A/N: I've debated posting this for a while, I know that people are really weird about fics that include character death and, well, since this whole story is about character death then I figured that people might be extra weird about it. But I wrote it, and it's just been sitting in my documents folder for the longest time, so...

It's a five part story.

I don't own The Fosters.

Denial

It happens on a Saturday afternoon.

Three months after both Callie and Judes adoptions are finalised and the family is finally a family, they get ripped apart.

It's Stef who has to deliver the news, despite the fact that she herself doesn't have the energy, nor the strength, to say the words. It's all a blur really, everything that happens next.

Some cry, some hug, one screams.

For her part, Stef is mostly just silent. She tries her best to comfort the family despite the growing lump in her throat, despite the pain that seems to have started throbbing in her heart. She pushes the grief inside as far away as it can go so that she can deal with her family first, and her own emotions later.

It takes almost four and a half hours to get everyone into bed and, once they are all asleep, she can't help but linger in silence and stare at the empty bed that probably still has his scent on the pillow.

She shakes her head and closes the door to head down the hallway and stay awake all night so that she can be ready for any more challenges that might come up.

Mariana is the first one to knock the door at 3:30am and, unlike her usual confident I need something knock, its silent and scared and begging for help. Stef wakes up from a sleep that she doesn't remember falling into and calls her daughter into the room quiet enough to avoid waking up her wife.

"mom?"

She pats the bed next to her, assuming that the girl had come in for comfort, but she stands at the doorway and hesitantly shakes her head.

"Mari?"

Mariana sighs and ducks her head down. "I promised I wouldn't wake you up, but..."

Tiredness is automatically replaced by maternal instinct, and Stef sits up, the motion waking up Lena in the process.

"Where is she?" She asks, for there is no reason to ask for names, there is no reason to wonder what is happening and why, she just knows.

"She went downstairs about twenty minutes ago." Mariana replies, her voice weak and apologetic.

"It's okay, love." Stef mumbles, ushering Mariana so that she is tucked under the sheets she'd just been tangled in. "I'll talk to her."

…

She finds her on the sofa in the living room with her knees up to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Stef sighs, it's been months since she's seen her withdrawn like this, it's been months since she's found her awake in the middle of the night. She can't help but fear that all of the progress they've made has been demolished.

"Cal?"

When she doesn't respond to her voice, Stef begins to worry a little. Her eyes are open, but they are not moving, not blinking. Just staring at the wall, as though it might make him appear into thin air.

She takes a seat next to the dazed girl and reaches out to touch her shoulder, Callie does not flinch.

"Callie, baby. It's late, maybe we should go back to bed?"

This time, she turns around slowly and locks eyes with Stef. "Are you sure it was him?"

Stef is taken aback at the monotonous tone of her voice, like all emotion has dissipated from her vocal chords. "Hon…"

"I mean…It happens, right? Like, they could have made a mistake. There were a lot of people there and they…they haven't found everyone yet. Are you sure that it's him?"

Stef isn't sure how to respond at first. How does she explain to her daughter that she'd been the one who had to identify the body? She'd been the one who had to see him, pale and cold, laying on a metal slab. She knows that it is him, she knows it because she has seen it. She nods slowly, tears dripping down her cheeks when Callie just shakes her head.

"No, I don't believe you. He's strong, Stef…he's…he's a fighter…I bet he's okay, I bet there's been a mix up. He's not gone, he can't be."

By now, her voice is verging on panic, her breathing is picking up. Stef can see the fear and the terror in her eyes, it takes everything in her to not break down right now. She shakes her head again, and Callie shakes hers, too.

"He is not gone. He's not." She sounds sure of it, like he is standing right in front of her, like she can reach out and touch him and show them that he's okay, that he's safe, that everything can go back to okay again."

Stef grabs her daughter by the shoulders and shakes her head fiercely with big wet tears falling down her cheeks and slopping onto her chest. "He's gone, baby. I'm so sorry."

"NO" this time, it's a shout, a plea, a scream, a wail. "NO NO NO."

And Stef has never been prepared for this.