Mike drove Lena to the hospital, knowing that there was no way he would be able to convince her to stay put until he checked to see if the woman was, in fact, Stef. He had called Vasquez and told him what was going on and Vasquez agreed to bring the kids home and wait with them all until Mike and Lena got back while Morris when to pick Sharon up at the airport. He was going to call once he had her to see if he should bring her to the hospital or home to the kids.
Lena wasn't sure what she was hoping to find once she got to the ER. On the one hand she hoped that it was Stef, just so she would know where she was but on the other she didn't want Stef to be in an ER possibly fighting for her life.
She barely waited for Mike to stop the car before she jumped out and rushed in, stopping at the first nurse she found, asking for the woman that had been brought into the ER. Mike and Lena were taken to a curtain and Lena paused a moment, catching her breath and grabbing Mike's hand and squeezing it tight for support.
Lena couldn't describe what she felt when she saw the woman lying on a gurney. She couldn't decide whether she was thankful that it wasn't Stef, unconscious, with blood covering half her face, pouring out of the huge gash on her forehead or that she wished it was so that her wife would no longer been 'missing' and she would finally know where she was.
Luckily for Lena she didn't need to say a word to the nurse who was waiting for confirmation on the ID of the woman - Mike did it for her.
"It's not her." Mike said and Lena could her the conflict in his voice as well..
"I'm sorry sir." The nurse said sympathetically. "We'll call if anyone else is brought in."
Lena was still numb as Mike drove her back home. Neither of them said a word but the fear increased in each of them as they resigned to the fact that Stef's whereabouts were still unknown.
Meanwhile at home Vasquez was doing his best to entertain the kids. He knew Brandon and the twins well, he had come over many times while he was parters with Stef and now that he was transferred to a different unit he missed the home cooked meals and easy chatter with Stef and Lena. He had been lucky to have Stef as his first parter to show him the ropes, she had cared for him and encouraged him and helped him become the cop that he was today.
Brandon, the twins and Jude were all sitting in the kitchen while Vasquez was telling them stories of their mom - most of which the older three had already heard before, but he needed to do something to distract them from their worries. He kept an eye on the girl sitting at the other end of the room, but he didn't say a word to her and he could tell that the other children were avoiding her as well.
"My first day on the job your mom told me that if we needed to shoot anyone, I had to do it - she had a clean record and didn't want to ruin that." Vasquez said, laughing at the memory of how nervous he was.
"Mom would never make jokes like that around mama." Mariana said smiling. "She hates guns."
"I learnt that the hard way." Vasquez said. "One day I put my gun down on the table in the middle of lunch and Lena nearly fainted on the spot."
"Yeah, she insists mom has to lock it up the second she gets home." Jesus said. "I used to think it was so cool that mom had a gun and that freaked mama out even more."
"You wanted to play with it." Brandon reminded him.
"Mama nearly killed you that day." Mariana said. "She was so angry she nearly ripped your arm off."
"Well, thanks to me we at least got to hold it for a while." Jesus reminded them with a grin. True to his word he had never tried to do anything like that again and neither had the other two, not that it was ever left out for it to happen again anyways.
Everyone was laughing until Jude piped up. "My old foster father had a gun. He got it after Callie destroyed his car, said it would keep us in line."
Suddenly the table was filled with silence and Brandon especially felt uneasy, remembering that very gun being pointed at him and Callie when they went to rescue Jude.
"Well if I know your mom she'd never let anything bad ever happen to you." Vasquez said, trying to liven the mood again and remind the boy that this how was different.
Lena and Mike got back home and everyone was upset to learn that it wasn't Stef. Neither adult had described the state in which the woman was in so the kids continued to wish it had been their mom, not realizing that the woman was in critical condition and may not survive.
"I wish she'd just come home already." Jesus said, starting to get upset. "If she's just angry then she should come back home."
"We'll find her Jesus." Mike tried to reassure the teen.
"No, this isn't right, she would have killed us if one of us had just disappeared like this, how come she gets to just walk off?" Jesus yelled, he hated not knowing where his mom was and he was angry with her for just taking off.
"Honey, why don't you go for a walk and look for mom." Lena suggested, hoping the exercise would help him. "When you get back grandma should be here too." She knew that either Mike or Vasquez would accompany him so she wasn't worried.
"Fine." Jesus said in a huff before he grabbed his shoes and ran out the door.
"I'm sorry." Jude said softly. Mike and the other two had gone out again to wander around looking for Stef but once again Jude had opted to stay behind.
"For what honey?" Lena asked. The two of them were up in Lena's room. Lena was folding laundry, for lack of something more productive to do. She was exhausted and wanted to sleep and desperately needed a proper meal but she was too worried to do either. Mindlessly folding laundry was something she could do robotically.
"That Stef left." Jude said.
"Honey, it's not your fault." Lena said, sitting down on the bed next to her son. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"But Callie did." Jude said. "She's the reason that Stef left."
"It's not just because of Callie honey." Lena said. "It was me too. I didn't help mom with Callie."
"But why does Callie do that?" Jude asked miserably. "Why can't she just be normal?"
"Sweetheart, Callie's having a really hard time." Lena explained. "She's scared and she doesn't know how to handle it."
"But what is she so scared of?" Jude asked. He was finally in a home where he had absolutely nothing to be afraid of until now - until Callie sent his mom away.
"I think she's afraid of letting her guard down." Lena explained. "She's afraid that it will all be taken from her."
"But shouldn't she try to keep it instead of making everyone angry with her so that they don't want her anymore." Jude asked innocently.
Lena caught Jude's chin, making sure he was looking at her. "First of all, we do want Callie. No matter what happens, we still want her. We'll work through whatever she dishes out at us, but we do still want her. And second, I don't think she realizes what she's doing really." Lena explained. "I think she's unconsciously trying to keep herself detached."
"Well it's working." Jude said miserably. "No one wants to talk to her at all."
Lena thought of the girl that was still sitting in the breakfast nook, alone, silent and still with an empty stomach. She suddenly knew that she had to go and talk to the girl. If Jude thought that they no longer wanted his sister then she probably thought that as well and that was something Lena didn't want, no matter how angry or worried she was.
Lena headed downstairs to talk to Callie, leaving Jude to finish folding the laundry but the moment she reached the bottom of the stairs the front door opened and Sharon walked in, distracting Lena from her goal.