Boys Take a Wife, Daughters are for life

Author: Lolly4Holly

Rated: T

Pairings: GSR - pre Grissom and Sara

Summary: This was an original one shot of mine, but I've broken it down into three chapters. Sara's daughter is missing and she feels like the only person to blame is herself.

Hope you like it, please let me know what you think.

Sara sat on the edge of her sofa, keys in one hand and her phone in the other, ready to leave at a moment's notice. It wasn't like it was a big emergency. No, he was only forty five minutes late back. She knew that she was probably freaking out for no entire reason, but this was the first time that the father of her child had even taken an interest in their daughter and now he was over forty five minutes late bringing her back. He saw her once shortly after she was born, then moved away to San Francisco, which Sara actually preferred as he was well out of the way, so she could get on with her life.

When he turned up out of the blue years later, she knew there was going to be trouble, but she never expected him to be late bringing their daughter back. She hadn't prepared for this. She had his mobile number, but he wasn't picking up. She didn't know where he was living or working though, putting her more on edge as she had jumped straight into trusting him, when she knew more than anyone what people were like.

She thought about leaving the house to start a search party of places that they would go, but she worried that she might miss a call to her home phone or even them returning with big silly grins on their faces after she had freaked out about a mere few minutes. She glanced up at the clock again, realising it was a full hour now.

Sara started to nervously tap her keys against the arm of the sofa beside her, hoping they were stuck in traffic somewhere. She didn't even know where he had taken her daughter, so she couldn't start phoning round to see if anyone had recognised her six year old daughter with her ex that she barely even knew. She dated Bill for five or six months, before he called it off via a text message. She never wanted to see him again after that, but then she found out she was pregnant and there was no question about who the father was.

Hearing her front door rattle, Sara quickly jumped to her feet, hurrying round the corner, giving out a sigh as she saw the cat licking his paws. It wasn't even her cat. She had lost her cat last year and never bothered to block the cat flap in her door, so the neighbour's cat always helped himself to it. She grabbed him before he hid in the house somewhere, gently pushing him back through the cat flap.

"No... go home." She blocked him from trying to come back through. "Go on, shoo... Mr Cat." She didn't socialise with her neighbours, so she had no idea what he was even called. She held the flap shut for a few minutes, until the cat got the message and disappeared down the garden path. She climbed to her feet, watching out the window as cars drove by. It was usually a very quiet street, but it was just after five, so everyone was returning home after their long days at work.

She felt her heart sinking as they either drove past her house or stopped just before to pull into another drive. Not one of them stopped anywhere near her driveway and she had no idea what kind of car the man even drove. She usually paid attention to details like that. She had even loaded her child's booster seat into the back, but she hadn't taken any notice of the make or model, even the colour of the interior.

She could remember what her daughter was wearing though. Tiffany insisted on wearing one of her whitest dresses this morning, that only got mucked up at school as the first graders were having another art week that was hell on parents, having to wash all of their clothes. Sara put the dress straight into the wash, changing her daughter into a pink taffeta skirt with a California Beach t-shirt and a colour block cardigan. Tiffany had actually picked out the clothes, Sara just dressed her in them. She had never been a girly girl herself, but her daughter loved pink and everything and anything that was cute and girly.

Sara returned to her sofa, picking up her discarded phone and keys. She double checked her phone for any messages, deciding to try the number he had given her again as her inbox was still empty. Instead of going straight through to his computer voice answering service though, she had the most terrifying answer that you don't want to hear at a time like this.

"The number you have dialled has been disconnected."

She knew at that moment that she hadn't been overacting.

Thank you for reading, more on the way as soon as I've re-read the next chapter.

~ Holly