Author's Notes: A million thanks go out to my beta, PhDelicious, who puts up with me and my constant fiddling;) And thanks to everyone else who keeps up with this story, and gives such awesome feedback.
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The Last Embrace
by Kristen Elizabeth
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September 2006
"So, Grissom…didja bring us anything from N'awlins?"
Warrick shook his head at Greg. "Man, you ask that every time he gets back."
"And yet I'm still without a voodoo doll."
Across the table, Nick snickered. "What are you gonna do with a voodoo doll, Greggo?"
Catherine hid a smile behind her hand. "Curl up with it at night?"
"Nah, he's got something inflatable for that," Warrick snarked.
The man to whom the question had been directed sighed. Assignments would have to wait until the banter passed. As Grissom looked around the table, he paused for a few extra seconds on the woman who was sitting back, listening, but not participating. A smile played on Sara's lips. The same lips that had warmed his only an hour earlier.
He swallowed when her head turned and she caught him staring at her. Dropping his eyes down to his assignments, Grissom cleared his throat. "Warrick, Greg…you've got a home invasion in Summerlin." He looked at Catherine. "Cath, you and Sara have a 419 in the Venetian's canal."
"Any more details than that?" Sara asked. Her question was pointed, but no one else seemed to catch on.
"You know everything I do," he replied. "Nick, we've got a body dump out on Blue Diamond Road." Glancing around again, he added, "Everyone's got work. Let's get to it."
Sara took her time getting up, lingering until it was just her and Grissom and Nick left in the room.
"Can we talk for a second?" she asked him. "Grissom?"
Nick stuck his thumb in the general direction of the garage. "I'll just be waiting at the…"
Just then, Catherine stuck her head back into the room. "Sara, I'd like to get there before the hotel figures out that a floater is bad for business." She tapped her size seven Manolo until Sara shook her head and started for the door. "Bye-bye, boys," Catherine said as they left.
Grissom released a breath he hadn't even been aware he was holding in. Since his arrival back in Vegas, he and Sara had done everything together. Made love, slept, showered, fixed and consumed a meal and dressed for work. But the one thing they hadn't done was talk, at least not beyond "yes, right there" and "pass the syrup."
If Nick noticed that something was preoccupying his boss, he didn't say anything about it until they were halfway down Blue Diamond. Grissom was driving, and up until then, it had been a silent ride, save for the classic rock on the radio.
"Hey, Gris," Nick suddenly said. "I'm worried about Sara."
The mention of her name made his stomach spiral. He reached out and turned down the music. "What do you mean?"
"It's nothing really big. Just a lot of little things, you know?" Nick scratched his closely-cropped head. "She's just been off lately. It's like she's always in slow motion."
"Slow motion," Grissom repeated.
"Yeah, I can't explain it better than that. Cath thinks she's seeing someone." He could almost feel Nick trying not to watch him for a reaction to that. Grissom stared straight ahead at the road. "I kind of hope she is, so at least there's a reason for her being like this."
Gripping the steering wheel, Grissom evenly replied, "Sara is a very private person, Nick. I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate us gossiping about her personal life."
The younger man frowned. "Is it gossiping to worry about a friend when she's…"
Nick was cut off by a beep from Grissom's phone. Watching him fumble to hold onto the wheel and answer it, Nick asked, "Can I get that for you?"
Grissom flipped the phone open. It wasn't a call, but a text message alert.
Back safe? Tinkerbell misses you already. R.
It wasn't until Nick asked, "Who's Tinkerbell?" that Grissom realized that he was holding the phone away just far enough that Nick could read the message from the passenger's seat.
He snapped the phone closed. "A four-inch palmetto bug one the Tulane grad students decided to keep as a pet."
Nick raised both eyebrows. "Guess you're rubbing off on those kids, Gris." He paused for a second. "You really haven't noticed anything off about Sara?" Before Grissom could answer, he shook his head. "Hey, I know. You're not around all that much these days."
