A Tour of the Heart (11/?)
Title: A Tour of the Heart (11/?)
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Characters: Eric/Calleigh
Rating: PG13
Summary: They say if you really want to understand someone, you have to understand where they come from.
Catching up? Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten
"So." Charlotte settled next to Eric on the porch swing, having passed Gracie off to Calleigh for a turn on the tire swing while the Duquesne boys fired up the grill and prepped the burgers. "Eric Delko."
"Charlotte Duquesne," he answered in kind, his boyish smile giving Charlotte an idea of just what may have gotten Calleigh all smitten in the first place.
"In a minute, I'm going to make you tell me everything there is to know about you-" He smirked, she answered in kind. "But for now, I just need to know one thing."
"Okay."
She nodded toward Calleigh, who was helping Rob get the grill started. "She alright?"
Charlotte watched his gaze flick to Calleigh and soften, going a little thoughtful, a little concerned, a lot in love. "Yeah," he finally answered quietly. "She will be, anyway. She just needs to… work some things out."
"You'll make sure she does." It wasn't really an order, wasn't really a statement, definitely wasn't a question.
"Yeah. I will." He took a long, slow sip from his bottle as they sat in comfortable silence for a moment. "Thanks, by the way."
"For?" She knew the answer, but she played the part anyway.
"Badgering her."
Charlotte's lips curved into a sly smirk, and she chuckled quietly. "My pleasure. She ever gets her head stuck up her ass like that again, don't you hesitate to call, alright? We can gang up on her until she sees sense."
It was his turn to chuckle, and then nod gamely. "Okay. But let's not tell her that."
"Definitely not," Charlotte agreed, before knocking her bottle lightly against his, toasting, "To secret alliances for the sake of everyone's sanity."
Another easy laugh and Eric raised his bottle slightly. "I'll drink to that."
~//~
“Okay, do we have to talk about this?”
“Absolutely,” Eric grinned, earning himself a playful shove from Calleigh.
“Oh, come on, CJ,” Tucker teased, sliding the first burger off the grill and onto a bun. “It’s not every day you bring your boyfriends home. I think it’s our brotherly duty to share these stories.”
He passed the burger to Charlotte as she walked in from putting Gracie down for the night. Calleigh watched Charlotte hesitate, frown, glance pointedly at the plate of cheddar cheese slices she’d brought out just before heading upstairs.
“Right,” Tuck chuckled sheepishly, turning with the burger, “Uh, who wants-“
Rob snatched the plate from his hands, saluted and headed over to the table to grab the ketchup. “Back left,” he told Charlotte, who glanced at the grill and smiled.
“Shoulda married you instead,” she teased, sipping at her beer as Tucker feigned offense. “Oh, what,” she sneered as he huffed. “We’ve been together how long? How many nights of burgers on the grill, and you still don’t get it right? Rob’s been in the picture for two years, and he’s already got your ass covered.”
Tucker grinned, looped a finger into a belt loop and tugged her closer, pressing a short kiss to her lips. “I remember all the important things,” he insisted, and Charlotte rolled her eyes before letting him kiss her again. And again.
Bryan was the first to pipe up, after about fifteen seconds of smooches. “You two wanna get a room or something? ‘Cause we can handle the water park story without you, Tuck.”
Damnit. Calleigh was hoping they’d managed to distract themselves from that one. No such luck, though. Definitely not, as Charlotte cackled and nudged Tucker back to the grill. “Which one? Jared Shepherd or the bikini incident?”
“Oh, God,” Calleigh groaned, reaching for her beer and drinking deep as she watched Eric’s eyes light up. They were going to tell them both now, she just knew it.
“Oh man, I forgot all about the bikini,” Bryan grinned, taking the next burger and passing it to Eric.
“Forgot about it?” Charlotte laughed incredulously. “It’s the most embarrassing one! I mean, come on, flirting your way to a lungful a pool water is nothing compared to public nudity at age fifteen.”
“Public nudity?” Eric asked, grin splitting wide as he turned to face her fully. “I never knew you had an exhibitionist streak.”
“Oh believe me, I don’t,” Calleigh insisted, feeling her cheeks heat slightly with embarrassment. “And I’m not sure you have the right to be so excited about these stories, Charlotte, on account of you weren’t around when they happened.”
“Well, I was,” Bryan grinned, explaining before she could cut him off, “Tucker yanked one of her bikini strings in the wave pool and she lost the whole top on the next surge.”
“I knew it!” Calleigh accused, ignoring the burger set in front of her as she whirled toward Tucker in a flash of temper. “I knew you pulled the string!”
“Thanks a lot, Bry,” Tucker muttered, narrowly missing the bottle cap that Calleigh pitched at his head.
“What-I thought you knew,” he said to Calleigh, looking genuinely surprised before flicking his gaze apologetically to his brother. “I thought she knew.”
“Yeah, no, Bryan,” Tucker corrected, but that shit-eater grin was back "We'd managed to keep that one a secret so far."
"Oops."
~//~
Calleigh found Charlotte in the kitchen, one hand gripping the bottom shelf of an open cupboard, the other braced on the countertop. She could tell by the slump and tremor of her shoulders that she was crying, the tears on her face as she glanced up serving as superfluous confirmation.
“Hey,” she managed, voice cracking as she pulled her hand out of the cupboard, and Calleigh felt her own eyes prickle when she caught sight of the pink ceramic clutched in Charlotte’s fingers.
“Is that..?”
Charlotte nodded, settled the salt and pepper shakers on the counter as Calleigh moved to lean next to her. “I forgot they were even here,” she managed, shaking her head slightly and brushing at her tears with a forced smile as Calleigh traced a fingertip over the back of one pink pig. The pepper shaker, from the single hole on the top of its head. It interlocked with a salt shaker pig - three holes in this one - their bodies draped across each other like they were napping. “Gracie loved ‘em so much - you know how she is about pigs. Gran let her bring them home one day, and they ended up shoved way in back up here. I came in lookin’ for a fresh box of matches, and…”
Charlotte trailed off, shaking her head and knuckling her tears away again. Calleigh swallowed against the lump in her throat and bit her lip hard when a blink sent the first tears rolling down her own cheeks. “Yeah” was all she could think to say. Charlotte’s hand fell on top of hers and squeezed hard, the shakers clutched under both of them. “I can’t believe she’s not here anymore,” Calleigh breathed, shaking her head. “But at the same time… I mean… I…” She wasn’t sure what exactly she was trying to articulate, so she simply gave up. “This shouldn’t be so hard. It’s not like it was… sudden.”
“Doesn’t make it any less final,” Charlotte pointed out, pulsing her hand against Calleigh’s.
Another hollow “yeah” ushered in a few moments of painful silence. Calleigh’s chest felt tight, heavy, like she’d had the breath knocked out of her. Charlotte didn’t look like she was faring any better. They both jumped slightly when the door to the back porch opened up, Eric striding in and then stopping short at the sight of them.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll, uh-” He gestured for the door, and started to turn back the way he’d come, but Calleigh shook her head.
“No. It’s okay. Stay.” She slid her hand from under Charlotte’s, holding it out for Eric and taking a step closer to meet him halfway. When he grasped her fingers, she used her grip to pull him close, then wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his collar. His arms settled around her shoulders, holding her close and rocking her slightly, and Calleigh felt the tight knot of grief in her chest begin to unspool slightly.
