Thank you all for your wonderful reviews, lets hope I can make it worth it.

April Fools

Sara pressed her palm against her mouth and nose as she sat down on the toilet lid. On the other end of her bathroom's door Grissom stood waiting and she didn't want him to hear her sobs.

She never wanted others to see her cry, to make out the weakness she tried so hard to hide, ever since she was a little girl and had to watch her drunk father use her mother as his punching bag. She didn't even shed a tear when people came to take her away to a foster home after her mother finally snapped one day and stabbed her father to death. She'd rather save all her tears for later and let them flow in the dark, under the sheets, behind closed doors. Her entire life she was always alone in grief.

She remembered her tears in the lab's bathroom the day the pregnancy test confirmed her fears. So, she wasn't late because of the mental distress she was going through as she'd hoped, there was a fetus growing inside her, a new life created out of two people in love and now forever apart. If this had only happened one month earlier when she was still wrapped up in what she thought was the love of her life, she'd be over the moon. But everything had changed since then and her romantic dreams were shattered too soon. Sara was never more terrified and torn.

Her life in the foster system taught her to be adamant that children should only be born when they were wanted and cherished and when they had a family to love them. Not when the father only loved his work and the mother... the mother had grown up with the poorest of family role models to put it mildly.

For more than a week her mind wandered as she sleepwalked between home and work, one day determined to go ahead with the abortion and the next one fantasizing about babies with blue eyes. One night she called him in his office from an untraceable phone just to hear him say 'Grissom' and then hang up. His voice was still music to her ears and it reached down to her belly as she rubbed it with tears in her eyes. No, she couldn't tell him. Not when he wanted nothing to do with her anymore, not when he never called her once since he practically dumped her.

It was only a month ago when he came to see her for what turned to be the last time and she had a feeling something wasn't right. The way he looked at her was so intense, more than his usual heated stare anyway, almost as if he wanted to drink her all in, once and for all but she was too lost in love to imagine anything other than distance troubling him. They could surely talk this out, she was even prepared to quit her job and follow him to Vegas if he only asked. This was the first time she felt so deeply for a man, her love for him consumed her thoughts day and night and even a day away from him was plain misery. Judging from the way he'd run back to her whenever he could she thought he felt the same way.

She was wrong.

While Sara was mesmerized with this new experience of loving someone more than yourself, of wanting to touch him every minute of every day, Grissom felt threatened. Feelings was not something he trusted, only logic and science. 'Feelings can deceive you', he often said and it was already too late when she realized that he meant it. That last night that he made love to her thoroughly and in silence as if she were sacred she knew what was coming. She hated that he didn't have the courage to explain himself to her face rather than kiss her hand with a bow before he turned around and walked away but she never hated him, she couldn't, even though she tried.

When she finally got the courage to go to the doctor she still wasn't sure what she wanted to do. As she sat there in the waiting room in distress, staring at that wonderful silver framed painting of a mother holding her baby gently in her arms she was struck with that expression of pure love so masterfully painted by the artist and she instantly knew that she could love their child enough for both of them, she could be that mother to baby Silver whether it was a boy or a girl.

"Sara, is everything okay?" Grissom knocked at the door.

"Um yeah, just a sec."

Forcing memories out of her mind, she stood up and washed her face as she watched herself in the mirror. She sure wasn't that same romantic woman from all those years ago anymore but she never regretted that decision, not even now when her heart was ripped out by this maniac that she was foolish enough to challenge.

Grissom was thinking Sara was locked up in the bathroom for too long to be really okay when the door opened wide and she sprang outside, almost falling into his arms.

"Ah... sorry," she mumbled, "I'm going to lie down for ten minutes if that's okay with you."

He could see the traces of tears in her cheeks and he knew he should say something to comfort her but words always failed him when they were most needed. Biting the inside of his cheek he asked at last, "can I make something for you to eat?"

"I'm not hungry. But please help yourself." Turning away from him she staggered towards her bedroom and closed the door behind.

Grissom was left standing alone and to fight his awkwardness he walked to the kitchen with the intention of making coffee. They'd surely need some, both of them. A smile broke in his lips when he saw that she still placed her large collection of cups upside down in that same cupboard above the sink and he grabbed the one with Superman with a sigh. That's what they really needed right now, a man with super powers to save the day.

