Tonight everything seemed to have gone wrong, and now the night suddenly turned from bad to worse. Gil Grissom was standing waist high in sewage, courtesy the Las Vegas municipal sewerage system, wondering what the hell he was doing down here. This was his first night back on the job since a two-month's leave of absence, and it wasn't exactly the comeback he'd been hoping for.
The body he was examining didn't even assemble a human body anymore. Rats had been chewing on it, the state of decomposing; utterly grotesque to anyone else, but Grissom didn't mind the rotting corpse. Heck, he didn't even mind the smell down here! But to be wading in shit?? He'd had better days at work…
"How does it look, Grissom?!" co-worker Sarah Sidle yelled from the manhole's opening far above his head.
"This is a tough one!" The rugged forensic investigator called back, reaching to the conclusion that there was nothing more to do with the body until it was autopsied. They would have a hard job deciding whether this man or woman had been exposed to foul play or if he or she had ended up here by accident. People kill themselves in the strangest ways these days…
The crowd of forensic investigators above ground went backwards as Grissom appeared in the manhole, reeking of odours from his unpleasant wade through things no human being should have to bathe in.
Sarah wrinkled her nose as her boss came towards her. A boyish smile, in fact the first smile Sarah had seen in months lit his face as he came even closer. Mere centimetres apart he finally stopped, obviously in quest to find out how close his co-worker would let him, smelling like ten thousand flavours of shit combined.
"All right, that's close enough!" Sarah said and backed away from him.
The smile stayed in his eyes as he made a sort of disappointed look.
"It's my first day back, have some mercy!"
"Sure, I'll have mercy with you as soon you've had a decent shower and our shift ends! We are taking you out tonight Grissom, whether you want it or not!" she said and almost forgot herself as her fingers ran towards his cheek to brush away something… brown looking… There was a surprised look on his face.
"Who are *we*?" he asked as he jumped around to get off his well-worn waders that seemed to be ready for retirement.
"Me and the rest of the guys," Sarah answered, making grimaces as she saw Grissom's coveralls: "If I'm gonna ride back to the office with you, you'll have to be hosed down first!"
Grissom couldn't help but to smile as he turned his back on her. God, he had missed this! It was great to be back.
*-*
Gil Grissom had never bothered too much about exercising. Still he was fit and didn't weigh an ounce too much, no matter how much of food he ate. Fast metabolism was his excuse for that. But lately he'd been gaining a fair amount of pounds that made one of his colleagues, Catherine Willows, call him "The Grumpy Santa" behind his back a couple of times. But none of Grissom's co-workers bothered him with this face to face. They knew he'd been through an ordeal five months ago and that anyone *not* affected by what he'd been through in *some* way or another just wasn't human. Therefore they figured Grissom, as the oddball he was, had an odd way of dealing with his past ghosts as well.
And Grissom didn't seem to even notice the extra weight. He was working as furiously as ever, claiming Las Vegas would never run out of murders. On his body there were no more signs of the unspoken hell he had been through, and his mood was its old self again. The man who had mysteriously disappeared some months earlier was now right back where he belonged.
Two months later the crew was finally able to breathe again. They had been walking around on eggshells since he returned, but now they seemed to have realised that he wouldn't suffer a nervous breakdown or anything else posttraumatic around them. He simply was Grissom, just as he'd ever been. He was no longer a bandaged, wrecked body refrained to a hospital bed.
Sure, his waistline had somehow started to sag, and Grissom had to admit he was surprised at that. His eating was as it always had been, so he had to have some current problems with his metabolism. In a few weeks time he reckoned that would have straightened out by it self. The stress that followed this job didn't allow extra pounds.
Life at the night shift in the Las Vegas Criminalist Bureau had been reborn.
*-*
The next ten weeks passed like dust in the wind. The past seemed to be of no interest of Grissom, therefore nobody dared to ask him about it. And why should they? He was mentally as he should be, Grissom- like, and he seemed to be even more passionate about his work. There was only one little detail: he was still gaining weight.
Catherine had been following him silently for weeks - mapping his meals, his behaviour, and she knew something had to be wrong, she just knew it. The problem was to have Grissom facing it. Catherine was worrying he would have a heart attack if he continued this much longer, after all he was 46 years old! She had discussed it with Sarah who advised her to tread with caution. Grissom was no easy person, and he was better socially with bugs then he was with humans.
