AN: I'm glad everyone seemed to like Mama Grissom! Again, I was a little worried she might come off as too nice, so it's good to know that wasn't the case. A new chapter with a little bit of everything – some investigating, some talking, some drama… Oh, and glad midsommar to any Swedes out there!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything relating to CSI
Chapter 25
It's strange, but even after just a week, it feels like they have a nice routine going. Sara takes Shelby to the daycare center in the morning, usually around nine or ten, and Grissom picks her up around three. They hang out at his place or go to the park or something else, and then he either brings her back to Catherine's place or Sara picks her up at his, in which case all three of them usually have dinner together before she leaves to put Shelby to bed, and then they meet at the lab at the start of shift.
He does start pairing her up with himself a little. Not too much, he makes sure to rotate assignments and not indulge himself so much it's obvious, but a few times a week. It's still amazing to watch her in the field and the lab, to practically see the cogs turning in her head as she studies blood spatter or a bullet comparison or a crime scene, watch her arrive at a theory or conclusion. He gets more than a few knowing looks from Catherine when she comes across the two of them in the Layout room or Trace, but to be honest, he just doesn't care. He's done trying to play down his feelings or hide them. The only obstacle is figuring out how to broach the subject.
Sara's still not having much luck with her apartment hunt – another couple of viewings lead to nothing – but she has a night nanny lined up for when she does find a place, so that's one less thing to worry about. She tells him about it when they stop for something to eat on the way back from a scene one shift, relief obvious – the first round of interviews hadn't led anywhere, but the second round introduced Emma, a twenty-two-year-old pedagogy graduate who gets along great with Shelby.
"I still can't believe a night nanny isn't more expensive," she says.
"How much is it?" he asks curiously, eyes widening when she mentions the sum. "That's inexpensive?"
She chuckles at his shocked expression. "It's less than I paid for regular daycare back in San Francisco," she says. "So, with daycare here free, I'm coming out on top."
He nods thoughtfully at that, mind turning to financial questions in general. They haven't talked about it at all, but they really should. Sara shouldn't have to shoulder all of it alone, but he can understand her not mentioning it. She's always prided herself on her independence, of course she's not going to ask him for money. He needs to bring it up himself, so he makes a mental note to look into child support rates when he has a chance.
By the middle of her second week back on the night shift, Sara feels like she's really landed. She's got her sleep schedule in place, Shelby's settling in great at daycare and with Grissom, and it actually feels like she and Grissom are moving in the right direction. Granted, it's slow going, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's probably good – she doesn't want to rush because she wants to do things right.
The only negative is the continued lack of an appropriate living situation for her and Shelby, but she has another couple of viewings set up over the weekend – one of them has to pan out eventually – and Catherine has assured her more than once that there's no rush.
On top of all of that, it's a slow night, and she, Greg and Nick spend most of it at the lab, going through the open casefiles they're working on at the moment.
"Did we get the tox results on the Owens case?" she asks as she studies the crime scene photos for the case in question – a forty-two-year-old man found dead on his couch, no signs of a break-in, no external injuries, no obvious cause of death revealed during the autopsy.
"Not yet," Nick replies, looking up from his own photos. "Hey, is there a fireplace? Maybe it's another timing device dropping charcoal on the flames?"
Sara meets his eyes with a frown. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Right, you missed that one!" Greg exclaims.
"Missed what?"
"Did Grissom show you his miniature?" he asks, which makes even less sense.
"His what? Is that some sort of euphemism?"
Greg wrinkles his nose at her question. "No! And gross. It was a case, this psycho serial killer who made half-inch scale replicas of her crime scenes. Grissom kept the miniatures in his office for ages, he got a little… obsessed. I think they're in the evidence storage now, though."
There's a lot to unpack in that sentence.
"So, you caught the killer?" she asks, focusing on the most important part.
"Well, technically no." Greg grimaces. "Apparently, she had some kind of psychotic break and got sent to a mental hospital. One of the employees there contacted the police when she started drawing the crime scenes and we were able to tie her to the murders."
"It was real creepy too," Nick pipes in. "She somehow managed to get a job cleaning here, nobody had any idea. The psychiatrist the prosecution brought in during the trial said she might have been trying to get closer to all of us, looking for another victim. Apparently, she blamed Grissom for her foster father killing himself, trying to take the blame for the murders she had committed."
"That is creepy," she agrees, trying to dispel the cold fear that's settled in her stomach. If this woman had been mad at Grissom, she could have lashed out, could have… but she's not a threat anymore. She's locked up, and he's fine. "I'm not sure I get the thing about a timing device, though?"
"It was one of the murders," Nick explains. "She set up this timing device in the fireplace at her intended victim's apartment, set to go off at a specific date and time and release charcoal so carbon monoxide was produced. But for some reason, she sent the miniature over a month before the actual date of the intended murder, and we were able to figure out where the crime was going to take place and avert it."
"Apparently, that's what caused her psychosis," Greg takes over again. "She was at work – not here – when she heard that her plan had failed, and she just went catatonic."
"Lord knows what she might have tried otherwise," Nick muses, and a contemplative silence settles over them for a long moment.
"Come on," Greg then says, standing up. "I bet the miniature Grissom made is still in his office."
"He made his own?" Sara asks curiously. "OK, this I've got to see."
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Nick asks, trailing behind them.
"What, are you afraid you'll be in trouble with the boss if he finds us?" Sara teases him and he rolls his eyes.
"Well, you're not going to get in trouble."
She ignores the jibe as she follows Greg through the door to Grissom's office. On one of the shelves is what looks like a large box and Greg extracts it carefully, putting it down on the desk instead.
"Wow," she says, leaning in closer to study it.
