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Chapter 12

Thinking about them was too painful. Months later, when Greg had gone back to work, he would sometimes stop, take a deep breath to try and pull himself together and begin working again with renewed vigour.
He found that people would avoid the subject at all costs, which he sometimes found awkward. He didn't want to make people feel uncomfortable, but at the same time he needed to talk about it, and despite his earlier reservations, he was glad to be able to talk to Symon. In fact Symon seemed to know him better than he did.
Sitting in the lab, Greg glanced at the calendar. Today was seven months the anniversary of ...that day. Before now he had always taken leave on the anniversaries of 'that day'. He stopped working. He wasn't sure if he could do this. He bit back tears as best he could. Trying to regain composure and succeeding only in that he didn't fall to pieces, he tried to repress the memories, yet the more he tried to suppress them it seemed the more he thought about them.

Grissom stood in the doorway, unseen by Greg, watching the anguish play on Greg's face.

"You didn't have to come in today Greg."

Greg looked up at him with a pained expression, and Grissom was lost for words, feeling so much sympathy and compassion for his young lab tech.

"I don't think it will ever go away. I don't think I can ever be the same again."

Greg said quietly, looking down intently at the samples on his desk.

"You're right, it won't go away. But it will get better. You will be the same again; it will just take time... and patience."

Greg didn't look up. Perhaps he had heard this all from Symon, Grissom thought. It didn't seem like Greg believed it anyhow.

"Why don't you go home Greg? You don't have to be here."

"It's worse at home.", Greg mumbled.

Decisively he turned to Grissom with an expression of determination on his face.

"Those for me?"

He pointed at the samples in Grissom's hand. Grissom looked at them as though he only just remembered that was why he was there. He handed them over and watched Greg get to work on them immediately.

Grissom wandered back to his office. He had never expected his CSI's to become as close as they had done over the past months. It was lucky for Greg they did, because they had pulled together to support him when he needed it the most. Then he rephrased that thought. It was because of Greg they became closer, and guiltily, he thought of the proverb 'It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good' before he could stop himself. Somehow it was unsympathetic to Greg to think something like that.

Greg had had a difficult time over the past months. The CSI's never found out about the self harming incident but Grissom knew. He had received a letter as Greg's superior explaining vaguely that Greg had some psychological issues to work out, which Grissom had the right to know about; it was the next time he saw Greg, with the bandage around his arm, hidden under a long sleeve shirt but still visible to Grissom's keen eye. The dead look in Greg's eyes had betrayed him by so desperately looking as though he didn't want Grissom to know something. There was a sense of despairing shame, and the underlying fear that he knew anyway. To Grissom, who had seen a great many things in his life of that nature, it was obvious, but he hoped the other younger CSI's didn't find out. Greg had enough to deal with already.

Nick had been the most supportive of the CSI's, teamed with Marc, they and Greg acted like they had been friends for years. Nick had fallen out irrevocably with his friends due to their lack of understanding when he'd turned to them, and their ignorance of the kind of pain Greg was going through. They just couldn't contemplate the situation realistically, and carried on without the slightest attempt to understand.

As the day broke, Sara sat up in bed and put down her book. It was relatively late for her to go to bed, but that was because she'd had Marc, Warrick, Greg and Nick over for 'dinner', though it was breakfast for Marc. She smiled at how well it had gone. She wondered how Catherine and Grissom were, neither of whom could make it.
Catherine saw Lindsey off to school. Warrick ran past her house, and she waved to him. Today he stopped outside to talk before going on.

The End