A/N This is s sequel to Smoldering Desires which can be found in it's entirety at Adult FFnet.
Thanks to Joan. I am so sorry I made you read this. I was not thinking. Kisses. Kudos to the terrific beta combo or Cybrocat and Michelle. As always I own nothing related to CSI save for my Companion.
Chapter 1
When he finally lumbered into the home they shared, he found two suitcases by the door. She had insisted on the leather things. He would not travel all over the country, recently the world, looking like a vagrant. He had a wife. He should look like such a man.
No matter what he had done, she could not stop being his wife.
The cases held two white monogrammed shirts, two pair of khakis, three pair of cufflinks, two black polos, one pair of black pants, brown loafers, black loafers, black socks, white socks, tennis shoes, a black suit folded in such a way as not to wrinkle, various hair products, the only soap that did not aggravate the eczema that appeared on his hands during the winter, the proofs for the books he was working on, vitamins, blood pressure medication and three books he was currently reading. The Harry Potter he only read out loud to Hope, editing out the parts that were too mature for a six year old..
She met him at the door. She kissed his cheek. Old habits. She handed him a slip of paper with his reservation number jotted down in her precise, even hand. The Luxor wasn't cheap. Neither was it top shelf. Just right for a man who could afford it, but needed to conserve resources if he ended up having to support two households. One, that of a solo bachelor. The other, that of a wife and child.
He continued to nod as she folded the paper and slipped it into his shirt pocket.
"I called Brass and Dana. If you don't want to stay in a hotel you can go there."
He knew that. He didn't want to see anyone for a few days. She knew that too.
He watched her as she told him what she would say to Hope. He was staying in the hotel because of work. He needed the quiet to finish his book. No, she didn't bother Daddy. Don't be silly. He loved her. He just needed some quiet time, like Hope when she was in the backyard looking at the clouds. Aren't we a family who values space from time to time?
"Daddy knows you love him, even when you are in the backyard barely talking, looking at the clouds."
He nodded, thinking that he didn't like the explanation, but having no other suggestions and not feeling like he had any rights with regard to his current situation.
Her name was Eva and he had not slept with her. She worked at the university. She was a zoologist. They had gotten to know one another over coffee and field work war stories. At first, he'd told Sara about their lunches and the conspiratorial gossip in one another's offices.
After the fourth week of knowing Eva, he had stopped speaking of her. Gone were the casual references to what Sara dubbed as the other Catherine and a new Dana. When she called the other woman to invite her to Gil's birthday dinner, it was with the expectation that Eva would slip into the group like all the strays her husband had collected over the years. When she hung up the phone, she had dialed Brass and Dana when Catherine had not answered.
xxx
James Brass was too old to have kids. He had told his wife Dana that six weeks after Gil had brought her back from the medical retreat center that had healed them both. Stunned, she had broken up with him, but had not left town because she liked her new friends and had no ties back East. Her ex-husband had remarried. Her sisters and brothers were married and living throughout Africa and Europe. All her so called friends had vamoosed once they realized the diamond heiress might die and they were not set to inherit.
Methodically she had explored her options over the next two days. She was rich. She wanted a baby. She was over forty. It was time to stop playing make believe. She would never marry again. She didn't want to give birth without the benefit of a husband. There were lots of ways to become a mother. Lots of children who needed a loving parent.
He turned up on the doorstep of her new house looking sheepish, asking for another chance. Maybe he wasn't too old. She told him no thank you, and pushed the door closed.
The got married three days later.
Which is why he now found himself sandwiched between two miniature versions of himself. Dana found it nature's cruel joke that she had gone through a year of brutal fertility treatments to produce two little boys who's skin color and wavy hair were the only tribute to their maternal heritage.
He thanked God for two energetic little boys who still thought he hung the moon even when he couldn't play one more game of catch or watch one more Disney movie.
The bed dipped and he opened one eye. "Stop playing possum." She said quietly.
"Are you kidding me? I am exhausted."
He lifted Isaac Gilbert so that he stopped drooling across his chest. The boy made angry sounds in his sleep and he clung to his father. Brass made soothing sounds and the boy quieted.
"What are we doing for dinner?" He asked as James Maxwell began to snore softly.
"Junk food?" He asked hopefully.
"Double meat pizza with extra cheese is on the way." He smiled and closed his eyes. "What's wrong?"
She looked at the sleeping boys. "Is Gil having an affair?"
Brass opened both eyes. "What…"
"Sara thinks he's having an affair with a woman at work."
Brass stared at Dana for several seconds. "Dane. Hon, Gil would not cheat on Sara. That's nuts."
"When was the last time you talked to him?"
Brass lowered his voice, conscious of the sleeping two year olds. "Um… Sunday after the game."
"Not with everyone around. I mean alone. A guy's deal."
"A guy's deal? When do we have time to do that? Between dance recitals and Little League. Or maybe after Warrick finishes coaching Kramer's basketball team, in between policing the parade of losers that Lindsey drags home. Oh, I know, right after Nicky and Mara do one A.M. feedings with Wilson? We don't do alone. Alone was for years ago. If we needed to say something privately we should have done it then."
