"Remember what we discussed?" Sue Sylvester leant in whispering to Charlie who nodded wordlessly. She had spent the past several months working on her client, if this was a fair world no judge would even entertain the thought of giving an infant back to the parent that abandoned her. It was clear that this was a money grab, but she had managed to convince the Fabray's that paying Mack was not in their best interest. The courts didn't exactly favour buying children from the other parent, especially one that clearly cared for the child in question. She had witnessed how much love Charlie had for her daughter, and it seemed like she was willing to do nearly anything and everything to keep her safe. She had even moved into her parents guest house, to simply make sure that her address was in a very nice part of the city.
It was a shame that Josh Coleman was the judge in question. She couldn't predict how this case would go, on the one hand she knew that he despised leeches, and Mack and Strando were just that. They were trying to force the Fabray's to pay them. But in the same breath she had a sneaking suspicion that once he heard about Charlie's history it would change the calculus in Strando's favor. "Did you contact your mate?"
Charlie's body tenses for a moment and she turns around, her lips quirking upward when she sees her family and new friends sitting in her corner with Harper between them. She had swallowed her pride and gone to knock on her neighbours door, when she remembered that Dani was studying to be a lawyer. Dani had needed to be goaded into helping by Marley, but after she had learned that her aunt was Cassandra July—it was as if she couldn't get rid of the alpha. "Yes," Charlie stated simply before turning around. "I left a message." She hadn't seen or talked to Santana since her graduation.
She wasn't quite sure what had happened there, and she had no idea why Santana had frozen Quinn out either. But she had sent Santana an apology text when she had got home. That had been the last text message that Santana had read from her. She had attempted to call twice, but it had gone straight to voicemail. Yesterday had been her last try, she had hoped that even Santana was pissed off at her, she would still come and help her keep Harper, but it was clear that Santana wanted nothing to do with her.
Charlie glances at the entrance to the door, hoping that Santana was just late. She was always late, but as the seconds tick into minutes her hope begins to wither. Santana hadn't cared when she got her GED, she hadn't cared that the criminal case against her had been dropped.
"All Rise!"
Charlie gets nudged by Sue and she immediately stands up quickly as the judge enters the courtroom. She immediately shoots a look over at Mack and Strando who are standing beside their lawyer. They had managed to get a lawyer that looked put together, but it was clear that they came to fight. She immediately sets her jaw and takes a deep breath, Josh Coleman was on the conservative side, and he believed in the strength of alphas. She needed to appear strong and competent.
~ O ~
Carlos Lopez was at his wits end. The joy that he had felt when Santana had told him that she was going to do her residency at his hospital, had been replaced by anger and disappointment. Despite how large the hospital was, and the fact that Santana worked in a completely different wing, nurses and more importantly his colleagues talked. Leroy Berry had been forced to pull him aside, and tell him that he had heard rumor that she was going to be let go from the program. "Santana!" He barked out loudly as he banged on her door. She hadn't shown up for her shift this morning and he had decided to take matters into his own hands.
The door swings open and Santana rubs her eyes to glare at her father, "What?"
"What?" Carlos inhales sharply and pushes his way into Santana's apartment. He forces himself to take a deep breath, because for the first time since Santana was a child and liked to test his patience he was about to lose his cool. "After everything you've worked for? Are you really going to throw it away like this?"
"Sshsh!" Santana said closing her eyes tightly and trying to push her dad away, every sound caused her head to throb in pain. "My head hurts, and you're way too loud."
Carlos nearly burst a vessel, as he glared at his daughter. "I'm way too loud?" He moves to smack his daughter upside the head but when his hand comes in contact with the back of her head, he can feel the heat radiating off her. "You're running a fever," it's a simple statement as his anger breaks and he touches Santana's face once again.
Santana pulls back from her father, and shivers closing her eyes. It had been over two weeks of feeling like absolute shit. "I'm fine, it's just nature telling me that I need to mate," she grimaced. "It'll be another week or two before I'm back to normal. This wouldn't be a problem if I could find an alpha who didn't smell terribly to get under or on top of."
