A/N: This chapter is way longer than my other chapters because I needed to go over a lot without jumbling it into a short chapter. Most of my chapters are around a thousand words but this one is closer to four and that's A LOT to me.

Stef tried not to dwell on Callie's sudden setback for too long. Instead, she reached for the Neosporin and waited for the teen to put on her pants while she kept herself busy, opening the tube. The second she was about to place a little bit on her finger, Callie reached for it and Stef released the tube into her hands with complete understanding

"I can do it," Callie answered calmly but with a hint of anger that didn't go unnoticed by the blonde. But Stef said that she trusted Callie so she had to act like it. And the answer to whether Callie trusted Stef was evident by those four words that just came out of her mouth.

It's not that the girl wasn't trying to trust Stef, because she wanted more than anything to do just that. However, something in the back of her mind kept telling her not to.

Who could she really trust anymore anyway, especially if everyone she thought she could ever count on ended up betraying her, Stef included.

The woman opened each of the sterile gauze bandages and watched as her daughter grabbed every single one from her hand before she could even try to place them onto her burns herself. Even though the gesture hurt her, she stopped trying to put them on and would hand them over to Callie instead. And when she was done covering them up, Stef ripped the gauze tape and just handed over the small pieces so that the teen could keep the bandages in place. She handed the girl her t-shirt as a peace offering but before letting her put it on she immediately grabbed Callie's forearm and opened the Neosporin tube again.

I don't need it there, Callie wanted to say but Stef was already rubbing the ointment on her.

"We can't risk these getting infected either. Can we?" the blonde starts as she eyes Callie sternly, as if she could already tell what the teen was thinking. "Just because you can barely see them doesn't mean they aren't there," she adds as she quickly placed her attention back to her arm and placed the gauze bandage over them and afterwards, immediately applied the tape before handing Callie her robe.

She shouldn't have done that. It wasn't her job to do that, Callie wanted to yell at her.

But instead, she found herself in complete silence and allowed Stef to lead her all the way upstairs. And the second Callie realized they stopped in front of Stef and Lena's bedroom instead of her own she came to a halt just outside the doorway and crossed her arms over her chest in her typical defense mode. And although she tried to remain still, she still found herself being pushed further in by the older woman, who was still holding a towel in her hand for some odd reason Callie couldn't point out.

Stef gently pushed her daughter onto the edge of the bed and it wasn't until Stef sat beside her and twisted her body away that Callie realized why the woman brought the towel in the first place.

"Turn around, sweets," Stef ordered but it came off as more of a question with her tone of voice.

That was something that Callie liked; she liked having the option to say no, but before she could, she was doing just as Stef had asked and turned around. She remained the entire time even when she felt the towel, along with Stef's hands reach for her hair. And she couldn't understand why she was allowing the woman to dry it.

And even though Callie didn't say a word as she felt the towel ruffling through her strands of hair, she felt guilty for allowing herself to feel this way. She let the gentleness of the movements on her scalp put her and ease, but still she wasn't entirely sure if she confused the sensation for love.

One part of her, longed for the comforting feeling that it brought to her, while the other part despised it and wanted nothing more than for it to stop.

She was doing it again.

She was letting Stef win by allowing her to get this close to her.

Hadn't she realized that this was the problem before?

This time tomorrow, she wouldn't know if she'd be gone again so why was she being so stupid?

And it was the second feeling that caused her to pull herself away from Stef and keep herself together or so she thought. She couldn't make the same mistake twice.

When Stef realized exactly what Callie was doing, she could tell that his conversation was going to have to happen sooner or later so she decided to be the first to open her mouth, "…Okay, Callie. I know you're mad at me—" Stef paused when she heard the teen scoff under breath at the understatement. "Now, that's not very helpful," she continued as she adjusted her position on the bed so that she could read Callie's body language better. She didn't want to risk missing anything this time. Stef already felt like she failed her daughter in more ways than one, so she wouldn't allow for herself to do it again. She attempted to change the subject to what was really bothering her the most, "You said that Helen locked you in a room? …" She came to a pause so that she could listen to what the teen had to say but didn't hear a response, "Callie, please talk to me…" she begged.

