Hey guys, I'm going to try and not have updates interrupted by Christmas, but forgive me if that happens. I'm also going home for Christmas, so updates will probably be coming out a little bit early because of time zones.

Happy reading!

~TLL~

"So … You did it."

"Callie, of course." Jude shoved his blankets down his bed with his toes, just to have something to do with his body. "I told you that in my last letter."

"I know … I know but I hated the thought of you being in the hospital when I couldn't be there with you. Did everything really go okay, Jude? Are you really fine?"

"Yeah! I mean, I have a scar now and it's not totally healed yet, but almost. Everything went okay in surgery and everyone says that I'm healing great. I know you were worried but, look, you didn't need to be."

Callie sighed at hm. "And what about your friend?"

"You really care?"

"About you, of course. You did this and I want there to be a good reason why. So, is Connor okay?"

"Yeah. He's mad that I got out of the hospital but he didn't. He's been healing well from the kidney transplant and there's been, like, no signs of rejection, which is good, but it's still not time for them to do retesting for the cancer, so that's got Adam and I upside down. But, he should be fine. He wants to go home and he's mad that I was allowed out and he's still there but, you know, soon. Eventually. Can I come see you soon?"

"That's more words per second than I've ever heard from you," Callie said. "Um, yeah, yeah, come see me, there's something I have to tell you."

"Something bad?"

"Just something I want to tell you. Don't worry too much, okay?"

"I do worry about you."

"You're the little brother, that's not your job," Callie said, the familiar superiority in her voice. "And you just hacked up your body and got rid of one of your organs so you've proven that you're the one that we need to worry about."

"You'll get over it one day."

"We'll see," Callie said and Jude could tell that she didn't really believe that it was going to happen and he should have expected that too. "You would tell me if something was wrong, right?"

"Yeah. Only 'cause you'd get way more mad if you found out after."

Callie laughed. "It's true but that shouldn't be the only the only reason that you'd tell me."

"It's not," Jude said, taking a deep breath as he felt a lump build in his throat. He'd promised himself that he was going to be more honest with all of his feelings and maybe that would help him finally be honest with himself, and with Connor. He had been so sure that he would be ready to say it back if Connor ever said it again because he felt it so strongly. He felt his love for Connor in every part of who he was and, so, he thought that he could be who he was and he hated himself for being wrong. "I miss being able to tell you things. I miss you being right there. I miss you, a lot."

"I miss you too," Callie whispered. "Is your new sister better than me?"

"No!" Jude said. "But I do think you'd like her. I want you to get to meet her someday."

"Someday," Calle said, hemming and hawing, and Jude knew better than to ask her when she thought someday was. She wouldn't be honest with him, even if she did know. Not over the phone, at least.

"I'll see you soon?"

"You will," Callie promised. "What are you doing today?"

"I have to take a science test with Lena tonight after I get home from seeing Connor and so I have to study with Connor. He's started trying to do his homework again which is good. Not just because it means he's feeling better but it also means that I might not have to start school not knowing anyone."

"When are you starting school?"

"September. That was the deal with Lena. She'd spend until then homeschooling me and trying to get me caught up with other kids my age but, either way, I have to start school in September." He didn't mention to Callie that he was made this offer because of Connor and because of his and Lena's unspoken assumption that Connor was probably going to die and that Jude wasn't going to sit in a classroom instead of in the hospital room with him.

"You've still got lots of time to learn."

"Yeah, there's just a stupid amount to learn," Jude grumbled. "It's hard."

"I know," Callie said. "I've been trying to do some studying here. I dropped out of school too, remember."

"Yeah, I remember. You didn't tell me you were studying."

"You didn't ask," Callie replied. "I might try to get a G.E.D. Something, at least. You know, I don't want to get out and have nothing."

"Are you getting out?"

"Not for a long time, Jude."

It crushed him to hear it, even though it had always been true.

"So, I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Okay," Jude said.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

And, then, she was gone again.

Jude put the phone down on his nightstand and went about getting dressed for the day. His teeth brushed, Jude carried the phone downstairs to put it back on its charger. For once, he was home alone, both Stef and Lena at work, and Mariana and Jesus at school. He double checked that his bag had everything that he would need to study in it and then he headed out of the house, locking the door behind hm. It wasn't a bad walk to the hospital and he liked the time where it was just him and the whoosh of cars passing on the street. His thoughts ran through his head like a ribbon. Nothing sticking, nothing consuming him or worrying him. But, as much as he enjoyed it, he was still happier to get into the hospital room and head up to Connor's room.

