Sara found herself occupying the seat across from Nora Cross.

"I want to tell you why I left yesterday…" She began before Nora had a chance to get started. "It's this idea you have that Gil and I were swept up in a romance and not paying attention to our jobs."

"You wouldn't be the first." Nora countered. She found herself with a deepening curiosity about their relationship and personalities. She'd never come across a pair like this before, and her investigative mind wanted to know more.

"Well it wasn't like that. The work at CSI, that was our passion. You know? It's what brought us together."

"Your husband seems pretty steadfast in his refusal to testify to the fact that Hodges falsified this evidence."

"If you believe that Gil Grissom would cheat the process, that he would jump to a conclusion and work backwards to get there? Then, you're not as good at your job as you think you are."

"I suppose I should have gathered as much from the personnel assessments he filed on you while he was your supervisor. Assessments are filed once a quarter. That's eight assessments written while you two were covertly dating."

"And as I'm sure you've seen now if you have read them all, that he didn't hold back and certainly didn't bend the process to give me any sort of favorable treatment."

"Was that frustrating for you? To have your lover so pointedly address your professional shortcomings?"

Sara smiled as she shook her head. "No."

"It would for most."

"Asking him to change that would be asking him to change who he is. I would never do that. I fell in love with him because of his dedication to the truth, to process, to science. Not in spite of it."

"You know, I don't usually have this much trouble bringing a man around."

"Tell me about it." Sara pursed back a smile and shook her head with an ounce of delight in the memory she was about to unfold, "It took me years. He didn't understand my temper. He didn't understand why I would be emotional on the job. You, read some of that. One night, during a um, particularly tough case, I told him my story—my whole story. My childhood was complicated. Gil understood and after that… he was just there. I guess why I bring this up, is to give you insight into the way he works. Most people are motivated by impulses. Desire, anger, fear. There aren't any gears that shift for my husband until he sees how they work. But you put him in a lab, you give him time to study, he finds his way."

"He's never been impulsive?"

She shook her head with confidence, "When you speak with him, ask him how long he was in love with me before he acted on it. It won't be an anomaly. It's not the exception for him, it's the rule."

Nora narrowed her eyes in on Sara, "You must have a lot of patience."

"No, not much. I borrow my patience from Gil."

Nora closed her files and sat back a bit, signaling to Sara that perhaps this more case-related part of the discussion was at a close.

"You have two children, with Gil." She watched as a smile spread across Sara's features while she nodded, "How much time did it take for you to convince him to take that step?"

A small laugh escaped Sara's lips as she shook her head again, "I'm eternally grateful for the family we have today, but it was nothing that I had planned on. In fact, a large reason why he and I split up for a few years there was due, in part, to my fear of starting a family together."

Nora nodded, finding every turn of their story more interesting than the last.


Grissom sat across from Nora Cross in the interrogation room, occupying the seat his wife had sat in just a short while ago. He rolled an orange across the table to her. He looked at the woman across from him, taking in her demeanor. She read as confident, self assured. Young.

"Is this a peace offering?" She asked as she picked up the orange and bounced it in her hand. "Or are we just never going to get on the same page?"

"I'm giving peace a chance. I had some time to think about the choices you're offering. One, throw David Hodges into the wood chipper. Two, climb in myself."

"Well that's evocative. I'm not sure it's entirely fair. I just want the truth."

"You want me to support the case you've built. But based on what I know, all I could really say on the stand is that Hodges might have falsified DNA and trace evidence as you suggest."

"Might have isn't going to cut it." She countered sharply. "I think you and Sara are being a little naive."

"Naïveté, by definition, is a lack of experience, judgement. The antonyms are intelligence, perception, enlightenment. And that would be my wife."

"You speak highly of your wife these days."

"Always."

"Not always, necessarily. Right? The personnel reports you filed as her supervisor...some more damming than others, even while you two were together."

"It would have been a disservice to her and her career to bolster my reports and shape them into anything less than accurate."

"So this report," Nora began as she looked down while opening a folder in front of her, reading from it, "Sara Sidle continues to push boundaries with suspects. Her dedication to the victim can hinder her ability to see the full scope of the project."

"At the time, it was accurate."

"And now?"

"She's grown out of that."

"What about this one?" Nora asked flipping to another section of a report, "Sidle works tirelessly in following leads and speaking for the victims. At times, she can be combative, emotional and hot headed. Her determination is a force to be reckoned with and her insubordination to her superiors and her colleagues, on occasion, causes concern. Her professional temperament is in need of coaching."

He shrugged, "What are we talking about here?"