Behind her, Charlotte said something about checking on Gracie, then excused herself from the room. Calleigh just shut her eyes and kept breathing.
~//~
"Honey, you can't make blanket statements like 'all reality TV sucks' when you're more devoted to The Amazing Race than to religion and family," Charlotte argued, tossing a few chips into the center of the table. “And I raise.”
"Okay, but The Amazing Race is good reality TV,” Bryan cut in, defending his brother. “It’s a contest."
"So is the Bachelor," Calleigh reasoned, before setting her cards down with a sigh. “I fold.”
"I’m sorry, no,” Eric chuckled, tossing a few chips into the center and swigged his beer. “No, its not. Call."
"It is so," Rob insisted, raising as well. “Have you seen the show? Those girls compete.”
"Rob, man, it’s really not,” Tucker chuckled, showing his cards. “Flush, Ace high.”
Charlotte sighed. “Three of a kind. Nines.”
“Aww,” Bryan cooed sarcastically, having taken up heckling after he folded early with a crap hand. Charlotte threw a napkin In his direction and glared playfully.
“Three tens,” Eric conceded, tossing his cards down.
“Full house,” Rob announced proudly, setting his cards down and reaching for his winnings as Tucker cursed his disappointment. “And I can give you Amazing Race, but I would like to call out Mr. I-Can’t-Believe-You-Call-My-Sisters-After-The-Bachelor on the hours of Food Network Challenge and Iron Chef on our DVR. Those are reality TV, Bry.”
"Again, contest," Bryan argued, tossing his cards toward Charlotte.
"American Idol is a contest,” she reasoned, shuffling the cards as they were passed her way. “And it is definitely reality TV.”
“American Idol is a popularity contest,” Bry insisted, pushing his chair out and standing. “There’s a difference. And we have spent entirely too much time on this conversation, so I’m going to go grab another round of beers and when I get back, I want us to be talking about world events or literature or something.”
“Kill joy!” Charlotte taunted, swatting at him playfully as he passed.
~//~
“So how do you guys feel about Vermont?”
“Mm. Two words,” Calleigh smirked. “Ben. And Jerry.”
“Oh, my two favorite men,” Charlotte sighed, gathering her winnings as everyone slid their cards to Calleigh. “Vermont is all good in my book. Why do you ask, Bry?”
“We’re thinking of having a little... family vacation there,” Bryan explained carefully. “Say… next fall?”
“Are we gettin’ a cottage?” Charlotte grinned, tipping back the last of her beer and looking just a little bit flushed. “You know I always wanted a cottage. Somewhere in the woods, in a part of the country that isn’t so God-awful hot and humid. With a big yard, and lots of trees, where I could easily lose my children and blame the bears.”
“Charlie!” Tucker scolded with a laugh, earning himself a glare.
“They were monsters today, Tuck. Monsters,” she excused with a wave of her hand. “And what have I told you about calling me that?”
“That if I do it, I have to sleep on the couch?”
“That’s right. On the couch, with no nookie, so I’d-“
“TMI,” Bryan insisted, cutting her off. “T. M. I. I do not want to hear the word ‘nookie’ in a sentence that references my brother. Ever.”
“So, why Vermont?” Calleigh asked pointedly, trying to steer the conversation back on topic.
“Why not, Bry?” Charlotte’s thumbnail scratched at the edge of the label on her empty bottle. “We’re all adults.”
“Because it’s legal there,” Rob supplied, winking at Calleigh and watching the look of understanding dawn on her face.
“Adults, yes. But-“
“You tellin’ me you never swapped triumphant tales of your many conquests with your brother?”
“Actually, no. I don’t think my conquests would have interested Tucker all that much.”
“You’re getting married?” Calleigh asked, grinning and reaching over to wrap Rob in a tight hug. “That’s fantastic!”
“Wait - what?” Charlotte slapped her gaze between Bryan and Rob. “When did this happen? Where was I?”
“Talking about my manly sexual prowess,” Tucker smirked, and Bryan pitched a poker chip at his head in protest. He wasn't quite quick enough to dodge this time. “Okay, really? First Calleigh and now you? Is there a bull’s-eye on my forehead?”
“Hasn’t there always been?”
“What did I miss?” Eric asked, returning from a bathroom break with a pit stop by the fridge on his return trip for another round of beer.
“Ace and Gary over here are gettin’ hitched, Tucker is narrowly avoiding projectiles again, Bryan’s being a prude, and I’m throwing my children to the wolves.”
Eric arched an eyebrow at Calleigh. “And what are you up to?”
She held up the deck of cards, shuffled with a flourish. “I’m just dealing.”
“Which one of us is Ace and which is Gary?” Rob wondered aloud, grinning and popping the top off his beer as Eric dropped a kiss against Calleigh’s lips and settled back into the open chair next to her.
Charlotte snorted a laugh, wiggling her brows at Rob. “Depends. Who’s better at drivin’ stick?”
“Okay, Dirty and Dirty, could you knock it off for five minutes? I’d like to have a serious conversation with my brother about his upcoming nuptials,” Tucker chuckled, nudging his wife with an elbow.
“Who actually says ‘nuptials?’” Charlotte sneered cheerfully, swigging from a fresh bottle.
“I do; now hush.”
“You know, Calleigh Jo,” Rob piped up, making Tucker roll his eyes in Bryan’s direction. “You’re the only Duquesne baby left without a ring on their finger.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Calleigh groaned, shaking her head and beginning to deal the cards.
“Not true,” Charlotte insisted, pointing her bottle at her brother-in-law. “Tyler and Gracie are still single.”
“I don’t know,” Tucker grinned, apparently having accepted the futility of trying to keep on topic. “Logan Harrison has quite a crush on Gracie, according to the pre-school moms. She might beat you to the altar, CJ, if you don’t pick up the pace.”
He slid a glance over to Eric, eyeing him appraisingly, and Calleigh felt her cheeks go hot. Eric, for his part, seemed to be mostly unruffled, a low chuckle as he studied his cards the only indication that he was even listening.
“Hey, I have an idea!” Calleigh announced, a little too brightly, her accent thicker after days of home and bottles of beer. “Why don’t we call mom right now, put her on speaker. Let her turn the pressure cooker up a bit more. I mean, y’all are singin’ that song she’s been crowing endlessly since the day I turned thirty; it’s only fair she get the solo.”
“Nah, she’s probably asleep by now,” Tucker grinned, picking up his cards. “Besides, I think it’s high time I got my night in the spotlight. So.” He flicked his gaze back up. “Eric.”
“Don’t,” Calleigh warned, shooting her brother a death glare that may or may not have been genetically passed down through the Duquesne family tree.
“How long do we have to wait until you ask my baby sister to just-“
“Tucker.”
“-give in and-“
“Nookie,” Charlotte sing-songed warningly, offering Calleigh a playful salute a moment later when Tucker’s mouth snapped shut mid-sentence. “I got your back, babygirl.”
“If I tell you that now,” Eric began gamely, smirking at Tucker, “She won't be surprised when I ask.”
“Well, ain't that the mother of all cliffhangers," Charlotte drawled, leveling her sister-in-law with a wide grin as her bottle plunked hard onto the table, and Calleigh choked hard on a mouthful of beer.
