The following night, Stef picked up Chinese food on the way home for dinner. While she and Lena unpacked the containers in the kitchen, Stef told her wife about what she'd found out during the day.

"I talked to Bill and to Trevor's parole officer," she explained. "So far, he seems to be doing well. He's in AA, he's done some construction work… His PO isn't worried about him."

"What did Bill say?"

"First off, he apologized for us not knowing that Trevor got paroled. He's trying to figure out how that happened."

Lena shrugged. "Too late now."

"Yeah, I know. But he doesn't see a reason to keep Callie and Jude from visiting if they want to. He recommended the same stuff as with Ana - pick a neutral location and the first meeting should be relatively short. I suggested doing it this weekend so that things don't get drawn out any longer for the kids."

"Good plan. Callie's got therapy on Saturday."

"And Jesus has volleyball that evening, and Brandon's with Mike on Sunday, I know." Their schedule was always challenging. "But lunch on Sunday could work. Bill's handling the communication for the moment, so he said he'd check with Trevor."

"Okay."

Brandon and Mariana came into the kitchen at that moment. "I'm starving!" she complained.

"Well, then set out plates, love," Stef told her. "Brandon, can you go round up the rest of the troops?"

"Sure." He went over to the bottom of the stairs. "Hey! Dinner's ready!" he yelled up to the second floor.

Stef rolled her eyes. "I could have done THAT, B."

Callie, Jesus, and Jude came down into the kitchen a minute later. Jude helped with setting the table, while Jesus grabbed a bottle of soy sauce from the shelf - and then took out a bottle of ketchup.

"Really?" Lena incredulously asked him. "What is that going to go on?"

"My fried rice," he replied, as though it were obvious.

"I want to try it," Jude piped up. Lena put her head in her hands, making everyone else laugh.

Once they were all seated and the food had been dished out to everyone's plates, Jesus put ketchup all over his rice, then handed the bottle to Jude.

"Why don't you taste it on a little bit first?" Stef suggested, already certain that this experiment wasn't going to end well.

"Okay." Jude put just a little of the condiment on his plate, then mixed in some of the pork fried rice and tasted it. The look of disgust on his face was absolutely priceless and sent the rest of the family into raucous laughter. "How can you eat that?!" he asked his big brother.

Jesus shrugged. "Tastes good to me," he replied before shoveling some of his rice into his mouth.

Stef got up from the table to grab a bottle of sriracha hot sauce. "This works much better," she told her youngest son.

Lena shook her head. "I give up. At least I'm not the one who made the food you guys are destroying."


From the kids' point of view, the best thing about getting takeout was that it made post-meal cleanup easier. They breezed through their chores and agreed to the moms' suggestion of having a board game night. Stef was heating up water for a couple mugs of tea when her cell phone buzzed, signalling that she'd gotten an e-mail.

"You are not allowed to look at work stuff," Lena told her when she noticed her wife reading something on the device's screen.

"It's not work," Stef replied. "It's from Bill. Trevor was available this weekend. 9th Street Diner at noon on Sunday."

"What's on Sunday?" Jude asked as he, Callie, and Brandon came into the kitchen to get the popcorn.

"You're going to have lunch with your father," Lena told him.

"If you're still interested in going," Stef amended.

Jude nodded. "I want to go."

"Okay."

"How about you, Callie?" Lena gently asked.

She shook her head. "I'm not going," she said before she turned to get the popcorn - and effectively left the conversation. Brandon followed her lead.

"Where are we going?" Jude asked his mothers.

"That old diner on 9th. You like their burgers, right?"

He nodded. "Yummy."

Lena smiled. "Good. Should be a nice little outing."


In the end, since Callie and Jude were split up on Sunday, the moms also decided to split up. Stef took Jude to meet his father while Lena stayed home with Callie. They wanted to make sure that both of the siblings had someone to support them.

When they arrived at the diner, Jude hesitated before getting out of the car. "Mom?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

"Are you mad at me?"

Stef turned to him, surprised. "For what, love?"

"Because I want to see my dad."

Stef sighed. Apparently she wasn't the only one struggling with how to make life work with both adoptive and biological parents. "No, my sweet. I'm not mad."

"Is Mama?"

"No, neither of us is upset."

"I really do love you," Jude promised. "And I'm glad I got adopted. If you don't want me to go, I won't. We can just go back home right now."

It was a tempting offer, but Stef knew that she couldn't take it. "No, love. We understand. This is something you feel you have to do. We will support you in whatever makes you happy." Jude slowly nodded. "Are you feeling a little nervous maybe?"

"Yeah… What if he doesn't like me?"

Stef kissed his forehead. "Then he's an idiot."


Back at the Adams-Foster house, Brandon had already left for his day with his own father, so it was just Callie and the twins. Callie had barely said two words to anyone in the family all morning and Lena knew that wasn't good for her.

"Hey, Cal?" she said as she came into the living room, where the three kids were watching TV. "Can we talk for a minute?"

"No, thanks."

Lena was surprised by that response. "What?"

"I know what you want to talk to me about, and I don't want to discuss it, so there's no need to go have a side chat upstairs or outside or whatever."

"Callie - "

"I said I don't want to talk about it!" she declared before leaving the room. The twins just stared at their mother for a long moment.

"I'm sorry about that, you guys," Lena finally told them with a sigh. She started to head toward the stairs to go find Callie, but Jesus stopped her.

"Hey, Mama? Let me talk to her, okay?"

"You sure you want to volunteer for that?"

Jesus nodded. "I think I've got some idea of what she's feeling right now."


TBC...