11- "Late Afternoon Breakfast"
Greg stayed awake all night, a habit for the graveyard shift, but amazingly fell to sleep at around 5 o' clock in the morning.
He slept so hard he didn't even hear Ari leave.
It was 2 o' clock when he awoke. Shocked at how long he slept, he groggily awoke and then inhaled through his nose.
He stopped abruptly. What is that smell?
He quickly dressed in some clothes and ran out into his apartment.
At least, he thought it was his apartment.
Everything had been cleaned. The carpet had been vacuumed and everything had been dusted. He stood there stupidly, mouth opened.
From the kitchen nook, Ari's head poked out, "Good, you lazy butt, you're awake."
"What..." His voice trailed off. He stood wide-eyed, and gestured to his apartment.
"I'm sorry!" Ari said, running over. "I have this bad habit of cleaning."
"You have a...?"
"Well, I was all alone in your apartment and I couldn't get the stupid TV to work so I just started cleaning. I tried not to screw anything up. I am a master at piling things so they look good but are actually very organized messes. I left very, shall we say, discreet piles of your crap everywhere. Don't worry, I didn't snoop."
Greg finally snapped around then said, "What is that smell?"
"I also have a habit of cooking when bored."
"You make it sound like a bad thing."
"When you are a woman it is. I cooked you breakfast."
"But it's two o' clock in the after-"
"I figured, that you, the lab tech of the night, never really got any real breakfast. So," she opened her arms with sarcastic flourish to the kitchen, "I cooked. I cleaned. Just don't ask me to do anything else. These are just habits."
He smiled, still awestruck, as they sat down for a late afternoon breakfast.
"I can't believe you would do this all for me," Greg started, but was quickly interrupted, "Habits, Greg. I can't be a single man's live-in, pregnant housekeeper."
Greg looked up at her. She was looking at her food. He pondered the next statement.
"But I'm not single, Ari!"
Just say it, Greg. She won't mind.
And for some reason, he couldn't. They ate and talked peacefully. Greg gently teased her for the huge helpings she ate, to which she shot back that women who have to squeeze something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a peanut have a right to stuff their faces.
That day was a huge step for the friendship between Greg and Ari. They barely knew each other, so there was always something to ask or to talk about, and after Ari finally began to trust Greg and told him about her family, nothing seemed to be off limits. That night, when they had returned to the same spots on the couch, Greg actually had the guts to ask what is was like to be pregnant, to which Ari replied using very humorous, yet graphic analogies.
Ari had a slightly harsh past of which made her grow stronger. Her sense of humor was more mature and Greg's silly one, but she would always laugh at his stupid jokes. Adding it up in his head, Greg figured they had spent a total of about five whole days with each other, and couldn't help but notice the humor in that they were already married. Ari had dreams of becoming a psychologist to help broken families.
By ten o' clock that Sunday evening, Ari and Greg were on the floor laughing, leaning against the couch, when Ari mentioned it was probably time to turn in, Greg began to stand up when Ari got the most terrible look of fear on her face.
"What? What's wrong?" Greg asked, sitting back down.
"I- can't get up. I think it is physically impossible. I am gonna be stuck on the floor forever. I'm gonna dent the floor."
"Relax, together we can make it through this, here." He held out his hand. She grabbed it and he pulled her up, but misjudged her weight and she came crashing down on him, and they fell back into the couch, eye to eye.
One awkward moment later, she was walking towards her room.
"Goodnight, Ari." Greg said, standing outside his bedroom door.
"Goodnight, Greg."
Greg awoke at 9 o' clock the next day, hoping to save the day for just him and Ari. She was already awake, and as he walked out of his room he paused and saw her.
She was near his computer, and she was holding the picture. Their picture.
Her expression was quite unreadable. She didn't seem happy or sad by any means, just curious, to an extent. Greg came up behind her and let her speak first.
"I... I never expected my life to turn out this way, Greg. I never knew I would meet you, and I certainly never knew I would marry this young and under such circumstance. This is just a marriage of convenience, more of necessity. I will never know what happened that night, and who raped me. Who knows, I could have even done it willingly."
