"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
Andy Warhol
…
Catherine jingled the keys to the Denali, catching Greg attention as he finish filling out a report in one of the vacant workrooms. She leaned against the doorjamb and grinned at him, and he pulled the buds of his iPod out of his ears and set his pen down.
"So what are you doing for the rest of shift?"
"Twelve hours of paperwork."
"I got a 419 with unusual circs out in the middle of nowhere. I could use a hand."
"Give me three minutes to clear this stuff up and I'll meet you in the parking lot." Greg grinned widely at the older woman, tossed his reports into a pile, into a box, and made his way out, grabbing his vest and his kit before joining her in her Denali. He slid his kit into the back seat before flopping down into the passenger seat beside her.
"Thanks. I thought I was going to go nuts stuck in that room all day." Catherine merely nodded, and they drove in relative silence, Greg unaware that Catherine was trying to decide whether or not to bring up Greg and Sara's plans to move Greg into the Stokes-Sidle house before the due date for the new baby. As she merged onto I-95, and Greg settled back into the passenger seat, kicking his feet up on the dashboard, she subconsciously removed the filter from her brain to her mouth, and let the first thing that came to her mind out her mouth.
"D'you think its such a good idea?" She tightened her fingers around the steering wheel, facing the road with determination.
"What? Leaving the paperwork?"
"Moving in with Sara." She watched him out of the corner of her eye, and he shook his head, turning to look out the window at a passing car.
"I'll take 'I don't want to have this conversation' for one hundred, Alex." Greg rubbed his forehead with his palm, sighing. If only life were like Jeopardy.
"Nope. Sorry. Bear your soul, Sanders." Catherine smiled faintly, if he was making jokes, he couldn't be that stressed out about it.
"She needs the extra hand. She's the space between a rock and a hard place, five months along with a five year old all by herself."
"So this is all about Sara."
"And Lauren and the new baby." Greg stated flatly, and laid his elbow against the door, and his head in his hand. Catherine was startled by his tone, surprised even more that Greg had grown to be so serious since Nick's death. Crazy lab rat Greg would not have given off the distinct impression that moving in with Sara would be an arduous task. Crazy lab rat Greg would have at least smiled like a fool at the prospect of such an arrangement. This was clearly not crazy lab rat Greg sitting in the passenger seat beside her. "Mostly."
The word fell off his lip in a mumble, and she hesitated. She had been about to speak in return, pester him for information, get him to admit his feelings. She had expected him to put up a fight, to guard his heart the way he had since Sara had told him she was pregnant with Lauren. She had not expected this conversation to be this easy.
"Mostly how?" She gently pressed, chancing a glance at the younger man beside her. He frowned, unsure as how to go about putting the situation between himself and Sara into words. He hadn't actually thought about it, that much. He needed her, it was as simple as that. He had always needed her, he just hadn't realized how much.
Greg was silent for several minutes, and Catherine waited patiently for him to voice his thoughts. She suddenly wished that she had made Warrick talk to Greg, instead of claiming the youngest CSI first, leaving Sara's version of this conversation with him. Sara would have at least yelled at her, and yelling was better than the awkward silence she was getting from Greg. Lucky bastard had gotten off easy. No wonder he had just nodded sleepily. She smiled faintly, remembering that he had mumbled a 'yes dear' to her shoulder, and pulled her closer, running his hand suggestively along her hip-
"Mostly I still love her." Greg's quiet statement brought Catherine out of her thoughts of their debaucheries, and back to the issue at hand. "I can't not love her anymore." His even voice wavered only just, and had she not been driving in the middle of four lanes of traffic, at 76 miles an hour, Catherine would have pulled him into a tight embrace, with all the hopes to mend his shattered heart.
"Does she know?"
"We had an argument. Well, not really an argument. More of an unearthing of motives and a purging of guilt." He slid one sneaker down off the dashboard, stretching his leg out in front of him. "I promised myself I wasn't going to open that box, you know? But the cover flew off as soon as I looked at her. I shouldn't have turned around. I should have let her go. I opened my stupid mouth, and now I've created more troubles than Pandora herself."
"You worked it out with her, though, right?"
"With Sara, yeah. Sara and I are fine."
