Disclaimer: I don't own the Fosters, only the plot and any characters you don't recognize from the show.
Author's Note: First off, my sincerest apologies for the delay. Between school and writer's block, this just wasn't happening. Second, thank you to all who reviewed! Every time I see a new review, it brightens my day. I love you all! But it seems like you all are just as conflicted as I am on where you want to see this go. Out of the 16 of you who voted, 9 of you said "go home" and 7 said "more drama". That's not quite fifty-fifty, but it's close. I don't think any of you will be happy with this, but here you go, the longest chapter yet. (Read the note at the end too, please.)
Chapter 8: Departure
"So, Callie," Dr. Finch said. "You've been here for four days now. How do you feel?" It was Friday morning, and Callie's usual therapy session had been moved to the later morning in order for Dr. Finch to evaluate her readiness to leave.
"Better," Callie offered.
"I need more than that, Callie. I need you to be honest with me, really honest. You've come far in the last few days. It's time to start looking at your future. You have a few options right now, and your input matters. You could stay here longer. We could move you to a treatment center, someplace more comfortable than a hospital. You could begin outpatient therapy. But no matter where you go, therapy is going to be a part of your immediate future."
"Outpatient? You mean, at home?"
"Yes."
"With the Fosters? Will Bill let me?"
"He'll be here in a little while. You'll have a chance to ask him that yourself."
"Here?"
"Yes. He's decided that, since it's so close to your release, it's time for him to talk to you. I've spoken with him on a phone several times, to keep him updated on your progress. He has also spoken with Stef and Lena, and visited Lena and the kids yesterday. Now it's time for him to see you."
"Oh." That one little word was all Callie could manage. She could feel her heart starting to pound in her chest, and her breathing speed up. It wasn't that she didn't like Bill; as caseworkers went, he wasn't so bad. A little overbooked, perhaps, but it always seemed like he actually tried, which was more than she could say about some of the others. This...anxiety – therapy certainly had increased the breadth and accuracy of her knowledge and vocabulary – was more because he had the power to determine her fate. The Fosters, a group home, another foster home, back to juvie? She had broken the terms of her parole, after all, by running away, even if she hadn't actually left the state, splitting from Wyatt near the border.
"Callie?" Dr. Finch prompted, seeing the conflict playing across the teen's face. "Let me in. Tell me what you're thinking."
Callie stayed quiet, overwhelmed. All the fears about her future rushed up, to press down on her shoulders and chest. What was going to happen? It wasn't a thought she had had too often in here. The hospital had been like a bubble, cut off from the world, with an order and a schedule that could be counted on. The only uncertainties were if someone was coming to visit over lunch and when she would get out. Sure, she knew objectivity that there might be some issues about her going back, but the reality of it hadn't sunk back in.
She realized Dr. Finch was talking. "...by surprise."
"Sorry, what?"
"I said, I realize Bill's visit seems to have caught you by surprise."
"You could say that."
"We have a little time to prepare for it, and I can stay with you while he talks to you, if you'd like."
"Aren't you busy?"
"It's penciled into my planner, but I thought I'd leave it up to you."
"Yeah, maybe."
"We'll just see how you feel when he arrives, shall we?"
"Okay." They sat in silence for a while, and Callie could feel Dr. Finch's eyes on her. She tried to slow her breathing, hide her reactions. It was her ingrained response, to hide what she was feeling. If they don't know, they can't use it to hurt you. But try as she might, she just wasn't good enough to fool a trained professional.
Dr. Finch sighed. "Callie, at the beginning of this session, I asked you to be completely honest with me. Do you recall why?"
"You need to figure out what to do with me."
"And?"
"My input matters."
"Precisely. I can see that Bill's visit is causing you some anxiety. I can't cancel on him, since you are technically his charge, but if you talk to me about it, maybe I can help reduce your fears."
Callie considered this for a long moment. "My fate is ultimately in his hands," she finally said.
"And that worries you?"
"He could put me in a group home, send me back to juvie, put me in another foster home with a set of crappy foster parents."
