Title: Returning Home

Author: Elizabeth Kelly

Rating: PG-13 (T)

Disclaimer: CSI, its plot and characters, belong to CBS Worldwide Inc., and Alliance Atlantis Productions.

Summary: GSR - What if something you thought was lost forever, returned home?

Chapter Nine

White and grey; everything was white and grey. The sheets, the walls, the ceiling, the furnishings, everything. She could faintly smell disinfectant and lemons. She looked around the room she was in. It was definitely not her room; this room gave her a sense of hope. Maybe she could get away from him after all. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning to see the door open, she studied her visitor.

She had slightly curly strawberry-blonde hair, cut in the latest fashion. She was dressed in a navy-blue pants suit, and she looked friendly. That was a good sign. The woman approached the bed, and took a seat on the chair provided. She waved, before holding up a pad of paper.

'Hi Maddie, my name is Catherine,' it said. The girl in the bed raised her eyebrows, and pulled down the oxygen mask attached to her face.

"You know my name?" she asked in a soft voice, Catherine struggled to hear. Catherine nodded, and then scribbled something down on the pad of paper.

'I know your parents.' Maddie looked up at Catherine, tears forming in her eyes.

"Really?" Catherine nodded again, a smile creeping across her face.

'Everyone has been so worried about you.' Maddie smiled a little.

"Do you know where Emily is?" she asked, before covering her mouth to cough. Catherine wrote another answer and then showed it to Maddie.

'She's with her parents, she helped us find you,' Relief flowed through Maddie's body.

"What about 'Father'?"

'He's being questioned,' Maddie smiled as the tears ran down her face.

"It's really over?" she asked hopefully. Catherine smiled.

'It's really over,' she replied via the paper. Catherine scribbled out another note.

'Why don't you get some rest? Your Mom and Dad will be here soon.' Maddie nodded and for the first time in five years she fell asleep with a smile on her face.

Catherine, pulled the blankets up to her shoulders, and gently placed the oxygen mask back down on her face. Tenderly she pushed one of Maddie's curls back behind her ear, and watched as Maddie slept. She had hair as dark and as curly as her mother's, but her bright blue eyes were all her father's. She had dimples on her cheeks, just like Grissom's, yet she was growing up to look just like Sara. Catherine smiled before turning and leaving the room.

Grissom and Sara arrived at Riverview County Hospital, as soon as they possibly could. Jumping out of the squad car that had driven them there from the local airstrip, they raced into the waiting room to see Agent Charlton and Catherine standing, talking to two other women.

"Andrew!" Sara cried, causing them to turn around, and ran over to Andrew, throwing herself at him. Andrew relaxed after the initial shock and put his arms around her, holding her tightly to him.

"Sara," he whispered softly into her hair.

Catherine's eyebrows rose.Looking up, Andrew held out his hand as Grissom approached. "Gil," he greeted, shaking his hand as best he could with Sara still attached.

"Andrew, it's good to see you again," Grissom replied politely.

Sara pulled away from Andrew, her face tear stained.

"Thank you," she whispered. He wiped another tear from her cheek.

"Your welcome, baby-girl, but I had a lot of help," he replied indicating to Catherine next to him. Sara turned to face her before pulling her into a hug. Catherine, in a mild state of shock didn't move.

"Thank you, Catherine. For everything." Catherine smiled and hugged Sara back.

"Your welcome."

"Can we see Maddie now?" she asked stepping away from Catherine, and back towards Grissom.

"First we need you to talk to Drs Winters and Evans," Andrew answered.

Sara and Grissom turned and greeted the two other women for the first time.

"Hi, I'm Dr Winters I treated your daughter, when she was brought into the hospital," Peggy introduced herself.

"Is she going to be ok?" Grissom asked.

"Physically she will be fine. She has had a very bad case of influenza, but we have her on strong antibiotics that appear to be working she was also malnourished and dehydrated. I would like to keep her here for a few days, for observation."

"Any physical scarring?" Sara asked. Dr Winters shook her head.

"She has a couple of recent bruises, and a cut along her hand that required stitches, but there are no signs of long-term physical abuse."

"How about psychological?" Grissom asked.

"That you be my department," the other woman spoke up.

"I'm Dr Evans, I'm a psychologist. I had a brief talk with your daughter when she first woke up. She appears a little shaken, but for the moment she seems fine."

"For the moment?" Sara asked.

"Mrs Grissom, your daughter has been though what I believe to be five years of emotional abuse. At the moment, she appears fine, but the brain works in strange ways. Initially she may be fine, but she will probably experience nightmares, see things that trigger bad memories. She may never fully recover from this experience." Sara choked on a sob, and Grissom's arm wound around her pulling her to him.

