Chapter Eight
"Nick's moving in today!" Greg excitedly announced, sliding into the booth opposite his friend, Sara with a sunny smile on his face like a kid at Christmas. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, but I just thought you'd like to know that my 'husband' is moving back in today. It feels like years since he was last in our house. Now he's always gonna be there with us again."
"I know, you told me three times at work." She reminded him, stirring some milk into her coffee. "You blurted it out the second we stepped onto our scene. I don't think the widow appreciated it, grieving for her dead husband and all."
"She was cheating on him, and she practically tried to kill him herself, the garage door just got there before she could."
Sara giggled softly, shaking her head at Greg. "I don't think she plotted to kill him. She still loved him. And he was the one who was cheating on her first. He had that whole double life with the other women and two kids that he never even told his wife about. She told me they tried for years to have a baby of their own, but it was too painful to continue. How would you feel if you couldn't have a baby then you find out that your husband has two other children with a woman that was your matron of honour at your own wedding?"
"I wouldn't know." He shrugged, pulling his jacket off. "Although, I was abandoned with an unborn child by the man I love for three years."
"You're still complaining about that? Move over." Catherine slid into the booth beside Greg, switching her phone off as she set it on the table. "First weekend in months that I'm not on call."
"What if Lindsey tries to call you?" Sara asked her, surprised to even see the woman turning her phone off. She never even let the battery go dead.
"I have a second cell phone for personal calls now. Did you know that the lab are going to start logging our calls on the lab cell phones and bill us for any personal calls or calls that take too long to look like business calls?" She complained for the second time, calling over the waitress to get herself a coffee and some breakfast. "Oh and none of that turkey bacon. It never comes out right, however I order it." She handed the dirty cutlery over to the waitress, getting an angry scowl as the woman made her way back to the counter.
"Taking it out on the waitresses now are we?" Greg smirked, receiving a scowl from Catherine.
"They've been trying to enforce that cell phone rule for years now, how do you know they'll actually go through with it this time?" Sara asked her, worrying she'd have to get a second phone for all her personal calls to her husband.
"Because I just spent two hours in the most boring, ridiculous meeting about all the new lab policies and things that we absolutely have to go through right before my weekend off. Ecklie seriously has it in for me lately." Catherine reached across the table for Sara's spoon, using it stir some milk into her own coffee.
"You should try and be me for a day. Ecklie has had it in for me since the moment I met him." Greg reminded the woman, getting a nod from Sara as she remembered a few comments that Grissom had passed onto her from the undersheriff. "Maybe you should go home and de-stress. I hear a long hot bath works wonders." He suggested to Catherine, wishing he never said anything as the woman gave him another scowl. "Okay, well I'm gonna go." He motioned for her to stand so he could get out of the booth. "My husband is..."
"Yes, we all know." Catherine snapped at him, reluctantly getting out of the way so he could leave. "If you rub your perfect life in my face again, I cannot be accounted for my actions towards you."
"Okay, bye."
"Bye, Greg." Sara waved to him, wishing she was going with him, rather than staying here with the angry woman.
After a short drive home, Greg pulled his car into his driveway, smiling to himself as his husband's car was back where it belonged in their driveway. He hurried towards the front door to unlock it, noticing moving boxes in the hallway, along with a pile of clothes stacked on the bottom step of the stairs. "Honey, I'm home." He called through the house, locking the door behind him.
"Hey, baby." Nick stepped off the stairs a few seconds later, making his way towards him to greet him with a kiss. "I've almost got all my stuff squared away upstairs. Like I never left." He circled his arms around the younger man, creating a better memory than the last one he had by the door. "How was work?"
"Boring, dull, you know the usual. And Catherine's in one of her foul moods again. I'm on call this whole weekend as the supervisor of the grave yard shift, while she has the weekend off. You'd think she would have brightened up a little about that, but she's been angry all day."
"You're on call this weekend?" Nick gave him a disappointed look. "I thought we were gonna spend the weekend together."
