Title: Navigating Texas
By: amazonqueenkate
Spoilers: Vague references to "Grave Danger."
Rating: General.
Pairing: Nick Stokes/Bobby Dawson
Summary: Nick navigates Christmas in Texas and shares his secrets.
Author's Notes: Written for and beta-read by the wonderful [info]sarcasticsra, who desperately wanted a realistic Nick-comes-out fic and decided on Bobby as the boyfriend for it. I am actually working on a sort of prequel, but I can't do anything in the "normal" order of things. ;)
As a side note, I have been told by several people that there was once a scene in CSI in which Bobby Dawson talks about having a partner and a daughter, and that it was cut from the episode. I liked the idea of him having the daughter, and so I played with that.
Disclaimer: If I was Bruckheimer and Zuicker and that crew, I'd totally use my clout to rule the world. But since I'm not, I can only briefly borrow this fictional world and twist up what's inside.


"What do you say about coming to Texas?"
Nick asks the question as they wander out of Theater Seven, still armed with their drinks and still munching on stale-when-they-bought-it-popcorn. Bobby pauses when it tumbles from his mouth and frowns up at him, crunching speculatively on a kernel.

Realizing too late what, exactly, he just asked, Nick rubs the back of his neck. "Never mind," he amends, and starts walking again. The theater was packed, surprising him; Bobby had sworn that it'd be, but Nick – knowing less about those things – had rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to ask who besides them would really want to see a movie about gay cowboys.

By the time Bobby catches up with him, Nick is almost all the way to the exit, his hands in his pockets and his eyes trained on the door. Bobby doesn't say anything – just keeps munching – but Nick can guess everything going through his head. It's been a year, now, after all, that they've been seeing one another, and he's never once brought up Texas. Even when his parents came to Las Vegas during "the incident" – he never calls it anything else, and now, neither does Bobby – he didn't mention that he'd been seeing someone for the last five months. Most people would, but Nick didn't; he talked about his friends, his dog, the weather, but never once brought up a love life.

Of course, most people don't have William and Jillian Stokes for parents, live in the Bible belt, or have uncles in the Ku Klux Klan.

"Where'd that come from?" Bobby finally demands once they climb into Nick's truck and he's started the ignition. Nick presses a button to turn on the satellite radio – his birthday present – but Bobby immediately switches it off and shoots him a look that informs him he should not avoid this conversation right now. He resists an urge to roll his eyes and backs out of the parking spot. "And if you tell me that Heath Ledger makes you think of home, I'll shoot you and make it look like an accident."

Nick snorts and focuses his eyes forward. The city is as dark as it ever gets and the air is a bit chilly for Vegas, and – after he feels Bobby staring at him just long enough to make him uncomfortable – he shrugs his shoulders. "I was just thinking aloud," he responds finally, but he can tell by the way the staring intensifies that it's not a good enough answer. "I just…" He sighs. "You said it yourself last week; you've got Lisa this Christmas and don't want to drag her all the way out to Alabama just to sit in your mother's house and drink non-alcoholic eggnog with the adults. Or something like that."

"Actually," Bobby corrects him, "it's word-for-word. You've been hanging out with Grissom for too long."

"Guess so." He allows himself the ghost of a smile, but Bobby's still looking at him, and he sighs again. "Look. I didn't mean to ask it, okay? I get it, and I didn't mean it. It's fine."

Bobby raises an eyebrow, and Nick's pretty sure he's going to tell him it's not fine, but then he closes his mouth and turns on the radio, instead.

==

"Daddy! Nicky!"

Nick barely has time to close the door before Lisa is upon them both, grasping Bobby around the legs and nearly sending him tripping through the doorway. He smiles as Bobby hoists his daughter up and gives her a bear-hug, nuzzling his face briefly in her ridiculous blonde ringlets. "Hey, babydoll," he greets, juggling her onto his hip. She's five, and Nick figures that no man should be able to hold a five-year-old like she's weightless, but Bobby can. Nick wants to learn that trick, someday. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

Lisa sends him an indignant look, an expression Bobby swears his ex, Scott, taught her. "Aunt Jacqui said I could stay up to see you and Nicky come home if I didn't tell you she was smoking ciggyrettes again." There's a bellowing sound from the kitchen, and the girl's expression turns immediately guilty. "Whoops."

