{Just to give you an idea, I chose the face for Allison to be Constance Marie}

CHAPTER 11

It was a while before I heard a vehicle pull up in front of the house. I was in the kitchen, waiting for Allison to come. I would have done it at my desk, but I still had some boxes on it from moving that I didn't have a place for yet. Besides, I wanted to be able to hear people coming up to the house, then I would know that Allison was here.

I heard a car door shut and I knew it was her. I shut my binder before putting my pencil on it when I hear a knock at the door. Tara and Jax got up from the living room couches, dressed in their better clothes for the meeting. I still wore the clothes that I went to school in. They had some cool down time to prepare themselves for what they would hear from Allison after putting Abel and Thomas to bed.

I moved towards the door behind them as they opened it. I moved on my tip toes to try and see Allison over their shoulders.

The Latina mother was in a turquoise long sleeved shirt and normal jeans, her hair in natural waves. She looked nervous, yet there was still a little bit of excitement peaking from her eyes. She was holding her purse close to her chest, hoping that she wasn't going to intrude, even though it was a planned visit. She looked between the two and Jax was the first to respond to her.

"You must be Allison Fernandez."

The woman smiled and she nodded. She told him, "yes, you must be Jax and Tara Teller, Sidney's parents."

Jax nodded and then I moved closer. Tara and Jax noticed that I was now trying to get through and they moved out of the way, giving me a partition so that I could see my old foster mom, the woman who was going to adopt me how many years ago. I looked at her as I came up to her, making my observations quick so that it wouldn't be too awkward. She looked older. She had more wrinkles on her face, her lips seemed a bit thinner, but she was still that Allison that I knew. She wore a slightly fitted dark purple dress. She looked at me and looked as though she was almost startled. After a moment, I knew that I couldn't hold myself back. A large smile came to my face, my cheeks almost hurting as I jumped to her. She immediately opened her arms and folded them around me when I hugged her tightly. Her arms were soft and tight, protective but kind. She moved to kiss the side of my head before she moved me back. I looked up at her and she moved to cup my cheeks in her hand. I smiled up at her brightly and she looked down at me. She looked me over a couple of times before she said, "you have gotten so big! Look how you grew!"

I smiled and moved to hug her again, a smile never leaving my face. She hugged me back until I finally let her go. She moved to lean up a bit, her hand still at my back before she looked at Jax and let go of me so that she could shake hands with him and Tara. She gave them a wide smile before Tara said, "well, why don't you come inside? Angelina should be here soon so we can get started."

Allison nodded and I moved to go inside and she followed me. I looked over my shoulder and saw her take off her shoes before she stood up again. Jax shut the door behind her before Tara asked, "can I get you anything? I was making some coffee."

Allison nodded and shrugged, "uh…coffee sounds good." She gave Tara a smile. Tara nodded and moved to the kitchen. Jax turned to look at her and he told her, "come sit."

Allison nodded and all three of us moved to the living room, some of Abel's toys still around. As I sat down, I watched Allison look at the pictures around the room of Abel and Thomas as well as Jax and Tara. She slowly sat down and looked around, seeing the toys. Tara came back into the room with two cups of coffee and gave one to Allison after she sat on one of the chairs. I sat down at the edge of the couch, Tara going to the other couch to sit beside Jax. Allison gave her a smile and thanked her before taking a sip. She asked the two, "you have other children?"

Jax nodded, "Abel and Thomas. Abel is almost four and Thomas is still an infant."

Allison nodded and before any of them could ask if she had children, I was already on her.

"How's Eric doing?" I asked her.

She looked over at me and smiled before she crossed her legs and she told me, "he's doing really well. He's working as a volunteer at the fire station."

My smile widened and Jax asked, "you have a son?"

She nodded and told him, "just my son Eric. He's only three years older than Sidney."

There was a sudden knock at the door before anyone could say anything more. Tara got up and mumbled, "I'll get Angelina."

Jax nodded and he moved back to get comfortable in his seat. I soon see Angelina and Tara join us in the living room. Angelina moves up to shake hands with Allison. The two gave each other smiles and Angelina tells her, "you must be Allison Fernandez. It's good to meet and speak to you in person."

