Baby Greg's chapter 3
Jul. 17th, 2006 06:00 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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nickngregAuthor: Bry
Chapter: 3/(10?)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nick and "Greg". It's kinda gen for now, involving all the CSI's.
Summary: Nick and Catherine take baby Greg shopping.
Warning: Fictional science that's not very scientific.
A/N: Remember the clarifications of before, and read the first chapter here.
Catherine grabbed a few free diapers along with the borrowed car seat, much to Nick’s relief. They strapped the boy into the backseat of Nick’s vehicle, and Nick drove upon Catherine’s direction. First they would visit a used baby clothes and equipment store to pick up a few items for as cheaply as possible. Surely, when big Greg came back, he’d reimburse them. Or so, that’s what they continued to tell each other.
Yes, they got some stares and polite smiles when they entered with the practically naked toddler, but nobody seemed to care too much otherwise, as the two immediately set looking through the little boys outfits.
“This one’s cute,” Nick announced, removing a baby blue sleeper.
“It is. It’s also for a one-year-old. We need eighteen to twenty-four months.”
“Oh.” He put the outfit back.
“Look at this,” Catherine said mischievously, holding out a navy blue little sailor suit.
Nick chuckled through a smirk.
“Oh, Greg, wouldn’t you look adorable?”
Greg looked up from the truck he amused himself with, then, uninterested, promptly returned to his play.
“So...” Nick began, still searching the rack. “You really believe this is him?”
“You don’t?”
Nick scoffed, half-laughing through the exhalation. “Catherine, come on. People don’t just...turn back into babies.”
“So who do you think this is?”
Nick shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Looks like Greg to me.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t trust Grissom?”
“Look... I trust Grissom, I just don’t...” He sighed. “He’s not always right.”
“That's very true. But take that psychic who helped save your life. Grissom gave him a chance, and he was right.”
“Hey, for all we know that guy was in it on it.”
“Possibly, but he still showed us things we might have missed otherwise. Things that brought us just close enough to save you. If Grissom hadn’t given him a chance, then who knows where we’d be...”
Nick sighed heavily, examining her reasoning, though still hesitant to give in. “I guess I can only go along for now. I sure hope he’s right, otherwise we’ve likely got some mom worried sick. And that’s not to mention the trouble this’d cause.”
“Do you think Grissom would risk that?”
Nick paused for a moment, looking down at the boy. “No.”
They ended up purchasing a few daytime outfits as well as a few sleepers for bedtime, and dressed him for the day in a red cotton romper outfit, with snaps down the center and at the crotch, along with a yellow sailboat on the left side of the chest. They also purchased some secondhand toys to hopefully hold his attention, then were off to a “Super” store for all their grocery and child-proofing needs.
Once parked, Catherine unbuckled Greg, removing him from the car seat while Nick stood beside. He watched her set him down to slam the door shut, and then watched Greg stomp his feet, so keenly interested in the sound of his new sandals. Nick also watched the boy begin his awkward run toward the store, behind the parking lot’s row of cars. Then, of course, Nick began his own run, shouting for Greg, “Hey! Get back here!”
But they weren’t fast enough. Sure, they saw the white lights of ‘reverse’ pop on, and saw the car begin to roll, and screamed for him to STOP. But it wasn’t enough, and soon the giggling toddler had disappeared beneath the SUV.
Nick’s fist pounded the metal, creating a noise almost louder than his yells, and the vehicle stopped, only a third out of its parking space. The woman inside immediately exited, angry at first, until an onlooker shouted, “There’s a baby under there!” and she saw Nick crawling under the SUV and calling for the child named Greg.
The boy was crying, screaming tears as he crawled toward Nick, and Nick couldn’t have been more relieved to hear it. He helped tug little Greg out, who immediately clung to him despite Nick’s efforts to check the baby’s body for injuries, most specifically his head. But it seemed he only had a scraped knee and elbow, and so when somebody offered to call for help, Nick assured them, “No, no; that’s okay. We’re with the LVPD. He’s gonna be fine.”
Inside, Catherine offered to get some band-aids, while Nick went to clean Greg up in the men’s restroom. A few women awed at the poor whimpering baby, their faces creasing with concern and asking if he was okay as Nick walked past the front lanes in search of the restroom. They all knew it was very different from the tantrum cry they had learned to ignore. Nick assured them the child was fine, and he just needed to find a restroom to clean him up; they pointed him to it, just a small ways away.
