sometime in the beginning of Season 6, definitely after "Gum Drops". Greg is a CSI Level One.
Little whirlwinds of dust were visible beneath the amber glow of parking lot lights as Greg pulled into his apartment complex, and the mellow sounds of Hendrix's subdued electric guitars playing The Wind Cries Mary spilled like waterfalls from the surround speakers. He put the car into park, leaning back in his seat with a sigh, taking a sip off the tepid coffee he knew it was way too late to be drinking. He'd just finished a double shift putting together all the evidence the D.A. was going to need for prosecution in a case that had been his hardest yet to deal with emotionally.
The elderly woman who lived in the rural outskirts of the desert with her three yellow Labradors, the woman who had been sleeping soundly when her trailer was invaded by an unknown while male with abhorrent intentions toward her. Her frailty, her astonishment, her willingness to relive the ordeal three times over for each of the different investigators whom required her statement.
Her youngest pup, the one who had fought for her, shivering in Greg's arms. The look of guilt in his round black eyes as Greg collected the blood evidence from his muzzle. Greg had stroked him, tried to tell him that he'd done more than enough to help, but he knew nothing he could do in that moment would take the trauma away. That particular evidence had cracked the case, landed the perpetrator in jail, and resulted in one more violent offender off the street. Greg had held it together, he'd remained objective and as far removed as possible, but the brutal reality kept lurking behind him, shadowing every step he took.
It hadn't been until Greg went driving through the streets of Las Vegas alone after shift that he finally started feeling the full impact. More and more he was becoming a true blue CSI, more and more he felt each case was changing him. He could not think of a case in recent memory where he felt he'd come out the other side as the same Greg Sanders he'd been going in.
This one in particular had caught him off guard with how deep it really went inside him. He was getting better at the art of shaking things off in the name of retaining sanity, but sometimes there was just nothing for it. Nothing he could do to but curl up in his bed until the disruption to his calm wore off, nothing he could do but hope that peace would be restored inside his mind once the next day began.
Greg took swallow after swallow from his paper cup of coffee until emptied, riding the waves of music around him as he drifted toward pleasant memories of surfing in Half Moon Bay. He could almost feel the exhilaration of gliding over the Pacific waters on his beloved Malibu board, the one with the black and red flames that used to match his hair color. How he used to feel so keenly entranced being out there alone in his own space, honing the craft and taming the waves. So masterful, so peaceful, so in control.
The sun was asleep behind the bluffs surrounding Vegas but the sky above Greg's apartment complex glowed an odd silvery blue from all the light pollution. He couldn't see any stars but he could see the bouncing beams from all the various spotlights around town, sweeping across the atmosphere as if they were dancing with each other. It soothed him, so much that he couldn't bear the thought of exiting the car into the silence of the parking lot and the emptiness of his apartment.
He felt an uncomfortable shudder in his chest as he heard a freestyle melody ringing of loneliness come sweeping into the car, his eyeballs growing hot in their sockets with every pluck of those melancholy guitar strings. Still Greg did not give in to the temptation to cry, he just took a series of deep breathes while imagining every inhalation was exercise for his skin to make it thicker.
He idly flipped through the contacts on his phone, a tingle going up his spine when he realized he had not talked to the majority of the people he saw before him in over a year.
He remembered a particular exchange with Warrick from years earlier, when he'd gotten a look at Warrick's contact list after borrowing his phone to order some lunch delivery. He'd always been good at calculating quick percentages in his head, and he had told Warrick he was impressed to see that over 70% of his lengthy contact list consisted of females.
At first Warrick had played it off like he was humbly claiming his status as the smoothest playa in Las Vegas, but then he fessed up that it was all show. Warrick told him he couldn't remember most of those women if he tried, that he only kept their names in his phone to make himself feel better, and that he couldn't recall the last time he contacted anyone he didn't know directly through work.
Warrick said it all just came with the territory when you were a CSI.
Back then Greg had still been Mr. DNA tech and he remembered being utterly amazed when he thought upon the dedication all the CSIs had. Marveling at the fortitude it took to do a job which left them so precious little leisure time to meet people and enjoy all the perks of an active social life.
