'Hey, babe, are you busy tonight?'

Esposito glanced over his shoulder from the breakfast table, saw Meredeth pouring hot water into her tea thermos. She was in her usual summer wear, which meant no nasty meetings with network suits . 'I was planning on conquering level sixteen on Insurgence: Havana Hell Cats and leave you to finalizing your dialogue for the novel.'

'No plans with Ryan then?'

'I invited him over to join me, but he said he wanted to spend the night with his wife. Why?'

Meredeth added sugar to her thermos, stirred it with a long spoon. 'I'm taking Jenny for a girls night after I'm off work. Dinner and the early show.'

'I just talked to Ryan last night, and he didn't say anything about it.'

'That's because he doesn't know.'

At this Esposito dropped his spoon into his cereal bowl. 'Stop the presses. Ryan hasn't pre-thunk a thought for Jenny? Did hell freeze over?'

'I emailed her last night, but only heard back from her this morning. She wants to get out of the house and not be treated like some delicate fine-china doll.'

'Can't blame her.' It had been tugging at Esposito ever since the poker game the previous Friday night. Ryan had been getting more and more overprotective as Honey-Milk's due approached. At first it had been comical but now it was beginning to sincerely concern him.

'Anyways, I know you're going to the station to talk to the ADA about the Picasso case this morning, so I figured if you see him there you could invite him out for a beer or something, maybe find out why he's acting like such a pansy.'

'Considered it done.' Esposito shoveled in the last of his cereal; found Meredeth's lips pressed against his mouth before he'd even crunched down. 'You couldn't wait until I swallowed?'

'If I did, I'd miss the train downtown. Love you babe, I'll call you when I'm on my way to meet Honey-Milk.'

'Love you too.'

Esposito tugged absently on his shirt collar as he rode up in the elevator. It had been over a month since he'd been at the precinct for everyday business; he'd only been back once and that was to talk to the captain when he'd learned he was receiving a medal for his bravery in the line of duty. Now after he'd had to talk to the formidable Adrianna Renault about that night, reliving it the way Meredeth had relived her own horrible experiences in her dreams

He'd thought about consulting Meredeth's shrink, but as he had spoken with the department counsellor on the same day he'd spoken to Montgomery about his commendation, he didn't see the need. He also knew if he needed the head-doctors at any time, Meredeth would be the first to recognize the signs and kick his ass into gear on it.

The elevator binged and with the first blast of noise, Esposito felt right at home. The air was ripe with unwashed humanity and foul curses from a large burly man in a pink dress, leather vest and handcuffs attached to the bench by Karpowski's desk, the walls were the same faded industrial colours, there was the underlying cacophony of ringing phones, clattering file drawers and shuffled papers and feet. He walked in to his desk space, saw a uniform sitting in his chair across from Ryan, discussing a detailed floor plan of some kind.

'Which means this door right here is probably the safest one to go through without giving him a chance to rabbit.

'That's provided he doesn't use the fire escapes.'

Ryan looked up, broke into a broad grin when he saw his partner in one of his usual well co-ordinated suits. He popped out of his chair and gave him a quick squeeze around the shoulders. 'Hey, bro! You back already?'

'Nah, Adrianna from the DA's office needed to see me on some other stuff about the Picasso case. Thought I'd swing by and talk to you, if you had a minute.'

'Sure. Jake, why don't you run that over to Karpowski, tell her to come find me in the break room if she needs anything.'

Esposito took the hint, went into the break room which was thankfully empty. He went to Castle's coffee maker, brewed up two espressos - a decaf for Ryan - and added steamed milk, cinnamon syrup for himself. He was waiting at the table patiently, then felt even his elastic patience dissolve when Ryan came in on his cellphone. The dulcet, almost condescending tone of his voice told Esposito exactly who he was on the phone with.

'No, sweetie, it's fine. Really, I'm not upset. Okay, just call when you're on your way, alright? Love you too.' Ryan hung up the phone, stared at it with a blissful confusion as he shut the door to the break-room. As soon as the latch was caught, he rounded on his partner like a hurricane. 'You are a dead man.'

'Me?'

'Yeah, telling your girlfriend it'd be fine to take Jenny out for a night on the town.'

'Ryan, calm your ass down, bro! It's dinner and a movie, not strippers and a pub crawl!'

Ryan prowled around the room like a caged panther; Esposito couldn't believe what he was seeing and told him so. 'Do you see yourself right now, man? You are freaking out because your wife is doing what women do - going out with a friend for some harmless fun. And since Jenny's in Meredeth's very capable hands, I'm taking out for a beer after you're off shift. I promise you won't turn into a pumpkin, you'll be back at your little nest before Mama Bird is home.'

'Fine.' Ryan checked his watch, took the coffee. 'I gotta get back, but I'll see you tonight.'

They went to O'Doule's off of Times Square, a straight-forward, no prissy fussiness Irish pub, just cold beer, fried food and conversation in varying degrees of volume. At the bar, Esposito ordered two point drafts and slid one mug over to his friend when he reached their booth.

'Talk.'

'What?'

'Talk. I wanna know what the hell is going on with you that you went from being Mister Goofy-Happy Daddy-to-Be to this. This paranoid, overbearing shadow of Ryan whose pregnant wife is comforting him instead of the other way around. Did something happen at the doctor's? Is one of them sick?'

'No nothing like that.'

'Then what?'

Ryan heaved a great sigh before drinking. 'You wouldn't understand.'

'Oh don't even try it!' Now Esposito was getting seriously pissed off with his friend. 'Kevin, I've known you for eight years-'

'And I've always been like the brother you wanted, I get that.'

'So talk to me.'

