Tarlos' Greatest Adventure

Prologue: The Strand-Reyes First Family Christmas

A/N: From The 12 Days of Tarlos: Day 12

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It had been 5 years since T.K Strand and Carlos Reyes got married.

This past spring was their fifth wedding anniversary and Carlos had surprised T.K with adoption papers.

The year before, Carlos missed the application deadline to sign the adoption paperwork. And T.K being the one in the relationship who wanted a child was devastated. He didn't say anything to Carlos for weeks since they had their third talk about starting a family with actual humans and not pets.

T.K was overjoyed when he saw that Carlos had signed the papers this year.

His dream of being a father was coming true.

They hadn't told anyone that the adoption papers were accepted. The entire 126 and Strand-Reyes still believed that Carlos didn't want a child.

Adoptions took a long time, so T.K knew that it wasn't going to be an immediate gift from god.

And Carlos was scared to become a parent like he was 5 years ago but he didn't say NO to his husband when he brought up the topic of parenting again for the third or fourth time.

Carlos was currently at the mall off cop duty at the local mall when he saw Judd during his lunch break.

Both men desperately needed someone to talk to about their significant others, so they decided to have lunch together.

"Hey, Judd, can I sit and eat with you?" Carlos bought his lunch.

"Sure, man. How's your holiday shopping going? Mine is a disaster. How do I know what to get a girl? Not a toddler or a baby but a big girl. Charlie has grown up too fast." Judd placed his fork down and put his hands on his face.

"You're asking me? T.K and I are adopting a toddler, so 1-3 years old. I have no idea what to get them. Th adoption will obviously be after Christmas...." Carlos set his salad container down and sighed at Judd.

"Wow! Congratulations. When did you decided that you wanted to start a family with T.K.?" Judd said while taking a sip of his soda.

"It was around our third anniversary. I guess when he kept bringing up the topic of starting a real family, I started to think about it some more. I'm going to be honest, I'm scared like really scared for it to happen. T.K is going to be really happy when he gets to hold him or her though." Carlos said while taking some of his salad on his fork.

"Let me ask you something Carlos, do you want to start a family with T.K?" Judd looked up and stared at Carlos.

Carlos chewed on his salad and thought for a moment.

He had never been asked this question by one of T.K's friends.

"Yes. It's been almost 6 years T.K and I had our first argument about parenting. I've had lot of time to think about starting a family." Carlos said confidently to Judd.

"I'm happy for you two. You guys will be great parents. Let me look on my old Amazon Baby registry from Grace's baby shower and see if I can find some gift ideas for your little one. Then I will take you to a shop and see if there's anything of interest." Judd said to T.K while pulling out his phone.

"Thank you, Judd. I appreciate it a lot." Carlos said to Judd.

Once they finished their lunches, Judd airdropped Grace's old baby registry to Carlos. Afterward, Carlos followed Judd to a shop that he had never seen before.

"Welcome to New Beginnings, this used to be Grace's favorite store for baby Charlie. She's so grown up now. It's scary. Next year, she'll be a teenager." Judd made a dry joke to himself about Charlie who was now a big girl.