CSI wee fic
Gil poured himself some coffee, a gift from Greg on his last birthday, and sat at the kitchen counter, staring out at the garden. Maybe this would wake him up enough that he didn't have to sleep again. Right now he would rather never sleep again. Ever since Sara ... well he didn't sleep if he could help it. When he slept the nightmares came.
They didn't usually start with Sara, as surprising as that might seem. They usually started with Holly Gribbs. He hadn't had the chance to get to know her well, but she'd still been one of his team, at least for a few hours. Then there was Nick, standing there facing down a woman with a gun, trying to be brave. Catherine getting attacked at a scene, so nearly a repeat of the Holly incident. Sometimes his sleeping brain would give her attacker a gun and she'd end up in a pool of blood, surrounded by yellow tape and fingerprint powder.
Nick again, being stalked by that lunatic and so nearly ending up like the first victim. The lab exploding in a shower of glass and chemicals with Greg right at the centre of it. He looked so pale lying there in that hospital bed. Greg thought he hadn't visited but he had, he'd just made sure Greg was drugged or asleep at the time.
Sara nearly dying at the hands of an inmate on the psychiatric ward because he'd stupidly left her alone. Nick again, kidnapped and buried alive. He could see him lying there, not fighting his way out despite the earth and the ants purely because he, Gilbert Grissom, told him to. Greg in hospital again after risking his own life to try and save a total stranger. Brave, foolish, trying to pretend he was fine but knowing he wasn't. Then the scene would change and it was Jim lying in the bed, so close to death, but clinging onto life with all the pigheaded stubbornness that only Jim Brass could muster.
And finally Sara again. He hadn't even known anything was wrong until he got that damn miniature. He should have, shouldn't he? He should have known somewhere inside that she was in trouble and needed him.
They'd tried, God knows they'd tried, but they hadn't made it in time. They'd beaten the clock for Nick, but not for Sara. It hurt. Not just because he'd loved her. All of it hurt. Nick, Greg, Sara, Jim, Catherine, even Holly. They were his people, well technically Jim wasn't, but he should be. Gil counted him as 'one of them'. Once you'd been a member of the geek squad you never really left.
He drank the coffee slowly and poured another one. He wondered how much caffeine he'd need to consume to eliminate the need for sleep altogether. Maybe he'd ask Greg later, but then he'd want to know why. Maybe not then, he'd just have to figure it out himself.