Carlos grimaced, he did not need that image in his head. "I understand that you're trying to get over Charlie, but you're in danger of getting kicked out of your program Santana. As far as I'm concerned she owes you more than that silly apology that she gave you that night. Use her to get better, and then see her once a week until you can find someone else."
"Pass, I have too much self-respect to go crawling back to Charlie of all people. She told me exactly how important I was to her when she agreed to that stupid deal. Like I get that her crotch goblin is important to her, but I thought I was just as important." As far as she was concerned she had just dodged a bullet.
Carlos frowned, "You'll need to call in sick Santana, and you'll need to explain to HR what the situation is. Your absence has been noted, and people have begun to talk. Santana I know that these past few months have been difficult for you but it will get better, and if you lose your residency position you'll only feel regret when things return to normal."
Santana grunted at her father, waving him off so she could get back to bed. He was right probably but right now her brain felt like fog most of the time, and she switched back and forth from hot to freezing. She'd have to ask the hobbit if she could borrow Quinn for an hour a day. It would be just so she could feel a bit better, it certainly wouldn't be as good as if Charlie was here, but it would certainly help as long as Quinn didn't say anything.
She certainly didn't want to think about Charlie, and it would be difficult enough with Quinn asking a million questions, but she needed to get a handle on this so she could go to work and become a kick ass surgeon.
~ O ~
"By the time I met my mate Strando, it was too late to do anything about the pregnancy. At first Strando was very clear that he wasn't interested in raising another alpha's child, which is why I made the decision to give Harper to Charlie, it wasn't what I wanted." Mack explains from where she is seated as the witness. Her eyes were brimming with fake tears that she wiped away. "Harper needs a strong alpha in her life and after I explained that to Strando, he started to think about it."
"Can you elaborate? What made Charlie an unfit alpha in your eyes?" Mack's lawyer asked. He turns and smirks over at Sue. If he could get a win over someone as established as Sue Sylvester it would only help his career.
Mack nodded, "We met in a gym, it was a cheap gym you know where you can learn some martial arts, they had classes and Charlie spent quite a bit of time at those classes, and just working out in general. I mean it really was for alpha's only, but me and a few other omega's liked to watch, you know alpha's working out. And whenever I saw her—it was very hard to not notice her. She was smaller than most of the other alpha's and sure she looked strong but not certainly not strong enough to take out alpha's that were twice her size and at least triple her weight class, but she did. She rarely said much but when she looked at you—she was one of the more popular alpha's there. I wanted her to be my alpha more than anything and then one day I saw her at a party, I think it was a mutual acquaintance—but she chose me. I was super excited, you know this was the alpha I wanted to mate with, and so we went back to her place, and we did."
"You did?" Mack's lawyer pressed.
"We mated," Mack clarifies. "At first it went really well, like the first few seconds when you mate it was wonderful. But then I saw it—I felt him," Mack swallows and shudders. "That's when I knew she was an imposter and I severed the bond. She's a liar and she's nothing more than a gamma."
"She's lying," Russell scoffed loudly.
Immediately Judge Coleman used his gavel, "Quiet."
"I'm not lying, she's the textbook definition of a gamma. I was in her head, I felt what she felt and the fear, I could smell the fear and the shame and the self-loathing. There is so much self-loathing in that head of hers, and all the working out she did, and the fights that she won didn't make a difference. She's a gamma, I witnessed her rape."
The sound of a pin dropping could be heard in the courtroom as several eyes travelled to look over at Charlie who didn't turn to face her family, she just kept looking straight ahead at Mack with an unreadable expression on her face.
"I don't want my daughter to be raised by a fake alpha. I begged Strando, and once he found out he agreed with me. He would be the role model that Harper needs. He can protect Harper," Mack nodded, turning to look at the judge. "All I want to do is protect my daughter."