"Whoops is right, kiddo!" Jacqui announces, emerging from the kitchen with her purse over her shoulder and a faux-angry look on her face. "You just wait until next time Daddy and Nicky ask me to watch you. Instead of Disney, we'll watch crime shows."

Bobby laughs and Nick rolls his eyes, and as the little girl is sent off to go change into her pajamas, he arches an eyebrow. "Smoking again?" he questioned as he slipped off his shoes. "I thought Hodges read you the riot act on that one."

"We all have our vices, Robert," she reminds him coolly, hands on her hips. "Be it men in tight jeans – " She casts an appropriately appreciative glance at Nick's pants, and he feels his cheeks warm. " – or nicotine. Let he without sin cast the first stone."

"Grissom can be here in ten minutes, if you'd like." Nick smirks, and Jacqui makes a scandalized face at the news. Bobby's blazing a trail towards the bedrooms, undoubtedly to check on his child, and leaves Nick to smile at their friend and coworker. "Thanks, Jacqui," he offers, hands back in his pockets. "You need anything?"

She snorts. "I need your boyfriend's kid to stop being a snitch," she informs him, and cuffs him in the shoulder playfully. In the last year, Nick's learned that Jacqui is in a way both like and completely unlike any and all of his sisters, and he takes these things in stride. "Enjoying your vacation time?" she asks as she pulls on her battered sneakers. "Bobby said you both took this week off so you could spend some of the holidays together."

He nods. "Yeah, I – we are." The "we" feels odd, somehow – probably because of what happened in the theater – but he smiles nonetheless. Jacqui, by now, knows to see through his smile, or at least he thinks she does; she frowns at the gesture and shoots him one of her Franco-knows-best looks that could melt ice at thirty paces. "And he's excited that he gets Lisa for Christmas this year."

"Yeah, because Scott's probably in Mexico, shooting up and blowing his money on syphilis-infected man-whores."

"Jacqui."

Bobby looms in the doorway that leads from the main area of the house to the bedrooms, and he's shooting her a disapproving look. She forces a little smile. "I'm sure they're very nice syphilis-infected – "

"Don't you have things to go fingerprint?" Nick can tell that Bobby wants to smile but is refusing to let himself.

"Funny thing about that," Jacqui said, "but even those of us who only play with fingerprinting powder get days off."

Nick raises an eyebrow. "You told me you were calling in sick."

Bobby's disapproving look increases from the hallway, and suddenly, the door is open and she's halfway out. "Merry Christmas, love you both, so long!" she announces, and – before either Bobby or Nick can actually wish her the same – she slams the door and is gone.

Sighing, Bobby shakes his head. "Remind me why I leave her with my child?"

"Because it's less scary than leaving her with Hodges?" Nick grins and Bobby rolls his eyes, and then they both pad along through a normal nighttime routine, turning on the coffee maker and checking that the doors are locked and making sure that Lisa is actually, really in bed.

Nick figures he should spend the night at his apartment tonight, after what happened on their way out of the movie, and is fiddling with the coffee maker and readying himself to explain that when warm arms wrap themselves around his waist and a chin lands on his shoulder. Nick smiles, ever-so-slightly, and finishes setting the timer.

"You're not going home," Bobby states plainly, the words quiet even when so close to his ear. He considers a response, and then realizes more pressingly that he doesn't know what he should do with his hands; they're gripping the countertop nervously, as though Bobby's never touched him before. "At least, not until we talk about it."

He tentatively reaches to rest his hands against Bobby's. "Talk about what?" he replies. "There's nothing to talk about. I told you – "

"And I told you that I don't want to spend Christmas at my family's because I was hoping you'd get the hint." Suddenly, all that warmth is gone and Nick is turning around. Bobby has moved and now leans against the sink, his arms crossed. "You got the wrong hint, but I suppose it's a start."

