Thanks for the reviews after the last chapter, I always love knowing what you guys think! :)

Chapter 5

While Greg drove back to CSI, Morgan, who was sitting next to him in the car, kept flipping through the photo album.

"I still can't believe he has been following me all those years," she said, looking up at him. "I know he always managed to show up wherever I was working in the lab, but this…"

"You don't have to worry about him anymore," Greg reminded her with a smile. "The police officers are bringing him in to question him about the robbery and they're going to keep him locked up because he has been stalking you for all those years."

"If I tell them…" Morgan softly said. She stared out the window and missed the surprised look Greg gave her.

"What do you mean?" he asked. He knew Morgan hadn't given the police officers a reason to take Tim back with them, she had just said 'Bring him in'. He just didn't know why she didn't want to tell them now.

"Because maybe I'm not ready to deal with this right now," she said. "I just found out he has been taking pictures of me for years and that he saved those pictures and put them in an album, which he even brought on his vacation… I don't think I'm ready to confront him with it just yet…"

"But, Morgan, he has been stalking you!" Greg said with a voice that was a mix of worry and anger.

"I know, Greg, I have the proof right here!" Morgan responded, sounding slightly angry. "He has been stalking me, not you, so it's my decision when I deal with this, okay? I decide that I'm not going to deal with this right now. Detective Jenkins can question him about his gun, but we're not going to say anything about the photo album."

"Okay," Greg quickly said, afraid that anything else he'd say would make her even angrier. Her tone had hurt him a little inside because it was the first time she had used it since they had started going out. He understood that everything that was going on annoyed her, but didn't she understand he just wanted her to be safe? He was just afraid Tim was going to get away with the stalking, escalate and then do something worse to her than just taking her picture. That thought scared him so much he almost wanted to tell the police officers himself about the photo album, but he knew that was an even worse idea than continuing to talk to her. Maybe Tim would get arrested for stalking and be unable to do anything to Morgan, but it would guarantee the end of their relationship.

They continued their drive back to CSI in silence. When they were just a block away, Morgan suddenly asked Greg to pull over for a moment. He did as she asked and parked the car along the side of the road. Awaitingly, Greg looked at her. His heart skipped a beat when she smiled at him and squeezed his hand gently.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to get angry at you. I know you're just worried about me, but you don't have to be. I just need some time to get over this, that's all. When the right time comes, I will confront Tim with this, honestly. I won't let him get away with this, trust me!"

"I trust you," he answered softly. She squeezed his hand again. "I know you do… So, am I forgiven for kinda shouting at you?"

He smiled back at her, unable to hide the love he felt for her in his eyes. "Of course you are!"

"Not quite the answer I was hoping for…" she confessed, slightly pulling him towards her to show him what she meant. He smiled again before he kissed her.

"I'll give you even more of an answer after shift," he promised her. She grinned at him. "Deal! Now let's get going again before they start wondering if we got lost along the way!"

Because neither of them really wanted to be at Tim's second interrogation, they just advised detective Jenkins on what to ask and then waited for his report.

"He still denies everything," he told them. "And he says he left his gun in LA, in a safe at his house. According to him, our video tech just did a bad job…"

"Did he offer to take over?" Greg asked while rolling his eyes. Detective Jenkins nodded with a half-smile. "Almost, yeah…"

"I'll contact LAPD and have them check the gun," Morgan decided. She went to her office to call her ex-colleagues back in LA and explained the whole situation to them. After they had promised they'd send someone over to Tim's house, she went to find Greg again. He had been checking the footage from the security cameras in the hotel elevators and had found Tim, dressed in black, on one of the tapes. He had also checked if Tim had left his room earlier that morning and found out he had left his room at 3.45 A.M.

"But as long as we don't have the clothes or the gun, we still can't prove he actually robbed that store, just that he broke their security camera," Greg reminded her. Morgan sighed before agreeing with him.

"I just don't understand where he could have hidden everything!" she said. "He couldn't have hid anything just outside of the hotel, he hasn't hidden anything in his hotel room… Well, except that photo album of course… Oh, it still makes me angry!"

