adopted by sandra bullock (and her gf cate blanchett)

chapter 9

TW: Abuse, panic attack, blood and bruising, knife, drugs

max parker was standing in the doorway of their private hospital room.

sandy was the first to notice, she had heard footsteps and glanced up from her paper, assuming it was another doctor come to tell them "there's no news on dylan, but don't give up hope."

when she saw a man standing there in black jeans and a black zip up sweatshirt, hair wild and eyes crazy, she knew something was wrong.

her worst suspicions were confirmed when she heard danielle gasp in the back of the room.

danielle was falling asleep when she heard the footsteps, she also assumed it was a doctor, and when she glanced up she made eye contact with the one man she had hoped never to see again.

all of the color drained from dani's face and she started shaking.

"cate. take danielle and go."

cate had been zoning out, but snapped to at sandy's voice.

"what?" she asked, confused.

sandy clenched her jaw, "take danielle and go, please."

cate looked up to see a man she could only assumed was the foster father.

cate stood up and took the shaking danielle in her arms, shielding her as much as she could from the man's eyesight as she tried to hustle her out of the room.

the lawyer had caught on to the situation and came up on the other side of danielle as cate walked her out of the room.

before they could make it to the door, max closed it.

"i'm here for my daughter."

sandy wanted to throw up at his words.

danielle wasn't his daughter, had never been his daughter and will never be his daughter.

dani was starting to panic now, her breathing becoming quick and uneven.

"she's not your daughter and even if she was i would never let her go back with you."

sandy had moved in front of cate danielle and joe, in between them and max.

she could smell the alcohol on his breath and it disgusted her.

he started to laugh, "unfortunately for you, i own those little bastards and they're coming with me, i don't care what you say."

he was wobbling as he moved closer to them, and sandy thought he could pass out drunk at any moment.

with every inch that he moved and every word that he said, dani became more and more panicked.

her breathing was shallow and her vision was blurring.

cate could tell that danielle was on the verge of collapse, and was torn between wanting to move her to a chair and talk her through it and not wanting to call any more attention to her.

cate was trying to make eye contact with her girlfriend, for some indication of how to handle this, but sandy's eyes were locked on max's.

"listen, i don't care who you are, you are an awful human being who deserves to rot in a cell for what you've done to my kids, and if you think you can waltz out of here with them no problem then you've got another thing coming."

something clicked in cate's head the minute sandy said that.

max was an awful, atrocious person, and he certainly wasn't intelligent, but he wasn't dumb. he wouldn't have come here expecting to just walk out with the kids. if he knew they were in the hospital than he had to have assumed that people knew about their injuries, and he was assuming- correctly - that they had told people it was his fault.