Chapter 13 - Convincing
After Greg and Catherine had finished of their order of burgers and fries from Mc. Donalds, Catherine began to think of how she was going to tell Greg that Sara wanted to talk to him. He would surely expect something if she just out of the blue wanted to talk.
Luckily, Catherine didn't have to think up an excuse. Her cell phone rang and she asked Greg to answer it since she was driving.
"Hello," Greg said into the phone.
"Hey... who's this?" it was Sara on the who had called. She didn't recognize Greg's voice and thought she'd dialed the wrong number.
"It's Greg, Catherine asked me to answer her phone for her," Greg replied, "Hold on, I'll give her the phone."
"No, you're actually the person I wanted to talk to," Sara began, "You weren't at you house so I thought you'd be at the lab. I came over here and Grissom told me you had gone for a drive with Catherine."
"Oh... what did you want to talk to me about?" Greg asked.
"Just see if Cath'll drive you back to the lab, I'll talk to you in person okay?"
"All right."
After the phone call, Nick looked at Sara with a surprised look.
"I didn't know you could come up with a story like that just off the top of your head," he laughed.
"Neither did I, but he's coming back here afterwards, and by the sound of things, he's calmed down a bit," Sara replied.
"I'm still not going to be around when he gets here. I don't think we need a repeat of what happened earlier."
When Catherine and Greg arrived at the lab, Sara decided that she would meet him out front to talk, rather than have him come inside and risk seeing Nick.
"I'll head on inside and see if anyone needs help with anything," Catherine said, making her way inside of the building.
"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Greg asked, almost positive that it would be about Nick.
"I was thinking about what you told me. About the nightmares and how you were scared of Nick. I was thinking that maybe we should give the psychologist a call, and maybe get you an appointment sooner. That way, you could find out what caused the nightmares, get them to stop, and return to work a lot sooner," Sara explained.
"I don't want to see a shrink. I'm fine, it's just a few nightmares," Greg protested.
"But you'll have to see one sooner or later. You know Ecklie won't let you come back to work until you are cleared by a professional."
"Then I won't go back to work."
"Greg, that's crazy. You love it at work, you've been hounding Grissom to put you on the field for ages now, and now that you're on the field, you're just going to quit because you don't want to see a shrink?" Sara questioned.
"I used to love it," Greg corrected.
"And why don't you love it anymore?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"It's because you're scared of Nick... isn't it?"
"No."
This was going to be harder than Sara expected.
"Then why?" Sara questioned.
"You just don't give up, do you?"
Sara smiled. "Nope, now why don't you want to come back to work?"
"If I let you call the shrink will you stop asking me questions? It's bad enough that I have to explain my thoughts to a total stranger..."
"Okay it's a deal. I'll stop asking you questions, if you let me call. Why don't we do that now?"
When Catherine saw Sara walk towards the lab with Greg. She realized there was a part of the plan that they hadn't thought of. How were they going to tell the psychologist about what had happened with Nick, if Greg was standing right there?
She knew she had to think quickly, also, she knew that if Greg came inside, he would surely see Nick.
When Sara and Greg reached the door, Catherine finally thought of something to do.
"Hey, you two finished talking?" Catherine asked with a light laugh.
"Yeah... I'm just about to go call the psychologist for Greg so he can have an appointment sooner," Sara replied, even though she could tell Catherine already knew.
"Hey Greg, why don't I give you a ride back home while Sara calls? She'll probably give you a call to let you know when your appointment is," Catherine offered.
Greg thought for a moment, and decided that he needed a ride home anyway, so he accepted her offer.
With that, Catherine and Greg left the lab and walked out to Catherine's vehicle while Sara went into Grissom's office to use his phone.
"How'd it go?" Grissom asked when he saw Sara come into his office.
"He agreed to let me call. I didn't mention that I knew anything about what happened with Nick. I didn't want to make him upset, I knew he wouldn't let me call if he was upset. Catherine is giving him a ride back to his place," Sara explained.
"He'll get better, Sara," Grissom said when he noted the look of dire concern in her eyes.
"Yeah..." Sara trailed off, "It's my fault. Greg had cut his finger on the glass from the broken coffee pot. We were all going over to the crime scene to test out a theory, and he figured his finger was okay, he wanted to come along. Then I had to say 'Nick and I can do that. You just make sure you get that finger looked at'. If I hadn't made him get his finger checked out, then none of this would ever have happened."
"It's not your fault. It's Ray Danniels' fault. Was it Allison's mom's fault that her daughter got kidnapped?"
"No. She didn't know that Allison was going to walk over to that dumpster," Sara replied.
"Exactly. And you didn't know that Greg would do the same."