Title - Everything's Changed (2007 Edition)

Author - pepsicolagurl

Rating - M for language, violence, sexuality

Disclaimer - This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously (original characters). Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All known characters belong to CBS and/or Jerry Bruckheimer. Original characters belong to pepsicolagurl. Deepest apologies from the author if the plot bunny dies. There's only so much that life support can do.

Author's Note - Obviously, I know nothing about parole hearings. I faked it. So sue me.

Part One
Chapter Two

Anastasia looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. It had been, without a doubt, a week and a half of hell. She was beginning to think that there wasn't one thing that they didn't fight about or disagree on. Music, television shows, movies...hell, even the way she read the newspaper meant that her father was deviating from his set routine and God forbid that happen. She shook her head and reached for the brush sitting on the airport bathroom counter. As she attempted to brush her hair back into place, she stared back at her own dark blue eyes and frowned. She just couldn't do anything to make him happy, that was it. Everything that she did meant that she was making a mess or being too loud, when all she was trying to do was live! She left her books lying around the living room, she typed too loudly on the computer downstairs, she left her wet towels sitting on the bathroom floor. Why couldn't he just understand that she lived with four other people when she was in Florida and the house was always in shambles? That's what happened when there were two sixteen year old girls and a thirteen year old boy. She wasn't going to change her routine just to suit him, just like he wasn't willing to change his to suit her.

She slammed the brush back down with one hand, the other holding her hair off the nape of her neck. She pulled one of the hair ties out of her mouth to pull her hair into a high ponytail, grumbling to herself with the other hair tie still firmly between her teeth. Grissom had laid down the law last night, before they went to bed. Most of the piercings either had to be taken out or covered up. She couldn't wear anything revealing. She couldn't wear her usual dark eyeliner and mascara. Instead, she looked like some sort of Stepford teenager, all neat and nicely scrubbed, a bare amount of makeup on her face and wearing, of all things, a flowered dress. Forget hell, she told herself. It was like...a Laura Ashley hell.

Using the other hair tie, she wrapped her ponytail into a neat looking bun, trying not to make it look as spiky as it normally did. Her usual black heeled boots had been left at home, as had her comfortable flip-flops, and she looked down at the basic white sandals adorning her feet. They barely had a heel, she fumed to herself, looking back in the mirror for a final check of her makeup and hair. She readjusted the simple diamond pendant that she was wearing, which had once been her mother's. As nice as it was to know that her father trusted her with her mother's jewelry, it was still strange to not be wearing her usual assortment of black cord necklaces and the few silver charms that dangled from them. Her usual rings were, for the most part, off of her fingers and on the vanity, despite the fact that it showed off some very obvious tan lines on her fingers. No, her father wanted her to look like a sweet little princess, like she was still six years old and as adorable as the day she had been before her mother died.

The brush went back in her purse and she sprayed a small amount of vanilla scented perfume on herself before closing her bag and giving herself one final look. She smirked at her reflection and left the bathroom, pushing the door open with authority. The bustling Los Angeles airport invaded all of her senses, and for a moment, she stood there and allowed it all to wash over her. "All right, let's go," she said when she spotted her father waiting for her patiently outside the bathroom.

They walked side by side out the door, and they both fumbled for their sunglasses to avoid the morning's glaring rays. Grissom waved down a taxi and waited for her to crawl into the back before following. He gave the driver the address of a prison and settled back for the long ride there. There was still two hours until the parole hearing was to start. They had plenty of time. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Grissom asked her, looking over at the teenager beside him.

Anastasia turned her head and smiled. "You ask me this every time, Dad. Yes, I'm sure I want to do this. Are you sure that you don't want to say anything this time?"

He shook his head. "No, it's your show this time."

She rolled her eyes behind the dark frames that looked oddly out of place with her delicately flowered dress. "Thanks," she told him sarcastically. "I needed to hear that."

