Hello lovely readers. Here is the first chapter of the 2nd episode! This episode has had a fair bit added due to reviews so I hope you like it and continue to give me inspiration for new sections! mcgirl6541 requested Stef and Lena talking about Brandon which I had actually already written - so that scene is here. Across the whole episode, expect to see a different dimension to Callie and Kasey's relationship, Kasey's eavesdropping habit pushing Stef to the limit, some insight into Mike's behaviour, Jude finding his feet a little and a bit of a twist on how things unfolded the way the did in the TV episode. None of the existing scenes will change though - all changes are weaved in between.
I hope you enjoy it and continue to offer your thoughts and requests! Thanks for all of those so far. You guys write this with me. :)
Thanks to Mea23 as always for reading through and TheTBone for helping me figure out the following chapters.
"I still think it's too soft. I'm really not sure the end justified the means - he knows better than that." Stef said quietly as her and Lena sat with their coffee before the kids were up.
"We put him in a difficult position - we told him to step up and look after things. He was just trying to protect her. He had no idea what it would end up like." Lena tried to make his case for a less firm approach but Stef wasn't convinced.
"All the more reason he shouldn't have tried to sort it by himself." she took a firm swig of coffee remembering the image of that man wielding a gun in her son's direction
"I think he knows that now...I really think seeing first hand the severity of it will be more productive that any punishment we can hand out." Lena reasoned as Stef sighed. Deep down that same image agreed with Lena's logic.
"OK - maybe you're right. I'm gonna give him a hell of a talking to though. I want this to be drummed into him so that he knows he won't ever get away with it again." Stef rubbed her forehead as Lena put a hand on her partner's arm.
Kasey and emerged as they were finishing up.
"Morning sweets."
"Morning." she groaned. "Dunno why you wanted us up so early."
"You have to walk in today." Stef informed her. Kasey looked back horrified.
"You're kidding right? It just took like an hour to get down the stairs..."
Lena and Stef looked to each other.
"We have a meeting with Bill, we can't take you."
"Moms, I have a broken leg!"
"And I've got a broken trellis." Stef replied with little sympathy as Kasey rolled her eyes.
"What do you have first and second period?" Lena asked with a sigh.
"English then History. One of which is my best subjects." she pleaded with her eyes. "Come on - Brandon went on an impromptu road trip and is getting of scot free while I'm still being punished for being a little late over a month ago?"
"You're not still being punished, you're just not being rewarded - and how do you know what we decided about Brandon?" Stef interrogated through a squint.
Kasey looked down guiltily before giving them a nervous smile. "Guessed?" she attempted as a cover for her morning's spying. Stef rolled her eyes.
"Will she be able to catch up?" she asked Lena lazily who nodded.
Stef got up off her chair and wandered over putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Just this once - seeing as you've been tied to Lena's schedule recently anyway. But quit the listening in or I'll make you walk to school everyday - broken leg or not!" she squeezed her shoulder harshly as Kasey smiled mounting the stool.
"Thank you." she responded as Lena twitched an eyebrow at her with a smile just as Brandon arrived.
"OK - where are we doing this?" he sighed.
"You've got an hour to pack your things..." Kasey teased as Stef pinched her and she responded with a small yelp.
"Really? After the chat we just had?" Stef shook her head as Brandon threw Kasey and unimpressed glance.
"Outside, Brandon." Stef ordered sternly.
"Outside...sounds serious." Kasey whispered to him as he scowled. She began to move to go after them before Stef took her crutches and placed them out of reach with a glare.
"That's a mere taste..." Stef warned her.
Kasey was about to protest but shrugged down and proceeded to peer over the sink to lip read through the window instead.
Callie and Jude came down next followed by Jesus and finally Mariana. Breakfast passed with its usual bedlam. Jesus was more hyperactive than usual and there was small awkwardness with the new arrivals but Callie was a lot more approachable now she no longer had Jude's safety troubling her. Kasey made herself scarce to give her Moms some privacy before and during Bill's visit and Jude went about playing in the garden. Lena and Stef were being left with a difficult decision, made even harder by the sweetness of the wounded children now that Callie's aggression had been put into context.
They saw Bill out and Stef made her way into the garden. Jude was in a dreamworld, lost in a game in his head.
"You have a garden this big in any of your past foster homes?" she asked as he hopped down off their tree.
"I've never even been in a garden this big!" he replied, laced with excitement. Stef's heart tingled as she thought of a younger Jesus and Brandon and how much she missed the innocence of pre-pubescents.
"Well we need to show you something else. Bet you've never been to a school with a beach either." she smiled putting a hand on his back.
"A beach? For real? Do we get to use it?" he asked excitedly.
"Sure -" she laughed. "But not during class times, young man. You've already had enough of a ditch today."
His face dropped. "I'll not be in trouble will I? With the teachers?" Stef sighed and rubbed his back at the genuine fear in his eyes.
"Of course not, you've got friends in high places, kid." she led him in where Kasey and Lena were waiting.