Nick frowns. He suddenly knows what hint he was supposed to get. "You know I go home," he reminds Bobby, because they briefly had this discussion last Christmas and it didn't end well. "My parents – "

"Lisa doesn't have any cousins, not on my side," Bobby interrupts, and Nick blinks at the change in both topic and tone. "There's just me, my spinster sister, and my folks. She gets bored. But your sisters have kids, don't they?"

"From teenagers to toddlers, yeah," he answers automatically, and then frowns. "Bobby, look, I said – "

"And your folks are nice," he continues, as though Nick never attempted to steer control away from him. "I met them briefly, when they were in town. Good Southern folks. I was raised with folks like them."

Nick sighs. "Bobby, seriously – "

"And I can watch football with you and your brothers-in-law and help your aunts cook or whatever else is needed." He uncrosses his arms and shrugs. "Nick, you asked the question for a reason."

"I was thinking aloud." Nick can feel his voice getting tense, now, and grits his teeth. He doesn't want to fight – not tonight, after the emotional movie, and not with Lisa asleep just down the hall. "I didn't mean for it to be an offer."

"Well, what if I wanted it to be one, huh?" Bobby steps away from the counter and closes the gap between them until their chests are almost touching. He smells like his cologne still, even after a long day, and Nick breathes in the tantalizing scent. "What if I wanted to come down to Texas, anyway?"

"There'll be yelling. Throwing things. Creative Texan curses."

"Come to a Dawson family reunion sometime. That's what we do for fun."

Nick snorts to hold back a laugh and stands his ground, as precarious a task as it may be with Bobby's scent filling his nostrils. Part of him wants to argue, wants to draw this out and explain everything, but Bobby's heard it all. He's heard it all, he understands, but he also knows the other side of the story.

And as much as Nick wants to say no, he chooses instead to lean forward and catch Bobby's lips in a short kiss. And even though he means for it to be a peck, it's instead warm and wet, and full of promises he never expected.

"Okay," he agrees, and Bobby smiles before kissing him back.

==

Lisa bounces the full drive to the airport, three days later, and bubbles in her five-year-old way about meeting new people and getting to have Christmas in a different state. She proudly informs Nick no less than five times as they're checking their bags that she's never been to Texas before, and by the time their boarding group is actually called, she's been so excited for so long that she's actually quite tired, and demands that Bobby carry her and her Hello Kitty backpack onto the plane.

A few soccer-mom types think it's adorable, and smile flirtatiously at Bobby as they search for their seats. Nick resists the urge to glare, because he's in cowboy boots and going to Texas, and not even a gay cowboy movie can prepare him to be an openly gay cowboy.

"Your parents do know we're coming," Bobby states in a way that somehow makes it a question, once Lisa is buckled in and counting airplanes out the window. He hadn't asked the question in the days previous, even when Nick stoically assured him that he would be calling and warning his parents about their two extra guests. Nick frowns at him and focuses on the stupid airplane magazine that's in front of him, even if the stewardess wants him reading the equally stupid safety instructions. "They do know," Bobby repeats, and pulls the magazine out of his grip, "don't they?"

Nick considers retorting that, if he wanted to be hen-pecked to death, he would have found a girlfriend.

But a glance at Bobby's face reveals the truth he's used to; Bobby really is concerned, and Nick knows that, if he asked, Bobby would stand up and take Lisa and go home right this instant, and still speak to him when he got back from Texas. And, even though Nick would never ask that of him, he appreciates it.

"Twenty-three planes, Nicky!" Lisa declares, grinning broadly. "And six look just like ours!"

He smiles and nods at the girl, watching her for a long moment as she turns back to the window and then gasps as the plane begins to taxi out of the loading area. "I told them I was bringing the person I was seeing," he finally says, and pats Bobby's hand warmly. "And another little visitor."

Bobby nods. "That's all I wanted to know," he replies, and – despite the fact they're on the way to Texas – catches Nick's hand where it's atop his and holds it in place until the plane takes off.

