Hello friends! Thanks for the response to the last chapter (and indeed, the last episode). I have finally finished writing! I have still not quite processed this yet as this has been my longest story by far and I feel like I have my life back a little...then I remember I have a thesis I still haven't written and I cry a little. Anyhow, here is the first chapter of I Do. As I warned you, this will be very much fluff and very much Kasey/Callie/Stef (and some Lena) but I've also tried to put in all the characters (especially towards the end) and look for the little throwbacks to previous stories/episodes as I've snuck some in there as well as a little tying-up challenge.

Oh - and on that note, if you haven't yet, now may be a good time to read Escape From The Charming Craftsman as I reference it in this chapter...it will have just taken place. (NB: please ignore a couple of minor details, I obviously wrote that a long time before I wrote this much more detailed set up).

Right, anyhow. Thanks to thesameguest for her help with this chapter and TheTBone for the ideas bouncing!

"Look at you up and about past bedtime." Kasey chirped as Stef appeared. "You want a cup of tea?" she immediately sprang up.

"Don't patronise me." Stef squinted, kissing her head. "Lena's home late and Mom fell asleep. And yes, thank you, but I can make it." she ran a finger through her daughter's hair, also turning her back towards the table.

"Do you want one, darling daughter of mine?"

Kasey looked at the pot and back to Stef. "It's OK...I can make my own if I do."

Stef shook her head. "I think I can lift a mug of water to you, Kasey. I've been feeding and watering you for sixteen years. I thought our little adventure the other week proved people needed to give me more independence." She alluded back to an escape attempt they had made without Lena's consent or knowledge and both ended up on the wrong side of her disapproval.

"Our little adventure, as you call it, proved I don't wanna piss off your fiancee again. I've only been ungrounded from the other stuff for barely two weeks and I would rather it stay that way until at least after the wedding."

"OK, OK. However you also don't wanna piss me off, so take my offering." She plonked the mug in front of her as Kasey smiled.

Stef sipped at her mug as Kasey shook her head and returned to her intense typing and checking. Stef tried desperately to busy herself with anything available which right now was tapping her fingers around the table, sipping her tea and peering over Kasey's shoulder every few moments.

"Want a snack?" she eventually asked.

"I'm good." was the fast reply, barely taking her eyes off the screen.

Stef took 3 more sips, shuffled slightly, cleared her throat and checked Kasey 2 more times.

"What you doing?"

"Just a few things for the wedding. Orders and stuff."

"For my wedding? Should you not be consulting me on this?" she asked as Kasey looked back blankly. They had already gone over these orders a hundred times though Stef, despite being desperate for distractions, still switched off when it came to wedding planning.

"You spent the discussion Mom was giving me this information playing bejewelled on your phone."

"Hey, you got me addicted to that!" Stef complained. "Besides, I only played it at the beginning of that discussion. I stopped when stuff got serious."

"Right." Kasey sniggered wondering when it was their roles had reversed. "You stopped playing it. Had nothing to do with grandma confiscating your -"

"OK, enough. Thank you." She scolded.

"Aren't you supposed to be chasing up the RSVPs?" Kasey focussed back on Stef's idleness. "I thought that was Lena's delegation. I'm good with this. I have my list." Stef had been putting off her actually assigned task mainly to avoid the fact she knew one of the subjects of it was her father. She ignored it by turning conversation back.

"Well, I'm on that. Right now though I think I should be helping you so come on, run some things by me." she ordered stubbornly, Kasey unimpressed but seeing a good opportunity to play.

"OK...do you want me to spell Stefanie with a P or an F?"

"Very funny. No need to be a smartass."

"What about your married name?" Kasey laughed. "Foster Adams? Adams Foster? Adoster?"

Stef wanted to continue to reprimand her but this game couldn't help but ignite a smirk.

"Or you gonna switch back to Elkin? Adelkin?"

"Ha. No. I think even if it weren't for not wanting to change your name, even Mike was happier with me marrying Lena than my Dad ever will be." she joked, even if there was a hint of regret under it as the constant reminder prodded her.

"How about Fodadams?" Stef joined in, trying to divert her thoughts back as Kasey experimented with it for the layout.

"Oh! What about Fadosteram? Stefanie and Lena Fadosteram! See!"

"OK, they're getting stupid now." Stef chuckled. "You're going to get me in trouble." She nudged her as Kasey shook her head with a laugh.

"I agree, so let me get on with the serious stuff." Kasey ordered, moving back to her forms

"Alright, alright." Stef surrendered, slumping her head down onto her hand defeated and began to play with a pen left on the table.

Kasey's typing slowed as the scraping of the pen began to be the dominant sound in the room. This beginning to grate on Kasey, another idea popped into her head.

"You know what could really help?" she moved over a box of sheets of card.

"Can you fold these Order of Ceremonies for me?"

"Yes! That I can most definitely do!" Stef dived into the task without further question, tipping the box out and guaranteeing a little while longer of silence.

