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Ian smirked as the air hockey puck slid past Don's weak defence for the win.
“Damn it.” Don huffed.
There was a whimper and a half cry from a small bassinet. Ian looked over at Esther who despite being dosed with baby aspirin almost twenty minutes ago was still chewing furiously on a frozen ring and looking none too pleased about it.
At the blackboard Charlie stopped mid equation and banged his head softly against it. Ian had to say that Charlie was not looking much better than he had the last time Ian was in town and that had been months ago. The professor was obviously not sleeping much and run half into the ground.
“All right, that’s it.” Charlie said firmly. He put down the chalk and lifted Esther out of the bassinet. “Sweetie, Daddy loves you very much and I know that your mouth hurts but I need a little peace and quiet so I can catch bad guys so your Uncle Don and Uncle Ian are going to take you to the park for at least an hour. Ok? Good.”
‘Uncle Ian?’ Ian thought with some amusement.
Before Don could even open his mouth to object Charlie had shoved Esther into his arms.
“Her stroller and bag are by the door and there’s fresh ice rings in the freezer.”
“Charlie…”
“Out, all three of you. Now.” Charlie said firmly pointing to the door. Don looked slightly affronted but Ian just chuckled to himself. He couldn’t even guess at the number of times his mother had told him to take one of his brothers or sisters outside before she killed the lot of them.
“Come on Eppes. I know where I’m not wanted.”
Since it was cold out the first task was to squeeze the little girl into something that made her look like an oversized pink marshmallow. The whole time she gave Ian a look of more than slight disapproval as if she already knew she was in LA and looking very unfashionable.
After that was the debate as to who was going to push the stroller and who got stuck lugging around large pink bag with yellow bunnies on it. In the end Don pulled rank as Agent in Charge and Ian slung the bunny bag over one shoulder as they headed out into a grey LA winter day.
Ian smiled to himself at the picture he and Don must make pushing the stroller carefully down the street. He wondered how many people driving past saw them and jumped to completely the wrong conclusion. Probably all of them. Ian resisted the temptation to throw an arm around Don’s shoulder just to complete the look of committed-gay-couple-with-baby.
By the time they got to the park Esther had settled down and drifted into sleep. Don let out a long sigh, shoulders slumping and tucked the blanket in around her.
“They aren’t as easy as they look, are they?” Ian said with a grin.
“I keep telling the guys they should get a nanny or something but they don’t want to risk some weirdo influencing her early development.”
“Uh, Don, they let Larry baby sit.”
Don chuckled. “I know but I guess its better the weirdo you know, right?”
Ian checked his watch. It was another forty minutes at least before Charlie would let them back in the house. They picked a bench near the end of a little cul-de-sac in the park. Ian let himself relax as Don pushed the stroller gently back and fourth softly humming something that sounded suspiciously like Ruby Tuesday.
Suddenly Don tensed and Ian was quickly on alert. Ian looked around, the only other person in the area was a blond woman in her forties walking down the path towards them with a small dog.
“Shit.” Don hissed and was desperately looking around as if for an escape route.
“What is it?” Ian said softly not seeing the threat. Don quickly plucked Esther out of her stroller and held her to his chest.
“Shit. Shit. Ian, I’m asking you a huge favour.”
“What?”
“Make like you love me.” Don said face full of fear and voice thick with desperation. Before Ian could even reply or ask for an explanation Don scooted over so they were hip to hip. Don snaked his free arm around Ian’s waist and crossed his legs so he was practically in Ian’s lap and suddenly they were that picture of committed gay bliss Ian had been thinking about earlier. Ian wasn’t sure if this was a sick joke or a wet dream.
Don went very still and kept his eyes focused on the ground. It was a classic, ‘maybe if I don’t look at them they won’t see me’, tactic.
The woman with the dog however noticed them.
“Donnie!” She squealed.
Don’s head shot up. “Simone.” He half gushed, a broad and incredibly fake smile on his face.
“Oh my God, Donnie, I can’t believe it. I just got into LA a week ago and here you are, it must be fate.” There was a slightly unbalanced look in the woman’s eyes and Ian almost winced at how tightly Don was holding onto him.
“Must be.” Don said and Ian could feel the undertone of raw fear in Eppes voice, something he’d never heard before.
“And who’s this?” The woman asked her voice just a little harder.
Don’s grin broadened. “This is Ian. My fiancé.”
Ian saw something freeze and crack in the woman’s eyes. She wasn’t armed as far as Ian could tell but she was within arms reach and he was sure that little dog of hers could bite.
“Your fiancé?” the woman asked, her voice tightening just that much more.
Don let go of Ian’s waist and grabbed his hand instead. “Well for another six months, then my husband.”
