As the door closed behind Sara's parents, Grissom leaned against it and gave Sara a wary look. "What was that about?"

A shrug. "No idea. My parents are weird. Just be glad I distracted them when they were interrogating you." With a sigh, she added, "And I'll just be glad they're gone for the moment. I'm too tired to try to protect you."

Grissom was instantly contrite. "I'm sorry, Sara. You don't need to protect me from them, ok? I can deal well with your father. He's a nice guy. Your mother . . ." His voice trailed off as he realized that he didn't have any words to describe her mother.

". . . is the scariest thing you've ever seen?" Sara finished for him, smiling.

"Well, uh . . . quite possibly."

She laughed and reached over to tousle his hair. "Don't worry, I swear she's not really like that. This is the same act she's put on for every boyfriend of mine she's ever met. Well, except for the marriage part – that one's new. She's really a nice person. Honestly," she added, noting his skeptical face.

"If you say so." Still too nervous to try to deal with the thought of Amy Sidle, he quickly asked, "Why don't we try to get some sleep?"

"I can't sleep," Sara groaned, giving him a dark look. "That's why I'm so damn tired. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find in a position even approaching comfortable to sleep in when you've got two feet of stomach protruding in front of you? Can't sleep on my stomach, so I start on my side. Then every time I roll over, I wake up because the baby sends me off balance. Then you wake up, and you get cranky about how I keep waking you up, so then I'm awake worrying about keeping you up, because you need to go to work . . ." She let out a deep sigh, closing her eyes and rubbing them with her fists.

Grissom put an arm around her shoulders comfortingly. "I promise not to get cranky, how about that? You can kick me and prod me all you want. Consider me your human pillow and use my body however you need." He caught the laughing look on Sara's face and turned slightly red. "Not like that! You know what I meant."

"I. Don't. Want. To. Be. Pregnant. Anymore," Sara suddenly announced, punctuating each word with a stomp of her foot, which caused Grissom to back up slightly and almost trip over the dog, who was doing the same thing. "I want to be able to go to sleep like a normal person, I want to be able to sit down and then stand back up under my own power, I want to have emotions that don't swing out of control. I want to be able to do something more useful than putter around the house and try to decorate the baby's room, most of which I have to leave to you anyway because the paint's bad for me, the boxes are too heavy, and my center of gravity's so messed up that I can't even lean over the crib without falling in . . ."

"Three more weeks, Sara. Maybe less. Just keep telling yourself that it'll all be over soon."

"Three weeks is NOT 'soon'! And after those three weeks, I'll be spending more time trying to take care of the baby and get back in shape so I don't fall into the crib even without all the extra weight. If life were fair, you would be the one staying home after she's born, not me. You can putter; I'm sick of it!"

Grissom smiled. "It's open to discussion. Besides, it's only for six weeks, for your health as well as hers, then you're back to light work and the baby's experiencing the horror that is 'Uncle Greg.'" The thought of their child growing up with unusual people like those on his team made Grissom shudder, but he knew that they were lucky to have the opportunity.

"Hmm," Sara sighed. "You better be telling the truth when you say you convinced Mobley about the office, or else you'll have a very cranky wife on your . . ." She stopped, unable to believe what had just come out of her mouth. "A, uh, very cranky Sara on your hands."

Grissom raised an eyebrow. "You said 'wife.'"

"Nuh-uh. Did not!!"

"Yes you did," he said with a small smile. "Lying doesn't become you, Sara. Perhaps it's your subconscious coming through to tell you what you ought to do with my poor self."

"My subconscious is too busy doing other things to think about marriage. It was just a slip of the tongue."

A retort was on his lips when he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Sara hadn't been sleeping well, but until today he hadn't realized just how little sleep she had actually been getting. "Come on, let's go to bed. You look like you're about to drop."

"Gee, thanks for the compliment," she huffed. Shooting him a suspicious look, she asked, "You're stepping down from an opportunity to bother me? And that fast?" She put a hand to his forehead. "Do you have a fever?"

Grissom shrugged and pulled her hand away from his face to hold it in his. Rubbing a finger over her bare knuckles, he said quietly, "I'm more concerned about your well-being than about your ring finger right now, but I reserve the right to re-open the topic when you're not so tired."

"Yeah," Sara said with a snort. "Like twenty years from now when the kid's in college?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of tonight when I get you alone." College, he thought suddenly . . . wow. In all his reflections about their child, he'd never thought beyond the baby's infancy. They were going to be raising a real person. Wow, again.

"Gris?" Sara waved a hand in front of his face. "You're drifting again. Come on, I'll try to sleep just to make you happy."