A/N: *shows up 3 months late with Starbucks* hey sorry, I'm back! On with the show!
"Come meet her," Ellie implored.
Alan hesitated. He wanted to meet the baby. He did. He just…jeez, babies were very far outside his comfort zone. The last baby he'd interacted with had been Ethan. Twenty years ago. And even then, Ellie had been minding Ethan while Alan played—well, tried to play—with Charlie.
But he'd have to get used to this. This baby was coming home with them. Ethan was all grown up now, sort of, and he had a baby of his own to bring home. Alan knew this was going to happen, but it was all very real now.
And so Alan stood up from his place in the waiting room and to accompany Ellie to the room where Ethan was with his daughter. "Does she have a name?" he asked.
Ellie nodded, clutching his arm as her eyes got a little watery. "He named her after me."
"He named her Ellie?"
"Her middle name is Ellen."
Alan felt something bloom inside him at that. If any person deserved to have a child named after them, it was Ellie. There wasn't anyone in all the world more wonderful than his Ellie. And god, how lucky was he that he got to call her his?
They got to the room and Ellie knocked lightly on the door. "Hey sweetie, look who I found," she said softly.
Ethan looked up and smiled. He had a swaddled lump in his arms. "Hi guys," he said quietly. The baby must have been sleeping. "Grandpa Alan, come meet Maddie."
Somewhat warily, Alan approached where Ethan was sitting and looked at that cozy little bundle. And all the air was sucked out of his lungs. Alan had never seen anything like this before. Never felt like this before. "Wow," he whispered.
"Yeah," Ethan agreed. "Isn't she amazing?"
A nurse came in and talked quietly to Ellie. The two men ignored that and just kept staring at the baby.
"Hey Ethan," Ellie called gently. "There's some paperwork you have to fill out, you and Hailey. You might want to go talk with her, if you think you're ready."
Ethan balked. "I…I don't want to leave her."
"She'll be here when you get back. Let Alan stay with her for a little bit," Ellie suggested.
It was Alan's turn to balk. "Me? But I…"
"It'll be okay. She's sleeping. And the nurses are right there. You can't do anything wrong, I promise. Here." Ellie came over and took the sleeping newborn from Ethan so he could get out of the chair and take care of things. "Alright, Madeline Ellen Degler, time to hang out with Grandpa Alan." She leaned in and whispered loud enough for Alan to hear, "Nana loves him so, so much, and I know you will, too."
Alan couldn't help but feeling a little mollified at that. And before he knew it, Ellie had placed the baby in his arms. She was light but solid. Like a sack of flour. And she was warm and soft.
Before he could do or say anything, before he even really knew what was going on, Ethan and Ellie had left. Alan was alone in the room with a baby, standing there like an idiot and worrying about what the hell he was supposed to do.
"What am I supposed to do?" he wondered aloud.
He looked down at that beautiful, perfect baby. God, she really was perfect. He didn't know that a baby could be perfect like that. After all, babies were loud and smelly and strange, and Alan never wanted anything to do with them. But Maddie wasn't like that at all. She smelled fresh and magical and beautiful, and she was quiet and delicate.
She started to stir and she yawned all of a sudden, showing off the pink gums inside her little mouth. Her full bow lips smacked a couple times as her eyes fluttered open. And Alan was starstruck all over again. "Hi, Maddie," he greeted.
Maddie looked up at him with an expression of awe. It must be incredible to see the world through her eyes. Eyes that had never seen anything before. Eyes that were the exact same color blue as Ellie's.
"I know, I'm a lot older than the other people you've seen so far. And I'd bet I'm probably the first person with a beard you've ever seen, too. I'd let you touch it, but now probably isn't the time. I don't know anything about babies, but I don't think you're supposed to be exploring much when you're only about three hours old," he mused to her.
She let out a little noise that he assumed meant that she agreed with him.
Alan chuckled lightly. "I know you don't know what I'm saying. You don't know anything yet. But I gotta tell you, Maddie, I never knew that this was real. I mean, the first time I ever saw a dinosaur skeleton, I knew exactly what I was going to do for the rest of my life. It hit me like lightning, that sudden clarity. That obsession. I have never been so sure of anything except for that. And it worked out pretty well. We can talk about it once you learn how to talk. But I didn't know that happened with people. Love at first sight is sorta silly, right? How can a person fall in love without getting to know a person? But I think this is what I'm feeling right now."
That was a slightly uncomfortable realization. Not that he had already fallen head over heels with this perfect baby in his arms. He had no qualms about that. Just like with the dinosaurs. Absolute certainty. But it was just like he said. He really didn't believe that could happen with a person. Even Ellie, who he had loved with all his heart for more than thirty years now, he hadn't fallen in love with at first sight. He'd first met her as a grad student. He was her professor. And sure, he'd noticed that she was an attractive young woman. But living and working at universities his whole adult life, Alan had seen plenty of attractive young women, and other than recognizing how beautiful Ellie was, he hadn't thought much about it. It wasn't until they got to talking more and he got to know her and could see her brilliance and her tenacity and her humor that he started to like her. And he had fallen in love fast. Faster than he wanted to admit at the time. After their first date, in fact, he was in love with her. But that was months after first meeting her. No, he hadn't fallen in love with Ellie at first sight. With Maddie, he had.
"Well, anyway, you might have heard your Nana tell you that I'm Grandpa Alan. And I guess I am. I don't know how good at it I'll be. I don't know what I'm doing. I've never been a grandpa before. Hell, I've never been a father before. Skipped right to grandpa. But I guess it'll be okay, since you've never been a baby before. We can figure it out together."
"We all will."
Alan turned his head to see Ellie standing in the doorway with her arms folded over the chest, leaning against the doorframe. "We're getting acquainted," he told her.
She grinned. "I can see that. And I gotta say, Dr. Grant, you look very handsome with a baby in your arms."
He felt himself blush, and he didn't know what to say.
"Alright, Ethan got to hold her and you got to hold her, and now it's my turn," Ellie insisted.
Alan tried to maneuver as gently as possible to pass Maddie over to Ellie. And as soon as she left Alan's arms, Maddie started to cry.
"Oh no, she likes you better already!" Ellie lamented. She started rocking the baby and making soothing shushing sounds.
"Maybe she's hungry," Alan suggested over the wailing noises. See, he knew babies were noisy! But actually, Maddie's cry didn't seem as annoying as other babies' he'd encountered. Maybe he was biased. And maybe she did already like him best. Wouldn't that be a strange turn of events?
A nurse came in with a bottle already prepared. "I hoped I'd be back with this before she got fussy," the nurse said in disappointment. "Is the father here to learn how to feed her?"
"He's doing paperwork," Ellie explained. "I can feed her for now and make sure he learns when he gets back."
"I'm sure you know what you're doing, but does grandpa want to learn?" the nurse asked.
Alan, who had stepped back to avoid being in the way, came forward again. "Grandpa wants to learn, yes." Odds were that he'd have to feed the baby at some point. Might as well learn how sooner rather than later.
He tried to pay close attention to exactly what Ellie and the nurse were doing and to absorb the tips they gave, like how to hold the bottle at the correct angle and how to support the head and all that stuff. But Alan found himself distracted. Maddie herself was distracting. He probably could have spent hours and days just watching every little thing she did.
Definitely love at first sight.