"OK Jude, you ready? Run get your backpack and we'll see you out at the car." Lena added. "Thank you for driving me." he said innocently as the three women exchanged a look.
"You're gonna exchange all of us for him, aren't you?" Kasey teased once he was out of earshot.
"You get to school." Stef replied kissing her head and giving her a soft pat on the back.
"I know he got to you." she smiled back, knowingly.
"You are not meant to be eavesdropping, remember?" Lena shot back at her with a smirk.
"I wasn't - I don't need to. Look at that little face." she teased "and look at this one!" she stirred further mocking a childish tone and pinching Stef's cheek as her Mom batted her hand away followed by a clip on the side.
"School!" she ordered "Get out of my house." she gave her one more hard pat on the back before striding off past her to get herself ready for her first day working with Mike.
Kasey kept her smile on her way out to the car. She had a gut feeling she knew where this was heading.
"It's not as simple as you think you know, Kasey." Lena commented being able to read her thoughts.
"I know it isn't. It wasn't simple with the others either." Lena threw her a glance.
"That was different. We were looking to adopt anyway."
"You'd spoken about it, but you stumbled across them..."
"Let's just not make things more complicated by stirring up excitement or false hopes, OK? These kids have been through enough. We can't offer them anything permanent."
Kasey nodded.
"Don't worry, I know that nothing is a given." she opened the car door and took her place in the back seat. Jude was already sat there obediently.
"You could have got in the front you know." she said to him.
"I figured you'd be more entitled." he replied as Kasey's heart melted a little too.
"Well hey, we can get to know each other anyway with Lena as our driver. On James, and don't spare the horses." she shouted through to Lena with a posh English accent.
"Charming!" Lena responded. "What do you think Jude? Should I make her walk?" Kasey shook her head at him, pleadingly.
"You can't do that when she's on crutches!" he replied with a smile sensing the playfulness in Lena's question rather than it being an actual threat.
"I like this guy, I think I'll hire him as my attorney" Kasey replied with a wink.
"The amount you'd need, you'd never be able to afford him." Lena replied in a mutter.
"You looking forward to school, Jude? What subjects do you like?" Kasey asked him, swiftly changing the subject.
He shrugged. "I'm not that good at school work." he replied dejected.
"That's not what I asked, what do you enjoy? Being good at it is irrelevant."
He gave her a smile. "I guess I quite like books and drama."
"Man after my own heart." Kasey winked.
Lena gave Jude the tour around and ended up in her office to give him his timetable and map. She brought him back to her office before they were interrupted by another teacher. When she returned to him he could tell she was flustered, but she walked him to his first classroom. She knocked on the door as a lady with short black hair and a nice smile opened it.
"Hey Sarah, this is Jude - as I told you about. Can I leave him in your capable hands?" She asked, her mind clearly on other things.
"Of course." She assured her as Lena bid a final word of reassurance to Jude and disappeared back towards her office.
The lady gave him an even bigger smile. "As Lena said, my name is Sarah. I'll be your math teacher."
"That's what we call you?" he asked slightly surprised at the informality. She laughed, it was a familiar confusion for new students.
"Yes, we like to keep a welcoming ethos and good partnership between students and teachers."
"Well, nice to meet you...Sarah." he replied cautiously, still looking for being tripped up. She laughed to herself again before placing a hand on his back and guiding him into the classroom.
"Here let's get you settled in." she put her arms on his shoulders and sought the attention to the class.
"Class, this is Jude - he'll be joining us here. Today's his first day so I want you all to look out for him. Connor, maybe you can keep an eye on him seeing as you have a free space next to you." as tall boy with brown hair smiled at him as Jude nodded back graciously. He wandered over to take the seat next to him.
"Hi - I'm Connor. I mean, well, I guess you know that..." he stumbled nervously through the words.
"Jude - but I guess you know that too..." the two of them chuckled at the slight awkwardness.
"Here is the workbook, Jude. Maybe for today Connor can talk you through some of the things we've been working on and we'll have a little chat at the end about what you'll need to do to catch up. For now just do what you can from page 17."
Jude took the booklet and opened it up. A look of fear flushed over his face. Most of it was like another language.
"You seen any of it before?" Connor asked, sensing the fear in his face.
"Not really...it's quite hard for me to remember though. I've moved around a lot."
He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a couple of loose pens and a broken pencil.
He set about to write before Connor stopped him.
"Here, use this one." he handed him a sharp pencil from a pristinely neat case. "I got a new set and you'll need to erase some of the lines with the diagrams. It gets really messy in pen." Jude looked at the pencil and up at his face before thanking him and taking it.
"So you move around a lot? Your dad in the army?"
Jude stuttered slightly. "Not really. I mean, no. We just...my Dad isn't around so we go between lots of houses." He tried to lose his face in the work he didn't understand, hunched from embarrassment.
"Oh..." Connor paused. "You mean like, foster care?" he asked quietly.
Jude gave a small nod as his cheeks prickled with red.
"That's quite cool - my uncle fostered a couple of kids for a little while a few years ago. I used to play with them when I went round. They were really fun." he tried to make him feel better. "Must be cool to meet lots of different people." he tried further to bridge the gap.