Dana mirrored his hushed tone. "Smart man."
xxx
She waited and watched not wanting to jump to conclusions. He kept arriving home five minutes later than the day before until he was scampering in for dinner, breathless and apologetic, kissing Sara first and then Hope, mumbling about grading papers and academic rigor.
Sara asked him to bring the work home. She would help. He agreed. It never happened. By the third month of knowing Eva, he was arriving home under the cover of darkness.
He had only missed dinner five times in as many years. He had stayed true to the promise he had made after his illness. He hardly went anywhere without Hope and Sara. One Wednesday afternoon, when Sara Sidle Grissom had enough, she watched as the clock leapt from one hour to another. At six o'clock, Catherine arrived and Sara handed off one dainty blonde to another, giving a quick hug to one and a sloppy kiss to other.
"Don't be too hard on him," Catherine asked.
"I won't Cath. I won't."
Sara had stood at the door, listening, wondering how long it would take Gil Grissom to see the door cracked a wee bit.
They talked of silly students, of irritating bosses, of long walks in California wine country where they had both grown up. She was older than Sara by about four years, but she didn't look it. She was a vain woman. Botox and microdermobraisin and a eye job had sloughed off a few years. The natural looking blonde hair color lifted and brightened her skin and matched her even white teeth.
Finally she heard it. "Gil, what are we doing here?" Low. Intimate. Sexy.
Silence. A smack of lips. More flesh involved. Sara waited. Another sound of flesh and saliva.
An abrupt movement. "I am a very happily married man."
Who was he trying to convince?
"I know that. Who doesn't know that? I am not trying to steal you from your wife."
"I know but…"
The woman kissed him again and Sara appeared in the doorway.
If you had asked Gil Grissom to recount the scene he could not have given much detail. His wife standing at the door while his arms snaked around another's woman's waist as his lips searched out new territory.
His cool efficient wife, who said she would see him at home and who had turned to Eva with a steel eyed glare.
"If I ever see you near my husband again I will feed you to the lions you are such an expert on. I have a child and a home and a family. You have nothing but some excellent plastic surgery and a good dye job. Don't fuck with me. Gil, you have one hour to fix whatever is going on here."
xxx
He sucked on the ice from his Scotch and watched the hotel room's television screen blankly. The documentary was on ladybugs. The entomologist consultant, a hack as far as Gil was concerned, had provided very little accurate or interesting information.
His cell phone rested on the night stand but he refused to answer it. It was either Warrick, perhaps Nick, certainly Brass and Dana or most probably Catherine. He had been gone a week. The first few days had been quiet until phone calls to his house revealed he was not living there. He was surprised some sort of intervention had not been staged.
The hotel room phone rang and before he could process it he picked up the phone.
"Grissom."
"You should probably change that moniker. Not sure to what maybe dickhead."
Gil poured more scotch in the heavy glass the hotel provided.
"What are you doing?" Brass asked quietly.
"Drinking some pretty good scotch and watching TV. What are you doing?"
"Don't be…Geez Gil, are you leaving your wife and kid for this bimbo zoo lady? I have seen said professor and she has more stuff that's fake than real."
Gil nearly leapt to defend his friend but thought better of it. He was drunk but not that drunk.
"I am not leaving Sara for anyone. I am not having an affair."
"Not the way I heard it. The way I heard it your tongue was stuck down her throat when Sara walked in on you two."
Gil gave a guilty sigh. "I have not slept with her."
"Huh…" Brass read Dana's lips as she mouthed something to him.
"So you haven't slept with her. Okay so what's going on? I mean why aren't you talking to anyone? Everyone thinks you are living it up with this woman. That you left Sara and now you shacked up with this uh…what's her name?"
"Eva."
"Notice how close that is to evil."
Despite his borderline inebriation Gil felt a migraine starting behind his eyes. He couldn't say anything in his current state. Then again, what difference did it make? He had no where to go. No one to talk to anyway.
"I am not having an affair Brass."
"Okay so what are you having?"
"I kissed her that one…that's a lie, there was another time. I kissed her twice. Once that day and few weeks before."
"You kissed her or did she kiss you?"
Gil wondered at Brass' intuitiveness. "She kissed me but that's not excuse," he mumbled.
"No it isn't. I am just trying to understand what's going on. If you aren't having an affair why did you leave you wife?"
"I didn't leave. She threw me out."
Brass watched Dana leave the room as one of the boys called to her. "Once again I heard she folded your clothes, packed your things, like you were going on a business trip."
"She was very civil about it all. You know Sara. She's not prone to much temper these days." Gil said quietly. He wanted her to do something. To yell at him. To scream at himTo do something.
"She packed your bags cause she thinks you want to be with this zoo lady. And the not answering the phone was the worst thing she could have done."
Gil downed the last of the liquor.
"When was the last time you talked to her?"
"I talk to her everyday. We have childcare schedules to coordinate." He said sadly.
