Thanks to Emmithar for betareading!

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Chapter 4

When Greg entered the diner, he caught sight of Warrick who was waving him over to the table where he and Sara were sitting. Sara had her back to him and it was Warrick who slide one place to the side so that Greg could sit down next to him opposite of Sara.

"Hey," she said between two bites of her pancake. Before Greg could return anything the waitress came to take his orders, and when she was gone, Greg was silent, watching Sara shoving another piece of her food into her mouth. He did not notice how Warrick was lifting his eyebrows, throwing an asking glance at Sara, feeling obviously that something was off. Sara shook her head slightly. Greg noticed this and turned to Warrick.

"How's your case going?"

"They have somebody in custody, could be our man, could not," Warrick answered him shrugging.

"Evidence?"

Warrick emptied the rest of his cup of coffee. "They didn't get him because of anything we found."

"But?"

Sara was entering the conversation now. "The guy was hanging around suspiciously at the scene last night. When an officer was asking him what he's doing, he started fiddling around with a gun, an unregistered one moreover, as it turned out." She had been telling all this calmly, but Greg could not help swallowing.

"We'll have to connect him with the victims, or better with the ammunition that was used," Sara continued.

Greg nodded.

There was not much of a conversation in the following minutes and realizing that even Greg was unusual silent and assuming that it had to do with some trouble Sara and Greg were having with each other, Warrick left soon in order to give them the opportunity to hash it out between them.

Greg wanted to try exactly that and threw Sara a smile, hoping she would return it and the tension between them would vanish. Sara frowned even deeper though and Greg guessed that she was at least wondering about his behavior in the last couple of days. Greg thought about telling her what had been and what was on his mind. Telling her that he was worried that she was working too much and sleeping too little would be a good start, but it did not seem to be a good idea to tell her that he had seen her being shot dead in his dreams, even more so in all gruesome details.

"Are you ready?" Sara was interrupting his train of thoughts now. Greg looked down at his coffee and food, realizing that most of it had turned cold.

"Yeah," he answered Sara sighing.

"Will you go to the lab again or will you actually come home with me?" Sara wanted to know, and Greg wondered if he was only imagining the sharp tone in her voice, but as her words were matching this tone it was probably really there.

"I'll head home."

The heading home was not an enjoyable business. Sara was very quiet and when she said something it was in a curt manner, and Greg's continued attempts to lift the mood were in vain. When they arrived home, Sara went instantly to bed. Greg followed her, but when he climbed into their bed, Sara had already turned her back to him.

He lay awake for some time, before he moved closer to her. He stroked her hair, following then along her shoulder and arm down to her hips gently. Sara did not react and Greg noticed that she was sleeping. Nestling himself next to her, he went finally off to sleep as well.

When he woke up again, he was lying on his side of the bed again and Sara was gone. Reluctantly he stood up as well and found her in the kitchen. She was completely dressed and held a cup of coffee in her hands.

"Good morning," Greg greeted her, smiling at her, gauging her mood.

"Afternoon," Sara corrected him.

"Afternoon," Greg gave in. He took the coffee-pot that was still half-full and filled a cup for himself. Then he sat down at the small kitchen table where Sara was sipping her coffee.

She looked at him gravely. "I've made a decision."

Greg looked at her questioningly, showing that he was listening. Sara let go of her cup, shoving it away from her, and looked at him intensively.

"I don't think this… between us," she started finally, "is going to work." If Greg had been expecting anything, it was not that.

"So I want to end it…make a clean cut before it gets worse," Sara continued in a monotonous tone, having obviously laid out her words before, and Greg still stared at her stunned. It was coming out of left field for him. During the last days his mind had been occupied by the worry for her; at the same time he had not missed that she had been somewhat irritated with him, but he had thought it would blow over like every smaller quarrel they had fought in the past had gone over.

"Sara…" he started, not knowing how he was supposed to convince her of the opposite. She probably had her reasons why she wanted to break up, even though he did not know them; he was not conscious of having done anything wrong that would cause her to do so.

Sara was silent now, rubbing her eyes. Greg guessed that she had built up the courage to tell him about her decision recently, which had made her so silent and curt. It still did not explain her reasons. Greg was just convincing himself to ask for those, when Sara jumped suddenly up and ran out of the kitchen, back into the bedroom.

