So this is it then. This is the big show down. You or me or both of us, someone's gotta go.
Even now, you still don't get it. There is only one option, Greg. All or none.
So what are we going to do?
What every living thing does. Fight to survive.
And if we don't?
Then you will be purged of me at last.
And if we do?
Then we both get what we want.
I want you gone.
You want to live. I know. I am all of your wants.
You're nothing but a nightmare.
This is no dream. And I am no demon. I am simply you. And if all goes well, I will be all of you.
What are you talking about?
I am here to stay, I think. And I will flourish long after you're gone.
No! You said there was an us, not a one or the other.
Of course. But I've lived inside you our whole life, my friend. I just think it's time for a role-reversal, don't you?
I will kill you. Let me be!
Did you really think that I would ever let you go? I'm not even letting you slip off into death like you so wanted for yourself. You will never get away from me, Greg. As long as you live, I will still be here, crawling inside of you like a disease until you let me out again.
You have to lose control. If we live, the virus is gone, you have no power here, you have no choice!
I told you, Greg, I live deep inside you. Every day of your life you will feel me slowly ripping away at your soul. It is you who have no choice. They will never be able to determine where you end and I begin. We're Siamese twins, Greg. Inseparable.
Fuck you! Let me go, set me free!
You are me, Greg. And we are free as a bird.
The drone continued and the doctors stepped aside. "That's it," said the first doctor. "Stand back." They waited a second, then the second one sighed and looked up at the clock.
"Call it?" he suggested.
All of a sudden, Greg spluttered. The EKG began a steady beep. All the tension in the room came to a climax as everything stopped and then collapsed in on itself. Sara stopped struggling and her knees gave way beneath her. Warrick held onto her, his eyes wide in surprise. Nick's tears became ones of intense relief. Catherine took a sharp intake of breath. Even Grissom's migraine seemed to pause in its assault for the vital moment.
"Mr. Sanders, can you hear me?" one of the doctors was saying.
Greg groaned and rolled over. His hands flew to his face and covered his eyes. "Yeah, I hear you," he said.
Sara regained feeling in her legs and tore away from Warrick's grip. The adrenaline rushing through her body was enough to make her burning pain feel like a dull throb. All she cared about was Greg and his eyes…
They were a warm and tired brown.
Relief washed over her and she began to kiss him fiercely, managing to get out a few words between kisses. "It's you! It's… you… It's… you… it's… YOU!"
Soon the doctors stepped aside and the others moved in around Greg.
Nick hit him lightly in the arm, wiping his face with his sleeve. "Man," he said to Greg, breathless. "Don't you do that to us, Greggo!"
Greg laughed lightly. "Yeah. Um. My bad?"
Grissom grabbed a chair and pulled it up, falling into it as he just shook his head. "You're OK, Greg," he said. "You'll do OK."
"No more losing time, yay," Greg said with the slight intonation of joy. "Virus gone, evil me gone, I guess we all have a happy ending." Sara's arms flung around his neck and Greg laughed in surprise. He kissed her hair. "A really happy ending."
Catherine beamed. The tears still streamed down her cheeks. "You really are a son of a bitch, aren't you?"
Greg rolled his eyes. "Hi Catherine, good to see you too."
"Never thought you of all people could scare the hell out of me," Warrick said, ruffling Greg's hair. "Not cool, Greg."
"So it's really gone?" Grissom asked. "Completely?"
"I've never felt more alive in my life," Greg said. "Or more relieved. I wrestled my demons and I won. I could… I could operate heavy machinery."
"One thing at a time," Nick said with a laugh. "How about just not flipping out on us, first?"
"I'm cool," Greg said. "I promise you guys it will never happen again."
Col. Carrew and Dr. Utterson both entered the room, followed swiftly by Brandon Carter. Carter had a black eye and looked like he'd been tossed around by the military, who had probably done more than just question him. Samantha Utterson strode forward with a smile, while Col. Henry Carrew kept his distance and an impassively militaristic expression.
"He survived!" Samantha exclaimed in exuberance. "The virus it was a success!"
Her words slowly raked themselves down Grissom's back and he jumped to his feet, anger rising in him all over again as he glared at her.
"I'm afraid you are mistaken, Dr. Utterson," he said coolly. "Greg's immune system defeated the virus. He survived the torture you put him through."
"Mr. Grissom," said Col. Carrew, stepping forward. "I am here to inform you and your team that the military has abandoned Project Hyde and you will hear no more of it from us. We trust you will not report your findings on this disease. We have judged it to be too dangerous for our use and have ordered Bennett & Locke to halt all research on it immediately."
"Project Hyde," Grissom said, tasting the name. "Creative. But thank you for that."
"We apologize for any inconvenience we have caused," said Col. Carrew, as though all they had done was interrupted Greg's lunch break. He nodded respectfully at the assembled, took his soldiers and Brandon Carter with him and disappeared.
Samantha Utterson remained. She was staring at Greg in a mixture of delight and mischief and it unnerved Grissom. "Of course, we'll want to do some tests," she said quickly. "Blood, reflexes, psych exams—"
"No," Grissom said quickly. "No, you're done here."
Her shoulders fell as her excitement quickly turned to irritation. Grissom knew what she was thinking. The military may have dropped the idea of creating the perfect soldier, but by the look in Samantha's eyes she had not. He knew that they would just get a different organization to fund them and continue on with their research. After all, they were peddling a very curious product, and there would always be someone interested in messing with human nature. The thought disturbed him, and overshadowed the joy he felt at Greg's sudden and unexpected recovery. But regardless of what they did in the future, Greg would be no part of it.