He wouldn't out on his kid. He wouldn't do a Winston Grissom disappearing act. The first time his father had left his mother had been when he found out about Gil's impending birth. The second time was when his mother had thought she was pregnant again. He never came back. Gil never knew if it was a real false alarm or way for his mother to banish her husband from their lives for good.
He tried not to be like his father. He worked hard. He kept his word. He didn't trample on the hearts of women. He tried to be a good friend, a good husband, a good father. He had taken missteps here and there. Years ago hurting Heather badly. Sometimes being a little too judgmental of Catherine. Too overprotective of Hope.
But mostly he had lived a good life, a life to be proud of, until now.
xxx
She found him in their daughter's room days later. She stood at a door again and listened as he spoke of magical broomsticks and malicious Malfoys.
When he finished the second chapter he smiled closed the book and kissed his daughter.
"You finish writing your book Daddy?"
"Not yet, Princess. A little while longer."
"I want you to come home. I want you to make breakfast instead of Mommy."
"You don't like Mommy's breakfast?"
"Mommy makes good breakfast but you are supposed to make breakfast. Mommy makes lunch and dinner."
A child of order. He laughed. "Tell you what. I will be here in the morning to make you breakfast. Deal?"
Weight shifted on the twin bed. Sara could barely make out the next words. "Daddy?"
"Yes?"
"Are you and Mommy getting a divorce?"
A sharp intake of adult breath. "Where did you get that idea?"
"My friend, Marcus. His daddy left and moved into a hotel and he never came back. They got a divorce. He said you were getting a divorce. Mrs. Hancock made him do time out 'cause he made me cry."
Gil spoke with a certainty that could only convince a child who wanted to believe. "If Mommy and Daddy were getting a divorce, we would tell you, okay?"
She bit her bottom lip and nodded. "I don't think you should go back to the hotel."
"Why's that?"
"Cause Mommy cries when you aren't here. Don't tell her I told you. I told Uncle Brass and he calls her every night, but she still cries."
xxx
She let him come back home that night, even let him sleep in the bed with her. He waited until he was sure she was asleep before putting his head down on the pillow. He didn't want to be presumptuous or violate her personal space.
One night when it was far too hot, he woke to find the covers thrown off Sara and piled on him. As he studied her in the moonlight, pleased that she was wearing one of his t-shirts and pair of his boxers, he took note of her changed figure.
Breasts larger than their normal small "B", her belly made flat from a year of Pilates was now round and lush. After he had been sick, his sperm count was low and another baby was a remote possibility. Recently, they had begun to toy with the idea of adoption in response to Hope's pleas and Sara's sense that if one was good, two would be better.
He reached a hand and touched the mound of flesh softly. A baby. He had nearly cheated on his wonderful, pregnant wife. Shit. Thoughts of his father skirted the edges of his mind. He couldn't seem to get it right. He was either unlike him or completely the same.
He sat up and went to turn on the air conditioning.
xxx
Sara heaved nothing into the toilet. She was not surprised to feel him pull her hair out of the way. When she was done, he lifted her easily and carried her shaking back to bed.
He wiped her mouth with the heavy white wash clothes that she ordered from Crate N Barrel.
Ice cold spring water found her lips. She kept the bottles in the freezer. Thawing the frozen bottles in the microwave for 20 seconds before she drank. He had not awakened her when he bundled up an extra chipper Hope for an unusually cold day.
She said nothing about the baby. He had known for three days. She would do it in her own time.
The effort of morning sickness had caused her to sweat through his favorite t-shirt. She had long complained of the holes under one arm. He found it amusing that she now wore it more than he did.
He stripped off the one cotton shirt and replaced it with another. Took off his Spider Man boxer shorts and replaced them with her own cotton boy cut briefs.
He ran a tube of organic lip balm over cracked lips.
"You think you can eat a little something?" He asked.
"What time is it?"
"About nine."
"Oh, no. Why didn't you wake me?"
"Wake you to do what? We have one kid. That's one school. One meal. One non-stop talker. I think I am too old to handle two over-talkers in one morning."
Sara rolled towards him and he pulled her too his chest. He didn't know how to stop being a husband.
"You know. Don't you?" She mumbled into his chest.
"Know what?" He said innocently. "That a few of my swimmers made it through despite overwhelming odds?"
Sara laughed and then spoke wearily. "You love her?"
She felt him stiffen then relax. She was, after all, in his arms. "God, Sara, how can you even ask me that?"
"Because you lied and you were kissing her," she said weakly.
Silence snaked around them for minutes. "I don't love her. I love you."
"What if I hadn't shown up that day?"
"You would still be the only woman I love."
"You don't know that."
He let out a hot breath and he felt Sara's tears wet the front of his shirt. "I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't showed up. But you did. You did because you know me better than anyone. Better than myself. I will never, ever lie to you about anything again. Nothing. No fleeting attraction. No mild flirtation."
He pressed a firm hand into her back as Sara began to sob in earnest. "I don't want us to be those people. I don't want us to be those people that hardly talk and don't have sex and end up dividing the silver and meeting at Denny's to pass the kids between one another."
He pulled her closer as he tried to figure out how to fix his family.