Two nights of no sleep and just a few hours at the motel had exhausted Stef out and so when she finally fell asleep after four in the morning she didn't wake up when the alarm went off. Lena quietly got out of bed and went for a quick shower since she had just showered the night before and when she got out she found Callie awake and just watching Stef sleep.
"You okay baby?" Lena asked softly as she gave Callie a kiss.
Callie nodded and then looked back at Stef, as though studying her face while she slept.
"I bet she'd love a snuggle." Lena suggested, realizing that it's what Callie wanted.
"She's sleeping." Callie whispered. "I don't want to wake her. She said I could stay with her till she had to go to work and she'd drop me to school at ten thirty." She said and Lena raised an eyebrow. "Please." Callie said, realizing that Lena probably wasn't too happy with the plan.
"Alright." Lena said after a minute and then glanced at Stef, she could see the dark circles and the worn out look on her face and she too decided that maybe Callie shouldn't wake her.
"Help me get breakfast on the table please." Lena said to Callie, hoping to engage the girl in some activity.
"Okay." Callie said as she quietly climbed out of bed and followed Lena out the door, leaving Stef sleeping peacefully.
Callie helped Lena make hash browns and sausages and as the two stood side by side at the stove Callie began to speak.
"I'm sorry." Callie said, not looking up from the sausages she was frying. "For all this trouble."
"I'm sorry too." Lena said, surprising Callie - that's not the response she expected. "I should have spent some time with you yesterday, I basically left you alone all day."
"I don't blame you." Callie said. "I was mad at me too."
"That's no reason to just leave my daughter alone all day." Lena said. "But I was more worried than angry." She admitted.
"Me too." Callie whispered. "I thought she'd never come back."
"Sweetheart, she will always come back." Lena said, turning Callie's face to look at her. "Neither of us is going anywhere, no matter how hard you push us."
"Everyone has a breaking point." Callie mumbled miserably. "I know you don't like it when I say this but I'm not your daughter, if one of you left or even if something ever happened to one of you, I'll be the first one to go."
"Callie, if something were to happen to one of us then the other one will still keep all five of you, no exceptions. You are our children and you don't just give away your children because your partner is no longer around. Neither of us could live without the five of you." Lena said firmly. "And even if something were to happen to both of us, you still have grandparents and siblings and even Mike. You will never be alone again baby, you will always have a family now. Nothing can ever change that."
"My parents used to say that they'd never leave me." Callie told Lena as she turned to put the sausages on a plate. "So did a few foster parents over the years. I always believed them.
"Honey, you know as well as I do that we can't make those kinds of promises." Lena said as she put the bowl of hash browns on the table. "We can't promise that we'll never die or that life will always be easy. When we say we'll always come back we mean we'll always choose to come back, we will never voluntarily leave you or send you away. Your mom meant it in that way too, if she could have come back to you she would have."
"I know, but it still hurts." Callie admitted. "I believed it with two foster parents also but one ended up having a baby of her own and the other one wanted to adopt a baby, not an eight year old and twelve year old. I kinda stopped trusting after that."
"And we are trying to change that." Lena smiled. "We're working on the trust thing. It's like you said, so far both of us have left at some point but both of us came back, we have a pretty good record."
"You have the best record." Callie smiled back. "You two are the only ones who really loved us and did everything to help us."
"It's what moms do." Lena said. "And we are your moms, legally or not, we're your moms."
"I guess every kid drives their moms crazy right?" Callie smirked teasingly.
Lena laughed but before she could respond two sets of feet came thumping down the stairs.
"Where's mom?" Marina asked worriedly when she looked around the room and found Stef missing again.
"She's sleeping honey." Lena told her daughter and youngest son, who's face showed equal worry. She then glanced at Callie and found the smile had disappeared and was replaced with sadness. "She's really tired so we're letting her sleep in today. We're all going to have family day after school."
"Family day?" Jude asked curiously as the other two boys made their way downstairs.
"We'll talk and catch up and have a game night." Lena said. "Maybe even a movie."
"Ya and we get to yell at mom for taking off." Jesus said, still a little annoyed at Stef.
"Can you imagine her reaction if one of us had done that?" Brandon added.
"I can just see the fumed coming out of her head." Jesus said. "We'd never see the light of day again."
"Alright." Lena said, trying to stop her kids.
"Don't tell us we can't be mad." Jesus defended. "We were scared too."
