Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone for all the great reviews. This chapter's for the peeps who wanted Daddy-Daughter bonding:)

Moments

by Kristen Elizabeth

For eight hours, Grissom had been surrounded by the surreal silence of death. But the moment he turned the key and entered the house he shared with his wife and daughter, he was thrust back into the land of the living.

Whether he was ready for it or not.

Rosalind was crying, no, screaming at the very top of her lungs, not the most comforting welcome in the world. He winced as he shrugged out of his jacket. Even at only three months old, Rosalind was a very subdued baby; she usually only voiced herself when she was wet, hungry or lonely. Each of those problems had distinctive screams associated with them. This didn't sound like any of her normal cries.

"Sara," he called out. "Where are you?"

"Upstairs," she called back, her voice muffled by their daughter's.

He took the stairs two at a time and headed straight into the nursery, the source of the ear-splitting noise. "Sara?"

She looked up as he entered. "She just won't stop crying, Gil."

Still in work mode, Grissom quickly analyzed the scene. His wife was seated in the wooden rocker in the far corner, her hair starkly dark against the creamy yellow wallpaper. Her eyes were red, wet and puffy as though she too had been crying. She cradled Rosalind in her arms as she frantically rocked back and forth. Grissom had seen her this way only once before, after thirteen hours at a crime scene without finding a single piece of evidence. Sara was on the verge of a frustrated breakdown.

"I've tried everything," she stammered. "She's not wet. She won't eat. She's not running a fever. She had a decent nap earlier. She doesn't need anything! All she wants to do is cry."

He approached them carefully. "How long…"

"The past five hours," Sara sniffed. "I paged you."

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm here now."

"I don't know what to do." Her cheeks glistened with fresh tears. "I just don't know."

Grissom hesitated, but only for a brief moment. "Here." He took Rosalind from her; the baby just kept screaming, her tiny face bright red with effort. "You go take a bath, okay?"

Her hands shook as she pushed herself up out of the chair. "But she's crying."

Grissom had to raise his voice to be heard over their daughter. "Sara, you need a break. I can listen to her crying just as well as you can."

She glanced back and forth between them before biting her lip and nodding. "Okay." Reaching out, she brushed her fingers over Rosalind's soft locks. With a weak smile, Sara headed out of the nursery.

"Well," Grissom said once she was gone. "It's just you and me now." Rosalind wailed. "Sweetheart, you're not supposed to hate my company until you're a teenager." He shook his head as she shrieked. "I get it, no bad jokes." He looked around the immaculate room. "Where's your blanket? Ah, there it is." Grissom retrieved it from her crib, but as soon as he draped it over her, Rosalind's screams reached a frightening crescendo. "Okay, no blanket."

How had Sara survived five hours of this all on her own? Five minutes hadn't even passed and he was already weary. Maybe he was too old for this. He'd had that particular thought before, many times if he was honest with himself, all throughout Sara's pregnancy. But he'd always come to the same conclusion. So what? If he was too old to be a father, then he was too old to do anything else. And since he had no plans to stop working, he couldn't justify not starting a family with the woman he loved.

Still, if he were Greg Sanders' age, he might have had the patience to simply wait for Rosalind to tire herself out. But he wasn't. He was a fifty-year old scientist with a screaming baby and an exhausted wife.

It was time to hit the books.

Twenty minutes later, Grissom found himself balancing Rosalind in one arm and a thick copy of What To Expect The First Year in his free hand. He frowned at the book. "Colic? Is that it?" He looked down at his daughter. "Is that the problem?"

Because all she replied with were more screams, Grissom quickly scanned the information on colic. Gas, pain, long periods of crying…but how did he make it stop?

"Keep the baby moving," he read out loud. "Not effective. Wrap the baby snugly in a blanket. Not effective." He sighed, blinked to relieve his tired eyes and kept reading. "Take a shower. The warm water may be comforting. Hmm."

Grissom glanced at Rosalind once more. She hiccupped suddenly, and for one precious second, there was quiet.

