He's no longer sure where it's safe to go anymore, they've intruded in all the places he's felt comfortable. He considers going to the club, but by now it's packed to capacity and he doesn't want to have to deal with all the people, doesn't think alcohol will cure any of the problems he's currently facing.
It's been a few days since he last took any of the medication, and he can already feel the effect it's having on his body. Although he only takes the Vicodin very rarely, when he feels lingering pain in his back, the other three are taken on a daily basis, his whole world revolving around pill induced sleep, anti-depressants, and pain killers.
The idea to visit his therapist and get new medications also comes as a thought, but he knows they'll also be there, looking for him and trying to get him to come back. He saw Grissom talking to Sarah outside the locker room, and it doesn't take much to know what he was telling her. She's the only one that didn't seem to be involved in the man hunt for him, he wanders why, but he also knows that now she's going to be used as Grissom's tool to try and get to him once again, like he's some criminal on the run.
lj-cut text"Burning Memories 7"
He feels like he's out of options, out of places to go, but he keeps driving, his eyes heavy. He needs sleep, real sleep that's not alcohol induced followed by a killer hangover, but he doesn't want to get a hotel, can't even really afford one since he forgot his wallet at the club. Instead he finds a road that veers off into a secluded area and heads down it, stopping only when it doesn't continue any further, the area surrounded by nothing but the dark dry desert.
The air is chilly around him when he shuts off the engine and steps out of the car, his eyes easily adjusting to the moonlit darkness as he stands several feet away, hands digging deep in his pant's pockets, searching for warmth. He faintly remembers a case that he had out here once a few months back, and he walks several more feet away from the car, stopping in the spot where he remembers once lay a body of a young woman, raped and left to die, her clothes strewn around her and the dirt tainted with crimson blood.
A sigh escapes his lips and he eases his body down, sitting cross legged on the dry desert ground and letting his eyes scan the vast emptiness around, his surroundings becoming a visual reality of what it feels like in his head right now, empty and lonely. The desert sounds peaceful around him, all the silence away from the head splitting city, but the spot he sits in once held the cries of a dying woman, her bloody fingertips trying to claw into the sand, trying to find her way out of her inevitable death.
It's the way that Greg feels right now, like he's trying to claw his way to safety, but his body is to weak, his mind no longer wanting to put up the fight. He tried to save himself with the pills and the psychiatry appointments, but it was a failed battle, one that ended in more desolate loneliness than before, with no one to trust and no where to go.
The progression is slow as he lays back onto the ground and shifts onto his side, pulling his legs up to his chest in the fetal position and closes his eyes, his thoughts, everything starting to cloud his mind all at once as the days begin to catch up with him. He can feel the tears coming, trying to escape from behind his closed eyelids, and he makes no effort to stop them, curling only further into himself as one sob escapes past slightly parted dry lips, a single cry that's like the calm before a storm.
Within minutes his whole body is racked with loud cries, the lonely CSI taking up such a miniscule space in the vast desert, such a small space in the world he once belonged to that seems to no longer want him.
The silence breaking cries go on for a good while, Greg managing somehow to make himself even smaller, his mind so withdrawn from the present that he doesn't notice a fresh set of headlights turning off or a car door shutting.
Jim Brass didn't know what to expect when he was informed that a car matching Greg's description and plate number disappeared into the desert, the captain keeping the information to himself when he excused himself from the mind numbing phone call he was in the middle of with Catherine. He's been watching with faint interest as Greg was hunted down and thrown into the lion's den, keeping his opinion of the matter to himself on the case that has already made it's way well through the CSI headquarters gossip mill.
Now he stands only a few feet away from the lab tech that he was always quite fond of (but would never admit out loud), watching the young man crumble in on himself, his choking sobs breaking the silence of the desert they stand in. He's glad that Greg doesn't realize he's here because truthfully, he's not sure what to say, instead pulling out his cell phone and stepping behind his car, talking low enough into the phone so that Greg can't hear him.
"I found Sanders, you might want to get out here quick."
He tries to keep the panic out of his voice so as not to frighten the CSI on the other end too much, hanging up the phone only after giving directions to his location and accepting the ETA of fifteen minutes.
After slipping his phone back into his pocket, he's left wondering what to do next, unsure if he should try and comfort the depressed former CSI or leave him be, allow him to get everything out. He's faintly aware that he's putting off the decision, hoping help will get out here before he really has to decide, and it seems to work as another set of headlights pulls up next to the captain's car and shuts off, the CSI getting out from the driver's side.
Jim looks at Greg after acknowledging the presence of the new arrival, expecting him to at least flinch or make some notice of the company he now has, but he doesn't move from where he is, his sobs still as loud as they were when the captain arrived.
"How long has he been like this?"
"Since I got here, I don't think he realizes we're even here. I was going to try and talk to him-"
"The look on your face says otherwise. I've got it from here though, don't worry about it, you can go back to the station."
Jim knows when he's been busted, and he only gives Greg a last glance before turning back to his car, stopping when he hears his name, turning back to the CSI looking at him with a full look of seriousness.
"Do me a favor, don't tell anyone he's out here."
