A/N: Okay, I still don't have internet; I'm posting this at the library. It's been a while and I might be a little off my game, so please be merciful...

It's almost three weeks before the subject comes up again, and I'm starting to think I've dodged the bullet. You've been doing better. You hate your therapist--you won't talk about the sessions themselves but you're happy to heap derision on the shrink, who, according to you, has a screechy voice, lousy taste in music, and bad hair--but I think she's actually helped. Some, anyway. You've been going out more--the library, movie theaters, spending hours wandering around the malls and coming home with bulging bags full of books and games and DVD's. Reconnecting with the rest of the world. It's been good for you. You still startle at sudden noises and flinch sometimes when I touch you unexpectedly, but you're not walking around looking like someone took a knife and scraped you raw inside.

You haven't been having as many nightmares, either, and I know because I'm still sleeping next to you. There's a stack of clothes neatly folded next to what has somehow become my side of the bed. You offered me the use of a drawer and closet space, but I refused. This is already crossing too many lines, and I really need to start thinking about going back home before I start making it into something it isn't.

I come home one Thursday after a double to find you eating sushi in the living room with one of your dancer friends. She's a pretty girl named Eva, and she works at one of the topless bars on the Strip. I've met her before, once or twice, but she hasn't come over since I've been staying with you, and it feels almost unbearably awkward to toe my shoes off in the entry hall with her watching. When she leaves, she smiles at me in a way that makes me wonder exactly what you've been telling her.

I don't ask, though.

The day after that, I come home to find you in an unusually good mood. You bounce through our run, and when we get back to the apartment you throw yourself down on the couch without even taking your sneakers off. It probably says something about me that this makes me immediately suspicious.

Grissom said I could go back to work.

Of course, in our line of work, suspicious is often just another word for right.Trust Grissom to make a big production of asking my advice and then ignore every word of it.

I make myself smile. Too late to do anything about it now.

Yeah? When?

Next week. And it's contingent on my continued head-shrinking, but still--

Cool, man.

He also said you told him not to let me.

One of these days, I'm going to strangle Grissom.

No, what I told him was that I wasn't sure you were ready. And I wasn't.

What about now?

Not my decision to make.

Weasel-words, and I know it. You roll your eyes at me and flop over until your head is hanging off the couch. Your hair is almost long enough to brush the floor and you look about fifteen like this, but when you speak your voice is serious.

If I can't handle it, I'll take some more time off. I just need to try, okay?

I shrug. Some part of me says that I'm not handling this well, but I really don't know what to say. You're not asking for my approval, I know that, but I'm not really sure what you are asking for. Understanding, maybe. And I do understand. I know how much it sucks to sit around just waiting to get better, and I know how much you want to just pretend that everything's okay, and I even know that you probably are ready to go back to work, or as ready as you're ever going to be. There's only so much recovering you can do sitting on your couch and playing Grand Theft Auto.

I don't know how to say any of that. The words stick in my throat and all I can think is that I can't stand the idea of you going out there, back on the job, out in the world where you might get hurt again. But it really isn't my decision.

You're still watching me, and even upside-down your expression reminds me of that look Catherine uses to make people squirm without even saying a word. I look away, flushing, and you finally speak.

Life's too short to sit around waiting for things to fix themselves, Nick. It's been almost three months, and--

Time's got nothing to do with it.

It comes out more forceful than I meant it to, and when you speak, your voice is gentle.

I know that. This something I need to do, okay? For me.

It's not a rebuke, I know that, but it sure as hell feels like one.

You get a haircut two days before you're scheduled to go back. You look older like this, somehow more cynical, and the scar on your forehead is visible without your bangs to hide it. The one in your lip is almost gone, a thin, ragged pink line, fading to silver. You finally got the splints off your fingers, and if it weren't for the undercurrent of wary tension that still lives in your bones, it would be easy to pretend that the last three months never happened.

I find myself unconsciously rubbing the ring of scars that your teeth left in the palm of my hand. They've become like a touchstone, lately. I don't know why.

The morning before your first day back, you lose three games of Street Racer in a row. You never lose that game. Not to me, anyway. After the third time you come in last you throw the controller across the room, turn the TV off, and lean forward with your head in your hands. I set my controller down on the coffee table and lean forward, mirroring your pose.

How you feeling?

Terrified. Fucking terrified.

Your voice is muffled.

You know you don't have to do this now. You don't have to prove anything.

To myself I do.

What?

Fear of a thing is worse than the thing itself.

You get that from Grissom?

You laugh, distantly.

What makes you think I didn't come up with it myself?

