Title: Heart of Glass
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders/Nick Stokes
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: Post-ep for the S11 CSI: Vegas episode "Cello and Goodbye," and a sequel to the Greg/Nick fic "Don't Walk Away". Completely unrelated to the other Greg/Nick series that I write.
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 or Nick Stokes, unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Greg looked down at the report in front of him, realizing that he'd been staring at it for over twenty minutes now without really seeing anything that was written on the page. He had to start concentrating on what he was doing, or his job could be in jeopardy.

Several people on the team didn't think he should be here; he agreed with them in some ways, but he felt that he needed to work. If he didn't, then he was just going to do the same thing he'd done in the days immediately following Jonah's death.

He was going to sit at home and drown himself in self-pity -- and liquor. That wasn't like him, as Nick had pointed out more than once, but nothing on the magnitude of what he'd so recently been through had ever happened to him before.

The drinking had been a crutch, and he knew it. He was past that now; he'd found that even drinking himself into a blind stupor didn't take away the pain. He still had to deal with Jonah's death after he was sober again -- and he had a hangover to top it off.

Maybe Nick was right, and it had been too soon for him to go back to work after all that had happened. It still felt surreal to be going to crime scenes; he hesitated before he'd open any doors now. He always expected that same horrible sight to greet him.

He still felt brittle, as though he'd frozen and hadn't thawed out yet. There were days when he felt that he would simply start screaming and never be able to stop, that he would fall apart at a crime scene or at the lab, and never be able to do his job properly again.

There had been times in his life when he'd felt fragile, but never like this. It was as though he was made of glass, that he was breakable -- and it would be far too easy for someone to topple him over and watch helplessly as he shattered into millions of tiny shards.

Nick had tried to help as much as he could, but there was only so much that he could do. Greg knew that he had to get through this by himself, that he had to come to terms with Jonah's death and go on with his life. Jonah would have wanted him to do that.

Sitting around and nursing his broken heart wasn't going to help him. Jonah was gone; there was nothing he could do to bring his lover back. He simply had to go on with his life, and somehow try to put all of the pieces back into place as best he could. Alone.

He didn't have to be alone. He knew that. He could sense Nick waiting, wanting him to reach out, but at this point, he couldn't. Not yet. Even though his heart and soul wanted to do just that, he couldn't bring himself to go back into that relationship. Not after the way they had ended.

His heart was still the most fragile thing about him, Greg told himself. If he went back to Nick now, the hard-won calm that he'd tried to surround himself with in the past few days would shatter, and he'd be right back where he'd started. He didn't want that.

If he was going to get involved with Nick again, there had to be a lot of changes. He couldn't go back to the same relationship they'd had before, with Nick always putting work ahead of him. He couldn't take second place in his lover's life. Not again. Not ever.

If Nick couldn't understand that and accept it, then they didn't belong together. At the moment, he wasn't sure they ever had. Maybe he was meant to be alone, to never fill the space in his heart that now gaped, empty and forlorn. Maybe he would never find anyone else to love him.

Greg took a deep breath, clenching his hands into fists to stop their shaking. He didn't want to think like that. He didn't want to believe that he was destined to live a lonely life. He wanted to think that he would, sooner or later, find the happiness he'd been searching for.

He'd found that happiness with Jonah -- but that was gone now. Tears burned behind his eyes; Greg blinked, refusing to let them fall. He'd cried enough in the past days; he didn't need to start again. Not here, not while he was at work and could be seen.

He had to keep those emotions inside, wait to let them out until he was safely at home behind closed doors. The only person he could cry in front of was Nick, and he was sure that Nick was tired of dealing with his tears and grief by now.

During those first days of grief, Nick had been the only person he could turn to. He hadn't wanted to talk about how he was feeling, but Nick had somehow drawn the words out of him, had helped him to start healing, had given him the courage to go on.

Greg knew that it would be a long time before he had healed completely, but thanks to Nick, he was on his way there. If he hadn't had Nick to lean on, he'd never have made it through those first days. He would have simply lost himself in a haze of pain and alcohol.

And Nick was still standing by him, still there for him in every possible way. His eyes widened as a thought struck him from out of the blue. Nick was putting him first, ahead of his job, ahead of everything. For the first time, Nick was making him the priority.

In all of the time that they'd been together, Nick had never done that before. He had always felt that he was a faraway second to Nick's job, to the hopes he had of rising in the hierarchy at the lab. He'd always felt that ambition came first, and he would always be second.

But it wasn't that way now. Nick was making sure that he was there whenever Greg needed him, right by his side, supporting him through all that he was dealing with. Even though they weren't together as a couple now, they'd grown closer than ever.

Nick had taken a heart that was made of glass, a heart that could shatter into a million fragments at any moment, a heart that Greg had thought could never be completely whole again -- and he was slowly but surely mending those cracks, sealing and strengthening them.

His heart of glass was slowly starting to mend, the heartbreak a little less each day. Though he knew that it would be a long time before he was ready to give his heart again, Greg knew that he would eventually reach that point. And he had Nick to thank for it.

He propped his chin on his hand, closing his eyes and forming an image of Nick in his mind. Was Nick the person he'd been meant to be with all along? Had Jonah been right when he'd said that Greg still loved Nick, even though he himself was sure that he'd moved on?

Sighing, Greg leaned back in his chair, unwilling to face the fact that he knew Jonah had been right. He'd loved Jonah; there was no doubt in his mind that they would have had a long and happy relationship if things had turned out differently. But he still loved Nick, too.

Jonah had been so sure that Nick was the right one for him; he hadn't said so in so many words, but he'd always been careful to leave the door open so that their relationship could be ended if that was what Greg wanted, with no hard feelings between them.

He had told himself so many times that he would never do that; he'd tried to make himself believe that Jonah was the man he wanted to be with for the rest of his life. But something inside him had still yearned for Nick -- and probably always would.

Jonah had known that, Greg thought, his eyes filling with tears. He'd been willing to accept the love that Greg had for him, all the time knowing that they would eventually part. And he'd been willing to accept that, too, and let Greg go when the time came.

He had wanted to marry Jonah, to settle down and spend the rest of his life with one man. But maybe that wouldn't have happened, even if Jonah was still alive. Maybe they would have gone their separate ways -- and Nick would be the man he spent the rest of his days with.

There was no way to know now whether or not that would have happened, Greg thought with a sigh. But he couldn't spend his life dwelling on the past; Jonah had told him once that he had to move into the future with an open heart, and he was right.

That heart of glass would mend with time. Nick would make sure of that. He had no reason to be afraid of the future; he was strong enough to face it on his own, whether or not he eventually decided to resume his relationship with Nick. He had to be.

He couldn't keep clinging to the past, looking back at what his life might have been if Jonah had lived and continuing to mourn. That was no way to live, and Jonah would have been the first person to tell him so. He had to let his heart heal slowly, and he had to keep moving forward.

Would his future include Nick? Greg sighed, unable to answer the question. He wanted it to, but not if they went on in the same way they had been before. There had to be some changes -- and maybe Nick wasn't the only one who needed to make them.

With that thought in mind, Greg looked down at the paperwork on his desk again, forcing himself to concentrate on what was in front of him. There would be time enough later to think more about the future -- and to discuss it with Nick at some point.

***

Next story in series - The Second Time Around.