Four days later, on a Thursday night at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, Grissom finished telling his crew that nothing had come in yet. This was the second night of nothing and most of Gil's paperwork had been finished. He did however have some projects he wanted to work on and so told everyone to catch up on some of the old and still open cases and he would let them know immediately if anything came in. Grissom hadn't told them yet about Sara and Laredo like he planned earlier in the week. He thought about doing it now, but decided not to. He had called Sara last night and they had talked for two hours including Laredo.
He walked out of the break room and headed down to his office and was followed shortly after by Nick and Warrick as they headed to the labs. Grissom, with his head down as he read a file in his hands, reached the corner and stopped as he saw something in it of interest.
"Daddy!
Grissom's head popped up with alarming speed and then Nick and Warrick watched in stunned amazement as the papers Grissom had been holding fluttered to the ground. He dropped to one knee and cried out "Cricket!" Scooping up the curly haired little girl, he stood and swung her around with her legs dangling in the air. She giggled loudly.
Nick and Warrick rubbed their eyes as they stared at the sight before them. Their faces were a sight to behold. Nick's mouth was open as if he was a black hole sucking in the air along with everything else around him. Warrick on the other hand leaned against one of the hallway's walls and nearly sank to the floor. He looked like he had just been told a terrible secret and couldn't take the news. Neither of them knew what to make of this and weren't sure if they heard correctly. Daddy? They looked at each other both with their mouths open and shook their heads.
Catherine had just taken a sip of her coffee when she heard the commotion in the hallway. She stepped out after setting her coffee cup down and then peered down the hallway. She was amazed at the sight before her. She saw the speechless Nick and Warrick and then past them was Grissom smiling like the morning sunshine as he held an adorable little girl in his arms. Just as she started to walk down to them, she caught sight of Sara coming past the corner of the wall and walked up to Grissom. He pulled her into his arms and then gave her the most tender kiss she had ever been witness too. Damn, they're quick.
She walked quietly up to Nick and Warrick and saw the expression on Nick's face. She patted him on the back with compassion and then gently put her finger under his chin and pushed his mouth closed as she said, "Don't take all the air, Nicky." And then she winked at him and Warrick and made her way to Grissom, Laredo and Sara as she said, "Two days, just two days and look at you two. And your not even married yet." She grinned when they turned to look at her.
Sara gently pulled out of Grissom's bear hug and greeted Catherine with a hug and with tears glimmering in her eyes. She pulled away from her and said, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it. You two needed a good shove in the right direction." Catherine smiled at her and then hugged her again. "Umm you might want to say something to those two behind us before they start thinking they're in dream land."
Sara looked over and past Catherine's shoulder, as did Grissom who had transferred Laredo into his other arm. Sara walked over to Nick and Warrick and gave them each a big hug. Grissom made his way over as well, followed closely by Catherine. He looked at both of the men and smiled then turned to Laredo and said, "Laredo, say hi to Uncle Nicky and Uncle Warrick."
Laredo released her thumb from her mouth with a loud pop to stretch out her hand to shake with them. "Hi Uncle Nicky and Uncle Wark."
Everyone laughed at her pronunciation of Warrick's name and she smiled too knowing they were laughing at what she said. Nick and Warrick each took turns shaking her hand and said at the same time, "Nice to meet you Laredo."
Nick had questions galore but only one that was really important. He turned to Sara and then to Grissom and asked, "She called you Daddy?"
Grissom nodded as he gave affirmation of the question. "Yes, she is my daughter. No, I didn't know until recently." He said the last in a lower voice as he looked over at Sara.
Sara smiled up at him and then turned to Nick and Warrick and said, "It's a long story."
Laredo then spoke up as she pointed at Catherine. "Who's that?"
"That's Catherine, Cricket. Tell her hi." Sara encouraged Laredo.
"Hi, Catrin." Laredo said as she also held out her hand to Catherine to shake.
Catherine said, "Hello, Laredo. You're as cute as a bug." And that caused Laredo to giggle and then make a large O with her mouth and bounce in Grissom's arms.
"Daddy, can I see your bugs?" Everyone laughed. Like father like daughter.
"You really want to see them now don't you? Okay, let's all go down there." Grissom and Sara both turned to go to his office and Catherine, Nick and Warrick followed. When they reached his office, Laredo's eyes grew to twice their size as she tried to take in all the views. She then saw the aquarium with one of his tarantula's in it. She started squirming in Grissom's arms and he put her down on the floor. She pointed up at it as she asked, "Can I touch it?"