"And at the end of the day isn't that what matters?" Mack's lawyer stated plainly, looking at the judge. "I don't have anything further, but at the crux of the case, that's what really matters isn't it?"
Sue stood up and glanced over at her client, if she could hear the whispers from the gallery then so could Charlie. Most other alpha's would have lost their composure entirely, but the only sign of emotion from her client was the twitch of her jaw as she ground her teeth. "But you abandoned her with Charlie?"
"Excuse me?"
"You just said that you wanted to keep your daughter safe, but you just stated that you don't think that Charlie could do that because she's a gamma," Sue pointed out slowly as if she were talking to an idiot. "You didn't tell my client about Harper did you? So, not only was she surprised when you showed up at her door, you barely left enough food or diapers for a day. Isn't that correct?" Sue pressed.
"I—" Mack flinched at the harshness from Sue, but she quickly swallowed. "I don't doubt that Charlie can do the bare minimum, but she froze, I felt when we were mates, she froze. Asking Charlie to hold onto her for a few weeks? I thought a gamma could at least handle all that."
"Two months—nearly three had gone by before you showed up demanding that my client give you Harper. In fact you only showed up when you found out who my client is related to, and who her mate is, correct?"
"I had to do some research—"
"So now that we've established that you and your alpha are only doing this for child support payments which are not based on her fathers income or her mates income but her own income, so you'll barely get anything out of her," Sue interrupted, steamrolling over Mack with ease. "Let's have a conversation over your problematic beliefs."
~ O ~
Rachel grabs onto Quinn's wrist tightly to prevent Quinn from rushing Charlie as she finally enters the small waiting room. As Quinn's mate she could feel Quinn's distress and it made her heart hurt because there was nothing that she could do to ease Quinn's anxiety. "Quinn, she's going to need some space to breathe," Rachel murmurs to her.
Before Quinn can try and extricate herself from Rachel, Russell is up and immediately makes a beeline towards Charlie, disbelief etched on his features as he grabs Charlie's shoulders tightly, "Tell me it's not true," he demands shaking Charlie slightly.
Immediately Charlie shrugs him off and takes a few steps back. Despite the stoney expression on her face, she could hear the rush of her blood pumping through her body, and the room spun dangerously as all the feelings she kept buried away began to push to the surface.
"Enough." Sue ordered, taking a stance in front of Charlie, "She needs some space, and you need to give it to her."
Russel growled lowly, about to give this woman the tongue lashing of a lifetime when he finally noticed the dead eyed look of his youngest daughter and his heart broke in two, "It isn't true. Tell me it isn't true." When Charlie looks away from him he closes his eyes, it was the only response that he needed and he stumbles back. How had he missed it? Why didn't she come to him?
Judy gently pushes past him with Harper in her arms, her eyes wet with tears as she waits until Charlie looks at her briefly before placing Harper into her arms. She worried that with Santana missing that Charlie and Harper would form an unhealthy attachment with one another, but right now her child needed comfort and without Santana Harper was the only omega in Charlie's life that could take some of the emotional burden. "How much would it cost us to simply pay Mack to give up her parental rights?" Judy questioned turning to Sue. This had gone on far enough and her family was in tatters. Charlie simply couldn't be the only one sacrificing here, to keep Harper safe.
Sue frowned, they had been over this multiple times. Though she did understand Judy's insistence this time. "Once again I don't recommend doing that. If they were relatively intelligent people, who wouldn't blow through the money in a few weeks and then come back looking for more, I'd consider it. They seem to be the type of people who would blow through however much you gave them, and then go to the courts and say that you paid for your grandchild. Besides their lawyer seems semi-competent and would definitely steer them towards monthly payments until Harper turns 18 and that could cost you a fortune, even if we could swing it so that the payments last until Harper was old enough to choose who she wanted to live with, we can't predict the future or children. Harper might decide she wants to live with Mack on her own, and all that money would be wasted."
