Adopted By Hamilton One Shots

Abi/Lin - Bio Family

Lin's POV

I was helping my daughter pack her room for our move to London. I found the suitcase she brought to the Richard Rodgers when we originally took her in, shoved in the back of the closet. I yanked it out, and heard something bouncing around inside. I opened the suitcase, and saw a framed photo. The glass was dusty, and I quickly wiped my shirt over it, then my heart sunk a little.

I saw my child, at about 6 or 7, standing in front of a waterfall between her parents. They were both kneeling by her. She was wearing a pink sweatshirt that said 'Silver Falls' on it, and she looking like she was giggling, her mom kissing her cheek.

"Dad? What are y- you weren't supposed to see that." She whispered.

"I'm sorry Mija." I handed the photo back to her.

"No, no it's fine." She sighed, sitting next to me, holding the picture.

"It looks like it was a fun day." I said, sadly. I didn't like seeing her with her bio parents.

"It was. We got ice cream on the way back, and they bought me a teddy bear with a matching sweatshirt." She scooted closer to me, leaning against my shoulder.

"Kiddo? You okay?" I asked.

"I shouldn't have kept the picture." She whispered.

"Why not?" I started to gently rub her arm. "It looks like you had a good time, why forget about it?"

"I don't know, I grabbed it when I was packing my room before they kicked me out." I felt her start to shake next to me, obviously crying. "I didn't know what to do, they were putting me up for adoption, I still loved them, I didn't want to leave. I was 12, I was a kid."

"I don't mean to, like, dig up something, but, how did they tell you?"

"They didn't, I um, I came home after a choir concert, and they were filling out the paperwork."

"They didn't come to the concert?" I asked, resting my head on hers.

"No. They said they were too busy." She whimpered a little.

"Oh." I frowned a little, biting my lip. They were jerks. I had to rearrange my Sardi's caricature unveiling to go to Abis choir concert.

"Did you see it coming?" I asked, realizing we had never talked about this.

"Oh. I mean, they never really cared about me, but, you don't see something like that coming. I was 12, I didn't know it was legal." She admitted, and my heart broke a little, "I mean, I knew you could do it with a baby, but not- but not that they could do it to me. I didn't really consider them abusive."

"Baby, didn't your dad break your arm?"

"I have a really screwed up view of what's abusive. I guess it wasn't continuous, that was one of the only physical bits, it was mostly neglect."

"How about after that? Where did you go after your mom and dad?" I said, a little pain in my voice over the words mom and dad.

"A group home." She said, "there were 11 of us. 4 girls and 7 boys."

"Wow." I sighed, "did that go okay?"