Roots and Seeds

a Law and Order: CI story

by RoadrunnerGER

Disclaimer: Dick Wolf still has not agreed to sell them, so they're not mine. This is just for fun and practice.

A/N: Thank you for your reviews. Some interesting opinions. :D Thanks to Bammi1 for beta-reading. Enjoy!

Chapter 3

Alex woke up to a sunny morning. She felt really well and was surprised by how easy it had been this time. She could hardly recall her labor. Did she give birth at all?

She looked at her now flat stomach.

Yes, she did.

Alex's gaze drifted aside and fell on the easy chair by the window. She grinned at the sight.

Bobby slumped in the chair that was not quite big enough to accommodate his big frame. His head was bent back on the back rest, and his long legs stretched, crossed at the ankles. He was fast asleep.

In a crib beside the easy chair slept their son.

Bobby's right arm was stretched out, draped over the rim of the crib, and his fingers resting on the baby's chest. Subconsciously he caressed the baby boy in his sleep.

Alex smiled lovingly at her husband and son. If someone would have told her last year around that time that she would ever be this happy she would have laughed in his face. But now she had a family and her heart filled with joy whenever she thought of Bobby or Ronny Lee.

The door opened and a nurse came in.

"Good morning, Mrs. Goren," the young redhead greeted. "I'm nurse Anna. Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you." She smirked at Bobby. "But I guess he'll have a stiff neck."

"Probably. Would you like tea or coffee with your breakfast?"

Breakfast?

As if on command Alex's insides started to rumble. Oh, she was so hungry. And the thought of her favorite drug…

"Coffee would be wonderful, Anna. Thank you."

The nurse smiled and left the room to return with a tray a moment later.

"Enjoy your meal," she said. "Dr. Sloan will come around at about nine."

"Thank you," Alex mumbled around the slice of bread she had stuffed in her mouth. God, she was hungry. And so she devoured her meal in a matter of minutes. After she swallowed the last bite she turned to her husband again.

"Bobby?" she said, and repeated a little louder. "Bobby!"

Blinking a few times Bobby shook off his sleep. It took a while until he was awake enough to realize where he was and what he was doing there. Then his gaze came to rest on Alex.

"Good morning, love," he smiled. "You already had breakfast?"

"Yep. Sorry, that I didn't save anything for you, but I was hungry."

"No problem. I'll find something to eat." His look was drawn to the crib and his smile broadened when he spotted the little boy in his cradle. "Good morning, sunshine," he said. "Welcome."

"I think he should eat something, too," Alex said and reached out for her son. Bobby lifted him out of the crib and placed him gently in Alex's arms. She exposed her left breast and shifted Ronny Lee's position so that he could better reach her nipple. Once he found it he happily suckled on it.

Both parents watched him for a while until someone knocked on the door and Mike appeared under the frame.

"May I come in?" he asked.

"Sure, Mike," Alex said, offering him a wholehearted smile. "Meet Ronny Lee Goren."

"Ronny Lee?" Mike smirked at the baby. "Nice to meet you, Ronny. Already keeping them busy?"

"Anything new?" Bobby asked unexpectedly.

"About Nicole?" their colleague asked back. "Well, yes. She's in an artificial coma. The baby is alright."

Thank god, Bobby thought, glancing at Alex.

"Boy or girl?" Alex wanted to know.

"A little girl," Mike told her. "She's at the children's medical unit. As Miss Wallace is in a coma she can't breast feed her. So she has to be fed with a bottle."

Bobby avoided looking at Alex… and her firm breasts. Judging by how big they had become over the last weeks of her pregnancy Alex certainly had more milk than she needed. Just how should he address that matter with his wife? He did not even know for sure if the baby Nicole had given birth to was his. He just had the word of the psychopath to go by. So even though he knew that it was possible after what she had done to him, he had no confirmation so far.

There was no way around it. He needed to have a paternity test.

"Bobby?" Alex suddenly asked. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he rushed to say, but he could tell by her frown that she did not believe him. Damn! Why did she have to be so perceptive?

Because that makes her a good cop, he answered his own question. Bobby smiled sheepishly.

"I can't keep anything from you, can I?" he mused. "It's Nicole. I mean, it's her baby. I want to go and see it, um, her."

Alex made a face of disapproval, but deep inside her heart she knew that he had to do it. He needed certainty. Bobby could not live with a maybe or I should have tried to find out. He had to go and find out if this little girl really was his.

Alex knew that.

She just was scared of what he might want to do if she really was his flesh and blood.

xXx

Family.

Family was the most important thing on earth. His mother had taught him that. Bobby was a family man through and through, even though he did not know that yet, at least not to that extent. But as much as he loved Alex and Ronny Lee he urgently had to know if the still unnamed child of Nicole Wallace was the fruit of his body, too. It did not matter that he had been forced. What mattered was the child. If she really was his, and he had decided that for himself, he would take care of her. She would not have to live with her biological mother who might kill her anyway. She would live with him and get the love and feeling of security she deserved.

There was just one small flaw in this plan.

Alex.

Bobby knew that he would have more than a hard time trying to convince her that he had to do that for the sake of the baby.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Bobby thought. For now I want to see her.

A nurse showed him the way to the ward where Nicole was kept in deep sleep. He could see her through the glass walls of her room, hooked up on life supporting machines.

Under the white blankets she looked like a blonde angel. Never before had the devil appeared to be so peaceful.

I wish she'd find peace. It's her broken soul that made her what she is now. I wonder what she would have become if she had not been abused her whole life.

Then the baby he was about to see would not exist. As sad as Nicole's story was as happy was he that the little girl was born.

Though happy was a strange word to use in this context. Was he happy? He was happy when he was with Alex, and now with little Ronny Lee. Would he be happy with Nicole's girl, too?

First he needed confirmation.

He always came back to that thought and he knew that it would be the first thing Alex would demand of him to do, a paternity test.

But for now I just want to see her.

So he left his lookout at Nicole's room and headed for the children's medical unit. A nurse showed him to the room for the newborns. And there she was. Swaddled and wrapped in a blanket she lay in her crib, tiredly looking out at the world that for now existed only of a light ceiling and bottles filled with warm milk offered by friendly women in colorful scrubs.

Her eyes are blue, he realized with astonishment. Hmmm, didn't I read somewhere that all babies' eyes appear to be blue. Still I would have thought that she'd have our dark brown eyes.

"I'd love to hold her for a moment," Bobby said.

tbc…