Headers et al can be found in chapter one. Thanks for reading.
*
She hated hospitals. Really hated hospitals. Its antiseptic smell, its hushed hallways, its sanitary gleam. Not that she had anything against cleanliness, but this always seemed to border on obsessive-compulsive. 'Besides,' she thought, 'I've never left a hospital without feeling sicker than I was when I went in.'
She had waited an hour in emergency before seeing a very gentle doctor who reminded Sara of her grandfather, and she sat quiet and still as he carefully stitched up the cuts and soothed her with soft words of encouragement and compassion. She wanted to adopt him.
Now sent on her way with a hug and a prescription for painkillers, she made her way down the white, white hallway, careful to keep her eyes straight ahead and not look into the rooms along the way. The images of the sick and infirm sent shivers down Sara's spine; she never was very good with the living.
Getting permission from the nurse on duty, Sara peeked through the window of Greg's room before entering. 'Brave face,' she told herself, 'brave face for Greg.'
This turned out easier said than done the moment she entered the room and got a good look at him. Nearly covered head to toe in bandages and gauze, the young lab tech barely stood out from the sheets of his bed; only his dark hair attempted to break the whiteness of it all. Standing at his side, Sara reached out a hand and stroked his hair.
"Oh, Greg," she whispered sadly.
His eyelids flickered at the sound of his name, and fluttered open. His tongue came out to slide across dry lips before he rasped, "I must be dead, because you're an angel."
She laughed at this and ruffled his hair. "Nice to see you haven't lost your charm, Greggo."
He gave a weak half sort of smile before asking, "How are you?"
"You're starting to sound more and more like Grissom every day. But with charm. He keeps asking me that, too."
Greg's brows furrowed. "Is… is he mad at me?"
Sara's brows went in the opposite direction of his. "What?"
"It's my lab, he's always telling me. I'm the master. It… it was my responsibility."
"God, Greg, no," she stroked his hair again. "It's not your responsibility, and Grissom is definitely not mad at you. He's worried about you."
"Worried about me?"
"Greg, Greg, Greg," she whispered. "Of course he's worried about you. Just because he doesn't say it doesn't mean he doesn't care."
"Has… has anyone called my parents? I need to tell them that I love them."
Sara smiled. "I'm sure Andrea from Personnel has contacted them, but I'll find out for sure, okay? Greg, you're going to be fine, you're not going to die."
His bottom lip trembled. "I know. But in the split second that it happened, all I could think of was that I hadn't told them in a long time that I loved them. It shouldn't take something like this to remind me." The tears came freely down his cheeks, and she gently wiped them away until the day's events caught up with him and he drifted back to sleep.
*