"We can, sorta. Ooh... I have a present for you." Greg ushered his husband through to the front room, sitting him down on the sofa, before he joined him. "Okay, you remember a couple of weeks ago, when we had our first date night? And we got sorta drunk, well I did anyway and then we..." He smiled, holding Nick's hands in his own. "I've been planning this speech all day, and it sounded really romantic and everything in my head, but it just sounds crap now."
"Greg..." Nick tried to speed things along a little.
"I'm pregnant... oh, and you're the father, in case that wasn't clear."
Nick dropped his jaw slightly, before he allowed a small smile to spread across his lips. "Really? We're gonna have a baby."
"Yeah." Greg smiled at him, giggling softly as Nick's voice had gone all high pitched with joy.
"Really?"
"Yeah, you think I'd joke about this?" He kicked off his sneakers, putting his feet up on the coffee table. "We're gonna have a baby."
"Are you alright about this?" Nick put his arm around his shoulders, pecking a kiss to the younger man's forehead. "I know we were gonna talk about havin' another baby, but are you alright about it happenin' now?"
"Yeah, I'm excited." He reached for Nick's other arm, placing his hand on his stomach. "I don't want to think about what happened before. We've had two healthy baby's, we can have another one. I just have to do everything I can to make sure this one makes it to full term."
"Greg, you know that it was nothin' that you did."
"I just want this one to be here with us." Greg rested his head back against Nick's chest, holding the man's arm around his waist. "I took the test two days ago. I was gonna tell you yesterday, but you were busy packing up your apartment. I haven't told anyone else. It's so hard keeping secrets, I don't know how you do it. I feel like it's gonna burst out of me every minute I'm around somebody that doesn't know." He smiled up at Nick as the man pressed a kiss to his forehead. "So you're happy then? I thought when we had the baby talk, you were gonna tell me that you didn't want any more kids."
"I thought we agreed to have six kids?" Nick teased him, pressing another kiss to his forehead. "We can fix up that spare room now. Unless we get another boy, then we can have Jackson and the baby together, so Colt can get his own room back."
"Better not be another boy." Greg quickly glanced up at him. "I'm in my forties now, this could be my last chance to have a baby. I'm past my prime already. All my eggs might be bad now."
"My Mama had me when she was forty. I turned out alright."
"Yeah, but I'm not forty." His husband reminded him, quickly doing the math in his head. "Wait, your Mom's eighty six? I thought you were just disinvited from her seventieth birthday?"
"Wedding anniversary, and it was their sixty fifth weddin' anniversary. They've been celebratin' it every five years now."
"Sixty five years?" Greg dropped his jaw, wondering how two people even managed to stay married for that long. "We'll never be married that long. I'm not saying we're gonna break up... again, but we married later and you're forty six already. We'll only make it... ten or fifteen years."
"Nice, you think I'm gonna die before my sixties?"
"No... I didn't even say that, did I?" Turning in his husband's arms so he was facing him, Greg sealed an apologetic kiss to his lips, wondering how they even got onto the subject. "We could have another twenty odd years together, as long as you don't keep any more secrets from me and I manage to keep the drama queen in me under control."
"As long as it's not a drag queen."
Greg giggled softly, manoeuvring himself to straddle his partner's thighs. "So you want this baby with me?"
"You know I do." He wrapped his arms around Greg's waist, giving him a reassuring smile. "I would love to have another little Greg bouncin' around here."
"I'm gonna book a doctor's appointment, you wonna come with me?"
"Yeah." Nick smiled at him, combing his fingers back through the younger man's hair. "But isn't it too soon for that though? I thought that we only just..."
"It was nearly a month ago." He pointed out to him, pushing himself to his feet off the sofa. "Can't you remember the last time we had sex?"
"Two or three days ago."
"It was four days ago, but I meant unprotected sex." Making his way through to the kitchen, Greg searched for something to eat in the fridge, grabbing the box of eggs from the middle shelf. "Are the boys up yet?" He glanced over his shoulder as Nick followed him in.
"Eh, Jackson's sleepin'." He directed Greg's attention towards the window, pointing out Colt and his Nana in the garden. "I was gonna tell you that she was here, but we got, kinda caught up."
"Why is she always here?" The younger man gave out an inward groan, wishing that his mother would leave them alone for five minutes.
