Chapter 17
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A month after Jee turned two, Chimney was released from prison on parole for good behaviour. John Lee picked him up and offered him a room to stay in for a couple of weeks until he could get a job and him feet underneath him. Buck had understood John and Anne's need to support their unofficial son and reluctantly told them that the courts wouldn't allow Jee to be in their home without Buck or a CPS approved supervisor while Chimney was living in there. Buck had clearly explained to them the process by which Chimney could petition for custody or unsupervised visitation and the prerequisites that had already been set for him to be successful.
The Lees regretted not being able to look after Jee while Buck was working anymore but understood and begged to still be able to be part of the little girl's life. Buck and Eddie said that the two of them would always be welcome to visit whenever one of them was home as long as they didn't bring Chimney or allow him to follow them. John and Anne had promised to be vigilant.
"Where's Jee-Yun? When's she getting here?" Chimney asked as he sat down to the lunch Anne had made him to celebrate his release.
"I have a number here for you to call to arrange a visit, your friend Athena has offered to supervise whenever she's free but she said she'd understand if you didn't want to wait for her or you'd prefer a stranger from CPS supervise," Anne said, laying down the card with the contact details.
"What do you mean arrange a visit? Jee-Yun is my daughter, there's no reason for her not to be with me now that I'm free," Chimney said angrily.
"Because you and Maddie have both been gone so long the courts have decided that it would be in Jee's best interests for a graduated handover of custody, you currently will have up to two hours supervised visitation three times a week," Anne said gently.
"And because you were convicted of child neglect and endangerment, you need to complete a parenting course and anger management therapy before they remove the supervision requirement, I know you were told this after the CPS hearing," John said more firmly, laying a supportive hand on Anne's shoulder. He wondered at Howie not trying to complete the parenting courses while he was in prison if he was so desperate to get custody of his daughter back.
"What I don't have time for that. I need to get going, to find Maddie. She's been on her own so long," Chimney said angrily. "I'm going over to Buck's to pick up Jee-Yun. He can't keep my daughter away from me any longer."
"Stop, you can't go to Buck's, he has a restraining order preventing you from approaching him, with or without Jee-Yun," John said.
"He can't keep my daughter from me. That can't be legal!" Chimney insisted.
"He's not keeping your daughter from you but as the victim you battered and the fact that you threatened to try to violently extort information from him that he doesn't have, as recently as a couple of months ago he had grounds for the restraining order and I know you were told about it when it was granted by the judge. If you break it while still on parole then you'll be going back to prison to serve the other two years of your sentence," John said firmly.
"But he has my daughter. He can't keep me from seeing her like that," Chimney yelled.
"He's not the one keeping you from her. The courts awarded Buck full custody and you and Maddie are restricted to supervised visitation until you can prove to CPS that you're going to act in the child's best interests. You can call that number and request a supervised visit at any time within reason, but if you want unsupervised access to your child you will need to meet the requirements and petition the court for an alteration in Jee-Yun's custody arrangements," John said uncompromisingly. "It won't do you any good to get angry with us, or with Buck, the conditions were set by CPS and the family court. We had nothing to do with their decision and there's nothing we can do about it."
"But you babysit Jee, right? She'll be here in the next day or so?" Chimney asked.
"We were informed by CPS that we cannot look after Jee-Yun in our home while you're living with us," Anne said sadly. She couldn't have not chosen to support Howard and help him get back on his feet but she was going to miss the time with her granddaughter.
"I need Jee with me when I find Maddie," Chimney said.
"After what happened last time, even once you've been fully reunited with your daughter, any attempt to take Jee on a road trip like that again could result in you losing custody again. If you're that desperate to find Maddie, I'd suggest you arrange regular supervised visitation sessions while you start looking for her on-line. Once you know where she is, then you can go directly there and try to persuade Maddie to come home to Jee with you," John said practically.
Chimney scowled at him but pulled out his laptop and began searching.