~//~
Another beer and three lost hands later, Calleigh excused herself to the upstairs bathroom - Charlotte was currently “emptying the tank,” as she so demurely (and drunkenly) put it, in the one next to the kitchen. She did her business, splashed some water on a face that looked happy and healthy for the first time in weeks, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she opened the door to find a disheveled toddler silhouetted in the light creeping up from the stairwell.
After she caught her breath, hand pressed to her heart to still the hard knock-knock-knocking, she smiled at her niece and squatted down to eye level. “Hey, Gracie.”
Big green eyes blinked sleepily at her before Gracie lifted one fist to rub against them, turning her hand out and wiggling her fingers in a wave. “Hi.”
The combination of the wave and the half-fallen Pebbles ponytail on the top of her head made Calleigh’s heart flop over. Maybe she was biased, but Calleigh was fairly certain that her niece was the most adorable girl on the planet. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Firsty,” Gracie mumbled, holding her arms out to be picked up.
“Ah,” Calleigh nodded knowingly, straightening back up and lifting her niece to rest on her hip. Gracie’s head immediately dropped to her shoulder, wispy curls tickling against her neck. “I see. Well, why don’t we get your some water.”
“Nooo,” she whined, squirming slightly in Calleigh’s arms. “Lem’nade.”
“No, sweetie, it’s too late for lemonade.” Calleigh ignored the way the tiny body twisted in protest. Typical Gracie. “But I bet we could put some water in your princess cup.”
She stilled immediately, cuddling back into Calleigh’s torso. “’Rella.”
“Yeah, Cinderella,” Calleigh murmured quietly, heading for the stairs and navigating them carefully as the room tilted just a little from alcohol and fatigue. “And Belle is on the cup, right?” Gracie nodded, tucking her thumb into her mouth and mumbling something completely unintelligible around it. “Mmhmm. And Ariel?” Another nod, and they were halfway to the kitchen, where someone had clearly just made a good joke (or a good fool of themselves) if the raucous laughter was any indication.
Charlotte was just settling into an amused chuckle when Calleigh and Gracie made their way into the kitchen. She spotted them, froze, blinked twice, then asked with a scowl, “Where did you get that? Put that back.”
“Huh?”
“I put her away hours ago; why is she up?”
“Charlotte!” Tucker snickered, nudging his chin against his wife’s shoulder. He wasn’t nearly as far gone as Charlotte, but Calleigh could tell he wasn’t really sober either. Not that she was one to talk… “Don’t talk about her like that. She’s our daughter.”
“She is. She is our daughter. She is our daughter who spent half the day wailing, and the other half running around like a Tasmanian devil, and I put her to bed hours ago for grown-up time.” She reached for her beer, raised it before taking a sip. “21 and up, Gracie. No beer for you. Only room for one drunk blonde sleepin’ here tonight, and Mama has already submitted her application.”
Calleigh couldn’t help but laugh, catching Eric’s eye with a shake of her head. Charlotte had muttered something early in the evening about her intentions to get good and drunk tonight, and she’d done a bang up job of making it happen. “Don’t worry about it, Charlotte. I’ve got her covered. You keep drinkin.’”
“Like I needed your permission. You’re drunk, too,” Charlotte accused, scowl melting into a sudden grin for reasons unknown.
“Buzzed,” Calleigh corrected. “Not drunk. You’re the one wearing the drunk crown tonight.”
“Oh, there should be a crown,” Charlotte agreed, nodding and grinning.
“Crown?” Gracie asked, her head popping up fast enough to make her ponytail bobble. “’Rella wears crown. ’M firsty!”
“I know, sweetie,” Calleigh soothed, rubbing Gracie’s back and heading for the kiddie cup cupboard. “We’re going to get you your princess cup, and fill it all up with water-“
“The hell you are,” Charlotte muttered. “Half way, no more. You fill that thing to the top and she’s gonna wet right through that diaper, and I just put fresh sheets in the crib this morning.”
“No crib! Big girl bed!” Gracie insisted, sleepy scowl going toe-to-toe with her mama’s mostly-drunken one.
Charlotte looked like she might be about to say something before Tucker interrupted. “No, babygirl. You know the rules - if you get out of the big girl bed after hugs and kisses, you have to go in the crib.”
Gracie’s scowl twisted, going that precise combination of angry and despairing that only toddlers can really manage. “Big girl!” she wailed, drawing it out into a loud, sobbing wind up to a tantrum. “Big girl bed! Gigi’s a big girl!”
“Oh, Jesus,” Charlotte groaned, dropping her head back and her eyes closed. “Gigi’s gonna drive her Mama into an early grave.”
“Gigi?” Bryan asked, quirking a brow and idly shuffling the cards.
“Yes. Gigi,” Charlotte sighed, exasperated. “I gave her a perfectly lovely name - Clara Grace. It’s a pretty name. It’s a delightful, feminine, respectable name. But she hasn’t quite mastered ‘Gracie’ yet, so she has recently dubbed herself Gigi. Gigi. Sounds like a French hooker. Gigi the Paris Streetwalker. Works in a bordello, swills booze with sailors, and gets all her profits stolen by some overbearing Madame-”
“Oh my God, you’re drunk,” Rob laughed, shaking his head at Charlotte. “You only go on these inane soliloquies when you are three sheets to the wind.”
“Not three,” Charlotte insisted, holding up a finger. “Maybe two.” A second finger popped up as she shook her head. “Not three.”
Calleigh met Rob’s eye over the toddler still wailing into her shoulder about her big girl bed, mouthing a silent “wow,” and laughing as she turned the tap on, sliding the cup underneath.
“Gracie,” Tucker spoke up calmly, one hand maneuvering to rub the back of Charlotte’s neck as Calleigh filled the princess cup to precisely half. “It’s night-night time. Quiet voices.”
One green eye peeked open and stared him down balefully. “You’re gonna try to logic our two year old out of a tantrum? Have you met this child?”
“Char,” he insisted quietly, pressing a soothing kiss to her brow as she muttered something about never getting the baby back to sleep now that she was good and well awake. “I’ll take her,” he murmured, moving to stand before Eric waved him back.
“You know what? You guys stay here,” he suggested. “Calleigh and I will put her back down.”
Charlotte’s head popped back up, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight against the vertigo for a moment before blinking them open. “You’d do that?”
“Yeah, it’s no problem. I have nieces; plenty of practice.”
She flicked her gaze to Calleigh, who had managed to quiet Gracie down by giving her the cup. “Marry him. Marry this man. I mean it.”
Calleigh rolled her eyes and nodded her head in the direction of the door, Eric following dutifully after her.
~//~
By the time Gracie was asleep again, Calleigh was half-dozing herself, curled next to Gracie in the big girl bed - which was only big if you were two. In your mid-thirties, it was a bit cramped, and she’d been a little afraid it might collapse under her weight before Eric had pointed out that she wasn’t exactly heavy, and he’d parked himself on his niece’s bed more than once for story time with no major disasters. So she’d relented at Gracie’s request for snuggles, and read her a story from the book Eric propped on her hip. He’d turned the pages, read all the Prince’s dialogue, and it had been so ridiculously domestic that Calleigh thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, someday this could be her life. Kids, and a husband, and something quiet and normal that didn’t involve guns and death and pain.
