Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight

Chapter 25

Learning how to be a lover and a husband and a parent was something that I think both of us struggled with at first. There were these huge conflicting desires; the deep physical attraction to Adam has never gone away and there was never a point where I stopped wanting or needing him as much as I did when I was seventeen. But a decade later we had other priorities- sleep being the first of those- and I had to let certain things go.

We slept, every night, the same way we had established when we first got together. I couldn't imagine not falling asleep without Adam's arms tangled around my body, or waking up to his body spooning against mine or my body naturally finding its way around his.

Sometimes I took a moment to notice how our bodies had changed. From my job my arms and upper body were still strong and I took some measure of pride in the fact that the muscles I had built as a teenager still lurked under my skin. Lower than my chest… well, those abs of steel I had worked so hard on were still there, they just lurked under a couple of layers of stuff that wasn't muscle. I never got fat, but when my metabolism slowed down I had to learn not to eat an entire pizza to myself, or to work it off again if I did.

Growing my hair out again made me feel sort of younger; I had always kept it long when I was a kid and it was only with the whole phasing thing that I cut it off. It felt freer, somehow, to wear it long even if it meant it took longer for me to do stuff to it in the morning. Because I was my own boss, I didn't have to answer to the suits like Adam did. I was a bit sad when he had all of his hair cut off, for as long as I'd known him he'd kept it long, but I understood that for some jobs a ponytail simply isn't going to happen. He kept the scruff, though, so that kept me happy.

I didn't see the changes in Adam the way other people did. We still fit together like we always had but when I found myself paying attention I could feel the thickness in his legs from the running he still did but I had given up on, the hair that grew on his chest now, more there than when we were younger. He still kept the piercings in his ear but kept them as studs mostly now and sometimes had to take them out when he wore a suit to work. I always liked to peel him out of these when he got home.

Intimate moments were stolen in the middle of the night while our children were sleeping, sometimes when one of us came back from attending to a restless baby and found the naked, sleeping form of the other too tempting to resist. We still had slow, loving sex; taking our time and finding new things to love and explore about each other. And there were frantic moments taken in the shower in the morning or when the kids were playing or sleeping or visiting Aunt Lena and Aunt Maddie for the afternoon. Aunt Lena and Aunt Maddie were the only way we could get some time alone and they knew it; the miserable bitches would tease us about it mercilessly sometimes but I loved them like sisters.

We were at a stalemate with the Becca situation; Adam didn't want to push me into making a decision and I knew that it was killing him not to be doing more about it. I supposed when we were expecting Anna and Ellen there was so much to do; decorating the nursery with Anna and then moving her when Ellen was born and getting all of the stuff that they needed, yet with this baby, if we did take it, there wasn't anything to do. He or she would share the nursery with Ellen, and we had all of the 'baby stuff' we needed from our first two children. Adam fidgeted a lot as a result, and I tried not to let that bug me.

Becca sort of settled in with us but she seemed uncomfortable a lot of the time, especially in the evenings when Adam and I settled into our well- established routine that there was no place for her in. During the day she would often watch Anna but wouldn't be alone with Ellen, although that wasn't really surprising.

If she knew the sex of the baby Becca wasn't saying and I was secretly glad, news like that would make Adam latch on to the idea of keeping it even more. She had an annoying habit of referring to the baby as 'it' though, which really grated on me after a while. Even if we didn't keep it, it still deserved to be a someone and not a thing. I didn't say anything though.

There were tentative plans for us to start the adoption procedure with the girls with Maddie's brother who had agreed to take us on on 'family rates'. Our family situation would make things slightly easier, and easier again when we got married. We would still need Hannah and Rachel to sign off on everything though and I took the job of calling them to let them know what we were planning.