But only for one second.

He closed his eyes as the screaming picked right back up. "I'll take that as a sign."

Sara figured she had either fallen asleep and drowned in the tub and the silent house was really just heaven, or her husband had succeeded where she'd failed and successfully calmed their daughter. She wasn't quite sure which option she preferred.

But did it really matter right then? No, she decided as she lounged in the lukewarm, sudsy water. The house was quiet, sweetly, blissfully quiet. Even her headache was fading away. She wasn't about to question how it happened.

She let herself relax for another minute before her curiosity got the best of her. She reached for a fluffy towel and dried herself off before securing it around her body. Without bothering to get dressed, Sara went in search of her family.

The master bedroom was empty, as was the nursery. Puzzled, Sara started down the stairs. "Gil?"

It was the sound of water that caught her attention; it was coming from the bathroom just off the first-floor guest bedroom. As she approached, she heard her husband's voice over the shower. A wide smile lit her face. He was singing.

She crept into the steamy bath just in time to hear Rosalind giggle, seemingly delighted at her father's off-key voice.

"Laugh at me if you will," he said to the baby. "But don't expect any musical talent of your own. It's not in your genes."

Sara drew the shower curtain back. "Now, don't be so sure of that. I think I have a cousin who plays the tuba." Grissom turned his head to see her. "Showering with another woman?" she teased.

Rosalind batted at her father's wet beard with her tiny fingers. "The book said it would help," he explained. "Care to join us?"

Sara watched them for another moment, the two most important people in her life. Rosalind was all smiles, even buck-naked and propped against Grissom's shoulder, a far cry from the screaming terror she'd left him with earlier. "Help with what?"

"Colic. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I believe that might have been the problem."

Sara bit into her lip. "Colic. I should have thought of that."

"Sara…"

But her emotions were running too high for her to be reasonable. "I'm a horrible mother!"

"Hey," he warned. "That's my wife you're talking about."

"What kind of a mother can't even figure out that her baby might be colicky?"

"The kind who hasn't had a good night's sleep in months?"

Sara folded her arms over her towel. "I've never needed sleep before."

"Well, honey, before…you weren't breast-feeding an infant every couple of hours," he reminded her. A moment passed. "Join us?" he asked again.

It took another few seconds for her to let go of the towel. She stepped into the shower and let the warm spray rain down onto the back of her neck. Rosalind cooed, a sound that usually made her heart overflow with joy. "I'm sorry, baby," she whispered to her daughter. "You were in pain and I didn't know."

"Sara, stop." The words were gently spoken, yet quite firm. "There wasn't much you could have done."

"You figured it out."

"I just happened to be the one holding her when the gas worked its way out of her system," Grissom corrected her.

Sara brushed away a tear. "I'm such a wreck right now."

"You're just tired." He cupped her cheek in his hand. "You're a wonderful mother, Sara. Even if you don't feel like one right now." She covered his hand with hers and closed her eyes. "What you need is sleep."

"What about you?" she mumbled.

"I'll sleep when she goes down." He glanced down at Rosalind. Her little eyelids were drooping almost as much as her mother's. "Zero to sleep in thirty seconds," Grissom said. "She gets that from you."

Sara was too exhausted to argue back. "I'll put her to bed."

"No, you'll put yourself to bed." Grissom turned the shower off. "You don't have to do it all, Sara."

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "If there's a father gene, you've totally got it. I always figured you did, you know?"

Balancing the baby, he draped towels over both of his girls' bodies. As he tucked the warm fabric around Rosalind, he stopped short. He hadn't known that. "Always?"

"Always," she affirmed with a sleepy nod. "You hid it pretty well though. I had to…look deep to find it." She yawned. "But it was always there."

"Thank you," Grissom whispered. He lowered his head to brush a kiss across the downy top of his daughter's head. "For looking…for finding it. For helping me make use of my father gene." Clearing his throat, he put his arm around her slender shoulders. Surrounded by his family, Grissom smiled.

It was good to be in the land of the living.

To Be Continued