Stef's POV

"I understand that and I completely agree with you. Kids need rules and structure, there's no doubt about that. And as for her last placement, I will be having the home reassessed, but Lux needs parents who are going to be able control her and keep her in line. Not let her go to a bar when she's grounded and sleep over a strange guy's house less than a week from being placed with them…"

"What?" Mike and I both ask in both confusion and shock evident in out voices. For a second I'm not even sure that I've heard Fern correctly, but I'm afraid to ask her to repeat herself.

"This is what I'm talking about. You two had no idea where she was last night and neither of you mentioned to tell me anything since I've arrived here."

"She told us that she was at her friend's house," Mike answers matter-of-factly as if that would change anything. "Lux!" he yells as he begins to stand up but I force him back down in his seat.

"Mike," I warn. "Not now," I eye him sternly, letting him know that we'd deal with it the second Fern left. As pissed as I am about what Lux claims to have done, I'm even more pissed at myself for allowing it to happen.

Fern looks from Mike and back to me with an apparent look of disapproval and then glances back down at her notepad, "Now this friend…"

"Tasha," Mike concludes and I nod because I met the girl twice. But neither of those times, did I get a good feeling about her.

Fern lifts her head up, "Natasha Siviac? Yes, she was in the system too. Her and Lux were glued to the hip growing up…"

"Okay?" I ask, unable to hide my perplexed reaction. "I'm not sure I understand where this is going here…"

"Natasha Siviac ran away from foster-care over a month ago. She is another one of my cases, but I haven't been able to track her down ever since. I'm surprised you didn't know about this…" she comments as she shakes her head slightly. "You said you have met this girl, right?"

"Yes, but we didn't ask for her track record," Mike says defensively. "How were we supposed to know this? And why is it that we are the ones being interrogated because we don't know every little thing about our daughter's friends. Our daughter that we just met less than a week ago in case you forgot."

Lena buds in, "This girl, Natasha Siviac, isn't she your case? You cannot possibly expect us to keep track of another kid. Natasha was your responsibility."

"I'm well aware of that. And I am still doing everything I can to try to find her. But aside from all of that, I put Lux in your care. All of you, as parents, should be trying to get more involved and you should know exactly whom your daughter is hanging out with. Forget about Natasha for a second… The bottom line is, last night your kid went to a bar and spent the night at a complete stranger's house. She comes home the next morning… and Stef, you give her a cellphone?" Fern asks skeptically as she glances up from her notepad. "Do you realize that rewarding this type of behavior is the last thing you should be doing?"

"You did what?" Mike reiterates in disbelief and suddenly I'm made out to be the bad guy again.

"No, no, no, no, no. I gave her a cellphone to keep this very thing from happening again. I told her specifically that she wasn't allowed to just disappear all night and not tell us where she was going. And I told her that if she ever needed a ride home, to call us immediately. The phone wasn't a reward. It was a necessity for all of us. If something were to happen, I would've tracked her down using the phone's GPS and brought her home myself."

"Stef," Lena tries to chastise.

"No, Lena," I argue. "I bought her the phone so that I could keep tabs on her.

"But why would you need to keep tabs on her if she was already grounded?" Fern asks. "Normally, when parents ground their children, they aren't allowed to go out with their friends or even pretend to go out with their friends as was the case last night. Why did you allow Lux to go out?"

I have to stare at Mike for that one. And if looks could kill, Mike would've already been dead this morning.

"That was my fault," Mike takes responsibility as if that was the biggest issue here. "I know that it was my fault. I tried to take her bowling so that she wouldn't sleep through her entire Sunday. She asked to invite her friend and I wanted her to have a good time so I said yes. Now, I realize that was a stupid thing to do because after only a few minutes when Tasha got there, I found Lux crying and then… I gave in. I let her go out with that girl. I didn't know what to do… When my son used to cry, I would tell him to be a man and suck it up. Was I supposed to do the same thing to my daughter?"

