Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and no profit, monetary or otherwise, is being made through the writing of this. A works cited will be included at the end of the story.

A/N: Written for the cottoncandy_bingo square - laughter. My fellow ECT writer made a kind of sort of sarcastic suggestion that I should have Danny hearing laughter and wondering why he's hearing it, and then finding out that it is from the future and, that, because this is fluff (something she doesn't really like), a baby should be involved and, of course, Steve too. Well, this is what evolved from that. Thanks go to csi_sanders1129 for reading and encouraging me as I wrote, and to my fellow ECTer for planting the seed in the first place. Originally, this would've been far less fluffy - laughing kid in the line of fire. Also, this features something that runs in my family - dreaming of babies before they are born.

Laughter bubbles up inside of Danny and spills over, past his lips. He can't remember the last time he felt this happy. Danny looks to his left, and he sees a five year old boy with tan skin, dark hair and eyes the color of the sky on a cloudless day. It feels like the boy's family, though Danny's never seen him before. The word supplied to him by his subconscious is, son. He feels a stab of pride when he looks at the little boy, though the boy looks nothing like him.

Grace is standing next to the little boy, but she looks older than she is now, and there's a man with a hand on her shoulder. Danny can't see his face, just the faint outline of a tattoo beneath the edge of a navy blue tee-shirt. He can hear the man's laughter as it's joined by Grace's, it's rich and melodic. It sounds familiar, yet it isn't.

None of this alarms Danny, though it should, because he doesn't know who the hell the man is, and he's touching his baby girl. They're all laughing, but Danny doesn't know what they're laughing at. Whether it's a joke or something that they're all seeing.

They're standing together on a beach as though posing for a photograph; his toes sink into warm sand the color of straw. It's not a beach Danny recognizes. There are palm trees swaying in a gentle breeze, marking it as a beach outside of the state of New Jersey. It feels like he's at a celebration, but Danny's at a loss to understand what's being celebrated. He just feels overwhelmed by joy and his heart fills with love as he glances, once again, at the man standing next to him.

Danny wakes with a start, and draws a gasping breath of air into his lungs. Once he catches his breath, he falls back against his pillow. He's sweating and his heart is racing. He feels lost and alone. Bereft.

He reaches for his phone, because this dream isn't like any of the others he's had in the past. For one thing, it felt real, like it was actually happening and he was there, wherever there was. For another, it didn't involve the birth of a baby, like all of the rest of his prophetic dreams have.

He turns on his bedside lamp, and checks his alarm clock. It's only two-thirty in the morning. He groans, because he can't call his grandmother or mother this early, and he needs their dream interpretation skills on this one.

He returns his phone to its bedside cradle and grabs his dream journal instead. Reluctantly, he records every single detail that he can remember about the strange dream, knowing that both women will ask him if he's done so, and will interrogate him thoroughly about the dream. He's come by his detective skills quite naturally.

After he's written down every last feature of the dream in his crimped scrawl, he puts the journal back in its drawer and flicks off his bedside lamp. Sleep doesn't come quickly as he mulls over the strange dream, trying to puzzle out who the strange, yet familiar, man is, the identity of the little boy, and why Grace looked so much older than her current five years of age. It's a mystery, and when he eventually does fall into a restless sleep, he's no closer to solving it than he is five years later, after encountering the dream again and again.

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