He didn't get very far, Maddie hadn't posted anything to her social media since she'd left, she hadn't been tagged in anyone else's posts that he had access to and the information about her bank account had been deleted from his computer.
-o0o-
Hen came round to visit when she finished her shift at the hospital. She'd finally finished her medical degree but the hours of interning were killing her and she didn't have much spare time. She was equally blunt about the fact that now that CPS were involved, Jee's needs would be considered more important than any emotional need or sense of ownership he might have about his daughter. She didn't however agree that chasing after Maddie when none of them had heard from her in years and still had no idea where she'd gone was a good idea.
"Chim, it's been years," Hen reminded him gently. "You'd have to be prepared for the possibility that even if you did find her, she will have made a new life for herself and may never want to return to Los Angeles."
"Then I'll stay with her, wherever she is. I can fulfil CPS requirements anywhere and then we can come back for the court hearing and get custody of Jee. Maddie must miss her so much," Chimney answered oblivious to what Hen had been trying to say.
"If her PPD was as bad as you feared it would have prevented Maddie from bonding with her daughter, as evidenced by the fact she hasn't tried to keep in contact with her in all this time," Hen said.
"That's why I need to take Jee with me, Maddie will be better now and she'll be able to bond with Jee-Yun properly so we'll be a family,"
"Chim, she may have moved on with her life. Romantically moved on," Hen said slowly. She knew Buck thought she would've. According to Buck Maddie had never been single for very long, jumping from one relationship to the next immediately until she'd met Doug. She also hadn't been single long after leaving him before forming an intimate friendship with Chimney, though it took time for her to heal from her abusive marriage and trust anyone again.
"No she wouldn't have. She was distraught when she left. She wasn't leaving me," Chimney replied.
"Perhaps you're right but it's been well over a year, if she truly only needed some time on her own to get her head back together or to seek an inpatient rehab facility for her PPD then she'd be back by now," Hen argued. "She's been gone too long not to have got a job and made a life for herself and she isn't the type of woman to remain single long term," Hen said bluntly. "Do you really want to throw away your chances of getting custody of Jee-Yun back to chase after a ghost of the past?"
"You don't understand. Maddie and I are soulmates!" Chimney said.
"Then get permission from your parole officer to go hunting for her but you can't take a toddler in the car for hours like that," Hen warned. "It wouldn't be good for her and if you haven't got full custody, you'd be arrested for kidnapping as soon as you crossed the state lines. Honestly a road trip like that away from all your supports wouldn't be good for you either, and I doubt you'd get your parole officer's approval for it unless you have proof that you know where Maddie is living and that she wants you to come to her.
"Buck's kidnapped my kid and you're taking his side!" Chimney yelled.
"I'm not on anyone's side except perhaps Jee-Yun's. Buck hasn't kidnapped Jee-Yun, he has legal custody granted to him by the court as per the legal documents you and Maddie signed when she was a baby. Are you too foolish to realise that I'm trying to keep you out of prison. Jee is two years old and she barely knows you. Home to her is Buck and Eddie's place. After all this time it's the only home she remembers so the changeover of custody will need to be gradual to reduce her trauma. You're planning on breaking your freaking parole, suddenly taking Jee away from everything that makes her feel safe and keeping her in a car for hours and hoping that you'll be able to focus on her needs enough that she won't end up neglected and dehydrated again as you aimlessly hunt across the country for a woman that could literally be anywhere in the world, and doesn't want to be found," Hen retorted.
"You're refusing to help me?" Chimney asked feeling betrayed.
"I am going to help you. This is the number of a private patient transport company that's prepared to give you a job trial. You have an appointment to meet with the boss on Friday. That will give you time to get a haircut and some decent clothes that fit and look respectable. I've printed you some information about their company and the types of transports they do."
"Patient transport," Chimney scoffed. "I'm a Firefighter-Paramedic not a medical taxi driver."