"But."
"I'm still hesitant about all this. I mean, I'm literally moving in on another man's family. This is like some horrible soap opera." Greg groaned, and glanced at her, smiling vaguely. "Is my life a soap opera? Have I lost my morality?"
"I hardly think caring for a friend in her time of need is immoral, Greg."
"Papa Olaf's rolling over in his grave. 'De ikke vil ha deres nabos kone.'" Greg sighed, smiling vaguely. "Not that anyone pays attention to the tenth Commandment these days."
"Is that what you're hung up about? Taking Nick's place?" She glanced at him, and frowned.
"It's hard to rationalize second place, Cath." Greg rubbed his eye childishly with his fingers. "Everyone thinks I'm taking advantage of her."
"Are you?" The words slid out before she could stop them, and Greg sat up, turning to face her fully.
"I'm going to pretend you never asked that." He slouched back down, turning towards the window. "Where the fuck is this scene?"
"Death Valley. Don't change the subject."
"What do you want from me, Cath?" He sounded tired, like an old man who wants nothing more than to listen to the ball game on his front stoop.
"I want you to be honest with yourself. What are you getting out of this move? What do you think about it? Is this the right thing for you to do for yourself?"
"I've been honest. This whole time. I love her, I've always loved her." Greg shifted his seatbelt, pulling the shoulder strap forward and inspection it with an investigator's eye. He could lie to Catherine no more than he could lie to his mother, and he was a horrible liar, anyway. "I'm okay when it's just me and her, or me and Lauren. It's the rest of the world I have trouble with."
"You and Sara."
"Yeah." He sighed, smiling again. "Every time I look at her, I- I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing, obviously. I love her. I love her so much."
"This thing between you and Sara, what's so hard to come to terms with? You're struggling, Greg."
"I'm, I'm drowning."
"What?"
"I'm just not used to it being okay to voice my feelings. I'm still not quite convinced any of this is real. I used to have all these wild fantasies about getting her in bed, and then, she knocked on my door, and all I could think about was her, not the her in my fantasies, I let those go before Lauren was born. The her that showed up at my front door with tears dried on her cheeks and eyes all bloodshot from no sleep. I'm drowning in the rush, you know? Like when it really rains, and the storm drains flood? That's how I feel for Sara. It's too much love for my storm drains, and I can't, try as I might, I can't get it under control. I'm drowning."
"You see this going fairy tale?"
"The fairy tale was lost when Nick was shot, Catherine." There was an awkward silence that hung between them briefly.
"I'm just worried about you, Greg. You can only give so selflessly for so long before it starts to wear you down."
"I know."
"So." Catherine smiled warmly at him before turning back to the road. "What did she say when you told her?" Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a smile curve the side of his lip instantly.
"She kissed me." He focused his attention on his fingers, picking at a hangnail. "It would be ungentlemanly of me to elaborate." He smiled to himself. "She told me she loved me a handful of times, but I had assumed she was only placating my feelings, rather than validating them."
"I thought you had given up on validation a long time ago."
"Me too."
"Well." She paused as she braked slightly to let a rogue merger cut in front of the Denali. "If it means anything to you, I think that Nick would have wanted his family to be taken care of."
"You giving me your blessing?"
"I'm saying that had the circumstances allowed, he would have made you promise to follow through with what you're doing now. They made you Lauren's guardian if anything should happen to the both of them, correct?"
"Yeah."
"Something did happen. So now's your chance to make good on that promise." She glanced over at the younger man beside her, and he nodded.
"Thanks, Catherine."
They rode in a comfortable silence the rest of the way to the scene, both mulling over their own thoughts.
………
"Why are we moving your bed?" Warrick cocked an eyebrow at Sara, pushing the mattress out of the master bedroom. Sara, ran a hand over her abdomen, and shifted the box spring.
"Because I can't sleep on it. We're going to use Greg's bed." Warrick pulled the mattress out into the hall, and bent to take to box spring from her.
"Let me get that." He let her stand back, and pushed the box spring upright, sliding it across the floor in the same fashion as the mattress. "And you can sleep on Greg's bed?"