It was a lot easier to get mobile again after Ellen was born than it was with Annaleigh. I suppose we already knew what we needed to pack and how to handle being in public with a newborn and all the attention that brought us. And Anna was used to being out and about every day; it seemed unfair on her to keep her cooped up in the house just because it was easier on us. We took it in turns to take her to the park every day, sometimes going out as a family and stopping for ice cream on the way home. Rachel barely left the house.

About a week before Becca's due date she stopped leaving the house at all, even if we were out of the house most of the day. Adam had arranged to go into work to partially show Ellen off, and also because he needed to pick up a few odd assignments that he'd agreed to take on under my insistence, hoping that he'd work out his fidgety habits. After a couple of hours I had to drag Anna from the Pixar building kicking and screaming, she would live there if we let her. There were too many people working there who were happy to play with her, and far too many colourful things to distract her attention. There were sympathetic looks from what I assumed were fellow parents, I imagined I wasn't the first to have trouble getting my kid to leave.

On the way home we stopped in for groceries and most of the day was gone by the time we got home.

"Becca?" I called as I hauled in groceries and Adam hauled in kids.

She wasn't in the family room so I guessed she was sleeping, until I found a note attached to our fridge.

Gone for a walk. Be back later. I'm fine, don't worry.

- Becca

"Where is she?" Adam called through as he set Anna up on the couch with a film to try and get her to calm down. She had alternated between sobbing and screaming all the way home.

"Gone out for a walk," I told him with a shrug. "I'll call her in a bit."

I looked at the clock nearly an hour later after putting all the food away and changing Ellen as Adam got stuck into sketching something next to Anna on the couch. I didn't mind, but it was too easy to get distracted in our house.

"She's not answering her phone," I told Adam after I'd gotten Ellen settled.

"Who?" he asked. I smacked him around the back of his head.

"Becca," I told him. "Who do you think?"

"Maybe she stopped in to talk to Maddie," he shrugged.

I rolled my eyes and called her number. "Mads, is my sister there?" I asked as she answered, sitting on the stairs in the hall so I wouldn't disturb the film.

"Hello to you too, Mr Black Hawk," she sassed.

"Hello, aloha, bon jour, et cetera, et cetera," I told her. "Is Becca there?"

"I didn't know et cetera meant hello," she giggled. "And no. I haven't seen her in a few days."

"Huh. She's not answering her phone."

Maddie put her 'calm voice' on. "When did she leave?"

"I have no idea. We've been out all day, we only got back. She left a note saying she'd gone out for a walk."

"When is she due, Jake?" Shit. "Not for another week, ten days, something like that."

"Call the hospital," she told me. "Then call me back."

"Okay," I agreed. I rubbed my hands over my face in frustration, I couldn't be dealing with this melodrama. Then I dialed the hospital. "I'm looking for a pregnant Native American woman named Rebecca Black," I told the receptionist. "I don't know if she's come in to you or not, but she's not at home."

I went through the relevant security checks, assuring them that I was her brother, then they transferred me to Maternity. "Mr Black?" someone asked. I resisted the urge to correct my name.

"Yes," I said through gritted teeth. "Jacob Black Hawk. I'm looking for my sister Rebecca Black."

"Ms Black is in recovery at the moment," the sweet female voice told me. "She said you might call. She delivered about an hour ago." Shit.

"Shit," I told her. "Can you tell her I'm on my way?"

"Of course," the woman said but I was halfway to hanging up already. I jumped to my feet and ran through to Adam.

"Becca's in hospital," I told him. "She had the baby an hour ago. I'm going down there now. Can you call Maddie for me?"

"Shit," he said then covered his mouth. Fortunately Anna was sleeping. "Yeah. I'll get her to come and watch the girls then I'll follow you down."

"Okay," I told him. "I'll take my car." I leaned over and kissed him quickly. "See you in a bit."

I went through the same security again when I got to the hospital, insisting that I was a brother and not a husband but that Becca definitely wanted to see me. Whether she wanted to or not. In the end I started agreeing that I was her husband, it seemed to get me moved through the line quicker.

