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i.
“Can you read your note again?”
“Oh, God, for the millionth time?”
Pepper promptly gets hit in the face with a pillow for that comment. Annie grins, already pulling the carefully folded note out of her backpack.
“Yeah, read it, Annie! But quietly”, Tessie adds in a whisper. Understandable, really. If Hannigan found out about the note, she’d probably blow a fuse. Maybe even try to take it from Annie, to ‘teach her the cruel realities of life’ or whatever she liked to preach.
Annie stares down at the note and recites it quietly, making sure that the other girls can still hear her well enough.
“Please take care of our baby. Her name’s Annie. We’ll be back to get her soon. There’s half a locket around her neck, and we have the other half. So when we come for her, you’ll know that she’s our girl.”
She recites the letter like a mantra, the words engraved in her brain and her heart. She does it every night, because it never fails to give her hope that maybe, maybe, she does have a family out there. She has a family, and they still want her. They’ll get her back at some point.
“Can I see it?”, Mia asks, even though she’s seen it a hundred times. Annie sits down next to her and hands her the note obligingly.
“They’re gonna come back for all of us, I promise”, Annie tells Mia.
The rest of the evening is spent daydreaming, imagining what her parents might be like. Annie always loves doing this with her friends, as they all have different opinions on what a perfect parent would be like.
“I bet they collect things, like ashtrays and art!”, Mia says excitedly, holding her flashlight under her chin to illuminate her face. Annie smiles back at her, giggling as she imagines a father with an enormous collection of ashtrays, of all things.
Isabella and Tessie add some more silly details to Annie’s hypothetical parents, but somehow, Annie finds herself not in the mood for ‘silly’ tonight. Usually, making up what their parents will be like is fun for her, a way to distract herself and lift her spirits after another round of Ms. Hannigan’s yelling. But today, she just isn’t feeling it.
Mia, as the youngest, falls asleep first, and Annie carries her over to the couch while Tessie turns it into a makeshift bed. It doesn’t take long for the other girls to go to sleep as well, turning off their lights and bidding each other goodnight. Annie is left alone, still in her day clothes, sitting on her bed in the dark.
Annie stares out the window next to her bed, fiddling with her heart-shaped necklace. Somewhere out there, there was someone wearing the other half of the heart, a perfect match to hers. The day she reunites with her parents will be the day her heart is whole again. It seems fitting to Annie.
She doesn’t know how long she spends simply sitting there frozen, clutching her necklace like a lifeline, staring longingly out at the dimly-lit streets of Harlem.
Was her family nearby? Were they also in this city somewhere? Or were they somewhere far away? Were they thinking of her right now?
Eventually, Annie’s eyes start drooping, and she sighs as she tips her head back. She digs out her pajamas and changes as quietly as possible, careful not to wake the other girls. Tomorrow is Saturday, so they might get to sleep in a little longer, but still. More sleep is always good.
Tucking herself snugly into her bed, Annie turns back to the window. Her gaze stays there until her eyes fall shut, a hand still wrapped around her necklace.
ii.
“Good morning, Annie.”
“Good morning, Nash.”
Annie still can’t really wrap her head around how much her life has changed in the past week. She’d gone from a random foster kid to a city-wide sensation, from living in Ms. Hannigan’s dingy apartment to Mr. Stacks’ penthouse that looked more expensive than the whole block she used to live in. Mr. Stacks really seemed to have unlimited… well, everything, really.
Which meant that he had to have a way to find her parents somehow, right?
“This is a weird question, but do you spy on people with your phones?”
Nash, Mr. Stacks’ driver, looks at her with a raised eyebrow, clearly wondering where she’s going with this.
“I really need to find some people”, Annie continues, undeterred. Nash grins at her, a conspiring little smile, like he’s about to let her in on a secret.
“Come with me”, « he says, and Annie feels the familiar hope bloom in her chest.
She was right; not that that was particularly surprising. Of course, Mr. Stacks had a way of tracking people via his phones.
“Woah”, is the only thing Annie says as she watches all the employees type around on their computers, holograms flickering in the air.
