"Excuse me, are you new? I haven't seen you before-"

Natalie stopped her cleaning cart next to the receptionist's desk and held out her shiny ID badge. "Yes, ma'am. This is my first shift – I'm Natalie."

The petite woman with glasses beamed at her, barely glancing at the ID. "Welcome to the lab, Natalie. I'm Judy – if you have any questions, just give me a holler, ok?"

Natalie nodded.

"If I could offer you a piece of advice: I'd start with Grissom and Willows' offices as they are the night shift supervisors and will be leaving when you are coming in to clean every morning."

Natalie nodded again and then timidly asked where these offices were located. The bubbly receptionist said Willows office was down the hall, but Grissom's was the large one directly behind them. Natalie thanked Judy and set off with her cart, heading down the hallway, pausing to look at the wall that contained pictures of lab employees. Her eyes easily found the "older" agent who questioned her father about the miniatures and was responsible for his death. In a few seconds, she had memorized every detail of his face as well as his name: Dr. Gil Grissom.

A few photos down was a picture of the brunette who had been with Grissom at the house – the one who had been standing close to him, and had touched his arm in a familiar way. Natalie memorized her face and name as well: Sara Sidle.

"Do you think Gris and Sara will find out anything?"

The sound of approaching voices startled Natalie and she grabbed the handle of her cart, pushing it down the hall, passing a red-haired woman and a black man with spiky hair who were deep in conversation.

"Depends on how close the sisters were – I mean, Alina must have known something about the fosters-"

Natalie pushed the cart into an office and slumped against the wall, her heart pounding. Aunt Alina. That bitch. She hated all of us – well, except for Lionel.

She hadn't thought about Aunt Alina in years – and she hadn't seen the woman since she had assumed legal guardianship of Lionel and moved out of Vegas with him. Things had gotten so much better after that. Dad had finally been able to focus his attention on her, his special girl.

Gil and Sara sat on opposite sides of the sofa and watched Alina bustle around with an almost nervous, frenetic energy. First, she insisted on making tea, even though both of her guests stated they would be fine with water. Then, she disappeared down the hall for a good ten minutes before she reappeared, clutching a large stack of photo albums and loose papers that threatened to topple and fly everywhere.

Sara jumped to her feet. "Let me help you with that-"

She grabbed the top two inches of paperwork and hugged it to her chest as she reclaimed her seat on the sofa, throwing Gil a sideways glance.

"Thanks, dear," Alina huffed. "It took me a minute to assemble all this as I didn't know what would be relevant – so I just grabbed albums and papers-" She plunked a photo album down into Gil's lap. "Start with that one."

He opened the cover and saw pictures of two little girls, Alina and Anabelle, aged five and two. "I think this is a little too far back-"

Alina grabbed the album and rapidly flipped pages until she tapped one and handed it back to him. "This is my sister on her wedding day – I was her maid of honor – I never married, you know."

Sara shook her head. "No, we didn't-"

Alina sucked in a deep breath. "Belle and I lost our parents – car crash – when we were young, I was ten – Belle was only seven. We didn't have any family to take us in, so we grew up in state foster care. Ernie was the boy down the block that was always hanging around our home – he was an only child and I guess he was looking for company. He and Belle became fast friends, then sweethearts, and got married just after high school-"

Gil passed the photo album over to Sara and she caressed the old, worn-out picture. "So young-"

"Too young. I begged my sister to wait a year or two, but she laughed and said life was too short to wait for happiness."

Gil and Sara exchanged a look, each of them wondering what this had to do with foster children, but Alina didn't keep them in suspense for long.

"My sister always wanted a large family, but ten years into her marriage, she and Ernie still didn't have any children. I won't embarrass you with the details, but my sister had medical issues that made it very difficult for her to conceive a child naturally, and they didn't have enough money to pay for alternative methods. So, they began to talk about becoming foster parents – Belle had so much love to give and after being raised in a foster home herself, she knew that there were many children out there who needed a home. Ernie wanted to make Belle happy – and he also wanted children. Both of them talked to me about it, and I remember being excited for them – the plan sounded like a great idea to me – but then, they didn't share the entirety of their plan with me. If they had, I would have counselled them differently."

