Title: Maybe, Possibly- Truly

Author: frickangel

Site: trinity (dot) hybridshadows (dot) com

Summary: To be afraid of something yet find comfort in arms of the one you love. –Oh, gawd, I'm actually writing Sara/Greg fluff. Someone please shoot me.

Spoilers: Other than the fact that Greg becomes a full fledge CSI?

A/N: Just a short fic. Wanted to hurt Greg and love him at the same time ;)

Disclaimer: Don't own CSI and all its characters, whoever owns them, owns them. But it's not me- though I wish.

Chapter I

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How long has it been?

He couldn't remember.

Maybe it was the smell of antiseptic in the air, which causes temporary memory loss. Maybe it was the crying he heard from the other end from a bereaving family. Maybe it was the people all dressed in white, green and some pink. Maybe it was the constant paging for someone over the intercom. Maybe…

Maybe because he was just so scared.

Why was he scared?

Because he was afraid to die.

But why?

Now, that, he knew.

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"Seriously, Grissom, why me?"

"Because you're just the man for the job, Greg?"

"What about Sara!" He was getting desperate. No way in heaven or in hell was he going to go through this.

"Hey!" Sara whipped up from her crouch so fast; he thought she'd be feeling dizzy in an instant. He could run over and rescue her before she fell. Then, he'll have an excuse not to do this. Unfortunately, for Greg, that didn't happen. "Grissom sends you to do the job, you do it."

"But... but…" he was trying to stammer out some other possible excuse. Short of saying that the sky was blue and the grass was green, Greg was going to give in to Grissom's orders. "Fine."

Grissom nodded. "A man must venture to darkest depths of the ocean to know how deep his courage may lie."

"What was that, some quote from William Blake? Poe? Shakespeare?"

"No."

He was afraid to ask, he just knew Grissom was out to get him. "What?"

"I made that up myself."

And there's the snap, another straight punch of Grissom's wit into the gut of Greg. So excellently executed that the crowd roars with shrieks of delight.

Actually, all Greg heard was Sara snorting and stifling laughs behind her note board. She was trying to hide it by writing down her notes, though she wasn't doing a very good job in the concealing part.

"Oh."

"Better get to work, Greg. It's late and that's a lot of garbage to go through." Grissom just had to point towards the mountain of trash lying right behind. The mountain of trash which he was about to shovel through because his boss told him so and the mountain of trash which Sara refuses to do. "If the weapon is there, I want it."

"Depends of what kind of weapon." Greg turned around to face Grissom, not wanting to look at the rubbish any longer than he had to. "Weapons of mass smelling destruction?"

He paused to muse upon Greg's retort. "Have fun."

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Why didn't he remind her?

Instead, he avoided her like the plague the past few days. Wouldn't answer his calls, his messages, or even the door when she was at his doorstep.

In the end, she did remember. Because how could she forget?

Today was the day they all would find out the answer. A single word to determine his future, his life, and his fate.

She had left as soon as she could, unable to focus on work all night and the sun was shinning when she took off in her car. At first, the sunrays gave her hope that it was an omen- something that said all was well and there was nothing to fear. Then the white cotton clouds had become grey and dull, turning into swirling mists of uncertainty that blocked the sun and shunned hope.

Stop looking, she told herself. Tearing away from the sky's threat of a thunderstorm, she focused on starting the engine and more importantly, being there for him.

It was good thing she didn't believe in omens and signs.

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The way he was whining and complaining was getting on her nerves. In fact, coming from anyone else would be downright annoying but from him, it was almost funny.

'Almost' being the keyword.

"I thought Grissom told you to dig through garbage, not moan and bewail at it." Sara focused through the lens and finally took another shot of the blood splatter. Little sunlight spots danced in her eyes as the strong flash dissipated away.

"I am digging." Greg threw something aside that Sara didn't feel like knowing what it was. "I'm digging in my own bewailing way."

"Anything yet?"

"Not unless you were looking for three soggy slippers, two tonnes of over-ripe takeout pizza-."

"And a partridge in a pear tree." She sing-songed the end of his sentence even though Sara figured that wasn't what he was going to say. Looking up long enough to meet with Greg's glare, she shrugged her shoulders as if to say she couldn't help it.

"Err… right… You know, you could help me."

