Chapter 3

It was on the tip of Sara's tongue to say she didn't know, she had no idea how the baby had survived when Tara had been so badly burned. For the moment she had no answer for the other woman.

"I don't know." She finally said softly, "just you hang in there, okay?"

For now, it was all Tara could do.

One day blurred into another, doctors in and out of the ICU, still more doctors checking her burns and another set checking on the baby, which was difficult to do given her present condition. At some point, she stopped caring what happened to Neil, she couldn't be worried about him right now she had to take care of herself and her unborn child. She didn't even know who the father was, whether it was her husband or his best friend.

5 months later

Las Vegas Crime Lab

"They want to test for paternity now?" Sara asked Grissom when he had unexpectedly poked his head into the room where the CSIs discussed current, previous and past cases.

Her boss shrugged.

"Why not?" He quipped, "she's far enough along by now, they can hope to get some DNA from the fetus…"

"Do they want to test from our lab?"

"One would assume so." Grissom replied.

The results were on Grissom's desk by the end of the shift. He only studied them thoughtfully, his mind and heart going out to the young woman who was still in the burn unit, miraculously, still pregnant. The stupid things humans did that often ended in murder… He would never understand it.

She had been undergoing numerous surgeries for months, mostly skin grafts to repair major damage. The tissues tissue expanders had been making her feel like a blimp and her growing pregnancy was only adding to that. She got a little bit better every day and knew she would be in the hospital for months to come after the surgeries there would be therapy and she would have to learn to do simple tasks again if only to take care of the baby and herself. Tara found if she kept the baby in mind the future seemed a little less daunting because she had someone else to think about and eventually care for. If she had gotten her heart's desire then it was all worth it.

Slowly Tara began to heal. They would be scarring of course (the doctors had told her this numerous times) but she wasn't sure how she would deal with it all, her missing fingers, the baby, and everything else. She would be raising this child (regardless of who the father was) as a single parent for the foreseeable future. Things were better what she was able to talk, as the pain lessened, although it wasn't by any means over, Tara began making some major decisions. She decided after her suicide attempt she needed help both for her depression so while she healed Tara had been seeing a therapist, one who came to her room twice a week. It wouldn't erase everything that had happened but at least it was a step forward. She had to begin to heal, both physically and emotionally.

This is mostly a filler chapter, explaining what happens to Tara between chapters 2 and 4. There were only be a few more chapters going up through the birth of the baby.