AN: Thanks for the reviews. Can they get through to Cassie? Find out in this chapter.
Chapter 28: Talking it out
The next afternoon
After shift they took their morning nap, then when they got up, they dressed for the day before eating a simple breakfast, but they had an empty feeling about it because of what they knew they should be doing but wasn't.
Once breakfast was done and the dishes were in the dishwasher, they left the townhouse to go to Brad's, so they could talk to Cassie and see what was going on.
When they got there, Sara knocked on the apartment door, and a few seconds later, Brad opened it before giving them a friendly smile as he moved to the side to let them in.
As he was shutting it, Sara and Grissom looked toward the bar counter, where Cassie was sitting and eating a small omelet and toast.
Sara cleared her throat and said. "Happy Birthday, sweetie."
Cassie turned around in her chair and smiled at her mother. "Thank you, mommy." But when Grissom said the same thing with a smile, Cassie's smiled dimmed a little, but she still said thank you to him too before going back to her food.
Sara and Grissom share a look before they started walking toward the counter, and after stepping on the other side so they were now standing in the kitchen and in front of her, Sara cleared her throat again before speaking. "Cassie, Grissom and I would like to talk to you about something."
Cassie looked up from her food, then nodded. "I need to talk to you too."
"Oh, ok, you go first then."
Cassie took a moment before continuing, shocking Sara and Grissom in process. "I've decided that I wanted to live with daddy now."
Grissom stood there speechless and Sara gasped before saying. "Honey, I don't mind that you want to spend more time with your dad, but moving in..."
Cassie cuts her off. "Is something I want, and he said I could."
Sara and Grissom both look at Brad and shook his head as he walked over towards the counter. "I said that we would have to talk about that with your mom, I never said yes." He was shocked too when she had brought the conversation up, he didn't know where this was coming from.
Cassie started to have tears in her eyes. "Don't you want me to?"
Brad knew he was put in a hard place, but he told her the truth. "Of course I would love for you to, but you have to think about your mom and how she would feel."
Cassie looked at her mother, which she replied while trying to hold on to her emotions. "I would miss you so much."
Before Cassie could speak, Grissom cleared his throat as he placed his hand on Sara's shoulder. "We both would."
Cassie looked at Grissom with a small glare before once again shocking everybody in the room. "Until your real child comes, right?"
They all looked at her wide-eyed and speechless that she would say something like that to him, she had never been anything but nice toward Grissom since they met.
Cassie took that opportunity to get off her chair and run to her room with tears in her eyes, slamming her door shut once she was in there.
After a few seconds of the three of them standing there still very shocked on what just happened, Brad cleared his throat and looked at Grissom. "Grissom, I'm..."
But Grissom cuts him off as he shook his head. "No need to apologize, I'm beginning to understand." Then he looked at Sara and continued. "I think we now know that it isn't you that she's pulling away from, it was seeing me that she didn't want."
Sara looked at Grissom with sympathy, knowing that even though he's not showing it on the outside, he was hurt with what Cassie had said.
Grissom took a breath again and asked. "Is it alright if I talk to her?"
Sara nodded as Brad answered. "Yeah, go ahead."
Grissom squeezed Sara's shoulder before removing his hand and walking toward Cassie's room.
When he stopped in front of it, he knocked, but when she didn't say anything, he knocked again while speaking. "I'll stay out here all day if I have to, please let me in."
A few seconds later, she finally accepted his presence, so he opened the door and walked into her room, which had a desk, a bookshelf that was full with multiple types of books she likes to read, a TV with a few DVD's, and posters of a few artists and actors/actress she likes, hanging on the wall.
After he shuts the door, he grabbed the desk chair and moved it toward her bed, where she was lying down with her back toward him.
He sits down and clears his throat before speaking. "When I had asked your permission to marry your mom, and you had said yes, I wasn't only happy that I would be marrying her, it was because I would get to keep you in my life too." Cassie turned around in her bed so she could look at him as he spoke with more emotion than she had ever heard in him before. "When I first met your mom I fell in love her right away, and I never thought I would ever fall like that again. But I was wrong, because two days later I meet this little girl, and when she looked at me with a smile that was so bright that lit up her beautiful face, I knew I was a goner for her too."
Cassie looked into his eyes before she looked down at her bed as he finished. " So I don't know where you got this 'real' child thing, but if I did something to let you think that I would value the child I'm having with your mom over you, then I'm deeply sorry."
Cassie shook her head as she sniffled. "You didn't, I just feel that it could happen."
Grissom reached for her cheek and asked. "Why?"
