Needed Laughter

They all had to go back to work after Hayes' funeral and Eric hadn't get to see his wife while she was at the lab. The first sight he encountered when he stepped in the door that evening was a laughing, streaking baby with dark hair running from her blonde mother who was chasing her with a towel.

Could he have helped?

Sure.

But this opportunity was too good to miss. He was usually in the blonde's position. She proclaimed this would never happen to her. She was too smart and too quick.

"Not a word, Delko!" She said, coming back towards the room, Nevaeh tucked underneath her arm in a towel having been captured.

"'Never', huh?" Eric teased. "Now, did that moment just occur or was it you never had your wheaties this morning?"

"Laugh it up, buddy! Just for that, you can dress her," she said handing the baby in the towel to her husband.

"With pleasure," he replied. "You bein' bad this evening?" Eric said to his daughter, carrying her to the nursery.

Nevaeh Hope Delko already understood two languages, though presently she seemed to speak a whole different one no adult understood. Reading to the child was definitely having it's benefits as well. The little girl could point almost any animal she was asked to.

"Donde esta et perro?" Eric asked her after he finished putting her pyjamas on her.

Nevaeh pointed to the picture of Clifford on her shirt.

Eric smiled, rubbing his child's back as she leaned into him, grabbing the fabric of his shirt in her tiny hands in her version of a cuddle before he picked her up off the change table.

"'Ug," she said.

"I love you, too, baby girl," he whispered. "If you only knew how much."

Nevaeh's favorite song was "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", in both English and Spanish. She'd squirm in excitement and clap when anyone began to sing it. Calleigh had the sense that Eric Delko was a great man when she first met him, when he was a tow truck driver, not a cop. When she got to really know him after he joined CSI, she knew he would make a great father and husband. She couldn't not smile when him singing in the other room.

"Itzi, bitzi araña,
Tejió su telaraña.
Vino la lluvia,
Y se la llevó.
Salió el sol,
Se secó la lluvia.
Y Itzi, bitzi araña,
otra vez subió"

Their baby's favorite song, sang in Spanish. She glanced in the doorway and saw Nevaeh sitting on the living room carpet, Eric in front of her laying on his side. Calleigh could watch this interaction forever.

In his "play boy" years Eric never imagined he'd be on the floor singing "Itzi Bitzi Arana" to the most beautiful baby girl in the world, at least not without being extremely embarrassed. Now he'd rather do this in the evenings than anything in the world.


Three a.m. at the Wolfe-Boavista residence. Ryan had laughed it off when both Eric and Tripp had told him about pregnant woman cravings.

But Natalia was craving Subway and by god, she was getting it. One Ryan Wolfe wasn't getting any sleep till he got his butt out of bed and got it for her. Ryan complained about having to get dressed from his pyjamas Natalia stated "the shop isn't open! Only the drive-thru! Go in your pyjamas!"

Eric had been his own countless trips through the McDonald's 24 hour drive thru for fries and a big Mac for Calleigh when she was carrying. You bet he made this trips in his pyjamas, he doubted he wasn't only ones the employees had ever seen that way.

Ryan was grumbling the next morning at work about his three a.m. Drive-thru trip; Eric had told him about these, too. He just didn't believe they would start this early in the pregnancy, even though Frank told him they would. There was one Dunkin Donuts in Miami that had a 24-hour drive-thru. His ex-wife, mother of his two daughters had him making trips there at two and three in the morning during both her pregnancies.

"Hey man," Eric told Ryan. "I warned ya; the staff at MacDonald's knew me by name by the time Calleigh was six months!"

Please Read & Review! Please feel free to correct any Spanish mistakes in the "Itsy Bitsy Spider"!