Title: Future
Series: Three Generations
Universe: Odysseys
Author: loozy
Characters: Don, Robin, OFCs; Don/Robin
Rating: PG- 13/ K
Summary: His face is awash in wonder with flashes of fear and delight shooting through his eyes at random intervals. Delight is dominating and she can feel the excitement in her belly mirror his.
Word Count: 296; 294; 293; 299; 294; 300; 299; 240; 299
Spoilers: none
Notes: Inspired by the challenge on numb3rs_het and beta'ed by the awesome valeriev84...
Prompt: # 151 Devotion; # 122 Carnal; # 23 Connection; # 4 Learning; # 29 Encounter; # 216 Reception; # 172 Skin; # 196 Strength; # 59 Father

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this fic. Numb3rs and everybody associated with it belong to Cheryl Heuton & Nick Fallucci and CBS.
Feedback: Yes, please. I love every kind of review, even the bad ones, as long as they are helpful and constructive.

27 Doctor

Devotion

Her daughters have always been a marvel for her, and from the moment all four of them were born, she took special care in instilling in them a sense of strength and independence from the other sex.

She never wanted them to be with another man who would control them, and for whom they would drop everything, their current lives and careers, and she thought she had been quite successful when she saw Virginia, Michelle and Alexandra get married to rich men.

Robin has proven to be quite the obstacle to overcome. Her youngest daughter has always been headstrong, has always wanted to do her own thing, and while she does not need a man and is standing on her own two feet, her devotion to Special Agent Don Eppes, SAC of the Violent Crimes Squad of the Los Angeles FBI- branch is quite shocking.

A tragedy, really, as Ana from her yoga class would lament when Ophelia (she never forgave her parents for that name) would tell her. Robin has always been the one to be different.

No boyfriends until college, and after college she went away to Los Angeles, to the other side of the country, something that neither of her parents cared for, but she was not to be convinced otherwise.

They have learned to live with that and now Ophelia has flown over to Los Angeles to visit and has to watch her daughter love a man she does not particularly like. To be honest, she does not like any of her sons- in- law, but Eppes is a special case. There is the way that her daughter looks at him, and how she only has eyes for him.

She loves him. She has lost her independence.

She cannot forgive him that.

Carnal

All of her daughters are aware of their sexual charms, and Robin is, too.

She is not one of those mothers who will always think of their daughters as little girls- her husband does that more than enough for both of them. She loves her grandchildren a lot and every time one of her daughters announces that she pregnant, she cannot help but rejoice in the fact that they still seem to have an active sex life.

But never has she actually been close to it, and this is one of the few times that she is not comfortable at all.

The worst thing is, neither of them know she is here. She has a key to Robin's place and thought she would spend the day her house at get a feeling for what her daughter is like now. She hates to admit that she has lost touch with her youngest child.

She finds evidence of Eppes staying over, one drawer filled with boxers, socks, sweats and tees and two of his suits hanging among hers in the closet. There is a book on evolution lying on the right bedside table while Robin's side has Vogue and a book by Candace Bushnell.

Too late she hears them coming in downstairs and cannot flee through the backdoor.

Luckily they only make it into the living room. She cannot help but spy on them, and judging from the fact that they have a box of condoms in one of the coffee table's drawers tells her that this is not the first time and not the last.

All of a sudden, there is something disturbing about the fact that she knows her daughters have sex, even though she does not want to admit that fact to herself.

Connection

On the second to last day of her visit, Robin tells her why she asked her to come over.

She wants to go to the gynaecologist because she is late, really late in fact and she wants her mother with her. They are having a late breakfast at a homely cafe round Eppes' apartment and she feels a rush of warmth.

Affection for her daughter fills her, a feeling that she has not experienced in a while.

She loves her daughters, yes, but she has resigned herself to the fact that they all have flown the coop, although she still hates to have Robin so far away, but this?

This is great and proves her husband right when he told her that the connection between mothers and their children never severs.