"Yes." Sara glanced at the floor, and pursed her lips as her gaze fell on a crumpled up tee shirt she knew belonged to Nick. She bent and picked it up off the floor, and unceremoniously tossed it in the laundry basket without looking at it. She couldn't look at it, she would lose her drive to do this. She needed this. When Greg moved in later in the week, they couldn't sleep in her and Nick's bed, and they needed the spare room for the baby. Swapping out the beds would be the best option. Putting the old bed in the finished part of the basement, within reach if she needed the comfort of the gentle slope of an indent on Nick's side, was the only thing they could think of. She missed Warrick watching her with a concerned expression as he leaned on the box spring.
"You and Greg, then."
"Yeah."
"Are you okay with that?" He took in her hesitant movements silently, unable to decide if she was uncomfortable discussing Greg, or uncomfortable being pregnant. She straightened stiffly, placing a hand on the small of her back, another on her swollen bump. He could see that she was mostly uncomfortable due to the latter, this baby was carrying larger than Lauren had, but when she met his eyes with a look of her own, he could see it was partly the topic of their conversation that had her wincing uneasily. Tears welled in her eyes, and she brushed them away quickly, not wanting to let them fall.
"I love him. I've always loved him."
"Greg? What about Nick?" Warrick frowned at his friend. What if everything she and Nicky had had was a lie? What if she had always had feelings for Greg?
"Nick, now Nick was something special, wasn't he?" Sara turned to look at the photo hung on the far wall, from their last trip to Dallas, about a year ago. Warrick glanced at it, Nick leaning casually against the wooden fencing of one of the corrals, his arm wrapped just as casually around her shoulder as she leaned against his chest.
"Nick, stop."
"No body's looking." His whispers had vibrated softly against her skin, and the suggestive manner of his tone had caused a heat in her stomach.
"There are thirty people in this backyard, Nick." She hadn't fought his embrace, however, and had simply rolled her eyes as she heard shutters of an old camera snap a photo, and had felt Nick tilt his head to press a soft kiss to the underside of her jaw.
"The secret's out, Sara, they know about us."
"They know about the whiskey?"
"Nah, I fed them a line about hopeless romantics and running out of chances."
"Did they bite for that?"
"It was a feast." Nick had looked up to watch Lauren stand on her grandfather's foot, and grab hold of his leg, riding around for a few steps before running off to play with a few of her cousins. "Sara?"
"Mmhmm."
"Are you happy? Is this all okay?" She had turned to him, catching his eye, had smiled genuinely at him.
"I am. It is. I love you."
"I love you, too."
Sara inhaled slowly, turning away from the 8x10 hanging on their wall. Her wall. The wall.
"I loved Nick. Love him. He was the perfect father, the perfect friend. My best friend." She rubbed her stomach gingerly, effectively fighting down the tears from blurring her vision. "He gave me my children, proved to me I could be a mother. A good mother." She smiled sadly at Warrick. "I love them both."
"What about Lauren? And the baby?" Warrick prodded gently, surprised that Sara hadn't started to yell at him just yet.
"They need Greg as much as I do."
"Don't use him just because he's a warm body, Sara."
"I'm going to forget you said that." Her tone was even, but he knew provoking her was the only way to get her to come clean with her relationship with Greg. Relationship? Thing… Her thing with Greg. He didn't know what it was.
"I'm only saying you need to be gentle with his feelings."
"I know."
"He loves you. Honestly, truly, utterly. You need to remember that as you decide what type of a role he's going to have in your family."
"What makes you think I don't love him back?"
"What about Nick? What about what you guys had? Where is Nick in all of this?"
"In the damn ground." She raised her voice only just, surprised to be buying into Warrick's bait. She knew what he was doing, but she didn't care. It had been five months. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision with a gentle burn. She swatted at the tears childishly.
"That's not what I meant."
"No, Warrick, that's exactly what you meant."
"Sara."
"He's not coming back, Warrick. He's gone. He's gone, and he left me pregnant with a five year old. All I want is to do right for them. They need Greg. I can't be their father, it's all I can do to be their mother." She ran a hand through her curly hair, and composed herself, not willing to look at Warrick. "Now. Can we switch out the beds?"
………
A/N: thanks for sticking with me on this.