the moon (a rini au)

an unexpected call

i dont like proofreading so suffer <3

12:40 am, Oakland California, Alameda County Social Services Agency, board room 3

"Val I made a final decision a week ago! they go their separate ways."

"John just give me an hour please okay?" "You have 20 minutes before I call the Dawson's in D.C. for Rowen." The man walks out slamming the door.

"Val please please I don't want to lose her again, Lorrie can adopt us!" The fifteen year-old cries out.

"Aria, Lorrie is only 20" Valerie sighs. "She'll be 21 in a few months!" "The Dawson's want to adopt her right now"

"I can't go to another mass house please.... I didn't 'steal' money.. I wasn't the one that hit Ethan so much he needed to go to the ER.. and they were homophobic last time.. please Val.. she's my sister... she's all I have left.."

"I-.. there's one more option MAYBE.. in New York"

"Anything anywhere as long as we can be together and they won't hurt her.."

"They aren't registered in the system as looking to adopt right now, but they foster my emergent cases sometimes, usually young kids and babies.. they're my friends, they adopted a baby with HLHS (Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome) over 3 years ago. I can try there."

"okay.." the young girl says.

"oh god it's like almost 3 in NYC, I'm gonna go ask John if we can wait till tomorrow." Val says, stepping out of the room. She makes her way over to Johnathan's office.

He's sitting at the desk, forehead stuck to his palm, going through piles of paper aggressively. She walks in hesitantly.

"Can I have till tomorrow night? or even afternoon?" she asks. "Look Valerie, I get that you feel for these kids or whatever but Aria is a troubled case and Rowen is only nine. She has a chance to have a family."

"She already has family John! Aria is her family! and she's a bright kid she deserves a chance. I have an option, it's too late to call can I just call tomorrow and let you know by the end of the day?"

"You have till 7 am today, that's six hours from now, you can get solid documentation for both the girls by then and I'll cancel the Dawson's, otherwise Rowen is on a flight out by 10 am."

"thank you thank you thank you" she says running out of his office and back to the board room. She rushes in, Aria stands up immediately. "Okay look I have 6 hours, I'm going to call even though it's like three in the morning over there and see if I can make it work, you should go and sleep, Rowen's in the room next door"

"No." "Aria.." "No I'm helping with whatever I can, what can I do?"

Val sighs, "Get my phone from my bag and dial the contact that says 'Sebbie' and put it on speaker" she says rummaging through her drawers trying to gather files.

The phone rings for a while before Sebastian picks up, Aria freezes, staring at the phone on the table. Muffled laughter can be heard on the line; "Val?"

"you're awake??" "yeah we had a setting-up-the-house for Christmas thing" he says over the background noise. "What happened? it's pretty late over there too, how's the Cali rotation going?"

"I uhh.. I need to talk to you about something serious" "okay hold on I'm gonna walk to the kitchen, and I'm putting you on speaker cause my phone's acting up so I'm sorry for the background noise"

"I have a sibling pair and they're gonna be separated and well.. there's quite and age gap and one of them has a, how do I put this, an inaccurate foster file"