Part 8 – The Details

"I wanted to go to the mommy store!" Nena wailed, almost as soon as Charlie and Colby had stepped through the door at home. "You said I could go!"

Colby resisted telling her that they'd said no such thing. "We went while you were with your Mom."

"I wanted to go!" Nena moaned in seven-year-old despair.

"Next time," Colby said, then quickly corrected, "Next time that Charlie and I both go, you can come."

"Proooomise?"

"Uh," Colby said, meeting Charlie's eyes. That was probably safe. "Sure, we promise."

"Okay," Nena said with a dramatic sigh. "I won't forget."

"I know you won't," Colby smiled.

"Nena," Charlie asked cautiously. "Did you tell your mom that you're going to get a little sister or brother?"

Nena's face darkened. "Yes."

Colby grimaced. He hadn't thought about what Jenny would think. "What did she say?"

"Nothin'," Nena said quietly.

"What did she say?" Colby asked again, though gently. He always needed to know what poison Jenny had been feeding Nena so he could counteract it.

"She said I was wrong," Nena said, even quieter. "When I told her about the Mommy Store, she got really mad and started saying stuff."

"Like what?"

"She said …" Nena's voice was almost a whisper and Colby had to lean closer. "She said that you were a filthy fag that just probably wanted a little boy to abuse, too."

Colby sucked in his breath. His hands clenched into fists as he fought the desire to curse Jenny.

Nena looked up. "It's okay, Daddy Daddy. I know she says stuff like that jus' to be mean."

"Did she say anything else?" Colby asked through gritted teeth.

"Just that if she wasn' so busy she'd take me away from you for good."

Colby grimaced, but this was an old line of Jenny's. Somehow, she was always 'too busy' to fight for custody of Nena.

Charlie asked, his voice tense, "Why do you think that we're having a baby, Nena?"

Nena's big green eyes swung to Charlie. "So you can be 'Daddy Daddy', too," she said. "And you can do all the stuff you missed with me."

Forcing back the bile that Jenny's words had brought up, Colby put his arm around Nena and smiled at her. "That's right, honey, plus we've got lots of love to share. Remember what I said about love?"

Nena smiled back. "If you give some love away, you have more to give away. It's anti-math."

"Not anti-math," Colby said quickly, before Charlie could protest. "Just a different kind of math."

"Love-math," Nena agreed. Then gave a big yawn.

Colby looked up at the clock. When they'd called from the airport, Alan had told them that Jenny had dropped off Nena way past suppertime, almost bedtime.

"Did you get some dinner?" Colby asked.

"Had a burger," she said.

"Okay, then it's off to bed with you. School tomorrow."

Nena grumbled, but not too loudly which meant she really was tired. Colby could only imagine how tiring it was to be around Jenny and Jenny's boyfriend, trying to be perfect so that the boyfriend would like her but also having to defend her father from Jenny's attacks.

"Up to bed with you," Colby said. "Charlie will be up in a few minutes to read you a chapter from that book."

"Maybe Charlie could read me two chapters tomorrow?" Nena asked with another yawn.

"Sure," Charlie said.

"Night Daddy," Nena said, giving each of them a hug in turn. "Night Charlie, Night Grandpa."

They all told her goodnight and watched her go upstairs.

As soon as she was gone, Alan turned to them. "Well? I know what you said over the phone."

"Dad," Charlie groaned. "We just got home ourselves. Could we at least get something to eat?"

"Of course, of course!" Alan herded them into the kitchen, forcing them to leave their bags by the front door.

Alan quickly whipped up sandwiches while asking, "So it's a go? When is it going to happen?"

"Very soon," Charlie said as he got out two glasses and poured him and Colby some juice. "Everything's lining up perfectly. Mary's already starting on the drugs to suppress her own cycle. It's crazy how much those drugs cost!"

Colby said, "Charlie will have to fly up and do his, umm, donation at a moment's notice. Well, not a moment, but at a short notice."

"You have to pay for her drugs?" Alan asked.

"We have to pay for everything," Colby responded while taking a plate with a sandwich. "It's not like health insurance is going to cover it. Ours or hers."

Alan frowned. "How much money are we talking?"

"Well," Charlie said with a grimace. He looked at Colby and Colby gave him a resigned but encouraging smile. Charlie continued, "They're giving us a discount on the costs if we allow them to study the baby."

"Study?" Alan asked in alarm.

"Very restricted," Colby said quickly. "He or she has to go in for tests – just cognitive tests and stuff like that – at age one and every two years after that."

"To see if he's a genius?"

"Well," Charlie said uncomfortably. "That is one of the missions of the clinic, to try and figure out what sort of things get passed down genetically. They're starting with strong types, like me instead of someone just 'good in math', in hopes that these 'strong' traits will be passed on more readily."

"Hmm," Alan said. "Still don't like it."

"We don't either, Dad," Charlie said. "But they're doing good work there. As more and more genes are linked to certain diseases, people are thinking about taking out those genes, but what if they're important?"

"True."

The conversation paused as Alan sliced up some apples and Charlie went to check that Nena had made it to bed. Colby could see Alan literally bite his tongue on all the questions he must have. Colby carried their late dinner out to the dining room table.

After a few minutes, Charlie came down the stairs. "She'd actually crawled into bed in her clothes," he reported. "I had to get her up and into her pajamas."

"Poor kid," Colby said. He was exhausted after five minutes with Jenny. But Nena, to her credit, had never said that she didn't want to see her mother anymore.

Charlie sat in a chair next to Colby and picked up his sandwich. Alan waited impatiently while Charlie ate a few bites and drank some juice.

Finally, Alan burst out with, "Have you picked out an egg donor, yet? Do they give you a catalog or something?"

