Emma looked at the messy dinner table and sighed. Minutes ago it had been spotless, shining , so clean she would have eaten off it without even using plates. Right now that was exactly what part of her family was doing. She shuddered as she watched one of her sons lick some sauce off the table's edge.
She could not help but shake her head at the commotion that had become a normal dinner situation for her. It did not seem that long ago that she had felt compelled to clean and polish every piece of fruit she wanted to eat - down to the last tiny grape. Now she sat at a table that was already covered in several large blobs of spaghetti sauce - and was that a piece of bread that just narrowly missed her head?
Emma sat in all this mess and she could not be happier.
She turned to look at her husband Will, she still could not believe that they had gotten married more than 15 years ago and were still going strong. They had met at the school they were both working at. Emma had just started as the new guidance counsellor, Will had been the Spanish teacher for a couple of years and was going through a particularly painful divorce. They had bonded immediately and after months of spending every single lunch together, a couple of weeks after Will's divorce had finally gone through, they had gone on their first date. The date had been a catastrophe , the car had broken down, they had missed the first half of the play they had wanted to see and the bouncer refused to let them in after it had started. To top it all Will had gotten food poisoning from trying the oyster special at Breadstix. They ended up having most of their date in the emergency room of Lima General, but Emma could not remember ever having a better date.
Things had gone fast for them after that, Will had talked her into getting help for her OCD, she had gained a lot of confidence, gotten better at her job and finally even stood up to her mother who had not believed it would be a good idea to marry a man you only met 10 months ago and who had spent most of that time still being married to another woman.
But they had gotten married in a beautiful little ceremony on a beach in Hawaii, bare feet on warm sand, and they had not regretted it once.
They knew they wanted children - lots of them if Will had any say in it - and they had started "working" on it right away. They enjoyed working on it a whole lot, but after almost a year had passed and Emma had still not gotten pregnant they decided to go see doctors. It turned out that Emma could not have children and it had been like a hard punch to the guts for her. She had spent almost 2 weeks in bed just crying her eyes out. Then one day Will had asked her if maybe they should go see a fertility doctor or if maybe adoption might be an option.. But Emma had already made up her mind .
"Will .. I .. I just can't do that."
"It is okay, honey. We do not have to decide on anything now. Take your time."
"No.. I mean.. I know what I want. And I don't want that perfect baby I used to dream of anymore."
"What…. What do you mean?" Will was shocked. Had Emma changed her mind? But he wanted kids, wanted them so badly.
"Will.. I am not perfect. We.. we are not perfect.. we are different… when we met and you were going through that terrible divorce.. And I suffered from my OCD.. We were far from perfect., but we clicked and we helped each other .. And we.. . we are RIGHT, Will."
"We are. I just don't think I understand where you are going with this, babe."
"I want us to be right for a baby, darling. I want us to be right for a baby that is not perfect. I want to help a child other people have turned their backs on."
Emma looked at Will pleading with her big eyes. Begging him to understand. Will just beamed at his wife.
"Oh God, just when I thought couldn't possibly love you any more!"
They had kissed and held each other for a long long time and as soon as they had been able to let go they had started looking into fostering and just weeks later they were registered foster parents and waiting for the call that would finally allow them to give a home to a child that really needed it. A child that really needed them.
The call had come just 2 months later. Did they want a little baby boy? Could they come pick him up right away? They had rushed to the hospital, breaking at least a dozen traffic laws on their way.
And there he had been, the tiniest baby they had ever seen. The little boy had been born to a teenage mother who had been drinking and smoking weed throughout most of her pregnancy, he was too small and he had been suffering from terrible withdrawal. His young mother had not wanted him, had not even asked to see him after he was born. And now here he was, the doctors had helped him through the withdrawal and even though he was too small he was considered healthy for now. But the for now turned out to be a problem, even though the baby was so young and parents all over the states were looking for baby boys to call their own, the doctors could not say much about any long term effects of his difficult start of life, only that there would most certainly be some handicaps this little boy would be facing.
Emma and Will had not cared. They had taken their baby boy and he had felt like their own the very second he was placed in Emma's arms.