As Greg sat listening to the melodies from the car stereo wrapping around him like a blanket, deleting contact after contact, he reminded himself of what a legendary social run he'd enjoyed since graduating Stanford. He looked at his tired reflection in the rearview mirror thinking a certain spark was absent, really unsure as to whether it was on break or permanent vacation.
He knew he'd asked for it, vividly recalling the day he had assisted Grissom in busting the murderous coin thief, the day he'd finally made up his mind to go after his aching desire to get out into the great blue yonder that was the field.
Greg made a point to think of every single instance since that moment when he'd been sure from within himself it had been the right choice. He remembered the morning he knew for the very first time without a shadow of a doubt he had found his home in Las Vegas. A home he respected, a home he loved, a home he wanted to serve and protect even if sometimes there would be those cases tempting him to doubt whether or not he was the kind of guy Las Vegas needed.
Greg thought briefly of calling Sara Sidle in hopes she might still be awake, he took a moment to revel in the comfort he found in thinking of having coffee with her. Then he sighed, folded his phone, and slipped it into the interior pocket of his jacket. He got lost in the sky for a little while longer before ejecting his mix CD from the player; giving it a kiss before snapping it back in its case. He held it tightly as he took another deep breath and finally exited his car.
The parking lot felt balmy and hostile as he made his way toward the flight of enclosed concrete steps leading up to his place on the second floor, feeling quite suffocated by the heat as he reached the top. He wiped some sweat from his weary brow, hastening his pace around the white stucco maze of hallways to his tall oak door. He grabbed the two newspapers waiting there, brushed his dirty boots on the sunny yellow "Welcome Home" mat his mother had placed there on her last visit, and keyed inside with a groan of relief once the blast of air conditioning hit his face.
His apartment was a comfortable open-plan appointment, if a bit ordinary in terms of architectural style, with muted slate gray walls and hardwood floors. A small rectangular living area lay directly to the left, a distressed brown sofa serving as a room divider. Another long sofa sat beside it completing the classic "L" formation, this one a more expensive black leather affair with a recliner built in at the very end.
There was a large television and stereo system sitting catty-corner; a wall of built-in shelves beside it with movies, books, forensic journals, vinyl records, CDs, and magazines stacked haphazardly wherever they would fit. Everything in the room was basic, from the tall chrome floor lamp to the woven gray area rug, and so modern it was on the verge of being nearly as cold and clinical as the lab. Greg had been meaning to change it for months, but never seemed to find the time.
To Greg's immediate right was the dining area; a square table in dark mahogany wood, four matching chairs, and a beat up old sideboard he loved for no other reason than the fact it had been handmade by his Papa Olaf. The furniture would have gotten lost in the grain of the wood floor but another area rug fixed that, this one Berber in gradient shades of cranberry red.
Upon the wall were lots of framed black & white photographs of 1920s New York, more than a few of them being artistic shots of the Chrysler building under construction. Beyond that was a similarly open plan kitchen; modern white cabinetry offering views of the contents through panes of glass, black appliances, butcher block counter tops and a long breakfast nook lined with three retro diner style bar stools.
Straight ahead of Greg was a hallway, a humble little office area through a tall archway on the left, and a brushed-aluminum-and-ivory palette bathroom to the right. Thirty paces directly in front of him was the entrance to his bedroom, and his brown eyes fell upon the door with an almost primal longing.
He dropped his keys into an old pewter ace-of-spades ashtray he bought at a record shop just because it looked so cool. He tossed the newspapers directly into the recycle pile knowing he would not even bother trying to find time to read them, and kicked off his boots with a deep groan of satisfaction once his feet were free.
Greg retrieved his phone from his interior pocket and placed it upon the sideboard along with the mix CD as he proceeded to strip down to his boxers right there in his entrance hallway. He placed his expensive sport coat over the back of a chair and padded through the kitchen, stopping at a small utility closet at the rear to dump his laundry in the hamper located there. He stopped in front of his fridge for a few minutes to kill the gnawing in his stomach with a few light bites of leftover prosciutto wrapped apple slices, followed by a few large gulps of milk. He could have eaten more but the silence was beginning to close in on him quicker than he liked, the ache in his chest starting to hurt like a goodbye at the airport.
