-1Chapter Three: Lab Rats
The alarm clock blared in the next room. Grissom checked his watch, it was 3:00 in the afternoon. Sara stirred in his arms, they'd slept in the bathroom leaned up against the tub. Sara had kept getting sick throughout the morning and early afternoon. She looked like she was feeling better.
Carefully leaning Sara up against the tub, Grissom untangled himself from her and ran to shut off the alarm clock. In about eight months, the crying of an infant would be their alarm clock, Grissom thought affectionately, glancing at Sara's stomach. She looked the same as she always had. She showed no signs that she was pregnant.
Grissom knew that he would have to wake Sara soon, but seeing her so peaceful, he dreaded the fact that would soon have to get her up for work. He waited a few more minutes before gently shaking her awake.
"I really need to take a shower," said Sara, still groggy from only a few hours of sleep after being sick all day. She smiled at Grissom as he helped her up from the tiled floor and enveloped her in his warm embrace. She breathed in his smell and gazed up into his loving eyes. She knew that this was one of those moments that she would remember forever.
Glancing over at the clock, Sara reluctantly pulled away from Grissom. "We have enough time to take a shower if we hurry." She smiled flirtatiously, turning on the warm water and peeling off her sweaty tank top.
"I think we can make it to work just on time." said Grissom, closing the bathroom door.
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Holding a stack of assignments, Grissom headed down the hall. Running into Greg, Grissom handed him a slip, "You've got a 419," Catherine came up the hall for her assignment, "You've got a party gone bad, something with a clown." Grissom smiled.
"You give Greg the 419 and me the physical assault," Catherine cried, reading the assignment over, "What's up with that?"
"Believe me, you don't want Greg's case," Grissom replied as Sara walked up.
Walking past trace, Grissom handed out the last assignment to Sara, "Are you coming with?" She asked hopefully.
"No," he replied, "I'm going to be in autopsy all night, a floater found on lake mead."
"Oh?" She smiled, knowing that it meant for a boring night, "By the way, you left the miniatures open."
"Yeah," Grissom sighed, "I've been looking at them a lot lately." Seeing nobody around, he quickly squeezed her hand before saying goodbye. Watching her walk away, he thought for the hundredth time about the way that she would look in a couple of months. Retreating to autopsy, the thoughts of Sara quickly left his mind. That night soon turned into a strange one involving a rat and some bleach.
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A few hours later, Sara delivered her evidence to Wendy to check over in DNA.
"How did you know to check under the keys?" Wendy asked, after hearing about the semen found.
"It was the butt print on the crescendo ," Sara replied, shaking her head, "I guess you never really know what's going on in your office, right?"
Turing to leave, she was stopped by Wendy, "Sara?" she asked with a strange look on her face, "Is it true that Grissom is losing sleep at night because of the miniature murders?"
"How would I know?" Sara replied defensively, thinking that they were finally found out. How did Wendy know about her and Grissom's secret relationship? And if she knew this, what else did she know?
"You wouldn't!" Wendy laughed, "I just thought that maybe all of you guys talked about it or something. Hodges said that Grissom confided in him," Wendy laughed without feeling and rolled her eyes.
Relieved, Sara was now confused, "Even if it was true, do you really think that Grissom would confide in Hodges?"
"No, you're right, just forget I said anything," Wendy turned to get to work as Sara walked away.
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"So, Hodges figured out that the connection was bleach?" Sara asked, smiling.
"Apparently so, I think that he wanted to try and make a difference in the outcome of our investigation, turns out, he can be pretty helpful when he's not being a complete pain in the ass." Grissom glanced up from the case file he was looking at, "Bleach, it does make sense that bleach is the trigger. I don't understand how I didn't think of it before."
" Sometimes its really hard to see when you get too close to the project. You need to take a little bit of space, look at it with new eyes, then you see things that were there all along. You saw the same things that Hodges did, but you were so used to looking at them that they didn't really mean anything. Hodges looked at them, and he saw them in a way that fresh eyes do. "
Grissom put down the case file, sighing, "I get it, take a break from the miniatures, then come back, right?"
"I guess if that's what you really need to do," Sara smiled her goofy smile, "I'm so glad that you thought of that solution to your problem."
Grissom knew that Sara only wanted the best for him. Maybe he should start focusing on her and the baby, he would need to do that soon enough anyway. He turned off his nightlight and squeezed his arms around Sara lightly, kissing her shoulder. He would humor her, he decided, at least for a little while.
Sara sighed contentedly and snuggled into Grissom's embrace, happy to finally have him back with her, and not off in his own world obsessed with finding killers. As she drifted off to sleep, Sara knew that this was her favorite place in the world. In the love of her life's arms.
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To Be Continued...