Thank you for all of reviews so far, just a quick author's note first. I haven't watched the CSI Las Vegas series on TV, since Catherine was still in charge and Ray Langston was still there. I have seen clips of the new characters on the show, but don't have much knowledge of them, so I'm writing this with the old lab crew, rather than the new ones that I know nothing about.

Thank you, hope you're still enjoying it.

Chapter Four - Old Friends

Stepping off the elevator onto the old lab floor, Grissom felt as though he had never been gone. He sensed that one of his team were right around the corner, ready to jump him with questions. Either that or one of the lab techs were waiting behind the safety of their glass doors, ready to pounce him with queries or their own interpretations on how the case will unfold.

"Ah, no running off."

Lifting his little girl into his arms, Grissom held her securely against his hip, so she didn't go wandering off and get herself into trouble. He knew that this was no place for a child, but his wife insisted that they bring her, so they could finally introduce their daughter to their closest friends.

"Okay, this way." His wife ushered them through the hall.

After signing herself and her family in, Sara led the way through the familiar halls, towards the break room. The old team used to gather in there before each shift, waiting for the boss to get in to give them their assignments, but it seemed a little under used and vacant at the moment.

"Weird being back?" Sara asked him, giving him a smile as he looked a little overwhelmed. "Wait until you see your old office. It looks nothing like it used to. Nick and Greg share it now. Riley used to be in there too, but she couldn't take Catherine's leadership after less than a year."

"I remember Catherine saying." The man nodded, adjusting his daughter in his arms as she started to look around. They made their way towards his old office door, taking a look inside. The space seemed much grander than he remembered, but it felt completely foreign to him. "Nick and Greg, you said?" He double checked, immediately guessing who's desk was who's from the way they were organised.

Or lack of organisation in Greg's case.

"Catherine still in her cupboard?" He remembered the first time she was given it, she called it a cupboard, but she wasn't willing to give it up for any other office in the building. "The lab seems kind of empty."

"We're between shifts. C'mon," Leading the way towards the break room, Sara held the door open, ushering her family inside. "Okay. Sit here, I'll go find out where everyone is." She dropped her bag in one of the empty seats, pecking a kiss to her husband's cheek, before she disappeared.

"Mommy works here?" Rosa gave her father a curious look. She thought that it would be a bright shiny lab, like the one that her father took her to in San Francisco, but it was pretty dull at the moment.

"No, this is just the break room. Where people come for their coffee, snacks and lunch. Mommy works out there, in the lab." He pointed out the windows in front of them, barely recognising any of the faces that went about their daily business. "The office we were just in used to be mine. That right there." He pointed to the open office door across the hall. "In there used to be Conrad Ecklie's office. You remember him?"

Rosa shook her head, not remembering ever meeting him. She was only two years old when Grissom and Sara met up with him for dinner, so it was quite a while ago for her.

"There's the locker room over there. Half of them are probably still dented from your Uncle Warrick's tempers. Uncle Nicky was the worst though." He didn't recognise the layout of the labs, and there were plenty of new lab techs walking around, confusing him even more.

Rosa struggled in her father's arms a few seconds later, until he let her down to take a look around. The room itself looked very ordinary, nothing like what she was expecting. The dark marble kitchen units ran around one side of the room, while the large glass table practically filled the room, with chairs stationed at each corner.

"Don't touch anything."

Her father warned her, perching himself on the edge of the table as he watched her curiously looking around. He glanced up as he heard familiar voices, noticing lab techs, Mandy and a young woman, gossiping in the hallway outside of the labs. They said their goodbyes, then parted ways, getting back to whatever they were working on, before the juicy piece of gossip distracted them.

"Does Mommy have a office?" Rosa queried, smoothing her curious little fingertips across the leather chairs.

"No," The man shook his head. "Mommy has never been in the manager or supervisor role. The big bosses upstairs only give offices to the big wigs around here." Grissom smiled at her, letting her continue with her exploration of the room. "This room used to be a lot bigger a few years ago. There weren't quite so many chairs either. It looks more like a conference room than a break room now."

"What's a confess room?"

"Conference." He giggled softly, dropping into one of the chairs. "A confession room is a lot smaller. A conference room looks just like this. It's where people have big meetings about important things."

"Like what?" Rosa gave the man a curious look.