Allison nodded and told her, "you as well."

There was silence as Angelina sat in the last chair. Tara went to grab her some coffee as well. After a couple of minutes of awkward silence from the fact that people were going to be taking about my life again, with a woman that I still had great love and respect for, who knew a lot about me, probably still more than what Tara and Jax did.

"Well," Angelina said after taking a sip of coffee, "lets get started. Might as well start off early."

I nodded and so did the others. Allison nodded and moved to set her coffee on the coffee table. She was leaning forward in the chair before she looked between Jax and Tara and Angelina. She asked them, "what would you lie to know? I'll give you as much information that I can."

Angelina nodded and Jax looked at me for a second before he looked at Allison. He folded his hands together on his lap before he asked, "umm…well I guess I have a personal question, might have something to use for the court case," his eyes quickly glanced to Angelina and she moved to get out her pen and notepad. He looked back at Allison and asked, "but…well Angelina says that you were the only one who started an adoption process. We didn't get to really discuss it too much, why it was started and why it was cut off. So, why was it cut off and…well why did you decide to start it?"

Allison nodded and looked at me, reaching over to take my hand and I gave her a smile. I could see it in her eyes just how much I had changed, how I had gone from a small child to a teenager almost out of high school. But even though she hadn't seen me in years, she still loved me no less. And it was one of the reasons why I loved her so much, while I was there and even when she was gone.

Allison looked at Jax and told him after a sigh, "you…have…this amazing little girl…that I fell in love with. Who was just like my own the moment that she stepped through my front door. And…" She moved to look at me and she said, "and we had a bond, one like an actual family."

I gave her a smile and she told them, looking over at them, "I got contacted to take her when she was seven, a couple of years old since she had her hearing loss. The social worker said that they needed a home for this little girl who needed a really stable and loving home. I was known for that in San Jose, where she was at the time. Apparently she was out of a girl's home for three months, one she had been in for two years and she was having a really rough time. I said of course and within a week Sidney was transferred to me. And…I could tell that she had some troubles." She looked at me again before squeezing my hand, "she was really shy, I'm guessing that the old foster parents just couldn't connect with her, and still fresh from the huge change of losing her hearing and not having that support was hard on her. After seeing hero timid, we went shopping together, I got her new clothes and get things for her room. That helped her feel more at home, that she got to control her environment a bit. And…it was a growing bond since. When she turned nine, I started the adoption process. It was….unusual that a child stay in the care of one foster family so long, but the social worker saw how well she was fairing with my husband and I that she thought until Sidney asked to leave, she would leave her where she was."

I smiled and looked down, I still had great memories from then. I didn't remember much of the girl's home or of the other foster family, but I did remember Allison.

"If she was so close with you, why cut the adoption process?" Jax asked.

I looked down and Allison let out a really long sigh that made invisible weight appear on her shoulders. She answered him after a couple of moments, this time me squeezing her hand to show my support.

"I developed breast cancer." she answered a bit quietly, "we noticed the tumour four months after her birthday…and when I started the process. It was on it's way quick but…I was in stage two, almost stage three and I needed immediate attention. I was put in a hospital….and then…then my husband was shot in with others in that bank robbery. Neither of us had parents to take care of him, we were only children. And by then the entire plan had to be scrapped. And Sidney was put back into the system…and so was my son Eric."

I remembered that and I remembered it easily. It was a bam-bam over and over for two months. First the diagnosis, then the death of Robert, and then social services telling us that we had to be in the system. I never wanted to relive those months ever again.

"I was in the hospital for years, chemo…everything. And even when I was done, I was still in a recovery position and I was a lone mother…I could get back my son but they thought that Sidney shouldn't because I was back on the terms of foster parents, which was revoked because I was living alone, trying to pay off a lot of hospital debts…" She shrugged and said, "and that's how our connection was lost for adoption at least. And…your daughter here, is a great kid. She would send me cards when I was in hospital and she would visit me sometimes."