Gracie had nodded off somewhere in the last few pages, and now they were just laying there, quiet, Calleigh’s fingers coasting along Gracie’s arm to the rhythm of Eric’s soothing strokes along her spine, over her shoulders, back down. It tickled, but she fought the urge to squirm, unwilling to wake the baby again.
“Stop that,” she murmured after a few minutes. “It’s gonna put me to sleep.”
“Mm.” She felt his lips on the back of her head, his fingers brushing her hair away from her neck to drop another kiss there. “You want to head out soon?”
“No. Yeah. Maybe.” The rush of breath as he chuckled into her neck sent goosebumps flaring over her skin and she turned her head to smile at him. “What?”
“Can’t make up your mind?”
“Well, I’m having fun,” she reasoned. “And it’s been so long since we’ve all been together, just us. But yeah… tired. And I’m sure Charlotte’s sent that third sheet to the wind by now, so we’ll be getting kicked out before too long.”
He laughed again, and she couldn’t fight the shiver this time, but Gracie did little more than sigh. “I like her.”
“She likes you,” Calleigh told him. She hadn’t needed to ask to figure that much out. “They all do. You fit in well.”
She watched his smile, slow and pleased. “Yeah?”
“Mmhmm.” She tilted her chin up so he could kiss her softly, murmuring, “I knew you would.”
“Almost didn’t make it here,” he reminded gently, and she just nodded, closed her eyes and let him rest his forehead against her. She didn’t want to go there again, not right now.
Gracie stirred suddenly, letting out a little whine, and Eric’s palm slid across Calleigh to rest on the toddler’s belly as Calleigh murmured softly to her. She settled a moment later, and Calleigh kept her voice low when she told him, “She’s a fusser. Always has been. Charlotte likes to say that she came out screaming and never stopped. Grew out of her colic and straight into temper tantrums. Tyler had been a pretty mild-mannered kid - high energy, but not really a handful - and then he had to compete with Gracie for attention. Now, they’re both just nuts.”
“They’re kids,” he reminded. “They’re like that. Screaming and running around is what they do best.”
“Yeah. It’s just hard on Charlotte, I think. Especially the last few months. She and Clara were close, so she ended up shouldering a lot of the whole process of moving her into assisted living, and making sure the house was taken care of, and then the kids all day on top of that. I can’t imagine working from home, with two little kids running around all day.”
“You could handle it.”
She shook her head, chuckled a little. “No way. I’d go stir crazy if I wasn’t in the lab, out in the field. I need my time.”
“Yeah,” he smirked. “You’re right, I guess. Still, I think you’d be a good mom.”
A smile tugged the corner of her lip for just a moment before slipping away as she studied his face, his eyes. He meant it, she knew. But more than that, she was beginning to get the feeling that he meant she’d be a good mom to his kids. All in all, it wasn’t a bad idea, but it probably wasn’t something she should be thinking about when she was tipsy and they were on the rocks. So she just smiled again, and told him, “So would you.”
“Be a good mom?” he teased, chuckling slightly, and she rolled her eyes.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, still smiling as he pressed his lips to hers again, dotted a kiss onto her nose, another on her forehead.
As much as she was enjoying the quiet, the affection, she couldn’t help her reluctant, “We should go back downstairs.”
Eric nodded toward Gracie. “Is she out for good?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
He reached over and lifted Gracie’s arm carefully, then let it drop. It fell with a heavy thud; Gracie stayed dead asleep. “Oh yeah,” he grinned. “She’s definitely out.”
~//~
“You know what I think,” Charlotte mused slowly, fingertip on the lip of her empty bottle, tipping until it balanced precariously, then letting it settle back down before repeating the process.
“I think you’re gonna spill your beer,” Bryan grinned, tucking the poker chips back into their holder as Rob tucked the cards back into their deck and Calleigh cleared the landscape of longnecks from the table.
Charlotte picked up her bottle, lifted it toward Bryan in what might have been a toast, and handed it to Calleigh as she made her way toward the sink with the empties. “Too late for that, Bry. I already drank my beer.”
Rob snorted a laugh, shaking his head before asking her, “What do you think, my little Georgia peach?”
Charlotte turned immediately to Tucker. “That. See? That is an appropriate nickname for a girl like me.”
“I think Drunky McGee is an appropriate nickname for a girl like you,” Calleigh teased from the other side of the kitchen, earning herself a half-assed glare.
“Shut up, Calleigh.” Charlotte’s grin took all the punch out of the words.
“What do you think?” Rob asked again, rolling his eyes when Charlotte just frowned at him.
“About what?”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Tucker laughed, reaching over to rub the back of his wife’s neck again. “You said you were thinkin’ something.”
“I did?” She frowned in thought, brows pulling together before shooting up in realization. “I did! Yes. I did. I was.”
Still over by the sink, Calleigh buried her face into Eric’s shoulder to stifle her laughter. Eric hid his behind the façade of a kiss to her hair.
“I was thinking,” Charlotte began again. “That you and Rob - Bryan and Rob - should spend the night at Clara’s house with Calleigh and Eric.”
Bryan scowled, shaking his head, while Calleigh tried to figure out which two of the four of them were sober enough to drive. Thank God the house wasn’t far. “Why would we do that, Charlotte?”
“Because…” Charlotte settled her elbow on the table, leaned in on them slightly. “My son is away, my daughter is asleep, and I would like to get properly laid.”
Calleigh’s laugh came on so fast that there wasn’t time to muffle it behind Eric, but she needn’t have bothered - she certainly wasn’t the only one who had dissolved into amused snickering.
“Charlotte!” Tucker laughed, giving her a playful shove that nearly sent her off her chair before her reflexes kicked in to balance her.
“What? This is good for you, too, mister!”
“Charlotte, you are never gonna make it to sex,” Rob argued, eyeing her appraisingly. “You’re so drunk, you’ll be out the minute you hit the mattress.”
“Not true.” She held up a finger again, then pointed it at Rob. It bobbed slightly, and she narrowed her eyes in an attempt to keep it trained on his face. “Not. True. My kids are away, I can get you two losers out of my house; this is the only alone time Tucker and I get and I intend to use it well.”
“Calleigh and I will take the kids tomorrow night,” Eric offered out of nowhere, earning a jab in the ribs and wide, threatening eyes from his girlfriend. “Both of them. You can, uh, have the night to yourselves.”
Charlotte jaw nearly dropped, her body straightening slightly in her seat. “You’d do that?”
“We’d do that?” Calleigh echoed in a low hiss.
“Sure.” He smiled at Charlotte, grinned down at Calleigh. “It’ll be fun.”
Charlotte cackled, shaking her head and settling back in her chair. “Yeah, you say that now. Tyler has t-ball tomorrow night. Over at Harper’s Field.” She shifted her gaze to her sister-in-law, either oblivious to the look on her face or just not giving a damn. “You remember how to get there?”
“I do,” Calleigh answered slowly, mentally ticking off ways she could make Eric pay for this. She’d been thinking she’d cook dinner, go through boxes, have a quiet night with her boyfriend. Not chase her adorable-but-insane niece and nephew around a baseball field all night.
“Well then, that’s that.” Still grinning like she’d won the jackpot, Charlotte kicked Rob lightly under the table. “You two can stay.” Her gaze slid to Calleigh and Eric. “You two go rest up.”
They made it all the way through their goodbyes, into the car, and halfway down the drive before Calleigh whirled on Eric. “You are in so much trouble.”
