Brandon POV

It's been four months since Caleb asked me to watch Ethan and Ellie. To be honest, they flew by. It was official that he didn't care about Ethan or Ellie, and it's horrible. I called a few times in the past few weeks, and he either ignored me, or answered, drunk. He usually comes back for a few days to check in on them, but thats it. It's the same thing everyday: wake up, talk to Ethan, try to have Ellie say a few words. Call Caleb in hopes of him answering. Find something to do with Ethan and Ellie if Ethan isn't a school. Caleb is gone every week, and he always leave money, for Ethan a and Ellie. It has always bothered Callie much more than me, at the fact that he couldn't take care of his own children, but now that I think about it, it bothers me just as much as it did to her. Moms have been trying to call us, get us to come over for dinner, anything to spend time with the family, but we always say no. If either of them find out that we've been taking care of Ethan and Ellie, it would only make things worse. Not with just them, but with Callie.

Callie.

What about her? If moms did find out, they be upset, and find a way to contact Caleb no matter what I say, then they'd be mad at us. For 'growing up' and taking care of somebody else's kids. But Callie, she already grew up. She isn't like me or the twins. She was forced to grow up to quickly, taking care of Jude, and still managing to take care of herself, waking up early for school, probably staying home when Jude got sick. Sometimes I wish there was a way that I could see exactly what she went through, so I can help her. Sometimes, I feel like I actually can, but then other days, I feel like I'm not there. I'm useless to her.

Then there's Ethan. He's even younger than Callie was, not by much, but he's still younger. I can tell that one of the few things that run through Callie's head theses days, wondering why he was like her, telling herself that it's not a good thing. Telling herself there's a way to help him. The way he's the one who knows how to calm Ellie down, what she likes and what she doesn't. How he's only nine and already knows how to take care of a baby. He already understands how to take care of himself, and he uses his skill to take care of Ellie. The look in his eyes tell me that he knows that Caleb doesn't care about him, how this wasn't an accident, like being late for his flight.

This past week, when I'm alone, I close my eyes and try to put myself in their position, wondering why people have to leave. Asking myself why they want to leave. Wondering why all of the bad stuff happens to all of the good people, the people who have the power to changes lives, the people who can't see how amazing they are, how caring and gentle they are, listening to the words of what all the horrible people say, letting themselves think that they are a piece of trash. If I was forced to take care of Jesus and Mariana, moving from house to house, I would've never been able to do it like Callie did. No, I wouldn't be able to last that long.

I am jolted out of my thoughts when the baby monitor started going off, and I sigh, knowing that this was going to wake up Callie. I look over at the alarm clock, 1:30 am. I couldn't fall asleep, and that's a good thing, because Callie was always the one waking up to feed Ellie when she got hungry. I feel Callie shift next to me, and I know she woke up.

"Stay," I whisper, stopping her from getting up. She didn't need to lose anymore sleep. "I got her." Callie nods quietly, already laying back down, not even questioning it. I turn the baby monitor so it doesn't make anymore noise, and get out of bed, making my way towards the room we put her in. I flip on the light in her room, only causing her to cry even more. "Hey," I say, picking her up, something she had finally gotten used to. "It's okay. I know you're hungry. It's okay. I'm here. You're okay."

I feel like a father when she actually stops crying when I start talking to her. I let out a sigh of relief, knowing that if her crying lasted a little longer, it would've woken up Ethan. We didn't need that either, Ethan always refused to go back to bed after he woke up, he always insisted on watching Ellie to make sure she was okay. It's a good thing that it only happened twice.

Ellie seems amazed by my tee shirt as I make my way to the kitchen, getting one of the bottles from the fridge from earlier. I sit down on the couch, the only place we are able to make Ellie eat when's she hungry. She's laughs when she knocks it out of my hand. "You're a little monster," I mutter, picking it up as she laughs even more. "You know that, right?" Ellie responds by giggling, a huge smile on her face, which causes me to smile a little. I have gotten used to her constant smiling. "Hey, you're eighteen months old now, right?" I ask, even though I knew she wouldn't answer, seeing that she was still working on her talking. She knows how to talk, sometimes she makes the choice to not talk, which it 65% percent of the time.

"Daddy!" Ellie says happily, shaking her hand before shoving it in her mouth. The smile melts off my face, and Ellie just giggles, reaching for the bottle in my hand. I stare at her in shock, and I have to shake my head to get over it. She called me daddy, I think. No, me and Callie had always referred ourselves as Brandon or Callie. Every once awhile, Ethan had called me B or Callie Cals, but that was it. I have never thought of Ellie calling me daddy. We never say that. She had probably heard it on the TV.

"Where's daddy?" I manage, and Ellie just smiles and points at me.

"You! You daddy!"

I shake my head faster than I should have. "No, Ellie. I'm Brandon, my name is Brandon. I'm not daddy. I'm Brandon. Daddy is at work." I say more of convincing myself than her, and her smile disappears before she mutters another daddy.