Ian smiled and gave Don’s hand a squeeze “That reminds me,” Ian said turning to Don slightly. “If we don’t get that finalized guest list to your father, today, he’s going to kill us.”
Ian saw the look of pure thanks and relief in Don’s eyes. “As soon as we get home, Hun, I promise.”
Ian looked up at the woman, her jaw had clenched and there was a glassy hint to her eyes.
“And is that your child?” The woman asked. Ian was sure he could hear the slight waver the preceded tears in her voice.
“Yep.” Don said enthusiastically. “This is Margaret, our little angel.” Ian bit down the urge to laugh as Esther opened her eyes and hit her ‘Dad’ with a look of complete confusion, obviously having no more idea as to what was going on than Ian did. “We were going to wait until after the wedding,” Don continued. “But then the surrogate we wanted became available and there was just no saying no.”
“I think that’s been the theme of our whole relationship,” Ian said with a grin. “Never say no.”
Don gave a wicked smile and let his hand slid up Ian’s thigh. “Well how can I when you always make such reasonable offers?”
The woman now looked like she was on the verge of a full out crying fit. “Well I’m very happy for you Don.” She said tightly.
“Thank you, Simone.” Don gushed. “I’ve never been so happy. All those years I guess I was just waiting for a tall, dark, handsome, stranger to sweep me off my feet.”
Ian was really trying not to laugh now considering the fact that he had met Don by literally running into him hard enough that they both went sprawling across a Quantico hallway.
The woman gave a tight nod. “Well, I’ve got to go, I’ll see you around Don.”
Don gave her a smile and a friendly wave and she turned and hurried off dragging her dog behind her. As soon as she was out of sight Don scooted away and lay Esther back down in her stroller.
“Ok, Eppes, not that that wasn’t entertaining but why did we just get engaged for the purposes of making that woman cry?”
Don leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. “That woman is Simone Rodgers and she has been stalking me on and off since the ninth grade and is possibly the root cause of all my commitment issues.”
Ian snorted.
“It’s not funny, I’m serious, she crawls out of the woodwork and finds me.”
“Maybe she just wants a date.”
“No.” Don said firmly. “We had a date, one date, freshman year. She was one of those girls who played flute in the school band, had pictures of unicorns in her locker, and always smelled like incense.”
“Yeah, I know the type.” Ian said.
“Well she asked me out and I was desperate and horny enough to say yes. Turns out while cleaning her flute she’d had a vision of the two of us exchanging flowers or feathers or something and she interpreted it as meaning that we were destined to be together forever. She tells me this just as I managed to get a hand under her shirt. I was trying to cop a feel and she was picking out wedding china.”
Ian cracked up at the look of wide eyed panic on Don’s face just at the memory.
“I spent the next four years fending her off. She even tried to make friends with Charlie to get to me. I figured I could lose her at collage.”
“Nope?” Ian said trying to hold back the laughter.
“Junior year she transferred not just to my school but into my dorm claiming she had no idea I was there and it must be fate trying to bring us together. My batting average tanked.”
Ian began losing the battle with laughter but Don was on a roll.
“I get picked up by the Rangers, guess who takes a job in Stockton my second year? The FBI, I run into her not once but twice on fugitive retrieval. The second time I paid Billy 20 bucks to take her to bed while I slept in the truck thinking maybe she just needed to get laid.”
Ian lost it and the laughter began to pour out.
“I don’t know what happened in that room but I do know we left in the small hours of the morning, Billy didn’t say one word to me for three days and for almost a month he slept curled up in this little ball and would whimper in the middle of the night.”
Ian felt tears begin to roll down his cheeks.
“New Mexico, missing kid case, I end up on the news doing the public appeal. Guess who calls up the next morning having just so happened to have moved to New Mexico just the week before. I had to change my number. I thought I lost her when I came to LA. I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Maybe it is fate.” Ian managed to choke out.
“Not if she was the last woman on earth.” Don said.
“And if I were the last man on earth?” Ian asked.
Don snorted. “I’m really sorry Ian. You were sitting here and it was the best I could come up with. I owe you big time, it’s just if she knew I was still single I’d never get rid of her. I’d have to transfer to the Tel Aviv office to shake her off, and if she thought I was a single parent even that wouldn’t do it. It was a moment of desperation.”
“Glad to know I’m so high on your list Eppes.”
Don groaned sinking his face back into his hands. “What ever you want Ian, just name it.”
Ian was very tempted to say ‘you, me and a water bed’ but was fairly certain it would just send Don running. Instead Ian just grinned.
“I’ll just put it on your tab Eppes.” Don gave Ian a suspicious look out of the corner of one eye. “So, in case she comes back, which one of us proposed?”