Eric just shrugged a shoulder and grinned.
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Characters: Eric/Calleigh
Rating: PG13
Summary: They say if you really want to understand someone, you have to understand where they come from.
Catching up? Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten
"So." Charlotte settled next to Eric on the porch swing, having passed Gracie off to Calleigh for a turn on the tire swing while the Duquesne boys fired up the grill and prepped the burgers. "Eric Delko."
"Charlotte Duquesne," he answered in kind, his boyish smile giving Charlotte an idea of just what may have gotten Calleigh all smitten in the first place.
"In a minute, I'm going to make you tell me everything there is to know about you-" He smirked, she answered in kind. "But for now, I just need to know one thing."
"Okay."
She nodded toward Calleigh, who was helping Rob get the grill started. "She alright?"
Charlotte watched his gaze flick to Calleigh and soften, going a little thoughtful, a little concerned, a lot in love. "Yeah," he finally answered quietly. "She will be, anyway. She just needs to… work some things out."
"You'll make sure she does." It wasn't really an order, wasn't really a statement, definitely wasn't a question.
"Yeah. I will." He took a long, slow sip from his bottle as they sat in comfortable silence for a moment. "Thanks, by the way."
"For?" She knew the answer, but she played the part anyway.
"Badgering her."
Charlotte's lips curved into a sly smirk, and she chuckled quietly. "My pleasure. She ever gets her head stuck up her ass like that again, don't you hesitate to call, alright? We can gang up on her until she sees sense."
It was his turn to chuckle, and then nod gamely. "Okay. But let's not tell her that."
"Definitely not," Charlotte agreed, before knocking her bottle lightly against his, toasting, "To secret alliances for the sake of everyone's sanity."
Another easy laugh and Eric raised his bottle slightly. "I'll drink to that."
~//~
“Okay, do we have to talk about this?”
“Absolutely,” Eric grinned, earning himself a playful shove from Calleigh.
“Oh, come on, CJ,” Tucker teased, sliding the first burger off the grill and onto a bun. “It’s not every day you bring your boyfriends home. I think it’s our brotherly duty to share these stories.”
He passed the burger to Charlotte as she walked in from putting Gracie down for the night. Calleigh watched Charlotte hesitate, frown, glance pointedly at the plate of cheddar cheese slices she’d brought out just before heading upstairs.
“Right,” Tuck chuckled sheepishly, turning with the burger, “Uh, who wants-“
Rob snatched the plate from his hands, saluted and headed over to the table to grab the ketchup. “Back left,” he told Charlotte, who glanced at the grill and smiled.
“Shoulda married you instead,” she teased, sipping at her beer as Tucker feigned offense. “Oh, what,” she sneered as he huffed. “We’ve been together how long? How many nights of burgers on the grill, and you still don’t get it right? Rob’s been in the picture for two years, and he’s already got your ass covered.”
Tucker grinned, looped a finger into a belt loop and tugged her closer, pressing a short kiss to her lips. “I remember all the important things,” he insisted, and Charlotte rolled her eyes before letting him kiss her again. And again.
Bryan was the first to pipe up, after about fifteen seconds of smooches. “You two wanna get a room or something? ‘Cause we can handle the water park story without you, Tuck.”
Damnit. Calleigh was hoping they’d managed to distract themselves from that one. No such luck, though. Definitely not, as Charlotte cackled and nudged Tucker back to the grill. “Which one? Jared Shepherd or the bikini incident?”
“Oh, God,” Calleigh groaned, reaching for her beer and drinking deep as she watched Eric’s eyes light up. They were going to tell them both now, she just knew it.
“Oh man, I forgot all about the bikini,” Bryan grinned, taking the next burger and passing it to Eric.
“Forgot about it?” Charlotte laughed incredulously. “It’s the most embarrassing one! I mean, come on, flirting your way to a lungful a pool water is nothing compared to public nudity at age fifteen.”
“Public nudity?” Eric asked, grin splitting wide as he turned to face her fully. “I never knew you had an exhibitionist streak.”
“Oh believe me, I don’t,” Calleigh insisted, feeling her cheeks heat slightly with embarrassment. “And I’m not sure you have the right to be so excited about these stories, Charlotte, on account of you weren’t around when they happened.”
“Well, I was,” Bryan grinned, explaining before she could cut him off, “Tucker yanked one of her bikini strings in the wave pool and she lost the whole top on the next surge.”
“I knew it!” Calleigh accused, ignoring the burger set in front of her as she whirled toward Tucker in a flash of temper. “I knew you pulled the string!”
“Thanks a lot, Bry,” Tucker muttered, narrowly missing the bottle cap that Calleigh pitched at his head.
“What-I thought you knew,” he said to Calleigh, looking genuinely surprised before flicking his gaze apologetically to his brother. “I thought she knew.”
“Yeah, no, Bryan,” Tucker corrected, but that shit-eater grin was back "We'd managed to keep that one a secret so far."
"Oops."
~//~
Calleigh found Charlotte in the kitchen, one hand gripping the bottom shelf of an open cupboard, the other braced on the countertop. She could tell by the slump and tremor of her shoulders that she was crying, the tears on her face as she glanced up serving as superfluous confirmation.
“Hey,” she managed, voice cracking as she pulled her hand out of the cupboard, and Calleigh felt her own eyes prickle when she caught sight of the pink ceramic clutched in Charlotte’s fingers.
“Is that..?”
Charlotte nodded, settled the salt and pepper shakers on the counter as Calleigh moved to lean next to her. “I forgot they were even here,” she managed, shaking her head slightly and brushing at her tears with a forced smile as Calleigh traced a fingertip over the back of one pink pig. The pepper shaker, from the single hole on the top of its head. It interlocked with a salt shaker pig - three holes in this one - their bodies draped across each other like they were napping. “Gracie loved ‘em so much - you know how she is about pigs. Gran let her bring them home one day, and they ended up shoved way in back up here. I came in lookin’ for a fresh box of matches, and…”
Charlotte trailed off, shaking her head and knuckling her tears away again. Calleigh swallowed against the lump in her throat and bit her lip hard when a blink sent the first tears rolling down her own cheeks. “Yeah” was all she could think to say. Charlotte’s hand fell on top of hers and squeezed hard, the shakers clutched under both of them. “I can’t believe she’s not here anymore,” Calleigh breathed, shaking her head. “But at the same time… I mean… I…” She wasn’t sure what exactly she was trying to articulate, so she simply gave up. “This shouldn’t be so hard. It’s not like it was… sudden.”
“Doesn’t make it any less final,” Charlotte pointed out, pulsing her hand against Calleigh’s.
Another hollow “yeah” ushered in a few moments of painful silence. Calleigh’s chest felt tight, heavy, like she’d had the breath knocked out of her. Charlotte didn’t look like she was faring any better. They both jumped slightly when the door to the back porch opened up, Eric striding in and then stopping short at the sight of them.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll, uh-” He gestured for the door, and started to turn back the way he’d come, but Calleigh shook her head.
“No. It’s okay. Stay.” She slid her hand from under Charlotte’s, holding it out for Eric and taking a step closer to meet him halfway. When he grasped her fingers, she used her grip to pull him close, then wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his collar. His arms settled around her shoulders, holding her close and rocking her slightly, and Calleigh felt the tight knot of grief in her chest begin to unspool slightly.
