He should have known someone would be waiting when he returned to his apartment, should have known Grissom would call in reinforcements the first chance he could get. The oldest CSI is definitely not good in situations such as these, and it seems as though Catherine has decided to step in on behalf of Grissom's emotions, leaning against Greg's door with her cell phone pressed to her ear.
The young CSI considers leaving before she notices him there, but Catherine turns her head before the thought is even finished, the older woman snapping her phone closed right away and turning her body so she's completely facing the younger CSI.
"Greg-"
"Grissom send you? That didn't take long."
Catherine can hear the unusual emptiness in Greg's voice, can tell what Grissom meant by the fact that the young CSI sounds defeated. Although he's wearing sunglasses that cover his eyes, she's positive that if he were to remove them, she would see the look of emptiness that she's seen in so many burned out CSI's before. It's never an easy thing to watch, someone crumble in front of your eyes, and it's even harder now with that fact that she's known Greg since he came to Vegas, known the young Californian lab tech turned Vegas CSI.
She had her doubts when he first mentioned that he wanted to get out of the lab and become a CSI, not that she didn't think he could do it, but she knew what it could do to him. For the past six years she's gotten used to the goofy lab tech that listens to his music too loud and has a new hair style every other week, now she stands in front of a young CSI looking beyond his years.
"Grissom didn't have to send me, we've all been worried about you. We know this case was hard on you, especially with what happened in the past, but-"
"Don't, there are no buts about any of this. I don't know what Grissom thought he was going to get out of sending me there to run trace on that woman, but he has no right to send you, of all people, to try and do- whatever it is he's trying to do. Maybe if it weren't for your inability to do your job correctly, I wouldn't be here in the first place."
The words catch them both by surprise, Greg looking shocked by his own comments as he watches Catherine take a step back, as if the words delivered a physical blow to her. He thinks he should apologize for going over the line, but the more he thinks about those images, about charred skin and months worth of pain, he realizes that he's finally able to be truthful with himself and Catherine about the explosion.
Every morning when he looks in the mirror, sees the scars that lick up his back and neck, he can't help but blame the older woman for her recklessness. He's managed to keep it to himself since it happened, trying to reassure her that it's not her fault, but in reality it's no one's fault but her own. Now he's stuck in this world where just the sight of the burn victim at Desert Palms sends the nerves in his back into a painful mess, the sleeping pills becoming ineffective against the nightmarish images that plague his mind again after so many years.
"Greg, I- I don't know what to say. We talked about this, when I came to see you in the hospital you told me everything was okay, that we were okay. Why didn't you just tell me straight forward instead of keeping it inside for so long?"
"It was easier. I was in pain, physically and mentally, I didn't need someone hanging around me constantly apologizing, looking for redemption for their actions. I didn't need you walking on glass around me at work because you thought I would blame you. It was just easier."
She doesn't know what to say, how to respond to that, and the only action she can take is to turn around and take a deep breath, feeling the tears springing in the corners of her eyes. Somehow she knew she wasn't the right person for this job, the right person to reel Greg back to reality and back to CSI. They've never had any sort of relationship between them other than the one of two colleagues working together, so she knows she's right in thinking that maybe Nick would be better at this job than she would be.
"I'm sorry Greg, about the accident, about you thinking you couldn't tell me straight forward. I think it's best that I just go, but you need to call Grissom, let him know how much time you need off; he wants you to see the departmental psychologist before you go back out into the field."
Catherine forces it out, trying to get away before Greg sees the real effect that his words have had on her. She doesn't bother looking back when she finally departs from the doorway, and Greg doesn't make a motion to stop her, instead watching her quickly walk off in the direction of the elevators, his words still lingering heavily in the air.
--
He doesn't know what to think of the silence, of the darkness that surrounds him as he walks through the hallway of the unfamiliar apartment, checking each room as he passes until he reaches the master bedroom at the end of the hallway. The steady rise and fall of the lump under the pile of blankets signals the deep unconsciousness of the ex lab tech, and the older CSI watches for a moment, hand poised near the light switch, ready to bathe the room with artificial light.
After a moments hesitation he decides to let Greg sleep on, instead moving further into the room to carefully get a picture of his surroundings as he's been trained to do, his gaze immediately catching on the pill bottles sitting on the nightstand with a bottle of water.
He approaches the side of the bed carefully so as not to wake Greg from his sleep, and he uses his peripheral vision to watch the continuous rise and fall of the material mass while picking up each of the bottles, inspecting the prescription printed on each before setting them back down, his frown deepening with each new prescription.
