Infinity

By LMR

Chapter 2: Two Little Boys

Disclaimer: I own CI. 'I do, I do, I do, I do, I do!' Okay, no more ABBA for me. I don't.

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Alex looked at her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. "I can't wait for you to meet my backache," she said smiling. "He'll love you."

"You call him Backache, huh?" He paused in thought. "Well, if we're going to nickname him for physical ailments that he's given us, can I call him Gray Hairs?"

"Ailments? I love your hair." She forced his head down so she could examine it from the top, stroked it. "I loved the black, don't get me wrong, but this is nice. Proud of it, too. You got your first grays because I wasn't there. That'll stroke a girl's ego. But the nickname-"

He smiled, understanding. "You're reminding him." She nodded.

"Also I needed something to call him while I was carrying him and for a while after he was born. His nitwit parents were so indecisive.

"It took forever for them to name that poor kid."

Bobby fidgeted. He still felt like a stranger here. "I'm going to see if Andrea needs help in the kitchen."

Alex understood his reasoning. Andrea. Known. Comfortable. Doesn't want to rip off choice parts of my anatomy. She gave them a moment before going into the kitchen herself. She had been about to do the same, as a matter of fact, but didn't want Bobby to think she was following him.

"Oh, good, you're here," he sighed as she came into the room.

"Bobby, you're a guest, no!" Andrea chastised. "Shoo." She swatting him away from the pot roast he was trying to help with.

"Need me to call him off?" Alex asked, amused.

"Tell him guests don't cook, Al."

"Well, this is Denise's house," he reminded her. "You're a guest, too, but here you are. Cooking."

"He's got a point," Alex said, falling into the roll of tentative good cop.

"Anyone the lady of the house has ever called 'puke-nosed snot-face' is not a guest," Andrea pointed out judiciously. "Especially if, at the same time, she's trying to beat you senseless for stealing her doll." She paused for a moment. "You're family, but there are distinct levels here, Bobby. Now, you count as a honorary family member as you are loved by one or more family member." She gestured to Alex and herself respectively. "With brownie points for being a cop and a partner. An honorary family member has all the benefits of being a blood Eames with the added perk that we will never allow you do anything that even remotely resembles work."

"And how does a non-blood Eames earn that honor?"

He was trying to squeeze closer to the roast, and Andrea calmly swatted away his hand as she continued. "Well, first, he has to be dumb enough to want it." Bobby nodded. "Okay, you are officially at the meal-cooking, kitchen-cleaning, garbage-schlepping, 'get off your lazy butt and do it yourself' level of family member when a blood Eames feels comfortable enough with you to knock you silly."

"Right, 'course. Back to that." Bobby thought about this for a moment. "Your father wants to kill me, doesn't that count for anything?" he wondered casually.

"Nope, to qualify as a family member on the basis of physical abuse, said blood Eames must actually do damage. And no, he doesn't," she added throwing him what she hoped what a reassuring look.

"Oh." He seriously pondered this for a moment, as if taking in the rules and looking for a loophole. He finally sighed, resigning himself to the fact that no one was going to let him help with anything.

Alex rolled her eyes, knowing that the pot roast was just screaming at him to do something with it. Poor guy wasn't going to be happy if the family insisted on treating him like a guest.

And he's not a guest.

"Hey, what're you-" She'd caught Bobby off guard by pulling up the bottom of his sweater, pointing to an elbow shaped bruise on the side of his stomach.

"I did that," she said simply. "Does that count?"

Andrea looked between the two of them, skeptical. "Do I want to know?"

She put his shirt back in place. "We were undercover, And. He was supposed to be beating me up..."

"And yet he gets the bruises."

"We had it choreographed, but...Sorry, Hon," she appealed.

"It's as okay as the first fifteen times you apologized. So am I a shlepper yet, or what?"

Andrea shrugged. "I'd really rather you just get comfortable, Bobby. I don't want you to feel like you have to."

