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The first time Iris found out she was pregnant, she and Barry were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about it. They had been married only four months, a honeymoon baby her dad said. Barry was ecstatic about it, even more so than Iris was. That was not to say she was unhappy. After so much time and heartache, she was glad to be with Barry finally and to be starting a family with him. The thing was, he seemed to be almost too knowledgeable about everything, from her symptoms of pregnancy to her cravings. He also seemed adamant that they were having twins, even though the doctors had found nothing in her ultrasounds to point to such an outcome.
“Okay, spill,” Iris ordered one day as Barry referred to them having to buy more diapers.
“Spill what?”
“Why are you so convinced that we’re having twins even though we’ve known about this pregnancy all of two weeks, and no evidence says this womb is carrying more than one baby?”
“I—I... I just have a feeling is all.”
Barry’s voice was unnaturally high in that way it got when he was hiding something.
“Oh, you just have a feeling, huh,” Iris responded, imitating his high-pitched tone.
“I do not talk like that.”
“You do talk like that when you try to hide things from me. You should know better than to try to lie to your wife, Mr. West Allen. You know I’ll find out what it is eventually.”
Barry sighed in reply.
“I kind of went into the future and saw you. I did it before we got engaged. You were pregnant when I saw you. You were very pregnant, super pregnant, I mean like really—”
Iris cut him off with a slap to the arm.
“Okay, I get it.”
“You went into labor while I was there and gave birth to twins.”
“What year was this?”
“Other Iris wouldn’t tell me. Why?”
“Because then how do you know it was this pregnancy? Maybe it’s another. Maybe we decided to recreate the Jackson 5 in the future. With your singing talents and my dance skills, we could totally manage it. We could get Grodd to be a homicidal version of Bubbles for our breakout star.”
“Funnily enough, she didn’t mention anything about that.”
“An oversight on our part.”
“It is, considering...”
“Considering?”
“We were thinking of naming our kids Dawn and Don.”
Iris was quiet for a moment.
“We’re going to name our kids the same name?”
“Well, Dawn and Donovan and we’re just thinking over it. It’s not set in stone yet.”
“Creative in the future, aren’t we? Well, let’s spend the next five months thinking of better names, more diverse names preferably.”
“Agreed.”
There was not much time to think of any names, because in a month there was no baby to speak of.
~*~*~
It took a week for Iris to drag herself out of bed after the miscarriage, but she managed it. Barry took it hard too, but eventually they went back into the groove of their lives.
Six months later, she discovered that she was pregnant again. Their reaction was the stark opposite of last time. There was happiness the second time around too but also a lot of fear, an unhealthy dose of it. They found themselves in the doctor’s office more days a week than not, but the doctor reassured her that she was perfectly healthy, and so was Barry. Sometimes things just happened, but there was no reason that this pregnancy shouldn’t be completely normal.
She spent the next five months of her pregnancy worrying. She took time off work and put herself on bedrest, not daring to move too much or too quickly. Barry tried to beg off work as well, but the city needed the Flash. Plus, Iris couldn’t deal with him hovering around her all day long. Despite the doctor’s reassurances that she didn’t need to be on bedrest, Iris persisted until Felicity paid Central City a visit and dragged her out of her bed and out of her worry. Felicity managed to calm her with her presence and blinding smile. Iris let herself relax and let the blonde drag her to Jitters.
“See? Aren’t you glad you’re not stuck in that room anymore and that you’re enjoying the sun and fresh air? Not the literal sun of course, because it’s the dead of winter and it’s snowing almost every day, but you know,” Felicity commented as they sat at a table eating their apple crumble pies and drinking hot chocolates.
The second Iris had stepped inside, the waitresses who recognized her flocked to her and started waiting on her despite her protestations. Ultimately, she let them and resolved to enjoy her time out. Iris chuckled as Felicity continued babbling on. She hadn’t changed at all.
“Yes, I get it.”
“I am going to get us some whipped cream, for the pie, of course. I’ll be right back,” the other woman said, squeezing her hand before running off.
Iris looked down at her plate, taking another bite of the delicious pie. She could get pastries like this at home, ask Barry to pick some up for her or something, but it wouldn’t be the same experience as sitting here in this atmosphere with friends she knew and loved.
She leaned forward to grab her mug before stopping abruptly. There was a squelching sound under her that she barely registered above the sharp pain that shot through her abdomen. There was a painful fluttering in her stomach that she couldn’t place. She looked up as Felicity came back and promptly dropped the can of whipped cream.
