"Uh, hi," Blake repeated at the short woman standing in the doorway.
"Just bring her in!" a low voice called from inside the house.
"Okay honey!" the woman called over her shoulder. "Come in, come in!" she exclaimed as she waved the two girls into the house.
Blake instinctively found her hand reaching for Yang's as the two girls stepped forward into the house. Yang gave Blake's hand a soft squeeze, relieving a bit of Blake's anxiety.
The two girls followed the woman through the house, which was fairly small. The front room was a tiny living room, with a loveseat and a small TV. There was a short hall to their left, with an open door at the end that looked like it led to a bedroom, judging by the fact that it looked like the only thing that could fit in that room was the bed. There were a few other doors in the hall, presumably a bathroom or maybe some closets of some sort. There was an archway on the back wall that led to a small kitchen, where a very large and muscular man sat on a chair which was far too small for his build.
The man stood up the moment he saw the girls enter the room. "Blake..." he murmured.
Blake blinked. "Uh, hello."
The man shook his head, reaching out a hand for a handshake. "I'm sorry, I just... never thought I'd get the chance to meet you. I haven't seen you since you were a literal newborn. I'm Ghira Belladonna."
"Oh my gosh, I never introduced myself!" the woman exclaimed. "I'm Kali."
"I'm Blake, obviously." Blake reached out with her free hand to shake Ghira's outstretched one, her heart beating faster. "And this is Yang, my..." Blake hesitated for a moment, shooting a glance at Yang. Yang squeezed Blake's hand again and gave her a small nod. "This is Yang. My girlfriend."
Ghira rose an eyebrow at the word girlfriend, but released Blake's hand and reached out to Yang, who had to let go of Blake's hand to shake Ghira's. "It's nice to meet you as well, Yang."
"Can I... can I hug you?" Kali asked Blake.
"I guess," Blake replied, a little unsure.
The hug felt extremely awkward for Blake. Kali seemed to be happy however, finally getting to hug her daughter. But for Blake, it felt like she was hugging a complete stranger, which Kali honestly was.
Kali released her after a few seconds, clapping her hands together. "Can I get you girls anything to drink before we start talking?"
"A water would be great," Blake said with a nod.
"I'll take one too," Yang added.
Kali looked at her husband, who nodded, and proceeded to pull four bottles of water out of the fridge.
"Sit, sit," Ghira said, gesturing to the four chairs that centered around the small table. The two girls took their seats as Kali placed the four bottles of water down on the table before taking her own seat.
"So," Kali said with a sigh, "where do we even begin?"
"You could probably elaborate on what you said in the email a bit more," Blake replied.
Ghira nodded. "That seems like a good place to start."
"We... we were very young," Kali began. "When I got pregnant, that is. I was still in my senior year of high school and Ghira had just graduated a few months before we found out."
"We weren't ready for a child," Ghira admitted. "I got kicked out of my house as soon as I graduated. I was working a construction job and living in a one room apartment. I was barely making ends meet and I was considering joining the army. Kali still had a year left of school and her parents were going to kick her out if she dropped out. We both came from poor families and knew we wouldn't be able to take care of a child."
"We spent a while looking at our options, but we decided that adoption was the best route for both us and our child," Kali continued. "We did our research and found a nice agency in the capital. We contacted the agency and they helped us out throughout my pregnancy. They covered prenatal visits, vitamins, hospital bills, everything."
Ghira nodded. "About two months before you were born, the agency told us they had selected a couple that would be taking you. Because of their policies, we weren't allowed to know the name of the family, or what name they picked for you until you were 18. That couple, of course, was Marco and Angela Bugia."
Blake tensed up when Ghira mentioned those names. It had been many years since Blake had heard those names from someone other than herself.
"After you were born, Kali returned to school and I shipped off to the army. When I got back from basic, we got married and moved to the military base I was stationed at. Kali got some work as a secretary for the housing authority for the military families that lived near the base. We were there for two years when the towers got hit and I got deployed, off to war overseas."
"Ghira was sent back and forth a lot over the next decade," Kali continued. "It was very nerve wracking. He didn't come home for good until 2012."
"I was finally able to retire from the army about a year after I got stationed back at home. We moved back to the capital not long after that. Kali's mother had fallen ill and needed someone to come and take care of her. I went to work at the VA1 hospital in the capital and Kali spent most of her time taking care of her mother until she passed last year."
"After my mother passed, we realized that your 18th birthday was in about a month. We vowed to contact the adoption agency that we used to try and see if we could connect with you."
