A/N: I'm making this shit up as I go. Woo! It's actually kind of fun! And I'm not doing my normal mildly-obsessive background research, so take everything with a grain of salt!

Chapter THREE

Four hours later, the people saved from Jacobs' Shipping were starting to relax despite their confusion. Between Addie looking over the kids and babies, and her friend Amelia Shepherd taking care of the adults, all of them had been checked – some were put on IVs of fluids, others given drugs to deal with whatever ailments they had picked up – and all had been given the opportunity to use the staff showers to clean up. Dressed in mismatched sweatpants and sweatshirts, they were sprawled over several couches, chairs, and floorspace in the breakroom area. Bailey had run home and brought back a collapsible crib for the two babies – when they weren't being tended by her, Addie, or any of the other staff who came in to help.

The breakroom was a large, open space, designed for all-staff meetings and lunch hours. As a mark of how Meredith valued her staff, the couches were new, comfortable, and oversized. There were bunk beds secured against one wall, and a large-screen TV not far from the small kitchenette, which was receiving hard use from the various foodstuffs Arizona had brought back. Normally stocked with simply tea, coffee, and juice, it was now full of canned soups, rice cooking, and various breads. Frozen pizzas had been cooked, and bottles warmed for the babies in pots Arizona had bought that day. The rescued didn't ask questions, merely followed the directions and answered questions. Their conversations between each other were stilted, in a mix of languages – though mostly Spanish and English.

Callie, Arizona, Meredith, and Cristina were huddled outside the door, looking through the windows at the huddled mass of people they were now responsible for.

"Any explanations of where they came from, and why they were there? Kidnapping? Paying debts?" Meredith asked quietly.

"Everyone we could talk to – so everyone but two speaking a dialect of something we don't understand – were kidnapped. Most had been in various trucks for weeks. We had to give them the date to find out how long they'd been captured for," Callie replied.

"Any idea what that language is? At all?" Cristina questioned.

Callie shook her head, "No one understands it. Bailey thinks it might be Cambodian, but we don't have anyone who speaks it here."

Arizona pursed her lips, "There's a convenience store downtown we do business with whose original owners are Cambodian immigrants. Nice folks. The kids just took over when their parents retired, but I think they're fluent."

"Get them down here, then. Say we need some help," Meredith ordered. "We'll compensate them for their time." Arizona nodded, stepping away to pull up the contact from her address book and call. "What about the parents of the babies?" Her mouth set in a thin line, Meredith radiated anger on the babies' behalf.

Callie crossed her arms. "The mother of the newborn died, as you know. I've arranged a burial for her – she's not even out of rigor yet. The others who helped her through childbirth said she only gave a first name, Teresa, and that she was from some tiny place in Mexico. I googled it, it's not even on the internet, so that's a fucking dead end. She'd been an illegal doing domestic work in Texas when she was taken. The other baby is about a week old, and her mother went into shock or something – it's not like anyone in there could even see what was going on, let alone help. Avery's people chucked the mother's body out when they hosed them down at a stop after she died and threw some formula in for the baby, which is the only reason she's still alive. No one knew her name at all, or where she was from. So we've got two baby girls, mothers dead, fathers unknown, from god knows where, and no paperwork. Addie says she can make birth certificates for us, but we have to have somewhere for them to go. Either put them into the system with invented identities or find them a family. Both are too old to fall under the Safe Haven laws."

"Putting them in the systems means there's something to trace, to follow, to bring this whole thing to the attention of the government. No. We'll find them families. Until then…" Meredith shook her head. "We'll keep them here for now. There's always someone around, and they'll be protected. What about the kids and the adults?"

"We've got names and addresses for most of them. There's one kid who's pretty young, he's too traumatized to talk, but I've got Gloria scouring the net for abduction reports that match his description. As long as they don't talk about what happened, we can just provide them with tickets home and some money. Fake the kidnappers letting them go if we have to. Depends on the situation, the media coverage, police involvement," Cristina replied, showing her best friend a spreadsheet of the names, addresses, and other information they'd gleaned from the kidnapping victims.

"Do it. Whatever you need to get them home safely with as little focus on us as possible," Meredith decided. "Has anyone explained what's going on to them?"

"Not yet. We've worried more about getting a doctor to look at them, food, clothing, that sort of thing," Callie admitted. "I'll translate for the Spanish speakers if you want to do it now," she offered.

"I suppose now is as good a time as any," Meredith squared her shoulders. The slight, kind-looking woman disappeared under the hard visage of the leader of the Grey empire.

X-X

By the time night fell over Seattle, teams had been dispatched with most of the rescued people to their hometowns, where they'd be "released" and give a story about panicking kidnappers or some such. A few would stay with them longer, while slightly better plans were put into place. The two Cambodian speakers had agreed to the overarching plan as well, once their communication issues had been sorted out.

