Well, here it is, this is the story following What If. I have tried to make this story follow a much different story line, so here it is.
'I can't actually believe that she slept through the whole flight back, and the car journey, what an angel.' I gushed, looking down at my now three week old daughter.
She was perfect; I know all mothers say that about their kids, but my baby, she outshone all other infants. The day Dimitri and I visited the children's home in Russia, our little beauty was brought in, only a few days old and already abandoned by her junky mother, and as soon as the two of us set eyes on the little treasure, we knew she was ours.
She was tiny. The workers at the children's home said that she was probably slightly malnourished most of the time that her birth mother was pregnant with her and obviously due to the lack of food; she hadn't grown to her proper weight. I was soon going to fix that though, I was going to make her into one of those cute, chubby babies that everyone ooh's and aww's at.
Her beautiful head was covered in a smattering of fine brown hairs, similar to the colour of my own hair and I am more than happy to say she has deep chocolate brown eyes, much the same as Dimitri's. That is probably why we fell for her, because she had few similarities to us, so that although she wasn't biologically our child, there were still some similarities between us.
Dimitri grabbed the luggage out of the boot of the car, while I disconnected our new daughter from her car seat. We had been in Russia for a little under three weeks. Once we had found our baby girl, we waited a week before we could take her home with us. All our forms and finalisation for adoption had gone through a few months before hand, before we took off to Russia in search of our soon-to-be child. The adoption filing and finalising is a lot quicker for us than it is in the human world for some reason. I think it is because not many people in our world adopt, and so the people who do want to are seen straight away. Luckily Dimitri and I passed with flying colours on the adoption approval and once that was out the way, things seemed to move fast and smoothly.
'It's a shame we can't say her mother slept the whole time though isn't it?' Dimitri asked, faking annoyance.
I had kept him up the whole time we were on the flight, gushing over all the cute things our baby did. He claimed to find it annoying, but I knew otherwise. I knew he was just as excited as I was and didn't mind my enthusiasm, at the end of the day, it made him see that I wasn't regretting one single part of taking home the little girl I had so harshly fallen in love with.
'Daddy's just grouchy because he didn't get any sleep.' I whispered to my baby girl, kissing her delicately on her cheek.
Dimitri sighed in contentment and I looked up at him to see a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. 'You know, I never get tired of hearing that?'
'Hearing what? That you're grouchy?' I teased, knowing full well what he was on about.
'No silly girl. I never get tired of hearing the fact that I am a father.' He smiled, his eyes shining with happiness and excitement.
'Did you hear that baby girl? Daddy likes being your daddy.' I cooed, cradling her gently to my chest.
'Rose, you know we're going to have to stop calling her that and come up with a name soon, otherwise she'll never answer to anything else.' He chucked, kissing me softly on my forehead before opening the door to our house at the academy.
Dimitri and I now stayed in the guardian building, just like Dimitri did when he was my mentor, and since the school had two spare rooms next to each other, they agreed to knock out the wall separating them and make our ground floor room into a small two bedroom apartment. It wasn't as big as our last apartment, and things were a bit cramped, but it was our own private place, where we could be ourselves and raise our daughter until she was old enough to live in the student dorms the academy provided for their pupils.
They did the same for Christian and Lissa, seeing as they had two children, even though Rosie now attended the academy, having just turned six, a days before the new semester started, but they were situated in the teaching blocks instead.
'I know she needs a name, but nothing seems to fit.' I sighed, watching Dimitri set her pram up in the living room so that I could lay her down instead of putting her in her own room where we wouldn't be able to see her. We were both still at the stage where we couldn't bare not to look at her, and we wanted to enjoy every second of it.
Coming up with a name had been a torturous thing. Most couples found that the most exciting part after the baby is born, or even before hand, but for us, it had been nothing but stressful. No name seemed to suit her. We had agreed that since her last name was Russian, that she would have an American name. I had been all for naming her something Russian, but Dimitri didn't want it, so I just went along with his wishes.