"You seem to be flip flopping. Your wife is, as you said, intelligent, perceptive and enlightened. Yet, you also have called her insubordinate, hot headed, unprofessional."

"When the evidence changes, so too must the assessment." He offered simply.

"I see. So, as time went on, in your relationship that is, your professional assessments of your employee was not changed due to your involvement with her, but due to her own professional enhancements? You know, Gil, sometimes when we're too close to something, we have blind spots. Is it possible, that you were too busy engaging in a secretive workplace affair, and therefore were too distracted to see what Hodges was doing under your watch?"

"No." Grissom laughed as he shook his head, "It's a nice picture you're painting here, Nora. But certainly not rooted in reality. The reason why none of the incredibly intelligent investigators we worked with caught onto our relationship for over two years is not because we are that good at deception. But rather it never entered the workplace. It was compartmentalized to a T. Our relationship did not exist within the lab walls."

"Until you two slipped up that is, no? How else would Natalie Davis have been able to identify Sara as the person to target for revenge against you?" Nora spoke and watched as his demeanor change at the sound of Natalie's name.

"There was evidence that she observed us outside of work."

"And evidence that she observed you inside work as well." Nora slid Natalie's drawings across the table that she'd received from evidence. Detailed renderings of Grissom caressing Sara's arm at a crime scene. Of him wiping away a tear in the lab's break room. Of his hand on her back. On her cheek. Intimate moments they'd thought no one had bore witness to, all clearly taking place with CSI vests on or in the lab.

"I'm not here to investigate the circumstance under which lab policy was broken by you two in your pursuit of this relationship. But what I am trying to communicate is how the timing of your romantic courtship of Sidle seems to be perfectly aligned with all the cases that you signed off on related to the Hodges falsification case. And as such, it certainly calls into question where your head was, where your professionalism was, at the time."

"I can't convince you of something you've already made your mind up on. All I can say is that, if you speak with anyone who knew us then, you'd see how off base you are."

"You don't need to, actually." Nora shuffled around some papers and opened another folder from the stack, "This is a transcript from Conrad Ecklie's conversation with Sara after your relationship came to light. The end bit specifically stuck out to me."

She paused a long while until Grissom finally spoke, "Well?"

"Ecklie: Were you two romantically involved when I asked him to fire you?
Sara: During the double body in the tar pit case? No. We were not together.
Ecklie: Why do you think he refused to fire you?
Sara: I guess you'll need to ask him that.
Ecklie: Do you think there was romantic bias?
Sara: Again, I can only speculate. But if you're asking my opinion… then everything I know about Grissom says he would never compromise his team, his career or this lab for anything or anyone.
Ecklie: Not even for you?
Sara: No."

Nora let the words of his former boss and wife echo through for a moment before she switched up the trajectory of the conversation slightly, "How long were you in love with Sara before you officially sought her out to begin your relationship."

Grissom smiled internally. He knew Sara had crafted her responses to Nora in a way to give her a specific impression of him. And he could only imagine what Sara said in her meeting earlier that morning to cause Nora to ask him this now.

"Six years."

Nora's mouth fell slightly agape. "Did you say six years?"

He nodded, "That's right."

"So your impulsivity…"

"Is non existent. Look, I don't know why our relationship seems to be at the forefront of this conversation. But if you're looking for the color of our character, all I can say is that I was confronted with evidence of being in love with Sara from the moment I met her, but I refused to start with a conclusion and work my way back. I know now, that that's not really how love works. But it's how I work. And yes, it took me six years to compile enough evidence to satisfy the conclusion that not being with her was a greater risk than being with her."

He paused a moment and surprised both of them when he chose to add more context, "It also took me nearly a year after she left Vegas to go after her."

"You needed more evidence to ensure she was worth that risk?"

He shook his head, "I had all the evidence I needed for that. And yet, I was dedicated to this lab beyond a measure that I could fathom severing."

She nodded, taking a moment for the air to clear before diving into her next point, "The D.A., Judge Shapiro, that civil attorney they assigned, Anson Wix, Mr. Hodges lawyer, Me, Dr. Roby, I could keep going."

"With what?"

"With the list of people playing tug-of-war over this mess. None of whom you want to test."

"My children have better temperament then the host of people you're listing. I will not change my responses because some people want a different outcome."

"Your children." Nora smiled, "Aurora and Warrick?" She watched as he nodded, "Warrick is named after your fallen colleague, Warrick Brown?"

"That's right." Grissom responded with a hint of sadness.

