Author's Note: Welcome to my new story, if you don't know me, I'm riversong15, check out my profile for other Fosters stories. This was a story I had planned for a very long time, started writing it weeks ago, and I feel like since the season is over, I know what kind of things I can put in the story. I hope you enjoy it, and just in case you didn't read the summary, this will contain Brallie, but it's not like my other fics where it's all about Callie and Brandon. I'm trying to steer towards a more family fic. As always, enjoy.
"...And we feel she deserves a second chance."
"Thank you, Mrs. Adams-Foster. If the defendant has nothing to say than I am ready for my ruling."
Stef and Lena clasped hands and Callie closed her eyes and waited for the crushing blow of being sent back to Juvie. Those that thought that Hell was burning under the recesses of the Earth clearly never felt the cold emptiness of the metal box they crammed troubled youths into so that they could reflect on the error of their ways. Callie wonders how some kids could even live with having to be sent back, especially if you experienced the kind of safety and love in a home like the Fosters household.
"I have taken into consideration Ms. Jacob's request not to be sent back into Mrs. and Mrs. Adams-Foster care. Ms. Jacob provided no reason for changing her original statement two weeks ago. Upon questioning both parties, the court did not conclude to why Ms. Jacob would run away. Based on the past statements from Ms. Jacob and her brother, and the insistence of her foster parents, I rule that Ms. Jacob returns to the care of Mrs. Stef Adams-Foster and Mrs. Lena Adams-Foster. I believe that they can provide the best care for her.
No, Callie thought, Send me anywhere, please, I don't want to, you can't make me go back.
Callie wanted to believe that last part but knew it was worthless. The court will make her and any sign that she will not follow the court's decision will land her right back into juvie.
Callie's face stayed blank but a clenching of hands showed a sign that she was not happy, and Lena took note of it as her wife struggled not to cry with joy that they succeeded.
"Ms. Jacobs," the Judge continued," you will not get off without consequences. Your probation will be extended another 8 months and any more problems will land you in a group facility. I do not want to see your face in my court again. Case dismissed."
Callie didn't want to comprehend that she was going back. After all the trouble she went threw to get out only to be shoved back in.
So much for controlling my life. Stef and Lena came up to her after she was officially released, with Callie in regular clothes instead of the gray uniform, and immediately went to hug her. Callie didn't even try to reciprocate it, just stood there with her hands hanging by her side.
"Callie, are you okay? What's wrong?" Lena asked.
"I didn't want you to come." Callie blankly stated. "You knew that."
"Callie," Lena said in a comforting voice. "You may be ready to give up on us, but we aren't ready to give up on you.
Stef smiled at Callie, who was avoiding their gazes. "Come on, let's go home."
'Home.' The word haunted Callie. It meant nothing but a physical place where people escaped from their lives. As far as Callie knew, she hadn't had one of those since she was a kid. She definitely didn't think the Fosters house was an escape. In fact, it was now her prison.
To her relief, they arrived before the kids got back from school and she wouldn't have to deal with any family members asking questions she didn't want to answer.
They set Callie's things down and Lena watched as she took in her surroundings like she had never been there before.
"What is it Callie?"
"It's still the same."
"Well yeah, it's only been a week."
"I don't mean it like that."
"Well, what do you mean?"
"Last time I got out of Juvie, I came straight to your house, and when I saw it, it was just a house. But now I know what it's like to sit on that couch and how often you really use the oven. I look at this table and see months of dinners eaten here. Yet, it's still the same as before."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because last time, I looked around and thought, 'this is not my house'."
Callie took some satisfaction from the hurt look on their faces. Maybe they'll get that they should've let her go. Call Bill and let him know that Callie doesn't belong there, with this family. They think that she is the missing piece to their family, but what they don't know is that their smooth jigsaw puzzle doesn't match her jagged edges.
Callie, you're still a kid. Like it or not, you need an adult to care for you.
That was an insult to Callie. After everything she's been through, how ready she was to become her own person, someone the system doesn't control, she should not be considered a kid.
"Callie, we need you to help us understand why you ran away. We need to know if we did something, wrong to make you not trust us anymore. We still want you in this family, but we don't feel comfortable adopting you if you don't want to be here."
"Then don't." Callie says. "Don't adopt me. I only said yes because Jude would refuse for us to be separated."
"Callie, you could have just told us you didn't want to be adopted, you didn't have to run away."
"Look it wasn't just the adoption. I want to be out of the system, and the only way I can do that is if I can live on my own, independently, without having an adult decide my fate."
"What about Jude?"
"What about him?"
"Would you have come back for him? Taken him from us?"
"Is that what you're worried about? That I would have taken Jude and you couldn't adopt either of us. Is adopting us really that important to you?"
"What's important to us is that you both end up in a house that is safe for the both of you."
"What I need is freedom. Jude needs a home and now, he has you guys to take care of him now."
"Callie, running away was pretty-"
"Selfish? Jude told me as much."
"Reckless. I was going to say reckless. And when did Jude call you selfish, Callie?"