The nurse who I spoke to on the maternity ward said Becca was still sleeping, but she'd take me down to see my daughter if I wanted. It hit me like a punch to my stomach: my daughter.

"Yes," I croaked. "I would like that."

I followed her down a long hallway to where rows of babies slept in glass incubators, wrapped up tight in either pink or blue blankets. The nurse kept me in the hallway, watching her as she went in and retrieved a little pink bundle from an incubator and checked her wrist tag, then carried her out to me.

"She looks like you," she said as she handed the little girl over to me, and shit, she did. Becca's daughter, my niece. My daughter? It was too confusing. I needed Adam.

"Mr Black?" I looked up from the face of the little girl and nodded. "Would you like to sit down with her somewhere?"

"That would be good," I agreed. I couldn't feel my knees. She lead me down to a little family room where I gratefully sank into an uncomfortable couch, careful not to jostle the little girl. The nurse went to shut the door behind me but I stopped her quickly. "Wait. I have someone coming in to see us. Adam Hawk. Can you let him straight through?"

"Of course," she smiled and left me alone.

I wasn't prepared for this. I expected to be taken straight through to Becca where I could shout at her for not calling us when she went into hospital. In no way was I thinking they'd hand me the little girl they were calling my daughter, then leave us alone together. It was like emotional blackmail.

Keeping the little girl in the crook of my elbow, I shifted to get to my phone in my back pocket and checked to see if Adam had called or texted me but it was blank. My heart was thumping in my chest and I recognized that I was probably panicking so I concentrated on the little girl and tried desperately to get the words 'my daughter' out of my head. She wasn't mine, not yet.

I knew once Adam was in the building, it was like a deep exhale, taking all the weight off of my shoulders. He was here, and it was going to be okay now. It still took about ten more minutes for him to be shown up to my little room though.

He knocked on the door lightly then pushed it open, smiling widely when he saw me with the baby in my arms.

"Don't," I warned him. "Don't get attached."

He came and sat next to me, leaning in for a kiss. "Too late," he told me, his big brown eyes confirming what he'd said. He reached out to stroke the sleeping baby's cheek and I shifted her into his arms.

"I don't know if I can do this," I told him. "What if she wants her back?"

"You need to ask her, then," Adam said softly.

I nodded silently and took a deep breath. "She's sleeping," I told him. "Can you wait with the baby?" I nodded to the baby.

"Of course," he told me. I leaned in to kiss him again, a vitally important meeting of lips to tell him how important this was to me. It sounded cliché, but it was the exact same feeling I'd had with Anna and Ellen the moment this little girl was put in my arms. She was mine and I was so completely hers, and the thought of losing her now was killing me.

I wandered back to the nurse's station. "Is Rebecca Black awake yet?" I asked another new nurse, one I hadn't seen before.

"I'll go and check for you," she said with a smile. "Who should I say it is?"

"Jake Black," I told her, hoping she'd jump to the wrong conclusion.

She did. "No problem, Mr Black."

A few minutes later I was called through to Becca's room. She was awake, but looked really tired and groggy in what I was starting to recognize as a post- giving birth exhaustion.

"You're in so much trouble," I told her as the door clicked shut behind me.

"Don't be mad," she begged, wringing her hands together from the bed. "I didn't want to stress you out."

"How did you get to the hospital?" I went and sat in the hard plastic chair next to the bed.

"Taxi," she whispered. I nodded. "Did they give you the baby yet?"

"It's not as easy as that, Becca. They can't just hand her over and be done with it." I shook my head. "I can't believe you did this on your own."

"I needed to, Jake. Is the baby okay?"

"Yes. It's a girl."

"I know," she said with a weak smile. "Three girls, Jake."

"Would you stop talking like she's ours already?" I snapped. "She isn't."

"Not yet," Becca said. "I'll sign her over to you though. Whenever you're ready."

