A/N: One of the more random ideas I've ever had, but one I'm nonetheless very, very excited about. Please enjoy. :)
They first heard of the little girl who would become their daughter just a few minutes before midnight on Halloween night. They were at Tasha's when the topic came up, drinking and eating leftover candy and feeling old, too old, as they reminisced about the days when they actually went out on Halloween. Allie had been telling a story about her and Tasha's old precinct, the thirty-third, when Tasha interrupted and asked if they'd all heard about the Baby Moses that had been left there the other day.
Jane frowned at the odd name, not getting the reference, but before she could ask Oscar, Kurt suddenly sat up on the other side of the couch, intent on the subject. He'd spent most of the night in faraway silence, thinking about work and hardly contributing to the conversation, but the second Tasha mentioned the development at the precinct, he set his beer aside and leaned forward in his seat.
"Baby Moses, it's a story from the Bible," he explained quickly to Jane. "It means a baby was abandoned by its mother at the thirty-third, probably a newborn." He turned to Tasha, then Allie. "You guys know anything? Has any family contacted? They find any potential guardians?"
Tasha shook her head, eyes down, knowing the effect lost kids—especially lost little girls—had on him. "No, and it's been a few days. I heard the kid's pretty sick, too, so it's slim pickings as far as secondary salvation. Far as I can see, if the kid survives the hospital, she's got a first-class ticket to foster care." Tasha took a sour drag of her beer, the lines deepening in her face as she frowned at the floor beneath her. "And we all know those tickets are only ever one-way."
The others around her nodded, not even offering the faintest of arguments. None of them had worked in the system, exactly, but they'd seen the products of it: the violence, the abuse, the hopelessness. There were the miracle stories, of course—those few damaged kids who were placed with parents that truly cared for them, the blooming of mutual love that followed, the eventual adoption—but those were rare. They were so rare as to almost be discounted entirely.
Almost.
From the other side of the couch, Jane could feel Kurt's eyes on her and her husband: watching, waiting, encouraging. She and Oscar had shared the news with him earlier today, grateful for his help in the application process, but they hadn't yet gotten around to telling the rest of their friends: they'd passed their home study, completed their training, and they were now officially certified foster parents in the state of New York.
As the lull in conversation languished and minds turned inward, Oscar slipped his hand into Jane's, and held on tight. They turned and looked at each other, just to make sure they were on the exact same page. It didn't take longer than a second; they had both decided the moment they'd heard. Oscar turned back to their host, cleared his throat and, as casual as could be, wondered, "Hey, Tash, what hospital did you say they took that baby to?"
Her name was Madeline. Or at least, that's what the police officers who took her in named her. She had been born, as far as they could tell, sometime on the twenty-ninth or thirtieth of October. The mother had not specified when she rushed in and out of the precinct, but the child was so small they doubted she had been in the world very long. She was so small, in fact, that one of the officers on duty demanded that she be rushed immediately to the nearest children's hospital—an order that the doctors later said had likely saved the child's life.
At that point, a few days before Halloween, Jane and Oscar were not yet aware of the child. They were at work, they were at home, they were checking the mailbox obsessively, sometimes multiples times a day, for the official letter from the New York State Office of Children and Family Services that would deem them fit parents in the eyes of the law. On Friday the thirty-first, approval finally came.
Kurt was their first call. He could hardly get a Congratulations in edgewise in the face of their many and varied Thank yous. While they knew they had a strong application without the help of Kurt as a character reference, it certainly made an impression when you wrote down the number of the assistant director of the FBI on your application and named him a friend. It made an even bigger impression when he only had good things to say, and was very eloquent in doing so.
Anthony, their firstborn, was their second call. They alerted their other children in quick succession, but they lingered most with their eldest. He had been the first one they'd spoken to, when they'd initially looked into fostering over two years ago. He'd been the first to say it was a good idea; the first to offer help if they needed it; the first to say, on the rare occasion they shared their worries with him, that they were wonderful parents and they deserved the chance to help kids less fortunate than himself if they were given the opportunity.
And then the opportunity came. A coincidence, an act of God, a random quirk in the universe—the circumstances didn't matter. All that mattered was that there was a baby they were uniquely qualified to help, and they wanted to help.
It didn't matter what she looked like, or how sick she was, or how much time she'd have to spend in the hospital. It didn't matter how many days she had left on this earth—they wanted to help her as best they could. They had to. It was, in their minds, their duty. Anthony, Jane and Oscar's first baby, had been born eight weeks premature, and even though he had survived the NICU and grown into a healthy young man, the circumstances of his birth still haunted them. To think of a little girl, as small or smaller than their boy had been, all alone in the face of those machines and doctors and nurses with no family to comfort her… It was so unbearable that it kept them up for hours after they came home from Tasha's party. And it led them to the doors of New York-Presbyterian the next day, right at 8 AM.
The receptionist at information stared at them, making it immediately clear that such unsolicited advancements on unknown patients were not to be made, but when they made it clear they'd both taken off work, and were not leaving the hospital until they spoke to a Child Services representative, she placed a call. They waited. They waited for the representative, and then for a liaison, and then they waited again for the girl's caseworker himself. The morning passed, and turned into afternoon. Still, they waited. They stayed calm, they stayed polite, they stayed present. Outbursts or complaints, at this early point, would only make them seem more insane, and so they kept themselves quietly occupied as the hours ticked away.