Gil frowned. "What do you mean – the entirety of their plan?"

Alina sighed. "You don't usually have a choice – children need to be placed and if you are an approved home, the children are put in your house."

Sara nodded. "I'm familiar with how the system works-"

"Are you?"

"Yes, I –" Sara paused and then continued. "I spent some time in the system myself, in California."

Alina started in surprise. "I hope that it wasn't too unpleasant for you. You seem to be a thoughtful, well-adjusted young lady."

Sara smiled faintly. "Thank you."

Gil cleared his throat. "Alina, we still need some clarification. What exactly made you so uncomfortable about their plan to take fosters into their home?"

"They asked for a special request to be put in their file. If there was a child no one else wanted – either for emotional or aggressive reasons – or one that was on their 'last chance' before they were sent to juvie, they asked that the child be sent to their home first. Belle wanted to give the child every opportunity to turn it around. She didn't believe that any child was broken or beyond hope."

Natalie cleaned Willows' office in record time, taking special note of the picture of a preteen girl. It was the only personal effect in the room, aside from the four decorated ducks that were scattered across the top of the desk.

No one noticed as she rolled her cart down the hall and entered Grissom's office, shutting the door behind her. This office was littered with personal effects and yet it still had the sterile environment of a school biology lab. She saw a fetal pig in a glass jar, two jars of beetles, a tarantula in a glass terrarium, and a small jar of dead crickets. Opening the mini-fridge, she counted five bags of blood and wondered what they were for – and who they belonged to. She lifted the bags and read the names, surprised to see that they were the names of Grissom's colleagues. Why would the man have a pint of each of their blood in his fridge? Glancing over her shoulder, she shut the door and got busy cleaning in case anyone was watching.

She dusted the textbooks, taking a mental picture of their titles and position on the shelves. As she worked her way around the office, she came to the side of the room that contained the miniature crime scenes, and her feather duster paused mid-air. Of course, she had seen them the moment she had entered the room, but she had pushed their presence away, not wanting to deal with them until she had to.

Now, as her gloved fingers ran over the glass cases that kept her creations from her touch, she sighed. They really were works of art – and the last things she had built with her dad. She had always enjoyed making miniatures with him, ever since she was a little girl and he had first shown her how to do it. When he had discovered that she had the ability to look at something just one time and then recreate it, he had let her into his world of modeling and miniatures. Whenever she felt one of her blackouts coming on, nothing calmed her like working with her dad on one of his projects. As she got older, she had more say in the creation process until she was making them on her own, with some assistance from him.

But now he was gone. He could never assist her again. Any future creations would have to be hers alone – without her dad's help.

And it was all that CSI's fault – Dr. Gil Grissom.

Silence had fallen over the room after Alina's revelation. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner was the only sound until Sara spoke up a minute later.

"That's a nice ideal to aspire to – believing that there's good inside of everyone-"

Alina snorted. "It's poppycock, and you both know it. In your line of work, I know you see the darkest side of human beings. You can't honestly sit there and tell me that you believe that there's good in everyone, not even children."

Gil shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. Due to the trauma that's been inflicted on them by adults, and other factors, not all children are resilient enough to bounce back. Some of them are – permanently damaged."

"Broken."

Gil nodded sadly. "Yes."

"Those were the kids my sister wanted and took into her home. Not all of them, mind you, but a handful of them were disturbed, mentally unstable, and just plain out of their minds."

"Do you remember any of these kids' names?"

Alina pulled another album from the stack and opened it. "This one has pictures of the kids – at different ages – and most of them have names written by their pictures, first names, anyway. I don't remember last names, sorry. I do know that Ernie and Belle were able to legally adopt about four of them, so they took the last name of Dell, but the others would have kept their original last name."

