Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Charlie was putting away crayons and looking at the drawings she had done with her last therapy patient, it was tough being a child therapist and social worker. Kids sometimes had a hard time opening up to adults, especially ones who have had a hard life. But kids were resilient! And Charlie was gonna make sure everything would be ok for them, no matter whatever bumps or roadblocks came along the way!
She stood up and started to hang up the new drawings on one of her office walls, two of them already completely filled, Charlie couldn’t help but feel empty, she was happy at her job, she was planning her wedding with the love of her life, she and her dad were trying to fix their estranged relationship, he even gave them both his blessing well before they’d even thought about marriage, all the way back when they’d only just begun talking about moving in together, He hadn’t even met Vaggie yet! But God, she wanted kids of her own ‘no, no, Get it together Charlie…one step at a time…we’ll think about that when the time comes! someday…’
There, Charlie snapped out of her thoughts and stepped back to admire all the artwork the kids had done with her, she ran her hand along them, as she walked back over to her desk to collect her notes for the day and store them in her patient files, she flipped through the folders, one quickly catching her eye before she found the one she’d been looking for. Putting her notes inside, she couldn’t help but think about that file, she didn’t remember this kid, which was odd because she remembered all the kids who came into her office!
Charlie went back to the file, pulling it out and sitting on the floor, not caring about her pantsuit getting wrinkled. She opened it up and looked at the name ‘Anthony’. Looking through the file she saw that he was 11 and from Brooklyn, and that his family had moved here for one of Anthony’s commercial gigs ‘aww, little star!’ Charlie thought, smiling to herself a bit, turning to the next page in the file ‘I wonder how he ended up with u- oh….oh no’ Charlie snapped out of her thoughts, eyes widening when she saw the photos of bruises and bank statements. According to the file, Anthony had been taken from his parents by CPS when the director of a photo shoot for a boutique found that his parents had been beating him and using the money Anthony had gotten from all his gigs to fund their personal lifestyle instead of taking care of him.
Charlie’s eyes welled up with sympathetic tears as she flipped to the next page, wondering how this kid’s case had been assigned to her yet she didn’t remember ever meeting him. She stood up, file in hand, and smoothed out her pantsuit before moving to sit in her chair to look at his more in-depth file on her desktop.
The reasoning behind her not meeting him being quite different from what she’d expected, according to other case workers he’d been refusing to come and meet her as well as going to any sort of therapy and had just flat out been difficult and caused trouble with anyone trying to help or talk to him. Charlie leaned back in her chair, pondering.
‘Maybe he just needs a safe place to talk to someone, not just some boring office or building….’ She knew some kids had a hard time opening up in places like this and often had an easier time when taken elsewhere for meetings.
Charlie quickly sat up and gasped loudly at her newly formed idea ‘what if…? No…Vaggie would never…they weren’t even married yet, how would they be able to take care of a kid, let alone go to work and- no, Charlie no, do not spiral, just…talk about it…yeah, if we talk about it then we’ll both know what the other person wants…right?’ Charlie reached for her phone, typed out a message to Vaggie, deleted it, typed it out again, and waited a moment before finally sending it. She threw her phone into her bag in a panic, grabbed Anthony’s file, and exited her office, before running back in to grab her house keys and turn out the light before walking home, she had a car but walking was nicer, helped her clear her head on the way home. She stopped walking, waiting to cross the street, taking her phone out to look at the message again, wondering if she could edit it before realizing that Vaggie had…just seen the message ‘fuck, well, too late I guess’ Charlie groaned in her head as she continued walking the rest of the way home.
‘Maybe I should pick up some takeout! easier than cooking!’ Charlie thought before taking a detour.
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Vaggie loved her fiancé more than anything, her job loading up criminals sucked and they felt like something was missing from their little family. KeeKee was the perfect cat and all but sometimes she wanted more than just a pet, she knew Charlie loved kids and hopefully wanted to adopt someday, Vaggie just wasn’t sure if she felt the same about it now. They were currently planning their wedding and Charlie already had enough on her plate with all the kids she was already counseling as well as the stress of her parents divorce. Vaggie knew how hard it would be to foster let alone adopt kids in their current state, they were an unmarried, same-sex couple, who in their right mind would let them take in some kids, Vaggie hated paperwork but at least space and finances weren’t gonna be a problem, she just had to talk to Charlie about it.
‘Maybe we could discuss it at dinner..-?’ Vaggie’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the telephone on her desk ringing, the familiar sound reminding her to focus on work now and personal affairs later as she grabbed her notebook.
“Hello, Vaggie speaking, what’s the emergency now?”
The dispatcher, Clara sighed before answering, “the runaway’s back, tried to break into a music shop this time, ran off before the shop owner could stop him”
“Fu- “ Vaggie quickly corrected her language before continuing, flipping to her notes from previous calls about the kid. “Do we know where he went? Or if he was after something?”
“The owner of the music shop says there wasn’t anything valuable in the store, all secondhand, he was probably just hungry or looking for someplace safe”
Vaggie paused her writing, “hmm…” she continued writing her new notes, putting down her pen briefly to rub her face in exasperation, repositioning her eyepatch to a more comfortable position before responding to the dispatcher. “anything else about the kid? Anything we don’t already know?”
Clara thought for a moment before replying “not much, just the usual. The shop owner did manage to get a closer look at the kid though, said his glasses seemed cracked and there was an old stain on his clothes, which isn’t really different from previous calls, but he did claim that the stain looked kinda like blood”
Vaggie froze, dropping her pen, watching it roll off the table, snapping out of it when it clattered on the floor, scrambling to pick it back up, quickly writing down her new notes “Thank you, Ms Carmine, please let me know if there are any more calls about the kid, I’d like to get him somewhere safe as soon as possible”.
Vaggie heard a pause before Clara responded with a ‘will do’ before hanging up. Vaggie put the phone back onto its receiver before groaning and leaning back in her office chair, grabbing her notebook to review both her old and new notes about the kid.
The first call about the came in about a week ago, four more since then, same child each time, looked to be male, a few years under the age of ten, had tried breaking into one two diners, both after closing time in the evening, same thing with a small radio station, a boarded up house, and a music shop, now two. Same description as well, though the callers never got a very good look at him but any information is good information in this line of work; curly hair, darkish skin, glasses (now cracked according to the last caller), clothes that someone would wear to a Sunday service (light grey button-up, slacks with suspenders and a crooked bowtie), and…a large dark stain, now believed to be blood…He never stole anything valuable, he typically managed to get away with something small, some food from the fridges of the diners (one caller said that he looked as if he was trying to cook something), headphones from the radio station, a blanket and towel from the house, and so far nothing had been taken from either of the music shops except a few records (Specifically jazz records)being moved from their shelves and over to a record player but nothing stolen.
It was obvious the kid was either homeless or a runaway at this point but he had a very odd pattern, there was no way to really pinpoint where he’d go next, but since he was clearly under ten years of age, he likely wouldn’t be able to get outside of maybe a 2-3 mile radius before someone got a hold of him, all the places seemed to be near each other, and if he’d tried to take a bus or any other public transport someone would’ve called and they’d have him somewhere safe by now, right?
Vaggie felt a buzz in her back pocket, she pulled out her phone, unlocking it to see a message from Charlie saying ‘we need to talk about something’. Vaggie dropped her phone onto her desk, looking at the ceiling and rubbing her face with both her hands. ‘oh mierda…’