Hi everyone, I'm back again with more cuteness from everybody's favourite lab baby. Oh and there's some cute Adam moments in this one too :)
Disclaimer: If this turns up in the next season then I expect some money, but other than that I own nothing ;)
"Hey Adam, do me a favour will ya buddy?"
The young lab tech turned around and raised his eyebrows at Danny, breaking into a grin when he saw the baby cradled against the other man's chest.
"Sure what is it?" he asked, standing to chuck the baby under the chin. "Hey there princess," he cooed.
"I gotta go back to a scene, keep an eye on Lucy for a little while will ya?"
Adam froze momentarily.
"Uh Danny, you know that Lindsay forbid me to babysit right?"
Danny made a face.
"Come on Adam, I won't be gone long and Lindsay's at a class, I'll be back before she is."
"Class?" asked Adam with a frown, absentmindedly letting the baby suck on his finger.
"Yeh, pelvic floor exercises or somethin'; I try not to pry. Look, are you gonna watch my baby for half an hour or not?"
Adam shrugged.
"I guess if Lindsay isn't going to know," he said, reaching out to accept the infant from her father's arms.
Danny leaned down to kiss her on her little forehead.
"Okay baby girl, you be good now and I'll be back before you know it. And you," he added, pointing a finger at Adam, "you look after my little angel okay?"
"No problem," Adam said, as solemnly as he could.
"Okay then, bye bye sweetheart."
And with that Danny wandered out of the lab. Adam looked down at the baby in his arms.
"Okay," he muttered to himself, "this shouldn't be that difficult."
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There was a distinct pecking order when it came to babysitting for the littlest Messer. If at all possible Danny's mom would take her, but that wasn't always possible and besides, she lived across town and if she only needed watching for an hour or two, say while Lindsay was at the lab, it was much easier just to take Lucy with them.
As far as the lab personnel were concerned Stella was top of the list. She was extremely good with children and she adored little Lucy completely and, unless she was rushed off her feet, she was always more than happy to keep an eye on her for a while. Mac came second, although as head of the lab he was usually unavailable. Then there was Hawkes who was generally a safe pair of hands, followed by Don who adored the kid and had already earned the honorary title of 'uncle'. Then came Sid and then finally Adam.
It wasn't that Lindsay had anything against Adam, and as far as lab technicians went he was certainly very reliable and exceedingly intelligent. It was just that, as with a lot of intelligent people, he occasionally lacked a little common sense. Lindsay worried that, now that her little one had moved on to solid food, she might walk into the lab to find him feeding her Doritos and Dr Pepper.
But Adam was determined to prove that he could be a good babysitter. Who knew, maybe if he watched Lucy real good Danny would tell Lindsay what a good job he did and he'd get to look after her more often.
He strung Danny's little carry pouch on over his lab coat, placing Lucy inside, and proceeded to continue working with the baby strapped securely to his chest.
"Adam do you have the results from the soil analysis?" asked Mac, breezing into Adam's little part of the lab as the younger man wittered on to the baby about the computer programme he was currently running.
Mac stopped when he reached the desk.
"Why do you have Lucy?" he asked.
Adam looked down nervously.
"I, well Danny asked me to look after her and I know that technically you're her godfather and so he probably should have asked you but you must have been busy or something so he asked me to do it. And I know that Lindsay says that I shouldn't be left alone with the baby but really, am I that bad that she thinks I'll somehow loose a baby?"
He paused when he saw the look of contained amusement on his boss's face.
"You really just wanted to know where Danny and Lindsay are huh?"
"Right," Mac dead-panned.
"Okay, Danny had to go back to a scene and Lindsay's at a class."
"Class?" asked Mac with the same look of confusion Adam had given Danny.
"Pelvic floor exercises," he replied. "I didn't ask."
"Probably just as well," Mac added.
"Anyway, you were looking for that soil comparison?"
"Yes."
Adam handed over the clipboard with his findings and watched Mac scroll down the page with his eyes.
"Good work Adam," he said, eyes still on the page as he turned to leave.
"Thanks boss," Adam called after him.
"Oh and Adam," Mac turned in the doorway.
"Yeh?"
"Look after my goddaughter."
Adam gave him a nervous smile.
"Will do boss."
The young man let out a sigh of relief as Mac disappeared from view and looked down to the baby in the pouch.
"You think you're dad's gonna freak out when you bring home your first boyfriend?" he said to the little girl in front of him. "That's nothing compared to what your Uncle Mac'll do to the poor guy."
