Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: In the past, I've found it hard to find a good beta. These days I'm blessed with two wonderful ones, PhDelicous and mingsmommy. Thank you both. And thanks to everyone who's taken a few seconds to comment on this story. Your words have touched me, and kept me going. I hope I don't ever let you down.


Unconditional
by Kristen Elizabeth


"She went out like a light hours ago, Claire. I'm the one who's wide awake. We watched Cinderella. Twice. I couldn't talk her out of it." Catherine sighed. "That child of yours has quite the stubborn streak."

Glancing at her father through the window that looked into the ICU, Claire nodded. "Yeah. But she comes by it honestly."

"Any changes?"

"Greg stopped by for a little while. But other than that…no." Her chin trembled. "Nothing yet."

"And your father?"

Claire sniffed and straightened her back. "No change there, either."

"I know it's hard, but just hang in there, sweetie." A moment passed. "Claire?"

Tearing her eyes away from the window, Claire cleared her throat. "Sorry. There's, um, a new doctor coming to talk to Dad. I should…"

"Go on," Catherine urged her. "I'm going to try to get some sleep. Before Ashley wakes up at dawn. Chin up, you hear?"

"Thanks, Catherine. Hug her for me."

Claire closed up her phone, took a deep breath, and walked back into the ICU.

The doctor was just finishing his update. "The involuntary muscle twitches in her legs are a good indication that once the swelling goes down completely, Sara will make a full recovery. We're very hopeful, Mr. Grissom."

Her father's voice was dry and hoarse. "Why isn't she awake yet?"

"She has gone through a terrible trauma," the doctor hedged. "There's no head injury, so the fact that she's still asleep isn't worrying us all that much at this point."

"It's worrying us," Claire said, coming up behind her father.

"I understand that it's troubling to see her like this. But trust me. She will wake up soon. She just needs lots of rest for her body to begin recovering." The doctor gave them as sympathetic of a smile as he could muster. "I'll be back in an hour. Talk to her. It's quite likely that she can hear you."

When he was gone, her father leaned closer to her mother's ear. "Sara," he said softly. "It's time to wake up. Come on, honey. Open your eyes."

"He just said she needs rest," Claire reminded him. "Maybe it's better that she sleeps."

"She wants to wake up," her father said with exaggerated patience. "Sara," he tried again. "Just open your eyes, honey."

Flopping back into the chair that had become her second home over the past few hours, Claire took several calming breaths. "Dad," she said after a few minutes. "Do you realize that it's been five years since we spent this much time alone together?"

He didn't say anything for a long time. Just when Claire had given up hope and was about make a hasty retreat for the bathroom before she lost control of her tears, he murmured, "We're not really alone." He waited another minute to add, "Has it really been that long?"

She nodded, biting her lip hard enough to hold back any evidence of emotion. When she felt she could reply, she whispered, "Yeah. We went…collecting in the desert the summer…before."

"I remember." Claire held her breath as he continued, "You caught that gorgeous tarantula."

She released her pent-up breath. "He was beautiful," she agreed. "Whatever happened to him?"

"I let him go." He looked back at her mother for long minute. "I haven't been collecting since then."

She blinked. "I didn't know that."

"Well…when she comes home from work, the last thing your mother wants to do is go out into the desert looking for bugs. And she won't let me go without a partner." His Adam's apple bobbed. "She worries too much."

"Isn't that what happens when you become a parent?" Claire asked softly.

Whatever tentative steps they were making towards having an actual conversation abruptly stopped. Her father cleared his throat. "You don't have to stay here, you know. I can call you when she wakes."

She closed her eyes for a second, just long enough to allow two tears to escape. Wiping them away with the back of her hand, Claire muttered, "Like you called to tell me she'd been shot?"

"I didn't want to upset Ashley."

Claire stared at him. "Ashley is four. She thinks we came to the hospital for the cookies." She paused. "You didn't want to deal with me." His brow crinkled, like it always did when someone said something that annoyed him. "Isn't that why you haven't you asked me to go collecting with you?"

Her father's frown grew deeper. "You never liked collecting. It was just a better chore than weeding your mother's garden on Saturday mornings."

"Yeah," she said, defeated. "That's why I went every time you asked. At least until I got pregnant and you stopped asking." She stood up. "I'm hungry. Are you ready to eat something?" He shook his head. "Right. I'll be back in a little while."

On the other side of the ICU door, Claire looked back at her parents. Her father's head was bowed, his brow rested on her mother's shoulder. She swallowed heavily. In a perfect world, she could have run back, thrown her arms around his neck, and cried with him.

But the world wasn't perfect. Something had been lost between them a long time ago. She just wasn't sure if it had been taken away from her, or if she hadn't held onto it hard enough.


The cafeteria had stopped serving dinner, but breakfast was hours away. The wrapped sandwiches looked like they'd seen better days, so Claire settled for a mealy apple, a tube of peanut butter and another cup of the horrible coffee. She'd just finished her snack when her cell phone rang. Ignoring the cafeteria lady who frowned at her, Claire pulled it out of her pocket.

"Hello?"

"Claire?"

She recognized the voice and she relaxed a bit. "Hey, Uncle Nick."

"C'mon, darlin'. You're old enough to drink now. You can drop the 'uncle' stuff."

Smiling, she shook her head. "Sorry. It's stuck in my head for life. Besides, it's not like you're not used to hearing it."