“Mhm”, Nash agrees, “people shouldn’t be scared of governments, they should be scared of cell phone companies”, he mutters to her. Annie nods at him, still shocked.
“Check for Bennett”, Nash calls out to one of the employees sitting on the lower level. The woman calls out an affirmative and starts typing around. Quickly after, a whole bunch of dots start popping up on a holographic map, all labeled ‘Bennett’.
“Woah, that’s a lot of Bennetts.”
“Can you please go back six years?”, Annie asks the woman, “around the 26th precinct.” The woman smiles up at her and starts typing around again, the map shifting with every keystroke.
“It’ll take a bit, but we’ll let you know”, Nash tells her after a moment. Annie struggles to keep the grin off her face. Among so many other things, this arrangement with Mr. Stacks also gave her a tangible way of finding her parents! She was getting closer and closer. And maybe, just maybe, when Mr. Stacks eventually gets tired of having her around after becoming mayor, she’ll have a family waiting for her instead of a group home.
“Thanks”, Annie says, looking up at Nash. She tries to convey her gratitude with the little handshake she and Nash had come up with, grinning up at him brightly.
Annie was in a good mood for the rest of the day. Even when waiting at the restaurant only resulted in more cannoli instead of a hearty reunion later that same day, Annie wasn’t as downtrodden as usual. So what if her family wasn’t at the restaurant that Friday? She had them almost figured out! Annie could wait a little longer; she’d been doing it her whole life.
iii.
“Ready?” Annie calls out, bouncing on her feet in excitement.
“Yes, I’m very excited!” she hears Grace reply from the other side of the door. Annie grins a little and shoves the door open, stepping out slowly. Grace turns around, and her jaw drops.
“Oh, Annie, it’s gorgeous! You’re—just gorgeous”, Grace says, holding a hand to her chest.
“I can’t believe it”, Annie says as a grin spreads over her face. She’s pretty sure she’s never been in a dress this fancy, and she’s never felt so pretty. The dress is soft, and it’s not at all itchy like some other dresses she owns. And the bow. She’s never seen a bow this big, and now she gets to wear it.
Of course, that’s when Mr. Stacks bursts in, hurrying all over the place and clapping his hands together.
“Alright, ladies, let’s go, we’re running late— Annie”, he stops dead when he sees her, eyebrows raised. “Wow.”
“I know, right?” Annie agrees, still smiling wide “I’ve never seen a bow this big!”
“Yes, and I noticed that you put the satin on the outside of the bow, that’s a very interesting choice—”
“You know what, get out”, Grace says, rolling her eyes a little even as her lips tug upwards, “we’re not done yet.”
“Okay, you know what, when did this stop being my house—”
“Out!”
The resounding shout from both Annie and Grace has Mr. Stacks put up his hands in defeat as he turns to leave the room.
“Okay, you know what, you’re changing everything—” he stops at a screen near the door, which is currently showing a video of a dog and a deer playing together. He gestures at it.
“As a matter of fact, this used to be a Basquiat. Now it’s a… dog and a deer in a meadow. Why is that combination so cute?”, he mutters as he closes the door behind him.
Annie looks at Grace, who bursts out laughing. Annie joins her, giggling over Mr. Stacks’ actions. She’d noticed that he didn’t seem to notice how funny he was, even when he was doing it on purpose.
“C’mon, let’s do your hair”, Grace says, leading her to stand in front of a mirror.
As Grace digs around looking for a hair clip, Annie decides now is the time to ask some questions.
“Why aren’t you and Mr. Stacks together?” Because she’s seen the way they look at each other, thank you very much. That entire interaction earlier where they awkwardly tried to compliment each other? C’mon, now.
“Pfft, that’s—that’s a complicated question”, Grace deflects, seeming to finally have found the clip she was looking for. It’s pretty, shaped like a butterfly and delicately made.
Grace starts smoothing Annie’s hair down. Annie continues with her line of questioning.
“Not really. Do you like him?”
“I- well, I work for him, you know. Liking him doesn’t really come into play”, Grace says, clipping the butterfly to the front of Annie’s hair so that it stays on the side of her head.