Cassie sniffled again. "It happened with a friend at school, both of her parents are married to other people and they each have a child with them, making her feel like she doesn't matter as much sometimes."
Grissom looked at her with sympathy. "I'm sorry that your friend feels that way, you should tell her that she should talk to her parents so they could help her out with how she's feeling." Cassie does a little nod as Grissom continued. "I would do whatever I can to make you not feel that way, because I love you Cassie, and having this child with your mother doesn't change that, not now or ever. We aren't trying to replace you for somebody else, we are just expanding our love to another member of the family, and believe me, we would be so sad to see you leave our home permanently."
Cassie's eyes were misting up as she asked. "Really?"
He smiled a little with tears in his eyes, an emotion he hardly shows to anybody outside of Sara. "Have I ever lied to you?"
"No."
"Then there is your answer."
She smiled a little, which showed Grissom there was a little improvement. "But what about a room for the baby? I thought I would give him or her my room since I have two."
Grissom couldn't help but chuckle a little as he wiped his eyes, then he shook his head and replied as he ran his thumb up and down her cheek. "That is very honorable sweetheart, but we already have a solution for that."
"What is it?"
He smiled a little as he pulled his hand away from her cheek so he could pull a piece of paper out of his coat pocket, which he was thankful he kept it in his pocket instead of leaving it in the vehicle, then opened it up while explaining. "You see the red circles?" Cassie nodded. "These are houses that your mom and I want to look at, and there is a room for you and the baby. But we need a certain little girl's approval before we decide where our new home will be."
Cassie's eyes started to get bright again, which was making Grissom feel happier, because how she was looking and feeling before wasn't sitting well with him, especially if he was responsible in someway.
"Me?"
"Of course, we wouldn't have done something like this without you."
Cassie moved closer to Grissom and wrapped her arm around his neck. "Thank you, and I'm so sorry for what I said to you."
Grissom did a sigh of relief as he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around the little girl. "You're welcome, I accept your apology, and while I understand your concern, promise me the next time that you have a problem, you come talk to us so we can help you out sooner. We don't like to see you hurting, ok?"
Cassie nodded as she pulled back from Grissom. "Ok, I promise."
Grissom smiled. "Alright. Now I believe there is someone out in the living room who could really use a hug, and there is only one person she would accept it from right now."
Cassie smiled bigger as she removed her arms from Grissom's neck, then as she moved to the side of her bed, she looked at him again. "I love you Grissom, I really do."
"I know, sweetheart, I love you too."
After another smile, Cassie gets off the bed and runs to her door before opening it, making Sara stop her pacing before she turned her attention toward it. Then when Cassie smiled with that brightness in her eyes that Sara was use to, she smiled in return while kneeling down and opening her arms, which didn't take Cassie very long after that to get into them, and when she did, she started to cry and apologize for how she acted and for what she said.
Sara hugged her tight and kissed her temple, reassuring her that everything was going to be ok, while Grissom watched from Cassie's doorway, and Brad was sitting at the bar counter with a smile, sad that he knew there was no chance Cassie was moving in permanently now, but happy things were back to normal, because he knew it would have torn Sara up to lose that closeness with their daughter, which was something he would never want to happen.
When they pulled back, Sara cups her daughter's cheek and asked. "You ok now?"
Cassie nodded. "Yeah, Grissom helped me understand."
Sara smiled. "He's good at that, isn't he?"
Cassie looked back at Grissom and smiled. "He's the best."
Sara looked over Cassie's shoulder and smiled at her husband. "He really is."
As it became silent, Brad clears his throat and asked. "And what am I? Chopped liver?"
Cassie chuckled as she looked at her dad before running toward him. "You are the best too, daddy."
He smiled as he picked up his little girl and sets her in his lap. "Thank you, honey."
After he kissed her temple, he pulls back while she continued. "And I'm sorry, but I'm still going to live with mommy and Grissom."
Brad smiled again with a nod. "I figured that's what would happen, and that's ok."
Cassie smiled again as she wrapped her arms around him. "But I still love you."
"I still love you too."
When they pulled back a few seconds later, Sara cleared her throat and asked. "You ready to go, sweetie?"
Cassie nodded, and after kissing her father on the cheek, she got off his lap. "Yeah, I want to see the houses you have circled."
Brad chuckled as he stood up from his seat before speaking in a joking tone. "I see, you raised the stakes to a house, so of course she was going to say yes to that."
They chuckled while Cassie was in her room getting some of the things she wanted/needed to take back to her mom's, then Sara replied jokingly as she walked up toward him. "Sorry Brad, sometimes you just have to play a little dirty to get what you want."
