Notes: This chapter takes place the day after Grissom and Nora bond over the nasty cockroaches.

(Completely unrelated side note: I went to the Cincinnati Zoo yesterday with my kids. My boys adore the insect house. I stared at the terrarium of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches in there and really wondered how Sara could ever indulge Grissom's desire to own them. Butterflies? Beautiful. Tinfoil beetles? Cute and shiny. Big-Headed Ants? Small, industrious, and fascinating to watch. Cockroaches? Just plain nasty. My boys like them, though. Surprise.)

Anyway, I've been struggling with the mechanics of writing this story. I know what I want to happen, and I've even put a lot of time and effort into developing Nora's character through notes, notes, and more notes so that I can write her well, but this whole third person omniscient POV I've taken to writing in is just not working for me. Therefore, I've decided to write each chapter from one character's perspective. I'll probably just rotate Grissom, then Sara, then Nora, but we'll have to wait and see. For now, I can at least tell you definitively that this chapter is written in third person limited narration from Grissom's POV. Enjoy!

CSICSICSICSICSI

Grissom was welcomed home by a wagging stub of a tail and a lot of slobber shortly after 5:00. He patted Hank and absent-mindedly muttered something along the lines of "Good boy" as he reflected on the afternoon he'd just had. He'd gone to Greg's. He still couldn't believe he'd gone to Greg's for a social call.

Who am I and where has Gil Grissom gone? Never before last night had he once entertained the idea of "hanging out" with his former colleague who was twenty years younger than himself and had a rather eclectic taste in music, hairstyles, and girls. He just wasn't the kind of man who "hung out" with anyone. Sure, he'd get a steak with Brass every great now and then and okay, sure, he'd been seen in the company of Al Robbins outside the morgue a time or two, but for the most part, he was reclusive unless he was with Sara.

Sara. It had been she who had initially broached the subject of getting him out of the house so she could spend some time alone with Nora. He'd agreed to the idea, and had volunteered to go buy dog food or to take Hank to the park, but his ideas were apparently not good. They already had dog food. Hank was comforting to Nora, so Sara wanted Hank to stay home. Grissom had been a bit annoyed at that point, and had said, "Oh sure, the dog can stay, but I get kicked out. Thanks."

In the end, he'd gotten over feeling less a part of his own family than the dog and consented to heading out, sans dog. By something Greg called "Divine Intervention," he just so happened to call Sara's cell just as Grissom was deciding where to go. One thing led to another in Greg's and Sara's conversation, and before he could say no, he was on his way to Greg's apartment. Alone.

Turns out, Greg was a perfectly acceptable comrade… for the most part. His apartment was a little too, well, loud, both literally and metaphorically, for Grissom's comfort. He had to admit, though, that the extreme variety in the living space kept his investigative instincts entertained for hours; Greg's books ranged from The Great Gatsby to Ride 'Em, Cowgirl: Sex Position Secrets for Better Bucking, his CDs ranged from Andrew Lloyd Webber to Van Halen, his décor ranged from a potted orchid to flamingo string lights. They'd played chess. Grissom knew Greg had been captain of his high school chess team, but hadn't actually expected to meet his match in Greg. Turns out, after losing to Grissom in their first game, Greg annihilated Grissom in their second and their third games. The fourth victory belonged to Grissom, and after winning, he'd decided to head home before being invited to stay for dinner. Who knew what Greg fed himself.

Back at home, with Hank bounding along beside him, Grissom found Sara and Nora in the family room. His immediate thought was that he needed Norman Rockwell to capture the scene in front of him. If he'd had a camera on him, he'd have at least photographed it: both of his girls (he startled at the realization that he had just called Sara and Nora "his girls" in his head) were curled up on the couch, Nora's back resting against Sara's side, each engrossed in a book. Contentment.

Hank was a bulldog. He wasn't content to silently watch Sara and Nora read as was his master. Grissom smiled a hello toward the couch when Hank let out an excited bark.