"You used to be a firefighter-paramedic, you were fired with prejudice from the LAFD for striking a colleague, and neglecting a child in your care. I doubt that you'd find a Fire department in the country that would employ you even if you could requalify," Hen said poking him in the arm that he had to admit was a lot less muscular than it had been prior to going on FMLA leave and being arrested.
"What if I don't want to work as a glorified taxi driver?" Chimney asked.
"You'll need to find another job, and that may not be as easy as you think for a convicted felon out on parole. Give this job a try, even if you hate it, it will be easier to find something else once you have current employment and references. You'll need proof of a legally earned income and suitable accommodation to get custody of Jee-Yun and someone's spare room isn't going to cut it. Especially when the Lees are already on record as not wanting full time custody of Jee," Hen said bluntly.
—
Chimney went to the job interview and felt that it had gone well. Not realising how lucky he was to get the job a all with his record, he was a little disappointed to be offered a trial period covering other people's leave with a constantly unpredictable schedule, though the manager had promised to schedule his shifts around supervised visitation once he had the appointments set up. He was driving John's car, Albert having decided to sell his car in Arizona rather than deal with the hassle of having it brought back to Los Angeles and stored for the past two years.
Unfortunately, the way home from the interview passed within a few blocks of Buck's loft and he couldn't resist calling in there to demand to see Jee, and be told where Maddie was. He couldn't believe that Buck would be so calm about it if Maddie were genuinely still missing, he must be in contact with her somehow and know where she was living. Security on the building seemed better than it had been before but Chimney managed to follow another group of residents and guests through the lobby and made his way up to Buck's door. He knocked fairly politely not wanting to draw attention to himself, not realising that Buck's old neighbours had recognised him from the warning Buck had sent them to try to keep his tenant safe and called the police.
Athena heard the call on the scanner and responded, even though she technically wasn't the closest patrol unit to the loft. She arrives as another unit was taking Chimney into custody.
"I was trying to visit my daughter," Chimney protested.
"Your daughter doesn't live here and I know you've been fully informed of the court mandated therapy and classes you need to complete before giving you unfettered access to an infant. Have you even signed up for any of those classes, or therapy? Or applied for visitation sessions?" Athena said unimpressed.
Chimney felt betrayed by Athena when she didn't overrule the arresting officers when they decided to transport him to lock up and accused her of taking Buck's side.
Athena hadn't even considered wanting to argue with the decision. She hoped that the threat of breaking his parole and going back to prison would prevent him from trying to approach Buck again, somewhere where he and Jee might actually be present.
Chimney was eventually released after several hours in a holding cell contemplating the possibility of being sent back to prison, a stern talking to by his patrol officer and one strike against his parole. Athena told him bluntly that the only reason he wasn't being charged was because Buck and Jee no longer live in the building so he didn't actually violate the restraining order against him, but an official record of the call was made to help identify a pattern of stalking if Chimney persisted. Hen came to pick him up and scolded him again all the way home.
-o0o-
Hen arrived the next day armed with pamphlets about the various parenting classes and anger management courses available that would meet the requirements to be able to petition for custody.
"I don't have time for all this, it will take weeks and what about work," Chimney protested.
"Well you don't have to do any of it if you don't want custody of Jee-Yun or unsupervised visits with her. It is entirely your choice, but you were the one trying to break the rules to visit her yesterday so I thought you'd be keen to start the process of getting her back," Hen said bluntly looking at him as if he was a huge disappointment, more than even when he'd been charged.
Chimney looked away guiltily but Hen didn't realise that it was because seeing Jee hadn't been his priority when he went to Buck's loft, though he had been willing to use his daughter's wellbeing to force Buck to tell him where Maddie was.
"Buck and Eddie are doing an amazing job of bringing Jee-Yun up and the entire extended Diaz family see her as one of their own. Your daughter is thriving where she is and very well cared for, so if you don't want the responsibility of being a single parent I could understand," Anne Lee adds gently.
