A/N: Thanks for reading, reviewing and being patient! We hope you enjoy this update!

Some inspiration and dialogue are taken from episode 419, "Bad Words."

February 2004

Sara felt undeniably nervous as she walked out of the lab with Grissom. She kept glancing at him as though to make sure he was still there next to her. He finally caught her looking at him and frowned slightly.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said. "I just … Where are we going? Frank's?"

Grissom shook his head. "There's a new diner around the corner I wanted to try. Are you up for it?"

"Sure."

It was his turn to watch her for a moment.

Sara raised an eyebrow. "What?" she asked with a teasing note to her voice.

He smiled shyly. "I'm glad we're doing this," he said.

Sara returned his smile with one of her own. "I am, too."

February 2016

"Hello?"

"Sara, hi. It's Melinda."

"Hi, Melinda" Sara replies. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to reconfirm everything for bringing you the baby," Melinda says. "Can we bring her to you on Thursday?"

"Thursday," Sara repeats, glancing at the calendar on her refrigerator. "Yeah, Thursday's great. Sometime early afternoon, maybe?"

"I was thinking around one?"

"Perfect."

"Excellent," Melinda says, her voice slightly muffled as though she is holding the phone between her cheek and shoulder to free her hands to make a note of the time. "I'll let Jean know, and either she or I will bring Laura to you around one on Thursday."

"Laura?" Sara repeats.

"Yes," Melinda says. "The baby. Laura."

"Her – her name is Laura?"

"Yes," Melinda says again. "I thought I had told you that."

"No." Although Melinda can't see it, Sara's eyes are open wide. "No, you didn't."

"Oh. Well. Her name is Laura, and she'll be all yours on Thursday."

"Okay," Sara says. "Great. I'll see you Thursday."

"Or you'll see Jean," Melinda confirms. "Thanks again for doing this, Sara."

"No problem."

Melinda laughs. "I have a feeling it's considerably more trouble than you're willing to say, but thanks for letting me think that it's not a problem."

Sara smiles a bittersweet smile. "Every baby deserves a good home."

"Yes," Melinda agrees. "I've got to run, Sara, but I'll see you soon."

"Okay," Sara says. "Bye."

When Grissom walks into the kitchen five minutes later, she's still looking at the cell phone that is cradled in her hand. He gives her a bemused look as he heads to the fridge for an apple.

"You're looking very teenage girl," he says.

"What?" Sara asks, looking up at him.

He gestures to her position with the phone in her hand. "Thinking that it will ring if you stare at it long enough?"

Sara smiles slightly. "No." She puts the phone down. "I was just talking to Melinda."

"About the baby?"

"About Laura."

Grissom frowns and sits down across from her. "Your mother?"

Sara shakes her head. "The baby's name is Laura, Gil."

He nods slowly. "Does this change things?"

"No-o," Sara says, then changes her mind. "Yes. It makes it more …" She shakes her head slowly. "More."

The emotions in her eyes are so jumbled and convoluted that Grissom doesn't know where one ends and the next begins. He takes her hand and squeezes it.

"I'm glad we're doing this."

She looks at him with over-bright eyes. "I am, too."

February 2004

Sara looked around in surprise as she and Grissom were seated at a booth in the restaurant he had selected for them. He appeared completely unaffected as he opened his menu.

"I thought you said this was a diner," she said pointedly.

"That's what it's called," he said, his face the picture of innocence as he held up his menu so she could read the name.

Sara pursed her lips to hide her smile. She wasn't sure if he had truly believed that they were going to a diner or if he was abusing the deceptive name of "Corner Diner" to cover for the fact that he had wanted to take her somewhere nice. She decided that it must be the former. To assume that he had known and did want to take her somewhere nice implied a date, and she knew that she wasn't quite ready to believe that he had anything like that in mind when it came to the two of them. It would be too unbearable to be disappointed again.

"Well, it's a very nice restaurant," she said, opening her menu. If it were little nicer, we'd be under-dressed, she added mentally.

Grissom gave her a slight smile without really looking away from his menu. "I've heard they have excellent vegetarian dishes."

The remark almost sounded off-hand, but it brought Sara's eyes up to his face. He was hiding behind his menu again, so she couldn't see his eyes – not that she would necessarily be able to read anything there even if she could look into them. He was a master at hiding his emotions. But … not always from me …

Realizing that the lag-time in her response was bordering on rudeness, she swallowed her swirling emotions.