"Like Stef and Lena?"
"God, no! They're good ones. They're great ones. But good foster parents are, like, an endangered species or something."
"I don't know if that's quite the best analogy, but that does seem to have been your experience."
"My life is a file and a government check. I carried mine and Jude's belongings from house to house in a trash bag for the first few years. A lot of our stuff become trash. We were trash." She paused, like she was going to say more, and Dr. Finch decided to just wait her out. "Stef and Lena, they're the first ones who treated me and Jude any differently."
"Differently how?"
"Like we were real people."
"I see."
"Is that all you can say?" Callie started to become agitated. "'I see'.' What's that, some sort of shrink cop-out? How can you see? It was all fucked up!" She felt angry. Here she was, talking, being honest, and all the woman said was, 'I see'?
"You're right, it was." Dr. Finch's calm acceptance of her outburst and agreement with Callie's analysis of her life deflated her sails immediately.
"I'm sorry," she said, hanging her head and sinking back into the couch. "You didn't deserve that. You're only trying to help. I shouldn't have sworn."
"It's alright, Callie. Getting angry at your therapist is pretty normal, actually. To be honest, I'm happy to see you showing, and owning, your emotions. You can't keep in all inside you, it's not healthy."
"It's safer." Her voice was quiet.
"What do you mean by that?"
"If they don't know, they can't use it to hurt you."
"You find showing your emotions a point of vulnerability?"
"Isn't it?"
Dr. Finch sighed. "As much as I would like to tell you otherwise, yes, it can be. Some people will use everything and anything to their advantage and sometimes to your detriment. And yes, you can end up hurt. But that's some people and some times. Not everyone is like that. And if you don't let it out, don't vent, don't let other people see you for who you are, it'll all built up and you'll explode."
"Like an overfilled helium balloon?"
"Precisely. But on that topic, the healthy method for dealing with that build up is not cutting."
"You've said that before."
"Yes, I have. But we're getting off topic."
"Right. Bill. And what's to become of me."
"This may seem like it's also off-topic, but I have a question I want you to think about. Think, really think, before you give me an honest answer. Take some time, I'm patient. Alright?" Callie nodded. "If you woke up tomorrow, and all your problems were magically gone, what would your life look life?"
Callie couldn't help herself. "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously. Did you think I was joking?"
"No, I mean, yes, I mean, I don't know. It's just, like you're asking me to describe my fairy tale."
"So be it. Tell me your fairy tale."
Callie sat back against the couch, thinking. This was not something she had ever asked herself before. Her fairy tale. Well, for one, Jude would be safe, happy, somewhere he was loved and allowed to develop into the special man she knew he could become. But her? She went deeper into her thoughts. Her problems. She could say they stemmed from the death of her mother and the imprisonment of her father. If that whole car accident miraculously disappeared, her family would still be together. She was about to tell Dr. Finch that, so what if it was impossible currently, but another thought stopped her. Her father's drinking. She didn't have the idyllic family from movies; the problems with her family started long before the car accident. A memory flashed before her eyes, of herself picking up beer bottles off the floor, her father on the couch snoring, her mother's black eye, a baby Jude screaming in another room, both of them rushing to soothe him before he woke their father up . She couldn't have been more than five. Another memory, a year later, holding her hands over Jude's ears as she listened to her parents fighting about money. Yeah, her problems go back further than that car accident.
She looked up at Dr. Finch, who was pushing papers around, not seeming like she was in a hurry at all. She fell back into her mind, her thoughts, her memories. So what if it wasn't idyllic? It was still her family. No car accident, no getting tossed around foster homes, no Olmsteads, no juvie...no Fosters? A pause. She was considering a life, a fairy tale, in which she had never met the Fosters. As much as she would like to convince herself, "well, you'd never have known them, so you can't miss them", she was unsuccessful. They had been the first glimmer of light in the darkness of her life, offered her the first place she and Jude had actually been safe, not fearful of life or limb. They'd even helped her save Jude, and not thrown them out because she'd endangered both Stef and Brandon's lives. The gun...
