So sorry for the delay! My computer was in the shop!

The Answer to a Big Question

Kyle did notice Aimee's reaction and asked her if he had said something bad and said he was sorry. It was just that she was so "nice" to him no matter what he did and like his dad made him feel safe whenever he were scared.

"Oh no, baby!" Aimee said, reaching out and taking Kyle in her arms. "I love you, too. You're my little boy, even if I only met you a little while ago. Of course I'll be your mommy."

The Night Before...

"Daddy?" Kyle yawned as Horatio tucked the covers around him after reading him a bedtime story..

"What, partner?" Horatio asked softly, kneeling next to his son's bed, stroking Kyle's hair.

"Aimee loves me lots, don't she? Even if I'm bad."

"She does. And she's always going to love you."

"Like a mommy does," the boy said.

"Yeah," Horatio said.

"Do you think she'd mind if I called her mommy?"

"I don't know. You'd have talk to her about that. But remember she loves you no matter what you call her."

Kyle nodded. His eyes getting much heavier.

Present Day...

Aimee were in the bathroom when Horatio walked through the door and was met by his son hurling himself at his father. But Horatio had good reflexes for this now and scooped up Kyle.

"Hey, partner. What are you so excited about?"

"I asked her and Aimee said I could call her mommy!"

Horatio had never seen his son so excited and so happy. Not even on Christmas morning.

Horatio and Aimee hadn't had the chance to talk that morning about what Kyle had said the night before. Even if he had, Aimee thought she would still have had the same stunned look on her face.

"Hey babe," Aimee said, giving Horatio a kiss when she saw him a moment later.

"Hey yourself," Horatio replied.

It felt wonderful to Horatio to come a kiss at the end of the day.

Five years ago he started coming home to a big smile and a kiss, but a different kind, a toothless smile and drooly kiss from Kyle. Horatio had been lucky enough to be able to take three months off to bond with his newborn son. He'd never got less sleep in his entire life but he had never been so happy, or given someone so many kisses.

None of Aimee's friends or family were surprised that Aimee had now informally adopted her boyfriend's little boy. And would officially do so the moment she could. It was a question of when they would get married, not if. Aimee's parents and older brother, Andy had met Kyle and thought he was "too adorable for words." And they couldn't understand why the boy's biological mother would not want him. Not that he wasn't better off with his father anyway. Even if Aimee had never come into his life, Kyle would have been just fine being raised by a father like Horatio. When they had first heard that Aimee was dating a older man, they were wary.

That feeling wore off hours after they first met Horatio Caine. Her parents thought their daughter was the luckiest woman in Miami to meet such a man, purely by chance. The fact that she had gained a son and them a grandson was a bonus.