Title: Teach Me
Summary: From the after effects of Grave Danger, the CSI team are faced with the past and repercussions of the lab explosion. And no one takes it harder than the victim himself; Greg. Just my own little mind trying to vent my frustration over TPTB's lack of continuance over "Play With Fire".
A/N: I'm going to leave Nick well alone since they're obviously going to continue his whole nightmare-ish episode through to Season 6. I will however, torture you lovely people with more Greg angst. BTW, I do welcome feedback whether bad or good, that means flames as well. Just make sure you do have a solid reason for your flame. (If that made any sense at all).
Disclaimer: Don't own CSI and all its characters, whoever owns them, owns them. But it's not me- though I wish.
CHAPTER 7
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"I was talking to someone abou-."
"And I'm not talking about Dr. Cameron either." Jim interrupted Greg in mid-sentence. "I mean someone who understands your line of work and that can tell the difference between fingerprint dust and mascara. Get what I'm saying?"
If it weren't for the graveness of the conversation, Greg would've laughed at Jim's reference. But his mind was pre-occupied with other things at that moment. "Think so." There wasn't anything else for Greg to say, he just needed a verbal confirmation from the detective, just something to ease his mind for the rest of the day.
"Good."
Greg had wondered if Jim had ever given up on smoking before this, especially since he was holding the cigarette in his hand so calmly. There was a friend of Greg's that had given up on smoking for almost two years, but when he finally caved in and surrendered to old habits, his hands were shaking every time he lit one. Then again, Greg wasn't in any position to question Jim's smoking lifestyle. "I'm going to go now. I'll see you around, cap."
He had just made it half way across the gravel lot when his phone chirped away. What made Greg stop in the middle of the Las Vegas sun was the name identified on his caller ID. He pulled the cell open and pressed the receiver to his ear. "Hey, Grissom."
"Greg?"
Of course it would be Greg, who else would it be? "Yeah?" he answered, his own voice filled with too much suspicion than he had intended it too have.
"I was wondering if you had…" Grissom took his own sweet time in spewing out with the words, it was as if he was purposely saying it one syllable at a time. "If you had handed in your evaluation form yet?"
"Grissom, I gave it to you last week."
"You did?"
If there was ever a time for Greg to pick up Grissom's one-eyebrow-raised technique, it would have been then. "Yes, I did." But it was more of Greg's nature to frown than to arch his eyebrow when it comes to confusion; so he frowned. "You even pointed out to me that I ticked female instead of male."
"Greg!"
Without even registering who had summoned him, Greg held his hand up to signal silence and when he had received it, only did he turn to see who it was. Sara waved back and smiled, showing that she understood and would wait.
There was a rough sort of sound coming from the other side of the conversation; Greg deduced that it must be Grissom clearing his throat. Just the part about his supervisor asking regarding the form was a mystery he couldn't solve. "I must've misplaced it… hold on." More background noise resonated over the phone as Greg was left to guessing that Grissom was currently opening and shutting folders, piling and un-piling his stacks of reports and books and then there was a 'crack' so close to the speaker that it made Greg wince from the attack to his ears.
"Yeah?" he turned his attention on to Sara who was patiently waiting for him.
"I figure you as a bacon and eggs kind of guy."
Was today 'Get-Greg-Confused-Day'? "Huh?"
"Breakfast, Greg. I'm starving and I can bet even you need sustenance to be hyper most of the time." Sara threw him the trademark-amused chuckle of hers. "How about heading to the diner two blocks down for a scrumptious meal made to please any hungry CSI?"
"Uh, sure."
"Great," Sara finished off her chuckle with a bright smile. "I'll see you in my car- I'm driving." She jingled the keys in the air before waltzing off to her vehicle.
Greg was tempted to shake his head in confusion, but his frown was still plastered on his face, shaking his head would've been over-dramatising it. The static from Grissom's side was beginning to subside when it built up again, with a vengeance. Sighing, Greg was left to ponder on the strangeness that was the day. The huge chuck of 'strange' was coming from Grissom's sudden worry about Greg's evaluation form and looking for it, and Sara's over-the-top-joy invite to have breakfast. Las Vegas must be on some sort of drug he didn't know about. If he were given the chance to name this drug and with Sara's perkiness, Greg would name it 'Happy-Pill'. "Grissom?" he was getting tired of shuffling his feet around while being accompanied by Grissom's sounds of searching.
"Just wait…" A 'smack' to a 'wham', "…another minute…" then a 'thud', another 'smack' and a final 'crack'. "Found it."
If there was relief to be found in the success of Grissom's hunt, Greg couldn't find it. "This isn't about my evaluation form, is it, Grissom?"
Long pauses always made Greg nervous, what more when they came from the man of mystery- Gil Grissom.
"You checkin' up on me or something?"
"I was just thinking if you were all right." He finally answered. "And if you needed to… talk?"
The word 'talk' was a secret code between them for Dr. Cameron. Even in the morning heat, Greg shivered at the thought of re-entering the room again; the smell of leather polish from Dr. Cameron's office still sickens him. He had left that place a year ago and if he were going back there, it would only be over his own dead body. "No… definitely not doing any 'talking', Grissom," he stated it as firmly as he could. Even without being in the same room as him, Greg could imagine Grissom standing by his rack of pinned bugs and butterflies as he was talking to him, all that glory of death immortalised by formalin and books. There was a sudden haunting from his own exchange with Jim earlier on. '…someone who understands your line of work and that can tell the difference between fingerprint dust and mascara.'
"Fine, but if you need help-."
"How about breakfast?" Greg interjected, cutting short any possibility of a sappy moment.
"Breakfast?"
"Yeah, you know food… drink. Stuff your body digests and-."
"Greg, I know what breakfast is."
He was glad that his brief explanation of breakfast had gotten his supervisor slightly annoyed, how was else was he going to end the heart-to-heart talk on the cell phone? "Good, I'll meet you at Jenny's Diner just a couple of blocks away." Greg was mentally preparing himself for Grissom to object, saying that he had better things to do and reports to fill in. Just maybe there would be a miracle.
"I'll be there." Even though Grissom had said those three words and immediately hung up, Greg could sense, or at least his paranoid side had sensed, Grissom's mounted reluctance in agreeing to it.
Beads of sweat were rolling down his neck and Greg was thrown back into the moment of him standing in the sun. He felt that he was going to need to take control of his life soon and make decisions, stop being so damned indecisive and for once, tell others what to do and how he was feeling inside.
He needed to get a grip on his world.
Stepping up to the driver's side of Sara's car, he lightly tapped on her window. In response, Sara opened the car door instead of the window like he had expected her too. Though her sunglasses were still wrapped around her face, Sara squinted when she looked up to Greg from her seat. "Yeah?"
The cool air from the vehicle's air conditioning spilled out and tickled his skin with comfort. "Move over," he grinned, "I'm driving this time."
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TBC…
To remoob1513, Guardian6, Goody, and dArkliTe-sPirit thank you so much for your reviews.
Hyperactive Forever: Cheese is good :) thanks.
Thanks to everyone for reading.
-Cheers
Jo