"The agency had certain rules. We couldn't contact you without you making an attempt to contact us through the agency, so we weren't expecting to really get any information on that day. We just wanted to reestablish that connection with the agency in case you decided you wanted to try and get in contact," Ghira explained.
"We didn't expect what actually happened when we reached out," Kali said with the shake of her head. "They asked us to come down to their office in person after we called. We went and they told us what happened to the Bugias and how you became a ward of the state at age eight. They had no other information on you since then. Because the Bugias weren't around to make the choice of whether or not to tell you that you were adopted, the agency left it up to us. They admitted they had no policy in place in the event that a child that went through the agency became a ward of the state. They'd only ever have kids get passed on to other family members of their adopted family, but as you know, the Bugias had no other family."
"We... we were devastated," Ghira added with a sigh. "If we had known, we would have reached out years ago, but the policies forbid them from telling us. We argued with the people at the agency for a while. They said they'd consider changing their policies in the event that the child becomes a ward of the state, but I doubt anything will come of it."
"Once we left the agency that day, we vowed to find you. All we had was a name, Blake Bugia, which... isn't your name anymore, obviously." Kali shook her head. "We couldn't find anything online related to that name. We tried DCF2, but they were very unhelpful, considering we had no legal connection to you."
"I spent a lot of time at the library combing through government databases to find any connection to Blake Bugia whatsoever. Last week, I found a piece of legal information about a restraining order that linked the name to an address. We went and we found a group home for troubled teens. That was... a mess, but gave us the key information to find you."
"Ghira and I showed up and explained our story. Well, we tried to, at least. The woman at the door asked who we were and we gave them our names. She asked what we wanted and we said we were trying to find our daughter, Blake Bugia, who we had given up for adoption at birth. She laughed in our faces and told us to get lost. We asked why and she said that our last name was too much of a coincidence for us to not be connected to 'Adam'." Kali put air quotes around his name. "Then she laughed again and slammed the door in our faces and we left."
"We headed straight for the library to do some more searching. We couldn't figure out why the woman thought our last name was a coincidence. I tried searching for Blake Belladonna, and I found a link to what I assume is your Facebook. I don't actually know if it is, considering it's under extreme privacy lockdown," Ghira explained.
Blake nodded. "Yeah, it's mine."
"We figured," Kali said with a nod. "We did some more searching and found an article in the Beacon University newspaper that you were interviewed in."
"For the creative writing showcase?" Blake asked.
Ghira nodded. "Yes, that was the one."
Blake hummed in response, gesturing for them to continue.
"We learned the formula for the school emails. It's not exactly difficult to figure out. We went home and spent a couple days planning out exactly what we were going to say in our email. We finally sent it yesterday, which brings us to now," Kali said.
"I see," Blake replied flatly.
"What about you, Blake? How's, well, life been?" Ghira asked, leaning on the table.
"I'm not going to lie, it's been pretty shit until recently," Blake said with a shrug. "I don't remember much before my parents died and I'm going to keep calling them my parents because that's what they were. My parents."
Kali nodded. "Understandable."
"They died and I got thrown into the system. I bounced around a lot for a couple of years. I got caught up with a bad crowd and I ended up stuck in a really abusive relationship. I eventually ended up in that group home for troubled teens you went to. They helped me get out of my relationship, get a restraining order and a name change." Blake shook her head. "I chose the name Belladonna because when I was younger, my mom always told me I would grow up to be una donna bella, which is a beautiful woman in Italian. I don't know if she knew it was your last name or if the universe just happened to align things this way, but that's why the people at the group home laughed in your faces. And to be honest, I don't blame them. My ex has been popping up lately and they're more than aware of it."
"Well, things have been better recently, right? How's life going with that?" Kali asked, hopeful.
"Things are good. I go to Beacon, I'm doing good in my classes, I have good friends," Blake replied with another shrug.
"Any roommate issues?" Ghira asked.
Blake let out a small laugh, breaking her previously flat response pattern. "Quite the opposite, actually. Yang is both my roommate and my girlfriend."
Yang gave a small wave, reminding Kali and Ghira that she was still there.
"Oh, okay," Ghira replied with a nod.
"Are you back at the group home for break?" Kali asked, curious.
Blake shook her head, her face returning to its blank expression. "I'm staying with Yang's family for break."
"What do your parents do, Yang?" Ghira asked.
