"Hi! Hi there! Remember me? I'm your Dad. Daddy. My name is Seeley. You'll probably hear Mommy calling me Booth all the time. But you can call me Daddy. OK?"
Booth had crept into the nursery to check why Christine was fussing. He had been lying in the dark, wide awake after Brennan had finished feeding her and put her down. It had been a really big day. Christine was, at this moment eleven hours old. Brennan was exhausted. She had been so strong during the birth, so brave. But it had taken it's toll and she was fast asleep right now. Booth turned down the volume on the baby monitor so that Brennan was not disturbed.
"Are you warm enough? You look warm. What's wrong? Shhhh, Mommy's so tired. I know you aren't hungry, you only just got fed an hour ago. So. What? What baby? Let me see."
He picked her up and put her on the change table and started removing her onesie, guessing she probably had a wet diaper.
"Let me just pop you on here. OK. So how many buttons does this thing have? Right. One little leg. Two little legs. So cute. Who's got cute toes. Who's got cute toes? Christine does!"
He suddenly pulled his face back from kissing his daughters toes, a horrified expression on his face.
What's going on? What's that smell? " Hell, what is that? Oh my God. This is just. Ergh. Um. I don't. Uh. What is that stuff? It's black! Jeez. Christine!"
Come on Booth. Toughen up man. This is your newborn daughter. You know about this stuff. Bones was talking about it the other day when she was giving you the lecture about newborns. It's that Macaroni, Mercurium? uh, that black poop stuff. "Ugh. Christine. This is. Oh Crap!" heh heh heh funny, it really is crap. "Don't tell your Mommy I said crap. OK. I need those wet wipey things." Booth kept one hand firmly on his daughter's body, and started looking around "Uhhh, OK. OK. Here they are. Now, wait. I think I need more than one for this." He pulled eight or nine wet wipes from the container.
"Aww Christine. Why me? OK. We can get this cleaned up baby. Maybe I should bath you? Nah, it's three am. I think you'll be OK. Let me just roll you this. AHH! Christine!" Booth was greeted with the black sticky meconium half way up Christine's back. "It's. Oh God. It's all up your back! What do I do? What should I do! OK. Come on. I know it's late. But this is just too much. We gotta have a bath. Shhh. We don't want to wake up Mommy."
Booth wrapped Christine up in a baby blanket and carried her into the bathroom. He held her firmly against his chest with one arm, his hand wrapped around her head, supporting her, and with the other hand, lifted the baby bath into the big bath and turned on the tap, adjusting the temperature. He put only enough water in it to wash off her back and bottom. He sat on the toilet lid and lay her on her back on his lap and unwrapped her, quickly stripping off the already half removed onsesie. " Now miss. Let me peel this off you. Man! It's stuck everywhere. How did something so small produce all of this?" he said, his face screwed up. Pulling the tiny baby singlet over her head, he stood up, letting the now soiled blanket fall to the floor. He kicked it to one side and knelt down on the floor, grunting as his knees hit the hard tiles, and gently lowered her into the water.
Christine shivered and her little voice mewled like a distressed kitten.
"Oh baby. It's OK. You're so little. God. Here we go. Yeah. That feels OK doesn't it? Nice? Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right! I'll have to tell you that story one day. But not now. OK. So. If I just hold you like this. Errk. I hope this is the last time you do this. I'm not sure if I could handle this again. Damn! I should have taken photo's to show Mommy. Never mind. Oh. Oh no. Don't cry baby girl. There we go. Look, all the nasty sticky black tar poop is gone." he kept talking to her, soothing her as he washed the mess from her tiny new born body. Her little arms and legs were rigidly held away from her body, shuddering as he rinsed her off and lifted her, so gently, out of the water and lay her onto a clean towel.
"Aww, this towel is so nice and soft. Let me just wrap you up. There we go. Come on, back to your room. " Booth carried his daughter, snug in a thick towel back to the nursery and closed the door. He rummaged through the drawers looking for clean pj's for her. He found a pink grow suit, and a yellow singlet. He stared at them, but decided any clothes were better than no clothes and set about drying and dressing his daughter.
