"Well, that's enough for me for a while," Gil Grissom groaned, trying to haul himself up off of the Lego-strewn floor.

"Why?" Asked his little baby-sitting charge, Lindsey Willows. "I was havin' fun."

"Because my leg cramped, and I need to have a few minutes to obambulate and get the blood flowing back into my feet," he replied. At the five-year-old's blank look, he continued, "You know when your foot goes all numb and tingly and your mom says it's gone to sleep?"

Lindsey nodded.

"Well, that's what happened to my foot, kiddo - I'm just going to get up and walk around, and then I'll be right back and we can finish making the... uh..."

"Bridge," Lindsey reminded him, gesturing at the growing metropolis of Lego buildings and half-buildings in progress. She was immensely proud of her work, as she should be, and Gil made a mental note to get her a big bucket of the plastic bricks for her birthday.

"Yes, the bridge," he said with a big smile as he began walking around, trying to shake the blood back into his foot.

"Uncle Gil?" She piped up a minute later.

"What, kiddo?" He asked, turning back to face her.

"What does obulate mean?" She asked, looking up at him with a quizzical expression.

"Obulate?" He echoed in confusion.

"That thing you said before."

"Obambulate?" He asked, a smile on his lips.

"Yes - that's it," she said, smiling. "What does it mean?"

"Well, it's a really old word for walking around - wandering," he explained.

"Okay." Lindsey went back to playing with the Legos and pretty soon, she had a very nice construction under way. She looked up again and said, "Uncle Gil?"

"Yeah, honey?"

She asked: "Why did you use such a big word to say walk around?"

"Because adults like to use big words sometimes," he said, sitting down again and picking up a Lego block. "Now, where should this go?"

"What kind of big words do you say about Mommy and Daddy?" Lindsey asked innocently as she pointed to a place that would perfectly fit his block.

Gil froze. What was he supposed to say to her? That he secretly cursed her father for ever drawing breath? That he loved Catherine? "Uh..."

Lindsey scowled at him. "Don't say I'm too little to know, Uncle Gil," she said in a sullen tone. "Mommy always says I'm too little to learn the big words."

"Well, you're Mom is intelligent - that means smart," Gil began. Lindsey nodded and smiled, and he took that as a sign to continue. "And she's very passionate about a lot of things - that means that she's very into what she does. And she's exquisite."

"I know what that means," Lindsey said, smiling smugly.

He raised an eyebrow and said: "Oh really?"

She nodded and her smile grew. "I'll tell her you said so," she said with an impish grin that made her face light up like a pixie's.

"You do and I'll have to tickle you," Gil warned in a serious tone that belied the sparkling tease in his eyes.

"Then I'll tell her lots and lots of times, 'cause Daddy never says something nice like that," Lindsey said with all of the innocence of a child. "And you can tickle me now, before they get home."

"Are you sure about that?" Gil asked with a mischievous smile.

She stared at him in silence for a long moment, then nodded.

His hand snaked out and his tickling fingers caught her by surprise, and soon she was tickling him back. They were laughing and wrestling as they tickled each other, and Catherine walked into a very noisy house.

"Hey - what's going on in there?" She called from the dining room as she threw her purse onto the table and wondered why her daughter was shrieking like a banshee.

Gil and Lindsey stopped and stared at each other like they'd been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. "Nothing," he finally yelled back over his shoulder, laying his finger over Lindsey's lips as she let out an unbidden giggle. "I was just teaching Lindsey the meaning of the word obambulate."

"What's that?" Catherine asked as she came into the living room, overstepping the outermost regions of the Lego city as she took her earrings off.

"It means walking around, Mommy," Lindsey yelped, jumping up and running to hug her mother.

"Gil, you've got to stop teaching words like that to her, or she'll grow up into a scientist," Catherine teased.

"You can only hope," Gil answered with a cocky grin.

ala finis