Title: The Pieces of my Life – May 2003
Rating: PG
Fandom: CSI/West Wing
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Ellie Bartlet
Feedback: Makes my day
Spoilers: West
Wing: Commencement, 25, WF7A8342.
CSI: Play With Fire, Inside the Box
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net), anywhere else, please ask.
Word Count: 13,514
Summary: Trauma comes in twos
>*<*>*<
Greg has
just finished dinner when the phone rings, and a wide smile spreads across his
face when he sees the familiar name on caller ID. “Good evening,” he says when
he picks up the phone, walking to the couch where he intends to make himself
comfortable. He intends to prolong his greeting, say something pithy to make
her laugh, but she cuts him off.
“I’m glad
it is for you,” she tells him sourly, and he lifts both eyebrows in surprise.
Hearing Ellie talk in that tone of voice is rare indeed.
Rare, but
long experience with this woman has taught him exactly how to diffuse it. “Why
Eleanor,” he drawls. “Has anyone ever told you that your sunny disposition is
your most attractive trait?”
He grins
upon hearing a burst of laughter from the other end of the line. “I’m sorry,”
she says, chagrined, her laugh one of embarrassment, and he leans back against
the couch cushions, props his legs on the coffee table.
“I take it
someone’s had a bad day?” he guesses, and she makes a sound that’s usually
accompanied by her eyes rolling.
“About to,”
she tells him in a similar tone. “I’m about to get ready to go into the
hospital to pull a twenty-four hour shift from hell… I’ve been sleeping all
day, and still all I want to do is crawl back into bed.”
Her words
conjure up an image of her crawling into his bed, an image that’s not
unpleasant, and he shoos it away. “What is the nature of your shift from hell?”
he asks, perfectly willing to let her vent, but Ellie has other ideas.
“I don’t
want to talk about it,” she tells him. “What I want to do is wish you a happy birthday.”
He grins.
“It’s not my birthday until tomorrow,” he reminds her.
“And you
know exactly what I’m going to be doing tomorrow,” she counters. “Unless of
course, my dad manages to guilt trip me into going to
Greg
frowns, because Ellie’s dad doesn’t usually care whether she’s in Washington or
not; the only time she’s had to go there in recent years is when she talked to
the press about her father not firing the Surgeon General and received a
summons for her trouble. “What’s going on in
“Zoey’s
graduating.” He can’t speak for a second, because to him, Zoey is still the kid
with braces and long red pigtails that he met that first summer when she and
her parents picked Ellie up at Stanford. He knew, of course, that she was at
college, that she’d begun taking classes at
“You
probably did,” he allows. “Guess it slipped my mind… wow.”
Ellie
chuckles. “I know.”
“Your
bratty little sister, old enough to graduate college,” Greg murmurs. “Are we
getting old?”
“You are,”
she tells him, and he shakes his head, knowing that he walked into that one.
“And my little sister is not bratty.”
Greg stares
at the phone receiver in frank amazement. “Isn’t that the exact word you used
that time that she and your father nearly caught us in the hayloft? And she
blackmailed you for the rest of the year?”
There’s a
split second of silence, then Ellie laughs. “I forgot all about that,” she
says.
“Changing
your mind about the brat thing?”
“Little
bit.”
He chuckles
at that, then goes serious. Or as serious as he gets with Ellie anyway. “So,
what’s the brat got planned for after college?”
“She’s
going to
Greg grins,
even if he doesn’t think that it’s too funny. “He’s as obnoxious as I’ve
heard?” he asks, because he’s heard plenty, though Ellie’s next comment reminds
him that it hasn’t all been from her.
“Worse,”
she says. “But I didn’t think I told you that much about him.”
“You
didn’t,” he agrees. “But Charlie’s not too enamoured of him.”
Ellie
snickers. “He wouldn’t be.” Then something occurs to her. “You’ve talked to
Charlie about Zoey’s boyfriend?”
“Some
reason we shouldn’t?” He’d met Charlie at the Bartlet farm the previous
Christmas, back when Charlie was still dating Zoey, and the two men had hit it
off very well, both being treated like members of the family while knowing that
they weren’t really entitled to such status.
“No… I just
didn’t realise you guys kept in touch,” Ellie tells him, and he shrugs.
“Charlie
and I have a lot in common.”
“Such as?”
She sounds amused, but his reply is serious, deadly serious.
“Bartlet women,”
he tells her simply, remembering escaping one night to the bar in
“Ah.” It’s
said so softly that Greg can barely hear her, and for an instant, he almost
regrets saying it.
Almost.
“Just so
I’m clear on this,” he says, his tone considerably lighter. “Your dad is
letting Zoey, his baby, his little girl, go all the way across the ocean to
Ellie
giggles. “Surprised us too,” she says. “I told Zoey that Liz and I broke him in
for her… we never would have been allowed to do that.” Indeed, it had been hard
enough to get her father to accept Ellie staying in
“As they
would.” Greg’s seen the Service in action, he sure wouldn’t like to cross them.
“The shoot to kill policy still in place?”
“With the
boyfriend as the number one target,” Ellie agrees, sounding quite happy at the
prospect.
“You sound
like you agree with your dad about this one,” Greg surmises, and is almost
deafened by the sigh she gives in response.
“I talked to
her about it,” she tells him. “And she told me that she’s sick of being our
father’s daughter… sick of everything she does being in the public eye, her
grades, her friends, her boyfriends… I mean, her first serious relationship
nearly ends up getting her father shot.” The words so easily said remind Greg
of one of the worst nights of their lives, of a red-eye Vegas to
“That’s a
lot to handle,” he agrees. “And it’s nothing you haven’t said yourself.” He
still remembers finding out by accident that her father was Governor of New
Hampshire; she’d kept it well under her hat during her first few weeks at
Stanford. He knew that the level of attention had increased dramatically since
her father’s election as President, had seen it first hand. He also knew that
Zoey, as the youngest, got it worse than Ellie, whose workaholic, non-partying tendencies
for once turned out to be blessing rather than curse. Paparazzi generally tired
of following her from home to library to class, and when she did go out, when
she did date, she was discreet about it.
“I
understand why she’s doing it,” she tells him now. “God, Greg, if anyone knows
what it’s like to want to get away from being Jed Bartlet’s daughter…” Her
voice trails off. “I know why she’s doing it,” she repeats. “I just don’t know
why she’s doing it with him.”
“Maybe
it’ll get it out of her system,” he says, looking on the bright side of things.
“Or get Jean-Paul out of her system. Familiarity breeds contempt and all that.”
“I said the
same thing to my dad,” she says. “And you know what he said?” She pauses to
allow him time to guess, but he doesn’t even try. “He said, ‘Yeah, cause that
worked so well for you and Greg’.”
Greg’s jaw
drops. “You’re kidding me.”
“Would I?”
She would, and he knows she would, but he also knows from the tone of her voice
that she’s not doing it now. “He still asks about you, you know.”
“I will
never understand your dad,” he decides, and she laughs softly.
“That makes
two of us.” There’s nothing he can say to that, and perhaps sensing that, she
changes the subject. “So, any nice plans for your birthday?”
