Long, boring Days

Calleigh sighed as she finished filling out another report. Days at the lab dragged on for her now she was on desk-duty.

"I so hate this," she muttered.

Her daughter gave her a strong kick just then.

Calleigh smiled and touched her abdomen.

"Oh no. Mama's not talkin' 'bout you, sweetpea. I love you. You're a dream come true for me and daddy."

"Baby making a fuss?" Horatio said, walking into her office.

"Yeah," Calleigh replied. The mention of her daughter causing her to smile as it as it always did. "Looks like I have to watch what I say; she kicked me when I said I hated this paperwork. Maybe she thought I talking 'bout her."

Horatio smiled.

"You must have to be more specific next time. Sounds like you and Eric have a smart little girl.

"Do you have those reports for me?"

"Yep. Here ya go."

"Thank you, ma'am. You can head to lunch now, if you want. I'm sure your baby would appreciate it."

"Thanks. Eric and I are going out to lunch. He should be here in a few."

Calleigh was glad she and Eric had such a caring supervisor and friend in Horatio Caine. He was who they were planning to ask to be the godfather of their daughter. The expectant parents thought about asking Tim Speedle. Although he was also a close friend and great guy, Tim didn't identify well with children. He admitted he felt 'awkward' in their presence. Horatio, on the other hand, seemed to have an instant rapport to every child he met.

When her husband arrived, the two headed to a small coffee shop for lunch. After Calleigh ordered a club sandwich on wheat bread with fries and a side of coleslaw and Eric ordered a cheese burger basket with the works minus the onions because his wife warned if he ate onions he wouldn't kissing her again till the next morning, Calleigh excitedly told him how their daughter kicked that morning. Eric smiled, lacing his fingers through his wife's in the center of the table.

"That's awesome. Maybe our girl has better hearing then most babies."

Eric then told Calleigh how Horatio had abruptly pulled him off a crime scene just as he got there because it involved a man who had beaten his pregnant former wife The woman was barely alive when she were loaded into the ambulance. The woman was pregnant with her new fiance's child. Tragically, as Eric was pulling up Horatio got a call from the hospital. The woman's heart had stopped en route to the hospital, paramedics were unable to revive her. She was pronounced dead upon arrival. The woman was rushed straight to the operating room. Doctors performed an emergency c-section on the deceased in a futile attempt to save the life of the nearly full-term baby boy who still had a faint heatbeat when the ambulance arrived at the hospital. The doctors weren't sure the baby had died as a result of the beating his mother had received or whether the child died as a result of his mother's death. The child's body would be sent to the morgue for autopsy.

Horatio couldn't put his co-worker and friend through a scene like this, at least not right now. With a child on the way, he didn't want Eric to see the amount of blood and amniotic fluid that covered the bedroom floor and furniture. He called in Ryan. Ryan was bothered like everybody but at least Ryan wasn't about to be a father. Eric followed Horatio's orders and went back to the lab. He wasn't about to argue he could stomach seeing such a scene with he and Calleigh expecting their own baby.