“Okay”, Annie says, shrugging. She doesn’t really get it, but adults often complicate things more than they should. Maybe not dating people you work for is a thing that makes sense for them. Who is Annie to judge?
But then, of course, Grace continues. And immediately takes any validity out of her previous statement by raving on about her boss. Annie blinks, trying to keep up with what Grace is saying.
“….do I find him attractive? Sure. And not just in the physical sense, but he is—he is very good looking”, Grace muses, pausing whatever she’s doing with Annie’s hair as she, presumably, thinks about all the things she finds attractive about Mr. Stacks. Blergh.
“He’s got nice shoulders, lovely lips, and a great, chiseled face…. Great hair…”
“I wouldn’t bank on the hair, sister”, Annie butts in, trying not to remember the fact that she’d seen Mr. Stacks bald. She’d be keeping that one to herself. Unless, of course, she could use it to bargain. Then, anything was fair game.
This seems to snap Grace out of the trance she’d fallen into. “Well, I’m far too busy to be bothered by anything like that, anyway”, she says, fluffing up Annie’s hair.
“That sounds like something Mr. Stacks would say.”
Grace huffs out a laugh at that. “Yeah. It does, doesn’t it?”
She’s still sorting out Annie’s hair, even though it looks fine, like she wants to make sure it’s perfect. Annie marvels at how good it feels to have someone do her hair for her. Is this what mothers usually do? Do their kids’ hair in the morning?
Suddenly, Annie feels a longing in her chest, so strong it makes her breath hitch a little. She wants to have this again. She wants to have this every day for the rest of her life. She wants to stand in front of a mirror and have her mother put clips in her hair, smoothing down stray curls and tucking them behind her ears. She wants her mother to get her new dresses to wear, and help her with silly things like tying a giant bow (with satin? She didn’t really get what Mr. Stacks was talking about, there).
Except, it wasn’t her mother doing that right now. It was Grace. Grace, who’d welcomed Annie into Mr. Stacks’ home and showed her around his enormous apartment, who’d danced with her on a table on the rooftop, 70 stories above Manhattan, who’d quietly waited with her in front of the Domani’s and had shared her cannoli with Annie afterwards.
“Okay, c’mon, Annie, let’s go. If we’re any later, Will is going to blow a fuse. Mr. Danlily won’t be far behind him”, Grace says, chuckling a bit.
Annie agrees, shaking off the weird mood that had overtaken her. She’d ask Nash if they’d found anything on her parents. She’s sure they did. She’d find her parents, and soon she would get to have this every day. She wouldn’t give up hope, not when she was this close.
iv.
Annie seriously can’t believe her luck. Just this morning, she was sure her life was falling apart. Nash told her they hadn’t found anything on her parents, and then she went ahead and completely ruined Mr. Stacks’ fancy shrimp event, and then she had to confess to him her biggest secret: that she can’t read.
This morning, when she tried to leave quietly, Mr. Stacks caught her. And instead of sending her away like Annie was sure he would, he said “you’re not going anywhere.” And then he offered to come with her to walk Sandy.
So now, Annie is with Mr. Stacks exploring Queens, the place where he’d apparently grown up. She’d told him a bit more about how she got through school so far without anyone finding out that she can’t read, and he hadn’t even judged her for it.
Mostly, Annie thinks he seems… concerned? For her? It’s not pity, that much is clear. Annie knows when people pity her, be it for her living situation or her grades or her desperate search for her parents. The look on Mr. Stacks’ face isn’t that. He seems genuinely concerned, like he wants to help her. Annie isn’t used to that.
She isn’t used to any of this, actually. She’d braced herself for Mr. Stacks to send her away after she’d embarrassed him so thoroughly, and instead, he’s here trying to cheer her up. Trying to understand her so he can help her. Annie compares it to the feeling of bracing yourself to lean against a wall, only to find that the wall isn’t there. She feels like she’s falling, and she doesn’t know what to do with that. She can’t see where she’s falling, where she’s going to end up.
What do you do when someone wants to help you no matter what, no matter how you mess up? No matter how much it inconveniences them? How do you respond to that?
