A/N: This is my entry for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) It's Garret's journal, from just before season one straight on through. I'll be adding more as more episodes air...it truly is the fic that never ends! (Ok, well it might end when the show goes off the air, which might be a very long time from now) Essentially, it's sorta like the title says. It follows canon, but offers a different view on what happens in canon. Although I'm warning you now, if you thought Long Slow Burn was too angsty, do not pass go and do not collect 200 dollars, this fic's every bit as angsty as Long Slow Burn, minus the alcohol induced delusions. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own them, they do belong to Tailwind and NBC. Although I do like trying to crawl into Garret's head, it's so cozy in there...

7/19

My shrink told me writing in a diary would help me to express my feelings. I'm only doing this because I was told to. Howard all but forced me into it. I hate the diminutive man, he's so small and cocky and right. That's what I hate most about him, the fact that he's right most of the time, that no matter what he does, he's right. He told me that this'd help; odds are he'll be right about this too.

He just told me to write down whatever comes to mind first, whatever my stream of consciousness is, just let my mind wander and write it all down. Whatever happened today, what I'm feeling, what I want to be doing, what I wish I was doing, what the score of the game was, anything and everything to help me realize what I was feeling, how I reacted to some things.

So what happened today? Not a whole hell of a lot. Just another day. Wake up, go to work, come home, and go to sleep. No interesting cases, just a never ending stack of paperwork. I had jumped on the deputy chief position, I loved the pay raise, and I thought it was something that would help fix what had happened with Maggie and I. I thought it would be what would finally cure us. Save us from finally hitting the breaking point.

But it hadn't. Not all the money in the world could keep her around, she found someone else. She'd had others since we had gotten back from our honeymoon, but she'd never fallen in love with one before. If nothing else, I held a special spot for her, I was always the one that she loved. Up until now, now she had someone else to love and the one word that had hung unspoken and finally come out. She had finally filed for divorce.

Have I mentioned how much I hated this? I don't want to do this, this is not my idea of fun, this is not what I enjoy doing. This is something I'm being forced to do. Howard wants to see me make some improvement. He keeps complaining that since I've been welcomed back into bachelor hood that I'm risking my job with the way I've been drinking.

I don't drink on the job, I don't let drinking affect my job. Drinking is simply extracurricular. It gives me something to do, something to take my mind of mom, who's inches away from dying. I just wish she'd get it over with. I know it sounds horrible, but she has no clue what's going on half of the time, she had no clue who I am, who her sister is, she keeps raving about seeing my father come in all the time, and she's so close to actually dying. She's suffering, just end it already.

I don't want to have to put up with her anymore, going in there and getting that blank vacant stare. I don't want to have to put up with all the suffering. I don't want to have to put up with all of her stark raving rants about something that isn't real, never was real, never will be real. It hurts to see her like that, the woman that I had known to be so strong suddenly reduced to that.

I'm afraid of it though. I'm afraid of winding up like her. I'm afraid of loosing everything I have and not knowing it. Of the slow symptoms and suddenly not being able to do anything. I'm afraid of loosing my independence. I don't want to have to be like her, cooped up in a home all day with no clue what's going on around me; it's what I'm scared of the most. I'm not afraid of failing, I'm afraid of being like that.

If I wind up like that, I'd kill myself. But it's like that character that Alan Alda played on ER-he's afraid that if he kills himself too early he'd miss out on what little bit of time he had left, but if he waited too long he might not remember to do it. If there's one thing I'm afraid of, it's that.

I don't know if I'd ever really get up the guts to kill myself. I tried it once, when I was young, a twenty something trying to make it in the world, and failing thanks to my own vices. I tried it once and failed at it then. That's a bad feeling, when you fail at even killing yourself.

There are times I want to do it again. I might just do it again. I don't know if I would or wouldn't. I mean, I want to, I do, but I don't. I want to just get rid of all the shit that's going on, but then the responsible side of me kicks in. The side of me that wonder's who'll take care of mom, or who'll make sure all the daily grind of paperwork will get done.

And it just reminds me all the more of what I want to get away from. I should do it. No one will miss me. No one will even notice I'm gone, I'll just come into the morgue and they'll all realize that I worked there, but no one will care, no one will notice, I'd just be another statistic, another suicide, nothing more, nothing less. It's not as if I have anyone that loves me enough to care.

