Work Text:
“Right, now that everyone's here, we got good news and bad news.”
“What's the good news?”
Delta Red were gathered around the living room of their home, which was really an old office space turned into the ‘barracks’ due to budget cuts. Still, they made it work. Enough trips to the trusty hardware store paid off, now the old break room was a functional kitchen, the cube world had been torn down and turned into a living and dining area, and there were four bedrooms made out of old offices. But there lied the issue… four bedrooms, now five people.
“I got custody of Cammy. I'll be her foster father going forward, so we will be able to keep her here with us while we work on her case. The doctors have cleared her to come home this weekend, and while she will likely still need some physical therapy, they're optimistic she will make a full recovery,” Keith explained. “The bad news is… we have nowhere to put her. This place is already rather cramped.”
Silence hung over the group as the realization of precarious situation grew. None of the rooms were really big enough for two people to reasonably share and while Lita liked the girl, she wasn't exactly jumping at the opportunity to share her room with a teenager. Nor did Keith want to force her to. Obviously it would be improper for her to bunk with him or Matthew, and while it would likely be fine for her to stay with George or Lita, there simply wasn't enough room for everyone to be comfortable or have privacy, and Keith wasn't wanting to force his kids to give up their space. There were no spare rooms and while Keith could probably move out to the couch, he was hoping for another solution, if for no other reason than he didn't want to be woken up by the rest of the house passing through the common area at all hours of the day and night.
“I mean, there is one spare room… kinda,” George suggested. “The Janitor's closet could probably have a bed and dresser in it.”
“The Janitor's closet?” Lita asked. “How would that even work?”
“I mean, we'd have to go back to Wickes, but like, Dad and Uncle Matt could probably remodel it into a bedroom. I mean, a small one, but it could work!” George explained. “I mean, if she has a twin size bed, we put like, a lot of shelves in there, and get those little pullout drawers for under the bed, it could work.”
“That could work…” Keith walked over to the closet, peeking inside to see if it was possible. It was a rather large closet, honestly, not too much smaller than his own room upon further reflection. It could work. “We'll need to remodel but I think this will work. I think it can work especially if it's temporary. I'm sure we'll find her parents by the end of the year, they're probably already looking for her.”
“Wouldn't we have found something by now…?” Lita asked.
Keith tsked in response, “Now, now, Love, positive thinking, we shouldn't jump to conclusions when she's barely spoken yet, yeah?”
“Dad, nobody can identify her, she's not even from England, she was speaking Russian back at the hospital. Even if she has parents, how would we find them without getting the Russians to cooperate? And how do we know if she's from Russia or one of the old satellite states? And that's also hoping there's a missing person's report, or that her family aren't the ones who did this to her in the first place,” Lita reasoned. “I don't know if she's gonna talk about it, she's quite reserved.”
“I understand that, but the moment she was left on our doorstep to die, her case became ours. I owe it to that girl to find out what happened and get her justice. If she has a family, she deserves to go home, not flounder here in the foster system.”
“I agree,” Lita clarified, “but I think you're getting your hopes up, Dad…”
“I mean, my mom is the reason I got hurt,” George piped up, glancing up from his Nintendo DS for the first time since his initial suggestion of remodeling the closet. “Maybe Cammy's like me. Or maybe her parents died like Lita's.”
“It's a distinct possibility, but if they're alive and looking for her, don't you think they would want us to try to bring her home?” Keith asked. Lita and George exchanged glances before nodding. “Alright, now that that's settled… I'll go assess the room and then we'll go see what the damage is gonna be.”
…….
And so for the next week, Keith and Matthew worked tirelessly on renovating the janitor’s closet into a proper bedroom. Together, they fixed the insulation, tore out the old shelves and plumbing, installed proper insulation, carpet, and built storage to fit around the bed and dresser they hauled in there. It was a tight fit, but functional and cozy in its own respect. The twin size bed cut down on space that a normal double bed would have taken up, the compact, long dresser at the foot of the bed was pressed up against the wall to give her more room. A row of shelves were installed all along the wall next to the bed for storage, and shoe organizers along with a few bins were shoved under the bed to help save space. The walls were painted a calming shade of blue that Cammy had picked out from the paint swatches and the carpet matched the one laid down in the other bedrooms. All in all? It wasn't a terrible arrangement if you forgot that it was originally a closet.