Of course she goes with Robin to her OB/GYN, a friendly man who chats away as he takes a urine and blood sample, just to be sure, and then prepares the ultra- sound. Robin reflexively grips her hands tight as they both wait with baited breaths as the doctor moves the instrument over Robin's stomach and asks routine questions.

Then there is a quiet thumping sound coming out of the monitor and Ophelia can see a familiar shape.

Robin is indeed pregnant and the joy on her daughter's face is exhilarating as both their eyes water. She vaguely hears the doctor tell them that he will give them a minute. She does not pay him any heed but just watches her daughter who cannot tear her eyes away from the monitor.

Forget about all those recreational drugs.

This is the best thing she ever experienced.

For a mother who is about to become a first- time grandmother by her youngest child.

Perfection.

27 Kitchen

Learning

Robin is waiting in the kitchen for Don to come home.

She has prepared an extravagant dinner for them, unusual for her, but the occasion calls for it. Her mother has told her to not worry about her, she will find something to do, so Robin has focussed all her energy in the last couple of hours on how to tell Don that she is pregnant.

And that she does not want a proposal because of this.

Don can be traditional, but she does not want him to want to marry her just because she is carrying his child.

She wants him to want to marry her just because of the marriage itself, not the child.

The child.

She is actually pregnant. She and Don Eppes are going to have a child together.

Who would have thought that seven years ago she was going to be the one to tame the notorious ladies man? Her youngest sister, anyways. She had told Robin from the start that he was special, and even though she had run, they had found their way back to each other.

And now she is pregnant and about to tell him that he was going to become a father. That they are going to have a family.

She puts the tears that uncharacteristically tease at her eyes down to her pregnancy hormones.

Her hand wanders down to her stomach which she can feel slightly protruding, now that she knows, and feels a wave of tenderness overcome her.

They will be responsible for this tiny being that is growing inside of her. This child, which is going to be a handful thanks to its parents genes, will be theirs to care for, to protect and to keep safe.

She has never been more terrified or excited before.

Encounter

She can feel Don hovering in the doorway to the bathroom and turns around to face him.

His face is awash in wonder with flashes of fear and delight shooting through his eyes at random intervals. Delight is dominating and she can feel the excitement in her belly mirror his.

She told him and he just stared at her as if she was sprouting off stuff that he had no idea about, the face that he usually gets when Charlie is in math- mode. Then he had asked her slowly if she was, you know, pregnant.

She had simply said yes and he had... Well, this ridiculously big smile had transformed his face, eyes crinkling and teeth showing with deep laughter coming from his belly. Then he had picked her up and swung her around, carefully, though, and just hugged her and laughed, while she had squealed.

As far as revelations go, it had been pretty much perfect.

Now he is standing behind her and is staring at her stomach, at the slight bulge and slowly pushes off from the wood and comes towards her, slowly, before kneeling down in an almost reverent motion, leaning his head against her stomach, as if listening for the baby's heartbeat.

It is such a tender moment that she does not know what to do except comb her hand through his short hair.

Then he turns his mouth towards her, and she can feel his light stubble rub on her sensitive skin, and he presses a kiss just on top of her belly button and whispers 'hello' to the being inside her.

And then he continues pressing kisses while moving down and soon she cannot help but softly moan his name, never losing her grip on his hair.

Reception

Don does not ask her to marry him, he knows her stance on the issue, but he promises that he will do so when the timing is right. She agrees with him and they have moved past that particular issue that had both their fathers agreeing on one thing for a change.

They have already talked about moving, the lease on her house is up next month anyways, and they have been looking at houses in Pasadena for the last couple of months, so the timing could not be better. They finalize the sale on a small but adequate house the day before the first ultrasound that Don will actually be able to attend (the last three times he was stuck with cases) and spend the time prior to the appointment going through the various rooms with Alan, looking at appliances that need to be updated or what needs to be fixed.

Alan is in his element and Robin has not seen him this happy since Charlie and Amita announced her pregnancy four years ago.

