Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: Sorry this was so long in coming. I'm finally happy with the way everything played out, so I hope you like it too! Next chapter, we have a sleepover! :) -giggles- Yeah, I'm excited to write it. ...Poor Grissom.

Despite my resignation that I deserved whatever disdain Sara's mother had for me, I was very nervous the next morning. I woke up well before Sara and spent the hour from five to six pacing her living room. I wanted to make breakfast, but we were meeting her for breakfast. Finally, at six thirty, I jumped into the shower, but as much as I tried to make it last, Sara's seven o'clock alarm had still not sounded when I got out.

I dried off and sorted through my suitcase as best I could without waking up Sara. …I wanted to dress nicely, to give a good impression, but it was also just breakfast. Certainly it would be strange to wear my suit when it was clear I wasn't going anywhere that would require a suit after the breakfast. …But jeans seemed like I didn't care. …I wanted her to know I was taking this seriously… taking the second chance her daughter had given me, seriously.

I settled on a pair of khaki's and a short-sleeved button down, thinking that this was nice without seeming… pretentious. I made coffee, fed Hank and let him out to pee, and then sat at her table, the newspaper in front of me neglected. I heard when she woke up—heard her alarm go off, and her low mumbling as she rolled over after turning it off, slowly waking up and getting her bearings.

…Sara was never, ever, more beautiful than when she woke up… her curls were loose around her head, her eyes deep and trusting and just slightly out of focus, her limbs long and languid and aching to be stretched. Her body was warm and soft and she was oh-so-responsive, having not been confined to desensitizing clothing all day… she would hum softly at the softest touch… moan under medium pressure… lost control when enough fervor were applied to the task of exploring her.

It was a Sara that most people never saw… a Sara who I felt was all mine. Anytime she looked disheveled, I was reminded of how many times I had woken to the irresistible sight and coaxed her into ecstasy simply because she never came the way she came when she was defenseless and contented and still half-asleep.

Hearing her wake made me want to move into the bedroom and distract her… calm myself… take my mind off the morning ahead of us. I remained glued to my seat instead, drinking coffee to occupy my hands but not tasting it, my fingers drumming on the table. I listened to her sit up, get out of bed… search for her robe and slide it over her shoulders, and then I followed the barely-there sound of feet on plush carpet as she moved into the hallway and into sight. She offered me a smile.

"Hey… You're up early. Already dressed and showered?"

"Yeah, I…" I realized my fingers were still drumming, and stopped them. "I… Just nervous, I guess."

She smiled, moving over and planting a very closed-mouth kiss on my lips as she hadn't brushed her teeth yet, regardless of how many times she'd kissed me first thing in the morning while in the throes of passion. "Don't be—she's going to love you. …Listen, I'll jump in the shower, and then we can go—even if we're early, it'll be better than making you sweat it out here."

I tried to chuckle and failed. She smiled, running her fingers through my hair affectionately and heading back to her bathroom.

She hurried, for my sake, but it still seemed to take forever… I didn't necessarily want to rush for it to happen, but… if it was going to, the waiting was do more harm than anything else. She looked beautiful, of course, wearing black slacks and a sleeveless blouse because she was heading in to work after breakfast. We went to sit in a diner, in a spot that was apparently predetermined—she waved to the hostess as she walked in and, despite the 'Please Wait To Be Seated' sign, Sara brushed past her and guided me into a booth by a window. I forced a smile, trying to calm my nerves.

"They know you, apparently."

She smiled. "My mom worked here, while she was going back to school, so we get some perks… free pie, a booth unofficially reserved once a week, free refills..."

I took her hand, kissing it softly and then just keeping it pressed tightly to my palm. "I love you."

She smiled, squeezing my hand. "I love you too. It's going to be fine, really."

"Sara! You're early!" A dark-haired woman slid into the booth across from us, and my stomach clenched at the unexpectedness of her arrival. She had appeared out of nowhere. "Here I thought I'd be waiting on you guys…" She turned her gaze on me. "Hello Gil."

