A/N: So, as we all know there was a criminal lack of Aaro-I mean Gareth in episode 5, hopefully this piece of fluffy nonsense will fill that void XD

I do not own, nor shall I ever own CBS's BrainDead, there would be a lot more of Aaron Tveit's face if I did...

Around seven o'clock on a Saturday evening, Gareth knocked at Laurel's door. He was slightly concerned by the noises he could hear from the other side of the door. He waited. Knocked again, and waited.

Third time, he knocked louder. "Laurel? Everything okay?" There was a small crash and what sounded like a yelp from Laurel, and then it was silent for a moment. As he started to knock a fourth time, the door was wrenched open by a harried looking Laurel. She was covered in a white, powdery substance, there was a splotch of a similarly colored liquid on her blouse, and a damp towel was wrapped around her wrist.

"Gareth, thank God you're here!" She hugged him one-armed, but still a little more enthusiastically than he expected.

"Hi Laurel," he greeted, giving in to the urge to hug her back.

"Oh God, I thought I was going to go insane, doing this by myself." She seemed to be mostly talking to herself, and Gareth's curiosity got the best of him.

"Why is there a wet towel around your wrist?" He asked as he gently took hold of her arm and pulled off the towel. There was what appeared to be a mild burn, and he was about to ask how it happened when she waved him off.

"Never mind that, I need your help." She whispered as she dragged him into the apartment, closing the door behind him. He looked very concernedly at the number of small fluffy objects and—was that a crib?!

He turned to her with a wide-eyed look. "What's going on Laurel? Your voicemail said to come to your apartment and that it was an emergency?" He had a sneaking suspicion why, but he hoped that he was wrong.

He and Laurel had come to a truce over the last few months—especially after the bug incident. If one of them really needed help with something, it was given with no judgement or back-stabbing. They would also occasionally—often—fool around as stress relief, no real strings attached—so many strings—and they had settled into a routine. Until now, at least.

"Luke and Germaine are at that dinner at the White House tonight, but their nanny is sick." The fake smile on her face hurt to look at. "I, like the idiotic martyr that I am, agreed to watch my two-month-old niece, Lily, for the night." She sighed. "Though I did manage to wrangle a donation for my documentary from him before they left."

"Laurel." He put a warning tone in his voice. "I really hope you didn't call me for the reason I think you called me. Because if you did, I'm going to turn around and walk out of this apartment." He took a few steps back.

"No-no-no! Please Gareth! Everyone else said they were busy and I knew you weren't doing anything this weekend!" She grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back into the room.

"Laurel, I know next to nothing about kids, except what I remember from when my sister was born!" He backed up again, but didn't shake her hand off.

Their whisper argument went on for a little while, with him backpedaling, and her pulling him forward with each new reason. He weirdly started to enjoy himself; that is, until he slipped on the wet towel he had unknowingly dropped to the floor when he saw her burn. He fell with a loud thud, but had the wherewithal not to curse out loud.

They both held still, in the age-old terror of adults having possibly woken a sleeping child, and they both let out a breath at the continued silence.

Unfortunately, as Gareth got up, a toy he had fallen onto let out a loud—yet adorable—squeak. Immediately, cries emanated from the crib beside the couch. Laurel ran straight for it, making shushing noises as she picked up her niece.

"Your apartment is really shitty for doing this by the way." Gareth said as he stood up and truly surveyed the scene of carnage that was once Laurel's neat and tidy apartment. "It's too open."

"Oh, be quiet, and watch your language in front of Lily." He raised an eyebrow at her. "And are you offering yours up for this treatment? Cause my brother won't suspect anything if you do that." She rocked her niece back and forth, rubbing soothing circles on her back, glaring over her head at Gareth.

He shook his head as he pulled off his suit jacket and tie, and threw them on the back of the couch. He moved closer, rolling up his sleeves, and heard her singing lowly, while the baby still cried. He watched the scene of complete domesticity he had found himself in with a small smile. He shook his head, realizing that he had been standing there like an idiot for a couple minutes.

"Why don't I take her? I know how to hold a baby, though that's the extent of my knowledge." He held out his arms for Lily. "You can finish the bottle I assume you were making when I came in?" Laurel thought about it for a moment and moved to hand over the baby girl.

Unfortunately, as soon as she was in Gareth's hands, Lily started bawling again. True screams of infant distress that shattered any illusion of peace.

Laurel immediately pulled her niece back. "Okay, maybe I'll just hold onto her for now." As soon as Gareth's hands left the baby, the cries returned to manageable levels.

"Oh, come on, Laurel. Of course she's gonna start crying harder when you're in the middle of the hand-off. Let's try again, and actually let me hold her this time?" He raised his arms again, gesturing for her to hand the baby over.