He shrugs.
“Well, I’m working in a couple hours… and also tomorrow night, so not really.
John and I will probably hit the town at the weekend, make up for it then…”
“No special
lady waiting to take you out?” she queries, and Greg’s reply is automatic.
“You’re the
only lady in my life Eleanor,” he says. “You know that.” He says it jokingly,
but he’s uncomfortably close to the truth, and they both know it. He’s
uncharacteristically lost for words, and hears her suck in a deep breath.
“Look,
Greg…” Then she pauses, and he hears her mutter something that he can’t quite
make out under her breath. “Greg, there’s another call coming through… can you hang
on?”
“Not a
problem,” he assures her, beginning to zap through the television channels
while he waits for her to come back. When she eventually does, her voice is
harried, and she sounds even more annoyed than she had at the start of the
conversation.
“You think it’s a bad sign when the day is bad
before it even starts?” she asks, her voice wry. “That was the hospital… they
want to know if I can come in early.”
“Go,” he
says. “I have to get ready soon myself.”
“OK.” She
sounds reluctant though, or maybe he’s reading too much into her pause,
investing it with his own mood. “I’ll try to call tomorrow. But if I don’t,
have a great day.”
Greg nods.
“You too. Bye Ellie.”
“Bye Greg.”
The next
thing he hears is a dial tone, and it is a long time before he puts the phone
down on the table. It’s even longer before he stands up to go to work.
Once he
gets to work, he doesn’t have time to think about Ellie, barely has time to
watch the clock. There are thirteen active cases on his books, thirteen pieces
of evidence that he has to process, and he has no time to think about his love
life, or the lack thereof, no time to think of his birthday or Zoey’s
graduation or anything else.
The only
time he pauses in his work is when he smells burning plastic, when he looks
around to locate the source.
Then there
is a loud bang, and he is flying through the air, landing hard on the ground.
Hard flakes of snow fall on top of him, and he realises dimly that it is not
snow, but glass, and there is flame and burning and alarms going off and
considerable pain. There is Sara, lying on the ground, looking at him with
horror etched in her features.
Then there
is blessed blackness.
>*<*>*<
Ellie might
be having the shift from hell, but, as she works in the ER, up to her elbows in
blood and guts and gore, she realises that there is something to be thankful
for. No matter how hard the work is, no matter how distressing the cases she
sees, at least there is no time to dwell on what she is seeing, or on how tired
she is. It’s one thing after another, and she barely has time to grab a cup of
tea and a sandwich in between all the things she has to do. She does manage to
beg enough spare minutes to enable her to watch some of her father’s
There are
times, many times, when she hates being the President’s daughter.
But there
are times when she is proud to be a Bartlet, and this is just such an occasion.
Still
though, proud as she is of her father, and her sister, she knows that she has
to go back to work, which is just what she does, and she works hard, loses all
track of time.
Until, that
is, the doors of the emergency room burst open and every Secret Service agent
on her detail streams in. Luckily, she’s not working on any patients, but she is
holding a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other; both crash to the
ground in sheer shock. A little voice in her head tells her that those are
important hospital records, that she should treat them with more respect that
that, but said little voice is silenced, even as it screams louder than ever
when Declan, her lead agent, takes a firm grip of her arm.
“Sorry
Ellie,” he says, sounding anything but, not sounding anything but all business.
“We need you to come with us now.” She opens her mouth to protest, looks at the
supervising physician to apologise, but Declan is still talking, but not to
her, to the others in the room. “Our superiors will be in touch.”
He propels
her forwards, another of her agents, James, taking her by the other arm, and
between the two of them, she is swept outside, her feet literally not touching
the ground. By the time they bundle her into a car though, her thoughts are
somewhat more in order, and she is spewing questions right and left. “What the
hell is going on here?” is the latest in a long line of ones that have gone
unanswered. “What’s wrong? What’s happened to my father?”
It is only
when they are in the car, when she is sitting beside Wendy, a third agent, a
woman the same age as her older sister Elizabeth, who is looking at her with
worried eyes. “It’s not your father,” she says softly. “It’s Zoey.”
She
continues talking, but as the world tilts and whirls around Ellie, she only
catches every other word. Something about Zoey and a nightclub, the words
missing and dead agent at the scene making her stomach twist painfully.
Her bratty
little sister is missing, and every nightmare scenario that’s ever been
outlined to her invades her mind in living colour.
They are
nearly at her apartment before she can speak, and it’s cold comfort to know
that her parents are both in the White House, that Liz and her family are all
safe in their house.
It’s no
comfort at all when she thinks to ask after the dead agent, and is told that
it’s Molly O’Connor, Molly who was on her detail for almost a year, Molly who
was more of a friend than an agent. Molly who stayed with her that long
terrible night when her father had been shot. Molly, who probably broke several
rules of Secret Service procedure when she let Greg into Ellie’s apartment,
told the other agent to leave them alone there, because she’d met Greg before
and knew that he was exactly what Ellie needed.
Between the
thought of Molly’s death and Greg, tears come to Ellie’s eyes, as she grieves
for one, and wishes with all her heart that the other was here with her.
When she
gets to her apartment, she just wants to be alone, but thanks to the situation,
that’s not even an option. She goes into the bathroom to shower, wash the grime
of the shift off her, and while normally she would linger, tonight the shower
is a quick one, just in case there is any news of Zoey while she is gone. When
she emerges though, hair damp around her shoulders, in her oldest, most faded,
most comfortable blue jeans, and an over-sized sweatshirt that once belonged to
Greg, Declan shakes his head, and she sinks down on the couch to wait.
And wait.
The chances
of anyone calling her with regard to any substantive about Zoey are few and far
between, but she knows that the Secret Service are keeping an eye on the
phones, just in case. So she screens her calls, grateful that she has a
ready-made excuse not to answer the phone, not to talk to anyone. Declan keeps
her updated on what’s going on at the White House, and she shares a quick,
frantic conversation with Liz. With everyone else though, she simply turns
away, tries not to listen.
She looks
at the numbers though, waiting for the one call that hasn’t come yet, the call
that she is expecting. When it comes, she half-expects Declan to physically
restrain her, and she’s sure he wants to, but she’s too quick for him, grabbing
the phone and pressing it to her ear.
“Greg?”
There are tears in her eyes and her throat and her voice, and she can’t believe
how much she wants to see him, how much she wants him to hold her and tell her
that everything is going to be all right.
“Ellie?”
Her heart
stops beating when she hears the voice, because while she knows it, it’s not
the one she was expecting, not the voice that normally comes from this number.
“John?” she chokes out, a thousand questions in her mind that she’s unable to
voice, and he must hear that, because he speaks quickly, as if he’s afraid that
he won’t get his news out before she loses her reason completely.
Of course,
he’s not that far wrong.
“Look,” he
says. “There’s no need for you to panic.”
A few
minutes ago, Ellie would have said that she was beyond panic. She’s finding out
now just how wrong she was. “What’s happened John?” she asks, finally finding
her voice, and it hardly sounds like her voice at all. “Where’s Greg?”
