Nick leaves Catherine's office and Catherine sighs looking back at her case reviews. Soon there's another knock on her door and she smiles as she sees Gil walk in.

"Hey handsome."

"Hey beautiful." Gil pulls a lily from behind his back and hands it to Catherine.

"Gil…" Catherine smiles at Gil and he kisses her softly. He pulls her out of her chair and into his arms.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine." Gil trails his fingertips over her clothed stomach and she laughs.

"What about the baby?"

"Gil, not so loud. I don't want people to hear yet."

"Cath our baby's healthy. We should be screaming it from the rooftops."

"Once I'm through my first trimester we can tell all the Johns we walk by on the street." Gil kisses Catherine's forehead and leans his forehead against hers.

"How are you really doing?"

"Okay. I wanna do something else, but there's nothing." Gil pulls a sheet of paper from behind his back.

"Really?"

"If you promise to be careful."

"I totally promise." Gil hands her the sheet and she smiles greedily realizing that it's a 419.

"Oh you are a good man Gil Grissom."

"I'll meet you out at the truck in a few?"

"Depends on what you're doing when I'm out there."

"I've just gotta talk to somebody."

"Five minutes?"

"Yeah five minutes."

"You better show up bugboy."

"I'll show up promise." Catherine goes out to their truck and Gil walks into his office. Lady Heather stands up from his couch and swipes her dark brown hair out of her green eyes as he takes in her appearance of dark jeans and a black mock turtleneck sweater.

"Heather."

"Gil.

"I wanted to thank you…for everything that you did for Zoë. I also wanted to apologize."

"For what?"

"For the past few years…not telling you that we got back. I know that we weren't expecting this, and I shouldn't really blame you. It's my fault too."

"Heather…" Gil strokes her cheek and she leans into his touch looking into his eyes.

"I'm not saying drop everything and be with me, Gil. I'm just saying I'm sorry about everything that happened."

"We should talk more."

"What's to talk about? You know where you can find me and you know where I stand." The door to Gil's office opens without any notice until Catherine's voice penetrates their haze.

"Gil baby the truck…" Catherine glances up from her cell phone and notices Gil and Heather.

"…Won't start…Heather?" Gil drops his hand and Heather looks at Catherine.

"Hello Catherine."

"Gil the truck won't start I just called the mechanic they said it'd be about 30 minutes." Catherine spins on her heel and walks out of the room. Heather looks back at Gil and a sense of understanding looks back at him.

"How long?"

"We've only been married for 3 months, but we've been together for a while."

"How far along is she?"

"Ten weeks."

"Congratulations." Heather leans into Gil her lips next to his ear and she begins to talk in a whisper.

"Like I said I'm not asking for a relationship, you also know where I stand. If you wanna talk then you know where to find me. We have made a share of mistakes and I do wanna be able to call you my friend, Gil. But I need you to be careful. I'm not going to ruin everything." Gil nods and Heather picks up her purse and walks out of his office. Gil goes to the locker room where he knew he'd find Catherine. And sure he did. Catherine was on the floor in front of her locker holding her knees to her chest as she cried into them. Gil kneels next to her and she looks up at him before burying herself in his arms.

"It's nothing Cath. You know that." Catherine nods and Gil sits her up on the bench. She looks down at him sniffling.

"I love you and our baby and I wanna be with you forever. You know that. Heather and I just…we have some stuff we need to settle between us. But I am not going to leave you okay?"

"Okay?"

"I'll call Nick and have him take over the case."

"No! I'll just take my old one...Do you wanna go or stay here?"

"I'll stay here. I've gotta do some stuff then I'm going on call…"

"Heather?"

"Like I said we've got some stuff to sort out and at the end of the shift I'll come and get you two and we can go have breakfast okay?"

"Yeah that sounds great." Gil kisses Catherine and holds her close.

"I love you so much."

"I love you too."

********************************************************************* ***

Gil walks into Heather's house and scoops up the little boy running at him.

"Daddy!"

"Hey buddy. Where's your mom?" Heather walks into the living room and Gil looks up at her.

"Hey."

"I thought you had to work."

"I'm on call. Speaking of shouldn't you be in bed Max?"

"I was just getting ready to put him down."

"I'll do it. Come on you need to get to bed." Gil lifts Max onto his shoulder and takes the little boy to his room laying him on his bed. Gil tucks the covers around him and kisses his dark curls.

"Sleep tight."

"Don't let the bed bugs bite."

"I'll see you in the morning."

"Really?"

"Yeah really." Gil kisses his son's forehead one more time before turning on the night light and walking out of the bedroom. He goes back to the living room where Heather's putting a CD into her stereo.

"We do need to talk."

"I figured."

"I want Cath and our baby to know Max. I also was thinking that I could have him for the next month…month and a half." Heather pulls out a bottle of wine from her liquor cabinet and pours two glasses.

"Don't you think that you should wait to see what Catherine's reaction is to Max before she spends a month and a half with him?"

"Well I told her that we would go out to breakfast tomorrow morning when we get off of shift and I figured maybe you and Max could come." Gil accepts a glass from Heather and takes a sip.

"What do you think she's going to say?"