He nods and pauses for a brief moment before turning back, pulling his jacket tighter around him as the air gets cooler out in the desert. He wonders briefly if it's safe to be leaving the two out here alone, but he knows they're both competent adults, making himself feel better by deciding to have an officer come by every once in a while to check on them, to make sure nothing has happened.
The CSI waits until the headlights of the captain's car disappears before carefully going over to Greg, stopping a few feet away to take in the sight of the younger man. The small bag grips tighter in their hand, and they finally build up the courage to move further, getting close enough to kneel next to the shaking body and resting a reassuring hand on the cold arm that's covered by nothing but a thin shirt.
"Greg."
He doesn't respond at first, barely even registers the warm touch on his arm, but after a moment he pulls his face away from his knees, looking through blurred vision at the figure kneeling in front of him, an evidence bag clutched in the small hand, knuckles almost white from gripping it so hard.
"Sara?"
He's unsure of why it comes out as a question, he's pretty sure he's not hallucinating her presence, and she nods her head while slowly lowering herself to the ground, hoping that he doesn't lash out too much at her closeness. She could easily ask him to get up, tell him that laying on the desert floor crying isn't going to get him anywhere, but she knows that his emotions and mind are at fragile state right now and it would be easier for him if she just got down to his level, the evidence bag placed in her lap so it's out of his line of sight.
Greg is more upset at Sara's presence than he's letting on as he carefully pulls himself to a sitting position, a small amount of moist dirt plastered against his cheek and dusted into his clothes, the former CSI not bothering to brush it away as he glares at Sara. They can't even give him one night alone, to figure all this mess out in his head, and even driving out to a secluded section of the desert, they still manage to find him, to make his world even more painful to be in.
"Greg-"
"What more do you people want from me?"
"We don't want anything Greg, we're- I just want to help you."
Help? That's rich, he thinks, his anger building as he pulls himself off the ground, tears still clinging to his eyelashes, his hands shaking and his clothes covered with dirt. Sara follows his movements, afraid of the sudden mood change, of the dark look that's in Greg's eyes. It's not something she has seen before, and she thinks that maybe she should have made Greg take his medications before speaking to him, getting him upset once again.
"How the hell can you be here to help me when all any of you have done is make everything worse? I was fine, I was getting better and then Nick screwed everything up. He's always so fucking starved for attention that he had to ruin my life. I have nothing left now Sara, everything I worked for is gone."
"Because you didn't fight, Greg. You weren't fired, you quit, you're the one that's taking the easy way out by leaving like this."
"So I'm supposed to what, fight for my job and cause Grissom to lose his? You and I both know that his sole purpose in life is that fucking job, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be pinned as the reason he lost it. If he wants me to stay so much then why doesn't he fight for me, like he did for you and Warrick, like he's done for Catherine and Nick?"
He's backing away from Sara as he speaks, away from the CSI and the cars, away from all of it. He's putting distance between himself and the spot where a woman once lay dead, injecting empty space between himself and the shattered remains of his life. Sara knows what he's doing and she moves along with him, like a silent dance moving through the desert, not letting him out of her sight.
"If he cared that much about losing his job Greg, he wouldn't have sent me out here, he wouldn't want you to keep fighting. You can't use him as your excuse for giving up."
"What about Tara Matthews, is that an excuse? I can't get the image of her laying in that burn unit out of my head, every time I think about it I can feel it on my back, I can feel the whole fucking explosion in my body. I can't take these images of dead bodies of all the people that were- are being innocently murdered.
"I'm just not cut out for this job anymore Sara, I was never meant to be a CSI, but I couldn't stand being locked away in the lab anymore, fearing to even go within ten feet of the fume hood. I still have nightmares about it, I wake up smelling things burning."
"I was there Greg, you don't think I've had to deal with it as well?"
"You were there, it's not the same. I was in it, I was the explosion. I laid in that burn unit for weeks while they put some dead guys skin on my back, and then Grissom forces me to go back, to collect evidence from Tara Matthews? How the hell could he do that to me and expect for me to be okay after that?"
Although the sobs are gone, the tears are falling heavily on Greg's cheeks, and somewhere along the way Sara stops walking towards him. She doesn't know what to say, because she realizes that she's not the one that should be here, that needs to be here. This is all directed at Grissom, and although she wants to defend the older man's actions, to make Greg come back with her, she can't.
"I just can't handle anymore of this Sara, I should have never tried."
She knows she should go after him, force him to stop walking away, but she can't get her legs to work, instead staring as he gradually disappears out of her line of sight, the younger man only turning his back to her just before the darkness envelops him like a scene from a movie.
Only when she turns back to the vehicles does she realize that she too is crying, and she tries to wipe away the tears as she climbs in the Denali, discarding the evidence bag in the seat next to her. She tells herself that this is a battle that she can't win, in all reality it's not her battle to fight. Despite that, however, she still feels like she's lost, because she knows that she's not going to be able to go back to work and look any of her co-workers in the eyes, not after they chased away the only life in the lab, the one person that kept everything going and prevented them from becoming emotionless zombies.
Greg doesn't know where he's going, can't really see much around him in the dark, but he knows that he's alone and that's what he needs, no one out here to bother him, no one to try and stop him.
Epilogue coming soon… eventually… whatever.
