Chapter One:
Gil and Catherine Grissom of the Las Vegas Crime Lab were seated at their kitchen table going through documents of children who were available to adopt.
"Gil, I really want to adopt a child who needs help. One who most people wouldn't want to adopt." Catherine sighed sifting through the paperwork. This was not a decision they were taking lightly. They were keeping the process very hush-hush, as they had another child in the house. Lindsey Grissom was up in her room at the moment, supposedly doing her homework, while her parents had the serious discussion that could possibly alter her life dramatically.
"But Cath, we already have a 16 year old daughter. Do you really want to introduce a needy child into our lives? How would it affect Lindsey?" They'd already discussed the possibility of adopting at length, but had only recently seriously started to look into it. Their finances would allow it, but they greatly worried about Lindsey's reaction.
"Gil, I really want to do this. I feel we should adopt. I want to give love to another child." Catherine sighed. "This is the last one in this batch. You look at this one and tell me what you think." Catherine handed him the folder.
Gil squinted his eyes, his orbs tired after reading through so many files. These were the children your heart went out to; the kids that needed so much to be loved, but that many were too afraid to let into their lives. Catherine had always been the more empathetic one of the pair. Gil was known for not having a personal life; at least until he married Catherine and became a father to Lindsey. Gil read the file carefully. A four year old girl named Emily. Her mother had died in a tragic car accident when she was just a baby, and her father was now nowhere to be found. He smirked when he looked at the file photo - it looked like she was about to laugh at something. She seemed so loving, but with a file like hers - posttraumatic stress disorder, painfully shy, anxious - Gil wasn't sure if he could love a child who might not love him back. Gil was about to close the case file again, sure that he just couldn't handle going through those sort of emotions.
As he was about to plop it onto the table, though, he stopped. The seasoned CSI gazed again at the picture. He couldn't help but think of all the other children he'd been exposed to over the years; the Brenda's; the Cassie's. And he couldn't help but think...is this what those children need? They just need someone to love them. The little girl's bright blue eyes caught his, and he was done for. She was reaching out to him, and he just couldn't let her hand go.
"Catherine, she's adorable. There's something about her..." Gil said trailing off. "Maybe it's time to finally talk to Lindsey?" Catherine asked. Gil nodded and handed the file to Catherine. "She needs parents who will live her unconditionally, and I think we could be the family to give that to her."
Gil sighed softly. Catherine felt her heart flutter now that her husband was finally understanding. They saw the worst of the worst every day at their jobs, and this was finally their chance to really help make an innocent child's life better again. All too often, they had to leave these children they recovered in the hands of Child Protective Services. But now, they could really help. They could love this child.
"What do you think Lindsey will say?" Catherine wondered.
"I'm not sure, but she needs to know. This has to be okay with her too, Cath. We can't do this without her support." Catherine nodded, "Do you want to go try talking to her now since she is home, and was in a relatively good mood when she got home?" "Let's go upstairs and show her the file and hear what she thinks." Gil kissed Catherine's forehead, putting his hand at the small of her back, wordlessly communicating his agreement. Together, they climbed the stairs to their daughter's bedroom.
Life in the Grissom family hadn't always been this nice. Catherine and Gil had finally gotten together, but had struggled with Lindsey. She hadn't been too happy to find out her mother had started to date after her father's horrible murder, but she was starting to ease up.
They knocked on the closed door, the sound of soft music emanating from within. The parents thought they heard a faint hello, so they proceeded. Catherine and Gil walked in to see Lindsey sitting at her desk working on trigonometry homework and listening to her iPod. Catherine walked over to her and picked one of the ear pieces out of her ear. "Honey we need to talk to you about something serious."
She wasn't always happy these days when her parents came in to see her. Lindsey knew she could be a bit of a drama queen sometimes. She felt she had a right to be with all the crazy stuff that had gone on in her life. First, her parents got divorced; then her father was killed; and then Gil came into her life. Lindsey liked Gil, but there is never anyone quite like your real dad. The girl constantly compared what Gil did with what she thought her father would do or say. She wondered how he would react if he were here. Would she be a better person for it? Lindsey sighed and swiveled in her chair.
"What's going on?" Catherine sighed and took Lindsey's hand into hers. "Are you sick?" Lindsey asked hurriedly.
"No, no nothing like that honey." Catherine replied reassuredly. "Gil and I have thought this through long and hard. You know how much we love having you as a daughter, and we want to share that love even more. We have been thinking about adopting. We've been looking for the perfect child and we found her."
Catherine moved from where she was sitting on the bed to kneeling on the floor in front of Lindsey.
