A/N This one off story fits in between chapters one and two of hrhgmsfsoap's excellent AU story Beautiful Boy, in which an eleven year old Sara Sidle receives a fifteen year old slave, who just happens to be Gil Grissom, for her birthday. Hopefully I've written this in a way that is understandable without having read Beautiful Boy especially as my story is set so early on in that one (at most you should only need to read chapter one to catch up.) However I thoroughly recommend that you do go and read it all at some stage, it's definitely worth it! While I have tried to make my story fit in with later chapters of the story I don't think I've put in any actual spoilers.

Like the original this is rated T for references to child sex abuse and has slavery as a major theme. Like hrhgmsfsoap I do not condone either.

Six weeks after arriving in the Sidle's household Gil is still adjusting to his new life, but does he have another problem that the Grissom of the CSI: universe doesn't?

Beautiful But Brainless?

His morning tasks completed, the newest slave in the Sidle household, 4052, occasionally known as Gil Grissom, padded through the house on bare feet, dressed only in a pair of pale blue boxers. With the family out of the way the house was quiet and even the other staff, both slaves and servants, should be elsewhere. Gil didn't want to be caught. Although he was allowed to move around the house, as long as he never went outside, he didn't want to start answering questions about what he was doing, or get dragged away to help with someone else's work, which he was obliged to do if asked.

At last he reached the room he wanted and slipped inside.

The library. He'd been there before when his mistress, Sara, needed books, so that he could carry them for her, but this was the first time he'd been there on his own. Gil looked around him. He'd forgotten just how many books there were. Every wall was covered in shelves, with doors to keep the dust off the books within. Those shelves which never received direct sunlight had glass doors and were filled with weighty leather bound tomes, the other shelves had solid doors and, on his previous visits, Gil had noticed they contained less imposing volumes, many with paper covers, but all of which seemed to be read far more often than their more distinguished looking counterparts were. Gil stared up at the shelves; he didn't even know where to begin. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by the hopelessness of it all. Feeling tears of frustration and misery pricking at his eyes, Gil turned on his heel, intending to return to his small room and work on getting his emotions back under control. He'd learnt not to show how he was feeling long ago but, somehow, he was finding that harder to do these days. Gil wasn't sure if it was because his mother wasn't there or because he was starting to get the idea that, if he didn't make too much noise or let it stop him working, he might not actually get punished for crying now that he lived here.

Unfortunately for Gil, as he headed out of the library he almost bumped straight into a man. The chest he was now facing was covered in a shirt, so he knew it didn't belong to another slave, so he froze, not daring to look up and identify who the chest belonged to.

"Gil? What are you doing here, boy?" The voice belonged to Mr. Sidle, Gil hadn't lived in the household long enough to realise that his new master occasionally worked at home, using his study the door of which was directly opposite the library.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I was just going back to my room; I won't come here alone again." Gil apologised, and then tried to pass Mr. Sidle to get back upstairs as quickly as possible, but he was stopped by a hand placed firmly on his chest.

"You still haven't answered my question." Gil found himself being pushed back into the library. Once inside Mr. Sidle closed the door behind them, and then turned to look at the newest acquisition to his household.

Like many child slaves the boy was under size for his age, but there was still time for another growth spurt, after which he should start to fill out a little. Mr Sidle made a mental note to make sure Gil was given some regular physical work to encourage his muscles to develop fully.

Gil's skin was pale from lack of sunlight and his thick, dark brown hair was just starting to spring into curls now that the severe haircut he'd been given at the auction house was beginning to grow out. Mr. Sidle was unable to see the boy's face as Gil's head was tilted down, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, as though afraid to be caught looking his master in the face.

"Sit down, boy." said Sara's father, as he settled himself into a leather library chair. He vaguely indicated the window seat with his hand. Gil, however, folded himself to sit cross-legged on the floor in a slightly uncoordinated tangle of limbs. His head remained tilted as he continued to stare at the floor.

"You're not leaving until you answer my question. Why did you come in here?"

