A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks so much for the reviews; I'm glad you liked my interpretation of Speedle :) Now we are back to McGeeklover and her other love for Hurt!Greg. This time she requested Greg hurt, sick and lost (because the poor guy couldn't be any more tortured at one given time) I hope you enjoy! ;)

Summary – Greg started off the night with a cold, but things only get worse when he his lost and injured in the woods.

Night In The Woods

This cold was really getting on his nerves now. Greg turned away from the body once more and sneezed into the hankie he was reluctantly carrying. It unnerved him that one stray sneeze or cough could result in the corruption of plenty of evidence. His throat was sore, his head was pounding and his eyes looked red due to lack of sleep the previous night. In other words, Greg looked like he belonged on Doc Robbins table rather than out in the field.

He wouldn't have bothered coming in if Catherine hadn't practically begged Greg because they had a sudden influx of cases and not enough CSIs to deal with them. Riley had recently walked out, leaving Greg, Nick, Catherine and Ray to cover everything for the time being. It was really unfair to all of them and Greg strongly believed Ecklie should send in help from dayshift, but he was playing ignorant to them as always.

So, not only was Greg trying to work in the middle of the cold and dark wood whilst he was ill, but recent events and treatments from Ecklie had left him in a rather foul mood. He didn't think the night could get any worse.

The CSI continued in silence for a while, the only sound in the tree filled space was the echoing flash of his camera. It was getting dark, and with no surrounding lights as it was quite away from the city, Greg didn't want to be stuck there for much longer.

"Greg!" the officer the CSI was with came hurrying over. "I just got paged by my wife; she's going into labour…"

"Oh, then you should go!" Greg encouraged.

"You'll be okay?" the officer asked very jittery.

"Yeah absolutely, congrats man" Greg said with a smile which the officer returned before dashing off.

Greg sighed and turned back to the scene; at least something good was coming out of tonight for someone, but now the CSI was well and truly alone.

Once Greg was done, he started to scan the rest of the scene. He shone his torch across the ground blanketed with fallen leaves, however there were various drops of red, certainly not rain, which tainted the golden and brown foliage. Taking out his torch and wrapping his jacket tighter around himself – coughing harshly as he did so –Greg began to trudge further into the forest under the looming darkness.

About twenty minutes later the trail was still going, but Greg on the other hand was close to giving up. It was pitch black now, and all the CSI had was the beam from his torch to guide his way. Greg decided if this trail hadn't led him to anything in the next five minutes he'd dismiss it as useless; it was getting too far from the body now anyway.

Though eventually, Greg found the source of the blood and he couldn't help the groan of disgust and despair which escaped his lips. Amongst the leaves was the corpse of a badly chewed up rabbit. Anything could have mauled it! Greg thought, angry that his long and cold trek had all been for nothing.

"Screw this" Greg muttered to himself.

He turned to go back, but he was deeply disturbed and shocked to find the zigzag trail of blood he'd been following no longer existed. Whilst Greg had been walking - grumbling to himself about wanting to go home and curl up in bed – he hadn't noticed the wind picking up around him. The leaves covered in blood must have been blown about all over the place, leaving Greg's path back the crime scene and to his car inexistent. Without it, Greg was lost, and he was no longer just trembling because he was cold…

"Shit" the CSI breathed as he pulled his mobile out of his pocket. "You've got to be kidding me…" he groaned as he noticed the signal bars were not there. "Okay, okay Sanders, just stay calm" he told himself "It's simply a matter of remembering, what looks familiar…" he scanned his torch around the area "Oh great, trees, trees, and more trees, that really helps" he seethed to himself sarcastically.

Greg stood pacing a little trying to debate which way to go. Normally, he would never lose his cool like this, but his head was hurting so much from the onslaught of his headache he was finding it hard to think straight, and it certainly didn't help his cough only seemed to be getting worse as he had been exposed to the cold weather too long already.

"Alright, alright I definitely came in this way" Greg said to himself. "That light in the sky over there must be coming from the city…" he observed "so that's my best bet"

So with that, the CSI continued walking, praying he'd be out of there soon.

No such luck. Greg wasn't sure exactly how long he had been walking, but he seemed to be getting nowhere fast. The wind was only growing stronger, his cold felt like it was slowly transferring from flu to pneumonia, and his vision was starting to go funny from an oncoming migraine. Greg had his arms tightly folded across his chest and kept his head ducked low, using the torch simply to guide his feet across the ground and warn him about oncoming trees.

He would pull his phone out of his pocket every minute or so, but still there was no signal, and just to add to the worry, the battery appeared to be running low. Greg felt like giving up hope, accepting the fact he'd just have to stay in the wood all night and try again when it was light in the morning. His only other hope was that Catherine or one of the others would try and check on him later and not get through, with any luck realising Greg was missing.

The whole situation was becoming unbearable, and Greg was so caught up in his thoughts of despair and anger- at that particular moment- at the whole God damn world, he didn't realise when the torch from his light dropped into the sea of nothingness.