"We want to adopt this little girl named Emily, who has been in a really bad place and who hasn't had parents to love her and care for her. We won't adopt her without your support though because you're part of this family too."
"We really want you to talk to us about this Linds. Here is her file if you want to know more about her." Gil said motioning to the file.
Lindsey didn't know quite what to think. She thought that maybe they were going to talk to her about how she'd been slacking on her chores, but adopting a kid? Where had that come from? She eyed her parents suspiciously, and tentatively took the file from Gil's hand. She opened it up and read quickly over the little girl's file. She looked nice enough, but when she read the description with all the problems she had, her stomach flip flopped a little. Just how much help would this child need? Did they expect her to roll over and be her babysitter? What would happen to her life? Lindsey felt a little offended that they'd seemingly been talking about this for some time without her knowledge, and they're just springing this on her. She glanced between her parents, questions filling her eyes, and they could tell they still had some explaining to do.
"Wh...what...what do you want me to say?"
"Well sweet pea, you can ask us anything you want." Gil answered rubbing Lindsey's arm affectionately from where he sat on her bed.
"Is there anything you want to ask us?" Catherine asked.
"Okay...just...why?" She started, gesturing confusedly. Their eyes were concerned and caring, and she knew it was safe to share what she was feeling. "She has all these problems. Why would you want to deal with that?"
Catherine sighed, "We've seen so many bad events happen at work Lindsey, and we can't do anything about the children who end up with Child's Services. We can't help them. We can help her though. Yes, she does have problems, but she also needs love, and I think this family could give that to her." Catherine answered. Gil nodded expressing his agreement with Catherine.
"Well, what about me? Am I just supposed to throw my life into helping her too? I'm a junior now, and I'm sorry, but my friends are really important to me. If you adopt this kid, none of my friends will probably want to come over, and there is no way I am babysitting some heathen."
Catherine bit her tongue from responding to Lindsey's statement. Gil answered for her.
"We understand that you are a junior in high school. We understand your friends are important. If your friends don't want to come over here then go over there. We understand you don't want to baby-sit all the time, but I will not tolerate you referring to her as a heathen because you haven't even met her yet. Don't judge her yet." Gil replied firmly.
Catherine's heart broke when she saw her daughter's eyes start to well up at the accusation. She didn't tolerate any type of discipline from Gil, even if it was just a firm tell-off. Lindsey's blood was seething at the realization that they'd already made this decision. They were going to adopt this girl, no matter what she said.
"So you're defending her above me, and you don't even know her?" Lindsey spoke harshly, and felt her breath quicken. "You don't care what I think! Why don't you just tell me you're going to adopt her, because it sounds like you are going to anyway!" "Lindsey, take a deep breath." Catherine said sighing. "We aren't defending her above you and we do care what you think. However, can you try thinking about this from her point of you for just a moment?"
Lindsey started crying, and her mother leaned forward to take her into a hug. She knew this would be hard for her daughter to hear. She'd been an only child for sixteen years, and all of a sudden this was coming down on her. But Catherine truly felt that this was the right thing to do. This child had called to her. It may be hard at the beginning for them all, especially Lindsey, but she felt in her heart this was right.
"Why do things have to change? Can't you wait until I'm out of college at least?" "Sweetheart, we don't know where she could be in two years. We feel that this is the right time. This way you can establish a relationship with her before you go to college. Yes, things will change, but hopefully for the better." Gil replied softly leaning over so that he could meet Lindsey's eyes from where her head was leaning on her mother's shoulder.
"So that's it?" Lindsey almost whispered, taking in her mother's scent and the sight of Gil's face. They wanted so badly for her to understand. Lindsey saw their point, but that didn't mean she was happy about her life getting turned upside down. "We're adopting her." She hoped that speaking the words would help the hard realization sink in.
"Sweetheart, we'd really like your approval." Catherine reiterated. Lindsey sighed and pulled away from her mother, rubbing her hands over her face.
"Fine, let's adopt her. Just don't expect to baby-sit all the time please. I finally have a life."
Catherine pulled back from her daughter, and Lindsey could instantly see relief in her mother's face, and in Gil's. This sure was making them happy, and they hadn't even little the little horror...er...girl into their lives yet. Lindsey allowed herself a small smile. She was going to be a big sister. Normally, she would have nine months to prepare for this, but in this case, probably only a few short weeks or days. Her mind started racing at how much her life had changed in just ten short minutes.
"Thank you, Lindsey." Gil told her. "You have no idea how much this means to us. I really think this is going to make us a stronger family, and we're really going to help this girl."