Note: You really deserve an apology for his wait, and you have one, most sincerely. I'm really, really sorry that I kept you waiting, but things have been really confusing and hectic lately. But, of course, I will finish this story - - I can't leave Greg stranded in a hotel forever, you know - - and actually, this is the second-to-last chapter, and I think you can tell from the way this one ends, what kind of a real ending you're going to have this time around.
Greg. Nick. Phone call.
**
Chapter Thirteen: Something to Believe
**
Greg awoke at noon with a headache thundering behind his temples and Grissom stuck in his head. He turned over, pulling the mess of covers with him, and stared at the red numbers on the clock until his eyes burned. His limbs felt awkwardly long, and too heavy for him to lift. For almost a full two minutes, he couldn't quite remember where he was, and then it all came rushing back into him, intensifying both his headache and his pain, until his knees jerked up to his chest and his heard curved downwards. The inn. His father. Grissom.
Grissom.
He should never have said those things to Grissom. Never should have told him that he wasn't family - - when Grissom had even acknowledged, once, in the hospital, that he was. Never should have said any of the hurtful things he'd said - - but it was just too late to take them back.
It was, in fact, too late for anything.
He flinched, remembering the blindsided look in Grissom's eyes when he had thrown that last, fatal comment into the conversation - - the way Grissom looked like he had just absolutely never seen it coming, not in a million years. Never expected the casual cruelty that Greg had learned about from the best teacher possible.
"Like father, like son," he said quietly. "Man, I am so fucked."
He never wanted to be the kind of father that would leave his son. Then again, he had never hoped to be the kind of son that left the best father he had, but he had abandoned Grissom with hardly a thought, so utterly bent on Nathan. The truth of an affection he'd never demanded and always found traded for the chance of an affection he'd always craved and never been given.
Karmic retribution at its best.
His hand found the phone, but his fingers, poised over the numbers, hesitated. Why did he have to call? His car was waiting in the parking lot, and he could just go down, get inside, and drive away from everything. He could drive until Las Vegas, and even Nevada faded away into the distance - - drive until the miles were too high to matter. He could drive until Grissom's face faded from his memory - - until he forgot all about wonderfully stupid things like plantain and Post-its. He could hit the east coast - - go back to New York - - find a job, and go scuba-diving in the summer.
It was so close to being a happy ending that for a moment, he smiled, lost in the memory of how the water felt around him, pressing against his skin through the wetsuit, as he watched the fish dance through the water with uncommon grace.
But he didn't deserve that kind of an ending. It was selfish and stupid and so very much like the person he had become.
He wanted to be the Greg he used to be, and he thought that he deserved that. He certainly didn't deserve to be selfish anymore - - he'd screwed this one up royally all by himself.
He dialed Nick. He got two rings, and came within an inch of hanging up before Nick answered sleepily, the twang of his Texas accent showing strongly.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Nick. It's Greg."
It was a mark of how bad things had gotten that Nick's first reaction was alarm. "Greg? Is something wrong? Where's Grissom?"
Greg ran a shaky hand through his hair. "Nothing's wrong, and Grissom's still at his house, I guess. I'd think. I don't know."
"You don't know?" Nick sounded even more awake, and even more alarmed, despite Greg's continued insistence that there was nothing wrong. Greg could hear clattering noises in the background, and he made a guess that Nick was fumbling out of bed. "Aren't you with him? Where are you?"
"A hotel."
"What the hell are you doing at a hotel? I know he didn't kick you out." More anonymous noise in the background, and then muffled curses.
Greg sighed. "No, he wouldn't have ever kicked me out, would he?"
"Listen, Greggo, I'm tired, I'm frazzled, and I'm worried. Getting half-answers out of you is not going to help me any. If you could just tell me what's going on, I'd be really grateful."
"I, um - - I left. Grissom's."
"Why?"
This was the hardest part - - like ripping off a Band-aid, he thought cynically, and gritted his teeth, determined to get it over with fast and hard. "I went to go meet my father."
There was a long pause, and for once, even the background of Nick's phone was utterly silent, as if someone had covered the phone. He closed his eyes and got a visual of Nick - - standing in his socks and boxers on a messy bedroom floor, covering the phone with his hand, as anger seeped in and out of his face. He found himself mimicking the posture, his shoulders rounding as if to ward off some unimaginable evil that was headed for him.
Finally, Nick said, "Did he show?"
Nick had found the heart of the problem.
"No," Greg said. "He didn't. And I was an ass."
"I figured that much out," Nick said, his voice soft and furious. "Grissom would never kick you out, but there's no way he'd let you go to talk to your dad alone, so whatever you said to make him back off - - it must have been pretty bad. Must have cut pretty deep."
"Yeah. I think it went all the way."
He felt horrible, and there was some strange satisfaction in that, because he wouldn't have felt horrible a few months ago about what he'd said. He would have taken it as his right, as a victim, to lash out - - he would have thought that what he'd done wasn't his own fault. Would have accepted cruelty as his due, and have expected forgiveness.
He didn't know what to expect now, and there was a bittersweet sense of normalcy returned about that.
"I feel bad," he said, understating it.
"Good." Nick sounded savage. "You ought to. Where are you?"
"Siesta Inn," he said, sitting down hard on the bed. The mattress sagged underneath him. "I don't need you to come, though - - I've got my car - -"
"Oh, I'm not coming," Nick said. Greg could hear the quick sound of a pencil moving against paper. "I'm going to call Grissom, and he's going to come and pick you up, and you're going to apologize until you go hoarse or until your tongue falls out, whichever comes first. And then he's going to take you back here, and we can act like you don't owe me anything."
Greg smiled. "I'll be very timidly grateful," he said.
He heard Nick's reluctant chuckle, and then listened as it faded away. "You screwed up pretty badly this time, Greg," Nick said quietly. "But you know that we'll always be here for you."
"I know that," Greg said, and to his own surprise, found that he did.