A/N: Another long-ish chapter. Scott's 5th birthday chapter is coming up fast. What kind of theme (if any) should it be?
Henry's POV
The weekend passed quickly and before I realised it, the kids had to say goodbye to Matt. They hated saying goodbye, but hopefully the official paperwork would come through soon. Everything we needed to do was done; we were just waiting for the 'yes' from the courts. The paperwork for that would go to the orphanage, so we needed a phone call from them.
"Bye Matty." Kirstie said giving him a hug.
"Bye little bro." Mitch said.
"See you next week." Scott said.
"See ya Matty." Avi said.
"Love you little bro. can't wait for you to stay forever." Kevin said. All of them cuddled Matt before we had to go.
Matt was almost asleep on our way back to the orphanage. He had been playing with the others most of the day. He also witnessed Kirstie have a small seizure. Most of us were in the room when it happened, so there wasn't any worry with Matt being too overwhelmed about the situation. As per the doctor's instructions Matt doesn't fully know what to do, but he knows that he needs to get someone quickly if he sees something.
When we arrived at the orphanage the girl I'd come to know from dropping Matt off was waiting for us.
"Hey Meg."
"Hey Henry. Bringing Matt back?"
"Yeah. Can't wait till he's with us permanently."
""Well as much as I love having him here, you can take him back with you again." I looked at her in shock. "You don't need to wait anymore." She picked up a folder and handed it over to me. "We got the paperwork through about an hour ago. I would've called, but I know the other kids want to say goodbye to Matt and he'd probably want the rest of his things."
"Thank you so much." I said with a smile as wide as a Cheshire cat.
The other kids came down to give Matt a proper goodbye with a quick party as well. They had organised it earlier that day, in the hope that the paperwork would arrive. Meg did tell me that she'd taken a call from the social worker earlier in the week that it was highly likely that the adoption would be official by the end of the week. She didn't want to get our hopes up, so she hadn't said anything when I'd picked Matt up on Friday. We'd left an hour later and I found it so much better going home on a Sunday with Matt in the back.
"Hey Henry, can you ..." Melissa stopped when she realised that Matt was still with me. "Uhm, explanation please." I just smiled and handed her the folder that Meg had given me. She looked at it for a moment and then realised what it meant. "He's officially ours?"
"Yep. Forever and always." I said picking Matt up and cuddling him. Melissa smiled and wrapped her arms round me and Matt.
"Finally."
"MATTY!" all the kids came into the room and saw that I had Matt.
"But I thought you were taking him back to the orphanage for the week?" Kevin asked, completely confused that I had brought him back.
"I did. When we got there, the official paperwork had come through. He's part of the family now." The kids started jumping around and squealing. Matt squirmed to be put on the floor, so I let him down and watched as all six of our children hugged and high-fived.
"Welcome to the family brother." Kevin said reaching down to lift Matt up and swing him around a bit.
"'Mon Matty. 'Tory time wiv' Kevvy." Kirstie said, taking Matt's hand, once he was back on the ground, and leading the group into the living room.
Melissa and I went into the kitchen and made a special dinner, celebrating Matt officially becoming part of the family. We did quickly call our parents and let them know the good news. They were as overjoyed as the rest of us and planned to come round during the week to see him again. I went to get the kids to wash their hands for dinner and found all six of them curled up together. Kevin was in the middle, Matt was on his right and Kirstie was next to Matt. Scott was the other side of Kevin, with Mitch on his lap and Avi the other side. Matt was fully accepted into the sibling pack.
Later that night, Matt decided he would sleep in the conjoined room with Kirstie. Mitch was still staying with Scott and Kirstie still wanted the company at night. She trusted us to help her if she had a seizure in the night, because we had the baby monitors, but she hadn't learnt to love having a space all to herself.
"Night Kirstie. Night Matt." I said giving both of them a kiss before tucking them in for the night. With a short lullaby both of them were fast asleep and making adorable baby snores. Kirstie was definitely happier with someone so close.
