Title: It's too late
By: Serenity
I wrote a fic! I took it slowly, took loads of breaks and although I'm in a little bit of pain now, I wanted to do this. It's beta'd by the fantastic anmani who I would be lost without, and I hope you guys like it. I know it's been a while and it's hard to get into the writing mindset again. Greg thinks some painful thoughts. Set a couple of years in the future. Roughly 1200 words. Characters: Greg
Genres: angst
Rating: PG13
Warnings: character death

He sits in the locker room, absentmindedly turning his comb over and over in his hands, feeling the sharpness of the teeth against the pads of his fingertips. He presses a little harder, watching as tiny pin-prick indents are left behind on the flesh. He wonders how hard he would have to press to draw blood.

The crew from day-shift are filtering in and out, getting ready to go home, chatting happily amongst themselves and simply walking past him as if he doesn't exist. He doesn't raise his head to acknowledge them either. He knows it's easier for them to pretend that nothing happened, to carry on like everything's OK. He just wishes he could do the same.

The sharp click of heels echoing on the tiled floor alerts him to Catherine's presence, and he mentally prepares an answer to the inevitable question of 'Are you alright?'.

He even has his mouth open, ready to speak, ready to quell her curiosity with an enforced cheerful reply of 'I'm fine, just need some coffee', but she glides past him, punching numbers into her cell-phone as she walks, her eyes dark and her sticky-glossed mouth screwed into a grimace that betrays her age, no matter how much make-up she wears or fashionable clothes she dresses in.

He can hear her sigh deeply as she paces the small room, waiting for whoever she's calling to pick up. After 37 seconds, which Greg counted down in his head, the pacing stops.

"Don't you ever hang up on me again young lady. I am not in the mood for your games."

Greg tries not to breathe when he hears the anger in her voice, almost as if trying not to alert her to the fact that he's sitting right there.

"Listen Lindsay, I don't care if his Mom is going to be there, you are not spending the night at Nathan's house. That's final." The words are hissed, taking on an edge of panic as the older woman realises the repercussions of her daughter's rapidly increasing maturity.

Greg looks up and catches Catherine's eye briefly, she spins around and buries her head in her locker in the pretence of looking for something, and the rest of her words become nothing more than a murmur that he can't decipher.

He quickly stands and becomes overly interested in the contents of his own locker, hoping that Catherine doesn't think he was purposely eavesdropping. As he finishes rearranging everything for the sixth time, he finally closes the locker, catching sight of himself in the small mirror that hangs on the inside of the door. He slowly opens the door again, just enough so that his face is in alignment with the reflective silver.

He wonders if the others have noticed how the light behind his eyes has slowly diminished, burning out like a candle starved of oxygen. If they have, they haven't mentioned it. Probably too disturbed by the haunted look in their own eyes. They're probably scared that if they open up, there'll be no way to control their emotions, emotions that they're all working so hard to suppress.

He's pale too, paler than he can ever remember being, even paler than that summer just after he turned twelve when he took glandular fever and didn't leave his bedroom for six weeks. He lets a small chuckle escape as he remembers how Papa Olaf used to come into his room and tell him stories to keep him entertained, closing the window to muffle the excited cries of the neighbourhood kids playing outside in the baking hot sun. He immediately feels guilty for letting that small laugh escape, and tries to cover it up by clearing his throat loudly.

He studies his face. The dark circles beneath his eyes have turned from charcoal smudges to thick black shadows, almost as if he's wearing face paint. He can't remember the last time he slept properly. He doesn't even know when he last went to bed, preferring these days to collapse on the couch when he gets home.

He yawns and closes the locker for a final time, his converse sneakers squeaking against the shiny floor as he backs away from the row of metal cases and turns to leave the locker room.

Warrick is wandering through the hall, no purpose to his journey, as if he's being swept along on a conveyer belt without control of his own movements. His face is blank, his eyes cold, glittering, like emeralds. The usually rich coffee skin is ashen, his full lips droop in an almost comical pout as he drifts past Greg with nothing more than a slight nod of his head to acknowledge some shared pain that neither of them will voice.

It's been two months since the accident. Two months since they received the phone calls informing them that the Denali that Grissom, Sara and Nick had been travelling to a crime scene in had been crushed in a freak, horrific accident with a big rig. The driver had nodded off and had jerked awake at the last second before hitting a tight bend in the road and overcompensating the steer, rolling the truck and landing on the passing SUV. The robust vehicle had concertinaed under the massive weight.

Sara had been pronounced dead at the scene, her head injuries and broken spine too severe for any human to endure. Grissom had lived for three hours after he'd been pulled from the shattered wreckage, but internal bleeding had silently stolen his life. He'd been conscious for less than twenty minutes during his final battle for survival, but had been unable to speak due to a shattered jaw. The look in his eyes confirmed that he knew exactly what had happened, what was happening.

And Nick.... Nick who had been in the backseat of the SUV, and had survived with nothing more than a broken pelvis, cracked ribs and cuts and bruises. Nick, who is now suffering from a severe case of survivor's guilt and begged for the Doctor's to let him die, even though none of his injuries were actually life threatening. Nick, who can't accept that he was the only one to make it out of the crash alive and has plunged into a deep depression, refusing to let any of the remaining team visit him in hospital, even though Greg still visits every single day and watches the man quietly through the glass panel in the door. Nick just sits and stares into space, lost to the world.

He's stopped eating, stopped sleeping, has slowly slipped into a catatonic state. Bright, loving Nick, who was always there for everyone who needed him, is now lost to his own inner turmoil. Greg can't bear to look, but he can't bear to turn away either.

Nick, who Greg has loved since the first day he set eyes on him, but was always too chicken-shit to do anything about it. Nick, who is gone, replaced by the shivering shell of someone who has been through far too much in a short existence, devoid of the light and life and everything that makes him Nick.

Greg is mourning the death of a man who is still alive.