What would Callie think? Her reaction could be like mine, maybe worse. I promise to myself that I won't tell her about it, at least not right now. I take a deep breath before I can't take it anymore, and away from Ellie, into the kitchen, not knowing what else to do. I'm not her dad. I'm far from her dad, sure I've been taking care or her for a month, but that has in no way prepared me for her calling me dad. I always saw myself as Brandon, hoping that's what she saw, but now I know the only thing that she's been thinking is that I'm her father.

Her footsteps are quite when I hear them on the tile, and I feel her arms around my leg. "Daddy sad? Why is daddy sad?"

"Brandon is not upset," I tell her, picking her up, looking at her brown eyes. Unlike Ethan and her dad, she has brown eyes instead of blue eyes, and I just figured that she got it from her mother. "I'm just tired, Ellie. You wanna go back to bed?" She probably got the message, because she just nods, not telling me that she doesn't want to go to sleep like she usually does.

When she finally does fall asleep again, I automatically go back to Callie, and fall asleep.

I wake up again to even more crying, and Callie shaking me. "Brandon, something's wrong with Ellie, I can't get her to calm down, and Ethan is already at school."

I sigh, and take Ellie from her, which only seems to make it worse. "She has a fever too." Callie tells me and I nod, only to find that Ellie was burning up.

"How high is her fever?" I ask, and Callie shrugs.

"I don't know. I thought maybe I should've woke you up before I took her temperature. Maybe that you've been able to clam her down."

Everything we did has no affect, and she threw up five times when I finally call Lena, knowing I would have a better chance of getting to her than Stef. Lena answers right away, asking a million questions like Why haven't you been as school? Why don't you answer you're phone anymore? How's Callie?

I ignore all of them, and sigh, when she hears Ellie. "Who's crying?"

"Uh, Mom, I have a quick question. What do you do when a young kid has a fever of 105?"

I can tell Lena has a thousand questions running through her head, but she doesn't ask any of them. "Pack your bags. You might be staying in the hospital for a few days."

I sigh before hanging up. The hospital was the last place Callie and I wanted to be in. But I listen to Lena, I knew a fever was bad, but I still didn't want to go to the hospital.

We rush into the hospital, and every doctor and nurse starts freaking out when Ellie temperature had gotten even higher, reaching 107, and they take her into the emergency room. I take out my phone, and call Caleb, even though I knew he wouldn't answer. When his voicemail reaches my ears, I'm suddenly mad and upset, scared almost. A fever of 107 is bad, and I could only imagine it being worse on a 19 month kid.

"I- uh, Caleb I just called to let you know that Ellie is in the hospital right now. I don't know how bad it's going to be yet, but she's gonna be stuck here for a few days." I end it, not knowing what else to do, run my fingers through my hair and decide to go find Callie.

I find her in a room with Ellie, the IV plugged in. It's hard to tell with Callie, but I'm pretty sure she was crying. "How is she?" I ask, walking into the room slowly, not sure of what to do, but I sit next to Callie.

"She fell asleep a few minutes ago," Callie murmurs, and I nod. Sleep was probably the thing Ellie needed the most right now. Callie shoulders seem to slump forward. "Does Caleb know?"

I shake my head. "No, he's to busying getting drunk to give a damn about any of his children."

"What are we going to do?" Callie whispers as Ellie starts to stir. "We're only teenagers. We don't know how do deal with this. we don't even know how to take care of ourselves, and we're taking care of somebody else's kids, Brandon. Yesterday Ethan called me mom. He said I reminded him of his mom. Brandon, I'm not a mom. I can't do anything, I don't know how to do anything. I'm not a parent. I'm just a teenager who doesn't know how of deal with stuff," She pauses before going on. "And Ethan, he's knows what Ellie likes better than us. He's the one taking care of her. Brandon, I don't want him to end up like me. He shouldn't be taking care of his sister when he's nine, and he's calling me mom."

"Ellie called me daddy earlier." I probably made her feel worse because she shakes her head. I want to take the words back, because Callie is right, we aren't parents. We're teenagers, and we don't know how to do this. We don't know how to take care of them.

It's been two days, and we've finally have been able to Ellie home, Stef and Lena seemed to like Ethan, so Callie and I haven't worried about them right now. We're worrying about Caleb, partially because Ethan had asked about him, and because he usually comes back by now, only to leave the next day. I was watching Ellie carefully as she watched the TV when Callie comes in, and sits next to me quietly, and I feel her fingers brush against mine before she takes my hand. "What are we going to do? We can't keep watching them."

I sigh, and nod. "I know, but he won't. I feel like that it'll just be even worse for them if we tell him we can't keep watching them," I pause, not sure of what to say next. "We've been taking care of them for months, Cals. What else should we do?"

Callie is quite for a few minutes before she looks at me and answers quietly. "We can have him sign away his parental rights."