Title: Agenhina
By: Caroline Crane
Pairing: Nick/Greg
Rating: PG
Note: Warnings for babies and unrelenting sap.
Summary: Nick and Greg toy with parenthood.

He's not sure how long they've been standing here. Five minutes, maybe ten, shoulder to shoulder and both of them staring down at the sleeping baby in the crib. Nick doesn't get how she can sleep through all the noise coming from the rest of the house, high-pitched shrieks from the kids and the low murmur of adult conversation. It should be enough to wake the dead, but so far she hasn't even flinched.

"How can she sleep through all that?"

Nick grins when Greg says out loud what he's been thinking, but he doesn't take his eyes off the baby when he answers. "Kids. They're something."

"Can they all sleep through a tornado?"

Nick does look up then, flinching at yet another high squeal of delight from one of the kids in the next room. "Don't tell me you've never been around a kid before."

Greg shrugs, still staring at the baby like this really is the first time he's seen one up close. "I was an only child."

"What, no cousins or anything?"

"Just me." As he says it Greg reaches out, hand hovering over the fuzzy pink blanket just for a second before he pulls it back again. "She's still breathing, right?"

"Yeah, G, she's still breathing," Nick answers, trying and failing to hide a grin. "They're not all this quiet, Bobby and Shaun got lucky. A few of my nieces and nephews kept my sisters awake for the first couple years."

Greg lets out a distracted 'hmm', but Nick can tell he's not really listening. He's still staring at the kid like he's afraid she's going to break or stop breathing or maybe just wake up. It's kind of…cute, in a weird way, because Nick never really thought about the fact that Greg might not be used to kids. His hand's hovering above the crib again, fingers twitching like he wants to touch but he's afraid of what will happen if he does.

"You can touch her if you want, Greg, she's not going to break."

"What if she wakes up?" Greg asks, but he sounds so hopeful that Nick can't help smiling.

"So we'll blame the screaming kids in the living room."

Greg grins at that, glancing at Nick just for a second before he reaches down and traces a tiny hand with one finger. She doesn't wake up, but her hand opens and before Greg has time to panic she's holding onto him, five tiny little fingers wrapped around his. His eyes are wide and he looks a little scared, but pleased too, like maybe he passed some kind of secret baby test.

"Of course, now you're stuck here until she lets go."

That gets him another grin, and Greg's expression tells him he really doesn't mind that plan. "Did you ever think about it?"

"Think about what?"

"Having kids," Greg says, still staring at the tiny hand clasped around his finger.

The question takes Nick by surprise, partly because he has thought about it, but mostly because he never really expected Greg to be thinking about it. There's been a lot of talk about babies since Bobby took six weeks off to go pick up his kid, though, and once he came back and started passing pictures around it was impossible to avoid at least thinking about it.

"I guess," he finally answers, gaze fixed on the baby so he doesn't have to look at Greg. "I mean it's crossed my mind, but with the job and all…"

"I bet your family expected you to have a couple already."

And he can't really deny that, but they also expected him to settle down with some nice girl and move back to Dallas once he 'got this whole Vegas thing out of his system'. "Yeah, well, some things don't work out the way we expect."

"So will you regret it if you don't?"

He thinks he knows what Greg's asking, what he's trying to say without actually saying it. It's not like they've really talked about it, but they've been together long enough for him to consider this thing between them serious, and eventually they're going to have to talk about what that means. He just wasn't expecting to have that conversation at Sammie's first birthday party.

"Greg..." he begins, but that's as far as he gets before the baby stirs, letting out a little cry and when Greg starts and pulls his hand back she gets even louder.

"I wondered where you two disappeared to," a voice from behind them says, startling Nick and he's not surprised to find Bobby leaning against the door watching them. He wonders just how long they've had an audience – thinks from the way Bobby's smiling that it's been awhile – but before he can ask Greg's stammering an apology.

"I didn't mean to, I just…"

"It's okay," Bobby interrupts, and when he smiles Greg relaxes visibly. He pushes past them and reaches into the crib, lifting Sammie up and when he smiles just for her Nick gets what Greg means about regret. "Can't have the birthday girl sleeping through her own party anyway, can we? I'm just going to change her and then we'll be out. You guys go on."

Bobby glances at them long enough to smile again, and Nick nods his acknowledgement before he steers Greg out of the room. The living room is a madhouse of kids running around, Lindsey leading the younger ones in some kind of crazy game of tag while Catherine and Warrick look on. Even Sara looks like she's having a good time, flirting badly with some coworker of Shaun's and Nick's surprised she's lasted so long in a roomful of kids.

There are times when he misses his family. Times when he tries to convince himself that his parents were right, that if he'd just stayed home and settled down he could have been happy living that life. But he tried it that way and it didn't work, and he knows he's happier with Greg than he would have been if he'd stayed in Texas. Besides, the people in this room feel an awful lot like family, and when he looks around he knows he's not missing anything at all.