Chapter Text
Jake wasn’t exactly sure when he had started wanting a kid so badly. Unlike Buck, he’d never been great around kids. Sure, he had a few nieces and nephews, but he was the youngest sibling and he’d never really gotten used to being around kids. Plus, with him being deployed all the time, he wasn’t around his family as much as he would’ve liked to be. Frankly, at one point in his life, Jake hadn’t been sure he wanted kids at all. After all, was it really fair to have a kid if he was always going to be away from them?
But per usual, Jake’s resolve always broke when it came to Evan Buckley. All it took was one look at Buck playing with Christopher or making silly faces at Jee to make her laugh and Jake caved.
It wasn’t until they’d been married for almost a year that Jake had finally brought the subject up. He’d honestly been surprised Evan hadn’t mentioned it sooner, but he figured Buck had been waiting for him to bring it up. Obviously, having a baby the conventional way wasn’t an option, and although Phoenix had volunteered to be a surrogate for them, neither of them had felt right taking her up on the offer. Although they were grateful for it, and both of them loved Nat like a sister, it would mean she wouldn’t be able to fly for well over a year, and they just didn’t have the heart to do that to her.
So, adoption it was. Jake naively thought it’d be easy. After all, lots of kids need a home, right? But as it turned out, it was anything but easy. Both of them passed the background checks with flying colors, but after that, it was an uphill battle of interviews, home inspections, parenting classes, and more. And even after all that, after they attended each and every class, after they bought a fixer-upper and made it into their dream home, after they passed every single test that had been laid out for them, they still had to wait.
And wait. And wait.
And wait.
At one point, Jake had seriously been convinced he and Buck were on some secret “don’t give these people a baby” list. The social worker kept telling them they needed to be patient but, well… that had never been Buck or Jake’s forte. They had Rooster for that.
But then one day, they finally got the call. A birth mother wanted to meet them.
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“You runnin’ a bake sale or something?” Jake teased his husband as he entered the kitchen, shutting the back door behind him.
It was no secret that Buck stressed baked, a habit he had picked up from Bobby over the years. It was cute, at least to Jake, but the amount of pastries and deserts spread around their kitchen was overkill, even for Buck.
Buck turned around, slight panic evident on his face. Flour coated his unruly curls, a tell-tale sign that he’d been running his hands through his hair while he stressed.
“I just wanted to make sure we had enough in case Hailey’s hungry,” Buck protested, going back to whisking a bowl of what looked like brownie batter.
“I’m pretty sure you have enough to feed half the Navy,” Jake replied, pulling Buck away from the counter and pressing a kiss to his lips before ruffling the flour out of his hair.
Buck frowned slightly as he watched the flour float to the floor before looking back up at Jake, biting his lip nervously.
“I just want everything to be perfect,” he admitted with a sigh.
Jake knew that through this entire process, Buck had probably been the more impatient – and anxious – one out of the two of them. No matter how much Jake tried to reassure his husband, Buck just kept on worrying. Every time Jake brought up the subject of just why Buck was so nervous, he would somehow talk his way out of it. Eventually, Jake had given up. He had a feeling part of the problem had to do with the different ways they’d been raised.
Jake had had a relatively happy childhood. He’d grown up on a ranch back in Texas with a picture-perfect typical American family. His parents were never anything but loving, and his siblings and him had always been close. Buck, on the other hand, had never had any of that. All he had growing up was neglectful parents and a loving sister that left him. And that therein lied the problem. To Jake, family meant loving each other, it meant being there for each other no matter what. For Buck, family was cruel words, a cold home, and ultimately, being alone.
Even though Buck had been seeing Dr. Copeland for a few years now, and he’d been working through his trauma, some of it still lingered. It always would.
Which was why, despite his growing concern, Jake had agreed to let the topic of his husband’s anxiety drop.
For now.
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So maybe, just maybe, Jake had been right. They really didn’t have anything to worry about. Because for once, luck was actually on their side, a rarity when it came to Buck.
Hailey was perfect . She was nice, polite, 30 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby, and best of all, she wanted to give Jake and Buck that baby.
“So, Jenna told us you’re in medical school?” Buck said, smiling at the woman sitting across from them as he tried his best to look as friendly as possible.
“At UCLA,” Hailey confirmed. “That’s part of the reason I’m not keeping the baby. I was struggling enough as it is in school before I got pregnant. There’s no way I’d be able to finish once the baby’s born.”
She seemed a touch ashamed as she spoke and Buck knew it was because other people had decided to give Hailey their opinion on the matter. Some people, people that were wrong, would consider her a bad person, a horrible mother, but definitely not Buck and Jake. As far as they were concerned, Hailey was making a choice that was the best one for her and her baby, and that was all that mattered.
“And it doesn’t… worry you that I’m in the Navy?” Jake asked carefully as he poured another glass of lemonade for Hailey.
