Chapter Ten: Bad Things Come In Three's

Standing across the room from her screaming sister, Connie covered her hands over her eyes as a head started to appear from between her sister's legs. Tightly squeezing her eyes shut, her sister's cries only got louder. Suddenly she could hear the cries of the second baby.

After all the screaming and pain involved, the end result seemed perfect.

"Oh wait!" The doctor announced, stopping Betty from relaxing again. "We've got one more."

"Oh No! What?" Betty shrieked, needing a rest after all the straining of pushing out two melon sized babies from between her legs.

"It appears we have a third." He informed her. "Don't panic, he's well on his way. Start pushing Betty."

"I can't do this!" Betty whined, clutching the bed tightly, making her knuckles turn white.

"Yes you can Betty." One of the perky young nurses cheered her on, making Betty miss her mother even more. She was a much better cheerleader than this woman. And she always had a comforting hand to hold, unlike her own sister who was beginning to turn green.

"I read all the... what to expect... when you're expecting... books..." Betty groaned between strong pushes and heavy deep breaths. "None of them... ever said the... chance of... three bloody babies!"

"Language Betty!" Her sister scolded her.

"Shut Up Connie!"

"Here he is!" The doctor announced as the third baby finally came through. "One more big push Betty."

Betty gritted her teeth together, clutching the bedding around her even tighter as she gave the baby one last push. She felt as though she was going to pass out, but she kept on pushing so it would be over quicker.

"Here we go." The doctor stated, watching Betty give out a heavy breath of relief.

"Oh thank god! Is that the last one? Please tell me that's the last kid up there?"

"Yes, that's the last one." The doctor assured her.

Betty watched her last baby being carried over to another table, only he wasn't crying like the other two. "Is he okay?" She anxiously asked, relieved it was over but now she was worried that he wasn't going to make it.

"The nurses are just going to help him to breath." The doctor stepped in the way so she couldn't see what was going on. Connie slipped her hand into her big sisters, holding it tightly for comfort. Betty was grateful for the support, but she wanted to know what was happening to her little baby boy.

Three agonising minutes later she finally heard her babies first cry.

Betty smiled round at Connie in relief, listening to her three babies crying in perfect synchronization of each other. "You hear that Connie, they're crying." She smiled in disbelief, looking at her three babies in awe than she always wanted out of her, but now she wanted them back.

"Yeah, soon you'll be wishing they'd stop." Connie remarked, beginning to get a headache already.

"Please, please, please." Pouting her lip, AJ looked up at Greg with her puppy dog eyes. A look Greg knew well that had served him well over the years.

"Don't beg. Dogs beg, not kids." He directly quoted his mother.

"Sorry."

Greg lifted her up in his arms, setting her down on the counter. Looking into her eyes he could see Nick. "You know I really shouldn't. If Nicky finds out I gave a chocolaty chocolate chip cookie and ice cream..."

"I won't tell him if you don't." AJ put her finger to her lips as she looked into his eyes.

Greg broke into a wide smile at her adorableness. He always thought he'd be a push over as a father, but a face like that; he would let her get away with murder. "I don't want you favouring me over Nicky though. He'll be very upset if he found out we broke the rules."

"If we give Nicky some too, he won't be mad." She tried to reason with him.

Greg chuckled softly. "You really are a little extortionist, aren't yah?" He teased, tickling her.

AJ giggled and squirmed before she asked, "What's exest ist mean?"

"Extortionist," He corrected her, trying to think of a way to explain it to her. "It's... someone who... uses bribery to get exactly what they want in return." Greg leant back against the counter, looking at her innocent little face and pouting lip. "You want ice-cream then?" AJ nodded up at him. "Okay, one time. You can't like me more than Nicky though okay?"

"Why not?" She queried.

"Because Nicky is so much nicer than me and he has a very big heart and he loves you very much." He assured her, looking into her big brown eyes that reminded him so much of looking into Nick's eyes. "You want some ice cream then?" AJ immediately flashed the cutest smile up at him while she nodded, making it impossible for him to say no.

