A/N: Thank you all for your well-wishes for my sister, it means a lot to me. Things are still a little crazed with the holidays coming up but I'm trying to carve out a little time to write. I hope you enjoy this next little bit. Thanks for sticking with me, Kimmi
Part 25
"Hey Mom, can we watch a movie?"
Catherine's hand halted the brush's movement through the damp chestnut locks in front of her at her daughter's question. "I don't know Linds. It's kind of late."
"Please Mom? Tomorrow's Saturday and I'm not even close to being tired. Please?" Lindsey really didn't care about the movie. She just wanted to spend a little more time with both women since she'd barely seen them all day since they'd been asleep when she had gotten home from school.
The blonde considered it for a moment. She'd had such a long nap that afternoon and had slept so well that she was fully awake. There was someone else to consider though. "Do you feel up to a movie Sara?"
"I'm not really tired either. But do you mind if it's not scary, suspenseful, creepy or gory in any?" The long hot bath had sapped Sara's energy and she probably could fall right back to asleep, but she didn't want to. After waking up with the blonde the thought of trying to sleep on her own was extremely unappealing. But Catherine had precious little time to spend with her daughter as it was and the brunette felt selfish for monopolizing the blonde. Lindsey needed her mother, more than she did.
"You're not tired yet, but once you take your pain meds, you will be." As Catherine resumed the rhythmic stoking of Sara's hair the thought flitted across her mind that the brunette never wore her hair curly anymore. The blonde had liked the way the soft waves had framed the younger woman's face and she wondered briefly if she could talk her into wearing it that way again.
"I don't need one right now. I'm not really in that much pain." The pill they had given her at the hospital before she left had worn off and Sara didn't feel that great, but as long as she didn't move it was tolerable. When she did move, the dull ache enveloping her muscles became sharp splinters of pain that randomly stabbed at various points on her body.
"Sara there's no sense in being in any pain if you don't have to and if you wait too long you're going to be in a lot of it while you wait for the meds to kick in." Catherine figured that 'not that much' was Sara-speak for she was hurting but just being difficult about taking her pills. They had gone through the very same thing at the hospital.
"It's really not that bad and I don't want to develop a dependency on them." Sara had never liked taking anything narcotic. Her mother had always seemed to have a prescription due to her many trips to the hospital. Laura would be high for days, ignoring everything in favor of the pain and mind numbing drugs, including her hungry child. And when her daughter had started to need her own pills to dull the aches of broken bones and battered muscles the woman had taken the pills for herself. It was just one more reminder of her past that she didn't want or need.
Catherine shook her head in annoyance. How could one person be so damn stubborn? "The prescription is for every four to six hours, you're way past that. I think you've proven that you don't have to take them. But I can't stand seeing you in even the tiniest bit of pain Sara. So please just take it, for me?"
Oh now that was fighting dirty. How could she say no to that? How could she deny that soft watery look in the blonde's cerulean eyes? How could the ghost of her past compete with the angel in front of her? Because that was what the older woman had become to her, a guardian angel. Of course it didn't help at all that Lindsey was staring at her, arms crossed, in a damn good imitation of Catherine when her mother was losing her patience with a suspect who refused to cooperate. At two against one, the odds were not in her favor. "Ok but I'm only taking half of one."
"Hmm, we'll see. We can watch the movie in my room so you can lie down. Linds go get your pajamas on and Sara you go get comfortable while I go get the pill." Catherine didn't wait around to see if the brunette was going to argue.
By the time Cath made it back to her room laden down with bottles of water, popcorn and a movie, Sara and Lindsey were already in the bed. The small girl was snuggled up to the lanky brunette with her head pillowed on the woman's uninjured shoulder. Even though it had to be the most precious thing she'd ever seen, the blonde didn't want her daughter to accidentally hurt the lithe woman. "Come on Linds get up. Sara needs to take her medicine and you shouldn't be lying all over her like that."
"She's ok, she's not hurting me. I'll take the whole pill if you let her stay." Sara had never considered herself good with kids but with Lindsey it seemed like she didn't even have to try. The tiny blonde hadn't cared that the brunette was awkward and timid at first, she'd simply jumped right in and quickly wormed her way into Sidle's heart. It was so rare that someone accepted her so completely and she didn't want to discourage the girl in any way.
