Title: Everything
Author: frickangel
Summary: When darkness falls and uncertainty plagues, choices must be made. But will Greg make the right ones? SaraGreg.
A/N: Bloody, stupid plot bunnies.
Oh, and I based a lot of Greg's younger days on the CSI novels. In the latest one, "Killing Game", Max A. Collins makes out Greg as a young prodigy.
Thanks to Adrianna for her amazing beta skills. She will always be my hyphen and semicolon hero –grins–.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own and don't I wish.
Chapter 2

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Hovering between two choices, Greg loathed the idea of either one.

In the end, only one could be made and he chose.

He opened his eyes.

Light assaulted him with full force and he squinted at the unfriendly guest to his sensitive sight. Slowly, after blinking away the flash spots and double vision, he found himself lying flat on his back. Surrounded by white and silence, he could've mistaken it for heaven.

But heaven doesn't have soft white bed sheets or pillows under his head. Neither does it have air-conditioning which was too cold, even in the Las Vegas heat. The biggest tip-off was that heaven doesn't have sleeping brunettes at your bedside, head on the edge of the mattress and hand firmly grasping yours. No, this was anything but heaven.

Pulling his hand over, his reach was restricted by the tug of his I.V. line and the needle biting into him. Gently, with what little length he had, Greg's fingertips traced her soft curls that laid on the bed; with her face buried into the bed sheets it left him wondering if she could breathe through all that material.

Tired of the stretch, Greg permitted his hand to fall back comfortably as he took in his surroundings. There was a vase filled with brightly coloured flowers on the table to his left. A small tiny card rested neatly among the long stalks and Greg squinted at the small handwriting scrawled on it though he couldn't make out any of the letters much less who it was from. Shifting his head to the right, Greg saw the stuffed dog with a ribbon tied around his neck just sitting there on the chair and staring at him. Greg knew that toy too well and instantly identified who the culprit behind the joke was.

They had named the dog Stanley when it sat on a similar chair two years ago. It was after the explosion and a friend had dropped the stuffed toy to cheer Greg up at the hospital, Nick had visited and pointed out that stuffed toys were for losers. After much rolling of eyes and bad puns, Greg had sent Stanley to Nick for his next birthday and wrote one word on his birthday card: "Loser."

A sense of familiarity brushed against Greg and caused him to laugh at this silliness that was Stanley. With laughing came the pain from his side forcing Greg to instinctively reach out and press against the ache. Letting out a couple of coughs, he swore at himself as he saw the brunette stir and blink at her rude awakening. Yet at the same time, as he watched her rouse from slumber, he felt relieved.

Pushing back her hair, she took in a deep breath and glanced at Greg, who in all his amusement at watching her wake, smiled weakly. He found it interesting to watch her shift from utter morning daze to sudden shock and mentally laughed.

"Hey, you're awake…" the surprise and relief was evident in her voice yet Sara kept her tone down.

"Hey yourself," he croaked back, suddenly realising how parched his throat was. Looking around, he discovered that there wasn't a pitcher of water anywhere nearby. "How long was I out?"

"A couple of days," she answered, although the time she took to come up with the reply had him suspecting she had given the amount a slight discount. "You had a lot of people worried there for a while."

He pulled his hand from hers and brought his fingers to caress her face. "You look like hell." It was obvious she was crying, with slightly bloodshot and extremely puffy eyes. It was going to take a whole week of eye cream and cucumber slices to get rid of it.

"No so hot yourself, Sanders."

He loved it when she used his last name, coming from anyone else it would've sounded too informal or distant, but not from her.

And there it was, she smiled and laughed. All he could do was to stop and admire the lightness and clarity of her joy.

"What?"

He hadn't realised he had stared a little too long and would've shook his head to dismiss her question if it wasn't for the fog that filled his head. Obviously, the pain medication was doing a better job at keeping him sedated than numbing the hurt. Instead, left with little choice, Greg merely blinked and left his eyes closed for a few seconds, "Just fuzzy…"

"Oh God!" Sara jumped and ruffled her hair more, lost and bewildered for a moment, "I'm such an idiot! Should get the doctor in here and he should check you… and here I am just sitting here and doing nothing—stupid idiot!"