It was the part that always made her nervous, made her tense. She couldn't help but sit at the edge of her seat as she looked towards the man that had changed her life. She couldn't help but wonder what would be different if he hadn't killed his wife and set her father off on a manhunt to find him and put him in jail. What would have happened if he hadn't picked up that gun and followed them home from the mall and pulled the trigger. There were so many questions that the one event left unanswered. Would she be attending school in Florida? Would she still be living with her father and her mother? Would she be a normal, well adjusted teenager? Or would everything still be the same, she asked herself, sighing lightly.

The members of the parole board looked towards her. "And I understand that the victim's family has something to say?" one of them asked.

She stood up and smoothed out her skirt, reaching into her purse for the few pieces of folded notebook paper she had brought with her. She walked up to the podium in front of her and smiled shakily at them. God, she hated public speaking. "I'm sorry, I had to write it down. I hope no one minds if I read it off, rather than just...you know...talk."

The same parole board member smiled back at her calmly, reassuringly. "That's perfectly fine Ms. Grissom. Would you like a glass of water?"

"Yes, please," she said softly into the microphone. A bailiff nearby poured her a glass of water from a pitcher on the long table in front of the parole board, bringing it over to her. She smiled to him and thanked him, taking a sip before unfolding her papers. The sound of the pages crinkling were caught by the microphone and echoed throughout the room. She winced. "Sorry."

A few chuckles came from the parole board members, putting her more at ease. She smiled back at them. "Whenever you're ready, Miss Grissom."

She took a deep breath and looked down at the papers, covered with her neat writing. "As you know, my name is Anastasia Grissom. I'm sixteen years old and I live in Miami, Florida, with friends and attend high school and college. I graduated last year, have my diploma and everything. Ten years ago, my life changed. I was six years old when my mother was shot. I was in the backseat of our station wagon when she died. I remember holding onto a small stuffed puppy that my father gave me to replace the family pet that had passed away earlier that year. I was crying and holding onto it when my mother bled to death."

She paused for a moment and looked over her shoulder at her father, who nodded to her. Turning back, she looked back at her papers. "What I can remember of my life back then was good. Really good. My father worked for the Los Angeles police department as a criminal investigator. He had just received his doctorate in entomology and was teaching criminal justice and criminal science seminars at local colleges and universities. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. She belonged to a few local charities and clubs. She was a member of the PTA of the school that I attended. She volunteered quite often to come into the class and help.

"We had a nice little house in a small suburb of the city. It wasn't overly large, but it wasn't tiny. Just the right size for a young couple and their toddler. I had a happy childhood. There were the usual bumps, scrapes, and bruises from trying to learn how to ride a bike or roller skate or just playing around in the front yard with my friends. I had a tire swing in the front of the yard, in the old tree, and a swing set in the back yard. I can still remember baking cookies with my mother, the smell, the feel of putting my little hands in the dough to mix in the chocolate chips. I remember playing hide and seek with my father when he came home from work. Mom would help me find a good hiding spot and then be really quiet and pretend not to know where I was. Of course, now I realize that she used to point out my hiding spot to him, but back then...we were partners in crime." She paused for a moment as a few of them smiled and chuckled at her words.

"The problem is...I can't remember what my mom looks like. I've been told that I have her eyes and her smile. My dad tells me all the time that I act just like her, even sound like her on the phone. But I don't remember her face. I don't remember what she looked like when she smiled, or what she sounded like when she laughed. I don't remember if she was tall or short, thin or heavyset. I don't remember the color of her hair, although I've been told that it was dark brown. I can look at pictures of her but they don't tell me anything. I can look at pictures of her holding me and all three of us together, but all she is to me...is a stranger.

"When my mom got pregnant with me, my dad told me that she wrote a number of letters to me, to be given to me when I got older. Each of them is tucked into some sort of card. I got one when I turned thirteen, another when I turned sixteen earlier this year. I'm to get another one when I turn twenty-one, and when I turn forty. There's one for me for my wedding day, my high school graduation later this year, my college graduation, and for the birth of my first child. She wanted to be there to give them to me in person. Now, they come from a lawyer's office. I get my mother's words from a stranger."

