When he got the phone call from Brian that he was needed down at the station because he and Zacky needed their lawyer, Matt had been feeding Kennedy Alphabet Spaghetti from a red bowl and watching Tuck balance her carefully on his lap and keep her calm. She’d been agitated and moody for days, and Matt could only wonder if her mood was something to do with the cancer. He hadn’t gotten all the information that he needed from the doctors yet, but for now, he was content at just keeping her happy.

While he and Tuck had gone out looking for more apartments so they didn’t start taking up space at Jimmy’s, Jimmy and Ellen had made cupcakes with pink icing with Kennedy, which resulted in Jimmy running around the house covered in glitter and eventually falling into the bathtub after tripping up on the carpet. Brian had sounded rather panicked on the phone, and when he had explained that some crazy woman had accused them of kidnapping Winter and Teddy and they were stuck in a police station waiting to be questioned, he kissed the top of Kennedy’s head, thrown on his jacket, asked if the other three occupants of the apartment could help get his daughter ready for bed before he’d jumped in his car and raced down to the police station, a strange feeling of importance swirling around his gut.

Zacky was waiting for him in the reception of the station, pacing with Winter in his arms, who had finally fallen asleep after being disturbed by the crazy lady and screaming for the best part of a half hour and when Matt walked through the double doors, he had to fight not to drag the other man to where Brian was sat with Teddy.
“Thank God you’re here! Brian’s been hysterical for the last half hour and we keep being thrown around to all these different people who can’t help us! I don’t know what to do, Matt, tell me!” Zacky pleaded as the two of them walked from the reception to the side room, where Brian was softly singing some sort of lullaby to Teddy, who looked so damn peaceful in his arms, it made Zacky’s heart hurt even more.

“Hey baby, Matt’s here. He’s gonna help us out,” Zacky said, almost to calm himself down further than just assure his husband and Brian looked up, tears shining through his dark eyes. Pulling up a chair, Matt sat opposite them and stared at the two babies in their arms.
“So explain to me why you two are sat in a police station for something that didn’t happen?” Matt asked, rubbing his forehead and knowing that he should’ve been with Kennedy. However, being the Baker’s personal lawyer meant being on call half the time, and now was one of those.

“Some bitch turned up on our doorstep and told us we’d kidnapped her children. All we know about Teddy and Winter’s parents is that they died in a fire, and there were no other relatives to look after them. We haven’t seen her since, and we’re waiting to be questioned,” Brian said softly, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the small child beneath him. In a way, Teddy was like a clear sky. A blank canvas if you will. It was where he could stare and stare and there would be nothing to make him feel anything but pure love. That was his child, no one else’s. If he had stolen a child, he’d be wracked with guilt, and who in their right mind would steal a child for a sick thrill?

“Alright. Did you and Zacky sign a contract or something to say you were now the legal guardians of the twins?” Matt asked, digging out a notebook from his back pocket and quickly jotting down a few notes on the page. It would help him when they finally got to the questioning and he could easily tell Brian and Zacky not to answer certain questions if he knew that he could back them up better.
“Yeah. We have all the paperwork at home, and the adoption agency had another copy. It’s all legally binding- we’re the parents now as far as the state is concerned,” Zacky replied, wrapping his free arm around Brian and holding him tightly.

The door to the side of them opened and a tall, burly police officer stepped out, tipping his hat to the three of them. When he let his gaze stare pointedly at Matt for a few moments, he stood up and held his hand out to the cop.
“Matthew Sanders, sir. I’m the Baker’s attorney” he announced, and the cop shook his hand before taking another chair and sitting across from the three of them. On the table in front of him, he had two files, one that looked slightly more important than the other, thanks to it being bounded in brown cardboard.

“Alright. About two hours ago, Mrs Andrea Bark called us to announce that a couple in Huntington Beach had kidnapped her children. When we looked into it, we discovered that these two,” he pointed over at Zacky and Brian who were holding their children protectively as the cop addressed Matt rather than the two of them, “had adopted the twins just a few months previously from the agency in town.”
“So what’s the connection between Bark and the children? What’s the relationship?” Matt asked as the cop slid the brown file towards him, crossing his arms over his chest as he shot Brian and Zacky a glance.

“Surrogate mother. The couple that died in the house fire had difficulty conceiving and so, asked for a surrogate mother. That same couple also said, that if anything happened to them, the children were to return to Mrs Andrea Bark. However, those wishes were not followed by the state, and those twins were placed in an orphanage, which led to the Baker’s adopting them,” the cop finished before Brian glanced over Matt’s shoulder and looked up at the cop with a concerned expression staining his already worried features.
“So what does that mean for my children?” he asked softly and Matt sighed suddenly, looking up from the contract he had been reading. There was really no way out of this.

“It means you have to give them up, Bri. You can’t do anything. The parents signed over custody to the surrogate, and by law…it means you kidnapped them. Bark won’t press charges if you hand Winter and Teddy over to her but…” he trailed off, watching as the hopeful look on Brian’s face fell and crumbled like a pile of bricks and his bottom lip began to quiver, his eyes slipping shut as the news finally got the better of him.
“Can’t you do something, Matt? Anything that’ll let us keep our babies?” Zacky asked, his voice cracking as he spoke, clutching the tiny body he’d come to love so much in his arms, desperate to find that one little bit of hope that they could cling onto, in the slim chance that they’d be able to keep things the way they were.

But Matt just shook his head, feeling like he was about to start sobbing himself.

“There’s no way. You and Brian could go to prison for life if you kept the twins, and trust me that’s the last thing you want to do,” Matt said softly as another woman walked into the room, one who was staring at the babies like she wanted to eat them alive. She must have been the surrogate mother, Matt concluded as the cop stepped towards Brian and Zacky, holding out his arms for the two children they’d become so attached to.
“Wait!” Matt suddenly stopped the cop, stepping forward and breaking the two of them apart.

“There has to be something I can do, something they signed to keep these children as their own! Please, just give me a little more time,” Matt argued with him, trying to buy himself a moment with the paperwork so he could find a hole, any loophole that would get them out of this mess.
“I’m sorry Mr Sanders, but I can’t help you. It clearly states that these children belong to Mrs Bark, no matter what anybody else signed,” the cop reasoned again, sighing exhaustedly like he dealt with this on a regular basis.
“Please officer! You can’t just let this go to rest!” Matt yelled and suddenly the cop loomed over him, grabbing Matt by the shoulders and tugging his hands behind his back, like he was manhandling a prisoner.

“Sanders, shut that mouth of yours! I’ve arrested you once, I’m not afraid to do it again!” the man barked at him and with a final sigh of defeat, Matt shook the Officer away. He was the same one that had arrested him at the scene of the crime all those years ago; there was no getting past him. As Teddy was lifted out of Brian’s arms, Winter already in the clutches of the strange woman, Brian snapped, finally, and jumped forward, grabbing the cop by the shirt.
“Please! You have to let me keep them; they’re my children- MY CHILDREN! PLEASE!” he pleaded loudly, borderline screaming at this poor officer as the babies were lead out of the room by the bitch of a woman.

And almost as if they could feel his pain, both Winter and Teddy began to scream bloody murder, hands reaching out and grabbing the humid air, searching for the two fathers they’d called their own and wailing for that familiar love again. Brian sank to his knees, his eyes filling with tears as his hand outstretched to find theirs, his mouth choking back a small sob.
“Please…” he whispered in a high little voice before his shoulders began to shake uncontrollably and he broke down on the floor, falling into the arms of his sobbing husband and the two of them held each other tightly, a sudden irreplaceable black hole filling their hearts.

Winter and Teddy, their children. Gone forever.