Catherine found him in his mess of an office, where he was sorting out some of the day's paperwork. Catherine jumped as the annoying Big Mouth Bass above Grissom's door started to sing its welcome.
"Hi Catherine. Thought you'd be used to it by now," Grissom pointed out, not removing his gaze from the papers in front of him.
Catherine sighed as she sat down in the chair opposite Grissom's desk. "I thought it would have run out of batteries by now!"
He finally put his papers aside and looked up, removing his glasses.
"So, what's up?" His brow went up in questioning style, as he knew it had to be something else than a case. Otherwise Catherine wouldn't have seemed so… jumpy. She looked really uneasy, squirming in her seat.
"How's the case on the "bugman" going?" she shot in as an obvious desertion to lead him off track.
"The DNA-samples comes in tomorrow, but I think it's pretty much bagged," he answered, enjoying himself.
"Is that so…?"
Catherine let her eyes stroll along the walls. There was the jarred piglet, Miss Piggy, Grissom's tarantulas - gross little creatures! - shelves stacked with jars of organs and miscellaneous creatures, samplebags and Lord knows what else. Grissom didn't have much sense of decorating. Still every single item had its spot, and that made the overwhelming office look organized still.
"Catherine?" She jumped back to reality, finding him staring at her. "Somehow I sense its not my way of decorating my office that's the reason you came to see me?"
"You're right. I needed to speak to you privately," Catherine answered, a blush blossoming on her face. She took a deep breath and blurted out the truth:
"Fact is I'm worried for you, Grissom."
He looked immediately surprised, but he shook it off quickly.
"For me?" he said, touching his chest with the fingers of his right hand. "Why?"
"Oh, come on Gil!" Catherine answered briskly: "You know why! *And* you've been putting on a lot of weight lately. I think you should go and have a check-up."
Grissom rose from his chair and wandered out on the floor.
"You mean I should go see a shrink, or I should go see a doctor?" he said, starting to arrange the notes on his Fishboard. The Fishboard was nothing less than a cork message board, shaped like a fish. There he put all the unsolved cases he'd been working on, only to remind himself he would never run out of work.
"A Physician, just to find out why you are gaining all that weight. Aren't you worried yourself that you might wake up one day, having a heart attack?" Catherine argued, knowing very well she was walking out into a minefield. But instead of arguing with her Grissom did the exact opposite thing, he agreed with her.
"All right, I'll make an appointment. Feeling better know?" He turned and smiled reassuringly to her.
"Great! Thank you Grissom!" she said, still in shock. Had she just convinced the most stubborn man alive to take a medical check?
*-*
The waiting room of Dr. Weisman was as sterile and white as any doctor's waiting room.
Grissom was starting to feel impatient. He'd waited ten minutes over the time now, and that was far enough! Finally a woman came and announced his turn, and Grissom followed her into an office painted in pearl blue.
It was a large office, and it was evident that this man earned quite well. Then, this being one of the finest hospitals around Las Vegas, Grissom hadn't reckoned otherwise. The doctor seemed to have a thing for porcelain dolls, as he had a whole wall covered with dolls of all variations and sizes. Weisman was seated behind an enormous oak- wooden desk, his eyeglasses looked more for show, but there was an honesty in his eyes Grissom could rely on.
"I see you noticed my wife's way of staying with me all the time," the stranger behind the desk noted as Grissom sat down in a comfortable plush chair opposite him.
Weisman appeared to be in his mid thirties, one of those wonder kids who rose in ranks before their ears were dry.
"Yeah, nice collection," Grissom answered, smiling politely.
He was starting to regret coming here. He had to admit he had no idea what was wrong with him himself, but could this puppy find out? He doubted it. And he wasn't one to prejudge people normally. But this wasn't normal circumstances, was it? Something out of the ordinary was happening to him, and he had no idea what it could be. Fact was, Grissom had felt strangely relieved when Catherine had asked him to seek a Doctor. Now he could blame it on her if it turned out to be a false goose-chase. He'd arranged for an appointment in this hospital, mainly because no one here knew his previous medical history. There was no way he wished to start dwelling with past happenings to find answers to these recent changes in his body, and in this hospital no one would start asking questions on post stress and so forth. Grissom was just fine, except from the ever rising weight scale.