“Oh my god, Iris, you’re bleeding,” the older woman flocked to her side and started fretting over her.
A waitress came by and noticed Iris before her eyes widened, and she turned to the counter towards the phone.
“It’s happening again; it’s happening,” Iris mumbled before she let out a shout of pain.
It felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside and her stomach was stuffed into a blender.
The ambulance came in record time, but it was too late.
~*~*~
They considered getting an abortion the next time she became pregnant. They were both terrified of going through the pain of a miscarriage again. They got pamphlets, checked clinics out, talked about it at length. Ultimately, Iris couldn’t bring herself to go through with the procedure and Barry wouldn’t force her. She wanted a family with Barry, and she had a chance, the law of averages had to catch up eventually, didn’t it?
This time the doctor took their concerns seriously. Iris was sent to a facility to carry out her pregnancy with round-the-clock care. They passed the five-month mark with trepidation, but despite a scare, they didn’t lose the baby thanks to immediate medical attention. She and Barry tentatively made plans, opened a baby registry to buy things, named the baby Nora when they realized it was a girl. Iris didn’t have a baby shower though. That felt like jinxing things.
Iris went into labor at the appropriate time and it was going well, surprisingly well. Barry was by her side holding her hand, and the doctors coached her through the pain. Suddenly, a new kind of pain hit her. It wasn’t the painful pressure of shifting bones and muscles that became familiar the longer she was in labor, this pain was like something was shredding her insides.
“Stop! Stop pushing, Mrs. West Allen,” the doctor said.
Iris had already stopped pushing and leaned back on the bed, her back arching at the sensation and her mouth opened in a silent scream.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” Barry asked frantically.
“She’s hemorrhaging. We need to get to an operating room right now,” the doctor said.
Iris couldn’t help the shriek of anguish that passed her lips as once again her insides were put through a woodchipper.
“We need to get her to emergency surgery. We can’t wait.”
The doctors and nurses wheeled Iris away after ordering Barry to remain where he was. Iris was put to sleep, so she had no idea what was happening around her, what was wrong with her baby, what was wrong with her.
When she woke up, Barry and her father were there. They were both looking at her mournfully. Logically, she knew what they were going to tell her, but she still hoped against hope, her being rebelling against the notion that her precious little girl was anything other than perfectly healthy.
“Where’s the baby?”
Neither man spoke, they both looked askance trying their hardest to avoid eye contact with her.
“Dad, where’s Nora?”
The detective looked down, wiping at his eyes.
“Barry, I want to see Nora. I want my daughter now.”
The speedster sighed before looking at her tearfully.
“You— you can’t see her, Iris.”
“Why not?”
“She’s gone.”
“No.”
Iris shook her head firmly even as tears clouded her vision.
“The doctors did everything they could—”
“No, it’s not true.”
“They couldn’t get her heartbeat back.”
“No, no.”
Barry stood up and approached her.
“She was... she was vibrating when she was born. It shredded your uterus. There was so much blood, so much... they had to do a partial hysterectomy to save you.”
Iris’ eyes widened. Not only was he telling her Nora was gone, but she wasn’t going to be able to have any more children. She was silent in her shock and Barry must have interpreted her quiet as blame because he immediately launched into apologies.
“I’m so sorry, Iris. This is all my fault, all my fault. I’m so sorry.”
Iris remained silent through Barry’s apologies. She remained silent when he suddenly left the room and when her father embraced her. She was even quiet as she cried, letting the tears fall noiselessly.
She had a dream of a future for herself and Barry, a beautiful future full of family. A house for them and their children, the twins he’d met in the future, but that went up in a puff of smoke. Their future, that future, was gone.
~*~*~
Iris claimed to be many things, but perfect wasn’t one of them. She was a fundamentally flawed person, just like everyone else, so there was a short time after their daughter’s death that Iris blamed Barry. She couldn’t help it. His words rang in her head.
‘She was vibrating when she was born.’
She’d seen Barry vibrate parts of his body, had intimate knowledge of his abilities, so she thought it had to have something to do with him being the Flash. It must have done something to their children to make it so they couldn’t live. Maybe it was because he went to the future and saw them. Maybe he shouldn’t have told Iris. Now, Nora was gone, and Iris couldn’t have any more children. That sense of blame passed quickly as she grieved the loss of her daughter with the help of her father and her friends and Barry.
