It was hard to remember exactly, but Nick was fairly certain that Greg's new apartment was smaller than his old one had been. He hadn't been there in a long time; the last occasion he could actually recall was a week or so after Warrick had died. Prior to that, Nick had only been to his old place a few times, either picking Greg up or dropping him off. Maybe played video games. Or was that at Archie's?

"There's a spare bedroom, if you want," Greg said suddenly, breaking Nick away from his thoughts. "But to be honest, I've been having a hard time sleeping without you."

Nick stopped examining Greg's new apartment and looked at him. He was so much thinner, they both were. Their skin was permanently tanned, but Greg had a new scar on his face that cut diagonally across his forehead from left to right. From the day he had fallen from the rock, trying to flag down the plane to get them off of the island. Nick just stood there, staring at Greg, at his scar, trying to string everything together. It was so hard to remember things that had happened before the island. Warrick dying, Grissom leaving, Catherine leaving; that he could remember. The big stuff. But other things? Day to day stuff? It all felt more like a dream than anything else.

"Nick?" Greg asked when he became aware of the fact that the other man was lost in a haze. "Are you okay?"

Nick shook his head slowly. "You're just going to forgive me? Just like that? You wanted to kill me on the island after I told you. But now you want to sleep in the same bed as me?"

Greg nodded. "Yeah," he replied, as if it were the simplest thing in the world to understand. "You're mad that I'm not mad at you?"

"I'm not mad," came the response. "I'm confused, worried, exhausted. Scared."

"Scared of what?" Greg asked, his brow furrowing with a frown. "Scared of me?"

"I'm scared that you're going to wake up one day, next to me, and snap out of whatever trance you're in right now. You're going to come to your senses, see me, and lose it because of what I did to you."

Greg smiled slightly. "I think you're giving yourself too much credit Nicky."

"Are you drunk?" Nick demanded. "High maybe? There's no way in hell I'm talking to the real Greg Sanders. The one who wanted to bash my skull in with a rock."

"Why did I want to do that?" Greg asked, sarcastically, as if he had forgotten the reason.

Nick laughed humorlessly. "Because I fucked your cousin," he said harshly. He was trying to elicit more emotion from Greg. He was trying to make him angry, because it was making him so uneasy that the younger man was so calm. It didn't make any sense to him.

Instead of becoming angry, Greg just nodded once. "Yes, you did. Before we got stuck on that island. Let me ask you something Nick. Had we not been in that plane crash, what would have happened, between us? When we got back here, to Vegas, what would have happened?" When Nick failed to answer, Greg continued. "Nothing, that's what. We would have returned to our hectic, crazy, normal lives. Solving crimes, together, but as co-workers. Nothing more. We weren't even that good of friends before any of this. We got along, sure, but that was about it."

"So what's your point?" Nick asked, unable to discern for himself.

Greg sighed. "My point is that without getting stuck on that island, we would have never become 'we' at all. I've always had feelings for you, but kept them buried, deep down, because I knew nothing would ever come of them. Not without something significant happening. But it did, and that made you realize how you really felt too."

"What does that have anything to do with Jenna? What does any of this have to do with you being okay with it all?"

"I now look at my life in three completely separate pieces," Greg explained. "Before the crash, when we were on the island, and right now. Before the island, I was a completely different person than I was on the island, and I am now a completely different person than any of those other two times. Do you understand that?"

Nick did understand. He knew exactly what Greg was talking about. What they went through irreparably changed them, and many of those changes were yet to have been discovered. Nick realized that he didn't want Greg to forgive and forget his past because doing so meant moving onto the people that they were now, and finding out just what that truly meant.

"Yes," Nick said softly. "I understand that."

"Then you understand why none of the shit that happened before matters. It was in a different life and happened to a different person. Being angry about that now would be as arbitrary as being angry about the baseball my next door neighbor's kid hit through my window last year. It happened in a different place, in a different time. I can't see the broken glass anymore, I don't even think about it. It happened a lifetime ago, and I'm somewhere and someone completely new."

Nick shook his head. "So does anything that happened on the island even count?"

"What do you mean?" Greg inquired. "Count how?"

"Does anything that happened on the island carry over to now, to this part of your life? If me telling you about Jenna is a moot point, is everything else as well? You can't just erase your past Greg. Believe me, I've tried pretty fucking hard to do that many times. But it doesn't work like that. Can you just eradicate when I kissed you on the beach, or all the times that we had sex, or all the things we talked about? It didn't happen here, it happened thousands of miles away, so screw it. That's what you're saying?"

"Not at all," Greg said, emotion returning to his voice. "But that doesn't mean I haven't tried. I tried so hard to forget about all that, to just pass it off as one bad dream and move on with my life. I wanted to forget about everything that happened between us on the island because I wanted to forget how you made me feel, the good and the bad. But I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. And there's a reason for that. I'm in love with you Nick, plain and simple, for better or for worse. And rather than dwell on the negatives of the past, I want to try and move forward. I want a future with you, here, in Vegas. I want to try it. If you don't, I understand, but you just need to know how I fee-"

Greg had just begun to realize that he was rambling when Nick's lips silenced him. The older, stronger man kissed him hard. Nick's momentum forced Greg backwards until he was against the wall. He was surprised, taken a bit off guard, but in no way did he hesitate. He kissed Nick back just as hard as he grabbed the Texan by the belt and lead him into the bedroom. He pulled Nick down on top of him, and it wasn't until they had to break apart for air did Greg notice his headache as Nick simultaneously noticed that Greg was shaking slightly.

"What's wrong?" Nick asked. "Did I hurt you?"

Greg smiled and shook his head. "No, I'm still concussed. I'm not even supposed to be driving, but I needed to see you. I'm not supposed to be doing anything that gets my heart working too fast, or I get dizzy from a pretty nasty headache."

Nick kissed Greg's forehead sweetly and gently ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "What can I do?"

"Stay here," Greg murmured against Nick's neck when he wrapped his arms around his waist. "Just sleep here, with me, so I can finally get a good night's rest."

"I can do that," Nick replied. He shifted so he was laying flat on his back, with Greg's head on his chest. "I'm sorry I couldn't make you feel better on the island," he confessed.

Greg sighed. "It wasn't your fault. You did everything that you could."

Nick felt tears stinging his eyes. "I was going to kill you," he said so quietly that Greg wasn't sure he had heard him right, until Nick continued. "I didn't want you to suffer. I knew that on that island, you weren't going to last long, and I didn't want you to die in agony. I told myself that if it got to the point where it was really bad, that I would kill you in your sleep so that you wouldn't be in pain anymore."

Greg looked up at Nick silently, urging him to go on. "Obviously it didn't come to that, but I can't stop thinking about it. What if those guys had never shown up? I don't think I would have been able to go through with it. I didn't want you to suffer, but I was so terrified of losing you. I still am. I can't lose you Greg."

"Then you won't," Greg replied simply. "I want this to work, I really do, and I know you do too. And I think that it will. It's not going to be easy, but after everything we've been through, something's gotta give."