Finding Family |Adopted by Melissa Benoist and Chris Wood|

17 Part 1

It was still dark outside when a phone alarm went off. Melissa sleepily groped around the table to turn it off. She yawned and sighed, groggily crawling out of bed and turning on the lamp after hearing her husband groan in response to being woken up so early.

"I bet you don't miss this part of acting" Melissa grinned, still having enough energy to tease her husband after being woken up at the ungodly hour of three in the morning to go to work.

"Yourerightitsexhaustingijustwannasleeeeepidontknowhowididitforyearsandyearsughhhh" Chris mumbled into his pillow, barely awake at this point

"Aw, big baby" laughed Melissa, leaving the room to let her husband wake up.

Making her way down the stairs, Melissa tried to contain her nerves. On one hand, she was extremely excited to see all of her cast mates once again but on the other hand, she wondered how much she missed.

After applying to foster Star, Melissa had informed the show runners that she was going to take off from work for several weeks to get her foster daughter settled. As a result, Melissa had been working overtime before Star came into her life in order to film ahead of schedule. This was to ensure that the episodes would still air on time as well as provide a more flexible schedule for the new foster parent in the future.

When she got downstairs, Melissa flipped on the light switch and saw Star sitting on the floor with a bucket full of water and a brush in her hand, scrubbing the floor.

Strands of long dark hair were plastered on Star's forehead, and the back of her shirt was covered in sweat. Star was red in the face and breathing heavily as she scrubbed a floorboard repeatedly trying to shine the floor as much as possible.

Star had not noticed her foster mom standing over her as all she could think about was making sure the house was clean. It was either cleaning the house or reliving some of the worst moments in her entire life as she tried to sleep. In Star's mind, scrubbing the floorboards was much more appealing.

"Star?" Melissa said, trying not to scare her foster daughter.

Star jumped and snapped her head up, noticing the adult that stood a good distance away. She dropped the brush in the bucket of water, picked it up and raced into the laundry room.

Melissa sighed. The trust that had been built seemed to disappear after the incident with the car seat. Star was able to tolerate being in the car seat for short periods of time at this point, but was never fully comfortable with it.

The original plan was to have Chris drop Melissa off on set first before coming home and picking up Star then heading back to set so Star could sleep a little more but clearly, that was not happening.

Melissa took three bowls of overnight oats out of the refrigerator, setting them on the table before getting the coffee brewed. She washed an assortment of fruits then went to pour a glass of milk for Star.

At this point, Chris had stumbled down the stairs, more awake than before after splashing cold water on his face.

"Hi honey" Chris greeted, wrapping his wife in a hug

"Are you awake now?" Melissa asked, her voice muffled by her husband's embrace.

"Yes, thank you" He replied, kissing his wife on the head. 'Where is Star? Is she still sleeping?"

"No, when I came downstairs, she was all worked up and scrubbing the floor so I assume she barely slept." Melissa informed

"Did she go back to bed?" Chris asked, moving over to the kitchen table with two cups of coffee and sitting down to eat breakfast.