Yang blinked, surprised at a question directed towards her. "My dad's a cop."
Ghira nodded. "Ah, okay. What about your mother?"
"My mom's been dead for nearly ten years."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Ghira said with a gaping mouth. "I didn't think..."
"Why exactly are you so interested in Yang's family?" Blake asked, her tone getting sharper as her blank face twisted into defensive anger.
"I... we just want to get to know our daughter more and know what's going on in your life. We want to make up for lost time," Kali explained.
Blake closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Number one, please stop calling me your daughter. Like, I get it, but I..." she sighed, shaking her head. "I can't do this to my parents. Marco and Angela. I just can't. You've known this for years, I've known it for less than twenty-four hours. And number two... it's too late to make up for lost time."
Ghira blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that my life has been a living hell up until a few months ago. I've been tossed around from home to home and I spent the vast majority of my life feeling unwanted by everybody. To find out now that everything I've ever known is a lie... I just can't." Blake shook her head. "No one ever bothered to tell me I had a second set of possible parents, extreme emphasis on possible. I'm an adult now and I've learned to fend for myself. How to care for myself. How to love myself. It's been really fucking hard and I'm still learning, but this... the ship has long since sailed for this."
"Blake, we didn't know what had happened. We would have reached out if we could have, but we didn't know," Kali replied gently.
"I know you didn't know and I'm not blaming you for this. I... I just found out my whole life is a lie, okay? You want to make up lost time, but I didn't even know there was time to be lost." Blake stood up from the table. "I can't do this, I'm sorry." She looked to Yang. "We're leaving."
"Blake, please," Kali begged as Yang stood up. "We just found you..."
"I'm sorry. I can't." Blake shook her head, heading for the archway back to the front of the house, Yang following closely behind. "Don't contact me again unless I contact you first."
Kali attempted to stand up, but Ghira placed an arm in front of her.
"No," he said firmly with the shake of his head, tears forming in his eyes. "Let her go."
That was the last thing Blake heard before she stepped out of the front door and onto the front steps.
"Are you okay?" Yang asked as she scurried up next to her and grabbed her hand.
Blake shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. "No. Not at all."
"Let's go back to the car and we'll find somewhere to go and talk, okay?"
Blake nodded, squeezing Yang's hand tightly as they left the yard and walked down the street.
Yang sat down in the car, taking a deep breath before turning to Blake. Blake was hiding in her hair, but the noise of her sobs made her attempts at hiding her crying fail. Yang reached into the backseat, pulling a box of tissues off the ground.
"Here," she said softly, handing the box to Blake.
Blake grabbed the box and pulled out a tissue, blowing her nose. "I'm sorry," she croaked when she stopped.
"There's nothing to be sorry for," Yang assured her, handing her a bottle of water from the cupholder.
Blake took the bottle and chugged it for a few moments. She took another tissue, wiping away her tears. After a long, shaky breath, she spoke again, her voice somewhat steadier this time. "I don't want to go back to Patch yet."
"Okay," Yang said with a nod.
"But I want to leave the capital. I can't stand being here any longer."
"Okay," Yang repeated. "We'll just go and drive for a little bit and find a rest stop or something off the highway to sit in and talk for a while, or just sit until you're ready, okay?"
Blake nodded. "That sounds good."
Yang pushed the key into the ignition and turned it, bringing the car to life. "Drink more water, you need it."
Blake took another long chug from the water bottle, draining it down to about half. She leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes as Yang continued to drive through the garage to get out. "Let me know when we're out of the capital. I just don't want to look at this place anymore."
"Will do," Yang said.
"Thanks for being such a trooper today and dealing with my bullshit," Blake said with a sigh.
"Shush, it's not bullshit. Your feelings are valid. That was a lot."
"Well, thank you anyways."
"Of course. I'd do anything for you."
"Perhaps that's a policy you should rethink."
"Nah, I think I'm good."
"I..." Blake started to say something, but then stopped. "Nevermind."
"What?"
"Nothing, just focus on getting us out of here."
Yang rose an eyebrow that Blake couldn't see, but let it go. "Okay." She knew all too well that the day was far from over and she didn't want to stress Blake out even more.
It wasn't as if Blake wasn't stressed out enough today.
AN: For my non-American readers:
1: Veterans Affairs, a US government institution that services veterans. Most commonly known by non-veterans for their hospitals.
2: Department of Children and Families, a US government institution that handles issues involving families, abuse, and other services. Most commonly known for the foster care system.