In the midst of the exchange of greetings, Grissom didn't fail to notice how suddenly Nora had physically distanced herself from Sara the moment he had gotten close enough to kiss her, and he just managed to refrain from audibly sighing at the apparent fact that his mere presence in the room had immediately made Nora uncomfortable. It seemed obvious, though, that she and Sara were bonding very well, and for that, Grissom was grateful.

He was also hungry. "Anyone want to help me make a pizza?" A couple slices of a good margherita pizza sounded spectacular. While he was certainly willing to have help, he wasn't expecting either Sara or Nora to give up their books, so was surprised when Nora closed her novel, set it aside, and said, "Sure." Grissom and Sara shared a glance that clearly expressed surprise and gladness as they watched Nora pad off to the kitchen with Hank at her heels. Grissom bent down to give Sara a long, tender kiss, which she was glad to return until she playfully shoved him away, saying, "You've got a young chef waiting in the kitchen for you. Get cookin'!"

"Yes, ma'am. I'll go slave away for you while you sit around a read. I'm sure that's fair." Grissom was all smiles as he complained, and Sara stuck her tongue out at him as he retreated to the kitchen to join Nora.

Grissom was quite a good cook, which Sara thoroughly enjoyed. While awkward in many situations, Grissom was as at home in his kitchen as he was at a crime scene. He fluently gathered his ingredients, a bowl, measuring cups and spoons, and the pizza stone, handing each item to Nora to place on the island. He began humming to himself as he turned on the tap, and he realized he had asked Nora to help, and should therefore probably let her do something, so he asked her to measure out a quantity of warm water and pour it into a bowl. She did as she was asked and watched as Grissom added active dry yeast; Nora was taken aback by the sudden fizzing in the water as Grissom added a small amount of brown sugar. Grissom felt certain Nora had never made a pizza crust from scratch and had perhaps never made anything from scratch before and smiled at the thought that he was responsible for exposing her to a new experience.

The yeast needed to work with the sugar water for ten minutes, so Grissom sat down on a barstool at the island. He pulled a chair out for Nora and gestured for her to sit there. She didn't. It's okay, Grissom. Remain calm. Where's Sara? What do I do? Terrified that he was going to scare Nora away from the kitchen, Grissom decided to ignore the fact that Nora wouldn't sit by him and diverted attention away from the offending barstool by gesturing toward a Sudoku book lying on the island.

"Do you do Sudokus?"

"Yeah, but not as hard as the ones you do. Sara said you can do the super hard ones. I did one from your book this morning. Sara said I could. It was only a medium one, so I figured you wouldn't mind."

"I don't mind at all. Here," he said as he tore a medium level Sudoku from the book and set it on the island in front of Nora, "You can work on this one while we wait for the yeast to finish fizzing." He pulled a pencil out of a drawer for Nora and turned the pages of the puzzle book until he found an expert puzzle. The two sat in silence, save for the quiet fizzing of the yeast and the even quieter scratching of pencils on paper.

Ten minutes later, Grissom had nearly forgotten Nora was even in the kitchen with him; her sudden exasperated declaration of, "There, I finally finished it" startled Grissom into forgetting about wondering where on earth the 6 went in the top left box of his puzzle. As he looked up at Nora, he also realized the yeast, sugar, and water combination had stopped fizzing. He took his reading glasses off, smiled at Nora, and said, "Well, I think you can move up to hard Sudokus if you finished that one so quickly; I'm not even halfway done with mine."

Nora beamed back at him, and Grissom found himself remembering sharing that same smug grin with his mom when he would finish his 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle before she finished hers back when he was a kid. He also found himself feeling something more than concern for, and care about Nora… was he really learning to love this kid? He'd just properly met her four days ago. Was he really supposed to love her already? Did he really know what loving a child felt like? It had taken him years to accept the fact that he loved Sara, and he had denied loving her for so long that he'd forgotten when he'd first fallen in love with her. Was it this fast? Had he really loved Sara four days after he'd met her?