We had been through so many names it was crazy, Dimitri liked the name Lucy, but I just didn't think it suited her at all. For starters, she was our daughter, and with parents like us, she didn't have much chance of being a girly girl, especially if she followed in my footsteps and became one of few female guardians and Lucy was most definitely a more girly girl name.
I wanted to go for something unique, or uncommon at least, that we could shorten down into a cute and sane nickname if we wanted to, but the only name I really liked at the moment was Blair.
'We're not naming her Blair, Rose; she looks nothing like a Blair.' Dimitri said, once I had voiced my idea. It looked like we were never going to agree on anything.
'Yeah, but think about how good it sounds, 'Guardian Blair Belikov'' I announced proudly. He had to admit that it did have a certain ring to it.
Dimitri shook his head. 'No. And anyway, what if she doesn't want to be a guardian? I want her to have the Liberty to choose her future, not we paint it out for her.'
I raised my eyebrows at him in questioning; I still hadn't mastered the craft of raising only one. 'You know I wouldn't make her do or be anything she didn't want to be-' then something he had said clicked. 'Wait, that's it.' I beamed; I think I had finally found a name.
'What?' He asked, leaning over the pram where we had placed our daughter, and scooping her up in his arms. She had now awaken and I had an idea that she was going to be hungry, so I made the way to our box room sized kitchen and placed one of bottles in the microwave.
'Liberty?' I asked, leaning one of my hips against the counter and crossing my arms over my chest.
'What about it?' He asked, shifting the baby so that she was leaning against his shoulder.
'No, what do you think of it as a name?' I inquired, biting my lip. 'We don't have to call her Liberty all the time anyway; we could call her Libby for short. How cute would that be? 'Liberty Belikov. Libby Belikov.'
'Liberty Rose Belikov.' Dimitri chimed, pulling our daughter back so he could have a look at her.
'Libby? Is that going to be your name sweetheart?' He whispered, pressing a kiss to her tiny forehead. She gurgled in agreement earning a smile from her proud father.
'I think I like it.' He laughed.
'Yeah, but there is no way her middle name is going to be Rose.' I replied, sticking my chin out stubbornly.
He chuckled softly, as I fetched the bottle of formula out of the microwave and tested it on my wrist. Since getting the baby I had become quite a pro at the getting the temperature perfect without having to wait for it to cool down before feeding her.
He walked over to me and took the formula from me. 'You got to pick the first name, I'm picking the second. And I think she should be named after her mother, and since Liberty Rosemarie Belikov doesn't sound as nice, we're calling her Liberty Rose Belikov.' He smirked, placing the tip of the bottle in our hungry Childs mouth.
'If you're set on her middle name being something to do with me, why not take the Marie out instead of the Rose, and then there is meaning, but difference.' I asked, much preferring the idea of her middle name being Marie instead of Rose.
Dimitri mulled this over. I knew I had got him. 'Libby Marie Belikov.' He muttered affectionately. 'I like it.'
I watched as Libby gazed up adoringly at Dimitri, I didn't know if she was looking at him like that because he was the one giving her food, or because she had already got a true unbreakable bond with him. I was guessing the second reason was more accurate. It was obvious she was going to be very much Dimitri's little angel.
'You know she's gonna be a complete Daddy's girl when she's older right?' I joked, leaning my head on Dimitri's shoulder and stroking our daughter's fine hair lovingly.
'She'll love you too.' He whispered, kissing my temple softly.
'Oh, I don't doubt that.' I chuckled. 'But when Momma doesn't let her have her own way, Daddy will be the first person she goes running too with a tear stained face.'
Dimitri smirked at me, accidentally taking the bottle out of Libby's mouth, which caused a shrill cry to escape her perfectly shaped pink lips. He looked down alarmed and quickly returned the food back to her.
I tutted and walked off towards the bedroom to start unpacking. 'She's already got you wrapped around her little finger.'
'Well, that makes two of you then.' He replied, his eyes following my movement.
'And don't I know it.'
Well, what did you think? Please review and let me know. x