The Joys of Fatherhood

"He's cute. Isn't he cute?"

Jane had been asking the same question to anyone who passed his couch and managed to get drawn into his conversation – and those who weren't naturally drawn were physically dragged until they just repeated 'yes' every time he asked them that question. He was sitting up along the length of the couch, his legs stretched out before him, and a small baby boy balanced on his thighs. When he wasn't interrogating any of the CBI employees as to whether or not they thought the baby was cute, he was talking in a high-pitched voice, even though the baby was, in fact, asleep.

Lisbon stood over him, attempting to frown at him, but failing because of the sleeping child he was holding. "Are you going to do any work what-so-ever today?" she snapped at him.

"I am working," he defended, not looking up at her.

"You're babysitting," she said. "That's not working."

"Thousands of teenagers would disagree with you on that one," he pointed out.

"Jane-"

"Is someone jealous because little Evan is having a cuddle with Uncle Patrick instead of Auntie Teresa?" he mocked.

"Did you ever consider that maybe his Mommy and Daddy would like to spend more than ten minutes with him today?" Lisbon mocked in returned, mimicking his voice. "Especially considering his daddy is supposed to be at home with the baby today and not working."

"No, go ahead," came a mumble from Rigsby's desk. The man was leaning forwards with his head on his desk, and didn't even raise it to speak. "He's not crying, and if I take him home he'll cry, and I need more than ten minutes sleep a night. I haven't had a full night's sleep in three weeks."

"You're not going to have a full night's sleep for the next eighteen years," Jane pointed out.

"Not if he cries all night."

"He cries because he can sense you're nervous," Jane told him, rather unhelpfully.

"You think?" Rigsby grumbled. His phone let out a shrill ring, causing his head to rise from the desk and show exactly how exhausted he was. He read the message on his screen and groaned. "More diapers?" he read incredulously.

"Supplies are running low?" Lisbon asked.

Rigsby gave his boss a pathetic, clueless expression. "I just...I don't know where it all comes from," he said with disbelief. "I know we aren't putting in as much as he's giving out."

Lisbon wrinkled her nose. "I'll leave you with that little mystery," she said, before walking back towards her office.

Rigsby checked his watch and then groaned. "I better take him home, he's due for a feed in a half hour," he said, picking up his bag and loading all of his and Evan's things into it. When he came to get the muslin blanket from the floor beside the couch, Jane noticed something strange on his face.

"You're having doubts," he realised.

"About what?" he snapped, turning around slowly. Jane frowned at his tone. "Sorry, Jane. I'm just..."

"Tired," Jane finished for him. "Babies will do that to you."

"Apparently so," he murmured.

"It gets better," he tried to assure him. "He'll start sleeping through the night, and start sleeping later, and by the time he starts school it'll be a mission to even get him out of bed – with the exception of Christmas and birthdays, of course."

Rigsby nodded, standing before the consultant and the child and toying with the muslin blanket. "Grace gets up with him most of the time because I get up early for work, but I don't like to make her do it alone because she does it all day while I'm here as well. Plus, even when she gets up to feed him I can still hear him crying and it keeps me awake until he goes back to sleep, then I lie there awake waiting for my turn to get the next wake up call."

"The joys of fatherhood," Jane muttered in sympathy.

Rigsby nodded again, but this time he seemed further awake, a few seconds later he crouched down beside the couch and dropped his voice to barely more than a whisper. "Did you love your daughter?" he asked.

Jane frowned, turning his head to him sharply. "What kind of question is that?" he asked, shocked.

"Just answer it. Did you love her?"

"I love Claire every second of my day," he said, still frowning. "Why would you ask me that?"

Rigsby opened his mouth to speak, but then decided against it. "It's nothing," he commented, blatantly lying as he stood up and moved back to his desk to continue packing things away. When he stopped, he sat down in his chair and sighed tiredly.

"Whoa, there," Jane said, pushing himself off the couch and over to Rigsby's desk, baby Evan cradled safely in his arms without even stirring at the movement. "What's going on?" Jane asked.

Rigsby was silent, and then... "I've been thinking about Evan..."

"That's helpful, considering that he's here for good," Jane pointed out.

"It doesn't..." he struggled with the words. "It doesn't feel like I thought it would," he admitted. "Obviously I care about him, he's my son, but..."

"But?" he prompted.

"But I was expecting more," he whispered, looking at his son with guilt. "I was expecting every time I held my son to be like the first time I held him. I wanted always to have that rush of love and...and sometimes I...I don't know whether I really love him or if I just have to love him. And the thought of that, being that awful a father, scares me to death."

Jane was silent, watching the internal struggle in the way Rigsby made subtle movements shortly after his admission. His hands twitched, like he wanted to grab Evan from Jane and apologize over and over for what he'd just said, and his feet shifted like he wanted to run from the elevator because he was so scared about being a bad father that he wasn't sure it was worth sticking around to become one. It was the struggle between protection and love, and realising the different. At a loss of anything else to say, for once, Jane simply told him what he'd come to realise for himself.

"You really love him," Jane told him. "There are no two ways about it when it's your child. You love them. You just do. It's a fact of nature, not a choice. I refuse to believe that a parent can be programmed not to love their child. There's no other alternative. But sometimes I think that we love someone so much that we have to be numb to it, because if we actually felt how much we love them it would kill us." He moved closer, and returned Evan to his father's embrace. "It doesn't make you a bad father," he assured him. "It just means that your heart's too big."

Rigsby cradled his son, lifting him so that he could place a kiss on the soft red hair that was already starting to show. "Thank you, Jane."

"No problem," Jane smiled, moving back over to his couch. "Now, you need to get more diapers, so you and Evan should be going home before I decide to steal him and raise him as my underling," he teased.

Rigsby shook his head, getting to his feet and starting to walk out of the office. "You want a kid to turn into an underling so bad, you should start by asking Lisbon out," he teased, before finally leaving the office with a smile on his face.

Not many people could make Jane speechless, but today, Rigsby was one of those people.

END.