He was there every day doing any and everything she asked. She was numb in the beginning and didn’t notice much beyond her grief and anger, but as feeling slowly injected itself back into her body, she started to see Barry again beyond the physical presence by her side. He wasn’t eating as much as he should. He was pushing himself too far in his activities as the Flash. She couldn’t tell the last time she had seen him sleep, and if the bags and redness of his eyes were any indication, he hadn’t been getting his standard five hours.
They didn’t talk much lately, mostly because Iris hadn’t wanted to speak to him. He spoke and she listened, and sometimes she gave one-word answers, but as interest gripped her once more, she found that she wanted to talk to him. She wanted to talk about their daughter, because ignoring it won’t make her forget that Nora was ever a reality, a world of possibility for them that closed abruptly. She wanted to talk about mundane things with him. She wanted to know about his day, what he ate, who he spoke to, if Captain Singh was any nicer today than the day before, the bad guys he nabbed as the Flash, if Captain Cold and his sister made an appearance lately, if her Dad had been hovering around him the way he had been doing to her.
She wanted to know his mental state, how he was coping, if he was coping at all, if he was grieving their daughter or ignoring his feelings. She wanted all the words and the emotions she knew he was keeping pent up inside of his head verbalized to her. She wanted to be his sounding board. She wanted to be the crutch he needed if he couldn’t stand on his own. She wanted to be his wife in the active sense of the word.
She wanted Barry, period.
That revelation was nothing new, but in the wake of this tragedy, it was the only thing she could cling to.
She woke early one morning and could hear Barry in the bathroom adjoining their room. He was hissing and cursing under his breath, but loud enough for her to hear. She slipped out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom door, peeking through the crack. Barry was shaving or trying to. What space on his face that was clear sported two bleeding nicks. They would be gone in fifteen minutes, tops, but Iris still felt compelled to push her way into the bathroom and grab a wet cloth to clean the little drops of blood.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Iris shook her head at him and shrugged. After wiping the blood off his face, she gently took the razor from him and motioned to the toilet.
“You don’t have to—” he began to say in protest, but she gave him a stern look, indicating the toilet seat once again.
Barry sighed but sat on the lid with no further objection. She nudged his legs open so she could stand between them and held his face up so she could access his face without hindrance. They were quiet as she shaved him. She couldn’t really ask him any of the questions bouncing around in her head now. She wanted to hear Barry’s voice, but she would rather not nick him while she was shaving him, so she said nothing.
Instead, she took in his face. He was not looking her in the eye, but she observed him anyway, the way his skin was stretched tighter over his cheekbones, the new lines on his face, the scar on his forehead he got from one of Tony’s little shows of strengths in middle school. He was still her Bear, just a little wearier, but that was okay because she was too. They were still Barry and Iris. They could get through this together as long as they remembered what being Barry and Iris meant. It meant they were best friends who spoke to each other about everything that mattered to them. Iris had lost sight of that, but she wasn’t going to let it go now.
Once she was finished, Barry stood up and made to walk out of the bathroom, but Iris grabbed his hand and stopped him. She stared at her husband’s face as he looked back at her inquiringly. His pallor was paler than usual, his face gaunter, his eyes were dull and lacked their usual spark. She knew why, but it also made her determined to fix this. She could not bring their daughter back, but she knew it wasn’t just grief weighing on him, it was guilt as well.
Barry Allen, perpetual pack mule for every problem that existed in the world.
She knew that about him going in and she probably would agree with his guilt two weeks ago, but now that her sense had outweighed her sadness, she knew it was not Barry’s fault and she needed him to know that as well.
“Iris, are you okay?”
She moved closer to him, standing on her tiptoes until she was very nearly staring at him eye to eye and they were breathing the same air.
“What are you—”
“I love you.”
“Iris—”
“You know that right? Tell me you know that.”
His eyes flickered away from her face to a point beyond her shoulder.
“I love you, Barry.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
Iris pulled his face to hers and kissed him. She poured as much of herself, of her unnecessary forgiveness and love and longing and need into it. When she pulled away, Barry was looking at her with a dazed expression, but the guilt was still there, the self-blame. She would just have to fix that.
~*~*~
Barry started using condoms after that, the times he touched her at all. She would have to order him to get into bed and even then, there was fear in him the few times they had sex. He had even not-so-secretly bought birth control pills and put them in her medicine cabinet behind the band-aids. She didn’t need any form of birth control because she couldn’t physically get pregnant again. She knew he didn’t want to leave the slightest .0001% chance it could happen and they would go through that pain a fourth time.
