The first thing Meredeth heard when she awoke the day she had to leave for San Diego wasn't her alarm, or even her boyfriend's voice but the whine of a camera snapping a photo. She groaned rolled to her back; the heat of summer was in full swing and she'd slept completely naked with the very light cotton sheet around her waist for some kind of barrier. When she heard the sound again, she squinted open an eye and saw Esposito above her on the bed with their digital camera, taking photos of her as she slept.

'You know,' she told him in a voice still groggy with fatigue, 'some girlfriends might consider that a little creepy.'

'Yes but if I tried to take naked pictures of you any other time, you'd break the camera.'

'Ah, well, the stealthy photographer always gets his shot, one way or another.'

Esposito smiled, then tugged his boxers off after he set the camera aside. 'And the photographer always gets the model, too.'

He kissed her fully, deeply, ran his hands over skin already dewed with July's sweltering temperatures. He rolled on top of her, pleased to find her warm as they kissed and made love on their bed as the sun streamed in the window. Afterward, they lay there, Meredeth dancing her fingers over his shoulder.

'You look so sad, my love.'

'You're going away,' he pouted. 'It's the longest and farthest apart we've been in this relationship.'

'You're going to see me in six days, though.'

'And Lex is sharing a room with us.'

'Not in San Diego. I talked to Castle when we were arranging Alexis' flights and that, and I told him I'd pay for her to have her own room in San Diego so you and I could have some private time before we didn't see each other for three weeks. He totally understood.'

'Oh. So this isn't bye-bye sex, then,' he asked her, and got a grin which soothed his sadness immensely.

'Nope. And just remember, four out of the twenty days i'm gone is nothing but flight time, so I'm really only gone for seventeen days.'

Esposito perked up at this, though he knew when she was gone, he would be racking up as many overtime hours as possible so he could put as much money towards her ring as he possibly could. He didn't want ring and wedding payments happening simultaeneously. 'Well, in that case, is bacon and pancakes out of the question?'

'I was thinking crepe-lets but we can do that instead.'

'No, no, crepe-lets are good, crepel-ets are yummy.'

They showered and dressed, Meredeth taking her luggage downstairs; she was only taking what she needed for California with her, as Esposito would be visiting her on the weekend and be taking her extra suitcase as his when he flew out, since he only needed a shaving kit and a small amount of clothes for himself.

In the kitchen, Esposito watched as she mixed the crepe batter, then set it aside and turned to him. 'I don't want you eating take-out the entire time I'm gone, so I put some things in the freezer for you, and there's plenty of meat cooked in the freezer, just warm it and slice and you can have a sandwich. But don't thaw all of it, just what you need, okay, because I-'

'Mere, it's okay.' He put his hands on her shoulders. 'I know you're nervous.'

'About flying? No, I'm fine to fly with. A fully charged ipod, a personal-sized bottle of red wine and I'm a happy traveler. But you're right, this is the longest I'll have been away from you. What if...what if my night terrors come back?'

'Oh baby.' It hadn't even occurred to him that she would be anxious about having an episode. 'You and I both know that your sessions with Werner cleared those up. We went out to California two weeks ago and you didn't have a single one.'

He kissed her sweetly, to show her she didn't have anything to worry about, then just held her close. 'You want me to fix the eggs?'

'Okay.'

She stepped aside, swiped at her nose a little as he cracked three eggs into a bowl, whipped them with a wire whisk. Then she watched in abject horror as he took the milk from the fridge.

'No!'

'No what?'

'No milk. You're more likely to screw up the consistency.'

'Okay, no milk.' Esposito set the carton aside on the counter. 'What next?'

'Pan, very hot, with butter so the eggs don't stick. But first, grated cheese.'

Esposito found the grater, shredded a neat little mountain of cheddar onto the cutting board; the sound of the plastic wrapper being crinkled had brought Arturo skidding into the kitchen. 'Not yet, buddy,' he told the dog quivering in delight.