When they had finished, the men were proud of their work. Keith felt a little bad for setting her up in a small room, but it was a temporary arrangement, right? So it doesn't matter. Her real parents would take her back soon and this would all be an interesting story to tell her friends when she returned home… he had to maintain some level of optimism about the situation.
The day Cammy was finally released from the hospital had finally arrived and Delta Red had planned a little celebration to welcome her home. Lita carried a bag packed with some her hand-me-down clothes inside into the hospital, as the peculiar leotard and boots she arrived in had been put in evidence bags long ago. When the group arrived at the hospital, Cammy was quietly reading a book, scarred hands running across the page and holding a silly looking cat plushie. Her braids were uneven, though there had clearly been an attempt to make them look nice. After two months hospitalized, some of her motor skills had grown a bit rusty, but ever the hard worker, she had excelled in every physical therapy session she had had, practicing on her own time to gain some independence back. Keith couldn't help but feel proud of the girl for being so resilient despite the circumstances. Two months prior she was on the brink of death on his doorstep, but she pulled through and was finally coming home with her new family. No doubt the girl had been through hell, and remained rather guarded, but better days were coming. Keith would ensure that.
Cammy glanced up from her book, awkwardly smiling and waving to Delta Red, “Hello…”
“Good morning, Cammy, how are you feeling?” Keith asked.
“I'm alright,” she said slowly, trying to annunciate each syllable so she would be understood despite her thick Russian accent. “I have been reading.”
“What have you been reading?”
“The book Matthew gave me. It's about a little boy with magical powers who goes to a magic school.”
“Sounds lovely, dear. Are you ready to go home? We brought some clean, new clothes for you,” Keith asked.
Lita set her duffle bag on the bed next to Cammy and unzipped it, pulling out a pair of jeans, a red flannel shirt, socks, underwear, and a pair of black sneakers. It was simple and warm. Cammy ran her hands along the flannel shirt with a small smile, nodding. With that the guys left the room and Lita stayed behind in case she needed any help getting dressed in the bathroom.
Once she was dressed, Cammy packed what few possessions she had in the duffle bag. Her time in the hospital had landed her a few trinkets, like a black cat plushie from George, a big, heavy, blanket that Lita had given her, an MP3 player and earbuds from Keith, and a few books from Matthew. She had already made her way through a two of the three, the Hobbit and Redwall: Martin the Warrior, and had started Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. There wasn't much to do and the old woman who had been her roommate for most of the time spent most of her time watching reruns of EastEnders and screaming at the news all day. So she took to the books instead, as she had no context for what the fuck was going on in politics and she only could take the same soap opera for so long. Fantasy was a far better escape, especially when it included some violence or cute animals, as those things made perfect sense to her.
As Cammy exited the bathroom she glanced back at the old woman, entranced by the television as she crocheted.
“Goodbye, Mrs. Henderson.”
The old woman set her project down and tsked, “Ah, hold off on the flannel, Love, give the poor lads some semblance of hope you're not bent.”
“Uh… what?”
She shook her head and chuckled, “You stay safe and make sure that foster father takes good care of you, got it?”
“I will. You get well soon,” Cammy said with a small smile before leaving the hospital room that had confined her since arriving in England. As she stepped out of the hospital and felt the cool breeze on her skin, a surge of anxiety and excitement ran through her veins. Freedom. A new life. It was frightening, and yet, she couldn't wait a moment longer. Her past was still a mystery, but for at least that day, she just got to be Cammy, a normal teenage girl going home to her new family in her new country. She couldn't be more grateful for that. She jumped a little when Keith pat her on the back, but his reassuring smile put her at ease.
“Let's go home, Cammy.”
