The Little Things
Rating: PG
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Sara/Greg
Word Count: 474
Notes: For Alyse, who wanted Sara/Greg friendship or romance, with the line “Sometimes it’s the little things” – I’m not quite sure I worked it in the way she wanted, but it’s in there!
Greg’s always wanted to be a CSI, but in the few months since he’s been getting out into the field, he’s been strangely nostalgic for lab work. Back then, he never put a face to the victims that he sees; knew, but never really understood, the impact of the crimes that they were trying to solve.
Now, though, he knows all too well, and there are days when he doesn’t understand how people can keep doing this job.
Those are the days when he looks at Sara.
Not for pointers for how to last in this job though – dedicated obsessive that she is, he doesn’t want to go quite so far down that path.
He looks at Sara for the same reason that he looks at her ever since she first started work in Vegas, wearing the ugliest green cardigan that he’s ever seen. He remembers thinking then that if he could think she was beautiful while wearing that monstrosity, then she really must be, and the intervening years have done nothing to change his opinion.
What they have done is, if anything, deepen his crush on her.
She’s got the greatest smile he’s even seen, and there are days, when they’re mired in evidence collection in the stifling heat of Vegas, days when all he wants to do is take a long shower and fall into bed, when he can see that smile and feel a little bit better.
Those are usually the same days where he’s feeling more than a little frazzled, drowning under the weight of his new responsibilities, feeling out of his depth with all the things he doesn’t know, and she’ll come to him, checking to see how he’s getting on. She’ll offer help if she thinks he needs it, but never in a way that makes him feel patronised, and every so often, if he’s really lucky, he’ll get to make a joke that makes her laugh.
His favourite times though, are the ones where it’s just the two of them together, puzzling out some new piece of evidence, then finally making the breakthrough in the case. It’s when he feels like he’s a real part of something; better yet, that she considers him an equal.
That’s when he’ll meet her in the break room with a conspiratorial smile, hand her a cup of his famed Blue Hawaiian coffee and bask in the brilliance of her grateful smile.
He’s grateful too, that while his crush on her is an open secret, she doesn’t seem to know anything about it. He knows that she’s never going to look at him the way that she looks at Grissom, and he’s ok with that. Because he knows that, sometimes, it’s the little things that make life worth living.
And with Sara, the little things are all he’s ever going to have.