The porcelain is cool through the fabric of Jude's jeans and he's not sure he's ever going to get used to the smell of nail polish or remover. Lena's hands are gentle on his. He's not afraid, living here, not of who he might be or who anyone in this crazy family is; he feels better and safer here than he's ever felt, but he can't help wishing that it were Callie kneeling in front of him, that it was her gentle hands helping him reapply the midnight blue polish. But Callie has never been gentle with him, not like that; their relationship is about survival, not about nurturing. It's built on awkwardly balanced blocks on the best of days and the last few weeks have been an unending string of not good days.
Lately, he doesn't even know who either of them is.
He likes to think he and Callie are both changing, here, but most days he's pretty sure that it's just him.
He knows that Callie's going to blow a gasket when she sees the polish. He doesn't want to disappoint her, but he also really listened when Lena told him that the house and the family are safe for him.
He's so sick and tired of hiding, of being scared, and he's really tired of Callie being less accepting of him than people who were strangers a month ago.
He wants to tell her about Connor, about how he wore midnight blue polish to school today, too, but she's angry with him and too protective. I don't want you to get hurt, she tells him, stomping through the kitchen, and Jude freezes.
His heart is pounding and he almost can't get the words out but the feeling has been with him for so long now that sometimes he worries if he can't say the words then he'll explode.
When he gets mad and tells Callie that he already hurts he knows it's the most truth he's ever given anyone.
He chokes down the rest of his snack in the heavy silence of the kitchen. Callie leans against the counter, watching him with that look she has. He wishes he'd just kept his mouth shut.
"I'm okay," he whispers when he passes her on the way to the sink. "Really."
She moves, and Jude catches the motion of her hand out of the corner of his eye. He slides away before she can touch him. He doesn't want her to touch him. He doesn't want her to try and fix any of this because it's not something she can fix and it sure isn't something she can figure out for him.
"Jude –" she calls out to him, but he's too fast for her. He's up the stairs and into his and Jesus' room with the door closed before Callie's boots ever hit the stairs. He curls up as small as he can get and thinks about the way Connor smiled at him at lunch.
Jude likes Connor. He likes Connor as more than a friend, which isn't exactly a surprise, but it's the first time it's felt like it really matters. No matter how cool Connor is about Jude being a foster kid, or sharing his cell phone, or wearing solidarity nail polish, Jude is still terrified of messing up the only real friendship he's ever had.
The night Stef gets shot, Jude tells everyone that he was scared and sad and wanted to be home with all of them instead of sleeping on the trundle bed in Connor's room.
He can't tell them the truth, can't tell them about the way Connor's arm kept brushing his at dinner and then again in the bathroom while they brushed their teeth. It didn't feel weird, and Connor didn't make a thing about it, but Jude felt a little weird because they didn't talk about it. He would talk to Callie if he didn't think she'd be mad at him, or to Lena, but she's at the hospital with Stef. So instead he thinks about his mom, and about how awful it would be to lose Stef, too.
The next day at the hospital he curls up in one of those really hard waiting room chairs and tucks himself around Lena. He's too old for it, really, but Lena wraps an arm around him and doesn't say much, just lets him be close like she knows exactly how he feels.
She comes to him that night, late, once everyone is home and crashed out in weird places, sitting carefully on the edge of his bed so it doesn't jostle him too hard, but the mattress dips anyway.
"You okay?" she asks and she sounds so tired. Jude doesn't want her to worry about him, too, so he starts to say that he's fine, everything's fine, but she knows him too well. "We both deserve better than a lie, Jude."
He shakes his head because he doesn't know what to say, doesn't even know where to begin. It's all tangled up, his mom and Stef, Connor, Callie, all these things he wants and feels like he should understand. All the dark and difficult things he feels, and the desperation that claws at him when he thinks about having to go live someplace else.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Lena always just knows what to say, and Jude wishes again that Callie were the one here with him. She's his sister, she's supposed to know him, not be afraid of him.
"Not yet," he finally squeaks out, because he still doesn't know what to say or how to say it.
"That's okay." Lena just rubs his back, and it's like the ghost of a memory. He sighs, and blinks in the darkness. "I'll just sit here for a little, if that's okay. It's lonely, without Stef."
Jude understands. He's been lonely his whole life. He shifts a little, closer to the security of Lena's hand, warm and always gentle on his back.
"I'm lonely, too," he begins.