Title: Jim's Lunch Date
Name: ILOVENASCAR
Summary: Jim spends his lunch with his two favorite women.
Notes: All disclaimers apply. All I own is Olivia.
Jim Brass walked into his house to be greeted by his tiny stepgranddaughter who flung herself into his arms. "Sing it, Papa Jimmy. Sing it."
Part of Jim wished he'd never started this tradition with her, but part of him could never refuse a chance to make her smile. "Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener that is what I'd truly like to be 'cuz if I were an Oscar Meyer weiner everyone would be in love with me..."
"I luvs you, Papa Jimmy. Nana does too." Olivia Curtis said, her blue eyes as intense as her mom's.
"She does?" Jim asked, carrying her to the kitchen to where Annie was getting lunch started. He couldn't quite get used to having his wife there when he got home. They'd been married now for two years and she used almost all of her days off babysitting her only granddaughter, but it still felt comforting to have them there when he got to come home.
Annie Kramer kissed Jim's cheek when he came into the kitchen, feeding Olivia a piece of a carrot stick the little girl nibbled on. "She does what?"
"Olivia happens to think you love me."
Annie shrugged, using what was left of her Jersey accent. "I guess sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don't." He raised his eyebrow at her. "I do all the time." She kissed him again, smiling.
"Much better, Captain." He teased, helping Annie detatch the three-year-old from him. "Hey, lift and seperate," he told Olivia, finally breaking her vice grip so that Annie could sit her in her booster seat. "What's for lunch, Nana?"
She made a face at his referring to her as 'nana', although she loved it when her granddaughter did. "Oscar Meyer has a way..."
"With b-o-l-o-g-n-a," he finished. "You sit with Livi. I'll finish up. You deserve a break today."
"You're just full of it today," she teased, continuing to put the petite baby carrot sticks on her granddaughter's plate and some on his as well.
He responded by pouring the homemade ranch dressing on his plate until no orange could be seen. She moved behind him and scraped half of the dressing off, putting it on her own salad. "A little dab will do ya."
Jim looked at the oven that was on. "Cookies?" He asked, not ashamed to say he was a little hopeful.
"I promised Sofia I'd "make" her a cheesecake since she's been working doubles." He looked at her. "I've been using Sara Lee since she left for college. If she knows, she doesn't say anything. Nothin' says lovin' like something from the oven..."
"Wanna bet?" Jim teased.
Annie started laughing, trying hard not to encourage him. Olivia's attention was on the word 'Sara', the only one she knew the friend of her grandfather's she occasionally saw when he or her mom took her to the lab. "Sara?"
"Not that Sara, sweetie," Jim said. "Cake."
"Cake?"
"Not that kind of cake, Livi," Annie lied, shooting Jim a look. "We have cookies for later."
"Cookies is good, Nana." She nodded seriously.
"Carrots and sandwich first," Annie reminded both of them, sitting down between them with her salad, helping Annie more than she actually ate, shaking her head as Jim and the baby teased each other and made faces.
Jim smiled at her, a real smile, enlisting one from her as well. "When we get finished, before I go back, why don't I put someone down for a n-a-p?"
"No n-a-p," Olivia said firmly, stubbornly, tossing her long blonde mane, her eyes set as her mother's and grandmother's when she was determined.
"You have to take a nap if you want to grow up to be a cop like Mommy and Nana, go catch the bad guys."
She thought about this for a moment, understanding 'go catch the bad guys' as something that her entire family did, her mommy and Papa Jimmy and Nana as cops and the reason why her daddy was away so long, so much of the time, away in a place she couldn't even pronounce, but understood it to be some place like on Aladdin, with sand everywhere.
She didn't say anything either way until he put the two cooled cookies in her hands, one in each. "Double your pleasure, double your fun."
Olivia didn't really understand that one, but Annie did and smiled.
After cookies, the little girl put her arms up to him. "Okay, now n-a-p," Olivia said seriously, allowing him to put her in her bed, cover her up, and turn on the cd she listened to as she fell asleep.
He came back within ten minutes and Annie shook her head. "It takes me a full fifteen, if she's in a good mood. Give that man a blue ribbon."
"Blue ribbons I have," he whispered, kissing her neck. "I want something else..."
"Don't you have to go to work?" She was surprised that he'd even been able to come home. For him to get time enough to do that, on her day off, and eat lunch with both of them was a miracle enough.
"In a little while," he whispered, making sure she'd gotten Sofia's cheesecake out of the oven before he settled down in his chair, gently pulling her down on his lap, holding her for a minute. "You know this is the best time of my day, right?"
"Lunch?" She teased.
"Any time. With you, the baby, Sofie..." He stopped himself, thinking about Ellie.
"She'll come around, Jimmy. It'll get better." She said, knowing who he was thinking about.
"Ten years ago, I didn't pray for anything or anyone. You know me, that's not..." She nodded. "I pray for Ellie every day. That she doesn't end up like that friend of hers...God knows what she's involved in...And I pray for Sofie. That she's safe, that she's never involved in another OIS, that she and the baby stay healthy." His voice was breaking.
"I know, Jim." She worried about their kids as well, but about him too. The shooting never left her mind as well as the high blood pressure and a thousand other things. She'd lost him once. If it hadn't been for Ellie and Sofia, they never would have gotten back together. She knew how lucky she was. "How long do you have before you go back?"
"About twenty minutes." He'd been granted an hour off, somehow, although he had his pager with him in case something happened.
"Let's go take a nap." She stood, holding her hand out to him.
"A nap like what Olivia takes or..." He saw the look on her face and got up, going with her.
