Six weeks had passed since Keira had been born. In another two weeks, Kim
would be returning to work. She was looking forward to returning to work
and be with her friends but she also dreaded having to leave Keira. One
afternoon Kim was straightening things up in the living room and began
going through a bunch of unlabeled videotapes and began to put labels on
them. Joey had gone to his friend Michael's house for the afternoon since
Michael had invited him to stay over. Bobby had dropped him off on his way
to work, which left Kim and Keira the only ones in the apartment. Keira was
being finicky so while she went through the tapes she laid her across her
lap and gently rubbed her back which seemed to calm her down. After she'd
fallen asleep, Kim got up and took her and put her down for a nap in the
nursery and brought one of the baby monitors with her.
Having returned to going through the videotapes she put labels on them after watching the contents of the tapes and organized them. She still had about two stacks of tapes left and stopped and took a brief lunch break. As she put the next tape in, images of the firehouse appeared on the screen.
"When was this shot?" she asked herself aloud.
She saw images of Doc, Carlos, her, Jimmy, Bobby, Jerry, D.K and Lombardo all sitting around talking and laughing. Next thing she sees is a shot of the bunks, all in a circle with one in the middle. Something goes off inside her head and she instantly remembers what she's watching.
"Oh my gosh! I had totally forgotten about this tape." She exclaimed laughing, seeing the shocked face of one of the rookies when he finds all the guys upstairs stark naked all talking and laughing. The poor look on the rookie's face was priceless, but better yet perfect blackmail material if anyone ever got on her nerves.
"Man, if only the guys knew I had this tape, they'd croak for sure." She laughed out loud; "I can just see them on their knee's begging me to get rid of this tape, because they had no clue I was hiding in the room taping the whole thing."
She'd finished going through all the tapes and gotten everything organized, putting this tape back in the VCR so she could torment Bobby with it.
After finishing the tapes she headed in to start fixing dinner after going in and getting Keira up for her next feeding.
Later on that evening when Bobby got home she still couldn't believe she'd found that tape and had a smirk on her face when he walked in the door. When he walked through the door, he saw her sitting on the couch laughing.
"What's so funny?" he asked her curiously.
"You will never guess what I found when I was organizing the videotapes in the shelf earlier today." She replied, trying not to laugh as she talked.
"What did you find in that mess of tapes?" he asked, sitting down next to her.
She pushed the play button on the remote and watched his reaction.
"When did someone record stuff at the station?" he asked, seeing all of his colleagues sitting around laughing at the table.
"Oh trust me, it gets even better." She replied snickering, seeing the scenery change to the bunks.
Bobby took one look at the bunks and a circle and knew exactly what was going to happen on the tape and turned various shades of red. He looked over at Kim, who had a thoroughly amused look on her face at his reaction and said, "And just where missy did you get this tape?"
"Can you not put two and two together?" she asked; "Who is the only one missing from that group that could have shot this."
"You recorded the whole thing and didn't tell any of us!" he said in disbelief.
"What was I supposed to do walk out from my little hiding spot with the camera in front of you all and say 'Smile your on candid camera'?" she asked innocently.
"We had no idea anyone was taping or we probably wouldn't have gone through with it." Bobby said, thoroughly embarrassed.
"Just wait till everyone else finds out about that. How much do you wanna bet everyone will be on their knees begging me to get rid of it?" Kim replied.
"Of course they will be. They'll probably flip when they find out it was you that recorded that little prank in the first place." Bobby said back, a sneaky smile crossing his face.
"What? A woman can't have any fun now?" she asked curiously in self-defense as she got up off the couch to go get a bottle of water from the fridge.
"Depends on your definition of fun," Bobby said snickering, following her into the kitchen.
"You hungry? I fixed spaghetti for dinner." Kim asked.
"I'm starved. Things were so busy we only got a brief break." He replied, watching her fix a plate of spaghetti and bring it over to him.
Keira had begun to cry, and Kim left the room and went to check on her. Finding her awake, she picked her up and carried her in to see her father.
"Guess whose awake." Kim said smiling.
"Wouldn't be our little girl would it?" he asked smiling, turning to look at Kim.
She sat down at the table beside him, holding Keira in her lap.
"Come here munchkin," Bobby said, picking her up from Kim's lap.
"Guess what Joey's got her doing." Kim said smiling.
"What's that?" Bobby asked, putting his index finger against the palm of Keira's hand, feeling her tiny fingers grip his finger.
