"Stefanie! Where are all these glasses going?" Sharon yelled through the house.
"Leave them, Mom! We'll sort it out later!" Stef shouted back, huffing exasperatedly in response.
The wedding was over and everybody had cleared out for the evening, Sharon was pottering around the garden and trying to tidy everything away while the rest of the family sat in the living room in the bliss of it all.
Stef was sat in the corner with Lena curled up on her lap, nestled snugly against her as they thrived on the feeling of closeness. Jude and Jesus were playing Super Mario, Mariana and Callie chatted eagerly in the corner, and Brandon remained deeply invested in his phone.
"Oh! We haven't given you your present yet!" Mariana exclaimed suddenly, almost as though she had forgotten entirely about it. She hopped up from the couch and grabbed the gift bag which sat upon the window sill and passed it over to her mothers eagerly.
Even Jude and Jesus had paused their game in order to watch the live reaction the gift. It had been a collective effort from all of them, though it was no surprise that Mariana and Jude had ended up completing it almost entirely by themselves.
Lena curiously took the bag from her daughter and pulled out the contents. It was a thick scrapbook that they must have bought from Michaels' and on the front, it was embellished with beautiful font reading 'The Journey So Far'.
Stef shifted slightly so that she could reach her arm around her wife to flip it open to the first page. It was a badly taken disposable camera photo of the two of them, the night of their second date. Beside it, was stuck the bill from the restaurant where they had eaten that night.
"We had to do a little digging through the memory boxes to find everything we needed." Mariana explained, sitting back down as she watched her mothers flick through years of memories with smiles on their faces.
They paused to laugh at photos from the first time they had tried to bake with Mariana and she had ended up coated in a layer of flour. They held back tears at the sight of the family on the twins' adoption day. They reminisced the memories of the twelve years that had passed.
After about fifteen minutes, they came to the back, where there were two pages left blank.
"I, uh, I took a few photos this afternoon and I was thinking that maybe you'd like to put them in…" Callie offered quietly, eyes firmly fixed on the gift in order to avoid eye contact. "We haven't had time to print them yet though."
"That'd be lovely, Callie," There were only a couple of photos with Callie and Jude in so far, both big group photos from Mariana's Quinceanera, but now that they were staying, it made sense them to be in a few more of them. "This is beautiful, guys. Mama and I love it, and we love all of you, too!"
Callie still had the knowledge in the back of her mind that this was her last night here, but she tried to suppress it in the hope that her final night here might be a good one. It broke her heart to leave, but she couldn't ruin this for Jude, she refused to do that to him when they'd found such a wonderful home.
"Group hug, my babies!" Lena exclaimed as she hoped out of Stef's lap, standing and opening her arms wide. The kids all hurried towards her eagerly and soon they were all wrapped around one another snugly. "We love you all so, so much!"
They all drew apart and headed up to their bedrooms to get ready for bed, it had been a long day for everyone and though happy, it had been exhausting. Stef and Lena weren't complaining, they were ready for some time alone.
"We should call Bill tomorrow, organise a meeting so that we can get the ball rolling on the adoption," Stef pondered happily as she slumped back down onto the sofa. "We should try and get things sorted by Christmas."
"That might be the best idea you've ever had," Lena answered as she dropped to sit close beside her wife and grinned, leaning in to kiss her. "But I have a better one."
It was a combination of the adrenaline of the day and the twinkle in Lena's eye that gave Stef momentum to get up so fast. She pulled Lena up from the sofa and threw the woman over her shoulder into a fireman's lift.
Lena squealed in surprise, laughing as Stef made for the stairs and hurried up them, yelling a goodnight to the kids before falling through the master bedroom door and pushing it shut.
Callie was in the bathroom changing but she had heard it; she had heard Lena's laughter filling the rooms of the house and it broke her heart just a little more to know what she was leaving behind. These women who had just shared the happiest day of their life with her, and they were going to wake up to find her gone.
She knew they wouldn't care, they had children who were truly theirs, but it didn't stop her wondering how they might react. They cared about her, she knew that much without a shadow of a doubt anymore; she wouldn't leave Jude with people that she didn't have absolute faith in.
"Callie! How long does it take you to change your clothes? Come on! I need to shower!" Mariana yelled through the bathroom door, shaking Callie from her thoughts as she tugged her t-shirt over her head and moved for the door, rolling her eyes.
It broke her heart to leave this behind.