"Don't you have any desire to keep her?" I tried not to get mad at her, but I couldn't believe that she had no instinct to love or want the baby who was sleeping in my husband's arms. My heart ached for the little girl and vowed that no matter what happened, no one would ever let her know that her mother didn't want her. Not ever.

"She's yours, Jake," she whispered. "She's been yours since the moment I knew I was carrying her."

I dropped my head to my hands and roughly rubbed my face and hair. Why was this so difficult? I looked back up at Becca, a hundred questions ready for her until her eyes widened.

"Don't you want her?" she gasped.

"It's not a case of wanting her," I said carefully. "It's doing what's best for everyone."

"Please, Jake," she begged, grasping for my hands. "Please, you have to. I don't want her going to strangers. She's yours."

"Okay, okay, don't get upset," I said. "You wouldn't keep her if we said no?"

"No," she said with deep creases above her eyebrows. "I can't. You have to take her."

"We have a lawyer already," I said slowly. "We can get this done in a couple of days."

"That's good," she said quickly.

"Okay," I sighed. "I still need to talk to Adam. Do you want me to call Dad for you? Or Rach?"

"No, I'll call them later. I'm tired, now."

"Okay." I leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I love you, Becs."

My mind was going too quickly as I found my way back to Adam and the little girl who was going to be my third child. When I opened the door he was feeding her and I leaned on the doorframe watching him.

Adam looked up and to me for all the answers both of us had.

"Let's do it," I said and he smiled. That was all I needed to see.

-x-X-x-

I called Dad and Rachel to let them know what had happened and that we were going to be adopting the baby. Dad thought we were all insane, and wanted Becca back in La Push as soon as possible. Rachel offered to come and collect her and to sign off on Ellen's adoption papers while she was in San Francisco. Hannah agreed to come down for a flying visit as well, and we made rushed plans with Maddie's brother to get all of the paperwork and propositions for the judge done in time.

There were social workers involved from the moment hospital staff were informed of who I actually was and what we were planning on doing so Adam and I were granted temporary custody of Baby Black until our hearing date came up.

Baby Black still needed a name.

We had decided to stay in the hospital with Becca for the short term while we tried to figure out what the hell we were going to tell Anna when we got home. I didn't think she'd be particularly bothered; she had taken to Ellen relatively easily and she was laid back enough not to let another new sister bother her. I hoped.

With no family around us this time, and Lena and Maddie watching our daughters, it was solely down to me and Adam to try and find a name for the new baby. We didn't even have a fridge to fall back on. Things had come to a grinding halt with the letter L and I felt like I was in an episode of Sesame Street.

"Lauren," I said.

"Laura," Adam countered.

"Lisa."

"Louise."

"I like Louise," I said. "But I don't like Lou."

"Ah, fair point. Give me my daughter back." I shifted her into his arms and reached for him to snuggle into my arms.

"Lara?" I asked and kissed his hair.

"Makes me think 'Croft'," he said and I hummed in agreement. "How did we get to L anyway?"

"We thought it sounded nice with Annaleigh and Ellen," I reminded him.

"Oh yeah. Lucy."

"No. Just… no."

"Okay," he laughed. "It's your turn."

"Uh, Lacey?" Adam was silent. "Okay, not Lacey."

"No, I like it." He looked down at the sleeping baby who was pouting as she dreamed. It was adorable. "Lacey Black Hawk."

It stuck. We hadn't given any of the girls middle names since they had a double- barreled surname, it seemed like too much of a mouthful. In some ways I wonder why we never agonized over the naming of our children; I suppose we waited until they were born and the names we chose just seemed right to each of them. Even though she was only hours old I saw so much Black in Lacey already. She had the same sharp cheekbones as my sisters and my mom, and probably my grandmother too. There wasn't the same striking resemblance as Anna had, but there was enough that no one would question that she was family. She was family.

