IMPORTANT DETAILS for this story:
Callie got Adopted the same day as Jude, her biological father is Donald.
Callie did go through the ordeal with Liam but she kept a few things hidden from everyone.
LENA got the principals position and lost the baby.
I don't know where Sharon, Dana and Stuart live. So Im saying that Sharon lives in the California area. While Dana and Stuart live in Florida.
Previously:
Bit of Stef and Lena moments.
Rylans Adoption on hold.
Rylan is the niece of Kathleen dunn.
AN:
Review answers:
Bella Gracelyn Prentiss - Thank you for your review. I am glad you have like the story since the start and that you liked the Dunn family twist. I have the story planned to the end just have to write it all up. Thanks for the idea though. I have read a few of your stories and your writing style is awesome. I really liked the story you wrote for the fosters 'the first time'.
Lazytown2000 – thanks for the review. I am glad you like the the chapter.
Niko1ester - Im glad to be back. Thanks for your reviews. I enjoy seeing them. I am happy to know you like the story.
Brittana022 – Its good to be back. Thanks for the reviews, they make my day.
Thank you to all those that have stuck around since the beginning. I know this story has been going for a good few years and I appreciate every single one of you.
Thank you to all those that have reviewed, are following the story or have added it to your favourites. I appreciate it and you make the story continue.
Anyway on with the story
Xxxxxx
Monday morning.
With breakfast over and done with, the kids all scattered to do their own thing, leaving the Moms to do their own thing aswell.
Brandon was with his dad, spending some time together. Bonding.
Jude, Noah and Jesus were out playing basketball in the yard. The Moms knew that with Brandon not home Jesus wanted to be home to protect his sisters, his family. Even though there are three agents on patrol around their house 24/7. He still felt the need to protect.
Callie, Rylan and Mariana opted to stay inside and were doing some sisterly bonding.
With the kids all occupied Stef and Lena were able to pay bills, do some tidying and other bits and pieces around the house that needed to be done but have being puting off.
Now with all their little jobs done, they could no longer procrastinate. They were going to talk to Rylan, it was now or it would be too late and they couldn't put it off any longer.
Stef moved into her room while Lena went across the hall to the girls room to get Rylan.
Lena leant against the frame of the door and looked at her three beautiful daughters. The three of them playing nicely together like she wished they did all the time. She wished she had had a sister to play with like this.
"Hey Mama." Lena was pulled from her inner thoughts at the sound of Marianas voice.
"Hey sweet girls. What are you up too?" Lena asked as she moved into the room and took a seat on Marianas bed to face the girls.
"We are making funny pictures with Rylan and photoshop." Callie said from her spot sitting on the floor leaning against Rylans bed as she fiddled around with her camera. Rylan fiddled around in the closet and Mariana fiddled around on her computer sitting on the floor next to Callie.
"Oh, how does that work?" Lena asked the girls. She was very intrigued as to what her daughters were bonding over. They were all different and into different things so for them to bond together over something was amazing.
What they were bonding over actually sounded very interesting. Mariana looked up from her laptop to her Mothers face so she could explain.
"Rylan is dressing up for us and posing, Callie is taking photos of Rylan and I am using photoshop to put a picture of Rylans body into a funny background. Like this one." Mariana explains as she moves closer to her Mama and twists her laptop around to show Lena the photo. Lena chuckled, highly amused at the way the girls had chosen to bond together. It was rather interesting and very creative.
On the screen of Marianas laptop was Rylan dressed in Marianas bright blue dress ,which was a slight bit big on the little girl. Rylan was standing up straight with her arms out and legs together. It was a cute picture of the girl but what made it hilarious was that Mariana had photoshopped that image of Rylan so that she was acting out the 'im flying' TITANIC scene on a dinghy.
"Thats pretty funny. Good job you guys. Can you save a few of them?" Lenas asked the girls as she glanced at the photo on the laptop again with a smile. The little girl really was photogenic.
"Thanks Mama. We sure can." Callie said giving Lena a smile.
"Well I hate to crash but Mom and I need to talk to Rylan." Lena said as she stood up from the bed. Rylan turned around from looking through the closet to look at her mother with wide eyes. She didn't know if she was in trouble or not.
"Can I come back and play dress up later?" Rylan asked softly sounding a little scared, hoping that she wasn't in trouble. Lena smiled and crouched down infront of the little girl to ease her worry.
"Yeah, we just need to talk to are not in any trouble. Come into our room where you're finished in here." Lena told the little girl. Rylan nodded, seeing that her Mama didn't look angry so she wasn't worried about going to talk with her Moms.
