Disclaimer: I don't own them. Nothing new there.

A/N: Wow, that was difficult to upload that with dial-up. Kudos to all who do that regularly.

Uh, yeah. Obviously it's no one-shot after all.


Chapter 2

Greg cried out when he was waking up, sitting up quickly, but regretting it immediately. His head was swimming and the world – or what little he could see of it in the darkness - seemed to turn around him.

He let himself slowly sink back down in the bed, noticing that he was in his own bed, in his own apartment, not in Sara's.

He buried his face in his hands that now partly covered his heavily aching head, the impressions of his dreams coming back. Sara's empty eyes. The pillow.

Greg tried to calm down, feeling his heart beating in an unreasonable speed. He tried to sort the chaos in his head, trying to distinguish between real memories and memories of a nightmare.

The nightmare. Pure fear in Sara's face.

Greg rubbed his forehead. He could still see the image of Sara lying in front of him, dead, murdered. The image seemed so real and he thought that he could still feel the coldness he had felt when he had touched her.

Then he had woken up and she had been alive. Only she had just been … Greg searched for an expression …a ghost. Just like one.

Greg shook his head, trying to bring some clearness into his head. Had it been real? Had he really found Sara dead?

No, he had been sleeping. He must have.

He sat up again, slowly this time. Had it been real and he had just dreamt, no nightmared, that it had only been a bad dream?

He breathed out slowly. He had to be rational.

He had just dreamt. Nothing of it was real.

He looked around in his bedroom, now beginning to wonder why he was actually there. Why was he not at Sara's?

The answer dawned on him slowly. With a little pity that was coming up, he realized that the first part of his nightmare, that one when he had come home, to their home, had only been a dream as well.

They were not together. That was the simply truth and he had only dreamt of her like he had done so many times before.

His dream of Sara had turned into a nightmare of Sara and though he was thoroughly relieved and happy that he had only been sleeping, dreaming, that it had not been reality, he also felt a disappointment that he actually did not feel for the first time since they knew each other.

Greg frowned, another thought hitting him.

He got out of his bed carefully, as he was still a little giddy, and made his way into the kitchen slowly, the cold tiles under his feet convincing him to be awake this time. He checked the time and his schedule twice, confirming what he had thought: He should be working right now.

He frowned again. Try as he might he could not remember what had happened before he had gone to bed. And he could find no reasonable explanation why he had missed to go to work. And why nobody had called him.

Shaking his head, he made his way to his phone, trying to come up with a good excuse why he was not at work that he could tell Grissom. He dialed the number of his boss and waited for him to pick up.

When he heard the familiar voice at the other end of the line, he immediately started in an excusing tone. "Hey, Grissom. I'm sorry that I'm not in. I must have-."

Grissom cut him off. "Greg, are you okay?"

Greg frowned. "Yeah, sure…," forgetting for a moment his aching head, including the giddiness.

Grissom sighed. "Greg, you're not supposed to be working. You are off tonight…after what has happened-."

Greg did not hear what Grissom was saying next, as he let the phone sink weakly. After what has happened…

Greg did not hear the distant voice of Grissom coming from the phone anymore, switching it off absently. In the same manner he made his way back into his bedroom, letting himself sink onto the bed.

He shook his head. It could not be real. He had only dreamt it, he must have.

It had not happened that he had come home to find Sara dead.

It had not happened that he had clung to her cold body.

He could not remember that he had still managed to call Grissom, although sobbing heavily.

He could not remember that they had finally come and separated him from Sara, that they had tried to ask him questions, but failing because he was not able to answer a single one, that Catherine had driven him to his apartment, that she had made sure that he went to bed to get some rest.

That was what would have happened, if… but he could not remember that it had, therefore it had not, Greg told himself stubbornly.

But Grissom had just confirmed it had.

TBC


A/N: If I don't get at least a hundred reviews that tell me to stop, I will continue! evil laugh