You don't have a poetic bone in your body, Greggo.

Your smile is more genuine this time, and when you look up it suddenly occurs to me how close we're sitting. I know I should move back, but I'm caught, pinned by your thoughtful gaze. Three long heartbeats, and I know I should look away. You tilt your head a little, and this feels like free-fall, like exhilarated terror. Like we might kiss.

Then you shake your head jerkily and sit back, and the spell is broken.

I'm going to bed. I have to make a good impression tomorrow. Grissom's gonna send me home for sure if he catches me snoring over the evidence.

You push off from the couch, launching yourself to a standing position with a kind of spooky agility, scrub your hands through your hair, and walk into the kitchen without meeting my eyes again.

I guess this is another thing we're not talking about.

The whole not talking about it thing is made way more difficult when I wake up that afternoon with you wrapped around me, arm slung over my belly with your hand resting on the bare skin where my shirt rode up. Your face is tucked against the nape of my neck, and your hair tickles.

It's not the first time we've woken up touching; we settle in to sleep at the far ends of the bed, but you tend to migrate closer in the night--drawn in by my body heat, or so I tell myself. But it's the first time that I've woken up with you holding me like a lover, and it feels better than it has any right to. There's a part of me--a pretty big part, really--that wants to turn in your embrace and wake you with a kiss. It feels like such a natural thing to do, and that's the problem with all of this. I have no idea where the boundaries are anymore.

I slide out of your grip as gently as I can, and while you don't wake up, your brow furrows and you make a small, discontented noise in your throat as you roll into the warm impression left by my body. The sound goes right through me, and I grab clean clothes and go into the bathroom to change before I can do something I'll regret.

You ride into the labs with me. It's been a while since you've been in my truck--you've been taking the bus everywhere lately--but the labs are off the bus lines and anyway, I figured you could use the moral support. You check your kit obsessively while I pour us both mugs of coffee, even though you've packed and re-packed it three times already.

I want to mention the way I woke up, but I don't know how to bring it up and if you remember, you don't give any indication. We don't talk much on the drive in. The sun is low over the horizon, staining the sky red and purple and catching on the gleaming top of the Pyramid Hotel. The peak of summer has come and gone, and the breeze is a few degrees shy of genuinely chilly.

Your hands are clenching and unclenching rhythmically in your lap, gripping nothing, but other than that you're still.

The shy girl with the librarian glasses is working the front desk when we come in. Judy, that's her name. Judy. She glances up, smiles at me, looks down. Then freezes, looks up again at you. Her mouth falls open and she blinks rapidly. I glance over at you too; you're smiling tightly, gripping your kit so hard that your knuckles are white.

It's like that all the way to the break-room. A nervous hush trails along behind us, conversations suddenly going quiet and then starting up again awkwardly, and I don't need to look over at you to tell that you're winding tighter and tighter with every step.

We pass DNA, and there's Wendy staring openly, eyes wide. In Trace, Hodges is doing his lousy attempt at subtlety, glancing down at the vial in his hand and then back up at you. I look straight ahead, at the crowd parting before us like the Red Sea.

I feel like Lazarus.

I finally glance over at you; your face is pale but for two spots of color high in your cheeks. That wasn't a reference I was expecting from you.

What?

You know, the guy who--

I know who Lazarus is, Greg.

Then why'd you ask?

If you clench your jaw any tighter, your teeth are going to start crumbling. I want to tell you to just forget it, go back home and play video games where it's safe, but even in my own head I can't make that sound anything other than condescending. This was never going to be easy. Best thing now is to just get it over with.

It's a little better in the break-room. You collapse into the first chair you find, smile nervously around the room, and then drop your gaze to your kneecaps. Warrick and Sara and Catherine know better than to make a big thing of it, but we can't pretend that this is normal.

It's three and a half minutes of intensely awkward silence--I know, I was watching the seconds tick by on the wall clock--before Grissom finally wanders in, clutching a sheaf of papers in one hand. He pauses when he sees you, looks you up and down. You look back defiantly.

Greg.

Grissom.

It's good to have you back. You're going to be with Catherine tonight; we have a 419 with suspicious circs up at Desert Palms. Warrick, Nick, I want you to take over from Day--they're still working on that five-car pileup on Boulder Highway. Sara, you're with me...

I take the paper he hands me and watch you out of the corner of my eye as he goes on, handing out assignments like this is any other day at the labs, like you haven't been gone at all. You've relaxed visibly, and when you catch me looking you give me a tiny smile over the top of your paper.

For all Grissom's flaws, right now I could seriously kiss the man.