A long lane at night

2.19. THE POWER Part 3

'I will see to your request, Mr Wyatt. As for the NDAs and restraining orders mentioned by you, they are henceforth lifted. Ms Pearce, should I remind you that our job consists of fighting for the unity of families, not division. I hope I won't have to repeat myself.'

Janice wouldn't dare talk back to a judge, but I amused myself thinking what she was going to do to drown her sorrow.

'As for you, Mister Jack Altridge-Leech,' the judge turned to Jack. 'You can go back home to your daughter. I am sure she misses you after this unnecessarily long period apart.'

'Thank you, your honour,' Jack whispered as we stood up.

'Have a good day,' I said, clutching my folder and smiling at the remaining people. 'Janice. Your honour.'

With nods everywhere, Jack and I left the room. He took barely five steps away from the door, turned round and kissed me. It actually scared me, but I liked it anyway.

'Thank you,' he said. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. One million times, thank you. And it still won't be enough.'

'I know you're dying to get to Alice,' I said. 'But so am I. I so want to be there. But I need to sign some stuff. Can you please wait just ten minutes? Pretty please?'

Jack looked at me, for the first time in over two weeks, with peace in his eyes.

'Of course I can, Munchkin. Anything for you.'

'Thank you,' I said and he kissed me again. I was still in my work mode, so I don't think I was able to be as passionate as I wanted to, but he seemed satisfied. 'Call your dads in the meantime. Tell them the good news.'

I tried to go as fast as I could, but bureaucracy rushes for no one. It took me almost twenty minutes to finally reach the parking area with Jack. I loved that we were holding hands. When we reached our cars, he kissed me again.

'You said you wanted to be there for it,' Jack said. 'It'd be nice if we arrived together. Want to tailgate me?'

'Sounds like a solid plan.'

We took almost two hours to drive upstate and to reach the Big House. Everyone was waiting for us: uncles Allan and Brian, Chad, Will. Even my father was there.

'Welcome home, son!' Uncles Allan and Brian said in unison. Upon a closer inspection, I saw that they had a small barbecue fire going on. Clocking my questioning look, uncle Allan said.

'Oh, this isn't for lunch. Nate, I assume you have those awful forms we signed with you, right?'

'They're in my glove compartment.'

'Can you be a dear and get them for me?'

Knowing where they were going with it, I actually felt happy to oblige. I gave everyone their own signed forms. My dad didn't have one. Keeping him out of the loop was essential.

'All right,' dad Brian said. 'Chad, you first.'

Chad ripped the two forms in halves at the same time and threw the pieces on the fire. We all watched it burn for a few seconds before uncle Brian spoke again.

'Will, you're next.'

Will did just like his brother and we all watched again.

'Now you and I together, my love.'

The two of them ripped the forms and tossed them on the fire. I know we were seven grown-ups doing nothing else than watching paper burn on a fire lit up specifically for this reason, but we all did it with the utmost satisfaction.

When barely any details from the forms were left visible and uncle Allan had covered the fire to put it out, Chad came to me and gave me a bear hug.

'Thank you, brother. Thank you.'

'I guess we all owe Nate some massive thanks,' uncle Allan said and I blushed.

'If you think that now, wait until I tell you about the hearing,' Jack said. 'Nate was on fire.'

He guided us all towards the kitchen counter where we all sat comfortably and uncles Allan and Brian started to serve us food. Will went to his room and came back holding Alice, who exclaimed 'Dada!' and Jack was ready to get her.

'Hello, Princess!'

Alice grabbed Jack's face with her hands and planted a very wet kiss on his nose.

'I love you, Princess.'

We all allowed Jack to stay in his own happy bubble for a while, but no one needed to break it, he was the one who looked up and started talking.

'Like I said, Nate was on fire! He tricked the social worker into speaking first. She made her entire case in five seconds and then he destroyed her, following her own speech. You should have seen how much relevant data he had collected. And he even made it clear he had more, but didn't need to use. Now I'm curious, Munchkin,' he turned to me, 'you made Ms Pearce feel like you had some dirt on her. Do you?'

'I don't know if it can be considered "dirt",' I said, 'but in the last ten years, Janice Pearce has only testified favourably in cases of couples made by a man and a woman and who already had biological children of their own. It felt to me like she was following her own personal agenda, that's why I requested she isn't allowed near our family.'

'If she's truly doing that, it can be serious,' uncle Allan said. 'Suitable parents might have been declined because of her prejudices.'

'I know,' I said. 'I did consider bringing it up, drown her in disciplinary investigations, but I don't have actual evidence and, in the end, it was a matter of choosing my battles. I wouldn't risk Alice's future to enter a fight based on speculations alone.'

'There is one thing I still don't understand in all of this,' said Chad. 'Why exactly did we have to sign those stupid NDAs and restraining orders if we kept visiting Jack with Alice pretty much every single day?'

'It was all a big game of make-believe, actually. That was the importance of using my father's place and of keeping his name out of everything,' I said. 'Technically speaking, you were all going against the law for allowing Jack to get close to you or Alice, or even talking to him about anything regarding what was happening. This was the only thing I could do to appease the judge back then. He didn't want to give Alice back to me because he knew I would allow Jack to get to her. On legal terms, Jack lived in the city flat all this time without any kind of contact from any of his family members.'

'And why did you sign an NDA and restraining order, too?' Will asked. 'Aren't you his lawyer? How could you counsel him while keeping a minimum distance and not being allowed to talk to him?'

'That was indeed dumb,' I said. 'I did mention to the judge that the forms for me could only be held accountable on my title of legal guardian, I had a job to do as a lawyer and he couldn't keep me from it.'

'And he still went on with it?' Chad asked, voicing all of the indignation that I couldn't back then.

'Yeah...' It was all I was able to say, but I was glad everyone around the table understood my point and we all spent some good minutes cussing that awful first judge.

We spent the rest of the afternoon talking and enjoying something so simple as having Jack sitting on his own home's living room.

'Come to bed with me,' Jack whispered in my ear when night fell. 'I want to show you exactly how thankful and how impressed at you I am.'

We had some great rough sex that night. Jack had me use all of the drive I showed in the courtroom in our bedroom. We went to sleep when the Sun was already rising the next morning and the family was kind enough to not wake us up.