Chapter 2

As Cybro pointed out this is OC. Thanks to Cybrokat and Danese for the great beta work.

Thandie

It was very jarring at first. Okay that's an understatement. It was basically earth shattering to find out that Jonathan Goodman was not my natural father. Thank God that he'd not lived to see that revelation. Sometimes I wonder if Mom even knew but I doubt it. Jonathan did look a bit like Gil.

The otosclerosis appeared after Jonathan had been born. I'd had the operation and not thought much else about it.. Between that and the newborn I'd not had time to think about the genetic component of the disease.

My mother's death sent me spinning in another direction. Less than six months after mother's husband, my first father, died she'd been diagnosed. She lived four months after her diagnosis and I always thought she would have fought harder if Dad had been alive.

Dad. I call Gil that sometimes but it doesn't seem right I don't think I could call them both Dad. I have been thinking about Pop or Daddy but none of them seem to fit Gil, just like they wouldn't have fit the man who raised me.

Gil, now there was a shocker. There I was with a toddler, still reeling from the shock of my parents' death when my husband decided that he couldn't handle the responsibility. I don't know what I expected when I went looking for Gil. Maybe just a connection of some kind. Someone left that was my own-what? I certainly didn't expect him to whisk me to Vegas, but I will be eternally grateful that he did. Maybe that's not true. Maybe I was just a little girl looking for her daddy.

I didn't know what to make of him at first. One could tell that he kept to his own council. He didn't seem to have many friends at first. Later I realized that his team was his friends and family. I didn't ask or push as to why I'd never met them. I can imagine a grown daughter and a grandson would be hard to explain and Gil was still trying to reconcile all that for himself. Not that I was up to socializing. It wasn't until I moved here that I realized how profoundly depressed I was. Physician heal thyself… right.

I actually can't wait to meet his group - that's what I am thinking as I amble over to the counter to help Gil unpack the groceries for Sunday's brunch. He doesn't feel very much in control of anything else so I think he wants to control the menu.

"What are you having?" I say as I pull a package of brown eggs from the top of plain brown paper bag.

He blinks for several seconds. "I thought I was alone."

"You want to be alone?" I tease as I put the brown, organic eggs in the refrigerator, the already overfull refrigerator.

"Uh-no-sweetheart. I didn't mean-." He smiles when he realizes that I'm only joking.

I reach into the bag and pull an unseen box into view. Gil's face goes white and then red as the box waves in the air.

To my surprise I am holding a 24 pack of Lucky Seven Ultra Think Lubricated condoms. "What kind of party is this?"

"Can it," he mumbles as he takes the condoms from my hand and walks out of the room. The good thing about meeting your parent as an adult is the thought of them having sex doesn't freak you out although it apparently freaks Gil out.

I continue to unpack the groceries. Eventually he meanders back in looking bashful and stern. His mouth set in a hard line

I can't resist. "No wonder the door is locked all the time. Don't worry, Jonathon and I will be out of your hair soon."

"No one is trying to get rid of you," he says quietly looking a little worried.

"You and your new wife need your house to yourself to screw on the kitchen table if you want."

"Thandie. You can stay as long as you want." I know he means it.

"I know. You and Sara are great." Changing the subject to get the focus off of me. When are you gonna give Sara some babies?"

At that moment, like he must have years before when he was young and in love with my mother, a flash of sweetness comes across his face then a smattering of confusion.

"You two have talked about it?"

He shakes his head. "No. I-I don't think she wants-" He stops talking and looks down at his hands. "-Kids. She always said she didn't..."

What he doesn't add is that he also told me that Sara said the same thing about marriage. Sara. It took me two months to figure what all the mumbling was about when he mentioned Sara's name. At first I thought he didn't like her. When he told me stories he breezed over her name as if the very thought of her would burn him. I guess it did.

It wasn't until he came home after a case where Sara was attacked by a psychiatric patient in a mental hospital where they were investigating. Over a breakfast that he barely picked over, he held Jonathan close and talked of how scared he was. How much Sara meant to him. Followed closely by reassurances that all his team meant a great deal to him. He talked of the guilt he felt over leaving Sara alone. He talked of wanting to do more but having the inclination that she didn't want to be smothered.

"You love her?" I said suddenly after he said her name the second time; he'd actually said her name that morning. Sara, he said it like the syllables would break if his mouth turned them the wrong way.

He looked up then, in tandem with Jonathan. "She's-"

"You love her." A statement this time. "Gil you have to tell her."

He shook his head being petulant and began to rock Jonathan back to sleep. "I blew it a long time ago."

"She's still around isn't she?"

"She cared about me-once- but I didn't think it would work. She's quite a bit younger than I am-I am her boss. It was just difficult. I'm difficult."

My hand reached across and touched his. "You aren't difficult Dad, you're terrific."

He smiled and looked sheepish. "She's deserves better."

"Than who? You? Can't be better."

His eyes flitted away from mine and returned. "That's very sweet but I think you are required to say that."

"No, if you were a jerk I would tell you. Course I wouldn't be here. Tell her."

He mumbled again that it was too late but he talked about her more after that. In particularly unguarded moments he talked about how smart she was, how interesting her looks were, how sweet she could be, how tough she was.

He is looking at me now as if he honestly never thought that Sara wanted kids. Gil is very smart and very stupid. He knows everything but misses a great deal.

"Dad you have seen her with Jonathan. That's not a woman who doesn't want kids. Trust me."

"I'm too old for kids. I'm a grandfather for goodness sakes."

Sara

My husband is looking at me funny. Well funnier than usual. I find that he does that a lot, like he can't believe that I'm his. This look is like something else though, like he wants to say something.

"What?" I ask.

"You're beautiful."

His eyes are all weird and darker than usual. Hah my husband wants a quickie before our friends get here and who am I to deny him.

"I was wondering," he says seriously. "I was wondering if you might like to-"

Hey, I can have this skirt up in five second flat "Take a tumble before our friends arrive?" Just the words start some serious longing in my nether regions.

He cocks his head to one side and gives me a familiar half grin and it occurs to me that he wasn't talking about that. Maybe it's me that has sex on the brain all the time.

"I was wondering if you might like to uh-"

Damn but he's cute with his hands stuffed in his jeans and that crisp blue shirt that brings out his eyes. What could possibly be befuddling him like this? It's like before we got married. Then something else occurs to me. He's been spending a lot of time on the computer and some travel brochures came in the mail. The ones with thin blond people sipping pink drinks, places my Grissom would scoff at because he finds them uninteresting and the insects "pedestrian" which, when you think about, is an odd remark for an entomologist considering that insects usually belong where they are found.

He's still stuttering so I let him off the hook. "I would love to go on a honeymoon but I want to go somewhere interesting."

Relief and a bit of something I can't place clouds his eyes for a second. His hands come out of his pockets and take residence behind his back. All of this is accompanied by heel rocking on his expensive loafers.

"Where do you want to go?"

"I don't know, surprise me, I would like some sun though but not a tourist trap."

Now he's looking at me strange again like I have lettuce in my teeth only I know I don't have lettuce in my teeth. I have on a cute linen skirt and matching cotton blouse along with some white low healed sandals my husband bought me. I think he has a foot thing.

He's close to me now, his hands holding my face gently. "You know you can tell me anything. If you want anything. I'm slow sometimes you know, so if there's anything..."

Lips meet lips and I put my head on his shoulder just as the doorbell rings. "I have everything I want."

TBC