A/N: I know it's been almost two years since I updated this story, but I've been busy! In the intervening time I - underwent fertility treatments, got pregnant, miscarried, underwent fertility treatments again, got pregnant, discovered I was carrying twins, made it through the pregnancy, had emergency birth 6 weeks early, my two boys were in the hospital for a month, then I had a return hospital stay, and then survived the particular torture that is raising two babies at once. My boys turned one a few weeks ago, and here I am again!

Part 14 – Next Steps

After Charlie gave the newborn baby back to the attendant, the room faded into a blur of movements and noise. He felt like a fixed point in the middle of a vortex, like a still figure in a time-lapse video. People might have been talking to him, and he might even have responded. He wondered if he'd inhaled some anesthetic and hoped that his brain was recording the events so he could review them later. The baby was measured while lying on Mary's stomach, then she put him to each breast to stimulate her milk production.

Then Charlie was back in the room where they'd waited out Mary's early labor. He was sitting on the lounger chair with no memory of coming to this room.

The attendant who'd been at the birth poked her head through the doorway. "Charlie?"

"Uh?"

"Are you going to want him circumcised?"

"Yes." Charlie said. Then as her head disappeared he suddenly said, "No! No, no."

She returned. "No?"

"Yes, I mean no." Charlie shook his head. "As in, you don't need to circumcise him. I will. I don't mean me personally, but—"

"I understand," the attendant said, though she clearly didn't, and left.

Charlie hunted around for his cell phone. He pressed the speed dial for 'home' and his father answered. "Dad, we forgot a bris!"

"A what?"

"A bris! Rabbi Tenbaum can do one, right?"

"What are you talking about? What's happening?"

"What do you mean? They just asked me if I wanted him circumcised and we'd—"

"It's a boy?"

"Of course it's a boy, Dad," Charlie said, trying to be patient. "Why else would we need him circumcised?"

"Charlie," Alan said with the particular tone of exasperation that everyone seemed to save for Charlie personally, "We've been sitting here for hours wondering what's going on! Everything went okay? It's a boy?"

"Didn't Colby call you?"

"No, nobody called us. The three of us were just discussing calling the birthing center and seeing if someone could give us an update."

"Oh, sorry, Dad!" Charlie said, finally understanding. "Cole probably thought I was going to call you and I thought he was."

"So?"

"Um, everything went just fine. It looked awful to me but I'm told that it was an 'easy' labor." He shuddered. "I held him just after he came out. Oh, his name's Gabriel, by the way."

"What? I thought it was going to be Daniel if it was a boy."

"It just seemed right, just came out. It's on the paperwork and everything now. Oh no, I never ran an analysis of 'Gabriel'! What if it has an awful rating?"

Alan laughed and then Charlie heard him relaying the news to Don and Will, who'd been waiting with him. Charlie winced. He couldn't believe that he'd forgotten to call his family. He had the sneaking suspicion that the task was on Colby's list with his name by it – and that Colby had told him this several times.

"Okay," Alan said, "More info!"

"He's got dark, curly hair."

"Of course! You came out with a full head of hair, too."

"No obvious deformities."

"Gooood."

"He was 3650 grams, or approximately eight pounds and one ounce, and 52 centimeters, or 20 and 1/2 inches long." Charlie blinked. He hadn't even been aware of hearing those numbers, though of course he remembered them. "That puts him in the 49.7 percentile for weight and the 74.7 percentile for length."

"What does that mean?"

Charlie smiled. "Means that he's healthy and a little tall."

"Great! How's Mary?"

"Amazing, just amazing. And I never, ever want to watch a birth again."

Alan laughed. "I don't blame you."

"So a bris," Charlie said. "Rabbi Tenbaum does them? I want one with local anesthetic, not a drop of wine."

"I'll check into it," Alan promised. "How is Colby?"

"The most amazing man ever," Charlie said fervently. "I'm so lucky."

"Yes, Charlie, yes, you are. How did—"

"Oh, Colby's here, gotta go!" Charlie ended the call and tossed the phone onto the nearby table.

Colby had just come through the door, looking tired.

Charlie almost leapt at him, grabbing the front of his shirt. "Cole, I almost screwed up big time and had them circumcise him!"

Colby looked confused for a second and then said, "Oh, instead of having a rabbi do it."

"Yes! It could have been disastrous!"

"Hardly."

Charlie insisted, "But in Jewish tradition—"

"I'm sure there's a way to deal with that kind of situation under Jewish law. There is for everything else."

"But, but …" Charlie felt tears spring to his eyes. "He's not even a day old and already I'm almost messing up!"

Colby took Charlie's hands from his shirt and folded them inside his own larger ones. "Angel, listen to me. You're going to feel like you're messing up a lot of times as a parent. Everyone does. But just look at Nena. Her mother is lazy, selfish, and forgetful and look what a great kid Nena is. Do your best but remember that kids are very resilient. One little mistake – hey many little mistakes or even some big mistakes –is not going to turn him into a serial killer."

"But how can you know that?"

Colby gave him a wry smile. "You don't, you just gotta take it on faith. There's a lot of that in parenting, too."

"Ugh," Charlie said, pulling his hands out of Colby's grip and sitting back down on the lounge chair. "Ugh."

Colby's smile widened. "Starting to hit you, eh?"