"You can be mad." Lena said. "We will talk about it and you are all going to tell mom exactly what you feel but you have to remember that she is still your mother and you can't be rude to her. We all make mistakes, even moms."
"How come that line doesn't work for us?" Mariana said. "We always get into trouble if we do something wrong."
"Who said mom's not in trouble?" Lena smiled at her daughter.
The rest of breakfast went by easily with only Callie remaining silent though she did take a hash brown and two sausages on her own and ate them. Lena was so proud of her and held her hand under the table just like Stef usually did.
"Where's grandma?" Lena asked the kids.
"Showering." Brandon answered. "She let us shower first so we could get to school."
"I hope she waited for the hot water to fill up." Lena said, looking pointedly at Mariana.
"She did." Jesus laughed. "And she asked me to book her a flight back this evening."
"She's leaving already?" Lena asked surprised. Sharon usually stayed a couple of days when she came.
"I guess." Jesus answered with a shrug.
"Aren't you coming to school?" Jude asked Callie when he noticed her still in her pajamas.
"Mom is going to drop Callie off at school a little later." Lena told him.
"Is she in trouble?" Jude asked worriedly looking between Lena and Callie.
"No." Lena assured him as well as Callie. "They just need some time to talk."
"Oh." Jude said. He accepted the answer though he didn't seem too convinced.
After breakfast Lena got the kids out the door with a little difficulty. They wanted to check on Stef but Lena refused saying that she needed the sleep and she'd be there when they got home from school. Stef was only going to meet Roberts at eleven but wasn't staying for her shift - everyone knew that she was too exhausted to focus today.
Sharon did the cleaning up while Callie went to shower. The girl hadn't said a word since Sharon had come downstairs and she wondered how things had gone. After finishing the dishes and wiping down the table Sharon went to check on Stef who was still fast asleep. She then went to the girl's room to check on Callie and found her sitting on her bed looking at a picture.
"Everything okay sweetheart?" Sharon asked as she went to sit by the girl and glance at the picture. "That's one of my favorite pictures." She said as she took the photograph from Callie's had to look at it. Stef and Lena were in the middle on their wedding day surrounded by their five children and all of them looked so happy.
"I know we weren't adopted yet but it was the first time I ever felt like I actually belonged somewhere." Callie said. "They wanted to adopt us and they included us in such an important day."
"They still want to adopt you." Sharon said, glad that the girl was talking.
"I know." Callie said. "It scared me at first and it still does sometimes because I know that bad things happen often, but now I also can't wait for it to happen. Then I can finally be an Adams Foster."
"Honey, you already are an Adams Foster." Sharon handed the picture back. "You may not have their name but you have their heart."
"i'm trying." Callie said, as if trying to justify her worth. "I'm trying to change, to be better."
"I know you are honey." Sharon assured her. "We all know that and we're all here for you, it's okay if it takes a while."
"Are you mad at me?" Callie asked looking at Sharon to read her expression. "Stef and Lena always tell me that I'm their daughter and they'd do just about anything to anyone who hurt me. I hurt your daughter, are you mad?"
"You didn't hurt my daughter." Sharon said. "And you're my granddaughter, so you're just as important. Stef is a tough one, she can take care of herself. It's okay to be mad sometimes and to make someone else mad sometimes. It happens in every family, there's nothing different in this one."
"Did you ever leave?" Callie asked. "Because she made you mad." So far everyone had told her not to worry about it but she couldn't stop thinking about the fact that no one else had ever made their parents actually leave in anger.
"No." Sharon answered honestly. "But there were times I conceded sending her off to boarding school." She tried to tease, hoping that Callie wouldn't feel too upset. "She wasn't the easiest kid to raise, she was so stubborn and strong willed, it drove me crazy sometimes."
Callie remained silent as she looked back at the picture, obviously still upset that it was just her that had made her moms leave.
"But I have been mad at her and I have yelled at her and made her cry and she's been mad at me and yelled at me and made me cry too." Sharon continued. "But the love was always there, just like it's here. That doesn't ever change."
"That's what mom said." Callie said, looking at Sharon with watery eyes. "That they can be mad and punish me and need some space but they never stop loving me."
"She was stubborn and strong willed but she was also smart." Sharon smiled. "And she's absolutely right."
Callie gave her a small smile back before looking away and noticed Stef standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame watching her mother and daughter.