Babbling Sara was a much funnier scene than a groggy Sara.

"Where the heck is that button?" her head turned sideways as she wildly searched for the call button. Standing up, her feet shuffled against the smooth tiles and she did a complete 360 degree whirl on her quest to locate the evasive thing.

He allowed himself a few seconds of amusement, just watching the woman he had known to be in total control to lose control of herself. Figuring he had taken too much fun from this guilty pleasure, Greg pooled his strength together into one hand and grasped Sara's arm just as she reached the knob. He could really appreciate this alone time with her; he deserved it, didn't he?

"I'm fine," Greg assured her. "I think I'll pass on the prodding and poking from the doc… just for now."

Scepticism clouded her face but her body yielded and settled back into the chair- away from the button.

"So…" he cleared his throat, but nothing seemed to help ease the dryness, "What happened?"

Eyebrows knotted, Sara leaned forward and laced her fingers lightly, "You don't remember?"

He inwardly cringed at the words and at the pain, "I got shot, but that one's obvious." The small grin he wore slowly faded as he saw Sara's less than amused look. Greg figured he must be losing his touch on humour or else it's a hospital's curse that killed all things funny and joyful.

"We were at the Levon crime scene," Sara began, and bowed her head slightly.

"Levon? Wasn't that the couple that was—"

"Robbed and murdered in their own home." Sara completed the memory for him and pressed on, "We were there after the neighbours called in; found the wife in the basement and the husband in the master bedroom. Nothing unusual, just another day on the job."

Greg frowned at the idea that it was all 'another day on the job' to Sara. People lost their lives and the sad reality of it all was that it's death that places food on the table for them. There were two reasons why he'd let Sara go on without debating the casualness of death, one was that his throat was sore and two, it was because he'd rather listen to her voice.

"The officers cleared the area, and I went on processing it, picking up fibres, trace, fingerprints and the usual. No one noticed a small storage room hidden behind the boxes down there- not even me. But then again, that's what basements are like right? Hidden places in the dark everyone forgets about."

She was laughing now, but it wasn't the laughter that one shared when tickled or entertained, it was the sardonic kind that found the irony in a situation. Greg tried pulling himself up into a better upright position, instead of being on his back the whole time. In fact, he was beginning to feel sore in the neck.

A helpful hand appeared to assist him up, setting the pillow against his back for more comfort. Greg caught the disapproval in Sara's eyes as she aided him, yet she allowed him to do so and giving a few moments pause from her story.

"The killer was still in the house and nobody knew," Sara continued and settled back into her chair after pulling it closer to the ex-lab tech. "My back was towards him and I only realised he was there when something—a can or a crate maybe, I don't know… but it fell and I turned. He already had a gun pointed at me and I couldn't reach my own weapon, he wouldn't let me, Greg." Voice beginning to strain, Greg wondered if this was the first time Sara had allowed herself emotional release. He reached out for her and held her hand, not knowing what else to say or do.

"I kept staring at the gun, wondering what I should do, but then I heard footsteps- your footsteps coming down the stairs and before I knew it, you were by my side in the same deep shit as I was." Sara had the same laughter again, and silently Greg was beginning to fill in the pieces that had eluded him before.

"You tried talking him out of it," Greg interrupted, grasping the broken bits of memory within him. "You were walking towards him when the officer from upstairs called to find out what was going on and what was talking so long. His name was Gerald wasn't it? Officer Gerald?"

Sara nodded, her eyes tearing and Greg found himself being washed over by Déjà Vu.

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes as he went on, "Gerald drew his gun, the killer had his and he… pulled it on you."

"I didn't think and I heard you screaming my name. My ears were ringing from the shots and for the first few seconds I thought I was dead when I hit the floor. Until…," Sara held her voice in a deep whisper-like tone, "Until… I realised you were on top of me and… bleeding."