"Great," she managed to say.

He finally lowered the menu to look into her eyes and smile at her. "Any idea what you'd like to try?"

Well, there's a loaded question … "Not yet."

He held his smile and gave her a nearly imperceptible wink. "Keep thinking about it. We've got plenty of time."

Sara drew a deep breath, realizing that they had reached a turning point in the conversation. She could take this one of two ways, with very different intentions and outcomes. She could respond to his slight innuendo and – hopefully – they could share a laugh. Or, she could ignore it, and the emotionally charged, halting conversation would be very likely to continue.

She exhaled slowly and made her decision.

"Why, Dr. Grissom, I do believe you're trying to proposition me," she said lightly, arching an eyebrow, but unable to keep the mirth from her eyes.

Feeling the shift in her mood, Grissom's smile widened. "Well, you can't blame an old man for trying."

Sara pulled her menu up, but not before he saw her grin. "I don't know about an old man … but, you may not have to try all that hard."

The word was out before she could realize the double entendre it carried. Grissom, of course, caught it immediately.

"Oh, I don't know about that, my dear," he said. "I'd be willing to try very … hard."

Sara burst into laughter. "God, Griss, I forgot how filthy your mind can be."

"My mind? You started this!"

"I did not! You did!"

"Good morning," a third voice said as their waitress joined them. "I'm Patty, and I'll be taking care of you today. What can I get you to drink?"

"Coffee," Grissom said.

"Orange juice," Sara said.

She smiled as she turned to get their drinks. "Coming right up."

Sara caught Grissom's eye, and, as Patty walked away, they both burst into laughter again.

February 2016

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mom."

"Sara!" Laura Sidle's smile carries across the miles to her daughter. "How are you, sweetie?"

Sara draws a deep breath. "Fine," she says.

"Really fine, or Sara fine?"

Sara chuckles, avoiding the question. "I have some news."

"Okay, let's hear it."

"We're taking in another foster child. A baby."

"Oh, Sara. That's so sweet of you. Is the baby … all right?"

"She's fine, physically. Her parents died in a fire a few weeks ago."

Laura sighs. "That's horrible."

"I know. But, she's okay."

"How old is she?"

"Eight months."

"So tiny," Laura says. "What's her name?"

Sara swallows. "Laura."

Laura can't help but chuckle. "Well, I suppose I finally have a grandchild named after me, then."

Sara is surprised by her nonchalant attitude about it. She was rocked to her core when Melinda told her. Why isn't her mother more … shaken?

"Sara? Are you there?"

"Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking … Gil keeps telling me that we have to be careful not to get too attached. They're still trying to track down family for this one, so …"

"Well, you'll take good care of her for them," Laura says. "What does Anna think of all this?"

"She's beyond excited," Sara says with a smile. "She can't wait to be a big sister."

"And, Jake?"

"Going with it," Sara says.

"Hm."

"I didn't exactly expect him to get excited," Sara says. "He's got enough to deal with on his own without worrying about a baby. I just hope I'm not throwing too much at him."

"I'm sure you're not."

Sara rolls her eyes at her mother's continual positive reinforcement. "How would you know?"

"Because, that's who you are," Laura says as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Whether you really are fine, or you're just saying it to make me happy, I know you're doing what's right. You always do."

"Mom, come on –"

"Sara, I mean it," Laura interrupts. "Never in my life have I known anyone who has your ability to see what needs to be done and to make it happen. Never have I known anyone who could live her life so beautifully, even after …" She trails off and takes a deep breath. "You'll do the right thing, Sara. You always do."

Sara swallows back sudden tears. "Thanks, Mom."

February 2004

Grissom walked Sara to her car and watched as it lit up to indicate that she had unlocked the doors. He opened her door for her, but she didn't immediately climb into the car.

"This was … fun," she said at last. "Really fun. I think I forgot …"

"How much fun we can have together?" Grissom finished for her.

"Yeah," Sara said with a slightly apologetic smile.

"I think I did, too," he confessed. "But … remembering is nice, isn't it?"

Sara nodded.

"Well. I'll see you tonight, then."

"See you tonight," Sara echoed.

She climbed into her car and started the engine, buckling her seatbelt before turning to wave at Grissom. He smiled and waved back, watching as she backed out of her parking space and pulled away from him.

