A/N - I was going to just post a couple of chapters at a time but seeing as I've completed the story and it's taken me long enough to post it up, I'm just gonna post the lot. Enjoy and thankyou for reading this far you lovely people.

Chapter Seven

'You bastard, how could you do this to me? Did I mean anything to you?'

She screamed loudly, roared even, as she continued to push me and beat me against the chest with her fists. I struggled with her; trying to take hold of her arms to end the painful blows she was delivering to me with a great force I never thought capable of a woman.

'Did you even love me?'

Her voice was so high pitched I wondered how I could still hear her. Surely that frequency was only audible to canines and bats. She hit me across the head as I randomly contemplated the pitch of her decibels.

'You're not even listening to me! Typical! You said you'd always protect me and that no one would ever hurt me'

She pushed me hard and my feet slid from under me, allowing me to fall to the floor. I looked up at her, holding a hand above my face to block the light that was shining in my eyes. I could vaguely see her silhouette as she started to take some steps away from me.

'All you've ever done is let me down Greg; I thought you cared about me. Hell, I even thought you loved me. I guess that makes me a fool then.'

She fell silent. I watched as I saw her hand rise up towards her face. In the same split second that I heard a sickening crack I realised she was holding a gun in her hand.

'Elizabeth!' I tried to scream her name but my mouth wouldn't open as she lay on the floor in front of me.

Her hand cast to one side, the gun lay limply in her post-mortem grasp. I tried to cry but still my mouth wouldn't open and no sound came out. Slowly, I tried to move towards her but stopped as I felt something wet. I lifted my hands up to where I could see them. They glistened in the dim light. They were covered in her blood.

The nights of sleeping peacefully with the absence of nightmares had been short lived. Staring up into the blank ceiling of my bedroom, I took in sharp shallow breaths as the images of the dream began to dissolve but the theme remained. My bed felt damp with sweat and the sun shone a familiar late afternoon glow through my curtains reminding me that I would soon have to motivate myself and somehow manoeuvre my body into the daily ritual that would turn me into a semi functioning human being.

My confession to Nick had been met with some surprise both from him and myself. I was surprised at how it sounded out loud and he was equally astonished that his goading as we left the crime scene hadn't been totally unfounded – a lucky guess.

After Nick had managed to stop opening and closing his mouth in between utterances of 'oh' and 'umm' with a 'well…' thrown in for good measure, he had offered his advice. It was an interesting and, again, unfamiliar experience with him. It was like having an older brother, someone I could trust who wasn't going to be pissed off if I never confided in him again.

'It's fine, it's not a big deal,' he said helpfully.

'Not a big deal?' I repeated incredulously. 'This is so inappropriate.'

'Why?' Nick shrugged his shoulders passively.

'For starters, we work together,' I protested gesturing so wildly I nearly sent Nick's caffeine fix flying across the table.

'Technically you don't, she's a secretary, not a CSI,' Nick pointed out, instinctively protecting his coffee mug from me.

'Besides, it's not the right time,' I said, lowering my voice slightly and looking down into the swirling depths of my own coffee.

'Dude, just take her out on a date. It's not like you have to marry her or anything. Just ask her out, go on a date and see how you really feel about her.'

'It's not the right time,' I said again, quietly. 'It's only been eighteen months since…'

'Greg look at me,' Nick ordered. I refused, continuing to watch the lone instant coffee granule that hadn't dissolved as it swirled madly around the top of my drink.

'Look at me!' Nick said louder, more forcefully.

Aware that one or two people were looking in our direction, I obeyed and raised my head. He looked at me firmly with sympathy in his eyes as he spoke.

'Eighteen months is a long time.'

I sighed and ran my hands over my face as the alarm clock began to bleep, instructing me to get my solemn ass out of bed and do something constructive with my day other than moping over sadistic nightmares and analysing how everyone I knew had changed so much towards me since Elizabeth had died.

Leaning to one side and reaching over, I hit the alarm clock on its head to cease it's incessant bleeping and slowly pulled myself out of bed. I sighed as I thought about what Nick had said.

'Eighteen months is a long time.'

A long time for what? For grieving? For being alone? For being committed to one person? I shook my head irritably as I headed for the shower, trying to work out what Nick meant and what I should do about the realisation that I had crush on someone new. Maybe he was right, maybe eighteen months was too long for whatever it was too long for. I sighed, fighting with the guilty feeling of betrayal that was occupying my mind as I made a decision.

She strutted obliviously into the dim break room mug in hand which she placed on the counter as she checked the progress of the percolator. Giving a slightly fractious sigh as she realised it wasn't quite ready yet, she began to drum her fingers on the worktop, nodding her head to whatever song was playing through the headphones that were nestled discretely in her ears.

I watched her for a moment or two wondering whether I should make my presence known or continue to amuse myself with her not knowing I was in the room. I decided I could no longer put off what I had chosen to do.

'Shouldn't you be answering the phones or something?'

Alanis jumped in surprise, knocking her coffee mug to the floor where it dispersed noisily into a number of porcelain fragments.

'Jesus, Sanders, you scared the life out of me!' She exclaimed, composing herself for a second before crouching down to pick up the pieces of her mug.

