Hello hello hello...
I'm back with another one-shot! This was requested both by a friend on twitter and a reviewer for Coming To Terms so it seemed like a popular idea. It's basically an alternative version of Coming To Terms, but with Calling going to the Moms first rather than Mariana. Hope I did it justice! It seemed cute enough to me, at least.
Again, I will get round to Chapter 3 of Serendipity, but I am finding it hard where to go... I've planned out a few chapters now so things should hopefully go a bit smoother. Although, I wish I could tell you it will be worth the wait because it really won't be haha. I'm trying to write around the shows plot whilst also incorporating it and its hard to do without making it too boring. Hopefully it should be easier from now on though, since I do intend to go a different route once we get to after the rally. No spoilers.
As usual, feel free to review and leave any fic requests there, or send me a PM or anything on my other social medias (I listed them all in Coming To Terms and I can't be bothered to list them out again).
Stef and Lena were laid on their bed cuddling after long days at work when they heard a knock on their door. Lena looked up at her wife at the noise, their conversation brought to a halt.
It was a timid knock, so they could only assume it was Callie. Mariana just barged in without warning, and the boys all knocked rather loudly – especially Jesus.
"Come in, love," Stef called, letting her eldest daughter know it was okay to enter. The door opened carefully and quietly as the brunette's head popped up in the growing gap.
"Oh. Sorry. I can come back later," Callie apologised, going to close the door again as she saw her Mom's embracing on the bed.
"It's okay, sweets. We were just talking about nothing," the curly haired woman waved off, separating from her wife to create space between them for the girl, "come sit. Talk to me and Mom."
The young girl hesitated before she walked in, closing the door behind her. The two women watched as she seemed to stare at the door for a few moments before walking over, as if to build some courage up. Stef didn't miss the deep breath she took, too.
Eventually she clambered up onto the bed, positioning herself in the empty space between her two Moms. Her legs were crossed and her head looking down, her eyes focused on her twiddling thumbs.
Both women sat up then, wrapping an arm around her from each side.
"You okay, Callie bug?" The blonde woman asked as she moved aside a stray strand of her daughter's brown locks and tucked it behind her ear. She noticed her daughter seemed to be struggling a little bit with what she was about to say. After what felt like forever and a day, she finally started the conversation. With a question that caught both women a bit off guard.
"When did you know you were gay?"
Lena blinked her eyes at the question, reminded of when she had been asked the same question by the girl's younger sibling when they first came to stay with them. She never thought this was a conversation she was going to be having with the older girl in the future.
"Pretty early on in high school," she answered truthfully, "but not everyone works it out that young."
"It took me until I met Lena to come to terms with it," her wife answered, "I also had a feeling in high school, but obvious circumstances made me repress it."
Callie nodded before asking another question.
"How?"
The wives frowned at this question, trying to work out what she could mean by it. They both went to ask her, but Stef beat her wife to it, "What do you mean, love?"
"Like, how did you realise? How did it make you feel?" The teenager tried to explain, shaking her head when they both still looked a bit dumbfounded, "forget it. It was a stupid question."
Lena grabbed her daughter's arm and pulled her back down as she went to get up from the bed.
"No, it wasn't, sweets. I had just never really thought about it before," she admitted, "I guess it was when I first started developing crushes. They were all on other girls - never on the guys. I never really found boys attractive in that way, but I did with the girls."
She watched as her eldest daughter nodded, seeming to soak in the words that she said, before turning to her other mother expectantly.
"Uhhh... I don't really... know. I suppose. I thought girls were pretty and never really had much interest in guys, but my Dad put a stop to all that before I really had time to process anything," the cop recalled, "but once I met Lena I just couldn't stop thinking about her and did everything I could to do spend time with her because I just enjoyed her company."
The story caused her wife to laugh, reciting the many times that Stef would arrange parent-teacher meetings over nothing and stay for over half an hour some days, talking to her when she went to pick up Brandon. And when she needed a babysitter she always called on Lena, nattering away when it was time for him to go home. They knew it was kind of against the rules, but neither of them cared. They were young and in love.
After a brief trip down memory lane, silence encompassed the three women as Stef ran her fingers through her daughter's hair, and Lena stroked her upper arm with her thumb.
"Why do you ask, love?" The short haired woman asked after a while, knowing it was something both her and her wife were desperate to ask. It didn't seem like a random conversation the girl wanted to bring up. There was something behind it.
"Nothing. I just..." Callie sighed, "Ximena kissed me in the church."
The older women looked at each other with wide eyes at the confession. Stef had jokes about the two spending a lot of time together, almost as if they were dating, but she was never being fully serious. Lena had always waved her off and just said their girl had finally found a friend she felt comfortable to be herself around. Neither were quite expecting this.
"Okay," the principal processed, "how did you feel? How do you feel?"
"I don't know," her daughter sighed again, "that's the problem. I'm so confused. I didn't hate it. I liked it, and I think I like her, but I've never felt like this towards a girl before. Why haven't I felt this way before?"
"Oh baby," Stef breathed as a single tear slid down her daughter's cheek, "it's okay to be confused. There's nothing wrong with not knowing. It's okay. There's nothing wrong with you."
The two women squeezed their girl in a mama sandwich as she began to cry openly. It broke both of their hearts to see her so torn up about something like this. They had no idea she was questioning her sexuality, or how long for, but now they were aware they knew they would do everything they could to help her thorough it. To help her understand how she felt.
"I know," Callie said aloud once she had stopped crying, tear tracks dried on her cheek bones, "I know there's nothing wrong with girls liking girls. I just don't understand why it took me so long. Why have I never felt this way towards someone before? Why has it only ever been boys?"
"Love, you grew up way too fast," Lena spoke truthfully, "you had your childhood snatched away from you at 10 years old before you were even the age to start developing serious crushes. It never let you ever spend time thinking about who you might like and in what way."
"And even then," Stef added, "many people don't realise until they're older than others. They may have felt something toward someone of the same gender before, but never really thought much about it. Internalised homophobia and biphobia are real things."
"What do you mean?" The young girl questioned, confused as to what her Mom meant.
"Mom means that sometimes people tell themselves so much that it's impossible for them to be gay, that they lead themselves to believe it," the older woman explained, "they might begin to feel something towards someone else of the same gender but tell themselves that it's not what they think it is, or it's because of something else. Not because they're actually attracted to them."
She watched as her daughter thought about the words, indicating with a nod that she understood what she meant.
"I remember when Helen first introduced me to X. I remember thinking 'Oh wow. She's kinda cool. And hot'," Callie laughed, "but I didn't think much of it. I just thought it was because she intrigued me. I knew she was an interesting person just by looking at her and I liked that. I guess I kind of felt that a few times with other girls, but I always waved it off. And I never felt it as much as I did with Ximena."
Stef smiled, "At the end of the day love, you're gonna love who you're gonna love, and no one can do anything about that. You know me and Mama don't care who you want to be with, as long as you're happy and you accept yourself for who you are."
"I love you," the brunette beamed, "both of you. Thank you for being my Moms."
Lena squeezed her daughter at her words, "we wouldn't have it any other way, sweetheart."