A/N: Thanks again for the feedback! I really love hearing what you all think! :) This next part is a bit tedious...with a lot of boring medical junk...but I was just hoping to show how overwhelming it would be for Callie to sit in a doctor's office and try to process all of this new information. There's nobody but Callie, Stef, and Lena in this part but I promise the remaining Fosters will be making a reappearance in the next chapter. Despite the medical junk, I really hope you enjoy this...let me know what you think...

xxxxxx

Chapter 3: A New Alphabet

Two days after the diagnosis was official, Callie, Stef and Lena were seated in an exam room in the hematology wing of the local cancer center waiting to meet Callie's oncologist for the first time.

Callie was nervous but she was trying to pretend that she wasn't – the result was a mix of irritation and anstiness that hadn't gone unnoticed by either Stef or Lena. Callie's irritation was currently being directed at the form they'd given her to fill out. Lena had offered to fill it out for her but Callie had refused the offer with a much angrier than necessary, "I can do it myself," which she'd sheepishly apologized for seconds later, feeling bad even though Lena just waved her hand as if it were no big deal.

The first part of the form had been easy – name, date of birth, address, emergency contact. The second part about her medical history had been fairly easy as well – she'd had her tonsils taken out when she was seven, other than that, no surgeries and no major illnesses besides a bout of pneumonia when she was ten, which she was pretty sure wasn't the kind of major illnesses that they were talking about. She'd completely skipped the third section about family medical history – there was no box to check if you didn't even know who your birth father was. She was currently filling out the fourth and final part of the form, which asked her to rate on a scale of 0 to 10 how she was feeling today in several different categories. She started reading the questions out loud to Stef and Lena, "Are you depressed? Are you anxious? How is your appetite? Are you tired? Are you drowsy? Are you in pain?" She trailed off not finishing the extensive list and instead grumbled under her breath, "This is worse than group therapy."

Stef raised an eyebrow at her, having caught her words, "Is it really that bad?"

"Group therapy or this form?" Callie returned the raised eyebrow.

Stef shrugged, "I don't know. Either?"

It was Callie's turn to shrug as she turned her attention back to the form, circling zero in every category except for tiredness, where she circled a two, and appetite, where she circled a one – it might not be the exact truth but there was no way she was going to admit, on paper, to being anxious.

Callie had just finished filling out the form when the door to the exam room swung open, a young blonde woman stepping in.

"I'm April, one of the nurses who works with Dr. Lawson," the blonde woman greeted with a smile, "you must be Callie."

Callie nodded but offered no other greeting.

"And…" She turned her head towards Stef.

Taking the cue, Stef jumped in, "Stef."

"And I'm Lena," Lena followed.

"Nice to meet you all, although, as we usually say around here, I'm sorry that it had to be under these circumstances," April smiled at them all again before looking directly at Callie and asking, "Did you finish with the forms?" When Callie nodded, April reached for them. She spent a few minutes flipping through the pages – if she was surprised by the lack of details in the family medical history section, she didn't say so.

Once the forms had been placed in Callie's file, April pulled a chair up and sat down across from them and proceeded to ask a multitude of questions about how and when the symptoms leading to Callie's diagnosis had started – when Callie's one word answers were clearly insufficient, Lena jumped in to fill in the gaps. April also asked whether or not Callie had experienced any fevers, night sweats, or itchiness, symptoms she explained were generally associated with more extensive disease, to which the answer was thankfully no.

When April had finally run out of questions, she left the room to go and get the oncologist.

Dr. Lawson was a tall, thin man, with short brown hair and Callie was surprised by how young he looked. She didn't know why she'd assumed he'd be some old guy with white hair but she had.

Upon entering the room, Dr. Lawson immediately approached them, holding his hand out to shake first Callie's and then Stef and Lena's hands – a gesture Callie would later learn he liked to perform at each and every appointment. After the introductions were out of the way he pulled up a chair and sat beside April, facing them. "I imagine you have all kinds of questions," he started.

