AN: Time for what I think a lot of you have been looking forward to – Grissom meeting Shelby! I hope you like it

Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to CSI

Chapter 10

"Grissom!"

The sound of his name catches his attention, and he looks up from the budget proposal he wasn't really reading – his mind is already on Shelby and the lunch later today – to find Nick in the doorway, a concerned look on his face.

"You OK, boss? Not having…" He gestures to his ears. "… hearing problems again?"

Grissom frowns. "How long have you been standing there?"

"A few minutes," Nick replies, coming further into the room. "Sorry for the yelling, I called your name a couple of times but didn't get a response, so…"

"No, I'm the one that should be sorry, Nick, I guess I'm a little distracted this morning," he apologizes. "Is that the results for the fingerprints from the knife in the Lowell case?"

Nick and Warrick spent most of last night's shift at a double homicide in Spring Valley – a woman and her boyfriend, who also happened to be the pool boy, found brutally stabbed in bed. By the looks of it, they had been interrupted in the middle of a… passionate moment.

"Yup." Nick drops the printout on the desk before pulling out one of the visitors' chairs and sitting down. "They match the estranged husband, so I'm pretty sure we've got him."

"He did live in the house until a few weeks ago," Grissom points out. "His prints are probably on all the knives in that kitchen."

Nick raises an eyebrow. "In a mixture of both victims' blood?"

Well, that changes things.

"Ah. Got the arrest warrant?"

"Vega's bringing him in as we speak."

Grissom hands the fingerprint results back to the younger man and turns his attention back to the budget proposal, trying to get the numbers to make sense. He really should try to get through it before he leaves for the day. Conrad's already been on his case about it twice. "Good job, Nicky."

"Thanks, boss," he says, but doesn't leave. "Hey, you… you know if you want to talk about… anything, you can talk to me, right?"

Grissom bites back a smile and looks up. "Thank you, Nick, I'll keep that in mind. For now, though, I'm good."

"OK." Nick shrugs, clearly slightly uncomfortable despite his offer. Still, he pushes forward. "I just… I know that I don't know what happened with you and Sara before she… left, and that's between you two, I'm not trying to pry or anything, but I figure her coming back must be… confusing?"

His voice rises a little at the end, turning his words into a question.

They also answer a question Grissom has wondered about a little over the last couple of days, when his mind hasn't been otherwise preoccupied – Nick doesn't know about Shelby. He hadn't been sure, since Catherine does, but he's fairly certain Nick wouldn't be offering his tentative support if he did know. He and Sara have always had a relationship that can probably best be described as brother and sister, Nick protective and Sara teasing, or, on occasion, the other way around. If he knew… well, Grissom's not sure what his reaction would be, but he's sure there would be one.

"Thank you," he repeats, with a bit more warmth. "And you're right, it has been… a bit confusing and distracting. Which I'm sure you've noticed." Nick shrugs a little, looking slightly sheepish. "But we've been talking, and I assure you it won't affect work, if that's what you're worried about."

"Oh, you've talked to her?" The surprise is evident in Nick's voice.

"I have, yes." He considers for a moment, but it's too good an opportunity to mess a little with the younger man to pass up. "In fact, I'm meeting her for lunch later today."

"I didn't know she was in town already."

"She flew in on Saturday, she's staying with Catherine until she can find a place of her own." Grissom glances behind Nick, where Warrick has appeared in the doorway. "Yes, Warrick?"

"Vega just called – he's got Mr. Lowell down in interrogation," he says. "Anybody want in?"

To the other CSIs' surprise – and his own, actually – Grissom gets up from the desk.

"It's been a while since I sat in on an interrogation," he notes lightly. "But this one sounds like it's going to be interesting."

The budget proposal will have to wait – it's not like he's been able to focus on it anyway – and he does have an hour or so to kill before he can get out of here.

Over his many years on the grave shift, Grissom has perfected the ability to sleep whenever he has a chance, basically. He has his own ritual for winding down after an adrenaline inducing case, no matter the time or place, and it almost never fails.

Even so, when the alarm clock wakes him at noon on Monday, he's surprised to realize that he must have fallen asleep within minutes of putting his head on the pillow.

He checks his phone to make sure Sara hasn't called or texted while he was asleep to tell him that they need to reschedule, but there are no missed calls or new messages, so he gets up and heads into the bathroom. He takes his time in the shower, turning the water as close to scalding as he can stand. The mirror has fogged over when he gets out, and he wipes it clean.

Should he have asked Sara if she thought he should get rid of the beard? Some children are afraid of beards, right? He's sure he's read it somewhere, though he can't remember where at the moment. It's not like he's particularly attached to it, it's more become a habit, over the years.

Realizing that he's turning something that's most likely a non-issue into a problem, he reaches for his toothbrush instead of the razor and pushes it out of his mind.

It only takes about fifteen minutes to get to Catherine's place, which he knows, so it's too early to leave when he's ready at half past, but it's better than sitting around waiting. He remembers his promise to call Sara as he's locking the door behind him and digs his phone out of his pocket.

She answers just as he's getting in the car. "Hello?"

"Hi. I almost forgot to call, but I haven't started the car yet. Should I?"

Her quiet laugh makes him smile. "Yes, you can start the car. Everything's fine, she's been asking when you're going to get here."

"Really?" He's sure the smile on his face must be completely ridiculous.

"Really. Plus, Catherine's trying out some recipe for vegetarian chili that she got from Jacqui, I am not suffering through that alone."

There's a faint 'hey' over the line and he laughs. "In that case, I'd better come save you."

"Please. See you soon."

"Bye."