It was odd that Greg discovered how detached he was from the incident; he remembered the main details but it was as if he dreamt it all and he could easily shrug it off.

"I'm sorry." Sara choked back the tears as she locked her eyes upon his and Greg felt that she was seeking his forgiveness.

But there was nothing to forgive—there was only Sara.

Slowly he brought her into his embrace as firmly as he could without wincing too much at the discomfort the damned I.V. needle was causing him. He wanted to say it was okay and that it wasn't her fault at all, but he knew Sara always held herself responsible for everything that went wrong; he also knew that the best way to make her realise otherwise is for him to remain silent and let her come to that conclusion on her own.

In his arms, Greg held her tightly and took in the fragrance of her hair, filling his sense with the smell of citrus. Then there was the soft ocean perfume that she wore after every shift before going home or to a breakfast date. He used to tease her about it, saying that he never took Sara for a girly-girl kind. He grinned as he recalled how she had sprayed him with the scent for calling her so.

After that they had gone to the diner together smelling alike. "I'm up now, so everything's fine," Greg assured her and to a certain extent—himself.

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Sanders."

Pulling themselves slightly apart, Greg found an Asian woman standing at the doorway, decked in a white lab coat and a stethoscope coiled neatly around her neck.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Chen. I know I was to call when he woke up and all, just that—"

The doctor smiled and raised her hand to stop Sara from babbling on, to which Greg chuckled silently to himself. "It's all right Ms. Sidle, though it doesn't look like it did much harm. But we'll take a look at Greg to make sure of that, won't we?" She had a slight British accent which had Greg pondering if she was local or not. His lips curled into a small smile as the doctor motioned towards him.

Ruffling her brown curls again, Sara nodded in agreement and stood up, "I should go call your parents and Grissom too, and Papa Olive was—"

"Olaf." Greg corrected.

"Oh." Sara blushed while drying her eyes with her palms and sniffling a little, "Sorry… Papa Olaf was beyond worried. We were afraid he was going to get a heart attack."

"That's him," Greg chuckled, but this time his voice betrayed him as it cracked and forced him to sputter and cough on the last syllable.

She took that as a sign that her time with him was up for that hour and began the process of leaving. "I'll see you later." Squeezing his hand another time, Sara took a few steps back and grabbed her coat from the chair and a bag from underneath the bed; a bag that Greg hadn't noticed before.

Reaching out, he grabbed her arm just as she turned away, "Sara?"

"Yeah?"

He took a moment to study her face, the brown eyes, brows, high cheekbones, the soft brown curls, her smile, and he knew instantly what he needed to say, "Thank you."

Shaking her head in mild confusion yet smiling, Sara shuffled closer to him, "I don't get it- but for what?"

He pondered on her question for a while and thought of the clarity of her laugh, the lightness and the clear joy that topped it off.

It was her laugh that brought him to live.

"Everything," he simply answered.

A question was forming on her lips, and Greg could see that though in the end, Sara merely chuckled and let out a long breath. Bending down, she leaned closer and planted a light kiss on his lips.

Finally moving away from him, Sara flashed the doctor another smile and made her way to the door. He watched her as she side-stepped a little to allow a nurse in and wavered at the entrance. Turning behind, she leaned against the frame and spoke the words that completed his return back to the living, "You're welcome, Sanders."

The door closed behind her with a light click, leaving him with Dr. Chen as she went on about how his operation was, the wound and what was done. In all honestly, the words the good doctor said were lost on him as he stared at the door and slowly, a lopsided grin formed on Greg's lips.

He did make a choice.

He chose her.

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'It's like daylight,
At midnight,
It's my favourite dream when nothing's really as it seems,
Don't wake me,
Just take me,
Take me by the hand and I will believe.'

-I Will Believe, Nicole Nordeman

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-END-

A nice warm thank you to LocoGrego, BeetleBug, csiwolfe08, missusmesser, gregisamazing and ObessedTWfan for those amazing reviews.
To everyone else, thanks for reading.

-Cheers
Jo