"One of your friends came around here asking about you earlier, how are you feeling?"

Greg doesn't open his eyes, knowing that his head won't be able to deal with any light as he fights away the nausea. He hasn't had a hangover like this in years, and he knows he's going to be dealing with it all day as he turns on his side and buries his face in the couch, his knees pulling up to his chest in hopes that it'll stop the dull pain in his stomach.

"They're not exactly my friends. What did you tell them?"

'That you came around last night to get drunk, but left before the club closed."

Greg chances opening an eye to look at the man kneeling in front of him, and he reaches out for the aspirin that's being offered, forgoing the water and swallowing the pills dry.

"You know you can get in trouble for lying to them."

"Yeah, but I figured you wouldn't want to deal with them right now, you were pretty messed up last night. Some woman tried to take you home with her, but I managed to stop her and drag you back here. And if you'd like for me to continue covering for you ass, I'm going to need to know what's going on. I feel like I'm hiding a fugitive back here. So what did you, kidnap your bosses bug collection or something?"

Mumbled words escape Greg's mouth, the younger man wishing that he can avoid this conversation, but when the other man doesn't move from his spot, instead pulling up a chair, he sighs loudly and rolls onto his back, taking a deep breath before starting from the beginning.

--

"What have you got so far?"

Grissom falls into step beside Warrick, a case file held loosely at his side as the two men head to the end of the hallway, stepping into Grissom's office where the supervisor closes the door behind them.

He knows that time is quickly winding down, and if he doesn't find Greg before the next few hours are up, that this could only get worse. Ecklie is always trying to find a way to get Grissom, and it looks like he's finally found it, getting an added bonus by firing Greg as well.

"I went to talk to the psychiatrist, he still won't give us anything. I think he knows where Greg is, but he won't give us any information until we get a court order."

"A court order is out of the question right now. If we were to do that, it will make this case official, and then we'd all be in trouble. I want you and Nick to keep an eye on this guy, if he goes anywhere, I want you to follow him."

"Isn't there something else we can do Gris? This all seems a bit extreme for a guy that was just trying to take care of himself. I could see him getting in trouble for not taking the meds or seeing the doctor, but don't you think that it's better that he's taking them?"

Warrick sits in the chair in front of Grissom's desk, knowing that it's a slim chance that they can get out of this with both Greg and Grissom's jobs still intact. He knows that you're supposed to inform the supervisor if you're taking the type of meds that Greg's on, but he also knows how much Greg wanted to get out of the lab. Since the explosion he seems more apprehensive about being in the lab, going near the fume hood when there's chemicals placed under it.

"He should have told me what was going on, we could have worked something out so that he could remain in the field, but he didn't, and now there's a possibility our other cases can be effected by it."

Warrick sighs and runs his hand over his face, feeling completely helpless. He and Greg have never really been friends outside of the lab, but he knows that Greg's an excellent CSI, the younger man catching on to most things faster than any other CSI trainee he's come in contact with.

Despite the fact that he let a simple stupid mistake mess him up on his first proficiency, he put everything he had into his second chance and proved to everyone that he's more than just a lab tech, and now all of that could be stripped away from him because he didn't want anyone to know that he wasn't dealing with the explosion and it's after effects as well as they thought.

"Believe me Rick, I don't want to be having to do this either, but he knew the protocol."

"And you're just going to let Nick get away with illegally searching Greg's place? He didn't have a warrant, he had no reason to do that and yet you're sending him out there to find Greg. The least you can do is take him off this case, I think he's the last one Greg would want to see right now. He's the one that started all of this mess."

Gil doesn't say anything right away, instead letting his eyes focus past Warrick, and the other man turns to follow his supervisor's gaze, finding Nick in the doorway with a videotape hanging loosely at his side.

Nothing is spoken between the three for several moments, and Nick finally takes a step into the office towards Warrick, handing the tape over to the CSI before silently leaving with a hurt look in his eyes, closing the door behind him.

Warrick stares at the door for a brief moment before he flips the tape over in his hand, reading the label on it as a look of confusion crosses his face, not recognizing the name of the restaurant, but the date following it that of the previous night.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure, it looks like a security tape to a restaurant; might be a lead in Greg's case."

