Disclaimer: broken recordish: I don't own them.

A/N: Thanks for reading and replying and to singingstarryknights for betareading.


Chapter 7: Tendencies

Sara woke up, Greg still sleeping beside her, with one arm around her waist. She freed herself gently from it, sitting up. She looked out of the window, then at her sleeping boyfriend next to her, thinking about everything that had happened the previous night and morning.

"You want to leave?" she could still hear Ecklie's voice in her head.

"You're free to go, Sidle. As I have told Grissom: even two people from the graveyard shift can go."

"What do you mean?"

She could still hear his words as if it had been just mere minutes ago.

"Sanders has just quit. If you want to leave, too, go ahead."

She had been tempted to do so. At that point she had anyway accepted the thought that she would have to go… and then Ecklie had told her that Greg had quit. She had been tempted to just throw a sarcastic comment into Ecklie's face and clean out her locker.

Now, however, she realized that it would have been incredibly stupid. And it would not even have helped Greg. She wouldn't be able to support him, to work it out with him, if she had been in the same situation, in the same trouble as he was.

It had actually been Grissom who had held her back from giving in to her temptation.

"If you want to leave, too, go ahead."

Sara had starred at Ecklie, but before she had been able to answer something, Grissom had called her name from behind. She had turned around to him, a deep frown on her face.

"You know that these kinds of mistakes mustn't happen," he had said, holding up the erroneous bag of evidence she had brought with her earlier. "It is necessary for the reputation of the lab that everybody handles the evidence with the outmost care."

Sara's eyes had flickered, unbelieving that Grissom was actually giving her that speech.

She realized now that Grissom had wanted to take the wind out of Ecklie's sails.

Back then her stomach had tightened, wondering what Grissom would do. He could not fire her… no, she would not let that happen, she would rather go by herself, making true what she had almost done only a minute ago.

"You're suspended for three days," Grissom had continued though.

She had held his gaze for a moment longer before she had simply said, "Okay," and had turned to leave the office. She had walked past Ecklie, who had seemed almost amused and had followed her out of the room. Before she had had the opportunity to walk away, he had called her name and she had turned around to him, taking a deep breath.

"The offer still stands, Sara," he had declared, before he had walked off into the other direction, and Sara had gone to search for Greg, finally finding him in the locker room.

Now she took in his peaceful, sleeping form. She still didn't know why he had actually quit. She had not really asked him so far. She had assumed right from the start, when Ecklie had told her about it, that Greg had quit for her sake. When she had asked him about it, he had denied it. She had believed him at first, but had suspected more and more that he had lied. She could not imagine another reason, after all.

On the one hand, it would have been sweet of him to do so of course, but beyond stupid. He had apparently realized that himself, therefore claiming another motive. Or at least that was what Sara had suspected.

She turned to look at the digital watch on Greg's side of the bed, noticing that she had already been awake for twenty minutes, and Greg was still sleeping. She smiled at him and bent down to press a soft kiss on his forehead, but when she did so, he smiled as well, although he had his eyes still closed, she knew he was awake. She kissed him on his lips and he laid his arms around her back, finally opening his eyes and grinning at her.

"The day couldn't start better."

"Agreed. But it's already afternoon, sleepyhead."

"Mmh, as far as I can see, you're still in bed as well, my love," he replied grinning even wider.

"Then let's get up and look to see if we can find something here that counts as food."

"Hey, I'm not that bad."

"And then we're going to have a serious talk."

"About what?" Greg asked, still grinning, and Sara wondered if he thought she was joking about something or if he was only pretending. She frowned at him and Greg seemed to realize that she was serious.

"Greg, I don't want us to fight, but I really want to know-,"

Greg cut her off. "Okay, let's find something to eat and then we can talk."

Sara nodded. Greg stood up, she doing the same, noticing that his earlier cheerfulness seemed gone, replaced by… anxiety? She frowned again, searching for her shirt that had landed somewhere on the floor in the morning. Greg was appeared to be dreading their conversation, making her wonder why. She found the clothes she had been searching for, and picking them up, she listened as Greg walked out of the room.

She wondered why he would dread telling her about his reasons, if he had not lied to her about quitting for her sake. Maybe he had after all, and was now pondering to make up something else he could feed her with.