"Wow. Getting these things off was so much easier than getting them on!" he said, scared that he was going to hurt her little arms or legs as he dressed her. He buttoned up the last button and picked her up, holding her up to his face and kissed her tiny squashed face. "You are the most beautiful, precious thing in the world." he whispered. He was going to put her into her bassinette, but then decided against it and walked to the corner of the room and sat in the old rocking chair he and Brennan had bought.
"So now that we're all clean, and dry. How about we get to know each other. Do you remember me? I was the one with the big hands when you first opened your eyes. And you peed on me, so I figured you knew I was your Daddy" he smiled down at her. "You scared us, coming so quickly like that. And I'm sorry that we weren't in a nice clean hospital, but you seem OK. Right? Mommy seemed pretty sure you were fine. And the doctors at the hospital didn't seem to be too worried about you. After all, they let us come home straight away." He lifted her higher up his chest and bent his head to kiss her forehead, cuddling her against his chest.
"You certainly smell better than you did half an hour ago" he said smiling down at her and noticed her mouth, which was opening and closing. He gently rubbed his finger over her bottom lip and Christine immediately started sucking on his finger. Booth smiled as her little tongue tapped against the pad of his finger, but then thought, that can't be clean. He looked around and spied a pacifier on the chest of drawers next to the chair. He pulled his finger from her mouth and reached over, grabbed it and pulled off the cover and held it in front of her. "Is this what you want?" he waited for her to open her mouth so he could pop it in. But of course she just kept making little sucking noises, her rosebud lips pursing.
Booth frowned and held the pacifier a little closer, gently touching her lips with it. At the touch of it, she sucked it straight into her mouth and started suckling on it, her mewling quietening. Her eyes were wide open, staring straight up at him as the pacifier bounced up and down, covering almost the entire bottom half of her face. "Are your eyes brown? Or dark blue?" he asked her, squinting, trying to tell. "I wonder what colour hair you will have?" he whispered, stroking her little head, feeling the brown, silky down that covered it at the moment. "I hope you look like your Mommy, but. And don't ever tell her this. I hope you have my sense of humour." he smiled.
"So what can I tell you? I'm a pretty good guy. I work for something called the FBI. Mommy is really smart. She's a squinty type person. That means she works in a lab and squints at stuff. We work together. We're partners. So I get to see her every day at work and at home. But I guess that will change now you're here. She'll probably want to stay home with you for a while. And that's OK. We just moved into our house. I hope you like your room." he said looking around. "You have a big brother! His name is Parker. But he doesn't live with us. He lives with his mother. Oh yeah. He has a different Mommy. Uh. How do I explain that? Well, never mind about that. It's not important. You have a brother, that'll do for now. You also have a great grandfather, called Pops, and a grandfather who is Mommy's Dad. It's confusing, but you'll get to know them all as time goes on. What I do know is, they are all gonna love you so much!"
Christine turned and buried her face against his chest and he swore he felt his heart burst. He lifted her close to his face and whispered to her "I swear on the holy bible, on my life, and your mothers heart that I will love and protect and care for you for the rest of my life, my baby girl." his voice broke and he felt tears come, pricking at his eyes, rolling down his face as he snuggled Christine into the crook of his neck.
After a few minutes, he calmed and took a deep breath and gently lifted her away from his body. Her eyes were closed, the pacifier was hanging loosely from her mouth and she was breathing steadily. He stood up slowly, and tiptoed to her bassinette and carefully lowered her into it. Laying her down as it she was the most precious jewel, which she actually was, and covered her up. Tucking her in, not too tightly, as Brennan had shown him when they first put her down. He kissed his fingers and brushed his hand across her cheek. "So. Good talk! Night night, baby. Sleep tight." he whispered and turned, reluctant to leave her. He knew he needed to sleep, finally conceding that the day had caught up with him. He turned up the volume on the baby monitor as he left the room, leaving the night light on.
Booth crept into his bedroom and snuck under the covers, carefully pulling them up over himself as he settled onto his side, a weary smile plastered on his face. Brennan turned towards him and murmured, half asleep, "was that Christine?"
"She's fine. Just fine. She's perfect" he whispered, closing his eyes and letting himself slip off to sleep and dream about the best day of his life.