They transferred Laredo's car seat into Grissom's Tahoe and then drove to the restaurant. Grissom called ahead to let the others know they were running a little late. After they arrived, they easily located the group at a large semi-circular booth. Nick and Warrick got out and let Sara, Grissom and Laredo have the one side of the booth while the others took the back of the booth and the other side. Sara scooted in toward the middle and Laredo was positioned between her and Grissom. All this time, Greg sat and stared at Laredo. There was no doubt in his mind that she was Grissom's daughter. While Greg watched her, Sara watched him.
Everyone was surprised to hear Laredo say hi to Uncle Nicky, Uncle Wark and Aunt Catrin. She remembered their names and who they belonged to. Then she looked at Greg and didn't know who he was so she looked at her Mommy and as she pointed at Greg, asking, "Who's that?"
"That's Uncle Greg." Sara replied to her and then watched as her daughter leaned across the table with her hand out.
Greg took it and gingerly shook with her and said hi to her too. Then she sat back with her knees up and thumb in her mouth again. Greg smiled. She's adorable.
"So, Gris, did you find what you were looking for this morning?" Catherine asked as she glanced down at Laredo.
Grissom smiled as he also glanced to look at his daughter. "Yes I did. The spider was at my place."
Laredo looked up at her Daddy when he spoke and responded to his statement, "Daddy's spider is in my room."
Catherine chuckled and everyone else laughed. "Tell us what happened, Gris."
He filled them in but was interrupted part way through by the waitress to take their orders. After she left, Grissom continued his story telling of his daughter's escapades the night before and that morning.
Warrick sat back after listening to Grissom and smiled. "Laredo, you are just too smart for your own good. You know that don't you?"
Laredo's thumb popped out of her mouth as she replied, "Yep!" She said it so assuredly that Greg almost spit out the drink of water he had just taken. Then Laredo leaned up to her Daddy and quietly said, "Daddy, I gotta go potty." Grissom heard very well what she said and knew that his daughter wanted him to take her.
Sara heard it also and was about to intervene when Grissom shook his head toward her and then gently grabbed his daughter by the hand and led her off to the restroom. The others just stared after them.
Catherine winked at Sara and flashed her a knowing smile. Sara's feelings were clearly visible on her face. She was ecstatic, dumbfounded and awestruck all in the same expression.
As Grissom and Laredo stepped back out of the restroom, they were stopped by a familiar voice in a booth just down from where they'd been sitting. "Grissom is that your niece?"
Grissom turned toward the voice and saw Ecklie leaning on the table with a cup of coffee in his hand.
"Hello, Ecklie. Aren't you supposed to be at work or is this your day off?" Grissom responded.
"No, it's my day off. So, who is the little girl clinging to you?" he asked again. He considered the thought that maybe Grissom was hedging and didn't want to tell him.
"This here is Laredo. Laredo that man is Conrad." Grissom introduced them and then let go of Laredo's hand as he anticipated her movements. Laredo took her thumb out of her mouth and reached forward to shake his hand.
Ecklie's face betrayed the shock he felt. He reached out and grasped her hand softly and then they shook as Laredo greeted him, "Hello, Conrad." She pulled her hand back and grabbed onto Grissom hand again then promptly replaced her thumb in her mouth. She continued to stare at the new man even as Ecklie's face turned back up to Grissom.
"Uh, Grissom, is she related to you? She kind of resembles you in a way." Ecklie looked back down at Laredo, studying her to determine if his judgment was correct.
"She is Conrad, Laredo is my daughter and before you say anything else, no, I didn't know until about a week and a half ago." Grissom clipped his words conveying that he didn't want to argue with him.
"Wow, your daughter. I bet that was quite a shock. How does Sara feel about this? Or does she even know?" Ecklie asked congenially rather than with his normal sneering or belligerence.
Grissom wasn't sure how to respond to that without getting mad and with Laredo there that wasn't an option. However his attempt at speech was abruptly interrupted by an addition to the conversation. "I'm fine with it, Ecklie, especially since she is my daughter as well." Sara interjected as she stepped up to Grissom and Laredo's side. Laredo turned to her and reached up for her to pick her up, "Mommy." Sara leaned down to tell her to run back down to their booth and wait with Aunt Catherine. She watched protectively as her daughter ran down directly to the booth.
"Are you going to create a problem in regard to this Ecklie?" she asked, standing with her arms crossed over her chest.
Ecklie leaned back against his seat and smiled up at her and Grissom, "Laredo is a darling. You two have been pining around the lab for each other so much it started to get annoying." He caught them off guard and knew it. He pulled out his wallet and placed some money on the table then stood and faced them at eye level. "As long as your private lives don't interfere with your work or especially mine, why should I care? I just hope things work out for the both of you because it would be nice to see someone have a workable private life outside of the lab. It doesn't happen very often." He nodded at them both and then walked off leaving them in stunned silence.