"Please Mom? I'm being really careful." Lindsey had been hesitant when she'd first come into her mother's room to find Sara already in the middle of the bed. But the tall brunette had patted the space beside her and that was all it took. When the woman was still in the hospital, Linds had often crawled up on the bed to sit beside her but she hadn't been allowed to do more than give her gentle hugs.
Catherine looked from one set of pleading eyes to the other. Well at least she didn't even have to try to convince Sara to take all of her meds. "All right but the second you feel any pain I want you to tell her to move."
The blonde waited for the brunette's nod before she popped the pill into her mouth and helped the younger woman take a drink of water to wash it down. She started the movie, the most innocuous and tame comedy they had, and went to change into her own sleepwear while the opening credits rolled.
When Catherine reentered the bedroom she had to reevaluate her earlier judgment of the most precious thing she'd ever seen. Sara was actually giggling as Linds fed her popcorn and made choo-choo noises. Now that was just too cute for words. "Hey, I hope you two saved me some."
"Nope. Sorry Mom but you took too long. Sara couldn't wait." Lindsey tried not to smile as she hid the bag behind her back.
"It's all her fault. She force fed me I swear. I didn't want to eat your popcorn but Lindsey said she'd tickle me if I didn't." Sara somehow managed to keep a straight face as she ratted out her accomplice. She had actually refused at first until the girl had started in with the whole train coming into the station thing.
"Uh huh. You both realize I don't believe a word of it right? Now hand it over."
Xxx
It had taken a little longer than she had estimated, but at about halfway through the movie Sara was out like a light. What surprised Catherine was the fact that her daughter was softly snoring right along with brunette. Perhaps Lindsey was still making up those hours of sleep she had lost while worrying about whether or not she was ever going to see her mother again.
The blonde had missed most of the movie herself as she had found the interaction between Sara and Linds to be much more entertaining. She had surreptitiously watched them from the corner of her eye as they laughed at the onscreen antics of the twenty-somthings playing teen-somethings. Now that they were both asleep though, she could study them at her leisure.
For some reason it seemed so natural to see her daughter's head cradled in the crook of Sara's arm and the brunette's pale cheek resting against Lindsey's golden halo of hair. The young CSI's face was relaxed in her repose, and the years had melted away from her face with the tiny smile playing on her lips. Gone was surly almost-teenager. Linds suddenly once again looked like her five-year old innocent angel, not the troubled girl touched by tragedy and loss at such a tender age.
Until last week she had never guessed that Sara and Lindsey had so much in common. The way they had taken to each other made Catherine realize that keeping their association to a minimum all these years had been a mistake. If she had allowed them more contact then the brunette might have been able to help ease Linds through the trauma of losing her dad in such a violent manner.
She'd make sure that they got to make up for lost time, but for now she had to get her daughter back to her own bed. Cath knew Sara would never intentionally hurt Lindsey, but with the brunette suffering from such vicious nightmares she could accidentally lash out in her sleep and injure them both.
It turned out to be more difficult than Catherine had thought it would be to separate the two sleepers. The second she tried to lift Lindsey off the brunette, Sara tightened her grip on the small body. She had to wait a minute for the woman to relax her hold before she could pick the girl up. As the blonde carried her daughter down the hall the nostalgia she had felt earlier wore off a little more with each step. Linds definitely wasn't five any more.
Catherine breathed a sigh of relief when she was finally able to lay the girl down. She tucked Lindsey in and brushed a soft kiss on top of her tousled head. It seemed she had miraculously completed the transfer without waking her daughter until she straightened up and met a pair of bright blue eyes half hidden by droopy lids. "Shhh go back to sleep baby."
"I really like Sara." Lindsey missed the woman's warmth. She had been a little confused when she woke up in her own bed but then she remembered that her mother hadn't wanted her lying on the brunette when they were awake so it shouldn't have been a surprise her mom had moved her.
The older blonde smiled down at her daughter and brushed a few errant strands of hair out of her cherubic face. "Me too."
"You should keep her."