……
When Delta Red arrived home, Keith held the door for Cammy, letting her take a step inside first. The barracks had been cleaned up about as well as possible to welcome home their new family member, but clutter remained from lack of space to stuff things. Still, she hardly minded, more concerned with the mustache rocking cat approaching her with a cheerful meow. Cammy knelt down and picked up the kitty, who had stretched out to invite her in for a cuddle.
“I can't believe that grumpy old bastard likes her…” Keith grumbled.
“I didn't know Sarge had positive feelings,” George said in agreement, watching in bewilderment as Cammy snuggled with their usually pissy old man of a cat.
“Sarge!” She squeezed the kitty gently, voice raising a few octaves at being reunited with the kitty she had initially met when George insisted on bringing him to the hospital. What Lita had initially chastised as a terrible idea turned into the most effective strategy for getting Cammy to open up to the group, as she took a liking to Sarge immediately. And even more surprising was that Sarge not only tolerated her, but liked her. He usually hissed at everyone and only interacted with people to bitch at Keith for being late with his daily can of cheap tuna, but no, the moment George unceremoniously plopped him onto Cammy's lap he curled up with her and started purring. And she wasn't even the one who rescued the ungrateful bastard against his will!
“I think Sarge missed you too,” George said. “Come on! I'll show you around, so this is our living room, we don't have that big of a telly, but check it out, we got a Wii, PlayStation 3, and I still have my PlayStation 2 and GameCube if you wanna play those too. And obviously I could set you up on the family PC, ooh, you wanna play Warcraft with me?!”
“What's Warcraft?”
“Ok, so it's this game, yeah? But hundreds of people can all play it together. You can be a fantasy race-”
“Like a Hobbit?”
“No… no hobbits, sorry… you can be an elf, or a dwarf, or an orc though! Or a boring human but why would you be a human when you could be an elf?”
“What do you do as an elf?”
“Well you go on quests and get cool weapons and outfits to wear in the game. Or you can have pets-”
“Like cats?”
“Yeah!”
“Oooh. Shame I can't be a Hobbit though,” Cammy mused.
George turned on his heels immediately and held up his arms in triumph, “WARHAMMER FANTASY! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?! YOU CAN BE A HALFLING THERE!”
“George, calm down, stop shouting,” Keith reminded. “She might not want to play.”
“I want to play the games later. They sound fun.”
“See, she's cooler than Lita,” George said, sticking his tongue out only to get pulled into a headlock by his eldest sister, who promptly gave him a noogie. “hey!”
“Don't listen to this dork, Cammy, he'll never shut up if you let him talk about his nerd shit.”
“Oi!”
“That's enough, both of you, way to make a good impression!” Keith scolded in exasperation. “I'm sorry, they're just wound up. Come along, dear. You see the living room, that's the kitchen and dining area over there. Feel free to help yourself to whatever we have in there whenever you'd like, just please clean up after yourself.”
Cammy followed along, nodding and petting the cat that had made himself comfortable in her arms.
“This is the main hall, there's two bathrooms, here and here, then that's Lita's room, George's room, Matthew's room, and my room. And this is your room,” Keith said, visibly nervous when he opened the door to the former janitor's closet. Cammy looked up at Keith as if looking for approval before slowly stepping into the room, taking it in. A few tears rolled down her cheeks. “I'm sorry, love, we can switch rooms if you'd prefer.”
“This… this is all for me?” She asked.
“Er… yes?”
“I've never had my own room before… I think. It feels new,” Cammy said softly as she looked around and set her duffle bag on her bed, beginning to realize that she had her own space and possessions. She wasn't entirely sure why, but it felt novel; she couldn't remember specifically where she had come from, but she knew she had never had anything that was truly hers, or privacy, or a safe place to be alone. Cammy sat on her bed and looked up at her foster father with a small smile. “Thank you.”
“You're welcome, sweetheart, feel free to get settled in. We can go to the store tomorrow so you can pick out some decorations,” Keith replied, tension beginning to leave his body. To say that seeing her happy with her makeshift room was a relief would be the understatement of the century. “We’ll have supper in a bit.”
Cammy nodded in understanding and lied down, staring at the ceiling in awe. “it's all mine…”
…….