Okay, maybe Annie is panicking a little bit. But she can’t even focus on that, because, completely unlike how she thought her day was going to go, she’s actually having fun right now. The feeling of joy feels light in her chest, like her heart is a balloon that is steadily inflating. She’s felt joy before, of course, but it’s never been quite like this.
This joy is accompanied by a warmth that feels unfamiliar to Annie. It’s throwing her off, this feeling of being accepted, of being liked for who she is, even with her faults on full display. The feeling of knowing that someone sees all of her, even the parts she tries to hide, and has decided to stay with her anyway.
Annie thinks this is what family is supposed to be like. People who see and know every part of you, and love you despite it. Or maybe even because of it.
Whoa. She backtracks at that thought. Was that what this was? Family? Annie realizes she doesn’t quite know the answer to that. She doesn’t remember ever knowing the feeling of unconditional love, she was too young when her parents left her. Maybe this is what it feels like.
Annie doesn’t know how to say any of that out loud, especially to Mr. Stacks, whom she isn’t even sure feels the same. But, she thinks, him still being here with her, spending time with her willingly even though he lives and breathes his work and is probably missing a lot of it by spending the day with her—that’s probably a pretty good indicator that he feels a similar way.
Again, though, she doesn’t say any of that.
Rather, when Mr. Stacks tells her about his own family, about losing his father, she instead tells him in her own sort of way.
“…that’s why I felt like if I worked hard enough, then that’d probably bring me closer to him”, Mr. Stacks is saying.
“And that’s why”, he continues, making his hand into a fist in front of him, “…I developed this.”
Annie remembers the conversation they had one night, about being able to count your loved ones on one hand. Mr. Stacks is making the same fist now as he was then. And Annie realizes that, despite all of their differences, they are the same in this way. They’re both lonely. Or, at least, they were.
“Well…”, Annie says, drawing the word out as she grabs Mr. Stacks’ fist and forces a finger to uncurl, pointing it directly at her. “Now, you got this”, she says, stepping back.
It’s sort of a cop-out, an excuse for not having to say it out loud. It’s not Annie’s usual style of bluntly stating what’s on her mind. But from the way Mr. Stacks stares at her, his eyes getting a little misty, she thinks he understands perfectly anyway.
He sniffs, rubbing his eyes a little.
“Yeah, you know what, Annie, this pollen or something’s got my eyes all scratchy—”
Annie raises a disbelieving eyebrow, but she lets it go as he slings an arm around her shoulders and leads her through the streets he grew up in. This is his secret, then. The part of him he doesn’t want anyone else to know. Somehow, it seems right that Annie gets to know it, after he’d accepted her secret as well.
Yeah, she doesn’t exactly know what family is supposed to feel like, but if it’s like this, then Annie could get used to it. She likes this feeling, this quiet warmth in her chest, the reassurance that she’s not going to be kicked out at the first misstep. Annie wants to get used to this, she wants this feeling to last.
The day continues like this, and Annie almost manages to forget that this, Mr. Stacks and her, is supposed to be a temporary arrangement until he becomes mayor. And the election is drawing ever closer. Annie doesn’t know what she’ll do after that; she doesn’t know if Mr. Stacks will still want to keep her after that.
v.
Annie is pretty sure she’s in shock or something. That would explain why she’s not jumping up and down with joy right now. She’d found her parents.
Mr. Stacks had found her parents.
She’s still hugging him, she realizes, still has her face buried in his chest. Mr. Stacks hasn’t let go either, clinging to her like he doesn’t want to let go.
Annie hadn’t even known that Mr. Stacks was looking for her parents too. She just assumed that she was doing it alone, like she always was. But she was wrong. Mr. Stacks made her biggest wish come true.
Since Annie can’t concentrate anymore now anyway, they wrap up her tutoring session for the day, and Mr. Stacks takes her back up to the penthouse apartment.
There, she sits on the couch and just stares at nothing. Her thoughts are going a mile a minute, and she feels like she can’t keep up with them.
