Chapter Four – Everything Is Relative
"And this is Grissom's office."
Samantha was walking from shelf to shelf, touching and examining jars that contained things from baby pigs, to a two headed scorpion.
"This is gross, but in a very cool way."
"Well I am glad that I am in some way cool."
Grissom had entered his office, drying his hands on a hand towel. He looked tired Sara noted to herself.
"I thought that if you aren't too busy you could spend a little extra time with Sam and her project, its right up your ally. Oh and we brought bribery."
Sara held up the plastic bag full of Chinese and then handed Grissom one of the cokes she had picked up on the way in.
"I guessed that you would not have eaten yet."
Sara watched as his eyes registered the food, looking as if he had never heard of it before.
"Great. You got the usual?"
Sara nodded and set about packing up the papers on his desk, setting them to one side and then started unloading the vast amounts of food, her stomach rumbling as the aroma hit her senses. After a few minutes of eating, Grissom turned his attention to Samantha, who was struggling with the chopsticks.
"Like this Samantha."
Grissom pushed his food aside and reaching over, arranged her fingers into the correct position. Samantha grinned broadly as she clicked them together, and happily dug into her Chinese with great concentration. Sara flashed a small grin at Grissom, and continued to eat her chow mien noodles.
"So Samantha, what's your project about?"
Samantha screwed up her pretty nose.
"Bugs. But Aunt Sara said that you were the best person at those things so she said that if it was ok with you then we could hang out."
Grissom's eyes lit up at the mention of bugs, and nodded enthusiastically.
"Of course. I taught your aunt here a thing of two, so if you're her niece, you should catch on nice and quick."
They were soon finished eating, and after they had finished cleaning up, Samantha turned her attention to Grissom.
"Ok so, where do we start, Mr. Grissom?
A gentle smile made its way to Grissom's mouth.
"You know how to make someone feel old. Just call me Grissom."
Samantha nodded.
"Well in that case call me Sam. Unless you want to call me Mans like Aunt Sara does, that's cool as well."
Grissom started pulling out textbooks and case files and pushed them in front of Samantha.
"Ok Sam, lets get started. What do you need for your project?"
Samantha looked at a sheet of paper that she had fished out of her folder.
"I need a case study, and then I need to focus on the bugs found at that particular scene. My teacher gave me this when I opened my big mouth and told her what Aunt Sara did for work."
Grissom smiled at the girl.
"Well this case might just fit your requirements"
Grissom put a folder on his desk, opening it so that it faced the girl, and with a low confident voice, he started going into great detail about the circumstances surrounding the murder. Sara sat down in a chair that she had dragged against the back wall, picking an old Sherlock Holmes novel out of her bag, blocking out the talk of bugs. She was a good four chapters into the book before Samantha pushed her chair back noisily and stretched, and started to gather the books and folders that Grissom had handed her earlier.
"Do you mind if I set up camp in the break room, Grissom? I promise I will stay out of the way."
Grissom nodded and watched the girl leave, smiling at Sara.
"She is a great girl. Very bright."
Sara stood and stretched, nodding.
"Tell me about it. She likes to surprise me."
Grissom sat back in his chair, interlocking his fingers behind his head.
"Speaking of surprises, how are things with her?"
Sara moved from her seat to the one that was directly across from Grissom, sipping her coke lazily.
"Her ex-boyfriend showed up on my doorstep this morning. He and Samantha have decided to keep the baby and they want to get married, so now he is coming back to California with Samantha and I. I think I have a sign over my door welcoming vagrants. Or those in trouble at least."
Grissom shook his head.
"Just be thankful that she trust's you enough to tell you and not do something stupid. What about you? Are you ok?"
Sara shrugged, pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
"You mean aside from the obvious? I'm fine. I think I am anyway. You know what scares me the most? What I'm going to say to Brian and Vanessa, but even more then that is how they will react. What if I am just sticking my nose in like Brian said? What if I am just over reacting?"
Sara looked at Grissom for some sign of reassurance, wanting to take comfort in the fact that what she was doing was the right thing. Sara was bitterly disappointed when all he did was shrug his shoulders.
"I personally think that even if I told you what you were doing was wrong, you being you, will do it anyway. But as an outsider to this whole mess, from what I can see, you are not over reacting, and as her Aunt, despite what you brother may say, you are doing what needs to be done. Does that make you feel any better?"
Sara held up her hand, her thumb and forefinger an inch or so apart.
"Just a little. I have no confidence in how I am going to handle this, I really don't. It totally sucks that I am taking my holidays and I am not looking forward to it."
Grissom leant forward, his hands in front of his face in prayer style.
"Well I am just a phone call away if you need me. I am here for anything, ok? Promise that you'll call if it all gets too much, I don't want you to start drinking again. Deal?"
Grissom held his hand across the table, a small smile on his mouth. Sara smiled back and placed her hand in his, his grip surprisingly gentle. Their eyes locked and for a moment and Sara felt transported, all her worries forgotten as she got lost in Grissom's soft gaze. Grissom withdrew his hand first, dropping his gaze to the papers on his desk. A noise behind them made Sara and Grissom both jump slightly, and Samantha moved further into the room, a small smile on her full lips.
"Sorry to disturb you but the others are here and they wanted me to come and get you both."
Sara and Grissom exchanged a questioning glance before they followed Samantha into the break room. Catherine, Warwick, Nick and Greg stood around the small table that sat in the center of the room, where a cake sat. Sara looked from one to the other, her eyebrows raised.
"What is all this? I'm not leaving for good. You know that right?"
Catherine shrugged her shoulders.
"Yeah, it just gives us an excuse for cake, that's all it is really."
Sara nodded, smiling as she cut the slices of rich, moist dark chocolate cake, handing each person a piece.
"So Grissom, is it going to be a quite night tonight?"
Warrick sidled up to Grissom, surprised by how relaxed the older man seemed.
"Yep, looks that way. Sara and I need to finish the paper work on last night's case, and you need to up date your paper work on the case you three were working on also."
Sara was watching Samantha talk to Greg, her hair swinging down her back, her smile warm and wide.
"It's starting to creep me out how much she looks like you. I mean aside from the streaked hair of course."
Nick was standing beside her, shoveling cake into his mouth.
"Does she really? I always thought she looked like her mother."
Nick swallowed the bite he had just chewed, shaking his head.
"Nope, it's you. So how have things been with her?"
Sara pushed her cake around the plate, her appetite gone.
"It's alright. She decided to keep the baby and get married to the Dad. So now we are going to go to California to tell her parent's."
"So why is it you've taken so much time off? I mean six weeks to sort this out?"
Sara raised an eyebrow.
"Believe me; I'll need every second I can get. And even if I don't end up needing to be there that long, I can enjoy some sun and surf before I have to come back here. I need to ask you a favor."
Nick put his fork down on the plate, giving Sara his full attention.
"Ask away."
"Do you think that you can look after my apartment while I'm gone? It would be even better if you could live there. Its closer to work then your place is, the cupboards are full and I have a really wide range of DVD's. What do you think?"
Nick pretended to ponder on the question for a few minutes that was until a wide smile spread across his handsome face.
"Yeah, of course. When are you leaving?"
"Friday morning. I'll come by here earlier so that I can drop off the keys. Thanks Nick, you're the best."
"Yeah, I know."
Sara gave Nick a tired smile then tried to force down some more cake, not wanting her mood to affect the people around her.