The symbolism was not lost on him. In that moment, he vowed to make sure that she would never pull away from him again.

Sara loved her job. Ever since she had solved her first case as a CSI 1 in San Francisco, she had been head-over-heels in love with her career. She walked into the lab – whether San Francisco or Las Vegas – eager to see what the new shift would bring. She was excited by the puzzles to solve, enthralled by the details she could piece together and exhilarated by finding justice for those who had been wronged.

The only thing that had made her reluctant to go to work, in recent days, had been Grissom. Their strained and crumbling relationship had weighed on her, and made spending extra time with him at work mentally and emotionally draining.

Then, with one shared meal, that changed.

Sara knew that they weren't back to the way they were before. She knew that they didn't have a relationship remotely close to what she, in her most secret, hidden desires, wanted to have with him.

But, she also could recognize what they did have: a reemerging friendship. They had started as friends. They were good at being friends.

She wanted to be his friend again.

And, so, it was with a cheerful smile and almost bubbly spirit that she walked into the lab for her next shift. She was met in the locker room by Grissom himself.

"Hey," he said with a smile that matched hers. "Welcome back."

"Thanks." She held his eyes a bit longer than she should have, but, he wasn't exactly looking away, either. "What am I doing tonight?"

"You're with me," he said. "Dead body in a hotel lobby restroom."

"Sounds like fun."

He winked at her. "I'll meet you in the car."

Grissom walked away, and Sara turned to her locker. She caught her reflection in the mirror that hung there, and almost laughed. The goofy grin plastered across her face was a bit much.

"You're a professional, Sara," she told her reflection. "Act like it."

Rearranging her face into a more work-appropriate expression, she grabbed what she needed and headed out to meet Grissom.

Brass met them at the scene and led Grissom and Sara to the restroom, where the body of an obese man was lying on its side. Brass explained that the cleaning crew had found him, and handed Sara the contents of his pockets – a notebook full of random letter and number combinations.

"Looks like some kind of code," she said, putting on gloves so she could accept the notebook. She felt a small thrill at the thought of cracking the code.

"Seven thirty-five?" Grissom asked, reading the numbers printed on the victim's t-shirt.

"His goal weight?" Brass suggested.

Grissom and Sara both give him disapproving looks. Brass smiled in a not remotely apologetic way, and mumbled something about housekeeping before he left the room.

Without exchanging a word, Grissom and Sara immediately got to work. Grissom began photographing the body, while Sara began collecting evidence from the restroom. They talked about their findings as they worked in perfect tandem. Grissom provided a swab before Sara asked for it; she handed him a bindle before he could reach for one.

After so many years and so many cases together, they had become a perfectly-synched team. It was such a fact of their lives that neither of them even noticed it.

And, yet …

Both drew comfort from it.

"I just talked to Albert."

Sara looked up from the DNA evidence she was logging as Grissom walked into the lab. "You went to autopsy without me?"

He shook his head. "He came to me."

Sara frowned. "Odd."

"As is this case." He put six evidence bags holding individual letter tiles on the table in front of her. "He found these inside the vic."

Sara's frown deepened. "Pica?" she suggested.

"No idea as of now. But, the letter S is what killed him – Albert found it in his trachea."

Sara picked up the bag holding the S tile and held it in front of her face. "I don't suppose Brass can read it its rights."

Grissom pursed his lips to hide his smile. "No."

"All right, then," Sara said. "I guess we'll have to keep working."

February 2016

Grissom comes home from work to find the house quiet. While not necessarily unusual – the children are still at school – he is surprised to find that Sara is nowhere in sight. Thinking that she must still be asleep, he goes upstairs to wake her so she can get ready for the children's homecoming.

He is walking toward their bedroom when he spots movement in what is soon to be the baby's room. He stops and slowly steps into the doorframe.

Sara is in the room, sitting in the rocking chair, rocking back and forth. She is looking out the window, but he has a feeling she isn't really seeing anything.

"Honey?" he says softly, stepping fully into the room.

Despite his care not to alarm her, Sara starts and turns to him with wide eyes. She relaxes almost immediately upon recognizing him.

"Hi," she says. She looks around the room. "I'm just trying to get a feel for it."