I blushed slightly, but still smiled. Of course I did. At the time she was the only parent that I actually had, the only connection I had besides Eric.

Allison told us, "but, at least the social worker kept them together, put them in the same home afterwards while I was in the hospital. But when Eric came back to me, she left that home and she went to another place. I thought that it was Oakland….which is why I moved here from San Jose. I was hoping that I would see her again. After Eric left…there were…fewer letters, until none at all."

I looked down. As much as I hated it, that's what happened. And it wasn't fair to her, especially since she meant so much to me. But…I think somehow Eric and I had a mutual, silent agreement to not really talk about what happened. And the weight of what did turned me away from them, even though I needed him. But I felt bad because of what he did for me. And I knew that it was nothing I could do to repay him for what he did. And in some twisted way, we grew apart and we grew apart fast as we tried to separate ourselves from what happened in that house and desperately try to forget it.

And then my teacher turned up. And the thoughts that I could escape for a while came running back again.

Jax nodded and Tara told her, "I'm…I'm really sorry to hear about that."

Allison nodded, "well, I've been clear of it since, so I'm doing pretty well now. But thank you."

"What were you before?" Jax asked Allison.

"I was a teacher, grade three in a small school for many years." She answered, "my husband Robert worked in construction."

He nodded and Angelina opened her mouth to ask a question after making a couple of notes, we all heard Thomas cry out from his room. Tara and Jax sighed and Tara moved to get off the couch, but I held up my hand and I got up form the couch. I told them, "I'll get him. You all can keep talking."

I was sure that they were wanting to talk about some things that perhaps they didn't want to discuss with me around. Nor did I exactly want to be there. Tara moved to sit back down and she nodded, "thanks Sidney."

I gave them a smile and moved from the living room, going to Thomas's bedroom. I saw him crying in the crib and I went towards him, gently picking him up. I held him close and gently bounced him and he began to quiet down a little, moving to play with my hair. I smiled slightly before I asked him quietly, "just woke up and wanted some attention huh?"

I kept smiling and bouncing him. I could hear the voices in the other room and I quietly moved towards the doorway so that I could hear better.

"I know that…well…I don't have the memories of the time she was younger, but is it possible to get some pictures of her if you have any?"

"Of course. I have lots from the time that she spent with me. I'd be happy to bring over the photo albums."

There was a small silence before I heard Jax say, "from what I heard, you were very close with her…I…thank you for that. We keep hearing all this bad stuff that happened to her and out of everything you really stand out…mostly because you are the only one that could bear good news."

"She means a lot to me. I thought of her as my own." Allison answered.

"Thank you, again." I heard my father say and I could hear that he meant it. And that made some time of feeling in my chest that I really never felt before. It was that…that I really felt my heart open. I smiled slightly and I kissed Thomas's forehead as I tried to get him back to sleep.

I heard Jax ask a couple of seconds later, "I…I do have another question, why put her in speech therapy?"

I heard a long and loud sigh from Allison and I leaned against the door, listening to them, knowing that this wasn't going to be as happy. My heart began to close again.

"She…" Allison started before she stopped and began to try again, "when Sidney was put in my care, she had speech problems. She could understand English well, that wasn't the problem. I could tell that she was very smart right when I met her. She had a lot of cognitive ability and was able to fully think things and see her choices and look at the world a lot more than what others her age could. But she had problems talking. According to the social worker, and it should be in her file somewhere, she always had that problem, probably because in foster care she didn't talk a lot or was too scared to, or just going from home two home a connection was lost. And I'd done a lot of research and…well there is a time limit for those things. Speaking not as much, but it gets harder when you are older, it's more linguistic and reading if it is not done in that developmental period, as I'm sure you already know this Doctor Knowles, that sometimes kids can't ever develop it.

"According to the social worker, she was like that before she lost her hearing. Then after, it was a bit harder because of the whole hearing loss, and at that point the girl's home didn't really focus on linguistics, for reasons unknown to me as it was a major deficit, but they focused a lot of her time on sign language, hearing processes, how to cope with the difference, how to get to sleep in the silence, things like that…which is good. I won't say that, but for talking, they didn't do a lot of work. And I think with the new foster family, it did not help. The social worker said she was uncomfortable a lot of the time, was crying, she almost never talked, never talked in school although she did great work.

