A/N: This short one-shot was written for Sophie because I love her and our late night skype conversations resulted in this.
Disclaimer - I do not own CSI or any of it's characters. I do own Sophie though.
A Sophie Sidle Story
It had been one year. One year since the worst day of her life. When she woke up, Sara felt heavy inside. Sara flipped over in the bed and stared blankly at the empty side - Grissom's side. He should be there with her. It wasn't fair; all of this pain and emptiness because of one stupid drunk-driver. Her family was torn apart because someone didn't give a second thought about the lives he was endangering. She wanted to pull the bedcovers up over her head and cry herself back to sleep but she had her daughter to think of. It had been 3 years since Sara and Grissom had adopted their now 14 year old daughter. She was all Sara had left. She had to be there for her.
Sophie Sidle-Grissom lay in her bed waiting for the inevitable sound of her adopted mother's pained cries. It was the same thing every morning. First Sara would cry alone in her room, and then she would switch on to auto-pilot, caring only for Sophie and forgetting about herself. She would make sure Sophie was up and getting dressed, they'd have breakfast together and then Sara would drive her to school. Today would be different though.
When Sara came into her room that morning, she made no effort to be overly cheerful. She didn't try to hide her tears, and neither did Sophie. Sara sat down next to her daughter and hugged her tightly. Sara's gentle tears quickly escalated into painful sobs.
Sara managed to pull herself together enough to get dressed. She wouldn't eat anything, even though Sophie had made her breakfast. She couldn't bring herself to eat it. Sophie didn't take offense though. She just wanted Sara to be alright. Together, they drove towards the cemetery and walked slowly up to Grissom's gravestone. Just seeing it broke Sara. She dropped down onto her knees and burst into tears.
"It's going to be okay mom." Sophie whispered tearfully as she knelt down beside her mother, putting her arm around her.
In the 3 years that Sophie had been living with them, this was the first time she had called Sara 'mom'. From that moment Sara knew that it would be okay. Her husband was gone and she would never get over that, but she had her daughter. She had Sophie.