A/N: I've written this chapter 10 different ways, and I just never seem to be happy with the way it ends up each time.
Got a lot of stuff going on right now, never have time to write unfortunately. Thank you for all the follows/favs/reviews, means a lot!
"I miss mom."
It's been two months, and she keeps telling herself that she should be getting stronger by now. That her body shouldn't feel so weighed down by now, that she should be okay even if it's just in front of him.
He's sitting at the foot of her bed with his legs crossed and she forces herself to sit up and move across the mattress so that she's siting close enough to him to take his hand.
"Me too, Jude."
She promises herself that she wont tell him how she really feels. She won't tell him about how she keeps waking up in the middle of the night with a pain in her chest that feels like someone is crushing her heart with their hands. She won't tell him about the tears, or about the blackness that seems to have engulfed her vision. She won't tell him, because then he'll know that she isn't strong enough to carry them both.
"Do you think dad will ever come back?" He asks quietly.
She sighs. "We don't need him, Jude."
"Bu-"
"We don't need him. We have each other. We don't need anyone. Got it?"
He nods gently. "Got it."
.
Memories pass like a gentle breeze, but sometimes they knock her to her knees. People say that nostalgia is a weird feeling, but Callie wholeheartedly believes that it's the worst feeling in the entire world.
Sometimes she wishes that she could remove every good memory from before her mother died from her mind so that she doesn't have to dream about them, so that she doesn't wake up with the ghost of a smile on her lips.
Nostalgia hurts because it's always memories that she'll never get back.
People that she'll never get back.
Her mind is a mess.
It seems to happen a lot these days, like her thoughts are just jumbled up and nothing seems to make any sense.
She shouldn't feel this way. She should be happy. She's spent the past couple of years praying for this moment, praying to be here – or anywhere – with Jude. She should be smiling, she should be asking him all about his life, she should be anything but this.
She can't stop thinking about all the times she wronged him, all the bad turns she took with him following closely behind. In all honesty, she isn't entirely guilty about having them seperated. That, she can deal with. That, she can forgive herself for.
But before then, in all those homes that never lasted, the ones that pushed them along to the next because of something she did – that she cannot forgive herself for.
Part of her hopes that he doesn't remember all of the things she did before, part of her hopes that his naïve mind has portrayed her as more of a saviour than a villian. But most of her knows that he can remember, that he's still mad.
That she is, too.
If there is one thing, and there really is only one thing, Callie Jacob is good for...it's messing things up. It's always been that way, even before her mother died. Sometimes she thinks that maybe she's subconsciously doing these things on purpose. Like she maybe enjoys the thrill of some of it, like maybe she's just plain good at being awful. At everything.
Every relationship has turned to dust in her warpath.
And Jude has been no exception.
It's different now, reallly, and she knew that it would be. He's older, and that means he understands more. Like he can see pain in her eyes, like he can see all of her mistakes. And they have less to talk about. It's not like before, not when she was his protector, not when she was his hero.
Now he's got a whole family of those, and Callie just has Callie.
She doesn't know how long she's been sitting outside for, but it's dark now and cold and she's curled up with her back pressed against the wall of the house.
She closes her eyes and tries to picture something nice, something good.
"An, Can I ask you somethin'?"
Levi's voice emerges from the darkness in the room, and she turns in the bed so that she can see his sillhoute. "Shoot."
"Howcome you never talk about before you came here?"
Callie waits a moment, trying to be honest without being honest and then takes a deep breath. "I dunno, Lee. I just don't really like to think about that stuff."
The room falls into an easy silence, and she can hear his soft breathing.
In, and out.
And in.
out.
"An?"
"Yeah?"
She feels a hand on her arm. "Me, you, and Tash. We're a family. You know that, right?"
She smiles into the darkness. "I know that, Lee."
"You look like you could use this."
The abrupt voice makes her jump from her memory and into the present, and she finds that there are tears dripping down her cheeks. She quickly wipes them away with her sleeve and looks up to see Stef standing over her, handing over a warm cup of tea.
"Thanks."
Stef hesitates for a moment, and then sits down on the ground next to Callie and brings her knees up to her chest.
