3rd round!

Greg decided to follow Nick's advice, but he needed two days to work up the courage to do it. He had practised telling the story of how his life dramatically changed after he got attacked by Novak a few times now and while it wasn't something he enjoyed, he was able to do it without getting too uncomfortable. But after telling Juno resulted in yet another traumatizing attack, he found it to be much harder.

Him and Camille were working at a crime scene together and the last patrol car had already left. They were alone, it was the perfect opportunity to ask her to grab a coffee later to explain himself. Ironically, they were working yet another rape case.

"I just got off the phone with officer Spencer. The victim collapsed on the way to the hospital, she needs surgery," Camille walked up to Greg, who was processing the victim's bedroom, where she had been raped in.

Greg nodded. "The good news is, the guy left his DNA. If he's in the system, we got him."

Camille sighed as she wandered around the bedroom. "Have you seen the door? Full of blood."

"I guess he pushed it open when she was unlocking it. That's where she got the wound on her forehead."

Camille nodded as she frowned. "Can't imagine how much this must hurt."

"A lot, but the pain's numbed by the shock at first."

"Yeah? How do you kno..." she said thoughtless before she stopped herself. They looked at each other for a moment before she looked away in embarrassment, quickly trying to change the subject. "L-Let's hope he's in the system." She saw the look on Greg's face but couldn't really make anything of it, she had no idea what he thought right now. She put her hand on her forehead. "...I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you when I walked into that psychiatrist's practice. And you don't have any reason to be. My mouth is sealed, I won't tell anyone." She smiled. "Hah, feels good to get that out. No need for any more awkward moments, right?"

Greg stared at her quite confused and surprised.

"...Or maybe not. Did I say something wrong?"

He hastily shook his head. "No. No, it's just... I expected... You don't want to know why I was there in the first place?"

"Well, sure, you already know how nosy I am. But you don't have any reason to tell me and I don't want this to get any more awkward. I just wanted to let you know I'm able to keep a secret."

Greg smiled at her. "That's sweet, but... It's no secret. Unfortunately... the whole lab knows. ...And the whole police station, actually."

For a moment, both forgot they were at work and at a crime scene, so they kept talking about this. "...They do? ...How come?"

"It involved the arrest of a serial killer. ...And also the arrest of a police officer." He went on to briefly tell her about Neil Novak. Quite surprisingly for him, she knew who Novak was.

"I remember this. It was all over the news. ...Horrible story. I researched Neil Novak's cases because we had a missing person case around that time and suspected he was one of Novak's victims." She sighed. "Greg, I... I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry this happened to you."

"It's been three years, it's... okay. I'm over it." Both knew this was a lie. It was clearly visible in his face that it was still hard to talk about it.

"...But he's still in prison, right? He has nothing to do with your injuries?"

"He's in a coma, he can't hurt anyone. ...But I guess indirectly it's his fault I got attacked again." He quickly explained what he meant by that by mentioning Juno.

Camille nodded. "You've been through so much, you poor guy. I don't know what to say."

"It's okay."

"So... does it affect you in your daily life in any way?"

Greg dreaded a question like that, but he decided he'd try to be as honest as possible. "Not always but... I get scared easily."

"Yeah, who wouldn't after something like that?"

"...And, uh... dating's been difficult ever since."

She raised her eyebrows. "...You... don't date?"

"Well I tried a few times but... Let's just say there's certain aspects in a relationship I don't want to engage in at the moment." Greg tried to verbalize his issues as clearly as possible without getting into too much intimate detail with her. He succeeded, she knew what he meant.

"So you stopped trying?"

Greg shrugged as he finally concentrated on his work again by taking pictures of a strand of hair from the victim the rapist had ripped out of her head. "For now, I guess."

"Why?"

He slightly sighed as he bagged the hair. "I don't think it'd be fair to the other person to get into a relationship that's doomed to fail."

"...Wow, pretty negative talk. Why do you think every relationship you're getting into is doomed to fail?"

Greg laughed humourlessly. "Would you want to date someone like me?"

"Someone like you? No. But you? Yeah, I'd date you." Camille smiled at him.

This caught him off guard. He didn't know how to react other than smile sheepishly as he blushed and looked away.

Nick walked into the victim's apartment. "Hey guys, I..." He couldn't help but notice some tension again. It didn't even once cross his mind that it was a different kind of tension than before. But as he looked into his colleagues' faces he noticed they were both smiling. "...Am I interrupting something?"

