A/N: Here is a post 1x16 oneshot...just a little something I couldn't get out of my head...
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Callie might have told Jude that they didn't have to keep secrets anymore, she might have even meant it, but she certainly had not meant for him to proceed to reveal every terrible thing that had ever been done to her.
xxxxxx
The Sunday after Jude's birthday, the Foster's, with the exception of Brandon, were having lunch together. It was nothing special, just soup, from a can nonetheless, but Jude didn't think it really mattered what they were eating, the fact that they were eating together at all was the part that he liked. It was one of those things that real families did and this was his real family now.
He was sitting beside Callie and at the thought of family he couldn't help but look over at her. Her words from the day of his birthday rang through his head. Well, we don't have to keep secrets anymore, we have a family now. Since coming back home, Callie had been trying so hard, he could tell. Yet, still, he doubted she would ever actually reveal any of her secrets. He doubted she even knew how to start. And his secrets, well, they were really just hers.
Feeling his eyes on her Callie looked over at Jude. "What kid?" She asked softly, smiling at him.
Jude just shrugged, smiling easily back at her, "nothing."
Unbothered by Jude's non-answer Callie smiled wider at him, nudging his shoulder before picking up her spoon and taking a small bite of her soup.
Sitting across the table from her, Jesus picked his spoon up too, but, instead of using it to eat with, he drummed it against the table, looking around before asking, "We got any crackers?"
Stef reached over and stilled his hand. "Tell you what, you quit beating the poor table and I'll find you some."
Jesus shrugged sheepishly, grinning at his mother. "Oops."
Stef laughed as she got up and found a box of Ritz crackers, setting them down in front of Jesus before taking her seat again.
Jesus proceeded to dump half the box of crackers into his bowl, crumbling them up so that his soup no longer resembled soup but just mushy crackers.
As he reached his hand into the box again, Stef raised one eyebrow at him, "Hey bud, maybe you want to share those?"
Jesus shrugged, slowly withdrawing his hand from the box. "Sure." He moved to pass the box to Callie but she shook her head nearly imperceptibly at him.
"Callie doesn't like crackers," Jude announced loudly from beside her.
At those words, Callie glanced inquisitively over at Jude, but he was just eating his soup casually, as if what he'd just said was no big deal. Callie glanced around the table but no one else seemed even remotely bothered by what Jude had just said, well except for Jesus.
"Really?" Jesus eyes widened as he gave Callie a look that made it clear that he thought that was one of the craziest things that he'd ever heard. After a moment though he seemed to get over the horror that someone could not like crackers, shrugging before he grinned at her, his mouth full of soup, "Oh well, more for me then."
"Jesus, please don't talk with your mouth full," Lena immediately admonished her son, although it was half-hearted and mostly out of habit.
"Gross," Marianna scrunched up her nose in disgust at her brother.
"What?" Jesus just shrugged again, as if he had no clue what they were talking about.
Stef couldn't hold back her laughter any longer then. There certainly was never a lack of entertainment in this household.
When Marianna had finally un-scrunched her nose and everyone had resumed eating, Jude glanced around the table carefully, trying to pick the right moment to ask, "Don't you want to know why Callie doesn't like crackers?"
Callie's eyes immediately widened. "Jude…" his name came out in a hushed whisper, as a plea to not say anything further.
"Why, sweets?" Stef asked casually, glancing up from her soup, not having caught on to Callie's desperate attempt to stop anymore words from leaving Jude's mouth.
"Jude, don't…" Callie was on the verge of panic now, her voice rising.
"You said we didn't have to keep secrets anymore, Callie," Jude reminded her, his eyes searching hers, as if he was just waiting for her to re-neg on what she'd told him previously.
Suddenly realizing that whatever was going on was more serious than just sibling's teasing each other, everyone in the room stilled.
"I…." Callie couldn't deny that she'd told him that they didn't have to keep secrets anymore but this was not at all what she'd meant. "Please…" she was begging even though her voice was already conveying defeat, somehow knowing that there was no stopping him now.
Stef set her spoon down and glanced over at Lena, wondering if they should stop Jude from revealing whatever it was that Callie clearly didn't want them to know. Though, before she had time to make a decision, let alone act, Jude was already speaking.
Jude ignored Callie's plea, taking a breath before revealing, "Callie hasn't liked crackers since one of our foster fathers forced her to eat them until she puked."
Everyone at the table was frowning then.
"Somebody did what?" Marianna's words were laced with a mixture of horror and confusion.
"Callie?" Lena asked softly, her concerned eyes on the girl who was staring down at the table as if she was trying to burn a hole through it. When that elicited no response she tried another name. "Jude?"
Jude was looking at Callie, willing her to look over at him, but it was fruitless. When Lena called his name he slowly looked away from his sister and around the table at his family. They all looked appropriately horrified and maybe just a bit confused. He was suddenly second guessing his decision but it was too late to take it back now. There was really nothing to do but finish the story. "It was a punishment…for taking the box of crackers out of the pantry," he explained, his words quiet as he glanced nervously over at Callie for her reaction. He could still picture the tears involuntarily rolling down twelve year old Callie's cheeks as she'd been sick all over the kitchen floor. It had been his fault, just like almost every bad thing that had ever happened to her, he knew that. She had been hurt so many times protecting him. She thought he didn't know the things she'd done for him, but he did.