It took every ounce of self control in me not to sputter in response. The woman was very… direct. I swallowed. "Hello Mrs. … Ms. …" I faltered, not knowing if she had kept the name of the husband she'd killed or not.

She smiled, seeming to understand. "Laura. I've heard so much about you, Gil."

"Me too." I said, feeling that I was being less than truthful. I had heard a lot about her in the last day or so, but the years I'd spent with Sara in Boston had given me very little information about the woman in front of me.

A waitress approached, taking drink orders and calling Laura and Sara by their names, and then everyone seemed to slip into their menus briefly, which was some relief. I just needed a minute to take the woman in. …She looked like Sara, but… not just an older version. There were distinct differences. I think, had I been looking for Sara's mother in a line up, I could have picked her out… she had the same cheek bones, the same eyes and the same dark hair—although hers was straight and beginning to show streaks of gray—and the same frame, except that Sara was taller than her mother. But her face was not shaped the same… her teeth lacked the gap that I found so utterly appealing…her nose was not remotely like Sara's.

I wished, suddenly, that I knew what Sara's father had looked like, so I could dissect her features between the two.

Laura laid her menu down and I followed suit. Sara was immediately after—I had the feeling that both women knew what they would order, but had been allowing me time. That was the type of thing Sara would do. "So you're my daughter's first love..."

I found this a strange way to describe myself. Certainly, I was that… but the term implied… a lack of seriousness or commitment. Not one-true-love, but just the first love… the first taste of the much more extreme emotion that was to come, in much more important relationships. I smiled anyway. "I am…. She's my first love too." I said, and the woman and I exchanged some understanding. I was telling her that I had never loved anyone before I met Sara… it went without saying that I hadn't loved anyone after. Who could have her and ever get over her?

It was also with slight discomfort that I assessed the woman's age. Sara's brother had been… what? Eight, nine years older? There was no way the woman before me was older than 55. I was 39 and Sara was 24. This woman was as many years older than me as I was older than Sara. It was… discomforting.

Sara smiled. "Gil's a supervisor at the number two lab in the country… it's gone up in ratings in large part because of his talent in forensics."

I blushed slightly, and Laura smiled at that more than at her daughter's words. "You must be very good at your work. …It'll be hard to give that up, I imagine…" She didn't finish her sentence, but she didn't need to. I could fill in the blanks, '...when you move to San Francisco to do right by my daughter.' …I couldn't say I entirely disagreed with her. Sara opened her mouth to speak, no doubt going to scold her mother, but I spoke over here.

"I've given up things far more precious in my life… it won't be easy, but it would be harder to live without Sara."

This, too, seemed to satisfy Laura. She smiled, and I felt Sara sigh softly beside me. Conversation came easier, after that… Sara talked with her mother about the shift she'd just worked—she was a nurse. I would have wondered at that, but Sara had explained that her mother had only been charged with manslaughter once she was out of the mental facility. She'd served only about a year of actual jail time. This was rather fortunate—most people didn't want to hire a nurse with a murder charge on her record, no matter what the circumstances.

Food was delivered as Sara told her mother about the cookie contest and how her girls had taken it upon themselves to protect her. She looked like she wanted to kiss the girls for their efforts and I tried not to take it too hard. If Sara were my daughter, I likely would have killed the asshole who had hurt her in the positively twisted manner I had.

Half-way through the meal the waitress was bringing Sara her free refill of orange juice when a small child slid out of the booth beside us quickly to retrieve a toy, causing the girl to trip. The orange juice flew, falling all over Sara's white blouse. Silence fell in the surrounding area as Sara blinked in surprise several times, orange liquid dripping from her curls. I came back to myself first.

"Oh, honey… here…" I dipped my napkin in water and quickly wiped the drops that had splashed onto her bare face, neck, and arms. She shook her head slowly. The waitress looked mortified.

"Oh my god, Sara… I'm so sorry! I… I didn't mean…" Sara shook her head again, offering a tentative smile, talking the waitress and the mother of the small child out of their apologies as she took up her own napkin and started dabbing at the ruined shirt. She sighed, glancing between us, once the attention had been deflected off of her.