"She's not Buck's daughter, she's fucking mine," Chimney growls.
"Legally at the moment she's Buck's ward, until you complete these courses and can prove you're capable of caring for a two year old and will put her needs first," Hen said pointedly, looking at the information she'd given him.
Chimney barely restrained from throwing it all at her.
"Have you set up a time to visit with Jee?" Anne asked.
"Not yet. I don't want to see Buck and Eddie with her," Chimney replied.
"You won't. The restraining order will prevent Buck from being present during your visit and you can request that Eddie isn't there either. There will be a CPS worker present and Athena has volunteered herself and Bobby to go to support Jee, and they've both been approved," Hen replied.
"Support Jee. She doesn't need support to see her father! She's going to be thrilled to see me," Chimney scoffed.
"She ended up crying inconsolably every time I took her to visit you, and Albert said she did when he took her too," Hen said sceptically.
Chimney turned and stared at her as if he hadn't realised this before.
"You got angry and yelled, and that frightened Jee-Yun. Children that age don't make long term memories so if she remembers you at all it would be as the scary angry man from the prison visitor's room," Hen pointed out.
"But.. I'm her father," Chimney protested.
"Do you automatically love and trust your father?" Hen asked.
"I did when I was a small child, I adored him, until I grew old enough to realise what he was really like," Chimney said quietly.
"You trusted him until he broke you trust, and unfortunately you've already broken Jee's trust and it's going to take time and effort to rebuild. I'm sure Jee will adore her father too, once she becomes familiar with him again and learns what a good Daddy he can be, it's just going to take time. You need to set up visitation and be very careful not to lose your temper or go off on rants while you're with Jee. Perhaps if you don't think that you can do that you should start the anger management classes or start therapy and work through pushing aside your worry about Maddie and anger at Buck to concentrate on being the best father you can be for your daughter," Hen said reassuringly.
Stung by the thought that Jee wouldn't be happy to see him, Chimney hesitates to set up a visit. He makes an appointment with a therapist but they don't seem to click and nothing he says seems to help, mostly because Chimney did not actually open himself to therapy or put the work in. He'd always managed to half-arse his way through mandated therapy sessions to be cleared to return to work and hadn't expected this to be any different. He looks into anger management programs but doesn't find one he likes the idea of and the child raising classes for the appropriate age range only remind him that Jee is not the baby he remembers and depress him, so he doesn't sign up for those either.
Chimney hated his new job, there was none of the excitement of emergencies or feeling like what you did made a difference to other people's lives. It was all so boring, transporting people to appointments and from hospital to rehab facilities and care homes, and he didn't gel with any of the staff he was paired with. Still as Anne had reminded him, it was a job and without any savings left he needed the income and he didn't have time to look for anything else.
It distressed him that he couldn't physically go searching for Maddie but after being warned after being arrested at Buck's old loft, he knew he needed to be in Los Angeles for his weekly check in with his parole officer and he didn't have the money to travel backwards and forwards as he searched. His internet searches found no mention of Maddie Buckley, or Maddie Kendall or Maddie Han after the date she left Jee at the 118 for him. He wondered whether she could have changed her name, but there was no record of her doing so legally in any of the states he'd checked yet and no idea what she might have changed it to.
Chimney had a friend who was internet savvy, who'd been the one to find the dude catfishing women with Buck's identity who was some limited help but his friend had refused to look for her social security number being used and he didn't have the skill to get away with it himself. He began to regret not making friends in prison who might have those skills and be willing to use them for the right price.
He knew Buck and Eddie were both still working at the 118, having seen them during the TV coverage of a large apartment building fire. He resented that Bobby hadn't tried to get him back on the team, blaming Buck for it ignoring the truth he'd been fired with prejudice and permanently disqualified from working for the LAFD in any capacity when he was convicted of battering a teammate.