"If she was crying, why didn't you call me and tell me?" I ask as if that were the most logical explanation. But most of all, I was annoyed that I wasn't notified.

"Because I didn't want you to think that I couldn't handle it," he defends. "She's my daughter too, Stef. What kind of parent would I be, if I let her see that I run to you for every little thing? She's going to think that I'm a pushover. Right or wrong?" he asks Lena and Fern.

"But she already thinks that," Lena tells him. "She took advantage of you, Mike. Two times in one day. The first time when she asked you if she could bring her friend to go bowling. And the second time was when she asked you if she could leave."

"And you let her," I remind him.

"I get it. This is my fault."

And just as I'm about to say yes, I hear Fern's voice again.

"No," Fern concludes. "All of you are to blame here. Mike, you have to learn how to say no to your daughter. I get it. She just came back into all of your lives and you're not sure how to handle it. You missed her childhood and you're not going to get it back. But Lux is fourteen years old. Kids are very tough to deal with at that age, and the last thing that she needs is someone she just met giving her everything that she wants. It's understandable that you want to spoil her, but if you ever want her to take you seriously, that's the first thing you need to stop doing. She's not going to respect you if she knows that all she has to do is cry or say please, and you're going to give in. I'm not saying that you have to say no all of the time, but you need to feel confident in doing so, especially when she's grounded. And Stef, you can't put all the blame on Mike here—"

"I'm not," I assure her.

"You both need to communicate better or Lux is going to fall right through the cracks. Your son lives here with you, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Since Lux is staying with Mike, you cannot expect him to come to you with everything that goes on with Lux. You need to call him too; otherwise you can't blame him for making the wrong choice. There shouldn't be a difference to how she acts when she's here, versus how she is when she's with Mike, and you both need to make sure of that. If she realizes that she can get away with more stuff at Mike's, she's going to want to stay there and vice versa. She's a kid. She's not thinking about who is the better parent. She's thinking about which place she needs to stay in, that will give her the most freedom. You need to realize that that is exactly why she chose to stay at Mike's. I'm sure that it was a difficult decision for you to hear and I know that as her mother you must be upset. You have all of your children here with you, and then there's only one that decided she doesn't want to. That doesn't make you a bad parent, that doesn't mean she doesn't care or that Mike is more fun. All it means is that your daughter has a brain and is using it. Not for the right reasons of course, but she's a teenager. They're always going to look for the easy way out. And that way out is with Mike."

"And Lena, I don't know anything about you aside from what Lux overheard you say when you were defending Callie. And I won't hold it against you because I know that you said it out of hurt and your first instinct is to protect Callie. But if you want to Lux to believe you when you say that you're sorry, you have to get her to change her perception of you immediately. You have to treat her like your child and not the enemy."

"That wasn't my intention," Lena began to tear and I had to place my hand on her shoulder to try to comfort her. "She's Stef's blood and I see a little bit of Stef every time I look at her. I can't hate someone who reminds me so much of my wife."

"I don't think that you hate her. But I'm sure that Lux thinks that you do. Honestly, this is going to be the toughest for you because she doesn't know how to respond to you. You aren't her biological mother or father, and she's never been in a family setting that was run by two women. And I'm sure she's confused. Hell, most adults are confused. But what neither you nor Lux realize is that you're both going through the same thing. She's trying to figure out where she fits in, in this family and you're trying to figure out where you fit in with her, Stef, and Mike. Now, I'm not sure how involved you are in Brandon's life—"

"Very," I answer for Lena.

"And that's a good thing. I'm sure he treats you like his mother too."

"Of course," Lena remarks as she wipes a tear from her eye with her sleeve. "I've known him since he was five. He is my son."

"And it's amazing that you were able to develop a good relationship with him. I'm sure it was very difficult at first…"

"Extremely," Lena sighs as she realizes where Ferns is going with this.