Lindsey opens the door when he knocks.

"Hi, Uncle Gil. Bye, Uncle Gil," she says as she moves past him.

"Hi, Lindsey. You're not joining us for lunch?" he asks amusedly.

"Nope," she replies, popping the P decisively. "Have fun."

He shakes his head – teenagers – as he steps into the house and closes the door behind him. "Hello?"

"We're in the kitchen," comes Catherine's voice from the direction of the room in question, along with a pleasant smell, and he toes off his shoes and hangs up his jacket before following it.

He's only gotten a few steps down the hallway when a small figure comes barreling around the corner, screeching to a stop a few feet away from him and looking up at him with big, brown eyes.

The shock of actually having her in front of him makes anything he might have been planning to say fly out of his mind, and before he can collect himself enough to at least say hello, she turns on her heel and disappears the way she came.

All he can do for a long moment is stare after her.

"Hey." Sara's voice pulls him back to the present as she comes around the same corner, frowning at him. "You OK?"

"Hi." He shakes himself out of the shock of seeing Shelby. "Did I do something?"

Sara just shakes her head with a smile. "No, of course not. She's not usually very shy, but it does happen. It's nothing personal."

"It's not the beard?" he asks, running a hand over it.

"Huh?" She frowns again at his question.

It feels stupid to say out loud, but he continues anyway. "I think I read something about it in a study, that a lot of children have a more negative reaction to men with beards than men without."

"I must have missed that one," she says, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

"Yeah, I don't even know if it was a real study, it was just something I thought of earlier," he admits with a sheepish smile.

"I promise it'll be fine," she assures him with another smile. "Come on."

She leads him around the corner and into the kitchen, where the table is set and Catherine is at the stove, stirring something in a large pot. Shelby's standing on a chair next to her, at a safe distance from the burner, watching the process intently.

"You trying to teach my kid how to cook?" Sara asks amusedly and Catherine turns to give them both a smirk.

"Well, you're not going to." She turns back to the stove. "Hey, Gil. How was work?"

It takes him a moment to parse the question, simple as it is. "It was fine. How's the food coming along?"

"Just about done. Why don't you grab whatever you want to drink, there's soda and juice and stuff in the fridge."

"Mommy, can I have soda?" Shelby asks, turning around on the chair and giving Sara what must be her best puppy eyes.

He is never going to be able to say no to those.

But Sara, obviously having been exposed to them more and, presumably, immune, just places her hands on her hips and levels the little girl with a stern look. "What's today?"

"Monday," Shelby replies, pouting.

"And when is it OK to drink soda?"

A big sigh. "On Saturdays."

"Exactly. Come on down from there, OK?" Shelby obediently climbs down from the chair, and Sara puts her hands on her shoulders, turning her towards him. "Can you say 'hello'?"

The little girl lifts one hand and waves a little with her fingers. "Hello."

"Hi, Shelby," he replies with a smile. "It's very nice to meet you."

"Uh-huh."

Apparently happy with the interaction, Sara offers him a smile and ruffles Shelby's hair. "Let's go wash our hands, OK?"

They disappear back into the hallway, and Grissom lets out a long breath.

"So…" Catherine starts, turning to place the large pot of chili on the table. "Overwhelmed yet?"

He turns towards her with a half-smile. "How could you tell?"

"I know you." She pats his arm on her way to the fridge, where she extracts milk and a pitcher of water. "Probably best if the rest of us stay away from the sodas, too."

"That might be best, yes," he agrees.

"You'll get the hang of it," she assures him, gesturing at him to sit down before taking the chair to his left. "She's a great kid."

"I hope so," he says. "The getting the hang of it, not the…"

"Got it." Catherine chuckles.

Excited chatter announces the return of Sara and Shelby, who seems to have gotten over the soda disappointment of a few minutes ago, and soon, they're all seated, Sara to his right and Shelby between her and Catherine.

"This is really good, Cath," Sara says after a few minutes.

It is good. A little bland, but he assumes that's for Shelby's benefit.

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Catherine replies with an eyeroll. "I do know how to cook."

"I know, but vegetarian recipes can be tricky sometimes."

"The recipe did call for chili powder, but I left that out so it wouldn't be too spicy," she says, confirming Grissom's suspicion.

"What's chi-li pow-der?" Shelby asks, carefully enunciating the two, presumably, foreign words.

"It's a spice," Sara tells her. "You use different kinds of spices to make food taste a certain way. Chili powder is really strong, so if you put it in food, it gets spicy. Remember when you wanted to try my food when we had dinner with Aunt Jill and Uncle Eric at that restaurant with the pretty lights? I told you it was spicy and that you wouldn't like it, but you snuck a bite when I went to the bathroom."

Shelby wrinkles her nose. "I don't like spicy."

Grissom has to smile at her put-upon expression. "I don't like spicy food much either," he offers, and she turns her attention to him.

"You don't?"

"No. But you know what I do like?" She shakes her head. "Ice cream. Do you like ice cream?"

"Uh-huh. But not vanilla."

"What kind of ice cream do you like?" he asks, eager for every little detail.

"Strawberry. And chocolate. And, um…" She trails off, looking up at Sara.

"Cookie dough," she supplies with a smile, and Shelby nods somberly.

"Yeah, cookie dough."

"Well, why don't you finish your food, and then maybe we can go get some ice cream for dessert?" Sara suggests.

"Yay!"

For a moment, he's worried he might have said the wrong thing, that ice cream might be a Saturday only treat, like soda, but Sara offers him a reassuring smile before returning to her own food.

So far, he thinks things are going pretty well.