Title: No Doubling Back
Author: geekwriter
Pairing: Nick/Greg, mention of Nick/other
Rating: R
Summary: This is great. We've got seven DBs, five of them kids, the media is freaking out, and all we've got to go on is half a receipt.

Previous story in series - Tonight, Not Again.

They hadn't talked about it. Not that there was anything to talk about, really, except the fact that they'd had sex which, OK, was pretty huge. Greg frowned as he tapped his steering wheel. He didn't know why they'd had sex, except for the fact that at the time he'd really, really wanted to sleep with Nick again. Which was bad. Maybe.

Nick had left before he woke up, which made sense. Nick's shift started eight hours before his did. Not that things like shifts even mattered when they ended up working eighteen-hour days, anyway. But Nick had left while Greg was asleep. Sort of. He vaguely remembered Nick's fingers in his hair, Nick kissing his forehead and telling him to get up and lock the deadbolt. He hadn't gotten up to lock the deadbolt after Nick, he'd just muttered something he thought sounded like "OK" and then fell back into the dream he was having about monkeys trying to force feed him cauliflower. He hated cauliflower.

And then he woke up alone, reaching for Nick. He stopped, mentally chastising himself for doing something he thought he'd stopped weeks before, and then he remembered. Remembered all of it, the panic and Nick being there like he always had, and the way it felt to be back in Nick's arms, like he'd been holding his breath for months and could finally, finally let it out.

Then it had been fast and desperate, hard clumsy kisses and tugging at clothes that just wouldn't come off fast enough and falling onto the bed. He'd wanted Nick on top of him, hell he'd wanted Nick inside of him, but being on top of Nick was OK, too, because that left Nick's strong hands free to roam over his body. Nick's hands had ended up on his ass, pulling him down even harder as they ground their cocks together and Greg didn't even care how fast he came because he'd fucking needed it. Nick seemed like he'd needed it, too.

He'd always deflected all of Nick's questions about who he was seeing because what was he supposed to say? That he went to bed alone every night? That even the thought of dating again scared the shit out of him? He didn't want to go back to the bars and flirt and pick guys up because none of them would be Nick, and how pathetic was that? How was he supposed to tell Nick that when Nick had obviously moved on even before they were officially over?

Only Nick hadn't made it sound like he'd moved on. Nick made it sound like he was as miserable as Greg was. And that was good, right? Because if he was miserable alone and Nick was miserable alone then they could be not-miserable together. Except for the fact that the last time they'd been together they'd made each other pretty miserable. Hadn't they?

They couldn't have been that miserable because he'd been surprised. If they'd been really miserable, Greg wouldn't have been surprised to see one of his own friends there on the floor, kneeling between Nick's legs, sucking him off. He wouldn't have been surprised to see Nick's fingers knotted in Aaron's blonde hair, wouldn't have been surprised to hear Nick saying Aaron's name and thrusting up into his mouth.

He tried to push the memory out of his mind. It came up unbidden at the worst times. He'd be in the grocery store or at a crime scene or going to bed and he'd just remember it, remember it just like he was there again, standing shocked in the middle of his living room watching one of his best friends blow his boyfriend.

He'd just stood there. He hadn't been able to move, hadn't been able to say a word. He'd just stood there thinking that he was going to pass out or throw up or both, thinking that he knew they'd been going through a rough patch but he never expected Nick to cheat on him, thinking that he was such a pathetic loser for not seeing it coming because Nick was fucking beautiful. Nick was gorgeous and amazing and Greg knew how lucky he was. He knew how slim the odds had been that a guy like Nick would even look at a guy like Greg twice, let alone date him.

He didn't know how many times he pinched himself. How many times he wondered how in hell he had ever gotten so lucky because Nick wanted him, Nick wanted to date no one but him, Nick wanted him to move in, wanted them to live together. He pinched himself over and over again but he never woke up. The day he caught Nick with Aaron was the only day that hadn't felt like a dream.

