Post "Play With Fire"

Morning Calls

Morning calls for pain relief,

A line above the step beneath

The worst that you could do.

And the best that you could hope for,

Is hardly the best.

Greg kind of liked mornings in the hospital. As soon as the gray light of dawn began to shine in the sky, he could quit feigning sleep, and request more pain medication. It wasn't that he couldn't sleep, it was that he wouldn't sleep. He knew the moment he closed his eyes he'd be back there. Back in his lab, hearing the explosion, and feeling the heat on his shoulder. Seeing Sara lying just a few feet from him surrounded by glass, and then blacking out.

He'd come back around as the paramedics loaded him onto the stretcher and took him through the debris-laden hallway. He remembered watching Grissom's mouth move, but not hearing the words he said. It was then he became aware of the silence around him. He should have heard sirens and voices, but there was nothing. The explosion had knocked his hearing out for nearly two days, and it was the most terrifying experience of his life. The team had visited on the first day, when the doctor had insisted on changing his bandages. He wasn't sure if he screamed in pain, but he was sure of one thing. Nick had held his hand through the entire ordeal. It wasn't much, but Greg would take what he could get.

Tepid waters chase the pill

With turpentine and chamomile

And don't get cheap on the wine

You need to be up all of the time.

"Greg?" He turned his head towards the sound of Catherine's voice. "Hey cutie," she greeted him warmly with a smile. "Warrick and Gil are here, can we come in?"

"Sure," he said straightening up in the hospital bed.

"Hey man, how's it goin?" Warrick asked stepping into the room. Grissom followed behind him.

"I'm alive," he joked lamely. "Any new conquests I need to know about?"

"Naw man. You need to get well soon though, cuz damn." Warrick gestured to Greg's rundown appearance. "Probably the first time I've ever seen you without hair gel."

"Ha ha. How's my replacement?"

"Your stand in Greg," Grissom corrected him. "We could never replace you."

Greg suddenly felt like the Grinch. Not the evil Grinch, the nice one at the end of the movie whose heart goes up two sizes. "Thanks."

"So everything's going good?" Catherine asked smoothing wrinkles out of the blanket covering Greg.

"Yep, I should be able to go home in a couple days, and back to the lab soon."

"Just don't push it Greg," Grissom warned. "The lab will still be there whenever you decide you're ready to come back. Are you sleeping well? You have dark circles around your eyes."

Greg raised a hand to his face self-consciously. Busted Greggo. "I sleep as well as anyone can in a hospital." Nice dodge.

Shield your eyes,

Conceal your lies.

"Well," Catherine said, "We're gonna get going, and let you get your beauty sleep." She kissed his cheek and couldn't resist tucking him in. "Sorry, it's a mom thing." Greg watched them go, and felt that old familiar loneliness seep in. It had been exactly forty-two days since Greg had driven Nick away, and Greg finally realized the magnitude of his mistake. He loved Nick. So much it scared him, but now he would never know. A sharp knock on the door brought him out of his wallowing. "It's open."

The door slowly swung open, and Nick shyly stepped in. "Hey Greg."

He sat up a little straighter, "Hi."

Nick hesitantly shut the door behind him, and approached Greg's bed. He sat on the stool next to him. "So, everything okay?"

"Coffee's worse here than at the lab, but other than that everything's going just peachy." He couldn't keep the edge of bitterness out of his voice, and wondered if Nick noticed. He did.

"You don't have to do that," Nick told him quietly.

Greg's mouth suddenly went dry. "What?" he croaked.

"Pretend to be okay. I know you better than that Greg, and I know that right now you're trying to stay strong for everyone else, because you're afraid they might fall apart. But when's your turn Greg? When do you get to be human?"

"I don't," he told his ex-lover quietly. "Because I don't know how to deal with this. I'm alive, but part of me still thinks I should be lying dead on Doc Robbin's table with a 'Y' incision on my chest."

Nick reached out and carefully took Greg's hand, avoiding the I.V. stuck in the back of it. "I'll help you. I'll help you be okay again. Help you realize that you're alive and safe, and that I'll never let anything happen to you. Let me help you."

With those last words, Greg broke down in tears for the first time since the explosion, and became human again.

Don't blink. Everyone's watching.

They'll think that you're up to something.

They need for you to be everything

That they cannot be themselves.

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Last part should be coming soon, please review. Thanks Emilia