Family Ties

Unfinished

*Author's Note*

Sorry for the delay guys, I went on a mini vacay and forgot to tell you! Haha. I'm back to school on Monday though so play time is over. Should be back to regular updates now. As always, thanks for reading and I can't wait to hear what you think!

Sarah <3

Harry's POV

Hannah and I each took a deep breath as we stood in the entryway of Emma's house. I looked around, seeing everything exactly as she left it, the kids toys scattered randomly about and her grocery list still on the counter. It was surreal to be standing there in the middle of the life I knew she wouldn't be coming back to. It was like everything had just stopped, it was all just left there unfinished, just like her life.

I had no idea where to start. I knew we'd need to pack everything up eventually and figure out what to do with it, but we'd just come to get some of the kids' stuff and see if we could find their schedule for all their activities. It was gonna be an extremely long road to get them adjusted and everything sorted out with everything else, but I felt like raising them for ourselves was the right thing to do.

It wasn't that I was chomping at the bit to be responsible for raising two five year olds, in fact I was more apprehensive than anything. I knew it would change everything, that nothing would end up how I thought it would, but when I heard that lawyer read my name from Emma's will I knew I had no other choice. To say I was surprised was an understatement, to think that anybody would trust me to be the one to raise their kids was a foreign concept to me, but I couldn't help but feel honored. Emma and I had been close, we had spent a lot of time together while Hannah was away playing ball and I'd always done my best to support her and the kids as much as I could. Still, that in no way qualified me to raise them, but I felt honored that she believed I could.

I loved Emma, and the kids, and I knew that the best thing I could do for all of them was to bring Hank and Maci into our home and give them the love they needed in the absence of their mother. I knew what a shitty childhood could do to you, and I swore that as long as there was a breath in my body that Hank and Maci would know how loved they were. They would grow up in a safe and secure environment where they felt important and taken care of, and they remembered their mother as the amazing person she was.

It had only been an hour since Hannah and I made the decision to raise them, so it's not like we'd figured it all out, but we'd come to an understanding about where to start. That meant we had to turn our home into their home, bring things in that made them feel comfortable there, and create an environment that felt normal to them. So there we were, in the house that they'd always known as home and trying to figure out where to start.

"I can't believe she's gone." Hannah said in disbelief as she looked around. "It's like she's coming back any minute."

I pulled her into me and kissed her head, doing my best to comfort her even though she still didn't seem to be feeling too emotional about it.

"Well, let's start with clothes I guess." I sighed.

We spent then next hour and a half gathering up all of the things we thought they'd need, and some of the things we thought they'd want, and piled it all into the back of my Range Rover. We'd been able to find all of their uniforms and things for their activities, thankful that Emma had always been so organized and everything had its place. Their schedule was on the fridge along with all the contact numbers, so it would be easy to make some calls and have Hannah and I switched over as their contacts. Emma kept a little book with all of the numbers for anything they'd ever need, so it appeared we had a solid idea of where to begin.