John draws
in a deep breath, but when he speaks, he doesn’t beat around the bush, for
which she is thankful. “There was an explosion at the lab,” he tells her. “They
don’t know what caused it… but he was there when it happened… he got thrown
through a window, he’s got cuts and bruises, burns on his back…” She inhales a
shuddering breath, which becomes a sob, sinks back down onto the arm of the
couch, because her legs can’t support her anymore. “Ellie, he’s going to be
fine.”
“Are you
sure?” Because it strikes her now, with considerable force, that she couldn’t
stand it if anything happened to him.
“They
called me when it happened,” he assures her. “I was at the hospital most of the
day, I’ve just come home now… he’s awake, more or less… pretty doped up on
painkillers, but he’s himself, he’s talking…”
She laughs,
a touch hysterically she thinks, and she works hard to rein herself in. “Is he
hitting on the nurses yet?”
There’s a
dry chuckle from the other end of the phone. “Give him time,” John says, and
she knows that he’s not kidding. Then he pauses, and she knows what he’s going
to say next. “Look, I’ve only just heard about Zoey… is there any word?”
Ellie
shakes her head, looks up towards the ceiling, thinking how impossible it is
that a matter of hours ago, she was sitting on this couch, talking to Greg
about how her little sister was graduating college, teasing him about getting
old. Now he was in the hospital, and Zoey was missing, and she was stuck here
in
Though
there’s a part of her that really needs to be in
“You want
me to tell Greg? I know he’ll want to talk to you…”
She nods,
but she’s thinking about him, about what he’s going to be able for in the next
few days, her doctor’s mind superseding her friendly concerns. “When you think
he’s ready,” she says. But she can’t resist asking, “What hospital-?”
“Desert
Palm,” John replies, and she can hear the smile in his voice.
“Thanks,”
she says, reaching for a pen to take down the name, dropping the idea when she
drops the pen, her hand shaking too much to even think about writing legibly.
“If you hear anything-”
“You’ll be
the first one I call,” he promises.
“Thanks
John.” With that, she hangs up the phone, throws it down on the couch beside her,
dropping her head into her hands and taking several deep, calming breaths that
do nothing to calm her. It is a long time before she looks up at Declan, even
longer before she can stand up, tell him, “I’m going to bed now.” She doesn’t
ask him to wake her if there’s any news. She knows that he will.
So she goes
into her bedroom and closes the door firmly behind her, leans against it as she
marshals the energy to walk the couple of steps to her bed.
Once there,
she lies down, hugs her spare pillow to her, wishing that it were someone else.
Only then does she let herself cry.
>*<*>*<
Greg
remembers very little about the explosion, and from the woozy sensation he gets
whenever he moves his head, not to mention the total absence of feeling in his
back, he thinks that he’s not going to remember very much about his initial
time in the hospital either. Which, he knows, is probably a good thing for him,
but not so much for Catherine and Warrick, who have evidently drawn the short
straw in finding out what happened.
They
interview him, not pushing very hard, and he can’t tell them anything, and when
they go, he is lying on his side, looking at the corridor and waiting area
through the windows, looking at the people coming and going. He knows that she
should be sleeping, knows that if he asks, he could undoubtedly be given
something to knock him out, but his mind is whirring, albeit in slightly slow
motion, as he tries to piece together the last moments before the world blew up
around him.
He’s not
having very much luck though, and he’s distracted by a pattern that he begins
to notice, something that’s happening outside the window. He can see people
standing still, huddled together in bunches, all of them staring up at a
television suspended high in the waiting area. They walk through, and then they
stop, staring up with expressions that range from shock to horror and, in a few
cases, tears. There is something wrong, Greg is sure of it, and curiosity gets
the better of him, has him narrowing his eyes, turning his better-than-perfect
eyesight on the television screen, trying to see what they’re all seeing.
Between the
distance and the drugs, it’s hard to know anything for sure, but there is a
news ticker running along the bottom of the screen, and it looks very much as
if some of the shots are coming from outside, because the screen is black, and
there are flashing lights, police cars, he thinks, in the background. There is
a logo in the top right hand corner of the screen that he can’t make out from
this distance, but then the screen shifts, the picture changes, and he feels
himself grow very cold all over.
The picture
is of President Bartlet, and he is taking the Oath of Office. Greg recognises
the set up from seeing it copious times on the news back in January, and
besides, he’s known the President for a long time and would recognise him
anywhere. Then the picture changes again, to show the President and his wife
and their three daughters, footage that was taken at one of the Inaugural
Balls, footage that he’d taken great delight in teasing Ellie about. She’d
laughed, and she’d complained, about the camera crews and the stage-managing of
the family and about how her feet had been killing her all night, but when he’d
stopped laughing, told her how beautiful he thought she was, she’d stopped
laughing too.
There are
only a few reasons why the news networks would be running news tickers and
archive footage of the President and his family, and none of them are good.
Greg is
saved from further speculation when the door to his room opens, and a nurse
comes in. She is white-haired and diminutive, named Bess, and she’s been in
here with him before. She was very kind to him when they first set him up here,
reminding him a little of his Nana Helga, and she is all concern and solicitude
again now. “How are we doing in here?” she asks, coming over to stand in front
of him, the little lines between her eyes deepening when she sees the look on
his face. “Are you in a lot of pain?”
Greg
ignores her question completely, answering it with one of his own. “What’s
happening out there?” he asks. “On the television?”
She looks
over her shoulder, her features registering dismay, but when she looks down at
him again, she is firm; Nana Helga refusing to let him, all of fifteen years
old, have a glass of wine at the party for his parents’ twentieth wedding
anniversary. “You don’t concern yourself with that,” she says, in a tone that
would normally not leave room for argument, but Greg is scared out of his mind
that something has happened to Ellie or her family, and he needs to know what’s
happened.
“You have
to tell me,” he says, that fear chasing the last of the drugs induced lethargy
from his mind, and the urgency in his tone stops her short. “What’s happened to
the President? Is he ok? Was it another shooting, his MS…?”
“No, no,
nothing like that.” She is quick to reassure him, even if it’s quite clear that
she doesn’t understand why this is so important to him. “It’s not him…” She
throws another glance over her shoulder, shaking her head as she looks back
around at him. “One of his daughters has been kidnapped.”
Greg is
sure that whatever monitors he’s hooked up to are going to be giving off some
rather strange readings in the next few seconds, because he’s sure that his
heart stops when he hears that news. It’s absolutely the last thing that he
wants to hear, and it takes him a good thirty seconds to suck enough air into
his lungs, to get his mind working enough, to ask the question. “Which
daughter?”
Bess’s lips
are set in a thin line. “Mr Sanders,” she says, as if she’s hoping that
formality will calm him down. “You’re going to have to calm down-”
At this
point in time, Greg could no more calm down without knowing if Ellie is all
right than he could sprout wings and fly to the moon. “Which daughter?” he asks
again, struggling to push himself up, ignoring both the pain that shoots across
his back and Bess’s start towards him. “Is it Ellie? You’ve got to tell me, has
something happened to Ellie?” Bess is protesting, and he thinks she’s trying to
get him to lie back down, but suddenly there is a third voice in the room, one
that he knows very well. He looks up, sees his best friend and roommate
standing there, his dark eyes worried, face drawn, and that’s who he directs
his next enquiry to. “John… is it Ellie? What’s happened to her?”