"Why don't we take a break and start thinking about this later?" Greg suggested. He held up his cell phone. "Nikki texted me to invite us both for dinner. She says she wants to have us over before she's going to eat all the food of my plate next month!"

Morgan smiled. "Sure, I'd love to have dinner with her. I'll tell you what: we'll first go back to my place to pick up some things I can keep over at your apartment and then we'll go over there, change and meet Nikki for dinner. Maybe we can indeed forget about all of this for a while then!"

"Deal!" Greg said. He locked his computer, safely put away the security tapes and went to the locker room with Morgan. After they had gotten out their things, they left for Morgan's apartment in Green Valley. During the short car trip, they avoided all subjects that could lead back to Tim or the case. Morgan told a story about an old classmate of hers that had once brought a snake to school for show and tell and Greg talked about the music he had been listening to with Nikki when she was still a little girl. Morgan thought it was hilarious he had been able to sing-a-long to so many Sesame street songs.

"I was just trying to be a good babysitter!" he defended himself, while he parked his car outside her apartment. She still couldn't stop laughing.

"I'm sorry, it's just too funny!" she grinned. Still laughing, she got out of the car. Suddenly she thought of something: "Hey, you should sing them at work and then tell David you sing them with your kids!"

"I thought you didn't want me to tease him anymore?" he reminded her.

"Oh, yeah… Ah, well, this is just too funny!" she decided. She opened her front door and walked straight to her bedroom to pack up the things she wanted to take over to Greg's apartment. While she was packing, Greg checked the mailbox for her and threw away everything he knew she wasn't interested in.

"Oh, good, you got rid of all the junk mail for me," she said, walking into the kitchen with her bag hanging over her shoulder. "I think I've got everything, unless Nikki expects me to show up at her house in some sort of evening dress…"

"Trust me, Nikki is the last person on earth to expect something like that!" Greg told her. "When she was nine, her sister wanted her to wear a dress to the Christmas party at school. She nearly brought down the house because she hated the idea so much! Honestly, she won't care what you're wearing tonight! Me… I may have a different opinion…"

He pulled her close and kissed her until she started laughing and pushed him away.

"Come on, she's probably waiting for us already!" she smiled. "We'll discuss my wardrobe after dinner, okay?"

Grinning, he followed her back to his car. They quickly drove to his apartment on the other side of Las Vegas, changed and went over to Nikki's house next door. They were greeted by a golden retriever barking at them. Nikki pulled him away from them.

"Sorry!" she said. "I promised I'd watch him while this friend of mine is out of town. He's a friendly dog, really, he just gets a little enthusiastic whenever there's a visitor! Sandy, sit! Sit!"

The dog barked one more time before sitting down.

"Come on in!" Nikki said, slightly pushing the dog out of the way. "Dinner's nearly ready, a couple of minutes more, I think. Can I get you something to drink in the meantime?"

She showed them the way to the living room, even though Greg had been at her place at least a thousand times. Morgan looked around the cozy living room, which was filled with little artistic figurines, stuffed animals and pictures of killer whales and rabbits.

"You like my decorations?" Nikki asked, entering the living room with their drinks. Morgan turned around and smiled at her. "Yeah, I do! Did you take these pictures yourself?"

"Those of the rabbits, yes. Those of the killer whales… no," Nikki confessed. "There's one picture my parents took. By accident, I have to be honest about that! They never really cared about me much when I was little, they always left me alone with my sister. And she was always busy with her hundreds of boyfriends… I was really happy when Greg became my regular babysitter. He was the first person who actually asked how I was doing!"

Morgan realized Nikki must have been really lonely when she was growing. She slowly started to understand why she and Greg had become such good friends.

"He's really good at asking how someone's doing," she said, looking at her boyfriend. He smiled shyly. Nikki grinned at his shy face. "Never knows how to handle a compliment! I'll go and see if dinner's ready, okay, Tomato Face? That'll give you time to get your real face color back!"

