A/N – Aren't you lot lucky? You're getting two for one on chapters this week! LOL sorry there's my odd sense of humour again. Hope you are still enjoying the story so far. Apologies if it seems to be going a bit slow this time around. It's because the main event happened at the beginning of the first story so it's not following a normal story structure.

There's a lot more dialogue in this chapter than previous ones I've written but I thought it was necessary to get across the information so please bear with me. Again, apologies if any of my courtroom stuff is wrong. Enjoy!

Chapter Four

'So you admit, Mr Sanders, that you were allowed to process the crime scene of the deceased despite your involvement with her?'

My heart thumped hard in my chest. 'No, not exactly.'

'And is it not true Mr Sanders that you tampered with the scene, contaminating vital evidence?'

The defence lawyer leered smugly at me as I squirmed in my seat. I despised every second that I sat in the witness box, trying to avoid looking at the people before me. The lawyers, the judge, the jury, her killer. Like a pack of vultures just waiting for the opportunity to pick at me, at every little detail of my being. As I sat there I couldn't help feeling that I would have more luck as a rotting carcass than I did now of convincing everyone that I hadn't made a complete mess of this case.

'I did not tamper with the evidence. There were two instances where I inadvertently came into contact with the evidence. Each of these instances were documented appropriately in the case notes.' I said, surprised at the confidence in my voice but still harshly aware that my heart was beating at an unhealthy rate and my hands were beginning to shake almost as hard as they had after the lab explosion a couple of years before.

'So what you are telling me Mr Sanders is that you were present and involved in the processing of the crime scene despite being emotionally linked to the victim.'

I didn't understand why he insisted on overusing my name. If it was some kind of scare tactic, an attempt to make me feel uncomfortable, he was wasting his time. I had been uncomfortable the minute I entered the building.

'Yes.' My voice was strained and sounded distant, like someone else had spoken.

'Isn't that unethical? Shouldn't you have made your supervisor aware that you were unfit to work the case? Shouldn't you have taken leave like any normal person and allowed your colleagues to work the case?'

'I – I guess,' I stammered as I felt myself being pushed closer and closer to the edge of a very large metaphorical hole that I would not be able to climb out of.

'I put it to this court that you deliberately failed to mention your relationship with the victim so that you could plant evidence incriminating my client.'

'Objection your honour, the defence is merely speculating.' The prosecution interrupted as my mind swam, panic coursing through me as the realisation hit me that the defence might actually be doing a good job of throwing my integrity into disrepute.

'Sustained, please make a point,' the judge ordered the defence lawyer, a polite way of allowing him to keep hounding me but in a more sensitive manner, like a lawyer knew how to be sensitive.

'Mr Sanders-'

'I was the first on the scene, I discovered the body. I failed to mention my involvement with her because I was in shock. I went to surprise her at home,' I interrupted the lawyer so suddenly that he was too shocked to object to my outburst. My voice shook as I continued. 'I found her lying on the ground, dead. I want whoever did this to her to be punished. I have no reason to frame an innocent man.'

The lawyer stole a cautious look at the jury as if assessing their emotional response to my heartfelt testimony, analysing how he might turn their empathy to his advantage. I closed my eyes for a moment and inhaled a large breath.

I couldn't see her face but I could tell something was wrong. Her shoulders were hunched and she was taking the mugs and coffee out of the cupboard as though she had no motivation for doing the task of preparing a drink for us.

'Elizabeth, what's wrong?' I asked after several minutes of contemplating whether this was one of those hormonal moments where it was best to leave a woman in peace or something more serious.

' I need to talk to you about something,' she said, not turning around but not making the drinks either.

'O.k.,' for some reason I didn't move from the sofa, just sat in trepidation waiting for her to continue.

'You know earlier, when I said I loved you?'

'Yeah?' I smiled thinking back to outside the courthouse earlier that day and the way I had felt when she had said it.

'I need to take it back,'

I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. She was taking it back? Was a declaration of love something you could recompense? I looked from the floor where I was staring into space in disbelief back to where she was standing by the counter.

'Well you can't take it back, I won't let you,' I said.

'I didn't mean it, it's too soon to feel that way about anyone.'

I stood up, raising my voice slightly. 'You said that this morning but you didn't take it back,' I protested.

She didn't answer, continued to stare at the empty coffee mugs with her back to me. I was lost for words. I loved her enough to be upset about this but too much to get angry with her. A quiet gasp from her drew me from my moment of egocentric disappointment and alerted me to her shaking shoulders. She was crying.

'Elizabeth, what's wrong?' I asked, moving swiftly towards her and turning her around so that I could look into her tearstained, mascara blemished face. 'What is this about?'

Something told me there was more to this than us only being together for a month and it being too soon to fall in love. She wiped her face, turning her panda eyes into spidery splodges.