At Jude's latest words, Callie couldn't take it anymore. She was up and walking quickly out of the room before anyone could stop her.
"Callie…" Jude called after her, getting up too, intent on following her.
"Wait, sweets," Stef stopped him, standing up and putting her hand on his shoulder, squeezing reassuringly.
"But I need to explain to her why…" Jude's shoulders drooped and he didn't really finish his thought. He had been so sure that revealing this secret, one of many, was the right thing to do but now he worried that all he'd done was push Callie away.
"I know sweets but I think she just needs a minute," Stef murmured softly. "Let me go talk to her first, okay?"
Jude sighed, wanting to protest, but nodding resignedly instead.
xxxxxx
Stef found Callie in the entranceway, she had one hand on the door and her head resting against the door frame, her eyes were closed. "Callie?" Stef called her name softly, not wanting to startle her.
Callie didn't open her eyes or move but she began to mumble, "I wasn't running, I wasn't running…"
"I can see that," Stef answered, using her most reassuring tone of voice, as she walked closer to Callie. She carefully placed her hand on the Callie's back, rubbing it gently as she murmured, "Why don't we go sit on the couch, huh?"
Callie tensed and Stef could feel her stop breathing momentarily. When she finally did let the breath she was holding out, she blinked her eyes open, nodding slightly as she pulled back from the door.
Stef wrapped her arm around Callie's shoulders, pulling her close as she led the way to the living room couch. Even once they were sitting she didn't un-wrap her arm from around Callie. Reaching up with her other hand, she smoothed Callie's hair. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Callie closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths before whispering, "I don't know."
"Okay," Stef just nodded, rubbing Callie's shoulder. "Whatever you want. When you decide, you let me know."
Minutes passed and just when Stef was convinced that Callie wasn't going to tell her anything, the girl opened her mouth.
"Jude was hungry. We…umm…we hadn't eaten in a while. Uhh…a day or two, I think." It hadn't been the only foster home where they hadn't been fed well but it was the only one where they had gone days without any food at all. In the others, she'd been able to move food from her plate onto Jude's when no one was looking so that he didn't have to go to bed every night with a rumbling stomach, but in this home she hadn't had that luxury. She'd had no real way to protect him there. "So I…I broke the rules…I stole a box of crackers from the pantry…"Callie closed her eyes then, swallowing thickly.
Stef struggled with whether she should say something or wait for Callie to finish, settling for squeezing Callie's shoulder reassuringly again. What she really wanted to do was throw something or maybe scream. Her poor babies. She'd known they hadn't had it easy but these details horrified her, made her blood boil in anger on their behalf.
Callie opened her eyes, they settled on a spot on the wall as the memory flooded through her brain. Her next words came out in complete monotone, as she recounted the events as if she were there, not here. "I was half way up the stairs on the way to Jude's room when our foster father caught me. He grabbed the box and my arm, dragged me to the kitchen. He screamed for Jude…to make him come watch." She took a breath. "Eating the crackers was okay at first. I was pretty hungry. But then…he wouldn't let me stop. I wanted to stop. My mouth was so dry…I could barely swallow. And my stomach, it ached so badly." She shuddered involuntarily. "I knew I was going to be sick. I tried to stop it… but I couldn't…" She remembered how after she'd thrown up on the floor her foster father had pushed her face into the mess, screaming that he hoped she'd learned her lesson. He'd left her in the kitchen after that, saying that if the mess wasn't cleaned up by the time he came back that there would be real hell to pay.
Stef wasn't sure Callie even realized she was talking, she looked so lost, and it worried her almost as much as the actual words leaving Callie's mouth bothered her. When Callie's words seemed to have stopped, she tried to get her attention, calling out, "Callie, love."
It took a moment but eventually Callie blinked slowly, once, twice, a third time, before she turned her head so that she was looking at Stef. "I'm sorry."
"Oh, baby, oh no, don't be sorry." Stef's heart was breaking watching the sadness in the girl's eyes. She pulled Callie even closer, wrapping her other arm around her as well and hugging her as fiercely as she could. She was relieved when she felt Callie's hands clinging at her back, the proof that Callie was present, here with her.
She pulled back eventually, reaching up and tucking a piece of Callie's hair behind her ear, running her hand over her cheek comfortingly. "You have nothing to be sorry about, I was just worried, love, you didn't really seem like you were here."
Callie searched Stef's face, for what, she wasn't sure. Disgust, maybe? All she saw though was what she was pretty sure was love. She shrugged, looking away.
"Baby, please don't do that, please look at me," Stef sighed.
Callie turned her head slowly back to Stef but she didn't really meet her eyes.