"You've been out here for over an hour, you know."
Callie sighs and focuses on her hands, avoiding any form of eye contact because that would mean realising that she is actually here and that everything is about to be different now.
"I'm happy to see him..." She trails off, and she hates that her voice is still shaky.
"But?"
Callie smiles sadly at her cup of tea, and then lets out a tired sigh. "But it's just...different."
Stef stays silent for a moment and then, "I think he'll love you. No matter what."
Callie laughs, and Stef winces at the bitterness laced in her voice. "I think you're wrong. I think he's being set up for the biggest disappointment in his life."
Stef isn't sure how to respond, she isn't sure how to act at all around this girl. She's so different from her brother, so different from all of Stef's kids. So mature and yet...so...young at the same time. And it's difficult, because she wants to treat her the same way she'd treat Brandon In this situation but this isn't her daughter. This isn't her place.
Stef reaches out her hand and tries to touch Callie's knee, but the girl pulls away and averts her eyes to anywhere but Stef. "I think that you need to take time to prove yourself wrong, Callie."
And then Stef leaves her alone.
"Do you think she'll ever come inside?"
Stef looks up from her pot of soup to find Mariana and Jesus peaking out of the window. She doesn't say anything, just watches the twins – attempting to figure out how the other kids in the house might react to their new houseguest.
Jesus shrugs. "Beats me. How long has she been out there for?"
Mariana looks up at the clock on the wall. "Like, three hours? Surely moms are gonna make her come in...right?"
Jesus pushes back the curtains to get a better look and Stef tries to suppress a laugh at how nosey they are being.
"She's hot, though."
Mariana hits her brother and scoffs. "She's our brothers sister you creep."
"Yeah," Jesus laughs. "But she's not our sister."
"Right guys," Stef interrupts, coming up behind them and placing a hand on their shoulders. "Lets leave Callie alone and help mama set up for dinner, nosey parkers."
It's another two hours before anyone else comes out, and Callie seems to have found herself silently crying again. She isn't sure what it is that's upsetting her so much, but it's not like she hadn't been expecting it.
There's too many ghosts in California.
Jude sits down right next to her, and neither of them say anything for a while. She wonders what it is that Jude is thinking about, she wonders if he's already figured out all the ways that she's messed him up.
"Do you remember the night that mom died?"
Jude looks up at her face, and she can't help but notice just how much older he looks now. While the past two years has done nothing but hollow out Callies eyes and drain down her skin, she can see that her brother has been revitalised in a way. Like all of the joy, not that there wasn't any to begin with, has been pumped right back into his system
It's like...he's the same person that she left, he is, but so many things about him now are different. He's more mature, for a start. They could never talk about this stuff before – she never dared to bring it up. Maybe it was because she'd made a promise to do everything she could to protect him and she knew that talking about their mom always made him sad. Maybe she just knew it was another way to make things wrong.
He nods gently. "A little, yeah."
Callie smiles sadly and leans her head against the wall of the house. This is the calmest she's felt in months and, honestly, it sort of terrifies her. She's been in this house less than 24 hours and it's already effecting her. But what about when she has to move on? None of the stops before this place were easy, and none of them after it will be either.
"I wish things had happened differently." She admits quietly, and she reaches out and takes his hands. "I wish that I hadn't been so selfish."
Jude looks at her, confused, and she shakes her head.
"You don't remember?" She asks gently, and he shrugs.
"I lost it. I totally lost it and you were crying, Jude. You needed me and all I could do was scream about how Mom was gonna come home and it was all a big lie. You needed me and I was too busy being a baby and crying about it."
Jude tightens his grip on her hand. "We were only kids, Cal. You were young, too. I had you, I always had you...who was supposed to help you?"
"That doesn't matter." She breathes.
"Of course it matters, Cal." He says. "You matter."
Callie smiles sadly, knowing that her brother still isn't as mature as he looks. Knowing that he still doesn't understand all the ways that she's hurt him.
"I love you, you know?" She whispers.
"To the moon and back." He smiles and takes her hand. "Dinners ready, let's go inside."