"Lena?" Monte asked, knocking at Lena's door tentatively. "Can I talk to you a sec?"

Lena looked up and nodded. She noticed that Monte shut the door behind her and straightened instinctively, expecting to talk about the situation with Gabe or orchestrating their official response to the lockdown.

Monte wordlessly handed her a piece of paper and sat across from her.

Lena, puzzled, took it from her and started to read.

Hi Monte,

I hope that you're doing well. I am writing to ask for the contact information of two students, seniors, that were somehow in Stasia's class during the lock-down. She said that her blood sugar got very low that day and she was very scared, but these students – Callie and Brandon, I think she said – looked after her and the other students. I would like to thank them personally myself. It's so nice to hear about such a young, responsible, and very capable couple. My daughter and her friend were very impressed with them.

I would also like to talk about how we can make sure that subs are more informed about events like this going forward. A couple of the other parents and I have been talking, and…

Lena stopped reading and looked up. She and Monte had already discussed better training for their pool of substitutes on lock-down protocol. It wasn't mandated by law, but it was just good sense. That's certainly not why Monte had printed this email and brought it to her rather than just forwarding it along.

Monte met her eyes without any judgment. This was a public situation now, and Monte knew about the accusations being made. She didn't know they were true. She didn't know that it had caused an emotional explosion in her house so massive that no one was protected from it. Well, perhaps Jesus.

But apparently this mother and her daughter didn't know that Brandon and Callie were supposed to be siblings.

Or maybe they just didn't care.

"I'll just leave this with you? You can contact her and set up something?" Monte didn't comment on the couple part.

Lena nodded, not knowing what else to say.

Monte looked like she might have something to say, but as had become her custom since Stef found out about the kiss, she nodded, turned, and went to leave.

"What does a 12-year-old girl see that I don't see?" It burst out of her.

Monte paused before turning around. She slowly went back to sitting across from Lena. "You know your kids, Lena."

"Apparently, I don't," Lena simply and sadly responded.

"So it's true." She didn't sound horrified or surprised.

Lena shook her head. "They're not a couple."

"But they were at some point?"

Lena looked away. She couldn't bring herself to think much about it, much less say it.

"You know your kids," Monte repeated. "People don't…" She paused, considering, and Lena had the distinct impression she was about to hear something she didn't want to hear. "In a crisis, people put their energy where it needs to go – to the crisis, which is exactly what they did. I hardly think they were making out during a lock-down! They probably just… have an easy short-hand or communication style. Like couples do. Kids pick up on those cues."

Lena slowly shook her head. "It wasn't the crisis." She took a deep breath. "It was the audience."

Monte said nothing, just raised her eyebrows in a silent question.

"When I saw them, I really could care less that they had lied to me. I just wanted them in my arms as quickly as possible." She took a breath. The memories were still so hard. In the back of her mind, before they knew Callie and Brandon were in the sub's room, she had considered that maybe, Callie and Brandon had somehow figured out that Mariana was in trouble because of Nick and gone after her. It would be just like them. She had considered the possibility that without even knowing it, she had lost all three of them.

"But Brandon wouldn't hug me until Callie was done. We're a group hugging family, but they didn't so much as brush hands that day."

"In front of you," Monte added, kindly but firmly, like she thought Lena was missing something important. "They didn't check in with each other over this massive and public embarrassment or about the lockdown in front of you."

Lena closed her eyes, clearly in pain.

Seeing this, Monte quickly said, "Lena, I'm sorry, I'll just go."

"No, stay… I need the outside perspective," Lena admitted. Lena could feel something in her brain shifting, even as a part of her fought it.

"You think they're protecting us," Lena spoke, hallow. "That this lie… it came from a place of protecting the family. So that's why when they're with us, they're different than how they are with each other alone, or even just around other people."

Why didn't you tell us?

We didn't want to destroy the family!

It was only more eerie that Brandon had responded the exact same way when asked the same question later.

Monte shrugged. "I think it's definitely a possibility. And of course protecting Callie's placement and adoption, too."

Callie's the one who said something, not Brandon. Self-preservation isn't a strong enough motivation for her, but protecting her was enough for him to keep it secret. Would they have EVER told us if not for Justina? (Were we better off not knowing?)

Lena's head was spinning. Again. "It's a lot of lies to forgive for good intentions, Monte. We can't give out extra credit for that. Stef and I haven't even gotten all the way down the rabbit hole with them. I don't even think we have the whole story yet."

Monte was silent.

Lena had known her long enough to know she was holding something back. "What?"

"Is it really the lying that bothers you, or is it the way they felt about each other? That is to say, do you even really want the whole story?"

Lena was reminded of why she had started a friendship with Monte in the first place. Monte was quickly able to get to the heart of matters, and she wasn't afraid to talk about it. But Lena had done everything possible to avoid thinking about that question, to avoid asking Stef that same question. Because if Brandon and Callie fell in love… If they can't make it stop…

We stopped everything, immediately.

Is that even possible? Lena questioned the Callie in her mind.

"It could just be attraction."

Monte shook her head gently, giving her a pitying look. "You know your kids," she said again, one final time, gently and meaningfully.

The implication was clear. Their compassionate and caring oldest children would never do something that would potentially hurt the family unless their feelings were real.

And if that was true, if they were in love or are in love, then they will never feel like siblings to each other.

We stopped everything, immediately.

How? Lena asked again. How is that possible? How can they just turn their feelings off?

Lena tried to imagine sleeping with someone and then realizing that it all had to stop the next day. Not just the sex, but the intimacy, the connection. She tried to imagine that neither she nor her partner (and she couldn't help but imagine it to be Stef) wanted to break up, but it all still had to stop. She tried to imagine that this person was also her best friend. She tried to imagine that this person also slept a room away from her.

The pain at just the thought was intense. Was that why Brandon left? This is what two of their kids had been living with?

"They've been in so much pain," Lena said in realization. It was like a light bulb.

"You'll fix it," Monte said, confident. Lena wished she had that same confidence.

"What are we doing if biology really is the be all end all to making a family?" Lena asked, desperate for an answer. At the heart of it, Callie and Brandon's emotional connection forced her to question the idea that DNA doesn't make a family. Maybe on some level it does, and that's the hardest pill to swallow for Lena.

Monte looked confused, like that was preposterous to even consider the idea that DNA was the only way to make a family. That comforted Lena somewhat. "You consider Stef family, don't you?"

The analogy was clear.

"They're very young, Monte," Lena said, almost scolding.

"It does happen, though. I have friends who have been together since high school. And even if they aren't together forever… You really want them to have regrets and what-if's this early in life?"

Lena didn't know what to say to that. What if they did someday decide that they wanted to be together despite the family's wishes? What if they lost Callie and Brandon over this someday?

Haven't they already almost lost Brandon, even though him and Callie aren't together anymore?

It's the fear of the unknown that's the worst, Lena realized suddenly. It's the not knowing how they felt, how they feel, what they'll do going forward, what they had before...

The only thing Lena was sure of at this moment is that she wanted to know everything, even if it hurt, even if it made part of her recoil because they're both her children in all the ways that matter.

If her love really was unconditional, as she and Stef have clearly been struggling to get across to Callie, then didn't that mean she had to find a way to accept the parts of Callie and Brandon that were drawn to each other as much as she accepted every other part of them?

"Thank you, Monte. I still don't know what we're going to do, but thank you."

"No problem."