And Along Came Jamie
Raven Reyes has a good life.
She has her perfect job. Her perfect roommate. Her perfect home. Her perfect...everything. But there are mornings when she wakes up and feels empty. She looks around at all her perfection and craves something more, feels a stirring deep in the pit of her heart. It takes her a while to figure it out, three months to be exact, and then a customer brings a mini van into her shop and it's filled to the brim with tiny hands and giggles and suddenly it all makes sense as she watches kids rush around the waiting room.
Raven Reyes has a good life, and she knows what it'll take to make it great.
-
She tries to tell Octavia about her idea four different times. Once over breakfast, twice during a marathon of Golden Girls and ice cream, and once when they're stuck in LA traffic and Octavia is yelling at the car beside them. Octavia Blake is Raven's rock, her constant. She's known her since they were both in diapers and it only made sense for them to grow up alongside each other and move into a house. They both made good money and they both had a nice life, and Raven was afraid to disrupt that.
It's a Thursday when she blurts it out over takeout and Grey's Anatomy.
"Fuck," Octavia scoffs as she takes a bite of her orange chicken. "Callie is a bitch."
"I want to have a baby."
Chicken splatters back into the white box as green eyes snap to her, "With me?"
"No, you idiot." Raven laughs, and it sounds completely off so she turns away to poke weakly at her California roll. "I-I want to have a baby. I want to adopt a child. It's crazy, I know. A-And I understand if you don't want to be a part of that and..."
"Dude, breathe." Octavia orders as she spears her chicken once more and pops it into her mouth, and Raven throws a quick glance to watch as her best friend chews thoughtfully. "How long have you been thinking about this?"
"A while." Raven admits with a shrug. "I'm ready to be a mom."
Octavia barks out a laugh and shakes her head, "Never thought I'd hear you say that."
"Neither did I." Raven whispers with a blush. "But I want a baby."
"Well, then I'm in." Octavia nods. "Let's get you a baby."
Raven scrunches her nose slightly, "Don't say it like that."
"Fine." Octavia sighs. "Let's get you pregnant."
"I don't want to be pregnant."
Octavia narrows her eyes and throws a chopstick at her best friend.
-
Adoption is a long process.
Very long. And Raven spends a lot of time with a headache. There's papers and decisions and lawyers and options and it's all overwhelming. The first solid decision Raven makes is that she wants a private agency, a closed adoption. After that she drags Octavia to an orientation and two more after that and while her little notepad is filled with tons of information, Octavia doodles nursery ideas and names.
Once the orientations end, Raven is at a standstill and all she can do is wait.
-
"Is this weird for you?"
Octavia glances up from her half-buttered bagel and frowns, "What?"
"That I'm adopting a kid." Raven shrugs as she pops a bite of cereal in her mouth and chews slowly for a moment. "That I'm going to be a mom and a baby is going to be living here and you're going to be Auntie Octavia."
"The only weird thing is that you're not telling anyone." Octavia replies as she sets her knife aside. "I think you should at least tell Bellamy and my mom. You're practically her kid too, she's going to be excited."
Raven nibbles at her lower lip, "I'm not ready. I want to get the call first."
"You'll get the call soon, Rae." Octavia assures her as she scoops up her bagel and moves to press a quick kiss to the top of her best friend's head. "I'll see you after work, I'll pick up a pizza on the way home! Love you, bitch!"
Raven rolls her eyes in amusement, "Love you too, whore."
-
The call comes a month later.
Raven is in plaid pajamas and has popcorn all over lap when the agency calls her and tells her that they've reviewed and accepted her application. She can barley hold back her tears as she listens to the man on the line explain to her the next steps and she tenses for a moment as he tells her that she'll be assigned a case worker and they'll be by to do a home study. Raven chance a glance around her house and cringes.
The second the call ends, she's up and dancing on the coffee table.
-
"I seriously don't think your kid is going to be dumb enough to stick a knife in these sockets, dude." Octavia mumbles even as she pushes another protective shell in place. "Our house went from a frat house to one straight out of Homes and Gardens."
Raven chuckles as she glances up, "My kid has to be safe."
"Yeah, yeah." Octavia pouts as she moves to kick lightly at the gate that sits in front of the stairs leading up to their bedrooms. "Remember how excited we were when we bought this house? How we said it'd be party central forever?"
"I do, but we both knew eventually you would move out to live with your boyfriend or girlfriend and then I would keep the house and blah blah fucking blah." Raven replies as she rolls her eyes.
"Wait, wait," Octavia scoffs. "I don't remember that idea!"
Raven smirks, "I just figured you'd move in with Lincoln sooner or later."
"Fuck you, dude. Now I'm not going anywhere." Octavia declares. "You're stuck with me!"
"You act like that's a bad thing." Raven mumbles.
-
The case worker is stony, and a little cold. She wonders around Raven and Octavia's house and takes everything in; Raven fidgets as she watches the woman and Octavia simply shoots her a look that causes her to relax. They worked hard for this house, did a lot of summer jobs and waited for their careers to take off before they finally discussed the idea of getting a house together. It was a dream they made when they were seven and six, and at the age of twenty-five and twenty-six they were able to make it come true.
"And the two of you aren't together?" Indra asks as she looks between them.
"No, she's my best friend and roommate." Raven replies.
Indra nods and jots something down, "Everything looks good. Baby proofed."
"We tried." Octavia shrugs.
When Indra leaves forty-five minutes later, Raven collapses face first into the couch and screams.
-
More visits follow and the excitement dies down as the agency goes silent for a while. Raven eventually starts telling people and she gets mixed reactions; Bellamy, Aurora, Wick, Jasper, and Monty are over the moon and it warms her heart. It doesn't take long for them to all start bombarding her with texts about silly things and Aurora buys a onesie that says 'I love my Grandma' and Raven loves all of them just a smidgen more.
The excitement makes the waiting easier in some ways, but harder in others.
-
A year and eight months.
From the start of the process until the very moment that the agency calls to tell her about the baby that waits for her, Raven feels a breath of relief leave her. It's over, and the start of her life is waiting for her. It's a little one-year-old boy, a perfect baby boy with brown eyes and silky dirty blonde locks. When she holds him for the first time, everything moment of her waiting seems worth it. He takes her breath away, and when he looks up at her she feels tears well in her eyes.
A year and eight months, and she now has her son.
-
She names him James and Octavia picks Campbell as his middle name.
James Campbell Reyes.
He's perfect.
Raven had a good life, but now she has a great life.
Raven's Snapchats of Jamie and Octavia's Snapchats of Jamie.