And That's How...

Both Rachel and her sister knew how her mom and dad met and now daddy was telling Austin the story while his baby boy drank his bottle. Horatio thought that the sounds the noises the baby boy made were the sweetest thing in the world.

"...the moment I saw your mom, I thought she were beautiful. But I was just a stranger helping her with a flat tire. And all I knew was her first name, she wisely wasn't gonna tell me anything else. But I tell you, buddy, I couldn't get mommy out of my mind from that moment."

Austin seemed to turn his attention more towards his daddy as if to say "go on, dad." Horatio smiled at him.

"Okay. I'll continue.

"Most of the time daddy went to the same place for lunch. Two weeks after I met mommy when her car had a flat tire I went there and the place was full of people. There was a line up to get a table. The waitress asked me if she could sit me with another customer to speed things up. I knew I wasn't going to be there very long so I said 'okay.'

"The waitress said the lady at the third table over by the window said I could sit with her. I walked over there and the lady turned to face me.

"It was mommy. She recognized me, too and was just as surprised. We talked while we ate. Daddy knew that he wasn't going to be so lucky to see mommy again. So when she left the table for a moment daddy wrote a note on a napkin asking her if she wanted to go out on a date. I folded it up and wrote her name on it. I went and paid my bill and I passed by the table again I laid the note on her table and kept walking. Mommy wasn't looking when I went by. I had to work late the next night and when I got home I found a message on my answering machine from mommy.

"She wanted to go out and wanted to know when I was able to. She told me to call her. We went out two nights later and that was the start was daddy being very lonely to be the happiest man alive."

Seven-week-old Austin Caine smiled, gurgled and spat out the now empty bottle.

"You liked that story, didn't you?" Horatio said to his son. He placed the newborn on his shoulder and patted his back to burp him. Horatio smiled at his son and touched his strawberry-blonde hair. His little boy was definitely gonna be a redhead. "It's time for sleep for you," he said kissing the baby's head. He laid the baby down in the bassinet. "For a little bit, anyway. I know I'm gonna see you again before the morning. Daddy loves you, lil' guy."

Austin immediately began to fuss as if to say "hey! Where ya going? I don't wanna go to sleep!"

"Shh. Time for sleep now, baby boy," he said, touching the child's hair again. "I'll be back later."

Austin was asleep when his mom looked in on him. Aimee smiled at how peaceful her baby looked. He looked so much like his father. When her husband came home he always told her to take a break from things. After all day at the lab and at crime scenes, seeing everything horrible in human behavior, entering his children's world of innocence and make believe wasn't a chore for Horatio but an escape. Aimee didn't feel guilty about enjoying some "me time" before rejoining her family.

Aimee had little trouble getting their children to sleep. One of their neighbors who was the mother of an eighteen-month-old boy told Aimee she "marveled' at the way her children would sleep for her. She told Aimee that the only person her son would sleep was his grandmother, her mother. It was too rude to say it aloud but Aimee thought she'd be ashamed of her life to say that. But she could also understand from the boy's point of view why that was. Her grandmother was more like his mom than his own mother. The boy's father, Selena was just as disconnected from the boy. The baby boy spent about ninety-five percent of the time with his grandmother. No wonder he had a bond with her. Every time Aimee saw Selena she felt disgusted.

Like any first-time parent, the woman Selena, was 'clueless' when her son was born. Aimee and Horatio were too. But instead of bothering to learn how to be a parent, the minute that the child cried and she couldn't settle him in five minutes, she handed the baby to her mother. She told Aimee it was too hard to deal with his crying and she "couldn't wait" to get back to work. Selena had seen her doctor and a psychologist and it was confirmed she did not have postpartum depression, the reality was that motherhood wasn't fitting to her personality or lifestyle, despite the pregnancy being planned. Aimee was flabbergasted to hear the neighbor say she didn't think she and her husband had to make any changes to their lifestyle for a baby. She had returned to work when her son was three months old. It was clear that the baby boy were just an accessory to her, not a human being who needed to be nurtured, taught and raised.

Eric Delko was now getting very nervous about fatherhood.

"Easy for you to say!" He said to Horatio one day when Horatio told him that it took time but before he knew it, how to care for your child became naturally. "You know all about how to take care of kids!"

Horatio laughed.

"Ya think Aimee and I started that way? If Rachel could remember the first few weeks of her life she'd tell you a very different story!

"For the first six weeks we were both so clueless, it took two of us together to do the simplest thing! For a month and a half she had this look on her face like 'I can't believe they sent me home with you people!' You had to see us trying to give her first bath. I thought for sure that the poor baby was gonna say 'people, this ain't rocket science!'

"Trust me, Eric. You and Calleigh will do just fine."