Title: Four Walled World
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Spoilers for the S4 CSI: Vegas episode "Bloodlines".
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Greg Sanders, unfortunately, just borrowing him for a while. Please do not sue.

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Greg almost wanted to skip as he headed out of the crime lab, a smile on his face that he was unable to hide. He was going to be training as a CSI. All it would take for him to be working in the field was finding someone to take his place in the lab.

He could understand why Grissom had made that proviso; he was indispensable in the lab at times, and he knew that he would still be spending a lot of his time there. And he loved being there; he enjoyed going to work every day. It made him feel that he was doing some good for people.

That might sound corny, but it was true, he told himself as he pulled out his keys and opened the car door. One of the reasons he'd wanted to work for the crime lab was because he wanted to catch criminals and get some justice for people who had been victimized.

Getting into the car, he fastened his seat belt and turned the key in the ignition, backing out of his parking space carefully and turning out into the traffic on the road. He'd be home in a few minutes, and then he could go over everything Grissom had said in his mind.

He hadn't said much, actually. Only that once Greg had found a replacement for the lab, then he could go out in the field. Greg knew that he wouldn't be a CSI right at the beginning; he would just be training, and he would have to pass three proficiency tests.

But thanks to Nick, he already knew a lot about the job, he told himself, smiling as he put on the signal light to turn a corner. He kept an eye on the gas gauge; the last thing he wanted to do was speed. It was too easy to get caught doing that in the early morning hours.

What would it be like to be out of the lab and working in the field most of the time? He couldn't wait to find out, Greg thought, slowing for a red light and letting the car idle. It was going to be so different from being cooped up between four walls all the time.

He loved working in the lab. It was what he'd spent a long time training for, and he was good at it. It wasn't as though he wanted to abandon his lab work entirely. He'd still be there, doing a lot of the processing from his own crime scenes.

His own crime scenes. How good did that sound? Not that he didn't mind helping the other CSIs with theirs, of course. It was his job; it was something he loved doing. Even if he wasn't the CSI working that crime scene, he was still a big part of solving the crime.

But lately, just being a part of the well-oiled machine of the crime lab wasn't enough. It was like he'd told Grissom a few weeks ago; when he was out in the field, his world opened up and became bigger. But it seemed so much smaller from the view inside the lab.

That shouldn't be, should it? Greg asked himself, sighing as he turned into the street that his apartment complex was on. He shouldn't feel that his job reduced his world to a smaller scope; working with DNA opened up a world of possibilities, after all.

It wasn't as though he was trying to get into an entirely new job and a new world. He would still be working in the same place, with the same people. It would just feel as though some barriers had been broken down once he was actually working as a CSI, and not just a lab tech.

He didn't think anything less of the people who were happy working in the lab. He'd been happy there once -- until he'd been out in the field a few times and seen what it was like. It opened up a much larger world to him, a world that he felt at home in.

He felt comfortable in the lab, too -- maybe too comfortable. He was used to it, and there were times when he felt that it didn't offer him enough of a challenge any more. He wanted to be out there with the CSIs, collecting the evidence, not just processing it.

When he was in the lab, he felt that he was only on the outskirts of the cases that he processed. When he'd been in the field, he had felt that he was right in the middle of things, more a part of them than he could ever be when he was in that four walled world.

Turning into the parking lot of his apartment building, he pulled into the space reserved for him and turned the car off. He leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes and trying to sort out exactly how he felt -- and figure out why he felt that way.

It wasn't that he disliked his job -- far from it. It was just that he felt hemmed in by being inside four walls all the time. He needed to get out in the field, to feel that he was accomplishing more than he ever could by being in the lab processing DNA.

Yes, he was good at what he did. It might be hard to find someone to take his place who had the training that he'd had, and he seriously doubted that he'd find anyone with his experience. But someone would turn up. They had to. He was counting on it.

There were other people out there who were at the point he had been at when he had first started working here. They would welcome the experience, and they would fit into the lab better than he did at this point in his life, now that he was looking towards another goal.

Working in the lab had been a goal of his for a long time, Greg thought, opening his eyes and squinting at the bright sunlight. But he'd achieved that goal, and for the last few years, he'd been doing something that he loved. But it was time to climb higher.

As much as he loved what he did, that wasn't all there was to him. He wanted to be a CSI; maybe he had wanted that since he'd first started working at the lab, and he'd only realized it after he'd been there for a couple of years. He wasn't sure about that.

What he was sure of was that he was a goal-oriented person, and that once he'd achieved what he had set himself to accomplishing, he was ready to move on to the next goal. Even if he hadn't known that he had this new goal in mind when he'd achieved the last one.

He couldn't stay stagnant. And if he turned his back on the opportunity to be a CSI and work in the field, condemning himself to the same four walled world for the rest of his career with the crime lab, then he would hate himself for not having the guts to at least try.

Yes, he could fail. There was always that chance. But he'd never been a failure at anything he'd set his mind to doing; there were things that he'd tried and discovered that he wasn't so good at, but at least he had tried. And he had to try this.

If he did happen to fail, and he ended up staying in the lab, he could rest easy knowing that he'd tried his best. Maybe he wasn't cut out to be a CSI. Maybe he was best exactly where he was. But he had to reach for that brass ring. He had to find out if he could do it.

And if he could .... then all sorts of new possibilities -- and probably new goals along with them -- would open up for him. Greg couldn't help smiling at the thought as he opened the car door to get out. Whatever might happen away from his four walled world, he was definitely up for the challenge.

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