"And it was a challenge. What she had wasn't a lisp, but she just…just couldn't pronounce words and syllables. Like if I tried to get her to say September, it would come out Seepembler and the letters were all together. Her talking wasn't concise at all."

I was quiet and so were the others. I listened for Allison to continue.

"I tried to do it myself at first. She came at the start of summer so I could spend time with her, Eric could to and Robert when he would come home. And I tried everything. I read papers and books and talked with councillors so that I could do it myself, hopefully get some of the problem decreased by the time school started because…well kids can be cruel and I knew that, because she was so smart, it would frustrate her. And I could see it in the summer that it was. It would deeply frustrate her because she would try and say it, but it wouldn't come. When we talked a lot to each other, I noticed that she was getting better, but there was still a problem. And I knew that in the school she would have a tough time communicating with teachers, her records show that she already did, and it would be hard for her to make friends. When it was the middle of August, Robert and I decided to sign her up to take her to a professional because I knew that it wasn't that she couldn't do it, which was the odd thing. She could physically do it, but with so little communication she didn't develop the skills, or at least that is my theory.

"And I knew she hated it. She got frustrated when Robert and I did it, but it got worse when we took her to the specialist. She was more humiliated than anything, and that's why I didn't take her earlier, why I wanted to try it first, but it wasn't working too well. It got better, but she still had syllable and pronunciation problems that I just couldn't work out. Like I said, she's a smart girl and it frustrated her because she knew what was going on, but couldn't get her words to match ours.

"After that it picked up fast. The specialist knew what to do a lot better than me obviously and the progress picked up fast. She had different ways to know how to work with the child based on how the child's mind worked, like with teaching. Where she knew different ways to find a solution to the problem where I know different ways to teach a single lesson. And she could do that too. And Sidney was smart, and she picked it up fast. It was a hard first two weeks, but after that the progress was quick. By March she was talking very normal, only with certain words would she still have problems, but she was still at least 80% more concise by the first of December. And I think it helped her gain confidence. She could talk with kids in class more, could connect with teachers better and that made her happier."

"So…sorry but I just want to get this information because I think it would be really important for the case, but you think that because she was in the foster system that she had major speech problems?" Angelina asked.

"Yes," Allison said and I could picture her nodding, "I mean, I can't say that is the definite cause. Who is to say that if she was adopted as a baby and grew up with the same parents that she would not have speech problems, but I really think, in my research, that the problem was that the connection was lost for communication because she was moving around too much or she wasn't comfortable talking to the foster families, and she never developed the skill because she never really got practice."

I was silent as I listened. Thomas too. And I was glad for that, but the feelings that Allison was giving off was something like a harsh reality of what I faced. I didn't remember that part of being with Allison that much, but I do know that she was there every step of the way to help me. She wasn't even my mom and I had just been with her and already she felt for me and stuck by me to help me succeed, and I didn't really have that before.

"Thank for…well for helping her with that. I knew that couldn't be easy, but I think you made the right judgement call about taking her to get help."

"Like I said, that is not a problem." Allison said, "I knew that it was something that needed to be done and…like I said I already cared for the girl like she was my own."

That really did help and I hugged Thomas tighter to me. Allison was my first mom and I knew that Jax would be a little jealous, that both he and Tara knew they had shoes to fill, but I hoped that they would work with Allison and not against her, as I knew she would do anything to help them and me with this case.

But I needed to see Eric.

{Hi readers! I know that I totally should not be starting yet another Sons of Anarchy fan-fic but I have an idea... :P I want to do a story about Thomas and Abel when they are older (about when Abel is almost 22 so a bit in the future) but I need ideas for what they look like (actors, etc) that could play them. Thanks for the help :) Also, I'm thinking (well I've been pondering the idea for months) about actually putting my idea of a Walking Dead fan-fiction up as well with an OC biologist character. Would any of you read it? Thanks and as always, thanks for reading!}