As the shift ended, Catherine found herself once again in Grissom's office. "Hey, whatcha doing for breakfast, Bugman?"

Grissom looked up from his pile of folders, admittedly shorter now and replied with a scowl, "I should finish this before I leave….but I have a feeling you are about to make a better offer?"

"Well, there's our favorite diner or I could fix omelets at your place?"

"Latter sounds good, Cath. I'm not up to the diner this morning. I'll need to stop and pick up the makings, though. My cupboards are bare, I'm afraid."

"Okay, well…wait…you finish the one you are working on and I'll stop by the store and meet you in…say, half hour?"

"A smile crept across his face as he nodded in agreement. "See you then."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Yeah, I've got everything I need, except you here," Brass spoke warmly into the phone.

He was busy, preparing a breakfast surprise of his own.

"Well, I'm finally finished with the case and am heading out now. I'll see you in a few minutes…..

"Okay, I'll try to be patient," he chuckled into the phone before closing it.

He still couldn't believe that this woman was becoming a big part of his life. They were spending almost all of their off time together and he was beginning to believe that this might be okay. She seemed to understand his ambivalent feelings over being shot and …well, dying and then coming back. Her only comment was that whatever he felt, he shouldn't feel stupid about it. He knew the odds when he walked into that room but put the girls' life above his own. "In my book, that's heroic….or at the least unbelievably unselfish," had been her response when he had broached the subject again later. "Maybe you should rethink taking that plaque out of your drawer. In any case, Jim, I don't ever want you to doubt that you are a good man or that.." and then she had said it, words that he had long ago given up on, "I love you." He smiled as he remembered the first time she had uttered those words to him, his head shaking in disbelief. He hadn't had the courage to speak them himself but she didn't seem to be expecting that he would. She was just taking their relationship one step at a time and seemed content. His fear was not that he didn't love her, but that once she heard his whole story, she would want her love back. He knew that if he openly admitted his feelings for her and she did draw back, he'd be crushed. So before telling her how deeply he had fallen for her, he needed to tell her the truth about himself. He knew what he needed to do but he wasn't sure he had the courage to follow it through.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Catherine showed up on Grissom's doorstep, as promised. Usually he cooked but recently she had been filling the role. It had started after Sara's death and seemed to be their new routine. He helped her unpack the bags and pulled out the pans and bowls that she would need.

"So, Grissom, you're beginning to act more like your old self….does that mean I get out of KP soon?' Catherine asked.

He smiled; pleased that she thought he was more himself these days. "Well, let's ease into that. I'll help today but you're the head chef….Okay?" His eyes were actually smiling.

"Deal." She returned his smile and then got busy with the eggs.

He chopped the peppers and onions for the omelets while she cracked eggs and began warming the skillet.

He reached into the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of juice, pouring some for each of them. She smiled as he handed her glass to her.

"So, did you find the little girl's caseworker?"

"Yeah, have an appointment on Tuesday. Thanks for suggesting it."

"Let me know how it goes."

They continued on with other chatter as they worked together to create two amazing breakfast omelets….at least in their opinions.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Glyn had arrived at Jim's just as he was finishing the bacon and putting the eggs on. He had pancakes going on a griddle. "Hi," he grinned as she came through the door. She walked into his kitchen and headed straight for him. She leaned in and kissed him deeply, but briefly before speaking. "Now that's my kind of man,' she teased, "barefoot and in the kitchen." She pinched his ass as she turned to get juice form his fridge.

Delighted with her greeting, Jim's entire face lit up. "Yeah, next thing, you'll be knocking me up……so typical of a woman," he smirked.

"Well, while I don't see that happening, I wouldn't mind giving it a try," she chuckled. "You volunteering for the experiment?"

"Yes ma'm." he replied shamelessly.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

The two senior CSIs had finished their breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen. They were sitting on Grissom's couch. He was channel surfing while she was looking at a magazine that was sitting in a nearby chair.

"Honestly, Gil, can't you get some subscriptions that are not forensics journals or bug magazines?"

"Those are all excellent choices, Catherine. There's a lot of good information there."

"I don't want to be informed. I want entertainment." The surfing had stopped and the Discovery Channel was on the TV. "And no Discovery today, please?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "So what would you like to do then, Miss Picky?"

"How about a movie?"

'You know my selection, which one…."

She interrupted him, "No, I mean at a theater…you know like the olden days, when people used to go the movies."

"Oh. Is there a good one out? No blood and guts, please. I'm not in the mood."

"There's 'Ocean's Thirteen'…"

"A casino heist? I don't think so….."

"There's a new Robin Williams…."

"Yeah….I don't know. Can't we do something besides a movie?"

