Author's Note: Thankyou all for all the reviews! Hopefully this chapter answers some of your questions and future chapters will reveal more about the past two years as well as feature more Callie, as this is actually a fairly Callie-centric fic, just so you know!

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Stef and Lena walked into the drop in center and immediately spotted the girl outside, sitting on a bench beside Bill who had promised to bring her to this meeting. Steph's eyes were glued to her as they strode through the room, cop mode activated and already trying to read the young woman. Lena's gaze roamed more, taking in the establishment, the children studying and working and even playing around them. But she brought her attention back to the reason they were there as they stepped into the patio area and each shook Bill's hand.

"Thankyou for agreeing to this. This is Callie. Callie, this is Steph and her wife Lena, Jude's fo- sorry," the adoption had, afterall just been finalized the day before. The women had agreed to this meeting two weeks ago but insisted it happen after Jude could already feel secure in being a permanent part of their family.

"Jude's parents, I mean." The sour turn at the corner's of her lips on Callie's otherwise impassive face was not missed by the moms. The next words she blurted out, causing Bill to wince and give her a sharp look, didn't help.

"So you're dykes." She was really just thinking out loud and hadn't meant to actually voice it at that, didn't mean anything by it. If anything, it was a good thing. They couldn't be mad at Jude for being who he was, could they? That would make them bigger hypocrites than Callie had always felt like whenever she told him he couldn't do, or say, or be, the things and ways he wanted to; wouldn't it? But the blonde definitely wasn't impressed, giving her a hard look.

"We prefer people but yes. We're gay." Stef retorted rather coldly. Lena jumped in, trying to smooth things over before this got off to too rough of a start, but also feeling very protective herself.

"Callie… you know Jude's gay too… right?" Both she and her wife watched very closely for the girl's reaction to that; it was something the boy himself had only recently openly identified as and how his sister responded would definitely be significant in whether or not they agreed to a visit. Absolutely no one was going to be allowed to make their son feel like he couldn't be his authentic self. Callie, for her part, gave a soft nod: her own thoughts in turmoil. She supposed she'd always known about Jude, even when he was too young to voice it himself and even after she knew she herself made him feel like he couldn't. In the same way part of her had always known, even at the Olmsteads, even with… him. But to hear it said so baldly and knowingly by foster…

No, that wasn't right. They weren't his foster parents. They'd adopted him. And that was another thing. The Olmsteads had been good to Jude, treated him like he deserved to be, made him a priority and part of the family. Adoption had been a real possibility on the table before Callie messed that up. And now, the very first family Jude had been put in without Callie had decided to keep him? Had it always been that? Been Callie keeping her baby brother from his forever home?

"Words please." That was the blonde one. Stef. Something about her tone and stance landed familiar in an uncomfortable way for Callie. She couldn't place it exactly but found herself responding like she was back inside.

"Yes Ma'am." She grit her teeth as soon as the words came out. She didn't want to defer to these women, to let them think they were in control. He was still her brother, no matter what the paperwork said. She had a right to see him! She had to stand her ground, even if they held all the cards. Everyone else always did, after all, and Callie had never let that stop her from being there for Jude before.

Except now she was questioning whether that had ever actually been what was best for him, in the first place.

No! She didn't know these women. Even if they'd adopted him, she had absolutely no idea what kind of home it was that had decided to keep him until she actually spoke to Jude. She wouldn't believe anything anyone said, not Bill and certainly not Lena and Stef, except for her brother. Nothing else mattered until she got a chance to see him, hear his side of things.

"How… how about we all sit down and talk, hm?" Lena offered to break up the standoff quickly forming between her wife and Callie, leading the way back to the picnic table the girl and Bill had previously been seated at as the social worker stepped back to linger and observe to the side. Once they were all seated, though the other two's gazes never left each other's faces, Lena tried to restart the conversation.

"Maybe you can tell us a bit about what it is you're looking for here, Callie?"

"I…" the girl hesitated, "what did Jude tell you about me?"

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"This is about Callie."

Jude froze, backpack half unslung from his shoulders and guilt written all over his face. How did they find out..? Did Bill tell them? But why would he after he'd kept his promise this long? Would this… the adoption was only two weeks away from being finalized; would this change things? The boy tried to shake the thought away; he knew his moms better than that. But still, it was the whole reason Callie had told him not to say anything about her, right? So a sister in juvie didn't hurt his chances of a good placement? At least, that's what he'd assumed at the time, they hadn't had a lot of chance for conversation when she was arrested.