Callie shrugged but both Stef and Lena nodded.

"So, I'll do my best to explain everything. Your biopsy showed that you have Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I'm not sure how much you've read about Hodgkin's…" he trailed off, "but I want to start by telling you that it is curable in most cases…"

Callie blinked slowly, trying to keep her breathing even as he spoke. Curable. What a much nicer C word than cancer.

Dr. Lawson was still speaking in an even but warm tone, "With Hodgkin's, surgery to remove the cancer is not a viable treatment method. Since it's a blood cancer, we need to take a more systemic approach. What that means is that you're going to have at least four months of chemotherapy and possibly radiation…"

Everything the oncologist was saying Stef had already read, ad nauseum, on the internet but, still, hearing it from a doctor was much different than reading it on a computer screen. Actually hearing the oncologist say that Callie was going to need chemo, somehow made this whole nightmare real, and the resulting knot in Stef's stomach made her feel like she was going to be sick.

"I'm not going to get into specific treatment details too much today because, to some extent, the treatment plan we come up with is going to depend on your staging, which still needs to be determined," he paused, taking a breath and folding his hands in his lap before continuing, explaining, "To figure out staging we will need to do run a few additional tests. We'll do some blood work before you leave today. We'll get another CT scan to make sure we have the most up to date picture for comparison purposes before we start treatment. We'll also get a PET scan done, which is sort of like a CT scan but it uses a form of radioactive sugar to track down highly active cells. Basically, since cancer is highly active, the radioactive sugar tends to pool in cancerous areas. The PET scan will confirm that there is cancer in the places that we see swollen nodes on the CT scan and will also confirm whether or not there is cancer in any places that don't show up as swollen on the CT scan," Dr. Lawson knew that he was delivering a lot of technical information at once so he paused a few seconds, before finishing, "The last test we need to do is a bone marrow biopsy to check and see if the cancer has spread to your bones."

A bone marrow biopsy? Callie almost stopped breathing. She'd seen enough medical related TV shows to have placed bone marrow biopsy pretty high up on her list of medical procedures she never wanted to have done – the only thing really beating it on her list of dreaded medical procedures was that test that required a needle to be placed in your eye, not that she really knew what that one was for.

Even though her face was blank, Lena could sense that Callie hadn't liked something the oncologist had just said – she'd been fidgeting all morning but now she was barely breathing, let along moving. Lena reached for Callie's hand and squeezed it tightly in her own to remind her that she wasn't alone before asking Dr. Lawson, "When will these tests get done?"

"We'll schedule the CT scan and PET scan today and let you know the exact dates and times but it will definitely be within the next week. That way we can schedule another appointment for late next week to go over the results and the detailed treatment plan. As for the bone marrow biopsy, if Callie agrees, we'll do that right now," His eyes turned to Callie with his last words.

If Callie agrees? She wondered if that meant she could disagree. Could she suggest never as an alternative time?

Stef noticed that Callie looked paler than she had moments ago and she wasn't saying anything. Stef reached for Callie's remaining free hand and, like Lena had moments ago, she squeezed it to remind her daughter that she was right here to support her.

Callie swallowed thickly, but with the warmth of Stef and Lena's hands radiating in her own she found the courage she needed to nod, yes.

"Alright," Dr. Lawson folded his hands together, "unless you have any other questions I can answer right now, I'm just going to do a quick physical exam and then I'll step out for a minute so that April can get you ready for the bone marrow biopsy."

When neither Callie, Stef, nor Lena asked him any questions, he stood, waiting for Callie to get up on the exam table before performing a quick but thorough exam – feeling her neck and underarms, checking her spleen and abdomen, and listen to her lungs and heart.

Once Dr. Lawson left the room, April turned to Stef and Lena, "Do you remember where the waiting room is?"

"We can't stay?" Lena asked, glancing worriedly at Callie.

