Grissom dropped to his knees next to Sara, feeling a horrible sense of déjà vu as he checked her pulse. It was there; slow but steady. So was her breathing.

"Don't move her," said Rachel, crouching next to him and gently running her hands over Sara's body, checking her over. Other guests were crowding around them; several men from the biology faculty who had been nearby had hustled Michael out of the room, their expressions grim as one of their wives called an ambulance. The wife of the dean began herding the remaining guests into the next room, providing quiet and calm in the large hall.

"Sara," said Grissom soothingly, his hand brushing her cheek, "can you hear me honey? Can you open your eyes?" Sara didn't move and he sighed with frustration. He pressed a hand to her stomach, and felt relief pour through his body like warm water when he felt the baby kick. Rachel looked carefully at the side of Sara's head, trying to see the cause of the blood without moving her head and neck. Gil monitored her pulse, keeping her hand in his. Minutes later paramedics were rushing into the room and taking over.

"What's her name?" asked a large, muscular paramedic whose name tag read Joe.

"Sara," said Grissom, still holding onto her hand.

"What happened?" asked Joe's companion, a slender woman with fiery red hair and a nametag reading Mandy.

"She fell and hit her head on the table. She's been unconscious for," Gil checked his watch, "eleven minutes now."

"How far along is she?" asked Mandy as she rummaged in her bag and Joe checked Sara's pupil response.

"She's twenty-six weeks today," answered Grissom, feeling sick with worry and fear as he watched Joe run his hands over Sara's head and neck.

"I think she's ok," he said, "but we'll immobilize her until we get to the ER, just to be sure." Grissom nodded and helped them as they loaded her onto a back board with a neck brace and then onto the stretcher. Gil kept hold of her hand as they moved out to the ambulance and then as they drove to the hospital. He studied the cut that ran through her hairline and still bled sluggishly; when Mandy secured a dressing over it he moved his attention to her other hand, which had still been holding her glass of orange juice when she fell and had shattered upon impacting the floor. Unfortunately she hadn't managed to let go of it, and bits of broken glass were now embedded into the skin of her palm. They pulled up to the unloading bay and moved into the ER, where they were ushered into a treatment bay, Sara was transferred to a hospital bed and the paramedics departed after rattling off their stats in a speed which would have impressed Grissom had he been taking notice. Instead he was focused intently on his wife and the doctors and nurses as the tested, checked and examined her. After what seemed an age, Sara gradually began to regain consciousness. Gil felt her fingers move in his grasp, and was instantly standing at the head of the bed, his fingers grazing her cheek as he waited, murmuring soothingly to her. Sara groaned softly as her eyes flickered for a minute before she managed to settle her gaze on him. He bent down and lightly kissed her forehead.

"Baby?" she whispered, agitated.

"She's fine," he assured her, "Listen, you can hear her heartbeat on the monitor." Sara concentrated on the sounds carefully, only relaxing when she was sure of what she was hearing.

"Mrs Grissom," said Doctor Franks, "can you tell me where the pain is?"

"My head. I have a monster headache. And my hand," as she spoke, Sara tried to lift her left hand. When she couldn't lift it out of the grasp of the nurse who was dealing with the glass cuts she started to get upset again.

"It's ok," soothed Grissom, stroking her hair. "You have some glass in you palm and Nurse Jane is getting it out for you." Sara took a deep breath and listened as Doctor Franks explained what he wanted to do as he walked her through the standard post head trauma checks, keeping her distracted while Jane worked on her hand. Finally, Doctor Franks ended his exam and smiled at his patient.

"Ok Sara," he said warmly, "nothing's broken, but you have a pretty nice concussion so I'm inviting you to stay the night with us in our fabulous five star hotel here so we can keep an eye on you." Sara nodded, but sighed internally. "I'm also going to put some surgical glue in this cut here," he continued, his fingers probing her scalp and making her flinch. "I'm sorry," he apologised, as he cleaned the wound and applied the glue. "Ok, Jane are you finished?"

"Yes sir! Mrs Grissom you'll need to get the stitches out in five days, but other than that your hand will be fine."

"Thank you," Sara smiled weakly and nodded.

"We'll get you settled in a room in just a moment, and I expect you'll be able to go home early tomorrow afternoon," said the doctor as he checked the stitches and watched Jane bandage Sara's hand.

When Doctor Franks and Jane left Sara turned to Gil and lifted their clasped hands to kiss his fingers gently.

"You ok?" she asked gently. He bent down closer to her and kissed her temple.