"Honey, she's not a stray puppy that…" Catherine trailed off as she realized that her words were falling on deaf ears. Lindsey was already fast asleep again. She'd just have to wait until morning even though she was curious were her daughter had come up with that interesting notion.
Xxx
"What do we have?" Grissom kept his eyes riveted on a point just over the detective's shoulder. He didn't think he could look the other man in the eye after what he had witnessed earlier in the day outside Sara's apartment. His emotions were still too raw, to close to the surface to be trusted.
"Looks like a false alarm. Seems a couple of film students at UNLV are making a horror movie for their class. A concerned citizen saw them carrying the 'body' and called the cops." Brass shook his head. The one time someone decides to get involved it turns out to be perfectly innocent, typical.
"And you couldn't call and tell me that before I wasted my time coming out here? You should have checked to make sure there was an actual crime before you called CSI in. I have better things to do with my time than going on a wild goose chase." Gil turned his back on the other man and began walking back to his truck, not really caring what he had to say. All he could hear was Sara's voice whispering 'too late' in his ear over and over.
"Well I didn't call you, the first officer on the scene did. And since I just found out myself about the nature of the 'crime' two minutes ago, no I couldn't. Now you want to tell me which one of your bugs crawled up your ass?" Jim shot back as he rushed after his friend. They had known each other a long time and the detective could count on one hand the number of times the entomologist had raised his voice and snapped at him.
Grissom was forced to come to halt as Brass stepped in front of him and stopped. He didn't want to have a confrontation with the other man but it didn't seem like the detective was leaving him much choice. "I know about you and Sara."
Jim could hear a note of defeat tingeing the anger in the CSI's voice and it confused him. Why the hell would him taking a fatherly role in Sara's life piss the man off? With what Grissom knew about the brunette's past, he would think the graveyard supervisor would be happy about the change in their relationship. "Okay, and?"
"And?" Gil stepped into the detective's personal space, their faces only inches apart. "And how long has this been going on?"
Brass took in his friend's narrowed eyes and suddenly felt like he was on the wrong side of an interrogation table. "To some extent since she moved to Vegas. After she almost got the DUI she and I got closer, but it wasn't until we almost lost her that I realized it wasn't enough. Why do you have a problem this?"
"I have a problem with you taking advantage of her while she's so vulnerable. This is exactly what Catherine accused me of doing but she stood right there and let you kiss Sara. She didn't seem to have a problem with that, so it must be me that she doesn't want her with." For the life of him Grissom couldn't understand why the blonde approved of Brass but not him. It hurt more than he thought possible that Cath had told him to give Sara space but then had let the detective move right in on her.
A dark red cloud descended over the detective's eyes at the accusation. Now Jim knew why Gil was acting that way. Jealousy. There was a little green eyed monster of a monkey on the CSI's back and it looked like it had dug its fingers in deep.
The homicide detective took a step back and drew in a deep breath. He didn't want to do something that they would both regret later. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, because if I had, you'd have a broken jaw right now. Mine and Sara's relationship is none of your business but that kiss you saw wasn't what you think it is. Of course the fact that you saw it at all means you were lurking around her apartment building. What are you stalking her now?"
"Sara is my business, I've know her a hell of lot longer than you have, and I know what I saw." Gil chose to ignore the last question. As far as he was concerned what he had witnessed was far more important than why he had seen it.
"What is this, some kind of schoolyard game of 'I saw her first'? You're the one that decided that the risk wasn't worth it. I was in the room when you confronted Lurie during the Marlin case. You didn't have the courage to take what had been offered to you, even though you wanted it, and now you don't want anyone else to have her either. You're a coward and selfish bastard. You don't deserve her." As Brass turned and walked away he felt a tiny twitch of guilt but it was overshadowed by anger. He could have told the man the truth and put his mind at ease, but as far as he was concerned, Grissom had it coming.
The CSI watched, slack-jawed, as the detective peeled away from the scene. He hated to admit it, but Jim was right. He didn't deserve Sara. But that didn't stop him from wanting her. And it wasn't going to stop him from fighting for her. He'd just have to go see her for himself, present his case and get down on his knees if that was what it took to convince her to give him a chance.
TBC