Greg leaned on the couch and said, "If you know you wouldn't, then you didn't," Greg said, "You know yourself more than anyone else would."
She looked up at him, "Thank you so much. I could never have made it into college if it weren't for you."
"I wouldn't be alive without you. I would have been little Greg molecules orbiting the earth. Now, c'mon, let's go see the sights."
She smiled back at him and said, "Okay."
"Promise me you won't look."
"Fine, you big whiny baby."
Greg dragged Ari, eyes closed, over to the arcade in Hotel Vargus, a new hot hotel that was just built. Greg enjoyed it because of the humongous arcade. He lugged her over to a machine, and then said, "Okay, open your eyes."
She opened her eyes and was facing a Dance Dance Revolution arcade game.
"DDR!" She gasped, breathless. Greg shot her a surprised face.
"Can I just say I am very pleasantly surprised?" He said, "I think I'm starting to fall in love with you." He said it as a joke, kind of, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered if he had gone too far.
She either didn't hear him or didn't think to say anything to him as she stood gaping at the machine. He dropped in a quarter and said, "Dance."
She shot him a surprised look, "I can't. I weigh a billion pounds. I'm gonna break the arrows." She pointed to the arrows, pointing up, down, left, and right on the floor.
"Well, if you're too chicken I can easily pick a song..."
"Hold on a second, Mr. Sanders. I can easily beat a science geek like you in a game that involves such groove. Step aside, 'Wide Load' dancing!"
She stepped on the corresponding arrows on the floor to the matching ones on the screen and danced her way through a song, as Greg smiled behind her.
After playing way too much DDR, their wallets were considerably lighter as they walked away from the arcade.
"On the night... you know, the night we met, I had been coming from a birthday party for my fellow coworker, Nick. Nick Stokes. We bet on a game of pool that whoever won could choose a video game for us to play against each other. It started out because we couldn't decide on one, but after I won I decided to abuse the privilege and force Nick to play DDR. He then swore that he will find something embarrassing for my birthday, but there are not a lot of things more embarrassing than that."
"I agree."
They walked about a foot apart through a small park in the outskirts of Las Vegas later in the day. During one of the numerous breaks they had to take ("Hey, when you get pregnant, you can choose how often we take breaks, okay Greggo?"), Greg heard a "Greg?" coming from behind him.
It was Catherine and her daughter Lindsay.
"Greg! It's so good to see you out and about- Is that Arianna?" Looking confused, yet happy, Arianna struggled out of the bench to shake her hand.
"Yes, Arianna, this is another coworker of mine, a CSI named Catherine Willows. This is her daughter, Lindsay."
Arianna shook both of their hands and mentioned what a pleasure it was to know that Greg had friends. Lindsay found it particularly humorous and smiled and said, "So, when is little Greg Jr. due?"
Arianna burst into a short bout of laughter, and Greg hoped she couldn't get mad at him. Besides, he didn't say anything about her being pregnant.
"Yes, Greg seemed to leave that detail out when we were talking about you." Catherine said, smiling broadly.
"Glad to know I have been discussed by many genius crime scene investigators. Greg, could I have a chat for just a second?"
Greg smiled nervously and they stepped away from Cath and Lindsay.
"Greg, don't think you owe me anything more. I will tell her the truth, okay? You're young and got your whole life ahead of you. Don't think you have to be a father to my kid."
"I'm young. Look who's talking-" He stopped himself, and nodded back, and started feeling a little odd. Did he feel a tad bit of jealousy? Of what?
They stepped back to Cath (Lindsay had drifted away) and before Ari could have a chance to say anything, Greg interjected, "Our baby is due December 14th."
"First of all, my head would have to be a little bean. With real, real big eyes. Take away my thumbs, make me all shiny and my boots would be a whole lot cooler. Like, robot boots. And for some reason, I have blue hair. You gotta have the blue hair! Then there is my mouth. Real small when it's closed; ridiculously huge when it's open. Then, you just put me in space and let me fly around in cool poses!"
-Strong Bad as a Japanese cartoon