"How's fatherhood for you?" Nora asked as she closed her files, indicating to Grissom that the interrogation portion of the conversation had come to a close, just as she had with Sara earlier that morning.

"It's the most wonderful experience of my life." He shrugged, "I mentored many lab techs and CSIs during my tenure as grave supervisor here, I thought that was good enough for me. But this is something different entirely, I hadn't expected just how wonderful it would become and honestly, it just keeps getting better. Though Sara continues to remind me that Dave Hodges deserves the same experiences with his unborn child."

Nora smiled at him, "Can I ask you something a bit personal?"

Grissom shrugged in response in a give it a try kind of way.

"What did you say to Sara to convince her to have children? She made it sound like she wasn't as sure as you… that her own childhood had potentially turned her away from the idea entirely."

Grissom smiled widely as he thought about their hike in the remote forest of Mexico where he showed her the overwintering location of the monarch butterflies. How they swarmed endlessly around them in a beautiful haze of black and orange.

"I just told her that I thought it would give us the full human experience. And that I wanted to experience that full range of human life with her."

"Ms. Willows is babysitting later tonight isn't she? While you two are off at a fundraiser for the local deaf college?"

Grissom tilted his head, "Nothing gets past you, does it?"

"It's my job to know what's going on around here." She offered, "I'm speaking with her in an hour. She had signed off on two of the 12 cases."

"Well." Grissom spoke as he stood, "Why don't you float your theory past her, about how Sara and I were swept up in a romance too enthralled to pay attention to what Hodges supposedly was up to. I imagine she'll set the record straight for all of us."


"Sara!" Catherine sped up her pace as she approached her former colleague in the break room. "My god it is so good to see you!" She wrapped her up in a warm embrace.

"Cath! Hi!" She hugged her back, a wide smile spreading across her features, "How's Lindsay? How's the baby?"

"They're so good. I can't believe I'm a grandma, it's… surreal."

"Well? Let me see?" Sara gestured to her phone, prompting Catherine to show her photos of the newborn baby.

"Oh wow." Sara spoke, taking in the sight of the child and Lindsay in her new role as mom, "I can't even remember Warrick or Aurora being that small and that was just a few years ago."

"Where are they? I can't wait to see them. I haven't seen Warrick since he was this small." She smiled sadly, while she thought the gesture beautiful to name their son after their fallen friend, it still evoked such strong emotions every time she spoke his name.

"Actually…" Sara gestured toward the door with her head where Grissom was walking toward them, two young children in tow.

"Cath, hey." She scooped him up into a hug before he knew what hit him.

"Gil." She breathed, finally letting him go before getting down on her knees to greet their children. "Aurora, I don't know if you remember me but—"

"Hi Aunt Catherine!" She beamed.

Catherine placed her gaze upon Grissom and Sara now, her unspoken question loud and clear on her features.

"She likes to look at that old picture of the team while she falls asleep." Grissom shrugged.

"Daddy and Mommy and Uncle Nick who was here yesterday! Uncle Greg, you and Warrick." Aurora spoke with admiration for the people she studied in the framed picture she had at home. Warrick perked up at the sound of his name, but quickly realized the conversation was not about him.

"Aunt Catherine is going to hang out with you guys tonight at the hotel while we spend time with Grandma Betty." Sara spoke as she placed the two kids in chairs by the break room table and handed them each some paper and crayons.

"That's right." Catherine confirmed through a big smile, "I am so looking forward to that." She paused a moment, turning her attention back to her former colleagues, "I have a meeting with someone for IAB soon, Nora Cross."

Grissom nodded, "It's about this whole Hodges mess."

"Ridiculous." She scoffed. "Well I need to head there now. I'll swing by your suite at the Eclipse at 5 so you two can head out."

"Perfect Cath, thank you. And thank you for the suite too." Sara spoke as she hugged Catherine one more time before they parted ways.


"Mrs. Willows. It's convenient that you're here to answer some of my questions in person. Your old team seems to have a way of hanging around."

Catherine shrugged, not willing to take the bait on anything but a direct question.

Nora continued, "Two of the 12 cases in question were under your supervision. One while Gil was on sabbatical, and one when you were truly supervisor. And we will get to that, but I'd like to get started by focusing on the cases Dr. Grissom supervised on given that it is the majority of those in question."

"Okay." Catherine spoke calmly.

"What do you remember about the time period in which Dr. Grissom and Sara first engaged in their romantic relationship."

Catherine furrowed her brows, "In what way?"

"I can only learn so much from reports and fillings, you were there. I want to know what you observed. If their romance could have caused Grissom to get sloppy with his assessments of Hodges and potentially be negligent in supervising these cases."