"No, I'm sorry," April apologized. It was really best not to have extra people, especially parents, in the room for these kinds of tests – parents didn't generally respond well to seeing what was essentially a metal rod being jabbed into their child's hip bone.

Lena sighed but she nodded getting up. Stef was a little more hesitant to get up but eventually, when Lena held her hand out to her, Stef stood, taking the offered hand. Although Lena had been the one to offer her hand, Stef was the one to lead the way towards the door. She did, however, stop momentarily beside the exam table where Callie was still sitting to plant a kiss on the side of Callie's head before continuing towards the door.

Before leaving the room Lena looked back at Callie a final time, "See you soon sweetheart."

Bye mama was on the tip of Callie's tongue but instead she mumbled, "Mmhm." She vaguely remembered calling Lena mama in the recovery room after her biopsy but without the influence of drugs she couldn't quite bring herself to do it now – the thought of saying it out loud terrified her actually, it was too big of a step.

Now alone in the room with April, Callie bit her lip nervously.

"It's okay," April told her, patting Callie's arm to try and calm her obvious fear before asking her to roll onto her side.

Once Callie had rolled over onto her side, April draped a sheet over her and, as instructed, Callie rolled her pants down and her shirt up, exposing her lower back. April left the room after that to go and get Dr. Lawson.

Lying on her side on the narrow bed waiting for her oncologist to come back in the room, Callie moved her hand so that the knuckle of her thumb was resting against both her bottom lip and her teeth, and her index finger was brushing up against her nose. The motion calmed her, although not quite as much as she would have liked. She tried to ease her fear by reminding herself that she was no stranger to pain – this procedure couldn't be much worse than some of the beatings she'd taken in previous foster homes. It wasn't the most successful strategy for calming fears but it was better than nothing.

Thankfully she wasn't lying there long before Dr. Lawson and April came back into the room.

Dr. Lawson smiled gently at her before moving behind her and pulling the sheet back. April brushed her hand soothingly along the top of Callie's head a moment, whispering, "Just breathe, okay?" before moving into place to assist Dr. Lawson.

The test itself was relatively short and Dr. Lawson talked her through the whole thing. He explained that he was using a local anesthetic to freeze the area where he would insert the hollow needle but added softly and apologetically that there was no way to freeze the bone. The needle he used to inject the local anesthetic stung much more than Callie had anticipated and she sucked in a breath, pushing harder on her teeth with the knuckle of her thumb.

Moments later, when the site was numb, Dr. Lawson explained that he was inserting the hollow needle. There was a lot of pressure and Callie almost wished she could see what exactly her oncologist was doing – it felt like he might be pushing with all of his strength and if that indeed was what he was doing, she thought it would be quite comical to see. Despite the pressure, she was surprised to find that there wasn't nearly as much pain as her horrified brain had imagined there would be.

Once the hollow needle had been pushed in far enough, Dr. Lawson completed the first step of the biopsy – aspirating the fluid in the bone marrow using a syringe. Even if he hadn't been explaining everything that was happening, Callie would have known instantly that the fluid had been removed – the feeling was like no feeling Callie had ever experienced, her head tingled as if electrified. She was still getting over the shock of the strange new feeling when Dr. Lawson completed the final step of the biopsy – removing a sample of solid bone marrow tissue.

"All done," April was the one to soothe as Dr. Lawson removed the hollow needle and place a bandaid over the site.

Even though the test was done, Callie was hesitant to move.

"Do you want to see the sample?" Dr. Lawson asked.

The question startled Callie and her hesitation to move was replaced with curiosity. She removed her hand from where it had been resting comfortingly against her mouth and nose and twisted her head so she could see the vial that he was holding up. She was surprise to find that it looked like red pencil lead – she didn't know why but she'd expected it to be white.

Smiling at Callie, Dr. Lawson told her, "I've got to get this stuff down to the lab. I'll see you next week, okay?"