Laughing, she left the living room. Morgan smiled at Greg. "She's really great, Greg. I'm glad I finally met her, even though the circumstances weren't that great…"

"Let's not go there!" Greg quickly said. "Come on, I'll show you the dinner room. It's filled with pictures of baby lions!"

Dinner turned out to be the perfect thing to distract Morgan. Nikki and Greg both told her stories about when they were younger, which made her laugh so hard the tears started running down her face.

"Wait till I show you pictures of him when he just started working at CSI!" Nikki told her. "You probably won't even recognize him!"

"I was just… experimenting with my look!" Greg defended himself. Morgan looked at him, laughing. "Sweetie, I don't care what you look like, I really won't break up with you just because you used to look a little different than you do now!"

She looked back at Nikki. "I'll need to see those pictures of course!"

"No problem!" Nikki grinned. "Hey, what I wanted to ask you all evening already: how did you two actually get together? Greg has already told me once, but I wanna hear your version to see if he's actually telling the truth!"

"I was!" Greg called out with his biggest innocent eyes. Morgan smiled at Nikki. "Sure! It happened about a month ago. I was still in my office, behind my computer, but instead of writing the report I was supposed to write, I was looking online and I found some very interesting pictures…"

Carefully Morgan turned around to see if no one was watching her from the hall. When she saw the hallway was empty, she returned to her computer screen and clicked on the little picture to enlarge it. She had found a website with photos of the baseball tournament they had played with their CSI team a while ago. One of the photos was of Greg alone. She couldn't help but smile at the photo. He looked so cute! After checking again if the hallway was empty, she got out her cell phone and copied the photo to it. Smiling she looked at the small screen. Now she would be able to see his sweet smile and wonderful eyes wherever she went! She had never told anyone how much she actually liked Greg, she had always pretended to be interested in someone else. The truth was she had been dreaming about him at night ever since the first time they had met. The only problem was she'd never be able to tell him as long as they worked together…

"Why are you staring at a photo of me on your cell phone?"

She froze. No, this couldn't be true! She quickly turned around and looked at the guy who always made her heart beat faster.

"Greg, hey!" she managed to say. "What are you doing here?"

"I was on my way home when I saw the light was still on in your office, so I just came by to see if you needed help with anything," he replied. "Now you answer my question: why are you staring at a photo of me on your cell phone?"

"Oh, I… Well, it's just…" She tried to think of an excuse, but her mind completely failed her. There was no way she would manage to talk herself out of this one. She sighed. "Okay, I'll tell you, but not here, okay? Why don't you follow me back to my apartment?"

With his eyebrows raised, Greg nodded. "Okay, if that's what you want…"

They left LVPD and drove to her apartment in their own cars. Once inside, she looked at him and decided to just confess to the whole thing: "Okay, I like you, alright? I really, really… really like you! But you and me… It's never going to work out, because we work together! We can't date and still be colleagues, it just won't work! Everyone will find out we're dating, one of us will have to change shifts, my father will probably freak out and… It's just impossible, okay? Look, I'll delete the photo and we'll just forget this ever happened, alright? I'll get over it, don't worry! And… why aren't you saying anything?"

Frustrated, she looked at him. She had just told him she really liked him and he didn't even respond! What was wrong with him? Why had she even ever fallen in love with him?

"Okay, if you want me to say something…" he softly said. He took a step towards her and kissed her so full of passion she felt like she was going to faint. Oh, yeah, that's why she had fallen in love with him…

"Look, no one needs to know about this!" he continued with the same soft voice. "We'll keep work completely separated from our personal life and whenever we're at CSI, we're just colleagues, nothing more. We'll make it work, I promise you that! Just… please, let's give this a try!"

"Convince me," she whispered, her face only inches away from his. That kiss had been too great to continue thinking about rules and what was or was not possible. She was in love with him, he was obviously just as in love with her and that they were colleagues didn't matter anymore. She just wanted him to kiss her again and do everything she had been dreaming about for months.