The thought of one gun led to another gun. Stef was shot. She had been shot because she had gone into a risky situation under the belief that her child was in danger. That time, she had actually been shot. The time before, when Callie led Brandon there, nobody was shot. It so could've gone the other way. And as much as she would like to convince herself that Stef's sole purpose was protecting Brandon, she couldn't forget the look in Stef's eyes in that house as she was hugging Jude. She was looking at Callie, and at Jude whom she hadn't met, and not just at Brandon, her son. Stef was a protector. She had felt that in that moment and later, the last time just yesterday, reflecting on the minutes she had spent in Stef's arms. She still doubted herself, and Stef, but she was beginning to admit to herself that she longed for more moments like that. For those few brief moments, it felt like the weight of the world was not on her shoulders, that someone else was sharing the load.
What if that could be her life? What if her fairy tale wasn't focused on fixing the problems of her past, but on the possibilities of her future? When she had run away, it had all just been too overwhelming. She wasn't prepared to be wanted again, after being treated like trash for so long. She wasn't prepared for family, for a home, for all that. She didn't know it then, but she'd done a lot of thinking over the last few days. It was confusing, all emotions being jumbled up together, with Wyatt and Brandon and Talya and family and Jude and belonging and the wedding and grandparents and all that. Too much, far too much, so she split, figuring it was the best idea for everybody. And she still wasn't 100% convinced it wasn't. But it seemed like running away had caused more problems for them, not less, as she had intended. And they seemed willing to put up with so much more. Dare she believe it? She thought about singing to Stef. And she thought about the song Stef sang to her. And finally, she decided, for once in her life, to just hope for the best possible outcome, hope that she wouldn't get hurt again, hope that they wouldn't let her down. And in doing so, she knew that if she let these walls down, it would hurt every so much more if/when it didn't work out. It could destroy her. But then again, there's always the dream of flying.
"Home," she said.
Dr. Finch looked up. "Could you repeat that, a little louder?"
"Home," she said again. "Family. Belonging. That's my fairy tale."
"Care to add any details? You were thinking a while."
"I thought about what you said, about having my problems disappear. I thought the root of it was the car accident and losing my mom and getting put into foster care, but then it wasn't all fun and games before that, either. And then, thinking on it some more, it occurred to me, that perhaps, my fairy tale isn't supposed to be focused on fixing the problems of my past, but on the possibilities of my future." Does that make any sense?"
"It makes a lot of sense. It's very mature."
"I mean, it seems a little too happily-ever-after, you know?"
"That's not a bad thing. When you think of home and family in your happily-ever-after, who do you picture sharing it with?"
"With Jude. And..." she paused, knowing that if she said it aloud, it would become real.
"And?" Dr. Finch prompted.
"And the Fosters. Stef and Lena as my moms. Mariana as my sister. Jesus, Brandon, and Jude as my brothers. I think Jude likes having older brothers."
"Adoption."
"Yeah."
"What about Brandon?" The question, though vague, was pointed and Callie immediately knew what she meant.
"You know about Brandon?" Callie asked, flushing red.
"Your moms told me. And you mentioned it, in that song of your's."
"Oh, right."
"Right. Adoptive siblings aren't allowed to be in relationships. I know you know this."
"I do."
"So, what are you planning on doing about it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you intend to go through with the adoption, and have a relationship on the side?"
"No."
"Really?" Dr. Finch seemed skeptical. Callie figured she would too, if their roles were reversed.
"Really. I still haven't figured out my feelings, whether I had real feelings for him, if it was a crush, if it was because he was nice and kind and into me, whether my history with...Liam...had anything to do with it. It's messy and all so confusing."
"I can understand that."