Now Gil was resting his head in his hands, and Mr. Sidle was surprised to notice the gentle glow of embarrassment on the back of the young slave's neck. He decided to change his tactics slightly.

"At the moment I'm inclined to be lenient, as long as you tell me the truth, but the longer you take to answer, the more likely it is that I'll think you're inventing some lie to cover yourself, and if you were to do that then I'll have to punish you for it, and for failing to answer me the first time I asked."

The boy cringed visibly at the word 'punishment', and Mr. Sidle, who was rapidly gaining an impression of what Gil's previous owners had been like, softened his tone a little.

"Come on, Gil, I didn't say you weren't allowed to come into the library, I just want to know why you chose to do so today." The boy had been in and out of the room so quickly that Mr. Sidle had been intrigued.

Finally the teenager opened his mouth, beginning a mumbled explanation apparently addressed to the small rug in front of Mr. Sidle's chair.

"Lift your head up, boy, I can't hear you."

The youth's head jerked up, as if on a string, although his eyes remained downcast, the lids lowered and Mr. Sidle was still unable to see them properly. He could, however, see the dark, bluish marks underneath them, it looked like the boy hadn't slept in days. Gil's jaw was strong and his chin had a cleft in it, usually seen as signs of a stubborn nature, but the boy had shown no sign of wilfulness, he'd probably learnt to hide any signs of that trait early on, now it seemed that that stubbornness had been internalised, becoming the kind of willpower which enabled Gil to remain stoic in the most difficult of situations and to stick to whatever rules he was expected to obey without deviation, in an attempt to reduce the number of punishments he earned. Dark hairs were starting to become visible in odd places around Gil's jaw and on his upper lip. Sara's father added a second note to his mental list, to check if the boy had any shaving kit, or if he even knew how to shave. For now, however he had other things to deal with.

It seemed that Gil had needed a few moments to gather his courage again after being interrupted, but now he tried again to explain his actions.

"Sara wanted me to... but I couldn't... I really tried... she was laughing... I thought maybe... but it was a stupid idea. I should have known, should have remembered..."

"Should have remembered what, boy?" Mr. Sidle still hadn't a clue what Gil was talking about.

"That I'm, I'm..."

"You are what?"

"A 'dumb little brat of a sex slave with nothing more to offer this world but my tight little a...'"

This time Gil's speech wasn't interrupted by his timidity, but by his master's hand clamping tightly over his mouth. Gil trembled in fear.

"I suspect you've heard that phrase more than once, but you will, never, ever say anything like that again while you live in my house." Still keeping a firm grip on Gil's mouth and chin, Mr. Sidle moved round so that he was looking directly into the boy's face. His other hand now rested on the back of Gil's neck enabling to keep his grip firm. Gil's frightened eyes darted around all over the place, looking anywhere but directly back at his master.

Shaking the boy a little, Mr. Sidle demanded, "Look at me, damn you."

At last, Gil's eyes met his master's, which were the same shade of brown as Sara's. For a moment Mr. Sidle simply looked. Now that he was finally able to observe the kid's eyes he could almost see why Sara had been so keen to have this particular boy as her slave. The colour was pleasant enough, deep blue with the merest hint of green and, behind the fear, there was a certain openness to the boy's gaze which belied the closed off expression he kept on his face for so much of the time. Mr. Sidle saw something else there too. Suddenly he released his grip on Gil's head, making the boy jerk a little at the sudden release of pressure.

"Well, whatever you are, I'm pretty certain it's not stupid, and do you really think I would have agreed to buy you for my eleven year old daughter if I thought that... that, were your only use?"

Gil just shook his head, mute despite his mouth now being free to move again. At least he's still looking at me, thought Mr. Sidle, as he returned to his seat.

"Now, tell me properly this time, what did Sara ask you to do, and why did it lead to your coming here?"

Managing to stay a little calmer this time, Gil told him the story properly.