Warrick stands up as he's speaking and Grissom does the same, both men leaving the office and heading straight to Archie's lab, the tech stopping what he's doing when they walk in and Warrick hands him the tape.

"We need to take a look at this, you got a few minutes to spare?"

"Of course, what is it?"

"We'll see soon enough."

Archie pushes the tape into his VCR and the video comes up on the screen, the confusion clearing from Warrick's eyes as he realizes what the video is from, his finger pointing out a figure at the bottom of the screen entering the club.

"This must have been taken from across the club Greg was at last night, there's him going in. Fast forward it Archie and let's see what happens when he comes out, see if he's with anyone. Maybe we finally got the lead we've been waiting for."

Grissom and Warrick watch closely as the tape is sped up, patrons going in and out of the club unaware of the camera watching their actions. The time continues on quickly until Archie sees a familiar face and pushes the pause on it, the three men looking at the picture confused as if they don't understand what's on it.

"He never left the club. You said the owner is a friend of Greg's, right?"

"Yeah, said he's known him for a few years now. He told me that he tried to call a cab for Greg, that he only looked away for a minute and Greg was gone."

"I think it's time to go question the bartender again, it looks like he's hiding something… or someone."

--

"You really think they're going to fire you just for not telling them about the medications?"

"They came here looking for me didn't they? Chances are Conrad Ecklie already knows about it and sent Warrick here after me."

Greg's hangover has gone from a massive headache to dull stomach cramps that have forced him to lay on his side with his knees drawn to his chest, his eyes closed as he tries to fight back the bile that's been trying to come up since he first came to on the couch. He knows it was a bad idea to drink that much, but he also knows that it could have been worse had he taken his medication that day, not that he would have to worry about that if Nick hadn't snooped through his things in the first place.

He was tempted to go back to the hospital burn unit after leaving his apartment, but he was at least smart enough to realize that it would be the first place anyone checked. He knows it isn't a good idea to hang around there so much, dwell on what happened in his past, but it's the only thing that's consumed his thoughts since he was assigned to the Matthews case, to Tara in particular.

The club owner watches the faintly changing expressions on Greg's face, realizes that the younger man didn't stop coming around because he moved on to a better job, but because his job was tearing him up, turning him into something that he shouldn't have become. The lines of depression are clearly etched on Greg's face and his voice reflects that emotion, his arms tight around his legs as he tries to push himself back into the couch, like he's trying to hide from everything.

"I don't know how much longer I can do this."

"So don't."

Greg opens his eyes a slit to see if his friend has gone mad, instead finding the older man looking as serious as ever, his eyes focused solely on Greg.

"If this is what this job is driving you to, all these pills and psychiatric appointments, then why bother with it? You got a degree at Stanford, I'm sure there's plenty of jobs out there that you can get that don't keep you up at night thinking of explosions and burnt skin. This person, the person here last night, this isn't you, this isn't the Greg I knew before you stopped coming around here, and I don't think this job is worth everything you're going through."

Greg closes his eyes again halfway through the speech, his body sinking further into the cushions of the couch. When he first became a CSI it was about getting out of the lab, away from his fear of the fume hood, but soon it transformed into much more than that. He felt like he was making more of a difference out in the field instead of being locked away in the lab, and although most days he still needs the aid of sleeping pills to help him sleep, he's glad that he became a CSI.

"I've worked too hard to just give up like this."

"Like you said Greg, how much longer can you do this? How much longer until the anti-depressants and anxiety medications don't work anymore, until your alarm clock comes in the form of nightmares of dead people and things you can't change."

There's a moment of silence followed by a loud pounding on the Club owner's office door, the noise startling both men as Grissom and Warrick are suddenly standing only a few feet away from them, neither men looking the least bit happy about realizing that Greg was in the club the whole time.

"Gentlemen, unless you have a warrant, you're trespassing."

Grissom doesn't hear the words spoken by the club owner, instead focusing on his CSI that's curled up on the couch, eyelids squeezed closed like he's trying to make himself invisible. The emotions playing on Greg's face look so raw, and Grissom suddenly feels guilty for ever sending Nick over to the youngest tech's apartment in the first place instead of dealing with the situation on his own, as a supervisor is supposed to do when they realize that something's not right with one of their CSI's.