What Stef didn't know was that the girl wanted to talk to her. She wanted to tell her exactly how she felt that day when Elaine came to pick her up.

How she felt during the entire forty-minute drive in the car with the complete stranger…

How she felt when she stepped foot in another house with a new strange woman and having that woman lock her away so that she couldn't get out.

She wanted to tell Stef how she convinced herself so much that no one would ever come back for her, that when she finally did she had never been able to snap out of it.

But silence was always a better option for everyone involved so she tried her best to contain her thoughts. And still, the heaviness of her eyelids were becoming unbearable now, and all she wanted was to get the older woman to stop talking, "Why do you even care?" she asked her foster-mother in a harsh tone, with the hopes that she wouldn't respond back. It was a hypothetical question to Callie. It was supposed to get Stef to feel like the conversation was over and to get the older woman to give up. But all it did was prove that she didn't know Stef as well as she thought.

Stef's eyes began to glisten as she tried hard to take in a deep breath through her nose. She didn't want to cry in front of the teen, even after she had just given her a lecture about how crying was allowed in this house. She was the mother and she was supposed to show strength. "Honey…I do care. The thought of that old woman locking you in a room just…" Stef paused when she felt her anger revealing itself in her tone of voice toward Callie and that was the last thing that she wanted.

"Do you think I really care about that?" Callie retorted. "Part of me was glad she did it."

The blonde looked at Callie with a baffled expression because she was unable to wrap her mind around how anybody would be happy about that. "Baby, I don't—"

"Of course you don't understand," Callie snapped as she stood up to walk back to her room and tried storming off, "This entire time, you haven't even been trying t—"

Stef followed right behind the teen as she walked out, and Callie thought Stef would never stop following her. "Callie, you cannot honestly tell me that I'm not trying right now because that's all I've been doing since the second I woke up this morning. Since the second I picked you up from Helen's, I've been trying to get you to talk to me. And every time I try, you just keep walking away from me like I'm not even here!"

Callie whipped her body around, as she was just a few steps away from her room, "I'm not talking about now, Stef. I'm talking about before all of this! Before I was locked in that room! Before I was taken away from your house! You let it happen…"

"Sweetheart, I couldn't do anything," Stef pleaded.

"No… I trusted that you wanted me here. I trusted that was the reason that you ever came back to see me at Girls United…" Callie shook her head slightly as Stef tried to reach for the teen but she backed her body away again, not willing to allow her touch to comfort her. "Why did you bring me back? From Girls United…From Helen's? What was the point?"

Stef felt as is she had just been stabbed by the teen with every question she was being asked. She stood frozen as she tried to take in all that Callie was saying. But Callie took Stef's moment of stunned silence to her advantage as she turned around and took a few more steps, making sure to close her bedroom door behind her. She pressed her entire weight on the door in order to keep it shut, but all it was doing was making her burns hurt even more from the impact the wood made against her back.

The older woman finally let the tears, that she was so badly holding in, trickle down her face as she walked over to the door. She didn't immediately try to open it, because she could tell that Callie was on the other side pressing her body against it. The last thing she wanted to do was cause her any more pain, "Callie…baby… Lena and I do want you here, more than anything—"

"Then why did you just let me get taken away? Why did you just forget about renewing your fostering license? Why did you just decide you wanted another baby?" Callie listed off the questions as if every single one of them were just proof that they didn't care. Even if it were just subconsciously true, they wouldn't have forgotten all of these things if they really wanted her.

Stef took a few steps backward and tried her best to keep herself together, but she had never considered the baby as an issue for Callie. She knew that she was to blame for Callie getting taken away, she should've renewed her fostering license and prepared for the worst. She should've prepared for every possible scenario before cps ever got a chance to come and get take her away from them. But she wasn't prepared for the baby news to add to Callie's stress. And the long silence that took place directly afterwards just added to Stef's guilt. She didn't even know what else to say that she didn't already, to make the situation better. "Oh my god," she mumbled to herself as she covered her mouth, hoping that her daughter didn't hear.