"But, you asked me what I wanted my life to look like. Home. Family. There's a family out there that wants me, for some unfathomable reason. It's my shot, my best shot at belonging somewhere again. Jude's too, but they said they'd keep him anyway. Stef told me they'd work something out if I wanted, like adopt Jude and keep fostering me until I was 18, so I'd have a place to stay, and then Brandon and I could try a relationship if we wanted. And I thought about that, I did. But let's be real here. We're 16. Forever doesn't usually last very long in relationships when you're 16. And I have yet to have a real relationship. I mean, there was Liam, but I don't count that."
"You shouldn't."
"And then there was Wyatt, but we were really just flirting. And then there was that complete mess with Brandon. And maybe, just maybe, if it had been all butterflies and rainbows and unicorns and fireworks and all that when I kissed him, maybe I'd think about pursuing it. But it wasn't. And he's a pretty good brother, from all I've seen. Yeah, maybe he's a little impulsive when he's hurt and angry, but he owns up to it and apologizes later."
"That is mature of him."
"I want a family. I want a home. I want a place to belong. I want stability in my life. I'll figure out real relationships when I'm older and more stable in my life, when I can trust I won't be somewhere new in six months."
"I can get behind that plan."
"So?"
"So what?"
"I answered your question. I gave you my fairy tale. What does this have to do with Bill? Are you going to tell him all this?"
"I will give him my recommendation, but so will you. And speaking of Bill, he should be here in about five minutes," Dr. Finch said, checking the clock. "Is there anything else you want to talk about before he arrives?"
"Will you tell me your recommendation, or is that not allowed in the therapy world?"
"I spoke with Stef the first day they came," she said, a seeming non sequitur. "She wanted to know about you going home. I told her I would let go under three conditions. One, you were no longer a danger to yourself, at least, no longer suicidal. Two, you were under the care of an outpatient therapist. Three, you were supervised by an adult, as in not left home alone or with other kids, not watched like a hawk 24/7, until your outpatient therapist deemed it appropriate."
"Those were your requirements to let me go home to them?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"Callie, recovery is a process, not perfection. You tell me, but I don't think you are actively considering suicide at the moment. Are you?"
"No."
"Is it still in your mind?"
She dropped her head, whispering, "Yes." Looking back up quickly, she noticed Dr. Finch had no visibly reacted to her confession. "But not now. Like, as a possibility if things go really far south, but I don't have any plans."
"I can accept that. As I said, recovery is a process. Thank you for your honesty. It is because of that, that I am willing to sign off on the first requirement. It is also because of that, that the other two requirements are in place. Both of which Stef and Lena agreed to. So, in my mind, there is no real problem in sending you home to them today."
"Today." She breathed the word, like she was gently releasing a ladybug into the air with a wish.
"Today."
"But what about Bill?"
"That is the question. You asked me what my recommendation was. Now, we'll just have to convince him that going home to the Fosters is what is best for you. Are you with me?"
"Yes."
The phone rang. "Excuse me," Dr. Finch said to Callie, answering it. "Yes?" A pause. "Alright, you can send him in." She hung the phone up. "He's here."
Bill walked in the door. "Good morning, Dr. Finch," he said.
"Good morning."
He turned to Callie. "Good morning, Callie. How are you?"
"Better than I was a few days ago. How are you?"
"I'm fine. But we're here to talk about you. I have spoken with Dr. Finch, with Stef and Lena Foster, and with the other kids in the house, including your brother Jude. And while they all say positive things, I must admit, I am concerned. They offered to adopt you and your brother. You attended their wedding. You ran away. You were missing several days. You were found on a bridge, indicating a desire to give up your life. You've been in a psychiatric hospital a few days. Now, the Fosters are telling me that they want you back, your doctor says that it's a good place for you, and yet, you ran away from them shortly after they told you they wanted to adopt you. That tells me a different story."
"May I speak?" Callie asked.
"Of course. That is why I'm here. I'm here to see what you have to say, because it falls to me to protect your best interests."
"I'm sorry, but I can't trust that. I know you tried, but Jude and I were in a bunch of really bad homes. Homes you put us in."
