AN: A new chapter for you guys, hope you like. Some more everyday stuff, and a new character (kind of) introduced… Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter!

AN2: I've updated this chapter after a comment about terminology relating to the deaf community – thanks to csiaddictfan82 for the note, I was not aware of this!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to CSI

Chapter 20

The car seat department at his local Target is like a confusing maze. Grissom's been wandering around for five minutes, and he cannot find the model Sara has. He has a low-quality photo he took with his phone and the model number, but they're not doing him any good.

He considers calling her, but knows she's probably asleep and he doesn't want to bother her. He passed an information desk on his way in and decides to just go back there – there must be someone who can help him.

Just as he turns into the main aisle, a young woman in a store vest flashes by a few feet in front of him, and he hurries after her. "Excuse me?"

She turns, a service professional smile on her face. "Can I help you find something, sir?"

"Yes, I'm looking for this car seat," he says, showing her the photo on his phone. "I have the model number as well."

She studies the photo. "I don't recognize that particular model, but let's check the computer."

She leads the way to a desk, and he shows her the model number.

"OK, so we don't have that model in stock, it's actually been discontinued," she tells him after a moment. "Last year's model. We do have the new model of the same car seat, though, would that work for you?"

"That should be fine, thank you."

"Great, right this way!"

Twenty minutes later, Grissom's satisfied that he's gotten the car seat hooked up properly in his car, and even though it's just a little after half past two, he leaves the parking lot and heads towards the daycare.

The same woman lets him in again, and Shelby seems excited to see him, producing a colorful drawing of what is, according to her, a kitten. It definitely has whiskers and a tail, but that's about where the similarities end. He still promises to put it up on the fridge when they get home, of course.

She chatters excitedly about her day as he drives and announces that she's hungry when they get back to the house. He fixes her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich – sending a silent thank you to Sara for the shopping list she left with him yesterday so he could stock his fridge and pantry – and when she's finished, he produces a puzzle book that he picked up yesterday too. It keeps her focused for longer than he thought it would, and by the time she pushes it aside and announces she wants to look at the 'buddyflies' again, they just have time to go up to the office, before they need to leave to make it to Catherine's place in time for dinner.

The lady of the house herself opens the door this time, and Shelby immediately darts past her into the house.

"Hi," Catherine greets him. "Have a good afternoon with her?"

"The best," he replies, and her mouth turns up in an indulgent smile.

"She's got you wrapped around her little finger, huh?"

He could deny it, but really, what's the point? "It smells good," he says instead, stepping past Catherine when she moves aside to let him in. "What are you making?"

"Nothing," she replies. "Sara's cooking."

Grissom would like to say that he doesn't freeze, but he does. A little. He still remembers when she set off the fire alarm at the lab heating up leftover Chinese for lunch. "Are we sure that's a good idea?"

Catherine snorts. "She claims she's gotten better at cooking, so don't let her hear you say that. I've been keeping an eye on the process. Don't want her to burn down my house. But, like you said, it smells good, hopefully it'll taste good too."

They enter the kitchen at that moment, where Sara's checking on dinner in the oven, so he doesn't respond.

"Hey," she says as she straightens up, looking around. "Did you… forget something?"

He frowns at the question, about to ask what she means, but then Shelby comes barging into the room.

"There you are," Sara exclaims. "Did you have a good day, baby?"

"Uh-huh." Shelby nods excitedly. "What are we eating?"

"Lasagna."

"Yay!"

Grissom and Catherine exchange a glance, and he hopes Shelby's excitement means the food will taste as good as it smells.

Which it does, as it turns out. To his great relief.

"You weren't exaggerating," Catherine says after taking seconds. "Didn't you use to say you could burn water?"

Sara shrugs, swallowing down some lasagna. "Turns out, living on takeout is way more expensive in San Francisco than here. My friend Jill's a great cook, she gave me some lessons. And it's not like I had tried much, before. It's still not my favorite pastime or anything, but I've picked up enough to manage some variety, so someone doesn't get bored."

"So, you don't just alternate fish fingers and chicken nuggets?" Lindsey pipes in, giving Catherine an amused side glance.

