Title: Forever
Summary: Forever was a daunting concept.
For nine months Eddie had been waiting, rather impatiently, for their little girl to be brought in the world, and he thought that he was prepared. He had read all of the books, talked at length with Owen and Hannah and even the Commander about what it was like to have kids, had even babysat some of the neighborhood kids as a sort of practice. And he thought he was ready; but man was he wrong.
The books mentioned the three a.m. feedings and the nonstop crying, but reading it made it abstract, living through it made it oh so real. Listening to his friends talk about their kids turned out to be no help at all as they talked with a wistfulness that belied all the unpleasantness of raising a newborn. And babysitting? Well, the one thing he had forgotten to take into consideration is that he could give those kids back, Charlotte was his forever.
Forever. A daunting concept when rolling out of bed at oh-hell-no o'clock in the morning to the sound of his distressed daughter, but a pleasing one when she finally settled into his arms after all her tears were shed and her stomach was full. Looking at the sweet face of his little angel never failed to make his eyes well up, and his heart fill to near bursting with an emotion he had a hard time expressing out loud.
Forever was a word that he had only recently been able to akin to Janet and now to be able to realize that Charlotte was going to be his daughter forever was enough to make him stop breathing with happiness. It made all the inconveniences that having a baby brought into his life become wonders to be cherished. It made all the things he had read and practiced fly out the window because he was going to learn it all on his own. And as he walked into his room with his daughter and placed her into Janet's waiting arms, suddenly forever didn't seem like such a frightening idea after all.