Chapter Text
“Let’s have a baby,” Nick says one night as they’re lying in bed. Charlie rests the book he’s reading against his bent knees and turns to his husband with a questioning look. They’ve talked about kids before, but not in any sort of concrete way; it’s always been more of a vague future plan than anything, and Charlie isn’t sure what has brought this on.
Nick turns his phone, and Charlie sees a picture of his niece displayed there. David’s daughter is two and a half, chubby cheeked and gorgeous, and Nick has been absolutely enamored with her since day one. His relationship with David isn’t perfect, but they’ve come a long way in the past decade, and David has done a lot of work to repair the damage he did back then. He’s still not Charlie's favourite person on the planet, but Charlie understands why it was important to Nick to allow amends to be made. And he can’t imagine how hard it would have been on his soft-hearted, child-adoring husband to not know David’s daughter.
“Aw, did David send new pictures of Sammy?”
Nick nods and turns the phone back towards himself, looking at the image displayed there. His eyes are soft and wistful, and Charlie doesn’t know exactly what triggered the change, but something has certainly shifted.
“She’s a great kid, isn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Charlie agrees, “she is.”
“We’d have amazing kids too.” Nick turns his head to look at Charlie, and Charlie can feel the emotion behind his gaze as their eyes meet.
“We would.”
“I know we’ve talked about having kids someday, but we’ve never put a timeline on it. Do you think—” Nick pauses, swallowing visibly, “can we maybe start talking about a timeline?”
Charlie smiles softly and reaches out to rest his hand on top of Nick’s. The blond turns his hand over, clasping them together with a squeeze. Charlie feels something flutter in his stomach: Nerves? Excitement? He doesn’t know, and maybe it’s a mix of both. Charlie wants kids, but not in the same way Nick does—not in the way where it feels like something major will be missing from his life if he doesn’t have them. They’re a bonus, not a necessity. But Nick … Nick wants to be a dad more than just about anything in the world.
Maybe that’s part of why it’s scary. Charlie knows how much it matters to Nick, but he’s also well aware that having kids isn’t going to be a straightforward process for them.
Nick falls asleep a little while later, but Charlie finds he can’t sleep. He keeps thinking about all the challenges that stand in their path. All the ways they could be denied the opportunity to become parents. He can’t stand to consider just how much it will hurt if things don’t work out. It takes hours before he finally finds a fitful sleep.
The next day, Charlie struggles to focus on work. The manuscript he’s reading may as well be made of blank pages for all he’s absorbing. He keeps drifting off into thoughts about what life will be like once they have kids: scary, sure, but exciting and full of love. He may have been caught off guard the night before, but the more hours he had to sit with the idea of starting a family in the imminent future, the more it feels right.
Dinner is nearly ready by the time Nick gets home from work; during the winter, he stays late on Tuesdays and Thursdays to mentor the school robotics team. Charlie teases him about it because, of the two of them, Nick was never the one who excelled at maths and science, but Nick is a fantastic mentor, cheering on the kids and sharing genuine excitement when they figure out how to get a new feature working or learn a new skill.
As they eat, they chat about their days, but Charlie can’t quite settle. Now that all of these thoughts are niggling at his brain, he feels fidgety and like he’s stuck in a limbo of waiting for decisions to be made. When they’ve cleared the dishes away and settle onto the sofa with mugs of tea, Charlie knows it’s time.
“Hey,” he starts softly, just getting Nick’s attention. “You know what you mentioned last night? About kids? Can we talk about it now?”
“Really? I thought you might want some more time to think.”
Charlie shakes his head firmly. “I don’t need it. I’ve done nothing but think about it since you mentioned it last night.”
“Shit, sorry,” Nick says apologetically. “I didn’t want to spring the conversation on you, but clearly that didn’t work out the way I intended.”
“It’s fine Nick,” Charlie tells him gently, reaching out to take Nick’s hand in his own, needing the connection and grounding. “So it’s okay if we talk about it now?”
Nick smiles and nods, eyes bright and warm. “Yes. Yes, let’s talk about it.”
“Okay.”
“I’m the one who brought it up, so I can start.” Charlie nods, giving Nick’s hand a squeeze in encouragement. “I feel ready for us to start a family, Char. We’re both pretty settled in our careers now, and emotionally I’m there; I’m so ready to be a dad. I understand if you need more time … but I’m ready when you are.”
