AN: Thanks for the reviews. Here is your next chapter.


Chapter 28: Finally starting to heal

Three days later

Everybody was out of the hospital now and at the police station to give their statements and to pick Aiden out in a lineup they just didn't want to take any chances so they were doing what ever they could so he couldn't get off.

After Grissom walked out of the room and into to the hall it was Aubrey's turn to pick Aiden out in the line up. She looks at Thomas and he gives her a small smile, squeezes her hand and said. "It's ok, just remember he can't see you." Aubrey nodded then he leans over to kiss her on the cheek and after one more squeeze of the hand she stands up and walks into the room.

As the door shuts Nick was walking up to Sara, Thomas and Grissom they watch him as he stops in front of Thomas and holds something out to him.

Thomas looks at the disk Nick was holding out to him then looks up at him and Nick explains. "We went through Aiden's stuff in a locked up storage and it had some of Mia's things in it and among these things there was a computer that looked broken but Archie did his magic and recovered a video of Mia talking before she was murdered. She goes on about her involvement with Aiden and you, I think you should watch it."

Thomas shakes his head, crosses his arms over his chest then replied. "I don't need to watch it. I know the end result, she betrayed me and hurt the people I cared about."

Nick nodded and responded. "I understand that man and this might not make you change your opinion of her but I think you need closure. So just watch it and destroy it if you want we made another copy so we don't need it for the case."

Thomas looks at Sara and Grissom and they are nodding their heads then Sara speaks. "Nick is right. This might answer some of your questions, it might even make you more angry but least you'll know what she was really thinking, instead of Aiden's version because that's all you have gotten from the beginning."

Thomas looks back at the disk, sighed, nodded, grabbed it and said. "Ok. Thanks Nick." Nick nodded, patted his shoulder then said bye to the three of them, turned back in the direction he came from and started walking as Aubrey came out of the room. They shared a friendly smile as they walked by each other.

Sara, Grissom and Thomas all stand up when they see her coming their way and smiled at her then Thomas asked if she was alright. She nodded then before they were ready to leave the girls left the men and headed for the rest room.

When the men were completely alone Thomas looked at Grissom and speaks. "About Sara and I."

Grissom shakes his head and said. "Don't worry about it. Sara talked to me and really I should've known what the truth was and not only because of how Sara feels about me but on how you feel about Aubrey." He sighs then continues. "I may not know you as closely as Sara does but I can tell that you love Aubrey and you wouldn't hurt her like that and plus I know you take in account on how Sara feels so we are ok." Grissom holds out his hand as a peace offering. Thomas smiles then they shake hands, happy that things weren't going to be tense with the two of them and thinks this a turning point on becoming better friends.

As they were releasing hands, DB and Brass were walking up to the two men.

Thomas saw them first and looked in their direction, Grissom turns around and see them coming.

They stop in front of Thomas and he asked. "What's up guys?"

DB speaks. "All charges on you are dropped and no further action regarding you will be taken."

Thomas smiled and asked. "For real?" DB nodded and Thomas did a small cheer, Grissom smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

The girls were walking up to the men as they smiling and cheering so Sara asked what was going on.

Thomas looked at them and said. "All charges on me have been dropped." They smiled and after a short hug from Sara, she walks back to Grissom and he puts his arm around her shoulders. Aubrey gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek and after Thomas puts his arms around her shoulder he looks back at DB and Brass then replied. "Thank you." They both nodded then Thomas looked over their shoulders and see a cop guiding a man in his mid 20's out of one of the interrogation rooms, the man looked at the group with a sad face and Thomas asked. "Who is that?"

DB does a quick look to see who Thomas was talking about then he looked back at him and said. "Our runaway mail carrier." Sara and Thomas looked at him a little shocked, DB nodded and said. "He came in and told us that Aiden paid him to leave town once he delivered the envelope. He swears he didn't know what was inside but he sensed it couldn't be good if he was getting paid like he was. He realized that living with all that money wouldn't do him any good if he felt guilty for the rest of his life, if what he had done was bad in any way. He wanted to do the right thing and made a formal statement, which only makes our case stronger."

They all smiled, happy that more pieces were coming together to nail Aiden to the wall and just as they thought that the door opened to the other interrogation room and this time coming out was Aiden with a couple of cops behind him. He stops and looks over at the group and both Grissom and Thomas bring their women closer to their sides and they all just glared at him he gives them a small smile then started walking with the cops still right behind him. They sighed in relief as they see him being taken away then Grissom kisses Sara on the temple and said. "He will never get anywhere near us again I promise." They all nodded and promised the same thing.