John gives
Bess a look as he goes over to Greg’s bedside, laying one hand on his shoulder
and pushing him down. “Greg, she’s fine… are you listening to me? Ellie’s
fine.” That’s enough to have Greg lying back down, only a little less agitated,
and John turns to Bess, tells her, “It’s fine… I can handle this.”
Bess isn’t
sure. “Should I get the doctor?”
John shakes
his head, a firm no. “I’ll talk to him,” he promises, and Bess backs away, but
she doesn’t leave the room.
Greg
reaches up, clamping his hand down on John’s arm, making his friend look at
him. “Ellie?” he asks, and John gives him half a smile.
“She’s fine
Greg. She’s at home in
Greg nods, more relieved than he can possibly put into words. “She’s ok,” he
repeats, closing his eyes. They open again when he realises the implications.
“Who?”
John sighs.
“Zoey.”
The single
word has Greg closing his eyes again, feeling once more cold all over. A
hundred different images of Zoey Bartlet play across the back of his eyelids,
his own private home cinema system. Zoey the first time they met, when she came
with her parents to pick Ellie up at the end of her first year at Stanford. All
he can remember are red hair and braces, the shy smile to her big sister’s
boyfriend, a shy smile that disappeared quickly over the next few months as
they traded hellos when she answered the phone to him. It had faded altogether
by the time he made his first trip to the Manchester farm, was a dim and
distant memory by the time that she nearly caught himself and Ellie in the
hayloft one summer’s day, only her quick thinking saving her father from
catching them too. He remembers her laughing and joking and being the world’s
worst Trivial Pursuit player and he can’t even imagine what she’s going through
now.
He forces
his eyes open, looks into John’s concerned face. “Do they know-?”
“No word
yet. She was at a graduation party, no-one’s really sure what’s going on…” He
pauses. “There was a dead Secret Service agent at the scene.”
During that
pause, Greg had been wondering if she’d simply given her agents the slip; after
all, it wouldn’t be the first time it had been done, he had witnessed it
personally with Ellie, been the cause of it even. But a dead agent meant that
whoever had Zoey, they were playing for keeps.
“I need to
talk to Ellie,” he says, trying to sit up again and failing completely.
“Look,
she’ll understand,” John tells him, but Greg knows that it’s not a matter of
understanding. It’s a matter of her needing him and him not being there, and he
has to talk to her, for both their sakes. “I told her about what happened,”
John continues, forcing Greg to lie back down, not having to exert much force
to do it. “She knows where you are, I’m sure she’ll call tomorrow…”
Greg’s head
is spinning, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bess approaching, a
needle in her arm. “I need to talk to her…” he repeats as she pushes up the
sleeve of his hospital gown.
“She’ll
call tomorrow,” John promises. “She’s going to want to check that you’re not hitting
on the nurses, isn’t she?”
It’s a
joke, even if there’s probably a little bit of truth in it, and it makes him
smile as the needle slides into his arm and blackness once more overwhelms him.
>*<*>*<
Greg
sleeps, and he does so without dreams, and when he wakes up, he sees a blonde
woman staring out his hospital room window. For a moment, one crazy moment, he
thinks that it is Ellie, that she’s come to see him, but then he realises that
the hair is too short and the body is all wrong, and then the woman turns, sees
him there, and it is Catherine.
“What time
is it?” he asks her, and she comes over to sit beside his bed.
“Late,” she
tells him, but that doesn’t tell him anything, how long he’s been out, how long
Zoey’s been missing, so he tries again.
“How long
have you been here?”
“A while,”
she answers. “I’ve got a little time on my hands.”
There’s
something very sober, very serious, about Catherine at the moment, and
remembering their last conversation, albeit as if through a veil, Greg realises
what must have happened. For a few seconds, thoughts of Ellie and Zoey fly from
his head as he begins to wonder if he’s going to have a job to get back to when
he gets out of here. “You figured out what happened in the lab, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Catherine
sighs, pulls up a chair and sits down heavily. “Yeah… and I wanted you to hear
it from me.”
She talks
and he listens, hears about the hot plate and the unknown substance and how
she’s been suspended for five days. About how sorry she is for being so
careless, about how she’s really sorry that he ended up being hurt. She
actually seems more upset about it than he is, and she seems surprised when he
tells her that it’s fine, that it was an accident and that these things happen.
“You should
be angry with me,” she tells him, and he smiles, shakes his head, because he
knows that there are worse things in the world that this. In a few days, he
will be out of the hospital, on the road to recovery.
But Ellie’s
dad will still be the President, and he will still have MS, and God only knows
what will have happened to Zoey between then and now.
He doesn’t
ask Catherine if she’s heard anything about the President’s daughter; he can’t.
That would lead to too many questions about why he wants to know, and besides,
she has enough of her own angst to worry about without him loading some of his
on to add to the burden. He can wait until Bess comes back or until John comes
in, or some other random nurse who he can question under the guise of small
talk. He’s pretty sure that Catherine would figure out that there was more to
it than that, but he’s also pretty sure that her guilt will blind her to
anything being out of the ordinary if he just pleads fatigue.
So,
mentally sending up prayers for forgiveness to anyone who might be listening,
he tells her that he’s tired, and gets the expected response, that he should
get some rest. She seems set on staying though, so he closes his eyes, tries to
pretend like he’s sleeping, listening to Catherine’s breathing, waiting for her
to move.
When he
opens his eyes again, just a fraction, just in case, Catherine’s chair is
empty, and the light in the room is completely different, and Greg realises
that he had indeed fallen asleep. He closes his eyes, cursing himself mentally,
and opens them slowly, hoping that he’ll be able to see the television in the
room beyond, will catch a news update.
Instead, he
is shocked at the sight before him. Standing at the window, looking out at the
Vegas night, there is a vision, one than has never been more welcome to him.
“Ellie?” he whispers, and she turns sharply at his voice, smiling when she sees
him, though it’s the shakiest smile he thinks he’s ever seen. “What are you
doing here?” he whispers, because she shouldn’t be here in Vegas with him. She
should be in Baltimore in her apartment, or in Washington, with her family, and
a million questions come to mind, chief amongst them how long was he asleep
for, have they found Zoey, is she all right?
She shakes
her head as she comes towards him, cutting off his questions, tucking a strand
of now-blonde hair behind one ear. The change in colour is a recent
development, and the movement brings back memories of the first time he’d seen
her hair that colour; back in March when the two of them met up for a long
weekend in New York. He made a show of not being able to recognise her, took
great delight in whistling the old black and white “Blondie” theme tune, just
to get a rise out of her , and it always did. He can hardly believe that that
was only a few weeks ago, that they were so happy and so carefree such a short
space of time ago, and now, look at them, each in their own particular circle
of hell. He doesn’t take his eyes off her as she approaches him, sinks down in
the chair beside his bed and takes his hands in hers. “Dope,” she whispers, and
this close to her, he can see her red eyes, the tracks of previously shed tears
on her cheeks, can see more threatening to trace their path. “What, you think
you’re the only one who can ride to the rescue?”