Grissom nods slowly, never taking his eyes from hers. "Sara … are you absolutely sure about this? They're not bringing us the baby for a couple days. There's still time …"

"No, Gil, I'm sure," she says firmly. "This is the right thing to do. It's the right thing for Laura, and it's the right thing for our family."

"You just seem a little … emotional about it."

She gives him a wobbly smile. "I suppose I am emotional about it. Part of it is learning that her name is Laura. It makes her seem more connected to our family. More like she's already one of us." She exhales. "And, that scares me. I keep thinking about what you said … about not getting attached, about her maybe having relatives out there … And, feeling this connection with her before I even meet her scares the hell out of me." She shook her head. "But, that somehow makes it even more right."

Grissom nods slowly, working very hard at not reminding her, yet again, that she has to fight that attachment. "And, the other part?" he asks instead.

Sara draws a deep breath. "You were right, you know. It probably is too soon for us to do this. We did just lose our baby."

Grissom nods, tension creasing his brow.

"But … Laura just lost her parents. If we've lost a baby, and she's lost parents … doesn't it seem like we should be able to make each other whole again?"

Grissom kneels down in front of her and grabs her hands. "I hope so, Sara. I really, really hope so."

She smiles and squeezes his hands as she blinks back tears.

February 2004

"Hey," Sara said as she walked into the layout room. "DNA came back. Blood from the bathroom floor is a match to the vic; blood from the bathroom mirror is not."

Grissom looked up from the letter tiles he had been arranging and rearranging on the table. "That's interesting."

"Hm." Sara nodded her agreement, then cocked her head to see what he was working on. "What are you doing?" she asked, looking at the paper full of letter combinations he was writing on.

"Anagrams," he replied.

"You think the letters might be a message from the killer?" Sara asked.

Grissom shrugged, continuing to write his most recent letter combination.

"Six letters … What is that?" Sara asked before answering her own question, "That's seven hundred twenty possible combinations, not all of them words, of course …"

She trailed off as she skimmed the combinations he had already listed. Seeing one possible word that was conspicuously absent from the list, she began rearranging the bagged tiles.

"You, uh, missed one," she said with a slight teasing note to her voice.

Grissom looked from his notebook to the word she had created: VIXENS. He looked up at her, trying very hard to look irritated. Her smile, so full of promise, made it difficult to maintain his gruff exterior.

Their eye contact stretched on, and both of them felt the shifting current between them. One of them had to say something, do something –

"Hey," Brass said as he walked into the room. "We got an ID off the DB's prints. His name's Adam Brenner."

"That guy has a record?" Sara asked in disbelief.

Grissom remained silent, cursing Brass in his head. What incredible timing, Jim.

"Well, sort of," Brass said in answer to Sara's question. "He's a civil servant; he's a postal worker from Orlando."

"Do we know why he came to Vegas?" Grissom asked, regaining his professionalism.

Brass smiled. "Oh, you're going to love this."

Grissom raised his eyebrows.

"He was here for a Logos tournament."

"Logos?" Sara repeated. "What's that?"

"It's a word game, like Scrabble." Brass grinned as both their faces lit up. "I knew you'd love it. If I could have picked two CSIs for this one, it would have been you two."

Grissom looked back at the letter tiles on the table in front of him. "Like Scrabble …" he repeated.

"Well," Sara said, "I think we know where our vic found his snack."

"Yeah," Grissom agreed. "Now we just need to find out if he found it on his own, or if he needed a little help."

"Okay," Brass said as they walked back to the car with evidence bags full of DNA swabs from Adam's Logos competitors. "That was a complete geek show."

Grissom and Sara exchanged a look.

"Hey, I don't mean to offend," Brass said. "It's just nice, every once in a while, to be reminded that our lab isn't populated with the biggest geeks in the United States."

"Brass, I have a Masters in physics," Sara said. "If you thought the Logos crowd was bad, I can tell you stories of geekiness that would make your skin crawl."

"I thought it was fun," Grissom said slightly defensively. "I love word games."

"Hey, Gil, I found you a friend in there," Brass said with a sudden flash of memory. "Guy told me he does the Sunday New York Times crossword in pen." He chuckled. "He said I wouldn't make it past Tuesday."

"Well," Grissom said, opening the driver's side door, "you wouldn't."

He climbed behind the wheel, giving Brass a chance to exchange a look with Sara. Biting her cheeks to keep from laughing, she climbed into the backseat, leaving Brass alone in the front with Grissom.

