*Greg's POV*
I was sat in the lab running my own tests, something that I'd not done in the longest of time. My hands were shaking as I typed in the APHIS access code and my eyes couldn't seem to focus on the screen in front of me. I groaned to myself and rested my head on the desk, careful not to hit the worn down keyboard Miki was usually typing away heavily at.
"Greg?" I let out an inhumane groaning sound as an answer and left my head on the cold desk. "Why are you here so early?" Grissom closed the doors to the lab and turned off the loud music.
"I took out the trash--" I mumbled.
"So you came to work early? Where's Miki?"
"With her mom."
"Have you two had a fight about something?"
"No."
"Then what's going on?"
"I found it."
"Found what?"
"She'd hidden it in one of those toilet roll tube things." I said, laughing softly at the thought of how it was so like her to do something like that.
"Okay, you sound like you could do with a coffee and maybe something to eat."
"No, I had like eight cups before I came here and another three since I arrived. I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Grissom slowly stood up and made a move for the door. I turned my chair to face him. "What does the blue mean?" Grissom looked at me, his face clouded in bewilderment, eyebrow almost touching his hairline. "You know, the stick thing? What does it mean if it's blue? Is that positive?" I asked him. His eyes widened and his jaw moved as he tried to assemble some form of sense in his suddenly but rarely scrambled mind. "That's what I thought." I told him, putting my head back on the desk with an echoing thud.
"Greg! Greg!" I lifted my head and blinked the room and the Texan back into focus.
"Oh, hey Nick." The coffee had made me more dopey than hyper, and I wasn't sure if that was better or worse than being on a caffeinated high.
"Griss just told me what he thinks is going on, is it true?"
"Well, that's what the stick says."
"You mean you've not spoken to Miki about this?!" The anger was rising in his voice.
"She was out."
"So you just came here?!"
"I left her a note."
"You left her a note? Sanders sometimes I just cannot believe the things you do. Greg, what the hell kind of husband does that after he's just found that out!?"
"The kind of husband who is currently terrified out of his wits and is on the verge of crapping himself!" I replied.
Nick looked shocked and he was probably trying to remember a time when I looked as pale and as scared as I did now. The last time I felt like this afraid was when Miki had been shot and everyone knows how badly I dealt with that.
"Why are you so scared about this Greg? I mean it's a wonderful thing and I'm prepared to hunt you down if you run from this." Nick said quietly, sitting down on a spare seat.
"I'm not going to run. I couldn't run from Miks. I'm just terrified of screwing up. This is the one thing I can't use science to fall back on. It's the first thing I can't use science to fall back on, and that scares me. I used to think that science had an answer to anything and everything, but not this time. There are no scientific ideals of how to be a good father!"
"That's because it's something you have to learn. No one is going to be a good father straight away. Miki is probably just as nervous about becoming a mom as you are about becoming a dad." Nick told me, his voice calm and reassuring.
"Miks doesn't get scared or nervous or anything like that--she's constantly prepared. For God's sake, the girl was shot and targeted and she still refused to let it scare her, despite the fact that the reason is still out there!"
"Greg, the girl was terrified and probably still is! The only reason she doesn't show it is because you are with her. Greg, she's told you how you were the reason she fought when she was shot. The girl breaks easily, but she holds it together for you. She doesn't want to see you as scared and as worried as you were when she was in hospital. It kills her to see you like that and she blames herself for everything that‘s happened. Imagine how she's going to cope through nine months if you're going to be shaking in corners. Greggo, Miki needs you now more than ever." Nick was [I]always[/I] right and it was annoying.
"It's all so, damn--In all honesty, I just...I really don't know if I am able to do this Nick."
"Are you kidding? Of course you can do this! You knew this was probably going to happen someday and you'd most likely be reacting in this exact same way then as you are now. It just happens to be sooner rather than later for you."
I thought about his words and then slowly nodded, rubbing my face with a clammy hand and leaning back in my chair, trying to calm myself down. I did want children with Miks, there was no questioning that, but I didn't expect it to happen so suddenly or so soon. Then again, the honeymoon included a lot of examples of us consummating our marriage and whilst we tried to be careful every time, there was no saying if something had split or failed us. Now, it didn’t even seem to matter, what had happened had happened.
"Yo, Sanders!" I turned around and saw Warrick walking towards me, a folder in hand. He stopped a few feet from me and looked me up and down, his nose wrinkled in disgust at my crumpled shirt, worn out and stained jeans and messy hair. "You look like hell." He stated simply, looking back up with a confused expression.
"Which is why I'm heading for a shower, so can the folder wait for a little while?"
"It's actually kind of urgent but you go ahead and shower. I'll get the other Sanders to help me out."
"Miks is here now?" I stopped suddenly and turned back around to look at Warrick, fear building in my chest suddenly.
"Yeah? Greg, you're married to her. You should know that she's already here." Warrick looked like he'd just stepped into some alternate reality he didn’t understand.
"I came here early today. I wanted to get some of the backlog cleared." I lied to him, rubbing the back of my neck.
"Oh, okay then. Well she'll be in the lab when I find her and give her these to run."
"Okay. I'll collect them from her when I'm in a better looking state." I said, forcing laughter to try and quell the anxiety that was building.
"Greg, Miki married you. She's going to see you in states worse than this one."
"I know. She's going to see me in one unexpectedly soon." I mumbled to myself as I pushed my way into the locker room for fear of confessing everything to Warrick.
I had made a plan. I would talk to Miks as soon as I looked somewhat human as opposed to the doped up, caffeine addicted state I had currently found myself in.
I walked slowly and surprisingly calmly towards the lab I knew Miks would be in--mainly by following the sound of the loud rock music she liked. I stopped at the door and watched her, a small smile growing across my face. She was sitting in her computer chair, fiddling with her wedding ring and mumbling to herself. She wasn't paying any attention whatsoever to the flashing screen in front of her and seemed to be focusing on nothing in the lab. That was all it took for me to know she was nervous, and scarily that was all it took to chase away most of my fears as an overwhelming urge to reassure her took over me.
"Hey Greg." She smiled softly as she spotted me walking towards her.
I tried to find words but lost all vocabulary. Instead I moved closer to her, scooped her up into a tight hug and kissed her all over, forehead, cheek, nose, lips, jaw...
I knew she could tell that I knew the news and her arms found their way around my shoulders and her face rested on my chest. We'd been told not to show this kind of affection during work but under the current circumstances and for just one short moment, I think Grissom would let us off.
"It's going to be fine, we're going to do this and everything will work out okay. We’ll take some time off and find the perfect house and you won't have to do anything, you can just rest, save your energy and I'll make sure everything is perfect and--"
She silenced me with a chaste kiss, guiding my hand to her flat stomach beneath her crimson red shirt. She tilted her head and smiled up at me, her hand brushing my cheek.
"Everything is perfect."