Part 3

"Hey Nick. What is it?" Greg asked as they walked back to their hotel.

"What do you mean?" Nick counter-asked.

"You've been looking over your shoulder since we left Ben and Jerry's an hour ago. You expecting to see someone?"

"It's more who I hope not to see," Nick answered, his voice lower than usual.

"Who?" Greg asked, stopping to wait for Nick's answer.

"Let's talk about this later," Nick said.

The rest of the walk back was silent. Nick tried to figure out if he was being paranoid, or if he had a good reason to be. Greg was hiding his frustration. All he wanted was a straight, honest answer from Nick. And it seemed that that was the last thing he'd be getting anytime soon.

"I'll meet you up in the room," Greg said as they entered the hotel's lobby. "I forgot some stuff at home, I hope they have it in the gift shop."

"What kind of stuff?" Nick asked curiously.

"Stuff," Greg shrugged, heading off to the left of the lobby, towards the gift shop.

Nick stared after Greg for a second or two, then headed to the elevators. In the room, Nick found that no one called the room while they were gone. In the gift shop, Greg loaded up on the things he forgot- almost all the toiletries he'd need. When he was finished, he loaded up his razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste and bar of fancy soap he liked. Then he added a couple bags of chips and a couple cans of soda. Taking his bag, Greg left the shop and took the stairs up towards the room.

It had been half an hour when Nick decided to go looking for Greg. He called down to the gift shop and inquired about him. He found out that he had been in and out in only five minutes.

"So where would Sanders go?" Nick muttered to himself, grabbing the keycard and leaving the room.

He took the elevator to the first floor and looked around the bar with no sign of Greg. He looked in the conference areas without a sign and headed up to the 2nd level to check the restaurant- still no Greg. Nick remembered something about Greg wanting to exercise more while he was here, so Nick found the gym and easily noticed Greg wasn't in there. Since the door to the stairs was nearby, he took them up towards the room. He wasn't paying attention to where he was going until he saw a brown paper bag at the landing of a set of stairs, its contents mostly out of the bag. He was about to pick up the items until he heard something above him.

"Nick…"

Nick looked up, his eyes widening. Greg was leaning heavily against the rail, slowly making his way down the stairs.

"What the…" Nick began, forgetting to finish the question.

He ran up to Greg, taking an arm and putting over his shoulder. Nick helped Greg to the landing where he quickly picked up the stuff and shoved it into the bag. Nick got Greg into an elevator, where they went back to their room.

With Greg lying in bed, Nick checked him over for injuries. For the most part, Greg escaped with minor injuries.

"Well, at least you'll be able to face the ladies when this thing starts tomorrow," Nick announced, sitting next to Greg on his bed. "You'll be sore though. A headache, some bruises and a couple scratches on your arms."

"I know what you were looking for earlier. Why you were looking over your shoulder," Greg stated, matter-of-factly.

"You do?"

"Nigel Crane. Your stalker. He's here, and he's not just after you now."