==

Of all the things Nick expected, he did not expect anarchy.

"I thought you were bringing your girlfriend, Nick!" his mother announces as soon as he walks in through the massive double doors, laden with baggage and trying, desperately, to keep his father's prize hunting dog from mowing Lisa down. Lisa shrieks at the sight of the Labrador and runs for cover, Bobby swears, and before Nick can blink his entire family – sisters, brothers-in-law, cousins, mother, and father – are all in the enormous foyer, watching as Lisa hides under a decorative table and covers her face to hide from the dog. Mary's husband – or is it Samantha's? Nick can't tell – grabs Tonto and drags him out of the room while Bobby abandons his baggage in an attempt to coax Lisa out from her hiding place.

As soon as Nick pulls his eyes away from Bobby, he realizes that he has every Stokes-family eye trained directly on him.

"Hey, Mom," he greets, and steps forward to give her a kiss on the cheek. She's still gaping at him, wide-eyed, as though she can't process the information. "Merry Christmas." He nods to his dad. "Hey, Cisco."

"Son." His father nods back, and Nick realizes instantly that it's not the warm tone of a man who has called his only son "Poncho" since he was a toddler. Instead, it's the cool tone of a man who is seeing a stranger, and he swallows.

It's Joanne – the youngest of his sisters, a pretty woman just a year older than himself – who first glances away from him, and Nick doesn't need his position as a CSI to know where she's looking. "Who's he?" she asks, and jerks her head in the direction of Bobby.

Lisa's clinging her arms around Bobby's neck and snuffling miserably into his shirt, and suddenly, no one cares that Nick is center stage and, instead, it's all Bobby. He forces a small smile and gives a little wave. "I'm, uh, Bobby," he introduces. Lisa chokes on a sob, and he lowers his waving hand to her back. "And this is Lisa. She's usually more friendly, don't you worry."

The oldest of his sisters looks back at Nick, and frowns. "Nick, really," she chides in that disapproving tone that only older sisters can successfully pull off. "The whole ‘cool to be queer' thing is so mid-nineties."

Her tone causes him to bristle. "Oh, and since when have I done anything just to be ‘cool'?" he snaps at her.

There's a collective gasp, and then silence, and he softens his glare at Mary only when he hears another choked sob. He assumes it's Lisa who is doing the sobbing, so when Lisa asks a question –

"Why's the old lady crying, Daddy?"

– his stomach turns to a stone.

By the time he's fully aware of what's just happened, half his sisters and his father are following his sobbing mother up the stairs and calling after her.

==

"They're stupid bigots, anyway."

Terri flicks her cigarette ashes onto a rose bush as she says this, watching as her kids play with both Joanne's kids and Lisa in the back yard. Terri had been branded the family liberal since Nick was in middle school – a word that, growing up in the Stokes household, was more vulgar than any with four letters – and had never struggled to express her distaste of "the Judge's" personal philosophy.

She took another drag of her cigarette.

"That's the problem with this Goddamned state," she continues, and flicks the ashes again. In the backyard, Lisa sticks next to Bobby. Nick's reminded of The Sound of Music and nanny Maria, flanked by seven children. Only this time, he's only flanked by one, and he really should be with his Captain Von Trapp, anyway. "It's where all the stupid bigots hang out. They drink beer, roast a pig, and pretend like they're not close-minded assholes." Another flick. "And yet, once a year, I come back here and pretend like I'm not the family freak." She pauses, and glances up at him. "You just stole my schtick, you know."

"Sorry," Nick apologizes, but it's not much in the way of an apology. Bobby glances away from Lisa, meets his eyes, and smiles slightly. Nick waves a bit and smiles back.

Terri puts out her cigarette on the railing of the deck. "You know," she points out, "seeing a guy with a kid is a lot of baggage."

He shrugs, watching as Lisa darts out to tag one of his nephews. "He's a good guy."

"Didn't say he wasn't. In fact, he seems like it. How many gay guys do you know who would voluntarily come here and face the firing squad with you?"