'Aw Daddy, please?' Meredeth said in a nasal, squeaky voice for the dog, making Esposito shake his head.

'If Mommy weren't here, I'd let you have all you want, but she's still watching.'

'Nice.'

'Okay, now the pan?'

'Now the pan.'

Esposito chased a little pat of butter around in the pan, watched as it sizzled, then poured in the beaten eggs. 'How long do they have to stay like this?'

'Now, put in the cheese.'

'Yes, chef.'

He did so, saw how the little orange shreds melted, well, like cheese over the hot eggs. 'Next?'

'Spatula, and you want to run it around the edges of the pan to loosen but not destroy.'

'Loosen but not destroy?'

'You want to to keep its shape, not scramble.' Meredeth had to stuff her hands in her pockets to avoid taking the spatula out of his hands and doing it herself. She would, by God, get him to make one thing from scratch that didn't belong in Arturo's paw-prints food dish. She watched as he dutifully shimmied the blade of the utensil around the edge of the eggs. 'Good, see how it's starting to brown and curl at the edge a little? We want to fold it over now, like you're folding a piece of paper.'

'Right.' He once again slid the spatula under the cooking eggs, and with as much care as he could manage, flipped the eggs onto themselves, then cursed when he saw the folded seam split. 'Shit.'

'No, no, that's okay, so long as no cheese was harmed. Press down on the edges, like a grilled sandwich, there you go.'

Five minutes later, Esposito proudly slipped the cooked eggs onto the plate, passed Meredeth a fork. 'Your weapon, sensai.'

Meredeth dug in, chewed carefully. She said nothing as she swallowed, and her face was so serious Esposito wondered if he was going to get an ass-kicking for giving her food poisoning when she had to be on a flight to San Diego in three hours. Instead she cleared her throat, leaned in and spoke in her 'come to mama, big boy' sexy voice. 'Javier J. Esposito, I can officially say I'd marry you for your omelette skills.'

'Really?' Esposito goggled.

'This is amazing. A little chewy, and a little crispy around the edges, but you managed to make something in the kitchen, from scratch without setting off the smoke alarm or sending me running for the bathroom to puke my guts out. In fact, it's delicious.' She brushed her hands off his shoulder. 'Let me just do that, Mister Big-Shot Omelette Maker.'

'High praise indeed.' He wrapped his arms around her waist, gave her a sloppy wet kiss. 'Now can you make the crepes?'

An hour and a half later, Esposito loaded Meredeth's suitcase into the trunk of the Nissan as Meredeth said good-bye to Arturo.

'I'm gonna miss you buddy, but I will be home sooner than you think. And Daddy will bribe you with lots and lots of orange-stuff so you will behave, right?' She giggled when Arturo gave her cheek a kiss, whimpered a little when she closed the door, locked it and went down the stairs to the car. She gave a watery sigh. 'It's gonna be weird to be sneezing in Japan and not hear him running in terror.'

'Yeah, he'll only do that for you. He's cute but weird. Shall we?'

Meredeth could only nod, and wasn't surprised at all when she got into the car and the tears began to fall as they turned off of Twenty-Fifth Street onto Eighth Avenue. It was ridiculous but she couldn't help feeling a little overwhelmed. When she'd made this plan back in January with Robina, it had seemed forever into the future. Then, suddenly she was waking up in the middle of July. She was living with Esposito, her new place had become their place, her dog had become their baby. When she sniffled, reached for the tissues, she felt Esposito grab her hand and squeeze reassuringly.

'I love you, Javi.'

'I love you too, Mere. Hey, can you do me a favour when you're in Tokyo?'

'Okay?'

'Can you take some pictures of like sharks and octopuses and email them to me and see if I can figure out, is it an aquarium or a sushi bar?'