Ryan sighed again, leaned back in the booth. 'I know what I've been doing, I see myself doing and I can't stop it. It's like watching myself on television and I want to snap out of it, but I can't.'

'What's got you this rattled?'

'About a month ago, we started doing the Lamaze stuff at the hospital, with her obstetrician and all that, and the first session, they show us a few birth videos. And not just like a side view of a woman on a table with the doctor by her feet, I mean they were right in there with the camera. It was like something from a Cronenberg movie.'

'You never delivered a baby while you were on patrol?'

'Nope. Came close a couple of times, but when you're working in Violent Crimes, Narc, and Organized Crime, you don't see a lot of women with babies crowning under their leopard-print mini-dresses. Anyways, these women in the videos were grunting and yelling like they were being split in two, one even had to have something called an episiotomy, and before you ask, no, I'm not telling you what it is. You can wait to have your own for that little treat.' Ryan shuddered violently at the memory of witnessing it. 'So we're watching them and I don't know if I'm going to bolt for the men's room to yak or shit myself in terror, and Jenn's just sitting there with this look on her face like she's watching a bunch of kittens tumble over each other.'

'Women have different views on that kind of thing, man-'

'That's not what's been keeping me up at night though.' Ryan gulped down more beer to gather his courage. 'All the women in these videos had some kind of pharmaceutical intervention, a spinal block or the happy-gas or other shit. Jenny's birth-plan is one-hundred percent natural. No drugs.'

Esposito drank his beer, nodded as the picture began to come together. 'And as her coach, you're going to have to watch her be in pain.'

'It was in my god-damned vows to her, Javi. Love, honour and protect, not love, honour, and watch you scream in pain to bring our children into the world in the name of love. I just figured if I could make the pre-baby part as stress free as possible, it wouldn't seem so scary.' I

'I think you're over-looking the middle part of that phrase,' Esposito pointed out. 'You have to honour her desire for natural childbirth, man. Sounds fruity, but it's true.'

'Not to condescend but what do you know about it?'

'I know that when I saw Meredeth go through her first round of hypnotherapy it took everything I had not to interrupt the doctor's work and rip her out of that nightmare and back into reality. She was sobbing like a child and there was nothing I could do but watch her relive that hell. And you know I was really on edge about it before, man, I didn't want her to do it for the same reason you don't want to see Jenny go through natural child-birth. All being a dickhead did was make me feel worse afterward because Meredeth pulled through it like a champ, and Jenny will too.'

Ryan picked up the fork from the napkin on the table in front of him, made it walk around the edges of his glass. He hadn't meant to through the experience of Meredeth's night terrors back in Esposito's face; was he really that far gone inside his own brain he couldn't even see his friend had gone through similar, if not exactly the same, frustrations with his lady? 'Think you're some kind of smart, don't you, bro?' he said with a smirk.

'I know I am.' he was coming back, Esposito thought with a grin. 'Bottom line, man, the birth part is only one day, a couple of minutes out of a life time of being a father. And that few minutes is two months off, you've still got eight whole weeks of showing Jenny how you're gonna knock this daddy gig out of the park.'

Ryan held out his fist which Esposito bumped once, twice. His face split into a genuine grin for the first time as he looked past Esposito's shoulder. 'Speak of the very fine devils.'

Esposito glanced over his shoulder and mirrored Ryan's expression of joyfulness when he saw Honey-Milk waddle in belly-first, a small shopping bag from in her hand followed by Meredeth who was carrying both their purses. He greeted Meredeth with a warm kiss, watched as Ryan helped Jenny into the booth with a strong hand instead of his usual fussing.

'Didn't think we'd see you two tonight,' he commented as Meredeth slid into the booth beside him. 'You coming from dinner and heading to the movie or vice-versa?'

'Show was sold out, so we opted for a little shopping instead, and after I got your text I thought we might catch you two. If not, they make a great cauliflower and cheese soup here, and this one is ready to eat her own hand off.'

'What's this?' Ryan asked, poking at the bag his bride plunked on the table beside his beer glass.

With a flourish, Honey-Milk pulled two infant sized t-shirts out of the bag - the blue one said 'Little Bubba' while the pink read 'LIttle Bubbette.' 'We went past Bubba-Gump and I couldn't resist getting them.'

Ryan finished off the last of his beer. 'Store's around the corner from here, why don't we walk down and see if they have anything else there?'

Hearing the sound of her old Ryan back in his voice, Honey-Milk nodded, got to her feet with some assistance from her husband and the table. 'See you soon,' she said to Meredeth and Esposito who watched them walk out, chatting the entire way.

'I take it you're paying for the beer,' she commented, swinging around to the other side of the table. 'Sorry for interrupting your boys' night.'

'Nah, it's fine. My boy interrupted your girls' night by taking his wife shopping.'

'Guess that makes it even, huh?'

'Found out what's been bugging him for the last month, why he's been such a cupcake.'

'Oh?' Meredeth signaled the waitress for a drink for herself. 'Let me guess, doesn't want to watch her suffer through child-bearing without any dope.'

'How-'

'It's what guys do. Never mind the fact women have a higher pain tolerance than men because we can push a human being the size of a ten-pound bag of potatoes through an opening roughly the diameter of a Coke-can and live to tell the tale. Oh, they have Guinesss flank steak here!'

Esposito watched Meredeth, slightly horrified as she calmly perused the menu while detailing this story. 'I love you so I can say this freely. That is by far the scariest thing I've ever heard you say.' He paused a moment. 'What is an episiotomy, exactly? Ryan said they saw a child-birth video where one was performed and wouldn't tell me what it was.'

'That depends. Do you want to eat dinner and keep it down?'

'Yes.'

'Then take your friends advice.' Meredeth grinned at him. 'You can find out that one when we have our own.'

R&R&Enjoy.