Kate woke the following morning still clutching the snuggle duck she had stuffed under her pillow the night before. placing it back safely on the pillow she headed into the kitchen to make herself a much-needed coffee. her dreams had been invaded with thoughts of the past resulting in a restless sleep. Taking it with her back into her bedroom she pulled out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. looking snuggly toy on her pillow smiling to herself she grabbed her bag from the side heading out. Before heading out she also grabbed her ships cap
Heading into the Cairns central shopping centre she slowly walked round trying to find the shop she needed. Looking round she found what she was looking for. An identical duck snuggle blanket to the one she had pulled out of the memory box the previous night.
Grabbing an iced coffee, she headed back up to her car. Pulling out of the carpark she made the very short drive to the base hospital. Parking up she navigated through the hospital to the paediatric ward. Walking into the ward she found baby jane doe's cot.
"Hello, you" Kate smiled placing her bags on the little table
The baby looked up a slight smile growing on her face. A young nurse walked over carrying a bottle
"Time for some elevenses little miss" she said with a thick British accent that confused Kate
"Can I give her the bottle?" Kate asked
"sure" the nurse smiled handing Kate the bottle.
"Thanks" Kate said lifting the baby from the cot and sitting in the huge blue leathery plastic armchair. "So, where abouts you from" she asked
"Birmingham" the nurse replied looking up from feeding one of the other babies on the ward.
"do you miss it?" she asked
"i miss my family and I kind of miss some of the things in Birmingham like the huge bullring and the fact with in 2 hours in any direction I could be in some where stunning. Not that cairns is not stunning but the workload and work life balance were overloaded at least over here I can spend time with my boyfriend" the nurse replied.
Kate watched as the nurse bustled around the 3 other cots checking the charts before heading out to the next room to presumably repeat the process all over again.
Placing the baby back in the cot Kate pulled out the little snuggly from her bag
"look what I have for you" Kate said softly placing the duck in the bottom corner of the cot "my little girl had one just like it and it went everywhere" she said
"Lieutenant McGregor?" Clarissa said walking into the room.
"hello" Kate smiled
"Actually, I am glad you are here. I wanted to talk to you about something"
"oh" Kate said turning
"We have yet to find a suitable place for Baby Jane Doe" she said "i was wondering since you clearly are so fond of the child I was wondering if you would like to Foster her on a temporary basis of course."
"umm I need to think about it I have to sort things out with NAVCOM. Can I give you a answer tomorrow. but I was wondering do we have to keep calling her baby jane doe, it seems so harsh to remind her of her past that nobody knew her name."
"its a matter of public record but I suppose if you can think of a name then I can run it past the judge and see if we can change her name"
"Freya Elizabeth Hammersley" Kate said straight away. "Freya as Thor is our mascot and Freya was believed to be his sister, Elizabeth as it's a special name and Hammersley so no matter what happens she will know she has a family with us" Kate said
"Sounds lovely" Clarissa smiled "if you could let me know before 4pm tomorrow as that's when we go in front of the judge for the foster application if not then it is likely she will be placed in a home or even transferred out of state.
"of course," Kate said flopping back down in the chair looking at baby Freya who was trying to suck her own toes. smiling she could feel her heart being pulled. On one side if she did foster this child then she would be a mother again, but it would break her heart if she ultimately had to give her up, the other side was she loved being on Hammersley and felt like it was her true family she loved her role in the navy and she didn't know how she would enjoy a shore post.
so sorry its been a while its just been a bit mad here and i have been very distracted of late but hopefully my writing mojo is back and i am going to to try. just a few side notes
1) i have no idea how the care system works in Australia and have half based this on Law and order SVU when Benson is given the oppertunaty to foster (and eventually adopt) Noah
2) the whole Freya being Thors sister is something i could have sworn i read in work last year as they were looking at vikings but after searching i cant find any other sources that say this and they were from 2 different segments of Norse gods but for the preposes of this that's what is believed
any way i hope you like this and i will try and get the next chapter out as fast as i can
x