Putting his startling emotional thoughts aside, Grissom smiled back at Nora and stood up to begin making the pizza dough. He and Nora added olive oil, salt, and whole wheat flour to the yeast mixture. Grissom started to knead the ingredients together, but then remembered to continue letting Nora help. When he asked her to knead the dough, he had to smile at the face she made at the bowl, as if she was afraid to get her hands dirty. Grissom somehow couldn't stop smiling. He loved the way Nora plunged her hands right into the bowl even though she seemed grossed out. He loved how he immediately thought that Nora was like Sara, brave and determined. He loved how Nora's auburn hair bobbed gently around her face as she put even her shoulders to work kneading the dough. He loved it that she turned to him and silently asked if she was doing it right with her beautiful green eyes.

Grissom was enjoying watching Nora so much that he didn't think before reflexively wiping flour off her nose with his finger.

Nora stopped kneading. She froze. Grissom realized he was holding his breath. He wanted to apologize, but that would suggest he'd done something wrong, and brushing flour off her face just wasn't wrong. Nora seemed to be breathing hard, having some sort of internal struggle with her reaction to his touch. Suddenly, just as Grissom was about to step away to give her space, Nora took a deep breath and said, very quietly, "Thanks. I hope I didn't make a mess of the kitchen along with my face."

Grissom could nearly feel the effort it had cost Nora to pretend she actually was thankful that he touched her, and again, he was seized by a strange desire to pull her into a bear hug. Instead, he simply told her she'd done a great job with the dough and that they could stick it in the fridge to let it rise for a while. After washing her hands, Nora left the kitchen and headed in the direction of her bedroom.

Grissom called after her, "Do you want me to come get you when the dough's ready to roll out?"

"Yeah, sure." Nora had even turned back to look at him as she answered. Grissom noticed that Hank had gotten up from the kitchen floor and followed Nora to her room. He watched contentedly as Nora let Hank into her room before shutting the door behind her.

Sara joined Grissom in the kitchen; she silently began massaging his shoulders as he was huddled over his Sudoku. When he turned to face her, she wiped flour off his nose, causing him to laugh out loud; how uncanny. He related his flour-wiping incident with Nora to Sara, and eventually, he tore a hard Sudoku out of his book for her and the two of them sat in comfortable silence as they studied the grids in front of them.

Eventually, Grissom declared, "I'm going to go get Nora. The dough's ready. Are you going to stay and help this time or are you going to be antisocial again?"

"Antisocial? Pot calling the kettle black, huh?" Sara teased. "Fine, though, I'll help, although how much help you can possibly need throwing some cheese on a pizza?"

"Well, perhaps you and Nora should just finish up and I'll be antisocial. I'm the one who deserves a break anyway; I did just spend half the day with Greg, you know."

Sara called out to Grissom, who had already started down the hall, "Oh, poor baby!"

"I know I am. You had better pity me. Oh, and you owe me big time!" Grissom called back.

At Nora's door, Grissom knocked gently, and heard Hank's happy barking in response. Nora promptly opened the door and came back to the kitchen, where she helped Grissom and Sara roll out the dough, brush it with olive oil and garlic, and cover the pizza with slices of fresh mozzarella, sliced tomatoes, and chopped basil leaves. Nora voiced concern over not covering the dough with pizza sauce, and Grissom assured her that his type of pizza was far superior to its "red sauce" counterparts. Grissom added a basil leaf "flower" in the center of the pie before sticking it in the oven to bake, at which Nora rolled her eyes and said, "Cute." Grissom laughed.

Twenty minutes later, the family sat down to eat. He and Sara chatted about his visit to Greg's. Nora chimed in on occasion. As he listened to Sara's and Nora's account of what they'd done while he'd been out, he thought to himself that pizza had never tasted so good.

CSICSICSICSICSI

Note: I apologize for the super long wait between updates! In my notes at the beginning, I said I went to the zoo with my kids yesterday… well, as I'm finishing this chapter right now, I'm realizing that the zoo visit was at least 3 weeks ago. I did warn you all that I was going back to full-time employment and beginning grad school! In fact, this was my first week back at work and I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open, but both of the neighbors are having huge parties as I write, so I really can't be sleeping. They're a bit noisy. Oh well. At least you all got a finished chapter out of me because of their partying. Hopefully, I'll find the time and energy to update in a more timely manner. Please review; let me know how you're liking this! Thanks so much!