He grins
weakly, closing his eyes for a moment, concentrating on her touch, the familiar
sound of her breathing. It relaxes him, and he lets himself bask in it for just
a moment. Then he opens his eyes, frowns, because she really shouldn’t be here.
“Zoey?” he asks, still not raising his voice, as if he’s afraid that she, that
the moment, will shatter and break if he raises his voice. “Is there any-?”
“Sssh.” She
shakes her head again, reaching out to lay a finger on his lips. “Don’t.” He’s
not sure if the words or the movement loosened the tears, but either way, she
is crying, and that hurts him worse than any glass window or burns could,
because he can’t stand to see her cry.
“Don’t
cry…” he pleads, and she nods, looking faintly embarrassed, but the hand that
was on his lips has moved, is now resting on his cheek, and he moves his head,
nudging her palm lightly, gratified when she smiles the faintest of smiles.
“What are
we like?” she wonders aloud, and were he not aware that doing so would cause
serious pain, he would shrug a jaunty shrug.
“Soulmates?”
is his suggestion, and there’s a real chuckle in response.
“Maybe,”
she allows, leaning forward and kissing him. When she pulls back, she lets her
head rest on his pillow so that she can look into his eyes. “I love you.”
He grins.
“I love you too.”
“Close your
eyes,” she tells him, her hand moving through his hair. “Get some sleep.”
Nodding, he
does as he’s told, asking “How long are you going to stay?”
Her tone is
teasing, and when she answers, she throws back words he’d once said to her, in
similar circumstances, at the same time of the year. “Does forever work for
you?”
“That
sounds fine,” he mumbles, letting himself surrender to sleep, his lullaby her
quiet breathing, her fingers moving through his hair.
No sooner
has he fallen asleep than the chair beside him scrapes, and he opens his eyes,
worried that something has happened to her, that she’s seen or heard some news
about Zoey. Much to his surprise, he finds himself looking not into Ellie’s
concerned face, but Nick’s, hears his friend’s voice saying, “Hey, you’re
awake…”
Greg
squeezes his eyes shut, twists his head around in confusion. “Ellie?” he
mumbles, and when he opens his eyes, Nick’s face is a mask of confusion.
“Man, I
know you’ve got a concussion…” he begins, and Greg shakes his head quickly,
blinking again.
“She wasn’t
just here?” he asks, and Nick shakes his head slowly.
“I met Cath
on my way out,” he says. “She said you were asleep; I just thought I’d stay for
a little while, in case you woke up…” He frowns, and Greg knows what the next
question out of his mouth is going to be. “Who’s Ellie?”
Greg sighs.
“Just a friend,” he says, and despite being bedridden, he hopes that his tone
will signal to Nick that he’s not going to talk about it. Of course, maybe the
bedridden thing will do that all on its own. Just in case however, he steams
straight in with, “So, tell me about the investigation…”
Nick gives
him a strange look, but obliges, and if he notices that Greg’s attention
occasionally drifts over his shoulder to the television in the hallway, and the
pictures of a red-headed girl who is still missing, then he’s friend enough not
to comment.
>*<*>*<
Later, when
Ellie looks back on those terrible days at the end of May, she will think that
it all seems like some kind of terrible dream, or nightmare. She will remember
the dreams that plagued her restless sleep, dreams where both Greg and Zoey are
trapped inside a burning building, where she can hear their screams, hear them
calling her, but try as she might, she can never reach them. She wakes up from
those dreams, chest heaving as if she’s been running, throat hoarse as if she’s
been screaming, eyes streaming from the smoke, and she closes her eyes tightly
to try to banish the images. Of course, that only makes the images come into
sharper focus, so she rises from her bed, showers and changes quickly, asking
the agents when she emerges if there is any news. It’s a mere function, because
she knows that if there had been, they would have woken her, would have called
her, but she has to ask anyway.
She makes
herself a quick cup of tea, wishing, for once in her life, that she drank
coffee. The thought brings to mind a certain peppy lab tech, and she can almost
hear him beside her, babbling away nineteen to the dozen about the healing
powers of a cup of coffee, Blue Hawaiian, forty bucks an ounce, the nectar of
the Gods. It’s enough to make her eyes smart all over again, and she has to
swallow hard, forcing the scalding hot liquid down her throat. She knows that
she should eat something, but the thought of it is enough to make her stomach
turn, so she simply adds more milk to the cup, knocking in back in a few swift
gulps before turning to the agents, asking them is it time to leave yet.
The
forty-five minute car journey seems to take far longer, and by some freak
coincidence - or Secret Service planning, she’s not sure which – her car pulls
up at the same time as Liz’s. Her parents are standing on the portico, waiting
for them, and the second she sees them, she’s a little girl again, just wanting
to feel her mother’s arms around her to make everything all right. Even Liz,
the older sister, a mother herself, seems to feel the same way, and from the
way Mom’s arms go around them, draw them close to her as if she never wants to
let them go, she can guess how she’s feeing.
She’s never
liked being in the White House at the best of times, and these are far from the
best of times, when all she can do is sit around with Doug and Liz and her mom,
trying to keep Gus and Annie occupied. Gus, at five, is too young to
understand, but Annie, going on for sixteen understands all too well, knows
exactly what could be happening to Zoey. Just like she understands that her
grandfather has invoked the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, has handed over the
Presidency to his greatest political enemy, because there’s no way that the
President of the
Which is to
be admired, and she knows this. But it also means that they’re a step removed
from any information that might be coming in about Zoey, means that they have
to wait a few extra minutes before they’re told what’s happening.
And at no
time is that more apparent than when they are sitting in the living room of the
residence, staring at the television set in the hopes that CNN will trump Leo
and the Secret Service when that’s exactly what happens.
That’s how
she finds out that her little sister might have been kidnapped because her
father ordered the assassination of the Qumari Foreign Minister last summer.
She can’t
believe it at first, doesn’t want to believe it, the words, “My father would
never do that,” running through her head. But then she looks at him, and she
knows that it’s true.
Her mother
walks out the room, and Ellie hesitates only for a few moments before following
her, but she doesn’t talk to her about it, instead goes up to the room that’s
her room when she stays here. It’s not her room though, not really, and she
feels more alone here than ever.
There’s
only one person she wants to talk to, and her hand hovers over her cell phone,
her fingers itching to press speed dial number one. She stops herself though,
because for one, she knows that he’s not going to be there. For another, the
knowledge of where he is gives her pause, because he’s lying in a hospital bed,
with his own set of problems, and it’s not fair to call him up and cry all over
him. Which, much as she might like to pretend she’s being strong, she knows is
exactly what she’ll do.
So instead
she lies on the bed, stares up at the ceiling and tries not to think about him.
The phone
beginning to ring makes her jump, and she reaches for it, instinctively
checking the caller ID. It’s a number she doesn’t recognise, but it’s a
“Hello?”
Her voice, even to her own ears, is shaking, and it’s answered by one that’s
just as shaky.
“Ellie?
It’s me.”