"Like what?"

"Where's Lindsey today?"

"Ah, she was staying with a friend last night. I'm sure she won't be home until afternoon."

"What if….well, we could go to the Adventuredome. If you think Lindsey would like to…." He was lit up, his eyes wide and excited.

"You want to spend the day at an amusement park with a teenager?"

"And her mom."

Catherine stared at him in disbelief. "Since when do you like kids?"

"I've always liked kids," he said, a little pouty. "They just don't seem to like me."

"Well, Lindsey loves you….as much as she likes anybody these days. But Gil, she's a hormone crazed teenaged girl, are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yeah, I am. We used to have really great Saturdays and I miss that."

"Okay. Let me call her…"

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jim and Glyn had finished their breakfast. "So, what are we doing today….besides sleeping, I mean?" she asked him as she sat on the couch.

"You can do whatever you want to and I'll just watch you. How's that?"

She threw a pillow from his couch at him. He laughed and settled in next to her. Wrapping his arms around her he pulled her close and kissed her.

"Mmmmmm, I like that idea," she said. But later." She pulled away just enough to look into his shimmering eyes. "We've been spending a lot of time together and I feel like I know who you are but not how you got here. And there's a lot you don't know about me either. I think we need to spend some time finding out more about each other."

Jim's heart plummeted. It's not that he didn't want to tell her but…..he was scared. And he felt like he knew everything about her that he needed to know. She is beautiful, smart, funny, loving, and considerate, he thought. What else could I possibly need to know?

"So, I'm proposing a little game of truth or dare."

"And what do I get if you don't give the right answers?" he teased.

"Anything you want but it goes both ways…..' she said suggestively.

"Okay, I'll start….. Truth or Dare?"

Her eyes sparkled as she replied, "Truth."

Damn, he thought. What am I supposed to ask? "Hmmmm….who was your best lover, ever?"

She burst into laughter. "Now how do you want me to answer that?" she taunted.

"Truth, of course." He wasn't really sure he wanted the answer but he was curious.

Her eyes were playing around him now, looking at his face and then dropping, coy and flirtatious. Then her eyes nailed his. "You." She said, simply.

"Ah, I don't think so, but I appreciate that you said it." He shifted uncomfortably in his place.

"Truth, right? That's the truth."

"No way," he couldn't help smiling.

"Look, Jim. It's not like I've had that many. But of the few men I've been with, you are the most considerate….in and out of bed. And that makes you my best lover, ever." She leaned over and kissed him. Lowering her eyes she continued, "Not to mention that you have some very nice assets. Now, truth or dare?"

He hardly heard her question. He was stunned by what she had said about him. He had never been the best looking guy in the room…unless he was the only one. So he had always tried to be more considerate when he was interested in a woman and when needed, funnier than the other guys. But he always felt that his efforts had made him only marginally acceptable to the female of the species. She seemed to see him very differently.

"Jim?"

""What…oh, ah….truth, I guess."

"Why did you move from Jersey to Vegas?"

Oh God, I'm busted. "Well…ah, " he licked his lips trying to collect his thoughts. "I was a cop back there too. And I was assigned to work undercover to expose corruption in the vice squad. And….." he told her about his life back East, the whole stinking story. How dirty he felt after the investigation and how he's cheated on his wife and how she'd cheated on him. How he'd looked for answers in the bottom of a bottle until he couldn't stand to be in his own skin anymore. So he'd decided to leave all that behind and try to start fresh someplace else. When he was finished he was afraid to look at her. Afraid of what he might see in her eyes.

She listened quietly to him, sensing his discomfort and reluctance. When he finished, she tried to make eye contact but he kept his eyes hidden form her, looking down. He sighed heavily and waited for her to leave.

"Jim, listen. We all have parts of our lives that we're not especially proud of…things that happen that almost break us…some of it we do to ourselves. Some of it done to us….by people we thought we could trust. If you're expecting me to judge you in some way for mistakes you may or may not have made, I can't do that. I don't have that right."

Jim looked up at her, tentatively. "I'll understand if you decide that I'm not the man you seem to think I am….I mean, I don't see myself as that man. And there's more too, I might as well tell you all of it. He continued his story, told her about Ellie and about shooting Officer Bell. "I killed that kid, Glyn. I took him away from his young family and at his wake…..his wife, she…." Tears were rolling down his cheeks now, "she hugged me and she forgave me. I just haven't been able to forgive myself."

