Remade

Chapter 23

"Gah! Geez..." I wince as I give myself a papercut half an hour after my talk with Meredith, during which I have been frantically looking through the piles of papers. Not just looking at them and tossing them into random piles, but actually skimming them for information. The sorting process is pretty easy, it's not too hard to distinguish categories, but every time I see a piece of paper with the words "children" or "orphanage" or "foster" or "youth" my heart jumps up into my throat with a little leap of hope but as I skim it and see it's not what I need, it becomes 400 pounds and drops into my stomach.

"C'mon you selfish bastards, it's been 7 years, give me somethin'..." I mutter in frustration.

"Well don't take it out on the papers, they didn't do anything to you," Stephan says, watching me from the doorway.

I pop my head up. "Where the hell have you been?"

"I knew you'd be upset but I don't think I have ever heard you curse. My apologies," Stephan says in a jokingly sarcastic tone with his hands up defensively. "I was pulled aside by a staff member and had a lengthy conversation I would not like to relive again." He plops down on the stool next to me. "So what are you doing?" He eyes the piles I've made and the papers I have tossed aside in frustration. "You've been busy..."

I look down to hide the faint color that appeared in my cheeks. "Yeah well, since I saw you weren't coming in, I thought 'Why not start myself since my partner ditched me?'"

"Mhhhhmmm." Stephan eyes my papercut and grabs my hand. "Good Lord I've driven you to injury."

"Ah yes, my mortal injury. If only you had shown up sooner... I would still be intact." I close my eyes and put my other hand to my face in fake dramatics.

"Get over yourself Walls," he laughs. "So. Put me to work. What system do you have going on?"

I bite my lip. How can I be sure that every paper will be properly scanned for my orphan file containing my birth certificate and other information if I'm not the one checking it all? If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself right? "Yeah ok ummmm..." I stall, fiddling through some papers as I think. "Ok. Meredith has a temporary priority on all the orphanages' paperwork so we can send them straight to CAH so they can conduct more accurate surveys and inspections. If you see any paper with any words that might hint at an orphanage or the foster system just hand it to me. No need to skim or read it through. She already told me how to analyze it and what to look for so don't waste your time," I lie quickly. It's a long shot and I'm still depending a lot on Stephan but it's better than nothing. Hopefully he won't miss anything...

"Are you sure? I'm sure I could manage looking at some documents..." Stephan offers.

"No!" I yelp. Stephan stares at me and I blush. "No, it's okay, I just want everything to work out perfectly you know? The better we do here, the better the chance we have of getting back in the field. I already know how to do it so it's no problem, really."

Stephan shakes his head. "Geez, you really don't trust anybody do you?"

I shrug. "I can count the people I really trust on the fingers of one hand. That's more than enough."

Stephan pauses, no doubt doing the counting in his head and he smiles. I smile back and then I go back to looking at the files. There has to be something... Anything. C'mon, I deserve it. I deserve to know myself. I look up and I see Stephan looking at me out of my peripheral vision. "Can I help you?" I say not looking up from an orphanage's itinerary.

"What? Oh no. You just look so... focused. It's nice. It's sweet. You're so worried about kids you don't even know... It makes you so adorable."

I look up at him and he looks back at me. "They're real kids Stephan... What they go through, it's not pretty. Or at least that's what I imagine and see," I add hastily. "They deserve to grow up, have someone that cares about them, to not live in fear. So yeah I care about these kids," I hold up a list of profiles of kids from a church's 'day-care' "that I don't know."

Stephan smiles at nods at me. "And that's what makes you so wonderful and strong. Your heart stretches on for miles." He gives me a brief side hug and then looks down at his pile of papers. "And I have to say, you rub off on people. Let's ravage through these yeah?"

I nod and we go back to skimming, sorting, and stamping. I feel a little bit of guilt for not telling him the real reason why I'm so engrossed in these files but technically, I didn't lie. You didn't lie. These kids do deserve better lives. Parents. A home. You may care about them even though you don't know them, but you know enough. Because once upon a time, you were them.

A/N: Hey guys!!! It's been a while since I updated, sorry about that! Writers' block on top of summer work on top of Wattpad not wanting to publish off of my laptop has dragged this out. But I'm back now, so thanks for sticking around! Don't forget to vote and comment, that always really helps me out and I love seeing your guys' reactions :)