Behind her, Charlotte said something about checking on Gracie, then excused herself from the room. Calleigh just shut her eyes and kept breathing.
~//~
"Honey, you can't make blanket statements like 'all reality TV sucks' when you're more devoted to The Amazing Race than to religion and family," Charlotte argued, tossing a few chips into the center of the table. “And I raise.”
"Okay, but The Amazing Race is good reality TV,” Bryan cut in, defending his brother. “It’s a contest."
"So is the Bachelor," Calleigh reasoned, before setting her cards down with a sigh. “I fold.”
"I’m sorry, no,” Eric chuckled, tossing a few chips into the center and swigged his beer. “No, its not. Call."
"It is so," Rob insisted, raising as well. “Have you seen the show? Those girls compete.”
"Rob, man, it’s really not,” Tucker chuckled, showing his cards. “Flush, Ace high.”
Charlotte sighed. “Three of a kind. Nines.”
“Aww,” Bryan cooed sarcastically, having taken up heckling after he folded early with a crap hand. Charlotte threw a napkin In his direction and glared playfully.
“Three tens,” Eric conceded, tossing his cards down.
“Full house,” Rob announced proudly, setting his cards down and reaching for his winnings as Tucker cursed his disappointment. “And I can give you Amazing Race, but I would like to call out Mr. I-Can’t-Believe-You-Call-My-Sisters-After-The-Bachelor on the hours of Food Network Challenge and Iron Chef on our DVR. Those are reality TV, Bry.”
"Again, contest," Bryan argued, tossing his cards toward Charlotte.
"American Idol is a contest,” she reasoned, shuffling the cards as they were passed her way. “And it is definitely reality TV.”
“American Idol is a popularity contest,” Bry insisted, pushing his chair out and standing. “There’s a difference. And we have spent entirely too much time on this conversation, so I’m going to go grab another round of beers and when I get back, I want us to be talking about world events or literature or something.”
“Kill joy!” Charlotte taunted, swatting at him playfully as he passed.
~//~
“So how do you guys feel about Vermont?”
“Mm. Two words,” Calleigh smirked. “Ben. And Jerry.”
“Oh, my two favorite men,” Charlotte sighed, gathering her winnings as everyone slid their cards to Calleigh. “Vermont is all good in my book. Why do you ask, Bry?”
“We’re thinking of having a little... family vacation there,” Bryan explained carefully. “Say… next fall?”
“Are we gettin’ a cottage?” Charlotte grinned, tipping back the last of her beer and looking just a little bit flushed. “You know I always wanted a cottage. Somewhere in the woods, in a part of the country that isn’t so God-awful hot and humid. With a big yard, and lots of trees, where I could easily lose my children and blame the bears.”
“Charlie!” Tucker scolded with a laugh, earning himself a glare.
“They were monsters today, Tuck. Monsters,” she excused with a wave of her hand. “And what have I told you about calling me that?”
“That if I do it, I have to sleep on the couch?”
“That’s right. On the couch, with no nookie, so I’d-“
“TMI,” Bryan insisted, cutting her off. “T. M. I. I do not want to hear the word ‘nookie’ in a sentence that references my brother. Ever.”
“So, why Vermont?” Calleigh asked pointedly, trying to steer the conversation back on topic.
“Why not, Bry?” Charlotte’s thumbnail scratched at the edge of the label on her empty bottle. “We’re all adults.”
“Because it’s legal there,” Rob supplied, winking at Calleigh and watching the look of understanding dawn on her face.
“Adults, yes. But-“
“You tellin’ me you never swapped triumphant tales of your many conquests with your brother?”
“Actually, no. I don’t think my conquests would have interested Tucker all that much.”
“You’re getting married?” Calleigh asked, grinning and reaching over to wrap Rob in a tight hug. “That’s fantastic!”
“Wait - what?” Charlotte slapped her gaze between Bryan and Rob. “When did this happen? Where was I?”
“Talking about my manly sexual prowess,” Tucker smirked, and Bryan pitched a poker chip at his head in protest. He wasn't quite quick enough to dodge this time. “Okay, really? First Calleigh and now you? Is there a bull’s-eye on my forehead?”
“Hasn’t there always been?”
“What did I miss?” Eric asked, returning from a bathroom break with a pit stop by the fridge on his return trip for another round of beer.
“Ace and Gary over here are gettin’ hitched, Tucker is narrowly avoiding projectiles again, Bryan’s being a prude, and I’m throwing my children to the wolves.”
Eric arched an eyebrow at Calleigh. “And what are you up to?”
She held up the deck of cards, shuffled with a flourish. “I’m just dealing.”
“Which one of us is Ace and which is Gary?” Rob wondered aloud, grinning and popping the top off his beer as Eric dropped a kiss against Calleigh’s lips and settled back into the open chair next to her.
Charlotte snorted a laugh, wiggling her brows at Rob. “Depends. Who’s better at drivin’ stick?”
“Okay, Dirty and Dirty, could you knock it off for five minutes? I’d like to have a serious conversation with my brother about his upcoming nuptials,” Tucker chuckled, nudging his wife with an elbow.
“Who actually says ‘nuptials?’” Charlotte sneered cheerfully, swigging from a fresh bottle.
“I do; now hush.”
“You know, Calleigh Jo,” Rob piped up, making Tucker roll his eyes in Bryan’s direction. “You’re the only Duquesne baby left without a ring on their finger.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Calleigh groaned, shaking her head and beginning to deal the cards.
“Not true,” Charlotte insisted, pointing her bottle at her brother-in-law. “Tyler and Gracie are still single.”
“I don’t know,” Tucker grinned, apparently having accepted the futility of trying to keep on topic. “Logan Harrison has quite a crush on Gracie, according to the pre-school moms. She might beat you to the altar, CJ, if you don’t pick up the pace.”
He slid a glance over to Eric, eyeing him appraisingly, and Calleigh felt her cheeks go hot. Eric, for his part, seemed to be mostly unruffled, a low chuckle as he studied his cards the only indication that he was even listening.
“Hey, I have an idea!” Calleigh announced, a little too brightly, her accent thicker after days of home and bottles of beer. “Why don’t we call mom right now, put her on speaker. Let her turn the pressure cooker up a bit more. I mean, y’all are singin’ that song she’s been crowing endlessly since the day I turned thirty; it’s only fair she get the solo.”
“Nah, she’s probably asleep by now,” Tucker grinned, picking up his cards. “Besides, I think it’s high time I got my night in the spotlight. So.” He flicked his gaze back up. “Eric.”
“Don’t,” Calleigh warned, shooting her brother a death glare that may or may not have been genetically passed down through the Duquesne family tree.
“How long do we have to wait until you ask my baby sister to just-“
“Tucker.”
“-give in and-“
“Nookie,” Charlotte sing-songed warningly, offering Calleigh a playful salute a moment later when Tucker’s mouth snapped shut mid-sentence. “I got your back, babygirl.”
“If I tell you that now,” Eric began gamely, smirking at Tucker, “She won't be surprised when I ask.”
“Well, ain't that the mother of all cliffhangers," Charlotte drawled, leveling her sister-in-law with a wide grin as her bottle plunked hard onto the table, and Calleigh choked hard on a mouthful of beer.
