Title: Wash Away

Disclaimer: Same as prior chapter.

Note: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. It is extremely encouraging.

Chapter Two

February, 2006

Sara felt queasy. She had never felt sick at a crime scene. Not like this. She pressed the back of her hand on her mouth and willed her stomach to comply with her mind. She was not going to be sick at a crime scene. She was not. Sweat beaded her brows as she took the last photograph and excused herself to step outside and into the crisp night. Nick watched her go before turning back to process the evidence.

The ill feelings subsided as she leaned her back against the wall of the house and stared up at the stars. The last month had been a trial for her, but she had kept a firm upper lip and pressed on. Grissom had not pursued her, a fact which left her with mixed feelings. There was part of her that wanted him to act like the last ten months meant more to him than physical release. Another part of her was relieved that he was not making her life more confusing than it had already become. She missed him. She missed feeling his strong arms wrapped around her while she slept. She missed feeling him pressed against her long frame, and the whisper of his soft breath in her ear. She would simply have to work harder on not thinking about him.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed away from the wall and returned to help Nick with the crime scene.

February, 2006

"It's not possible," Sara jumped off of the exam room table and shook her head. "I can't be pregnant. I've been on birth control for the past year."

Dr. Elena Wallace stared at her with a sympathetic smile and said with a gentle, yet firm tone she well recognized. "I know it is a shock to you, Sara, but you are pregnant. You of all people should know that birth control is not absolute."

Sara nodded. Yes, she knew that, but it still could not be happening. "How far along?" Mentally she was calculating her last period and was failing to do the simple mathmatics.

"Seven weeks, from the dates you gave me of your last cycle." Dr. Wallace rubbed Saras' upper arm with compassion. "You should schedule an appointment to come back in three weeks. In the meantime you should take a multi vitamin."

"Okay." Sara could not focus her thoughts. It was all she had been able to say in response to Dr. Wallace, and all she had been able to process through her mind since she left the doctors office in a daze.

She entered her apartment and went straight to her bedroom where she pulled off all of her clothes and stared at herself in her full length mirror, turning around in circles as she studied her flat stomach. She could not picture a tiny part of herself and Grissom growing inside of this body. She froze, one hand pressed above the soft line of hair over the spot she knew her uterus was located. A crack appeared in the wall she had been building and she could not help wonder if she had not overheard Grissoms' confession to Catherine would she be standing in his townhouse staring at her body? Would he have been standing behind her, his big hands wrapping around her waist to caress the smooth skin and wonder at the miracle of the life that was going to transform her figure?

In a split second, an impulse made her do something her rational brain would not have allowed. She picked up the phone and pushed one number that would connect her to the man she craved.

"Grissom." The voice on the other end of the phone shook her to the core. She was overcome with that rational side of herself that realized she was making a mistake and was about to slam the phone back down when his next words halted her action.

"Sara? What is it?" Grissoms' voice was crisp and distant.

She wondered for the first time if he was alone.

"I have a question for you, Grissom." Sara kept her voice calm. "If we had stayed together, what direction did you see our lives taking? Did you picture us as a family? With children?"

She could picture his face on the other end of the phone as he pondered her words and probably wondered why she was asking him these questions. They had never spoken so far into the future when they were together, content to simply enjoy being together.

"No, Sara." Grissom said with a firmness that left her with no doubt. "I never pictured us with kids. I've never wanted kids. Why?"

"No reason." Sara hesitated, when she wanted nothing more than to slam the phone down, but she had to ask. "How are you?"

"Fine." Grissom did not elaborate which was nothing new to her, and so she ended the conversation and returned the phone to its cradle. She ran a hand over her abdomen and resolved to wash away the past.

Moving over to her wall calender, she ran an index finger along the dates. Before leaving the doctors office she had asked if they could estimate an exact date of conception and earned a confused look from Dr. Wallace. Placing her hand on the last time she and Grissom had been intimate, she sighed with relief. She had been fearful that the last time they had been together would be the second when this baby had been conceived. If the calculations were correct, then it had been one of the times they made love in the week before that wacko case began. She felt better knowing that this baby had been produced when Grissom was only thinking of one woman, herself. A small victory in a chaotic world where a dominatrix could be thought to be the equal of a brillant entomologist and criminalist.

TBC