Disclaimer: I still don't own them. You'd think after how much I've abused them while they were out on loan CBS would make me pay for them, but no, they insist on holding onto their property. Oh well.

My brother's being mean. He just sent me this quote because he knows I'm working on this story. "Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards." Robert Heinlein. It's actually funny, though.

~*~*~*~*~

"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls."

~M. Cartmill

~*~*~*~*~

"Mr. Grissom?" A light knock at the doorframe the next morning. He looked up and saw a nicely dressed woman at the door. "Are you busy?" she asked, indicating the folders he was going through.

"Nothing that can't wait."

She smiled, a fake just-to-be-appropriate smile, very similar to one that Catherine used a lot if they were working on an investigation. "Is there anything you'd like to discuss?"

"When I'll be leaving and what my care will entail."

She sat beside his bed. "Mr. Grissom, you'll need to discuss that with your doctors. I meant if you'd --"

"You're not a doctor?"

"I am a doctor."

"I don't really have anything to discuss."

"How's your niece?"

"What?"

"One of your nurses noticed some...agitation...after her last visit and brought it to the attention of your doctors."

"So that she wouldn't be allowed back?"

"If that was necessary. They opted to refer the matter to me."

"There is no matter."

"Well, something happened during her last visit."

This was just too surreal. "It was a family issue."

"Well, any stress that might compromise your care needs to be addressed, Mr. Grissom."

"It's done now."

"I need to know what was going on."

"I won't show any more signs of agitation. Scout's honor."

She glared at his sarcasm. "I'm doing my job, Mr. Grissom."

"Me too," he said, and deliberately turned his attention back the folders he was going through.

"If after speaking to your doctors they want me to come back, I will."

"I'll still be here," he said without looking up.

She started to leave, then turned around. "How does it make you feel when someone refuses to help you with an investigation."

"It would bother me, unless I was claiming to investigate their movie collection or something else that was not at all my business."

"I hope I see you again," she said, and left.

"She hardly seemed like she was behaving professionally," Warrick said as he came in the open door. "Feel like a visitor?"

Grissom would have rather Warrick left, but he nodded and closed the folders.

"How are you feeling?" Warrick asked.

"Fine."

"Hear from Sara?"

"She came back last night."

"I'll have to call her. We haven't really had a chance to talk. How is she?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Can you really tell how she's feeling on any given day?"

"Yes. Do you even know she's there on any given day?"

"What the hell, Warrick?" Grissom closed his eyes and leaned back against the pillow. He had not gone to sleep that night, and something about crying more than he was sleeping, with the added pressure of fluorescent lighting, really was hurting his eyes.

"Nothing. Are you okay?"

"Not really," he replied honestly.

"Should I call --"

"It's not physical."

"Oh," Warrick said. "Should I call Catherine?"


Grissom opened his eyes. "What?"

"I don't know," Warrick admitted. "I just thought it."

"I'm going to sleep."

"Okay. Feel better, Grissom."

Grissom nodded and waited for Warrick to leave. He put on a television show about laying hardwood flooring that for some reason had found its home on his beloved Learning Channel, and eventually slept.


~*~*~*~*~

Sara walked into the lobby of the lab and nervously removed her sunglasses.

"Miss Sidle," the receptionist said. You're not allowed --"

"I told her to come," Ecklie said, appearing behind her. "We have to talk." The receptionist nodded and returned to the computer screen.

"Okay," Sara said, wondering why Ecklie filled her with such dread. Maybe because he held her future in the palm of his hand and made no secret of it. She followed him back to his office.

"Welcome back," he said, smiling without any apparent change in his eyes.

"What?"

"There's no evidence linking you to Grissom's attack. Except your role as the jilted lover." Amazing. His eyes still had not changed, but she could see the immense enjoyment he was taking in his personal knowledge of her.

"I don't know what you want," she said quietly in the silence that followed.

"Nothing."

"Then why not just tell me I was reinstated on my answering machine?"

"There's some paperwork." He reached into his briefcase and continued talking. "Really, you should still be suspended. Just because you were cleared in the attack doesn't mean you can't be held accountable for leaving Grissom at the crime scene."

"I'm done feeling guilty for that," she said, refusing to play into his mind games.

He closed the briefcase without taking out her forms. "Sara, one letter from me and you won't be working at any lab in this country. I'll see that every reference that comes to Grissom's desk goes to mine instead. And if you think that a recommendation from the second-best lab in the country won't hurt you, you're wrong."

She stared at him in disbelief as he signed her papers and handed her the top one without making eye contact again.

She barely made it through the office door before starting to sob, but the last thing she was doing was giving Conrad Ecklie the pleasure of seeing that he had made her cry.

~*~*~*~*~

"Sara?" Nick asked with a mixture of nervousness and pleasure when he found her in the locker room that evening.

"Nick! I'm back!" she exclaimed, not realizing how happy this made her until she finally had someone to share it with.

"Congratulations," he said, sitting on the bench beside her and pulling her to his chest for a tight hug. She laughed. "When'd you get home?" he asked when he released her.

"This morning."

"You look great."

"For a former attempted murder suspect?" she asked. "Or do I just normally look bad?"

He looked confused. "I meant that you don't look as washed out as most women do at this point in a pregnancy."

"What?" Her face went white, half with shock and half with anger.

"Now you do," he tried to joke.

"Who told you? Catherine? Or was it him?" Her foot was tapping loudly on the tile floor and in the empty locker room it seemed to echo.

"Catherine. Sara, I'm sorry. I didn't meant to upset you."

"I don't care." She stood up and started to pace. "I really was planning on telling you and Warrick today. I just can't believe that she took it upon herself to tell you," Sara trailed off.

"Don't get too mad at Cath. I asked about you because I've been worried. How far along?"

"Nine weeks now," she said, sitting next to him and starting to calm down.

"Hey, you've got yourself evident fingerprints already. That has to appeal to your sense of humor."

She smiled. "Yeah, that does. And it scares me that you know that."

He shrugged and smiled. "I'm really excited for you. Who's the father?"


Her smile disappeared again. "Three things you never ask a woman, Nick: age, weight, and the father of her unborn child."

"I'm sorry. I'm really messing up tonight." He got up to leave.

"Hey," she said, standing up with him. She made the split-second decision to forget about it. "Nick, we don't look washed out, okay? We glow."

"Of course. Nausea always makes me glow."

She punched him playfully in the arm and followed him to the break room where Catherine was already waiting to hand out the night's assignments.

It felt wonderful to be back.

~*~*~*~*~

Author's notes: Short chapter, I know. But I wanted to write more, and I'm limited on time. Thank you for your beautiful words over the last two days. And I'll try to avoid six-week breaks in the future.

Also, let's all mentally thank my evil AP American history teacher who provided Ecklie's speech the day he threatened to prevent one of the students in my class from ever setting foot on a college campus. "Thank you, Mr. Lowe!"


Also, there is a fanfic writer on this site, pen name Forensiphile, who talked to me while I wrote half of this tonight. So a special thank you there. As well as Holly, who emailed me with a push in the right direction. Sorry if I'm forgetting anyone, my old mail was cleared. Not only could I not do this without help, but I wouldn't bother without the feedback. So a huge thank you to everybody. Good night.

~Amber, April 2, 2002, 12:50 a.m.

Look at the time. Lowe will not be pleased.