Mr. Stacks sits down next to her, but he doesn’t say anything. Just quietly keeps her company. She’s grateful for that. He’s giving her the option to start the conversation herself, if she wants to. He seems to get that she’s overwhelmed right now, even though Annie herself didn’t expect this at all. She shouldn’t be overwhelmed, she should be unable to contain her joy right now.
And she is happy. That feeling of a balloon inflating in her chest, taking over her whole body—that is there. But underneath it are a million other things.
Nervousness, for one—what if she meets her parents, and they’re not who she expects them to be? Not who she wants them to be? What if they take one look at her, and decide they don’t want her after all?
Mr. Stacks seems to sense that she’s getting worked up and lightly puts a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, you okay? You’re rarely this quiet.”
Annie opens her mouth and closes it again. She isn’t sure how to put into words what she’s feeling, she’s feeling so much.
“What if I don’t like them? Or they don’t like me?”
That’s not exactly what she expected to say. But the words feel fitting. Annie is elated, beyond happy—but she’s also scared. She’d found a sense of security here with Mr. Stacks, and now she’s about to be thrown into a whole new environment again. That’s scary, even if it’s exactly what she’d always wanted. It feels different now that it’s tangible, now that it’s about to actually happen, instead of just a distant dream.
Mr. Stacks ponders over her words for a moment. He likes to do that, more than any adult Annie’s ever met. He thinks over her words like he wants to analyze all of them, and he thinks before he replies so that he says exactly the right thing. Annie likes it. It makes her feel like he’s actually interested in what she says, like he actually cares about her.
“I think”, Mr. Stacks says after a bit, “that they’ll absolutely love you. And you’ve been wanting to meet them forever; you’ll be happy with them.” His voice gets quieter at the end, like his words are making him sad.
“You’re sure?” It’s a childish question, but Annie feels so uncertain right now, and Mr. Stacks has become a comforting presence to her, his words soothing and his hugs grounding.
Mr. Stacks’ expression becomes more certain. “Yes”, he says simply.
Annie nods, looking away shyly. She worries her lip, a habit she’d picked up from Mr. Stacks.
“Hey”, Mr. Stacks says, his tone comforting and warm. Annie looks back at him. He’s looking at her with such warmth in his eyes, she’s almost sad that she’s about to lose this.
“I heard a saying once, that you should never give up on family. But you also get to decide who counts as family. Annie, you never gave up on finding your family, no matter how hopeless it seemed. And if you find that they’re not all you wanted them to be, then, well… you can find a new family.”
Annie nods, turning his words over in her mind. You get to decide who counts as family. She likes that. He’s saying that, even if her real family turns out to be a bust, that doesn’t mean she can’t have a family at all.
She’s almost hesitant to ask her next question. It seems cruel when she’s about to meet her real family. “And…”, Annie clears her throat, “…that new family can include whoever I want?”
Mr. Stacks looks at her, eyebrows raised. Annie shuffles a little, unwilling to take back her words but nervous about them regardless.
Eventually, Mr. Stacks’ expression softens, that warmth in his eyes returning.
“…Yes. Whoever you want”, he says softly, but he seems so very sad while he says it.
Despite the mood, Annie can’t help but grin. Somehow, Mr. Stacks’ words have helped her get rid of that nervousness that was eating her up (okay, most of it.)
She’s about to meet her parents! Her real family! And it’s going to be even better than she always imagined, and even if it isn’t, it won’t be the end for her. She’ll just have to search for a family again. Can’t be that hard to do it a second time, she’s done it her whole life already, after all.
She reaches over and hugs Mr. Stacks tightly, not letting go for a long while. He hugs her back just as tightly, his arms encircling her and pulling her closer. She snuggles further into him, content in a way she’s never felt before. Is this feeling because she’s about to meet her family, or is it this moment? Annie doesn’t know and she doesn’t particularly care. What she cares about is that, in a few days, she’ll finally be with her family.
+i
Annie stares at Mr. Stacks as he stands in front of her, babbling about lies and pointing a damning finger at her as if it means anything. She stares at this man, this man who had taken her in, made her feel safe, this man who hadn’t sent her away even when she’d messed up, who’d comforted her and held her and made her laugh.