Nick opens his mouth, ready to say that it wasn't exactly voluntary, but she smirks up at him. "Oh, don't tell me that you badgered him to get here," she chides, and pokes him in the ribs. "I know you. You wouldn't ask a guy to meet the Judge even if he was Prince Charming and came complete with a six-billion-dollar estate. He must have volunteered. Which means he must really be hung up on you."

"We go well together," Nick admits, shrugging.

"Go well together?" Terri lights another cigarette and cocks an eyebrow in his direction. "Kid, you just stepped out of the closet in your rainbow jumpsuit and leather codpiece. If you can't admit to me that you love the guy, you're screwed when the Judge comes down and drags you out for your forty lashes."

Bobby is laughing about something with Lisa and one of the other kids, and the sight brings both hope and fear to Nick's stomach.

"I do," he tells Terri after a moment, and she grins before elbowing him in the ribs.

==

"She doesn't want to talk to you."

Nick's father looks down at him with such utter disappointment that Nick's heart crash-lands in his stomach, never mind the actual words coming from his mouth. The upstairs is silent, placid, and even though the sounds of his sisters working to prepare Christmas dinner are clanging up from the kitchen, it's a lung-crushing hush. It reminds him of other, suffocating silences, and his throat closes tightly for a moment.

He's never felt so claustrophobic in a house so big.

His father is staring at him out of a three-inch wide crack in the door, and Nick can tell without trying that he's braced his weight against the doorjamb in such a way that he couldn't force himself in even if he wanted to.

He sighs. "Cisco," he begins, then falters, his voice catching. "Dad, I – "

"No." It's a simple, one-word answer to a thousand questions, and his father shakes his head. "She needs her rest, son. You've upset her. All of us."

Nick pushes to catch the door as his father closes it, but he's a moment to late. The lock clicks as he pounds a fist against it. "Open the door!" he demands, and he can feel the harsh sting of tears in the corners of his eyes. He forces his lids shut and pounds again. "Mom! Dad! C'mon! I'm still me!" He hits it again, harder, until the side of his hand hurts. "Don't be like this!"

A hand touches his shoulder, and he pushes it away, but it returns again. When he opens his eyes, he recognizes the tear-blurred form of another sister, Samantha. She pulls him into his arm and smoothes his hair.

"You are still you, Nick," she assures him, and even though he's nearly forty, he feels like he's ten, again. "You always will be."

==

Even with Samantha's touches and Terri's cigarette-flicking, the hostility in a house where his parents are behind locked doors and his brothers-in-law look ready to beat him with the nearest blunt object, Nick loads Bobby and Lisa and all their baggage into the rental car and drives the ten minutes to a Holiday Inn. Lisa is confused but doesn't complain about swimming in the hotel pool, beating her father at arcade games, and eating Christmas Eve dinner at Pizza Hut. Nick turns down the offer of a trip to the theater with Bobby and Lisa after dinner.

"You should be with her," he tells Bobby softly, touching his arm before climbing out of the car. "It's Christmas Eve, and she's your daughter. Besides," he adds as an afterthought, "I need to think."

It's cold outside as he waves goodbye to the car, and he pulls his coat closer. He considers, briefly, going back into the hotel and crashing into bed, but there are bells ringing nearby and, for some reason, they call to him. He walks down the familiar-but-still-foreign street, taking in the vision of Christmas lights on trees and holiday parties obvious through front windows until he finds the source of the bells: a small church.

He stands on the steps as strangers enter, all dressed in their Christmas finest and ignoring the leather-coated man in the blue jeans and boots as they pass. He can see glimpses of the sanctuary as they enter, decorated with bright colors and the gleam of a polished pipe organ, and for a moment, he considers entering.

And then, he's reminded of where his family is at that instant, gathered in the church he attended as a boy, wrapped in the warmth of the holiday season and each other. They're listening to the swell of a pipe organ and the chiming of bells and surrounded by familiar faces. They've left him to stand in the cold and shrug off the glances of frigid strangers.

Deep organ chords burst to life as he turns his back on the church and walks away.

==

At three a.m., there's a knock on the hotel room door.