Greg set AJ down on one of the bar stools at the counter, reaching for a bowl from one of the top cabinets to scoop some ice cream inside.

"Thank you Greg . . . I won't tell Nick."

"Okay, good." Greg sat down opposite her, feeling guilty already for feeding her some ice cream, which Nick specifically told him not to do.

"Just you wait," Catherine advised Nick as she watched him pouring out his third cup of coffee for the night. "Pretty soon you'll be wishing you never had a kid. Kids are only cute to a certain extent."

Nick looked at her surprised. "Here I thought you loved kids."

"Oh I do, don't get me wrong . . . but then comes all the 'Mom, where's my jeans', 'Mom, you didn't wash my shirt', 'Mom, I need to borrow $50', 'Mom, I'm going out with my friends tonight'... and so on. I can't tell you how many times I've wished that I wasn't a parent, especially a single parent at that. Now Lindsey's all grown up, she's getting fake ID's, going out drinking with girls she used to play Barbie dolls with. I noticed her belly button was pierced the other day, when she got her ears pierced they got infected from the sleaze ball boyfriend of hers." Catherine looked up at Nick's pale face, quickly changing her tune about single parenting. "You don't have to worry about all that for another few years though. And Lindsey only went a little wild after her father passed away."

"AJ's already lost her mother." Nick pointed out to her. "She already had a father before me too, so I don't know if she'll ever be comfortable with me."

"Sure she will, no one has a bigger heart than you Nicky." She assured him with a soft smile. "I think I'm just a bad mother. I was always out working, I missed her drama productions, I wasn't there for her . . . but I did have a lot of help from my mother and sister; I don't know what I would have done without them there to help me." Catherine gave Nick's shoulder a comforting squeeze. "I'm sure you'll do fine though Nicky, just lemme know if you ever need help. Don't be afraid to ask."

"I'll keep that in mind." He gave her a warm smile, taking a sip of Greg's blue Hawaiian coffee that instantly warmed his body as he thought about him. "You're not a bad mother Cath. I think you're a pretty great one." He smiled up at her.

"Aww, see... AJ's gonna love yah."

"Thanks Cath, even though you've been tellin' me how hard its gonna be... it's the best advise anyone's given me so far."

"Well that's mainly because you haven't told anyone besides me and Grissom." She reminded him, pouring out a coffee for herself.

"And Greg." Nick added.

"Right." She remembered. "I noticed you haven't called to check in yet. The first time I ever left Lindsey with a babysitter, I was calling at the top of every hour."

Glancing up at the clock, Nick pulled his phone from his pocket, hitting Greg's speed dial. Catherine smiled at him as she walked away with her coffee in hand, heading off towards the layout room to get back to work.

"Hello?" Greg answered a few seconds later.

The sound of Greg's voice warmed his heart. "Hi G, only me. I just wanted to know how it was goin'."

"Fine." Greg lied, trying to stop a hyperactive AJ from jumping up and down on the sofa anymore. "Seriously Nicky, everything's great."

"Okay, don't forget... 7:30..."

"On the dot." Greg assured him. "Relax Nicky, everything's gonna be fine." He said just as the shelf of CD's somehow managed to collapse and tumble onto the floor. Greg widened his eyes as he watched the disaster happening right before his eyes with AJ stood right in the centre of it all, wondering how he was going to fix the shelf back onto the wall and rearrange all of the fallen CD's by the time Nick got home, hoping he wouldn't notice the chaos that occurred at the same time.

"What was that?" Nick asked a few seconds later.

"Um... television." He lied, shunning AJ away from the mess. "I gotta go, don't worry Nicky. Everything's great."

"Okay." Nick heard a faint goodbye as Greg hung up, wishing he was back home with the two of them right now instead of working another murder case.

Catherine poked her head back round the breakroom door, looking at the glum expression on Nick's face. "Hey Nicky, you okay?"