Granted, she hadn't been round in nearly six weeks now, but she still didn't call them to schedule her visits. It wasn't like she didn't have time to call them either, it was a four hour drive to get to their house, which was starting to prove to be not enough distance between them lately.
"I thought she's supposed to leave me alone now that she has three new kids to pester? Why can't she pester them for the whole weekend?" He gasped a sudden deep breath. "She didn't bring luggage did she? She's not staying the weekend, is she?" He practically screamed the questions in his partner's direction.
"Actually, she's here to talk to both of us, not to pester you. A fly by visit." Nick pressed a kiss to the younger man's neck, taking the egg box off his hands. "I'll make you somethin' to eat. Go and see her."
"I'd rather see my adorable baby boy who's sleeping upstairs. But fine. You're only back an hour and already you're pushing me into doing things I don't wonna do." He smirked, giving out a sigh before he stepped outside. "Hi, Mom." He knelt down as his son hurried towards him, sweeping the seven year old into his arms for a hug.
"Hello, sweetheart." His mother pressed a kiss to his cheek, gently smoothing her hand up and down her grandson's back. "Are you alright? You look a little flushed." She touched the back of her hand to is cheek, still treating him like a child.
"Uh huh, I'm fine." He lowered his son to the floor, gently brushing his fingers through his son's tousled hair. He looked like he had just rolled out of bed, but he didn't appear to be tired. "So, why'd you decide to drive out here? What couldn't you say over the phone?" He looked up at his mother, wishing she would get the hint and let him live his life alone.
"I came to speak to you and Nick. It's not exactly something that I would have liked to say over the phone, so... shall we go in so I can talk to you? Colt, stay out here a second. The grownups need to talk for a moment." She ushered her grandson back to the toys they had been playing with on the patio, while she led Greg inside. "So, instead of beating around the bush. I'll just cut right to the chase. Nicky, Daniel and I had dinner with your parents, and your mother let something slip in the kitchen when we were washing up afterwards."
Greg gave his mother a confused look, wondering how they even ending up having dinner together. They weren't exactly in the same circles, they didn't even live in the same state. "And...?" He urged her to continue.
"Your father is about to have some kind of open heart surgery, and I thought you should know. She broke down in tears in the kitchen, worrying she was going to lose him and then she told me not to tell you."
"Great job there, Mom." Greg remarked, wondering how his husband would even take the news. He appeared to have heard her, but he had no expression on his face. Not even the usual glaze of his eyes when he had just gotten bad news and was trying to hold in his tears. "You couldn't have said that over the phone?"
"Well, I wanted to be here... in case." She looked over Nick once more, wondering if she had left any part of the story out. "Are you quiet because this was all behind your back? Because it was a sort of last minute thing, after we bumped into your mother at the grocery store of all places. They were in town for your sister's baby's christening or something."
"Baptism." Nick nodded, remembering he got the invitation from his sister, Lily, but he was asked not to go after their parents decided they could go after all.
"Oh okay then, well she suggested that we should get together for dinner some time. I think she was just being polite, but then Daniel stupidly suggested that we should go to dinner while they were still in town."
"By Dad, you mean you." Greg interrupted her again, receiving a glare this time. He took a seat at the counter, dropping his head into his hands, while the woman tried to get any response out of her son in law, Nick.
"He's having the surgery in a couple of weeks. It sounds pretty serious, Nicky."
"Yeah... I know." Nick set down the things he was going to use to cook Greg's breakfast, suddenly making his way out the room without saying anything. He hurried up the stairs, leaving Greg and his mother alone in the kitchen.
"So, he took that well." Jean turned to look at her son behind her. "How long has he known?"
"I didn't know. If he knew, he didn't tell me."
"Can I get a proper hug now?" His mother asked, taking a step closer as Greg opened his arms to her. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to cramp your new life, but I just thought that he should know. Aren't you concerned about him? His father could be dying here."
"This the same father that disowned him for loving me?" He sarcastically remarked, pushing himself to his feet. "You know that anything about Nick's family is completely off limits. I'm not even allowed to talk about them, or know about them apparently." Leaving his mother alone in the kitchen, Greg followed in his husband's footsteps up the stairs, finding him in the boys bedroom.