"Jude! Jude! Come here!"

"Is something wrong?" Jude demanded, dropping his backpack to the floor and sitting next to Connor's face.

"No!" Connor said and his grin was so wide that Jude had to take pause.

"Are you going home!?"

"Not yet," Connor grumbled. "Give me your hand!"

Jude did and, then, Connor slid Jude's hand underneath the brim of his hat.

"Feel that? Feel it?"

Jude did, the prickles tickling his palm. "Is that … hair?"

Connor nodded. "Yeah! I've been off the chemo long enough that it's starting to grow back! Jude, I'm gonna have hair again!"

Jude hardly remembered what Connor looked like with his full head of healthy-looking hair.

"Really? You going to grow it that long again?"

"Yeah, of course. I can't not grow it out when it can grow! It's going to take forever but I'll wait because I'm no longer going to look like Humpty Dumpty."

"You didn't look like an egg."

"Kind of," Connor said. "Or a really ugly baby."

Jude rolled his eyes. "You looked fine without the hair."

"You don't mean that," Connor said. "But, thanks. Now, I won't be buried bald."

"You're not going to get buried," Jude said. "Dr. Meyer said optimism was half the battle."

"You don't have to listen to her that religiously."

"She's your doctor. Who else am I going to listen to?"

"Nurse Mac. I think he does know everything. Also, I told him I'd go for a walk when you got here too."

"All right," Jude said, standing up. "Come on."

Connor shuffled himself out of bed, sliding his feet into the thick slippers he wore when he left bed, because he left bed now. It had been nearly breathtaking to watch Connor take unsteady steps around his room, clinging to Nurse Mac and Adam. Now, he was taking short walks around the floor, mostly confident in his feet, but he still didn't take walks alone, just in case. And he still clung to Jude's elbow with one hand as he walked, but Jude didn't really believe that was for a 'just in case' kind of reason.

"How was your walk this morning?"

"I fell," Connor admitted. "Well, actually Nurse Mac tripped me."

"On purpose?"

"No. Well, I kind of stumbled and his foot was in the wrong place and so I tripped on his foot and fell down. It wasn't his fault but I told him it was."

"Nurse Mac wouldn't take that," Jude snorted.

"No, he didn't," Connor agreed. "But it didn't stop me."

"Because you're annoying."

"If I'm so annoying, why are you here every day?"

"Because I don't believe you're annoying and alive," Jude said, paying more attention to Connor's feet than the conversation. Connor was still moving at a crawl that more resembled the elderly and Jude had to actively remind himself to keep to Connor's pace and that he'd hurt his shaky friend if he ever forgot.

"So, when you believe I'm alive, you won't be here every day?"

"Connor," Jude groaned. "Stop being needy."

Connor glanced up at him and Jude was worried, for a second, that Connor would get defensive about it. He had, once or twice, when he thought that Jude was toeing too close to mocking him about the confession that Jude hadn't let him say. Jude had hoped that Connor would think better of him than that and he tried not to hold Connor's bitterness against him. It was all Jude's fault, after all. Jude was the one who had gotten scared at the last second. Jude was the one who hadn't been ready.

"I kind of have to be. I don't think I could finish the lap of the floor by myself yet."

Jude half-laughed.

"Besides," Connor continued, "I'm practically getting you through school –"

"Lena –"

"Doesn't see you as much as I do."

Jude couldn't even refute that. There was no one that saw him more than Connor did.

"Callie's going to let me go see her next visiting day," Jude said. "She said she has something to tell me but she wouldn't tell me over the phone so that means it's bad."

"It doesn't," Connor insisted. "Slow down, Jude! But, I wouldn't tell really good news or really bad news over the phone. I'd wait until I saw you in person."

"It's got to be bad news," Jude said. "She'd just tell me good news. I really think that she would. Hey, you okay? Your breathing sounds weird."

"Is this the last hall?"

"Yeah, we're almost back to your room."

"Then, I'm okay."

Jude tightened his grip on Connor's arm, glad when they turned the corner and he could see Connor's hospital room. He helped Connor back into his bed, making sure that Connor had a drink of water before he even asked for it. He sat on the end of the bed, waiting until Connor seemed okay enough before he asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. I just hate that it's so hard, Jude. It shouldn't be this hard to go for a walk and I am so tired of being sick."

"But your hair is growing back!" Jude said. "You're getting better! Soon, you might forget what it felt like to be sick!"

Connor tucked his hand up under the edge of his hat. "My hair is growing back."

"See? Good things, Connor!"