"Now expect it to be twice as difficult with Lux. Because not only does she think that you have no place in her life because she isn't biologically related to you and she doesn't understand your relationship with her mother, but you've given her even more reason to think that, by saying that she wasn't your daughter. Now I've talked to Lux myself and understandably, she doesn't think you even want her here."

"That's not true," my wife tries to defend.

"I didn't think so. But you're going to have even more difficulty showing her what your place in her life is. You need to show her that you care but you cannot let her walk all over you either. You need to be just as involved with the parenting decisions as Mike and Stef are. Otherwise, she's never going to be able to learn to trust you. That means that all three of you need to talk to each other collectively and let Lux know that you're all involved in the decision-making. She needs to realize that you're all equal and not one of your opinions are considered less than the other two. And at first, she might not understand what's going on. She might fight you two on it. She might say, why do I have to listen to Lena when she's nothing to me? But it's your job to remind her that you're another adult in her life that she has to respect. Once Lux understands exactly what your role is, she'll come around. And don't expect it to happen spontaneously either. It will happen when it happens."

"Okay," Lena says and Mike and I both nod in agreement.

This was something that we were all still struggling to do with Brandon, so I already know that it was going to be harder with another kid in the mix.

"So what now? What do we do now?" Mike asks.

"You take what I said into consideration. But you also realize that I have to take other factors into consideration as well. Lux is a ward of the state so that means that she's also my responsibility. I'm supposed to make sure that she's in a structured and stable environment. And I'm sorry to have to say this, but right now I'm not too sure that that is what this is…"

"What?" I ask in confusion. "I don't get it… I thought you were trying to help us. Was that not what you were just trying to do here?"

"I am… You all have to know that I want Lux to have this. I can tell that you all genuinely care for her as you should, but I have to still do my job… And there are still some things that concern me…"

"Well, what are they? We can fix it. Whatever it is," Mike says sternly.

Fern sighs deeply and looks up at all of us, "From what I hear, Lux doesn't have a bed? …Now this is one of the basic requirements. The couch is okay for a temporary situation but a bed is mandatory if Lux is planning on staying here."

I start to answer, "I'm fixing—"

Mike interrupts, "That's not true. She has a bed at my place."

"Your son's bed in your son's room isn't her bed. We don't allow for different sex siblings to be in the same room and least of all sleep in the same bed. It's against the law."

"But Brandon's hardly ever there," Mike tries to defend.

"It's still not sufficient. It's my job to make sure that all of these basic requirements are met, and I can't honestly say that they are. That's a big problem. I need to make sure that there is space for Lux to live in either one of your homes and with 5 other teenagers living here and Mike's two bedroom apartment, I can't say that there is."

My heart sinks as I'm forced to listen to her words. All I needed was for another person to remind me that I couldn't provide for my family. "I'm trying to fix up the basement for her. I added a window and took out all of the junk that was down there. There just needs to be a little more work done and—"

Lena buds in, "I already picked out the bed we're going to get her. I bought the paint. I could tell that she liked the color purple because she wears those purple bracelets, and she had on a purple top the other night, remember Stef?" I nod and I'm not surprised that my wife picked up on that kind of stuff. She always paid a lot of attention to detail.

"Do you have a permit for the basement?" Fern asks out of nowhere.

"What?" I question.

"In order to put her down there, the area has to be inspected by an inspector and then approved for suitable living conditions."

"Um… No, not yet," I answer with embarrassment again. I knew that I had to do all of that but I was waiting until the basement was completed and it had only been a couple of days since I started working on it.

"So what can we do to fix this?" Lena asks. "Whatever it is, we're willing to do it."

"I will find another apartment," Mike informs her. "One with an extra bedroom."

"The living space is not the only issue at play here," Fern reminds us. " I need to take the fact that your daughter doesn't actually want to be here into consideration as well."

I couldn't believe what this woman was telling me. "So, what? Did you just give us all of this advice to just tell us that because we haven't gotten around buying a bed and because Lux doesn't want to follow our rules that you're going to take her away from us?"