"I believe that she will need to see a psychologist on a regular basis when you take her back to Vegas, preferably one with experience in trauma. You will have to comfort her, without smothering her. You need to rely on her to tell you what does and doesn't make her comfortable. You also need to remember that she is no longer six years old. She's eleven. She won't remember a lot about you, you are going to need to have patience. The main thing is don't push her to talk about what happened. When she is ready, she will tell you." Sara and Grissom nodded.

"Anything else Doctors?" Grissom asked them both. They shook their heads in reply.

"Can we see her now?" Sara asked.

"Just this way," Dr Winters replied, indicating for Grissom and Sara to follow her.

When they had left, Catherine turned to look at Andrew.

"You seem to know Sara very well," she said, accusingly. Andrew turned to look at her a frown forming across his face.

"I worked her daughter's disappearance. I talked to her at least once a month on the phone and twice a year she would come to my office and see me in person," he explained, sitting down on one of the hospital chairs.

"Why?"

"What?"

"Why did she come to your office?"

"We would go through all the evidence again, together. It was Sara's way of coping. I wasn't going to stop her from searching for her daughter."

"She seems to really trust you, and like you," Catherine pushed.

"It's not like that," he replied quietly.

"It's not like it hasn't happened. The mother of a little kid goes missing; she falls for the guy trying to find her child. She sees him as the hero."

"It's really not like that," he replied stiffly.

"Then what is it like?" she continued pushing. "How come she seems so open with you when she isn't with everyone else?" Andrew sat in the chair glaring at Catherine for a few moments, before looking away and taking a deep breath.

"I've got to get back to the station and talk to Isaacs," he said getting up and leaving, before Catherine could say another word.

She was sleeping when they entered the room. Sara reached for Grissom's hand, in order to stop herself from throwing herself at the girl in the bed. Little did she know that he was having the same compulsion. As though she sensed the movement in her room, the girl woke up. She blinked a few times trying to focus her eyes, when they did her heart skipped a beat as her eyes become clouded with tears. It became too much for Sara, who ran to the bed and took Maddie in her arms, Grissom was not far behind her.

They sat there in a three way hug for what seemed like forever. When they broke apart it was obvious that all three had been crying. Sara placed a kiss on Maddie's forehead.

'You look so beautiful,' Grissom signed to her.

'Thank you' Maddie signed back, blushing.

'I missed you so much,' Sara joined in.

'I missed you both too.'

'I love you,' Sara and Grissom signed simultaneously. Maddie giggled.

'I love you both too,' she replied.

Grissom sat back as he watched Sara and Maddie converse with each other, hands flying frantically. This was his second chance, and seeing his two girls there together gave him the motivation to get everything right. He knew it was going to take a long time, but he felt confident that they would pull through this together.

Later when Maddie had fallen asleep, Grissom sat on the edge of the bed, Sara sat just in front of him, leaning back so that she rested on him. Grissom was lightly stroking her arm.

"She looks so grown up," Sara whispered in awe.

"Yeah she does," Grissom agreed.

"She looks so beautiful."

"She looks like her mother." Sara smiled, softly.

"It's going to be a tough few years."

"I think even though it will take time, eventually everything will be alright again," he commented quietly.

"What makes you say that?" she asked, moving her head so that it sat in the hollow between his shoulder and his neck.

"T.S. Eliot," he replied.

"And what did T.S. Eliot say to make you think that?" she asked, curiously.

"'What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from,'" He paused. "This is the end of our old lives, now it is time for us to start our new lives."

"Together?" she asked, softly.

"If that's what you want."

"I don't know, Grissom," she replied hesitantly.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I don't know it just feels like you want everything to go back to the way it was. But I can't just play 'Happy Families'," she replied.

"I know things can't go back to the way they were before." Sara pulled away from Grissom and turned on the bed to face him.

"Do you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Do you really, because Grissom you've been ignoring me for the last three years, now all of a sudden, Maddie returns and you tell me that you want us to be together," she paused and looked into his eyes. "Do you see where I'm coming from?" she asked.

"I wasn't ignoring you," he replied quietly.

"Grissom we didn't work together for months, you haven't talked to me for months. If it hadn't of been for my DUI, we wouldn't even be talking now," the angrier she got, the louder she became. "You didn't even tell me about your surgery a year ago. I had to work it out for myself." Grissom took a hold of Sara's arm and led her out of the room.

"Hey! What are you doing?" she questioned, as the door came to a close behind her.

"I didn't want our daughter to wake to see us fighting," Grissom replied. Sara took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

"I'm sorry," he apologized.

"Are you really? For the last four years you've been treating me like a yo-yo. I don't know where I stand with you. I know we took a break from each other and everything, but when you called me back to Vegas, I thought you wanted to start again. I thought you wanted to give us another try, and for the first year or so I thought we were. Then it was like you didn't want to know me. That hurt, a lot."

"Sara, I though we were giving it another try and the next thing I know, you're dating Hank," Grissom spit his name out with disgust.