Jackson was finally awake, so Nick was dressing him in some clothes, while the toddler played with the toy dinosaurs he had in his hands. Their three old toddler still had hold of his pacifier in his mouth, and a diaper around his hips. He was reluctant to give up the source of comfort, and the potty training had once again been put on hold.
"Hey." Greg took a seat on the edge of Colt's bed, watching the older man lifting a t-shirt down over their son's head. "Did you really know?"
"Yeah, Gwen told me." He pulled the top down his son's chest, before he lifted him into a pair of jeans. "It's what my maternal granddad had, right before he died. He was on those blood thinners and he had too much scar tissue around his heart from his last couple of surgeries to repair a valve."
"That might not happen to your Dad." Greg tried to stay positive, even though he thought the man deserved everything he got. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You're not exactly a big fan of my folks, G." He pointed out to him, lifting his son against his chest as he climbed to his feet. "My Mama's been on at him for years about his cholesterol and all that, but he's always thought that he's gonna live forever." He handed Jackson over to Greg, so he could make up the toddler's bed. "What do you want me to do, go over there and act like nothin' has happened and I'm really sorry? Because I'm not. He's had heart problems for years. This is the most obvious outcome."
"Wow, Daddy went out and picked up a new personality." Greg joked, pressing a kiss to his toddler's forehead. He held him close against his side as he climbed to his feet, wishing they could have just stuck with the good news of the pregnancy for his moving in day. "Well, I guess I'll go make my own breakfast then."
He watched Nick trying to busy himself for a moment, before he carried Jackson downstairs. He took a seat beside his mother at the counter, giving her a nod as she looked round at him.
"Okay, I'm worried about him now. But you really didn't need to come all this way to break the news to him."
"Alright, I get the hint. I know where I'm not wanted." Jean pecked a kiss to her grandson's adorable little cheek. "Your teeth are gonna be all crooked if you keep that in any longer." She playfully tugged his pacifier, but he refused to give it up. "I'm sure Colt didn't keep his for this long, did he?"
"Colt had comfort in me always being there when he was a baby. He didn't need his pacifier. Jackson is Daddy's little prince. He's been missing Nicky while he's not been here." Greg pressed multiple kisses to his toddler's forehead, getting a smile out of him from behind the plastic concealing his mouth. "You want some breakfast? Mom, you mind?" He lifted the toddler into her arms, while he started cooking the broken eggs that had been left in a bowl on the side.
"Do you like that? That's my new necklace." Jean smiled as he grandson's curious little fingers fiddled with the shell necklace she had draped over her blouse. "Greg didn't notice it."
"To me, you whole outfit is new. And you failed to notice my hair." He pointed her attention towards it.
"What, you got your first grey?" She teased him, giggling as she hugged her grandson close. "I did happen to notice the boxes in the hallway though. Does that mean that he's officially moved back in?"
"Yes, today is his first day back, which is why I wanted us to be alone."
"Alright, I get the hint." Jean pressed a kiss to her grandchild's rosy red cheek, handing him back to his father. "I'll call you later, sweetheart. Love you."
"Love you too." Greg caught her for a quick hug, before he let her go. "Drive safe."
"I will." She stepped out into the garden to grab a quick hug from her oldest grandson, before she finally made her way out to the car. She felt bad for telling Nick something like that and then running out on him, but she didn't really have any other choice if her own son didn't want her around.
Instead of making himself anything to eat, Greg served up the scrambled eggs to his sons, getting them seated at the table with them, before he turned into bed. He realised that this wasn't going to be the happy day that he had expected when he woke up. He thought it was going to be the start of his amazing new life with Nick, but it was just another boring day, full of all the usual bad news and disappointments.
He slept through the whole day across the middle of his bed, waking up a few times to pee and throw up with morning sickness, in a zombie like state. His husband eventually brought him a coffee, gently shaking him awake, until he opened his eyes.
"C'mon baby, wake up. You've got work in less than an hour." Nick set the coffee down on the bedside table, turning his partner over onto his back, so he could rouse him from his sleep. "Greg... c'mon, you've been asleep all day."
