Title: Always There
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen - Greg Sanders
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1drabble
Prompt: 23, Blood
Author's Note: Sequel to "Out in the World."
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own 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.

***

Greg stared at the box that Nick was holding, horrified.

"This was at my apartment?" he asked, his voice very soft. He couldn't speak any more loudly; he was having a hard time maintaining control as it was.

Nick nodded, looking grim. "Greg, you obviously can't go home. I'm even starting to think that it might be safer for you to get a new place." He sighed, then shook his head slowly. "But even if you do, this psycho will be able to find out where you live."

Greg agreed, sighing and closing his eyes. "The only thing that we can do to make sure that I'm safe is to catch this guy and put him behind bars where he belongs."

He looked down at the box, shuddering with distaste.

He didn't want to think about what was inside. A heart, obviously carved out of some animal, visceral and bloody. And it had been sitting in front of his apartment.

Nick had thought that the box might contain a bomb at first, and he had called the bomb squad and evacuated the building. But to Greg's way of thinking, what they had found was far worse than a bomb. He couldn't imagine what it would have been like to open that box.

He was glad that he hadn't been the one to first open it, he thought, shuddering again. It wasn't something he had wanted to see.

Try as he might, he couldn't get the image of the bloody heart, ripped from some poor animal's chest, that was lying in the small box that looked so innocent.

What had his stalker been trying to do? Scare him? Well, he'd succeeded, in a way, Greg thought with a sigh. He wasn't really frightened, but he had been shaken up. Anybody would be shaken at the thought of their own heart ending up like that.

He was sure that was the message that had been sent to him. First, an animal's heart -- then his own. If he didn't give his heart freely, then it would be taken.

The thought made him place a hand on his chest.

"We'll catch him, Greg," Nick told him, his voice soft with compassion. "I promise we will. And he's not going to get anywhere near you. No way will that happen."

Greg nodded, deliberately not looking at the box that Nick had returned to the plastic bag it had been carefully stored in. Greg knew that they would take it back to the crime lab, but he doubted that they would find any prints. His nemesis was too smart for that.

And they wouldn't find any blood that didn't belong to the dead animal, he was sure. But it would be a long time before the memory of that blood would fade from his mind.

He wondered if it would ever fade -- or if it would always be there.

***