Chuck was conversation-less again on the way to Sydney's destination, and he wasn't quite sure where her destination even was. He would occasionally glance over at her, noticing the way she longingly stared out the window.
"Stupid question, but have you ever been out of California?" He asked.
"Nope." Was the minimal response.
"If you could pick one place to visit, where would it be?"
"I don't know."
"Seriously? You haven't ever thought about a vacation?"
"I have."
"Well okay then. Where would it be?"
"Probably the Bahamas."
"Really?"
"Hey, I'm telling you my dream vacation and you're making fun of me?" He caught a glimpse of a smile.
"I'm not making fun of you, I was just expecting Disneyland or something."
"You were expecting a cliché."
"Maybe." He chuckled.
"Here it is," Sydney pointed to a Motel 6, "Just there on the left."
"You're staying in a motel?"
"Well my hearing is tomorrow and if I go back to Cloudyvale, I won't be able to get out again. I swear, if the judge doesn't see me fit for emancipation I'm going to run away altogether."
"How exactly are you paying for a room?"
"I hate to break it to you, Charlie, but I'm not stealing one."
"I didn't say that."
"Please. A fifteen-year-old with enough money to rent a hotel without having a job?"
"So you are stealing a room?"
"Totally. Especially without a room key." Sydney rolled her eyes.
"You haven't answered my question."
"I've saved every penny I found in Cloudyvale, or from people who drop money when they come to visit, or when we go out in town. I have about four thousand dollars."
"And you're wasting it on a hotel when you can just stay with family for free?"
"What family?"
"Me, I'm family."
"I'll stick with the motel." She opened the car door and stepped out. "Thanks for the ride though."
"I hope you know that I'll be back later." He called through the opened window of the now closed car door. She wasn't getting rid of him that easily.
Sarah couldn't work after meeting Sydney for the first time in fifteen years. It wasn't just her emotional or mental side that wasn't functioning properly, it was her entire body. Her arms and legs were frozen to the bottom bunk in the third floor on-call room. She and Bryce had deemed this their on-call room, as it was the one they most frequently used for their daily hookups.
"Knock knock." A sympathetic brunette entered cautiously.
"Hey, Z." Sarah looked to the door, noticing her best friend enter.
"Bryce told me what happened." Zondra Mason had been one of Sarah's best friends since their internship, making sure she always had someone to look out for and talk to. "I still can't believe you didn't tell him."
"You didn't tell him you already knew, did you?"
"No. Especially not that I helped you through everything." She laid down next to Sarah and sighed.
"What am I supposed to do?"
"What you should've done fifteen years ago."
"I couldn't have kept her even if I tried. I wouldn't be here if I had, you know that."
"You may not have been here, Sarah, but you would've had a kid who loved you and looked up to you. I know you aren't the mommy type, but I think there's a reason she found you."
"She's getting emancipated anyway."
"Well maybe it's your job to stop her from doing that."
"Oh yeah, just show up after all this time and expect her to let me in? You should've seen the way she looked at me."
"She's not really supposed to like you, Sarah. You gave her away, abandoned her."
"Thank you." Sarah responded bluntly.
"Hey, I'm just saying. Maybe this is your chance to do what you should've done the first time."
"What's different now? I'm still a surgeon, I'm still young, and I don't have a life outside of this hospital. Everything is the same."
"No, you're not looking at the big picture. You're the surgeon, you're young, but you can support yourself, and you can choose to split your life between work and an actual life. You have more capability; you just don't see that."
"I don't know if I can do it."
"But you want to."
"Maybe."
"Sarah, you don't even begin to contemplate something unless there's a tiny inkling that you can handle it. You sound like you made up your mind the moment you saw her." Zondra and Sarah laid together for a while, staring at the ceiling and not talking. They communicated best in silence.
"I'm not ready to face her questions." Sarah finally said. "I don't have good enough answers."
"Her questions? I think you mean Chuck's questions."
"I guess I mean both."
"You haven't seen him since he left, have you?"
"No."
"You have a kid with him, you're going to have to face him sometime."
"I know."
"Jump right in, or else you'll talk yourself out of it."
"I already have."
It wasn't hard to find Chuck's address; the internet was a very connected technology. Sarah was sure that he would've been at his own hospital, but went to his place anyway. She was hoping to find him not home, that way she wouldn't have to talk to him but put some effort in anyway. He answered the door almost immediately, his light blue boxers the only piece of clothing he wore.
"Sarah?"
"Hi."
"What are you doing here?"
"I think we should talk about Sydney." She avoided looking at anything except his eyes.
"Of course, come in." Chuck allowed the blonde inside, leading her into the living room area. "Let me go put on a sweatshirt…and maybe some pants." He rubbed the back of his head with a nervous smile.
"Sure." Sarah sat on the black leather couch in the middle of the room.
"So uh, I assume you're talking about our daughter and not the city in Australia." Chuck's voice carried throughout the apartment.
"Still trying to be funny all the time I see."
"What, it's not working?" Chuck emerged from around the corner, smiling widely.
"Not really."
"Oh come on, Sarah. Lighten up, would you?"
"Lighten up? My kid just randomly comes back into my life and you expect me to lighten up?" Her voice grew louder with each word.
"Our kid."
"Whatever."
"No, not whatever. Sarah, you never even told me about her, but here I am trying to be a part of her life."
"And you really think that you can be?"
"Don't you?"