"Why is the reason you've chosen this hospital, not to mention me? I see you are not one of my old clients."
Kind eyes rested on the man in the plush-chair.
"I simply thought it was time for a change, that's all."
Dr. Weisman did a spin in his office chair while he tapped into his computer. A frown appeared on his face.
"That's weird…" he mumbled as his fingers ran over the keyboard.
"What's weird?" Grissom asked helpfully. He knew exactly what it was.
"When I try to access your file I get cut off with a message that states your file is classified."
"Oh, that," the forensic investigator simply stated. "That's because I'm in charge of the night shift at the Las Vegas Criminalist Bureau. It's for security purposes."
The Doctor sighed and turned off the screen off his computer.
"Well, then. I'll have to trust you would tell me if there is anything in your past medical history I need to know before I can make an evaluation on your state of health."
"Of course," Grissom answered. His plan worked, great. No telling of old nightmares and psychopaths today!
"Let's get this show on the road then," Weisman said and smiled as he rose from his chair: "Follow me to the examination room and we'll find out what your health status is."
*-*
Half an hour later Grissom was back in his car, driving to work. He was surprised as to how little the doctor acquired of him before he was satisfied; first there was a test of his blood pressure, followed by a couple of blood samples. Then there was a test of his heart rate and lung-capacity. He had to go through a body check-up, or what was more a game of undress and then dress again, and last he had to deliver a urine sample.
If nothing came up in the testing of the blood or urine, Grissom was to be counted as a healthy fish. Maybe it was the simple fact that Grissom was so thorough in his own work that made him wonder what the doctor could possibly have found out about his health state in such short time. But this *was* the doctor's field of expertise and Grissom wouldn't question it. He had also kept quiet about his sudden weight gain, which probably threw the doc off track some.
He wasn't surprised when Catherine came charging straight for him the moment he came in the door.
"Relax, I've been to the appointment and I'm as healthy as one my age can be," he said before she'd even opened her mouth.
"Did they say anything about your weight gain?" she asked, following him into his office.
"This," he answered, patting his stomach; "is just some extra padding I've decided to put on, since I'm going through a midlife crisis. In a week's time I'll buy myself a Harley and drive it to work every single night!"
After putting on his reading glasses he started to sort through the papers lying on the desk in front of him. Three new cases today, one Jane Doe found dead on some railway tracks, an appeared suicide, and a man shot through the head.
"Veeery funny, Grissom!" Catherine shot back, looking over his shoulder to see what cases were available.
He turned around, papers in hand; "Really, I'm fine, Catherine! If I don't hear anything tomorrow I'm as fit as a fiddle!"
Catherine gave him one last searching glare before she decided to trust his word.
"You *would* tell me if something showed up on the tests, right?"
"Of course," Grissom assured her with a smirk, eyes closed. He was dead certain Catherine wouldn't be satisfied until some doctor really found something wrong with him. Not in any wish-him-ill kind of way, but to reassure her self that her female instincts were working. But at least she wouldn't nag him face to face any more from now on.
*-*
As usual when having discussed with pinheads, Grissom was in a really bad mood. He'd been arguing with Conrad Ecklie, the head of the dayshift, which resulted in Ecklie having his way. As a result to that, and due to lack of evidence Grissom had to close a case he'd been working on for some time, and now a family would never know who killed their sixteen year old son. The Fishboard got another written note attached.
Grissom's crew knew better than to bother him after he'd made an addition to the list of Ones That Got Away, so he could blow off steam in solace inside his office. The phone started ringing as he fed Terrence, one of his two tarantulas. He went over to get it, still with one chirping cricket between his fingers.
"Grissom." He was half dreading it would be Ecklie or that blasted Sheriff Mobley, but it wasn't. In fact he didn't recognize the voice on the other line;
"I'm sorry to bother you at work, Mr. Grissom, but there was a problem with one of your tests."
"I'm sorry, what? Who is this?" Grissom interrupted, watching the cricket make a leap for freedom.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. This is Doctor Weisman, you had an appointment with me yesterday?" the voice apologized, and Grissom finally knew who it belonged to.
"Ah, Doctor Weisman! What can I do for you? There was a problem with one of my tests?"