Callie immediately shut up, not ready to tell them about her requited feelings for their son, the one that until recently was only supposed to be a temporary housemate, and the kiss they shared. She was surprised that at this point, neither Brandon nor Jude told them about the kiss. It would be so Brandon to tell them. He would do it to protect her and to try getting them to understand.
Too bad, he didn't tell them. That would have been a sure fire way to not be sent back.
Maybe I should tell them. Despite Stef and Lena's assurance that they want her, there was no way they would let this slide, not when Stef had already warned Brandon about hooking up with his foster sister.
What would happen to Brandon? Callie didn't think his moms would let him off easy and knowing how stubborn he was, he wouldn't let Stef and Lena stop them from being together.
It will be hard to stay away from him this time. They already gave in to temptation, and once wouldn't be enough.
It will be harder to never see him again. And at that thought, she decided to keep her silence.
"Callie?"
"We fought, during the wedding. I told him I didn't want to be adopted and he thought I was ruining this for him. He deserves a home."
"Then what do you deserve?"
Callie paused at that word. Deserve. Same as merited, rightful, just, fair, everything her life has not been in the last 6 years, in the last year really.
Still reeling from the Olmsteads, she and Jude were forced to play maid to a drunken asshole whose wife just left him for the guy he worked with. When he finally went too far by hurting Jude, she beat his stupid car with the vent up anger she had from the last 5 homes they were placed in.
Those three months in Juvie were the worst on her, physically and emotionally. Being shoved by cellmates, ignored by guards, and forced to defend her at points, it was not being able to protect Jude that brought the agony of being there.
Even living at the Fosters for the last 2 months was no slice of heaven. When she realized she was falling for the boy across the hall, she flashed back to Liam coming into her room and doing what he wanted with her. It kept her awake at most nights, afraid Brandon would sneak in the same way and do the same awful things. She had to remind herself, Marianna was there, and he wouldn't do it if someone else were with her.
But he didn't even try and the poor thing seemed almost weak when he didn't even push the subject of his feelings for her after that date-gone-wrong with Wyatt. And when she realized that he wasn't going to hurt her like Liam, it hit her that if she gets kicked out of the house for having a relationship with her foster brother, it will be because she pushed it, she was the one that made it happen.
It was like she had separated the people in her life into different places in her heart. Marianna and Jesus belonged in "Family", Wyatt in "Best Friend", and Jude in a special, exclusive part just for him labeled "Superior", for he was the most important thing in her life.
But Stef and Lena wouldn't fit into "Mother" for there was only room for her own mom. Even her dad still stayed, but it was small and close to being forgotten. She had almost placed them in "Regrets" until she realized Liam was there, and he didn't even deserve to be put in the same universe as them. She had decided that she didn't need them, but she couldn't just cast them out, not after everything they did for her. She instead placed them under "The Good Ones", a very empty and sad part of her heart.
Callie was never good at figuring out what she wanted until she met Brandon. She didn't even think she had the right to. She wasn't even this desperate for Liam than she was for Brandon.
She tried for weeks thinking, "It's just a crush, it's no big deal, and just wait for him to stop caring like everyone else." But he didn't. And she could feel their stares growing more intense and found herself noticing him more when he walked into the room and when she finally kissed him; she knew she had screwed herself. She unknowingly placed him under a part of her heart that hadn't existed but formed when her heart started growing with the love and protection she felt from the whole family. Brandon's place had taken the spot of "Mine", a cross between what she wanted and what she needed. She knew her attraction had already evolved into full-blown love when her heart broke seeing him asleep in his bed when she had last set foot in this house.
The thought of leaving the boy, no the man that had helped her out more in the span of two months that any court appointed shrink in the past 6 years, who held the power to make her break her promise to Jude, was only overshadowed by her love for her brother.
Callie had a determination to give him the life he deserved. He, who has done nothing wrong, who suffers whenever she screws up in a home, and finally told her like it is at the wedding. How to him, she doesn't care if she ruins his life for a chance to be selfish.
But she does care, and even if it did hurt him, she left and gave him the chance to either embrace this family without her, or ruin his own chances, because she was a little upset that he got the opportunity to get a family when she had to run in order to ensure it. She didn't want to the blood to be on her hands.
I protected him too long. He needed to realize that he doesn't need me anymore.
"Callie?" Stef asks, wondering why she went quiet again.
Callie snapped out of her trance. "It doesn't matter what I deserve."
Callie kept talking, "It doesn't matter because if the judge decides to take me away, or some parent complains about me, or I act in a way that breaks the precious rules of the system, they decide what I deserve based on past actions that apparently do define me, Lena. Because I did do those things, and even if I did have my reasons, this freaking system is not perfect, because even if I was raped, it comes back to haunt me."
"So you know what I deserve." Callie says after a moment, "To be free of the fraudulent system that has controlled my life and how I am defined, okay? That's what I deserve."
Next Chapter: Stef and Lena try to figure out why Callie left, someone talks to Callie.