"Yeah …"

"I can remember when I heard about Nena. 'Ton of bricks' doesn't really describe it."

"You didn't have the chance to prepare, I did."

"Doesn't matter," Colby said cheerfully. "No prep will be enough. Now, come on. You know how to be good daddy already, don't forget that."

"Not to a baby!"

"Me either, but you learn as you go, like everybody does."

Charlie was about to make some other protest – he had no idea what, just needed to protest something – when the door opened again and the attendant appeared, carrying a small white bundle with black curls peeking out the top. It was their baby, wrapped in a blanket with a tight complicated method that Charlie was proud to remember was called 'swaddling'. Something about being reassuring to a baby that had just left the confinement of the womb.

"Ready to give him his first meal?" the attendant asked. She didn't wait for a response – maybe she was used to new parents gaping at her like koi – but handed the bundle to Charlie.

Charlie made a squeak of protest, it wasn't fair for her to just spring it on him like that, and carefully sat down with the baby on his lap.

"Um, hi again," Charlie said lamely.

The attendant then handed Charlie a tiny bottle, more of a syringe with a bottle nipple on top. It looked empty – no, there was perhaps an ounce of thick yellowish fluid in it.

"Is this all?" Charlie asked.

"It's 'first milk' breast milk, called colostrum," the attendant answered. "Think of it as taking medicine, you don't take a whole bottle of medicine. Besides, the baby's stomach is about the size of your thumbnail and he's never eaten anything before."

"Right, right," Charlie said. "I remember that now. Liquid gold. Why can't I remember anything?"

The attendant gave Charlie a sympathetic smile. "Would you like me to show you how?"

"No, no," he said then gave a forced laugh. "I'm guessing that this end goes into the mouth."

She nodded and watched as Charlie tried to settle the warm blanket-wrapped baby, my baby, on his lap. He got the head sort of cradled in the crook of his right arm and gripped the tiny bottle in his other hand. The baby – Gabriel – had yet to open his eyes anytime that Charlie had seen. He didn't now, either, but as Charlie brought the nipple close, his little head moved against Charlie's arm and his mouth opened. Carefully, Charlie inserted the nipple and the baby closed his lips and began to suck.

A small amount off the tension left Charlie's shoulders as he realized that, while he might have no idea what he was doing, the baby did. He watched the baby – Gabriel – slowly drink the precious colostrum that Mary had pumped for him. After a few minutes, the baby stopped sucking and the nipple slid from his mouth. Charlie held up the bottle and squinted at it.

"Did he take enough?" he asked the attendant.

She nodded and took the bottle from his hand. "Now just let him rest, he's had a big day."

"We all have," Charlie murmured.

The attendant left and Charlie remembered, belatedly, to ask Colby, "How is Mary?"

Colby smiled at him, his eyes showing his seemingly endless patience. "She's resting comfortably. She said that this labor was so smooth that she's considering doing the surrogate thing one more time. Then she laughed and said that was just the endorphins talking."

"That was smooth?" Charlie said with a grimace.

Colby shrugged. "Apparently. I hate to see a rough one."

"Me, too!"

Charlie was still looking up when Colby suddenly said, "Charlie, look at him!"

In alarm, Charlie looked down … only to be met by the gaze of two tiny, shockingly bright blue eyes.

"Oh!" Charlie breathed in amazement.

The baby looked solemnly up at him and Charlie leaned closer. A newborn's focal length is only seven to twelve inches. But the baby certainly appeared to be seeing him. He heard Colby kneel down before the chair. Colby touched the baby's cheek and the baby's eyes shifted to Colby.

"Hi there," Colby said softly. "We're your Daddies."

"Yeah," Charlie mumbled. "Daddies, us."

"He's here, Angel. Your baby is here."

Charlie looked up and said, almost angrily, "Our baby, Cole, our baby."

Colby broke into a smile. "Yeah, yeah, our baby. It was just that you wanted him so bad, I thought you might feel a little possessive."

"You wanted him too!"

"Yes, yes," Colby said reassuringly. "I did and I do, absolutely."

"I can't do this without you!"

"You won't have to."

"We're going to raise him together!" Charlie could hear his voice rising, but couldn't help it. "You and me!"

Colby put his hand on Charlie's cheek. "Charlie, together. You and me and Nena and Evie and Alan and Don and Will and the cats and our friends, all of us. But most of all, you and me."

"I know, I know. Sorry," Charlie grimaced. "I seem to be a little emotional."

Colby smiled with understanding and Charlie looked back down at the baby in his lap. The baby was looking at him again and Charlie managed to remember how to smile. A focal length of only seven to twelve inches, Charlie reminded himself, because this little baby seemed to be looking into Charlie's eyes and straight through to Charlie's soul. He hoped that the baby liked what he saw.

"You're not just a baby," Charlie said softly. "You're Gabriel Alan Eppes, born into a family that's been waiting for you. You have a great big sister, wonderful grandfather, fun uncles, and the best daddy in the world. And then there's me, who isn't a very good daddy—"

Colby made a scoffing sound.

"—but I'll try my best. Sometimes I forget to do things but I promise to love you a lot, change your diaper, teach you math and how to read and ride a horse – I don't know how to ride a horse but I'll learn and then teach you – but I'll always be your daddy, no matter what."

And at that frightening pronouncement, Gabriel closed his eyes and went to sleep.