"How about we all sit down and talk?" Lena offered, unwittingly speaking the same words she would echo in a couple weeks time with her youngest son's sister, as she led them to the dining room table.

"So? Anything you want to tell us?" Stef gave the boy a chance to come clean himself first, albeit greatly belatedly, and Jude swallowed hard.

"I had… have… a sister. Her name's Callie." Came Jude's meek and less-than-helpful sigh. His mama nodded encouragingly but his mom gave an exasperated sigh;

"Yes baby, that much we know already." But, at Lena's gentle nudge, she relented, "Okay, go on please."

"After… after our mom died, Callie made sure they kept us together and…" Jude had never really talked a lot to the moms about his time in foster care. He shared more now, desperately trying to emphasize how Callie had always protected and taken care of him and skimming over the other bits like why the Olmsteads didn't keep them. When he got to the part about Jim Pearson's house, his voice became stronger, more emphatic, this was the part he had to get them to understand the most. He couldn't have his moms thinking his sister was something she wasn't, something bad, he loved all three women too much to let that happen.

"It was my fault. I knew better than to… Callie had told me not to but…" Even after these past couple years, living with the moms and being encouraged rather than warned, Mariana painting his nails for him; even after all that, Jude dropped his head in shame unable to meet their gazes as he stared down at those same blue fingertips.

"It… it was one of his wife's old dresses. I… I just wanted to see what it looked like on me but… he caught me and, a-and…"

Stef and Lena exchanged knowing looks of anger and hurt respectively, already sure where this story was going. As Jude's voice faltered, his moms reached across the table simultaneously to each take one of his hands in theirs'. It helped, he took a shuddering breath and looked up again with glistening eyes as he continued.

"He uh… he started hitting me. He'd… he'd hit Callie before. She always tried not to let me see, you know? But I knew. But he'd never… anyway, Callie got home and she tried to push him off me but he kicked her in the stomach and knocked her down and… and…" Jude hesitated again, then rushed out in hushed tones.

"... she picked up his bat and started hitting him in the face with it." His eyes, which had dropped to the table once more, shot back up to his moms' and he frantically hurried out;

"It wasn't her fault! I shouldn't have put on the dress! She was just trying to protect me, like she always did, like I told you! But Jim said she attacked him for no reason and-and I-I should have said something but she told me to stay quiet and… I'm so sorry I never told you but she said not to and I didn't know you when I first got here and then… I'd already gone so long without saying anything I just didn't know h-"

"Oh baby" The moms rushed around the table to envelop their youngest in an embrace as the tears finally escaped down his cheeks.

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"It wasn't his fault!" Callie immediately jumped in when Lena got to the point of the story about what Jude had told them about how things went down at Jim's. If this was actually a good placement and she ended up being the reason Jude's adoption, that he finally got without her after all these years, got overturned; Callie would never ever forgive herself.

"He was literally just trying on a dress! That's all! You two… you two at least have to get that, right? It was my fault!" the girl stressed the last statement, smacking a palm on the table between picnic table between them.

"I should have…" Callie cut off what she was about to say. 'I should have smashed up his car instead'. They probably wouldn't go for that as a great second choice to attacking the man. So she finished a little lamely, but no less passionately, with;

"I should have… I don't know! I should have figured something else out! I shouldn't have hit him, okay? I know that! It was stupid! It was on me, okay? Not Jude!"

Stef and Lena exchanged a knowing look. Both siblings were so intent on making sure the other wasn't blamed for an incident that the women knew was neither of their faults. There was no one to blame but the abuser who had dared to hurt their little boy. They'd made sure to explain that to Jude and it seemed like his sister probably needed the same lecture but they weren't sure they had the relationship with her that they had with her brother, could make her see the same way.

Still, the fact that their stories lined up so well, that Callie was as intent on protecting Jude from blame as he was for her, said a lot. Even Stef had to admit this was a lot different from the situation with Ana. Not least because Callie was a child herself. She'd obviously had to grow up too fast, and maybe she'd be turning eighteen in less than a year, but this much was obvious in the moment; part of her was still very much just a scared kid.

"Look I… I'm not trying to take him away from you." Callie reassured the two women, even if she didn't know for certain it was true yet. If Jude had finally found his forever home, if he was happy and safe, she'd absolutely get out of the way. But if she got even a hint that he wasn't safe there… Callie would fight the system and both of these women, tooth and nail, to get her brother back. The next thing she said was the least calculated and most sincere so far though;

"I just… I just miss my little brother. I just want to see him… please."