"Okay, okay, I don't need any more details!" Nikki quickly said. She smiled. "Wow, I'm impressed, Greg, you actually told me the truth! I thought it was such a sweet story it just couldn't be true… I wish something like that would ever happen to me…"

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Morgan asked. Nikki shook her head. "No… All the guys I meet at work are tourists who are only in Vegas for a few days. By the time I work up the courage to ask them for their phone number, they already left again! But I'll find someone someday, I'm sure of it! And if not, I'll just get a dog like Sandy! Right, boy?"

She rubbed the golden retriever's back. The dog barked to let her know he liked it. When he did, a piece of paper fell out of his mouth.

"What have you got there, boy?" Nikki asked him. She picked up the piece of paper from the ground. "A one dollar bill… Where did you find that? Don't tell me I have a treasure hidden in my backyard!"

She laughed out loud. Morgan and Greg didn't laugh, however. They looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. Tim knew where Greg lived, had he hidden the money here to try and frame Greg?

"Where did he find that?" Greg said, getting up from the couch. Nikki looked at the dog. "Sandy, show us where you found the money! Show us! Come on, boy, show us where you found it!"

The dog barked before he ran outside. He ran straight to the right side of the yard, where several plants seemed to be missing. Nikki groaned. "Not my plants! First the ones of the other side, now here…"

Greg ran up to the dog, who was barking loudly now.

"It's the money!" he said, pointing at the hole in the ground filled with one and five dollar bills. "He never spent it, he just hid it here!"

"Wait!" Morgan said, turning towards Nikki. "You said something about the plants on the other side of your yard?"

"Yeah, I had to throw them away cause they had been taken out of the ground like someone had been digging there," Nikki told her. "I thought it was just a cat, there's a lot of cats in the neighborhood that love to ruin my garden. That's why I was so happy when my friend asked me to watch Sandy for a few days, I was hoping he'd keep the cats away for a while!"

"Do you remember when you saw the plants had been taken out of the ground?" Greg asked her. Nikki thought for a moment.

"Yeah, I do," she then said, her eyebrows frowned together. "It was when I came home after the robbery… I remember how annoyed I was and that I even planned to go and talk to the neighbors about their cats! I never did, because I kept thinking about the robbery and didn't feel like going outside again…"

Morgan realized Nikki took the robbery a lot harder than they had thought at first.

"Nikki, do you have a shovel?" Greg asked. She nodded. "Yeah, 'course I do, it's in the shed over there!"

Greg walked over to the shed, found a shovel and then walked over to the other side of the yard. Nikki pointed to a section near the back. "That's where my plants were. They weren't anything special, but I still liked them…"

"If this helps us to solve our case, we'll buy you new ones and get a cat alarm for you," Morgan promised her. Nikki smiled at her. "Thanks, that's really sweet…"

The two of them then just watched while Greg was digging. He didn't take long to find what they were looking for.

"It's all here," he said. Morgan stepped forward and saw the black clothes and the gun lying in the hole Greg had just dug.

"I just don't get it!" she said. "Why would he hide everything here, in Nikki's backyard? Did he know Nikki? Did he recognize her as your neighbor or what? It just doesn't make sense!"

"I think he never meant to hide it in Nikki's backyard," Greg said with a thinking smile. "I think he made a mistake… Like you said, Nikki's my neighbor… I think he miscounted and thought this was my backyard. He knows we're dating, so he tried to hide the evidence in my backyard, hoping I'd find it or that someone else would find it."

"Makes sense," Nikki said while nodding. "But, eh, don't you need to call this in or something like that? Take it back to CSI?"

Morgan looked at Greg. "Do you have your kit at home?"

With an unsure look on his face, Greg shook his head. "No, it's in my locker at work… My spare one as well, I kinda forgot to bring it back home after taking it to work once… What about yours?"

"In my locker and my spare one is at my place," she answered with a sigh. "Great, now what?"

"Sara!" Greg suddenly said. "She knows about us, she can easily come over and help us out here!"

"Okay, call her!" Morgan nodded. "Nikki's right, we need to take this back to CSI and process it. Then we'll finally be able to close this case and I can start forgetting about this guy who has definitely been in my life way too long!"