He'd been watching It's a Wonderful Life on the hotel's free cable when Bobby and Lisa had arrived back from the movie, Lisa half-asleep and Bobby not much better. He hadn't offered up any thoughts on the afternoon, and Bobby hadn't asked. Before he knew it Lisa was curled up in the second bed and Bobby snored against his shoulder in the first, leaving him to stare up at the ceiling and wonder what Lisa would stay to spending her Christmas morning opening Santa presents under Holiday Inn curtains instead of a Christmas tree.

Nick rises with the sound of the knocking, watching as Bobby reaches for him and, finding him missing, drags his pillow into his arms. Nick smirks, slightly, and wonders when he became so thoroughly integrated into Bobby's life. He can't remember it happening, just that it did.

Another knock causes Lisa to murmur something nonsensical and curl further into the sheets, and Nick sighs as he walks to and opens the door.

"Nicky."

His mother looks as though she's been crying for months, her eyes red and swollen and her face pale. Nick realizes in a shock to his gut that he can't remember the last time he saw his mother without any makeup, and he desperately wants to surge forward and hug her in the way he did when he was a little boy.

He stands his ground, instead, his hands in the pockets of his flannel pajama pants.

"Mom."

She purses her lips and just stares up at him, her expression careful. Her perfect hair isn't perfect, her clothes are a bit askew, but she's not moving to fix any of it. She's staring at him, instead, staring motionlessly, and Nick swallows.

"Mom, listen, I – "

"Terri says you love him."

The statement hits him like a ton of bricks, and he finds his voice is missing entirely. He closes his mouth and swallows, silent.

She stays silent as well, at least for a moment, and then nods. "I thought so," she croaks out, and Nick looks at the floor as her eyes fill with tears. This time, when he wants to reach forward, he manages to do so, and he finds her arm with his hand. She jerks away reflexively, and he drops his hand as though he's been scalded. "Nicky, he's… He's a man."

"I know, Mom." He sighs, shrugging. "I… I like men."

"I should have known." Her voice wavers and a tear runs down her cheek. "My own son, and I couldn't tell."

Nick moves to reply, though he doesn't know what, but before he can, his mother has wrapped her arms around him and is holding him close, pressing her face into his shoulder. "We'll figure this out, Nicky." She sniffles against him. "I can't lose you, not after what happened."

He pauses a moment, unsure of what to do, and hears the creaking of footfalls on the floor behind him. He turns his head just enough to see Bobby out of bed, standing in his boxers and smiling.

He wraps his arms around his mother and smiles back.

==

Lisa opens her Christmas presents under a tree with the other children and Nick laughs as Bobby regales those in the group who will listen with stories of his childhood Christmases, almost all of which involve firearms and woodland creatures. His mother fills and refills their coffee cups, fills Lisa up with chocolate-chip pancakes, and turns thirty different shades of red when Bobby opens the gift she'd brought for her son's "girlfriend" and discovers that it's a pink sweater with snowflakes on it.

"Pink's actually my favorite color," Bobby jokes, and Nick laughs aloud.

His father is no where to be found.

Nick volunteers to help with dishes and Terri and Samantha pitch in, too, leaving his other sisters to sulk elsewhere. Bobby and Joanne stay in the living room, discussing the right to bear arms; Joanne works as a lobbyist and is interested in a ballistic experts' take on the wonderful world of weaponry.

Halfway through the dishes, the family's middle child wanders in, balancing her toddler daughter on her hip with one hand while she holds a Bible in the other.

"Here comes the Pastor ‘Leeny," mutters Terri, and puts her cigarette out in a dirty coffee cup.

"Nicolas Stokes," Colleen addresses him, and thumps the Bible down on kitchen island. "Have you ever given consideration to your immortal soul?"

Samantha rolls her eyes. "If you are going to be in here, ‘Leen, you need to wash or dry."

"I'm serious, Samantha!" she insists, and steps forward. She uses her now-free hand to jab Nick in the back, leaving him to grimace and whirl around, lest she pull the same dirty trick again. "Nicky, you know that you're my favorite little sibling and my only little brother," she laments, "but you really have to think about this. Repent, and the Lord Almighty might not send you the way of Sodom and Gomorrah."