While he was waiting for coffee to brew he took the time to study the changes she'd made in the house. They weren't too many but she must have repainted the walls in lighter colors because everything seemed brighter. There were even more books piled up in various corners of every room and then of course there was Silver's stuff everywhere. Toys, clothes, books, paintings. All the things that a father should know about and he had missed.

A framed photograph in a shelf caught his attention and he held it in his hand to have a closer look. It was a picture of Sara holding the baby in her arms and she looked so happy it was painful to realize this was a moment in the past lost to him forever.

From the moment he learned he was a father a question kept bothering him that he was afraid to answer. What would he have said to her if Sara had told him she was pregnant? Would he panic? Would he run back to her? He honestly didn't know. He never considered he could have his own family one day other than his team of CSIs. On the other hand he never even considered he could love someone as much as he'd loved her and it had scared him to death. Not from the beginning it didn't, their first week together was a charming game of sultry looks and daring touches. Having a beautiful and intelligent woman flirt with him in a forensics conference truly captivated him. They had a wonderful time on their first date when her engaging smile and astute observations over dinner surprised him in the most pleasant of ways. He sought her again the next day and every day after that and they shared more dinners and a dance and a kiss and finally they shared her bed. He remembered how lavishly she gave herself to him even on their very first night together and how gratefully he enjoyed every inch of her body, still not believing that she was for real. When the conference was over and he had to go back to Vegas he considered himself lucky to have experienced a romantic adventure comparable to the ones he could only find in books.

Only it was soon obvious to him that a week with her wasn't enough. He longed to hear her hearty laugh on the phone or read her emails with gruesome details of SFPD case files and referrals to various forensic articles he too enjoyed reading so it wasn't long before he arranged to meet her again. He assumed they would eventually get enough of each other or grow bored or both and then he could relax back to being his lonely self. Only it never happened exactly like that. Every minute and every day he spent with her he was falling deeper, to the point that being with Sara became as essential to him as breath. It really frightened him. This wasn't who he was and besides she would undoubtedly soon get over him and find someone younger, more suitable for a young accomplished woman like her. This shouldn't last long he said to himself but he was tempted to cast these thoughts away for a while.

The only other person he ever told about Sara was his friend Brass who was also his supervisor at the time. 'Falling in love after forty is more dangerous than strapping yourself with explosives', he warned him. Grissom only laughed then, pleasure and joy blinding him to a state of denial but when he started to miss details at work or fall indisposed when she was away, he understood what his friend meant. He couldn't go on living entangled in this passion for long, it wasn't sustainable.

The pain he suffered after their break up caught his breath. He rode roller coasters every day for a month just to muffle his frustration and be able to work. At the time the thought that he'd hurt her as much as he hurt himself never crossed his mind. He simply considered her too young to grieve for some frivolous romance, convinced that she could easily forget him and move on.

He was wrong.

He saw the unbearable sadness in her eyes that day in the park but he still ran away like he was being chased. He didn't even call, afraid that a word from Sara would make him take the first plane back. He was such a coward. No wonder she didn't call to share the news with him after his callous ways. If only she'd known of his inner turmoil and that he never for a minute got over her maybe things would've been different. Brass was the only one he could turn for a crumb of comfort when he was overcome with sorrow and he was the only one in Vegas he told about his son. The detective was equally shocked with the revelation but promised to cover for him and be available for whatever help he might need.

What Grissom really needed though was for time to go back, for a chance to fix things the way they should be, to confess his undying love for her and welcome their baby together.

Letting out a strained breath he tiptoed into the boy's room, which used to be her study when she lived alone. It was painted bright blue now and had pictures of baseball players all over the walls. There was even a baseball glove hanging over the bed and taking it down he slipped his hand inside and lay down on the star printed bedspread facing the ceiling that was covered in glow-in-the-dark stars and planets. In another life he would have been the one trying to stick every piece according to his sky charts and when they'd both make fun of his attention to detail he'd quote Sarah Williams; 'I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night'. There was so much laughter and tears that he had missed that he wondered if he could ever make up for lost time. Because it was what Grissom wanted now more than anything.

As he rose to his feet again, the phone rang, its piercing sound reverberating in the silence and he rushed to answer when Sara barged her way and beat him to it.

TBC