Howard also told me to go out and find a girlfriend. But there's no one I want. My mind keeps drifting back to dark chestnut curls and whiskey colored eyes. I had heard that she just got fired again. That she had kicked her boss in the nuts. Can't say I blamed her, really, if her boss is anything like I had heard him to be.

I still have her number on speed dial. I could call her up, tell her I wanted her back, and offer her job back. I miss her. There, see I admitted it. I miss her. There's just something about her that attracted me to her, and I miss her. She might be what I need to fix things with my life.

16893

Saw an interesting thing today. Don't date a journal, number it by the number of days you've be alive.

16893 days. 405432 hours. 24325920 minutes. 1459555200 seconds. Every second I'm closer to death. I've already got one foot in the grave, I hate this job and I swear it's going to kill me. At least I won't have far to go. All they'll have to do is scoop me out of my chair and cut me open.

16897

My mother died today. This morning. I cant' say I wasn't expecting it. I was. I've been waiting for this for almost five years, since she had finally lost all her independence. I've wanted it for five months since she had lost all traces of who she was. Now she's gone. No more pain, no more suffering.

Her sister's working on the funeral arrangements. One less thing I have to do. One less thing I have to worry about. She's gone though; I'm surprised that I don't feel anything. I feel relieved if there's anything I can feel about it. I don't feel as hurt I thought I would be. I just feel-here. As if I'm here, and that's it. Not empty, not like something is missing, I just kinda feel here.

I don't know what I want to feel. I want to feel upset. I want to feel hurt. But I can't. It's relief that I feel, she's finally gone from everything. And it gives me an excuse to get out of paperwork. I feel horrible for thinking that, but it's the truth.

16901

The funeral was today. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to step out from where I was under the coffin and give it a shove down the stairs. I wanted to dance on it as they lowered into the ground. I wanted to yell out that I was finally free from her.

But I didn't. I kept calm and quiet, did what I was supposed to do as the good grieving son. I acted the way I was supposed to. I behaved myself, and nodded at everyone who offered their condolences, not really hearing anything that they were saying.

The only thing I could think of was that I was finally free from the power that she had over me. But yet, I'm not going to give up my job, go back to what I was. Even without her all but forcing me to be what she wanted me to be, I'm still what she wanted me to be.

I became what she wanted me to once she first started showing signs that she was sick. I came back and she told me that she was never going to get better, couldn't I do something, just for her. Couldn't I be the son she wanted me to be? That she wanted to enjoy me being what I could be for as long as possible.

She never was sick, not until a few years ago, but she kept playing it up, guilting me into going to college. Guilting me into becoming a doctor. I hated her, I hated her with a passion, but yet, now that she's gone, I miss her.

It's that fucked up parent child relationship. Where no matter what you do, no matter what they do to you, you still want to love them. I know I've been a horrible father to Abby, yet she still loves me, she's been horrible to me and I still love her. I still love my father, and he's hardly even been there for me. I hate human emotion.

16903

I don't know what to think, what to feel anymore A voice in the back of my head keeps telling me to pick up the phone and call her and tell her to come back. It's not like we haven't talked before. I've called her up from time to time, just to talk. And she's done the same with me.

But it's different, asking her to come back. And it's only because of me; I want her to come back because I want her near me again. I don't know, I feel more empty without her than without my mother. I feel more empty without her than without Maggie. It took a little getting used to; going back to sleeping alone in a bed, but it's not that bad.

We don't fight anymore though, there's not the epic screaming matches over anything and everything. We don't drag Abby into to the middle of things like we used to. We're at least civil to one another. Enough to make Abby happy and whatever Maggie's boy toy du jour was happy.

But part of me wants to call her back from California and tell her to never leave again. Part of me is crying out for her, and I don't know why. I don't want to feel like this, the last time I felt like this they left me. Stuck a folder with divorce papers on my desk and told me that she found someone else, could I just put my signature to things and they would be over.

Fifteen years of marriage and it ends with a signature. I didn't even put up an argument. She'd been distant for far too long. I kept trying to make it work, but it never did. I should have given up. But I don't give up. Giving up means defeat. I gave up with Maggie though, there was nothing else I could do but give up.

16924

I haven't written in the better part of a month. Howard said he could tell and he wanted me to write more again. Not like there's anything to write about. His sock puppet that's supposed to bolster my self confidence. I don't see how a sock puppet can possibly do that, but according to the great Dr. Stiles it's supposed to.

