"Going for a hundred?"
"What time is it? One-thirty. Maybe by five I can have a thousand. Of course, I may need to start raiding desks." He pulled open the drawer in front of him. "Yeah—no way there's another nine hundred paper clips in here."
"Deakins will be pleased to see you putting your time to such good use." He handed Logan a slip of paper. "I won't be around tomorrow night so you're on your own. Try not to get into trouble."
"Who me? I only get into trouble anymore with you." He opened the paper as he said, "Celebrating the one-week anniversary of her freedom?"
Goren laughed. "Not quite. I have something else in mind."
"Directions?" Logan questioned, looking at the paper in his hands. "Directions to where?"
"Shh. Eames doesn't know. It's a surprise. You know what Sunday is, don't you?"
"Of course. How could I forget my best girl's birthday?"
"Okay, well, that's where she'll be."
Logan sighed. "You're a pain in the ass."
"I know. But I have something important to do and I want to do it right."
"Like what?"
"I have to tell Maggie that I'm her father."
Logan leaned back in his chair and studied his best friend. "I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that talk."
"I'm nervous enough; I don't need an audience."
"Nervous about what? Telling the baby something she's been dying to hear? I'd be all over that...a chance to talk to a woman without getting smacked for saying the wrong thing."
Goren frowned. "She's not a woman. She's a baby."
"She's female, Bobby. Everything we say is the wrong thing to them."
"Not Maggie."
"Not yet. Just wait. Although...with you, it may never get to that point."
Goren sighed. "Am I ready for this?"
"For what?"
"Being a father."
"First of all, ready or not, here it is. Secondly, what's changed? You've always been her daddy. Only now she can call you Daddy. Though, if you ask me, she should have been calling you that all along."
Goren looked suspicious as he leaned against the desk. "What are you talking about? Did you know?"
"No more than you did. But if you think about what a father is, or should be, to a kid, you have always been that to her. Getting the paternity testing was simply a technicality." He looked back at the directions on the paper in his hand. "Where the hell is this?"
"Connecticut."
"You gotta be kidding me. Why are you dragging us out of state for this?"
"It's not about you, Mike, and you don't have to come."
"Oh, bullshit. I'm not going to miss her birthday and you know it. I'll be there if I have to walk, and with the way my car's been running lately I might just have to do that."
"Get a ride with Barek."
"Why can't you do anything the way regular people do? You know, take her to Chuck E. Cheese or something."
Goren smiled. "As you are so fond of pointing out, Mike, I'm not normal." He tossed the paper clip chain back to him. "Eames and I have the day off tomorrow; I just cleared it with Deakins. I'll see you on Sunday. If Alex wants to know where I am, tell her I went to get Maggie a birthday present."
"Telling her that you're her dad will be all the present she needs."
Goren just smiled and started toward the elevators. "Hey—" Logan called to him. "Is that what you're really doing or will I be lying to her?"
"No, I really am getting her present."
Logan waved at him, then opened his drawer and pulled out the rest of his paper clips.
When she woke up the next morning to get ready for work, Eames was surprised to find Goren sitting at the table talking to John with Maggie in his lap, eating pieces of waffle and syrup with her fingers. "Hi, Mommy!"
She rested a hand on his shoulder and leaned over to kiss Maggie good morning on her temple, where there was no syrup. Then she kissed him. "What are you doing here so early?" she asked as she rounded the table, kissed her father and went into the kitchen for coffee.
"We have the day off."
"Since when?"
"Since I talked to Deakins yesterday."
"And you couldn't tell me last night so I didn't get up with the sun?"
"I wanted to get an early start and this was an easier way to get you up early." Not as fun, he mused silently. But easier.
She looked at him from the kitchen doorway. "An early start for what?"
"You'll see."
"So you let me get up at sunrise when I didn't have to and you won't even tell me why?"
"That about covers it."
"You owe me, Goren."
He smiled. "Fine." He nuzzled Maggie's neck, making her giggle. Her plate was empty. "Let's get you cleaned up and dressed, mouse. We're going for a car ride."
