Oneshot.
Written for the Numb3rs dot org summer alphabet fanfic challenge.
All usual disclaimers apply.
A/N: This originally started out as "Y is for Yours", but I liked "M is for Mine" much better.
Don sighed tiredly and rolled his shoulders to try to loosen out some of the tension they held. He'd done stakeouts for weeks at a time, he'd worked on cases for 48 straight hours, he'd even run a marathon once, but he'd never felt as thoroughly exhausted as he felt at this moment.
His thoughts drifted as he sat, subconsciously monitoring the person held captive in the other room while he tried to finish a report. He heard a sound, and his heart sank as the captive again started protesting her confinement. Muttering under his breath, he threw down his pen onto the dining room table and went into the other room, prepared to beg if it meant he could have just five minutes of peace.
"Honey, you really need to—" Don broke off as his daughter started babbling excitedly when she saw her most favorite man ever. He threw up his and shook his head in amusement. It didn't matter what Robin had said when she had left for a meeting—there was no way Maggie was going to go down for a nap, at least not right now.
Giving up, he held out his arms, reaching over the crib rail where the little girl clung to scoop her out of the nest of stuffed animals she absolutely had to have when she slept.
Maggie reached into Don's shirt pocket and pulled out the pen he had clipped there. "Mine!" she squealed, sticking it in her mouth.
"No honey," Don said patiently, taking it away. "This is daddy's pen. This," he held out a member of the menagerie that resided in her crib, "is yours."
Hiking her up on his hip, Don carried Maggie out of her room and headed for the kitchen in search of a snack. She wriggled in his grasp, and, dropping the stuffed animal, reached over and plucked his cell phone from his belt, snapping it open. "Mine!" she giggled, holding it up to her ear, mimicking what she'd seen her daddy do time and time again.
Don sighed again and pried her fingers off of the cell phone. "No honey, this is daddy's phone." He reached down for the discarded stuffed animal and put it back into her hands. "This is yours." She giggled again and threw the toy to the floor, and Don shook his head and continued into the kitchen.
It was awkward trying to get crackers and pour juice with a squirmy toddler on his hip, but he was managing to do it... until he turned halfway around to shut a cupboard door, making the mistake of leaving the uncapped juice bottle on the counter. Maggie lunged out of his arms toward the juice bottle.
"Mine!" she shrieked impatiently, knocking the jug over. Juice cascaded over the counter and onto the floor, and Don groaned. As reached for the paper towels, Maggie squirmed out of his arms and slid down his leg like a fire pole, heading for the floor and the freedom of the dining room. He started after her, and then let her go—it would only take him a moment to get the juice cleaned up, how much trouble could she get in? She was probably going back for her stuffed animal anyway.
He finished cleaning up the juice spill and assembled a snack of goldfish and juice (for Maggie) and a diet Coke and bowl of pretzels (for him.) He went into the dining room to get his daughter and his heart stopped. She had somehow climbed up a chair and was now sitting cross-legged in the middle of the dining room table, coloring on the draft of his report.
His heart started again and he grabbed her off of the table, carefully pulling her sticky fingers off of his report. "Mine!" she wailed imploringly as he plopped her down in her high chair.
"No honey, this is Daddy's report, and you can't climb on the table—it scares me!" Don admonished. He pushed over the juice cup and bowl of goldfish and watched amusedly as his daughter start mashing the small orange crackers into oblivion with the bottom of her cup. He pulled his report over and tried to smooth the wrinkles out of it, when suddenly his daughter made a lunge out of her high chair.
"Mine!" she laughed delightedly, grabbing a handful of pretzels from Don's bowl and cramming them in her mouth. All Don could think was "choking hazard!" as he grabbed his daughter out of her high chair and tried to pry the pretzels from her hand and mouth. She howled in protest and kicked her legs, knocking over Don's diet Coke and sending it streaming over his report.
Don gritted his teeth and threw his daughter over his shoulder, deciding to drag her into the living room and see if he couldn't distract her with something, anything, just so she would calm down and he could finish, er, restart, his report.
"Nonononononono mineminemineminemine!" his daughter screamed, reaching back over his shoulder toward the mess on the table, and Don hugged her tightly, tiredly wondering how long before she'd wind down and take a nap—now he wanted one too.
Just then, a creak sounded as the front door opened, and Robin swept in, dropping her briefcase next to the door and hanging her keys on the rack on the wall. "Hi sweetheart, I'm back," she called, looking around for her husband. She smiled, feeling the stress and fatigue of the day ebb away as she heard her daughter's delighted shriek and quick little footfalls. She dropped to the floor in just enough time to catch Maggie as she came blasting through the doorway, arms outstretched.
Robin picked up her daughter, noting the stickiness and orange goldfish dust with amusement—poor Don must have not been able to get her down for a nap. She was about to call out to him when he appeared around the corner, a wet stain on his shirt and his hair rumpled.
Robin smiled at her husband. "One of those days, hon?"
Don started to shake his head and deny everything, ready to insist that he had it all under control, but then looked in the hall mirror at the picture he and his daughter made, and changed his mind. "Yeah, I guess you could say it was," he admitted.
"Mine!" Maggie announced, wrapping her arms tightly around her mother's neck protectively.
Don stood there for a moment, looking at the two women he loved more than life itself, and felt his heart warm inside his tired body. Moving closer, he wrapped his arms around his wife and daughter. Robin lay her head on his shoulder, with Maggie cradled between them.
"Mine," he thought, and decided he had to be the luckiest man alive.