Lucys POV:
Once I spoke to Charlie, she turned her head to look at me and said "okay", with a soft smile on her face. I looked over at Keira and she nodded her head gesturing for me to begin. "Do you remember that day when we were on a walk and you spotted someone watching us ?", I asked her gently, knowing she would remember that day, but I wanted to gently slip into the conversation. She nodded her head, allowing me to continue. "Well, when we were walking to the meeting and I was pulled aside by a staff member, I was told that there was someone looking for me at reception", I took a second before continuing, "so off I went to reception where I was introduced to a woman called Louise Clark", Charlie looked up at me and asked, "who's she ?", "she's a lawyer", "oh", was all Charlie said. I looked over at Keira for support, she grabbed my hand and rubbed her thumb over my knuckle. "She's a lawyer for Mr and Mrs Lowry", Charlie instantly looked right back up at me at the mention of that name, with worry written all over her face. I waited for a minute to see if she was going to say anything but she didn't so I continued. "They are fighting me for custody of you", I let out, immediately holding tight onto Keira's hand and looking down at Charlie, who was staring at the grass. "Why ?", Charlie asked me quietly, "I don't know Charlie, but I immediately got in touch with my lawyer, to sort this out, and I hadn't really heard anything until earlier when I got an email from him", I looked over at Charlie who had kept her eyes on me as I told her this. "What did he say ?", she asked almost whispering, I turned to Keira, with tears pricking my eyes and she looked over at me with the same look. "He said that ... that they've been granted a visit with you", she looked up at me, tears pricking to fall before leaping into my lap and latching her arms around my neck and whispering, "please, don't leave me mum", I wrapped my arms around her tightly and rubbing her back gently and whispered back firmly, "I won't let anything happen to you baby girl". She just started to cry and Keira came and joined in the hug.
Once Charlie had calmed down a bit she unhooked her arms from around my neck, but made no attempt of getting off my lap, which I was perfectly fine about. She looked in between me and Keira and slowly asked, "when ?", "within the next week", I replied, kissing the top of her head. She put her head into the crook of my neck and grabbed my shirt like Ellie does. "Will you and Kei be there too ?", I hear her mumble to me, "of course, we'll be right there beside you, and we won't leave you", I replied quickly. Keira looked over at me and signalled that we should head back soon as it was getting late. I gently picked Charlie up and she wrapped her legs around me like a koala, burying her head into my neck.
All 3 of us walked back the way we had come, me carrying Charlie in my arms and Keira walking beside me. Once we were close enough to SGP, I nudged Charlie to let her know we were almost there and she just mumbled, "can you keep carrying me ?", I didn't reply instead I hoisted her up in my arms again and gave her a kiss to the side of her head and continued walking.
We went upstairs to our room where we were greeted with G playing on the floor with Elleã and Leah sitting on the bed watching them. Once we walked in Leah and G both looked up at us and Elleã squealed and ran over to Keira. Keira lifted her up and peppered her face with kisses. I sat down on the bed beside Leah and she looked down at Charlie in my arms, before leaning over and stroking her fingers gently through Charlie's hair. G stood up from the floor and her and Keira sat down at the end of the bed and Leah started to tell us what her, G and Elleã had been up to while we were gone. We laughed when she told us how Elleã had scared Tooney and Lessi by popping her head around the corner and squealing when she spotted them. Elleã just sat on Keira's lap, babbling to herself as we chatted and Charlie stayed in my arms. Leah then announced it was dinner time and that we should head down. Her and G left our room and said they'd meet us down there.
Once they had left I looked down at Charlie who had started to move about, "do you wanna get your pj's on before we go down to dinner ?", I asked her, moving some hair out of her face. She nodded and got off my lap and got off the bed to walk into her room and put her pj's on, without uttering a word. I looked over at Keira who was resting her head on top of Elleã who was still babbling up to her about something. She looked over at me and motioned for me to move next to her. Once I was next to her, she leaned against me and Elleã started babbling to me too, once she had stopped babbling for a couple of seconds I picked her up and told Keira I was gonna get her changed into her pj's.
When we were all ready to go down to dinner, I let Elleã down so she could burn some of her energy and opened the door. Elleã ran out the door and Keira quickly followed to catch her, Charlie slowly followed and I closed the door after me. I fell into step with Charlie and she instantly grabbed my hand as we walked down the stairs, slowly catching up with Keira who was standing holding onto Elleã, waiting for us. We all walked into the dining room and joined the queue for food. Charlie stood in front of me, leaning against me and in front of her was Keira trying to negotiate with Elleã why she couldn't have a big plate for her dinner. I soon felt a tap to my shoulder and I turned around to see Jill and Demi smiling at me. Well Jill was grinning at me, Demi looked exhausted, like she'd spent the whole day with Jill and couldn't wait to get rid of her for a bit of peace and quiet. I started chatting to them as we slowly moved up in the queue, Charlie slowly adding things to her plate and I did the same. Once we had piled up our plates we reached the drinks table and I grabbed a water, while Charlie of course got an orange juice. I then picked up the tray and nudged Charlie to the table where Keira, G, Leah, Mary and Hannah were sat. Charlie and I walked over and Charlie took a seat next to Leah, as I took the seat next to Hannah. I put my plate down and then moved to put Charlie's plate and orange juice down in front of her, but not without putting a gentle kiss to the top of her head before putting the tray away.
As dinner went on and I chatted to Hannah and G, I noticed how quiet Charlie was as she kinda joined in conversation with Leah. Once I was finished with my food, I grabbed any of the empty plates from the table and brought them up to the kitchen staff, thanking them for the food, before heading back to the table. I stood behind Keira's chair and leaned down with my elbows resting on the back for her chair, looking down at Elleã who was playing with Keira's hoodie strings. I leaned and whispered in Keira's ear, "I'm gonna head upstairs to the room with Charlie, I thought we could do a family movie night tonight", Keira turned to me and said "I like that idea, I'll just make Ellie's bottle and we'll be right up". I nodded and then went over to Charlie. "You wanna come with me to the room, me and Kei were just talking about doing a movie night tonight, just the four of us", I told her, she nodded her head and slowly stood up and we both said good night to everyone at the table, as we left and headed upstairs.
Soon enough we were both under the duvet, snuggled up together, as I scrolled through the tv, looking for a movie to watch, when Kei walked in holding Ellie's hand and the bottle in the other. She placed the bottle on the nightstand beside the bed and lifted Ellie up and placed her on the bed, before getting in under the covers with me and Charlie. Ellie immediately wanted to join us and crawled into Keira's lap. I finally chose a random movie and turned it on and I saw Keira hand Ellie the bottle and kissed her on the top of her head before looking back at the tv. Halfway through the movie I noticed that Charlie had fallen asleep and so had Ellie who had finished her bottle and had turned around and snuggled into Keira's chest. I looked over at Keira and she was close to falling asleep too, so I decided to turn off the movie and Keira looked over at, silently thanking me.
Although it was still fairly early, we decide to go to sleep, especially as it was needed after the day we had had. Instead of moving them me and Keira both decided to let Charlie and Elleã sleep with us, not that it wasn't a little bit of a tight squeeze, we made it work and soon enough me and Keira both fell asleep, with Charlie and Ellie snuggled in between us.
