Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/N: Okay, I've resigned myself to the fact that most of you won't be able to feel sympathy for Jace, for the time being. :) I wasn't trying to say that what he was doing was right or even that you should like him, I was just hoping to convey the difficulty of his situation as a motivating factor behind his actions. Because I have a sneaking suspicion that if some other woman were doing to Grissom what Sara is doing to Jace, and he reacted the way Jace has, I would have just as many reviews touting how Grissom was only acting that way because he was desperate and -insert some rude acronym instead of the woman's name here- is being unfair, trying to take his baby away. :) Just sayin'...

Anyway, Sorry for the late update, I had conferences for two hours after I got off work tonight, and so promptly came home and fell asleep... which means that I've screwed up my sleep schedule like nobody's business. :) Also, I want to thank JBCC (as well as several others who have mentioned it since) for the idea about Grissom being there for the labor. I don't think I would have seen it as a possibility without the suggestion putting the thought in my head, and I really like the idea. :)

Thanks for the passionate reviews, either way. They make my day (or night... you know... if I end up not sleeping.) Hehe.

Chapter Fifty Five:

The following months were a blur—I got ultrasound pictures of our daughter in an email from Kyleigh and Michelle, and then a few weeks later came a picture of Sara with her shirt pulled up, showing how big her stomach was getting. Despite our attempts at communicating regularly, she often had to get off the phone… Kyleigh and Michelle weren't home during the day, and Sara was only home every once and a while, between classes… which meant that the time we had to talk was always when Jace was home. Thankfully, he was spending a lot of time on his car.

Sara told me she thought it might be a Camaro, but she hadn't really paid attention… which struck me as significant. Maybe she hadn't noticed it was the car they'd had a rather personal encounter on, but I had… and it told me that Jace wasn't giving up.

Which made me nervous. …That's understandable, isn't it? It wasn't that I didn't trust Sara, it was that for as long as I'd known her, I'd gone home alone almost every night, heartsick with loving her, while she curled up in bed with him. I mean, sure, she had her own room now… but she was much closer to him than to me. Even though I knew she couldn't control the circumstances, it grated on me.

There were other things, too, that told me that as time went on, Sara was warming up to him. Or, at least, easing up on him. …Which was good. I mean, I had suggested as much, worried about how the stress of her living conditions would affect her, the pregnancy, and Ayla… but seeing such a thing happen was troubling.

For example, she was talking about cooking again… telling me that she'd had a crazing for cheese so she'd found a recipe for gourmet macaroni and cheese, or that she'd been halfway through frying walleye for supper when she was overcome with nausea at the thought and ended up eating cereal for supper instead. It shouldn't be a big deal, but it told me she was cooking full-sized meals again… cooking for Jace, rather than allowing him to survive on take out.

There were lots of little things like this. They shouldn't have bothered me—I had told her that the fighting wasn't good, and that I wouldn't feel betrayed if she let things calm down between them. But that didn't mean I wanted to think of them getting closer to having a functional marriage while I was alone, across the country… she never mentioned spending time with him, or even eating with him… but that didn't mean it never happen. For the most part, she didn't mention him at all unless it came up specifically in conversation. So there was really no way to know.

I had mentioned flying out to see her in May, when she was working less due to summer school. I could get a hotel, she could take some time off of work, and when Jace thought she was going in to the office every day, she could come over and see me… show me sonogram pictures first hand, let me feel her belly—she was seven months, and I would surely be able to feel movement… have some sort of connection to life I loved so much and yet was never able to see or touch in a tangible way. …She was afraid of Jace finding out. She didn't say no, she just said it worried her… so I let the subject drop, at first.

As her due date approached, I brought it up again… especially when she started telling me about the baby dropping… how she had to pee all the time and how she felt like she was constantly waddling and how Ayla always kicked upwards, aiming at her ribs, so she was worried she would be breech if she didn't wiggle her way around pretty quick here. She delayed, she made excuses, she gave me vague and uncertain answers… and it worried me.

Maybe she just wanted that moment to be one she shared with Jace. I mean, I knew, of course, that I wasn't Ayla's father but… Sara and I had treated her and the situation as though I was… she had often told me she was getting scared about labor, and really wanted me to be there, but now we had waited so long that if we didn't schedule something, Ayla would be born before I'd ever get to see Sara again… and it would be nice, to see both of my girls in one visit, but it would be harder for her to get out of the house every day with a newborn. A lot harder.

To top it all off, every once and a while I would look up from a book and realize that for the longest time I hadn't noticed the hum of the refrigerator or the tick of the clock or the low rumble of the dryer… and I would wonder if I had been intensely focused, or if I had honestly stopped hearing those things. I mean, I might be worrying unnecessarily, but now I had it in my head that I had Sara and Ayla to support, once we found something about Jace that would make him let them go, and the idea of being out of work due to a genetic defect was frightening.

So frightening that I couldn't really think about it. I had been pushing it aside, refusing to address it, for months. Maybe if I didn't think about it, it would go away.

When I got a call in the middle of the night from Kyleigh and Michelle's number, I did something I had never done… I dropped my kit and the piece of evidence I had been collecting and turned and walked out of the house we were processing, despite Catherine's concerned questions trailing out behind me.