"Yes. Both bloodsamples came out fine, except from an abnormally high level of estrogen but that's really nothing to worry about, I expect your bloodlevels to be back to normal within a week. Although there seems to have been a mix up with your urine sample. Someone on the lab must have switched samples, and now we don't know where your is. So I was wondering if you had the time to swing by and deliver a new sample?"
"Okay, hold on for a second, "Grissom said, waving at the man on the other end, "how do you *know* there's been a mix up?"
"The test results came back positive for pregnancy, Sir," Weisman confessed, rather ashamed.
"Obviously there has to have been made a mistake somewhere in the system. Would it be all right if I scheduled you for eight o'clock tonight? It's a little late, I know, but I would prefer to gather all data on your health as quick as possible."
Grissom sighed. He wasn't interested in loosing valuable work time going back to the hospital to pee on a jar, and especially not for some mistake made by some intern on a lower level.
"I'm afraid that won't work," he answered the doctor calmly. "What if I took the test my self and run it down here? We have all the equipment I'll need, and I wouldn't have to suffer for YOUR screw up."
The man on the other line didn't sound convinced.
"Listen," Grissom argued, " I'll call in my results myself. That way you can decide whether I have sugar in my urine, if I'm suffering from lack of vitamin C, or anything else unusual that could turn up."
Finally the doctor gave in: "All right, but I need you to fax the results over to me so that I can put them in your medical file."
"That's a deal!" Grissom answered. "Goodbye!"
*-*
Five minutes later Greg Sanders received a small bottle labeled "Urine sample". Grissom was for once glad he didn't step off on nature's cause before leaving home.
"I want this run through the machine as soon as possible, but put cases first. Just check it for any abnormality of any kind and send me the test-results afterwards."
Greg picked up the little flask with poorly hidden curiosity in his face.
"Sure, boss! Whose is it?"
"It's a friend's," was all the answer he got before Grissom was heading down the halls again.
Greg went to work immediately, and during the testing he fabulated wildly about who the pee might belong to. He had a distinct feeling Grissom wanted silence around this sample for some reason, and after an hour of work he knew why. He didn't even need to run over to Grissom's office to hand the results to him, as his boss came through the door in the exact moment the printer was adding the finishing touches to the diagnosis-sheet.
"Congratulate her from me!" Greg smiled as Grissom snatched the papers out of his hands. The older man wrinkled his brow, seemingly not understanding what Greg was talking about.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Congratulate her - the expecting mother to be!" Greg repeated, now with his smile fading a little. "I didn't try to poke, but the test came up positive. Your friend is pregnant!"
Greg would remember the look on his chief's face for years to come. Utter shock, disbelief and horror painted his features. All color vanished from his face and his eyes seemed to be popping out from the skull any second.
"No, there has to be a mistake!" Grissom whispered. "You've swapped the samples, you must have swapped the samples!"
"Uhm… no, I don't think so," Greg answered uneasily. Something was wrong with the whole picture here.
"I don't have any other urine samples in for analyzing, so I'm pretty sure I picked the right bottle!"
"Tell Catherine she's in charge the rest of the night!" Grissom mumbled and left, still staring at the test-results in his hand.
*-*
He left the parkinglot on screaming tires. What the hell was going on here?! Grissom drove like a maniac towards the hospital. If he didn't get any answers quickly he would go insane in an instant! Two tests had stated him as pregnant, for God's sake! Men don't get pregnant, that's amongst the first things you learn in life! And still Greg had come up with a positive test-result; positive for pregnancy. He had to have switched something during the process. In his eager to please his boss he had made a mistake during the testing. There could be no other explanation!
He charged straight into Dr. Weisman's office with a howling secretary at his heals.
"You can't go in there, Sir! You have to wait your turn!"
But he didn't notice her at all, the only one he wanted and needed to consult was Weisman. The doctor jumped in his seat when Grissom wandered in. Luckily there were no other patients for the moment.
"Mr. Grissom! I thought you were going to run the test yourself?" he asked, surprised.
"I was, and I did!" Griss
om answered impatiently. "Have a look at this result and tell me that I'm going blind or that I've read it wrong!"