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Adam liked to fix things. When it was a slow day in the lab he liked to take some of the machines apart, clean them out and then put them back together. Technically there was a rota for how often these things were supposed to be done but Adam got bored easily.
Today the focus of his ministrations was one of the high-powered microscopes the lab owned.
Unfortunately Lucy in her little pouch was getting in the way slightly, making it difficult to bend over the microscope properly to check the calibration.
"Sorry princess," he said, unstrapping the pouch and lifting the baby out. "Looks like you're gonna have to come down for a minute or two."
He looked around the room for a safe place to put her for a few minutes, finally wrapping her in his lab-coat and settling her on the floor, making sure the door was closed so that she couldn't escape; for all she was just less than a year old Lucy was already a powerful crawler, invested with her parents natural curiosity.
Turning back to the microscope he continued working until the door opened and one of the security guys came in, looking for evidence boxes.
"In the corner," Adam told him, eyes on the task before him.
"Thanks bud."
The guy took the boxes and left, leaving Adam to finish working on the microscope.
Eventually he was done.
"See," he said, talking to the baby, "all it needs is a little touch there and a little… where did you go?"
His lab coat was still in a bundle on the floor but Lucy was not inside.
"Hey Lucy," he called, going down on his hands and knees to look under the table. "Come on out princess, where are you hiding?"
But Lucy was nowhere to be seen. And the door was open.
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Hawkes was having a good day; he'd wrapped up a case, met his girlfriend for lunch and was now making his way back to the lab to finish up a little paper work before his shift was over.
He entered the lab with a smile on his face and turned towards the little communal office which he shared with the other junior CSI's. But halfway there he ran into Adam, quite literally.
The little guy was clearly frantic about something and looked around in fear and panic as he heard the elevator chime.
"Hey Adam, what's the matter?" asked the doctor gently.
"Nothing, I'm fine. I'm just… looking for something."
"What? Maybe I can help."
Adam looked at him as though thinking it through, but then he clocked something over Hawkes's shoulder and squeaked loudly, pulling the doctor into one of the rooms off the corridor before ducking down out of the way behind a filing cabinet.
"Adam, what is going on?" asked Hawkes, now extremely concerned.
"Mac," hissed the tech as Hawkes saw the lab director stroll past the window, phone to his ear.
"What about him?"
"Is he gone?"
Hawkes looked from Adam to the window and back to Adam again.
"Yeh he's gone. Adam what is this all about?"
Adam breathed a sigh of relief and got to his feet but the look of desperation was soon back.
"Okay, I gotta tell you something really important and you have to promise to help me and not to yell at me because I did something really dumb and I know I'm gonna be in deep trouble for it."
"What did you do?"
"You gotta promise!"
Hawkes was beginning to worry about his friend's state of mind.
"Okay, okay I promise. Now, tell me what happened."
"I lost the baby."
Hawes blinked.
"What?" he asked, not entirely comprehending what he had just heard.
"Lucy, I lost Lucy. I put her down for a minute or two to finish fixing the microscope and when I turned around she was gone and that stupid Michelson had left the door open. She could be anywhere!"
Hawkes let out a low whistle.
"You really are in trouble," he murmured.
"I know. Please Doc, you gotta help me find her before Danny and Lindsay get back!"
Hawkes nodded slowly.
"Okay, I'll help. Come on, she can't have gotten far."
Just then a phone began to ring. Adam patted his pockets until he found his mobile and checked the screen. He squeaked again.
"It's Danny!" he said. "What am I gonna do?"
"You gotta answer it," said the Doc.
"Yeh, yeh, but what am I gonna tell him?"
"Don't tell him anything," he suggested.
Adam took a deep breath and pressed the 'receive' button.
"Hey Danno, how's it goin'?" he asked in as normal a voice as he could muster.
"Hey Adam, I'm fine. Listen, I'm gonna be a little longer than expected okay, so I'm gonna pick up Lindsay after her class on my way back. You cool to watch Lucy a little longer?"
"Uh, yeh sure. No problem."
"That's great. Say, how is my little princess, put her on will you?"
Adam looked around in desperation.
"I can't she uh… she's getting her diaper changed."
"Oh?"
"Yeh, you know Kelly from ballistics? Well she offered to change her for me. She's got two kids of her own so I figured it would be okay. Anyway she took her into the women's bathroom so…"
"No problem bud. I'll see you when we get back okay."
"Sure. Bye Danny."
He switched phone off and breathed heavily.
"Nice save," said Hawkes.
"Thanks," breathed Adam.
"Okay, now we gotta find that baby before they come back. Come on."