This man, who had known her life’s dream to be reunited with her parents, who had known how important this was to her, and had paid a bunch of fakes to lie to her and take her away just so that he’d be rid of her. This man, who had taken her in and used her for his own gain with absolutely no regard for Annie herself.
This man, who is still trying to lie to her, even now that the ruse is obviously up. Behind them, reporters draw closer, pointing cameras and microphones and loudly asking questions that Annie doesn’t want to answer. She’s never wanted to be in front of a camera less than she does right now. What, they haven’t gotten enough photos yet? Do they want some of Annie crying her eyes out for the front page?
Mr. Stacks seems to realize that Annie doesn’t believe him, because he just stares at her, a devastated expression on his face. It seems unfair to Annie that he gets to look so sad when he’s the one who did all this.
He did, right? Because Annie can’t fathom the idea that he straight up… hadn’t known what was going on. That Mr. Stacks was just as in the dark as Annie herself was. Did they both get fooled?
But that doesn’t make sense. Mr. Stacks is the one who found these people in the first place, isn’t he? These actors, who pretended to be her parents for all of 30 minutes before dropping the charade.
Mr. Stacks turns away from her and walks towards the reporters, and Annie feels sick to her stomach. He’s about to announce that this is all some big misunderstanding, of course he didn’t get Annie kidnapped, that would be ridiculous. He’s about to say whatever it takes to not lose his standing, to not lose his chance to win mayor. Annie flinches as she remembers, again, the whole reason why Mr. Stacks did any of this in the first place.
He wants to be mayor. Annie is his way to that. That’s all she is to him. She was stupid to forget that.
But then Mr. Stacks doesn’t say any of that. Instead, the words that come out of his mouth are something Annie never expected to hear from him, from this man who seems to value his work above anything else in his life.
“I officially withdraw from this mayoral race.”
He continues talking after that, explaining his reasons, but Annie isn’t focusing on his words. She’s focusing, instead, on the way his eyes keep flicking back to her, and how his hands shake a bit when he gestures. And suddenly, she knows the real reason why he’s withdrawing.
This is his way of saying the same thing she hadn’t been able to say out loud. He’s saying, my job means nothing compared to you. He’s saying, you’re not alone anymore. He’s saying, I’m sorry.
And now, Annie can believe it.
Apparently done with talking, Mr. Stacks walks over to her, paying no mind to the reporters still yelling at him, wanting to get more information out of him.
He just walks up to her and hugs her, burying his face in her hair like he has so many times before. After a moment, Annie melts into it, latching her arms around his waist and closing her eyes.
She remembers the conversation they had—God, was it really just a few days ago? It feels like forever, so much has happened since then.
She remembers Mr. Stacks saying, you get to decide who counts as family. She remembers how sad he’d looked while he said it. She thinks she understands now.
Maybe that was his way of telling her that she already wasn’t alone anymore, even if she wasn’t with her parents. Maybe that was his way of telling her that they’d both already found a new family—together. And Annie just didn’t realize until right now.
Yes, Annie thinks to herself, this is what family is supposed to feel like. And, for the first time in her life, she can allow herself to get used to it. Because Mr. Stacks? Grace? They aren’t going anywhere. And they’re not sending her anywhere.
Oh- speaking of Grace.
Annie pulls back from the hug a little bit, already missing the comfort it provides. She looks up at Mr. Stacks, and the pure relief on his face almost makes her melt back into his side. But Annie is on a mission.
“I need one more thing from you”, she says confidently. Mr. Stacks huffs out a laugh, his smile distorting the tear tracks drying on his face.
“You are always on the hustle”, he tells her, “What is it now?”
“Stop playing games”, Annie replies, taking his hand off her shoulder and forming it into a fist, then uncurling two fingers from it. She points them at Grace, who looks at both of them quizzically.
Mr. Stacks nods a little. “Oh, yeah, I got this”, he mutters quietly, as if to hype himself up. Annie grins as he stumbles through asking Grace out to dinner. Yeah, she’s exactly where she belongs, with these two.