Laughter & Tears

Part X

January 3rd

A little drama..the case mentioned will take up in later chapters! An extended chapter for ya'll since I made you'll wait! The site seemed to be down for a while and wouldn't load my document.

A woman had come in to help Eric and Frank with a composite sketch of a robbery suspect whom she witnessed fleeing the scene. She had bought along her baby. The eight-month-old girl, Miley wasn't feeling well. She had a slight temperature and fussing. While the mother worked with the artist and Frank Eric volunteered to hold the baby. He was able to distract her and she had calmed some.

Then it happened. Without warning, Miley threw up on Eric. The baby girl then burst into sobs.

Being a dad, being puked on was nothing new to Eric. It didn't phase him. By the time Chloe were three months of age he stopped counting how many times it had happened. Now with as the father of four, he guessed this figure was somewhere in the six digits or more.

"Oh, my god! I'm so sorry!" The woman exclaimed, getting up.

Eric couldn't help but smile.

"That's okay, Miley," Eric cooed to the baby, rubbing her back. "I know what it's like to not feel good. It's all right, really," he told the horrified mother as she took the baby from his arms.

"Just like home, huh, Delko?" a passing lab tech said to Eric when he was walking down the hall to the locker room to change his shirt.

Eric laughed.

"Yeah. Forgot where I was for a moment."

"Your co-worker must have children," the woman said, still trying to hide her embarrassment.

Horatio smiled at her. "You might say he has some experience in this field."

By the end of the day however there was a dark cloud over everyone. Two hours before the end his shift the team was called a scene where the victims were two children. A girl and boy, ages two and three. The two had been reported missing from a neighboring country six months prior by their aunt who had custody of them and was in the process of adoptiing them. Their biological mother had been stripped of parental rights. Both fathers were listed as "unknown."The biological mother had been permitted to visit the children, one last time. Court-ordered, The aunt and foster mother had no choice to let the children go unsupervised. But the children hadn't been returned after a day long visit. The children had been in an abandoned, burnt-out home on the out-skirts of the city. The fire hadn't caused their deaths, though the children were dead before the fire started both children looked malnourished and thin. Alexx couldn't be sure what killed them she had them back at the morgue.

"You all right, man?" Tim asked Eric in the locker room getting ready to leave for the day.

Eric had barely spoken since they had returned from the scene.

Eric exhaled deeply.

"Yeah. I'm just gonna go home and hug my kids."

"Good idea."

Hours later the mother of the two siblings was arrested at a local motel on suspicion of murder. She was opting to remain silent.

For now.

The autopsies of the children would start in the morning and if anything new came in related to the case during the night, night shift would pass it over to the team and they would begin the case again the next day.

Calleigh Delko had ceased watching the evening news since she had entered the world of law enforcement. She had read the headline about the two children while she had been doing a brief e-mail check. All she could do was shake her head.

And she knew immediately that Eric had worked the case as soon as he walked through the door just by the look on his face. Their young son though was able to put a smile on his daddy's face the moment he saw him. Calleigh had taken both Ethan and Chloe to the dollar store earlier, as she or Eric did once a week, so they could spend their allowance money. While six-year-old Chloe decided to get a puzzle, Ethan had decided to buy a pair of black infant glasses, which he promptly put them on the plush green dinosaur given to him by Horatio, that he now carried everywhere.

"Look, daddy! It's H!" He said, shoving the toy at his dad.

"What?" Eric laughed, picking up the boy and hugging him, smiling despite his sad mood.

"H!" The boy repeated, pointing to the shades.

Eric smiled at the boy's imagination.

"Gee, I didn't know uncle H had such short arms," he teased the boy.

"Daddy! Not weally unca H!"

"Hey," he said to his wife, giving her a kiss and huge hug after he put his son down on the floor and the boy ran off. "You look tired."

"Yeah," Calleigh said hugging into her husband. "I am. We definitely have two teething babies on our hands."

"Ah. Then you must have had quite a day, querida."

"I did. Your mom came by for a half hour after the twins' nap. I took Ethan and Chloe out to the dollar store. And by the way, I'm too tired to cook tonight so I told the kids you'd give them hotdogs on the grill and potato salad when you got home. The salad is on the frig."

"Sounds good to me," Eric said, kissing Calleigh's brow. "Why don't you join our tiny ones and take a nap? I'll take the other two out on the deck with me while I barbeque."

Ethan hasn't noticed his father was sad but Chloe did.

"Are you okay, papi?" Chloe asked him. "Do you need a hug?"

Call them a sickly affectionate family but that was the first question asked when one person saw another in the house was sad.

Ethan was playing in the corner of the deck with "Horatio" not listening to his father and sister.

Eric smiled, putting down the barbeque tongs.

"I do, princesa."

He scooped Chloe up in his arms and the little girl wrapped her limbs around him. "Do you know you're one of the two best girls in the world? You and Nadya?"

Chloe smiled and nodded.

"And mami, too?" she asked.

"And mami, too," Eric replied with a smile.

Listening to his kids talk about their day as they ate their hotdogs, Eric tried to put the thought out of his mind but he couldn't grasp how someone could have the malice to hurt a child, let alone take their life away.

All three other family members were awake the time Eric and the kids were finished cleaning up the kitchen, a quick task being daddy had decided to use paper plates tonight. Now that her eyes weren't so foggy with sleep Calleigh realized something different about her husband. She had both babies in her arms, Zach reached for his father. Eric took him into his arms.

"That's not the shirt you had on this morning." she said.

"No, it's not. I got a short straw and got the puking baby at the lab today."

Eric told his wife about Miley.

She laughed.

"Ladies do love you."

Both Zach and Nadya were starting to learn to turn over and were happy on their tummy, already trying to maneuver themselves across the carpet. Like he had with Ethan and Chloe, Eric had started taking the twins in the pool at four-months-old, one at a time that is.

After Calleigh again had the doctor's approval.

Eric smiled at the motions Zach was making on the carpet, like he were swimming.

"Probably thinkin' "Hey! I do this with daddy and I get somewhere. What's happening here?"" Calleigh laughed.

Zach started to whine out of frustration.

"C'mere, lil guy," Calleigh said, picking Zachary in her lap, handing him a peek-a-book which he promptly started to bite on.

The time was brief but the evening time they got to spend with all their kids, playing on the living room floor was the parents' favorite part of day.

Sleep was elusive for the couple that night, Nadya and Zach, who would be five-months-old the next day was definitely teething. Their parents managed to get to sleep just after eleven, thanks to baby Motrin. The two didn't like medicate the babies often but there were times they had no choice. Eric knew his wife would make out fine the next morning. Both Roberta and his mother had called at 8:00pm, hearing the both babies crying, both said Calleigh could protest all she wanted, they would be over at 8:30am the next morning to help the mother for the day.

Calleigh had a feeling even if she got to sleep from 11:00pm to 6:00am, and that was if, being one of the children were bound to wake up again, she'd be too tired to put up much of a fight.