Happy Enough by SLynn

Disclaimer: Any character you recognize, not mine.

Notes: Thanks for the fix airen. I so completely couldn't think of that until you'd mentioned it! It's fixed now.

Chapter 29: Affirmation

They'd taken two SUVs to the hospital. Nick drove Sara and Grissom drove Catherine. They might as well have gone together; both trucks were completely silent the entire drive. All they could do at the time was imagine the worst and hope for the best.

They all headed straight into the emergency room stopping only at the receptionist desk.

"Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Crime Lab. Two of my men were brought here tonight."

The woman looked up at him with little empathy.

"Down the hall, second room on the left."

Grissom said nothing but felt better. He knew if it was really bad they'd have been told to wait for a doctor. Looking at the others, he sensed they didn't share his optimism. Sara particularly looked shaken, and once more he considered the possibility that Greg meant more to her then she let on.

As they got to the door they'd expected a lot of things. Laughter wasn't one of them.

Greg was lying on the table, propped up to near sitting position holding an ice pack on the back of his neck. He'd looked pretty well beaten up and was laughing almost to point of tears. Warrick, in a wheel chair beside him didn't look nearly as bruised as Greg, but now had a cast on his left foot. He too was laughing hysterically.

"…but the look on your face," Warrick was saying, or trying to say between laughs.

"I thought the whole damn thing was collapsing," Greg tried as a way of defense "and there was no way I was going in after you."

The four stood in the doorway for a half a moment until Grissom finally interrupted.

"Interesting night?"

"Hey, Griss," Warrick said looking over, stifling his laughter as best he could. "What are you doing here?"

"Well usually when I get a call that I have two of my team in the hospital, I come check it out."

"What happened to you two?" Nick asked, laughing as he did it. It was nervous laughter, he really had been scared.

"Didn't Jensen call?" Warrick asked.

"No," Grissom answered. "Brass did. Said you two were here but that was it."

"Sorry. I'd have called but I thought you already knew."

Warrick looked very seriously from Grissom to Catherine. He knew they'd probably been a wreck. He'd actually been pretty worried himself, Greg didn't remember it but he'd lost consciousness for about five or six minutes. Warrick had been released already, despite the cast his ankle was only twisted, but they wanted to run a few more tests on Greg.

"So?" Nick asked again.

"Oh, man." Warrick began, his eyes lighting up once more. "Greg and I met with the new guy, Jensen. Complete rookie. It should have been easy. McCray wasn't suppose to be armed or dangerous or anything like. He's pretty much a petty criminal. But he lives out…"

Warrick started to laugh again and Greg did too.

"Did they give you both pain killers?" Catherine asked, smiling as she did so.

"Sorry, sorry." Warrick said before continuing. "He lives out at the dump. So, first we got lost. Really lost. His house was like clear on the other side of the place. And the smell."

"Is that what that is?" Sara interjected for the first time. She'd come over to where Greg was, standing just behind him. She'd taken the ice pack out of his hands without ceremony and was looking now for herself at the wound. He had a gash, several stitches, but nothing serious. It looked like it stung.

"Eau de garbage," Greg answered looking up at her with a faint smile which she just returned.

"Anyway, we finally get there. Jensen's freaked about the junk dogs that are chained up nearby, but at this point we just want to get the guy and go. And of course, he's not alone. He's got like two or three of his buddies there, drunk. Which was fine, because he wasn't really resisting. And then there's this loud bang."

"Gunshot?" Nick asked, taking a seat on a nearby stool.

"I thought so," Greg added. It had been scary.

"So did Jensen, so he pulled his gun. But it was just a truck out on the interstate backfiring. I hear it all the time near my house so I recognized it. But McCray and his friends must have thought Jensen opened fire or something, because they just scattered. Ran right into us, actually ran mostly into Greg because he's the only one who didn't move."

"Come on now. I was standing behind you two when it happened. It was like they'd planned it, the way you both just stepped right out of the way and left me standing there alone."

"Before we got out of the car I told you to do what I do."

"Well, it's a good thing I didn't because I do not need that right now." Greg had indicated the cast with a laugh as he'd said so.

Warrick just looked a bit sheepish.

"So, I'm guessing that the stampede is how Greg got like that, but how did you hurt your leg?" Grissom asked all seriousness.

"Climbing a mountain of trash," Greg answered.

"No, pursuing a suspect on foot," Warrick corrected. "Up a mountain of trash."

Everyone laughed at his delivery.

"I saw McCray heading off, so I gave chase. I knew he wasn't armed and Jensen was too concerned about the other people on scene. The guy was fast and knew his way around a whole lot better then me. I had to have chased after him for ten minutes or more, till I finally saw him going over one of the larger trash heaps. I followed him up and about half way there they whole thing started moving."

"Man, it looked like a diaper avalanche," Greg added.

"McCray and I both ended up falling down it, Greg and Jensen met us at the bottom. He called for an ambulance because I couldn't get around much and we've been here since."

"So how long are they keeping you for?" Catherine asked.

"I'm free to go," Warrick said, "Just waiting on Greg."

"They wanted another cat scan, it's nothing." Greg replied, brushing it off. "Like I told Warrick, you don't have to stay."

"You should be home," Catherine said to Warrick, meaning business. "We'll take you and drop you off. Nick and Sara can wait with Greg."

"I really can't," Nick interjected. "I mean, you're okay and I have evidence that might not wait that long. Sorry man."

"It's nothing," Greg said meaning it. "Go, really."

"I'll stay," Sara said. "You can squeeze Nick in with you and I'll drive Greg home from here."

"That's a plan," Nick said tossing her the keys to the SUV.

No one had any objections, Warrick just politely asked Sara to walk him out. He really wanted her to hear the whole story.

"He took a bad hit," Warrick said seriously outside the door. "I know a lot of that bruising doesn't mean much because of all the meds he's on, but he was out cold for awhile. He's a little vague on some of the details, but the docs don't think it's anything serious. Keep him awake and keep him talking. They think he has a mild concussion."

Sara nodded, glad she'd heard it now first from him then in there from a doctor in front of Greg. When she rejoined him she could tell he was already starting to nod off.

"Hey," she said brightly. "So do you think you'll have to burn your clothes?"

"At least the shoes. People throw out some weird stuff and I stepped in most of it."

Sara laughed and then quickly had to fight down the urge to cry.

"Sara, I'm fine. It's a scratch on my head. I'm just thankful I didn't have any hair for them to shave in order to stitch it up."

He'd meant to make her laugh, but it had the opposite effect.

"No," Greg said sitting upright and pulling her close. "Don't cry. Don't."

"I thought that after all of this, on the way here, I just kept thinking that after everything…"

"Are you kidding me?" Greg interrupted, still holding on to her. "After all of this I'm going to be harder to kill then Rasputin."

She laughed despite herself. It wasn't something she felt she should be laughing about.

"Although I won't have lived quite that bawdy of a life."

Again she laughed, snorted almost making him laugh too. Finally he released his arms from around her and was surprised when she didn't immediately move away. Instead, she put her hands on his face as he'd once done to her.

"You're really okay."

It hadn't been a question, more of an affirmation.

"I am," he answered anyway. "I really am."