He said it'll help with my next to nonexistent public speaking skills. The only public speaking I need to do is to give orders, I don't need to give big huge speeches. I avoid doing a presentation for the convention every year, I either don't go or am the one to set everything up.

Nigel loves those things, he usually goes and drags Bug along. I don't complain. They do a good job, that's all that matters. And I get out of going if they're the ones to go. I hate having to do big huge speeches. They serve no purpose, all they do is make you even more worked up about things that you can never care about, make you like them less.

He wants me to say what I think about Maggie leaving me, about how I'm coping with the death of my mother. I'm coping with both. I'm not doing too badly, all things considered. I'm still functioning, I don't drink that much, and my life is going for the most part, pretty well. He keeps telling me to get a girlfriend though.

And every time he does the thought of her crosses my mind. I don't love her, I can't love her, she's a friend. I don't want to love her; I don't want to have to worry about those feelings clouding my judgment on hiring her back. She did need the job. She did need to get settled down someplace.

I'll call her. I know I will.

16935

I called her today. I finally got up the nerve to call her. She sounded almost shocked to hear my voice, we haven't talked in two months, and the tone of her voice seemed to think that something had gone horribly wrong. But she sounded even more shocked when I told her she was going to get her old job back. I haven't heard her voice in far too long.

I'm lonely without her, there was just something about her. We got along so well. I miss the way that we would banter more than anything. There's no one here for me to banter with. Nigel comes closest to my sense of humor and the boy is almost afraid of me, he respects me, but too many damn years in the British navy taught him how to respect a superior, and joking with them is apparently not one of those ways.

And I don't think that Bug even has a sense of humor. I've searched far and wide for it, and it seems fairly nonexistent. Trey, well, he goes for blatant humor, sarcasm is something that he knows and recognizes but he's not like Jordan. He couldn't have an entire conversation in dry sarcasm like Jordan and I could.

She sounded overjoyed to have the job back. I could tell that she had probably started on her way out the door and home to pack. She said that she'd be back in two days. That seemed like an eternity before I would see her again. It felt far too long to see her. I haven't seen her years, and I don't know why I miss her so much, but I do.

I feel almost incomplete without her. I feel almost empty without her. I don't know why, but I do. I don't want to, but I do. I want to be perfectly happy without her, but I can't. And I don't know why it's stronger for her than it ever was for Maggie. I didn't feel this empty when she left me.

But I had known that was over before it even began. I don't even know why I asked her to marry me. She was there, I was dating her, and the sex was great. I think I just wanted proof that something in my life would be stable. I wanted to prove that I was better than my family had been, actually keep a good relationship, be there, and be a good father for any children.

But three months into the marriage and I just knew that it was over. I knew that she was seeing someone else and I didn't even try to care. It didn't hurt me, it didn't really deal a blow to my heart and soul, it hurt my ego. I wasn't enough for her. But that was the only thing that it hurt. I didn't care that she was seeing someone else, I cared that she was seeing someone else because I wasn't enough.

Once Abby was born, I thought it would help make things right between us, but I had known it was gone. She had told me once, in the heat of an argument that she had only stuck around as long as she had because she didn't want to risk having to raise a child by herself. That the only reason why she didn't run off was because she might have wound up stuck with Abby all by herself. She wanted someone else there to split the responsibility.

I had always known that she was cold, but I never realized how cold until then. I'm just grateful Abby wasn't there to hear it. Because I have to admit, I'm guilty of the same thing. The only reason why I stayed with Maggie for so long was because I didn't want to be the one to provide for Abby, I couldn't do it alone, not with how much I work. I'd never be there for her. I'm not there enough for her as it is.

But things are over between us now, for good. The only thing I miss is the wild passionate sex that we would have. They do say that angry sex is the best sex and I have to agree with them.

16937

She came back in today; she looked so much the same way that I remembered her. She had dressed up, a rarity for her. I can't remember the last time I had seen her in nice clothes. I feel bad about how much I offered her, but I was getting enough shit for hiring her back as it was, I couldn't stretch the budget anymore.

It was half of what she'd make anywhere else, but she wouldn't be hired. If nothing else, she was hot headed and brash and it got her into far too much trouble. But she was damn good at what she did, no one could deny that. No one could say that she wasn't one of the best out there.