'You got it, big guy,' Meredeth laughed as her phone rang. 'Hello. Oh hi, Lanie. No we're at Sixth and Thirty-Fourth, why? Oh, okay. Sure, no problem. Got it. Bye-bye.'

Meredeth clicked off the call, cleared her throat. 'We need to make a left on Fifth, then head back towards Ninth.'

'I thought we were on our way to the airport.'

'Not anymore. Lanie was calling from a cab with Honey-Milk. Her water broke, she's on her way to Saint Vincent's.'

They parked in the same underground lot as Esposito had when Honey-Milk had had her first false labour of the previous week - she'd had another two after that - with Meredeth calling Robina on her way out of the garage.

'Hey, I know you had planned to meet me, but I'm telling you, I'm not going to be on that flight.'

'What! Why? Mere, I'm up to my ass in requests for interviews from you before the convention starts.'

'Robina, one of my best friends just went into labour, and my-' Meredeth bit her tongue, as she'd nearly called Esposito her 'hubby'; she'd started thinking of him that way more and more lately - 'my Javi is going to be the child's godfather.'

'Of course. Don't worry about it. Even the snippiest of reporters go all mushy over babies. Call me when the blessed miracle arrives and we'll set up a flight out.'

'You got it. Bye-bye.' Meredeth ended the call as they went to the same check-in desk in the fast-track clinic Esposito had been to with Ryan the week before. 'Jenny Ryan, she's having a baby?' she asked the receptionist.

'Yes, Mrs. Ryan is upstairs in the Obstetrics Ward. Floor six, make a left through the purple doors, room six-fourteen.'

'Thank you.'

Once they made it upstairs to the maternity floor, Esposito suddenly felt very humbled as he watched women in varying stages of labour walking around looking very puffy and sweaty; they even saw a woman whose enormous belly looked ready to burst wheeled out of her room and towards a different set of elevators, her man following behind her with stammered words of encouragement.

'Something tells me she's on a lot of drugs,' he whispered to Meredeth.

'Probably she's having twins and they're going to do a C-Section.'

'Actually, the Stones are having triplets, two boys and a girl,' the nurse said who had begun to keep pace with them. 'I'm Andy, I work on the same floor as Honey-Milk.'

Meredeth giggled as she followed Andy to the appropriate room. 'You call her that, too?'

'Oh yeah, we all think it's completely adorable. Hello, soon-to-be mama.'

The trio had turned into the brightly painted birthing suite and saw Honey-Milk propped up in her bed, monitors hooked up to her belly and wrists as she blew out her breath using her techniques learned in Lamaze. Beside her, Lanie was sitting in a chair breathing deeply with her, speaking in a calming voice.

'That's it, that's it, almost there, and...you did it.' Lanie patted her knee. 'You did it.'

'Yeah, one down, how many more to go?' Honey-Milk grabbed a cup of ice chips, chewed on a few of them. 'Hey, what are you two doing here? I thought you were skipping town?'

'What, you think I'm going to miss this?' Meredeth went over, sat on the edge of her friend's bed. 'Where's your baby daddy?'

'On his way. We called him from the spa, asked him to go to our apartment and get my bags.'

'Very good idea. I know the kid's early, but I can feel it in my gut he or she is going to take their sweet time getting here,' Esposito offered. He didn't think he'd ever see the day when he'd be in a room full of women and feel so uncomfortable. As if the fates had read his mind, Doctor Krishner came in, reading over Honey-Milk's chart.

'Well, looks like fourth time's the charm, Jenny. How are you feeling?'

'Thirsty. Can't I call Kevin back, get him to bring me a big green Slushie from the Seven-Eleven?'

'I could go for one myself, but trust me, having a natural, drug-free birth will make you feel everything, including the nausea. I don't want you throwing up while you're also having contractions.' Krishner snapped on her latex gloves, sent Esposito a meaningful look. 'You might want to step out of the room for this part, sir.'

Meredeth had never seen Esposito leave a room so fast in her life.

R&R&Enjoy.