He pushed them out the door, telling them that the house was in good hands and that all they should worry about was the appointment.

Robin is not worried, the last visits were always good and she is looking forward to this one simply because Don is with her. She can feel his excitement reverberate off him as he drives the car to the office, feel his hands clench and unclench on the wheel until she takes it in hers and he calms down a bit.

The baby already loves him, always kicking whenever he lays his hand or head on her womb.

Today he will get to see his child for the very first time, not just on a video or a grainy photo.

40 Costume

Skin

She is pink.

Not the sort of frilly pink that mothers force their daughters into to show the world that yes, it is a girl, but the soft pink that newborns have.

Charlie and Amita's twins had the same colour when they were born and even though she knows that it will abate, she cannot stop staring. The skin is soft and a bit wrinkly and the nails are the most fragile things she has ever seen. Tiny shells covering the tops of her ten fingers and ten toes.

Both her and Don have counted them multiple times already.

The tiny hand that is clenched around her partner's finger are so delicate that she is afraid of touching them, actually, even though she knows the baby won't break.

There is a slight down of light hair covering her head, shocking both of them once she had been cleaned up, until her mother remarked that Robin had been blond in the beginning, too, until she had grown into her brunette. Her nose is scrunched up a bit, like her father's in sleep, and the face already bears characteristics of Don from when he was a baby. In the last couple of months she has found herself looking at the photo album of him as a baby more than once, and she knows that Don has done the same with the album of her that her mother sent over.

Don is beside her on the bed, half- reclining really, his gaze alternating between her and this baby, born just a couple of hours ago.

Their baby. Their tiny little human being that they both created and they both already cherish so very much.

Their daughter that already has wrapped her father around her little finger since the moment she was delivered.

Strength

So often has she heard about babies having this surprisingly strong grip, and she has experienced it herself, but with her newborn daughter it is another sensation altogether.

Don still has not relinquished his hold on her, but she is content with cuddling up to his chest while he is cradling their baby. She slept on the drive home and has only just awakened, her yawn one of the cutest things she has ever witnessed and is now taking in her environments with a curiosity that reminds Robin so much of Don.

In fact, bar her eye colour and ears, their daughter is very much her father's child. There are traces of Robin to be found, too, but she is unmistakeably an Eppes.

She cannot focus yet, they know that, but when her eyes shift over to Robin, she imagines that her daughter knows who she is. She can feel her legs kick against the yellow blanket covering her and they both chuckle.

Everything she does is new and awe- inspiring, everything she does Robin would love to capture on film because she never wants to forget these moments.

She releases her father's finger slowly and Robin takes that chance to tickle her daughter's palm which draws a squeak from the baby and a slight attempt at swatting at her finger.

She is a perfect mixture of both her and Don and she would not have it any other way.

Father

Don is a fantastic father.

Attentive and always spoiling his little girl and if Robin did not know any better, she would be jealous. But their daughter is probably the most spoilt child in the Eppes- family for the last two hundred years, as Alan tells her with laughter in his voice. For several generations, the Eppes- men have been unable to father daughters, but Don was the first one to break the spell, or curse, however you take it.

Robin is in her fourth week of her maternity leave now, then Don will use up all his paid vacation time before Alan and her parents will share the rest of the year.

It is Halloween and Don and her are ready to go over to Charlie's for a feast and then see the boys off to do trick- or- treating. Don, who hates dressing up, has declared that his daughter will not be put into a ridiculous costume until she can decide if she wants to or not. His daughter's beauty will not be marred by some costume that will just hide her away. Given that most costumes for babies seem to be either bees, which Robin hates, or princesses, which their girl hates because of the pink, she is inclined to agree and so their baby girl is just going to look adorable in her onesie with Snoopy as a vampire.

He had it made especially for her because he thought she would look adorable, and she does.

So does he, actually, as he is playing with her and Robin whips out the camera that always seems to be close to her and takes a couple of photos.