By the time they entered, Greg’s terror had lessened some. As Nick began to run the water, Greg raised from his tight embrace around Nick’s neck, to point out the wound on his knee. “Owwie,” he dribbled.
“Yeah, I know. We’re gonna get that cleaned up, okay, buddy?”
Greg watched Nick’s eyes in the mirror, his breath still erratic, and eyes very wet. Then his face broke back into tears, and he cried quite miserably into Nick’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Nick called sympathetically, his hand going to rub Greg’s back. “It’s okay. Shhh. You’re okay now. Shhhh.” Nick watched himself in the mirror—his hand on that small back and his eyes soft with concerned regret. “Hey. Hey, Greg, you wanna do something for me? I need you to help me out.”
Greg leaned up again, sniffling and cautiously looking for what Nick might be referring to.
“See, I need to wash my hands now, but I’ve only got one available. So I was thinking, maybe you could help me. You wanna help wash my hand? Only a really smart boy could do it. Ya think that’s you?”
Greg watched Nick’s hand dip under the water, then checked Nick’s eyes with his tender own. He nodded.
“Okay, just push that thing in right there and get me some soap,” Nick instructed, holding his hand beneath the dispenser. “That’s right. Now, can ya rub it in real good?”
Both of Greg’s little hands work all over the front and back of Nick’s, even taking each finger to lather individually.
“Think we’re ready to rinse?”
Greg nodded confidently, then took Nick’s wrist—again with both hands—to push under the faucet.
“Man, you sure are good at this.”
Greg smiled bashfully.
“Now let’s just get the rest rinsed off your hands.” And so he helped Greg, then pulled some paper towels from the dispenser to dry them off. “Greg?” he asked upon dropping the used paper towels into the wastebasket. “You think it’d be okay if we get your owwies cleaned up?”
Greg’s eyebrows crumpled back to their injured expression, and he whimpered, “No.”
“Are you sure? I promise I’ll be really gentle.” Though Greg only continued to stare hesitantly, Nick gathered up some clean paper towels, and dipped one under the water’s stream. “See? I’m being very careful,” he said as he swept the dampened portion over the torn skin of Greg’s knee, and then did the same with Greg’s elbow. “That wasn’t so bad.” He then set Greg down so he could wash his other hand, and the boy was actually content to be released, as he immediately began to wander over to the few stalls behind them.
A man had joined them in the restroom only half-way into their clean-up, and sure enough, after checking under each other stall, Greg came to the only occupied one. Peeking his head underneath, he greeted the man with a loud, “Hi.” And just as he lowered to crawl underneath for a more thorough introduction, Nick’s hand scooped under his chest to lift him up.
“No, no. You leave that man alone. Now we gotta wash your hands all over again,” he said, turning the water back on.
When the man finally exited the stall, Nick made a prompt move to apologize. “I’m, uh...sorry about that.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” the man kindly replied, now at the sink beside Nick. “I’ve got a little girl about his age at home. One time she invited herself into the restroom right after me. Wife looked away for a split-second, and my daughter slipped right inside. She crawled under each occupied stall looking for me.”
Nick’s friendly smile widened as he tossed the recently used brown paper away. “Yeah, well, I’m hopin’ he won’t give me too much more trouble.” And then he was out the door.
“Hey,” Catherine greeted him, initiating a walk toward the store’s little food court. “I couldn’t find any band-aids with the cartoon characters in a size big enough for Greg’s scrapes, but they did have these neon ones.”
“I swear I saw big Greg wearin’ a pink one like that just last week.”
“You did.” And so she took one out and began to unpeel its paper outer layer, while Nick sat Greg up on a table. “I see you got some big boo-boo’s, huh?” She then covered each wound after glazing them with some antibacterial cream, and Greg just watched with intrigued caution, smiling when Nick told him how cool they looked.
Nick carried Greg back to the front entrance while Catherine removed a cart from one of the long interconnected lines of them. But as Nick attempted to slip Greg’s legs through the square holes at the cart’s fold-out seat, those legs immediately stiffened. Greg began to scream again, desperately clinging to Nick and stomping on the plastic seat in defiance.
“Greg, don’t you want to sit in the cart like a big boy?” Nick asked.
“Noooo,” he cried, a tinge of his earlier terror twisted within his tears.
“Okay.” He nodded toward Catherine, who took hold of the cart’s front handle and began to push. “You can stay with me.”
Eventually Greg settled, and didn’t seem too interested as they picked out the toddler entrees and other perfect foods for small fingers. And by the time they reached the diapers and wipes and pacifiers and other sorts of baby gear, he had passed out, curled into Nick’s neck with a thumb in his mouth.