"He was playing with her one afternoon and was sticking his tongue out at her and eventually she started mimicking him." Kim replied, laughing lightly at Bobby's reaction.
"You've got to be kidding me." Bobby said, grinning at what Kim had just told him.
"I'm serious I saw her do it myself. Try it." Kim said back.
As soon as Keira's eyes were trained on Bobby again he tried what Kim had said and sure enough she mimicked his actions, causing him to laugh.
Since she was starting to fidget, he passed her back to Kim while he rinsed his plate off and headed to change clothes. While he was changing, it was getting close to Keira's next feeding so Kim went ahead and made sure she didn't need a diaper change. After going ahead and changing her diaper, she headed back to where Bobby was. He'd propped himself up in bed with several pillows against the headboard. Kim sat down next to him, still holding Keira when he pulled her over into his lap and wrapped his arms around both her and Keira.
The three lay together, enjoying a little family quiet time till Keira began to fuss.
Several days later, Kim had just finished feeding Keira and was getting ready to put her down for a nap when she heard a knock at the door. She cradled a now sleeping Keira in one arm and opened the door, finding Alex on the other side. Kim could tell something was wrong with her and said, "Alex! You look awful, what's wrong?"
"Ty and I had a big fight this morning." She replied, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Come on in and tell me what happened." Kim said, closing the door after she'd entered.
Alex took a seat on the couch and Kim went and put Keira down for her nap and returned to the living room and said, "Tell me what happened."
"He's been acting kind of distant lately so last night when I saw him after work I asked him what was wrong. He kept insisting everything was fine, when deep down I knew they weren't. He gets mad because I'm being so persistent and instead of going to the movies like we'd planned, he ditches me and goes and gets wasted with Bosco." Alex began to say.
Kim could see the hurt and disappointment in Alex's eyes as she continued.
"Then I hear someone banging on my front door at 5:00 am this morning. Sure enough, there he is. Drunk off his ass. How on earth he remembered where I lived in the state he was in I don't know. Needless to say I was pissed that he'd woke me up at that hour, the fact that he was completely inebriated didn't help either. A short time later we started fighting. I can't take it when he pulls this crap." Alex said, sighing heavily in frustration.
"Are you going to try talk to him tonight?" Kim asked.
"No, I'm pulling a double tonight so I can get my thoughts straight." Alex replied, feeling better that she'd talked to someone about this.
"Are you considering breaking up with him?" Kim asked gently, not wanting to upset Alex.
"I'm extremely close to doing just that. He's been so distant the past several weeks, and then he goes and pulls this. I'm tired of it." Alex said back.
"I know what you mean." Kim replied, thinking back to all the stuff Jimmy had put her through.
Alex sighed softly, wishing she could decide on what to do.
"Just go with your instincts. If they tell you to leave then there is a reason for it." Kim said; "You want any coffee?"
"Sure," Alex replied softly, looking down at her watch, seeing that it was almost eleven am.
Kim got up and put on a pot of coffee and grabbed a bottle of water for herself. As soon as the coffee was done she fixed a cup for Alex and returned to the living room, passing her the cup as she sat back down.
"Bobby off today?" Alex asked, taking a sip of the coffee.
Kim shook her head no as she took a drink of water and replied, "Keira was being fussy around 3 am, so he got up and tried to calm her down but she wasn't cooperating. He was still up at 6 so I got up and told him to go back to bed since he had to work and that I'd get him up around 1."
"I bet Joey's thrilled to death to have a younger sister, isn't he." Alex said back to her friend.
"He is. He loves helping take care of her. I imagine when she gets older, he'll start being the overprotective older brother." Kim replied, laughing lightly after taking another drink of water.
After about ten minutes of just sitting around sipping on drinks and talking Alex said, I'd better head out. I really appreciate you listening to me."
"No problem. I can relate to what you're going through because I once was in the same position. If you need to talk anymore feel free to call." Kim replied smiling, walking with Alex to the door.
"Ok. I'll see you later." Alex replied, before heading out into the hall.
"Bye," Kim said back to her as she left, closing the door.
The aroma from the coffee had drifted down to the bedroom and woke up Bobby. He walked across the hall to check on Keira, finding her sound asleep. Kim had begun to straighten up the kitchen and went ahead and washed the few dishes that were sitting in the sink. As she wiped off the counter top, Bobby snuck up behind her and started tickling her around the waist. She let out a short scream of surprise and turned around and found him snickering at her.