"If I remember correctly, young lady," Catherine replies. "That had nothing to do with my cooking skills and more to do with you refusing to eat anything else for two months. You can only lead a horse to water…"

"Lindsey's not a horse," Shelby objects with a frown.

"It's just a saying," Grissom explains. "Like…"

"Break a leg," Sara continues when he trails off, not sure what Shelby might have heard before. "You remember when Evan played the prince in the school play and Auntie Jill told him to break a leg?"

"Uh-huh."

"It's like that. She didn't really want him to break a leg, it's just something you say to wish someone luck. And what Catherine meant just now was that Lindsey wouldn't eat any other food she made. The whole expression is 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink', and it means that you can show or tell someone to do something, but you can't actually make them do it."

Lindsey got up from the table around when Sara started talking, taking her plate and glass to the dishwasher, and now she rounds the table to ruffle Shelby's hair. "Why don't I lead you to some water, kiddo? You need a bath."

Grissom expects Shelby to protest – what kid likes bath time, after all? – but either she's the exception to the rule or the lure of time with Lindsey trumps it, because she scrambles off her chair. Sara sends Lindsey a smile and mouths 'thank you' before the girls disappear from the kitchen.

"You're good here, right?" Catherine asks, grabbing the rest of the plates from the table and loading them in a dishwasher. "If so, I'll go watch a movie or something."

"Sure, here works," Sara agrees. "I'll go get my laptop."

He gets up and hands Catherine the last of the dishes from the table, bringing the lasagna dish to the sink to soak. She closes the dishwasher and moves to the coffee maker. "You want?"

He nods his yes and extracts mugs from the correct cupboard in preparation. Sara gets back before the coffee's done, putting her laptop on the table, along with an envelope, and then leans against the counter on Catherine's other side as they wait for the coffee maker to finish. When it does, Catherine distributes the beverage in three mugs and takes hers with her out of the kitchen. "Have fun."

He and Sara settle back at the table with theirs, and she flips open the computer. "I found these as well," she says, opening the envelope as the computer boots up. "A few doubles I had developed, and these…" She pulls out two square photos, face down, and he takes them. "I don't know, I thought you might want to see them."

He turns the first one over in his hand to discover an ultrasound picture, the text at the top indicating it was taken at thirteen weeks and two days. His eyes focus on the actual image, the limbs that were already identifiable – legs, arms, head, torso. He slides traces the contour of the nose with one finger, the glossy photo slippery against his fingertip.

"You can keep them, if you want."

He looks up at Sara's words. "Are you sure?"

"Of course," she replies with a smile. "I have copies."

"Thank you." Grissom turns his focus to the other picture, this one from twenty weeks and five days. This time, he can count the fingers on the hand that's outstretched, can tell that the mouth is slightly open. "Did you find out the sex?"

"I did, yeah." She's shrugging as he looks up. "I don't know, I felt like I needed that little bit of control, you know? Things were still…"

Impulsively, he reaches out to squeeze her hand. "I understand."

She studies him for a moment, as if trying to figure out if he really does, and then nods, so he assumes he passes.

She pulls her hand free gently, to be able to use the trackpad on the laptop, and he extricates the rest of the photos from the envelope – there's around a dozen, most look to be from the last few months, as far as he can tell. A couple more from the birthday party, judging by the paper crown, one from what he recognizes as Marshall's Beach, Sara with Shelby on her shoulders and the iconic bridge in the background, the rest from an amusement park of some sort.

"Great America," Sara provides. "Jill's oldest turned ten and we tagged along. There wasn't that much Shelby was allowed to ride, but we did the kiddie roller coaster five times, so I think she might have your weird thing for those."

The words make him smile as he tucks the photos back into the envelope. "There's nothing weird about it, it's a perfectly normal reaction to controlled thrills."

"Sure it is. OK, so I've tried to organize these chronologically. I'll just click through, I guess, and if you want to know something, ask?"

"Sure."

The first photo is another one from the hospital, Shelby in one of those plastic cot things this time.

"She was about a week overdue. Longest eight days of my life, and we had a heatwave too, so that was even more fun. Seven pounds exactly, 19.3 inches."