Stef hooked her hand under Callie's chin and tilted her head up. "There, that's better," she offered Callie a small reassuring smile. "Now you listen to me. I wish that I could make all the bad things that happened to you just go away. I wish so badly that they'd never happened in the first place. Those things make me angry, and they make me sad. But here's the thing you have to understand, love…" she watched Callie carefully, waiting till she was sure that the girl was really listening, "…nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, you could say to me about those things will ever, ever, make me love you any less. I want to hear anything you want to tell me. Lena and I, we are here to listen any time you want to talk about anything. And, honestly sweetheart, selfishly, I hope that you will trust me enough to tell me everything someday. You deserve so much better than what you've gotten in life so far, Callie. So much better. Do you understand?" She held her breath while she waited for Callie's reaction.
Callie was a bit stunned. It wasn't that she didn't know that Stef loved her, she knew, she'd been told more than once, it was just that the thought of Stef wanting to know about the things that had happened in her previous foster homes was somehow startling. In her mind, Stef and Lena and the rest of the Fosters' were bright and shiny, everything else, everything before them, was dark and dull. Callie didn't want to contaminate the bright and shiny with the dark and dull.
When Callie said nothing, Stef tried again. "Love?"
The old Callie would have shrugged and turned away but she was trying hard not to be the old Callie, so, she nodded her head ever so slightly at Stef. Yes, she understood.
"Good," Stef smiled as she pulled Callie into another tight hug.
"Stef…"Callie mumbled into her shoulder.
"Yes love?" Stef asked, pulling back and searching Callie's face.
"I…couldn't breathe," Callie laughed.
"Oops," Stef laughed too. She was still laughing when Jude came tumbling into the room moments later, Lena behind him.
"I couldn't keep him in the kitchen any longer," Lena apologized.
"It's okay," Stef shrugged, moving over away from Callie to make room on the couch.
Jude approached but stopped timidly just shy of the couch. "Callie?" He asked softly, his words full of remorse.
"Hey buddy," she smiled gently at him, patting the seat now available beside her on the couch. "Come sit down."
He hesitated only a second before taking the offered seat, sighing in relief as her arms slid around him, pulling him close to her. She wasn't mad.
"Do you want us to leave you?" Stef asked, motioning to Lena who had perched beside her on the armrest of the couch.
Jude could tell that the question was more directed at Callie than at him so he let her answer.
Callie just shook her head easily, "no, stay."
Jude let Callie hold him for a while, soaking up the warmth and love but eventually he figured that he needed to apologize, to explain to her. Before he could say anything though, Callie was talking.
"I'm sorry I freaked out baby," Callie murmured, running her hand through his hair.
"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything," Jude replied immediately.
Callie couldn't deny that she wished he hadn't brought it up. "Why did you?" She asked quietly, wanting to understand.
"You said we didn't have to keep secrets anymore," he repeated his words from before.
"Right…" Callie replied hesitantly, feeling like he was waiting for her to say something.
"You said we didn't have to keep secrets anymore but you never share any of yours," he finished, turning his head so that he was looking her right in the eye. "You never say anything about the bad stuff that happened to you. Doesn't it bother you?" His next words were quieter. "It bothers me."
Callie sighed, "Oh Jude..." She pulled him even closer, smoothing his hair and kissing the top of his head. "I just try to forget that stuff happened," she admitted to him.
"But it did," Jude whispered.
She glanced quickly over at Stef and Lena, who for their part were sitting quietly, hands clasped tightly together, listening intently. She turned her attention back to Jude, running her hand through his hair one more time. "It did," she confirmed, her whisper mimicking his.
They sat in silence a couple of moments longer before Callie shifted, turning Jude so that they were facing each other. "Sometimes I forget that you were there too buddy." She'd tried so hard to give him a normal childhood, to shield him from all the bad things going on around him, it just hadn't been possible though, not really. "I'm sorry, okay? I don't want you to think that you can't talk about that stuff."
Jude nodded slowly, accepting the apology even though she didn't really need to give him one. She had been the best thing, sometimes the only good thing, in his life for a lot of years. "But what about you?"
Callie glanced at Stef then and, as Stef smiled encouragingly at her, the woman's words from earlier resonated through her brain. "I'll try my best, okay?" She offered Jude. She could tell that he was sceptical though, so she nudged him, smiling ever so slightly, "And if you don't think I'm trying hard enough, you can step in and help me out. Deal?" It was a scary deal to offer because she knew that he would hold her to it. It meant that there would be no backing down. It meant that whether she really wanted them to or not, all those things that kept her up at night, that gave her nightmares, would eventually come to light.
"Deal," Jude nodded resolutely, a real smile lighting up his face then. "Thanks Callie," he whispered, hoping to convey how much her willingness to try meant to him.
"For you, baby, anything," Callie responded softly. And that really was the truth, for him she would do anything. It had been the mantra she lived her life by for so long. She might be trying to change some things about herself, but she wasn't about to change that one.
Happy with the response, Jude rested his head on Callie shoulder, asking lazily, "Now what?"
Lena was the one who answered for Callie, declaring, "Now I think it's about time you let us give out some hugs. What do you think Stef?"
Stef grinned, waggling her eyebrows, "I think you have the best ideas."
Jude giggled as Stef and Lena moved closer, wrapping him and Callie up, until they became nothing more than a tangle of arms and whispered I love yous.
Callie still had a lot more secrets left to tell but Jude figured that one was good enough for today.