"This is my fault, then?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm not saying that. You worked with the information you had, probably boiled down in the same kind of clean sentences you just summed up my last two weeks with. But it wasn't the whole story then. The whole story was that our last foster father had a gun and beat Jude. Or that the previous family had a son interested in younger girls."
"That's not what the law says, Callie," he says. His tone holds neither admonishment nor gentleness. It is simply a statement of fact.
"Yeah, maybe, because no one ever believes kids, especially foster kids. I know, the system's there to put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies until we hit 18, but it's a joke that they're called 'foster homes'. As I told Dr. Finch here, a foster kid is nothing but a file and a government check."
"Callie, that's not true."
"Really? That judge took one look at my file, saw I was a foster kid who'd been in a bunch of homes and even had a stint in juvie, looked at Liam, saw the typical white guy next door, and threw out my case."
"Is that why you ran?"
"No."
"Then why?"
"Stef and Lena were the first people who treated us differently. They treated Jude and I like we were people, like we were kids. That was the first house you put me in that I actually felt we were safe, that no one hurt us, or neglected us, or made us feel inferior. And they even wanted to keep us, permanently."
"So why did you run from that, if it was so good?"
"Because it scared the hell out of me."
"I don't understand."
"Dr. Finch says I have trust issues, that most foster kids do. She says that when nothing but bad happens to you for a long time, you have a hard time trusting the good when it arrives. And this was good, these were good people, and I figured I was the bad luck penny that would ruin their lives. Bad stuff always seemed to happen around me, and Jude would get caught in the cross-fire. I thought I'd cause less trouble if I ran. It was stupid, I know that now."
Dr. Finch added, "I have seen a lot of growth in Callie in the short time I've been working with her. In my professional opinion, I'm not sure she knew why she ran when she did, and that only through therapy and some intense introspection, has she finally started to realize it."
"Hmm." Bill said, looking thoughtful. "Well, Callie, where do you want to go from here?"
"I want to go home."
"Home?"
"To the Fosters. I want this not to have happened. I want them to adopt me, and have a home and a family." She smiled at Dr. Finch as she said this.
"You've certainly given me something to think about."
"So?"
"So what?"
"What happens next?"
"I have to make a few phone calls. But first," he said, turning to Dr. Finch, "you said Callie may be ready for release today?"
"Yes, with outpatient therapy and supervision, I feel like she is no longer an immediate threat to herself, and certainly no threat to anyone else. If it matters, I discussed it with Stef and Lena Foster, and they've agreed to both outpatient therapy and supervision."
"Hmm. Well, in that case, I'm still in charge of her, so you can release her into my care, yes?"
"Yes."
"So be it. Callie, you're coming with me. I have to be back in San Diego soon anyway, so I'll give you a ride."
"To where?"
"I said, I have to make a few phone calls first. My supervisors think you're a flight risk. You may require a higher degree of security than the Fosters can provide."
"Stef's a cop. You don't get much higher than that."
"That may be. You've said some really good things, but they are higher powers involved in this than just me. Get your things, do what you need to do, I'm going to step out and make those calls, then I'll sign the paperwork to get you out of here." He left the room with that.
Callie looked at Dr. Finch, her legs jittery with nerves. "He won't tell me? I'm supposed to just go with him and he won't tell me!? Can't you make him tell me?"
"Callie, I can't. And he didn't say he won't, he said he can't. He can't tell you right now because he has to talk with other involved parties."
"Can't you make him let me stay here, until it's all figured out? I can't just go and not know. How I am supposed to prepare for what I don't know?"
"Callie, you've prepared for what you didn't know in the past, every time you've entered a new foster home."
"I just hate being blindsided is all."
"I know, and if I really though it would help, I would go back and tell him that I revised my opinion, that I thought you were still imminently suicidal. But I don't think that would help matters much, and it just might make things worse."
"I guess."
