Ecklie's Lesson Two: The Story of them.

This is the sequel to my post-Living Doll fic Ecklie's Lessons

Conrad re-entered the waiting room, noticing that many of the law enforcement personnel had left after finding out that Sidle would eventually recover. Even the sheriff had lit out—no big surprise there. The man was a born politician but now that the crisis was over—why hang around?

Conrad didn't understand why he was still there. The other occupants of the room included Brass, Curtis, Doc Robbins, Archie, Jackie, and Grissom and his team.

Visitors were allowed every hour for ten minutes each, but by tacit agreement only Grissom and his team had been in. Sanders looked horrible, Conrad couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the ex-rat look that pale. Surprisingly, Sofia was visibly upset—Conrad had thought the two women hated each other. Guess not. Stokes sat beside the blond woman, holding her as she rested her head on his shoulder. Was there something going on there as well?

Brown seamed the most stoic, he and Catherine keeping a watchful eye on Grissom and Sanders. This was the strangest mix of people Conrad had ever seen, but it was in an odd way, touching. Grissom's team had always been close. Even Catherine and Sidle—when not arguing—had each other's backs when it really counted.

Conrad shifted in his chair, the silence around him growing uncomfortable. Brass and Willows would occasionally shoot suspicious looks his direction but no one else seemed to even be aware he was in the room. He didn't mind, really. Why should his presence be any concern? He just couldn't bring himself to go back to his empty house. Not now. He knew he'd see that red mustang in his dreams for a while. No, he'd stay here a little longer.

Grissom stood, anxiously pacing. He'd done it all night while waiting for the nurse to signal when he could re-enter room 206 where Sara lay in a drug-induced rest.

"Gil. Sit down. Rest a while." Catherine spoke softly, her tone full of concern for the man. Conrad had to admit, Grissom looked rough. Who wouldn't—having his lover taken by a serial killer only to find her hurt and injured? Not to mention the baby.

"I…can't." His words were soft, short, broken, and the tension in the room increased three-fold. "Not until she wakes. What am I going to tell her, Cath? How do I explain all this?"

"I don't know. Just do the best you can. Sara's strong, Gil. One of the strongest people I've ever known."

"This strong? I don't know, I don't know. The baby—she was so happy. Painted my office yellow. Said at least our kid would see the sun. What am I going to say to her?" He buried his hands in his hair. "I never know what to say to her. Never have known. Not in fourteen years."

Conrad felt something like a voyeur, witness to Grissom's breaking. It had been bad enough when the man cried in his arms in front of dozens of cops and techs. But this conversation—Conrad couldn't remember ever hearing the entomologist admit to not knowing anything before.

"You've known Sara that long?" Catherine asked, surprised. She'd known that Gil and Sara were friends years ago in San Francisco, but Sara was only thirty two or thirty three—she would have been very young when they met.

"I've known her since she was a seventeen year old junior at Harvard."

"Wow. I knew Sparky was smart but…wow," Jim said, smiling slightly, much like a proud father.

"Yeah. I was a guest lecturer doing one semester. I was scheduled to do two classes while writing a book but the Biology professor had a heart attack and died. The registrar persuaded me into teaching Advanced Biology 412. I wasn't happy about it. I hated teaching Biology. First day of class half way through the lecture I realized that a student in the back was sound asleep. It was Sara, of course. Seems I had bored her." He smiled then, a remembrance expression. "Needless to say she wasn't too happy when I woke her up after class and told her to drop. I didn't need her taking up valuable space in my classroom."

"Bet she didn't take it too well." Nick said, awed that his boss was opening up. They'd all wondered how the two had met, wondered at how close they had been when he'd called her in from Frisco.

"She flat out refused, said she'd worked to hard to earn the tuition money—I had no way of knowing she was on full scholarship then—and for me to—quote—go back to my cave and leave her the hell alone, if I didn't want to do that I could go screw myself. I was so shocked I left. I didn't think she'd be back. But she was."

"That's Sara all right." Greg finally smiled as well. "What happened next?"

Grissom rubbed his eyes, sat down in the chair next to Catherine. She gave a small sigh of relief that he was finally down. "Go on, Gil. We had no idea Sara was that young when you two met."

"She was all attitude. Scrawny, too. She wasn't any taller than you are now, Cath. Even skinnier than now. I didn't have any idea how young she was at that point either. Next class, she strolled in two minutes before I was to begin and settled down in the front row like nothing had happened."

"A seventeen year old Sara. How long had she been at Harvard?" Greg asked, obviously puzzled. "Was she living in a dorm at fourteen years old?"

"No. She'd only been at Harvard a year and a half at that point. She had an apartment just off campus. Lived with another girl, also only a teenager. Sara'd been on her own quite a while by that point."

"Poor kid." Jim mumbled, always suspecting the girl was alone—but never realizing how alone she was. "So what did you do?"

"Nothing. I was so shocked she'd had the nerve to show up that I just pretended nothing had happened. But I watched her. Then I became convinced she was cheating."

"Sara? Cheat? No way." Warrick said, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Why?"

