A/N: Angel of Feel Good made me write this. And it's beta-less so please ignore the errors.
Unprecedented
It was unprecedented.
The fall of the work shifts; the change in the weather; the crust on the French toast.
Within forty-five minutes they were out on the streets inhaling a day so rare for The City that it made his lungs burn at the freshness and his eyes water from the crispness. A day that New Yorkers ego-centrically claimed for their own but one they all secretly knew blew down from some bucolic upstate locale.
Today was the perfect day to introduce 'his girl' to a place that was gay and spinning during his grandparents' day; slipping away as relics often do to dereliction and decay in his parents' day; but had phoenixed to refurbishment and reverence within his own day.
The cry of the gulls and sideshow barkers, the piquant mixture of sea spray, rotting fish and chili dogs and the planked texture of the boardwalk revived some of the most thrilling and carefree days of his youth.
Ogling one of the few original structures remaining from the peninsula's amusement park heydays, he tugged 'his girl' into a car, flashing a confident devil-may-care look at her. With the roll out, gaining momentum and altitude, he began to recall every creak, clink and clack, every dip, drop and dive. Drinking in the delighted terror of 'his girl' as she death-gripped the bar while adding her thrill-induced shriek to the chorus of others fore and aft of them, he knew she'd become a Cyclone fan too.
Proud of 'his girl' as she chose a swinging red car over a stationery white car on the Wonder Wheel they sailed up over a hundred feet to birds eye the dazzlingly bedecked hodgepodge layout of Coney Island and its surrounding more respectable, now citified neighborhoods.
And when the chili dog from Nathan's settled on her stomach without revolt he knew he 'his girl' was a true blue companion for his forays into this surreal escape from the rat race of The City.
But return to The City they must and almost immediately upon boarding the subway, her eyes drooped and her head swayed back and forth with the motion of the train until he finally nudged it to his shoulder. A New Yorker herself, though for a much shorter time than he, he could still outdistance her when push came to shove.
He gently shrugged his shoulder to waken her at an earlier than anticipated stop. "I have to stop by the lab."
Mumbling, "Okay," she sleepily allowed him to guide her to street level. Weaving through the throngs of people completing their work day, he didn't know how a day could end more perfectly until his heart lurched at the sight of her, emerging from the building, housing the CSI labs. Stilling in the middle of the sidewalk as if she were lost or weary- yes bone weary he decided- she pressed a hand to the small of her back as it arched for some relief of the tightness that accrued after a long day in the lab. Even her bouncy curls, usually teasing the crest of her shoulders now drooped below them.
And then he felt the guilt as hand in hand in with 'his girl', he approached her.
"Excuse me, can I carry that for you?" bracing a hand under her obvious load.
Her eyes saucered in surprise then amusement as she pressed his willing and able hand to the base of her half mooned belly. "Would you? If only you could," she expelled with a wistful sigh.
"Mommy, we had the best day ever!"
"Oh Baby, I'm so glad. You have to tell me all about it. But first give me hug and a kiss."
He hoisted their daughter up in his arms so that she wouldn't have to bend over, knowing how difficult that little maneuver was for her at six months and counting.
His throat tightened in sweetness as they exchanged kisses and one very big squeezy bear hug.
"I can't believe how big I am," she groaned in aggravation at her encumbered state. "I was never this big with Danielle, not even at 9 months.
He placed Danielle on the pavement beside him. "Stay beside me, Danielle," he cautioned. Gathering her into his arms from the side, he smirked into her ear, "That just means there is more of you to love."
She craned her head back so she could give him that Where-did-you-come-up-with-that-lame-line look that he knew so well.
"Besides," he grinned mischievously, gliding his hand over the perfect roundness of life incubating within her, "boys are just bigger."
"I don't know if I can take two of the species known as male Messer; one is enough to drive me crazy at times." She affectionately trailed a hand along his stubble.
"But it will be double the love, Montana," he countered as he pressed a kiss against her palm.
"More like double the trouble." She dropped her hand and Danielle grabbed it eagerly, swinging it high above her head so she could pirouette beneath her arm, launching into characteristic chatter at the same time.
"Mommy, if it is a boy, I want to name him Igor."
"Igor?"
"Yeah, Mommy, after the three headed boy in the freak show."
Catching an I-know-this-is-your-fault look that he also knew all too well, he raised his hands in surrender. "Whaaatttt? I told her it was a sideshow,' he rebutted, finger quoting the word sideshow.
Pulling the dancing princess against her body, she stroked Danielle's head. "Honey, it is not a freak show. They are not freaks; they are real people with feelings just like you and me. Do you understand?"
Danielle nodded, her eyes orbed in rapt attention.
"Good – not freak shows, sideshows," she reiterated for the often scattered five year old brain of her precocious child.
"But they were freaky, even Daddy said so," she threw out with youthful innocence and childish cheek.
He suffered, the withering We-will-talk-about-this-when-we-get-home look, with a smirk hidden by a cough into his fist and decided it was time for damage control.
Sweeping Danielle up into one arm, he slid his other around her shoulders. "How 'bout Carmelo's for dinner tonight?"
Her eyes brightened as a grateful, "Danny, really?" sighed from her lips and Danielle clapped her hands in excitement.
"Daddy, I loooovvvvveeeee Carmelo's."
"Well then Carmelo's it is."
Then the three, soon to be four, meandered in sync, absorbed in each other, oblivious to the city that scurried around them as he grinned indulgently at the brown-eyed beauties smiling adoringly up at him. His girls.
It was unprecedented.
