A/N: Hopeless wanderer sequel, can act as a stand alone – i'm sure you'll get the point of it after this chapter. Just so you know, I toyed around this for a while, but I loved writing HW so thought why not. It'll be different, I promise.


Adoption day, July.

Life is a series of moments.

Moments that are short and so quick that you often struggle to catch them before they slip through your fingers and fall into the stock pile of memories, some get lost along the way.

This day. This moment. It feels so fresh, so vibrant and loud, that you realise you'll never be able to fully let I go. Arms wrap around your shoulders, pull you in tight enough to take your breath away.

This moment is one of the three most important moments in your life so far. You take in everything through glassy, tear filled eyes, and you hold on as tight as you can.

Memories of pain slip away seamlessly for a brief second. You are here, you are whole.

You are home.

You are Callie Adams-Foster.


You eat dinner like you do every night. Jude talks about Connor, about how much he'll miss him when he leaves and your heart hurts. Stef says it'll be okay, they'll be okay. You wonder how long they can wait for each other.

Brandon passes you a plate of mashed potatoes and you scoop them onto your plate, watching Stef laugh at Mariana's story about something that happened in second period. You smile.

The family chat loud about life and you admire how interested everyone seems to be.

The door knocks, and Brandon leaves the table.

"Hey mom...the social worker is here. She's taking Callie away."

.

You blink open your eyes and breathe a sigh of relief. It was a dream.

It's the day after the adoption and you wake up feeling different. It's not a good or a bad sort of different, it's just different. The sort of feeling that you can't quite put your finger on. You roll over and check your phone, but you're aware of how early it is beforehand due to the dead silence in the house. 5:04am. On a saturday.

You lay there for a while, thinking about everything, about how today is the first day you wake up an official part of this family. About how familiar this home has become. You smell the ghost of coffee that is bound to make it's way into your room in the next couple of hours, you think about how much you miss the dose of caffeine in the morning. About how grateful you are that you have parents who enforce rules for your well being. You feel different.

You scroll on your phone for an hour and a half before you hear the first door open and you know it'll be Stef, she's always the first one up. The footsteps make their way across the hallway and your door creaks. "Morning bug, want some breakfast?" You feel feel a familiarity in her whisper, in her presence. In her knowing that you'd be awake. You follow her down to the kitchen.

You have a lot of these mornings with stef, she makes both of you breakfast and you quietly read the paper or talk about school or work, sometimes she gives you a cup of coffee. It's a weigh day today, but the atmosphere is relaxed. You are comfortable knowing that Lena will do it once she's up, before everyone else wakes up. You're monitored more closely on weigh days, but you've had a stellar record recently. You've been happy recently. You've learned to want recovery.

"I'd like to go to the cemetery today," you mumble in between bites of your bagel. She looks up. "If that's okay?"

Stef nods."Jude?"

"Maybe just me?"

You know they can take him tomorrow. Although you feel selfish having days to yourself, sometimes you need moments with her in which you can be completely you.

"Okay, well do weigh In and I'll take you at eleven, we could go for lunch." You nod warily. "Unless..."

"No," you stop her. "Lunch sounds good."

She smiles.

.

You weigh in at one pound heavier than you did last week, but your hands don't shake quite the same as they used to when Lena reads the number out, maybe it means you're getting there. Maybe today's just a good day. It's a confusing battle, this one, in a sense that you never know what you're going to get. You could wake up ready for recovery, or you could wake up feeling terrible.

You're grateful that this is a good eating day, because it's a weird everything else day. Change can be a trigger. But surely not one you've been wanting?

Surely not.