Title: Innocence and Beauty

By: TriplePirouette

Category: Angst, ??? GSR eventually- you just gotta wait for it....

Spoilers: one slight to LHB and to BoP (so far- will be updated)

Disclaimer: They're not mine- I'm a poor college student having fun... take pity...

Distribution: please ask first :)

Summary: Grissom was burned, badly. And it started a long time ago.

Author's notes: My take on how Grissom was burned, and why he's been becoming more withdrawn for the last two seasons. This is the beginning of a HUGE fan fic endeavor- one that I've never taken before. first- I've never tried to write a story where I've filled in so may blanks while at the same time needed to do research, second- I've NEVER posted a WIP_ I always told myself not to because I was afraid I'd never finish. But for some reason this wants to be worked on a lot, huge, and posted! Here goes nothing! Thanks to Les and Kelly :)

(Leslie said she cried in the first part- I'll admit it's sad- you may want a box of tissues close by, just in case.)

Feedback PLEASE at: [email protected] I love anything constructive! I'm new

at the CSI stuff, so any tips will be appreciated! Blatant flames, however, will be disregarded and

used to roast s'mores....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Lady Heather's Box:

Grissom: What did you consider this? A little civility before work, I think?

Lady Heather: ... or a ritual to put us at ease. Or how about "in custom and ceremony, are innocence and beauty born."

Grissom: Yeats ... "Prayer For My Daughter."

Lady Heather: Or our morning.

From Burden of Proof:

Catherine: "Are you in denial? Wow, you got burned deep, hum?"

~~~

Chapter 1- For an hour I have walked and prayed

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

The first stanza of Yeats' "A Prayer for My Daughter" keeps running through my head. For some reason that's all I can remember of it. I'll have to go look up the rest of it later. I'm standing next to her cradle in the dead of night. The moon glow is coming though the window across the room just enough to bathe her and make her look radiant. I've been standing here for a while now, probably too long. But I don't want to leave her bedside. She seems too small, too vulnerable.

She was an accident, but not a mistake.

She'll never be a mistake to me.

She's only 2 months old, but she holds my heart in those tiny hands of hers. As she shifts in her sleep I fold my arms over the rail to the crib, resting my chin on them so I can get a closer look at her. I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing her, knowing she came from me.

I'm watching her now for a reason. I don't think I'll get many more chances to do this. Tears start to well up in my eyes. I let them fall. She won't care.

Her mother never gets out of bed for anything short of her daughter screaming for at least ten minutes. And it's not because she's trying to get her used to sleeping at night. It's because she's lazy. She's told me so. She doesn't want her night's sleep interrupted by our daughter. She also won't breast feed because she's afraid certain things will start sagging.

It's amazing how quickly your perception of a person can change.

Maggie and I can't stand each other anymore; two years ago we couldn't have been more in love, it's all falling apart now.

As I stand here, waiting for her to start to inevitably whimper for her next feeding, I can't bare the thought of leaving her.

I check my watch, let out a sigh, and go to warm the bottle.

And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

Yeats got it right, there is a great gloom on my mind now. Two glooms in fact. The first is that I may never see her again. Maggie and I aren't even married, I have paternal rights, but they won't be enough for any court int this country to rip a newborn from her mother. I think she wants to move away from me, she does want me to see our baby, she's insinuated as much. I wouldn't be surprised. The things she's said....

"Bugs.. Fucking bugs... you're going to raise her to be a fucking geek- you know that? A little hermit sulking around just like you..."

"Night shift? You want to work night shift? And you're still going to be the fucking coroner? Don't get me started..."

"Don't you cut up enough things? Do you have to dissect me, too?"

"I can't stand to be around you anymore..."

"What the hell did I see in you in the first place..."

"I could live my life without ever seeing you again..."

Maggie could go to Iceland for all I care right now. It's her I can't lose. I tip toe back into her room, warm bottle of formula in hand. She's still breathing deeply, sleeping tight. The second cloud that hangs over my head is something that Maggie didn't even know until after we found out we were pregnant. I had to tell her then.

Otosclerosis is hereditary- and in my family. My mother is deaf, and preliminary tests are telling me that I may have inherited it as well. The dried tear tracks on my face are flowing again. I had never thought about that particular ramification of having children. All signs point to normal hearing for her right now. But that could change. I don't want it to. I watched my mother go deaf, she handled it with as much grace as anyone could. But I still saw the deep struggle within her, and the sadness that penetrated her when she couldn't hear anymore. She told me she missed hearing my laugh once.

I now fear the day I lose my hearing- if only for the fact that I will miss hearing her laughter.

She begins to stir in her crib and her tiny fists go to her face, her legs kicking out. She makes a few gurgling noises before opening her eyes to reveal them to me.

"Hey my baby girl," I whisper to her. God forbid I wake her mother in the next room- I'll have the fight of the century on my hands. I quickly swipe at the tears on my face with the hand that hold the bottle, letting my sweatshirt absorb them. I know she can't understand- but I never want her to see me upset or angry. God knows she's heard me and Maggie fighting way too much already.

I reach one hand into her crib and gently stroke a finger down her cheek, all the while smiling at her. She repays me with a happy gurgle and grabs my finger with a tiny fist. "Do you have Daddy's finger?" She laughs and claps her fists, still containing my finger, together- her legs working fiercely.

I put the bottle down in the crib and use two hands to pick her up, quickly cradling her tiny frame to my chest, her head in the crook of my arm. She's still so small. I reach back for the bottle then guide it to her mouth. She takes it and starts suckling on it, eyes blue and wide, staring at me.

Maggie says her eyes can still change color. I like to think they'll stay blue, like mine. The downy fuzz on her head already shows that she's going to have brown hair like her mother.

I like to think that she might have something of mine, other than the sword of hearing loss hanging over her head.

I walk to the window and sit in the chair next to it. It's just a wooden chair- not very comfortable, but it will do for now. I start to talk to my daughter. I may use a light soft voice, but I never use baby talk. How will that teach her anything about words?

"You know daddy loves you, more than anything in this entire world. And I'd do anything to be with you always. But it looks like that's not going to happen."

My throat chokes up, and I can't talk anymore without sobbing.

I never thought I wanted children until I saw her tiny pink face staring up at me: so needy, so trusting. I fell in love at that moment.

It kills me a little to think that she may be ripped from me in a matter of years, months, or even days.

I know we can't stay like this. Maggie and I are volatile now. Nothing good can come of us forcing ourselves to stay together. But I can't picture allowing my baby to leave my side. But it looks like that's what I'm going to have to do soon to make sure she grows up in a peaceful house.

I'll never let her go, though. I could never let her not know who I am.

Even if she never wanted to see me again, I want her to make that decision, not Maggie.

I'm nervous about letting Maggie raise her. When I heard she was pregnant I thought about how wonderful a mother she would be- and how incompetent a father I would make. Seems as though the tables have turned slightly.

"I'll do everything I can." I whisper the promise to her. "Everything."

The bottle slips from her mouth. She's fallen asleep. I put the bottle aside and rock gently, content to hold her in my arms. Clips of the rest of Yeats' poem come to mind.

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

It's from somewhere in the middle of the poem, I think.

She is innocent, innocent in this situation we've put her in. I rest my head next to hers and breathe in deeply. She is my daughter. I would move Heaven and Earth for her. And if it means her own happiness, I will leave her.

I return her to her crib, the tears stinging at my eyes, but this time I do not let them fall. I place her gently back down and stare at her again.

Fate is cruel.

And she will pay for our youth-full indiscretions.

She was an accident, but not a mistake.

The mistake is how wrong it all turned out.

The mistake will be how I will have to live without her.