Emma looked at her son with love and pride shining in her eyes. The tiny boy had grown into a rather tall teenager, a football player even thanks to years of physical therapy! Yes, he had a lot of troubles concentrating on just one thing and learning was a bit harder for him than it was for a lot of other kids, but Finn Schuester (they had been able to legally adopt him after a year) was absolutely perfect when it came to his parents.
As were his siblings.
Only little over 20 months after Finn was born the Schuesters had gotten another call, another teenage mom had given birth at the same hospital, again she had not been able to stay away from drugs and alcohol and the babies (twins!) had reminded a nurse so much of "tiny" Finn, that she had immediately suggested the Schuesters. Will and Emma had been able to pick up Sam and Brittany just a couple of weeks later.
Emma smiled at the blond twins playfully fighting over the last piece of garlic bread and then splitting it in half with huge smiles on their beautiful faces.
When Finn started school he had immediately become best friends with a boy called Noah Puckerman, the two were absolutely inseparable and Noah soon began spending almost all of his time at the Schuester household. Emma and Will had soon begun suspecting something might be wrong with the Puckerman family, but Noah swore everything was just fine at home, his dad simply worked a lot and his mom was busy with his new born baby sister. When the little boy had turned up covered in bruises at their house, Emma had only been able to nod at Will. The police had to get involved, Mr. Puckerman was sent to prison and after Mrs. Puckerman had declared she did not want to keep her 7 year old son because he was difficult and she and her daughter would be moving to live with her sister in California and there was no way she could take both children - well Will and Emma had not hesitated a second to give Noah a home. He and Finn were 14 now and they still shared the same little room.
Sam and Brittany Schuester were 12 and so was the Schuesters' foster daughter Santana. The beautiful latina had been Brittany's best friend from day one of kindergarten and when the little girls had been eight and Brittany had confessed that her friend had told her her daddy visited her bed at night and touched her in places she did not like being touched - it had taken them only seconds to call authorities and only a few days to give the shy girl a new home.
The youngest member of the family had just recently celebrated his 10th birthday. Artie had lost his parents in a terrible accident that had left the boy paralyzed. Nobody had wanted to adopt the boy but the Schuesters loved him no less than any of his siblings. Yes, he had a lot of doctors appointments because some of the injuries were still bothering him even 4 years after the accident, but Finn and the twins had to attend special classes to make up for their learning disabilities and Puck ( a nickname he had given himself shortly after starting to live with the family) and Santana attended psychotherapy on a regular basis.
Their family was far from perfect when you looked at it from the outside, but on the inside it just could not feel much better.
Emma's smiled faltered when the phone rang and Will started talking in a very calm voice but with a very serious look on his face.
"What's going on, honey?" Emma asked after he hung up and sat back down at the dinner table.
"Yeah dad! What's going on?" All the kids yelled at once.
"How would you guys feel if we took in another child?" Will inquired.
"Tell us about them." Artie asked and all the other kids nodded.
"It is a boy. His name is Kurt and he is 8 years old." Will replied
"Ugh… a baby." Noah grunted, receiving scolding looks from both his parents and 10 year old Artie.
"What is wrong with him?" Brittany asked
"There is nothing wrong with him." Will sighed.
"There must be." Santana said, she had not been the shy little girl anymore for quite some time now. Instead the girl had become quite sassy. "There is something wrong with all of us. That is why Coach Sylvester calls us the Schuester Misfits."
Emma and Will both looked upset at that nickname and Will made a mental note to have a serious talk with their colleague and neighbour.
"Go on, dad. Tell us!" said Finn
"Kurt's mother died a couple months ago. His dad could not cope with the loss and fell into depression.." Will took a deep breath "..he shot himself last week. Kurt found him when he got home from school. He went into shock so he did not call for help. He just laid down next to his father. They were found two days later, after the father's colleagues reported him missing."
"He cuddled with his dead daddy for two days?" Brittany asked, tears shining in her eyes.
"Yes." Will looked at his family.
"But there must haven been so much blood." Noah gulped, he hated the sight of blood, it reminded him of his ld home and his violent father.
"The social worker said the other kids at the home are picking on him because he cries all the time and refuses to speak. That is why they want to place him in a family as soon as possible." Will said.
"When can we go and get him?" Emma breathed.
The whole family looked at Will expectantly.
"Let me go and see if Sue can look after the kids for a bit." Will replied earning a chorus of groans from his children.