Title: Outside the Window
By: amazonqueenkate
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Pairing: Nick/Bobby
Prompt: 066 - Rain
Word Count: 515
Rating: All ages.
Author's Notes: A kid!fic of a different color. Thanks to Kelly for reading this for me and telling me if it worked.

Nick still remembers the first three days of his daughter's life, standing beside Bobby outside of the neonatal ICU in wrinkled jeans and with a budding beard, watching her struggle against the wires and tubes in her incubator. Or, as Greg had said in one of his less tactful moments, watching her fight for her life.

The doctors all said the same thing, things that he and Bobby knew on an intellectual level. Amanda Margaret Stokes' birth mother was only fifteen years old, a skinny little strung-out thing who'd had two private adoptions fall through before they came along. She'd kicked the coke habit shortly after her pregnancy, sure, but the remnants of her tough life on the mean back streets of Vegas still showed in her ratty hair and pale complexion. Girls that young, the doctors told them, tended to give birth early. Add the history of drug abuse and her lifestyle, and Amanda was lucky to have managed twenty-nine good weeks inside the womb.

But, they clarified in small words, words Nick appreciated as he tried to wrap his head around the fact that his daughter started her life breathing via a plastic tube, her lungs were weak. She had jaundice and a condition in her eyes that could lead to blinding. The ventilation risked that her lungs would never be normal, one doctor noted. Another said, almost glibly, that they'd be lucky if she didn't have brain damage.

The three days outside the window were the most painful of Nick's life, more painful than his one day underground. When he and Bobby couldn't be in the actual room with her, watching her sleep and squirm, they kept a near-constant vigil outside, Bobby's arm around his waist or on his back. The first time a nurse raised her eyebrow at them, Nick nearly snapped her head off; after that, no one said anything.

Coffee, food, and friends came and went, but for three days, Nick watched. He can't remember all the details, just standing in front of that damned window and watching doctors check on his daughter. Watching his little girl, as he hates Greg for saying, struggle to start her life.

He stands inside the house now, coffee mug in hand, and thinks back on those three days. It's raining in Las Vegas, heavy drops against the dry land, and in the front lawn, Amanda – now five years old – is staring up at the sky. Last check up, Nick and Bobby heard the same news they'd heard since day one: her lungs will never be normal, and her vision might deteriorate early. She already wears glasses, and Nick wonders how she can see at all as the raindrops splatter against them and her yellow raincoat.

"You gonna yell at her?" Bobby asks from his spot at Nick's shoulder. He's watching too, and even if there is no beard growth and no doctors, that past vigil is in the back of Nick's mind when meets Bobby's eyes.

"Naw," he replies, and smiles slightly. "It doesn't rain much. She might as well enjoy it."