Camille chuckled as she patted Nick's shoulder. "Yeah, kinda." She walked out of the apartment.

"...What happened? You're blushing."

"No I'm not." Greg couldn't stop smiling.

"Did she just ask you out?"

"No." The smile on his face just wouldn't fade. "Well... not exactly, but she said she wants to date me."

Greg and Camille didn't get a chance to work together in the next two days. It gave the CSI enough time to think this whole thing through. And even though he was coming to terms with living a single life for the rest of his life before, he changed his mind at the prospect of dating Camille. He now was determined to work on his issues. Dr. Reyes was giving him a few tips on how to get more comfortable with intimacy and together they decided to work on it in the next few weeks. Greg knew it would not be easy to face his demons but he figured the detective was worth it.

Him and Camille were working on a gas station robbery and Greg was processing behind the register. The gas station clerk had shot at the robbers and hit one, but they escaped, anyway. He was concentrated on his work when the detective walked in.

"Hey, so the clerk..." she stopped talking as she noticed she'd scared the CSI with her sudden entry. "Sorry." She smiled. "Didn't mean to startle you."

He shook his head with an embarrassed look on his face. "You were saying?"

"Yeah, the clerk fired three shots because he thinks they had guns. Surveillance cameras have been down for months but he figured leaving them up would be enough to scare robbers away."

"...Guess he thought wrong, huh?"

She nodded. "Found anything helpful yet?"

"Not really. I processed the room and found dozens of different shoe prints. The guy's blood is probably our best shot at finding them."

"Okay, let's just hope he's in the system. When you're done in here, there's some interesting shoe prints behind the building. Looks like someone stood there smoking cigarettes, but the clerk doesn't smoke. It's behind that window." She pointed at a window opposite where the register was. "Maybe they were standing there and watching the clerk."

As they walked out, the patrol car that had been standing in front of the gas station since the CSI got here took off. It was just Camille and Greg at the scene now. "...W-Where did you say were the prints?" The gas station was in the middle of nowhere and the silence made him quite uncomfortable.

She frowned as she looked at him. "Are you alright?" She noticed a change in his behavior but had no clue what was wrong.

He nodded, faintly smiling at her, but only giving off a more worried vibe than before.

"...You sure?" They walked to the spot the detective was talking about. "See? There's the prints and there's the cigarette butts."

He crouched down to take a closer look at the evidence. "This might help us. Good job." This time, his smile was genuine. He was starting to feel comfortable again as he started collecting the evidence.

They could hear a car pull up in front of the gas station. Camille sighed annoyed. "Can't these people read a police tape? I'll tell them to go away, I'll be back in a second."

Greg was concentrated deep into his work again, he only noticed someone walking up to him when that person was only a few feet away from him. "I hope they weren't too much of a hassle," he said as he got up, turning towards who he believed to be Camille, but it was a stranger. "...Oh."

The man just stood there, grinning at the CSI, the smell of cold cigarette smoke and liquor filling the air around him.

"...S-Sir, this is a crime scene, you need to leave." Greg tried to stay calm, even though his heart was racing. He hated himself for not bringing a gun, but Russell asked him not to. Knowing the CSI was scared and insecure at the moment, he feared he might be too trigger-happy.

The man just kept smiling as he reached forward, trying to grab the plastic bag with the cigarette butts out of the scared CSIs hands, but Greg mistook this with the man trying to attack him.

"...No!" Greg jumped back.

"Hey, get lost!" Camille hurried up to the two.

The man turned around to her, pushing her. An unexpected move for both her and Greg, but none she couldn't deal with. "Fine!" She grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm around and pushed him to the ground to cuff him. "Stay down, you jerk!" She put one knee on his back, pushing him down as she called for a patrol car through her radio.

Greg stood there with eyes wide open, both shocked and impressed over the scenery.

"Are you okay?" She asked as she smiled at him.

He was too shocked to answer right away.

"Greg? Did he hurt you?"

"...N-no, I'm fine. Thanks, that was... thanks."

"Oh please, look at him. He... Oh damn, he fell asleep." They could hear the man snore, so she got up. "Well at least you can go back to work without him making any more troubles until the patrol car arrives."

He nodded, still staring at the man. It took him a few moments before he was able to look back at her. "...Do you want to have breakfast later?"