'Sorry,' I said, walking over and helping her to retrieve the remaining rubble that had been her mug.

'My poor man mug,' she said dramatically.

'Huh?' I said, densely.

'It was my man mug, it had a picture of a man wearing very litt -…'

'Is this a penis?' I interrupted, abashedly holding up a small shard.

'Yeah, poor guy,' she said, taking it from me and adding it to the pile she had already accumulated in her hand. 'What are you doing scaring people like that anyway?'

I stood up, wondering how to say what I had rehearsed in my head several times on the journey from my home to the lab. Throwing the pieces in the bin to hide my reddening face, I returned to my seat on the sofa where I had been sitting in the dark.

'Um, I need to talk to you,' I said, picking up a random forensics journal and pretending to skim the pages.

'That sounds ominous,' she replied, placing the remaining mug shards in the bin and joining me on the sofa. 'What's up?'

Instinctively, I moved away from her slightly as though I were subconsciously preparing for a quick escape. She eyed me suspiciously.

'Come on, spill it. What do you wanna talk to me about?'

'Nothing, I wanted to ask you something.'

'O.k., shoot,' she said, reaching over me and picking a newspaper up from the table.

I held my breath as she leaned back and began scanning the front cover of the paper. 'Can I buy you dinner sometime?' I said quickly as I exhaled.

'Sure, I never say no to a free meal,' she replied, not looking up from the paper. 'When are you taking your break?'

'No,' I said, realising she hadn't caught on to what I really meant. 'I mean I like you and I want to take you out.'

I would have laughed at myself if I weren't so nervous. I sounded like a high school science geek trying to ask out the head cheerleader though I doubted somewhat that Alanis had been a cheerleader. Meanwhile, I had proudly epitomised the term 'science geek'. Alanis lowered the paper and looked at me, eyes wide.

'Wow, when you let that guard down you really let it down, huh?' she said.

I looked at the floor. She thought it was inappropriate. Why did I have to go and follow Nick's advice? I should have at least sought a second opinion. From whom? Sara wasn't talking to me and Warrick and I never were ones for personal chats.

'Sorry, it doesn't matter I'll see you later,' I said standing up and sprinting to the door, hoping for an exit into a world that wasn't as awkward as the one in the break room. Maybe I could find Nick and kick his ass for telling me to ask her out.

'Greg, wait a minute!' she called, stopping me in the midst of my escape route. I should have just carried on and pretended I hadn't heard her.

'Is tomorrow afternoon good for you?'

Smiling, I opened my mouth to respond when from the corner of my eye I spotted Sara walking towards the break room door where I was standing. She looked up, saw me and attempted to make a detour so that she could avoid me and continue on her way. My heart dropped into my stomach with the awful feeling that came with not talking to Sara.

'Sara, wait, please,' I said, pleadingly.

She sighed but paused, silently waiting for me to speak again. I looked at her sadly; I didn't really know what I could say to make things better. It was like having a bad itch that nagged at you constantly and no matter how you scratched it, it just made things worse. Standing silently in a corridor inventing poorly constructed analogies wasn't going to solve matters either.

'Can we be friends?' I said feebly wondering if I actually deserved what I was requesting. 'Please.' I added hopefully.

Sara looked at me for a moment or two as if trying to assess whether I was truly hurting and whether or not she should put me out of my misery and ease up on the awkward atmosphere between us. I could feel myself getting more and more pessimistic the longer she left it and was about to give up and walk away.

'Greg, I'm sorry,' she said suddenly, stepping closer to me.

I frowned, a little puzzled. 'What do you have to be sorry for?'

Sara sighed and put a hand on my arm, looking at me softly. 'I've been too hard on you, you were right, you don't have to tell me everything.'

'No, you were trying to help and I threw it back in your face again,' I said.

'Let's forget about it and carry on as normal o.k, I realise that you must still be finding all this difficult…' she paused and looked at me.

I avoided eye contact, hoping that she wasn't expecting me to open up. To my surprise she put a hand on either side of my face and forced me to look at her.

'You are one of my best friends. I hate to see you like this, knowing that I used to be able to help you and now I can't,' she said gently her voice cracking a little.

Feeling slightly guilty that I appeared to have been causing her some stress, I put my arms around her waist and hugged her for a moment or two. I must have been holding her longer than she felt comfortable with as she cleared her throat and pulled away from me.

'I've got some samples from my crime scene if you wanna come and give me hand,' she suggested, changing the subject in a way that was about as subtle as a flying brick.

'Sure,'

I smiled at her and immediately followed her down the corridor towards the layout room. Things seemed to be looking up, I felt like we had finally lain something to rest and the bickering could end. Perhaps if I hadn't been on such a high from clearing the air with Sara I would have remembered that I had been arranging a date with Alanis some two minutes before. Perhaps if I hadn't been so happy that I had my best friend back, I would have noticed the way I left her sitting in the break room without saying goodbye. Perhaps then I would have noticed the informed look of disappointment on her face.

A/N – hmmm? I quite like that chapter. Hope you all did too. I was trying to make it a bit more lighthearted with Alanis and her strange ways. I hope you all liked the ending of that chapter. It's probably given you a really major clue now as to what is really going on. Please read and review as you deem fit.