~//~
Another beer and three lost hands later, Calleigh excused herself to the upstairs bathroom - Charlotte was currently “emptying the tank,” as she so demurely (and drunkenly) put it, in the one next to the kitchen. She did her business, splashed some water on a face that looked happy and healthy for the first time in weeks, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she opened the door to find a disheveled toddler silhouetted in the light creeping up from the stairwell.
After she caught her breath, hand pressed to her heart to still the hard knock-knock-knocking, she smiled at her niece and squatted down to eye level. “Hey, Gracie.”
Big green eyes blinked sleepily at her before Gracie lifted one fist to rub against them, turning her hand out and wiggling her fingers in a wave. “Hi.”
The combination of the wave and the half-fallen Pebbles ponytail on the top of her head made Calleigh’s heart flop over. Maybe she was biased, but Calleigh was fairly certain that her niece was the most adorable girl on the planet. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Firsty,” Gracie mumbled, holding her arms out to be picked up.
“Ah,” Calleigh nodded knowingly, straightening back up and lifting her niece to rest on her hip. Gracie’s head immediately dropped to her shoulder, wispy curls tickling against her neck. “I see. Well, why don’t we get your some water.”
“Nooo,” she whined, squirming slightly in Calleigh’s arms. “Lem’nade.”
“No, sweetie, it’s too late for lemonade.” Calleigh ignored the way the tiny body twisted in protest. Typical Gracie. “But I bet we could put some water in your princess cup.”
She stilled immediately, cuddling back into Calleigh’s torso. “’Rella.”
“Yeah, Cinderella,” Calleigh murmured quietly, heading for the stairs and navigating them carefully as the room tilted just a little from alcohol and fatigue. “And Belle is on the cup, right?” Gracie nodded, tucking her thumb into her mouth and mumbling something completely unintelligible around it. “Mmhmm. And Ariel?” Another nod, and they were halfway to the kitchen, where someone had clearly just made a good joke (or a good fool of themselves) if the raucous laughter was any indication.
Charlotte was just settling into an amused chuckle when Calleigh and Gracie made their way into the kitchen. She spotted them, froze, blinked twice, then asked with a scowl, “Where did you get that? Put that back.”
“Huh?”
“I put her away hours ago; why is she up?”
“Charlotte!” Tucker snickered, nudging his chin against his wife’s shoulder. He wasn’t nearly as far gone as Charlotte, but Calleigh could tell he wasn’t really sober either. Not that she was one to talk… “Don’t talk about her like that. She’s our daughter.”
“She is. She is our daughter. She is our daughter who spent half the day wailing, and the other half running around like a Tasmanian devil, and I put her to bed hours ago for grown-up time.” She reached for her beer, raised it before taking a sip. “21 and up, Gracie. No beer for you. Only room for one drunk blonde sleepin’ here tonight, and Mama has already submitted her application.”
Calleigh couldn’t help but laugh, catching Eric’s eye with a shake of her head. Charlotte had muttered something early in the evening about her intentions to get good and drunk tonight, and she’d done a bang up job of making it happen. “Don’t worry about it, Charlotte. I’ve got her covered. You keep drinkin.’”
“Like I needed your permission. You’re drunk, too,” Charlotte accused, scowl melting into a sudden grin for reasons unknown.
“Buzzed,” Calleigh corrected. “Not drunk. You’re the one wearing the drunk crown tonight.”
“Oh, there should be a crown,” Charlotte agreed, nodding and grinning.
“Crown?” Gracie asked, her head popping up fast enough to make her ponytail bobble. “’Rella wears crown. ’M firsty!”
“I know, sweetie,” Calleigh soothed, rubbing Gracie’s back and heading for the kiddie cup cupboard. “We’re going to get you your princess cup, and fill it all up with water-“
“The hell you are,” Charlotte muttered. “Half way, no more. You fill that thing to the top and she’s gonna wet right through that diaper, and I just put fresh sheets in the crib this morning.”
“No crib! Big girl bed!” Gracie insisted, sleepy scowl going toe-to-toe with her mama’s mostly-drunken one.
Charlotte looked like she might be about to say something before Tucker interrupted. “No, babygirl. You know the rules - if you get out of the big girl bed after hugs and kisses, you have to go in the crib.”
Gracie’s scowl twisted, going that precise combination of angry and despairing that only toddlers can really manage. “Big girl!” she wailed, drawing it out into a loud, sobbing wind up to a tantrum. “Big girl bed! Gigi’s a big girl!”
“Oh, Jesus,” Charlotte groaned, dropping her head back and her eyes closed. “Gigi’s gonna drive her Mama into an early grave.”
“Gigi?” Bryan asked, quirking a brow and idly shuffling the cards.
“Yes. Gigi,” Charlotte sighed, exasperated. “I gave her a perfectly lovely name - Clara Grace. It’s a pretty name. It’s a delightful, feminine, respectable name. But she hasn’t quite mastered ‘Gracie’ yet, so she has recently dubbed herself Gigi. Gigi. Sounds like a French hooker. Gigi the Paris Streetwalker. Works in a bordello, swills booze with sailors, and gets all her profits stolen by some overbearing Madame-”
“Oh my God, you’re drunk,” Rob laughed, shaking his head at Charlotte. “You only go on these inane soliloquies when you are three sheets to the wind.”
“Not three,” Charlotte insisted, holding up a finger. “Maybe two.” A second finger popped up as she shook her head. “Not three.”
Calleigh met Rob’s eye over the toddler still wailing into her shoulder about her big girl bed, mouthing a silent “wow,” and laughing as she turned the tap on, sliding the cup underneath.
“Gracie,” Tucker spoke up calmly, one hand maneuvering to rub the back of Charlotte’s neck as Calleigh filled the princess cup to precisely half. “It’s night-night time. Quiet voices.”
One green eye peeked open and stared him down balefully. “You’re gonna try to logic our two year old out of a tantrum? Have you met this child?”
“Char,” he insisted quietly, pressing a soothing kiss to her brow as she muttered something about never getting the baby back to sleep now that she was good and well awake. “I’ll take her,” he murmured, moving to stand before Eric waved him back.
“You know what? You guys stay here,” he suggested. “Calleigh and I will put her back down.”
Charlotte’s head popped back up, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight against the vertigo for a moment before blinking them open. “You’d do that?”
“Yeah, it’s no problem. I have nieces; plenty of practice.”
She flicked her gaze to Calleigh, who had managed to quiet Gracie down by giving her the cup. “Marry him. Marry this man. I mean it.”
Calleigh rolled her eyes and nodded her head in the direction of the door, Eric following dutifully after her.
~//~
By the time Gracie was asleep again, Calleigh was half-dozing herself, curled next to Gracie in the big girl bed - which was only big if you were two. In your mid-thirties, it was a bit cramped, and she’d been a little afraid it might collapse under her weight before Eric had pointed out that she wasn’t exactly heavy, and he’d parked himself on his niece’s bed more than once for story time with no major disasters. So she’d relented at Gracie’s request for snuggles, and read her a story from the book Eric propped on her hip. He’d turned the pages, read all the Prince’s dialogue, and it had been so ridiculously domestic that Calleigh thought for a moment that maybe, just maybe, someday this could be her life. Kids, and a husband, and something quiet and normal that didn’t involve guns and death and pain.
Gracie had nodded off somewhere in the last few pages, and now they were just laying there, quiet, Calleigh’s fingers coasting along Gracie’s arm to the rhythm of Eric’s soothing strokes along her spine, over her shoulders, back down. It tickled, but she fought the urge to squirm, unwilling to wake the baby again.