"You can do this, Callie. You're a strong, smart girl. I have faith in your ability to do this. You have people in your corner, myself, the Fosters, even Officer Easton would help you if you got into trouble. No matter where you go, none of these people are going to give up on you, no matter what a piece of paper says. And I can certainly say for myself, if you need me, I'll be there." She reached into her desk, and pulled out a small white piece of paper. "Here's my card. I'm always available to take your call. I hope you won't need to use it, but it's there if you do, alright?"
"Okay."
"Now, if you're okay, you should probably go get your things together. This Bill of your's seems like a busy man."
"He is." Callie got up, so did Dr. Finch.
"Callie, I know you're a little shy of personal contact, but I'd like to hug you, if that's alright with you."
"It is." She lets Dr. Finch wrap her arms around her, and after a moment, wraps her own arms around the doctor. "Thank you," she says. "It hardly seems like enough, but thank you."
"It is enough. Now, I have seen glimpses of the astounding woman you'll be. Let that be your goal. Go be her."
"Alright." She left the office. She couldn't bring herself to hurry down the hall, the idea of getting out wasn't as appealing as she expected it should be. The uncertainty of her immediate future really weighed her down and slowed her footsteps. But she reached her room without incident, gathered the few things she had there. She packed all her things in her bag, and changed into the clothes Mariana had brought for her. They were cleanest, and she felt a certain connection to her foster sister. She hoped in a few hours, Mariana would see her in these clothes and remember bringing them to her. It seemed like a good luck charm, and Callie was willing to take any good luck that may come her way. She had admitted wanting to go home to the Fosters, and now it seems like that might come back to haunt her. Things never go my way, she thought to herself. Her thoughts also landed upon the idea of a small silver blade, that being one of the ways she dealt with uncertainty, but there were two problems there. One, she didn't have a blade or anything else for that matter. That was the big one. And two, trying something might create more problems, as Dr. Finch had said. She dug her fingernails into her palms, in an effort to make do. I can hold off. Small sharp objects are relatively easy to find. Even if I end up in juvie, I should be able to figure something out. And it would be hardest there. A new home, even a group home, that'll be easy. And if, if I end up with the Fosters, I might not even have to do it today. After all, I did stop for a while when I was living with them, until Liam barged back into my life.
When she made her way to the front, she saw Bill at the desk, signing a piece of paper. "Perfect timing, Callie," he said. "That was the last of it. Time for us to go."
"Where?"
"I'm waiting on a call back. Don't worry, worst comes to worst, you'll just have a short wait in the CPS office while we get this all sorted." You call that the worst? We have different definitions of worst.
They didn't talk much on the ride, and Callie spent most of it staring out the window. Bill had several conversations while he was driving, using his bluetooth headset, and try as she might, Callie could not make heads nor tails of it. He offered no information either, and she finally decided to stop asking. She'll find out soon enough. Mentally, however, she started preparing herself for the worse outcomes. Such was the result of what felt like a lifetime of experiences. At minimum, she allowed herself to hope that she would be allowed to see Jude soon, wherever she was, and that maybe, Stef and Lena would be allowed to accompany him to their meeting. She realized that they were slowing down, Bill pulling up at a driveway.
"Here we are," he said.
Author's Note 2: I know, that was mean of me. And I hope you Braillie lovers out there don't hate me; I just did what seemed logical to me if I were the one in Callie's situation, having to chose between a family and a relationship. Being that I'm still stuck on where I want this to go, I've decided to end it here. I just don't want to keep leaving you hanging, and feeling guilty about not updating, so you can all imagine what you want to, for now. But I will say I'm considering a sequel to this. If that's an idea you're interested in, leave me a review or PM telling me so, let me know what you want to see, and be sure to follow this fic, because I'll post her when/if I do start the sequel. No promises when/if that will be. Life is super stressful at the moment, even though it's break time, because I'm starting a new job in January I have to prepare for in addition to classes and I'm really not the biggest fan of this time of year (holidays) because of family stuff. So yeah. However, I do intend to keep updating my other multi-chapter fic, Foster's Haven, when I have the chance, so check that out. Thanks for reading, especially all you who stuck with me from the beginning! Y'all are the best!