After a few more thank yous were heard DB and Brass said goodbye and left. When they were alone Thomas sighed in relief again for all the good things that just happened.

Then after a few moments of silence Thomas looked at Sara and said. "Tell princess that I'll see her tomorrow before I leave." Thomas and Aubrey are driving across the country with Aubrey's mother, sister and the baby to take them back to Florida and since Aubrey wanted a little vacation time before school starts up again they had planned to be gone a few weeks.

Sara nodded and replied. "I will. Enjoy the rest of your day and evening." The couple nodded and Sara and Grissom walked away, hand in hand.

When it was just the two of them Aubrey finally mentioned the disk he was holding. "What is that?"

He looked down at the disk and said. "Something that Mia wanted to say to me." He looks at Aubrey and she was looking at him a little confused. He shakes his head and replied. "Don't worry about it. Let me get you home so you can get ready for our dinner with your family."

She smiled and nodded, happy that they will get to know each other more before their trip and hoping this is another good step between her family and Thomas. He smiles at her, takes her hand and they walked out of PD.


Later that night, after having a good dinner with Aubrey's family, Thomas was sitting down on the couch holding the disk in his hand with his computer on the coffee table.

The bathroom door opened and he looks up and saw Aubrey coming out in her comfortable clothes, they didn't want their night to end after dinner so while her family was staying at her apartment she was spending a few hours at his place.

They smile at each other and after she sits down next to him she asked. "You going to watch it?"

He sighed and said. "I'm not sure. They want me too but I don't see how it could change anything."

She puts a hand on his shoulder and replied. "It could change nothing but it could give you closure and answers to some of your questions." Thomas smiled after she said that and she asked. "What?"

"Sara said the same thing."

She smiled and responded. "Then I must be in good company."

He smiled bigger, kisses her on the cheek and said. "The best."

He pulls back then looks at the disk again and she speaks again. "If you want, you can wait till I'm not here."

He shakes his head finally deciding what to do then brings the laptop to his lap, puts the disk in and as he was closing the disk tray he looks at her and asked. "I would like you to watch it with me please?"

She nodded, puts her hand on his cheek and replied. "Of course." He gives her a small smile then they looked at the computer screen and after he hits play they watched the video.

Mia was sitting on the couch in front of her computer and had just taken a drink of wine from her wine glass then sat it down on the table, cleared her throat, looked at the computer and started talking to the camera. "Hi Thomas. I guess if your watching this then I am no longer with you, either because something happened to me or I couldn't take the lies anymore and had left this behind. You probably have so many questions especially on why I helped or how I could betray you so much and I wish there was a good excuse for what I did but there isn't. When I started there was only one thing that kept me doing this and it's the oldest thing in the book, the money. Yes I know that's a stupid reason to hurt somebody and something I regret deeply and you don't now how much I want to take it back, especially after I..."

She stops, looks down to wipe the tears from her eyes then looked back up and continued. "I'll come back to that. If you are still watching I would like to explain what happened, You probably don't care about the details but it could help if you need this piece of evidence."

She cleared her throat and told continued. "I had just gotten out of medical school and I was having a tough time finding a job and in turn trying to make ends meet was very difficult and this guy, Aiden Bolton comes up to me one afternoon and gives me a proposition and of course I was skeptical because of how much money he was offering but when he told me that he would pay it all upfront I took the easy way out and did what he told me to do.

I followed you, Sara and Isabella around for months taking pictures of your little moments together, learning and studying from afar of your every move then told him what I observed.

When I found out that Isabella was hospitalized I finally was able to make use of my medical degree when I was hired and trained to be a nurse so I could keep closer tabs to you guys because I figured that's were you would mostly be at and then when I found out a guy from Sara's past, which happened to be Grissom, came back into her life another plan began to form for Aiden and he wanted me to pick the right time to introduce myself into your world so I could observe closer to the dynamic of you three, to know what made you tick and then relay it to him so he knew the right buttons to push.

The one thing I didn't count on was falling in love. I had been with other men before but they had always ended in heartbreak and so I promised myself that I wasn't going down that road again and treated you like a job, but you became more to me than that. Slowly, from that first smile at the hospital to that last kiss a few days ago I was falling in love.

I know my partake in this ended up hurting people you care about and I wish I can say more than I'm sorry to change that but I can't. I just hope and pray that you and everybody else that was involved can heal from the damage that was caused. I also hope you will find a woman who deserves you because she would be the luckiest woman in the world to have your love, I should know. Take care, bye."