It’s the
voice she’s been dying to hear, and just as she knew she would, she promptly
bursts into tears. “Greg?” she sobs, not even trying to stop the tears rolling
down her cheeks. “Greg, are you ok?”
“Hey… I’m
fine… Ellie, I’m fine…” His voice is low, strong, and someone else might almost
be fooled. But she knows him, knows when he’s lying to her, and she can hear
the strain in his voice. “How are you?”
“I’m ok.”
She answers automatically, because it’s something that she’s always said,
always done, told people that she’s fine when really she’s not. Greg’s the only
person she’s never had to lie to, and she tells herself that this isn’t really
a lie. She doesn’t want him to worry about her, so it’s in a good cause.
“Sure.”
From the tone of his voice, he believes her as much as she believes him. “Is
there any news?”
Ellie
laughs, a sound that’s completely devoid of humour. “On Zoey? Nothing since the
ransom note. Except that they now think that she’s kidnapped because Dad
ordered the Qumari Foreign Minister assassinated.”
There is a
long silence from the other end of the phone. Then one word. “Shit.”
Ellie can’t
help it; she bursts out laughing. It’s pretty much the only word that can sum
things up for either of them at the moment, and for some reason, it strikes her
as hilarious. There’s some detached little part at the back of her mind
muttering something about hysteria, and that voice is enough to have her
reining in her giggles. “Yeah,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “How are you?”
she asks then, softer. “Really?”
“John
called you?” It’s a question that doesn’t need an answer, so she just waits,
and he continues. “It’s not so bad… I’ll be out in a couple of days. Burns to
my back, cuts and bruises… and one hell of a headache. But I’ll live.”
She shakes
her head, pulls her pillow closer to her. “I was so worried about you…” she
whispers, a fresh wave of tears breaking, and he shushes her again.
“You know
me Ell,” he says, and he almost sounds like his old self. “It’s gonna take a
lot more than that to stop me.” Then he sighs, comes over all serious. “I just
wish I could be there for you.”
“Dope.” She
smiles at that. “You don’t have to keep riding to my rescue you know.” Because
he’s done that for her on at least three occasions that she can think of;
dropping everything to come to her side when life was overwhelming her. The
run-up to the first election, that terrible May night when her father was shot,
and then again a year later when Mrs Landingham died and her father was going
public with his MS. She expects him to deny it, so his soft chuckle comes as
something of a surprise.
“Funny,” he
tells her.
She frowns.
“What?”
“I had a
dream about you… and you said almost the exact same thing.”
“You had a
dream about me?” She lifts an eyebrow, unable to keep back the teasing tone in
her voice. She thinks that it’s probably bad form to be acting like this when
Zoey is still who-knows-where, but this is Greg, and he’s always had this
effect on her, has always been able to make her smile. “Should I be worried?”
“It was all
very innocent,” he assures her, and she waits for the next word, knowing what’s
coming. “Unfortunately.” She laughs and so does he. “That’s better…” he says afterwards.
“You know I’d be there if I could, right?”
“You know
it goes both ways.”
There’s a
moment of companionable silence, then he sighs. “Look, I have to go… I’ve got a
nurse in here glaring at me… I think she wants the phone back…”
Ellie nods,
even as more tears smart in her eyes, because she wants to talk to him forever,
or until Zoey is found, whichever comes first. “OK… go get better,” she tells
him. “I’ll call you when I can.”
“You’d
better. And when Zoey gets home, tell her I said hey.”
“When” he
said, not “If” and in a tone of total confidence, one that sets Ellie crying
again. “Greg?” she says, because there’s something she needs to tell him before
he hangs up the phone. Her throat is just full of emotion at the moment, his
name a strangled croak from her lips.
“Yeah?”
She
swallows hard, tells him something she’s sure he knows, but that she hasn’t
told him in a long time. “I love you.”
There’s
silence, then she hears him smile. “I love you too.”
Then all
she hears is a dial tone.
She lies
down on her bed for a long time, holding her pillow close to her, re-living his
words, the sound of his voice. Eventually, that’s what gives her the strength
to brave the halls of the residence again, ending up in the kitchen where she
begins preparing food with her mother, a voice in the back of her head that
sounds far too like Greg for comfort telling her that she needs to eat. It even
sustains her when her father enters the kitchen, when he and her mother end up
as close to a screaming match as they ever have while she and Liz are quite
literally caught in the middle, trying not to get caught in the crossfire. Her
mother ends up storming out of the kitchen, Liz following her, and that leaves
Ellie alone with her dad.
Her dad,
who she’s always been more than a little afraid of; her dad who she always
thinks she’s disappointed.
Her father,
who looks older and tireder than she’s ever seen him, who is sitting at the
table looking utterly defeated.
She pours
him a cup of coffee in his favourite Notre Dame mug, brings it over to him. And
when she places it down on the table, she does something that she can’t
remember ever doing; she puts her hand on his shoulder, leans down and kisses
his cheek, lets her head rest there for a moment. He doesn’t say anything, but
he leans into her, covers her hand with his, and in that moment, there is no
need for words.
They are
there for one another, and that is all that matters.
Just like
they are there for one another later on that night, when they go to a special
Mass for Zoey, where they pray for her return. She does not look at the grounds
of the White House on the way there, has seen the shrine that has sprung up
there on CNN, doesn’t want to see it in reality, because this is too real
already. Just like it is real when her father grips her hand tightly as they
walk into the chapel, when she sits there beside him as the priest reads Mass,
and she finds herself praying harder than she thinks she ever has in her life.
Afterwards,
before they leave, she is once more at her father’s side, when they go to the
side of the church. His hand shakes as he lights a candle, stares at its light
for a long time, and if he notices that she lights two, then he passes no
comment.
Instead he
takes her hand, helps her up and leads her out to the motorcade.
>*<*>*<
Contrary to
the doctors’ advice, and everyone else’s, Greg checks himself out of hospital a
scant forty-eight hours after being checked in. Zoey has been missing a little
under twenty-four hours by then, and the only reason he agrees to promise that
he’ll rest is that he knows he’s going to spend the next who-knows-how-long
lying on his couch watching CNN, remote control in one hand, telephone in the
other. He might not be able to travel to
His doctors
are, to put in mildly, concerned. The guys from the lab, Nick in particular,
are beside themselves over it, and even John raises an eyebrow or two about it,
and he’s the only one who knows the real reason that Greg is checking himself
out early. He understands it though, even if he’s not happy about it, and he
promises the doctors that he’ll keep an eye on Greg, will whisk him back to the
hospital if there are any complications.
Greg is
doing this for Ellie, but she’s far from happy about that fact when he tells
her about it, his first task when happily ensconced in front of CNN to ring her
to let her know he’s home.
“Are you
out of your mind?” are her first words, after a long pause which he took
advantage of to move the phone away from his ear. He knows Ellie, knew that was
going to happen. “What the hell are you thinking Greg?” she continues, and
despite the distance between the receiver and his ear, he can hear every word
loud enough to make him wince. “You need to be in the hospital, you need to be
where people can take care of you…”
“Ell, all
they can do is give me pills and change my dressings,” he tells her
practically, the same words he used with the doctors. “I can take the pills
myself, and John’s going to take me in when the dressings need to be changed.