"Hey," Sara said, walking into Grissom's office.

"Hey," he said, looking up at her. "Where have you been hiding?"

"Come on," she said, inclining her head toward the doorway, "I want to show you."

Grissom got up and followed Sara to the layout room, where she had put the notebook Brass had found in Adam Brenner's pocket the night of his death under the ELMO. Looking at the enlarged notebook on the screen, Grissom took a seat at the table. Sara sat down across from him, eager to show off the fruits of her hours of labor.

"Adam Brenner was a meticulous note-taker," she began, flipping through his notebook. "He documented every turn of every game he ever played."

"How many words use the letters we found in Adam's body?" Grissom asked.

"None, actually," Sara said. "At least, none with that exact combination. But, here's the weird part: One of the games didn't add up." She flipped to the appropriate page in Adam's notebook and pulled forward a photo of one of the competitors she had met during their DNA collection visit. "When Adam played Craig, he had sixty points written down that I couldn't account for. And, on that same page of his notebook, I noticed that something had been erased. So, I ran it through ESDA. Adam played exvin. Everything but the S, sixty points."

"What's an exvin?" Grissom asked, looking at her with a slight frown.

"You know, I was kinda hoping you'd know. It's not in the OED."

Grissom stared at the word, almost hurt that it had bested both of them. Maybe it's not English …

Shrugging it off with some difficulty, he held up the rulebook he had collected. "Well, according to the rules, if you play a bluff and your opponent challenges, you have to take the tiles back, you lose a turn and a minute off your game clock. No points."

"Right," Sara said. "And, later in that same game, Craig played an X. Loxodrome. Now, there's only one X per game. How did he get it?"

Grissom frowned. "I think we may need to see his game pieces."

Sara smiled. "I thought you might say that."

He smiled as they stood up. "Good work, Sara."

She flushed slightly. "Thanks."

Craig had killed Adam by making him literally eat his invented word – exvin – in what he described as "karmic retribution." Grissom and Sara left him with Brass, who read him his rights.

"Doesn't he understand that the point of karmic retribution is that the universe gets back at you?" Sara asked as they rode the elevator to the hotel lobby.

"Sometimes, people can get a little too absorbed in themselves," Grissom said. "They forget that there is a universe at all."

Sara glanced at him. "That's what makes them geeks, right?"

Grissom smiled. "Maybe in the eyes of some parts of society."

"How do you see them?"

"The Logos people in general?"

Sara nodded.

"Invested in their game," he replied.

Sara smiled. "Sounds like you."

"Craig just took it too far."

"Yeah," Sara agreed. "He definitely did."

"We all need to remember what's real in life – what's important."

Sara's eyes snapped back to his face. He held her gaze for a moment, then glanced at his watch.

"Shift will be over by the time we get back to the lab," he said. "Do you … want to go out for coffee on the way?"

Sara smiled. "Yeah," she said. "Sounds like fun."

February 2016

Shortly before one o'clock, a car pulls into the driveway. Sara jumps up from her spot on the couch and goes to the window.

"It's Melinda," she says unnecessarily.

Grissom, who abandoned his office hours to be with her for this moment, joins her and puts his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them gently. Sara leans back against him, and he brings his arms around her in an embrace.

They watch as Melinda takes the baby seat from the back of the car and carries it to their front door. She rings the bell, and Grissom and Sara separate to let her in.

"Hi," she says cheerfully as Grissom opens the door for her. "Ready for another one?"

"I don't think I have a choice at this point," he says, reaching out for the handle of the baby carrier.

Melinda hands it over and follows him into the house. He sets the carrier down on the coffee table, just as he did with Anna's when she was a baby. Melinda steps in, unfastening the series of straps that are keeping Laura secure.

For her part, Laura looks around with big, curious eyes. Sara watches her, feeling the full force of her many, varied emotions shooting through her.

"Okay," Melinda says, lifting the baby from her carrier. "This is your new home, Laura."

Sara blinks back tears at the words.

"Here she is," Melinda says, handing the baby over to Sara.

Sara takes Laura in her arms and looks into her deep, brown eyes. She smiles at her. "Hello, baby girl," she says, using the nickname that Anna has long-since outgrown.

To her delight, Laura smiles back at her.

In that moment, all her promises to Grissom fly out the window. Without meaning to, Sara falls in love with her new foster daughter.