After a while, the four walls and closing door lost their initial shine, so Cammy wandered back to the living room where the rest of Delta Red were communing. Lita was watching some reality show about fundies with a million kids while George was playing his DS next to her, uninterested in the trainwreck playing out on screen.
“May I sit with you?” Cammy asked softly, eyeing up the middle spot on the couch between her foster siblings.
“Hell yeah!” George cheered.
“Make yourself at home,” Lita replied.
Cammy plopped down between them on the couch, eyes darting between the tv and George’s game in curiosity. It’s not that screens were foreign by any means, she sat through a lot of television programs in the hospital, though she felt she could learn a lot about someone based on what they did with their screens. Mrs. Henderson loved her soap operas and political commentaries, which corresponded with her propensity to gossip and complain excessively. The nurse enjoyed documentaries and was rather uptight and it was easy to ruffle her feathers by accident. Another nurse enjoyed trashy reality shows and SpongeBob, so Cammy concluded that she was a stoner. She was quite pleased with herself for her great people reading skills. It’s almost like she wouldn’t have to speak to them at all and wouldn’t that be lovely? Cammy pursed her lips, trying to figure out what Lita’s show and George’s game said about them. Lita was enraptured by the reality show, but there wasn’t a boob or butt in sight, which seemed to defeat the purpose of the medium. Instead an unusually large family had drama with each other and talked religion. Lita seemed to be nodding along to everything, even some stranger talking points, and yet her life looked nothing like that. She didn’t wear prairie dresses, have children, or refrain from working. She was a bladed weapons expert in a paramilitary organization and her team’s medic. Was she being ironic? A hypocrite? Did she simply enjoy the spectacle of a very large, devout family eating each other alive? Cammy didn’t know. It was confusing. George by contrast was playing a handheld game with two little mustache doning gentlemen as the player characters. He navigated through mazes and puzzles, never interested in what Lita was watching, yet present with the two of them in the moment somehow. He was fidgety, something she had observed long before that point, but she was beginning to realize this must have been what he was dying to do with his hands all the time when he was antsy at the hospital. He was anxious. And thought too much. At least, that’s the conclusion she came to. Her eyes turned to Lita, who was almost just as fidgety, playing with her old cross necklace while entranced by the screen. Never mind. They’re both anxious people. But Cammy could hardly throw stones for such an offense. No, she actually appreciated it in a way. George was also smart and sensitive, kind and intuitive. He had been her first friend since waking up. Lita was firey, crass, loud, but she had her heart in the right place. She was always trying to make her feel safe when she was in the hospital, tangled up in a million wires to survive. So maybe the tv wouldn’t tell her much more about them than she already knew…. What more did she need?
“Hey, Cammy, do you wanna watch a movie? Dad said we could order pizza and wings, and that’s basically movie night food,” George asked. Cammy slowly nodded, though she didn’t know what movie night actually entailed. “Were you wanting to watch Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings since you’ve been reading those?”
“No, no, I want to finish the books first,” Cammy replied.
Keith winced from his favorite arm chair, looking to Matthew with a slight glare. Did he really just give the girl they threw into a closet Harry Potter to read? Matthew didn’t seem to catch why Keith was mad.
“What? I didn’t give her anything inappropriate, it’s Harry Potter, the Hobbit, and Redwall. They’re perfectly acceptable books for young people,” Matthew stated to Keith.
“Her. Room. Is. A. Bloody. CLOSET.” Keith whispered hoarsely to Matthew, who began to shrink back in embarrassment.
Cammy was oblivious to this conversation, going through the family’s movie collection with George and Lita. She was entranced by one movie cover depicting a blonde woman in a yellow cat suit.
“Can we watch this one?”
“Kill Bill? I dunno, it’s kinda long,” Lita mumbled.
“The lady on the box is hot,” Cammy murmured to herself, though that only made Keith scream internally more about having stuck her in a remodeled closet. He was pretty certain he was going to Hell for that. The colonel put his head in his hands and mumbled to himself about how he should have just taken the couch.
“She’s an assassin! She’s out to kill her ex, who shot her in the face when she was pregnant and stole her baby. She’s gonna kill him and all the women who helped him shoot her,” George explained
“That’s rad!”