"So that's the welcome I get for letting you get some extra sleep?" she asked sarcastically, looking at him with a grin on her face.
"Any better?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him.
"Much better," she replied smiling.
"By the way, I do appreciate the extra sleep, especially after last night." He said, tilting his head towards hers so he could kiss her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he kissed her gently. His hands began to massage her hips as she kissed him back deeply, when the intimate moment was broken when they heard a knock at the door.
"His timing is awful you know that." Bobby whispered into her ear.
"Sorry, he was a difficult one to train." Kim replied sarcastically as she headed for the door.
Bobby followed closely behind her and said, "You did not just say what I thought you said."
"Oh but I did." She replied, grinning evilly as she headed towards the door.
"You little she devil you," he replied laughing, tickling her as she headed towards the door.
Kim squealed when Bobby began to tickle her and said in between laughs, "Bobby! Stop!"
Jimmy and Joey were standing at the front door when they heard Kim squeal. Jimmy silently groaned, making a mental note to call next time before he brought Joey over that way things wouldn't be awkward for him, although Joey seemed oblivious to hearing Kim squeal.
Bobby finally stopped and sat down on the couch and Kim headed towards the door and let her son and Jimmy in.
"You want to stay for coffee?" she asked Jimmy.
"That's alright, I've gotta do a few things before I head to work." Jimmy replied, hoping she didn't press the coffee issue.
Kim could tell that he was skirting the invitation for coffee, and judging by his nervous actions she could tell why. Of course she wanted to bust out laughing right there but knew that would be wrong. That would have to wait till Jimmy was gone.
Joey headed off to his room and Jimmy left, feeling rather embarrassed that he'd dropped Joey off at a bad time, or so he thought. After Jimmy had left, Kim sat down on the couch and cracked up laughing. Bobby looked over at her laughing and said, "What are you laughing over?"
"Could you not tell that Jimmy seemed rather uneasy when he brought Joey over?" Kim asked in between laughs.
"Why do you think he was uneasy?" Bobby questioned, wanting to see where Kim was taking this conversation.
"You didn't think he was acting sort of off?" Kim replied curiously.
"I didn't answer the door now did I." Bobby responded, pulling her over next to him; "What do you think had him so uneasy?"
"I think he heard me squealing when you started tickling me and thought something else was going on." Kim replied; "I wouldn't be surprised if he starts calling before he brings Joey over."
"Maybe he should," Bobby said suggestively.
Having returned to going through the videotapes she put labels on them after watching the contents of the tapes and organized them. She still had about two stacks of tapes left and stopped and took a brief lunch break. As she put the next tape in, images of the firehouse appeared on the screen.
"When was this shot?" she asked herself aloud.
She saw images of Doc, Carlos, her, Jimmy, Bobby, Jerry, D.K and Lombardo all sitting around talking and laughing. Next thing she sees is a shot of the bunks, all in a circle with one in the middle. Something goes off inside her head and she instantly remembers what she's watching.
"Oh my gosh! I had totally forgotten about this tape." She exclaimed laughing, seeing the shocked face of one of the rookies when he finds all the guys upstairs stark naked all talking and laughing. The poor look on the rookie's face was priceless, but better yet perfect blackmail material if anyone ever got on her nerves.
"Man, if only the guys knew I had this tape, they'd croak for sure." She laughed out loud; "I can just see them on their knee's begging me to get rid of this tape, because they had no clue I was hiding in the room taping the whole thing."
She'd finished going through all the tapes and gotten everything organized, putting this tape back in the VCR so she could torment Bobby with it.
After finishing the tapes she headed in to start fixing dinner after going in and getting Keira up for her next feeding.
Later on that evening when Bobby got home she still couldn't believe she'd found that tape and had a smirk on her face when he walked in the door. When he walked through the door, he saw her sitting on the couch laughing.
"What's so funny?" he asked her curiously.
"You will never guess what I found when I was organizing the videotapes in the shelf earlier today." She replied, trying not to laugh as she talked.
"What did you find in that mess of tapes?" he asked, sitting down next to her.
She pushed the play button on the remote and watched his reaction.
"When did someone record stuff at the station?" he asked, seeing all of his colleagues sitting around laughing at the table.
"Oh trust me, it gets even better." She replied snickering, seeing the scenery change to the bunks.