It didn't register at first when Greg went to take another step and his foot didn't meet the ground. Instead, he went flying forward, crying out in surprise, and then tumbling all the way down the steep slope where the forest floor had dropped.

When he finally stopped rolling, Greg groaned as he tried to prop himself up with his elbows. He could feel various cuts, and bruises already beginning to form all over his body. He tried to stand up, be let out a cry of pain and fell back down to the ground. His left ankle felt like it was on fire. Greg dared to look down at it and his eyes widened and gritted his teeth; I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to twist that way…

"Just perfect" Greg muttered to himself with more bitter sarcasm.

He managed to pull himself up into a sitting position to study the injury better. Luckily the CSI had managed to keep hold of his troch during the fall, and shining the beam down on his ankle seemed to prove Greg's worst fear. Yep, I'm definitely going nowhere now. The CSI let out a strangled cry of frustration and buried his head in his hands. He could have cried, but he knew that wouldn't get him anywhere.

Now what was he supposed to do?

Suddenly, a dull buzzing sound cut through Greg's anguish. At first, the CSI didn't know if he could dare believe what he was hearing. Reaching into his pocket with a shaking hand, Greg pulled out his mobile. Now his cries could have been with joy when he saw the name Nick Stokes flashing across the screen. It took Greg a few seconds to register that the call was real before finally answering the phone.

"Nick! Thank God…" he breathed.

"Hey, where are you, man?" Nick asked. "Cath said you should be back by now…"

"Listen…" Greg hurriedly cut him off "It's a long story but basically I don't know where I am" he said in a panicked rush. "I got lost in the woods at my crime scene, and I can barely think straight because of this headache and it's dark and cold and I can't walk because I twisted my ankle really badly…"

"Whoa, whoa, G, just slow down" Nick encouraged him. "Everything's going to be okay, I'm going to Archie now so he can track your cell and then I'll come get you"

"Okay, but please hurry" Greg begged "Look, I don't really want to admit this, but I'm scared, okay. I just found a mauled rabbit and I don't want to be the next victim of whatever ate it, I'm a sitting duck here, man!"

"Ssh, Greg calm down, you're going to be okay I promise" Nick tried to reassure him "Just keep talking to me, alright, I'm with Archie now"

"Alright, I gotta find somewhere safe to stay put" Greg said as he frantically scanned the area.

"Wait, Greg if you can't walk then just stay…" Nick started.

"No! I can't stay in the open…" Greg said and Nick could tell his was panicking again.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Nick asked, trying to distract him.

"No…" Greg said as he scanned the rest of his body. "No, I'm okay"

"Good, you're doing good, Greggo" Nick said. There was deafening silence for a few moments. "Okay, Greg that's it, I got your location; I'm coming for you" Greg could hear he was already running.

"Nick, don't leave me" Greg suddenly pleaded, his voice small and lost.

The sound broke Nick's heart. "I won't Greg I-"but suddenly, he was gone.

"Nick!" Greg cried and looked at his phone. The battery was dead.

Then the CSI allowed himself to cry.

Nick hadn't driven so fast in his life. As he reached the wood, there was only so far he could go with his car, the rest he had to do on foot. He got as close to the coordination's Archie had given him as possible, and then all he could do was rely on Greg to respond to his shouts.

"Greg!" the older CSI called. "G, can you hear me?!" it worried Nick immensely when the only response came from the howling wind.

He hated the thought of Greg alone, cold and injured somewhere. The poor guy must be petrified; Nick was scared enough for him. The Texan would be relentless in his search, and he would stay all night if it meant bringing Greg back safely.

"Greg!" he cried out again. C'mon, please.

"N-Nick?" a small voice stuttered. "Th-that you?"

Nick hurried over to the tree where the utterance had come from. Greg was leant heavily against it, shivering like he was in Alaska and his eyes closed.

"It's okay, buddy, I'm here now" Nick said soothingly. "C'mon, let's get you out of here"

The older man knelt down and traipsed Greg's arm around his shoulders, Nick then hoisted the younger man up and Greg hissed in pain.

"I'm going to take you straight to the hospital" Nick said in a no arguments manner. Greg just nodded; he was barely lucid.

Once they were back at Nick's car – Nick practically carrying Greg - the older CSI wrapped his own jacket around Greg and turned the heater on full blast. Greg sighed with content, snuggled back in the chair and closed his eyes. He wasn't showing signs of concussion, so Nick decided to let him sleep.

"Thank you" Greg said quietly.

"You're welcome" Nick said with a small smile "I promise you won't have to be scared like that again, no whilst I'm around. You're going to be okay now"

"I know" Greg said with the faintest of smiles "'cause I've got you, my big bro"

"And don't ever forget it" Nick replied.

Yes, back to the Greg and Nick bromance, I just can't get enough ;)

*Rant* God damn it UK, where is season 14, I'm losing it dudes! *rant over*

Please continue sending the super awesome prompts :)

And Please Review! xxx