Otherwise, it’s bed rest… and I can do that at home, instead of taking up a bed
that a real sick person needs.”
She sighs
on the other end of the phone, and he has a sudden image of her, curled up on
her bed, her fingers kneading her bridge of her nose. “Greg…” she breathes, but
that’s all she says, and he fights back a sigh of his own.
“Ellie, I
know what I’m doing, ok? And I promise you, if I feel the least bit worse, I’ll
head back to the hospital pronto.”
A sniff,
and his heart does something funny at the sound. “Promise?”
“Yes. Now,
tell me about you.” Because no matter how worried she might be about him, he
knows she’s more worried about Zoey, and for that matter, so is he. “How are you holding up?”
There’s
another long silence, then another sniffle. “I’m ok,” she tells him, though he
doesn’t believe her for a second. “Mom’s not talking to Dad, and Gus is acting
up, Annie’s not eating… Dad’s just walking around in a daze, trying as hard as
he can not to go anywhere near the Oval Office…” She breaks off then, swallows
audibly. “When I think of all the times I’ve wished I wasn’t the President’s
daughter…”
Greg knows
well how many times she’s thought that; he remembers the long conversations in
the run-up to her father deciding to run for President in the first place, how
she would go back and forth over whether it was a good idea. He remembers the
actual campaign, the stories she told him about her rare appearances on the
road, about how hard it had been for her to complete her final college exams
with the media blitz dogging her every move. He remembers the insanity of those
final few days in
“It’s going
to be ok Ellie,” he promises her, even though there’s a tiny nagging doubt in
his mind, because he knows exactly how long Zoey’s been missing, knows the
chances of finding her alive decrease with every hour. And since Ellie’s just
as smart as he is, if not more so, he knows she knows that too. But he
continues with the lie anyway, because he wants to believe it. “They’re going
to find her and she’s going to be fine, and in a few weeks, she’ll be back to
teasing us about you and me, and we won’t even remember this…”
There’s a
soft sob from the other end of the line, and he knows Ellie is crying. “I hope
you’re right,” she whispers, and he forces a smile to his lips.
“She’s a
strong kid Ellie,” he reminds her. “She’ll get through this.” He pauses then,
pictures the woman on the other end of the line, remembers the things they’ve
been through together, the times they’ve cried in one another’s arms. “And so
will you.”
She sobs
again at that, and he says nothing for a long time, just lets her cry quietly
and wishes he could be there. She stops when he can hear another voice on the
line, her sister Elizabeth if he remembers correctly, and when she talks to him
again, Ellie tells him something about a summons from her father and he lets
her go then, making her promise to call him if she needs to talk.
Over the
next two days, that’s exactly what she does, and he’s glad of it, for both
their sakes. She needs to talk to someone about how she’s feeling, her fears, her
worries, someone she knows she can trust implicitly. He’ll fill that role for
her, he always has, and it serves a purpose for him too, firstly because it
takes his mind off his own troubles, secondly because he’s just as worried
about Zoey as she is.
Otherwise,
his hours are divided between trying to sleep, watching CNN, and entertaining
his friends, from work and otherwise, who stop by to see how he’s doing. He’s
sure that a few of them wonder why he refuses to turn off the television while they’re
there, or even to mute the sound, but no-one asks, and he doesn’t volunteer any
information. He’s never once breathed a word about his relationship with the
First Family; he’s not about to start now. John is a godsend throughout, a
friend who understands why Greg’s taken over the television, a friend of
Ellie’s to boot, who’s just as worried about her as Greg is. He takes Greg to
the hospital on the second day to get his dressings changed, deals with cooking
– read, calling the local takeout joints – and cleaning, brings him whatever he
needs. Most important though, he plays the same role for Greg that Greg is
playing for Ellie, listening to him give voice to his concerns.
As luck
would have it, both of them are in the living room, Greg lying on the couch, John
lounging in one of the armchairs, when the breaking news icon flashes across
the screen. They’re instantly alert, John sitting bolt upright in the chair,
Greg swinging himself up to a sitting position, barely registering the pain
that lances through his back at the motion. For a terrifying second, Greg is
sure of what he’s going to see, news that they’ve found Zoey’s body, and he
holds his breath as his heart begins to race, his palms sweating.
Then Paula
Francis’s face appears on the screen and she says the five most beautiful words
that Greg has ever heard.
“Zoey
Bartlet has been found.”
There is a
beaming smile on the woman’s face, a matching one quickly spreading across
Greg’s, and he’s hardly able to take in the details, something about an FBI raid
on a farmhouse, a shoot-out, but they have found Zoey, and she is alive.
He does
however take in that the First Family are on their way to the site, that they’ll
soon be reunited and he’s reaching for the phone, pressing the speed dial
number one, Ellie’s cell phone. It’s turned off, so he leaves a simple message.
“Ell, it’s
me… I just saw the news, and I don’t know when you’re going to get this… but I
just wanted you to know how happy I am for you… give Zoey my love, ok? I’ll
talk to you later.”
He hangs up
then, throws the phone down on the couch beside him, turning to John with a
smile on his face, then looking back to the television screen, to Paula Francis
who is talking to someone standing in front of the White House. The candles and
signs are clearly visible in the background, along with the people who are
talking quietly, the news evidently spreading among them. He hears what scant
details of the rescue there are, and he stays in front of the television, John
with him, all night, neither of them getting any sleep, each of them caring
even less.
Both are
still awake when they hear that Zoey has been taken to
They stay
in front of the television until the phone rings, and Greg reaches for it
quickly, pausing only for a second to check the caller ID. When he sees the
name that appears, he nods at John at the same time as he’s pressing the answer
button, saying, “Ellie?”
“It’s me
Greg,” she says, her voice shaking, sounding near to tears, and as she speaks,
John stands, holding up a hand to indicate that he’s going into his bedroom.
Greg nods, appreciating the gesture, but not even half his attention is on his
room-mate. Instead, he’s listening to Ellie. “They found her… she’s all right…”
Those two sentences are enough to let Greg know that Ellie is indeed crying,
but these, he also knows, are happy tears.
“I saw the
news,” he says simply. “And we just finished watching your dad’s speech…”
“We watched
it in the hospital,” Ellie says. “I was so proud of him Greg…”
“Where are
you now?” Greg wonders, because there’s something in her tone that makes him
think she’s not at the hospital anymore.
“I’m in the
Residence,” she confirms. “Liz and Doug and I came back to get some rest… Mom
and Dad and Charlie are there with her now.”
“How are they
holding up?” Because he’s heard from her about how strained relations are
between her parents at the moment, but he would have thought that Zoey being
found would have brought them closer together. From Ellie’s sigh though, he
gleans that that’s not necessarily so.
“Mom’s
still not talking to Dad… she wouldn’t even watch the speech. And Charlie…” Against
all odds, there’s a smile in her voice as she mentions her sister’s
ex-boyfriend. “He refused to leave with us… even told Dad that the Notre Dame
defensive line couldn’t drag him away.”
