Charlotte let out a giggle, complete opposite to Lefty and Toby who were sitting on the sofa looking completely bewildered. Lefty was trying to speculate a solution, he was always told it was a quirk of his to fix any problem he encountered. In fact, Max, one of his coworkers said it was a natural thing he did, even when he didn't see an answer, he'd persevere.
Toby then said, “I'll stick around here to help...”
“Oh yes, then in the morning... I'll look for her parents...” Lefty nodded.
“If we don’t find any relatives, we might have to call CPS.”
Lefty shook his head, for some reason the thought of contacting CPS made him feel violently ill, he had thoughts about this poor baby ending up with a family that didn’t love her, he had seen families who didn’t particularly care about their kids and it bothered him endlessly, he questioned, how could one give life to an innocent child, and refuse to love it?
He had met some of those kids, they were angry, resentful... but also so desperate for any form of care, any form of attention, wanting to be loved and not understanding why, the example he thought of too much was Alec.
He'd rather jump off a building than get any sort of parenting advice from Alec's parents, Ian and Meg.
And he was a long way from wanting to jump off a building.
His thoughts were brought back when he heard Charlotte start to fuss.
He saw she started to look almost annoyed, maybe because she wasn’t with her mom or dad, or maybe because both Toby and Lefty let her be on the sofa cushion without touching her.
“If that thing starts crying...” Lefty growled.
Charlotte did start crying, Lefty pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block the noise of her high pitched wailing, Toby decided to do something and lifted her up into his arms, “Maybe she's hungry?”
“Well whoever left her, left with nothing like that!”
“We might need a few things!!” Toby spoke over Charlotte's crying.
“Then I'll do it!!” Lefty wanted an excuse to get away for a few minutes and left the room before Toby could say anything, he decided where he would go at that point.
“You heard me, I’ve got a baby,” Lefty repeated.
Sammy scratched his head, ruffling his black hair, he shook his head, “You should call the police,” He responded.
Lefty followed him around Sammy's living room, Sammy grabbed a book from the sofa and held it in his hands, “I know, I know, but I’m hoping Mom or Dad, whoever left her there will return.”
“They most likely won’t,” Lefty knew that was the most realistic outcome and he was now stuck with a baby.
“Furthermore you said you didn’t know anyone who was having a baby, so you don’t know who they are.”
“Well Ballora had Michael eleven months ago, but this baby is a girl,” Lefty argued.
Sammy shook his head again, “Look, you need to figure this out now, you can’t leave it alone, this baby, you have options, you can take her to an orphanage—”
“I will not,” Lefty scolded at that suggestion knowing how bad the foster system could be.
“You can call the police—”
“That’s the same as calling the police.”
“Not if you want other options, CPS can help find the parents... or they can even help you go to court and grant you emergency custody of this kid because they can claim you kidnapped her and you could go to prison.”
Lefty thought about that, he then said, “Toby, he is knowledgeable in the law.”
“You need to file what is called emergency custody immediately, let them know you at least have the child in your home, even if you wanted to keep her, the authorities need to know if her parents are potentially in trouble and that's why they abandoned their baby, get in touch with an attorney or ask Toby to do it on your behalf.”
“I will, I will, now I just came here to get some items, can I have them?”
“Go ahead, if this child with you for a while, she'll need stuff like food and diapers at the minimum,” Sammy answered, “But if you do not want to get attached to this kid, then do what I've just said as soon as possible.”
Lefty shook his head, getting rid of the brief thought he had, “Oh nothing, I’ll get outta your hair now, you can go back to bed now Sammy.”
Lefty had sat in his car for a minute, he didn’t go inside his house, he had a lot of thoughts in his head, he could grab Charlotte and go straight to the police station, and his hands would be clean of this problem instantly, he could just go back to bed and forget this ever happened.
He finally got out, carrying the bag of items he got from Sammy and approached the front door, he entered and didn’t hear Charlotte crying, he also didn’t hear Toby, he wondered if they went somewhere else in the house, as even this house wasn’t massive, Lefty had a spare room he used for various things; he used it as a guest bedroom at times, a quiet place to study, meditate, he also kept items in there, boxed up.
Toby was still in the living room, Lefty walked further in and saw Toby was sitting down, Charlotte was quietly sitting in his lap, she had stopped crying, last he checked Toby had no experience with kids, but he was clearly doing something right.
“Nice to see you didn’t burn my house down.”
“That's what Max would do,” Toby said.
Lefty took in a deep breath and said “I know it wasn’t ideal to leave you with her... I sort of panicked... but this isn’t ideal for me either,” He placed down the bag full of items.
“I don’t mind, I managed to calm her down,” Toby replied, seemingly caught in his own world with that infant. Lefty could usually tell when he was unfocused, he had known him long enough to recognise it, his eyes were not looking at him and he had a small smile on his face.
Lefty looked over at Charlotte, her eyes seem to light up and she started babbling incoherent nonsense, not one sounded like a word, Lefty thought it sounded like she was happy to see him.
“I think she likes you!” Toby smiled.
Lefty rose his eyebrow, “Ummm, that doesn’t seem plausible.”
“Why not? She probably sees you as the nice man who lifted her in your welcoming arms.”
Lefty stared him down, Toby noticeably sunk, looking unnerved, “It's a baby, it can't talk, it probably thinking about when it's getting food,” He spoke with a level of detachment, his voice void of any emotion.
That's what was scary about Lefty in Toby's opinion, he could turn cold instantly, if he didn’t like someone, he had seen Lefty become unwelcoming around certain people he hated or didn’t get along with.
Toby looked around, his smile had vanished, “So... what do you want to do?”
“I'll figure something out later...” Lefty walked over to them, “Can you hand her over?”
“She has a name,” Toby reminded him.
“I think it's a nice name, as is yours.”
“Like I said, knowing my real name is a sign of trust...” Lefty reminded him of what he said before, “I can’t afford to be found by him again, if he hears my name around, he'll come back with a vengeance.”
Lefty held out his arms, “I'll take the baby now,” He lifted her into his arms and sat down with her, he looked at the silver bracelet again on her wrist.
“Maybe I can find out who made this, they could help me find her parents...” Lefty muttered seeing a plan in his head, which made him feel more confident about the situation, He grabbed her wrist and inspected the bracelet, he then decided after she fussed again that he'd take it off.
He opened the clip and lifted it off her wrist.
He looked at the engraving of her name on one side, then he thought of what he didn’t see and flipped the medallion, seeing a date engraved: 03.27
27th of March, he thought, that might be her birthday. That made this a lot easier.
He hoped the girl's parents were okay.
“I don’t mean to be annoying... but... kinda late,” Toby reminded him of the time.
“You are welcome to go and sleep on the sofa... I might just.... do something first...” He placed Charlotte to the side and stood up, stretching his arms up.
Lefty couldn’t really reason within himself why he was doing this, he figured Charlotte probably hadn’t had something to eat for a while, knowing she was most likely four months old, and the fact Sammy gave him some items, he only knew Sammy had those items to help out, like when he had been asked to babysit Michael.
Charlotte didn’t really show any signs she was hungry but Lefty reasoned she probably was.
He just hoped she wasn’t going to spit out the formula if she wasn’t use to it.
It didn’t appear to be that way, it was possible she was already fed formula for some reason.
Lefty held onto her, knowing there was a correct way to hold a child while they had a bottle, cradle them in a way.
It only took a few minutes for her to completely down the formula, obviously she was hungry but just hadn’t voiced any protests.
Lefty removed the bottle from her, looking at the time.
Lefty wanted to slam his head into a brick wall, “I’m not going to work in eight hours.”