They were playing their old variation on the game of Twenty Questions when a man's shout across the lobby interrupted them.
"You do know that you can't just walk in here and adopt a baby, right?"
Jane and Oscar scrambled to their feet, holding out hands as the man came near, but he declined to shake them. He didn't even bother with a hello. He pointed to the information desk.
"They tell me you've been here all day, waiting." He didn't sound impressed. And though they tried to explain, he didn't allow for interruptions. "As I'm sure you know now, because you've been ignored for the past eight hours—this isn't how the system works. You don't get to pick and you don't get to choose and you don't get to show up at hospitals and ask after abandoned babies, understand?"
They said they understood. They said they were well-versed in how the system worked, they'd studied the law, but that they'd seen an opportunity and they couldn't not try. The caseworker got impatient at that, and started to turn away—so they crossed pathos off their list of options, and moved quickly onto the indisputable facts. They'd raised four children, they said. They held steady jobs, met their bills, had a safe and clean home, and they only wanted to help. They'd been approved as foster parents just a day ago—they had the letter with them, notarized and everything. Would he like to see it?
He would not. Harry Duwater, the caseworker, checked his watch and sighed at them as if he'd heard it a thousand times before—because, after all, he had. And he didn't want to sit through hearing it again. The only thing worse than burned-out foster parents were bright-eyed new foster parents. He didn't have time for their enthusiasm; he didn't have time to watch them, too, be broken by by the system. He had a job to do, a match to find for this little girl, and it wasn't these two. He knew already that they didn't have the backbone for it; first-timers never did, and veterans only sometimes.
He said a quick goodbye and turned back to the restricted section of the hospital. They followed him, as he knew they would. He was about to call security when something the husband said stopped him.
"I know this looks desperate, but please—we're not crazy, we're not opportunists, we just want to help. I'm sure you get that line all the time from people who don't know what they're talking about, but we do. We heard she's a preemie, and we can handle that. Our son was born two months early; we know the risks, we know the odds. We know she might not live, and if so, we just want to have been there for her. Her mother's gone, we don't want her to die alone—"
Harry turned around so fast that the husband almost ran into him. Quickly, he caught himself, and stepped back. Beside him, his wife held tight onto his hand, though Harry couldn't tell if it was to restrain him or to bolster him. For the first time, Harry actually looked at them. The woman was covered, literally head to toe, in tattoos. She had them on the back of her hands, her neck, even her toes. The man, it seemed, had at least one of his own, and probably more if his spouse was anything to go on. They looked to be late fifties, though it was hard to tell. Harry couldn't say he'd ever seen less conventional-looking applicants. Then again, if they had the experience necessary, it didn't matter what they looked like.
"I'll need a copy of your certification and the names and numbers of your character references."
He gave them his card as a point of contact, cutting off the rest of the conversation, and then disappeared back into the hospital. He made no promises, he didn't even say "I'll be in touch," but they hoped anyway. They hoped desperately. They thought of that little girl all alone up in the NICU, and for the days to come, they had nothing to go on except hope alone.
Without meaning to, they had both already taken a liking to the name Madeline.
In his thirty-seven years working in the foster care system, Harry Duwater had seen all sorts of character references for potential foster parents and adoptive families alike. He had seen imaginary ones, coerced ones, faked ones. Once, a woman had even written down her drug dealer as a character reference. ("I always pay on time, he can attest to that!" had been her excuse for listing him.) He had seen a lot of things in his line of work, and over the years, he had become accustomed to seeing the worst.
It wasn't often he came across the best.
"Office of the Assistant Director of the FBI, how may I help you?"
At first, Harry was certain he'd heard the secretary wrong. Or perhaps he'd typed the number in wrong. Or maybe this was some sort of elaborate and distasteful hoax?
"Hello?" the woman on the line pressed. "Is anyone there? Ma'am? Sir?"
"I, uh, I think I have the wrong number," Harry finally managed to say, glancing at his notes. "I was given this number to contact Kurt Weller—"
"Yes, and he's in a meeting just now, sir, but if you feel so inclined, you may leave a message for when he gets back. As you can imagine, he's very busy and may not have time to reply to your call personally. However, if you could leave your name, number, and please state your reason for calling, I will pass along your information to the assistant director upon his return…"
Harry left all the appropriate details behind, and after the initial shock wore off, he moved onto the other references on the list. He didn't expect to get a call back from that office even if he was the same Kurt Weller the couple in the hospital had listed in their application, but barely an hour later, as he was moving onto another case, Harry's phone rang. Twenty minutes later, he was across town, standing in the lobby of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York Office, being met at the security check-in desk by the assistant director himself.
In the back of his mind, Harry wondered how many other people in the world had been granted such a honor. Presidents, surely. Governors. People of critical importance to safeguarding national security. Not dime-a-dozen OCFS case managers. He shook the man's hand and they said hellos, and as they rode an elevator up more floors than he could count, Harry reminded himself not to let it get to him. Powerful friends did not ensure competent parents. But even he had to admit that it really was a damn impressive play.