"Hank and I never dated. We went to the movies, had dinner, we were friends. You were the one who told me to get a life outside of the lab, so I thought the best way to do that would be to make friends outside of the lab."

"Come on Sara, you're this beautiful woman and he was this younger, better looking guy are you really trying to tell me that you didn't sleep with him?" he accused.

"No Grissom, I didn't sleep with him. We kissed a couple of times, but I stopped it before it went too far. It wasn't what I wanted from that relationship. It turns out it was for the best anyway, he already had another girlfriend. Besides, I wasn't the one who slept with the dominatrix," she retorted.

"That was a regrettable mistake. I was upset about you and Hank. Afterwards, I wished I had taken up Jim's idea and gotten the sports car."

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, as both tried to calm down so as not to start a full scale feud in the hospital corridor.

"Why didn't you tell me about your hearing?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly.

"Of all the things to keep from me, that shouldn't have been one of them."

"Sara you weren't a part of my life at the time, so I just didn't think it was necessary," he tried to explain.

"Grissom!" she yelled causing the nurse passing by to 'shhh' her. "You were the father of my baby girl and you were my husband, don't you think that I deserved to know what was going on with you?"

Catherine, who had heard the yelling from the waiting room and had come to see what was going on, froze when she heard the word 'husband'. So they were married, she thought. Stopping around the corner, she listened to what they were saying.

"I'm sorry Sara, you're right I should have told you, but I didn't. I didn't want to burden you with the knowledge that I was going deaf."

"The funny thing is, Grissom, what upsets me isn't the fact that you think that your health and well being isn'tmy main concern.What upsets me is that you seemed to think that I wouldn't figure it out for myself," she paused, before continuing in a voice much softer than before. "I'm an investigator, trained by one of the best investigators in America. You taught me how to read people, and I've been reading you for the last twelve years. I know you, Gil. I can read you better than anyone else in the world. You can't hide things from me." Grissom glanced into her eyes, then looked at the ground, trying to think of what to say.

"I'm sorry Sara," he whispered. "I'm sorry I screwed everything up. I'm sorry I pushed you away. I don't understand why I was pushing you away, I've tried coming up with an answer, but my mind goes blank. Maybe I was convinced that I would lose you too, so I prepared myself for the inevitable. Or maybe I thought that I had driven you away, when you went back to San Francisco, so I pushed you away to save you from me. Or maybe I thought that you had left me and when you came back I built up walls protecting myself from you. I just don't know, Sara."

He slumped back against the wall, his face in his hands.

Sara reached over and lowered his hands. She tilted his head so that he would meet her eyes.

"Gil, you never did and you never will lose me. I'm yours forever," she replied. Grissom smiled a small smile, which Sara returned. Taking her hands into his he squeezed them lightly.

"I know that things won't ever be the same again. But I don't want them to be the same; I want to make everything better than what it was. I want us to be a family, and I know that having Maddie back with us isn't going to make everything right again. But I swear to you that I am going to work hard at this. I love you Sara, I've loved you for so long, and I love our daughter and I've missed you so much."

Sara remained quiet, her head hanging down.

"Sara?" he questioned, hesitantly.

"Just when I thought that I couldn't cry anymore," she said lifting her head up and wiping away the fresh tears that were falling down her face. "I feel like such a girl!" Grissom smiled, and looked at her waiting for her answer.

"If we're going to do this we need to have a long talk and we need to take things slowly. I don't think I could handle things going too fast. But most importantly, Maddie doesn't need to deal with our relationship problems as well as her own nightmares. Don't you think?" Grissom smiled, relief washing over him.

"Absolutely, I couldn't agree more," Grissom answered. Smiling, Sara stepped into his arms for a hug. Grissom bent forward and kissed the top of her head.

"I love you Sara," he whispered, pulling her closer to him.

"I love you too, Gil, and I've missed you like crazy!" Grissom chuckled as he leaned down and captured her lips with his.

Catherine couldn't remain hidden any longer. She was very proud of herself for waiting until now to reveal her hiding spot. But the relative silence was getting to her.

"You were married?" she cried, causing the nursing staff to frown at her and Sara and Grissom to break apart. They turned to see her standing at the corner.

"What do you mean were?" Grissom asked, tilting his head to the side. He and Sara seemed to be wearing matching amused grins.

"What?" she yelled in disbelief, causing Sara to burst into a fit of giggles.

A/N: For the purposes of this story both Sara and Maddie can sign. My reasoning is that Grissom would have taught both of them sign language so that they could communicate with his mother. And just in case you think that now they have found Maddie (and each other), they live happily ever after; we're not at the end just yet. That's just a little too unrealistic don't you think?

This chapter goes out to all the GS Shippers! I got this chapter out so fast, because you were all so good. Well, that and I just seemed to be on a roll. The next chapter will take a little longer. Sorry!

Also, thank you for all the wonderful reviews. I appreciate all the feedback you give me, and I do take it into account when I am writing, so thank you very much.