He couldn't do it. Couldn't live through something like that again. It had broken him, he knew that. As hard as he tried to hide it, even other people had seen it, had seen his change, had seen the way he'd lost the ability to laugh at anything. Fucking up a crime scene, getting blown through a glass wall, whatever, he'd always been able to see the lighter side of it and make fun of himself. But there really was no lighter side to walking in on the person you loved more than anything else in the world with someone else. Sometimes he wondered if he'd ever feel like anything was funny anymore.

He parked his Jetta three spaces down from Nick's truck and hoped that Nick was out on a call because he had no idea what he was going to say. He didn't know what Nick was expecting, but he had a feeling that Nick was going to want them to get back together. He'd known it the night before but he hadn't cared. He'd just wanted Nick, needed him, even. Needed that distraction and reminder that the panic wasn't forever, that he wasn't losing his mind. And didn't that make him a piece of work, having sex with his ex-boyfriend just so he could get a good night's sleep.

The sidewalk leading up to the lab was crowded with reporters and camera crews hoping to get more information about the case. He ducked his head down as they called out, "CSI Sanders, over here!" "Mr. Sanders, you're working the Mother Goose Daycare case, do you have any information on the killer?" "What sort of evidence have you found at the scene?"

He pushed his way through them as politely as he could and only lifted his head once he was in the relative safety of the lab. "Freaking vultures," he muttered to himself as he passed the front desk.

"Who?" He hadn't seen Grissom there.

"Oh, just the, uh, the reporters." He wondered if Grissom was going to give him a lecture on how in nature vultures were a valuable part of the ecosystem.

"You didn't say anything to them, did you?" Grissom's face was tight and drawn. Greg suspected he hadn't slept in far too long.

"Not even 'no comment,'" Greg said as he headed towards the locker room.

Grissom nodded at that and went off towards the ballistics lab.

"Is it weird that the reporters outside knew my name?" Greg asked Sara as he sat down in front of his locker.

"They know all our names. They try to make it seem like it's a friendly conversation. You didn't talk to any of them, did you?"

He scoffed. "Give me a little credit."

"Good. Because this is a mess. It's a total mess and right now we've got zilch. Although, trace came back on that foil you found in the leaves."

"The what now?" He shrugged off his jacket and hung it up.

"Um…" Sara looked down at the report in her hand. "Small sliver of foil with writing on one side. That wasn't you?"

Greg shook his head.

"You sure?"

He closed his locker and stood up. "Pretty sure. Maybe it was Nick. He took over when we went to interview the blackjack guy, Mr. Stoddard."

"Right," she said, heading towards trace. Greg followed. "Hey, Hodges," she said as she walked in. "Who was marked down as collecting the foil scrap from the leaves yesterday?"

"That would be Nick," Hodges said, not looking up from the microscope. "And, yes, I do realize I went above and beyond the call of duty on this one. You're welcome."

"What's, uh," Sara looked down at the report. "Zolpidem tartrate?"

Hodges took the sheet of paper from her, took a deep breath, then frowned when Greg started speaking before he could.

"It's a non-benzodiazepine hypnotic," Greg told her. "A member of a relatively new class of drugs called imidzopyridines, typically taken orally in tablet form. What?" he asked when Hodges glared at him.

"So it's, what, a sleeping pill?" Sara asked.

Greg nodded. "Goes by the brand name of Ambien."

"Well," Hodges said, shooting Greg a triumphant look. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" Greg asked.

Hodges smiled at him. "It's called Ambien in the United States, but in Meh-he-co they call it Stilnox."

"What does that have to do with—"

Hodges pointed to the writing on the foil. "'tiln' in yellow letters, below that 'olpid' in blue. If you'll look here, you'll see that the lettering matches up exactly to the back of a Stilnox blister pack. See? Stilnox, Zolpidem." He smiled as if waiting for Sara to congratulate him on his excellent detective skills.