"Hey honey, there's a pretty major typo on these. I thought Lena ordered new ones?" Stef asked after a little while, finally taking time to read one as her concentration waned.

"Yep, that's the reject pile." Kasey replied blankly, before cursing a mild error she had to fix on what she was working on.

"So why exactly am I folding them?" Stef asked unimpressed, her thought train catching up.

"Practice?" Kasey replied, turning to Stef with a mischievous smile. "You wanted something to do." she shrugged poking her tongue out slightly.

Stef's eyes creased into a pose for battle and grabbed one of the wedding magazines, swatting Kasey's hand down to the keyboard, Kasey laughing and writhing out of the way.

"You know I don't even have to invite you to the wedding!" Stef threatened between the light blows.

"Yeah well - " she defended, raising her palm to block. " Stop that or you're going to make me screw this up and Mom'll stop me attending the wedding for more fatal reasons." Kasey batted the magazine away trying to continue the typing.

Stef relented as they were both suddenly distracted by the sound of a ringing phone.

They exchanged a silent dare in stand off and both leaped to grab it, Kasey being able to do so much faster.

"Kasey Foster." she replied. "Oh, hey." her jokey chirp dropped to a more serious one on hearing who it was. "Yeah, she's not here right now." she looked at Stef momentarily who gave her an impatient glare. She remembered an instruction of Lena's in this scenario and moving away from the table.

"It's probably best if you speak to her, I think she'll want to talk to you first."

"Who is it?" Stef's impatience grew stronger as Kasey batted her away with a hand. Not a good move.

Stef squinted, a plan forming. She hated this isolation. She grabbed her side and grimaced, letting out a yell as Kasey sprung back towards her.

"Oh my God, Mom? are you -" she put an arm to her shoulder dropping the phone down. Swiftly Stef swiped it up, grabbing Kasey under the arm she had gone gone to hold.

"Hello, Stef Foster. My daughter is no longer able to take this call so here I am." She held Kasey's arm firmly, pushing her arm away as she tried to grab the phone back. "Simon?" she queried recognising the voice as he began to respond. "Simon." she repeated with a deathly glare as she let Kasey go, finally stopping her fighting back.

"No, Lena isn't in but I am. No I don't know why she didn't." she glared further at Kasey who buried her head down in her shoulders returning to her seat. The scathing tone though quickly changed to one of concern as she took the news he was bringing.

"Really? We can't use anything to bolster her case? The file will have that much impact?!" She sighed, beginning to chomp on her thumbnail. "OK, we'll let her know - wait, Friday? Already? That's kind of short notice..." she replied, Kasey's head bobbing in curiosity.

"OK, well we'll see what Callie says. Thank you, Simon, I'll call you tomorrow." she hung up and faced an upset looking Kasey who immediately launched into attack.

"First of all, that is not cool - you are not allowed to do that." she scolded her as Stef crossed her arms.

"Uhm, nuh-uh! First of all, if you're going to try and hide stuff from me I can play dirty tricks. Keeping important phone calls from me is not cool."

"Well I'm sorry," she protested stubbornly. "I was just following orders."

"From who?" Stef shot back before quickly realising and rolling her eyes. "You know what nevermind. I don't care which one of them decreed it, you don't try and keep me out of the loop." she poked the phone towards her to emphasise.

"We're not!" Kasey moaned back. "Mom just wanted to make sure if you got any bad news it came from us."

"So, what? All of my information is being filtered. No. Next time someone is on the phone I don't care if it's a telemarketer, you tell me."

"Fine." Kasey resigned, "but you know you and Mama better get on the same page 'cause this tug of war is a freakin' nightmare."

"What is?" Lena came in, depositing her bag on the side.

"Ah, perfect timing." Stef commented with snark.

"Kasey, what did you do?" Lena turned to her, tossing her keys in the bowl.

"Hey don't look at me, this is between you and your fiancee." she replied agitated. "Who by the way just faked her bullet hurting to trick me."

"Stef!" Lena scolded as her partner glared, open mouthed between them.

"No, no." she stood firm. "I am not getting into trouble here. Your daughter just tried to stop me from speaking to Simon. Apparently on your order."

Lena opened her mouth to defend herself but collapsed into a sigh.

"Look that was a while ago, I didn't want to stress you out, that's all. It's not like I wasn't going to tell you things as soon as I found out."

"Well you know what stresses me out? This. So please stop with the babying."

"OK, no more trying to protect you from stress." Lena accepted, humbly. She knew this issue was beyond argument. She could try and stop Stef's physical strain but she knew this was a battle she couldn't win. "Which may be a good thing, seeing as we're heading into wedding week."

"Well it may not just be wedding week." Stef rubbed her temples, sparking Kasey's attention as Lena moved to set her dinner up to heat.

"Why, what did Simon say?" She asked.

Stef looked to her questioning daughter and back to Lena, unsure if they should really discuss this without Callie and more importantly, with Kasey in the room.

Noting the silence and that Lena was now looking to her, Kasey read their thoughts and broke the awkward silence.

"Mom, come on - is it about the pre-trial? It's not like I don't know the details."