She just needs some self-control. She needs to learn how to let the cops do their job and not go off on renegade missions trying to catch the bad guys. Leave that to the PD, they know what they're doing. She needs to just calm down a bit, not a lot, just enough to not risk her life every single case.

But I had almost forgotten how she looked. She walked in and I just felt-I don't even know how I felt. There's no real way to describe it, it's not any emotion that I know of. It felt wonderful and horrible all at once.

It's probably the way that the intake girl feels for me. As much as I try to ignore her, she keeps doing cute little things to try and show that she wants me. I've given up trying to ignore her and almost to the point of flat out turning her down. She's a coworker, and very much not my type.

But she keeps flirting with me every time she walks by me. I don't want her at all. She's too free spirited, to light, too airy, to much the "love is all around us" type. Yeah right, a match made in heaven for an old jaded cynic. She's one of those hippie types, a new age spirit and I'm, in a word, not.

9/21

I give up with the day's thing. It's too damn depressing. Each time I do the math I'm reminded of how many days closer to death I am.

She pointed out to me how much Lily keeps flirting with me, as if to tell me to go out with her. I don't want to. I don't want to date Lily. I'm not going to date Lily. I'm not. It's that simple.

We're too different, we'll never get along. We'll get along as well as me and Maggie did, which is not at all. It might be passionate, but I don't think it'll ever last. She's a coworker, she's twenty years younger than I am, and things just aren't going to work between us.

And to be frank, she just doesn't interest me. She's not bad looking, but she's not my type. She's too-it's hard to describe. I'd use round but that has a negative connotation, she's not fat, but she has curves. Too many of them. She's no larger than average, but she's busty and she has a round face.

I go for skinny, petite, almost boyish. I don't really care if a girl has boobs twice the size of her head, a nice rack is just that, nice, but it's not something that I really care about. Let's face it, Jordan is my type. More than anyone else. Even Maggie wasn't my type the way that Jordan is.

10/2

So Lily and I went out tonight. If you could call it that. It was supposed to be a nice evening out. Nice evening out resulted in Burger King and a pick up. But we talked. She's not quite as out there as I thought she was, but that still doesn't mean that I can see a long-term lasting relationship with her.

I'll never tell her this but the only reason why I finally asked her out was because Howard pointed out my sex life, or lack thereof since Maggie. Lily's a nice girl and there's no denying her attraction to me, why not take the offer. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

She's not want I want, but she'll do. It's enough to get Howard off my back about things, if he thinks I'm dating someone he feels better about me. So I'm here, dating someone that I don't see a relationship with simply because my shrink wanted me to date someone. How fun.

She really is a nice girl though, don't get me wrong. She's just not my type. She's not the kind of a person that I can see a relationship between us working out. We're just too different. I'm a man who's tried and true, if it worked before it'll work again, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and doubt the world until you know what the world will do.

She takes everything as it's presented to her, accepts the way the world works and is constantly optimistic. I hope for a better day but I don't count on it. She goes around thinking that each day is getting progressively better. I hope it'll be better but am not surprised when it comes out worse.

We're just too different to ever really work I suppose.

11/15

I don't quite know what happened over the past few days, it's all somewhat jumbled. Jordan, Lily, Nigel, too much going on to really comprehend. I think I finally screwed things over for good between Lily and myself, although I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I mean, she was the one who was going to marry Nigel only to keep him in the country.

I stopped it only because it stops the morgue from sounding like another bad NBC show. There's one of those, I swear, on every NBC hit. Someone marrying someone just to keep them in the country. I blame that bad detective show with the guy who plays Bond for starting the trend. Will and Grace picked up on it, and I'm not having the morgue go down that path.

And then there was Jordan. I don't think I've ever been quite as afraid as I've been today, thinking that she might be dead. There was just some kind of gut fear, the only time I've felt like it was when I thought something had happened to Abby. It was just as strong as that. And it almost scares me to realize that I feel that strongly.

I mean, I know I fucked things over with Lily and all that I've done. I was pissed off about being passed over. I've met Jack Slokum once, and that was one time too many. He's a damn good doctor, but he's a horrible people person, totalitarian, strict, and that's not what this place needs.

This place needs someone to keep them in line, but still make it something that they enjoy doing. That's not what it would be if they gave Slokum the job. That's not what it would be if they passed me over. Slokum would lead to half the staff quitting rather than work under him, no one would want to work under that pompous asshole.