"All right, I'll do that," Weisman said and shook his head discreetly towards the secretary who gestured for the silent alarm. "You just sit down, Mr. Grissom, and we'll have this sorted out in a jiffy!" Then his eyes widened. "That's the weirdest…", he mumbled and ran his fingers over his computer's keyboard. A moment of stunned silence followed. "I don't know how I can explain this, but the sample you took and the one I have here are almost identical. I'm one hundred percent sure these are taken from the same person!"
"All right, fine!" Grissom answered briskly. "Now can you tell me how the hell both samples came up with a positive pregnancy indicator?!"
"I think we'd better use the ultrasound," Weisman suggested, and then added to Grissom's sharp inhale of breath: "Just to rule out any impossibilities"
*-*
A couple of minutes later Grissom tucked up his shirt and laid down on an examination table, feeling utterly humiliated. This wasn't happening, he was having a nightmare!
The doctor put some thick flowing fluid on his abdomen and put the ultrasound device to his stomach. Both watched the screen as the shimmering reflections of Grissom's innards appeared on the monitor. There was a muffled sound from Weisman as he leant closer to get a clear view.
"What, what do you see?!" Grissom also drew closer, desperate to find what made the doctor now squint his eyes in disbelief.
"You see that little string of pearls, right there?" the doctor gaped and pointed out some white dots on the monitor.
"Yes, I see them, what are they?!" Grissom asked stressed.
He wanted to get back to work before the shift ended.
"It's the spine of a living, breathing fetus... And that flickering dot over there… is its heart", the answer came, barely audible. The world slowed down. Time stopped and everything went in slow motion as Grissom got to his feet. The room started spinning, his pulse made a run for it. Gil Grissom had just received news he was pregnant, and he wasn't coping very well, to say the least…
"Nooo", was all he managed to moan as he halted, unaware of where the exit was any more.
Weisman's reply wasn't much of a comfort:
"I think you should sit down, Sir. We have a lot of talking to do."
Somehow he ended up back at Weisman's office with the many porcelain dolls. A cup of coffee was jammed into his fists, and concerned looks were exchanged between the doctor and his secretary.
"Make sure this case is kept strictly confidential! We don't want this one leaking out."
The woman nodded and gave the traumatized forensic investigator one last stunned look before she left.
"So", Weisman said as he sat down in his own chair, "do you have any idea how you ended up in this… remarkable condition?"
Grissom who had been staring into thin air the past few minutes nailed his glare straight on the young Doctor.
"Does it look that way?!" There was poorly hidden sarcasm behind his words, but Weisman didn't seem to be offended.
"You have a fetus, approximately 24 weeks along, growing inside of you and we have to figure out how it got there and why. I need for you to tell me about your whereabouts and what you were doing six months ago."
It was like a lightbolb went on in Grissom's head. The past he'd been suppressing for the last six months came rushing back like a violent flood.
"No… they couldn't..! I couldn't have…", he moaned, as shadows of forgotten memories broke the surface of his mind. Him, walking down a dimly lit street at night, something that hit him on the head, hard. Passing out, waking up in a place he didn't recognize…
Grissom took a deep breath to say what he had to say, but it didn't make it any easier.
"Seven months ago I was… abducted, kidnapped… by a group of underground extremists of what the FBI believed to be a cult of biology geeks. I was walking home late one night and was unlucky enough to be at the wrong place in the wrong time. Four weeks I was held captive, I don't remember much of it. I have nightmares now and again, but I don't remember anything solid. By the end of the fourth week stormtroopers stormed the place and killed everyone but me. I was shipped to a hospital with severe bruises and broken bones. Mentally I was an even worse mess. I needed two whole months to recover. This you'll find in the confidential part of my medical files."
"Oh God, NOW I remember you! That case was all over the news!" Weisman gasped.
Grissom squirmed in his seat, spilling coffee all over his pants.
"I was told afterwards that... they'd been doing … research on me… testing. They used me as a labrat, testing all sorts of things, if I had any allergies, how I would react to electricity towards my genitalia and other fun little projects. Or at least my scars and wounds indicated that. I wasn't much of a help during the investigation, what with the memory loss and all. Could it be possible… could it be them who did this to me?" he whispered looking down on a body he no longer recognized.