"Yeah, everythin's fine." He nodded, pocketing his phone. "Did you find anythin' else?"

"Yes, our potential suspect is down in custody, and we got our warrant. Brass is gonna meet us there with a black and blue." She waved around the post-it note with the address on it.

"Cool, I'm drivin'." Nick grabbed the paper from Catherine's hands, giving her a wide smile.

"Good, you can buy us breakfast on the way back then." She smirked, heading off towards the locker room for her field kit.

"I was gonna say you looked a little hung over today." He teased her getting thumped in the arm as they head into the locker room. "Ow, I mean no offence."

"Oh yeah? Well you look a little tired yourself there Nicky."

"I've been awake since 5am." He groaned, pulling his jacket and baseball cap on. He watched Catherine laughing, giving her an evil scowl.

Grabbing their kits, they both head off towards the elevator, taking it down to the parking lot. Catherine laughed as she watched Nick yawning, giving him a wide smile as she patted him on the back.

"Welcome to parenthood Nicky."

"What?" Greg almost shouted down the phone as he attempted to pick up the heaps of CD's on the floor of Nick's front room. "Three babies?"

"I know right. Do you want one?" Betty laughed softly. "Two girls and a little baby boy. My original doctor thought there was only two, but he never told me. And now I have three. Can you believe it?"

"Wow. Have you named them yet?"

"No, I can't think of any names yet. I thought I was going to have one baby, now I've got three and mom still doesn't know."

"You still haven't told mom? Bet, she's gonna be furious when she finds out. She always wanted to be there for the birth of all of her grandchildren." Greg reminded her, perching himself on the arm of the sofa as he watched AJ flipping through Nick's once neatly stacked pile of National Geographic magazines.

"I know, I know. She can't be mad once she sees their adorable little faces though. What are you doing right now Greggy?"

"Babysitting."

"Babysitting? You took a day off work to babysit for someone's kid? Who does that?"

"Well technically, I already had the day off, and they really needed my help. So I offered to babysit. I'll come over and see you tomorrow though."

"I thought your flights tomorrow?"

"It is. But it's in the afternoon; I can always change it..."

"No, at least one of us needs to be with mom, and you know Mark's not too good with that sort of thing. You go, I'll be fine. I'll drive over in a few days with Connie; she's agreed to stay with me for a while."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. Have fun babysitting Greg."

"Okay, bye sis." Greg snapped his phone shut, stuffing it back in his pocket as he got back down on his hands and knees to collect up the rest of the CD's. It was lucky that none of them were too badly dented as they landed on the soft carpet, but a few of the CD's had managed to escape from their cases, barely a mark on them. Greg knew he'd have to put them back into the right cases, probably organising them in alphabetical order too, as he fully expected they were originally; knowing the perfectionist Texan all too well.

Once Greg had managed to find a screwdriver in Nick's carefully organised tool box that he kept handy; he fixed the shelf back onto the wall, starting to rearrange the CD's back up, when he heard another crash, followed by an innocent little, "Opps."

Greg looked up to where he last saw AJ, but she was no longer there.

Hustling off towards the source of the noise, Greg found AJ and a broken lamp on the floor. "No, no, no..." He quickly rushed over to her, stopping her from touching the broken remains. "I'll clear it up, don't touch it, okay?"

"I sorry."

"It's okay." He assured her, carrying her off to the front room. "Here, watch some TV for a sec." Greg handed her the remote then rushed off towards the kitchen to find the glue that Nick kept in one of the draws. Being a CSI, he was very good at puzzles so he could easily piece the broken remains of the lamp back together, making it look... almost as good as new.

He set it back down in its original spot, wondering how he was going to explain that one to Nick without getting into trouble as he head back to the front room to finish with the CD's. He hadn't babysat for anyone in years, but he never remembered it being this much work before.

Wiping the sweat from his brown, Greg tried to restack the once neatly stacked magazines, checking around the house for anything else that was out of place when he noticed the time.