"There was no way a student like her was going to be getting perfect scores on my quizzes. But she was. Finished out the semester with a perfect score, while working full time to pay rent at Chuck E. Cheese. It was the only job she could get—being only seventeen. It didn't pay much."

"That's it? Why'd you keep in touch?" Nick asked.

"We didn't—then. I just figured she was an anomaly—I was still partially convinced she had to be cheating, but I never caught her at it."

"So how did you end up calling her in San Francisco if you lost touch and thought she was a cheater?" Sofia leaned in closer to Nick as she talked, and he unconsciously wrapped an arm around her. Conrad had a funny suspicion it wasn't the first time they'd sat that close.

"Berkley. Five years later, I was teaching a seminar in Forensics. September sixteenth."

"Isn't that the day after Sara's birthday?" Greg asked.

"Yes. Day after her twenty-first birthday. This time she wasn't asleep in my class, she was hung-over."

"Poor kid. She just couldn't get a break from you could she?" Catherine laughed, imagining Grissom's reaction.

"I was floored. She was practically passed out, middle of the front row. When I woke her up and realized who she was, I demanded just what she thought she was doing sleeping through not one of my classes but two? She apologized, this time. Saying some friends had insisted she go out with them for her birthday. When I realized how young she had been at Harvard I was stunned. Here I had thought she was just a typical college kid, too irresponsible to make it through an hour long class. That seminar went far better than the first class I'd taught with her. Then halfway through she disappeared, stopped coming to class."

"Why?" Doc Robbins asked, "I can't imagine Sara just not showing up."

"She'd had some trouble with a fellow student. He was stalking her, threatening her. She'd decided it was just easier to not be around him."

"What happened to the son-of-a-bitch?" Jim asked. Conrad understood his tone clearly, his own mind seeing a younger Sara faced with a stalker.

"I'd looked up her address. I wanted to see if something I had done was responsible for her disappearance. I went after class, found her arguing with the guy. I broke it up, got the full story from her. Called the police. I had contacts in the San Francisco lab and they took the case. Wrapped it up in under a week. The following Monday she was back in class. After the class ended we kept in touch, I helped her get an internship at the Frisco lab, coroner's office, kept up with her career. Talked through email and such. When Holly Gibbs was shot I called her and she came right away. Said she 'owed' me. Then I asked her to stay."

"How long you been dating, Gil?" Doc Robbins asked the question on everyone's mind.

"Two years. Since the night Nick was taken." Grissom answered bluntly, surprising everyone including Conrad.

"Wow. That long, huh?" Catherine asked, mind replaying some of the interactions she'd seen between the two over the years. "So had you been attracted to her from the very beginning? That worries me, Gil."

Grissom surprised everyone by laughing. He hardly ever laughed, and from the look on his face, it must have surprised him as well. "No. She was a child when we met and to be blunt about it—she annoyed the hell out of me. In California too. But when she came to Vegas, she was different. By that point she'd been with the Frisco lab for well over three years and we'd even had occasion to work together on cases in California. I began to see her differently then, she wasn't a child anymore."

"Somehow I just can't picture Sara as a child." Greg stated and most in the room nodded in agreement.

"She didn't just spring from the head like Athena, Greg." Grissom chided. Conrad remained silent, unwilling to admit that he too had trouble picturing a child Sidle.

"So you knew each other at Harvard, Berkeley, and San Francisco, but you never dated in any of those places?" Greg asked. "But you two have always acted so funky around each other. What changed?"

"I don't know. She came to Vegas and over the years things just changed. After Nick's ordeal we just decided to see what happened."

"That's it? No earth shattering revelations, no grand gestures? Just "let's see what happens?" Catherine was incredulous. Conrad understood her reaction. The two were odd together.

"What do you mean? We just started spending time together. I decided I spent too much time alone and she decided nearly the same thing. The relationship just sort of evolved over the last couple of years. She…uh…moved in with me right after Jim was shot. In fact, Jim stayed with us for a week after being released from the hospital, right Jim?"

"You knew?" Catherine swung around, facing the homicide detective. Conrad was sure she'd attack him.

"Told you I knew something juicy. You all call yourselves trained investigators. Couldn't find your asses if I gave you a map." He waggled his brows at the strawberry blond theatrically.

Anything else anyone would say was lost when the nurse entered and told Grissom he could visit again. He jumped up, a little more strength in his step and quickly followed the woman from the room.

"They're good together." Jim stood, pulling Catherine up by the hand. "Anyone want to hit the cafeteria? I'm buying."

Everyone but Conrad agreed and they quickly filed out of the room. Catherine stopped by him, placed a hand on his shoulder. "You ok, Ecklie?"

"Just remembering."

"What?" Catherine looked after her group, her family, as they hurried down the hall without her.

"Nothing, really."

"You're free to join us, Conrad. The only one isolating you—is you."

"Thanks, Catherine. But right now, I think I'll wait for Gil. He shouldn't be alone when he comes back."

Conrad knew what Grissom was facing. He'd had to tell his own wife when she'd miscarried nearly ten years ago. It wasn't easy, and wasn't something you ever forgot.

Conrad might not be Grissom's friend, but at least he understood what the man was going through.

At least as well as anyone can.