“Stop that,” she murmured after a few minutes. “It’s gonna put me to sleep.”
“Mm.” She felt his lips on the back of her head, his fingers brushing her hair away from her neck to drop another kiss there. “You want to head out soon?”
“No. Yeah. Maybe.” The rush of breath as he chuckled into her neck sent goosebumps flaring over her skin and she turned her head to smile at him. “What?”
“Can’t make up your mind?”
“Well, I’m having fun,” she reasoned. “And it’s been so long since we’ve all been together, just us. But yeah… tired. And I’m sure Charlotte’s sent that third sheet to the wind by now, so we’ll be getting kicked out before too long.”
He laughed again, and she couldn’t fight the shiver this time, but Gracie did little more than sigh. “I like her.”
“She likes you,” Calleigh told him. She hadn’t needed to ask to figure that much out. “They all do. You fit in well.”
She watched his smile, slow and pleased. “Yeah?”
“Mmhmm.” She tilted her chin up so he could kiss her softly, murmuring, “I knew you would.”
“Almost didn’t make it here,” he reminded gently, and she just nodded, closed her eyes and let him rest his forehead against her. She didn’t want to go there again, not right now.
Gracie stirred suddenly, letting out a little whine, and Eric’s palm slid across Calleigh to rest on the toddler’s belly as Calleigh murmured softly to her. She settled a moment later, and Calleigh kept her voice low when she told him, “She’s a fusser. Always has been. Charlotte likes to say that she came out screaming and never stopped. Grew out of her colic and straight into temper tantrums. Tyler had been a pretty mild-mannered kid - high energy, but not really a handful - and then he had to compete with Gracie for attention. Now, they’re both just nuts.”
“They’re kids,” he reminded. “They’re like that. Screaming and running around is what they do best.”
“Yeah. It’s just hard on Charlotte, I think. Especially the last few months. She and Clara were close, so she ended up shouldering a lot of the whole process of moving her into assisted living, and making sure the house was taken care of, and then the kids all day on top of that. I can’t imagine working from home, with two little kids running around all day.”
“You could handle it.”
She shook her head, chuckled a little. “No way. I’d go stir crazy if I wasn’t in the lab, out in the field. I need my time.”
“Yeah,” he smirked. “You’re right, I guess. Still, I think you’d be a good mom.”
A smile tugged the corner of her lip for just a moment before slipping away as she studied his face, his eyes. He meant it, she knew. But more than that, she was beginning to get the feeling that he meant she’d be a good mom to his kids. All in all, it wasn’t a bad idea, but it probably wasn’t something she should be thinking about when she was tipsy and they were on the rocks. So she just smiled again, and told him, “So would you.”
“Be a good mom?” he teased, chuckling slightly, and she rolled her eyes.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, still smiling as he pressed his lips to hers again, dotted a kiss onto her nose, another on her forehead.
As much as she was enjoying the quiet, the affection, she couldn’t help her reluctant, “We should go back downstairs.”
Eric nodded toward Gracie. “Is she out for good?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
He reached over and lifted Gracie’s arm carefully, then let it drop. It fell with a heavy thud; Gracie stayed dead asleep. “Oh yeah,” he grinned. “She’s definitely out.”
~//~
“You know what I think,” Charlotte mused slowly, fingertip on the lip of her empty bottle, tipping until it balanced precariously, then letting it settle back down before repeating the process.
“I think you’re gonna spill your beer,” Bryan grinned, tucking the poker chips back into their holder as Rob tucked the cards back into their deck and Calleigh cleared the landscape of longnecks from the table.
Charlotte picked up her bottle, lifted it toward Bryan in what might have been a toast, and handed it to Calleigh as she made her way toward the sink with the empties. “Too late for that, Bry. I already drank my beer.”
Rob snorted a laugh, shaking his head before asking her, “What do you think, my little Georgia peach?”
Charlotte turned immediately to Tucker. “That. See? That is an appropriate nickname for a girl like me.”
“I think Drunky McGee is an appropriate nickname for a girl like you,” Calleigh teased from the other side of the kitchen, earning herself a half-assed glare.
“Shut up, Calleigh.” Charlotte’s grin took all the punch out of the words.
“What do you think?” Rob asked again, rolling his eyes when Charlotte just frowned at him.
“About what?”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Tucker laughed, reaching over to rub the back of his wife’s neck again. “You said you were thinkin’ something.”
“I did?” She frowned in thought, brows pulling together before shooting up in realization. “I did! Yes. I did. I was.”
Still over by the sink, Calleigh buried her face into Eric’s shoulder to stifle her laughter. Eric hid his behind the façade of a kiss to her hair.
“I was thinking,” Charlotte began again. “That you and Rob - Bryan and Rob - should spend the night at Clara’s house with Calleigh and Eric.”
Bryan scowled, shaking his head, while Calleigh tried to figure out which two of the four of them were sober enough to drive. Thank God the house wasn’t far. “Why would we do that, Charlotte?”
“Because…” Charlotte settled her elbow on the table, leaned in on them slightly. “My son is away, my daughter is asleep, and I would like to get properly laid.”
Calleigh’s laugh came on so fast that there wasn’t time to muffle it behind Eric, but she needn’t have bothered - she certainly wasn’t the only one who had dissolved into amused snickering.
“Charlotte!” Tucker laughed, giving her a playful shove that nearly sent her off her chair before her reflexes kicked in to balance her.
“What? This is good for you, too, mister!”
“Charlotte, you are never gonna make it to sex,” Rob argued, eyeing her appraisingly. “You’re so drunk, you’ll be out the minute you hit the mattress.”
“Not true.” She held up a finger again, then pointed it at Rob. It bobbed slightly, and she narrowed her eyes in an attempt to keep it trained on his face. “Not. True. My kids are away, I can get you two losers out of my house; this is the only alone time Tucker and I get and I intend to use it well.”
“Calleigh and I will take the kids tomorrow night,” Eric offered out of nowhere, earning a jab in the ribs and wide, threatening eyes from his girlfriend. “Both of them. You can, uh, have the night to yourselves.”
Charlotte jaw nearly dropped, her body straightening slightly in her seat. “You’d do that?”
“We’d do that?” Calleigh echoed in a low hiss.
“Sure.” He smiled at Charlotte, grinned down at Calleigh. “It’ll be fun.”
Charlotte cackled, shaking her head and settling back in her chair. “Yeah, you say that now. Tyler has t-ball tomorrow night. Over at Harper’s Field.” She shifted her gaze to her sister-in-law, either oblivious to the look on her face or just not giving a damn. “You remember how to get there?”
“I do,” Calleigh answered slowly, mentally ticking off ways she could make Eric pay for this. She’d been thinking she’d cook dinner, go through boxes, have a quiet night with her boyfriend. Not chase her adorable-but-insane niece and nephew around a baseball field all night.
“Well then, that’s that.” Still grinning like she’d won the jackpot, Charlotte kicked Rob lightly under the table. “You two can stay.” Her gaze slid to Calleigh and Eric. “You two go rest up.”
They made it all the way through their goodbyes, into the car, and halfway down the drive before Calleigh whirled on Eric. “You are in so much trouble.”
Eric just shrugged a shoulder and grinned.