Callie returned her oncologist's smile with a small smile of her own, "Okay."

xxxxxx

After April got Callie cleaned up she pointed her in the direction of the waiting room.

Callie walked stiffly towards Stef and Lena.

Seeing her Stef and Lena both immediately bounced up, closing the distance between them.

"How was it?" Stef asked.

"How are you?" Lena asked at nearly the same time.

Callie shrugged, "It was fine. I'm fine."

Stef raised her eyebrow at her, "Fine? Seriously? Sometimes I worry that's the only word you know, Sweets." Stef's words were delivered lightly but they carried a great deal of truth. She didn't really want to push hard when she knew that Callie was having a rough day but at the same time she knew that the months ahead were going to be worse not better – she wasn't sure they would survive if all Callie ever had to say about anything was that she was fine.

"It was fine. Seriously," Callie grumbled, shoving her hands in her pockets.

"Callie…" Lena hummed softly, not wanting an argument to start but also understanding where Stef's words had come from – sometimes talking to Callie felt like talking to a brick wall. "Are you honestly okay, sweetheart? It didn't seem like you were walking normally a moment ago."

Callie stared directly at Lena for several moments. She thought maybe if she stared long enough without saying anything Lena would let it go but the woman didn't seem to be budging. Callie sighed, pulling her hands out of her pocket and running one of them through her hair. "I'm just a bit stiff," she conceded quietly, hating to admit anything that suggested she was anything but perfectly fine. When Lena kept staring, she added, even quieter, "Honestly, it really didn't hurt as much as I thought it would."

Lena smiled at Callie then, "okay. Thanks."

Stef suppressed a chuckle, draping an arm around Callie's shoulder, "Now was that so hard?"

Callie's response was a shrug but this time Stef let her get away with, glancing in Lena's direction as she declared, "I don't know about you two but I'm starving."

xxxxxx

Over the next week, as Dr. Lawson had said she would, Callie went for another CT scan as well as her first PET scan. The tests were pretty uneventful – although she discovered that the drink they made her consume for the PET scan was mixed with room temperature tap water and tasted ten times worse than the orange mystery drink they used for the CT scan. All that was left to do after those tests were complete was wait to go back to cancer center to find out what the verdict was. Before that could happen though, Stef and Lena had another test to go to – just the two of them.

Lying on the exam table with Stef standing beside her holding her hand, Lena watched as the ultrasound technician squirted cold gel onto her belly before pulling out the ultrasound wand.

As the technician moved the wand back and forth across Lena's belly, she motioned to the screen, pointing out the baby's head.

Lena watched the screen in awe, squeezing Stef's hand but not looking away, completely enamored with the flickering picture of her unborn child. She could have watched that imagine forever but eventually the ultrasound technician pulled the wand away from her belly and the image disappeared.

It wasn't until the image was gone that Lena glanced over at Stef, surprised at what she saw. "Are you…Stef are you crying?" Lena asked blinking over at her wife in disbelief.

Stef wiped at her eyes, trying to control the tears, "I just…that's our baby." She said the word baby like it was the first time she had ever uttered it.

Lena smiled softly at Stef, their eyes locked, the words our baby floating like music in her ears.

The technician cleared her throat, clearly feeling bad about interrupting the moment. Lena stared at Stef a moment longer before glancing slowly over at the technician.

The technician held up a printout, "I have a snapshot of the ultrasound for you."

Stef smiled widely, through still glistening tears, taking the printout from the technician.

"Alright," the technician said then, "That's everything. I'll leave you to get change."

"Thanks," Lena called softly as the technician left the room. Once the woman was gone, she glanced back at Stef.

Stef was brushing her thumb against the image of their unborn child, fresh tears rolling slowly down her cheek.

"Give me that, before you get it all wet," Lena instructed softly, reaching for the printout but instead of taking it she just brushed her thumb along the back of Stef's hand. She dropped her voice, whispering, "Honey, please tell me what's wrong."