"I'll keep it in mind, Nick." He turned the music up, effectively killing the conversation.
They arrived at their scene a few minutes later. Grissom hung back at the car for a few seconds, just long enough to delete the message from Reese. He kept his phone out as he followed Nick's path to the body. His thumb flew over the phone's buttons, typing a message of his own.
My place for breakfast. Ciao, cara mia.
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The baby held on. He was strong, like his father.
After ten days in bed without any further pain or spotting, Sara felt strong enough to venture downstairs. She stopped on the landing when she heard Cassie's squealing laughter coming from the backyard. She smiled; it was her favorite sound in the world.
The sliding glass door was already ajar. Sara pushed it aside further and stepped into the sunshine for the first time in over a week. Squinting, she shielded her eyes with her hand as she searched the backyard for her daughter.
She froze when she saw Cassie on the far side of the lawn. She was sitting on a blanket that had been spread out on the grass, playing with her plastic keyboard, laughing with delight at the incoherent notes she made by banging on the keys. And she wasn't alone.
Grissom was sitting next to her.
"Hey, you're up." Sara nearly jumped out of her skin as her mother came up behind her with two glasses of iced tea in her hands. "How are you feeling?"
"A little confused." Pointing out the door, Sara clarified, "You didn't tell me we had company."
Laura smiled softly as she joined her daughter in watching the two people on the picnic blanket. Grissom clapped his hands, applauding the little girl's music like it was a great symphony. "They're quite the pair."
"I told you I didn't want her getting attached to him."
"Are you sure it's not the other way around?" Laura shook her head. "Sara, this man is a part of your life. If he wasn't, you wouldn't have asked for him in the hospital."
Sara hugged her arms around her stomach. "I was scared."
"I know. So was he." Her mother stepped past her. "Why don't you join us? It's a beautiful day, and you could use the fresh air."
Grissom looked away from Cassie and towards the house. Their eyes met across the yard. And suddenly, without warning, Sara found herself growing angry. Nick had loved their house for a lot of reasons, but his favorite thing was the fact that even in a town in the middle of the desert, they had a backyard.
"Every kid needs a backyard to run around in, Sara," he'd told her when the real estate agent walked them through the house. Cassie had just been a swelling in her belly, but all he could talk about was how he was going to build her a tree house when she grew up. They'd made a bid the very next day.
He wouldn't ever get to build her that tree house. And Cassie wouldn't remember how she'd taken her first steps towards him across the lawn he'd loved so much. If she remembered anything about the yard, it could very well be having a picnic with Grissom and her grandmother.
It wasn't fair. And even though none of it was really Grissom's fault, Sara couldn't stand there and watch it any longer.
"I'm going to go lie down," she announced, tearing her eyes away from his. "She'll be ready for a nap soon."
Frowning, Laura nodded. "I'll bring her up to you." She paused. "What should I tell him?"
"I don't care." Sara shook her head. "I wish he'd just…stayed in Tennessee." Her chin trembled. "With her."
Laura followed her into the house. "I haven't asked for the details about what happened between the two of you, but there must have been a lot of hurt on both sides. But I don't think you mean what you just said. You still care about him, Sara. And he's still in…"
"You know, I'm grateful that you're here and that you've helped me for the past couple of months. But I stopped needing a mother a long time ago. So can you just quit trying to be one for me?"
Her mother looked down at the glasses in her hands for a long moment. "The only worthwhile thing I've done in my entire life was having you." When she glanced up, her eyes were wet, but determined. "You can't push me away so far that I'll leave you again, Sara."
With that, her mother brushed past her, heading outside to re-join the picnic.
Bile rose in Sara's throat, and she barely made it to the bathroom in time. As she sat on the cold tile floor, tears flowed in steady rivers down her cheeks.
