Pairing: GSR (Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle)

Disclaimer: no you dolts I don't own CSI stop asking. I do own little Joey though so HA! And I'm not sharing. That'll teach you; CBS.

Warnings: you know, references to violence and stuff, maybe some angst (yey!!!) and a little bit of bad language. Not much at all.

Spoilers: I screwed with the time line. Sorry. Basically spoilers for season seven. For when Grissom leaves to go on sabbatical which if you didn't know before you do now!

Plot: it's still a secret. Sara left during Grissom's sabbatical which I changed to six months not four weeks. Sara was pregnant. Um… a few years later a case brings the team and Sara back together. Yey.

Prologue 4 : Five Years of my Life... without you

Sara had the baby eights months into her pregnancy. It was tough on her and luckily it was during the first few days of the summer holidays so she could rest and recuperate without having to worry about going to work. Best of all she could spend time with her baby. It was a girl, called Charlotte Sidle after Grissom's mother (AN: i have no idea what Grissom's mother was called so I made it up!), because she had been a strong intelligent woman and since Sara could not give her daughter legitimacy or a father she would give her a family history that she wouldn't have to be ashamed of.

Soon she began teaching and found she enjoyed the job more than she thought she would. More holiday, regular hours, better pay, less pressure. And she enjoyed the students, they were so bright and eager. All her co-workers for the previous five plus years had been jaded and hardened, all except Greg. She kept in contact with Greg and also with Catherine who had turned out to be a better friend than co-worker. Catherine had traveled to London, where Sara had made her home, twice to see her goddaughter and Sara had been to Las Vegas roughly seven times over the five years. Plus web cam, e-mails, letters, shared photographs, and plenty of long-distance phone calls meant Sara was pretty up to date on what was going on in Las Vegas even though she was hundreds of miles away. Still, at first it had been lonely, especially pregnant and surrounded by a different culture.

But she had survived and now she was only stronger. Even when she heard news of Grissom, the occasional date he had been on and the few traumatic cases he had solved or not solved.

Sara dated a few different people, an Australian Applied Art lecturer, an ex-student who had taken Law, a psychology guest lecturer, and an American banker but no one had had anything she'd thought of as interesting enough to keep the relationship going. The longest she'd lasted had been with the ex-student who'd been visiting the university to share his success story with prospective students, he was a lawyer now, rich and famous for his controversial cases and surprising wins. He'd been a good guy for a while but the celebrity lifestyle had changed him and within seven months Sara was looking at a stranger who was a negative influence for her daughter. Luckily Charlie had only been three at the time and would hopefully forget him.

It was five years after she left that she got the call which made her return. Charlie was due to start full time school soon but it was only June so Sara reasoned that it wouldn't be too traumatic to go back. At least, not for Charlie, for Sara it would be a make-or-break case.

AN: please comment.