Instead, she said, "Damnit!"

"What?" Greg and Hodges asked at the same time.

"We can't trace it," she said, snatching the report back from Hodges. "You don't need a prescription for most drugs in Mexico. You just go in, talk to the pharmacist, and walk out with what you need."

"Is it legal to bring Mexican drugs into the US?" Greg asked, following her out of trace and into the hall.

Sara shrugged. "It's a gray area. Technically it's fine if you have a prescription from a US doctor, but they don't really check. Border patrol has enough to do without rooting through the bags of every old lady who drives down once a month to save on prescription costs." She sighed and shook her head. "We're back to square one. We don't have anything."

"Mia ran the DNA on the soda can?"

Sara nodded. "It was the little girl's. Father's story checked out—he packed it in her lunch."

Greg leaned against the wall and thought for a moment. "I sent half a receipt up to QD yesterday. We could check that out."

"This is just great," she said as they headed towards QD. "We've got seven DBs, five of them kids, the media is freaking out, and all we've got to go on is half a receipt."

"Well, what about everybody else? Haven't they found a ballistics match, prints inside the house, anything?"

Sara shook her head. "Zip. Everybody's scrambling just like we are. Ronnie," she said brightly as they walked into the questioned documents lab. "Tell me that receipt we sent up here is a magic receipt and had the name of the perp written on it in invisible ink."

Ronnie rolled his eyes at her. "Wish I could, but all I've got is that it's from a gas station a little outside of Moapa."

Sara's shoulders slumped. "Great."

"Hey," Greg said, "one of the daycare workers, didn't her sister say something about an ex-husband who lived in Moapa?"

Sara perked back up. "Yes she did. She said it was a nasty divorce and he moved back to Moapa to live with his folks." Sara looked over at him. "You ever been to Moapa?"

"Can't say that I have."

"Great," she said with a smile. "We're going to Moapa."

**********

"You all right?" Sara asked as they stopped at a red light.

Greg shrugged.

"I'm going to take that as a no."

"I'm just…dealing with this after I had that triple homicide with the kids, it's fucked up."

She looked at him for a long moment, then looked back at the traffic light. "It's more than that. Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really."

"You sure? Because it's a long drive to Moapa."

Greg tipped his head against the window and smiled wryly. "Moapa. Who names a city Moapa?"

"I don't know. Who names a city Pahrump?"

"Good point. How come you always get to drive?"

"Because if you drove you couldn't slump in your seat and mope."

"I'm not moping."

"I'm detecting a little moping going on in your general vicinity. Not that you have to tell me about it. I mean, just because we're friends doesn't mean you have to, you know, tell me about what's going on in your life."

"I slept with him again," Greg said softly.

"Who?" Sara glanced at him, then rolled her eyes. "Oh. Your mystery boyfriend."

"My mystery ex-boyfriend."

"But you're getting back together?"

"No."

She waited for him to elaborate. They were through the intersection and halfway down the next block when she realized that he was just going to leave it at that. "You're maddening, you know that?"

"What?"

"You tell me that you slept with your wonderful, fantastic, love-of-your-life mystery boyfriend—ex-boyfriend," she corrected herself before he could do it. "You slept with this guy that you obsess about, but you're not getting back together with him?"

"I don't obsess."

Sara scoffed.

"I don't."

"We can't go anywhere without you saying, 'Oh, that reminds me of the time…' and then you stop talking and get that puppy-dog look on your face which, for the record, is really starting to piss me off."

Greg pulled an exaggerated sorrowful face and whimpered a few times.

Sara laughed. "That's the one."

"Well, I'm glad to know my misery causes you so much amusement," he grumbled.

Sara reached out and ruffled his hair. When she put her hand back on the steering wheel she sighed and glanced over at him with a sympathetic expression. "What's going on? For real."

"Nothing."

"Which is why you're moping."

"I'm not moping."

"Yes you are."

"I'm brooding. There's a difference."