Greg’s eyes
open wide. “He invoked Notre Dame? To your dad?” There’s another giggle from
Ellie, and he loves the sound. “Man, that guy’s definitely in love.”
“Was there
ever a doubt?” Ellie asks, and Greg just shakes his head in answer. Charlie and
Zoey broke up in part because of Charlie’s job as the President’s body man, in
part because Zoey was going to spend a semester in
There’s
something about Bartlet women, Greg notes now. Even when you’ve broken up with
them, and no matter how long it’s been since you’ve been together, they still
have a way of owning your heart.
Not that he
has a problem with that. Not at all.
He’s about
to say something along those lines to Ellie when she yawns long and loud, and
he laughs instead. “You’re dead on your feet,” he tells her, and he knows he’s
right when she doesn’t deny it. “Go to bed… I’ll talk to you later.”
“How are
you?” she asks, and he grins, because he knew she wouldn’t let him off the phone
without asking that, even if she does sound like she’s half asleep.
“Getting
better all the time,” he tells her, and she chuckles. “Now… get some sleep.”
“Yes Sir,”
she says, and with that, she hangs up.
She sleeps,
and so does he, and over the next couple of days, near normality is resumed. He
still calls her every day, more than once, and they talk about everything and
anything, but he doesn’t tell her about the nightmares. About how he dreams
about the lab explosion, about being blown through glass, but not knocked
unconscious. About how he can feel the shards of glass stabbing him, the flames
licking his body, about how he hears himself screaming for help that never
comes. About waking up screaming, John’s worried gaze at his bedroom door.
Nor does he
tell her about how his hands won’t stop shaking, about how he can barely stay
at home now without the rolling news on CNN to distract him.
And he
certainly doesn’t tell her that five days after the explosion, he is returning
to work.
Everyone on
the graveyard shift gives him second and third glances, a few wondering to his
face if he should be there. He gives them all the same answer, that he’s fine,
that he can’t stand being cooped up in the house, that he wants to be here, but
pretty soon, they all have bigger things to worry about, like a robbery at the
First National Bank, a robbery that claimed the life of one of their own. The
news hits Greg hard, makes him sit down, makes his hands shake a little bit
harder, and whether it’s because he himself was the victim of a
life-threatening incident less than a week previously, or because he’d met
Cyrus Lockwood on several occasions and found him to be a nice guy, and a good
detective, he’s not sure.
Either way,
it’s a case that’s running hot, so he doesn’t have time to think about his
shaking hands, barely has time to look at the ruins of the DNA lab across the
corridor from him. He deals with an off-the-record matter for Catherine, one
that he grasps the implications of immediately but doesn’t comment on, runs the
evidence that the rest of the team bring him, and manages to fob off Grissom
when the supervisor comments on his hands shaking. Grissom is more
understanding about it than Greg might have expected, doing nothing to make him
feel ashamed about it, instead telling him that it will get better, that it
will just take time.
It is his
first day back at work, and Greg more
than puts in his fair share of time, also logging his fair share of overtime on
it, and when he arrives home, he’s so tired that he can barely see straight.
All he wants is his painkillers, a glass of water, and his bed, doesn’t want to
deal with John or anyone else, and it’s a surprise to him when he sees his
friend standing in the living room, a holdall at his feet.
“You going
somewhere man?” Greg asks, rubbing his forehead, because John sometimes goes on
business trips, and what with everything that’s gone on in the last few days,
Greg holds out no hope of remembering if he’d been told that.
John
shrugs, a funny little grin on his face. “I’m gonna stay with Jill for a few
days,” he says. “Thought you might want some privacy.”
Greg
frowns. “Privacy?” he asks, is just about to ask what he could possibly want
privacy for when a third voice speaks.
“Surprise,”
it says simply, and Greg’s gaze swivels quickly to the door of his bedroom,
where stands a vision.
“Ellie?”
Part of him is sure that he’s finally cracked, that worry, fatigue and copious
amounts of painkillers have pushed him over the edge. But then Ellie smiles, crosses
her arms over her white t-shirt and looks mischievously at John.
“Nine years
and I’ve finally rendered him speechless,” she quips, and John laughs.
“Ellie,
you’ve been doing that since you guys first met,” he says, heading for the
door, dropping a hand on Greg’s shoulder as he passes. “I’ll call later on in
the week,” he promises. “Be gentle with him…”
The last is
thrown back over his shoulder as a joke, and Ellie laughs. “You have my word,”
she promises, and she doesn’t speak again until the door closes behind John.
Then her gaze turns to Greg, and all he can do is stare at her. There’s a long
silence, during which she frowns. “Greg? Say something?”
All he can
do is state the obvious. “You’re here,” he says, and she shakes her head, makes
her way across the room to him.
“I got in a
couple of hours ago… I thought you might have noticed the agents around the
place.” But he hadn’t, had been lost in his own little world, and he shakes his
head as she continues speaking. “I called here to let you know I was coming…
John told me you were at work.” Her tone registers with him as extremely
disapproving, and he’s sure that a lecture is coming, cuts it off before it can
begin.
“You didn’t
come all this way to lecture me-” he begins, ready to launch into a speech
about how he knows his own limits, how he can make his own decisions, but she
surprises him when she speak over him.
“You got
that right,” she says, and then she is pressed against him, body flush against
his, her arms around his neck, and he is holding onto her tightly, burying his
face in her hair. Dimly, he realises that not just his hands are shaking, but
his whole body, and not just his, but hers too, and when he pulls back from
her, he sees that tears are rolling down her cheeks.
“Hey… there’s
no need for that,” he says, reaching up to brush them away. Her cheeks grow
warm under his palms, and she gives him a shaky smile.
“Look at
you,” she whispers, one hand touching the plaster on his cheek, and he takes it
in his, twines their fingers together.
“I’d rather
look at you,” he replies, and she chuckles.
“Same old
Greg.” Her words are light, words that she’s said a million times, but her
eyes, her voice, are still filled with tears, and she shakes her head again. “I
was so worried about you,” she tells him, and he manages a smile.
“Well,” he
quips, sliding an arm around her waist, leading her to the couch. “At least I
know what it takes to get you to Vegas…” Because in all the years he’s been
living here, she’s never visited. He’s gone to
“A couple
days,” she says. “The hospital was quite generous about giving me time off
under the circumstances… the whole world thinks I’m either in
“Why aren’t
you?” He’s curious about that, because he would have thought that at a time
like this, family would have been the first thing on her mind. “Not that I’m
complaining of course…”
“Because,”
she answers firmly, wrapping one of his hands in both of hers, staring down at
it. “I needed to see for myself that you were ok… when John called me that
day…” Her voice breaks off, and she swallows furiously. “You scared the hell
out of me.”
“I know
baby…” His free arm goes around her shoulders, pulls her close to him. “But
it’s ok now.”
“Is it?”
She straightens up, looks right into his eyes. “John told me… about the
dreams…”
Greg
presses his lips together tightly. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m more
interested in why you didn’t,” she responds, in a voice that’s only slightly
accusatory. “You know there’s nothing you can’t tell me.”
“You’ve got enough on you