Greg stared down into his cup. He was dazed, unbelieving that this was happening, that everything was going to end so suddenly. Hadn't they been happy only some days ago? Or had they only deceived themselves?

Following Sara into their bedroom was no option; she had gone there because she wanted to be alone, so much was clear. So Greg kept sitting in the kitchen, waiting for her to return, letting his coffee turn cold for the second time this day.

Greg knew that he had been uncommonly quiet and apparently inattentive during the last few days, but that was not what would cause Sara to break up with him as a sole thing, he could not imagine that. Still he wondered if he could not have done anything to avoid that it came so far. He did not even know what they would do next. One of them would have to go. Since it had originally been Sara's apartment it would be naturally and fairly Greg who would have to move out.

Greg was interrupted in his thoughts when Sara came out of the bedroom. Greg stood up, looking at her, rubbing his forehead. Sara's face was tears stained, she had cried like Greg had been suspecting. None of them said anything. Sara brought a handkerchief out of her jeans pocket, turning away from Greg to clean herself somewhat up.

Greg had a lump in his throat that was not getting smaller and his voice was raspy, when he asked, "Can you tell me why?" He wanted to know the reason, needed to know what he had done wrong.

Sara turned to him again. "I thought about it a lot in the last couple of days," she started. "But I still don't know why. I guess it's just me. Guys don't tend to stick around for long." She came over to Greg slowly, and caressed his face. "You've always been a caring guy, Greg. I know you don't want to hurt me, but if you want out, I won't hold you back."

Greg had lifted his eyebrows, deeply surprised. He laid his arms around her back affectional. "So you don't want to break up?" he tried to clarify for his own understanding.

Sara shook her head. "I don't, but I've seen how occupied you've been lately. I know you've been thinking about how to tell me -"

Greg laughed, causing Sara to furrow her brows. "I don't want to break up with you," he said, "so if you don't want either, let's just not do it, okay?" He was still chuckling happily.

Sara looked bewildered for a moment, before she could not help smiling as well. "You!" She punched his shoulder lightly. "I thought… " She shook her head. "Greg Sanders! You can gab around all day, but when it gets important…"

"Sorry." He looked sheepishly and Sara's expression turned earnest.

"Be honest, what's on your mind?" she wanted to know. Taking his hand in hers, she added, "Is everything alright?"

Greg nodded after a moment. "Yeah." Looking bashfully he added, "I was worried about you, you working this case, the threats-"

"What threats?" Sara asked sharply. Greg remembered that Sara had not been there when there had been the tumult and that she did not know about it.

"The lab got warnings that we'd regret it if we'd continue working this shooting case Warrick and you are on," he explained.

"It's not the first time that happened," Sara replied calmly. "That's not everything, is it?" her voice was quieter than before.

Greg could not look at her; the images were coming back into his head. Rationally he had to say that his nightmare had been a mixture of gruesome things he had seen at scenes and the threats that had personalized cases like those, that had made him fearing for Sara's safety. This realization did not make it easier to tell her about it.

"It's silly," he started, knowing that it was not. "I had this nightmare… you were shot right in front of my eyes at the scene," he said the last part very quietly. "You were working that case… there were those threats… I couldn't get my mind of it."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked softly.

Greg chuckled almost sadly. "It's not exactly easy to come and say 'I dreamt that you're shot dead,' you know."

Sara nodded understanding.

"And last night and today you seemed to be angry at me for some reason," Greg continued. "I just wanted to let it blow over." He grinned slightly. "That's usually better for my safety."

Sara grimaced. "True."

After some minutes of kissing and fondling that found them on the couch, Sara stopped Greg gently.

"What are we going to do then?" she asked.

Greg smiled. "What about me taking you out?"

"I'd like that." She smirked. "As long as we're back for work in time."

Meeting her expression, Greg suggested, "We could call Grissom and tell him that we're both too sick to come in."

Sara threw him a warning glance.

"You infected me," he still dared to add. "That's convincing, isn't it?"

Sara rolled her eyes. "Yes, of course."

"So it's a deal then?"

"Grissom would have a fit."

"We can't do that to him."

"I guess not."

The End