"Yeah, you had me scared witless dear," he said, his voice soft.

"What happened?" she asked. "I remember looking at a firefly and that's about it." As nurses moved her from the ER to a room Gil recounted the tale of their short lived appearance at the dean's dinner.

"Well," said Sara, wryly amused, "we did say we didn't want to go." Gil laughed and perched on the end of the bed as the nurse got her settled. When they were alone at last Sara gestured for him to join her. Shedding his shoes, jacket and tie, Gil crawled in behind her and they snuggled together. He gently smoothed her hair and held her until she drifted off to sleep, knowing that underneath her brave facade she was trembling with fear for their baby, and fear of hospitals. With her pressed against his chest, breathing softly and very much alive and well, Gil finally relaxed enough to slip into a troubled slumber.

...

At two in the morning, after finally absconding from her family and then talking to her favourite cousin Sally, the only member of the family who had escaped the engagement party, Candy snuck into the hospital room to check on her friend. Sara was curled up in her husband's arms, fast asleep.

"Hello," said Grissom, his voice very low. Candy tiptoed up to the bed.

"Hi, is she ok?"

"Concussed and she has stitches in her hand."

"She'll be ok?"

"Yeah."

"The baby?" Candy's voice was filled with apprehension.

"She's fine," smiled Grissom. "How did you hear about this?"

"My cousin Sally is a Literature Professor at Dartmouth. We were comparing notes on whose party was worse."

"How was your party?"

"Awful, my cousin's fiancé threw a plate at me when I asked her why her dog was locked in the bedroom."

"She threw a plate?"

"Yeah, she missed me and hit my uncle; he was covered in tomato sauce. He was seriously pissed, so I let the dog out and took it for a walk." Grissom laughed gently, trying not to wake Sara. "Is there anything I can do to help?" asked Candy, all serious now. Gil put a hand in his pocket and pulled out his keys.

"Could you go to the cottage and let the dogs out into the yard?"

"Sure. When do you get to take her home?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, hopefully."

"Shall I just take them to my house? They can hang out with Sammie, and I can walk them all. I'll feed the cats too."

"That would be wonderful," agreed Grissom.

"Do you have your phone with you?" asked Candy, looking around.

"On the table" gestured Grissom. Candy picked it up and programmed in her number, then sent his number to her phone.

"There, now I can call you, and you can call me. Will you let me know if anything changes?"

"Definitely," nodded Grissom, stroking Sara's cheek soothingly as she stirred slightly in her sleep. "Thank you Candy, I'm very grateful."

"No problem," grinned the teenager, "Sara's done a lot for me since we met, it's nice to help her out. I'll see you tomorrow then." Candy waved goodbye and left, leaving Grissom feeling much better and relieved to know he didn't need to leave Sara in order to tend to their animals. He would have hated for her to wake up alone and stressed in an unfamiliar place. With a weight off his mind, he curled even closer to her and fell asleep listening to her gentle breathing.

...

By three pm the next afternoon Sara was feeling decidedly crabby. She lay on the bed scowling, with her head resting on Gil's chest as they waited for the doctor to come and release her.

"I hate hospitals," she grumbled, for the sixth time. "They smell weird, they feel weird and they sound weird." Gil smiled to himself and kissed her hair, cuddling her gently. Aside from a headache and a seriously irritated mood, Sara was fine, and extremely anxious to get home to her babies and her own bed. On the premise that she took it easy for the rest of the weekend, the doctor arrived with her discharge information, and was followed by Candy who had offered to drive them home. Sara smiled at her friend as she came into the room, her car keys swinging on a lanyard from her hand.

"How ya feeling Sara?" asked Candy, handing her a stuffed giraffe with large, expressive purple eyes.

Sara laughed, remembering their conversation about an African Safari from a few weeks ago.

"Ok," she examined the giraffe. "Thank you, this is cute," she said.

"You're welcome; you ready to get out of here?"

"Oh yeah!" Grissom chuckled and helped her to her feet so they could make their way slowly and steadily out to Candy's car.

...

For the rest of the afternoon and though the night Sara slept for the most part, waking on Sunday morning with a slight headache still, but no other ill effects. She lay quietly, stroking Socks until Gil yawned and opened his eyes.

"Morning," he murmured, his eyes still half closed.

"Hey," she replied running a hand through his messy hair. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, I was dreaming about that canoe trip we took in Costa Rica."

"Yeah, I can see why you'd want to remember that," she smirked, thinking back to the trip, and the fact that they hadn't actually seen as much as they had wanted, having been somewhat more occupied with each other's company. Living in tents in a close quartered camp tended to have that effect.