Two of the four pill bottles have dates that exceed the Matthews' case, and the other two are more recent, signaling to the CSI that Greg has been to the doctor within the past week. He pushes that bit of information into the back of his mind for the time being while he opens the bottles, carefully pouring the tablets out into his hand and counting them before returning them back to their original place, satisfied that there is a strict amount of pills missing from each bottle, meaning Greg hasn't taken any more than he was prescribed.
For a split second he's unsure of just exactly why he would even consider anything like that, like the young CSI taking his own life, but then he recounts the information given to him regarding the encounters Grissom and Catherine had with the ex lab tech. They both seemed put off by the behavior presented by the younger man, and they begged him to try and get through to him.
Greg shifts in the bed and the CSI stiffens, closing his eyes and hoping he hasn't been caught. Upon reopening them however, he finds himself face to face with a very angry looking lab tech, one hand fisting the pillow under head and the other buried somewhere underneath his body.
"Nick?… You guys just don't give up do you?"
"Do you really expect us to just sit by and watch you go through something like this alone? We're family Greg."
The young CSI rolls his eyes and turns over on the mattress, putting his back to Nick as he lets out a deep breath. He knows that at the first chance he gets, Nicks going to run to Grissom and tell him about the medications, give his superior even more reason to fire him. He's actually quite surprised that he's made it this far without anyone finding out, anyone realizing that the Greg that existed before the explosion has been replaced by one that lives his life out of prescription bottles.
After the explosion his psychiatrist placed him on the four prescriptions he's currently on, but with time he was able to discontinue two, while decreasing the doses of the other two. Since the Matthews case, however, he's ended up back where he was over two years ago, his life becoming more controlled by the doctor's prescription pad than his own hands.
"Greg, you know you can't shut everyone out like this. These are proof that things aren't okay, and we're not just going to leave you to deal with it by yourself."
The young CSI can hear Nick pick up one of the prescription bottles, hear the small pills clanking against the plastic sides, and he suddenly turns back over and grabs the bottle from Nick, catching the CSI off guard. Nick falls backwards from his kneeling position until he's sitting on the ground, watching Greg pull the drawer to the nightstand open and push all the bottles inside before closing it again.
"You have no right to come into my house and go snooping through my stuff. None of you have any right to be getting into my business, you never cared before and I sure in hell don't want any of you to care now. I told Grissom I'm not cut out for this job, that's it, that's the end of this and any other discussion anyone plans on attempting to have about it with me."
"Like hell we don't care-"
"Don't even try it. I work in the same lab as you, I know how many bets both you and Warrick have started on me, for one stupid thing or the other. All I am to anyone around there is a game piece, someone to be used, and I'm done with it. If this is what Grissom was trying to get out of sending me back to my past memories, then you can tell him he won, I quit."
Before Nick can respond, Greg's gone, nothing left in his wake but a mess of strewn blankets piled up at the end of the bed. He knows that he should probably go after Greg to make sure he's okay, but with the amount and types of medications the ex-lab tech is on, he knows there's so much more to this than anyone originally thought, and he hates that he's going to have to go to Grissom about it.
The fact that Grissom didn't know about the medications in the first place is a bad sign, considering that type of information is supposed to be constantly kept up to date in the personnel files. A CSI taking the type of medications that Greg is currently taking, Zoloft and Vicodin, who has been taking these types of medications for this long of time, is supposed to be kept under careful evaluation to make sure he can handle being out in the field.
If Grissom knew about these medications and never mentioned them to anyone before putting Greg out in the field as a CSI, he's putting his and the younger CSI's career on the line, especially if something were to happen and the courts were able to prove Greg's mental status unstable or that he were abusing the use of pain killers.
The sound of the front door to the apartment slamming closed brings Nick out of his thoughts, and he knows that an update to Grissom can wait. Instead he quickly pulls himself to his feet and rushes out of the room, cursing loudly as he trips on something in the dark hallway, the CSI managing to catch himself before he can fall completely to the floor.
By the time he makes it past the front door and down to the parking lot, Greg's car is gone, leaving Nick to curse loudly after the younger man, his anger at the situation flaring as he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and dials his supervisor's number.
I guess it's unanimous, this is officially a multi-chaptered fic instead of a standalone. Thanks for all the reviews, they're highly appreciated. Hope everyone who celebrates it, has a nice Thanksgiving, I'm already stuffed.