"Grissom," Catherine said softly, her hand resting on her shoulder. Grissom turned to look at his friend, who was glowing with relief. He nodded at her and pushed all thoughts of Bennett & Locke from his mind. He pulled himself back in the revelry of the moment and ignored his doubts. For now.
Greg's recovery had been almost instantaneous and he was released from the hospital the next day with a full bill of health. Grissom had suggested he take a leave of absence, but Greg brushed him off and went into work the same day he'd been released from the hospital. Grissom still tried to send him home, but he just stood there until he got a case. He worked efficiently and effectively, and joked with his friends as if the whole episode had never happened. By the end of a shift, he had not only succeeded in solving the rape case he shared with Nick, but also Sara and Warrick's murder case.
The major change around the lab was not actually Greg, but Sara, who seemed to smile more as she kissed Greg every chance she got.
It was obvious to everyone that Greg's close encounter with his other self as well as his near-death experience had sparked him into action. He officially had asked Sara out the moment he was fully conscious again. And ever since, they'd been inseparable. Sara's eyes would always light up when he entered the room, and he was always distracted when she walked by.
"Hey there," Sara said as she saw Greg walking down the hall. He winked at her.
"Funny what it took for us to hook up, eh?" he asked, sliding his arms around her waist.
"Well, what can I say?" Sara said, casually. "I have a weakness for sick guys."
"Florence Nightingale Effect," Greg said playfully, as he twirled a strand of her hair around her finger.
"Nice work with our murder," Sara said. "It was setup like a suicide, Warrick and I might have—"
"You just gotta get inside their heads," Greg said, pointing to his temple. "Recently, I've been pretty good at that."
Sara bit her lip and looked down. "I wanted to talk to you about that actually."
"Everything OK, Sara?" he asked, his voice laden with concern.
She looked up and beamed at him. "Now that you are? Of course. But… You asked me if I could still love you, knowing what was inside of you."
"I did?" Greg said, paling. "Sara…"
"I just wanted to tell you, Greg," Sara continued, "that you're one hell of a fighter. And you were right, in a way. We all have our ugly sides. I wouldn't be able to love you completely if I didn't know that."
"Sara, I just— That wasn't me, he said and did things that I don't even remember ever considering in my life, so whatever he said—" Greg interrupted himself and grinned at her. "Did you just say you love me?"
She grinned and kissed him. "You're so cute sometimes."
"Only sometimes?"
She grinned at him.
"You off soon?"
"Give me ten minutes," she replied, holding up a folder between them. "Results for the Danvers case."
He kissed her on the forehead quickly before breaking the embrace. "Good, we'll catch breakfast. See you in ten."
He strode down the hall towards the locker room as a piece of paper fell out of his pocket. Sara picked it up and noted it was the portrait Greg had drawn of her in the hospital. She turned it over and found a note.
Sara— things aren't looking so good for me, so I just wanted to write this down in case I never had the chance to tell you. If I die, or if I come out wrong somehow, don't worry about me, babe. I'll be OK. So long as you are.
Love you.
Greg.
Seriously, the real Greg.
Sara chuckled lightly at a note that, had she found it in the event of Greg's death, would have brought her to tears. She folded it up and pocketed it and felt the syringe she'd taken from the hospital. Frowning, she took it out and looked at the blood inside. Curious, she headed back toward the lab and put a drop of the blood on the slide.
The blood hadn't been refrigerated, but apparently, it didn't matter. Looking through the microscope, Sara gasped at what she saw. The cells were as healthy as could be and continued in their life processes, still kicking when they should have died. Sara pulled away from the microscope and furrowed her brow in confusion before looking at the blood again. They were reproducing. They were mutated. The virus had changed them, it seemed, but Sara saw know signs of a malignant agent. Indeed, the virus was gone, but the mutation remained.
But no, that was impossible. Greg was Greg, just as he'd always been. And on top of that, his eyes weren't changing color on them, he wasn't flipping out or talking like a psychopath. He was acting Greg-like. He had won. He had beat out the virus and conquered everything.
In spite all odds.
In spite all of the odds. They had all expected Greg to die. But instead, he made a full recovery within days. Was it really all too good to be true?
Sara cleaned up the slide and pulled out the note Greg had written to her. I'll be OK. So long as you are. And she was OK. As long as Greg loved her.
She picked up the syringe and stared at it for a moment, before she disposed of it. So a few little blood cells were mutated! That blood had been taken before Greg had recovered; it didn't mean anything… did it?
Greg strode into the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water. He was looking forward to taking Sara out to dinner. It would be their first official date, and he looked forward to sweeping her off her feet. He put on some cologne then looked in the mirror and laughed at what he saw.
When he'd washed his face, one of his contacts had fallen out. He saw it clinging to the side of the sink and picked it up, looking at it balance on his finger with a smile. "What a clever little thing this is," he said to himself. He looked at his eyes in the mirror and shook his head.
Staring back out at him was a bright blue eye next to a brown one. If he had been anyone else, he might think it was eerie. He gripped the edges of the sink with his hands and leaned in close to the mirror, staring into his own eyes for a very long time.
"Ironic," he said, "that the id should play the ego and still adhere to societal standards."
He carefully reapplied the contact into the offending eye and blinked a few times before flashing his reflection a winning smile. "But don't you worry about a thing. I still know how to get what I want."
For the finishing touch, he whipped out a pair of shades and put them on. "Much better," he said, before leaving the bathroom to meet up with Sara for their dinner date.