She paused for a moment to clear her throat, waiting for the glassy film over her eyes to disappear before she continued to speak, this time with a stronger voice. "Over the years, I've been given bits and pieces of my mother. I know what her favorite album was. I'm wearing her necklace right now. I've been told that she used to drink the same tea that I drink now, and that she hated green beans as much as I do."

Again, she waited for the laughter to cease, smiling softly at them. The smile died away quickly. "I was six years old when my life ended, and I started a new one. I don't know my mother, and I barely know my father. I don't even live with him. The memories are too much for him, I guess. I haven't lived with him since I was nine. And the funny thing is, I can't help but think about the things that have been taken from me, taken forcefully, against my will. The day I was allowed to wear makeup for the first time, which was a Christmas concert that I was in...I think in the third or fourth grade...she wasn't sitting beside me and helping me put it on, telling me what looked good and what didn't. We didn't get a chance to go shopping and giggle about clothes and try on stupid hats at Wal-Mart or something so that we could take pictures and laugh. She wasn't there for any of my choir recitals, or my piano recital. She'll never get to hear me play guitar. There was no trip to Disneyland with her."

A single tear rolled down her cheek and she hurriedly brushed it away, not wanting to look back at her father to see the look on her face. Anastasia knew that if she looked at him, she wouldn't be able to continue. So she kept her eyes forward, focused on a spot behind the middle seat at the table. "When my first boyfriend broke my heart and made me cry for a week, she wasn't there to comfort me or offer me ice cream or cookies. When I got my first report card with straight A's, she wasn't there to give me a hug or buy me a present. When I take part in my high school graduation, she won't be there when they hand me my diploma, with a dozen roses and a mile-wide proud smile. She won't be there at my wedding, to see her little girl grow up and become a woman herself. There's no more baking cookies or gardening or anything. She's gone.

"She's been gone for ten Christmases. She didn't get a chance to play the Tooth Fairy that often. She's missed ten birthdays of mine. Sweet Sixteen and no mom to share it with. I already know what life is like without her. But I'll never have a chance to know what life would be like with her."

Her tears stopped falling and she looked towards the man in the orange jumpsuit. "But that's not my fault. It's not my dad's fault. The only person who can be at fault is sitting over there. If there's anything that I've learned from my dad, who is a well-known forensic scientist, it's that the evidence doesn't lie. And the evidence is what put that man in jail. He followed us to a mall and watched us shop. He followed us to our home and parked his car on the curb and loaded a gun. And when my mom got out of our car in the driveway and went around to the other side to get me out of the back, after she opened the door...he pulled the trigger and he shot her three times. The coroner's report said that no matter which of the three bullets hit her first, all of them were fatal in their own right. If he had shot her once, he would have killed her. He knew what he was doing. And because of that, I don't remember who my mom was. But what I do remember was the blood. And the screaming and the crying that I did. Because I was too scared to leave the car, and I sat there until the police came, screaming and crying for my mom. It didn't matter, before that day, how scared I was. The second I started to scream or the second that the first tear fell, she was there to comfort me. This was the first time that she couldn't."

Her eyes swung back to the parole board members, brimming with tears and turning red. She sniffled and stopped long enough for a sip of water. "And now, he has a chance to be out on the streets again. A man that was convicted of two murders. He murdered two women, two wives, two mothers. First he killed his wife. Then he killed my mom. And you want to let him out, in the general public? I don't deny that people make mistakes. People make mistakes and they learn from those mistakes, and generally, they don't make them again. But these weren't mistakes. They were cold-blooded murders. He knew what he was doing, and he planned them out. And even if that doesn't sway you to make the right decision, to keep him behind bars, then remember my earlier words today."