She did not want him to live in this self-imposed agony when he didn’t have anything to be guilty about, so she reached out to his team at STAR labs and let them do their tests on her and the samples left over from her first two pregnancies. She underwent the mission without telling Barry, but she did tell him once she got news that the results were ready for them.
“You should’ve told me you were getting tests done. I should’ve been there with you.”
“If you were there with me, all I would’ve heard from you is how it’s all your fault and the point of my tests were to prove that it wasn’t.”
“Iris—”
“Let’s go see what they found out at the lab and then you’ll see what I already know.”
It did not go quite according to plan.
Caitlin was the one that explained it to them. Iris could tell the minute she walked in that it wouldn’t be anything good that she was going to say.
“Just tell us, Caitlin.”
Barry sounded like a man waiting for an axe to fall on his head.
“The babies’ genes show that they had dark matter. They inherited your speed, Barry. Once they reached a particular development stage however, their speed started to respond to outside forces. It could be anything: stress, movement, intense moods such as happiness or sadness or even just a food that you eat. Their superspeed got triggered and well, with the first two pregnancies they had nowhere to go, and they weren’t fully developed yet, and so they... they didn’t make it to viability. With Nora, the strain and stress of birth triggered her speed. Even though she wasn’t trapped in the womb, her heart couldn’t handle the rate at which it was beating, and it gave her a heart attack.”
“It is my fault,” Barry concluded after a moment of silence, pulling his hand out of Iris.
“No, Barry, that’s not—”
“They got the dark matter from me, not Iris. They died because of me.”
“Barry, wait. Just—”
Iris tried to get his attention, but he walked from the room briskly before she could. She turned back to Caitlin who was staring at her with sympathy.
“That wasn’t the answer you wanted, huh?”
“Honestly? I would’ve been happier if it turned out there was something wrong with me. I wanted to have real, hard evidence for Barry that it wasn’t his fault. Instead, I got evidence he can use to blame himself even more.”
“You know, when Ronnie and I were trying to have a baby, it was really hard. Especially when we realized the firestorm genes weren’t helping matters at all. Eventually, with hard work and patience and support from everyone here at the lab, we finally had our son. Even though he’s adopted, he is no less our child. Barry is going through a rough patch. You just have to talk to him. Tell him it’s not his fault enough times, and eventually, he’ll start to believe it. If you need anything, a shoulder or an ear or a brain to help you puzzle things out, I’m here for you.”
Iris smiled at her friend.
“Thanks for everything, Caitlin. Even though it’s not what I wanted to hear, I really appreciate your help.”
The other woman nodded before scrunching her nose.
“I feel a hug is necessary now.”
Iris laughed before holding her arms open and letting Caitlin hug her tightly.
“I’ve got a husband to go talk off a ledge but thank you again Caitlin, really.”
“No thanks required, you go ahead and get your man.”
~*~*~
Iris found Barry in her spot on the roof of Jitters. She still had her key after all these years and still found her way to this roof when she had time. Barry was stood on the edge looking out at the city in front of them.
“You remember Tyler Kennex,” he asked as she walked closer.
Her steps faltered in her confusion as her mind went back, tracing the name.
“Tyler Ken— my freshman year boyfriend from college? Yeah, I remember him. What about him?”
“I ran into him the other day, him and his son. Your ex-boyfriend Scott is married with a one-year-old. Richie has a three-year-old son, Yancy has a baby girl, Matt—”
“Barry, why are you telling me this?” Iris said, stopping him.
“If you were with any of them instead of me you would have that family you want right now.”
“Barry—”
He turned to face her. His face was red from the tears he held back, the pain more pronounced than ever before.
“I am your husband. I am supposed to provide you with everything you want, and I am the reason why we can’t have a baby, why you can’t have a child ever. You held up your part of the bargain. I’m the one holding you back. I’m the one who took our future from us.”
“Barry, there is no bargain. We’re married, we made vows to each other, promises to each other, not bargains. I don’t care if my former boyfriends are ranked among America’s most fertile men. I love you. I choose you. I don’t like what it’s saying you think about me that you think I would leave you because I may or may not have had a better chance of having kids with my ex-boyfriends.”
“What it says is that I love you more than anything, more than myself, more than being the Flash, more than anything I have ever known. I’m putting you through pain. I killed our kids before they even had a chance to live a life. We were supposed to be happy, we were supposed to have a family, we were supposed to have twins and have this amazing life together. I don’t understand what went wrong. I don’t understand what I changed about the future, but whatever it is, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for doing this to you.”