Catherine, Nick and Warrick all wore the same expressions of incredulity on their faces. This little girl was definitely her father's daughter and she had him wrapped around her little finger.
Sara stood back a little from everyone and pulled out a camera. She wanted to get a shot of Laredo and Grissom with one of his bugs in it. Grissom had removed the top on the aquarium, pulling out his pet and then knelt down to Laredo's height. "Okay, you can't touch him but how about I put him on your hand?" Laredo nodded at him and removed her thumb from her mouth that she had started sucking on again as she watched her daddy pull out the large spider. She held out her other hand and he smoothed it out and told her not to bunch it up or it would hurt the spider. She nodded again in understanding. Grissom then laid the spider in her palm and she couldn't help but giggle at the sensation. Then a bright light went off as Sara took the picture. Grissom looked up at her and smiled. Laredo just stared at the spider so Sara had been able to capture her awe filled look as she held it in her hand, but then she started to shift her feet and coo at it with her big O mouth as it started to climb up her arm. Grissom started to chuckle at his daughter, 'she's not scared at all'.
"Daddy, pretty spider." Laredo said as she took her thumb out of her mouth and pointed at it, as it reached her shoulder. Grissom decided to pick it back up before she started to get too tickled by it and then cause it to get anxious, but he held it so she could look at it some more.
"Sara, she's adorable. How old is she?" Nicky asked as he kept his eyes on the little angel.
"She's three and a half." Sara walked forward and picked Laredo up. "Laredo, how old are you?" Laredo put up her hand with three fingers sticking up in the air. "She's exceptionally smart, but then I'm biased. Gil, it's getting late, I should head home and get her into bed. I just wanted to stop in because she couldn't wait to see you."
"Umm, well, I, umm." Gil Grissom was seen for the first time stuttering. Nick and Warrick broke out into grins and then left the office to give the two of them some privacy. Sara had turned around to look at him as Catherine finally noticed that the boys had left so she did too.
Sara gave him her look.
After he saw that the others had left he stopped stuttering. "I was thinking that since you're going to have a lot of stuff in your apartment to move around and such that maybe you would want to stay with me until we get your place reorganized."
Sara smiled, reaching out to his face to gently stroke his cheek. "I like that idea. But where will Laredo sleep? With us?"
"She could, but I also have the second bedroom." Grissom wanted to get her over to his place soon and hoped that she would. "That way she can see me and the bugs at my place."
Laredo heard him when he said he had bugs at his place and she started wriggling in her mother's arms. "Bugs. I wanna see more bugs." It was Sara's turn to giggle as she looked at the expression on her daughter's face.
"Alright, we can stay with Daddy but you have to promise me that right after you see the bugs, you are going to go to sleep. Okay?" Laredo nodded at her mother's words.
"I need to feed the ones here in the office first and then we can drive over together if you want," Grissom said as he puttered around his office. He pulled out a jar of crickets and put one down for the tarantula to ingest inside the open topped terrarium on his desk. Laredo watched with her thumb in her mouth as always, and took it all in. When the tarantula moved over the insect and started to devour it, Laredo squirmed until Sara put her down.
Grissom came around his desk and pulled Sara into a hug and then leaned back away from her to look into her face. "Thank you. I've been waiting all week for you to get here so I could ask you to stay with me. I have Saturday off so we can work on getting everything unpacked."
"Well thank you too. I didn't even think about how messy it would be at the apartment with the furniture moved. This will be a lot better." She traced the outline of his face with her fingers as she spoke. "You do realize though, that Laredo will be sleeping with us? She isn't going to want to sleep alone in a new place."
"That's alright, cause we weren't going to be doing anything but sleeping anyway." He winked at her knowing where her thoughts were leading.
During their discussion, they lost track of time and lost track of what their precious little daughter was doing. Laredo stood still as she watched the spider eat and then decided she liked it too much to leave here in the office. So she got up on the chair and mimicked her father's movements as she picked up the spider. She slowly and quietly got off the chair, putting the spider in the knapsack that her mother had been carrying earlier. She knew that Mommy or Daddy would take it home and when they did she would take the spider out, feed it and put it in a safe place so she could watch it.