Ice, Love & Building Blocks

"It always works out in the end"

QUICK AUTHOR'S NOTE: Since it has never been mentioned in the show, I had to come up with a name for Will's mother myself; personally, I think it sounds quite nice.

The sound of a baby starting to cry pulled both Will and Natalie Halstead out of what had already been a troubled sleep; the first one to open his eyes was Will, who rubbed them with his fists before squinting them to look at the time on his phone, resting on his bedside table: 7:30 am.
The little guy really didn't want to give his parents more than two hours of sleep at a time, but oh well, thought Will, good thing they were used to sleepless nights with the both of them being doctors and all.

"I got him, you stay here." Will told his wife, placing a soft morning kiss on her lips; after that, he got his feet off the bed and made his way out of their room, headed towards their baby son's nursery.
When he reached his destination, he turned on the lights and walked to the white crib sitting right in the middle of the animals-themed room: as soon as he saw his dad peeking out, little Matthew Halstead quieted his crying down.
"Hey buddy, did you wake up?" Will said, carefully picking up the four month old and placing him on his shoulder; he gently rocked him up and down until the baby stopped crying all together, content with being held.
"You're always so grumpy in the mornings, aren't you? Let me take you to mommy, so she'll give you your breakfast little bud. 'Cause I bet that's what you want now eh" The man spoke to his son, before wrapping his blankie tighter around his tiny body and getting out of the nursery; he crossed the hallway as silently as he could so as to not wake Owen up this early on a Saturday, and finally reached the master bedroom again.
In the meantime, Natalie had gotten up and was now sitting with her back against the soft headrest of their bed, ready to feed her super hungry baby; she couldn't help but smile the moment she saw her husband and son coming into the room.

"I think someone's hungry" Will jokingly said passing the small human over to his wife, who gladly took him into her arms and began feeding him; as he watched the two of them, suddenly Will got overwhelmed with a sense of tranquility and began to wonder how is it he got so lucky to not only marry the woman of his dreams, but have such a perfect little thing with her. Normally, all the memories came back to him.

Will Halstead and then Natalie Manning got married on a sunny but quite cold day in early May, after having dated for just a year: anybody else might say it was a bit too early for them to take such a big step together but to them it had been the best decision they had ever made in their lives; so, a few weeks after Will had popped the question and placed his mother's ring on Natalie's finger, the two ER doctors said I do in front of all their friends and families.
Naturally, the ring bearer had been Owen who behaved exceptionally well for the entirety of the day, despite being a rather feisty 4 year old boy.

Natalie found out she was pregnant a month after the wedding, and actually took three tests one after the other just to be sure it wasn't some sort of dream; luckily, it really wasn't, so she spent the rest of that day crying tears of joy, hugging her firstborn and sweetly telling his little confused self that he was going to be a big brother.
Telling Will had probably been the most emotional part about it though as, upon hearing that he was going to become an actual dad, Will Halstead broke down in her arms and cried like he had never done before: that actually worried his wife a bit, with him not being a very sentimental kind of man, but he had been quick to reassure her by saying "I'm just so happy" and kissing her all over her face.

Little Matthew Eli Halstead made his appearance 9 months later, to the joy of his parents and his big brother; deciding on a name for their son hadn't been a very difficult thing to do, as both Natalie and Will loved the name "Matthew" and all of its nicknames, but when the time came for them to settle on a middle name, they just didn't know which one to go with.
It had been Natalie who, one night, simply said to her husband: "Let's name him after your mother"; Will was a little taken aback by her proposition, but agreed with tears in his eyes: So Elise became Eli, and baby Matthew finally got a middle name to put on his birth certificate.