"Where?"
"That's a surprise."
"Can I sit inna front?"
"Can you ever sit in the front?"
She pretended to pout. "On'y inna driveway."
"Okay, then." He set her on the floor and started to get up, but Eames' hand on his shoulder forced him back into his chair. "I'll get her ready," she hissed into his ear, gently nuzzling his earlobe with her nose. "You think about how you're going to make this up to me."
"Oh, I have an idea."
She gave him a half-smile. "Think about it."
"Eames..."
"What's fair is fair."
She hurried off to the bedroom before Maggie decided to find her own clothes. Last time she did that it had taken her the better part of an hour to get everything put back away. Goren watched her go and softly sighed. Think about it. Now he would, dammit...
John smiled at him. "She's a pistol, that one. More than any of her brothers. She could hold her own with every one of them, and with all of them together. I have only seen her meet her match once."
"Oh? She ran into a gorilla?"
"No. A bear." He raised his eyebrows and John laughed. "I meant you, son. You give my girl a run for her money, and I love that you can." He leaned forward. "Take some unsolicited advice from an old man who only wants to see the two of you happy?"
"Go ahead."
"Take however much time you need, Bobby, but marry that girl. She's stubborn, and whether she will ever admit it or not, she needs you. She's given you a beautiful daughter and another baby on the way. She'll never belong to anyone else...not the way she has always belonged to you." He reached across the table and patted Bobby's arm. "Drive carefully and I'll see you Sunday afternoon."
"Are you driving up alone?"
"No. Your friends Mike and Carolyn convinced me to go with them. Well, Mike did. Seems he doesn't want to end up in Canada."
"Yeah, well, he's a little challenged when it comes to following a road map. I trust Carolyn to keep him on the right road, but who knows. He doesn't like being told what to do, and she loves to tell him what to do."
John laughed and went into the kitchen. Goren got up and walked back to the bedroom. He knocked softly and opened the door. Fully dressed, Maggie was standing in front of her mother, who was topless except for her bra, holding her shirt in her hand. Maggie was gently gliding her little hand over the small swell in Alex's lower abdomen. "Is there a real baby in there, Mommy?"
"Yes."
"An' he's got a real daddy?"
"Yes"
"Not like me?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don' like Daddy and now he goed away, like I wanted, and I got no daddy."
Eames looked up and saw Goren in the doorway. She met his eyes. He shook his head. It wasn't the time. He had this all worked out. Not quite what he was going to say, but where he wanted to say it. Maggie turned her head and looked at him. She smiled. "It's okay. I got Uncle Bobby. I on'y need him and you."
She ran to him and he picked her up as Eames pulled on her shirt. She came over to his side and leaned up to kiss his cheek, whispering into his ear, "It'll be fine."
He gently squeezed her side and turned his attention to his little daughter. "So, do you want to go away for the weekend with Mommy and me?"
"The whole weekend?"
"Yes."
"Even my birthday?"
"Yes."
"But how will Grandpa and Uncle Mike find me?"
"I gave them directions. We might have to go up to Lake Erie to find Uncle Mike, though."
"Where?"
He laughed and kissed her. "Never mind. Uncle Mike will be there for your birthday. He wouldn't miss it any more than I would. So are you ready to go?"
"Yes!"
"Okay, let's go."
"Did you know my baby's daddy put him in Mommy's tummy?"
He kissed her. "We'll talk about it later, okay, mouse?"
"Okay."
He set her down and watched her run to tell her grandfather good-bye and make sure he knew where to find her on Sunday, when she would turn three. Eames slipped her arm around his waist and squeezed. "Still nervous?" she asked.
"You have no idea," he replied.
Fifteen minutes later, he was turning out of the development. Eames made him promise to drive like a reasonable person and Maggie was singing Der Frohliche Wandersmann as she drank root beer from her sippy cup. "I still swear I'm going to smack you for teaching her that, Goren."
He laughed and held his hand out toward her. She interlaced her fingers with his and smiled when he kissed her hand.