Grissom woke to a strange noise in the house. It almost sounded like a drill. He listened harder and heard it again, yes that was a drill. That explained the dream he was having.
He got up rubbing his eyes and headed towards the noise. He reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up. Sara was just finishing installing a gate at the top of the stairs and right in front of him was a second gate already installed. Sara was testing the gate when he asked "how was your nap"
"Great, I feel refreshed. I'm sorry if I woke you."
She inspected the gate by opening and closing it a couple of times making sure she had installed it properly. Ashley came up behind her and grabbed a couple of the bars of the gate rattling it a little, further testing its stability.
Grissom had to admit one of the things that attracted him the most to Sara was her independence. He looked up at her, "I'm a little hungry, do you want me to start dinner?"
Sara was about to answer when Ashley spoke up, "yummy." Sara looked down at the girl and then back up at Grissom smiling, "That sounds great, I was thinking spaghetti, can you start the sauce?"
"Sure," he replied and noticed Sara suppress a smirk before he headed into the kitchen.
He took the ingredients out of the pantry and went to get the saucepan. He pulled on the cupboard but it refused to open more than an inch, "what the hell?" he mumbled to himself.
He inspected the cupboard and saw some kind of contraption just inside the door. He was having trouble trying to find out how to get the thing opened when he was startled by Sara behind him, "having problems?"
She let out a small chuckle when she saw him flinch in surprise. He looked at her with a snide expression on his face, "what did you do to the cupboards?" while pulling on them one more time to test the lock again.
She walked up to the cupboard and showed him how to disengage the lock, trying not to laugh. He grabbed the saucepan out and closed the door. He put the saucepan on the stove and went to turn the burner on but came across yet another obstacle.
There were little plastic things covering the knobs. He stopped short and began to give the kitchen a thorough inspection, noting small changes here and there. He noticed there was a lock on not only the lower cupboards and the stove but on the oven door, the refrigerator, and when he attempted to open a drawer he came across another anti entry device.
Sara had put their kitchen under lockdown while he was sleeping! He finally looked over at her and noticed the wide grin playing across her face. He lifted an eyebrow at her and commented, "You were busy, mind telling me why you went to such extremes?" She just continued to smile as he noticed Ashley wander into the kitchen.
The little girl first went to the drawers, trying to open them saying "spoon".
Sara looked down at her shaking her head and replying, "no spoon."
Not to be deterred he then witnessed the child walk over to the cupboard he had just gotten the saucepan out of, "bang" she said as she looked up at Sara.
Once again Sara looked at Ashley, only this time saying, "no bang."
Grissom watched the child test every single contraption Sara had installed saying "wash" when she got to the dishwasher, "cook" when she attempted the oven and stove and "drink" when she tried the refrigerator.
Each time the child was told no by Sara except for the last time. When the little girl said "drink" Sara went to the cupboard above the counter that held dishes and retrieved a strange looking cup, she went to put some water in it and he heard a "no" from Ashley as she shook her head and patted the door to the fridge.
"Ok, but only a little" Sara replied and unlocked the fridge, retrieved the apple juice and poured some into the cup. She secured the lid on the cup and handed it to Ashley. The little girl took a sip from the cup and threw it onto the floor.
Grissom looked up at Sara, and a new appreciation for her overcame him. It seemed to have taken Sara very little time to adjust to Ashley and she seemed to understand the child with very little communication.
"How?" was the only thing he could manage to say. Sara understood what he was asking and went into the events following his first nap that day.
After Sara and Ashley made their way down for their snack, Ashley had proceeded to single handedly destroy the kitchen. It took Ashley only 10 minutes, but it took Sara almost an hour to clean everything up.
By the time Sara was done with her tale Grissom was laughing.
"I'm glad you think that's so funny." She got an evil look on her face.
"You might want to apologize before you find you need to get to the toilet paper under the sink in the bathroom, I installed sturdier locks on those and the cupboards under the sink in here because of the chemicals."