"No, I gave you that advice because I want you to keep her. I want you to be able to make this work, because I know that you will be willing to make these changes so that that can happen. But I can't not do my job either. The fact of the matter is, Lux doesn't have a bed to call her own. She doesn't take any of you seriously. She doesn't even want to be here. And you don't have the space to add another family member into your home. I've read your tax forms, all of them, and you're barely making it as it is. I was bending the rules already when I placed her in your care, because I thought I was doing the right thing… But I can't keep bending the rules. And Lux can't be this unhappy."

"So what else can we do?" I ask worriedly.

"A bed for starters would be nice. I can't leave her here without an actual bed to sleep in. And Mike's apartment is out of the question, because I'm reluctant to leave her in your care after last night. And Lux has to want to stay here."

"How are we going to get her to want to stay here? We can't give her a different set of rules than our other children…"

"I don't expect you to. And I've set up therapy sessions in my office every Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm, until we can all sort this out. And hopefully this way, you all can say what you have to say in a comfortable setting. I hope that all three of you can come?"

"Yes," Lena answers before Mike and I. But we all agree.

"And eventually, I hope to incorporate your other children. I'm sure that they have their own opinions on all of this, and we want to be able to deal with everything so that there are no setbacks?"

"Of course," I answer.

"But in the meantime, I cannot allow Lux to stay here. She is my main priority and I cannot have her be miserable. Her best friend already ran away from foster-care and I don't want the same thing to happen to her. That won't do any of us any good."

"You're going to take our own daughter from us?" Mike asks. "Is this a joke?"

"I understand your frustration—"

"You understand my frustration?" Mike asks as he starts to stand up, and even though I feel the exact same way, my wife is putting pressure on my knee in an effort to calm me down too. "This can't be legal," he continues, "You can't just take our daughter, that we never gave up for adoption in the first place, away from us."

"Lux is still a ward of the state, Mike. And I need to do my job. My job is to make sure that Lux doesn't run away because I left her somewhere that she didn't want to be. Now, as soon as you have her bedroom taken care of, as soon as you three can prove to me that your willing to make this work by coming and participating in these therapy sessions, and as soon as Lux tells me that she wants to live with either one of you, I will have no problem giving you back temporary custody. And if things go well, hopefully permanent custody. But Lux is my priority here and the both of you need to realize that."

"Where are you taking her?" Lena asks for me because I can't bring myself to talk.

"Another home not too far from here. I'm not allowed to give the specifics but she's been with this family before and they would be happy to take her in, in the meantime. I will tell them about the therapy sessions and will make sure that she gets there."

"And what if the therapy sessions don't work?" I finally question. "What if she says she doesn't want to try and make this work?"

"Then, I can't force her to like you, Stef. And neither can you. Isn't that exactly what you've been trying to do? Haven't you realized that it's not working? Look, these therapy sessions are done to help all of you. And I'm honestly not even supposed to do them while she's staying with another family, but I know how tuff this situation is for all of you, and the other family knows about it. Now, perhaps this break from each other is exactly what you need... You all will be able to take care of the potential living situation, and Stef I'm leaving that mostly to you. Mike, perhaps my opinion of Lux living in your house will change but it's not what I recommend right now. And maybe Lux needs some time to cool off and she will benefit from this time apart from you all. This is a stressful situation for her too. She went to having no parents one day, to having three of them and five siblings… She needs some time to process all of the changes and maybe its best that she does that while she's living somewhere else, somewhere familiar to her… Lux is honestly not a difficult person. She's just going through a difficult time. I'm sure that she'll come around at her own pace. You three are just going to have to slow down and let her catch up. I'm sure she'll get there…"

To be continued…

A/N: What did you think about Fern's choice? Do you think she was right? Is this exactly what Lux needs? What they all need?

And I promise that I didn't just do this to be a bitch. This needs to happen for other things to come out and for certain relationships to form. And any guesses as to which family Lux will be staying with? Maybe that will help you understand why this needed to happen.