"Fine, here." She gave an exasperated sigh. "Oh, watch her head!" Once again, as soon as she was in Gareth's hands the baby started to cry even harder. She didn't settle even when Gareth tried rocking her.

"What's wrong? What's the matter, little girl?" He tried talking soothingly, but nothing calmed her down. Laurel decided to take her back, to save what remained of their ear drums. The second Gareth was no longer touching her, Lily stopped bawling.

Laurel furrowed her brow and tilted her head. Gareth always thought she was adorable when she did that, but then she took his hand and put it on the baby. The baby started bawling, and she removed his hand and she slowed to gentle hiccupping cries. She repeated the process a couple more times, with the same results. They looked at each other for a couple seconds, before Laurel started giggling quietly.

"I guess she really is her father's daughter." She managed to get out between giggles. "She hates republicans!" Lily stopped crying altogether on hearing her aunt's laughter, but she didn't smile. As soon as Laurel stopped laughing the crying started again.

Gareth sighed, feeling somehow emasculated. "So, I'll be making the bottle then."

Laurel and Gareth spent the next two hours trying to figure out what causing poor Lily to keep crying. They tried everything they could think of, and almost anything that the internet suggested.

They tried feeding her a bottle—he could hear Laurel snickering the entire time—but she would just turn her head away and continue crying.

They changed her diaper. Well, Laurel did and Gareth just handed her everything she needed, while trying not to breathe, but there hadn't been anything anyway.

Laurel tried burping her while Gareth looked up different ways to do it. Lily had burped, but then she just cried harder. Gareth thought it was because she scared herself, which was a cute thought, and they would have laughed if there hadn't been a crying baby.

They tried putting her back in the crib to try to get her to sleep, with disastrous consequences. As soon as she was out of Laurel's arms, the crying intensified to screaming and Laurel immediately picked her back up.

The only thing that stopped the crying—only for a couple minutes—was when Gareth made funny faces, and played peek-a-boo with her. Whenever he glanced up at Laurel in triumph at stopping the cries, she had this unreadable expression on her face. It made his heart stutter a little.

By nine o'clock, they were both at their wits end and Laurel was about to get her phone to ask Germaine for help, but Gareth called to her from the couch where he sat with her laptop.

"We haven't tried swaddling her." He tilted his head all the way back over the couch to look at her.

Laurel looked back at him, a confused expression on her face. "What do you mean? She's wrapped in a blanket already, isn't that swaddling?"

"Not according to just about every website, or YouTube video I've checked. There's a specific method involving a bouncy chair, too, that, apparently, babies love. Reminds them of the womb or something." She walked over to watch the instructional video, gently bouncing Lily as she did. It was the only way to keep the cries to their minimum volume.

"Huh, you know I think they left me that bouncy seat." She sounded so tired, and he could tell that she was barely able to stand upright.

"Alright, I'll bring the laptop over to the table and restart this video. You can try swaddling her."

"Go look by my bed for the bouncy seat; that's where Luke set up the crib initially, but it was too close to the windows for my tastes." They both shuddered, remembering what had nearly happened that spring.

"Good choice."

Turned out, that was exactly what Lily had needed. As soon as Laurel had her swaddled the cries slowly diminished, coming to a complete stop when she secured the baby in the seat. She was still awake, but just barely.

Gareth's ears rang with the silence that descended on the apartment, and he watched Laurel sag with relief. She immediately sank into the couch, her eyes closing in relief. He moved the bouncy seat onto the floor in front of the couch making faces at Lily. The little girl finally giggled sleepily back at him. He looked to Laurel to share the triumphant moment as he sat down next to her, but she was already asleep.

Gareth figured out he could keep the seat rocking by applying the smallest amount of pressure to the base. He leaned back, put his arm around Laurel's shoulders and closed his eyes with a sigh.

Senator Luke Healy stepped stealthily into his sister's apartment a couple hours later to pick up his daughter. His attitude had changed once he held Lily for the first time. Luke's whole world now revolved around the tiny little person he had created with his wife, and he wanted to spend every moment that he could with both of them—even if it meant serious sleep deprivation.

He had sent a few texts and left a voicemail to tell Laurel that he was on his way, but hadn't gotten a response and assumed she had fallen asleep.

The first thing Luke saw was his baby girl sleeping contentedly in the bouncy seat and he broke into a smile. But then he saw the foot that was making it rock, and he looked up.

I KNEW IT! He shouted internally, fist pumping the air. Laurel and Gareth were snuggled together on the couch, resting their heads on each other looking, for all the world, like exhausted new parents. He pulled out his phone and snapped a photo, making sure to get Lily in as well.

After his evil deed was done, he carefully transferred his daughter into her car seat, left a note on the table for Laurel, and walked out with the most self-satisfied smirk to have ever graced his face.

Hope you like it! Good? Bad? Somewhere in between? Let me know :)