"Well I had bizarre dreams last night," she told him, stretching and rolling to face him. "I dreamed I was at a drug bust and I somehow accidentally got high processing the evidence and Brass locked me up at PD. Then I dreamt about Marco, the foster brother I told you about."

"The one with the bag of weed?"
"Yeah, only this time they accused me of being the addict and grounded me for a year. And then I was back in college and some kid in my physics lab spiked my drink and I was screaming at him not to hurt me." She stopped when Gil broke into uncontrolled laughter. "What is so funny?"

"Friday night, in the hospital, the nurse came in to give you some pain killers in the middle of the night and you freaked out, yelling at her that you didn't want her to drug the baby. You were pretty out of it; you accused the hospital of trying to keep you quiet by drugging you."

"Really?" giggled Sara.

"Yes dear."

...

The spent Sunday quietly at home; reading, playing Trivial Pursuit, grooming Hank and Lucy and generally relaxing in each other's company. When her headache had not totally dissipated by the time they went to bed, Gil made Sara promise to stay home the next day. She smiled at his protectiveness, kissed him softly and agreed, before taking his hand and resting it with hers on her stomach, where their baby girl was using her feet as drumsticks against Sara's womb.

...

As Sunday and Monday were Candy's scheduled days off, and Mary hadn't called her in to cover for Sara, the teenager loaded Sammie into her Honda Civic and drove to Sara's to hang out. With all three dogs tearing around outside in the sunshine, Sara and Candy sat at the kitchen table; Sara with her doll making supplies, and Candy with her sketch book.

"Aren't you supposed to be at some family thing today?" asked Sara suddenly, as she carefully stitched away at one of the eyes.

"I was supposed to go dress shopping with my aunt; but she'll only drag me around for hours and make me trying on horrible things that I hate."

"What did you tell them then?" Sara was curious.

"That I had a friend with a head injury who has just been released from hospital and needs someone to keep an eye on her for the day."

"And your mother bought it?"

"She did when I got Gil to call her." Sara choked on her lemonade, eyes wide. Candy snorted with laughter. "My aunt is awful Sara, you'd hate her. She has five sons, so she thinks I'm her personal Barbie doll." Sara wrinkled her nose distastefully.

"I had a foster mother who did that to me. I didn't last long in that house," Sara snickered at the memory, she was all of thirteen and feisty enough to take on her entire English class in a debate about human rights, and her unbearably involved foster mother.

"So when are you going to San Diego?" Candy asked a while later.

"September second," replied Sara, setting tiny stitches that formed the eyebrows. "We're coming back on the tenth."

"Are you looking forward to it?"

"Definitely, even the racing."

"Racing?"

"Cockroach racing," said Sara, tying off her thread. Candy stared at her.

"Are you pulling my leg?" she asked, tucking a strand of purple hair behind her ear.

"No," Sara shook her head and stood up, beckoning Candy to follow her. "Come and see," she invited, heading for the office. Curious, Candy followed her, wondering what was going on. Sara opened the door and let Candy in, before shutting it behind them.

"We have to keep the door shut because Juliet likes to try and open the tank," said Sara, walking over to the glass enclosure and peering inside. It was empty. The usual bedding, food and twigs for climbing on were all there, but the was nothing alive in the tank. "Oh no," she muttered, looking at the top. "I'm going to kill him," she groaned, seeing the lid was not properly fastened. Candy looked nervously around the room.

"What exactly is supposed to be in there?" she asked hesitantly.

"Seven Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches," sighed Sara, as she began to search.

"Right," said Candy, standing in the middle of the room, away from any furniture and looking around carefully, her arms hugged tight to her body. "What's that on the curtain?" she asked nervously. Sara reached up and scooped the bug into her hand.

"That is Blake," she said, holding him out for Candy to examine.

"That's huge," said the girl, but not with fear. She stared curiously at the roach for a moment, before holding out her hand and letting him walk onto her palm.

"It's not so bad," said Sara, "you learn to live with it." Candy looked at her, with an expression that just said yeah right.

"Rather you than me," she said, depositing the roach back into its house and fixing the lid on firmly. They continued searching. Sara found Wordsworth under the desk, and Emerson climbing up the side of the filing cabinet. Candy pulled Keats out of the trash can and Longfellow off the bookshelf.

"Is that it?" asked Candy as they secured their escapees back in the habitat. Sara shook her head.

"No, there's one more."

"So who named them?"

"Gil."

"Why the theme?" asked Candy as they continued to scour the room.