The screen went black and he sets his computer back on the coffee table shaking his head and said a little mad. "I really cared about her and she used me to hurt Sara for a paycheck, unbelievable." He gets up from the couch and walks over to the window.

She looks back at him and said. "In the end she wanted out because she fell in love with you."

He shakes his head and replied. "It still doesn't change the fact that what she did was very wrong."

Aubrey gets up from the couch, walks over to him and said. "Your right what she did was wrong and I am not happy that we all got hurt. I just think now you can move on a little better knowing that at the end it wasn't about the money anymore."

"You think I or we could all get past this?"

She nodded, removes her hand from his shoulder but puts it on his cheek then replied. "I'm not saying it's going to happen over night for any of us but eventually, yeah I do." He looks down and she continued. "I just don't want you carrying all that pain and anger inside. I know how it feels to be around that." She removed her hand and this time she looked down. She had always felt scared when she was around Robert when he was angry and drunk and she didn't want to go through that again.

Thomas looks at her, puts his hand on her chin to left her head up so they were looking into each other's eyes then he removes his hand from her chin, puts it on her cheek and said. "I will never make you feel like that. You are safe with me, always, ok?" She nodded with a few tears in her eyes and he brings her closer to him, kisses her forehead then wraps his arms around her, sighed and said. "I'll try to get past this but it's going to be difficult." He stops, takes a relieved breath then continued. "I'm just glad it ended like it did because if Sara and Isabella had lost Grissom permanently and if I had to see their sadness all the time I don't think I could have handled that and I can't even begin to tell you what I would have done if I had lost you."

She feels him have a shiver going down his body then she pulls back, puts her hand back on his cheek and said. "I'm not going anywhere and we are all here, safe, alive, ok?" He nodded closing his eyes to hold back his emotions then she started speaking again when he opened them back up. "Mia did say one thing right." He raised an eyebrow and she smiled. "I feel like the luckiest woman in the world to have your love and I'm going to hold on to it as long as possible.
Any woman who you had felt hurt from or disregarded you, didn't know what they had or could've had, but I do." He was about to open his mouth about not putting him on a pedestal but she puts a finger to his lips to stop him then pecks him on the lips and continued. "I know your not perfect. Your human just like everybody else and I am not trying to put you on this huge pedestal that you have to live up too, I'm just telling you how I feel. Which is I love you and I'll always be here for you as long as you want me to. Ok?"

He looks into her eyes and sees the truth then he gives her a small smile, leans toward her and kisses her softly on the lips, pulls back and said. "I love you too and I feel just as lucky and I'll defiantly be keeping you around for a long time."

She smiles while wrapping her arms around his neck and asked. "Really? For how long?"

He gets that cute grin she already loves and replied. "Just plan for the rest of your life and beyond if possible."

She nods and responded with a smirk. "I'll be sure to keep those days open for you."

He smiles again and after another kiss he brings her in his arms and just holds her, thankful that he had met her and that he could start to put this whole mess with Mia behind him, like he said it won't be easy to get over a betrayal like that but he will defiantly try because he has a future with the wonderful woman in his arms and he was going to do everything he can to protect that future.


Sara, Grissom, Isabella and Hank had just came into the house after spending the rest of the day at the park it was just the four of them having family time and it was a great day, defiantly in their top favorite days of their lives.

Sara walked Isabella to the bathroom and started the bath water for her and once it was the right temperature and height Isabella got in and played with her toys for a bit then Sara washed her hair while they were talking about Thomas's visit tomorrow and Isabella was excited that she will get to see him before he goes on his trip, she will really miss him when he leaves.

After Isabella was washed and had a few more minutes to play with her toys she was out of the bath and into her PJ's ready for bed, even though there was still a few hours left till bed time so she got stay up and play for a while.

Sara walked in her and Grissom's bedroom just as he was walking out of the bathroom.

He was in his sweat pants with no shirt and his hair was wet from the shower he had just taken. They smile at each other then she walks up to him, puts her hand on his cheek, looked at his face and asked. "How is your eye feeling?" She winced after she said that, it did look better then when she first saw it but it still looked like it hurt.

"It's alright. It's still a little sore but I'll live." Sara's face fell and she looked down, he shakes his head, lefts her chin up so they were looking at each other again then he said. "I'm ok, I'm right here."

She nodded with tears in her eyes and said. "I know. I just can't stop thinking about you in that chair tied up, thinking you were..." She was cut off when he kisses her softly on the lips then brings her in his arms and just holds her while running his hand up and down her back soothing her.

After a few minutes they pull back from each other, he puts his hand on her cheek and wiped the few tears away then asked. "You ok now?"