"Well, that's certainly true." Nick Stokes' tone sobered. "I just got a call from Greg. How's your mom?"

"Sleeping. But the doctor says we shouldn't worry. She's making involuntary muscle movements."

She heard him let out a sigh. "Damnit, Sara…" he said out loud. "Is your dad as much of a wreck as I'm imagining?" he asked a second later.

"If you're picturing him refusing to eat or sleep or even walk away from her for even a few seconds, you're right on target."

"Claire, you gotta understand something about your dad. He doesn't handle stuff like this well. He never has. Especially when someone he loves is…"

She gently cut him off. "I know. It's okay." A moment passed. "How's Miami? Relentlessly sunny?"

"Relentlessly rainy," he replied. "Tropical depression."

"Poor tropics," Claire said with a smile. "All depressed."

"Yeah," Nick agreed. "So am I. No bikini babes on the beach."

"Don't let Miss Leanne catch you looking at bikini babes."

He laughed lightly. "I value my…um…neck too much for that." Nick paused again. "I wish I could do something for your family right now. I really do."

"You could move back," she suggested brightly.

"Believe me…after five straight days of rain, I miss the desert. But it's good here. I work with great people. I'm learning how to scuba dive. And you know, darlin', I don't think your mom needs or wants any help running her lab."

Claire pulled one knee up to her chest. "We just miss you."

"The feeling is entirely mutual." She heard him take a breath. "Expect some flowers soon. It's not much, but I have to do something. I need to go now, though. I'm about to leave work, and if Mrs. Stokes caught me driving in the rain and talking on the phone, she'd have my hide."

"Okay. Thanks for calling Uncle Nick. It was…" Claire swallowed. "…nice to hear a friendly voice."

"Hug that sweet girl of yours for me. And remember…your dad once sat through a junior high school production of 'Hairspray' because you had one line. If that's not a sign of love…honey, you're not lookin' hard enough."

She closed up the phone with trembling fingers. Although she would have liked to stay in the cafeteria, she couldn't hide downstairs forever. She wasn't a kid anymore. She hadn't been for nearly five years, ever since the strip had turned pink and the course of her whole had changed in the blink of an eye.

On her way out, she bought another apple and some more peanut butter. He had to eat eventually.


"Food?"

"Mom gave us apples and a whole jar of peanut butter!"

"All right. Collecting jars?"

"Lots and lots."

"Camera?"

"It's around your neck."

"Of course. Bug repellant?"

Claire scrunched up her nose at her father. "Daddy, we're collecting. We're not supposed to kill bugs!"

"I know that, and you know that. But your mom feels better if we keep a can handy, in case we meet a really mean stinkbug." Grissom looked over their gear. "I think we're set."

He'd reached the front door when Claire cried out. "Daddy! You forgot your hat!"

The straw hat he used to wear at desert crime scenes was as much a part of their excursions as the specimen jars they used to collect the bugs they found. His eight year-old daughter wouldn't be satisfied until it was perched on his head.

She nodded happily when he had the hat in place. "Okay," she said. "Now we can go!"

Grissom held the door open. "Ladies first."

Claire's pink backpack bulged with empty plastic jars, nearly throwing her small body off-balance as she led the way down the steps. In the front flower-bed, her mother was on her hands and knees, yanking weeds.

Sara sat back on her heels as they passed by on their way to the car. "Have fun," she waved. "Remember your sunscreen. Both of you."

At the car, Claire announced, "I wanna ride up front with you, Daddy."

"When you grow another two inches, you can ride shotgun. But until then…" Grissom opened the back door of the Tahoe.

Grumbling all the way, Claire climbed into the backseat. She waited until he was behind the wheel to ask, "How come Mommy never comes collecting?"

"Because if she came with us, she wouldn't have time to weed the garden. And the weeds would grow so much that they'd cover the entire house," Grissom replied, starting the engine.

"You're exaggerating." She said the word so precisely, and reprimanded him so primly that he couldn't help but smile.

"I am?" Claire nodded. "Are you sure?" She nodded again. "Spell it if you're sure."

"E-X-A-G-E-R-A-T-I-N-G," she spelled.

Grissom turned around to look at the street as he began backing down the driveway. He took a second to give his daughter a nod. "Almost. But there's two 'G's'."

"Oh." Disappointed in herself, Claire's rosy lower lip protruded.

"But…you spell better than your Uncle Greg." Grissom winked. "And he can't spell in sign language."

"I can!" Her little fingers formed each of the letters carefully, this time remembering the extra letter.

"Very, very good," Grissom nodded, satisfied.

"I'm a good speller," Claire reminded him. "Miss Backer says so. You have to be a good speller to go to Harvard."

His eyebrow lifted. "Harvard?"

"That's where I'm gonna go to college when I grow up." She paused. "I could, couldn't I?"

"I think you could do anything in the world," Grissom told his daughter. "But why don't you get through third grade first, and then take it from there?"

They drove for a little while before Claire spoke again. "Do you think Mommy would be happy if I went to Harvard?"

Grissom watched her through the rearview mirror. "Your mom and I are going to be happy with whatever school you go to, Claire. Even if you pick clown school."

She collapsed into a mad fit of giggling at this. Grissom made a mental note to get on UCLA's website and order a child's sweatshirt. It wasn't too early to start swinging her interest towards a school that wasn't on the other side of the country.


To Be Continued