OAKWOOD CLOSE

~ Chapter 7 ~

"This feels so strange." Sara commented as she looked around the large kitchen. "Being in this house without your mother, I mean. I've been having dinner with her here every month or so ever since I returned to Vegas but now…" She sighed heavily as she turned back around in her chair. "Well, it's hard to believe that's never going to happen again."

"I know." Tapping the spoon he was holding smartly against the edge of the pot, Grissom replaced the saucepan's lid and turned towards the refrigerator. "I've spent the past twenty-four hours expecting her to walk through the door any minute." He shrugged as he pulled out a small bowl of finely chopped tomato and placed it beside the cook top. He inhaled deeply and let it out as a single slow breath. "I know I'll get used to it eventually but, in the meantime…"

"It's hard." Sara finished for him; she'd made her mind up on the short drive over to keep this meeting as friendly and non-confrontational as possible and, so far, that resolve was working well. She nodded towards the cooker. "What are you making?"

"Risotto and butternut squash." He answered as he added a small knob of butter to a second pan. "Apart from his formula, I try to keep Ben away from commercial baby food as much as I can and, since he loves this stuff, I thought I'd make some up for him to take over to the Robbins' place tomorrow for lunch." He added the deseeded tomato to the melted butter and stirred it briskly. "Fresh is best, right?" He glanced over at her with a smile. "At least that's what you always said."

"I did and it is." She concurred, watching as he sprinkled a small amount of grated cheddar to the pot before folding the contents gently through the rice mixture. "That smells good."

"It is actually." Satisfied with the dish, Grissom placed the lid back on the pan and pulled it off the cook top to cool. "He wasn't all that sure about it the first time I made it so I coaxed him into trying it by eating some myself." Reaching across the granite bench top, he flicked the switch on the electric kettle before pulling two mugs from the overhead cupboard. "Green tea okay?" He glanced over with a smile. "I found a packet of tea bags in here this morning and, since my mother was a devout coffee drinker, I'm going to hazard a guess she bought them for you."

"She did." Sara confirmed, watching intently as he poured boiling water into both cups. "Like I said, I used to come round and see her each month."

"Yeah, I wanted to thank you for that." Carrying the cups over, he placed one carefully in front of her before pulling out the chair opposite and taking a seat. "For keeping in touch with her, I mean. I know it meant a lot to Mom and it means a lot to me too; I really appreciate that you made that effort." He sipped at his tea, grimacing at the heat of the liquid before continuing. "I want to make sure that you know just how much she was against my decision to keep my life and Ben's existence from you. She hated having to lie to you, Sara, she really did."

"I kind of guessed that she was doing it to order." Running her fingertip around the edge of her cup, Sara looked up with a slight smile. "If there's one thing I'll always remember about your mother it's that she was a very…," She paused for a moment, searching for an apt description. "Forthright person; she was never afraid to let you know what was on her mind and she rarely kept anything back so her keeping quiet about something as important as the birth of her grandchild seemed way out of character."

"Oh, I took some flak for that, I promise." Grissom looked across with a sheepish grin. "She was so proud of him and wanted everyone to know it but I thought it would just be easier if we kept it to ourselves for a while; after all, at that stage I had absolutely no intention of returning to Vegas at all so it seemed like the best way to keep any hurt to a minimum." One shoulder rose in an almost casual shrug. "To you, I mean, I knew it would hurt you to be told that I now had a child."

"You're right, it would have." For the first time since she'd arrived at the house, Sara didn't bother to mask her feelings. "But it hurt more to look up at that airport and see you standing there with him in your arms." She drew in a ragged breath. "I should have been told, Gil; you owed me that at least."

One look into the pain-filled eyes of the woman seated across from him was enough to let Grissom know exactly how wrong his actions – or lack of - had been; he hadn't saved her anything by cutting all contact and keeping his secret, instead, he realized suddenly, he'd done the exact opposite.

"I'm sorry." It was a simple but heartfelt statement. "If I'd known -"

"If you'd known!" Sara huffed out a mirthless laugh. "How could you not have known? How could you not have realised how it would feel to have the man I love," She looked up, locking eyes gone hard, with his. "The only man I've ever loved, do something like that to me?" She shook her head in disbelief. "Jeez, I know you can be clueless at times, Gil but you seriously couldn't work that out yourself?"

Quickly dropping her gaze down towards the table, Sara took a deep, refreshing breath before looking up again.

"Catherine said something about him being born prematurely." Calm restored, she raised her cup and took a small sip before continuing. "Is he all right?"

"Yes, Ben's perfectly fine." Watching her closely, Grissom nodded. "He was a little less than a month early really, he was what they call a late pre-term baby; it was his weight that was an issue more than anything, he just scraped in at five pounds when he was born."