"Hello?"

"Gil?"

"Sara?"

There was the regular clunk of one of her friends, I was not sure who, setting down their phone so we could have a private moment, and then she sighed. "…I've been thinking something kind of crazy."

"What is it, honey? Are you okay? It's the middle of the night…"

"My due date is coming up…"

I knew as much, of course. It was in exactly two weeks and four days. "…I know, honey. I… Tell me you're okay, please."

"I'm fine." I let out a sigh of relief. "…I want you to be in the delivery room with me."

I gasped for air. "I… Are you sure? How?"

"My doctor… I think she's figured out that things aren't right between Jace and I. …She always sends him out of the room for at least fifteen minutes, every appointment, so we can talk in private…and each time, she keeps stressing prioritizing my needs. …Saying that anyone I wanted or didn't want in the room, all I had to do was say the word, and she would make it happen. I… I was scared, at first, over what Jace would do… but I want you there."

"…And not allow him in?"

"We couldn't. …He couldn't know that you were there."

I sensed something in her voice, that I wasn't used to hearing, and it caused me to pause, frowning. "…Are you okay with that?"

She sighed, and I could see her in my mind's eyes gnawing on her bottom lip in worry. "…I feel… guilty… not letting him in."

"But?" I prompted, sensing it at the end of her statement and also, perhaps, hoping for it.

"…But I'm too scared to do this without you." She said in a rush, and it sounded like she was ashamed of that. I closed my eyes—I didn't necessarily feel right about what had happened with Jace… I had expected that she would talk to him, apologize for hurting him, and there would be a period of time in which there was understandable anger and bitterness… but that, eventually, I could also apologize to him. We might never be able to be friends, but I had always thought we could be civil in our relationship as Dad and Step-Dad… So I understood her guilt, especially as she hadn't complained about him looking through her things or being harsh with her in a long time, but I felt this gnawing uncertainty at it too.

If she hadn't been afraid to do it alone… or, perhaps, if she had been more afraid of what Jace would do if he figured us out… how would the birth have played out? He would be in the room, not me, and when the pain got bad and he was the only one in the room who she knew… the only person who wasn't a nurse or her doctor… would she take his hand when he offered it? Would he lay a kiss to her sweaty brow in between contractions and slip ice chips into her mouth, his fingertips brushing against her beautiful lips, over bright from her teeth biting on them…?

These were things that filled my fantasies as often as anything else and my stomach rolled at the thought that he would get to do them instead of me. "Of course I'll be there. …What if you don't go on your due date?"

She chuckled softly. "I'm about ready to pop, honey… if I don't go on my due date, my doctor will induce me…"

"…What if you go early?"

"I'll call the girls, they'll call you, you jump on a plane… most first labors take hours and hours…"

I sighed softly, cringing, hating myself for the words I had to speak, because I knew firsthand how Sara dealt with guilt—she overcompensated, in order to feel like she had righted the situation. "…You could have both Jace and I there…" I swallowed, running a hand over my face, realizing with some surprise that it was shaking. I didn't want him there, in our moment, but she felt guilty… and I was afraid that that would turn into her trying to make up for the slight of not allowing him in the room by trying for a closer friendship with him…trying to rebuilt their bridges.

Like I said, I have a little bit of a hang up over that fact that as long as we've loved each other, I've been sleeping alone while she's been either sleeping or living with him. It's worrying.

"…I don't understand."

"…Do what he did to you. You have the power to let him in the room or not… tell him that if he wants in, he has to let you invite me… otherwise, you'll do it alone."

"Alone?" she asked in a small voice.

"Oh, honey, I wouldn't make you do it alone… it's a bluff. That way you don't have to feel guilty, and I can still be there. But if you just don't want him there, then don't have him… I was just trying to help."

She sniffled softly. "I... I don't know, Gil. I..." She paused, and then her voice came in a hush. "…I think I hear something moving across the hall. I have to go. …I'll talk to you soon?"

"…Yeah." I said, sighing softly. "I love you, Sara."

"I love you too, Gil. So much. …You promise you'll be there, no matter what?"

Her voice was very small, and despite not liking that she should sound so afraid, it at least allayed some of my fears. She could have him in the room if she wanted him, and she still sounded meek at the thought of doing it without me. I was filled with renewed conviction—I had never doubted her commitment to me, once it was made, and I wasn't going to start now. It was a difficult situation, for both of us, and we'd only get through it if I could trust her. "I promise, baby. No matter what."

"…Goodnight." She whispered, and I whispered the single word back, listening to the loud click that came over the phone and closing my own with a heavy sigh. It took me a long minute before I remembered that I was still at a crime scene, standing off to one side of the house, behaving as though I was in my own little world when I was really surrounded by people.

I trudged back into the room, picking up where I'd left off with only a cursory glance at Catherine. After a long moment, she called over, "…You wanna grab a beer after work?"

I managed a small smile. She really was a life saver. "…Thanks, Cath."

She flashed me a smile, unaware of a smear of printing dust on her nose, and returned to work… causing me to smirk a little wider and reminding me to do the same.