"Something to do with it being a team thing, when their racing."

"Entomologists really have conferences and race bugs?" Candy was still having trouble comprehending the concept.

"Yeah, weird I know," sighed Sara, scowling at the chair cushions. "It's fun, in a strange sort of way," she admitted. Candy laughed and sat up on the floor.

"I don't think he's here," she said. "Could he have escaped from the room?"

"I don't think so, there's no gap under the door and the windows have been shut."

"I can't believe you keep bugs as pets," mused Candy, as she went over the bookcase again.

"These are better than Stevie," remarked Sara, sorting through student papers on the desk.

"What's Stevie?"

"A tarantula."

"Yuck. No thank you," shivered Candy.

"My thoughts exactly," agreed Sara, "but don't tell Gil."

"Where is he now?"

"The Vegas Crime Lab; one of the CSI's has a couple of spiders, including Stevie."

"The most exotic pet I've ever had was a hamster that chewed his way out of seven different cages."

"Nice," laughed Sara "Well, we've had a colony of bees, a bearded dragon, various different bugs and a container of fifty crickets that escaped in the house."

"Here?"

"No. We were in Vegas, working nights, and he ordered them from the pet store. The box was damaged and Hank knocked it off the counter while we were out. He went to a pet sitter while we were at work after that, and the bugs relocated to Gil's office at the lab." Candy didn't know whether to laugh or cringe in horror. She was about to ask how they had caught all the crickets when there was a howl from the living room. Sara hurtled as fast as she could toward the sound, Candy hot on her heals. Socks was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, her fur sticking up, her claws extended and her ears back. She was hissing and spitting at the creature crawling toward her on the ground. She growled deeply and prepared to jump; Candy lunged forward and grabbed the cat, shoving her into Sara's arms before going back for the roach, which bolted.

"Stop right there," yelled the girl as Sara fought to keep her normally placid cat in her arms. The roach vanished under the couch and Socks howled again, furious. Sara stumbled into the kitchen and tried to shut her cat in, but Socks was too quick and charged back into the living room, leaping over the arm chair and peering under the sofa, swiping frantically at the roach, her teeth bared.

"Socks, come here," cajoled Sara, getting down on her hands and knees slowly and carefully. She gripped the struggling cat and pulled her into her arms, trying to sooth her. Socks struggled furiously, and yowled loudly. Sara cursed when Romeo and Juliet came thundering into the room, roused from their nap on the bed. Juliet joined Candy behind the couch, peering under it and following the movements of the roach with comic vigilance. Romeo seemed not to care, and sat himself on the arm of the chair until the roach ventured out of its shelter and ran for the corner. Socks snarled, Sara clung on to her for dear life, Juliet howled and gave chase, Romeo charged across the chair, the coffee table and then the back of the couch and Candy threw herself over the coffee table, hit the floor, rolled and then launched herself toward the roach, finally clamping her hands down on top of it, seconds before she was assaulted by felines. Inspiration suddenly struck, and Sara struggled to her feet, her balance askew with the baby in the way and her arms firmly encased around Socks, and then ran to the kitchen where she awkwardly got the jar of treats out of the cupboard and shook it. The response was instantaneous; Socks stopped struggling and Romeo and Juliet came crashing into the room. Sara put a handful of treats on the floor, then backed out of the kitchen and shut the door. Candy met her in the hallway with the fugitive in her cupped hands.

"Thank you," sighed Sara, opening the habitat and watching Freud join his friends.

"No problem," said Candy, amused. "I can safely say I've never had an experience like that before."

Sara snorted and headed back for the kitchen. She stripped off her bandage, carefully washed her hands and then applied antiseptic to her stitched wounds and re-bandaged her hand.

"I do have one question though," said Candy as she started a new sketch.

"What's that?"

"The last one, what's his name?"

"Freud," replied Sara absently as she started making lunch.

"That doesn't fit the pattern," frowned the girl, her brown furrowing in concentration as her pencil danced over the page. "The others are authors and poets. Freud was a psychologist."

"I know," said Sara, a wry smile on her lips. "He named it after me."

...

...

Ohhh, thank you for the lovely reviews, and as a thank you i have forgone sleep to get this off my chest. it's fluffier and sweeter than the last chapter; i am so not trying to kill off Sara, i love her to bits and she's so easy to write compared to some of the other characters. i never expected Candy to become such a big part of the story, but she just seems to demand attention so i hope you like her. Michael will get his dues, but i haven't decided how yet...

Happy reading,

please R&R

hugs, Got Tea?