The Babysitter

Harry was stood in Leo's office talking to his boss when a lab tech poked her head around the door.

"Professor Dalton, there's a Mrs Grey outside. Shall I send her in?" she announced.

"Yes, thanks Mary," Leo smiled. However, his smiled vanished when he turned to Harry. "Poor woman. How am I supposed to tell her the details of how her husband killed himself?"

Harry grimaced. Talking to family members about their suicidal relatives was never easy and always took longer, because they would want to know why, and how exactly. Answers which, a lot of the time, the pathologists couldn't help them with.

"Just try and put yourself in her shoes," Harry suggested to Leo as they both left his office. A second later the door opened and a woman struggled through it. She was quite young and pretty, and had a young baby in a car seat in one hand, and a changing bag slung over her other shoulder. She walked up to the two men, flustered and weary looking.

"Mrs Grey," Leo greeted, shaking hands. "I'm Professor Dalton, this is Dr Cunningham. I'm very sorry for your loss."

Mrs Grey impatiently brushed a tear from her cheek and nodded. "Thank you."

"Come through to my office," Leo continued. "Where we can talk about it properly before I take you to see your husband."

"Actually, I have some questions I wanted to ask you as well," she said. However, she then looked down at the baby and bit her lip.

"Don't worry, Mrs Grey," Leo said. "Dr Cunningham here would be happy to watch..."

"Millie," Mrs Grey informed him. Leo nodded.

"He'd be very happy to watch Millie for you."

"What?" Harry exclaimed. "Me? But... I..."

However, Mrs Grey was already passing the changing bag to Harry, and said, "Thank you so much. Everything she needs is in there. She's an angel really."

Harry tugged the bag onto his shoulder as she had had it, before reluctantly accepting the handle of the car seat. Leo smirked at Harry as he and Mrs Grey went into his office. Harry mouthed 'I am going to kill you' over the woman's shoulder, but Leo just shut the door. Harry struggled over to his desk and put the car seat on it.

The baby – Millie – was mercifully asleep, and Harry had to admit, she was rather cute. She had tufty, blonde hair and such tiny little hands. Her babygrow that she was wearing was white and had tiny pink flowers on it. She could only have been a month or two old. Suddenly Millie opened her eyes and looked straight at Harry.

"Hello," he whispered, making sure no one was around. "You're rather cute."

Millie gurgled at him, and Harry chuckled. This was easy.

"Millie," he went on. "That's a lovely name. And you are a lovely little girl."

However, Millie's face contorted and she let out a squeaky sob.

"Oh no, don't cry. Please don't pull that face," Harry muttered desperately. But it had little effect. Millie started to cry in earnest, her little hands were clenched into fists, and she was waving them around. Her cheeks were red and a loud wail filled the room. Harry didn't know what to do; he'd never done this before.

"Shh..." he said, rocking the car seat. When this didn't help, he knew there was no other option. He was going to have to pick her up. He undid the straps on the seat and carefully lifted Millie up. Making sure to support her head, he gathered her into his arms and rocked her gently from side to side. Eventually Millie's sobs abated, and she began to happily gurgle again. Just then Leo came out of his office. He saw Harry and smiled.

"Aww, you're a natural."

"I hate you," Harry said.

Leo laughed. "Have you got the tox report on Mr Grey?"

"It's on Nikki's desk."

"Thanks. Umm... I have a feeling we're going to be a while. Half an hour or so," Leo told Harry, who tutted. However, he found that he wasn't too angry.

"Fine. Just hurry up," he said. Leo nodded and left again. Harry sighed and shifted the baby so that her head was on his shoulder, he heaved the bag onto the other one and walked out of the room.

"We're going for an adventure," he muttered as he walked along, ignoring the strange looks he was receiving from the lab techs. "We're going hunting for treasure, only our treasure is a person named Nikki."

Harry's back was beginning to ache when he eventually found Nikki in the layout room. She had her back to him and Harry said as causally as possible, "Hey."

"Oh, hey," Nikki said, glancing at him. However, she did a double take and stood up from the stool she was sat on.

"Aww! Who's this?" she grinned, walking over to the pair. Harry slipped the bag onto the table before cradling Millie in his arms again.

"This is Millie," he said. "She's the daughter of Mr Grey. You know, the s-u-i-c-i-d-e victim."

"Harry, she's like a month old," Nikki grinned.

"So? They're very impressionable at a young age."

Nikki snorted. "And you're on babysitting duties?"

"It's Leo's fault. I'm sure he's taking revenge on me for telling Janet about his community service the other night," Harry grumbled.

Nikki laughed before saying, "I didn't have you down as a baby kind of man."

"What are you talking about? I love children. I've always wanted kids one day," he admitted. Nikki frowned at him.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

There was a slightly awkward silence, both of them knowing that this was dangerous territory for them to venture in to. However, Harry couldn't help but go there anyway.

"So I want children... and you want children..." he said slowly.

"Stop it," Nikki warned, smiling as Millie grabbed her finger. "We are not doing this again."

"'Again'?" Harry repeated bemusedly. "What do you mean 'again'? We haven't done this before."

"And we're not going to either. There is no way I would ever go out with you. It wouldn't be right, it wouldn't work. We just don't work."

"Liar. You know we work well together, stop trying to pretend otherwise," Harry said. Nikki sighed and looked down at the floor.

"And if we get together and then find out otherwise?" she asked. "What then? Can you imagine just how horrible and awkward it would be? I don't want that to happen."

"But it wouldn't!" Harry protested. "We'd get past it, we always do. Look... just come for a drink with me tonight."

Nikki looked uncertain so Harry took a step closer to her and used his free hand to tilt Nikki's chin up so that she was forced to look at him rather than fussing over the baby.

"Just one drink?" he asked again. Nikki reluctantly smiled.

"Fine. Now don't you have a baby to be getting back to her mummy?"

Harry flashed her his trademark grin and picked up the dreaded changing bag again. He then left the room with Millie, who was watching the lights overhead as they walked.

"I should go out places with babies more often," Harry muttered to her. "You could help me pull- err, I mean... meet other women. Not that I'm going to any more. Did you like Nikki? I like her. A lot. That's why we're going out tonight. And this time I'm going to make sure that we stay together, yes I am." Harry tickled Millie's tummy gently. He smiled at her, she was adorable. When he reached the main area again he could see Leo and Mrs Grey waiting for him.

"Sorry," he said as he neared them. "Millie was a bit grumpy, so we went for a walk and she soon settled down."

"Thank you so much," Mrs Grey smiled as Harry put Millie back in her car seat.

"It was no problem, don't worry. Bye bye Millie," Harry cooed.

When poor Mrs Grey had left, Leo turned to Harry.

"Go on then, do your worst," he sighed. However, Harry found that far from wanting to kill Leo, he wanted to thank him.

"No," he grinned. "You actually did me a favour." Then Harry walked off, leaving Leo behind to puzzle about what he'd said.

Random one shot. I had an idea the other day of someone dumping their baby on Harry and what his reaction would be, so I thought I'd write it up. And, of course, Nikki has to be in there somewhere! Review!