Title: Jump Right In
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Greg Sanders
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Rating: PG-13
Table: 5_prompts, Written in the Stars challenge
Prompt: I5, Be ready to jump in head first
Author's Note: Spoilers for the S5 CSI: Vegas episode "Who Shot Sherlock?"
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.

***

He had passed his final proficiency. He was now a CSI.

Greg couldn't keep the smile off his face; even standing here in the kitchen of his apartment, putting dishes into the dishwasher, he had to smile. It felt as though a whole new world had opened up to him, a word that he couldn't wait to be a part of.

He was already a part of the team in a lot of ways, but he had never felt as though he really made much of a difference to them when he was working in the lab. He'd loved his job there, but he had to admit that he liked being out in the field a lot better.

It wasn't just that he felt as though his world opened up more when he was out from between those four walls, Greg told himself, shutting the door of the dishwasher and turning it on. It was that he felt he could actually see the results of his work.

He had already jumped into his field work head first; he felt that he'd done a good job on his final proficiency, and Grissom had echoed that sentiment. He still could have done better, but he'd apparently managed to impress his boss.

That was something he hadn't expected. He had been looking at all of the mistakes he'd made, and he'd been sure that he was going to be relegated to the lab for a long time, that he would have failed yet another test and that he would never become a CSI after all.

The strangest thing about knowing that he was officially a CSI now, and not just a lab rat, was that there was no surge of exhilaration. He simply accepted it as a fact, as the next step that he had wanted to take in his career. It didn't feel like a huge accomplishment.

Maybe that was just because he had been working towards this for so long now. Yes, he was excited to have finally achieved what he'd wanted for so long, but he had thought there would be more of a high than this. Still, he couldn't help but feel proud of himself.

Heading into the living room, Greg sank down onto the couch, but didn't reach for the television remote as he usually did. Instead, he rested his head back against the cushions, going over every aspect of the case that had elevated him past the trainee level.

He'd lost so much sleep over the past few days while they'd been working on this case. There had been so many inconsistencies that had worried him; he'd been sure that he would never be able to achieve his goal, at least not with this being the case that he had to break.

He could deal with losing sleep and having cases on his mind all the time, he just hadn't thought he would get so involved in them. Things hadn't been like that when he was in the lab. Yes, he'd thought about their cases when he wasn't at work, but not to this extent.

Somehow, everything seemed elevated to another level now that he was working in the field. The cases were much more important to him, staying in his mind long after he'd left work for the day. Not that they hadn't meant a lot to him before, but this was different.

He felt more personally involved in the cases now. Maybe that was because he was actually out there, seeing the crime scenes, knowing just how these people had died. They seemed more real to him than they had when he was only working with pictures of the crime scenes in the lab.

Everything had been ramped up a few notches. There was an adrenaline flowing through him that hadn't seemed to be there before, and he welcomed it. He was more than ready to jump in head first and take on anything that was thrown at him, any case that Grissom assigned him to.

One of the reasons that Grissom had such faith in his ability to be a good CSI was the fact that he was willing to jump right into cases. Greg was sure of that. Grissom might not have said that in so many words, but his attitude made it obvious.

Would he keep feeling this way? He was sure that he would; he couldn't imagine not having the same kind of enthusiasm for any cases in the future that he had now. There might be some cases that would seem less interesting than others, but he would welcome all of them.

Maybe "welcome" wasn't the right word to use, Greg thought, wincing. He definitely didn't welcome the idea of anyone being murdered and the CSI team having to investigate their deaths. But that was the nature of his job -- without death, he wouldn't be working.

He couldn't wait to start on his next case; he could still feel the adrenaline from this last one flowing through his veins. He might not be as excited about finally becoming a CSI as he'd thought he would be, but there was still a kind of exhilaration about it.

He'd been an intrinsic part of solving a case. He had discovered things about this one that no one else had seen; he'd been one of the people who was out there finding the evidence at a scene, putting two and two together -- and sometimes making five instead of four.

He was proud of himself for how much he'd done on this last case. And even if Grissom didn't say so in words, Greg was sure that his boss was proud of him, too. After all, he'd lived up to the faith -- and to the expectations -- that Grissom had in him.

When he went back to work tonight, he was going to be ready to jump into his first case as a full-fledged CSI. He was no longer a trainee; he'd made it to the next level, and he hoped that his colleagues would look at him with more respect now because of that fact.

That probably wasn't going to be the case, he told himself with a wry smile. They'd always been used to seeing him as the goofy -- but brilliant -- DNA lab rat, and it was going to take some time before he would be able to prove himself out in the field.

But he was already well on his way to doing that, he assured himself as he slowly got up from the couch and headed down the hallway towards his bedroom. It would only be a matter of time before the rest of the CSIs would have to accept him as an equal team member.

All he had to do was jump right in. And he was more than ready for that.

***