But she knew she had to say something to her. She couldn't allow the teen to keep thinking that they didn't care. "Callie," she started as she took a deep breath and walked back over toward the door, contemplating one last time whether or not to turn the knob, but instead she let herself sink down onto the floor, so that she could be as low as she felt at that very moment, "…I'm sorry…I'm sorry we didn't renew our fostering license but it was only because we thought you'd already be our kid before then. We…we had no idea that they were going to deny your adoption because we didn't want to think that way. And that night, when you were taken out of our house, was one of the hardest we had to go through in a…very long time," Stef closed her eyes as she recounted the memory in her head of having to watch Callie walk back outside of the house with the same bag that she came in with, months ago. She hated seeing that blue duffle bag but remembered being thankful that night that she never threw it out. "…And I know that it was my fault. I know that. All I had to do was get that stupid paper renewed and you would've never had to go through any of it. None of us would have. But I honestly forgot because I didn't think you'd ever get taken away. You are our kid Callie, and this new baby would never change the love that Lena and I have for any of you…"

"You don't know that," Callie said from behind the door as she moved herself off it and walked over toward her own bed.

Stef waited until she heard the springs on Callie's mattress lower before she slowly opened the door to let herself in.

"Of course I know that. Why would you even think—"

"Because it's what always happens," Callie answered as she wiped a tear from her face. "When the last family, Jude and I were in, promised to adopt us both, we believed them…But then they had a kid of their own and—"

"They changed their minds?" Stef asked as she sat on the bed beside the teen.

"No… not at first. They still liked having us around. I would watch the baby for them and then Jude would play with her… until they didn't want us around anymore… Not until the father dropped us off to our social worker one day and that's the last we heard from them… So you see, this is what happens. You and Lena will realize that you have too many kids already and you'll let them take me away, if you don't end up dropping me off…"

"That's not true," Stef replied in a stern voice as she stared at Callie intently. "That would never happen."

"No. It would... But you've adopted Jude now, so he won't blame me this time. This time is better," Callie mumbled as she tried to assure herself everything would be all right. "You don't know what that means to me," Callie tried to smile even though it was barely noticeable. She remembered telling Jude that it was her fault that their foster-father dropped them off and forgot about them. She told him that she had complained too much and never stopped crying, because she didn't want her brother to blame himself or think that he was the problem. And in doing that, she convinced herself that she was.

And everything that ever happened afterwards just proved it.

But she hadn't expected Stef to react in such a way as to grab her chin in her hands and force her to look in her direction, "Callie, you have to stop that. We didn't drop you off anywhere and we wouldn't forget about you in a million years... Now I'm sorry that I didn't stop that woman from taking you and I promise not to ever let that happen again, okay?"

Callie stared at the woman in front of her and saw both anger and hurt in her eyes. And she became confused as to why she felt bad for making her upset, when that had been exactly what she wanted to do, ever since she got back. She wanted Stef to feel that same hurt that she had felt when she walked out of the house. She wanted someone else to go through exactly what she had been going through in the past few days.

So why was she regretting yelling at her now?

Why was she angrier with herself for making the woman feel this way?

"I thought that y…" Callie froze as she tried to get her last words out. She wanted so badly to say them but a little voice in her mind was begging her to shut up.

"You thought what?" Stef asked as she tried to urge the teen to say what she needed to. They didn't have any more time to shut themselves off. They needed to keep their thoughts from being bottled up again. "Callie, you thought what?" she repeated, in hopes that the repetition in her voice would force the girl to open up to her.

"I thought you weren't coming back," she both yelled and cried as she attempted to cover her face but Stef moved her hands away and quickly wrapped her arms around her Callie, making sure to hold on to her tightly. And for a second they both forgot about the burn-marks that were causing Callie even more pain now that they were having pressure put against them.

But even still, Callie wrapped her arms around the woman she already saw as her mother and refused to let her go until she was sure she wouldn't lose her again. Yes, it put more pain on her body but that pain was nothing compared to the hurt she felt when she felt when she didn't have anyone with her in that room.