"Good things, Jude."

Some things, Jude would agree, were going to be good.

(-.-)

Lena went with him to visit Callie this time. Jude was sure that both she and Stef had been curious enough that they had both wanted to meet her and he was glad that they were both going to get to meet Callie. He wanted to make sure that they knew Callie was real, even though they had never treated her like anything less than very real and very important.

Jude jumped to his feet the moment that he saw Callie and she wrapped her arms around him the moment that she saw him. He clung to her, feeling weightless in her presence. There was so little weighing him down these days that he hadn't noticed the slight weight on his shoulders, but everything was gone when Callie was there, and he was sure that it was the old faith that she would always make things better. It didn't matter what it was. Callie could fix it.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Like, really?"

"Really. Want to see my scar?"

Callie pulled away from him, an exasperated look on her face. "Just sit down, Jude, before you give me a migraine."

"Usually it takes me longer to do that," Jude quipped. "That's a sign you're not seeing me enough."

Callie took her spot across the table from Jude, glancing over at Lena. Lena smiled brightly and offered her hand. "Hi, I'm Lena."

Jude nervously watched Callie, wondering if she would be as stand-offish as she had been with Stef. He hoped not. She'd been so much angrier at him when she had met Stef and Lena had more of a calming attitude about her that he was hoping would sneak under Callie's multitude of defenses.

"Right," Callie said. "I've heard about you."

"I'd hope so," Lena said happily. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Can I ask you something about Jude's adoption?" Callie asked, skipping by the pleasantries.

"Anything you want," Lena replied.

"When will it be finalized?"

"It takes longer than we'd like but we're hoping by the beginning of summer."

Callie's gaze shifted to the tabletop. "That's not that far away."

Jude wasn't sure what emotion was supposed to be in her voice. He had no idea what she was thinking or feeling. He poked her shin with his toe under the table but she didn't react, not even to tell him to buzz off.

"Is there something on your mind?" Lena asked her.

Callie ignored her, looking up at Jude, and he knew. He knew that this was the bad news. Connor had been wrong – it wasn't good news at all.

"So, I took the deal. It's five years with good behaviour. It's … I'm not going to be staying here. Things are going to be moving forward soon and I need you to be prepared."

"You're not going to cut me off now, right? You're not going to tell me that I can't call or write or come visit anymore, right?"

"Jude, I just don't know how things are going to –"

"Callie!" Jude snapped. "What if I decide to cut out another organ?"

"It seems unlikely," Lena said. "And, it seems unlikely that we'd let you so soon after this surgery."

"My point is," Jude said, "don't you want to know?"

Callie drummed her fingers lightly on the table, glancing at Lena and then back to Jude. "It's not that I don't want to know, Jude, and it's not like I want you to not be with me as much as you can. I don't want to hold you back. For you to have to deal with someone living this kind of life …"

"You never saw me as a burden, even when I was. Why would I see you like that?"

He had rendered Callie speechless and he wondered if he had ever done that before this successfully.

"We care about you too," Lena added. "It's not just Jude that we're adopting into our family. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, you have our support. When you get out, it doesn't matter when, you can come to us. We want you to have Jude as much as we want Jude to have you."

Callie blinked rapidly and stared down at the tabletop. "I'm glad he finally found good people."

"We're glad he found us too," Lena said. "Is there anything that we can do now to help you, Callie?"

She shook her head. "No. Thank you for bringing Jude to see me."

"We want you in each other's lives."

Callie had a grim smile on at Lena's comment and then she looked back at Jude, who couldn't help but just stare at her. Whatever else she was going through here, it was definitely a better place for her than the life they had been living.

"You need to be better about upkeeping his hair. You're almost more brown than blue now, Jude. Or, are you giving up on the dyed hair?"

Jude shook his head. "No. Nope. I still like it. Even if you never did."

"I never said –"

"Except for all the times you did," Jude snorted. "Don't lie."

"Well, I said a lot of things. And I did help you with it so you can't hold it against me."

"I don't hold anything against you. Which means you shouldn't either."

Callie quickly looked away from him and Jude knew that there wasn't a whole lot that she would want to say in front of Lena. The fact that he had gotten so much out of her already was either a sign of the apocalypse or it showed how scared Callie really was about how things were going to change for her and Jude honestly didn't know which one he'd prefer. Callie shouldn't have to be so scared. She had done bad things – no one could deny that – but she did them all for him. She did them all to save him and he felt like no one was listening to that. He felt like no one realized that all of the things that she had done weren't for herself and that Callie might have had a very different life if she hadn't a little brother, especially one that was accused of being gay and beaten nearly to death because of it on more than one occasion.