Catherine burst out into laughter.

"Why is that everyone's response when I ask this?"

She regained composure and eventually responded, "Detective Cross, the man you see today is lightyears different from the man who ran this lab in many ways, and in other ways he is exactly the same. And even still, he will not bend the processes. Sloppy work being chief among his pet peeves. Gil was a dedicated workaholic up until the moment he left this lab. Regardless of his relationship status with Sara, which, if I were to be frank, probably only enabled him in this regard. You are witnessing them after years of marriage and kids, but before that, my god you could search the world twice over for two more dedicated people to their work and to the victims, and come up empty."

There was a long pause between the two and Catherine got the sense that Detective cross was weary of her character portrayal of her two former colleagues.

"Actually..." Catherine began as she racked her brain for dates and relevant information, "Have you gone back and watched any of the recorded interrogations from back then? Perhaps you can get a better picture if this is the rabbit hole you're set to wander down. If you want insight into the man Grissom was before he and Sara got together, look at the last interrogation tape in the Dr. Lurie / Debbie Marlin case. But truly, I'm at a lose for why their relationship has anything to due with the Hodge's case."

"Nearly all of the cases in question were during the years that they were engaging in a secret affair. It calls into question how much that affair impacted the work, the oversight, the integrity of the lab."

"Interesting."

"What's that?" Nora scrutinized the woman before her, her eyes narrowing in on her.

"Your interpretation. You see the cases in that time period and immediately think negligence on Grissom's part. When I hear it, I think setup. Why those cases? Why at that time? What would Hodges have had to gain from those specific cases being manipulated in any way? Were those cases, perhaps, chosen to lead you down this line of questioning and away from what seems to be fairly obvious to everyone else here, that this is a frame job."

"They're very defensive of Hodges, too."

"Which should also tell you a lot considering Hodges was one of the least liked techs we ever had. He pushed our buttons constantly, was always sucking up to Gil despite never getting anywhere because of it. And was pretty awful to Sara after they divorced briefly. Their defense of Hodges has nothing to do with friendship or loyalty and everything to do with the truth."

Nora took a moment to take in what Catherine was saying. "So when did you learn about their relationship."

"I'm not seeing how this is relevant to Hodges' case."

"I'll decide what's relevant." Nora's voice was soft but her words were sharp.

Catherine took a small pause before beginning, "I had suspected he was seeing someone for some time. He was an incredibly private person back then so it would have been of no surprise if he had been with someone and just never told anyone. But I didn't know for sure, nor did I know it was Sara, until after she was abducted. He came clean about their relationship within the first hour of us searching for her."

"What gave you the impression before that, that he may be seeing someone?"

"He shaved his beard." Catherine shrugged, remember how his clean shaven face became a regular feature seemingly overnight, "He lost a bit of weight, he seemed…. Well rested. I had worked with him for over a decade before this, I couldn't remember a time where he didn't have bags under his eyes until around 2006. And then, poof."

Nora nodded, "What about Sara. What changes did you notice in her?"

Catherine thought a moment, "She was calmer. She used to get really emotional on cases but, there was a shift in her. After their relationship came to light I pieced it together."

"They were breaking lab policy."

"They were." Catherine confirmed, "But the law breaking stoped there."

"How can you be so sure?"

"When you work with people the way we do as CSIs, you become family. You're spending all of your time with them. Through doubles and triples. You're putting your life in their hands. And they're doing the same with you. I spent more time with them then I did my own daughter. Sometimes I think I knew Gil better than he knew himself."

"Were you surprised, when it came out that they were dating?"

"I was." She nodded in confirmation, "These were two of the most committed loners I'd ever met. But clearly, there was something there. And it's beautiful to see how it all worked out for them in the end."

"The children." Nora offered.

"Yes." Catherine replied wistfully, "It's been such a joy to watch them take on these new roles. And sometimes I really wonder, if the people they were 20 years ago could see where it all shook out.. I wonder how they would react. Probably as awestruck as I am, to be honest."


Grissom opened the suite door upon hearing the knock, "Cath, hey!" He stepped aside to let her in, "Thanks again for doing this. You sure you don't mind?"

"Mind? I've been looking forward to this all week." She took in his appearance and smirked, "I see you no longer need me to tie your bowties." She nodded her head at the collar of his tuxedo. "All you ever really needed was a woman." She walked further into the suite to see Aurora and Warrick sitting on the couch pouring over a dense textbook with huge microscopic photos of insects on each page. "I see the indoctrination began young."

"There in a beetle phase." Grissom responded, "But who isn't?"

