“Hey, Sara!” Greg walked into the locker room and swooped next to Sara. “You’ll never guess who I ran into tonight.”

“That might be because I don’t care who you ran into tonight.”

“Oh, but I think you will.” He gave her a devilish grin. “At least a little.” Sara looked over at him and shook her head a little.

“Alright, I’ll bite. Who did you come across?”

“Hank.”

“Hank?” Sara stared him down for all of five seconds, then went back to tying her shoes. “Why would I care that you saw Hank?”

“Well, its been my experience that most people want to know what their ex’s have been up to since the breakup.”

“I don’t care, Greg.” She stood up and got her things out of her locker. “It’s been almost two years.”

“But he looks like crap.” Greg got up and leaned against the locker next to her. “He’s miserable and alone.” His grin expanded from ear to ear and his teeth almost sparkled.

“Greg,” Sara paused a moment to take in the notion, and to try and keep herself from smiling. “I don’t care.”

“Like hell you don’t care.” He tilted his head, perma-grin still on his face. “Every jilted lover likes to hear that our former flames got their just desserts.”

“I am not a jilted lover.” She couldn’t help the smile that started crossing her face. “But out of curiosity, how did you find out?”

Greg couldn’t help but laugh. Somehow this felt like a massive step towards his end goal of getting the girl.

“I struck up conversation.” He looked coyly away for a brief moment. “His girlfriend left him, and he’s been living at a buddy’s house.”

“Left him? Really? That’s interesting.” Sara closed her locker and picked up her coat. “Thank you, Greg. See you tonight.”

“Hey!” Greg grabbed her arm and spun her around. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Look, Greg, it was a long time ago. I’m over it.” Her eyes flitted up for a moment to something behind Greg’s head. “Now really, I need to go.”

“Where? To sleep? We both know you don’t do that. Your Microbial Forensics book can wait.”

“What do you want me to say, Greg?” She looked at him with more than a little hurt, but more frustration than anything. “He deserves being miserable, and yes, I’ll even go so far as to say I’m glad that he’s miserable.”

“What happened between you guys?” He tried to invoke the puppy dog expression that occasionally worked to make Sara keep talking to him. It only seemed to work on her, and only about half of the time. He was hoping this would be one of those times. “I mean, I know its really not any of my business, but you never answered my question.”

“And what question was that, Greg?”

“What he had that I didn’t.” The smile on his face was different now. It wasn’t sly or smug or coy. It was hopeful.

She stopped looking over Greg’s shoulder and gently brushed his hair. Sara let out a sigh, and she shook her head.

“Well, for starters, he had a girlfriend.” Greg furrowed his brow. “Besides me. The girl he was eating with in the Kamakaze Granny case wasn’t just a friend. She was his girlfriend. His long time girlfriend. Who apparently wised up.”

“You’re kidding me” Greg stood up and folded his arms. “He was two timing you?” Sara didn’t even have time to respond. “He’s so toast. And to think I was nice to the guy.” He stepped around her and got his jacket. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“Greg!” Sara took his hand and looked at him. “You don’t have to do that. Its over and done with. I’m fine.” She tried to put on a convincing smile. “It was two years ago…”

“And he hurt you.” He looked at her with a seriousness that he didn’t normally have. “He didn’t just hurt you, he used you.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“No, Sara, this is just wrong.” He went to the door and turned around to look at her. “All that time he was the luckiest guy in the world, because he had you. He had you, and he fucked it up that badly. He needs to be eliminated. Now.”

“Greg,” She took both his hands and gave them a squeeze. “He was an ass. He undoubtedly still is an ass. He got what was coming to him.”

“He hasn’t gotten half of what he has coming to him.” Greg’s face was a picture of seething rage. “I thought he had just been your average jerk that couldn’t take decomp and weird hours.” He managed to get a hand free and he opened the door. His voice dropped a few notches. “But he hurt you. He used you. And you’re too good for that. You’re brilliant and beautiful and any man would be lucky for you to let him even speak to you. He screwed up the best situation any man could ever hope for. And speaking for the rest of the men who have no chance with you whatsoever, he needs to be in severe physical pain for fucking up that pure and precious thing.” He sighed, let go of her hands, stuffed his own in his pockets, and went to his car.

Greg undoubtedly wouldn’t find Hank. He hadn’t really made that serious a conversation with him and truth be told, he figured the guy could take him without much effort. Short of a call to Nana Olaf for a good curse, he was really out of luck. If he had only known before, he would have swept her off her feet. Or if only he really had the guts to drag Hank into the lab by his balls and crunch him into the floor and make him beg for Sara’s forgiveness. But instead he just drove around, shaking his head, and wondering how anyone could possibly choose someone else over Sara. Oh yeah, Hank had a boatload of karmic backlash coming to bite him in the ass. He would be eliminated in a much more painful way than anything Greg could ever enact on him. And that was almost as satisfying.

Sara watched him walk out, shocked expression still plastered on her face. That was definitely not the reaction she expected out of him. And it made her think, for a brief moment, that he was wrong in including himself in the ‘bunch of men who had no chance with her.’ The notion had crossed her mind ever so flippantly before, but usually it was chased out by the hope of finally taming Grissom enough to really settle him down. Hank hurt her, but really was inconsequential. The whole time she’d been in Vegas she’d been trying to fix what had broken in San Francisco. But tonight Greg Sanders put the thought in her head that maybe, just maybe, her time would be better spent trying to let it go.

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