“You think Greg sucked his thumb when he was little?” Catherine asked, tossing a package of toddler utensils into the cart.
“Maybe. He did say he had a whole buncha work done to his teeth. That might explain it.” He looked down at the almost full cart, examining their bounty. “So, you think this is enough to sustain him?” Nick asked.
“Depends on how long he stays this way.”
Nick nodded to himself, thoughtful.
Soon they were at the checkout lane, semi-crowded for a weekday morning. Though these conditions also existed with only a few lanes open, thus forcing the customers to actually stand in line, a mere couple people deep.
Nick helped remove whatever items he could with his free hand from the front seat of the cart, while Catherine dealt with the back. She also pulled out her checkbook as the cashier rung the items up, leaving Nick to simply stand, watch, and wait.
The woman standing behind him didn’t seem quite so content with the situation, however. Or so Nick supposed, when she quite loudly stated to her girlfriend, “Can you believe people still let their kids do that? That’s why we fixed Bobby at one year. Never had a problem with him since.” She ‘tisked’ noisily. “A boy that big, still sucking his thumb.”
“Excuse me?”
“You should know you’re ruining that boy’s teeth.”
Nick’s eyebrow creased, the other raising in his cynicism. “I’m not doing anything, thank you.” And he turned away from them.
And the woman turned back to her friend. “It’s child abuse if you ask me.”
He tried to ignore her latest comment, but when Greg suddenly snapped his head up, beginning to whine in his confusion as a woman’s hand quickly retreated, he had to respond. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, the pitch of his voice higher in his appall, especially disturbed as the sleepy Greg began to cry.
“I’m doing him a favor, that’s what I’m doing.”
“You have no right to touch my kid,” he replied, jaw then clenching in his disdain, while a comforting hand offered Greg his thumb back.
She shrugged, responding with a superior gaze, “Somebody has to be the grown up.”
His jaw clenched even tighter, dark eyes glaring at her as he slipped between the cart and the opposing lane toward Catherine. “I think we’re gonna go get some air,” he whispered, trying to restrain its low growl.
“I’ll meet you outside,” she responded, glancing toward the ‘women’ with as much contempt as Nick had.
The cashier seemed to feel the same way, and offered Nick a supportive but apologetic smile as he walked away.
He stood just outside the doors with Greg, in the quiet shade with the soft breeze. Nick shushed him back to sleep as soon as they exited the building, and so Nick just stood there, rubbing Greg’s back, his cheek resting against the boy's soft hair as he stared thoughtfully at nothing.
His heart twitched then, as it dawned on him, having this warm baby in his arms, so contently snuggled into him. So safe with him, and so hesitant to leave. Maybe this really was their Greg. And he needed them, as only they could help him. Not only to protect him from the serious dangers Greg was now too ‘little’ to recognize, but to simply take care of him, too. And to shield him from those who would so likely love to seize the opportunity to dissect and study such a ‘miracle’, thereby ending Greg’s life as he could ever hope to know it again. Nick was all Greg really had to depend on now—he was the one—until Greg was ‘big’ enough to do it on his own again. Assuming that time would ever come...
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Awwww!
Date: 2006-07-17 03:49 pm (UTC)Re: Awwww!
Date: 2006-07-17 05:54 pm (UTC)And, yes, chapter two is right here (http://community.livejournal.com/nickngreg/603798.html#cutid1). I didn't link directly because I figured people could follow the tags. But, well, now they've got the direct link :)
Re: Awwww!
Date: 2006-07-18 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 06:26 pm (UTC)Love the bashfully Greggo, I would paid to see that smile.
Love love daddy Nick, love it when he say that and love to see that too.
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Date: 2006-07-20 05:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 02:44 pm (UTC)I saw a great movie yesterday entitled "Little Man", the website is www.littlemanfilm.com You should totally check it out, it's about a same sex couple and their preemie. I won't give the plot away, but it is definitely one of the best features I've seen in a long time. It was so touching and I cried through most of it because it's just filled with so much pure love. Take it easy!
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Date: 2006-07-20 05:27 am (UTC)And, aw, what a shame it is that that movie has to share its name with a Wayans Brothers film.
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Date: 2006-07-20 07:44 pm (UTC)love it!
Date: 2007-07-09 09:41 pm (UTC)Re: love it!
Date: 2007-07-10 02:00 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed it so :)
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Date: 2008-01-24 06:08 pm (UTC)