"Do you still love him?"

"No. I don't know. Probably. Does it matter?"

"Well, if you're sleeping with him, yeah. I think it does."

"We were so fucked up, Sara."

"You keep saying that, but I don't believe you."

"What do you know? You don't even know his name," Greg snapped.

"That's only because you won't tell it to me," Sara snapped back. "Asshole."

They drove in silence for a while. As they headed onto the interstate, Sara said, "You keep saying that the relationship was already bad, but I don't think it was. You didn't seem to think it was at the time. You were happy all the damn time, and then suddenly you disappeared for three days, and when you got back you were miserable. I don't think the relationship was bad, I think it was great until he broke your heart."

Greg didn't say anything. He took a deep breath and stared out the window, counting the streetlights they passed by.

"He thought I was cheating," he said finally.

"Were you?"

"No. Not really."

"What does that mean?"

"Not…physically."

She looked over at him for a few seconds before turning her eyes back towards the road. "What does that mean?"

"You know how I get when I'm drunk."

"Even more talkative than usual and in love with the world?"

Greg nodded. "My friend Ethan, he gets the same way. And when we're out and drinking, we flirt."

"Flirting isn't cheating."

"We kissed a few times."

"Kissing isn't flirting. You said it wasn't physical."

"It wasn't. They weren't sexual kisses, just friendly kisses."

She made a noise that let him know she didn't believe in the difference.

"Come on, Sara. You know stupid I am sometimes. I'm always doing or saying shit I wish I hadn't, even when I'm sober. Get a few drinks in me and I'll do anything, say anything. Shit, I told you my entire sexual history in vivid detail after three beers."

Sara nodded. "Way more than I ever wanted to know."

"And some of that you spilled to Mia over one beer."

"I said I was sorry. And don't make this about me. So you made out with this Ethan guy."

"I didn't make out with him. There weren't even any tongues involved. But we were dancing and then we were kissing, and Nick saw it and—fuck."

"Wait. Nick? Our Nick? Nick Stokes? That Nick?"

"Fuck," Greg repeated over and over like a mantra. "Fuck, fuck, fuck…"

"Holy shit. I…Jesus, I'm dumb."

Greg closed his eyes and tried to think of some way, any way to convince her she'd misheard.

"How the hell did I not see that? You two have been inseparable for years, then all of a sudden you never even seem to be in the same room with each other anymore. Not to mention he shaved his head."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"People always change their hair after a bad breakup," she said, as if it was obvious.

"I don't."

"You change your hair as often as you change your socks." She glanced towards his feet. "Probably more than that. Jesus. That's your big secret? That's your mystery man? Nick?"

"Why do you sound disappointed?"

"I was expecting a rock star or a politician. I thought you wouldn't tell me who it was because he was famous."

"Sorry."

"Plus I owe Catherine fifty bucks now."

"You guys bet on whether or not we were dating?"

"No," Sara said. "We bet on…Nick."

"You bet on Nick."

"Don't look at me like that."

"And what way is that?" he asked, trying not to smile. "Like you're someone who would put money on one of their friends' sexuality?"

"She brought it up," Sara said, somewhat defensively.

"She just can't think of any other reason he doesn't look down her shirt."

Sara laughed so hard she snorted. "Actually, that's one of the criteria she was using. Which, I might add," she slid her eyes towards him, "is the same faulty criterion she used to determine that you were straight."

Greg grinned at her. "What? I'm not allowed to look?"

"You're a pervert, and don't change the subject."

"What is the subject?"

"Nick. You and Nick. He broke up with you because he saw you kissing that Ethan guy?"

"No. It's not…he didn't…"

"What?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Do you want to talk about what happened last night?"

"Not really."

"Do you want to just sit there in mope in silence the whole drive?"

"I'm brooding," Greg told her.

Sara rolled her eyes. It was definitely going to be a very long drive to Moapa.

Next story in series - Last Goodbye.