Nightmare
He walked into the apartment and he wondered why he hadn't just told her to meet him at his place. Probably because she had no idea he was coming over and he'd had no idea that he was going to tell her tonight. The surgery seemed so soon and he wondered if he should just hide it from her too, like he planned on doing from the rest of his people. After all, she and Greg had both nearly been killed. He had never been as scared as he had when they couldn't find her, couldn't find Greg. All of his other CSIs had come running out, Nick helping the secretaries, but always looking around for Warrick and Sara, his best friends, Warrick helping Catherine out…but he'd grown frantic when he couldn't find Sara. Cops arrived and he hadn't even realized what he was doing, going back into the building. Sara had managed to come out on her own, quietly, avoiding anyone that could have seen her injuries, and he'd found Greg, going with the young version of himself until the ambulance took him away. He was the only one who'd had to travel by ambulance and Grissom was still surprised they hadn't lost anyone.
He heard her scream and ran to her side, holding her. This was why he had really come, this was what he had known would happen. He held Sara in his arms, screaming and crying from the nightmare, and wondered if there would ever be a time when he couldn't hear her anymore. If there would ever be a time when she would call for him and he couldn't go to her. That scared him most of all, that any of his people, but especially Sara, could need him and not be able to communicate with him. "Shh. Shh. It's okay. It's over. It's over." He kept repeating the words, wishing they were true. It wasn't over, not for her, not for Greg, not for Catherine, not for any of them really. Greg had a long road with rehab and therapy, Sara had a long assortment of nightmares to get through, they all probably needed at least one session of therapy with the forensic psychologist, the lab was in the process of being rebuilt still, and he was still so scared of losing her.
"Gil?"
He nodded, laying her back down in the bed. She looked up at him with her beautiful brown eyes and he brushed a strand of brown shiny hair from her face. "It's okay. It was just a nightmare."
"The lab exploded again."
"No, it didn't. It was just a dream, Sara. That was just a fluke accident; it won't happen again."
"I don't want to die."
He almost smiled, if she hadn't looked so serious when she said it. "Well, I don't want you to die either. But you're gonna have to stop taking so many risks, okay?" She could have been killed in that crime scene. He couldn't quite get Holly Gribbs' death out of his mind, or the times that Catherine and Nick had been attacked at scenes.
"What does it matter? I mean, I could get killed at the lab, driving home, at a crime scene…"
"So what? You're gonna curl back up in here and not let anything or anyone near you? I thought you didn't like doing that anymore."
"I don't. But what's the point? I mean, if you're not safe anywhere…"
He scooted her over just a tad and lay down beside her, wrapping his arms around her again. "You're safe here, Sara. And I won't leave you." She nodded, allowing him to hold her. He blamed himself for her nightmare. He knew she was having a hard time dealing with what had happened; she'd been in shock. He knew that it wasn't just going to go away mysteriously the second the case was solved. It just didn't work that way. He should have stayed with her, taken her up on her dinner invitation, anything to make her feel safe, to make her feel loved. He had finally realized that when the lab blew up and he couldn't find her: he was in love with her. "What did you do tonight, huh?" He kissed her temple as they both lay beside each other, her still in his arms.
"I went to see Greg."
That could also explain her nightmares. He'd gone to see the 'lab rat', as he was affectionately called, and he hadn't looked good. "Oh."
She nodded. "Catherine was there. She told me what happened. She said she was sorry."
He nodded. "She really is. And she was suspended." It had hurt him to have someone suspend her, he would have found some other way of dealing with it, but he also had known what was coming. She could have killed them all and she was second in command; she should have known better.
"It wasn't her fault. I mean, it was, but any of us could have made a stupid mistake. Maybe not that stupid, but…why didn't Warrick get in trouble too? He was working the case with her. Where was he?"
"I don't know. She took full responsibility." He had been proud of Catherine and her determination to make things as right as she could, although even he knew things could never go back to the way they were.
"And then after she apologized to me, I apologized to Nick."
"I'm sure he already knew you didn't mean it."
She nodded. "He did." That was the good thing about having a best friend her age; they knew each other so well, there almost never had to be any apologies at all, for anything. "But I said it anyway." She hadn't apologized to Brass, but Brass was different. She knew Nick had a hard time with crime scenes, after he was almost shot, pushed out a window, and then Crane had nearly killed both of them in his own living room. It had been a stupid thing to do and he had every right to call her on it.
He smiled gently at her. "Good."
She turned to look at him. "What about you? Where did you go?"
"I went to see my doctor."
She frowned. "Did you get hurt too?"
"No." He paused. "I decided I'd rather go through surgery then risk losing my people."
"You're gonna do the surgery?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
"Then I'm gonna be there. When you go to sleep, when you wake up, and as long as they'll let me in between."
He hugged her gently. "Good." In some ways, she felt like his security blanket. Even now, he couldn't imagine anything going bad with him as long as she was near.
"I still think you should tell Catherine. Maybe even the boys too." But definitely Catherine. Catherine was to him what Nick was to her, a best friend, a confidant.
"Maybe." He kissed her cheek. "But for right now, go to sleep." She nodded, snuggling into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her again. She finally fell to sleep, feeling safer than she'd ever been before. Knowing that she was all right, that she was safe, that she was near, he fell asleep soon after; exhausted from the long nightmare of an ordeal they'd both scraped through.