"ill be back soon. " Rylan said to Callie and Mariana as she took off some of the clothes so that she was just in shorts and a singlet.
"Ok, we will still be here." Callie told Rylan as her and Mariana watched the little girl before returning back to the camera and Laptop they were fiddling with.
Picking her bee toy up, Rylan walked out the door and headed towards her parents room. Wondering what her Mothers wanted to talk about.
Xxxxxxxx
"Mama?Mommy?" Rylan calls softly as she pushes the door to her parents room open a little more.
"Come in sweets." Stef calls from her sitting positon on the bed. Rylan peeks her head around the door before pushing the door open fully so that her whole body came into view.
"You wanted to talk to me?" Rylan asks softly from her position in the doorway.
"Yeah, have a seat sweetheart." Lena says to the little red head, patting the bed infront of her and Stef for the little girl. Rylan closed the door behind her and headed towards her parents bed to take a seat. Her parents were both sitting on the bed crossed legged with their back to the headboard and so Rylan crossed her legs and placed her bee toy on her lap before looking at her parents, waiting for them to start talking about whatever they wanted to talk about.
"We have some news about your Identity." Lena started. She was unsure how this conversation was going to go. The little girl was just that a little girl, they didn't want to scare her but they did promise not to keep anything exetremely inportant from her.
"You found out who I am?" Rylan asked happily, a smile on her face at the thought of where she came from.
"We did." Lena told the girl with a sad smile. She could see how happy Rylan is, she hoped she stayed happy.
"Who am I? Where is my Dad?" Rylan burst out asking, hugging her bee toy in excitement. Lena and Stef looked at each other, they hated telling their kids bad news.
"What we are going to say is going to be hard to hear but we promised not to keep things from you that are important." Stef told the girl. Rylan nodded looking from one Mother to the next, the smile slowly falling from her face. She was happy to know that they had news on who she was but she probably wasn't going to like what she was going to hear if her Mothers tones of voices was anything to go by.
"So Mama and I went to the police station and we talked to Kathleen." Stef started to tell the girl.
"Kathleen? The lady who took Callie and Me?" Rylan asked, just to confirm that they were thinking of the same person.
"Yeah that Kathleen."
"What did she say?" Rylan asked looking at her Mothers with interest and wonder as to where they were going with this.
"We will get to that but first we would like to tell you that your full name is Ryan Elizabeth Mathews." Lena said. Rylan looked at her Moms with a frown.
"Ryan?" Rylan asked with a confused look.
"When you were first kidnapped we were given information on you by the FBI. They told us your name was Ryan and that you probably had a problem prounouncing your name so it ended up sounding like Rylan." Rylans frown left her face before worry soon replaced it.
"Can I still be called Rylan though?" Rylan asked worried, she didn't want to be Ryan, she was Rylan.
"Yeah, you will always be our Rylan." Lena told the girl with a smile as she pulled her in for a hug. Rylan giggled and hugged her Moms. At least she had a last name and the police could find out who she is.
The three of them hugged before Rylan pulled back and looked up at her Mothers with a serious face.
"I know my Mom is dead but where is my daddy?" Rylan asked. Lena and Stef looked at each other. This was the news that they didn't want to give her but knew they had to.
"I'm sorry sweetheart, he died when you were very little." Lena told the girl. The two of them had decided not to tell the girl straight out that he was murdered.
Rylan looked from one Mother to the next before looking at her lap. Lena and Stef didn't know what to do, they let the girl work through her emotions, she would come to them for comfort if she needed it. After a few silent minutes when Rylan did nothing but look at her hands was when Lena spoke to break the silence.
"Are you ok sweetheart?" Lena asked softly. They heard a little sniffle before watery blue eyes looked up at them.
"I feel sad but i didnt know him. I don't even know what he looks like." Rylan says softly. Stef moved a hand and wiped away a fallen tear, giving the girl a sad smile.
"Maybe we can get the FBI to give us some pictures of your Mom and Dad?" Stef suggested. Rylan nodded and gave a smile at her Moms suggestion. She liked the sound of that. She does love her Moms but she wanted to know where she come from, the people that were her first parents.
Now that knowing both of her Biological parents were gone, Rylan wanted to get back to the question she had before.
"What did kathleen say?" Rylan asked, hoping her parents wouldn't avoid the question. Stef and Lena looked at each other before Stef spoke.
"She told us about her family, her mother and she told us that her brother was killed. Her brother was your dad. Kathleen is your aunt." Stef said, getting straight to the point.