Adam had thought to load up the car with Ellen's car seat before he left, so once we were free to go we got the hell out of the hospital. Becca had to stay in for at least a few more days; after I did a bit more poking around I found out she'd had to have a cesarean because Lacey was upside down or something. I was just about ready to kill the girl but she was so damn fucked up I couldn't bring myself to smother her with a pillow like I should have.

That annoying voice in the back of my head didn't go away, the one that kept saying that it was wrong for us to just take her child. But Becca refused to even see the baby. Lacey had been taken away to be checked out after she was born, and Becca had gone straight to recovery, adamant that Lacey should go to the nursery to wait for me. No matter what we said or did, she wouldn't see her daughter.

We didn't need hardly anything to bring Lacey into our family; once we announced that we'd adopted another baby there was an amazing response from our friends and family who turned up within hours of us taking Lacey home with things like the second car seat and crib. Lena came to help me set up Lacey's crib and there were a couple of hours of us crying with laughter as she made dirty jokes about tab A fitting into slot B.

Rachel and Paul flew down the following day and Carrie the day after, pushing both me and Lena to maximum capacity. Carrie moved in with us into the room Becca had been sleeping in; she said (rightly, of course) that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into and she was there to help. And shit, did she help.

Maintaining Anna's routine while we tried to settle Lacey and Ellen into a similar one was almost impossible, even though our adult to child ratio was one on one Carrie ended up doing all the stuff we didn't have time for, like laundry and grocery shopping and cooking. I swear Adam and I would have lived off cereal, toast and takeaway if she hadn't moved in. Nothing was said, but she ended up taking time off work and staying with us for a month while we got settled into having three kids. I gave up on working completely and handed all my responsibilities over to my manager at BHM and let him deal with it all. I couldn't even find myself disappointed- being a father of three was just overwhelmingly thrilling.

Three days after Lacey was born we got granted a court hearing to do all of the legal paperwork to make both Adam and I legal joint parents of Annaleigh and Ellen. While we were there we signed a few pieces of paper that made us married in the eyes of the US Government. It made me a bit sick that we'd resorted to doing it to be completely honest. We'd always maintained that we didn't need the bit of paper that said we were 'allowed' to get married, but for the sake of my youngest daughter, I swallowed my pride and signed the damn papers. There was no ceremony. Adam and I had been married as Quileutes for eight years, nothing else needed to be said.

Stephen, Maddie's brother, got all of the paperwork together with Becca before she went back to La Push and the fact that we had temporary custody of Lacey already meant he could hopefully push a hearing through. Rachel had agreed with Dad that she'd let Becca take her spare room on the assumption that Dad and Charlie wouldn't really want to deal with all of the emotional baggage that Becs was carrying around. Rach had also told me, in private, that they had arranged for her to get counseling for her to come to terms with what had happened over the past year. It hurt me so much to think of how broken Becca had become but watching her reaction to Lacey had proved Adam right, in a way. Becca wasn't ready to take on a child and she needed help.

Slow, loving kisses before bed rarely morphed into something more heated and passionate; before our roaming hands found the right part of soft skin we were normally asleep. There was no shifts on feeding schedule any more- we both got up to do every feed together which was possibly the only benefit of Ellen and Lacey only being thirteen weeks apart in age. We had a quiet understanding though: this might not be the most sexually active part of our relationship but our kids came first. I knew how long it had taken Anna to get into a good sleeping pattern so I was quietly hopeful that it wouldn't be too long before we were fucking each other's brains out.

My fingers were very firmly crossed.

-x-X-x-

A/N: Still not the end. I'm a little bit sad… Not as many people review any more. I shouldn't be surprised, if I had any integrity this would have ended at Chapter 16! Then again, the story is called This Mortal Life so I think in a way I always expected to take it beyond the 'Twilight Zone'. I really appreciate I'm asking you to accept characters who bear very little resemblance to those in the original series now they're all grown up. I still appreciate every little comment and everyone who reads this mess. I love you all!