"Hopefully this fundraiser goes smoother than the last one Sara attended. Though, it's already off to a better start given that you haven't stood her up this time."

"Ha." Grissom offered through dancing brows. It had been on his mind already.

"Alright, I'm ready to go." Sara spoke as she exited the bedroom while fastening an earring on, wearing a long black dress, her hair pinned up with a few loose pieces falling to frame her face. Grissom's face relaxed at the sight of her, his jaw going slack.

"Close your mouth, Gil." Catherine jabbed playfully at him and thought of the last time she had to say that to him while they were backstage investigating a case involving showgirls. Decades ago now.

"Mommy! You look pretty!" Aurora ran toward her and was lifted into the air upon making contact with Sara's legs.

"Thank you honeybee." She kissed her daughters cheek and then rubbed at it to smudge away the transfer of lipstick.

"We better get going." Grissom spoke as Sara placed her daughter back on the ground.

On the elevator ride down Grissom took in her appearance fully, devouring her with his eyes. He reached up and traced his finger pads down the side of her neck and over her jawline.

"You are breathtaking." He signed to her.

She smiled silently and watched his eyes scanning her, resting on her chest before moving down further and then back up to her face. She pursed back a smile, "Maybe we should just skip the whole thing." She raised a brow.

He smiled as he pretended to think about her proposition, "Maybe we should head home early my love." His fingers ran down her shoulder and arm. He glanced up, seeing they still had 12 floors to descend then decided to lean in and kiss where her ear met her neck. It sent waves through her, she melted into him. Her own fingers finding the back of his neck.


Grissom and Sara walked into the hall together and descended the staircase to the main party. The drums were loud and the scene was set similarly to the fundraiser Sara had attended alone all those years ago. It was hard for her not to think back to that night, learning that he would not be there just as she was descending the very steps they walked now together.

He placed his hand at the small of her back as they walked through the crowd toward a familiar face.

"Hi mom." He signed after tapping her shoulder to alert her of their presence.

She pulled him into a tight hug, "Gil! I'm so happy you two could make it this year. Come, there are so many people I want you to meet."

Betty turned around, expecting the pair to follow her.

Sara spoke through closed teeth, leaning into his shoulder, "You get your social prowess from your mother, clearly."

He shot her a look with a knowing smile. Then, each turned their attention to the group of people Betty brought them to.

"Nice to meet you." Sara signed easily as Betty introduced each one by one.

"You all remember my son, Gil. And this is his wife, Sara."

She felt his fingers tracing circles on the exposed part of her back, feathery light touches before his hand would pull away to respond to one of his mother's friends.

"Two children." He signed with a beaming smile as he answered a question, "Aurora Dorian and Warrick Ishmael."

"Unique names." The woman responded.

"Well Aurora is named after the northern lights. Dorian means gift from the sea. We spend a lot of time out to sea." He looked lovingly at Sara before turning his attention back to the woman and adding, "And Warrick is named after a friend of ours who is no longer with us."

"Ishmael?"

"Moby Dick." Sara added for him.

"It's different." Betty added, she'd made her tastes known perviously.

The night continued on and Sara and Grissom played their role adequately, allowing Betty to show them off to her colleagues, friends, professors and alike.

Grissom had excused himself to use the restroom, leaving Sara with his mother briefly. Upon exiting he ran into someone he hadn't seen in years.

"Julia." He spoke before remembering to sign, "It's nice to see you."

"Gil, I'm surprised to see you here."

"My mother didn't mention we were coming?"

She shook her head, "We?"

Grissom gestured his head across the room where Sara was standing beside his mother.

"I see." Julia responded, "She did tell me that you two got back together and that you're a father now."

He smiled, "I am."

"Funny, when we were together, I never imagined that was something you wanted."

He shrugged a bit, "Me either." He spoke honestly. "At the time, I don't think I did."

"I like her." Julia admitted after a long pause, "I tried not to. And your mother didn't always frame her in the best light, which made it easy for me to want to dislike her. But… I get what you see in her. At least, from my brief interaction with her in the middle of a murder investigation ten years ago or so." She laughed a bit at the conclusion of her statement.

"Gil." Sara's voice cut through the silence of his conversation with Julia, causing him to snap is head in her direction, seeing as she quickly approached him, worry etched over her features.

"What is it?" He asked quickly, a pit in his stomach beginning to form.

"Catherine said the kids are fine but, someone tried to break into the suite. I don't know much more. PD is there now."

"I have to go." Grissom quickly signed to Julia before hurriedly exiting the venue with Sara.