"I, uh… I'm going to go wring this out in the bathroom sink." She slid out of the booth and moved out of sight, and I turned a nervous gaze on Laura. I would have gone to help Sara, but I could hardly go into the ladies room. Laura could have gone to help Sara, but… apparently she wanted to talk to me.

She set down her own napkin, which she had lifted to hand to Sara and never given her. "I was hoping I'd get a chance to talk to you alone, Gil."

I sighed, nodding slowly. "Okay…"

"…I know my daughter. I… I would be a hypocrite… to tell her I think she ought to be less forgiving. She's forgiven me a lot more than she's forgiven you…" She pursed her lips in a very Sara-like expression. "…I'll just say, then, that… I know why she has forgiven you, and I know better than to presume I could talk her out of it… but you had better know just how much a gift her forgiveness is. Sara… could have had you arrested… fired… your career over… and she still could. …Don't think that just because she's granted you absolution that you are in control again, because you're not."

I nodded, glancing at the closed door to the ladies room. "I… know that. I… I don't want to control Sara and… and I don't know that I ever wanted to. She's just so… amazing. So beautiful and vibrant and brilliant. Looking at her is like looking into the sun… you're blown away by the beauty and yet you can't ever look at the thing directly, because it's too bright and wonderful for your eyes to handle or your meager brain to comprehend. I… I'm really not a man who craves control in his relationships… It was meeting someone who was so clearly impossible to have, for all of those reasons and because she was too young, and a student, and… too good for me.

"…Finding out that she wanted me was the most intoxicating and frightening and overwhelming thing that had ever happened to me, and I didn't know what to do with it… More than that, I didn't know what I would do with myself if I allowed myself to stare into the sun despite my own limitations and found myself blind at nightfall, when the sun moved on to light other places and other lucky, lucky people..."

I sighed, looking at my hands, my ears flaming from revealing so much to a near stranger, but it was imperative that this woman understand. I forced myself to continue. "If… if you lived your whole life without the sun… and suddenly one day it burst over your horizon, striking you with warmth and light and giving life to your entire world… wouldn't you be afraid to lose it? Afraid to go back to the cold and dark? And if you saw a way to keep the sun as your own, forever… Wouldn't you be tempted?"

I swallowed, glancing at the woman, whose features seemed gentler… less stern, now. "I… I'm not saying it was right. A better man than I would have let the sun go… would have realized that part of that beauty was in being uncontained… not simply sitting, unmoving, in the sky… But can't you understand why it might take me a second time around to get it right with something so much greater than myself… something that gives me so much more than I ever had before I knew it existed?"

I met her eyes, then, and held them. She offered me a half-smile, and her voice came softly. "…As long as you do… get it right… this time around."

I nodded, slowly, and the woman turned back to her meal. It was not dismissive as she had been, somewhat, at the beginning of the meal. It was the silence of acceptance… of nothing more needing to be said. Sara returned to the table, her shirt unavoidably stained but at least a little drier, and conversation came easier. Laura smiled more… teased me on occasion… and when we parted ways, she even offered me a hug, telling me she was glad that her daughter was so loved.

Sara drove us home so she could change before heading into the office, glancing at me out of the side of her eyes as she weaved through traffic. "…When I was in the bathroom…"

I turned to look at her. "…Yes?"

She frowned a little. "My mother… and you… were both different… when I came back." I nodded, and she clucked her tongue. "What… what did she say to you?"

I smiled and took her hand in mine, running my thumb over the top, hoping to sooth her worries. "Nothing that should upset you, honey. She… wanted to make sure that I knew how lucky I was that I had a second chance with you and… I told her that I knew that better than anyone."

She raised an eyebrow. "…That was it?"

I smiled. "I might be paraphrasing a little…"

She snorted a laugh and shook her head. "Somehow, I have a feeling I'll never get the full story on this…"

I squeezed her hand, smiling at her laugh and chuckling too, thinking that this moment was worth everything we'd endured, to get to this point… thinking that I would spend another lifetime without the sun I would no longer try to tie down, just for another brief, shining, moment of warmth like this one.