Chimney hung out near the station hoping to be able to follow one of them home but he never saw Eddie's truck or Buck's jeep drive by. The fact that Buck had brought a safer vehicle with tinted windows now he was regularly transporting his niece and Christopher never occurred to him, Maddie had given him the jeep and Chimney believed he'd never have given it up. (Chimney was wilfully forgetting the fact that the jeep Maddie had given him had been lost in the tsunami and the one he'd been driving before Chim left was merely a replacement for it, and any sentimental value it had would've been diminished by Maddie ghosting him a second time.)
Hen refused to be forthcoming about Buck's address, claiming that she didn't know it because Buck and Eddie had refused to put her in the position of having to choose between them and Chimney, and she'd thrown him out of her own home and told him not to come back near her family if he couldn't control his temper. Albert had also refused to give him the address, though he had admitted he had been to Buck and Eddie's to visit and babysit Jee-Yun, and had refused to back down on the fact that Chimney didn't need to know. Albert reminded chimney that he had Buck's phone number, Buck was willing to answer his calls and provide information about Jee, or the phone call he'd received from Maddie over a year ago, and to call CPS to set up visitation if he wanted to see his daughter.
Chimney realised that Hen, Anne, John and Albert were all disappointed in him for not setting up regular visitation with Jee-Yun, or working harder towards the requirements to apply for custody. He was even more disconcerted to realise that they all were beginning to believe that Jee-Yun would be better off staying with Buck and Eddie.
He booked a visitation session and tried to listen patiently as Anne, John and Hen smothered him with advice on how he should react while Jee was present.
He bought her a small gift, picked out by Hen since he had no idea what she'd like, and tried to focus on talking to and playing with the little girl. She was a complete stranger to him. He could barely recognise the features of the baby he had loved in this chatty and sassy toddler, or at least she was chatty and sassy to Athena and Bobby when they'd brought her in, she was clearly a little wary of him. He felt awkward with her, not knowing what to say, or what she liked and didn't like.
He left the visitation session feeling unsatisfied. He'd seen so little of Jee while he was in Arizona and even once he came back to California he hadn't seen her often or for very long when she was brought to visit, because he wouldn't let Buck or Eddie bring her and that had pissed off most of the rest of his visitors. Because he hadn't been there to watch her grow up, in his head she was still mostly the six month old baby girl who had adored him and this wary, talkative, opinionated child didn't feel like his daughter at all. He wondered whether Maddie would feel the same when she came back.
Buck and Eddie had been able to watch the meeting between Jee and Chimney from behind the two-way mirror in the room. Once Jee became more familiar with Chimney and was happy to be alone with him the supervisors would also retreat to watching behind the mirror. Buck was glad to see that Chimney seemed to be making an effort not to upset the little girl. He saw anger flash across his expression several times but he pulled his reactions in and kept quiet for a moment before distracting Jee with a change in topic, focusing her attention on something other than discussion of her seemingly favourite people, Unkabuk, Unkdee and Cwis.
Buck was glad that Jee hadn't been upset but it was nerve wracking for him to watch his niece in the same room as a man who he knew could go from anxious and upset to sudden violence without warning. He wanted to forgive Chimney for hitting him and he thought that he had but forgiving was not the same as forgetting.
He was disturbed by the fact that Chimney spent a lot of the visit talking to Jee about Maddie coming home and the three of them becoming a family again.
Buck could tell that the conversation was confusing the little girl who didn't really have clear memories of Chimney, let alone memories of Maddie as a person instead of a picture on the wall. She didn't understand why this man was talking about the lady in the picture or why they'd be a family. She already had a perfectly good family she didn't want another one.
Thankfully for the sake of Chimney's control of his temper, Jee's confidence in the situation and language skills prevented her from communicating this clearly to him, and he totally misreads her distress at the idea of leaving Unkabuk and Unkdee and Cwis as missing her mother.
A/N: Thank you to all those who reviewed, commented positively, followed, bookmarked or favourited or gave Kudos to this story for your support.