Disclaimer—I don't own the characters of CSI: NY, only the children and some of the spouses are of my own creation.
He had been dreading this day since the doctor had announced it was a girl. He knew it would happen eventually, but he hadn't expected it to creep up on him so fast. This was his little girl he was talking about, his baby. Yet here she was at the tender age of eleven years old and she couldn't stop talking about some boy named Eli.
Don felt somewhat sick to his stomach as he picked at his dinner and listened to Sophie go on and on about how much fun she and Maria had had that afternoon playing at Eli's house. Evidently everything Eli did was completely fantastic if you asked his daughter and goddaughter. He had a pool and a trampoline and he was cute and funny and everything he said was law.
Stella listened patiently as Sophia talked, nodding in all the right places and making remarks where they were expected. It certainly didn't escape her that her husband was looking like someone had just kicked his puppy, but for the moment she kept her focus on their little girl. "What happened then?"
"Then Eli went to go get us some snacks and it was so funny because he…"
Sophie was cut off when her little brother groaned. "What?" she asked.
"All you talk about is Eli! It's gross! I don't even know why he wants to hang out with you anyway, girls have cooties," Patrick muttered.
Stella shook her head. "Be polite to your sister Patrick, she and Maria and Eli like playing together and that's all that matters."
"Yeah, we like playing together. Besides Patrick, if girls have cooties why do you like playing with April so much?"
Despite his discomfort at his daughter's choice of topic Flack couldn't help but smile at the blush that crept up Patrick's neck. April was Sheldon's little girl. He had met his wife Carrie, a lawyer friend of Stella's, not long after Sophie's first birthday. A year later they were married and a few months after Patrick's arrival Carrie had given birth to their daughter April. Since she and Patrick were so close to the same age they ended up playing together a lot. Though he knew his son was way too young to be feeling the same things as Sophie, he knew there was definitely a connection between Patrick and April.
"That's different," he told his big sister, green eyes identical to his mother's narrowing. "We just play.
Sophie's own blue eyes narrowed right back. "That's the same thing we do."
Then Patrick went for the jugular. "Yeah, well I don't have a crush on April like you and Maria do on Eli!"
And there was that word: crush. It was the word Flack had been dreading for the past eleven years and one that sent an embarrassed Sophia over the edge. "I do not have a crush! Mom, Dad!"
Flack shook his head. "Okay, both of you stop. Quit teasing each other and finish your dinner please."
Both children settled back down with mutinous glances at each other. They ate the remainder of their dinners in relative silence and glared at each other as they finished their desserts. When they were both excused from the table Stella and Flack watched as they jostled each other down the hall and into their bedrooms to finish their school work.
Don stood and began to gather dishes. Stella was going to ask him what he thought, they just knew each other too well and she would have seen his discomfort. Still, the question came sooner than he expected. "So what do you think about that?"
He sighed. "I feel about as wonderful about it as you're expecting me too. I feel like punching something and locking her in her room until she's thirty."
Stella smiled. "Well, we can't lock her up but I could find something for you to punch."
"I think I'll survive." He sank down into a chair, shaking his head. "I just can't figure out when she got so big. Next thing we know she'll want to go on her first date," he said with an exaggerated shudder.
"Don't remind me please, I'm not ready to think about that." She settled herself into his lap and wound her arms around his neck. "Still, if you get past the scary factor of our little girl growing up so fast, it is kind of cute."
Flack nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, I guess I can get to cute, but it doesn't make me any happier about it."
"I can understand that," Stella told him, bringing her mouth to his for a gentle kiss. "Unfortunately I don't think we can avoid her getting older on us."
For a moment he looked incredibly pensive, and then his eyes met hers. "Are you sure we can't just lock her up?"