"Relax, Andie. He won't be happy unless he can do something." Alex passed Bobby a serving fork so he could start arranging the veggies around the bottom of the roast. "He loves cooking; calls it 'edible chemistry,' and he's been trying to get me off takeout for years. Yes, years," she clarified, reading Andrea's look. "He started when I was out with Nathan. Said he wanted to make sure I was well-nourished for the baby..."

"She knows full well I just wanted to come pester her at her place because I couldn't pester her at work. How's that taste?"

"Hm. If I had known you would be so good at this, I would have beaten you up ages ago," Andrea complimented.

Alex, standing behind Bobby while he worked, wrapped her arms under his and squeezed his chest. "You are family." She knew what he was thinking about. "He really likes your personality, he likes who you are: You saw that. He's mad at me. And it'll pass. Everybody else here just thinks I'm lucky," she said honestly.

"Nathan's here!" Danielle yelled out to the house.

Grinning broadly, Alex hurried to the front hall, dragging Bobby behind her. She caught the little boy up in her arms. "Nathan, hey kid." She gave him a loud kiss on his cheek and he giggled. "Been good, little Backache?" He nodded dutifully.

After putting him down, she waited with Bobby on the side of the room while he was hugged and gushed over by the whole family.

She knelt down gently beside him. "Honey, you know what a partner is, right?" He did. Partner was an early vocabulary word in the Eames house.

"I brought my partner with me for Christmas. Wanna meet him?"

"Brought Bobby?" Bobby smiled in spite of himself. This guy knows my name. Alex told him about me. He looked right at Bobby, still standing on the side. He seemed to look right through him. "You," he said, no trace of doubt.

He knelt down next to him, smiling. "Smart little man." He extended a hand. "It's nice to finally meet you, Nathan." Nathan shook.

"Alex said you like cars," he said after a pause.

Bobby grinned. "I love cars."

"I got cars. Wanna see my room?" he asked excitedly.

"Yeah." He hurried up the stairs after the little boy.

"Don't hold him hostage up there all day and bore him to death!" Alex warned, a light smirk on her face.

"He's not going to bore me, Alex," Bobby insisted.

"I meant you," she told Bobby, smiling. "You're going to tell him all about every car since the Model T, and it wouldn't surprise me if you shared your theories on the invention of the wheel, too."

"He's not gonna bore me, Aunt Alex," the child parroted.

"See, I'm not gonna bore him, Aunt Alex," Bobby replied, pouting.

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He sat cross-legged on the floor. "I should really apologize, Nathan," he said frankly. "I said some pretty mean things about you when you were in your aunt's tummy."

He'd been joking, but to his surprise, Nathan grinned. "She told me that few times. She likes talking about that."

"She likes talking about what a jerk I was, huh?"

"Auntie says 'jealous baby.' Is that the same thing?"

"Yup. I was just grouchy because I needed Alex, and she wasn't there."

"And because you got stuck with Stupid Priest-Lady," he concluded. "Alex hates Stupid Priest-Lady."

Bobby stopped a moment, lost in thought. It had been a while since he'd thought about Stupid Pri- er, Bishop. She'd gotten every single thing right on the nose... so far. He wondered what she'd bet on for their en-

"This is my favorite," Nathan announced, pulling Bobby's thoughts back into the room. He showed him a little red sports car.

"Ah, neat," Bobby said, faking not one shred of the enthusiasm he showed. "I like that."

Nathan paused in consideration, turning something over in his mind. "You can drive it if you want to," he offered.

Bobby got the distinct impression from his hesitation that this was a high, and perhaps rarely bestowed honor. He answered accordingly. "Thank you, Nathan," he said softly, looking him right in the eye. He took the car gently. "Show me how?" Nathan demonstrated his driving technique via sound effects.

"Brrrmmm," he instructed Bobby.

Bobby took over slowly, helping him steer for a while. "Oh, look at that! Look how it hugs those curves. Beautiful." They stopped and he smiled at the boy. "Thank you," he said again. "That was fun."