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But twenty minutes later there was still no sign of Lucy and Adam was beginning to panic even more.
"Did you look in ballistics?" asked the Doc.
"Yeh."
"How about the DNA lab?"
"I already checked."
Hawkes scratched his head, he too was beginning to feel a little nervous. When Adam was busy searching the break room he had checked the stairwells just in case but there had been no sign of her and no one else seemed to have noticed a ten month old little girl crawling around the place.
"Maybe she's been kidnapped!" suggested Adam fearfully.
"By who?"
"I don't know. Michelson; he could be on the mob payroll."
"Adam."
"I know, I know," but where is she?"
Ding!
The elevator doors glided open to reveal Danny and Lindsay, chatting happily. Adam's shoulders suddenly slumped.
"This is it," he murmured. "I'm a dead man."
"Hey Adam!" called Danny, spotting him and the Doc in the middle of the corridor.
"Uh, hey guys."
"Thanks for lookin' after Lucy for me," said Danny brightly as they pair reached them.
"Uh, yeh, about that…"
"Hey Doc."
"Hey Lindsay."
"So where's my little angel?" asked her mother.
Adam looked as though he were about to burst into tears.
"Guys I… look the truth is, the truth is… I don't have her."
Lindsay's face was suddenly stony.
"What do you mean you don't have her?" she growled.
"I mean…."
"He means he was busy trying to fix something and he asked me to take her for a while," said a voice over Adam's shoulder.
He turned around in shock to see Mac coming out of his office, the little girl cuddled up against him, her pudgy little arms around his neck.
"Isn't that right sweetie?" he continued, giving the baby a little bounce so that she giggled.
"Oh," said Lindsay, going slightly red. "Sorry Adam."
Adam couldn't speak, he was still staring at the baby in Mac's arms.
"Shift's almost over," said Mac, addressing the young couple. "Why don't the two of you get packed up. I'll keep Lucy 'til your ready to go."
"Sure, thanks Mac," said Danny, trailing Lindsay behind him.
"Adam," he said, "a word please?"
Adam gulped, his relief at seeing Lucy safe and well suddenly replaced by fear for his own wellbeing.
Hawkes gave him a sympathetic look as he followed Mac into the office, the door closing behind them.
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Mac sat down behind his desk, Lucy making herself comfortable on his lap.
"Uh, Mac?" said Adam timidly.
"I found her under my desk," said Mac quietly. "Do you want to tell me what she was doing there?"
Adam looked at the floor.
"Am I suspended?" he asked softly.
"For losing a baby? I don't think there's a protocol for that. No, you're not suspended."
Adam looked up, the tears he'd been holding back starting to spill over.
"I'm really sorry Mac," he said, trying to stop his voice from cracking. "I could try and blame someone else but it was all my fault; I put her down, I didn't check the door was closed, I got so caught up in what I was doing that I didn't realise she was gone. I lost her Mac!"
Mac was still looking at the little girl in his lap who seemed to have developed an interest in the surface of his desk.
"Yes you did," he said simply. "But you looked for her and by the looks of things you were ready to confess to Danny and Lindsay what you'd done. So I'm going to make you a deal. I won't tell Danny and Lindsay what happened as long as you vow to take better care of her in future."
Adam couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"I… I promise," he managed to say.
"Alright then," said Mac. "It never happened."
And with that he stood, flinging Lucy in the air and catching her so that she squealed and giggled at him.
The door behind Adam opened and Danny and Lindsay came in.
"What are you doing to my baby?" asked Lindsay in feigned annoyance.
"Nothing my dad didn't do to me," Mac replied, flinging her in the air again.
"Okay," he said once he caught her, "I think it's time you went home. Give Adam a kiss."
He turned her towards Adam who leaned forward and bestowed a teary kiss on her chubby cheek.
"Bye Lucy, see you soon."
"Bye bye kitten," said Mac, giving her an affectionate peck on the cheek before handing her back to her mother.
"Thanks you two," she said. "Hello baby girl. Are you ready to go home?"
The baby snuggled against her mother.
"See you later boys," she said as she left the lab, Danny beside her with his arm around her waist.
Adam watched them go and then felt a hand touch his shoulder lightly. He turned and saw Mac looking at him, smiling slightly.
"Thanks Mac," he said quietly.
Mac nodded.
"Get back to work," was all he said, giving Adam a nod.
"Yes boss."
As Adam left the office and headed back towards his own corner of the lab he couldn't help but think that nothing very bad could ever happen to Lucy as long as her godfather was around.