"I don't wonna go." He pulled himself out of Nick's arms, rolling over onto his side to continue with his sleeping. "Go away." He pushed his partner's hands away from him, giving out a groan as he felt the mattress shift beneath him, feeling Nick's presence at his side. "I'm ill, I don't wonna go."
"You're fine, you've only got a bit of mornin' sickness. C'mon baby, you're on call."
"Only?" He opened one of his eyes, giving the man an evil scowl. "Tell me Nicky, have you yourself ever experienced the gut wrenching pain of morning sickness? Unable to keep anything down and feeling your insides churning, slowly forcing their way up your throat, momentarily cutting off your oxygen supply as you spew your guts up into the toilet bowl?"
Nick pursed his lips together for a moment, before he shook his head. "Can't say I have."
"Well there you go then."
"But I have had some pretty bad hangovers that resulted in..."
"Ugh, it doesn't even compare, Nick." The younger man rolled over onto his other side, putting his back to his partner. "Go away, you've already ruined my happy day."
"Happy day?" He rested his head against the side of Greg's, gently draping his arm around his partner's waist. "You think that sleepin' in bed all day is a happy day?"
"No, it was meant to be a happy day because it's the first day that you're back in my life, but as usual, it's completely ruined." He lifted Nick's hand from his waist, moving his arm away from him. "Why didn't you tell me about your, Dad?" He asked him, sitting up straight in the middle of the bed. "I believe something like that falls into the honesty column of our relationship. It's your father. It effects you."
"No, it doesn't."
"It does." Climbing off the bed, Greg stripped off the t-shirt and pyjamas trousers he had slept in, getting himself dressed in some clothes for work. "He's your father. You're not like him, you can't just turn off your feelings, no matter how much you want to pretend that don't care about him. You grew up with the man. You idolised him at one point. You love him like any son loves his father. You can't just turn that off and forget it all."
"I never idolised him." Nick objected, sliding to the edge of their bed. "He's been dyin' for years, Greg. What do you want me to do, fly over there and pretend to care? He's made it pretty clear that he couldn't care any less about me or my family, and that he wants nothin' to do with me or his grandchildren, so why should I go and see him, just because this time might be the last time he gets to use the dyin' card?"
His husband answered him with a scowl, before he stepped into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He gave his face a quick splash of water, returning to the bedroom to pull some sneakers on. "You back on days tomorrow?" Greg perched himself on the edge of the bed, getting a nod from his partner. "It's Saturday, so you can drop the boys round Evelyn's house if I'm not back in time."
"You can't wear sneakers to work."
"I'll change em when I get in." Greg pecked a kiss to the side of Nick's head, gently patting his thigh. "I'm not a rookie anymore. I'll see you tomorrow... either in the morning or night." He smirked, playfully ruffling his hand through his partner's hair. "Love you, babe."
"Where's my kiss then?" He pulled Greg closer by his belt loops, sealing a kiss to his minty lips. "Be careful."
"Always am."
"Be really careful." Nick hugged him closer, sealing another kiss to his lips. "You're carryin' my unborn baby. Yeah, I remember." He smiled at him, seeing the look on Greg's face. "We never really got to talk through that."
"I don't have time now though. It's Catherine's weekend off, so I'm in charge. You know the new recruits are useless without an order." He cupped Nick's face in his hands, leaving him with a memorable kiss to keep him going for their next few hours apart. "Baby talk as soon as you get home from work tomorrow, okay? Love you."
"Love you more."
"Oh hey, when you put the boys in the bath tonight, make sure you use that Infest shampoo on them. You might need to use that nit infest shampoo on yourself. The little critters are going round Colt's school again. We all got a letter home at the beginning of the week. I've been using the shampoo and the comb on the boys, but I haven't found any yet."
"Okay." Nick subconsciously scratched at his head, hoping he didn't have any of those horrible bugs in his hair. "Bye." He waved him off, really wishing he didn't have to go. It was weird finally being back at home, unable to spend any time with his husband that he came back to in the first place.
Thank you for reading and your patience with me. I've recently just started a new job and it takes up a lot of my time, so I haven't had a lot of time to write. Please let me know what you thought and I'll try my best to update as soon as I can.
~ Holly