In a flash he grabbed his mix CD and phone, shut off all the lights, and headed to his bedroom without even bothering to brush his teeth.
His room was much different from the rest of the place because he had taken pains to make it warmer and more welcoming in previous weeks. It was partially due to an article he read in GQ which suggested the nicer a man made his bedroom the nicer the sex would be with any female he brought there, and partially due to his own desire for a comfortable cave he could escape to when he needed it.
The walls were painted in a light cocoa brown with short pile carpeting in a muted plum color, both shades which Greg found had a very tranquilizing effect on him though he couldn't really pinpoint why. His bed was a very modern affair that lay very low to the floor and amounted to being a mattress inside a polished oak box.
Instead of end tables there were just two matching shelves mounted to the wall on either side, on the wall above the bed were retro style shadow boxes in all different sizes of rectangle and square. Greg made them himself with a saw, a drill, some screws and some wood stain and he was immensely proud of his accomplishment. The only problem was they had been on the wall for a good three weeks but he still could not figure out just what the hell to put into them.
Greg's eyes fell eagerly upon the crisp sheets and fat pillows of his bed but he did not succumb immediately, instead he walked over to the funky little oriental style dresser on the far side of his room. There stood a compact boom box resembling an oversized marshmallow, a clock radio, a hula dancer lamp Greg had owned since his junior year of High School, and a tray containing various watches, cuff links, boxes of breath mints, tie tacks, and loose change. Beneath all that lay his many dead cell phones, pagers, and ID badges of the past. Greg took off his watch and dropped it into the tray, then he inserted his CD into the little stereo.
His yawn almost split his head in half as he pushed 'play', put his preferred track on 'repeat', and made his final turn toward the bed.
Greg's room filled with the sounds of the same track he'd been listening to outside in the car, and he clicked on the fancy faux-candles Catherine Willows had given him for secret Santa one Christmas. They had come to be one of his favorite possessions because they allowed him to drift off in the ambiance of candlelight without having to worry about blowing the damn things out before losing consciousness completely.
As Greg took a moment to stare at the flickering glow dancing on his walls and soak in the sounds, he imagined himself traveling inside his mind to a place where the cutting reality of an innocent elderly woman laying in a hospital bed having to accept the unfair hand of cards she'd been dealt so late in life didn't bruise his heart so badly.
He thought once again of his first surfing adventures in Half Moon Bay, back when he was first beginning to break out of the fears he'd been plagued by in his sheltered upbringing and really become who he was always meant to be. He thought of standing on the rooftops of Brooklyn a couple years later, of watching the bustling city around him as if he were its king, and he thought of the times he'd done the very same thing in Vegas. He thought of the sweetest girls he'd ever met, their kisses, their embraces, and the luxurious sense of well being he had felt on those nights he had been given the privilege of falling asleep in their arms.
Greg's dark eyes were ever so slightly glossed as he crawled slowly into his bed, gazing off into nowhere as he slipped beneath the covers and let his head fall into the plump pillows. He flipped open his cell phone, the light shone from the little screen making him feel a little less alone. His heart was flopping around like a goldfish outside its bowl, his empathy for both the elderly woman and her faithful puppy beginning to spill over the brim. Greg let the music hold on to him, and he flipped through the contact list on his cell until one name was highlighted.
Sara Sidle.
He wasn't even sure he really even wanted to call her, he just felt comfort seeing her name there and knowing she was alive on the planet. He had long since accepted her affections lay elsewhere and always would, he had long since accepted she was an ocean with depths he didn't have diving experience enough to reach. That didn't matter to him, he just felt better knowing she was around. His empathy really started getting aggressive then, tempting him to start asking the kinds of questions he already knew would do him no good.
Questions that would not allow him to sleep.
Questions Grissom and the team always told him not to ask.
Questions like...
Why?
Greg felt a shudder in his chest and he rolled over to wrap his arms tightly around his pillow. The imitation candle still flickered away beside him and the sounds of the music still played on, but he felt as if the darkness and the silence were coming to get him anyway.