"I can't see how that's possible," Weisman argued. "The techniques to implant a human fetus into a man aren't well enough developed yet. The procedure is simply too risky for both father and child. In ten to twenty years, maybe, but not now. "
"Not now? NOT NOW?!" Grissom screamed and got to his feet. "Then how the hell do you explain this?! An act of God?!?! They found a way, Doctor, and now I want out!"
"Calm down, Mr. Grissom. I didn't mean it that way," Weisman assured while a pearl of sweat appeared on his forehead. "I agree that what you've told is the only explanation that seems believable, no matter how farfetched it may seem."
"Great, that's settled then. Now remove this thing!" Grissom barked, pointing at his abdomen.
The doctor's eyes darted anxious back and forth. "I'm afraid I'm not allowed to do that."
A mad grin appeared on the hysteric man's face standing opposite him.
"Excuse me? Am I going deaf over here? Did you just say that you're not gonna remove this foreign element from my body?" Grissom's voice was as cold as a windy winter's day, his eyes narrowed slits.
"According to the law an abortion must occur within the fourth month of pregnancy. After passing that boundary the baby is to be considered as a single person independent from the mother."
"The same law argues to end a pregnancy in cases where the mother's life is at risk!" Grissom spat.
A helpless expression made the doctor seem even younger than his years.
"From what I can tell the fetus is not posing any threat to your life. It seems to have adjusted well and is living in complete symbiosis with you. I would presume your health is at risk during the pregnancy, but I don't find any evidence the pregnancy is life threatening. Therefore my hands are tied on this one."
A coffee-cup hit the floor, as Grissom lost the last of his self- control. How could this person just sit there, deciding his future for him?! He couldn't carry forth a child, and afterwards - then what?! There was no way Grissom would try out the life as a single parent! He was lousy with people, he would mess up a kid for life!
"You can't tell me I have to go through with this?" The anger had left his body, now only hopelessness was left. He sat down again, tremors cursing through his body like a late after shock.
"I can't tell you anything right now," Weisman sighed. "This is a unique situation, but I doubt you'll win in court. What sex you are won't matter in there. But I think it's in your best interest that your condition is kept strictly secret. If this gets out you'll have the entire world's media on your back in no time. If you decide you don't want to keep the baby, you have the option of putting it up for an adoption after it's born."
There was a tired nod from the man in the chair opposite him.
"Don't you worry, I'm not telling a living soul! The sooner this is over with, the better."
Grissom sat in his car in the hospital's parking lot for an hour, just trying to let it all sink in. He would have to go back the next day for additional testing, and to make sure the fetus really wasn't causing its host any hazard what so ever. Why couldn't it have been something simple and curable as cancer? And how was a man going to react to such news? He headed for the one place he used to go when he was troubled, the roller coaster ride in his favorite amusement park. Sadly, ten rides didn't calm nor soothe him the least, and he had to go home to a cold and waiting bed, dreading to meet ghosts from the past.
*-*
The crew of Gil Grissom noticed the second he walked through the door that something was wrong. His whole body reeked of unsolved issues, so the graveyard shift at the forensics' bureau, tread silently in the halls whenever he was close by. Sarah was "lucky" enough to be Grissom's assistant on a case involving two dead prostitutes, and she could in all honesty confess to Nick and Warrick that this was a case she didn't want to take on her hands. Not solely because of the grotesque murders, but because of Grissom's repulsingly bad mood.
Nick watched her as she followed the Grissom inferno out the door, just as Greg came by.
"Did you *notice* the mood on our boss tonight? I was afraid he would start throwing things at me when I told him we were out of small sample bags!" Nick told Greg who got a peculiar look on his face. Nick noticed it immediately. "Hey, you know something?" he asked as he pointed at the door where Grissom had been last seen before leaving.
"Well…", Greg started, his eyes darting towards the ceiling: "I don't think I should… I think it was secret."
Nick's face lit up with the very mentioning of the word "secret". "What is it! You can tell it to me, bud! I won't tell!"
Greg looked around with a conspiring glare and confided in Nick about the urine sample that had come up positive.
"Holy shit," Nick whispered, grinning widely: "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?!"
"Grissom's knocked up some chick!" Greg replied, sniggering. "You know what this means, don't you?" he giggled.
"Yes", Nick giggled back, "Grissom *has* a sexlife after all!"