"7:45." He muttered to himself. "AJ, it's bedtime, okay?"

AJ looked up at him as though she was about to protest, but instead she said, "Nick said I have to have a bath first."

"Oh yeah." Greg smiled softly. "I'm glad you remembered. You wonna go do that now?"

"No." She protested, scrambling off the sofa.

"AJ!" Greg clicked off the TV, following her footsteps off towards Nick's bedroom. He looked around as there was no sign of her, listening carefully for her breathing to find out where she was hiding. He dropped to his knees to look under the bed but there was no sign of her under there either.

Slowly turning towards the wardrobe behind him, he heard a soft giggle. He acted like he didn't know she was in there, going to walk away. When she thought he had gone he burst back into the room, tickling her as she poked her head out of the cupboard. "I knew you were in there you little monster." He declared.

"No you didn't." She laughed, pushing his hands away as he continued to tickle her.

"Yes I did. Now that I've found you its bath time." AJ pouted her lip at him, but he wasn't falling for it. "P-lease, I invented that." He giggled softly. "Bath time, we can play more tomorrow okay?"

"Okay." AJ nodded to him, shaking his hand to seal the deal.

"Good girl." Greg swept her up in his arms, carrying her off towards the bathroom.

"You haven't told your own mother?" Catherine asked surprised, handing Nick another bucket of waste from the large bath tub that their new found DB was in until David took it away. Nick shook his head, tipping the waste through a strainer, handing the empty bucket back over to Catherine once he was done. "Why not?" She asked surprised.

"Well, I haven't really had the chance to. Wait hold up. I got somethin' here." Nick picked up an engagement ring, short of a diamond. "Think it's our case breaker?"

Catherine shrugged, pulling off the extra long gloves before she scratched her nose. "God I hope so, there's no way I'm touching that stuff again." She groaned, feeling as though she was going to throw up on a crime scene for the first time in a long time. "Why haven't you told your own mother? She has a right to know she has another grandchild, especially from you . . . I'm sure she'll be thrilled. Are you afraid about what she'll say or something?"

"No." Nick pulled off his gloves, dropping them to the floor so he could cover his nose from the horrible smell wafting around the room. "I just haven't had the chance to yet. It's not exactly the kinda thing you can bring up in a phone conversation with your mother who wants you to marry a nice Christian girl before you start havin' babies. An illegitimate child on the Stokes family tree is a terrible disgrace to the Stokes family name." He explained to her, stepping out of the room to get a breath of fresh air.

"Well, in that case . . . why haven't you married a nice Christian girl?" Catherine received a scowl in return. "Sor-ry . . . it's just strikes me as odd, a man as good looking and romantic you without a date. Something wrong with yah junk?"

"No." Nick protested, feeling oddly uncomfortable already. "Clearly not because I have a daughter," He pointed out to her. "You don't have to be married to make your life feel complete."

"Well, is your life complete?" Catherine pondered.

"I've got more than most people." Wiping away the sweat from his brow, Nick made his way off down the stairs to get some fresh air outside, not wanting to continue the line of questioning with Catherine.

"AJ, it's bed time now." Greg watched the excitable child jumping up and down on the bed. He had managed to bath and dress her in her pyjamas, but the next step was taking its time. "Nick said you had to be asleep by 7:30," Checking his watch, Greg groaned. He should have never given her a cookie earlier or the ice cream. "It's nine o' clock."

"I'm not tired." She protested, continuing to jump up and down.

"Well, I'm not tired either." He lied. "Let's read a story together then." He suggested, sweeping her up into his arms to go and check Nick's book shelves out. "Well Nicky doesn't actually have any fiction. So I'll have to make one up."

"You can?" She questioned surprised.

"Sure I can." He nodded, carrying her back towards the guest bedroom. He set her down on the bed, sweeping back the covers as she crawled underneath.

"I'm not tired." She told him again.