Iris felt tears welling up in her eyes as Barry stood before her with tears streaking down his face, pain and guilt clear in his voice.
“Do you know what I understand? I understand you. I understand us. Barry...”
Iris reached up and held his face between her hands gently.
“Bartholomew Henry West Allen, I have been in love with you since before I even knew that what I felt was love. Before you left for college, before you came back, before junior prom and senior prom, before the nights we stayed up talking to each other. Honestly, I fell in love with you that first day we met each other at the park and you offered me a swing when Tony and his friends hogged all the other ones. I still remember that look of indignation and defiance on your face when they told me to get lost, and I still remember exactly what I thought: ‘this boy might be slightly less stupid than all of the other boys I’ve met.’”
Barry chuckled wetly.
“Just slightly less stupid,” he repeated in agreement.
“I don’t know what changed the future. Maybe one day we’ll have our twins. Maybe not the ones from the future, but we’ll have them or maybe we won’t. We don’t need to have a family right now, but just because I can’t get pregnant doesn’t mean we’ll never have one. We can adopt children, there are plenty of kids who need a home. Caitlin and Ronnie did it, and we can do it too. Right now, though? All I need is you, Bear. You are everything I want. I want us to be us again. I want you to let me in, tell me everything that’s going on in your mind. I’m not afraid of hearing it, I know who I married. You’re my best friend. I just want to talk to you. Even if you don’t believe this, you’re enough for me.”
Barry looked up briefly as if searching the sky for answers before he looked back at her, a hint of wonder and disbelief now present in his eyes. She pulled him close to her and embraced him tightly. She could feel his shoulders start shaking and his tears fell against her skin, but he was not as tense as he had been before they had this talk with each other.
“And please don’t ever suggest that I should leave you or find someone else ever again.”
Barry nodded against her shoulder before wrapping his arms around her back tightly.
There were still wounds, still hurt and pain between them and within him, but this was a start.
~*~*~
Saint Agnes’ Orphanage wasn’t exactly the sunniest place in the world, but that was to be expected. Barry and Iris, after two years of waiting, had finally made an appointment through Wally’s recommendation. They had been moved ahead in their appointment to check children out because they were willing to adopt siblings of varying ages, not just babies.
It felt a little strange, walking past children and checking them out one by one like they were grocery shopping and looking for the perfect apple. Iris walked past an empty bed but saw a foot sticking out from under it. She stopped and made to peer under the mattress, but the nun stopped her.
“You don’t want those ones. Unruly.”
The woman spoke with such vehement disgust about the children that Iris felt her hackles raise.
“I think we’ll make that decision, thank you,” she replied, her face and tone perfectly polite, but her eyes cold.
The nun’s eyes widened slightly before she nodded and walked some steps away. Barry went to the right side of the bed as Iris kneeled by the left side. She peeked under the sheet to see a girl laying there. She looked to be between ten and twelve, had long black braided hair and skin just a shade darker than Iris. She held a toddler in her arms of about two years old. He was lighter skinned than her with bright green eyes as opposed to the girl’s brown eyes. There was someone else at the girl’s back, another girl, smaller in size and with her back to Iris while she talked to Barry.
“Hi,” Iris greeted.
“Hello,” the girl replied warily.
“Having fun down here,” Iris joked.
The girl shrugged.
“It’s not so bad. I cleaned the spiders out so...”
“I used to hide under my bed whenever I did something naughty and wanted to avoid punishment. Never really worked, my dad always found me anyway.”
“Maybe you didn’t hide well enough.”
“Maybe. Or maybe, I wanted to be found. Child Iris did some weird things.”
The girl looked almost like she wanted to ask more about that but instead snapped her mouth shut. Her face twisted from curiosity to defiance faster than Barry ran.
“Look lady, let’s cut to the chase. You don’t want to adopt either of these kids.”
“I don’t?”
“No. This kid here, he drools on everything, and I mean everything. He’s like a Saint Bernard,” she said, indicating the baby in her arms.
“And her? She has a horrible lisp, and she stutters. It’s super annoying. You’ll get bored of it once its cuteness wears off, trust me. It’s happened before.”
Iris felt equal parts amusement at the girl trying to convince her not to adopt her and her siblings and indignation that a child could be returned to live in an orphanage for merely having a lisp and a stutter.
“And you?”
“Me? What about me?”
“Why wouldn’t I want to adopt you?”
“What are you talking about, lady? I’m too old to be adopted.”