Sara bit her lower lip. He was a horrible liar. She was a CSI. Did he really think she would buy whatever lie he would tell her? Not that her CSI skills had helped when guys had lied to her, cheated on her, in the past, she thought bitterly.

But she did not understand why Greg hadn't simply admitted that he had quit to save her job. Maybe he was right, and they really would not have fired her despite the messed up evidence. But still he had done it for her.

It was stupid, yes, but it was sweet, too, somehow. Sweet in the way Greg would do kind or thoughtful things for her, even if they were stupid. So she really could not grasp why he had not come clean. He could not really expect her to be angry because of that. Lying to her was far worse.

Sara rubbed her eyes. Maybe she jumped to conclusions too quickly. But what else could he have to hide that he would resort to lying to her?

She made her way to the bathroom, while Greg was already rummaging around in the kitchen, trying to calm herself. When she was finished, she sat down at the kitchen table, and Greg handed her a cup of coffee. He smiled at her, but the apprehension was still notable in his features.

He sat down as well, his own cup in his hands. She looked over the collection of food he had put on the table earlier, but her appetite was gone.

"Sara, I'm sorry," Greg started finally, and Sara tensed even more. There he would go and admit that he had lied to her. She knew it. She looked at him with an expression that she knew made a flight instinct come over many people.

"I'm sorry that I didn't tell you earlier." He looked at her beseechingly. "Sar, I don't want us to fight."

Sara did not say anything, wishing that he would finally come to the point, finally tell her the truth.

"I know you'll be disappointed," Greg continued, and Sara took a deep breath, trying to avoid starting to cry. Greg was now looking at the table in front of him, avoiding her gaze.

"Ever… ever since the team got back together… you know… I've been working stuff that is time-consuming but, well, not really important to the cases. I know, I'm only a CSI 1, but I felt shut out from the cases. I don't really learn anything new anymore; it's not like when I was always teamed up with you."

He looked at her again. "When I heard that one of us has to go, I thought it's better to leave by myself. You know, starting somewhere new, where I'm the newbie, too, but not… the former lab tech… I heard about you… Grissom wouldn't have fired you because of it, I think, but I thought before Ecklie gets any ideas and tries just that, I better go ahead and quit."

He looked at her expectantly and Sara starred at him, before she looked down at her cup of coffee, her expression finally breaking into a smile.

"Greg," she called, her voice rising.

"Yeah." He sounded hopeful at her smiling.

"You are so nuts," she exclaimed, looking up at him. "I thought you'd lied to me."

"I told you I didn't."

Sara shook her head. She could understand his reasons for quitting, she really could. Right now she was just taking in the news. He could have told her earlier though, it hurt that he had not; she couldn't deny herself that.

"So you're not disappointed?" Greg asked now.

"I am disappointed that you didn't tell me earlier that you were dissatisfied at work, but not for your reasons to quit," she stated truthfully and added thoughtfully, "Maybe I should leave, too."

"Don't you dare."

"Ecklie said the offer still stood."

"Don't give him the satisfaction of being completely successful with his staff-cutting plans," Greg said, winking at her, and she smiled back at him. She finally chose something from the food in front of her and took a large bite.

"I'm glad you're not mad," Greg said. "I thought I'd never get to make you wet again, if you threw me out." He grinned at her now.

"Don't you dare to do that again, or you'll be mincemeat," Sara threatened jokingly.

"Sara, what would you want with mincemeat? You're a vegetarian as far as I know."

"Greg, that was lame." Nevertheless she could not suppress a wide smile at his behavior. She never could.

"Maybe." He shrugged, still grinning.

That was the moment his cell-phone rang. He picked it up before it had the chance to ring a second time.

"Sanders." He listened to the person on the other side, and Sara watched his expression, taking another sip from her coffee.

"That's great," Greg was saying now. He sounded as if he really meant it, but Sara noticed that the cheerfulness did not really reach his expression.

"I'll be there," was the last thing Greg said, before he put down the phone, and looked at his girlfriend again.

"It was Grissom," he started. "He's made some calls and my job problem seems to be solved."

That was definitely fast, Sara thought, but wished Greg would finally stop with the annoying habit he had developed as a lab tech, to deliver details in tiny quantities.

"I can start as soon as possible at the San Francisco Crime Lab."

The first thing Sara thought of, the first thing she calculated, was the distance, and she did not like the result.

TBC