At the crime scene Grissom was currently yelling at some cops who'd contaminated his the area. Sarah just gaped as the usually calm, reasonable man looked and behaved like a raving lunatic. What was going on inside that mind? And why was he taking it out on everybody close enough to bite?
After he'd snapped at a policewoman for shading the corpse, Sarah decided enough was enough and dragged Grissom aside.
"What's the matter with you today, Grissom?! You're freaking me out!" Sarah whispered, so that no one nearby might overhear her. She got a glare in return and sulking silence. He crossed his arms across his chest and tilted his head a little, challenging her.
"Come on, tell me," she pleaded.
He continued to stare at her, the most displaying sign of his tension: the clenched jaw.
"I'm just having a bad day," he finally said and wanted to head back down to the crime scene. But Sarah wouldn't let him. Grissom had grown to be like a second father to her and she sensed something was the matter.
"You're not just having a bad day. Something's wrong, I can see it."
"Sarah, please?" There was a prayer in his voice for her to stop asking questions he couldn't answer.
Sarah recognized the man she'd visited at the hospital six months ago, and that petrified her. But she knew Grissom well enough to know when she had to stop pushing. She had to rely on him to tell her when he was ready.
*-*
Back at his apartment that night Grissom felt more tired than he'd ever been his entire life. Not so unexpected maybe, given the fact that his second appointment with Dr. Weisman had confirmed his worst fears. He was indeed pregnant, and he would have to carry it to term. The doctor was "kind enough" to grant him a high risk pregnancy, due to him being a man and therefore not physically built to carry forth a human baby, and because of his age. But women sixty years old had babies these days, so Grissom couldn't use that as a valid excuse to end the pregnancy.
Weisman was excited, of course, being a part of a never before seen scientific event and all. He'd been grinning like a madman when he told Grissom that the ones that had implanted the baby had in fact even found a way for it to be born naturally! It seemed like the fetus' fluid-sac had attached to the innards of Grissom's navel. And with the right stimulation it might be possible for the navel to work as some kind of birth canal. Grissom, on the other hand, received the "great news" about as coolly as when he'd found out about the pregnancy; he freaked.
But luckily the child would be delivered through a C-section, the one and only reason there would be a remote chance Grissom would go along with this.
He dumped down in bed, not even bothering to remove his clothes. He reckoned he wouldn't be able to sleep anyway, and he was right. An hour later he sat in the sofa, eating left over noodles and watching old cartoons. Anything to block out both the past and the future.
The future…
What if someone at the office found out? He would loose his job, and thereby his reason for living. He would have no purpose in life. He remembered Sarah's eyes, scanning his every wrinkle in search for evidence to the crime she had yet to discover. How long before she found out?
He didn't finish the noodles and started to pace around in the apartment instead, trying to block out the obvious lump in his abdomen. How was he supposed to deal with something like this?
His behavior at work tonight had been unforgivable. He hadn't processed the appointment with the doctor yet and had to blow out steam somehow. He couldn't let that happen again. Somehow he had to become the old Grissom again at work, and that would mean locking away hazardous secrets.
The following nights at work he was calm as a cloud on a summer's day. He didn't yell, he didn't complain or get upset, he actually looked apathetic more than anything else. He was unaware of the rumor spreading like wildfire in the office, about him as a "ladies' man" with the skill of "knocking 'em up". He was unaware of Sarah's worried looks when he turned his back on her, and how Nick, Warrick and Greg nudged each other and giggled once and again. He was totally unaware of everything going on at his own shift, except from the cases he was working on.
When he finally got tired he drifted off to sleep every once in a while, but an hour's rest usually ended with him waking screaming, fresh nightmares in his head that he couldn't remember. He slid into habit, got used to his new life, and his surroundings settled in with him. Somehow he made things work, somehow he got through both the days and the nights. But no one could have prepared Grissom for the case faith had in store for him next..
Story Notes:
Kick in the but: This lovingly goes out to the purple bunny-beast who infected my mind with this idea! (but it also deserves a hug, for inspiring me to continue the story I'm currently working on, Whispers through time...(had the worst writers block for about a month, but have started writing again now..)
Warning: The main case Grissom is working on during this story is GROTESQUE!!! (and what's worse, things like this actually happens.... (pretty funny when someone calls *me* a disgusting human being, thinking that there are people out there doing *this*...)) Warnings will follow in following chapters.