Anastasia looked each of them in the eyes in turn, taking a long moment to acknowledge each of them. "He took away my right to know my mother. He took away a loving wife, a loving mother, and a wonderful woman. I hope one day, once I grow up and mature, that I can be like her. But the truth is, I'll never know if I am or not. I can only take other people's words for it, because I don't know her. I never got that chance." She gathered her papers back together and folded them, taking a deep breath. "I hope that you take my words into consideration. Thank you for your time."

She stepped away from the podium quickly, pivoting on her heel and almost fleeing back to her seat next to her father. Without meeting his eyes, she put the papers back into her purse, fumbling with the leather bag for a moment before sighing and looking forward again. The same parole board member looked down at a file, made a notation, and then looked back to scan the room. "And I also understand that we're going to hear from Mr. Cray's family now. Sir, if you will?"

She crossed her arms and settled in her uncomfortable metal folding chair, as the man in the orange jumpsuit turned to look over his shoulder briefly, meeting her eyes.

She shuddered and shifted on her seat so that she was closer to her father.

There was a twenty minute period after all the speeches were made when Anastasia escaped to the bathroom briefly, while the rest of the parole board members left the room in heated debate about what to do. She hadn't even bothered to keep her fingers crossed on her lap. She knew, in her heart of hearts, that the man would never be released. The crime was so wicked, so sensationalized by the press, about how an innocent six year old had to watch her mother be shot to death in front of her, that there was no chance he would get to walk the streets again. At least, she admitted to her reflection in the bathroom, that's what she hoped.

Going back into the room, she took her seat next to her father, only moments before the parole board members started filtering back into the room again. They took their time taking their seats and opening the files in front of them. They didn't meet anyone's eyes as the man in the centre began to speak. He cleared his throat and pulled the microphone closer to his mouth. Anastasia reached over blindly to her father, slipping her hand under his and clasping his fingers. He looked down, surprised at the contact of the slightly damp, shaking hand that was now within his.

"This was one of the hardest decisions to make. We were privileged to hear two well thought out and well spoken arguments from both sides. Miss Grissom, allow me to say that your words touched all of us very deeply. None of the members of this board have lost a parent or a family member in as violent a way as you have. The fact that you are a very bright, well adjusted young woman speaks volumes as to your father and to an extent, your mother. However, that being said, we have a number of other things to take into account. Such as Mr. Cray's spotless behavior record, his work with the jailhouse chapel, and his recent psychological reports. Mr. Cray has shown great regret for his actions of ten years ago, and that cannot go unmentioned. Therefore, the members of this board and the state of California have decided to offer parole to Mr. Cray, pursuant to a number of conditions that will be discussed at a later date. Congratulations, Mr. Cray."

She sat there for a moment, shell-shocked, as the members of the board began gathering up their papers again, getting ready to leave the room. The man in the orange jumpsuit had a bright grin on his face, and was shaking hands with his son, who was smiling just as widely. Anastasia shook her head as she felt her throat beginning to close up on her. "No, no," she whispered, mainly to herself, before she tightened the grip on her father's hand, swinging her head around to look at him. "Daddy, do something! Don't let them do this! It's not fair, they can't!" Her voice began to gather volume, and slowly, one by one, the people in the room began to turn their attention to her. "They can't! What the hell is their problem? He killed Mom and he's free? What the hell?"

Grissom stood up, almost pulling her along to her feet. She continued to shake her head and cry, almost fighting him on the way to the door. He pushed it open with his free hand and began to pull her out, but she dug in her heels and spun around to face her mother's killer. Pieces of her black hair had escaped from her neat bun with the violent shaking of her head, and she narrowed her eyes at him, an ugly smirk settling on her tear stained face. "I hope you rot in hell, you fucking son of a bitch. I hope someone follows you one day and shoots you. You stupid fucking-"

And her words were cut off when Grissom pulled the hysterical teenager out the door, shutting it behind him.