One of the tasks Gil was supposed to carry out as Sara's slave was helping with her homework. Up until a few days ago, that had mostly meant sitting quietly on the floor by her desk picking up the occasional dropped pencil and bringing her things like a glass of water or something she'd forgotten to grab from her school bag. Unfortunately, three days earlier, his young Mistress had requested him to help her with something else and the memory of it still hurt.

He'd started to worry as soon as Sara said that there was something she needed him to help her with. His first glimpse of the contents of Sara's school bag had shown him that there were many things his mother hadn't been able to teach him and he wasn't looking forward to Sara realising that he was so stupid he couldn't help a girl four years his junior with her schoolwork. When she'd told him that her teacher was going to give them a spelling test and she wanted him to read her the list of words, so she could practice, he had relaxed a bit. Reading was something he could do.

Carefully he'd read the list aloud, using a finger to mark where he was up to and pausing between each word to give Sara time to write it down. He'd found the words difficult to pronounce and had been concentrating so hard on getting it right that he hadn't looked up at his young mistress until he'd read the last one. It was only then that he'd realised she was laughing at him, her hands clasped over her mouth to stop the sound escaping.

Gil's mother was deaf and so, although she'd taught her son to read quite well, she hadn't been able to tell him how certain words were pronounced or check if he was getting them right. Gil could read and understand the meaning of a lot of words, but he still tended to associate them with the corresponding signs more than the sounds they made. With less familiar words he had to guess how to say them and so he would sound each of the letters individually. Unluckily for Gil, Sara's teacher had been deliberately testing her class with the most difficult to spell words, those whose spelling did not always match the way they were said. Gil's attempts to read the list had almost all been wrong, "sphere" had become "sp-hear", "nought" ended up sounding more like "nougat", and "although" had sounded almost unrecognisable, but how was Gil to know? He'd managed to hide his distress at Sara's amusement quite well, helped by the fact that she didn't know him very well yet, but the accompanying stress had triggered a migraine severe enough to keep him awake much of the night, sitting on the floor of his tiny bathroom, with the lights off, and trying to be as quiet as possible while he vomited from the pain.

He'd missed his mother even more than usual that night, it was the first time he'd had to deal with one of his "sick headaches" alone. He wasn't going to ask anyone for help though. Eventually there would be an occasion when he couldn't hide his pain and someone would notice, but he wanted to put that off for as long as possible. He'd first started having these symptoms around the time he began puberty and his previous owners had been more than happy to discover that sometimes it was possible to torture him using nothing but sound and light, because it meant that they could have their sadistic pleasures without marking his skin and so keeping his resale value high. Things hadn't been much better at the auction house, where he ended up after he got too old for his former owner's taste. All he'd got there was a couple of aspirin which hadn't helped at all and a bucket to keep in the cell, which had thankfully been only dimly lit. He hadn't been allowed to see a doctor, which would have been far too expensive, especially because if he'd been diagnosed with anything serious or recurrent it would have to go on his record and that could wipe hundreds of dollars off his value. Only two things really mattered in the slave trade, how much work you could get from a slave and what you could sell the slave for afterwards.

It had taken him another two days to fully recover from his illness, the time extended by the necessity of hiding his discomfort while still performing his regular tasks. Thankfully he had little to do while Sara was in school and, once he'd cleared up her breakfast things and done a little cleaning, he had nothing more to do until it was time to prepare her after school snack. He'd spent that unoccupied time curled up on his mattress, sleeping as much as he could and wishing there were curtains at his window to block out the light. Finally, that morning, he'd woken up feeling pretty normal. Wanting to avoid repeating the trigger for his headache, Gil decided to try and do something about it. He'd figured that, if he could find the right books and read them during his free time, then, if Sara ever bothered to ask him to help her again, his stupidity might not be so obvious.

The young slave finished explaining what had happened, and why he'd given up on his idea, although he deliberately missed out the bit about his migraine. Mr. Sidle sat back in his chair. He had a copy of Gil's chart and vaguely remembered that the boy had been sold into slavery at the age of five. "Have you ever had any formal schooling?" he asked.