"Neither am I, the covers are just nice and warm." He smiled at her as he lay down beside her, watching her get comfortable as he tried to think up a story. "Okay . . . once upon a time there was a . . . blue unicorn, named... Grover. And Grover was a very lonely unicorn..."

"I don't like sad stories."

"Oh it gets better." He assured her. "I promise you... see because one day, Grover met this beautiful white unicorn called... Nicodemus. At first they were just very best friends. They went for long runs together on long beautiful rainbows that seemed to never end. Then one day, Nicodemus asked Grover to come to his castle with him."

"Unicorns don't live in castles."

"Nicodemus did." Greg sweetly smiled at her. "He lived in a huge castle with candy walls and streams made of chocolate." AJ giggled softly. "And Nicodemus took Grover for the grand tour of his castle. But they couldn't be together because their families . . . lived on opposite sides of the city. They didn't want Nicodemus and Grover to be friends."

"Why?"

"Because Nicodemus was a prince. He was supposed to marry princess... Sierra to continue the royal blood line. But Nicodemus didn't love Sierra, he loved Grover. Nicodemus's father forced him to marry Sierra." Greg watched AJ yawning, hoping his story was doing the trick in sending her to sleep as he would be in big trouble when Nick got home and she wasn't asleep. "Grover was very upset so he left..."

"You said it wasn't a sad story."

"It's not, if you'll let me finish." He laughed softly tickling her again, laughing as she giggled and squirmed. "See because . . . right before Nicodemus said 'I do' at his wedding to Sierra, he said 'I can't do this', quickly running across the longest rainbow in the world to find Grover."

"Did he find him?"

"Now you ruined the ending." Tickling his fingers across AJ's tummy, he laughed softly as he watched her giggling again. "Nicodemus found Grover at the end of a beautiful rainbow; they fell in love all over again. Then Nicodemus said to Grover . . . 'I love you, will you marry me?"

"What did he say?" AJ asked curiously, feeling her eyelids becoming heavy.

"Grover said 'I love you too' then they got married and lived happily ever after." AJ stuck her thumb in her mouth as Greg finished the story. "G'night AJ."

"G'night Greg."

"Sleep tight; don't let the bed bugs bite." Greg tucked the covers around her, giving her a warm smile before he head off towards the door, leaving it half open. He watched AJ closing her eyes then made his way off towards the kitchen to finish cleaning up, feeling exhausted.

"I think there's a fly in my coffee." Catherine grimaced, staring down into the gooey black liquid that was supposed to be a refreshing cup of coffee.

"Here, have mine then." Nick swapped the mugs over, smiling up at the waitress as she brought them their breakfasts. "Thank you sweetheart."

"You're welcome Tex." She winked, heading back to the counter to serve some more customers.

"Did you see the way she looked at me? She thinks I'm another one of your girlfriends you bring here." Catherine teased him, wiping off her knife and fork before she started eating. "You know that waitress over there has been eyeing you since we got here." Nick looked round to see a perky young waitress with her long red hair up in a pony tail. He turned back to Catherine, eating his breakfast like normal. "What? Not your type?"

"I guess she would be, if I wasn't already datin'."

Catherine raised her eyebrows surprised. "Our little Nicky has a special someone? Well who is she? Or he?" Shocked by the accusation, Nick raised his eyebrows up at her, shooting her a glare. "What? Don't act all innocent mister; I've seen you checking out guys from time to time."

"Have not!" He protested.

"Jeez okay, no need to get all defensive. So who is she, and how long have you been dating?"

"That's none of your business, and since I'm payin' for breakfast, I get to approve on what we talk about. My love life... in fact all my life is mine to deal with and I don't need you, or my mother lecturing me about it."

"Okay." She groaned softly, digging into her breakfast in silence. "Just tell me one thing." Nick looked up at her, waiting to hear it. "Are you happy?"

Nick thought about it a moment then nodded giving her a wide smile.

"Good, that's what I like to hear."