Colby saw a shadow cross Charlie's face. He put a hand on Charlie's shoulder and waited for Charlie to finish chewing and swallowing his food.

When he was ready, Charlie said with undisguised annoyance, "We're not going to 'pick out' the donor, Dad. We don't want to get a 'designer baby.' We'll take the luck of the draw, like anyone else. Though, the candidate pool has been pre-selected, so it's not quite the same."

"Luck of the draw?"

"It'll be based solely on availability and medical compatibility, like blood type."

"Wow," Alan said. "So you could have a black baby or an Asian baby."

"That's right," Charlie said sharply.

"Are you sure you don't want a baby that looks like you? Otherwise, you're going to have to be explaining about the kid from the beginning."

"Dad, we're two guys," Charlie said and Colby was happy to see some humor creeping into his voice and face. "It's not like people are going to think that that the baby came from us only."

"True, but …"

"We're very sure about this," Charlie said, putting his hand on top of Colby's hand where it still rested on his shoulder. "It's tough enough that the kid is going to come from a gene pool of geniuses."

Colby added quietly, "Charlie actually talked about going elsewhere, to get a wider option of donors, but I convinced him that this would be okay. It's very important to us that the baby not be 'picked' but grow into whoever he or she is meant to be."

Alan looked at them for a moment, frowning thoughtfully. Finally, he said, "That's very brave of you. But I can still hope that the baby looks like you."

Colby offered a smile. "And I can hope that the baby likes football, but I'm not going to plan on it."

Alan nodded. "Very wise."

"Our baby's going to be a baby," Charlie said with quiet conviction. "Not a genetic experiment, not a curiosity. Just like you and Mom had. No expectations."

Colby kept his mouth shut on the niggling fear that Charlie would still expect a child of his to be extraordinary. Only time and the baby would tell if Charlie would be able to overcome his innate arrogance and just let the baby be average, if that's what it turned out to be. Colby smiled to himself. Naw, no baby is ever 'average.' Especially not an 'Eppes.' It's already been shown that being part of the Eppes family makes you extraordinary.

Colby freed his hand from Charlie's and gestured towards Charlie's half-eaten sandwich. "Finish up your dinner, Dr. Eppes," Colby said, gently cutting off any further questions from Alan. "It's late and Nena's not the only one with school tomorrow."

They weren't able to avoid the rest of the questions for long, though, and for the next few days, it seemed to Charlie that all they did was answer questions. 'Yes, Charlie's going to be the biological father.' 'No, we're not using someone we know as the egg donor or surrogate.' 'No, it won't involve a turkey-baster.' 'Yes, we're going to convert Don's old room into a nursery.' 'No, the surrogate is going to stay with her family in Oregon, near her own doctors. We'll go up there when it's time.' 'Yes, Colby's going to be the child's legal parent through adoption.' 'No, we're not worried that the surrogate is going to keep the baby.' They answered questions from family then from friends and co-workers as the news seemed to spread everywhere. Colby had wryly asked if they should just get an interview with the local television station.

Most people's reactions were positive, though they did get a number of people – mostly distant acquaintances, telling them that they should be doing adoption instead. Charlie wasn't sure why that would be more acceptable, unless they were implying that Charlie had a 'gay gene' that was in danger of being passed on to a child. In those sorts of conversations, he fell back on the fact that this was probably the only chance for a continuation of the Eppes family's line, and that usually shut them up.

Don and Will had their own questions, but they tended to be more mundane, such as 'Who's going to get up in the night with the baby?', 'Are you going to make Dad change all the diapers?' and 'What if the baby's allergic to chalk?' Or even just silly as in, 'Which one of you is going to be doing the breastfeeding?'

About a week after the trip to Oregon, Don and Will and their cats were over for dinner. The dinner conversation had turned into a spirited debate on how to decorate the baby's bedroom, especially considering that Colby and Charlie had decided they didn't want to know the gender of the child until it was born. It had finally been determined that Nena should pick out the paint, having the best color sense in the family, and the rest of the room decoration would take its cue from her paint choices. Nena had immediately begun planning the epic painting that would cover the walls. Charlie and Colby had almost backed down after realizing what they might be letting themselves – and the baby – in for, but then had decided that it was a great way for Nena to connect with her future sibling.

Now, Charlie was sitting on the couch while Colby had been dragged off by Alan to look for photos of Charlie and Don as babies, perhaps to warn Colby of the horror that might come.

Don and Will came into the front room and sat down near Charlie.

"Something for you," Don said, handing Charlie a check. "From the Uncle's Fund."

Charlie looked at the check then looked again. "Ten thousand bucks?" he gasped. "Where did you guys get this kind of money?"

"Lifted it from a drug dealer," Will said cheerfully. "He'll never miss it."

Charlie gaped at him. "Really?"

Will rolled his eyes and Charlie grimaced. Even after all this time, he could never figure out when Will was teasing.

"Actually, Will got lucky on some stocks," Don said.

"Luck had nothing to do with it," Will said huffily. "It was research and timing and—"

"Luck," Don finished. Will gave him a mock glare as he continued, "We figured that you must be stretched tight with the costs of the surrogate and everything."

"We'll be okay," Charlie said. "But it is a lot of money. We were planning on taking out a home equity loan, but maybe we won't have to now. Thanks, guys, thanks a lot."

Don smiled.

Will said, "Okay, so if it's a boy, it has to be named William and a girl, Wilhelmina."

Charlie smiled, even he could tell this was kidding. "Not Don or Donna?"

"Ugh," Will responded. "Who would name their kid that?"

Charlie laughed then frowned thoughtfully. How did one go about deciding on a name, anyway? Or a diaper type or a stroller or an elementary school or …

Charlie swallowed hard and reached for the beer that Don held.