Huge thanks to the Guest for your review, as well as everyone else. This was suggested by Guest, and I thought it would do a nice follow-up to the two previous ones, so thank you a lot! :)


first time someone called him dad

He knew he was a father, he had known for quite a while, now, what with the diapers changing, and the waking in the middle of the night, and the not having that much free time for himself… He knew it, and it felt great, it always felt great, even when he didn't sleep for two nights in a row and had to do a presentation at his job at the same time. Even then, it felt amazing. Because he was a father and a husband, and nothing had ever felt so right as this. The twins were adorable – despite their very loud crying sessions in the middle of the night – and living in a proper house with Monica was like living in a dream. It was not that he still doubted himself, and whether he deserved or not Monica, or whether she deserved better than him, he was passed feeling like this, without taking Monica for granted or anything – he would never do that! – but he did feel stable. Or rather, he didn't fear for his relationship and life falling to pieces within a couple of seconds. The only thing falling now was himself, from sleep, pretty much everywhere. But he did feel like in a dream, because everything was so perfect, and he felt so happy.

So, he had known he was a father, ever since he had been holding his two new-born babies, and his heart had melted.

But when Erica had blurted out her first "Daddy!" he had felt like a proper, true father. Like her father.

It was unlike any previous feelings he had ever felt, or it different even from realizing that he was a father. It was a fact, facing him, in the form of his beautiful daughter calling him dad for the first time. Maybe it felt as if Erica was recognizing him as a father, her father, and he had needed that recognition.

He thought about his own father, how hard their lives had been, how hard his own had been, growing up without a conventional family. They were on better terms now, they grabbed dinner once in a while, and his father came to see the twins. He was trying to be a better grandfather than he had been a dad.

Chandler didn't have to wait to be a grandfather – oh, only the thought of it… – to realize that he would rather die than see his children hurt. He would do anything for them, because they represented everything for him. They were the proof that he, Chandler Bing, could be a good husband and a good father. That he was a good husband and a good father. Maybe a tired one, but still a great one.

When Erica called him "Daddy", his heart melted, and this moment instantly went up in the top five of his happiest moments in life. Not that he made tops or anything. But he was purely, genuinely happy, not only of being a father, but of being able to share that feeling with the most lovely and beautiful woman in the world. Monica felt as he did, and with no surprise, was the greatest mother possible to the twins.

She was the one to grab her camera and film Erica saying daddy over and over, as she saw her two parents getting excited with such a simple word. The most important word in Chandler's life since they had adopted the twins.