'I promised myself I wouldn't do this with anyone again,' she said quietly.

'I don't understand,' I said, frowning, trying to work out what I had missed.

'Last time…last time I said I was in love I got burned.'

'What? Where?' I asked in shock.

She suppressed a smile despite her tears. 'Metaphorically you idiot.'

'Oh,' I calmed slightly. 'Sorry.'

'He said he loved me too and that he was always going to be there, you know the usually crap that guys spill…'

'Hey!' I interrupted, defending the team.

'No offence intended. Anyway a month or so down the line we got into a huge fight and…' she paused as her bottom lip trembled.

I rubbed her shoulder supportively, wanting her to continue but not wanting to force it.

'He hit me.' Her lip trembled even harder this time and tears fell fiercely down her face.

I pulled her close, breathing in the scent of her hair. It made me angry inside that anyone had hurt her, surprising me that I felt so unconditionally protective towards her.

'He's not me,' I said firmly. 'I'll never let anything or anyone hurt you.'

I held my head in my hands, my usual pose, as I sat on a sofa in the break room trying to rid my head of the memories and trying to convince myself that I hadn't let her down in court. The lawyer had continued his attempts to demoralise me and have any evidence thrown out that he could. In the end, the judge had almost ruled that her dress could not be taken as reliable evidence, as it was contaminated with my DNA. Fortunately, the prosecution had pointed out that due to my involvement with her, there was a viable reason for my DNA to be on any one of her belongings.

My luck hadn't been particularly long lasting however, with the arrival of Sara as I returned to the lab and took up residence on the sofa.

'You got called into court – why didn't you tell me?' I couldn't confirm whether she was angry or concerned for me. Once again she had an ambiguous tone that didn't make situations like this easy to deal with. Either way, it had got my back up.

'I don't have to tell you everything!' I snapped, wishing I could just be left alone in the state of solitary torture that seemed to be my life.

'Maybe not but I would have appreciated a heads up. I don't get you Greg, one time you were quite happy to talk to me. What is it, now you don't need me anymore, you forget I exist?' she was really fuming now. I half expected bursts of steam to expel from her ears like a cartoon from the fifties.

'Give me a break, do you want me to spend my days moping around being depressed so that you can have some kind of morbid satisfaction that you're doing some good in the world by providing me with a shoulder to cry on?' I shouted, angrily, standing up and coming face to face with her.

Her discouraged look and subsequent exit led to me sitting down on the sofa in the aforementioned head holding pose with nothing to do but wonder how spectacularly bad my day had been and how it could ever possibly get any worse.

'Is your head falling off?'

I looked up but didn't respond to Alanis' joke. She smiled as though she were trying to emit invisible beams of sunshine that would solve everything and placed herself beside me on the sofa.

'I just figured you were holding onto it so tightly that it might be coming off,' she tried again.

'Al, I'm not really in the mood,' I said glumly.

'Ooh, addressing me colloquially now? I must be special,' she said sarcastically.

I smiled and rolled my eyes. In the week since the court summons, she had seemed to appear at random intervals, usually speaking with less tact than Grissom had. I was beginning to wonder if she actually did any work around here. She was meant to be on the front desk, taking calls and filing paperwork yet she seemed to spend most of her time bouncing around the lab like a curious puppy, looking in on whatever the CSI who fell victim to her presence was studying and asking a multitude of questions.

'You're ok I guess,' I shot back in jest, allowing a smile to creep across my face.

'It knows how to smile!' she said dramatically, putting a hand to her head as though she were an actress in an ancient silent movie preparing to pass out.

'Not bad for someone who feels dead inside, huh?' the smile vanished from my face when I realised how bitterly honest I had been.

She went quiet for a moment.

'Sorry, I'm having a bad day, I just had another fight with Sara'

'What about?'

'I didn't tell her I had to go to court and she wasn't significantly impressed.' I explained still feeling a twinge of anger and frustration that things were going so badly between us.

'Maybe she just wants you to open up. You know, it's o.k. to talk about it,' she said, with gravity I had never heard in her voice in the short time I had known her.

'I don't want to. You know, I never even mention my girlfriend by name. It's like I've got my guard up all the time and by acknowledging her as a real person it…' I stopped talking, couldn't believe I was admitting any of this to her, I wasn't sure I had even admitted this to myself yet.

She stood and headed towards the door prior to turning around and looking at me with a small smile on her face.

'You know, you look good in a suit,'

I smiled as she removed herself from the doorway and disappeared from sight. Suddenly I felt slightly less bitter about being dead inside.

A/N –aww I like that flashback. Sorry, had to be said. Hopefully the flashbacks are giving little clues to the things that are going on inside Greg's head and how he's feeling. That was the idea anyway! Please keep reading and reviewing so I know you all want the next two chapters posting up.