"I vaguely remember going somewhere before my father lost his business; I guess it must have been kindergarten. The lady who first bought us didn't send me to school, but she did buy books so my mom could teach me reading, and I remember having some blocks that mom used to make me count. We were only there about a year though, and the people after that didn't care if I had a brain or not. My mom did her best though!" The boy finished defensively, that stubborn chin actually raised for once.

Gil's mom had done her best. Whenever she cleaned the attic room they slept in she'd carefully brushed any dust under the cot they slept in, then once the room had been inspected and they were alone she'd sweep it out again, and they'd written in it with their fingertips to make up for lack of paper. She'd also told him stories. Keeping him warm by sitting behind him so that he could feel her body heat she'd move her arms around him so she could sign in front of him. Sometimes it would be Greek myths as she explained the names of the few constellations they could see through the tiny skylight in their room, other times she would tell stories of true events from the past, giving him a sense of history, both of his own country and the rest of the world. Gil's favourite stories of all had been when she'd talked to him about nature, trying to keep alive the fading memories he had of when he had been free and allowed to play outdoors. Gil also remembered that, whenever she'd come across any kind of insect in the house, mainly moths and spiders, but sometimes beetles as well, his mother had done her best to make sure he got to see them and spend time observing the only part of nature he was able to get close to.

Mr. Sidle watched the silent boy; Gil's eyes were blank, with just a little moisture showing in them as he seemed to be remembering something. Mr. Sidle might have been a slave owner, but compared to Gil's previous possessors he was almost philanthropic - plus he wanted the slave to be able to do what Sara required him to - and now he was trying to work out how best to help Gil.

"No, you're not stupid," the man said, "ignorant, yes, but not stupid, or dumb, or whatever else you might have been called in the past."

Gil was looking confused, he'd been called ignorant too, wasn't it just as bad as the other things?

Almost reading his slave's mind, Mr. Sidle continued, "There's a big difference between ignorant and stupid, Gil, for a start ignorant can be fixed. Ignorant just means you don't know anything yet, now, if that was your fault, then maybe ignorant would be an insult, but it's not your fault and you came here to try and fix it, which is one of the reasons that I know you're not stupid. So, now we know stupid isn't the problem, let's see what we can do to fix ignorant, shall we?"

Mr. Sidle stood and began checking some of the cabinets with plain doors. "Fortunately this family tends never to dispose of old books," he said to Gil as he continued his search, "so somewhere I should be able to find... Oh, yes here they are, Sara's old school books – they go right back to first grade." Mr. Sidle squatted down to look more closely at the books, which were on the lowest shelf. "Well, come and take a look boy!"

Gil hesitated then quickly moved across the room, his urge to learn overcoming his fear of approaching Mr. Sidle. Carefully kneeling so that he didn't appear to be standing over his master he began to look at the books too.

Relieved that the slave was finally starting to overcome his almost irritating levels of reticence, Mr. Sidle began to suggest how Gil should use the books.

"Work your way from left to right so that you look at the simplest first. You have a lot of catching up to do, so don't try and do everything. Concentrate most on English and Math, without them you'll find everything else too difficult, then try some of the other subjects, if you find something you enjoy, or that you think you could help Sara with, then work on that and maybe skip something else. When you feel ready then you can look at books other than these ones as long as you're careful, don't put them on the floor, you can use the reading desk and chair, alright? Oh, you should probably skip languages and music, languages are hard to learn if you can't hear them spoken, and music's no good without an instrument. You've already been warned about touching the piano haven't you?" Gil nodded, his eyes still focussed on the books in front of him.

"OK, Gil, these are the rules. You only come in here when you have no chores left to do. You leave yourself plenty of time and put away the books properly before you have to go and do your other work and you leave promptly to do that work. You don't come back here in the evenings after Sara goes to bed, and you never take books out of here. I don't want you up all night reading. If you break any of these rules or if coming here affects your other work then I will punish you by banning you from using the library at all. Have you got that?"

