Title: When You Realize

Author: Lady Lizi
Summary: Sometimes it takes a horrendous experience to bring everything out into the open.

It was all a blur to Greg. He remembered working a scene with Catherine, Warrick, Brass and Aiden, he and Aiden joking about something or another. Then, he heard a gunshot and the window behind he and Aiden breaking. The next thing he knew, Aiden was on the floor, bleeding profusely from her left shoulder and crying from a combination of both fear and pain. "Move!" she'd shrieked at him. "The suspect is still here! Don't let yourself get hurt!" she'd screamed. But Greg didn't obey. He fell to his knees beside her and applied pressure to her shoulder, putting her before him. Warrick and Brass had detained the suspect, and Catherine rushed to be with Aiden and Greg. And then the ambulance ride, and there he sat, in the hospital waiting room, waiting for any news on Aiden.

Catherine had proven that the man who'd shot Aiden was the perp for the scene they'd been working, so the whole graveyard shift was at the hospital. Cath and Warrick held hands, finally showing to the whole team what they really were to each other; Nick held Sara while she cried, and even Sophia, from the day shift, had shown up, to show Grissom that she was there for him. But all that Greg could think about was that Aiden was in the operating room, having a bullet taken from her shoulder. The same Aiden that always made him smile was bringing him to the verge of tears right now. All he could picture was that heart monitor beside her in the OR going flat-line. If that happened, he'd lose his best friend. He'd lose more than his best friend. He'd lose his...well...his Aiden. Not that she was really his, but she was special to him.

It seemed like forever, before her condition stabilized, and they were allowed to go in, in groups of two. Since Greg was the odd man out, in a room full of CSI couples, he decided to wait behind and go in last. He wanted to see her for longest anyway. As the pairs filed in and out, Greg went off into another planet. He imagined he and Aiden like that, comforting each other when they needed it, holding hands as Catherine and Warrick were. And something about it felt...right in his mind. Yes, he'd felt something for her for a long time. But, before, he'd have never dreamed of acting upon it. Now, though, his train of thought was different. Aiden was in a hospital bed. Had the bullet been inches more to the right, Aiden could be on her deathbed. He needed to talk to her...work this situation out.

When Grissom and Sophia came out of her room, it was Greg's turn. He stood up and headed into the hospital room, looking at the hospital bed, and Aiden Hensley's flawless silhouette, lying there, unable to do much else. That flowing, wavy, chestnut brown hair; those shiny, sparkling green eyes (although they were closed, he knew them well enough)...Greg felt even more entranced than before. "Aiden...?" he spoke, just above a whisper, watching as her eyes opened.
She smiled wide and waved with her right hand. "Hey, Greg. I was wondering when you would come in. I saw everyone. It was like I was gonna die or something..." she shook her head. "It's just a bullet in the shoulder..." she faked security.
Greg saw through the façade, too. But, he wasn't about to tell her that. "How are you feeling, anyway? How much does it hurt?" he asked, sitting down in the chair beside her bed.

And he'd been the first one to do that. The rest of them sat on the vacated bed on the other side of the room--almost as though she had some contagious, terminal illness or something--but not Greg. He didn't care. Abandoning someone when they needed him most was not Greg Sanders' style. She knew him better than that. He would sit beside her as long as they'd let him. And when they made him leave, she'd want to beg them to let him stay. "It's nothing. Nothing a little time and a lot of smiles won't cure..." she shrugged her good shoulder and looked at the sling her other arm was in.

He could tell that she hadn't felt what she'd just said. "Remember how you told me that I could open up to you, when we were shot at a couple weeks ago, Aiden? Well, my turn. It's okay to tell me. It's Greg, not someone who's gonna think you're the worst person on earth..." he reassured her.

She looked at the window across the room, and her smile faded to a half-smile, and then even that faded, to a frown. "It hurts..." she nodded and looked into his eyes again. "A lot. Doctors think that pain-killers are the miracle cure for everything that hurts. Well...do I have news for them. These aren't working..." she felt a couple tears playing at the corners of her eyes and blinked them away.

But Greg saw, out of the corner of his eye, that one tear managed to fall from her eye and he reached over to wipe it away. "I'm right here, Aiden. And I'm not gonna go anywhere..." he shook his head and half-smiled at her. "Just let me know what you need."

It took all Aiden had inside her not to just out and say 'you,' but she thought better of it. "Thanks, Greg. I appreciate that..." she smiled softly, the touch of his thumb still fresh on her cheek. "I'm so glad you're here..." she sniffled, and felt more tears playing at her eyes. She started to hold them back, but then she remembered. This was Greg. She didn't have to. The tears came out, one on each side, and it wasn't long before they were one steady stream.

Greg stood up and gently enveloped Aiden in his arms, bearing in mind that she was fragile at this point, that even the slightest touch could still hurt. He held her gently, letting her cry on his shoulder. "I'm glad I'm here, too, Aiden. There's nowhere else I could picture myself..."
She looked into the glistening amber pools that were Greg's eyes, and a small smile crossed her face. Now was the chance. The kiss they'd almost had a couple weeks ago, it was time for it to play out. He had that same look in his eyes, and she had the same feeling she'd had that day. And this time, there were no cell phones or pagers allowed in the hospital, so there was no chance for interruption. Her lips hit his, and it was all downhill from there. It was almost as though kissing Greg was natural for her. Their lips meshed, and when he parted her lips with his tongue, their tongues seemed to mesh, too.

When they finally broke free for air, it was almost as though the air was foreign and the kiss was what they needed to survive. He ran his fingers through her hair and smiled softly, watching for any sort of reaction.

Aiden returned his smile and touched his cheek with her usable hand. "Wow," was all she could manage to say. And it was all that needed to be said. Greg took her hand and sat in the chair beside her, planning to stay with her as long as they would let him, and even more. In this case, visiting hours were a technicality. And they were a technicality that Greg Sanders didn't want to deal with.