Which means that only one small child and the two babies were going to be with them much longer. The boy had finally given his name, and Gloria had found his picture online at about the same time. In the morning, he'd be driven down to Tacoma and dropped off at the best hospital there, hopefully to be reunited with his family as soon as possible.

Callie ducked her head into the breakroom. Bailey and Arizona were feeding the two infants their bottles. She closed the door behind her, exchanging tentative smiles with the handful of people left in the room, before settling in the chair next to her girlfriend. Arizona looked up, a small smile gracing her features as she took in the exhausted face of her lover.

"Long day?" she inquired.

Callie glared half-heartedly, "You know it. How are you here," she waved at the baby in Arizona's arms, "and not deconstructing financials with Karev?"

"Well, he needed a break before his eyes crossed permanently, and when I came in here to grab something to eat, I got distracted," the blonde colored.

"And what an adorable distraction," Callie grinned, letting the baby wrap a tiny hand around one large finger.

"A distraction I don't have any more time for today, Torres. I gotta head home to my kid. You willing to help?" Bailey cut in.

"Um, sure, Bailey. Whatever you need," Callie replied, letting the shorter woman hand her infant over.

"She's been fed, now she needs a burping, and then probably a change. I will see you two," Bailey pointed at them both, "tomorrow. Try not to drop them."

Callie settled into Bailey's empty chair and patted the baby's back lightly. The infant curled into her shoulder, and she found herself utterly charmed. The baby in her arms was Teresa's, and she let the baby dribble down her back as she burped. Her girlfriend just laughed from where she was letting her charge finish the bottle.

Meredith walked up to them just as a particularly large burp of warm formula made its way into Callie's shirt. The younger woman laughed, before swooping the other baby from Arizona's arms. "And how are you, sweetheart?" she cooed.

Callie raised her eyebrow. Maternal, soppy Meredith was a new dimension to her employer, one that she had not quite expected despite the common knowledge that Meredith and her long-term boyfriend, Derek, had been trying to have a baby for years. The baby in Meredith's arms settled in quickly as she burped, before stretching and then closing her eyes.

"So, I don't know if I really like keeping the babies here," Meredith started. "This isn't exactly… homey. And since they're kind of part of the Grey family, we really should offer them more than the breakroom."

Arizona studied her boss carefully. She gestured at the baby in Meredith's arms. "You're decided to take her in, haven't you?"

Meredith blushed lightly. "Well, yes. We can't take both of them, but this little girl, she's just… she's amazing."

Callie bristled a little at the implication that the child in her arms wasn't amazing, "Well so's this little one," she stated.

"Of course she is," Meredith nodded, "but this little one was screaming her head off this afternoon and she quieted right down when I took her," Meredith avoided the fact that her employees had been passing the wailing baby around unsuccessfully trying to soothe her for ten minutes before she stepped in and the girl quieted, "It was…" The younger woman gave a wide, uncommon smile. "It was like fate. Or something. I'm sure we'll find a good home for Teresa's girl, too." She grinned as the little girl started to lightly snore on Callie's shoulder.

"We better," Callie muttered. "And how exactly are you going to explain that baby? You and Derek are the most pasty-white people I've ever met, and that beautiful girl certainly is not."

Meredith laughed, "Along with the lovely birth certificate your friend Addison is going to make for us, there will be the paperwork for a super-private, sealed adoption. I know someone who knows someone who can get that done for us. And for whoever takes that little one," she gestured Teresa's daughter. "We don't want a blood test later on to throw her origin into doubt. For example, if you took her, she looks enough like she could be your kid, but ten years down the road when there's some medical test that calls her parentage into doubt? No. We'll play it safe. Adoption is a better explanation."

Arizona nodded, "Good idea. Honest, but not too honest until they're old enough to understand."

"Exactly. Look, I'm staying here tonight, and I've got Mousey to help. Why don't you two go home?" Meredith said, waving over her new personal assistant, a shy woman named Brooks that Cristina had promptly dubbed Mousey. Unfortunately the appellation had stuck, and most of the people who'd met her in the Grey organization knew her only by Mousey.

The two women's eyes met, and Arizona nodded to her girlfriend. It had been a very long day. "Sure. You got everything you need? Should we pick up anything on our way in tomorrow?" Callie asked as she gently transferred the baby to Mousey's arms.

"I think we have what we need, but I'll text you if I think of anything. Just… bring in a lot of coffee? I think we're going to need it," Meredith replied.

"I'm going to need it," Arizona groaned. "I hate tax season and with this all on top of it? I'm going to have to hide a lot of unexplained expenses."

"Sorry, Arizona," Meredith laughed. "At least it's for a good reason."

Arizona smiled at the two babies snuggling into their caregivers' embraces. "Yeah, it is."