Grissom files away the information, adding it to the puzzle of his daughter's life, every little piece important.

They've gotten through most of the photos on her computer when Shelby comes bursting into the kitchen, already in her pajamas. She scrambles into Sara's lap.

"That's me!" she exclaims, pointing at the screen.

"That's right, baby." She wraps her arms tightly around the little girl for a moment, inhaling the clean scent, letting go before she can start wriggling. "Did you brush your teeth?"

"Uh-huh."

"You want a bedtime story?"

Shelby shakes her head. "Lindsey's reading to me."

"Oh, she is? Then you better hurry, huh?"

"Mm-hmm." She slides back down on the floor. "Night, Mommy, night, Daddy."

"Goodnight, sweetheart," Grissom replies as Sara turns her attention back to the computer.

"And that's the last one," she notes a few minutes later. "I thought if you wanted some of them, I could copy them to a flash drive or external hard drive?"

"All of them?" he asks, giving her a sheepish look.

She had figured as much. "Sure, we can do that."

"Thank you." He leans back in the chair, eyes on the final photo she left up on the computer, a slight frown on his face. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about, actually."

"What?" she asks, ignoring the slightly sinking feeling in her stomach. She's fairly sure it's not going to be something bad, but… he sounds so serious.

"My mother."

It's not the last thing she expected, but it's not something that she's thought about, either. "Oh."

"I wasn't sure… when we were talking a little about family last week, you asked if my mother was deaf, I'm not sure if the past tense meant that you maybe thought she was dead?"

She considers the question. She does remember using the past tense, but she's not sure why. It definitely wasn't some conscious decision. "I guess I might have assumed that, since you've never talked about her," she says. "Which I know might sound strange considering I never really talk about my mom, but, you know, extenuating circumstances…"

"No, I understand. But my mother is very much alive. She's a member of a local society for the deaf that takes a supposedly educational trip once a year, so she's been on a cruise in the Caribbean for the past two weeks."

"An educational cruise?" she asks, one eyebrow raised.

"That's why I said 'supposedly'," he replies with a smirk. "But they have workshops and guest lecturers, and it's a sort of networking opportunity, getting to know more people in the deaf community, just at an exotic destination or, in this case, on a cruise ship. But she'll be back in town on Thursday."

So she's not only alive, she's local. Wonderful.

"Have you told her about…" she starts, and he shakes his head before she even finishes the question.

"We've only texted a few times while she's been gone, the internet connection is never stable enough to get through an actual video call," he explains. "And I decided to tell her in person. It made sense at the time, but now I'm starting to question it… might have been better to just rip off the band aid and give her the time away to process."

Sara considers her next words carefully. "So, there's no way she's not going to hate me, right?"

"She's not going to hate you," he objects immediately. "But, yeah, she's going to be…"

"Pissed?"

He snorts. "Not the word I would have picked, but she probably won't be thrilled. Under normal circumstances, I think you two would get along great, actually, but…"

"The circumstances aren't exactly normal," she fills in.

"No." Grissom sighs. "My mother is seventy-five years old. In a lot of ways, she's… set in her ways, I guess. But she's also a strong, independent woman. Always has been."

"I guess she had to be," she notes.

"She did, yes. And I think she'll see the same in you, as long as she gives you a chance."

"And if she doesn't?"

"I'm not going to worry about that unless it becomes a problem, and I really don't think it will," he says, voice seemingly unconcerned, and Sara wonders if he really isn't worried about it or if he's trying to make sure she doesn't worry about it.

Which is sweet, but completely pointless, because she's going to worry anyway.

"So what's the plan?"

"Like I said, she'll be back on Thursday. I've already promised to pick her up at the airport, so I'm just going to take that as an opportunity to talk to her." He glances over at her. "We're also having dinner together on Sunday, it's a monthly thing. I was hoping you would agree to join us, and bring Shelby, of course."

"Are you sure you want me there?" she asks hesitantly. "You don't think it would be better if she meets Shelby first? Maybe soften her up a little…"

"Maybe for her," Grissom admits. "But my main priority is making sure Shelby's comfortable, so I want you there."

"Then I'll be there."