Nathan looked at Bobby critically, as if trying to see right into his head. "You like Aunt Alex. Like, like like her," he observed.

Bobby shifted on the floor, somewhat uncomfortable. They had agreed before that they would let Nathan know they were a couple - do it casually so he could get used to it. "I'm in love with her. Are you okay with that?" he asked sincerely.

But the little boy was giving him that stare again, the one that gave Bobby the distinct impression that his head was transparent. "Are you going to marry my aunt?" he asked abruptly.

Oh, great. It runs in the family.

"Someday, maybe," Bobby said, wishing he could give a better answer.

He reconsidered his question. "Are you with her forever ever, though? I mean, like for permnament?"

"Yes. Completely permnament. Foreverever." He said seriously.

He scrunched his little face up in concentration. "Does that mean you're my uncle?"

Bobby melted. He got down to the child's level. "I would love to be your uncle, Nathan. But that's up to you. Okay? You can call me whatever you want."

Bobby could see the wheels turning in his tiny head. "Okay." He thought a moment more. "You know," he said informatively. "She's half my aunt and half my mommie." He nodded. "Aunt Andie said that means any man who wants her better be good enough by me." He gestured to himself with his thumb, trying to look tough.

Bobby tried not to smile, feeling that might insult him. "Well, I should hope so. How do I measure up?"

"Big," he answered without hesitation.

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"Supper, kids!"

Bobby headed down the stairs grinning. "He's perfect, Alex," He whispered, leaning in to kiss her on the forehead.

Bobby excused himself to go to the bathroom, but even from there, he could hear yelling coming from the next room. His partner was fuming about something, and when he walked out of the bathroom right into the conversation, and heard what she was saying, he froze and began looking in earnest for a rock to crawl under. "Oh, come on, Dad! We're just going to be sleeping! We're not seventeen: I think we can behave ourselves," she insisted.

"I'll sleep on the sofa. It's not a big deal," Bobby said quietly.

"No, you won't, and yes it is. Dad, he is our guest, not to mention the man I love, and he is not sleeping on that lumpy old sofa. He's sleeping in the guest bed with me, end of story."

"Dad," Danielle jumped in. "It's my house. And I say that Bobby stays up there with her."

"Thank you," Alex said quietly.

She started to walk away, but couldn't resist giving her two cents as she passed. "I also say that since Nathan is way down the hall and sleeps like a rock, you guys should go ahead and party like it's 1999," she said casually.

Bobby groaned. Just shoot me now.

"Danielle! Are you trying to get my partner killed?" She squeezed Bobby's hand, hoping he understood that this was really going to be okay.

He understood. He wasn't sure he believed her, but he understood.

The three arrived in the kitchen late, and Andrea was already passing around the salad.

"Rabbit food," John commented.

"That's what Lewis says too." A pause. "He used to, anyway. Now, he cooks for both of us. Remember that next time you complain about my cooking. Come on, it's good for you, Dad," Andrea insisted, putting the salad dressings on the table.

Bobby ate his rabbit food feeling, in fact, very much like a rabbit under John Eames's predatory watch. He and Alex weren't touching each other more than casually; not really unusual for them, they never felt the need to be overly clingy around others. John seemed to relax a little with every time one of them finished the other's sentence, every time one passed something before the other asked, every time Bobby showed courtesy and interest to another member of the family, which John could clearly see was genuine. He made her laugh, more than she had since she was a little kid.

This man loves my daughter.

And with that insight, he understood. Alex hadn't made a stupid mistake. She'd been blessed by the patron god of cops and partners.

And Bobby would know exactly who that was, too. Along with all family deities and everything there was to know about the culture in question, including the geography, the climate, the wildlife, and any political unrest in the area.

And that was exactly what she loved. She was really going to go through with this. And he found, with some surprise, that he was glad.

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Next week:

Chapter 3: One Moment With You

"Joe's like an old friend that I hope is happy wherever he is." She paused, thinking. "He didn't deserve what happened, so I guess I would change that part if I could.

"And then I'd help him pack," she told Bobby gently.