“You’re not too old to be adopted until you’re 18 years old and you don’t look like you’re quite that old, despite how mature you sound.”
The girl seemed even more confused at that and upset if Iris was reading her right.
“But the nuns said I wouldn’t be adopted because people only want babies or little kids.”
“I won’t lie and say that’s not what most people are looking for, but my husband and I, we want to open our home to multiple children. Maybe children like you and your siblings, if you want.”
“Why did you stop here? There are lots of other kids out there looking their best already and hoping to be adopted, and you come to the one kid who doesn’t want to be?”
“Yeah, I’m different that way.”
“You’re strange, lady.”
“Says the girl lying under the bed.”
The girl cracked a small smile and then quickly tried to hide it, kissing the toddler’s head when that didn’t work.
“I’m Iris,” she said once the girl looked her in the eye again.
She stared for a moment, seeming to contemplate whether or not to tell her her name.
“I’m Danielle. This is my brother, Rudolph, and that’s my sister Charlotte.”
“Nice to meet you, Danielle. Would you like to come out so I could speak to you in the light?”
“… not really.”
“I go with her,” Rudolph piped up suddenly, pointing at Iris.
He was unnaturally quiet up to that point, more subdued than most kids his age.
“No Rudy, you’re staying here.”
The toddler squirmed slightly against his sister, reaching out to Iris. She smiled in response and held her hand out to the boy so he could hold it. He latched on immediately and held her hand tightly before going right back to his cocoon of quiet contemplation. She wondered what he was thinking of so deeply but left him to it.
“So, what do you like to do,” she asked, looking back to Danielle.
“Are you serious? What are you doing?”
“Getting to know you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to, because you interest me, because I care.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I don’t have to know you to care.”
Danielle contemplated this for a moment and though she seemed unsure, she slowly started listing off some hobbies. Iris met Barry’s gaze briefly above Danielle’s shoulder and he gave her a small smile before returning to his conversation with Charlotte.
Iris stayed on her knees speaking with Danielle until her legs hurt from the floors surface and her neck ached at the angle she had it tilted at to see the children properly. Both she and Barry would’ve stayed longer if the nun hadn’t come for them.
“Unfortunately, your appointment is over.”
“Oh. Well, Danielle, would it be okay if we came to see you tomorrow? You could meet and talk to my husband Barry then, and I can talk to Charlotte.”
“I guess you can come back. I mean, I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I’m also not going to be on that bed when you come either,” the girl replied in a blasé tone.
“We’ll just have to bring pillows for our knees.”
Danielle’s eyes assessed her with disbelief and confusion once again. She wondered what happened beyond the dismissal of the nuns that made this young girl so surprised at Iris’s interest in her, but she knew the feeling in her chest wasn’t just some temporary thing. She felt light talking to Danielle, her heart lifted and soared and she already felt the roots of love growing in her. She knew this could be her family, her children one day, her shot at her happy ending and she was going to fight for it even if that meant convincing a little girl to let her adopt her and her siblings. Iris had faced worst odds and come out on top.
She squeezed Rudy’s hand lightly and gave Danielle a smile before she stood up and dusted off her dress. Soon enough, Barry was standing up with a smile on his face. She walked over to his side and looked to the nun as Barry slid an arm around her waist.
“We’d like to make an appointment to see Danielle, Charlotte and Rudolph again as soon as possible.”
“And you’re sure you want—”
“What we’d really like right now is for you to schedule the appointment and get back to us as soon as possible, please and thank you,” Barry interrupted, cutting off the nun’s next, no doubt, disparaging words about the children Barry and Iris had chosen.
“Of course. We have your information, and we’ll contact you as soon as we can.”
The two nodded before they followed the nun out of the room. Iris turned back last minute and saw Charlotte for the first time. She was looking Iris over curiously and blushed deeply when the older woman waved at her.
“That went better than I expected,” Barry said once they were outside.
“Yeah, it did. I mean this whole process won’t be easy, but we can do this, right?”
“Of course. we’ll do it together,” he reassured her.
Iris smiled up at him.
“That was a test, and you passed.”
“Well, thank god for that.”
He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. She could taste the happiness on them, it was a sweet taste coming from him.
After everything that had happened, all the pain that they had endured, Iris felt like it was looking up more than ever before. Her family was at her fingertips, just a few months down the line and some signed papers away. She could taste it, she could see her life, her family, her home full of love and warmth and she knew that no matter the future that was taken from them, the future she could envision wasn’t one she was willing to trade in this moment.