Bobby took one look at the bunks and a circle and knew exactly what was going to happen on the tape and turned various shades of red. He looked over at Kim, who had a thoroughly amused look on her face at his reaction and said, "And just where missy did you get this tape?"
"Can you not put two and two together?" she asked; "Who is the only one missing from that group that could have shot this."
"You recorded the whole thing and didn't tell any of us!" he said in disbelief.
"What was I supposed to do walk out from my little hiding spot with the camera in front of you all and say 'Smile your on candid camera'?" she asked innocently.
"We had no idea anyone was taping or we probably wouldn't have gone through with it." Bobby said, thoroughly embarrassed.
"Just wait till everyone else finds out about that. How much do you wanna bet everyone will be on their knees begging me to get rid of it?" Kim replied.
"Of course they will be. They'll probably flip when they find out it was you that recorded that little prank in the first place." Bobby said back, a sneaky smile crossing his face.
"What? A woman can't have any fun now?" she asked curiously in self-defense as she got up off the couch to go get a bottle of water from the fridge.
"Depends on your definition of fun," Bobby said snickering, following her into the kitchen.
"You hungry? I fixed spaghetti for dinner." Kim asked.
"I'm starved. Things were so busy we only got a brief break." He replied, watching her fix a plate of spaghetti and bring it over to him.
Keira had begun to cry, and Kim left the room and went to check on her. Finding her awake, she picked her up and carried her in to see her father.
"Guess whose awake." Kim said smiling.
"Wouldn't be our little girl would it?" he asked smiling, turning to look at Kim.
She sat down at the table beside him, holding Keira in her lap.
"Come here munchkin," Bobby said, picking her up from Kim's lap.
"Guess what Joey's got her doing." Kim said smiling.
"What's that?" Bobby asked, putting his index finger against the palm of Keira's hand, feeling her tiny fingers grip his finger.
"He was playing with her one afternoon and was sticking his tongue out at her and eventually she started mimicking him." Kim replied, laughing lightly at Bobby's reaction.
"You've got to be kidding me." Bobby said, grinning at what Kim had just told him.
"I'm serious I saw her do it myself. Try it." Kim said back.
As soon as Keira's eyes were trained on Bobby again he tried what Kim had said and sure enough she mimicked his actions, causing him to laugh.
Since she was starting to fidget, he passed her back to Kim while he rinsed his plate off and headed to change clothes. While he was changing, it was getting close to Keira's next feeding so Kim went ahead and made sure she didn't need a diaper change. After going ahead and changing her diaper, she headed back to where Bobby was. He'd propped himself up in bed with several pillows against the headboard. Kim sat down next to him, still holding Keira when he pulled her over into his lap and wrapped his arms around both her and Keira.
The three lay together, enjoying a little family quiet time till Keira began to fuss.
Several days later, Kim had just finished feeding Keira and was getting ready to put her down for a nap when she heard a knock at the door. She cradled a now sleeping Keira in one arm and opened the door, finding Alex on the other side. Kim could tell something was wrong with her and said, "Alex! You look awful, what's wrong?"
"Ty and I had a big fight this morning." She replied, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Come on in and tell me what happened." Kim said, closing the door after she'd entered.
Alex took a seat on the couch and Kim went and put Keira down for her nap and returned to the living room and said, "Tell me what happened."
"He's been acting kind of distant lately so last night when I saw him after work I asked him what was wrong. He kept insisting everything was fine, when deep down I knew they weren't. He gets mad because I'm being so persistent and instead of going to the movies like we'd planned, he ditches me and goes and gets wasted with Bosco." Alex began to say.
Kim could see the hurt and disappointment in Alex's eyes as she continued.
"Then I hear someone banging on my front door at 5:00 am this morning. Sure enough, there he is. Drunk off his ass. How on earth he remembered where I lived in the state he was in I don't know. Needless to say I was pissed that he'd woke me up at that hour, the fact that he was completely inebriated didn't help either. A short time later we started fighting. I can't take it when he pulls this crap." Alex said, sighing heavily in frustration.
"Are you going to try talk to him tonight?" Kim asked.
"No, I'm pulling a double tonight so I can get my thoughts straight." Alex replied, feeling better that she'd talked to someone about this.
"Are you considering breaking up with him?" Kim asked gently, not wanting to upset Alex.