"And miss all that fun?" Samantha elbows Terri in the ribs and bites back a laugh.

Nick sighs and shakes his head. "I'm not a godless heathen, Colleen," he informs her blandly, not entirely sure what else to say.

"You cannot be a sodomite and profess to love God!" she declares loudly enough that her daughter looks surprised and ready to cry. In a flash of Christmas-tree pajamas, she's flipping open her Bible. "God himself has said – "

"That we should love everybody." The voice isn't Colleen, and all eyes flicker to the doorway, where Lisa is standing and clutching the teddy bear from "Santa." Her blue eyes are wide as Colleen glowers down at her, and she frowns. "What?" she asks. "Isn't that the right answer?"

Terri and Samantha chuckle, and Nick crouches down to her level and ruffles her hair. "Absolutely, kiddo," he agrees, and she grins. "Need something?"

"Daddy wanted to see if you needed help." She looks up at the still-glaring Colleen, and then at the smiling Terri and Samantha, evaluating the situation. "But you have three sisters and you."

"I do," he agrees, nodding, "so I'm fine."

Colleen huffs off in one direction while Lisa skips off in another, and his other sisters are watching him appreciatively as he returns to the sink. "What?"

"Even if Bobby ends up being a jerk," Terri decides, "the kid is a total keeper."

Nick arches an eyebrow as Samantha, usually so much more serious, nods a solemn agreement. "After all," she informs him, "any child who can scare off Colleen is worth kidnapping and raising as your own."

He laughs aloud and splashes her with dish water.

==

At the end of three days in Texas, Nick and Bobby have an extra suitcase filled with gifts, recipes, and a terrifying looking "mystery-package" that Nick is certain Terri bought at the local adult bookstore. Lisa waves furiously at the house as they load their things into the rental car, and Nick is warmly surprised when he looks up from his task to see all six of his sisters and his mother standing outside the house. Only four of the seven are smiling and waving back at the little girl, but he figures it's a step in the right direction.

He's just slid into the car and started to buckle his seatbelt when someone knocks on the window. And when he looks up, his father's eyes are watching him from outside.

He turns on the ignition and rolls down the window. "Yes?"

Bobby's staring at the MapQuest directions to the airport and Lisa's still waving, and even though Nick knows this, he can't help but glance at them briefly before he meeting his father's unerring gaze. There's a silence between them that stretches far and wide, and no words close the gap.

He sighs and closes his eyes. "Look, Dad, I – "

"Have a safe trip," his father interjects quickly, before Nick can finish even half his thought. He blinks and then frowns, unsure of how to respond. He unwavering gaze – the gaze of a stern judge, twenty-odd years on the bench – is now focused on the asphalt, guiltily studying the pebbles there. "We'll see you at Easter."

Nick glances over at Bobby, who arches an eyebrow. "Easter?" he repeats, not sure what else he can say.

His father shrugs. "Lisa will like the Easter egg hunt," he says, and then, without another word, begins to round the car.

Something comes over Nick, just then, and he reaches out the window and catches his father's arm. In a state where men only touch in manly ways, he expects to be pushed away. Instead, his father just looks down at his hand purses his lips.

"Merry Christmas, Cisco." He smiles.

His father reaches up and pats the hand on his arm. "Merry Christmas, Poncho," he replies, and even though Nick knows it might be his imagination, he swears his father is smiling, too.

==

Lisa talks for three weeks about Christmas and, by the end of January, is begging Bobby and Nick to take her out and buy her a pretty Easter dress for the Easter egg hunt in Texas.

Bobby smiles and pats her on the head, but makes no promises. And when Lisa brings it up to Nick, he pats her on the head, too, and arches an eyebrow at Bobby.

And while Nick can make no promises about Easter, or even next week, when he settles into bed at night in the house that might as well be his own, and wraps himself in Bobby's warmth, he's already certain about next Christmas.