"How's school going?" Callie mumbled.

"Jude's a great learner!" Lena said happily, and Jude could sense how much she was trying to keep her voice upbeat.

"Yeah?" Callie said, and Jude let the conversation revolve around the topic of school.

It was easier than thinking about how Callie was definitely going to be spending at least five years in jail and how she might end up in a jail far enough away that he couldn't see her like he wanted to. The idea of only having phone calls and letters from her was nearly enough to kill him. If there was one thing he still needed to make his life perfect, it was Callie with him in Stef's and Lena's house, knowing what a safe home felt like. Jude knew that Callie had never known what that was like and he hated that she had been denied that.

"Can I come back next week?" Jude asked, knowing his time to visit was coming to an end.

"Yeah. I want you here every week because I might … might not be somewhere where you can visit me soon."

Jude threw his arms around her. "I miss you."

"I love you," Callie replied. "It'll all be okay, Jude. It will."

"We'll see. And, I'll see you soon?"

"You will," Callie promised.

And, then, Jude had to leave.

He felt heavier when he had to walk away from Callie. It was the same kind of feeling knowing that he was leaving Connor in his hospital room. Jude wondered how he had ended up with the better life. No illness, no jail, just a warm house with people that cared about him. It didn't feel right for it to be him. He didn't deserve it. Well, he might deserve it but he knew he didn't deserve it more than Connor and Callie did. He definitely deserved it less than they did.

"What do you think about Callie going away?" Lena asked when they were in the car.

"I feel like I knew it was going to happen. I hoped it wouldn't because I don't want that to happen to her but, also, I knew that there was a lot of stuff going on that I didn't understand and I still don't really get it. I know she doesn't want me to. And, so, I'm not surprised but it still hurts. She just loves me. That's the reason anything ever happened to her. She was a cute kid, you know, when we went into the system. She wasn't a baby or anything but she was still young enough that she might have been adopted except that there were two of us. If there weren't two of us, Callie would be so different."

"She wouldn't have wanted to leave you behind."

"No and I know that. If she wanted to get rid of me, she had a lot of chances to just leave me behind. She loves me. And no one will ever do what she did for me and love me like that. I mean, no one should have to. She was … It was … bad," Jude said emphatically, looking out the window. "But we should have had parents, someone to love us both like that. I think I still feel guilty about that, a little, sometimes, even though she made the choices, I was the reason she had to make them."

"Oh, Jude, I don't know what to say. You're a good kid and so is she. We're here to help both of you, however we can."

Jude stared down at his sneakers, watching his toes move inside of them. "I like that you admit that you don't know sometimes. It makes you seem more like a person."

"I am a person," Lena said, laughing, and it was such a nice sound that the tension within the car finally broke.

"Yeah but it makes you seem more like one."

"Want to grab some lunch before we go to the hospital?"

"Nah," Jude said. "Being in that place and seeing Callie like that really makes me not hungry."

"Okay."

Jude turned up the music in the car for the rest of the drive. When they were finally at the hospital, Lena reminded him that he had homework to get done before he came home. Jude half-nodded and pulled his bag over his shoulder, heading inside, realizing that he didn't feel as heavy as he had before when walking into the hospital. He felt hopeful. His scar was healing well. Connor's scar was healing well. Connor wasn't getting short of breath on his daily walks anymore. Connor's hair was noticeably growing back. There was no reason for Jude to feel heavy in the hospital anymore.

He turned into Connor's room, only to find that Connor wasn't there. Adam was, sitting in his normal chair, but the hospital bed was perfectly made, like no one had ever sat in it. All of Connor's things – his book, pens, the homework he had started to try and do again, was all packed away, there was nothing in sight. It could have been anyone's hospital room and Jude's heart double-thumped in his chest. Where was Connor? Had he been wrong to be lulled into a false sense of security?

Where was Connor?

If you have a song that reminds you of The Island Of Misfit Toys and would like it to be on the playlist, send it in and let me know! I'd love to hear your playlist suggestions. This week's songs are: Everyone Falls by Beth Thornley; and Wild Ones by You Me At Six.

So, on tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about The Island Of Misfit Toys, go to my tumblr URL and add backslash tagged backslash the dash island dash of dash misfit dash toys. Punctuation is spelled out due to Fanfiction's restrictions. If you're having any trouble accessing the tumblr content please send me a pm and I can format it for you in a different way.

~TLL~