It was another two weeks before Jane and Oscar heard anything from Duwater. For the first few days, they watched their phones religiously, waiting for a call. They kept their ringers on during business hours at work, just in case, and found themselves, on their days off, traveling much too often up into Washington Heights just to sit in the lobby of the children's hospital. As they weren't blood relatives, they weren't allowed back behind the check-in desk and into the NICU, but a few kind nurses gave them vague updates. They were disallowed from giving out any sort of specifics, for obvious reasons, but even just hearing that she'd survived another day made them hopeful for the future.
They spent their nights alone together at home, but they felt a third presence with them, hiding just behind doorways or sneaking just out of sight. She had a name—Madeline—but nothing more. They didn't know what she looked like, how big she was, or even how old. All they knew was that she was a sick little girl with no family, and they wanted to make up for some of that loss.
The call came on Wednesday morning, squarely in the middle of September. Jane had just said goodbye to Oscar on his way to work, and was making the two-block detour from their joint route to her own office. She could see her building, just on the next corner, when her phone rang, but she never made it there.
After she hung up with the caseworker, she turned and ran, sprinting up seven blocks to her husband's office. And she didn't care who was watching—she ran past reception and into his office and she hugged him, too, right in the middle of work. She thought of all the times she had come to him over the years and told him We're going to have a baby, and for the first time in almost two decades, she said it again, whispering it in his ear as he laughed in relief and lifted her off the ground in joy.
They next time they took the train up to Washington Heights and stepped through the doors of New York-Presbyterian, Harry Duwater was waiting for them in the lobby. After finalizing the transfer of guardianship of the child from the hospital staff to her new foster parents, he went with them back into the neonatal unit. Today was, he told them, the last day Madeline would spend there. She had been out of the intensive care unit for five days already, and once the doctors cleared her to be taken home, she would go with them. She would be, at least for the temporary future, theirs.
They spent the day catching up. As far as the doctors knew, Madeline had been born at what appeared to be roughly thirty-three or thirty-four weeks. She was admitted with a low birth weight, just over four pounds, but in the few weeks she'd spent in the hospital's care, she had quickly bounced back, and by the time Oscar and Jane met her in person, she had almost returned to an acceptable weight. Compared to most preemie, her birth complications were negligible. And compared to their preemie, their Anthony, she was a powerhouse. She had luck and she had genetics on her side: she was, thankfully, born a few solid weeks later than him; more importantly, she was born female when he had been born male, and she was born black when he had been born white. Her biology alone doubled her chance of survival, and they were grateful for it. Already, they were taking pride in it. In her.
As they were first-time foster parents, Harry took care in explaining every part of the process to them. He talked about when there would be check-ups, he talked about resources they could contact, he talked about the good times that would come, and the bad. And he reiterated, again and again and again, that they were only a stopgap in the eyes of the state. By law, the mother had forfeited her rights to the child when she abandoned it, but that was to say nothing of the father or other relatives. "Someone might be waiting for this baby," he reminded them.
Jane nodded, solemn, trying to tamp down her excitement for the little girl that was already threatening to take hold. She did her best to remain logical. She reminded herself that, as a foster parent, she was not a permanent solution. She was a temporary fix, just a stop—however short or long—for the child before she reached her final destination and her permanent family.
Oscar didn't bother with such reminders.
The moment he saw that little girl was the moment he stopped listening to cautions and to contingencies. He sat down next to her little bed, and he looked at her, and he did not take his eyes off of her for the entire two hours they spent in her hospital room. The voices of his wife and his daughter's caseworker had already faded to the background and become unimportant. All that mattered was the child in front of him.
She was beautiful. Maybe more beautiful than his own biological children had been at this age, he thought, feeling only the slightest tug of guilt. His children had all been lovely in their own specific ways, each a reminder, a testament, to how much he and Jane loved each other. They would be the legacy of their relationship, they would be the only part of them that went on after they died.
But Madeline was different. Not better, exactly, but different. She had not asked for them, had not been expecting them, had not counted on them, and in a way, that somehow made finding her, and now caring for her, all the sweeter.
As Harry and Jane talked, Oscar leaned closer to the newborn. Tentatively, knowing every bit of contact mattered double now after the weeks of absence, he reached out a finger to touch her little hand. When she reciprocated, batting her arm up and down in his direction, he grinned. He watched her bang her little fist against the bed and took it as a cheerful hello. When he placed his index finger within reach of her tiny fingers, she grabbed on eagerly, with that preternatural strength that only newborns possessed. Nice to meet you.
By the end of the two hours, she was cradled against his chest, sleeping peacefully. He let the serious and worry-filled conversation of Harry and his wife pass over him, and stared down at the little girl, gently stroking the soft fuzz of dark hair atop her head. When he bent close, and nuzzled his nose to her forehead, she did not stir, but slept on, safe and content. He looked down at her in his arms, and he knew again what he had known every other time he'd held one of his children for the first time: I will protect you until the day I die.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I hope you liked this first installment, and I would love to hear your thoughts! :)