"Well... if there was a new type of toy that somebody wanted to make, all the experts would sit down in a big meeting room like this and talk about what it would look like, what colour they'd use. The age range of children that could play with it. Then of course they'd discuss how much they'd charge the parents to buy these things for their children." Grissom smiled at his daughter, taking her hand as she walked round the table to him. "Did Mommy change your tights again?"

He had dressed her in a smart black, white and pink check pinafore dress with white tights this morning, but she was now wearing black and white spotted ones.

"Mommy said they didn't go."

"Oh, Mommy knows fashion now does she?" He smirked, un-ravelling the crumpled sleeve from her shoulder. "Is that Mommy's necklace you're wearing?" Lifting the double hearted charm necklace from around her neck, Grissom smiled as he remembered buying it for his wife in Rome. "You know, I think you wear Mommy's necklaces more than she does. Bracelets too." He smirked, seeing the six bracelets she had piled onto her little wrist.

"They keep falling off." She pulled them off her wrist, placing them in her father's hand.

"Oh, thank you. That's because they're Mommy's bracelets. They're too big for you." Grissom placed them in his jacket pocket, so they wouldn't get lost, feeling something sticky against the fabric of his pocket. He pulled the pocket open a little wider, finding the half lolly pop that his daughter had the day before at the park. She didn't want to keep it while she was on the swings, so she handed it over to him to keep hold of. He checked his other pockets for a tissue or something, finding some sweet wrappers and the shoe to a Barbie doll instead.

"What's that?"

"With the first stroke of midnight, she remembered what the fairy godmother had said, and without a word, slipped away from the Prince and the ball. As she ran, she lost one of her slippers," He held the Barbie's shoe out to his daughter, continuing, "But not for a moment did she dare to pick it up. If the last stroke of midnight were to sound, the fairy godmother's magic would wear off and the Prince would see that she was not in fact a Princess. Oh what a disaster that would be."

"Cinderella." Rosa recognised the story, getting a proud smile out of her father.

"Off she fled and vanished into the night . . . I don't know about you, but I never really liked the ending to Cinderella, especially not that Disney movie one that your mother forced us to watch." Replacing the shoe to his pocket, Grissom climbed to his feet, looking out for any sign of his wife. "Where's Mommy got to then?"

Sara returned a few minutes later, escorting just three people with her, towards the break room. Although he was happy to see the familiar faces, Grissom felt as though his wife betrayed him as the second man stepped into the room.

"Gil," Captain Jim Brass stepped forwards first, greeting his old friend with a hand shake. "So, you've finally come back to your roots, huh. Staying long?"

"For the time being, we're giving Las Vegas a chance for now." Sara answered for him, ushering her colleagues, Catherine Willows and Nick Stokes into the room. "Here she is. Rosa." She called her daughter out from behind the chairs. Her colleagues patiently waited in anticipation, watching closely as the little girl emerged from behind the chairs. "C'mon sweetie, don't be shy. This is your Aunt Catherine and your Uncle Nicky."

"What about me?" Brass was surprised that he didn't get a family role.

"You can be, Papa Brass. Unless you'd prefer, Gramps." Catherine teased him.

Sucking her thumb in her mouth, Rosa hesitantly stepped closer to her mother, looking at the unfamiliar people around them. Her mother proudly introduced her as 'Rosaline Juliet Grissom', while her friends complimented her on how adorable and sweet their little girl was.

"She's the spitting image of her mother." Brass shook his old friend's hand again, telling him that they should catch up properly sometime, before he left the room to get back to work.

Grissom knew that the comment was meant to be a compliment, but he immediately took it as an insult. He knew that his own daughter could never look like him, but people didn't have to point that painful little fact out to him every chance they got.

"Hi, sweetie." Catherine knelt down in front of her. "I'm your Aunt Catherine. We've all been waiting a long time to see you. I saw your Mommy when she was pregnant with you, but we missed you being born." She smiled at the child, glancing up at Sara in front of her. "She's adorable, Sara."

"She's never usually this shy." Her mother gently placed her hands on her child's shoulders, looking up at Nick in front of her. Catherine had seen a few pictures of the child over the years, so she knew what to expect, but he had never seen any pictures. He didn't even know her name until today. He looked a little shocked to say the least, but she wasn't sure if it was the shock of knowing that she was really real or the fact that she looked more like him, her donor father, than her own parents.

Thank you for reading, please review :D

~ Holly