Drabble: Birth Day
Title: Birth Day
Author: Broedy
Rating: T
Characters: Eli, Matt, Nate or Jordan – your choice. One guess who was mine. ;-)
Summary: Today is the most important day of his life.

A/N: A little drabble to celebrate the premiere of Eli Stone on Australian TV tonight.




Everything will be different. Nothing will be the same again.

The room is quiet, the shades drawn to block out the remaining sunlight. She is wrapped firmly in thick cotton fabric, only her face is visible. Her head is so small it fits snugly into the palm of his hand.

Her eyes are shut, and have barely opened at all. White vernix is still visible in their corners. She has velvety soft skin, an upturned nose, and a crinkled, puckered mouth.

The nurse says with amiable condescension that her skin tone will fade, the dark hair covering her head will fall out, and her deep blue eyes will change color. He doesn't listen. The last thing he wants is for her to change. She's perfect just as she is.

He bends down to kiss her forehead, inhaling deeply, taking in her warm, sweet scent.

She feels light in his arms, though the bicep in the arm holding her to him is beginning to ache. But he doesn't move, for fear of disturbing her and ending this moment.

It hasn't sunk in yet, not fully. He hasn't quite come to terms with the fact that life, as he knows it, will never be the same again.

Even with months to prepare for this day, he never knew it would be like this. He's only beginning to realize the impact she will have. The impact she has already had, just by being born.

On one hand he feels like a fraud, that this really isn't happening to him. But on the other he feels like this is just the way of things, that he was always going to be a father, and now he was.

In the months before she was born he worried that he wouldn't be a good father, that while he was successful in is career, this would be the area in which he fails.

But the fears fade as he sits holding her. He thinks instead about chubby arms locked around his neck in an embrace, her first steps, bedtime stories, birthday parties... his heart swells at the thought.

Everything will be different. Nothing will be the same again.

He can't wait.