Declan's mouth twisted; Sage had given Maggie up, because of course she had. He didn't have to know the situation well to know that it was likely the only option she had. (The father, in Declan's mind, was a bit of a cad. That was likely partially because of the conversation that they'd had about intercourse the other month, where Sage said that sex was fun but also that she was the worst. And if he was a good man, the father would have either married Sage or taken on the responsibility of Maggie himself.) Maggie, orphaned. Sage had pulled away from him, so Declan removed his hand from her shoulder and glanced over his own to look at the wayward child. Neither Maggie nor Sage was going to have an easy time with this.

He could not figure out whether or not Sage wanted him here. She was spiraling, dragging her hands over her face. Declan reached his hand out because he wanted to pull her into a hug, but he remembered the way that she had pulled back and instead left his hand hovering a few inches over her shoulder. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to try and fix this, his mind was whirring with increasingly chaotic options as his mouth pressed into a thin and unhappy line. He wanted to try and fix this, but he had no money and no reliable family, and she had not come here looking for him. She had come here looking for Tess.

"Tess will know what to do," Declan whispered, with urgency. "She always does."