A/N: FOX cancelled Arrested Development. This is the form my grief is taking.

Chapter 36

"Are you okay?"

Sara looked up and blinked in the darkness. Grissom was standing in front of her, his hair mussed from sleep.

"Sara, are you okay?" he repeated, placing the back of his hand gently on her forehead. "You don't seem to have much of a fever anymore."

She pulled backed slowly. "I'm fine. Don't worry."

"What are you doing up? You should be in bed," he said, taking her by the arm to lead her back to her room.

"I was just…checking up on Brenda. I haven't spent much time with her," she told him.

"You should rest," he said quietly. "Brenda is fine. She's sleeping. You can spend time with her when she's awake."

Sara rolled her eyes as they stood at the entrance to her bedroom. "Yeah, I know. But I'm not tired right now. Actually, I could…"

"What?"

"I could go for something to eat."

He seemed almost excited about this. They walked down to the kitchen and he told her about the food that had been purchased earlier that day. "I don't think you should have anything heavy," he said her when they reached the bottom of the stairs. Sara felt his hand on the small of her back and tensed. Grissom turned his head to look at her. "How about some toast?"

She gave him a small smiled and nodded. His warm hand left her back and she felt the absence. Sara sat down at the kitchen table and watched him make her toast and tea. He seemed to find his way around after an initial awkwardness. "Do…do you think you could handle anything on your toast? Or would you rather have it plain?" he asked, getting a plate from one of the cupboards.

Sara pressed her lips together. "I, uh, think we have some jam in the fridge." She moved to get up, but he got to the refrigerator first.

"Grape or strawberry?"

He sat down with her and watched her eat. It was uncomfortable at first. Grissom watched her take each bite and Sara felt like she was on display, an animal in a zoo. She wanted to ask him about his mother, about his parents' divorce, but decided against it. He looked in no shape for an interrogation. Still, if he wanted to keep his life a secret, telling a pre-teen personal details wasn't the best way to go about it. She wondered if he was afraid she'd judge him, or if he just plain didn't trust her. It hurt to know she'd shamelessly revealed all of her family secrets to a man who never mentioned his mother was deaf.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked, leaning forward.

She nodded and said nothing, choosing instead to take a sip of tea.

Grissom scratched his chin. "Brenda, uh…seems to love you very much."

Sara let out a laugh, coughing up her toast. "I should hope so."

He looked alarmed. "I didn't mean it like that. I only meant that…that you two seem very well suited to one another. You're very good this."

"This, what?"

"Motherhood."

She raised her eyebrows. "You haven't really seen me with Brenda -- healthy, I mean. I've pretty much been…horizontal."

"Well, from what I've seen…" he shrugged, turning red. Sara scolded herself for not graciously accepting his compliment. "She likes to talk about you."

She was intrigued. "Oh. Um…what did she say?"

"Nothing bad. She just…is very enthusiastic about you. She was quiet for most of the morning until we got the supermarket," Grissom explained, "and then I got to hear all about how you don't like mangos and how you taught her to pit an avocado. It was…enlightening."

"Ah."

"She's not the same girl from the case. She's…blossomed. She's a little you now."

Sara's eyes were wide. "Wow. That's quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."

He looked down at his hands, folding and unfolding the napkin in front of him. "Was it difficult for you?"

"Difficult?"

"Becoming a…mother." It seemed hard for him to get the word out. "Was it a big transition for you?"

She considered his question. He wasn't meeting her eyes and she had to wonder if Grissom felt a bit guilty for not being there for her after she told him about the adoption. "Um…yes and no. Getting used to living with another person -- adjusting my schedule, not working so much -- that was easier than I thought. I finally looked forward to coming home because I knew that I wouldn't be…alone. But, uh…other stuff -- the second-guessing, the worrying that I'd make a wrong decision and ruin her life -- that was hard at first."

"At first?"

"Well, you sort of feel your way around it," Sara explained. "You get better at trusting yourself. This one weekend I actually had, uh, two parenting epiphanies. Earlier this summer, Brenda got a stomach virus. She was throwing up constantly, couldn't keep a thing down. It started Friday night and went on for two more days. And somewhere around the fourth hour of projectile vomiting, I realized that I could do this. I wasn't freaking out. I was keeping her calm. I knew…I knew I was good at this. Maybe not at being a mother, but being her mother. I knew we'd be okay."

Grissom stared at her. "What was the second epiphany?"

Sara shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Oh, uh. Um…around Sunday morning, Brenda was well enough to return to bed and I sat there for hours just…rubbing her back and telling her she'd be okay. And then I realized…" her voice trailed off. She felt tears in her eyes and tried desperately to hold them back.

"You realized what?"

"I…I guess I realized that I deserved this, too." She shrugged. "I remember you told me something about rationalization, and how we all use it to get through each day. I used it to get through my life. I grew up…convincing myself that my childhood wasn't so bad, that a person didn't need to grow up in a normal household, that happy families were overrated." Sara swallowed the lump in her throat and continued. "I deserved what I'm giving Brenda now…when I was her age, I mean. It's not like I'm trying to make up for it by being her mother or relive my childhood through her," she said quickly. "That morning, it suddenly hit me -- what I was missing, I mean. I spent twenty-five years telling myself I didn't miss out, that life started when I turned eighteen and it's kind of…hard…to admit to yourself that you were lacking. Or at least, it was hard for me to admit to myself that I was lacking. I don't like to think of myself as deficient."

"You're not."

She smiled sadly at him. "Well, parts of me are. Parts of me that you probably don't see."

"I see everything, Sara," Grissom said, his voice oddly calm. "You're perfect."

Arms crossed over her chest protectively, she stared at her lap and bit her lip. "I wish we were looking through the same lens." He leaned closer as if he were preparing to say something quite personal, but Sara stood up straight before he could open his mouth. "I'm very tired all of a sudden," she lied.

He looked up at her, his eyes deceptively naïve. "Oh."

"I really should get back to bed." She tucked in her chair and began picking up her plate.

"I'll clean up," he told her, taking a hold of her wrist with one hand and prying the dirty dish from her fingers with another. "You go upstairs."

Sara let go and walked to the door. She heard the water start to run in the faucet and turned around. "Thank you, Grissom."

TBC…