Conrad Ecklie grinned as he approached the booth that held the rest of the nightshift team with Laredo. To complete everyone's surprise, he waved and made a cutesy face at Laredo. She did the same but yelled out, "Bye, Conrad." He smiled to himself and then walked out of the restaurant again leaving them in complete astonishment.
Grissom and Sara arrived back at the table after regaining their composure.
Catherine looked at both of them as well as the others and asked, "Does anyone know what happened to our Ecklie? I swear to God that was not him in that body."
Warrick directed a question to Grissom. "What happened down there? What was said?"
Grissom shook his head and then repeated the conversation up to Sara's entrance and then Sara finished the story. There wasn't anything to say, they were all too stunned by his actions.
Catherine broke the silence and directed the conversation to another subject. "Do you need help today at your apartment? Eddie is picking up Lindsay after school so I can help out if you need it."
They guys also offered to help and so it was decided that after they finished eating they would head over to her apartment and help rearrange the furniture to make room for the items being brought down the next day.
The waitress arrived with their food and then after she left, the conversation turned quiet as everyone dug into their meals. Laredo had changed position as everyone had been talking and now knelt up against the table and reached for more syrup to put on her dollar pancakes. Grissom reached out and snagged the syrup before she did and then poured some for her. It all happened absentmindedly as he began to discuss the move. It didn't however go unnoticed by the others and you could see multiple smirks around the table. He was a natural born father.
After breakfast was over they headed out to Sara's apartment and took a look around the rooms. Nick and Warrick listened to Sara as she described where she wanted the furniture placed in the living room as well as the furniture that currently occupied the second bedroom. Grissom and Catherine stood back and listened as well, but talked softly between them as Grissom described Sara and Laredo's reactions to the renovation of his second bedroom.
Laredo had found a perch for herself on the coffee table but didn't go unnoticed as Greg walked over and squatted down in front of her. "So, Laredo, you like bugs, huh?" He asked in a teasingly, quiet voice. Laredo, with her permanent filler for her mouth in its place, nodded and grinned. "How about we let the big guys help Mommy and you and I can go hunt some of those bugs outside and see what we can find. You want to do that?"
Laredo nodded eagerly, popping her thumb out of her mouth and said, "Yes. Let's find bugs." So she grabbed Greg's hand and pulled him to the door.
A little later as Nick and Warrick were moving the computer and other electronic items out of the second room, Sara took note of the two missing people. "Where is Greg and Laredo?" She looked around the living room at those present.
Catherine looked around and then remembered. "Wait, I think I saw Laredo pulling Greg toward the door. She probably wanted to go outside."
Grissom and Sara looked at each other and grinned as it registered. "Bugs," they both said. Everyone softly chuckled and then went back to the work at hand.
Elsewhere, Greg and Laredo would've been found at that given moment lying on the grass in the common area of the apartment complex as they watched a community of ants working around their mound. All Greg could do was stare at the little girl that was such an uncanny mixture of Sara and Grissom. He sighed in surrender. It seemed that Grissom and Sara were destined to be together and he would have to live with it. He remembered seeing them enter at the restaurant and how he thought they looked like a truly well founded family. They weren't though and if it meant their happiness for them to be just that, he would do everything in his power to ensure they got it.
A couple of hours later, Laredo and Greg walked back in to a totally different looking apartment. He held Laredo's hand until Sara caught sight of them and squatted down as her daughter ran to her. "Did you have fun outside with Uncle Greg?"
"Yep, we found bugs. Ants working on their home." Laredo beamed and was wildly animated as she tried, in her small amount of vocabulary, to describe them. "There was a butterf'y too and a kitty tried to catch it but missed when it flew up high." The look on her face was filled with awe as she talked. Sara tried to smooth her hair down as it had come out of the barrettes from her activity out side. She had so many curls that they seemed to just go everywhere.
"Well, you must have had fun. You got dirt all over you." Sara smiled at her as she considered how much fun she must have had. "We need to get you cleaned up and in some clean clothes, Cricket." Sara poked her in her tummy and set her off giggling.
"Why don't we all head over to my place so you can take care of her and we can just sit and relax maybe have a couple beers or something? We could grill out if everyone is up for it." Grissom looked at each member of his team to see if anyone didn't want to do that then he again looked at Sara. "Did you bring any of those videos or pictures with you?"
"Yes I did. We could watch them this afternoon if anyone wants to." Sara grinned at Grissom's suggestion. He was becoming a great father. Everyone grabbed whatever they had brought with them, if anything, and then they headed over to Grissom's for lunch and possibly dinner, to watch videos.