Jude looked at him and shrugged.
"I guess...I dunno though. It gets a little...tiring."
Connor nodded. "Hey, you want me to show you how to do question 5? I struggled with it for ages!" he assured him proudly before pushing his book over the corner of Jude's He moved on so seemlessly that it was as if the sensitive topic had never been broached. Jude looked up at him and smiled, his nerves subsided a little as he felt he wasn't quite so alone.
Even after finally getting to class, the morning was once again interrupted for Kasey. She didn't mind the ditching opportunity but a locker search was even worse, especially hunched on crutches.
Luckily her friend Cooper made the situation more bearable, when they could get away with the whispering in the otherwise imposed silence.
"When was the last time we had a locker search? Can you even remember?" Cooper asked, poking his head round to see how close the security guard was.
"That guy - what was his name? I only remember him as Poppers." Kasey responded as soon as Lena's gaze was averted.
"Ooh! Handsome Mr Dreadlocks?" he poked his tongue out slightly.
"I swear there's not a guy in this school you don't have a thing for." Kasey rolled her eyes at his easiness to please.
"None as cute as Brandon..." he teased as she instinctively went to kick him but winced with the painful reminder of why she shouldn't.
Lena threw her a warning look as Cooper smirked at the disturbance they had made.
"I thought you and Peter got back together anyway, you shouldn't be looking." she teased him back.
"We're off again." he humphed. "What about you anyway? Did you ever see Zak again after the incident? You've never mentioned it."
Lena cleared her throat towards them as both looked down guiltily, dropping their volume.
"That was never anything, I was only so late back because he got us into that concert. He spent the whole night bitching about his ex. Besides, my dating activity has been somewhat limited."
"And it may be further limited, based on the look your Mom just threw us." He bent his head round towards her to avoid eye contact with Lena who now glared at them both.
Kasey mouthed an apology as they both quietened. They looked over as Callie's locker began to be searched. It was practically empty so wouldn't take long, but Kasey could see it as a distraction to a nervous Lena. They maintained quiet as another conversation caught her ear.
"They better search that one thoroughly" Kasey recognised Talya's quiet drone. She peered round trying not to draw attention to herself.
"God knows what they bring out of Juvie."
Kasey rolled her eyes - as if Juvie was a more likely place to access contraband.
"You think she's bad news?" one of Talya's friends replied.
"I reckon so - she was all over Brandon this morning. You should have seen them." she scowled as Kasey snapped her head round again, unable to hide it at the shock. A "Quiet please" silenced the room as the murmurs finally pushed Lena over the edge, but the lack of anger was clearly a sign that she hadn't heard the specifics.
"Well I'd be all over him." Cooper whispered to Kasey who dug a crutch into his foot. The immediate yelp and laughter from him was enough to make Lena stride over.
"If I have to tell you two one more time..." she warned them as they apologised again and she lingered for a few moments hovering from a new position in front of them until the message was clearly across. The remainder of the operation was silent which allowed plenty of time for Talya's accusation to swirl round Kasey's head. She looked across at Brandon who was opposite Callie and then back at her. She watched them smile at each other at the times the other wasn't finding distractions. She hadn't thought much about how attractive Callie was beyond her rough exterior - and at all costs she avoided thinking about people finding her brother attractive, despite Cooper's best efforts to constantly wind her up about it. Surely Callie wouldn't try and make a move on him? That was against all the rules, not to mention Brandon had a girlfriend. That would not be cool. Her mind buzzed about them running off the night before, maybe Callie's rebellious streak was a bit more dangerous than they anticipated.
Upon Lena's return from disciplining the talkers, Callie stepped forward nervously.
"As I've been done can I go check on Jude?" she asked quietly. Lena looked across at the bored faces and at the principal.
"He'll be fine Callie. You have to trust that he's safe now or you'll drive yourself mad." she whispered back.
"I know...I just..." her face looked longingly down the corridor and she shuffled with her sleeves nervously. Lena signed before putting a hand on her shoulder.
"Five minutes, straight back. Got it?" she ordered as Callie smiled at her and wandered off.
"She's probably off to warn her customers" Talya whispered as Kasey threw her another glance.
Not wanting to risk another reprimand, Cooper just raised his eyebrows at Kasey who sighed. She knew better than to believe Talya but her mind did flash back to Callie snooping around Jesus' pills the night she arrived. She tried to shake the thought away and leaned back against her locker.
Next chapter: Kasey's eavesdropping continues to land her in trouble, Stef and Lena have a wake up call about the impact of their fighting and a painful memory for Mike leads to a realisation.
"And when would you have been sober enough to take the call?" She fired back as he recoiled.
"You're not my protector Mike, you're barely even being a father to our children right now. The kids told you about this? It happened a month ago. Maybe I didn't tell you because you've barely been around!"
He sipped at the stinging liquid again trying to counteract the memory. He could feel it warming through his sinus up to his mind numbing each part as it did. He looked over as the phone began to ring.