Nick dropped his keys on the side table as he made his way through the front door, securely locking the front door behind him before he removed his coat. Glancing around at the kitchen, he noticed the counters had been washed, but they weren't wiped after with a towel, leaving streaks on the marble.

Grabbing a towel for himself, Nick re-cleaned the counter, leaving it streak free before he turned to look at the front room, immediately noticing the stack of magazines were no longer neat stacks and something was off about his CD shelf. He noticed some of them weren't in the right order and the shelf looked a little lop sided, but he chalked it up to him being tired.

Making his way quietly towards the guest bedroom, he checked AJ was fast asleep, tucking the covers to her shoulders to keep her warm before he head off towards his bedroom finding Greg fast asleep, lying on his stomach in the middle of his bed. The covers just came up to his waist, revealing all of his beautiful scars in the morning light.

Nick quietly removed his shoes and jeans as he head off towards the bathroom to take a shower as he still smelt like decomp from his last crime scene.

Dumping his clothes in the washing basket, he stood in front of the mirror to shave and brush his teeth before he jumped in the shower to soak himself off. He took a quick shower as he was exhausted, quickly drying himself and snapping some shorts into place before he crawled into bed beside Greg, spooning his warm body tightly.

This is exactly how he wanted to end the day.

Greg leant back into his embrace, smiling as he felt Nick's arms wrapped around his body. "Hey, I didn't know you were awake." Nick whispered against his neck.

"My body registered a temperature change. I can always sense your hot body around me." Greg chuckled softly, sliding his hands across Nick's strong arms around his body. "How was your day at work?"

"Okay, besides the dead body and the crime scene. We had a fully decomp body in a bath tub, it was horrible."

"Did you solve it?"

"Yep, accidental death. She fell asleep in the tub, drowned then she decomposed there for weeks until the neighbours noticed the smell. She was our suspect for the first case until we found her like that. Her brother killed our first vic, he said he did it because he loved her."

"Did his sister live alone?" Greg queried, wondering why she was in the bath tub for so long before anyone noticed.

"Yep, she never married, never had any kids and she worked from home. Can you imagine how lonely that would be?"

Greg rolled onto his back in Nick's arms to face him, staring into his boyfriend's deep brown eyes. "No, not really . . . and I don't want to either."

"You won't be." Nick gently brushed his fingers through Greg's hair, pressing their warm lips together. He leant on his elbow beside Greg's head as they pulled apart, trailing his fingertips across his soft chin. "How'd it go here?"

"Pretty good," He lied slightly. "Bath and bed were slight problems, but we came to an understanding."

"Problem how?"

"Just minor things. Nothing I couldn't handle." Greg slid his hand down Nick's bare side as he smiled up at him. "So, where's my reward?"

"You wonna cash in now?"

Greg nodded up at him with a wide cheeky smile on his face. "Unless you're too tired that is."

"Nope." Nick started with a soft trail to his jaw line, working his way towards his neck.

"Just to let you know I'll be counting." Greg informed him with a cheeky grin.

"Oh really? Maybe I should up the heat a little more so you lose count?"

"You'll have to work pretty hard to make me lose count." Greg's cheeky grin spread wider across his sweet lips.

"Let's see then." Nick closed his mouth over Greg's adorable smile, giving him a tender kiss, leaving him wanting more as he slowly began to trail some open mouthed sloppy kisses down Greg's chest towards his destination. Greg shivered as Nick removed his shorts, feeling warm kisses across his tummy before he finally lost count as he lost control.

Greg clenched his teeth into his lower lip as he so desperately wanted to say 'I love you' to him. He knew women Nick had thrown out of his bed for saying those three little harmless words, and he didn't want to be one of them.

Sorry for the wait. Writers Block kept my fingers tied, so I couldn't write a thing. I wrote this in one afternoon because I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer, hopefully the writers block will stay away long enough to get you guys another chapter. I hope you enjoyed this one.

Please review to keep my writers block away :D

~ Holly