Title: "Our Own Family"

Author: carpesomediem

E-Mail: carpesomediem[at]gmail.com

Fandom: Popular

Pairing: Brooke/Sam

Rating: G

Author's Note: Why do I keep typing this?  It's been almost 10 years since the show's been on air, if Ryan Murphy isn't coming to kick my ass by now, I think it's a safe bet he's not showing up to sue me anytime soon.  ;)  This is part of my drabble request fest.  For wickedchaos.

Summary: All Brooke and Sam wanted was a family, even if that meant keeping it to themselves for now.

They never expected coming out to be easy.  It was asking too much for everyone to understand what had developed between the two of them, especially when Mike and Jane were busy trying to put together a broken family.  Brooke and Sam did what they could to hide it, to keep it on the backburner, to wait until they were out in the real world to take their relationship where it would go.  They never told their parents they ran off to Canada to get married, and they never told them they were starting a family of their very own.

***

"She's so beautiful, Brooke," Sam beamed, looking at the little bundle of joy in her wife's arms.  They were sitting in the makeshift nursery, two days after the adoption was finalized.

"She is," Brooke grinned.  "She's perfect."

"Yeah, she is."  Sam couldn't stop smiling.  "And she's our's."

Despite the happiness of the occasion, and the fact that neither could stop smiling, both were sad that they couldn't share the moment with their family.  It was a conversation they'd had numerous times before, and it always ended the same way.  It's not time, yet.  They were on their own, like always.

***

It was Thanksgiving at the McQueen-McPherson household, and while Brooke and Sam were seated at opposite sides of the table, they were still missing one.  They decided it was still too soon to break all the news of the past six years to their parents, so once again they put on brave faces and pretended life went on without the other.

"Sam, what's that?" Jane asked while doing the dishes after dinner.  Sam had been playing with her wedding ring between nervous fingertips; she quickly slipped it back into her pocket before replying sadly.

"Oh, nothing.  Nothing at all, mom."