Title: Five Children Who Never Called Nick Stokes "Daddy"
By: amazonqueenkate
Fandom: CSI: Vegas
Pairing: Nick/OFC (past), Nick/Bobby (present)
Prompt: 028 - children
Word Count: 2,398
Rating: All ages.
Author's Note: Inspired in part by cerieblue819's awesome "Five Sons Lisa Cuddy Never Had". And for subluxate, because she a.) loves kid!fic, b.) betaed this, and c.) snapped me out of two days of putting Nick through nothing but angst.

Earl Alexander Hanson

When his senior-year college fling shows up at his door three years later with a toddler, he very nearly falls onto his back. The little boy's bright brown eyes stare up at him in awe as Petra Hanson – once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader, with her big blonde hair and overdone makeup – pushes him through the doorway.

"Look, I know I'm kinda dumpin' this on you," she says in a rush, and he can barely wrap his head around what's happening as the kid wanders into his living room, "but I got called into work and dammit, it's your fault that I'm not in school, anyway."

He opens his mouth to argue, but she cuts him off with a crack of her gum. "He was born in July. Do the math." When he keeps staring at her, she rolls her eyes. "What? You want his birth certificate, sweetheart?" She holds out a bag. "His name's Earl. Just keep him entertained for six hours, and I'll be outta your hair. Okay? Okay."

She's gone in a rush of short skirt and high-heeled shoes, and he turns around to find that Earl is ripping pages out of the latest Sports Illustrated. He manages to distract Earl by turning on the television, and they sit together and watch the Disney Channel for the next six hours. He figures he could leave the little boy and go finish up his work around the house – he'd been doing laundry when the doorbell rang – but Earl's excitement at the dogs in Lady and the Tramp and fear of the witch in Snow White make something in his stomach tremble.

When Petra returns, the sun is setting and her weariness makes her look suddenly old. He realizes that she'd been a freshman when they'd fooled around. She should be a college senior, but instead, she's hefting Earl's bag over her shoulder. "Thanks," she says, sincerely. Earl blinks up at them both – his mother and the blond curls he'd gotten from her, the stranger with his eyes and dimples – and then grasps at Petra's hand. She ruffles his hair with long fingernails.

"Here," she offers, and presses a slip of paper into his palm. It's an across-town address in one of the more questionable Dallas neighborhoods, and he frowns. "In case you ever, y'know, wanted to stop by. And see Earl, of course." There's something like hope in the back of her voice.

He never stops by the address, but every Christmas, he sends a check, and every mid-July – he never asked Petra when Earl's actual birthday was – he wraps a gift and mails it. For five years, he receives carefully-lettered thank you cards in a child's handwriting.

The sixth Christmas, the envelope is returned-to-sender, and he misses the thank-you card despite himself.

Samantha Lucille Sidle

Samantha Lucille Sidle is named Samantha for her great-grandmother on her mother's side – "Best woman in the world," vows Sara – her grandmother on her father's side – "Griss' idea," states Sara – and retains her mother's last name because Sara refuses to allow her identity to be "eroded by the institution of marriage". She's a chubby-cheeked brown-haired girl who loves both frogs and bugs, and she occasionally can be seen running through the crime lab hallways with a latex glove on her head.

"She looks like you," Grissom had told him a few days after Samantha's birth, a matter-of-fact statement of the truth. He'd tried to stay out of the couple's proceedings since he'd donated his sperm, counteracting in a way the effects of male menopause. No man, after all, needed to be reminded of his own shortcomings by seeing the true father of his child constantly. He didn't even ask to see a picture of the baby, avoiding it until Catherine Willows – instinctual in all things – shoved a photograph in his face.

Now, watching Samantha – sometimes called "Sammie" and only called "the monster" when she pesters Hodges too much – he can see the resemblance in her unruly hair and her build. She looks like pictures of his sister Emily when she was young, even if she does boast the Sidle gap-tooth. He tries to stay away from her, though, figuring that there will come a time when she wonders why she doesn't look like her father. She doesn't need to notice who she does look like, until then.