She was very quiet for a few minutes and it frightened him. Finally she spoke. "As long as we're spilling the whole bean pot here, I guess it's fair that you know my story. Then maybe you'll finally understand that I love you and I'm not going to judge you." She paused before beginning. My Dad was an alcoholic. I don't remember him sober at all, ever until I was in high school. He used to come home and slap my mother around before crashing. I can still hear him stumbling own the hall, using the walls to hold himself up until he hit the bed. My brother would try to run interference for my Mom and then Dad would beat him. As soon as he was old enough, Danny joined the Marines to get out. He actually apologized to me for leaving me there on my own. He was killed later in Beirut.

Mom always seemed to want to make things worse. She'd never just leave Dad passed out. She always insisted that he come to the dinner table at night and for Sunday Dinner. He'd be so drunk and she'd badger him like that. He'd lose his temper and the hitting would start again. Over and over….. Finally he got so bad that he couldn't work and we lost the house. Mom had a job and was able to get a little one in her name. After we moved, Dad locked himself in the bedroom for two weeks, only coming out to get more booze. Finally, he did come out to try to talk. Not that he was capable of it. He was hallucinating and swinging back and forth between anger and crying. He went on like that for hours. Then when he finally passed out again, Mom grabbed me and we snuck out. We stayed with friends until she could get a court order to get him out of the house." She paused to catch her breath and collect her thoughts.

"My God, Glyn, did he hit you?"

"Yeah, when he was really bad. And… I've never told another soul this….but he did other things too. Things I'd rather not talk about, but you've been a cop long enough….you know what I'm talking about."

He grabbed her and held her tightly. His tears were for her now. His heart was breaking.

"Mom throwing him out seemed to wake him up. He checked himself into the hospital and they put him in a rehab program. He was gone for a month. When he came back, he was still pretty messed up but he was sober. He fought hard and worked hard to put himself back together. I learned a valuable lesson from him through that. I learned that no matter how bad things get, no matter how low you go there is still hope. Anyway, gradually he got better and turned into a father that I loved very much before he died. Somewhere along the way, I learned to forgive him and thankfully he was finally able to forgive himself."

Amazement washed over Jim. She had been able to forgive the man all of THAT? And even loved him? She can't be real? But he knew that she was. He thought of Ellie. Maybe one day…..

She continued, "My first year of college, I met Owen. He was from Wales, there on a student visa. I fell for him totally. We married later that year. It was hard for us but somehow we managed. The twins were born ten months later."

"Twins? You told me about your son, Evan. You have twins?"

"Evan is one of my twins. His brother, Hugh, died in the accident that took his father. When the boys were ten, Owen was taking them to a baseball game and a drunk driver ran a red light. Owen and Hugh were dead before the paramedics got to them. Evan survived somehow. He still feels guilty that he survived and his brother didn't.

After the accident I did my best as a single mom raising a troubled boy. We did okay, I think. I got a job working in at the police department and got interested in forensics. Went back to school for it so that we would have some security. It wasn't easy, but we did it. His senior class was the Class of '02. He had talked about a military career before 9/11, but after he and his buddies spent the day watching the videos of planes hitting the towers, they left school and went to the recruiting office. He joined the Marines on a deferment and the day after graduation, shipped off to boot. You can imagine the fear I felt. He was the only family I had left and he was in the middle of the mess in Afghanistan. Then he was shipped to Iraq. Thankfully he made it home. After he got stateside he started taking college classes, testing out of a lot of classes. That's how he was able to graduate this past December. That's also why he promised that he wouldn't work for the bigger police departments. He knew how much I worried while he was away and didn't want to cause more worry. But I knew that if I stayed there, I'd drive him nuts worrying about him. He's an adult now and he needs to live his own life. He doesn't need Mamma hanging around making him miserable. And I felt a need for a change, anyway. So here I am.

And I feel like I have been given an incredible gift …..you. Owen was a good man in many ways but he was also a very selfish man. He always came first. He was never physically abusive but verbally, well that was different. By the time he died, I didn't have much left in the way of self esteem."

Her eyes sought Jim's as she finished. "You make me feel safe and warm….secure. Something I've never felt before in my entire life. And more than that, you make me feel …." She searched for the word…., "cherished. That's why I love you Jim. And why you can't tell me anything that will make me love you less."

He held her tightly, not wanting to let go. So many things were running through his mind and so many emotions. He couldn't quite sort it all out. But finally he understood why he meant as much to her as she meant to him. He wanted to hold her like this forever.

- - - - - - - - -

Lindsey had agreed to go if her friend could come too. Catherine was glad because then, at least, Lindsey might act civilly. Gil was thrilled to have the girls riding the roller coaster with him. Catherine bailed. Eventually the girls were going their own way and leaving the 'old people' behind. As Catherine watched her long time friend, she couldn't help thinking how relaxed he was. Yeah, finally Gil Grissom was coming back to them.