"I just…I love you so much Lena," Stef started, her eyes locking with her wife's.

"I love you too Stef," Lena murmured, continuing the rub her thumb along the back of Stef's hand, encouraging her to continue.

"I love you so much and you're growing this whole new person inside of you that I already love more than words could ever describe…" Stef wiped at her eyes with her free hand, "…and it just makes me…I just keep thinking that for the next seven months while our baby grows bigger and stronger inside of you, Callie will be…our Callie will…" Stef couldn't bring herself to finish the thought, let alone speak it out loud. Seven months from now she had no idea exactly what state Callie would be in but she did know that the months ahead were going to be difficult ones. She didn't know yet exactly what chemo would steal from Callie but she couldn't picture her beautiful, strong, daughter escaping unscathed – howcould she when they were about to pump poison through her veins?

Tears filled Lena's eyes then too – just when she'd thought she had finally stopped crying over Callie's diagnosis. "Stef…oh, honey…"

Seeing the tears in Lena's eyes, Stef immediately stepped forward and crushed her wife into the tightest hug she could offer.

"She's going to be okay, right?" Lena whispered almost inaudibly into Stef's shoulder.

"She has to be," Stef's broken voice responded. Moments passed and then she spoke again, her words stronger, "We're going to make sure that she is."

Stef knew that there were some things that they couldn't control – the things she tried not to let herself think about – but there were thing that they could do. They could support Callie through whatever was coming next and they could make sure that she felt more loved than she'd ever felt before.

xxxxxx

On a Friday, two days after Lena's ultrasound, Callie, Stef, and Lena were back sitting in the exam room in the hematology wing of the cancer center, Dr. Lawson was sitting across from him.

"I have good…sorry…I mean decent news," Dr. Lawson, smiled apologetically at Callie at the slip, before continuing, "there hasn't been much change since your last CT scan and the areas that lit up on the PET scan correspond with the areas showing visible disease on the CT scan. There also doesn't appear to be any disease in your organs and your bone marrow biopsy came back negative."

Stef sat up straighter, relieved to hear that the cancer hadn't spread to Callie's organs or her bones. "So…what does that mean staging wise?"

Dr. Lawson smiled, "It means that it's still early stage – specifically 2A." When Callie blinked confused, he added, "the A just means you don't have fever or night sweats. The 2 means that your cancer is on one side of your diaphragm but it's in more than one spot."

Callie nodded, understanding, but not saying anything.

Lena watched Callie carefully. She kept hoping that Callie would find her voice, that she would ask questions, but when she didn't, Lena spoke for her, "What will treatment entail?"

"Well, we have two options. Either just chemo or chemo followed by radiation. I'll set up a meeting with our radiation oncologist for some time in the next few weeks for you to discuss it with him but my original inclination is to say that for someone your age we should avoid radiation. There are possible late effects that could be caused by radiation that I prefer to avoid if possible," Dr. Lawson explained, folding his hands in front of him. "Regardless, what we will do is give you two cycles of chemo and then we will do another PET and CT scan to re-evaluate. If everything looks good, you will only need 2 more cycles after that just to make sure we got everything."

"And if it doesn't look good?" Stef reached for Callie's hand as she asked the question, squeezing it tightly in her own. She hated to ask the question but she needed to know the answer.

Dr. Lawson took a breath, watching them carefully as he answered, "It depends on what exactly the results show but possibly more cycles or a different kind of chemo."

Callie tilted her head as she finally asked a question, "what is a cycle?"

If Dr. Lawson was surprised to hear Callie speak, he didn't show it. "The kind of chemo you will be getting is called ABVD. Each letter stands for one of the drugs you'll be getting. Adriamycin, Bleomycin, Vinblastine, and Dacarbazine," he paused a moment.

Callie blinked slowly, taking this new information in. ABVD? Like almost the alphabet? What happened to C? She supposed it being the almost alphabet would make it easy for her to remember.