"Yes, Sir"

Mr. Sidle stood up to leave. Pleased with the slave's response he reached to pat Gil on the head, but then drew back because the boy flinched as if he expected to be hit. Finally, and seeming almost happy for the moment, Gil was left alone with the books.

A few minutes later, when Mr. Sidle returned to the library, Gil was so engrossed in the English text he was reading he didn't even notice that his owner was back. When Mr. Sidle cleared his throat Gil's head snapped up and Mr. Sidle was once again reminded of the tiredness written on his face. It momentarily distracted him from his errand.

"Put those away," he commanded, "and go straight up to your room."

Gil gave a small sigh, but immediately began to do has he was told. The only question in his head was whether this was his punishment for not answering faster earlier, or had his master changed his mind about him using the library at all?

Mr. Sidle was still standing there when Gil stood to leave the room. Suddenly he remembered why he had come back to the library.

"Wait a minute, Gil. These are for you." He handed the bemused boy a packet of three note books and a handful of pens. Gil took them, his eyes flicking between the treasure in his hands and his master's face. "You can take those to your room, sometimes you'll want to make notes or practice what you've learned. Just don't burn the midnight oil! You'll learn better if you're rested, that's why I'm sending you to your room now, you're clearly exhausted. Get some sleep before my daughter gets home. You can begin your studies fresh tomorrow. Now go!"

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir." Relieved that his dreams hadn't just been crushed and grateful for the gifts he now clutched to his bare chest, Gil hurried from the room.

Reaching his tiny room, furnished with just a mattress for a bed and an orange box to double for everything else, Gil knew his master was right. He was still exhausted and needed to get some sleep. Sitting down on his 'bed' he couldn't help staring at the notebooks and pens that he had carefully placed on top of the box, he wasn't sure he could bear to wait until tomorrow before he used them. What if they got taken away before he could?

Then he remembered. The book he'd been looking at just before he went to bed had suggested that a good way to improve your writing was to practice every day and that a journal was one way of doing this. Fortunately for Gil it had gone on to explain what a journal was, because he hadn't been sure. He looked at the notebooks, surely he could use one for a journal? Mr. Sidle had said English was one of the most important things to learn.

Reverently he picked up the notebook with the green cover, and then the black pen, he'd almost forgotten how to hold one. Hesitantly at first he began to write on the cover. He started with the words he was most used to forming, his full name "Gilbert Grissom", almost an act of rebellion in itself. Underneath he added "Journal".

Now he was becoming more confident he opened the book to its first page. He would go to sleep soon, but first he wanted to write just a little something, so he wouldn't have to overcome the feeling of sullying the first blank sheet again the following day. Gil had never heard of resolutions, and it wasn't New Year anyway, but Gil wanted to make some promises, to make sure he didn't waste this astonishing new opportunity. Changing to the blue pen he carefully wrote. "I promise that I will write in this journal every day." followed by "I promise that I will study in the library as often as I am allowed". He stopped, Gil didn't want to make too many promises, you could never know when something might happen to stop you keeping them, especially when you were a slave with no control over your life.

Now Gil just needed to think of one more thing, the prize. His mother had taught him that, when there was something difficult you needed to do, like not crying while you were being hurt, then you should think about what you'd like as a prize if you managed to do it. Of course, in their situation, the prize never actually appeared, but success meant you could give yourself five minutes to sit and imagine what it would be like to have the prize. Sometimes that was almost enough.

Gil lay back on his mattress; he had to come up with a really good prize. Suddenly it came to him. Rolling onto his left side he picked up the green pen and began to write. He only just finished before sleep finally overwhelmed him, the book and pen falling to the floor beside him.

The book was still open and, if anyone had entered the room they would just have been able to make out, in Gil's slightly wobbly scrawl, the words;

"One day, Sara Sidle will tell me I'm smart."

Fin

A/N OK, now we get to the bit where I beg for reviews.

Please, please, please, please, please.

OK, now you've done that go read Beautiful Boy and review that too.