It looks to be a perfect copy of the office they're in, right down to the bottles on the shelves and insects on the walls. She even finds Miss Piggy in her jar.
"Is this what all the miniatures were like?" she asks, touching the tiny chair behind the replica of the desk they're standing at. It's apparently glued in place.
"Well, with the addition of a body," Nick replies, leaning over the miniature. "There's not a body in there, right?"
She scoffs. "Of course not."
"The first miniature, even the blood was the actual victim's," Greg reveals gleefully.
"She hung around after the murder to finish it?" Sara feels an involuntary shiver run down her spine. "That's definitely next level crazy…"
To Grissom's surprise, he finds Nick, Greg, and Sara in his office when he gets back from the convenience store robbery he and Catherine got called out to. They're supposed to be working on their open cases, but instead they're leaning over his desk, looking at something that's hidden from his view.
"What's going on in here?" he asks suspiciously from the doorway, making all three of them turn.
Nick and Greg look suitably contrite, but Sara just gives him a smirk. "Just admiring your handiwork," she replies, turning back around.
That's when he spots the miniature, the one he made himself, on the desk. He hasn't thought about it in ages, hasn't looked at it once since he put it away on a shelf after the trial.
"Sorry, boss, we'll get back to the case reviews," Nick mumbles as he passes him on his way out of the office, Greg trailing behind studying the floor intently.
"This is really impressive," Sara says when he joins her at his desk. "It must have taken ages."
"It did, yeah," he confirms, peering down at the miniature of his office. "Not like I had much to do in my spare time back then."
She hums next to him, leaning in closer to inspect something, her arm brushing against his. "Nick and Greg told me about the case."
"It was a weird one," he muses, remembering the different crime scenes.
"And she had some sort of grudge… against you?"
Her eyes are intent on the miniature in front of them, but he can still see the frown on her face.
"Her foster father took the blame for the murders," he explains. "Confessed, as it were, over webcam and then killed himself."
Sara winces. "And that's when she got a job here?"
"Apparently. We didn't find that out until much later, of course."
"I can't even imagine what it must have been like to find out she was here, so close…" Her voice is a little shaky at the end and he automatically reaches out to squeeze her hand.
He doesn't want to think about what might have happened if Sara had been here when Natalie was loose. Or, God forbid, Shelby. Just the thought makes cold dread course through him.
For the first time, he's glad she left.
"But, hey, if you want to revive those skills, I'm sure Shelby would love a homemade dollhouse," she says after a long moment, looking up at him with a crooked smile, and he lets the dark thoughts make way for a laugh.
"I'll think about it."
By the time shift ends on Friday morning, the quiet nights earlier in the week are nothing but a distant memory, and they have what appears to be a serial rapist and murderer on their hands. Sara knows it's not her fault for enjoying the relative silence, but she still feels a little guilty.
"Are you getting out of here anytime soon?" she asks, leaning against the doorway to Grissom's office where he's poring over the two case files.
He looks up at her voice. "Conrad hasn't ordered any overtime yet, so yeah," he tells her. "Not much we can do at the moment, anyway. No hits on the DNA in the system, and we still haven't ID'd Jane Doe. Considering it's Friday, I doubt much will happen until Monday."
She moves closer so she can look over his shoulder and study the photos. "Someone has to be missing her."
"Jim's going through missing person's reports, but she might not have been gone long. Or she could be from out of state. Or even from another country. Lots of tourists in Vegas."
She nods absentmindedly. "Yeah. OK, I'm leaving, unless you need me?"
"No, go, I'm right behind you."
He catches up as she closes her locker, and they head towards the parking lot together.
"You want me to pick Shelby up later or are you joining us for dinner?" she asks when they reach her car.
"What's on the menu?"
"Catherine's cooking, so not sure."
He shrugs. "I'll take my chances if it means not having to cook for myself."
"True. Then I'll see you later."
Shelby almost falls asleep in her food, even though it's only seven, so Sara just carries her into bed and hopes she won't wake up too early in the morning. Though Catherine has tonight off, so at least she won't wake Lindsey at five on a Saturday morning if she does.
When she gets back to the kitchen, Catherine rises from the table. "If you don't mind taking care of the dishes, I was going to spend at least part of my night off curled up in bed with Henry DeTamble."
"Of course, you cooked, go relax," Sara assures her, biting back a smile at Grissom's confused look. "Is Henry any good?"
"So far, yes," Catherine confirms. "Let me know if you want to borrow him when I'm done."
"I might take you up on that."
She disappears and Sara opens the dishwasher to load it.
"I'm pretty sure that conversation wasn't about what it sounded like it was about," Grissom notes as he hands her plates. "But I cannot for the life of me figure out what it actually was about."
She lets out the laugh she's been holding back. "It's a book," she tells him.
"Ah."
They finish loading the dishwasher and then get the pots and pans washed and dried before she starts the coffee maker.
"I have something for you, actually," he says when they're both seated at the table again, nursing a mug of coffee each.
"Oh?" She frowns as he pulls a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and holds it out to her. A check. For… a lot of money. "What is this?"
He shrugs. "I looked up the standard child support rates and did the calculations, this is what I should have been paying you over the last three years."
She slaps the check down on the table between them. "Damn it, Grissom, I don't need your money!"
AN: First – sorry about the cliff hanger! I think I've been pretty nice about those so far, but I couldn't resist ;)
Also, I obviously changed the Miniature Killer arch a little in this universe, I needed to figure out a different way to make sure Natalie wasn't running around free, but without Sara's kidnapping. Also, I don't think Grissom actually started his own miniature until later, but I wanted it in here as a way into the case. I hope it all worked OK!