It had certainly bothered other birth mothers before. After months went by without so much as a single meeting with a woman who was considering giving them her baby, their social worker, Jenna, had revealed the truth to them. Most people saw that Jake was in the military and immediately moved on. If they somehow managed to get over Jake’s profession, then it was Buck’s that forced them to find another set of potential parents. Sure, none of these women wanted or were able to raise their babies themselves, but none of them were willing to just give them to any random family. They wanted good families, which 99% of the time seemed to mean a nuclear family with a dad that had a boring job and a stay-at-home mom and a nice golden retriever or some other family-friendly dog to complete the picture.
They had none of that. What Buck and Jake had was unstable schedules, jobs with odd hours, and unfortunately, Buck still hadn’t been able to convince Jake to get a puppy yet.
And yet, none of the information in their file had scared Hailey off, and neither had the first 30 minutes they spent with her in their living room. In fact, she only seemed to become more and more comfortable with them.
“My dad was in the Army,” Hailey explained. “I was a military brat through and through and yeah, it sucked sometimes, but I was still as happy as any other kid. I had a good childhood and just because you’re in the Navy doesn’t mean you can’t give this baby one.”
“We will,” Buck blurted, unable to stop himself. Jake squeezed his hand lightly and, realizing his mistake, Buck quickly tried to backtrack. “I mean, if you decide we’re the right family. Sorry.”
He grinned sheepishly at Hailey, trying to look apologetic, but judging by the soft smile that was still on her face, she didn’t seem to mind.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hailey replied with a laugh. “This isn’t my first rodeo and some other couples definitely haven’t been as nice as you guys.”
Right, Buck had almost forgotten. They had competition. He probably shouldn’t phrase it like that, but at the end of the day, that’s what it was. Other couples wanted Hailey’s baby and they wanted Hailey’s baby. He was sure the other families were nice and all, but Buck just prayed Hailey would choose them. They were the right family for the baby, all they had to do was convince Hailey of that.
“So there have been other meetings?” Jake asked, trying his best to hide his curiosity and failing miserably.
“A few,” Hailey admitted. “But between us, none of them were quite… right, you know? One of them practically told me I was a sinner for having a baby out of wedlock, another one already had like ten kids, and one couple actually admitted they wanted to have a baby before the woman’s pregnant sister to pretty much steal her spotlight.”
Buck couldn’t help but snort at that, unable to hide his amusement. Some people wanted kids for the weirdest reasons, most of which weren’t the right ones. He should know, after all. Some people had babies because they wanted them, some wanted to grow their families. His parents had him to be spare parts.
“What I’m hearing is we’re not so much your favorites as we’re the only sane ones, am I right?” Jake quipped.
Hailey smirked at that, pausing for a moment before shaking her head.
“There was one family and they were… nice. They’ve been married for five years, the dad was a lawyer, the mom stayed at home with their three year old son. But they were just a bit… boring. Too ordinary, I guess. And besides, I really wanted to give this baby to a couple that hasn’t been able to have one,” Hailey told them.
People could call them a lot of things, but boring wasn’t one of them. Buck had been so worried that they wouldn’t be able to get a baby because they weren’t the typical white picket fence family, but from the sound of it, that wasn’t what Hailey wanted anyway. She wanted to give her family to a more unique family.
A family like them.
“I guess what I’m saying is,” Hailey paused, taking a deep breath and running a hand over her stomach. “You guys seem like the perfect fit. The
right
fit. So if you want this baby, it’s yours.”
Theirs. Their
baby.
Their
child.
Finally, after months of waiting, months that had felt like years, their wish was finally coming true. They were finally getting a kid, the final piece of their family. A baby that Buck and Jake could raise, one they could tuck into bed at night and read stories to, one they could take to soccer practice and team barbecues, one that Jake would inevitably sneak into an F-18 to take them flying. A baby that they could love.
“Really? You’re sure?” Jake asked in disbelief, the smile that Buck loved to see so much spreading over his face when Hailey nodded.
Before Buck could stop himself, he had launched himself off the couch and pulled Hailey into a tight hug – not too tight, of course, they had the baby to worry about.
“Thank you,” he said, putting as much gratitude into the two words as he could manage. “Thank you.
Thank you
.”
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Jake closed the door behind Hailey, a smile on both their faces as they waved goodbye to her. Once she was out of sight from the front door, Buck turned towards his husband.
“We’re gonna have a baby,” Buck murmured mostly to himself, still not really believing it.
“We’re havin’ a baby, Stitch,” Jake confirmed, tugging him forward into a fierce kiss before wrapping his arms around Buck in a tight hug.
It was a familiar routine for the two of them, being wrapped up in each other’s arms in their kitchen, usually swaying around to some sort of music. Most of the time, they did it to decompress when one of them had a rough day, or to celebrate. Hell, they had done it just a few days ago when Jake got an offer to teach at Top Gun. Buck had been convinced that he would never be any happier than he was with Jake at that moment. But he could be. Because now, it wouldn’t be just the two of them together.
It’d be the three of them.