"I figured."
Sara nodded, then her smile dimmed before speaking in a more serious tone. "No seriously, looking at houses was already planned, it isn't a bribe."
Brad nodded. "I understand."
They smiled at each other as Cassie came back into the living room with her backpack, then went to her dad to give him a hug. "I'll see you in a few days."
He wrapped his arms around his daughter's shoulders. "Ok, I love you, and Happy Birthday."
"I love you too, and Thank You."
When they pulled back, Sara and Brad shared a hug before they all walked toward the door, and after a round of goodbyes and a handshake between Grissom and Brad, the three of them walked out of the apartment.
Once they were in Grissom's vehicle, Sara asked Cassie while she was looking toward the backseat. "What do you want to do for your birthday after we look at the houses?"
Cassie smiled. "Can it just be the four of us?"
Sara raised an eyebrow. "Four of us?"
"Yeah, you, me, Grissom and the baby."
Sara nodded in understand before replying. "Yeah, it can be just the four of us. We can have a party this weekend so everybody can see and celebrate with you, ok?"
"Alright."
After another nod, Sara moved so she was in her seat looking forward before placing her hand on top of Grissom's, and after he squeezed it, he started the vehicle before driving toward the first address of the house they were going to look at.
Later that night
After spending the day going to the houses, which they only looked at the location and the outside of it since they would need a realtor to look inside, making them cross off a few of them on the list, they spent the rest of the day doing other things as a family.
Sara didn't know what Grissom had said to Cassie, but considering the end results of that talk made her daughter happy again, she decided to let that stay between them, so she didn't ask.
When they made it back home after enjoying a birthday dinner at a Pizza place and Ice Cream at Dairy Queen, Cassie was taking a bath while Sara and Grissom walked into their room to change clothes before they would all meet in the living room to end the evening watching a family movie.
After Sara walked out of the bathroom in her changed clothes, she walked up to Grissom, who had his back turned toward her because he was getting his night clothes out of the drawer, then she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
He smiled as he placed his clothes on top of the dresser before placing his hands on top of hers.
She moved her head to the right side of him and kissed him on the cheek before whispering. "I'm glad the day is ending better than it began."
"I know, I am too."
"And thank you for talking to her."
He turns around in her arms and sighed. "With this latest change in her life, she just needed reassuring that her place in my life and heart wasn't going to change." Grissom's eyes started to get misty as he finished. "And it won't."
She removed one of her arms from around his neck before cupping his cheek. "You don't need to explain to me how much Cassie means to you, because I know." She does a little sigh before continuing. "I guess we should have been more aware of that happening. She's just been so accepting and mature about all these changes in her life, that we sometimes forget she's still just a little girl who needs reassurance every now and then."
Grissom nodded while he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Which we can't blame her on needing that, because everybody needs a little reassurance every once in awhile."
Sara smiled with a nod. "Very true."
While they looked into each other's eyes, he leans toward her and whispered. "So, you need reassurance about anything?"
Before she answered, she kisses him, then after they pull back, she places her forehead on his, and whispered. "Nope, I just got it."
He pulls back to look into her eyes. "Got what?"
She smiled as she removed her arms from his neck. "How much you love me."
She doesn't care how small or passionate his kisses were toward her, she was always reassured that he loved her every time she felt that spark between them when they kissed.
He cupped her cheek this time before bringing her toward him again. "Oh, and I always will." Then their lips touched for a second time.
After they pulled back again, she smiled. "I'll see you in the living room." He nodded with a smile in return before stepping back and releasing her so she could leave the room.
When Sara made it to the living room, Cassie was already sitting on the couch waiting, so she walked over to toward her and sat down next to her, wrapping her arm around her shoulders before bringing her closer and kissing her temple. "Happy Birthday, sweetie."
Cassie smiled. "Thank you."
Sara smiled in return before they turned their attention to the TV while they waited for Grissom.
A few minutes later, Grissom came out of the bedroom and into the living room, then after placing the DVD in the player, he turned to look at them on the couch. "So, where am I sitting?"
Cassie smiled and patted the spot next to her. "Right here."
Grissom smiled bigger and walked over to the spot before sitting down next to Cassie, then he placed his arm around his girls and brought them close to him, so now Cassie's head was against his shoulder.
When Sara was snuggled close to her daughter and had slipped her fingers through her husband's, who had his hand on her shoulder, she does a sigh of content and happiness, thankful that everything worked out today and that things seemed to be back on the smooth path again, which was just how she liked it.
AN: A couple more chapters left. Please review.