Sometimes, though, he stops by her soccer games and hovers with the parents of the opposing team, watching her ponytail stream in the sunlight. Eventually, when she's seven, another parent innocently asks which little girl is his. When he instinctively points out Samantha, he feels his own blood run cold.

He stops going to her soccer games shortly after.

Lindsay Caroline Willows

The one time Catherine leaves Vegas for a week-long forensics conference that her mother is not available, she begs and pleads for him to look after Lindsay. "She's fifteen!" she informs him ardently, clasping her hands together. "She's basically self-sufficient. Just make sure she doesn't steal a car or do illegal drugs, and I'll be happy. Please?"

Lindsay is fifteen going on twenty-one, though, and he catches her with cigarettes the first day Cath's gone. The second, she's trying to twist the cap off a beer bottle when he gets home from work, and by day three, he's seriously considering boxing her up in a crate and shipping her to her mother's Chicago conference.

Instead, though, he sits her down on the couch and tells her to spill.

And Lindsay spills. She tells him everything, more than he's ever wanted to hear, about her recurring nightmares of when Eddie drowned, about her twenty-year-old boyfriend and his posse, about her mother's disinterest and her grandmother's drinking. They're all things that it pains him to hear, and by the end of an hour she's lying in his arms and sobbing her heart and soul onto his shirt.

On day four, he skips out on work early to call her in sick and then surprises her by taking her to Lake Tahoe. They rent a canoe and paddle around the lake in silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the companionable silence. He realizes that she's probably never had a day like this with any sort of adult – not her mother, not her grandmother, and definitely not her father – and he's glad to see her smile. She spends the rest of the day wake-boarding with a gaggle of kids her own age, not one twenty-year-old miscreant in the bunch. For a moment, she's a child in her element.

When Catherine arrives back at the end of the week, she's surprised to find Lindsay dressed, fed, and quietly doing her homework at his kitchen table. "My God, you're a miracle worker!" she announces, and Lindsay rolls her eyes as she flips a page in her algebra book. "You know what? From now on, you're my default babysitter."

"I don't need a babysitter, Mom," Lindsay insists from the table.

"Be quiet. I'm giving my friend a compliment." She claps him on the shoulder. "It is a compliment, you know. I just… I don't know how you did it!"

He helps her load Lindsay's suitcase into the trunk of her car, and when he turns around from his task, Lindsay grabs him in a tight hug. For a moment, he's surprised by the gesture, but then slackens and hugs her back. She doesn't smell like cigarette smoke or alcohol, but instead ice cream and fruity shampoo, and he's suddenly glad he didn't crate her up and send her to Chicago.

"If Jeter freaks when I dump him," she calls out the window as Catherine backs the car down the driveway, "I'll totally have him call you!"

In the front seat, he can hear Catherine wondering aloud who Jeter is.

Baby Boy Neilsen

Ella dies in childbirth while her husband Tyler is stationed in Iraq, and for the three days while they wait for Tyler to get word and return to the states, the duty of watching Ella's new baby falls squarely on his shoulders. His mother's too frazzled and Cisco's too busy holding the rest of the family together, and siblings are all trying to make and not make arrangements. No one knows when Tyler will be back, and they want to wait for him.

Meanwhile, Ella's son is strong and loud, and cries almost constantly the first night they're together. He's unnamed – Ella kept most things to herself, including what names she and Tyler had decided on – and everyone just refers to him as "the baby". He figures that any child deserves a name, even if it's a temporary one, so he nicknames the baby Ben and makes up songs as he walks him through the house at night. None of the songs make a lot of sense – what does at three a.m.? – but Ben calms down at the sound of a soothing voice, and falls asleep in his arms.

He tries to keep himself from becoming too fond of Ben. Ella and Tyler had been living in New Jersey since they'd gotten married, and the only reason Ella had come back to Dallas was so she wouldn't be alone for the birth. Tyler, he knows, will go back to New Jersey, even if Ben's younger uncle would prefer he stay in Dallas. And besides, he's already accepted a new job, himself. Las Vegas may not be as far as New Jersey, but it's not within Ben-seeing range.

