Disclaimer: I do not own CSI and especially not the excerpt from the book CSI: the Killing Jar by Donn Cortez. I would like to happily thank him for writing it!
A/N: So I discovered this important little excerpt from the book CSI: the Killing Jar, and cried when I read it, and thought all you GSR fans out there would love to read it, so I needed to write a story where I could include it. I wrote this 25% for that reason and 75% for my best friend Sam because she wanted a fluffy story.
Just so you know, it starts with Grissom talking to the owner (Southford) of Pet's Cave, where he bought Hank. The bolded section is from the novel. The rest is my own creation.
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"How's Sara?"
"She's… away on a trip."
"Oh. Not gone for too long, I hope."
"No. No, I…I hope not."
Well, at least you have Hank to keep you company."
"That's true." Grissom paused. "He misses her."
Southford's smile was gentle. "I'm sure she'll be very glad to see him again. You know, I still remember the very first time you brought her here…"
So did Grissom.
The bell over the door tinkled.
"So this is it," Sara said. "Not exactly what I imagined."
Grissom walked in behind her. "Oh? What did you expect?"
"Something more…cave-like. Something more like your office."
"My office is not a cave."
"Oh, please. You could have bats roosting on the ceiling and no one would even notice. Except maybe Hodges-and he'd probably just compliment you on your excellent guano-collection technique… Oh! Puppies!"
Grissom smiled. Sara was already kneeling by the pen, sticking her fingers through the mesh and letting them lick her fingers. "They're so adorable…"
"Yes," Grissom said softly. "Adorable."
(end of the excerpt from CSI: the Killing Jar by Donn Cortez)
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Naming a Puppy
"He's not even twenty-pounds yet and he's already gotten my spot in bed," Grissom commented. Sara was lying on her side, stroking the puppy's head, who had curled up beside her in the blankets.
"But you love him anyway," Sara said. Grissom smirked. It was true, they'd only had the puppy for a few hours and already he had managed to get the two of them wrapped around his finger…well, paw.
Grissom got into bed beside her, the puppy in the middle.
"Have you thought of a name yet?"
"No, but we need to come up with something. He can't go on not having an identity."
"Sara, he's a dog."
"Who is going to need a dog tag with his name on it," Sara commented, absentmindedly stroking the dog's fur. "I don't know... He doesn't really look like a Lucky or a Biscuit… What about Rufus?" Grissom made a disturbed face.
"Rufus? I don't think so."
"Well, I don't hear you coming up with any bright ideas for his name."
"I said you could take the liberty of naming him."
"Yes, but it's hard…" Sara complained. "I don't want him to be scarred for life because we picked a bad name."
"Sara, he's a dog, not a child. He doesn't have feelings." Sara covered the puppy's ears.
"Don't say that in front of him! He does too have feelings… Maybe I should be relieved we're naming a dog and not a kid here," she commented, continuing their banter.
Grissom wrapped his arm around Sara's waist, drawing her closer. He inadvertently disturbed the puppy, which then stood, walked an unbalanced full circle, and plopped down again, this time curled against Grissom's chest. He shook his head at the puppy's actions. Sara giggled.
"Awww… He likes you," Sara commented.
"I see that." After a pause he said, "How about we sleep and give this little guy a name in the morning."
"Okay," Sara said, curling up close to his body as best she could with the little fur ball between them. When she closed her eyes to sleep, the puppy licked her nose. Sara laughed.
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Sara awoke with Grissom's arms still wrapped around her, no puppy between them. There was no puppy licking or nipping her bare toes either. She got out of bed quickly to search for the pup. If he had a name she would've been able to call to him, but as of now, that wasn't going to work. Surely he had only been gone for a short while, what possible trouble could he have gotten into in such a short time?
Coming down the stairs, everything seemed in order…until she got to the living room. A couch pillow had been chewed and torn apart, stuffing was strewn everywhere. Along with the white fluff, were articles from the Forensics Journals that had been sitting on the coffee table, now ripped to pieces among the mess on the floor.
"Oh no," Sara muttered, walking faster now through the house to locate the little troublemaker.
In the kitchen, the puppy had chewed the legs of the barstools, though it wasn't too noticeable. But why couldn't he just chew one of his toys? After all, wasn't that what they were for? Along the kitchen wall, he had also turned over his water bowl, leaving the surrounding area in a puddle.
With no sign of the brown and black puppy, Sara peeked down the hallway. Grissom's office door had been left open the night before. Moving quickly to inspect the damage and possibly clean it up before Gil woke; Sara discovered the room was still intact. Stepping around the desk, she found what, more like whom, she was looking for. A book of Shakespeare had been yanked from the desktop, now opened but face down on the floor, the puppy curled up beneath the pages, snoring softly. Sara sighed; the book didn't appear to be damaged. Good thing too, it was one of Grissom's favorites and, as far as she knew, irreplaceable. Sara picked up the book and placed it back on Grissom's desk. Bending, she lifted the puppy into her arms. He was apparently too exhausted after destroying the house to be bothered with opening his eyes. Cuddling the puppy in her arms, she took him from the office and carried him upstairs back to the bedroom.
Her footfalls on the staircase woke Grissom from his slumber. After Sara entered the bedroom, she made sure the door was securely closed to prevent the puppy from escaping again.
"Hey," Grissom murmured, his voice laced with sleep.
"Hey," she sighed, climbing back into bed. "I think I came up with a name for this little guy."
"Oh, yea?" Grissom said, reaching to pull her closer after she was settled.
"Yup, I think we are gonna call him Hank." Grissom raised a questioning eyebrow at the chosen name. "Because he used to always disappear from the bed before I woke up." Grissom was silent. Her tone wasn't sad, but he wasn't sure how to respond to the comment about her cheating bastard ex-boyfriend. Luckily, she kept talking so he did not need to reply to her statement. "The puppy must've gotten off the bed at some point. I found him in your office, under a Shakespeare book. At least he has good taste."
"He didn't wreck anything, did he?"
"In your office? No. The rest of the house? Yea… We'll worry about it later," Sara said, curling back up in bed, her arm around the puppy, successfully trapping his little body between them in the bed.
"Hank it is then," Grissom said, affectionately kissing the top of her head which was tucked under his chin, and stroking the newly christened puppy Hank's back.
Fin
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A/N: I had a feeling that most people didn't know about that pet store scene and I thought I should get it out there. Please leave a review!