For the next hour, the three of them poured over the photo album, putting names to the thirteen children who had been present in the birthday video, as well as identifying two others who were at the home around the same time.

"Alina, we can't thank you enough for this information-"

"Now can you tell me why you're here? I mean, Ernie confessed to the killings and he's dead, so why are you here, asking all these questions-"

Gil shot Sara a look before answering. "Just tying up a few loose ends. We need to be sure that Ernie acted alone-"

"You think one of these kids helped him?"

"Is it a possibility?" Sara asked.

"I think it's more likely that one of them did it and he helped them. Ernie would do anything for the chosen ones."

"Even commit murder?" Gil interjected.

Alina pursed her lips. "Well, perhaps not – but cover it up and take the blame? Absolutely."

"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of your brother-in-law," Sara mused.

"Look," Alina sighed. "Ernie loved Belle, and he loved those fosters. When Belle got pregnant five years after they became foster parents, we all thought it was a miracle. Lionel was their miracle baby. Ernie tried to love all his children equally, blood or not. And maybe that was the problem – because Lionel didn't ever feel special, but the fosters did." She cleared her throat. "When Lionel got arrested for drug possession at thirteen, he did a year's probation at juvie and then begged to come live with me. Ernie gave in without a fight, though I know it broke my sister's heart to give up her boy to me. I got legal guardianship of Lionel and he lived with me here until he was eighteen. He's a good boy – still clean, has a steady job."

"Do you think he's in touch with any of the foster kids?"

Alina shook her head. "No. He changed his name and completely broke off all communication with his dad – I managed to get him to call Belle when he lived with me, but when he moved out," she shrugged. "I don't think he's called anyone other than me in years."

"What a sad story."

"Which part?" Sara spoke into her cell's speaker as she drove back to Vegas, Gil dozing in the passenger seat next to her.

"All of it-" Catherine sighed over the open line. "From Alina and Belle being orphaned, to Ernie and Belle fostering damaged children, to Lionel not feeling loved by his parents – makes you think twice, doesn't it?"

Sara snorted. "Yeah, like if I'm really ready to be-" she broke off, biting her lip and glancing to her right to see if Grissom was really asleep.

"Ready to be what?"

"Nothing, Cath. Listen-"

"Don't try and change the subject, girlfriend. Are you and Gil talking about having kids?"

"Shh! You're on speaker and I think he's asleep but-"

Gil grunted. "Like I can sleep with the two of you cackling."

"Oops, you're breaking up, Catherine, – gotta go." Sara pushed 'end' on the phone and reached over to caress Gil's hair. "Hey, sleepy – did you get a nap? We're almost to our exit-"

"Sara, it's ok if you want to talk to another woman about trying to get pregnant."

"Gil Grissom! I'm not talking to anyone about our sex life!"

He chuckled and turned his head, kissing her fingertips. "Honey, you don't have to talk about the sex part. Talk about your fears, your excitement, any reservations you have-"

"I don't have any reservations about having a baby with you, Gil."

"Pull over, Sara."

"Why?"

"Because this is becoming a serious conversation and I don't want you to crash the car while we're talking-"

Sara pursed her lips in annoyance but did as he requested. After parking on the shoulder, she turned to face him.

He laced his fingers through hers. "It would only be natural if you had reservations-"

She closed the distance between them and kissed him, thoroughly and completely. "I don't. It's just – on days like today – hearing Belle's story – being reminded of my own – I want to give our child everything – and protect them from all the evils of the world at the same time. I know that's not possible-"

With his free hand, he cupped her cheek. "No, it's not. All we can do is love him or her-"

"And each other." She sighed and leaned her forehead against his. "I love you."

He smiled into her eyes. "Feel better?"

She nodded.

"Then let's get home before Conrad hears about our road trip today."