Had it really only been a matter of years since her life was simple? She wouldn't give up Cassie or the new baby for anything, but the longer she sat in the bathroom, the more she wondered…when had everything started to change? Had it been the night she'd fallen into bed with Nick Stokes?
Or many had it been many moons before that…the night she'd woken up in a cold sweat to the realization that she'd fallen in love with Gil Grissom?
There was a knock on the bathroom door. Startled, Sara gasped for breath.
"Sara?" Grissom's voice was cautious and concerned. "Are you all right in there?" When she didn't reply, he added, "Honey…I can hear you crying." There was a long pause. She thought he'd gone away until he spoke again. "I'm not leaving until you come out."
She dried her tears with a washcloth. When she opened the bathroom door, Grissom was standing there, waiting for her.
"Is it the baby?" he asked, his eyes soft with worry. "Are you bleeding again?"
"Why are you here?" Sara spread her hand over her abdomen. "Why are you trying to take his place?"
"Sara…" He was at a loss for words. She well remembered the look that he got when he couldn't find anything to say. "That's not what I'm doing."
"Yes, it is. You were out there playing with Cassie like you're her…"
"Father?" Grissom slipped his hands into his pockets. "Sara. I am."
The two words were a slap across her face. "You don't know that for sure," she whispered. "There's no way to know that for sure without a DNA test. And I won't…"
"I don't need a DNA test. Cassie's blood type is O, like mine."
"That doesn't prove…"
"What was Nick's, Sara?" She looked away. "You don't know?"
"Why would I know that, Grissom?" Sara shouted. "Do you know mine?"
He nodded sadly. "Yes. You're A. Nick was AB." Her face crumpled with the realization of what it all meant. "I'm her father, Sara."
Grissom reached for her, but she jerked away from him. "Nick was her father. Nick loved her. Nick raised her. Nick wanted a backyard for her to run around in…" Her hand tightened into a fist against her newly firm belly. "If this is true…you were halfway across the country, fucking another woman while the cells were splitting to make her."
"You know, I am very tired of having Reese thrown in my face every time you don't want to own up to some truth about our relationship," he snapped back. "Let's not forget that at the same time you claim I was fucking another woman, you were sliding between the sheets with Nick. There is no moral high ground here, Sara, so don't act like you're standing on it."
She stared at him through a film of hot tears. "How long have you wanted to say that to me?"
"I never wanted to say that to you." His Adam's apple bobbed. "I try very hard to not dwell on the fact that I allowed things between us to degenerate to the point where you felt so abandoned…that you turned to another man for comfort." He closed his eyes for a second. "But if it had to be anyone…I'm glad it was him."
Sara bit her lip to steady it. "Why?"
"Because he didn't just love you, Sara. He saw you. And I…" Grissom shook his head. "I only saw what I wanted to see."
After a few seconds of silence, he cleared his throat. "I'm not going to make things even uglier between us by dragging up legalities. I just want to see my daughter. Be a part of her life. Will you let me?"
"Do I have a choice?" she whispered.
"We always have choices. It's just not always immediately clear if we've made the right ones or not."
Sara swallowed. "Who did you choose? Me or her?"
"Do you really want to know?"
She answered by crossing her arms and looking down at the floor. There had been too many revelations, too many shocks to her system in such a short amount of time. She couldn't take another, whether it was receiving confirmation of her worst nightmare…or learning that she'd made the biggest mistake of her life.
"You can see Cassie whenever you want. As soon as we get back." She lifted her chin. "I'm taking her to Texas for a few weeks. I want to tell Bill and Jillian about the baby in person."
To his credit, Grissom didn't protest or try to change her mind. He simply nodded his understanding and left a few minutes later, pausing only to pluck Cassie from Laura's arms. Sara watched him give her a solid kiss on the cheek. Cassie returned it by blowing a wet raspberry against his beard.
It was too late, Sara realized. Even if it had turned out that they didn't share DNA, they were attached to each other.
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To Be Continued