"I don't know how I feel. I gave her away like she was nothing, how can I expect her to let me be a part of her life?"
"You can't. That what being a parent is, forcing yourself into their lives whether they like it or not."
"So you want to do this?"
"Do you?"
"I asked you first."
"Yeah, I do." Chuck said with absolute clarity.
"Then I'm in it with you." Sarah gave a quick nod.
"Her hearing is tomorrow, I kinda snooped around with medical records and came across her file. I talked to her social worker."
"We should go, right?"
"I mean, what kind of parents would we be if we didn't?"
Sydney stood in front of the judge with as serious of a face as she could muster up. She was nervous as hell, not sure if she would get her emancipation or not.
"So you're fifteen, and you're trying to escape Cloudyvale's Home for Girls?" The judge looked up from her papers.
"Yes ma'am."
"Do you have a job?"
"No."
"A place to live?"
"Well-"
"Miss, how do you expect to live?"
"I have a few thousand dollars saved up and there's an apartment close to my school that's up for rent," Sydney swallowed, "I have a plan."
"No renter is going to allow a fifteen-year-old to rent without a co-signer."
"I'll sign!" Chuck and Sarah both yelled at the same time.
"And you are?" The Judge peered through her glasses.
"They're nobody." Sydney grumbled.
"We're her parents." Sarah explained. "Her birth parents."
"I see no mention of birth parents in contact here on the file."
"That's because they aren't supposed to be here." Sydney flashed them a glare.
"We'll co-sign for the apartment, your honor." Chuck ignored Sydney's glance.
"I'll be honest with you Ms. McAllister, I'm not going to grant you emancipation. You have no way of supporting yourself, and nobody will allow a fifteen-year-old to rent or buy a place on their own. I am however going to grant joint custody to Mr. Bartowski and Ms. Walker." The judge looked down at the birth certificate now in front of her.
"What?" Chuck and Sarah said in unison with their daughter. The trio looked around at each other before the judge smacked her gavel and dismissing the court room. Sarah had to rush after Sydney, who bolted from the room immediately.
"I didn't mean for it to end up that way." Sarah caught up to her daughter, trying to stop her from running off.
"If you two hadn't shown up, I'd be a free woman by now." Sydney seethed.
"Woman? You're a kid! The judge wasn't going to grant you emancipation and you know it. At least this way you won't have to go back to Cloudyvale."
"No, I'm just stuck with the shitty parents who gave me up instead."
"Hey, watch your mouth."
"Don't tell me what to do. Why don't you just leave me alone, since you know how to do it so well?" Sydney walked to the large park area across the parking lot of the courthouse, disappearing behind a tree.
"Sarah!" Chuck was out of breath by the time he reached her, bursting out of the courthouse in a blur. "Just let her go. She won't get far without transportation, and she belongs to us now anyway." He lightly touched her shoulder.
"How are we supposed to do this? Joint custody? Are we out of our minds?"
"No, we're finally in our right minds. She's a good thing, not a burden."
"I know that."
"Do you?"
"You're the one who had the genius idea of showing up here."
"Are you seriously getting mad at me right now?"
"Why are you here?"
"Because she's my daughter! Why are you here?" People started to stare at the two arguing adults.
"Because I'm the one who gave birth to her!"
"Oh really? You're playing that card?"
"Looks like I am."
"Well it's not like you gave me the chance to be there." The words left Chuck's mouth before he had a chance to stop them.
"Wow." Sarah stared at him, unable to find the words to say.
"I'm sorry."
"No, you're right. I didn't tell you about her."
"I shouldn't bring it up, especially not now. Just go talk to her."
"Me? Why can't you?"
"Because I didn't give birth to her." Chuck said with a certain playful sarcasm.
"Touche Mr. Bartowski." Sarah smiled. She walked over to the park area, unsure of what to say to the teen.
"Mind if I sit?" Sarah had easily found the tree behind which Sydney was hiding.
"You're going to anyway." Sydney sassed. Sarah sat down, hugging her knees into her chest.
"I'm sorry." She rested the back of her head on the tree, looking at Sydney.
"Okay."
"Look, you're going to have to let me in at least a little bit if you want this to work."
"Who said I did?"
"Sydney, I'm your mother. You may not like it, I may not be ready for it, and we may fight twenty-four seven, but it's happening. Whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me, so can we please just try to make this easy?"
"You got rid of me."
"I can't ever apologize to you enough for what I did. I think about it every day."
"That's not going to change what happened in the past."
"I know, but we can change the future."
"You know how stupid that sounds, right?"
"Yeah, it sounded better in my head…" Sarah trailed. The two laughed together for a moment, forgetting their troubles. Sydney was the one to snap back into reality first, looking at her mother seriously.
"Do you really think that this is going to work?"
"Yeah, I do. You want to know why?"
"Sure."
"Because you're my daughter. The one thing I know about being a doctor is that there's nothing stronger than the bond between a mother and her child, no matter how distant." She smiled slightly.
"What about the bond of a father and his kid? I'm not exactly sure Chuck is cut out for this." Sydney returned the smile.
"He's more ready for this than I am, trust me."
"You know, I think I do. Trust you I mean."
"Good. That'll make things a lot easier." Sarah stood up and held a hand out to Sydney. "You ready to go home?"
"Yeah." Sydney took her mother's hand to help herself up, feeling more wanted than she had ever felt before.