Was that a plea for help? Sara thought it was, "Sorry." She shuffled to her left a little, catching another spot of blood into permanent photographic media. "Kinda busy over here." Whatever he had grumbled in response, she had conveniently ignored. Greg could use some 'dirty work' once in a while, his been spoilt by his lab comforts.

Actually, she had been procrastinating on the photo taking, the lab didn't need that many and there was enough in the camera to go on. But hey, so long as she didn't need to join Greg in the mini dumpsite, she was glad to sit by and look busy.

Okay, so maybe she'll help him.

He was shuffling and wrestling with another empty carton big enough to hold a 32-inch TV.

Right, she'll help him once his been through one quarter of the trash.

"Argh!" Greg yelled in futile objection then fell butt first on the wet ground.

Make that half of the garbage.

Until then, she'd rather hug on to the camera.

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How long did he have to wait?

No one knew.

He had already waited a whole three months before they allowed him to take the test.

All they could do was murmur bits of cryptic messages to him, giving themselves an excuse to torture him longer.

It was something about the system going offline or the results were somewhere else. He couldn't catch what they apologised about in their voices filled with pretentious pity. The whole sketch of niceness was probably trained into them.

Feel sorry for the dying ones and comfort those in the balance.

Liars.

Everything right then was about 'Just a little while longer'. No one had anything else to inform him with so they fed him the same lie.

Pretentious liars, that's what they were.

His hands felt icy-cold from the air-conditioning that worsened with his apprehensiveness.

The liars were always busy with something. Turning through files, arranging the phone calls and playing the gamble with death. He himself felt death had chosen him to be tonight's dance partner; hopefully, this tango wouldn't end on a flat note.

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He just knew that everyone was laughing at him. The cop, who was there to "protect" them, Sara was and even the stray cats had parked themselves on the wall just to watch the almighty Greg Sanders shift through trash filled with yesterday's Japanese dinner and stinky diapers.

And to think he left a nice sanitised lab for crummy field jobs like these.

Greg hoped it was under the blanket, stained with something he didn't want to know what, but no, there was nothing. A box overturned looked like a good place a knife would be stashed, yet there was nothing but a headless Barbie doll. "And I thought Sara was sadistic…"

"Did you just call out my name?"

"Now why would I do that? Wouldn't want to disturb you over there taking shots of the relatively clean road while I'm wading in three inches of…" He groaned.

"What?"

"Crap. And I mean literally." The last thing he wanted was to look at Sara, right then he much rather looked at his foot. Thank god for standard issue boots.

"You. Are. Not. Going. Back. In. The. Same. Car. As. Me."

"It's always nice when a colleague is that concerned for me." He had shouted into the air, scaring a few tabby cats off and earning a weird stare from the LEOs'.

Another sudden burst of flash light signalled that Sara was back to her work and Greg should be concentrating on his.

"Move."

Greg stood in mid motion of opening the suspicious looking juice carton. "What are you doing?"

"I can't stand you whining and complaining any longer." She was already slapping on the same protective boots and donning the thick gloves.

"Thanks?"

"Good boy." She went into ankle deep of trash without so much as a wince. Well that is until she decided to breathe. "You take that side and I-."

"I- what?" Greg was desperately trying to keep his balance while cleaning the boot on a cardboard. No way was he going to trample around with that muck stuck to him. Glancing over he noticed Sara had removed her gloves to dig out the cell phone in her vest. She raised a finger to him signalling that she was going to take a few minutes. Somewhat unfair, she barely gets herself dirty in garbage and she's been saved by her ring tone.

"Sidle." Sara's voice rang clear over the phone as the green light illuminated her features. Slowly her voice trailed off softer while she moved further from Greg, obviously to get some fresh air. If Greg were lucky, maybe he'd pass out from the fumes and never have to work the site.

Then, of course, the entire lab would be laughing at him for being such a baby. Hodges will appoint himself as the regular alarm clock, never to let Greg forget. Over on the other corner, he noticed one of the cops had disappeared, probably to get coffee, while his partner leaned casually against the car. Not like there was going to be gunfire exchange. The only threat now was from the tabby cats in the alley attacking him for smelling like rotten food.

Digging deeper, Greg was pulling out something long. A piece of cloth… no, it was part of a green trench coat.

He froze.

Wait.

Trench coats don't grab your arm back.

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.----TBC ----
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Thanks for reading.

Cheers
Jo