"So the big boss man, hes my grandpa?" Rylan asked hoping she heard right, looking from Stefs eyes to Lenas eyes before looking at her bee toy in her lap.
"Yeah, hes your grandpa." Lena said as she nodded confirming what Rylan had heard was right.
"So my Aunt and Grandpa took me?" Rylan asked slowly, still trying to process what she had been told. Not looking up at her parents and she processed.
"Yeah, they did." Stef said softly as she placed a hand on the little girls knee to hopefully give her some comfort.
Finally when Rylan did look up from her bee toy, the Mothers were a little shocked.
"I hate them." Rylan spat out, her jaw tight as she hugged her bee toy tighter. The Mothers looked at their little girl with wide eyes. They had never heard such venom come from their little girls mouth.
"Hate is a strong word, sweets." Stef spoke softly, hoping to remove the anger from the room but it didn't work. Anger still laced Rylans voice as she spoke.
"Family are suppose to make you happy. They took me and made me scared and upset. I don't like them. I don't want them as my family, I don't want a Aunt and Grandpa. They ruined everything." Rylan spat out in anger before she broke down and cried. The Moms immediately pulled the little girl into a Mama sandwich to comfort her.
"Oh sweetheart." Lena whispered as her and Stef rocked the sobbing little girl. They too had tears in their eyes.
Allthey could do now that information about her life had been revealed was to hold her and let her be. Let her get comfort from them because she needed it. Both Moms could understand the anger and the sadness. Rylan had learnt alot about her true identity that it would make anyone emotional.
"Am i...am I still being adopted?" Rylan mumbled through her sobs and Stef shirt before she pulled away a little to look at both her Mothers faces.
"We want you in our family sweetheart. Your adoption is on hold for a moment sweets. Until Bill and his team can sort through paperwork and talk to your relatives, it has to be on hold." Stef told the girl. Rylans lip trembled, tears still streaming down her face.
"What if they take me away? I don't want to go. I don't want to lose any more parents." Rylan sobbed looking at her Mothers before burying herself back into their embrace. Stef and Lena just held her tight.
"Oh sweetheart. We will fight. We love you so much. We will fight for you." Lena whispered over and over again into the girls hair, knowing that the sobbing child could hear them.
"I love you." Stef whispered over Rylans head. Lena smiled and mouthed it back as they cuddled their girl.
All that Stef and Lena knew right now was nothing was for certain, well the future wasn't but they certainly love the little red headed girl.
Xxxxxxx
Lunch time Monday.
After their talk up in their room, Rylan cries herself to sleep in her Moms arms. Having an emotional talk had taken its toll on the little girl and so Lena and Stef left the little girl on their bed to rest and headed downstairs to make lunch.
"I have to go into work soon to finish off some paper work and end of semester things." Lena told her wife as she cut up salad ingredients for lunch of meat and salad sandwiches.
"How long will you be?" Stef asked, looking up from buttering the bread as Lena moved away from the salad to head to the fridge to get out the mayonaise.
"Not long, couple of hours." Lena told her wife. Stef nodded as she set down the butter knife and snagged Lena around the waist as she walked by.
"Ok, well you do that. I can hold down the fort long enough." Stef said with a teasing smile as Lena rolled her eyes but leant in to capture Stefs lips in a kiss.
"Ewwww Moms really?" Mariana asked grossed out at witnessing her parents making out. Of course she had chosen that moment to come into the room. Sometime she thought that the universe just loved making her walk in on her parents getting gross.
"What?" Stef says looking at Mariana with a raised eyebrow before smirking and pulling Lena into a kiss.
"Moms." Mariana groans at her parents making the two of them pull away from each other and chuckle as they get back to their tasks.
"Go get your siblings for lunch, tell Noah he is welcome to stay for lunch, there is plenty." Lena tells the teen.
"Alright, as long as we don't walk into you kissing again." Mariana says giving a fake shiver and scrunched up face. The Moms both laugh as the girl heads upstairs.
Xxxxxxxx
Lena and Stef had prepared lunch and Mariana had done what her mothers had asked of her and had collected her siblings.
Soon enough Stef, Lena, Mariana, Callie, Jude, Jesus, Rylan and Noah were sitting around the table eating lunch. Brandon was at his dads so they didn't have to add an extra chair.
"Alright eat up. Mama has to go into work for a few hours so you are stuck with this Mom for the afternoon." Stef told the group.
