Say Hello to the Past (CSI fanfiction)

Getting Ready for Baby

(AN: just a short, happy chapter I wrote to take place after season 6; episodes 14 "Killer" and 15 "Pirates of the Third Reich" because those two episodes were pretty rough.)

The Stokes family were enjoying their last night of quite before all the nieces and nephews arrived with a few of Nick's siblings to help set up the nursery. Again, Nick and Emma Grace were sitting on the couch while Marie and Katlin shared the blowup mattress on the floor. Maggie Hope spent time sitting on the couch and would move to the mattress when she wanted to. 

"Can we watch one more movie before bed?" Six-year-old Katlin asked.

"Yes, we can, Buttercup." Nick had two rough weeks at work, what with a killing hitman being on the lose, and finding Lady Heather's estranged daughter tortured and killed in the desert. So he wanted to spend as much alone time with his girls as he could before his family arrived. 

Emma Grace felt her stomach move at Nick's words. She locked eyes with Nick and realized that Nick had felt the baby move.

"Did that-" Nick began to ask.

"Yeah. Yeah, Nicky. Our daughter just moved." At Emma Grace's astounded tone the baby moved again. Marie and Katlin wanted to feel the baby move, so Nick instructed the girls on where to place their hands. They were ecstatic when the baby moved upon hearing Nick's voice.

  A week after closing the case concerning the torture and death of Lady Heather's daughter, Zoe, Nick and Emma Grace went to the doctor's for Emma Grace's check-up. At twenty-three weeks pregnant, Emma Grace and Nick found out their first child was going to be a little girl!  

Now, as Emma Grace was in her twenty-fourth week of pregnancy, the family of five, soon to be six, spent the night watching another movie and talking to the now moving baby in Emma Grace's stomach.

The next morning Nick's parents, his siblings, and the nieces and nephews started pouring into town. Of course, all the family members wanted to feel the newest Stokes baby move in Emma Grace's stomach.

"Jessica, Jennifer, do the two of you want to help me bake the cakes?" The thirteen-year-old twins said yes and went into the kitchen to help Emma Grace with the two cakes that she was preparing. The family had two birthdays to celebrate. Andrew was turning eighteen and Lexi was turning five.

While Jessica, Jennifer, and Emma worked in the kitchen, Donna, Nick's sister, twenty-year-old Ashley, and sixteen-year-old Emily were in the remodeled guest bedroom painting. Nick, his dad, his brother, and a few of his brothers-in-law were busy putting furniture and a crib together.

"So, have you thought about when you're going to ask her to marry you again?" Chris asked his brother as they worked.

"I'm going to wait until after our little girl is born," Nick informed his older brother.

"Do you think she's realizing that you're not doing this out of duty but out of love?" It was Bill, Nick's dad, who asked the question.

Nick looked over at the woman he was madly in love with. Emma Grace was laughing with their nieces. A satisfied smile spread across Nick's face. "I think she knows I love her, and I always have."

After the family finished half of the nursery, they celebrated Andrew and Lexi's birthdays. After the gifts had been unwrapped and the cake had been eaten, Emma Grace sat at the kitchen table sipping a cup of tea while Nick's sisters Sandra and Kimberly cleaned up the dishes.

"So, have you come to the conclusion that all of us already know?" Kimberly asked.

"What conclusion is that Kim?" Emma asked while sipping her tea.

"That Nick is hopelessly in love with you, and always has been." Kimberly looked at Emma Grace as if she were crazy for not realizing that was what she had been referring to.

Emma Grace looked down into her teacup and smiled to herself as she thought about all she and Nick had been through.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know Nicky loves me. I love him too." Emma Grace couldn't stop smiling.

"Are you going to accept next time he proposes to you?" Sandra had turned away from the sink to face Emma Grace.

"I'm going to." Emma Grace's smile seemed to get wider at her answer.

Kimberly and Sandra looked at each other and let out little squeals of joy before they went back to washing and putting away the dishes.

Before the week was up, an impromptu baby shower for Nick and Emma Grace took place. Their family members were there along with all of the CSI team. Some of Emma Grace's friends from work showed up too. Emma Grace and Nick couldn't have been more content during this season in their lives together.