"Am I going to lose custody?" Charlie's voice seems to surprise everyone and they turn to look at her, she's holding Harper tightly against her body hugging her.
Sue chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, "While we have plenty in our favor, I don't think you're going to have full custody by the end of this. As long as Mack says she wants the child the court will try and be fair. I will work to make sure you are the primary custodian. With all that said, I will make sure we get back child support, they want your money but I'm going to make sure that this costs them and it keeps costing them. Strando has made it clear that he doesn't want to pay for Harper, and Mack doesn't work. By all accounts they should be paying you support and they haven't. I'll make them regret coming after you for money and once we put enough pressure we can revisit Mack giving up her parenting rights. At which point we can talk about buying them off."
Charlie nods and kisses Harper on the forehead, "I'm sorry I'm not strong enough to protect you," she murmurs to her daughter gently. From the moment she'd been kicked out she had spent all of her time and effort on physical enhancement. She needed to think about money, she needed to think about power, while still being physically capable. She had turned her back on being a Fabray, but it was becoming obvious that she was nothing if she didn't lean into who her family was.
Quinn finally managed to pull away from Rachel and slowly approached her twin, stopping when Charlie's gaze immediately shifted towards her. Quinn freezes immediately, stopping in her tracks as she meets Charlie's gaze. She had been Charlie's best friend, for the majority of their lives, and she knew that her twin would hate any pity on her part. "Does Santana know?"
Charlie hesitated for a moment before shrugging, "Yes, I imagine that when she actually sat down and thought about it, the fact that we can't mate, the fact that it happened to me—the fact that I have Harper, all of it was a dealbreaker for Santana." She had made the mistake in believing in the power of mates. She felt stupid for believing that if Santana had cared about her in the slightest she would have found a way to have been here. Or at the very least she would have contacted her in some form or fashion if she had work. She had a better chance of winning the lottery then she did of being a family with Santana, and if she wanted to be a strong alpha for Harper, then she needed to get rid of the notion that she was worth being with. Harper was the only omega that mattered to her.
~ O ~
"I'll get straight to the point here. I see no reason to remove Charlotte Fabray as the main custodial parent. She's been doing it since the day you for lack of a better term, abandoned your daughter." Judge Coleman said as he took a seat at his bench. "I've taken a look at Harper's medical records, and she seems to be hitting all her milestones, and she's fully vaccinated. An independent review shows that Harper is healthy and it seems happy, so ripping her away from the only parent that she's known since birth seems cruel and unnecessary." Judge Coleman immediately bangs his gavel as the Fabray side of the courtroom starts to cheer.
"With that said, while the court finds that Charlotte Fabray should remain the custodial parent, we do have some concerns. Harper is an omega, and Charlotte is unmated. We haven't heard any testimony from Charlotte's supposed mate, on how she feels about this. Which is why if you're serious about seeking custody Mackenzie Platt, after you complete a court mandated parenting class, you will have supervised visits on weekends. If those go well, then we'll discuss you getting Harper on weekends and finally 50/50 custody."
Sue was up in her seat immediately, "And child support? These past seven months they haven't paid a cent towards Harper's care. Something that my client has been taking care of without complaint."
Judge Coleman was quiet for a moment as Mack's lawyer hops to his feet. "She's right, child support is owed, and until that is paid and the parenting classes are completed visitation is off the table. My office will be in contact with yours to determine the level of child support that will need to be paid, Mr. Strando."
Sue glanced over at Strando, and frowned ever so slightly, her plan was working but the fact that Strando looked so incensed was worrying. She was going to have to make sure that visitation lasted far longer than a few months. They had won, but she knew that it was only the first battle. There would be many more to come, and she could only hope that Mack and Strando would screw up somehow. She would also need to look into Charlie's soulmate, even if she wanted nothing to do with Harper, they needed to put her into play. Her absence had hurt them, but they could still make this work. All they needed was for Charlie to mate with any omega who was okay with Harper's existence.