"Well Mari, Rylan and I are still doing our photoshoot thing upstairs, so we will be in our room." Callie told the Moms. Both mothers nodded before Jesus told them his plans.
"Noah, jude and I are still playing basketball outside so you have free time Mom." Jesus said with a smile. And Stef chuckled.
"Well lucky me." Stef said with excitement, everyone laughing at the woman. It was rare to get some free time to herself and Stef was going to make the most of it by doing things that she needed to catch up on.
xxxxxxxx
With Lena off at work and the kids doing their own things, Stef ended up having time to do some important phone calls and little jobs around the house that were always pushed to the side for more important things. One of which was calling up Alyssa to get the kids back in therapy, now that everything has settled a little. With Rylan and Callie back, therapy will definetly be needed now more then ever.
"Alyssa Bankcrofts office ,Jenny speaking." Came the voice through the phone after two rings.
"Hi Jenny, its Stef Adams foster. I was calling in regard to schedualling my family in for appointments." Stef told the receptionist as she sat down at the kitchen table where she had sat out a diary, paper and pens. Ready to get appointments written down.
"Hello Stef, Ill just transfer you through to Alyssa, shes been waiting on your call for days now. Ill patch you through, give me a moment." Jenny told Stef.
"Thank you jenny." Stef replied and then the phone went on hold and a new but familiar voice filled the line.
"Stef, so good to hear from you again." Stef smiled a sad smile at the hearing Alyssas voice.
"I am too. Been a long week." Stef said with a sigh.
"I heard, I kept tabs on the news and understood why you had to cancel appointments. Im glad you called now. How are the girls doing?" Alyssa asked, Stef smiled. Glad that she didn't have to explain everything. The joys of the media.
"Fine physically at the moment, emotionally and mentally is another story." Stef told the therapist who Stef knew was probably taking notes down to be ahead and ready for when they got their appointments.
"Understandable with what they went through. "
"Hopefully you will able to give them some help that they desperately need." Stef told the woman.
"I will do my best. So I have appointments available but they will not be the same as the last time. Is that alright?"Alyssa told Stef, hoping it would be alright, otherwise she could move things around for the family.
"Yeah, ill take whatever you have." Stef said with a nod, even though Alyssa couldn't see her. Anything the therapist had available was good. They could work around the dates and times.
"Ok well. Do you have a paper and pen handy?" Alyssa asked.
"Yeah, one sec." Stef grabbed her pen and the paper so she could take down the appointments, she would write them in the diary after.
Alysaa tells Stef the appointment times and days for the family and Stef writes them down on the paper she had in front of her.
"Are you alright with those times and days?" Alyssa asks.
"Yeah they are good." Stef tells the woman after she scans the days and times for the appoinments that will happen weekly until Alyssa says that they don't need therapy anymore, just like last time.
"Well ill let you get back to your family and Ill see you tomorrow with Callie." Alyssa says.
"Will do, thankyou Alyssa." Stef says with a sigh of relief, having gotten one major thing crossed of her list and to keep her mind not as stressed.
"Not a problem Stef. Have a good afternoon."
"You too. Bye."
Stef hung up the phone and looked down at the paper she had written on
Monday 3.30pm Jude
tuesday 4pm Callie
wednesday 3pm Mariana
thursday 4pm Jesus
friday 3pm brandon
saturday 9am Stef
saturday 10am Lena
saturday 11am Rylan
Looking more carefully at the scheduling it looked a lot better then the last time they had been given appointments. Much more easier to work around.
With that phone call ticked off her list, Stef got down to doing the other small jobs around the house, like tightening the tap in the shower of the kids bathroom that had been leaking for a few days now.
XXXXXXXX
MONDAY EVENING
Stef was walking down the stairs after checking on the kids when the front door opened.
'Great timing.'Stef thought with a smile as Lena walked in.
"Hey Honey." Lena greeted Stef with a smile once she closed the door behind her.
"Hi, how was paperwork?" Stef asked as she walked over and placed a kiss to Lenas lips in greeting.
"Got it all done, so now I can enjoy the summer holidays stress free from paperwork." Lena said with a smile and Stef mirrored it.
"Good Job my love." Stef told Lena as the two of them walked into the kitchen so that Lena could set her keys and handbag down in the study nook.
"What did you get up to this afternoon?" Lena asked once she had set her stuff down and turned to give Stef her full attention.
"Just the little jobs that needed to be done around here. I also called Alyssa to get the kids back into therapy. She was very happy to hear from me. She had kept tabs on Rylan and Callies case on the news and she understood the missed sessions." Stef told her wife and Lena nodded.