I know I wouldn't. I'd quit. I don't care if everyone would think it was only because I was jealous over getting passed up. I suppose I am, I mean, I've actually worked here, Slokum's been hobnobbing with the politicians, that's all he's good at. He's just as sleazy as all of them.

I don't care if he's more qualified. I know he's more qualified. But it doesn't mean he's better for the job. I'm better for the job and I know I'm better for the job. And I refuse to work for that pompous prick. And he'd be out the best ME here.

12/25

Bah. Humbug.

I don't know what possessed me to actually go back and spend Christmas with Maggie and Abby. I could have gone out with Lily, could have done something fun and different. Instead, I wound up doing the same tired thing. Christmas dinner with Maggie and Abby, gifts, the whole thing.

And Maggie's boyfriend. Talk about awkward. But what felt the most awkward was the way that Maggie acted as if nothing had ever happened. All the fighting, the divorce, as if all that had never happened. As if she knew that what's-his-face wasn't right for her and she wanted me back.

I'm not going to fall victim to it. I'm not. I can't. I don't want to. I'm not going to go back through all that again. I'm stronger than that. I don't love Maggie anymore. I have Lily; I don't need to go through all that shit again.

1/1

Happy new years to no one. It's the most useless holiday ever.

No point in it. Who really cares? Another day older and closer to death. Another day where we find ourselves a day older and not a penny richer. Scrooge was onto something, gotta hand it to old Ebenezer, he knew that money's about the only thing you can trust in the world.

It's always there; it's something that won't string you along. Any object. No object can have emotions and play you, make you think they love you when they really don't. No object can act one way and really be another just to annoy you.

Money's the best thing on the world. And I have too much of it. I love money, simply because it's easier than loving a human. I have nothing else to love.

1/28

So I almost lost my job. Through my own free will. I was going to throw it all away. I don't care really. I mean, it's not as if this is my first love. I wonder if I'm still too old to go out and join some band. It doesn't matter, I'm the drummer, and no one pays any attention to the drummers.

Yeah, I can see it now. Me, looking every bit the sleazy old man playing drums behind Britney Spears. I'd get laughed away from any auditions. I'm too damn old. I should never have given it up, I should have kept right on going with it, I should have just kept on running and playing. I have the skill. I don't doubt that. But I don't know if I could've handled the life of a rocker, living in a van for months on end through until now.

I couldn't handle I t then, I certainly couldn't now. I wonder if I made the right choice though. I could have had the world in my hand. I could have run off to Canada when my number got called, I didn't have to switch to premed just to get a deferment. But I had.

I switched to what my mother wanted me to do because I had no real other option. I t was win/win. I got out of the war; she got to see me become a doctor. I still wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't done that though, if I had stayed a music major. If I never went to college, if I ran off to Canada.

I wish I could do it over at times, go back and change everything, go back to being musician. I could have been something. But isn't that what all could've been rock stars say? Isn't that what all of them say as they down drink after drink, drug after drug? Yeah, I could've been something too.

A good glass of scotch sounds good right about now.

2/5

44 years old. Forty four years and nothing to show for it. A wasted life that I hate. A past that I try to forget. Parents that I hate. Too many failed relationships to count. That's all I have to show for forty-three finished years on this earth.

I'm almost to that midway point in my life and I feel no different than I did ten years ago. No different than I felt twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, I first realized my life sucked and decided not to do anything about it.

I want to go back and change things. I want to go back and do what I wanted, but it's over and done with. I've spent the better part of forty-three years regretting nearly everything that I've done in my life.

2/14

So if the writing's fucked, sue me. Five glasses of scotch do not good handwriting make. But it's valentines day. I've always hated the day. No point in it. Commercialization, that's all it is. I have no one to love. I've screwed over Lily for Maggie, and well, I never loved Maggie, I never did. She was there, I had her, but I don't love her. I can't, not after what she did to me.

There are times when all I want her to do is pack up, move, and leave me alone. But all she has to do is look at me and I melt. I don't love her though, I can't love her. I have Lily, I don't need her too. But I have her, against my will. She just forced her way into my life.

She just appeared one day and somehow wound her way into my bed, and now I'm stuck juggling the two when in reality I don't want either. The only enjoyment I'm getting out of them is the sex, but that's all it is. And both of them want a real relationship.

I have too many women. Not a problem most men complain about. Right, give me a pimp hat and zoot suit. Ol' Dirty G, master pimp at your service.

Valentines day sucks.