She nodded while sniffling. "Yeah." He gave her a small smile and after he kissed her on the forehead she pulls back from him and asked. "Can you check on Isabella while I take a shower?" He nodded, kissed her again and walked out of the room while Sara walked in the bathroom.

When Grissom got to the doorway to Isabella's room he smiled, she was laying in bed asleep with a book on top of her chest and Hank was on the floor right next to the bed with his eyes closed, the day at the park must have worn them both out. He walks quietly in the room and toward the bed, picks up the book, sets it on the nightstand then moves her and the blanket then tucks her in. He puts his hand on her cheek, leans down, kissed her on the forehead then pulls back and said. "I love you butterfly, sweet dreams." He steps away then looks down and Hank who had his head off his paws and was now looking up at him.

Grissom bends down, pets him on the head and said. "You continue to watch over our girl ok buddy." After he said that Hank licked his hand and Grissom smiles bigger then said. "I love you too." After one more lick from Hank, Grissom stands up and walks to the bedroom door while Hank lays his head back down and closes his eyes. Grissom gets to the door way, turns around to look at them one more time and with a small smile he shuts the light out and cracks the door then walks to the bedroom.

10 minutes later when Sara walked out of the bathroom cleaned and wearing her shorts and one of his night shirts she looked on the bed and he was sitting up with his glasses on doing a crossword puzzle. He looks over toward the bathroom door and they share a smile.

As she was walking to her side of the bed she asked. "How was our little angel?"

As he was setting his glasses, the pen and the crossword puzzle on the nightstand he answers her question. "She was out like a light and Hank wasn't too far behind, I don't know who exhausted who today?"

She chuckles a little while getting under the covers then after he shuts his light out he lays down and a few seconds later she claimed her favorite resting spot, his chest. He puts his arm around her shoulders, brings her closer and kisses her on top of the head.

They lay there for a few minutes in silence then She speaks. "Grissom I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the whole mess with..."

She gets cut off when he puts a finger to her lips. "It's ok." He leans back and she looks at him so they could look into each other's eyes and he continues.
"You didn't want to relieve one of your darkest times." He sighed and just as she was about to speak he continued once again. "I should have asked you how you were back then but a part of me was afraid of what you would say. My emotions and insecurities was running all over the place and so I let you go and closed myself off of everybody." He shakes his head wondering why he does these things then said. "Instead of what I should have done which was to come home and fight for you because you really do mean the world to me."

She puts her hand on his cheek and said. "Griss we have already had this conversation and I don't want us to keep beating ourselves up because of the past, what happened back than is done, it's over. Am I happy it happened? no but we are moving to better days."

He nods, takes her hand, kissed her knuckles and said with emotion. "I know. I just want you to know how deeply sorry I am about my part in everything that has hurt you. I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, I promise." He stops for a minute then said with his eyes shinning. "So do you forgive me?"

She moves her head off his chest, wipes his tears away, gives him a small smile and said. "Only if you forgive me for my part on hurting you and for what I had kept from you."

He doesn't even hesitate. "Done." He moves her so they laying on their sides and were face to face.

They looked into each other eyes and see so much in them then lean toward each other and kissed when they pulled back a few minutes later they put their foreheads together and closed their eyes, basking in this wonderful moment knowing everything was cleared up.

She pulls back first, kisses his forehead and said with a smirk. "Now about making it up to me." He opens his eyes and looked into her eyes and she continued. "Let's start with you marrying me again."

He smiled and replied. "Name the day and place and I'll be there."

After a few minutes she answered. "A month from now and in our backyard." She wanted to wait till Thomas came back from his trip.

Grissom nodded in understanding, knowing she would want to wait for Thomas and he was ok with that then said. "You got it."

She smiles bigger and after another kiss she turns her lamp out, lays down with her back to him, he scoots closer to her, lays down behind her, wraps his arms around her waist then she moves so her back was touching his bare chest, she puts her hand over his, he kissed her head and whispered. "I love you Sara."

She slips her fingers through his and whispered. "I love you too, always." He brings her closer, if that was even possible, then after one more kiss on the head he closed his eyes and was asleep a few minutes later. Sara snuggled deep in his strong, warm, protective arms and closed her eyes with a smile. She felt like they were finally healing and in a month they will be where they should have been all along, happily married.


AN: Next chapter: Well you can probably guess what the next chapter is about but I'll tell you anyways. It's the wedding! In fact the day/evening will be the next three chapters, I had to do it that way because the chapter would have been very long and you'll understand why when you read them. Hope you enjoyed their lovely moments, they really needed it didn't they? More to come and Please review.