Trust

Salt'N'Peppers

Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews people. And thanks especially to AceGirlDetective for agreeing to Beta read for me! Happy reading for the next chapter. (sorry it's kind of short...longer ones are to follow!) Enjoy. Salt'N'Peppers.

Chapter 2: Beginning (part 2)

The end of the day was drawing to a close. Greg Sanders was closing up shop in his lab, about to head home to his apartment. Not a whole lot of people were still there with him, but he didn’t mind. He played his music fairly loud-not as loud as usual-and cleaned up for the day. Just as he was grabbing his car keys, and heading to the door to grab his coat, his phone rang, startling him.

Frowning, he dug in his pocket for it, and finally found it in his other pocket. Scowling slightly as he answered the phone, he waited for somebody to say something. When they didn’t, he started to get annoyed and decided to wait a couple more seconds before shutting off the phone. A second later, however, changed his mind.

“Hello, Greg.” Greg froze. He couldn’t believe-no, he wouldn’t believe that this was happening. His life had changed, and he had friends now. “Won’t you say ‘hi’ to me at least?” Greg sighed. It was happening.

“What do you want with me?” Greg asked, a little sullenly. The voice laughed.

“What do I usually want with you? You ran away from me, you little creep!” The voice abruptly sounded angry, instead of amused. Greg inwardly shivered. “Now that I’ve found you again, I’m going to get you to where you’ll never run away from me again.” It threatened. Greg just rolled his eyes. He had managed to run away twice already. As if he could be stopped trying to get away.

“I’d like to see you try.” Greg stated. There was silence on the other end. Then, as Greg was wondering if they had left or not, he heard the voice say,

“Sweet dreams, Gregory.” Then, there was a click, indicating that he had hung up. Greg stood there for a moment, and then slowly put away his phone. His old enemy had returned. He was going to have to fight. He headed towards the break room without any clear idea of where he was going, and without any intention of even going home as he had planned to earlier.

---

When the team finally came back to work the next morning, the first thing that they noticed was a strange silence from the lab. Usually, the music was on full blast at this time of day. Grissom was the first one there, and the first one to experience this strange silence.

Grissom headed to the lab, intent on finding out if Greg was late. Frowning, he looked around as he saw that Greg wasn’t even in there-yet he could’ve have sworn that Greg’s car was in the parking lot. Grissom then realized where Greg might be, and headed to the break room to see if his hunch was correct. It was.

Greg was sitting at the table, a coffee cup in his hands. He was staring at his coffee cup as though it held the answers to something. Grissom smiled, thinking that Greg was thinking about Sara. He’d been in that same position at one time, and he knew how Greg must feel about her.

He went in, and wasn’t surprised when Greg didn’t even look up. He sat down next to Greg, saw he still wasn’t noticing that Grissom was there, and said softly,

“Greg.” Greg jumped about a foot in the air. Grissom was slightly taken aback.

“Jesus, Grissom! Don’t sneak up on people like that!” Greg said, slightly irritated. He sat back down at his seat, and pushed the coffee away. He turned to Grissom who was looking slightly puzzled at Greg’s reaction. His only obvious conclusion was that Greg certainly wasn’t thinking about Sara.

“Are you alright, Greg? I went to your lab, and you weren’t there like you usually are in the mornings.” Grissom sniffed Greg’s coffee. “And you’re not even drinking Blue Hawaiian like you usually do.”

“I’m fine.” Greg said sullenly. Grissom gave another smile.

“You are not. Whatever’s bothering you-“

“Nothing’s bothering me. Except for the fact that you came in here and startled the crap out of me. My heart’s still going a hundred miles an hour.” Greg pretended to glare at him. Grissom chuckled.

“Greg, I was standing in the doorway for five minutes, and then I had sat down for about two. I don’t think that qualifies as a ‘heart attack’.” Grissom stated. He was suddenly aware that Greg was trying to distract him. And then he realized what he was trying to distract him by. “What’s wrong?” Greg scowled.

“Can you read minds?” Greg muttered under his breath. Grissom gave yet another brief smile. It dropped when Greg stated, “None of your business.” Grissom frowned at him.

“Greg, what is it? I looked in here, and saw you aged at least by ten years. And right now you look like twenty, so what’s wrong?”

“I am not twenty years old.” Greg said, indignantly. “I’m thirty-one.” Grissom looked surprised. And then scowled.

“You’re supposed to answer my question.” He warned. Greg looked at him innocently.

“I did.”

“You didn’t. You-oh.” Grissom chuckled lightly. “I seem to remember that I once asked Brass how old you really were. Now I know.” Then he turned serious again. “Come on, Greg. Tell me what’s wrong.” Greg turned to face the table. His face was slightly flushed, and he looked a little angry.

“No, Grissom. Sorry, but I can’t.” Greg informed him. He got up, and went to the trash can and tossed the almost full cup of coffee. He was almost out the door, before he stopped, turned, and looked back at Grissom. “Besides…if I tell you, then you’ll wish to god that I hadn’t.”

And with that, he went out of the door and down the hall back to his lab…leaving a stunned Grissom at the break room table and wondering if what Greg said was true.

The rest of the day had passed swiftly. Greg had worked hard, not stopping even for a coffee break when the team usually did. He managed to get three cases solved for Nick, Catherine, and Warrick all at the same time. The team eventually gave up on asking what was wrong, since all he did was skillfully dodge their questions.

Soon, the entire team realized that something was going on with Greg. When they asked Grissom if he knew, he just told them what had occurred that morning, and they wondered about it just as he did. Then, the team had speculated on the best ways to get Greg to tell them what was wrong. Warrick came up with the best-and worse-answer. Wait.

So the team headed home, leaving Greg at the lab as he had stayed the night before. He refused to go home. He refused to run from his new life. And he refused to be used again and again as before. He would simply wait for the end to come, just like he had before. And just like before-he would wait for the peace that would follow.

Okay. That was chapter two. Chapter three will come up sometime this week or the next, depending on how busy I become. Thanks for reading.

Salt'N'Peppers.