No POV
It got late into the night when the calm and happy house was disturbed. Kirstie was wrapped up like a little bug and no cool air could get to her and control her temperature. In her sleep she was able to kick the duvet off a little but she was already starting to overheat and she couldn't reverse it fast enough. She began to whimper and roll around to try and find a cool spot. She woke up a little and the only thing she could think to do, with her mind so foggy, was to knock on the wall to where Matt was sleeping.
Henry and Melissa had out in a cot bed for him. It had a little gap at the end so he could get out by himself but he was in no danger of rolling off in the night. The knock on the wall woke Matt up and he could hear Kirstie whimpering and rolling. He jumped out of bed as quickly as he could and ran to Kirstie's side.
He didn't have a full idea on how to help, but he could see sweat on her body, so he pulled her duvet off her completely. He had no other ideas after that, but he hoped that just pulling the cover off would help. Kirstie continued to whimper and Matt could see that her eyes were unable to focus on anything in the room. Including him.
"Kitty. What I do?" he asked quietly. He couldn't remember what he was told to do when something like this happened. Kirstie was still whimpering, but it was too quiet to be picked up on the baby monitor. Matt started to cry a little bit as Kirstie rolled round on her bed and hit her limbs all over the place. Thinking that she couldn't be safe on her bed, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her onto the floor. He didn't realise that her head hit the floor a bit hard, he was more focused on getting her somewhere he thought would be safe.
He got her to the middle of the room, where there was nothing close that she could hurt herself on, and sat by her side. Kirstie continued to overheat and Matt really started to panic. He had no clue how to help and it seemed like no one was going to come and help. In his panic, he forgot that Melissa & Henry were in the room next to them and would know exactly what to do.
The next five minutes passed very slowly as Kirstie's temperature continued to rise and her seizure began. Matt panicked even more as Kirstie started shaking a little.
"Kitty." Matt said with tears in his eye. He was very scared by this point. Kirstie coughed a little and dribble came from her mouth. Matt's memory finally kicked in and he remembered Melissa and Henry were next door. He jumped up from the floor and ran straight into the parents' room.
"Mama, Daddy!" he called. He shook on Henry's arm and kept calling him to wake him up faster. Henry's eyes opened slowly and focused on Matt.
"Matt, what's wrong?" he asked sleepily.
"Kitty." He said. Henry shook Melissa awake and nearly sprinted over to Kirstie's room. Melissa wasn't far behind him.
Upon entering the room, they found Kirstie writhing and rolling on the floor. She was still coughing and dribbling. This was bad. She could choke. Henry rolled Kirstie onto her side and wiped her mouth whilst Melissa got a few wet towels to cool her down. Kirstie continued to seize for a few minutes until her temperature began to come down and her seizure stopped.
"Good job Matty." Henry said. Matt was confused. What had he done?
"You came to get us when your sister needed help." Melissa said with a smile.
"How did she get here?" Henry asked Matt.
"Move her." Matt said.
"You moved her?" Matt nodded.
"Well aren't you good. How did you know she needed help?" Melissa asked.
"She knock on wall."
"Why didn't you come and get us before you moved her?" Henry asked.
"Forgot 'at to do." He said with tears springing to his eyes.
"That's okay. You did well for what you remembered." Melissa gave Matt a hug to calm him and the three of them waited for Kirstie to come round.
Kirstie was unconscious for 10 more minutes and then her lashes started to flutter as she tried to open her eyes. When she was able to focus she looked at her parents and reached out to Henry.
"You okay baby girl?" he asked. She nodded slightly and rubbed her eyes. They spent another half an hour with the pair before they deemed Kirstie okay enough to go back to sleep. For Matt's first official night as part of the family, he had done well in looking after his big sister.
Kirstie spent the next two days at home because of the seizure and from hitting her head on the floor, which no one had noticed until the morning. The whole family was proud of Matt and Kirstie was grateful that he had been there when she needed him. The two of them were well on their way to being as close as Scott and Mitch.