Peter Kimura Whelan (itakunai) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2017-03-09 21:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2020 [03] march, pete whelan, savannah posey |
Who: Pete Whelan and Savannah Posey
Where: The Austin Orphanage
When: 3/1/20, evening
What: Savannah's starting to get attached to this kid now.
Suddenly, there were a lot of reasons to be concerned. Maizie had been attached to her Little Brother ever since she'd started working with him, way back in December 2019, and Pete had definitely noticed that Olivia had slowly taken to him whenever she'd stopped by the Orphanage with Maizie. Ritchie got along with Savannah, too, but Savannah had always tried to keep him at a distance so as not to encourage Maizie's delusions that they could be Ritchie's 'forever family.' Savannah was starting to come by the Orphanage too, though, which wasn't necessarily a problem. Pete didn't want things to get out of hand, though, and he didn't exactly want them all to get into the business of stringing a good kid along. "Ready to go?" he asked Savannah from the doorway of the second floor playroom, where she and Maizie were watching television with Ritchie. Savannah gave Pete a nod before turning back at Ritchie, kissing him on the top of the head. “Bye, sweetheart. We’ll have you over for dinner some time this week, okay?” "Okay!" Ritchie said cheerfully as Pete turned away, trying to hide the alarmed look from Maizie and Savannah's lines of sight. Maybe he'd just imagined it -- or maybe Savannah was getting too attached, too. Once Maizie had said her goodbyes as well, the two blonde women walked across the room to join Pete and began making their way out of the orphanage building. After loading up in the car, they made the short drive to Community Center to drop Maizie off, so she could hang out with Liv once she was done with work. “We’ll see you girls later tonight,” Savannah said, and once Maizie was gone, it was just her and Pete in the car. Smiling over at him, she reached across the car to rest a hand on Pete’s thigh as he drove. “That was nice today, wasn’t it?” "It was." After all, who was he to argue about community citizens getting involved in making lives better for the kids at the orphanage? Except it was much more than that, and he knew it; he just wasn't sure if Savannah did. "You ever think that maybe you're getting too attached to that kid, though?" he added after a moment. Savannah’s gut reaction was to go on defense. “What? No. It just breaks my heart leavin’ him there. And if we can do somethin’ to take him away from that and give him a taste of a more normal life there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.” Except it got more and more difficult to leave him there, so maybe Pete had a point. She had to figure that anyone in her position might feel this sort of struggle though. It was a complicated situation, and since she and the girls had started spending time with Ritchie, it made Savannah aware of just how many kids weren’t fortunate enough to have any family left. "I mean, I get that." That was part of the reason why Pete and the others had even started setting up the orphanage in the first place, though he knew it was only just a small step towards a stable life. (Well, as stable as they could get, these days, though Austin had come a long way in the last year.) He was quiet for a moment, navigating the city streets on their way back to Savannah's, before speaking up again. "I just… I don't want him to get to thinking it's going to be more when it isn't." Savannah pursed her lips, understanding why Pete might be saying that. Obviously Maizie was quite taken with Ritchie and Savannah was happy to bring some kind of parental guidance and affection back to his life. Even Olivia was coming around to liking him. But where was the line? “What do you think we should do then? I mean, bein’ honest, I don’t know what’s stoppin’ him from comin’ to live with us full time. What are his other options? Livin’ in that foster home forever?” "I mean, it's always a possibility that someone else could foster or adopt him," Pete replied. The orphanage was lucky to have a lot of local volunteers, so the kids got to know a lot of other people as they stopped by to help out and spend time with the kids. And he wasn't opposed to Savannah fostering him, he just didn't want it to be a spur of the moment decision. "Do you have the financial means to support an additional dependent in your household?" That was the first starting point for many people. “Better than before,” Savannah said, though all things considering, with her position on the council and the income from renting out space at the Community Center, they hadn’t really been hurting in the first place. “Liv and Maizie have jobs now and are supportin’ themselves mostly, besides still livin’ at home.” Pete had thought he knew the answer to that, but it was still good to hear her confirm that out loud. "Good," he said, pausing to park the car in her driveway before they made their way indoors. "Usually we have people map out their current household income and expenses, then calculate the average cost of having someone else in their home and see if they can still hold things together. You can download it from the Orphanage site if you want." “Yeah, I could start lookin’ over the paperwork to see what I’d have to do for it all, just to make sure everythin’ would check out during the actual audit,” Savannah said, slipping off her heels and hanging up her purse. “Once I get a better idea about that, then I can start talkin’ to Maizie, Liv and Ritchie. I don’t think any of them would be puttin’ up a fight about any of this, but I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up too soon.” "All right." He tucked his shoes in the closet, then turned to face her, pulling her in with his hands firm on her waist. Savannah looked excited; he didn't want to ruin that for her, but he'd already seen kids and families get hurt when things didn't work out. "Just go slow on this, okay? I know this could be really cool, but if it's something you want to do I want you to do it right." Hopefully she wouldn't take this as him not wanting her to do this, too. Savannah nodded at Pete then gave him a small smile. She understood where he was coming from, and as much as she wanted to charge in full speed ahead, she didn’t want to get her heart (or Maizie or Liv or Ritchie’s heart) broken in the process. “I know, honey. I appreciate you lookin’ out for me.” Standing on the tips of her toes, she pressed a kiss to Pete’s lips then smiled a bit wider. “The girls will be gone for a while. What do you wanna do?” "Hmm." He leaned in a little closer and returned the smile, pulling her in for another kiss. It felt nice, knowing they could have a conversation like this and come out the better for it. "I'm sure we'll figure something out." |