On the fourth day, Tyler makes it to Texas, looking as though he hasn't slept in years. His skin is darkly tanned and he looks older, with deep wrinkles in his face. He cradles his son close, however, tears dampening his eyes, and it's a wonder he doesn't cry.

"Did Ella name him?" he asks after a few hours of quiet cradling, Ben sleeping against the chest of his t-shirt. He says she didn't, and considers noting his pet-name for the child. Before he does, however, Tyler pipes in, "We'd decided on Simon for a boy. He looks like a Simon, doesn't he?"

He agrees, and watches Simon as he sleeps. A week after Ella's burial, Tyler shares the next day, he and Simon Anthony Neilsen will return to New Jersey. He figures this is only fair, because in a month, he'll live in Las Vegas, and Sin City is no place for little Ben.

Angela Dawson Bauer

Angela Bauer is already ten the first time he meets her, and regards him with a cautious eye. He's heard dozens of stories about Bobby's quiet daughter with the love of chemistry, but never realizes that her name is Angela until he, too, calls her "Angel".

"Eric always used to call her that," Bobby explains after the slip has caused Angela to rush into her bedroom and slam the door. "I kinda kept it up, after the accident. Helps her remember her daddy, and I'm not gonna take that away from her."

This is only the second time Bobby's ever mentioned Eric in his presence, and he tries not to feel crowded by the elephant in the room. He knows from conversations with Jacqui that it was Eric's death – a car accident in Tampa – that brought Bobby and their daughter to Las Vegas in the first place. He doesn't ask, though, and Bobby doesn't tell, and from that moment on, Angela won't even recognize his existence.

One day, Bobby ends up stuck at work, covering the day shift. He tosses his keys across the locker room before going back to work. "Angela's off school for a teacher institute thing," he instructs, "and she needs some help with her science project. Y'know, one of those volcanoes that shoot bakin' soda lava?"

He tries to argue, but Bobby sends him a desperate look. "Please. I don't have anyone else to ask, ‘cept maybe Hodges. And the last time those two were alone together, I had to replace the carpetin'."

Angela is sulking when he keys himself in, and refuses to glance up from her task of painting grass on the papier-mâché volcano. He somehow manages to find the bag with the volcano supplies without her help and sets about assembling the volcano plumbing.

"You know," Angela says after about an hour of silent working, "he likes you a lot."

He's surprised enough by her sudden statement to drop his half-finished endeavor on the kitchen floor. "What?"

"Dad." She peers at him across the kitchen. "When Daddy died, he was really sad. But he's not so sad anymore. Mostly ‘cause he really likes you."

"I..." Words fail him, and for a moment, he stands in the middle of the kitchen with two pieces of metal piping in his hand. "Well, thanks, Angela."

She smiles. "Call me Angie," she tells him. "All my friends do. I keep telling Dad to, but he's all weird about it." She shrugs. "Whatever. I think he calls me Angel because it reminds him of Daddy."

He attends the science fair at Bobby's side, and claps as loud as Bobby when Miss Angie Bauer is the third-place ribbon recipient. They take her out for ice cream and, for the first time since the big slip-up, he feels all right sitting in the same room with the fourth-grader and cracking jokes with her father.

Angela Bauer is eleven when he moves in with her and Bobby, and nearly knocks the box out of his grip as she hugs him. "Dad and I were talking," she informs him as he tries to maneuver around her and into the house, "and since I already have Dad and since Daddy's always going to be Daddy, I thought I could just call you Nick." He glances over the edge of the box and down at her, surprised to see that her expression is both very earnest and very grim. "I mean, I could call you Papa or maybe Pop, but those are both kinda dumb. And you're kinda going to be my dad anyway, so does it really matter what I call you?"

He sets the box down on the floor and pulls her into a hug, complete with a noogie that makes her squirm. "You can call me anything you want, kiddo," he assures her, "just as long as you stay my Angie."