"ABVD gets administered every two weeks," Dr. Lawson continued, "and, here's the tricky part, every cycle includes two treatments."

"So…" Callie frowned, doing the math, "Every cycle is a month? And four cycles is eight treatments?"

"That's right," Dr. Lawson nodded.

Lena ran her hand over the back of Callie's hand, tilting her hand in the oncologist's direction as she asked, "What about side effects?"

Dr. Lawson nodded again. Having anticipated the question, he pulled out the information sheets he'd brought with him, handing them to Callie, who blinked down at them and then immediately handed them off to Stef.

"If you look through those they have a pretty extensive list of side effects but the most prevalent will likely be nausea. You'll be leaving today with a number of prescriptions for anti-nausea medications that should help with that. I'll also be giving you a prescription for a medication to protect your kidney's during your first treatment," He explained before pulling out another handout, following Callie's previous lead and handing it to Stef, "This package goes over some of the things to look out for while you're on chemo. Specifically, you'll have to watch carefully for any sign of a fever because the chemo will compromise your immune system."

Everyone nodded and Stef clutched onto the package like it was gold – she would be sure to read this material cover to cover until she had it memorized.

"What about fertility?" Lena asked. She noticed the way the question caused Callie to blush and she wished it hadn't but she didn't regret asking. Callie might be too uncomfortable to even say the word sex out loud right now but someday she might want to have children and Lena wanted to make sure that the doctor had at least considered this option – she couldn't assume that he had.

Dr. Lawson nodded, not bothered by the question at all. "With ABVD the risk to fertility is pretty low. Given that, I wouldn't recommend egg collection because the process takes a few weeks and we really shouldn't delay the start of treatment any further." He directed his next words directly at Callie, "You might experience temporary menopause during treatment but things should go back to normal once treatment is finished."

Callie blushed further ducking her head.

Dr. Lawson noticed the girl's reaction so he moved along, "Do you have any other questions?"

Callie looked back up. There was one question pressing at the back of her mind but she hesitated to ask it. She bit her lip, chewing on it a moment before finally asking barely above a whisper, "Will I lose my hair?"

Dr. Lawson pursed his lips, nodding his head slowly, "Unfortunately, yes, it's more than likely." His voice was filled with sympathy.

Callie didn't react outwardly, or at least she didn't think that she did, but inside her mind was screaming. She'd known that chemo basically meant hair loss but actually hearing it was like a punch to the stomach. She knew logically that it was just hair and that it would grow back but it didn't stop her from feeling horrified at the idea of it all falling out.

Stef felt Callie flinch, although just barely, beside her and she squeezed her hand tighter.

"Any more questions?" Dr. Lawson prompted once more.

Callie's mind was still stuck on the high probability of hair loss, so even if she'd had more questions, there was no way she would be able to formulate them now.

Stef and Lena were also both out of questions – at least until they read more carefully through the material that he'd given them.

"Okay, so all that's left is to pick a date for your first chemo. Does next Wednesday work for you?" Dr. Lawson directed this question at all three of them.

Callie stared at him, slightly horrified at the date he was proposing. Five days from now? Did it really have to be so soon? She knew that the only way to get this thing done and over with was to start treatment but still she couldn't help but wish that her first chemo could be postponed indefinitely. Her first chemo – that still sounded so strange. Right now everything felt surreal but she was sure that once she actually started treatment it would get real, real fast.

Lena felt Callie tense beside her and she patted her knee, answering for her, "Wednesday is fine."

Stef nodded her agreement and, after a round of handshakes, Dr. Lawson left them.

"Well…" Stef filled the silence that had overcome them.

Callie turned her head slowly to look at Stef.

"What do you think, sweets? Time to go home?" Stef finished, reaching over and brushing at Callie's hair, trying not to frown at the sudden realization that she probably wouldn't be able to perform this soothing gesture for much longer.

Callie nodded slowly. There had been much too much information to take in and she needed time to process it. Home sounded good.