“It’s like five hours if you watch both movies,” Lita groaned.
“Can we at least watch one of them? I want to know what happens?” Cammy asked. “Who is the woman?”
“Uma Thurman.”
“I see…” Cammy’s eyes stayed focused on the dvd case as George pried it from her hands and popped it into the dvd player, much to Lita’s dismay.
“George, the hospital scene, is this really appropriate for her?”
“She kicks his ass though.”
“Cammy was in a coma for like two weeks.”
“So?”
“Don’t you think that this movie may mess with her?”
“But there’s cool fight scenes and she picked it! Dad!” George whined.
“Dad, this isn’t a good idea,” Lita argued.
Keith glanced at the trio on the couch. Cammy was holding the remote and had pressed play while they were arguing, rather proud of herself for deciphering all the buttons so quickly.
“We’ll turn it off if it scares her, how about that?” Keith decided.
“There is another pretty woman,” Cammy muttered to herself.
Keith sighed, feeling his own adoptive mother’s specter hovering over him, ready to knock him senseless for putting the poor baby lesbian orphan in a closet.
…….
After two movies and boxes of pizza, the family all began to turn in to bed. Cammy waved to Lita, who was right across the hall from her before stepping into her new room. Before she could close the door, Keith poked his head in.
“Hey, love, I’ve been thinking tonight and this room is really small. If you’d like, we could trade rooms so you can have more space,” he suggested. Cammy blinked and slowly shook her head.
“But this one is mine…. I want this room because it is mine.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have a bit more space to move about?”
“I… I’ve never had my own space. My own room. I don’t think I’ve even had my own things. I want to keep it, I don’t mind it being small or a closet-“
“You found out?”
“George told me about it when I was in the hospital. I don’t mind, you almost can’t tell. It’s comfortable,” Cammy assured. “Um… Colonel?”
“You can just call me Keith if you’d like.”
“Keith. I heard that if you had chosen not to take me in, I would have had to go live with complete strangers… I still don’t know who I am or where I come from. I just know that someone tried to kill me and I’m not from this country. The idea of being all alone like this is… scary. I know it’s a burden to take me on. Thank you for all that you and the others have done for me, giving me a home and such. I’m not as scared because I’m here with you,” Cammy said softly. “Thank you for taking me in. I feel safe here.”
“I was a foster kid when I was younger too, you know. It was hard, never knowing what to expect, or having a place that felt like home. But one day a woman chose me, we became a family and it wasn’t always easy, but it changed my life. I’m glad I’ve been able to pass it on with you kids. I’m going to look hard for your family, Cammy, but you have a home here, always.”
“If I have a dad,” Cammy said as she stood in the doorway, “I hope he’s a lot like you.”
Keith’s eyes grew a bit misty at that as he smiled at his foster daughter, “thank you, love. You get some rest, I’m just down the hall if you need anything. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” Cammy closed the door after he left and curled up in her new bed sleepily. Even though she still wasn’t sure who she was or how any of this happened, she felt safe, truly safe, for the first time in her life she reckoned, and that warmth lulled her to sleep easier than the drugs of the hospital ever could. This was home. This was hers.
…………
A few weeks after settling in, Cammy bolted into Keith’s room where he was pouring over his research into her case.
“Keith!”
“Bloody hell! You scared me, is everything alright?”
“Look!” Cammy said excitedly as she summoned a purple flame of dark energy in her hands. “I can do this when I think about Lita hogging the bathroom. Does this mean I’m magic? Like Harry Potter? I have a scar, sleep in a closet, and can do this, after all?”
Keith stared at the purple flames beginning to engulf Cammy’s form in confused horror. “That’s…. That’s great, love, perhaps you are magic, does that hurt?”
“It feels like my foot fell asleep, but everywhere.”
“Well let’s just put the magic away then, dear, thank you.”
The psycho power dissipated and Cammy proudly went back to her room, muttering to herself about how she was magic. Keith… stared at his notes aimlessly for a few hours because he was beginning to think she might just be from space.