This got his attention and he immediately apologized, turned around and began making the sauce once more, only this time he was able to get to everything he needed, with Sara's help that is.
Ashley punctuated the moment by picking up her cup taking a sip and throwing the cup back on the floor, apparently this did not have the desired effect because she left the cup there and headed out of the kitchen.
Grissom watched her leave and directed a questioning stare at Sara.
"It's not as much fun when it doesn't go splash." She said and made a splashing gesture with her hands.
"oh" he said with raised eyebrows and a smirk on his face. Sara left him to make the sauce and joined Ashley in the living room.
Sara set the table while Gil finished preparing the spaghetti and a salad. Dinner was an entirely different affair than lunch.
Grissom and Sara were meshing over some of the details of the wedding when Gil was smacked in the side of the face with a handful of noodles, Ashley was giggling in her chair and Sara was trying hard to suppress her laughter at the shocked look on his face.
Almost in slow motion he reached up to his face and picked off the few noodles that hadn't made their way down his shirt and into his lap. By this time Sara was in full blown giggles along with Ashley.
She didn't see him grab a forkful of pasta until it was too late. She gasped when the noodles hit her in the face and this time it was Gil's turn to laugh. Between making her own mess and watching the two "adults" in the house Ashley was having a ball.
By the time dinner activities were done and the three had managed to stifle most of the laughter, Grissom and Sara looked around the dining room assessing the damage.
"I'm glad we put in hardwood flooring." Grissom commented.
Sara nodded her head in agreement still smiling she asked, "divide and conquer?" He agreed, and without words they each took a task.
Sara grabbed Ashley and headed up to the shower while Grissom started cleaning the dining room, thinking he had the easier task. This was the first time Sara had ever attempted to give a child a bath and was unsure on how to go about doing it.
She started the tap, making sure the water wasn't too hot and then undressed Ashley and placed her in the tub. It was about 20 minutes later that Grissom entered the bathroom, and both of them started laughing again.
Grissom still had some fragments of dinner in his hair and Sara was soaking wet from giving Ashley her bath. The two of them couldn't remember the last time they had laughed this much.
Sara managed to stop laughing long enough to ask him, "give me a towel will you?"
He grabbed a clean one out of the linen closet and handed it to her. Sara removed Ashley from the tub and took her into her room, Grissom wasn't far behind. While she dried the little girl off Grissom retrieved some jimmies from the dresser along with one of the smallest pairs of underwear he had ever seen and handed them to Sara.
Grissom stood to the side and watched Sara dress the little girl. He knew Sara could adjust to anything but she was an amazing woman for opening her arms to a child that wasn't hers. Not to mention the fact that this was the granddaughter of Heather Kessler, the one subject that remained a thorn in the sides of their relationship.
While Sara was out shopping that afternoon he had called and finalized the arrangements for the funeral. He was having a hard time telling Sara what he had done and was worried she might take it the wrong way.
He was going to have to trust in the strength of their relationship. He decided he would tell her tonight after Ashley was asleep. Sara noticed the contemplative look on Grissom's face and knew he was mulling something serious over in his mind.
She secured the last snap on Ashley's jammies and then tickled her on the tummy. Ashley giggled and this seemed to yank him out of his thoughts. He squatted in front of her and asked, "how about a story?"
Ashley's eyes lit up and she ran over to the bookshelf. She looked at several books before finally deciding on one that was in the shape of a ladybug, she said "bug" and Sara could see the grin spread across Grissom's face as he sat on the floor.
Ashley came up to him and crawled on his lap and after a brief moment of shock he began to read to her. The whole scene was surreal to Sara, up until this moment she had to admit she was worried how he was going to take to fatherhood but he jumped into it with both feet.
She was mildly surprised and delighted at this fact but she knew he was never one to go into something halfway, he was an all or nothing kind of person and she loved him for that.