Eighteen Years Later

Chapter 7 - Adoption Flashback

Prepare yourselves for a fluffy, wholseome, very long flashback

*a/n Disclaimer I have no idea how adoption works, this is just my take on what Nick and Charlie's process was*

Charlie POV

10 years ago....

Nick and I have been together for a long time, I can't imagine not being with him. We've been married for 2 years and everything is amazing, I have a husband, family, fantastic job and a great house. But I feel like we are still missing something. It's kinda selfish really, I have everything but I still feel like our lives are incomplete. That we are doing things in the wrong order. Like who else is married in their mid twenties? I think I know what we need.

"I think we should have a baby." I said randomly to Nick at dinner that night. He chokes on his food at my words. It's not the first time we've talked about kids but we always say it's for the future and not yet. This time Nick and I both know that I'm more serious.

"You want kids now?" Nicks asks surprised and I nod

"I guess I've just been feeling like we need something in our lives, a baby. And yknow Tara and Darcy have been thinking about a baby and I just want one. We have the room in our house, the money so we should." I say calmly and make direct eye contact with Nick so I can search his face for an answer. I think he can tell how much I want this.

"How would we do it though?" He asks. "We can't reproduce a child obviously so adoption? Surrogacy?" He ponders. I ignored his questions, just happy that he's on board with getting a baby.

"You really want to do this together?" I ask, excitement shining through my voice

Nick smiles. "Of course baby, I want this and so do you, we'll do it."

I launch myself out of my chair to straddle his lap and hug him tightly. He relishes it and squeezes my waist and pulls me against him. I pull my head out of his neck and kiss him. I was so happy I could have died, Nick and I were going to be dads.

A couple days later Nick and I agreed on going through adoption, but we wanted a baby not a kid. Nick and I quickly agreed that if we were doing this we wanted to raise the baby from as young as possible. That way it could seem more realistic, like we raised the kid from birth, which we obviously can't do normally. We got in touch with an adoption center no to far away and explained our situation and the type of kid we were wanting. Sadly, the adoption/foster care system is over packed so we were quickly matched with a social worker to help us get our baby. Our social worker's name is Mary Wilson and she is a truly lovely lady. She was super kind and helpful through the process, she had to do a house check to make sure we had an adequate and up to code house for a child. We bought a lot of baby stuff, a crib, bottles, diapers, changing table, rocking chair etc. We had to list our requirements for our future kid. We didn't have many. The baby's race didn't matter to us, gender didn't matter, we only cared about age and health. Once we were approved to be parents it was a waiting game for the call to see if we had been matched with a child.

It has been 5 days since we were approved as parents and Nick and I have been on edge about getting our baby. Everyday has been us waiting on a phone call that could come in 2 minutes or 2 years. We want our baby now, it was either this or we wait 9 months in surrogacy. Nick and I are sitting on the couch cuddling while watching British bake off when Nick's phone rang from the coffee table in front of us. We leant forward and we both simultaneously read the name of the contact at the same time. 'SW Mary Wilson' Nick lunged at the phone and answered it and put it on speaker so we could both hear.

"Hello. It's Nick and Charlie's here too" Nick says and I can hear the shaking in his voice

"Hi Nick and Charlie I'm just calling to let you know that we have found a couple possible placements for you." She says and I practically jump from pure excitement. I look at Nick and his face is so full of joy I think if I squeezed his cheeks rainbows would come out.