"So the same times or changed?" Lena asked getting her diary out of her bag ready to place in times for the therapy appointments. Stef slipped the paper she had written on towards Lena.
"The times have changed. Callie is first up on Tuesday at 4pm. Which will work out well. She needs to go as soon as possible. I have noticed that she has started to build up her wall again, shes holding emotions in." Stef explained and Lena nodded as she looked down at the times.
"I have noticed that too. Having her go to therapy tomorrow would be good for her. She needs to open up and talk about what happened in the houses." Both Moms knew that the kidnapping had taken extra toll on their eldest daughter. She had to protect Rylan while she was there and that would have been very scary and stressfull, building up walls in her mind to cope with it.
"Well now that you are home, we can gather the kids up. Brandon is now home, Mike dropped him off not too long ago and Noah went home not long after lunch.
"Ok, Ill get the kids and meet you in the living room." Lena told Stef before placing a kiss to Stefs cheek and heading towards the stairs. Stef watched her wife go with a smile. She still couldn't believe she had married that woman, she got so damn lucky.
Xxxxxxxx
"Everyone know your therapy days and times?" Stef asked the kids as her and Lena just gave the kids their therapy day and tm
"Well, yeah but I might forget." Jesus said pointedly.
"We know." The other kids all said together causing them to chuckle and Jesus to shrug his shoulders as their mothers rolled their eyes and chuckled.
"Moms always keep record anyway Jesus. That just Moms for you." Mariana told her twin, Jesus shrugged and nodded. He knew it was true.
"OK, now that you all know that therapy is starting up again we can get to other important information." Lena told them as her and Stef took seats on the coffee table infront of where the kids sat spread around the living room infront of them.
"Like what?" Jesus asked with a raised eyebrow as all of the kids apart from Rylan eyed the Moms.
"Like Rylan." The kids all looked over at the little red head who shrugged and curled into Callie as she waited for the Moms to explain. She was glad she didn't have to tell her siblings.
"What about Rylan?" Callie asked, her body tense as she waited to hear news about her sister.
"As you were not here Callie and we have already talked to Rylan , I guess you should know that we are involved with the FBI on the case and they were able to give us information on Rylan and the people who took you." Stef explained to the teen.
"We know it was kathleen and her dad, what else do the FBI know?" Callie asked, intrigued but also a little bit scared, she hated not knowing the dangers when it came to her family.
"Rylan already knows this because it concerns her but Mama and I thought you all should know the real reason why they are targeting Rylan." Stef told the kids as she looked at each and every one of them. Giving Lena a look the two turned back to the kids and Stef took a deep breath.
Lena and Stef went on to explain everythng that they knew to the kids. It was alot of information but the kids needed to hear it.
"So they are Rylans family?" Callie asked with wide eyes as she looked between her mothers and then down at her littlest sister. This was major news.
"My grandpa killed my daddy." Rylan whispered repeating what she had heard as she looked at her hands. This was new to her. Stef and Lena hadn't told her this but now they had it was kind of shocking.
"He didn't know that he was his son at the time or that you were his granddaughter sweets." Stef told Rylan. Stef slid off of the table and knelt so that she was infront of Rylan and held her hands. The little girl looked at her hands in her Moms hands and then looked up into the blue eyes of her Mother.
"It still doesn't make it better. He killed someone, my daddy or not." Rylan said, a little bit of anger laced into her words but mainly sadness filled her tone. Stef gave the little girls hands a squeeze and leant forward and placed a kiss to her forhead before she slid back on the coffee table next to Lena.
"Whats going to happen with the adoption?" Jude asked.
"Like we told Rylan, its on hold till the cps can talk to relatives and such." Lena told him and the others.
"They wouldn't really give her to the people that are in the crime family will they?" Mariana asked her Mothers with wide eyes filled with fear. She was scared that her little sister would be taken from their home and put with the crime family where she will live and end up commiting crimes herself. That was what she didn't want for her baby sister.
"We don't know sweets. All we can do now is wait, we will fight for her though." Stef told them. The kids all nodded. They knew their mothers would fight for the little girl. They definitely wanted Rylan to stay, she was their baby sister after all and they wouldn't be able to handle knowing that she would grow up with the life of crime as her world.
The kids all sat around the living room. They sat in silence as they processed what they had been told by their Mothers.
All that Callie could think about was that her little sister was not going to be taken into a family where drugs, sex, weapons and money are a daily thing. She would do whatever she could to stop that happening.
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