Charlie can feel a smile growing on his face as he listens to Nick speak. He can picture Nick as a dad so clearly; it helps that he teaches 1st and 2nd form, so Charlie knows just how good his husband is with kids. He knows how good parenthood will look on Nick, can picture him standing there with a couple of tow-headed kids hanging off of him like a jungle gym.
He blinks away the image and looks into Nick’s eyes instead, meeting the soft, loving gaze that is waiting for him. “I’m ready too, Nick. It’s big and scary, but I already know you’re going to be an amazing dad, and I think I could be too.”
“Of course you will be!” Nick exclaims, a grin wide on his face. There’s a long moment where they just smile at one another. “So we’re really doing this?”
“Yeah,” Charlie replies. “We’re really going to do this.”
***
“What do you think about getting a surrogate?” Nick asks from where he’s making a cup of tea at the counter, while Charlie sits at the kitchen table doing a crossword on his phone.
Charlie ponders. He’s never felt especially strongly about the how part of having kids, but he knows it’s something they have to talk about. “Fine I guess. Do you feel strongly about our kids being biologically related to one of us?”
Nick makes a face and his expression turns a little guilty. “I think…” he says slowly, “when I was younger and I thought about having kids one day, I guess I always imagined that they would be mine, you know?”
It’s not exactly a surprise to Charlie. Nick’s younger years had been coloured by comphet in ways Charlie’s own had not; Charlie had always known he was gay even before he really understood it, and so he had never had any expectations of having kids, and certainly not ones that shared his genes. But Nick … Nick had once thought he would fall in love with and marry a girl, probably have a few kids without really even having to think about it. “And how do you feel about it now?” he asks.
“I don’t really know. It would be nice, I think. A little baby with your curls and eyes …” Nick grins at him, but Charlie feels something settle heavily in the pit of his stomach as he considers the idea more fully. His own genes feel rather like a curse a lot of the time. Both he and Tori had struggled with their mental health, and Charlie was certain that their mum had too, though she never spoke about it, at least not to him.
“I … I actually don’t know if I want that. With my mental health issues … I don’t want to knowingly put that on a kid.”
“Char,” Nick says softly, setting a cup of tea on the table in front of him and then resting the now empty hand on his shoulder. “You know that there are no guarantees either way, right? If our kids have your genes, it doesn’t automatically mean they’ll go through what you have, just like them not having your genes doesn’t mean they won’t.”
“I know, Nick, but I don’t feel good about the chances. I’ll think about it, yeah? But I think I’d much rather have a little blond rugger.” He turns in his chair, smiling at his husband’s beautiful face.
“Oh, there is no way our children will be allowed to play rugby,” Nick says emphatically, head shaking.
“Nick, you play rugby,” Charlie replies with a confused laugh.
“I know, and are you aware of just how many concussions I’ve had??”
Charlie winces, remembering a couple of particularly bad hits Nick had taken back in uni, one of which had resulted in a concussion so bad it had nearly forced Nick to take time off school. Charlie had ended up buying copies of some of Nick’s textbooks and reading them to him over the phone because Nick couldn’t focus on the pages for long enough to get through his readings. It had been hard and scary, and for a while they didn’t know if there would be any lasting impact.
“Yeah, okay,” Charlie agrees, “no rugby.”
“Agreed. And the surrogate?” Nick pulls out a chair at the table and settles himself into it, looking at Charlie intently.
“Maybe. It’s not off the table,” Charlie says.
Nick nods. “I don’t think I’d feel right if we had multiple kids that were biologically mine and none that were yours.”
“And I don’t want you to feel like you have to give up something just because it isn’t something I want. You know I would love to have little Nick Nelsons running around; the world would be better with more yous in it.”
Nick grins, leaning across the corner of the table to press a sweet kiss to Charlie’s lips. “I know you don’t agree, but I feel the same about you.”
“Dork.”
Nick wrinkles his nose in reply. “You love me.”
They sip their tea quietly for a few moments, and then Charlie asks, “so, since we’re on the topic … how do you feel about adoption?”
“I feel like it’s sort of the default for situations like ours, yeah? It seems great. I like the idea of giving a home to a kid who doesn’t have one.”
“Me too,” Charlie tells him. “I know it can be hard to get approved, especially as two men, but I don’t think any of the options are going to be easy.”
Nick nods resolutely. “Yeah.” He pauses, and Charlie can see him taking a deep breath, fair eyebrows knitting together. “I’m scared that it’s not going to happen for us.”
Charlie reaches across the table to link their fingers together. “It will, love. I know it will.” He doesn’t know, not really, but what he does know is that Nick needs him to say he does. That he’s certain things will work out for them.