Month after month of paperwork, examinations, interrogations, meetings, and a lot of unresponsive decision makers, and now, we finally got what we wanted.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see him practically bouncing in his chair. Ever so often he glances behind us to look at the door, it hasn't moved for the last ten minutes, but he still checks. I turn my head to face him, and he smiles back at me. I reached for his hand and squeezed it, letting a small smile form on my face. With the squeeze, his excited tremble calmed down and his smiled softened but grew wider. He was beautiful, I can't deny that, and his smile makes him even more handsome. He's mine and only mine.
"How long will they keep us here! I want to see her, we've already been waiting a few months... can we just take with out signing more paper work? I'm tired of paperwork" He whined, now fully turning his chair to look at the door.
"calm down brat, we've waited this much, why not wait ten more minutes with out complaining?"
"Its already been ten minutessss" He whined even louder, smirking knowing that he was starting to push my buttons
"selfish brat, you're not the only one that's getting impatient, I want to see her too" I growled at him, which he returned with a sweet smile
"I want her here though, I want to go home already, with her. I want to hold her, and give her food. I want her to finally meet Bear. I want her in my arms. I want my daughter" He smiled at me, the passion clear in his eyes. "I want our daughter in our house, eating our food and playing with our dog." He said, his voice hushed with need.
I felt my face melt at his words, a small almost unnoticeable smile crawled up to my lips. I ruffled his hair in affection "She'll be here"
He grinned and started actually bouncing in his seat, jerking my hand up and down.
SxA
It took ten more minutes of tapping, bouncing whining and flat out pacing for the door to swing open. All movement on our end came to a complete stop. The whining mess was about to get up to pace before the door opened, so he stood there in shock, a large grin crawling up to his face as he bend down and opened his arms. I watched as she ran over and tackled him. Her little mouth quickly spilling out words that were only loud enough for his ears.
I watched them chat softly, the grin on his face never leaving. I admit a small one appeared on mine too, watching the 26 year old listen and entertain the small white haired 4 year old. Even though she looked skinnier and her hair roughly cut short, she looked happier then I've ever seen her. Her dark eyes and her small mouth matching the happiness in his.
A clearing of a throat snapped me from my thoughts. The woman that brought her to the room had a few more papers to sign.
"read this, and sign at the bottom, I need his signature as well" I nodded and got to reading it. It was the same old precautions, warning and consequences of raising or mistreating a child. At the very end of the paper was the actual agreement to adopt her. I quickly signed the papers and gave the pen to him, who had sat on the chair when I started reading. He signed them and quickly got back to his conversation with her.
I watched the woman put a stamp of approval on the papers and put them through the copy machine, making three copies. She opened one of her bottom drawers and pulled out a medium sized file. She pulled out the top paper and put one of the copies and put them in the file. She slid a paper towards us, it was the adoption certification. The last adoption paper we had to sign. I looked at him and he smiled at me, I put my signature then he put his.
The woman stood up and so did we. She put her hand out to shake our hands, and we gladly did
"congratulations, you have successfully adopted her despite the odds." for the first time I saw a small smile on the woman's face "I hope you three have a happy life, and good luck raising your first child" we both gave her our thanks before we walked out of the room. One of her hand in his and her other in mine.
With a thrum of excitement we walked out of Calm Belt Adoption center and made our way to my car.
She was officially ours, and nobody could take her away.
SxA
Strapped in her booster seat, she chatted away with him, every once in a while asking me questions about the house and what Bear look liked. Which of course I responded, but apparently it was to short of an answer because he always filled her in with more information. Not that I minded, I didn't know how to paint those vivid pictures he did for her, putting it into words that would most likely never come out of my own mouth.
About ten minutes before we got home she looked at me through the rear view mirror.
"daddy?"
I hummed warmly. It wouldn't take long before I could actually react normally to being called a father, but I wasn't going to stop her from calling me that ever. She took my response as an ok to ask her question.
"Can we have Ice cream when we get home?... I ate lunch earlier" Her soft voice asked hesitantly.
"Of course! We can have ice cream right!" He piped up
I looked a both of them "We'd have to stop at the store to get some"
"...Oh...Ok, we can have some next time right papa?" she got a bit sad, but smiled when she saw him smile.
"Of course we can, we'll have some faster then you can say Ice cream" He said, looking at me. I could tell he noticed my change in destination.
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I unbuckled her seat belt and held her hand as she jumped down from the car
"papa? Where are we going?" she looked around the parking lot
I bend down and pointed at the store we were going to "were going to that toy store over there, while your dad is going to go over there to the grocery store and buy some more food for us ok?" She looked worriedly at him then back at him "Is he going to get lonely by himself?" I grinned widely at her "nope, He's going to be real quick about it, right?" I looked my gray haired lover and he grunted a yes then ruffled her hair. She smiled and held our hand while checking both ways to cross the parking lot street.
When we got ready he squeezed her hand lightly and told us "behave yourself" He looked more at me then at her before turning to the store. She watched him go before she smiled up at me, ready to go to the toy store.
SxA
One of the perks of being married to a high ranking officer is the money. Not trying to sound like a gold digger, but he makes more money then me, and I would have never had enough money to support myself let alone a child. Lucky for me I have him, and just before we got out of the car, he gave me enough money to buy her something, which was good because we didn't have enough money to buy her a lot of toys.
When I opened the door her little face brightened, seeing all the toys she started dragging me around the store, quickly jumping toy from toy. Her eyes looking at every toy closely after I told her she could choose one. After many questions from her and lots of decision making she chose a small plush dinosaur with wings, the tag said it was a pterodactyl, but that's to complex for just a flying dinosaur, so I'm still going to call it a flying dinosaur.
When we got to the car he was there the grocery in the back "Daddy! Look" she handed him the dino and he looked it over, saying it looked nice, then handed it back to her. I watched them interact a bit, and I could see the happiness in his eyes, not that I didn't see it often, its that others don't see it. It takes a while to get passed the grumpiness, but it seems like she did it within a matter of seconds.
After they're conversation he started the car and drove home.
SxA
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I parked next to my motorcycle and heard her giggle of excitement
"ready to come home?" I heard him ask her, which she returned with an enthusiastic nod. We all left the car and walked to the door. While I unlocked it she looked around in curiosity, her fist grabbing a hold of ace's shirt and crumpling the ends.
The first thing we all hear was the loud bark whine from Bear. I could hear him sniffing at the door of our room, where we usually kept him when we went out. She looked around and ran to the door, looking at us for permission. We gave her the ok and she opened the door, letting an excited husky out of the room. He sniffed and poked at her with his nose before jumping to her face to lick her.
"Bear, down" he backed off and ran towards him, jumping at him to get attention, like he did when he was smaller, but with a lot more mass and force. She ran over to Bear and petted him giggling like crazy.
I left them to settle in while I brought the bags from the car.
SxA
I gave her a little tour of the house and showed her where her room was while Ace prepared the Ice cream. Half way through the tour I hear Ace yelling.
"SMOKER! Shit fuck SMOKER THE KITCHEN'S ON FIRE!"