"You were pregnant. You tell me if you would have reacted the same if you weren't."

"I think that the only person that you can predict is a…"

"Non hormonal Catherine.

"How do we do this?"

"Play it by ear. I guess we can go over everything when Max starts preschool." Heather settles on the couch with her left leg under the right one that's stretched out. Gil looks her over and notices lines around her eyes and mouth that weren't there before.

"You need to take it easy." Heather's head snaps up and Gil smiles at the questioning in her eyes.

"You look tired and overworked. You seem older than you really are." Heather smiles and sets her glass of wine on her coffee table.

"So that's what every woman wants to hear now days?"

"Heather…" Heather was never one to let people see her cry, but as her watery eyes met Gil's understanding ones she broke down in sobs. Gil pulls her into his arms and he softly whispered words of understanding and comfort.

********************************************************************* ***

Gil wakes up at the ringing of his cell phone and groans fishing it out of his pocket.

"Grissom."

"Gil it's 6 o'clock where are you? Shift ended 30 minutes ago." Gil looks around his surroundings noticing that he and Heather were still on her couch.

"Guess we fell asleep. Um I'll be there in 15 minutes."

"You sure?"

"Yeah I'm gonna leave Heather a note and I'll be out of here." Gil hears Max's wails of 'Daddy!' in the background and sighs.

"Actually is anybody still there?"

"Yeah Nick's still here. Why?"

"Have him take you home I want you to get some sleep. I'll be home around 8 okay?"

"Yeah sure. Whatever." The dial tone meets his ear and Gil sighs. He puts his phone on the table before easing away from Heather and padding to Max's room. The little boy's sitting up and sobbing for his father. Gil scoops him up into his arms and kisses his forehead softly.

"It's okay buddy. Daddy's here. I've got you." Max calms down and Gil kisses his forehead stroking his curls softly.

"Better?"

"Where's mommy?"

"She's sleeping bud. Why don't you go back to bed it's too early for you to be up?"

"I wanna seep with you."

"You can sleep with me tonight. But now you sleep in your bed and then when you and mommy get up we can go get breakfast."

"Really?"

"Yeah really." Max lays back down in his bed and Gil tucks him in kissing his forehead softly.

"Daddy?"

"Yeah bud?"

"Can I go to your house for a while?"

"Well when we go to breakfast this morning I want you to meet someone then if you still want to, yeah you can."

"Okay." Gil kisses Max's forehead one more time before walking out of the little boy's room. He goes back to the living room where Heather's drowsily looking around.

"I thought you left."

"No Max had a bad dream." Gil lies back on the couch and pulls Heather to him.

"Go back to sleep." Soon the two of them are fast asleep again.

********************************************************************* ***

Gil walks into his and Catherine's house and smiles at Catherine who's watching the news.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Look I'm sorry about…"

"I know. I know. Can we just go have breakfast and not talk about this."

"About what?"

"About this, what's going on with Heather."

"Cath…"

"Please?" Catherine stands up and takes Gil's hands in hers.

"Actually there's something I need to show you when we get to the diner that has to do with me and Heather."

"After that?"

"Maybe. Depends on you."

"Let's go." Gil nods and Catherine shuts off the TV following him out to the truck. After a quiet 15 minute drive they pull up to the diner and Catherine takes Gil's hand as they walk inside. Gil leads her back to the corner booth where Heather's sitting with Max on her lap, sucking his thumb.

"Cath this is…my son Max."

"You're son? You two have a son together…and you never told me?"

"I didn't tell anyone. I didn't even tell my mom." Gil lifts Max into his arms and Heather excuses herself from the table.

"Max can you say hello to Catherine?"

"Hi Catherine."

"Hi Max. How old are you?"

"Three."

"He'll be four in June."

"He looks just like you." Gil smiles.

"Listen Heather's had him for the past 3 months and they've been in Europe and she's okay with it, but I wanted to ask you first if he could stay with us for a while. Please?"

"Yeah sure. Of course. We need to get to know each other don't we Max?"

"Mmhm." Catherine smiles at the little boy and then at Gil when Heather comes back.

"He looks like you too."

"When he was a baby he didn't look anything like Gil. Now he's a walking image of him. So I take it Gil talked you into some time with Max here?"

"Yeah."

"Well his bags under the table and it has everything except for Simon who's in the washer."

"Actually Heather I'm still hungry, I'm sure you and Max are, along with Gil. Why don't you stay and have breakfast with us?"

"Actually I have some business to attend to so rain check?"

"Sure."

"I'll bring Simon by before he goes to bed."

"Okay." Heather kisses Max goodbye and the three of them sit at the table after she leaves.

"Well Maxwell what do you want for breakfast?"

"Pancakes and…bacon!" Gil looks up at Catherine and sees her stomach revolting at the thought of having bacon at the table.

"Actually bud Catherine gets kinda sick when there's bacon around so how about some fruit and I bet if you eat it all Catherine will take us for ice cream later?"

"Okay." The waitress comes over and Gil orders for the three of them before turning his attention to Catherine.

"How you feeling?"

"Okay. I've been feeling worse since last night, but it'll pass its normal." Catherine smiles and kisses him softly.

"Love you."

"Love you back."

*****

TBC