"I'm extremely close to doing just that. He's been so distant the past several weeks, and then he goes and pulls this. I'm tired of it." Alex said back.
"I know what you mean." Kim replied, thinking back to all the stuff Jimmy had put her through.
Alex sighed softly, wishing she could decide on what to do.
"Just go with your instincts. If they tell you to leave then there is a reason for it." Kim said; "You want any coffee?"
"Sure," Alex replied softly, looking down at her watch, seeing that it was almost eleven am.
Kim got up and put on a pot of coffee and grabbed a bottle of water for herself. As soon as the coffee was done she fixed a cup for Alex and returned to the living room, passing her the cup as she sat back down.
"Bobby off today?" Alex asked, taking a sip of the coffee.
Kim shook her head no as she took a drink of water and replied, "Keira was being fussy around 3 am, so he got up and tried to calm her down but she wasn't cooperating. He was still up at 6 so I got up and told him to go back to bed since he had to work and that I'd get him up around 1."
"I bet Joey's thrilled to death to have a younger sister, isn't he." Alex said back to her friend.
"He is. He loves helping take care of her. I imagine when she gets older, he'll start being the overprotective older brother." Kim replied, laughing lightly after taking another drink of water.
After about ten minutes of just sitting around sipping on drinks and talking Alex said, I'd better head out. I really appreciate you listening to me."
"No problem. I can relate to what you're going through because I once was in the same position. If you need to talk anymore feel free to call." Kim replied smiling, walking with Alex to the door.
"Ok. I'll see you later." Alex replied, before heading out into the hall.
"Bye," Kim said back to her as she left, closing the door.
The aroma from the coffee had drifted down to the bedroom and woke up Bobby. He walked across the hall to check on Keira, finding her sound asleep. Kim had begun to straighten up the kitchen and went ahead and washed the few dishes that were sitting in the sink. As she wiped off the counter top, Bobby snuck up behind her and started tickling her around the waist. She let out a short scream of surprise and turned around and found him snickering at her.
"So that's the welcome I get for letting you get some extra sleep?" she asked sarcastically, looking at him with a grin on her face.
"Any better?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him.
"Much better," she replied smiling.
"By the way, I do appreciate the extra sleep, especially after last night." He said, tilting his head towards hers so he could kiss her.
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he kissed her gently. His hands began to massage her hips as she kissed him back deeply, when the intimate moment was broken when they heard a knock at the door.
"His timing is awful you know that." Bobby whispered into her ear.
"Sorry, he was a difficult one to train." Kim replied sarcastically as she headed for the door.
Bobby followed closely behind her and said, "You did not just say what I thought you said."
"Oh but I did." She replied, grinning evilly as she headed towards the door.
"You little she devil you," he replied laughing, tickling her as she headed towards the door.
Kim squealed when Bobby began to tickle her and said in between laughs, "Bobby! Stop!"
Jimmy and Joey were standing at the front door when they heard Kim squeal. Jimmy silently groaned, making a mental note to call next time before he brought Joey over that way things wouldn't be awkward for him, although Joey seemed oblivious to hearing Kim squeal.
Bobby finally stopped and sat down on the couch and Kim headed towards the door and let her son and Jimmy in.
"You want to stay for coffee?" she asked Jimmy.
"That's alright, I've gotta do a few things before I head to work." Jimmy replied, hoping she didn't press the coffee issue.
Kim could tell that he was skirting the invitation for coffee, and judging by his nervous actions she could tell why. Of course she wanted to bust out laughing right there but knew that would be wrong. That would have to wait till Jimmy was gone.
Joey headed off to his room and Jimmy left, feeling rather embarrassed that he'd dropped Joey off at a bad time, or so he thought. After Jimmy had left, Kim sat down on the couch and cracked up laughing. Bobby looked over at her laughing and said, "What are you laughing over?"
"Could you not tell that Jimmy seemed rather uneasy when he brought Joey over?" Kim asked in between laughs.
"Why do you think he was uneasy?" Bobby questioned, wanting to see where Kim was taking this conversation.
"You didn't think he was acting sort of off?" Kim replied curiously.
"I didn't answer the door now did I." Bobby responded, pulling her over next to him; "What do you think had him so uneasy?"
"I think he heard me squealing when you started tickling me and thought something else was going on." Kim replied; "I wouldn't be surprised if he starts calling before he brings Joey over."
"Maybe he should," Bobby said suggestively.