A/N: This burial of my OTP, so to speak, marks the two year anniversary of my entrance into the world of fanfiction, and signing up for this site. I have to admit, I got a little emotional while I wrote the last few words, out of sheer disappointment. Maybe us Sandal fans will get some closure in the near future when Jorja Fox leaves CSI, maybe not. I wouldn’t be surprised in any case. I just want to say thanks to SingingStarryKnights, without whom I would’ve given up much earlier. Wow, two years... I can’t believe it. This site, and this addiction to fanfiction has given me something I can’t appreciate enough- a love of writing. Sure, it started out as almost a crusade to get the word out about Greg and “his” Sara, wanting, if only for a moment, to sway a few gunshot-residue minded people, to prove that canon doesn’t automatically translate into “true love.” But my CSI quest ends here. All I can say, is hopefully, in the somewhat-near future, I will be sitting at that oh-so-elusive TPTB table. And when and if I am, I just want to say, I’m not going to forget about the ones like us, and our hope for the under appreciated lab-rats of the world. Thanks, you guys. For everything.

So Many Words

Not in so many words.

No, he was right. She hadn’t said anything, actually. He knew that he was merely her fill-in guy, the one that comes before the one she really wanted. Wants.

Her visits became more infrequent right around the time her hair became more curly. Right when she started dressing in lighter colors and racking up less overtime.

He was able to push away the urge to ask the questions. How long it had been going on. How long she’d been using him to keep herself busy. How long she’d known, before she had slept with him, that he wasn’t even going to make it into the next phase of her life.

Greg didn’t want to resent her. And he didn’t, really. He could have told her to get out of his apartment any one of the many times she had shown up mid-morning, only mildly sober, asking the preemptory questions about the cleanliness of his bedroom, where she could kick off her shoes, and how he’d managed to restrain himself the three times before this one when she had been even less sober.

She didn’t tell him in so many words that it was over.

Only showing up three times a month, then two, then not at all had sent the message loud and clear.

But what can you do when you want to give someone you once loved everything she wants while, at the same time, not being it?

Why sabotage the best thing he’d ever have with her, even if it wasn’t what he really wanted?

What can you do when you’re stuck right where you are, in between regret and an overwhelming sense of failure, and she’s smiling more in one month than she had since arriving in Vegas?

Snapping photos and making small-talk with Nick, he wondered if things would have been different had he believed in himself nearly eight years ago. He could’ve asked her out then. Thinking back on it, he remembered vaguely a few failed attempts. His doubt-driven procrastination had pushed her away long before she pushed him away, the smell of her shampoo still on his pillow.

This realization made a small part of him collapse with defeat, while the rest of him was screaming for a second chance that he would never get.

A flurry of images flashed through his mind in succession, the beginnings of tears pricking the corners of his eyes.

The encouraging nods, the hours in the garage, the just-barely-touching-your-arm moments, every lyric he romanticized, every daydream he dared to believe in, each look that lasted a few seconds too long, the hugs, the successes, the failures, the smiles, the tears, the fear, the hope, everything they had shared in the last eight years.

And to believe it was over was possibly the most disheartening thing Greg had ever experienced.

And he knew. In that moment, he knew.

It was time to move on.