"Wow." Sara raised an eyebrow at the news. "He was a little one."

"Yeah, he was," Grissom agreed before taking a breath. "But there was something else too." He sighed deeply, realizing now that he had to make a full confession. "There was a very real chance that Ben was going to be born with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome." He locked eyes with Sara and suddenly found himself unable to look away. "His mother is an alcoholic." He shrugged. "A functioning one for the most part but an alcoholic nonetheless."

"And you knew that?" Part question, part accusation, Sara forgot all about her vow of pacifism as she glared indignantly at him. "How the hell could you have a baby with someone like that?"

"I didn't know it actually and, truth be told, I didn't choose to have a child with anyone." Bristling at the sudden tone, Grissom pushed his cup towards the middle of the table and sat up straighter in his seat. "I met Melissa out in Gainesville, she worked in admin at the University and the only real contact I had with her was when she drove out to the research station I was working from to pick up the weekly reports." He shrugged nonchalantly. "She was nice but in all the months I was there, I really don't think we said much more than a couple of dozen words to each other.' Raising his hand, he ran it roughly through his hair as he continued. "Then we had a really bad week; the research was not panning out the way we thought it would, funding was being cut all over the place and the project was about to fold and… well, let's just say, nothing was going right so, on the way home one night, I decided to stop for a drink." He shook his head at the memory. "I'd been sitting at the bar for all of five minutes when Melissa pulled out the stool next to mine and insisted on ordering me another bourbon." He looked up. "I should have refused it, I really only went in there for one but I didn't and the next thing I know I'm buying the next round and, eventually, one thing led to another, I guess."

"You guess?" Sara didn't even attempt to hide the incredulity in her voice. "How the hell could you be so stupid? You barely knew the woman; she could have been anyone, she could have had anything! Did you even think of that at the time?"

"I wasn't thinking though," Grissom told her honestly. "Obviously, if I had been, I never would have done any of it. I never would have had that much to drink, I never would have ended up in a motel room and I never would have woken up the next day with the worst hangover of my life knowing only too well what had happened but hoping against hope that it hadn't." He shook his head. "And then I wouldn't have opened my front door in Arizona seven and a half months later to find a pregnant woman standing there telling me I was about to become a father."

"Well at least you have the good sense to regret it." Sara commented dryly as she twirled her finger round and round the handle of her cup.

"That's the thing though, Sara; I don't." Staring straight across the table at her, Grissom's mouth quirked up in an easy smile. "Because to say I regret it is to say I regret Ben and there is nothing in this world that is more important to me than that little boy."

At the words, Sara's voice hardened even further. "And his mother?"

"Like I said, Melissa's back in Florida getting on with her life." He raised one shoulder in an easy shrug. "I'm grateful to her for giving birth to my son and then trusting me to take better care of him than she believed she could herself but that's as far as my feelings towards her go."

"So she takes off and now you get to play happy families, huh?" There was no mistaking the sarcasm in her voice. "Just you and your baby son."

"I, uh…" Pausing mid-sentence, a frown furrowed Grissom's brow as he stared at the woman opposite. "You know, I had no problem meeting up with you and going over all of this, Sara, because you're right, the least I owe you is an explanation but let me ask a question of my own, okay?" He waited a beat for a response but, with none forthcoming, he carried on. "Have you ever actually said Ben's name?"

"What?" Taken aback, Sara blinked in surprise at the sudden query.

"It's something that just occurred to me." Grissom explained. "Listening to you then and realising that not once have I ever heard his name come out of your mouth. I've heard you say the baby, the child, your son but I've never actually heard you say his name."

"I must have." Suddenly finding herself on the back foot, Sara scrambled to answer the question. "This is the fourth time we've been together since you got back, I'd have had to use his name at some stage during that time."

"Uh-uh." Locking eyes with hers, Grissom shook his head. "You know, I'd really hoped that we could be adult enough to move beyond the mess our marriage became and maybe end up being friends again but I guess Jim was right and I was being naive." A thin cry echoed through the otherwise silent house and looking down at his watch, Grissom sighed. "The funny thing is, the only thing I really want for Ben at the moment is for him to know that he is cared for and protected by the people around him and, for a little while there, I'd hoped one of those people might have been you." Pushing back his seat, he got to his feet before looking down at her with a sad smile. "I love you, Sara, I always have and I probably always will but I don't want my son exposed to anger and resentment because of what happened between the two of us so I think, for all of our sakes, we need to make a completely clean break of things and I really think we need to make it now."

A/N: An extra special thanks goes to SylvieT for taking time out of her annual pilgrimage to beta this chapter.