Author's Note: Wow, I feel really bad about my lack of updating, but I had a hard time starting this chapter and carrying out the concept, as well as work on OWE, which is coming along miserably. Anyway, sorry again for not updating sooner.
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When you become so weak you can't even cry, that is when your blood becomes your tears…
- Kaitlyn, a friend
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The doctor apologizes to Nick and Sara over and over again, never bothering to go and see Greg and let the real victim and patient know what is going on. The doctor just sits with Nick in the waiting room as he cries into Sara's shoulder, telling them all the medical details that, up until this moment, had mattered. How they shouldn't be alarmed by the sudden increase in bruises or the bloody noses or blood shot eyes. That all of those were common in the dying process.
Nick wants to be the one to tell Greg. As soon as he wakes up from the anesthesia from his surgery, Nick would tell him the bad news. That all of the chemotherapy in the world couldn't save him and that Greg had less than a month to live. That at the end of the week, Nick would bring Greg home because he didn't want Greg to die in the god-awful hospital, seeing white instead of their own home. Smelling disinfectant instead of Nick's Texas chili. Hearing his heart monitor beeping instead of his Marilyn Manson or Tim McGraw.
But when Nick sees Greg, he is already crying because he knows. He doesn't need anyone to tell him officially that he is dying from the leukemia. He doesn't need to tell anyone that he was right all along, that the cancer is going to claim him this time.
Greg just let Nick cradle him in his arms, kissing him gently like he is a porcelain doll about to break, telling him that everything is going to be ok. And even though both of them knew it isn't going to be ok, they believed each other for the sake of believing something.
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Greg sleeps on the fold out couch, hooked up to an IV because he can't get enough fluids in his system and his medications are becoming too big for him to swallow, since his throat is closing. He never gets up except for the bath that Nick gives him. Greg has enough energy to sit up for the duration of it all, relaxing under the warm water and washcloth.
When Greg is sleeping, which is becoming more and more often every day by seconds and minutes and hours, Nick cries to himself. He won't let Greg see him crying, won't let Greg realize that Nick gave up a long time ago, secretly, in the back of his mind. When Greg's eyes turned from brown to gray is when Nick knew that Greg's luck had run out. When he first found that lock of Greg's hair on his pillow, his spiked mess coming out in patches of brown and gold.
He didn't want to admit it and always kept telling himself that things could get better, but at the back of his mind, the inner Nick, the pessimistic Nick, knew that Greg is just a waiting game, that his death is going to happen soon - - it is just a matter of time.
Both Nick and Greg's parents came up to Vegas to finally meet each other, to see Greg. Nick's oldest brother and middle sister came up with his parents, but the rest of his siblings sent their deepest regrets and regards.
One night, two days before everyone is to return to San Francisco and Dallas, respectively, Nick and Greg were alone, in one of Greg's rare awake and attentive moments. Greg's voice is just above a whisper and Nick wanted to cry when he heard the sound of his lover's voice, a sound so near and dear to him that he couldn't hear any more.
And Nick isn't sure where it came from, and looking back years later he still isn't completely sure if he said it or not, but the next thing he knows is that Greg says that he will marry Nick. And Nick is crying because Greg wants to marry him, saying yes to one of the most precious questions someone can ask.
And the day that the Sanders and the Stokes family are to leave, they have a small, private ceremony with the CSIs and their family in their living room. Nick gives Greg a silver-gold band with their names etched on the inside and he gets and identical one to wear on his hand.
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Greg became extremely ill two days after the wedding ceremony and Nick brings Greg back to the hospital only to find out that they have to take Greg off his pain medication because it is shutting his organs down faster and his body isn't able to take that kind of pressure. So they send Nick away with a pat on the back and Greg in a wheelchair.
He falls into longer periods of unconsciousness/comatose states and because Nick refuses to bring Greg back to Desert Palms, he just watches Greg all hours of the day, running on caffeine and an hour of sleep, making sure that each exhale is followed by an inhale. Checking that the gaps between breaths isn't getting much longer because right now it's too long as is and Nick doesn't think that he can watch Greg struggle to breath much longer.
The CSIs used to visit until Grissom and Nick had a long talk one day, when Grissom came by after shift; Nick had wanted Grissom to find out if Greg had fallen into a coma because he hadn't been awake for three days. Grissom had reassured Nick's worst feelings and the CSIs stopped coming once word reached the lab that Greg had fallen into a coma and would most likely never wake.
Nick finds a half used roll of film along with a new one and takes pictures of Greg. Takes a picture of Greg of what ever he can see; of every scar and freckle and even the birthmark on his shoulder that resembles the island formation of Hawaii. Of the scars from the explosion and the band-aids on his fingertips from finger pricks and a few pictures of all the meds Greg has taken throughout the treatment and one close-up of Greg's ring finger and his wedding ring.
Nick will always remember the happy and cute - - hot is more like it - - and funny and smart and geeky Greg along with the dying and sick and pale and fragile Greg. And he has tons of pictures of the original Greg and wants to remember every aspect of Greg.
He tucks all the pictures away with the rest of the developed ones from the beginning of the treatment to the end and wonders if he'll ever put them into a scrap book or if it will turn out to be a box of pictures he keeps in his nightstand and pulls out when he misses Greg and wonders if it was all real. If when he looks back five or ten years from now, if he'll really believe that the cancer destroyed the most important person in his life like it did. If those infected cells really broke down his husband like it did.
Nick knew that everyone died eventually, but he didn't expect Greg's life to end so quickly and suddenly and to this day he hates God for it.
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I don't know if Nevada is a state where gay marriage is legal, but let's play pretend and say that it is. Ok? I hope no one has a serious problem with this.