Scott woke up to use the bathroom, and Isaac wasn't in bed next to him. He went to the bathroom and then down to the living room, where Isaac was on the couch, flipping through an old photo album.
"Couldn't sleep?" he said, leaning against the doorjamb.
Isaac looked up. "No, not really."
"Nervous?"
Isaac shrugged. Scott sat next to him and looked at the album: pictures from Isaac's childhood. He was currently absentmindedly stroking the edge of a photo of his whole family: his mom, dad, brother, and himself.
"What's wrong?" Scott asked, rubbing Isaac's shoulders.
"I just…" He sighed, leaning into Scott's arms. "I don't know. I don't know if I'm…ready. To be a dad."
Scott nodded. He'd noticed that Isaac was getting a little antsy as the due date for their surrogate approached and passed, and tomorrow they would be inducing labor. Tomorrow, they'd officially be parents. Neither of them knew if it was Scott's or Isaac's, and they didn't even know if it was a boy or a girl. They wanted everything to be a surprise. So they'd both donated sperm and embryos with of both were implanted.
"You'll be fine, baby," Scott said, squeezing Isaac closer. "You'll do just fine."
Isaac sat for a second before pulling out of Scott's grip, flipping the photo album (it fell to the floor with a clatter), and burying his face in his hands.
"He's part of me Scott, I can't just…he's my father, he's half of me, I can't escape that."
"Isaac Lahey, don't do this. Not now. We've talked about this."
Isaac glared at him. "You don't know what it's like, okay? I mean…what if I hit them? What if I become my dad?"
"I won't let you," Scott said firmly, grasping Isaac's shoulder. "I won't. End of story. You're not doing this alone. You have me. And it's not gonna be easy, not by a long shot. But it'll be worth it, okay? Because it's our kid. Our child."
"But I'm genetically predisposed—"
"Oh, cut that shit right now. You can choose, Isaac. You can choose to be better than him. And you will. I promise."
Isaac took a few deep breaths and nodded, leaning back on the couch. "I just…I don't know what I'm doing and I know you don't either but that's not a consolation. There's no guidebook to parenting and there's especially no guidebook to parenting for a gay couple and…it's just all hitting me, that's all."
Scott pulled him close, pressing his lips to Isaac's temple. "You're gonna be a wonderful dad," he mumbled into the skin, stroking Isaac's hair. "You're going to take them to school and baseball games and throw fantastic birthday parties and chaperone prom and cry at their graduation and do all that dad stuff, okay? And you're not gonna turn into your dad. I swear to you that I won't let you do that. And then you know what's gonna happen? They're gonna get married and have their own kids and you can prove that you're better because you can be there for them. Because I didn't marry your father; I married you. Okay?"
Isaac nodded. He was silently crying into Scott's shirt, the immensity of what would happen tomorrow falling on him. But he wasn't alone, and that helped.
Isaac, who wasn't raised by a nurse, couldn't stand all the blood and hospital-ness of the delivery room, so he stood outside pacing while the surrogate was in labor. Every few minutes, Scott would come out and give him an update: "Six centimeters!" "Eight centimeters!" "She's gonna start pushing any minute now!" Isaac felt his heartbeat speed up to an impossible rate, and he paced faster, eventually getting dizzy.
"How come you're not in there?" a desk attendant asked him when he went to get another coffee.
"I…don't like the sight of blood. And that viscera stuff."
The attendant laughed. "Well, get used to it, Dad."
Isaac nodded, exasperated. He knew all that stuff he was gonna deal with when the kid was older, but that was the future and this was now and he didn't want to see a baby push itself out of—
"Isaac!" Scott shouted from the room. There was a distinct sound of a baby crying. "It's a girl!"
Isaac almost dropped his coffee. A girl. He had a daughter. He and Scott had a daughter.
"They're gonna clean her up and then we can see her," Scott said, rushing up to him and hugging him tightly. "Baby, I love you so much."
"I love you, too," Isaac said, blinking to keep himself from crying.
"Okay, you can see her now," the doctor said about twenty minutes later. They'd just been sitting in the waiting room, too nervous to do anything.
They followed the doctor into the delivery room, where the baby was wrapped up in a blanket in a bassinet. Scott grabbed Isaac's hand.
"Go on," he said. "I already saw her."
Isaac nodded and stepped forward, looking into the bassinet. She was beautiful; her skin was still a bit blotchy and her head was cone-shaped and it looked like there was more skin than baby, but she was…she was his. His heart jumped to his throat and a few tears fell down his cheeks. He glanced at the doctor, who nodded approval, so he picked her up gently and held her in front of him.
"My God," he said quietly. He just couldn't stop staring. "Hi, baby girl. I'm your daddy. You're…so beautiful." Isaac kissed her forehead and broke down. She was just staring up at him; she had his eyes. "How do I love you so much already?" he said through his tears.
Scott put a hand on his shoulder and kissed the side of his head while stroking the baby's hair. "Because you're gonna be a great dad."