Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: Oookay, so I'm sorry it took me so long to update. And I'm sorry this is a short chapter. The website I use to watch the episodes so I can obsess over details currently wants me to fill out a survey and subscribe to a bunch of places via email before it will let me view any... and I'm not really willing to do that. :) Sooo, that's why this one was so long in coming, and short. Hopefully, I'll pick up posting again after Christmas!

Happy Holidays everyone, thanks for reading, and hope you enjoy! :)


Chapter 15: Hope

I received a large manila envelope addressed to me in an unfamiliar hand, with no return address. Of course, my heart jumped into the throat and I more or less threw the rest of the mail in my excitement to open it—I couldn't help getting my hopes up and, thankfully, I wasn't disappointed.

They were Amber's senior pictures, and I sunk low into the couch, feeling tears prick the backs of my eyes as I pulled them from the manila envelope with shaking hands.

There was an 8x10 with my beautiful little girl—a woman now, really—in a white sun dress of eyelet lace, on a brown porch swing, with trees and grass around her. Her blonde hair had been curled, and they fell around her bright eyes and dimpled cheeks with an eloquence that left me completely breathless. Her left hand held the old, thick chain, her right rested on her lap as she bent forward, a laugh frozen on sweetly pink lips. It looked like an honest laugh, not a pose, and I wondered what was amusing her.

…It was good, that she was so happy.

There were two 5x7's—one vertical, with her in a long, yellow dress… I wondered if it had been her prom dress. It seemed formal enough. It wasn't poofy, but long and slender, making her look so much taller than I would have guessed… this smile was fixed… posed… but still beautiful. Her hair was wound up behind her head elegantly, but simply.

The second was her in jeans and pink converse high tops, her hair long and straight, hands plunged deeply into the pocket at the front of the bright blue, oversized UCLA sweatshirt she was wearing. …I wondered if this was for me, of if that was where she was going to school… I doubted that she could safely send something that would be so revealing about her personal life, but the idea of my baby at my alma mater... She smiled here too, but it seemed subtler; a sneaky, side-of-your-eyes kind of smile, and I felt like it was personal.

Following this intuition, I flipped the picture over, and there, in the unfamiliar scrawl, beside a curvy, messily drawn heart—"For my daddy." I sniffled and wiped at my face, unaware until this moment that I had been crying. I set her pictures down delicately, rubbing my face in agitation, not wanting my tears to ruin them.

There were seven others—three 4x6's, and four wallets. They were similar to the first few… same clothes or same setting, same beautiful young woman who, miraculously, still called me daddy. …She still loved me.

I chose two—the UCLA and the swing picture, with her laughter—to put in my wallet, and then hurried out to the store, even though I'd just come off what had felt like the longest shift of my life, to purchase new frames for my new pictures… for my baby.

And then, I called Sara, because I felt guilty about the diner and about how far we'd drifted since she'd come to Vegas. We hadn't talked daily, when she lived in San Francisco, but weekly, at least.

We didn't talk about the breakfast… we didn't talk about Warrick, or Greg, or all the problems we had when together and after we broke up. I didn't get mad or feel hurt when she called me 'Grissom,' which must be mostly habitual to her, now, and she didn't comment or make a snide remark when Warrick did come up in conversation. We talked about work, but not our coworkers, unless necessary. We talked about Kelly and Eric and Joey, but not about the night in Seattle… we talked about Stevie, but not the Christmas in which she'd given me the terrarium. And when we hung up, both of us needing to get some sleep before work that night—though, knowing Sara, she probably wouldn't sleep at all—I felt really good… my chest felt fuller and lighter.

I put her UCLA picture up on the nightstand in my bedroom, and watched it as I drifted off to sleep. This young woman… she seemed happy… healthy… well-adjusted. Her skin and hair and teeth looked bright and shining, which eased my mind on the whole drug-use issue… for the most part. A father never stops worrying, really, does he? And, as I had noted a hundred times before, she was still too beautiful for her own good.

I slept deeply, undisturbed, because for the first time in what seemed like a long time, I was not simply enduring—I felt genuinely happy. And maybe… just maybe… if she still remembered me, and loved me, and clearly had my address… maybe I would have my baby back soon. She was 18 in April, graduating in May or June… maybe I would get a visit, or... hell, a phone call telling me where to visit. Something… anything…

Maybe.