Stef finally felt Callie flinching away from the contact and backed up, only slightly, when she was reminded of the burns. "I'm sorry," she added as she stared at Callie's shirt and it was like she could see right through it. She wondered if the image would ever go away. "I promise you that no matter what happens, we will always come back for you. But I can't promise that we won't let you down like this again, because I don't know what's in store for us, kid… We might hit a few more bumps and you have to know that we'll always be here. No matter what… But you have to promise me something too…"

Callie glanced away from the woman because she knew exactly what she was going to say. But she didn't want to hear it. She leaned farther back so that she had her back pressed against the pillow and wall by her bed and she tried so hard not to stare back at Stef.

Stef understood what the teen was attempting to do, but that wouldn't stop her from saying what needed to be said. She put her own body in the same position as Callie's and lifted the teen a bit so that she could hold her when she spoke. She needed the girl to feel like she was loved, like she was better than what she was doing to herself, "I need you to promise me that you won't do this again."

"Stef," Callie started to defend.

"No, Callie. It's scary… It's scary that my daughter would rather choose to press fire up against her bare skin, rather than talk to me about what's going on. That's not okay, sweets. You can really hurt yourself. And if you think you need more therapy than maybe—"

"That's not what I want," Callie quickly interrupted at the thought of having to tell someone else about this. She didn't want them to think she was crazy. She didn't feel that way. "This isn't something I planned. I didn't want to find that lighter in that room. I didn't want to even use it, but it felt good to feel pain again. To be reminded that I was still here… Or maybe it felt bad. But even if it did, taking my mind off of everything except the pain felt good. It helped me forget all that was going on, even if it was just for a little while."

"So you can't try and find something else to take your mind of things? I would prefer for you to talk to me… or even Lena. But if you can't, can you try to find something else to help you? Something that doesn't involve inflicting pain on yourself? Maybe running or a new hobby? B plays basketball when he gets upset. You know, maybe you can try that. You don't have to be any good, everyone in this house knows that he isn't…"

Callie chuckled at Stef's last comment, "That's not nice," she added causing Stef to reciprocate in the laughter.

"Maybe not, but as long as it helps him, I don't mind at all. He can miss every single basket for all I care…" Callie laughed again and Stef admired that even after the heaviness of the conversation, the teen could still find the heart to laugh. "Sweets, I just want you to find another out, another method of escape that doesn't scare the crap out of me," she said seriously and Callie found herself realizing that she wasn't only hurting herself. She was hurting Stef too.

"I'm sorry," Callie mumbled.

"Don't be sorry. It's easy to say that you're sorry. It's more of an accomplishment when you show it… And if you need me to go running with you or whatever, you know I will..." she added seriously. "But I need you to promise that you won't touch another lighter or do something like that ever again, no matter how good it makes you feel at the time and no matter how much you're able to forget. No more of this," Stef said as she pointed to Callie's arm that was conveniently lying on top of her abdomen. "Promise?"

Callie lifted her head a little to stare up at her mother and she could see the sincerity in her eyes. "Okay," she answered clearly. "I promise." Callie concluded as she quickly glanced at the clock on her nightstand and asked the question that was burning in her mind since she woke up, "So…Does this mean I have to go to school?"

Stef laughed out loud and glanced over at the digital clock, and realized it was only 9:15am. It was clearly enough time to get back to work and take Callie to school. She squinted her eyes as she tried to pretend as if she were really considering it, "Let's just pretend that we didn't resolve this until after noon, if mama asks," she said as she turned the clock around as if she had never seen the time. "We're both allowed to play hooky at least one day of the year," she smiled as Stef tried to reach for the covers but noticed that Callie was already pulling them over her, "Oh, really?" she asked once she realized that the teen already knew that Stef was going to give in.

Callie nodded as she tried to hide the smile. "It was either that or you were going to have to take the cold shower you promised you'd take."

"Point taken," Stef smiled as she fluffed up the pillows so that they could sleep comfortably. "I'll take hooky over that any day..."