Stef cleared her throat as Lena shrugged her shoulders with consent.

"OK, well it seems Callie has to decide tomorrow if she wants to go ahead or not - they want the pre-trial Friday." Lena's shoulders bobbed down, taking in the information.

"Of course she wants to go ahead?" Kasey asked confused. "Why wouldn't she?"

"Honey, things aren't quite as simple for Callie as they would be for you or me." Lena explained. "Courts don't tend to work in the favour of kids with a record, regardless of if they're telling the truth or not."

"And he also says it'll be a he said, she said." Stef added, a disappointed look.

Kasey looked down to the table. She often forgot about the reality of Callie's situation and her background, she had normalised so much to having her in their family that it was hard to see how anyone could view her as anything other than who she knew she was.

"We gonna go tell her?" Lena asked, tapping the table anxiously. "Where is she tonight?"

"I think she's working on our big history paper due tomorrow. She was crazy stressing earlier about getting it done." Kasey filled them in, choosing not to go into the details of Callie banishing her from distracting her to at least "do something useful" after attempting to show her the third instagram edit she'd made while they were co-studying. Luckily it was also Lena's deadline day for the wedding orders which provided her more harmless procrastination.

Lena and Stef exchanged a look. "Maybe we should tell her tomorrow before school."

"Don't you think she'll need as much time as possible to think about it?" Stef queried.

"Honey, I don't think she'll have been thinking about much else. I'd rather she it not affect her schoolwork and sleep to be honest."

"I guess." Stef sighed before quickly turning her attentions to Kasey. "And this comes from us, understood?"

"Ye of the if you filter information from me I'll kick your ass contingent wants me to not tell the subject of the information?" She clarified as Lena hooked an arm around her neck and shoulders in an embrace.

"I'd like to think of us more as of the didn't have to let you in on this conversation at all so don't push it contingent." She commented quietly in her ear, squeezing her arm.

"OK, OK. You told me not to interfere so far and I haven't. I guess I won't now either." she raised her palms in her defence as Stef eyed her sternly and Lena pulled away, kissing her compliant daughter's head.

"I can come to the trial though, right? If she goes ahead. I mean, I'm a witness, right?"

"Uhm, no." Stef responded sharply.

"To what? Me being a witness or me going at all?" Kasey asked, vaguely outraged at the speed of the putdown.

"Both. You're not going and I'm afraid the ADA already threw out what you had. He didn't think any of it would change the outcome. It was circumstantial and couldn't prove he was stalking Callie. The instagram messages have all been deleted and without that nothing is threatening."

"That's stupid!" Kasey whinged. "And why can't I go? What if Callie wants some moral support?"

"She has us for that, sweets. I don't think she needs more people there to have to re-tell the details to. Besides, if stuff doesn't go her way I would rather be available to comfort her as opposed to bailing you out for contempt of court. You're not going." Stef rounded up firmly.

"But -" Kasey sighed down defeated in response to the no-nonsense look her Mom immediately switched on at the protest.

"Wait a minute -" Lena observed, thinking back. "How come you're not working on your paper? I told you wedding stuff only if you had time otherwise I would."

Kasey's eyes quickly diverted to a neutral point trying to badly pretend she hadn't heard the question.

"You finished?" Stef asked skeptically.

"Not totally but I will..." she began scanning the screen intently as a cover while Stef and Lena exchanged a look.

"How much is not totally? How many words is it?" Lena probed

"Like a thousand or something." she replied quietly.

"How many do you still have to write?" Stef asked, more suspiciously, tipping the laptop screen down to an angle to demand her eye contact.

"Nine hundred or...something." she winced.

"Paper. Now."

"But I have to double check -"

"You've been double checking that page for the last half hour. Now."

"But -"

"Kasey."

"Ugh." she sighed, hitting send for the final order.

"You're welcome for the wedding planning." she huffed sarcastically, clicking open her three lines of document.

"Thank you my darling." Lena teased with her most patronising tone, kissing her head. She rescued her dinner from the oven before looking over Kasey's work as she typed away.

"Honey, I'm not sure Benedict Arnold's 'Moms' "using him for slave labour and then bitching at him for not doing his homework" was actually reason for his betrayal." She commented glancing over her shoulder. As Stef smirked into her mug.

"OK - I'm going to my room where I can write mean things about you in peace." she grumbled lurching her laptop off the table.

"We're checking progress before bed." Stef shouted after her as they giggled at her minor tantrum. If there was one thing Kasey hated it was being told to do her homework on any timeline other than her own.

"How is she a straight A student, again?" she queried, stealing a carrot off Lena's newly heated plate.

"Ah! Hot!" she panted trying to blow through her mouth, Lena quietly assessing their similarities.

"Because you can bet that paper will be rattled off in an hour and still be one of the best in the class."

"Typical. She definitely didn't get that from me." Stef commented back finally swallowing down the cooled vegetable.

"Right." Lena looked at her lover accusingly. "How's that RSVP list coming along?" She asked blowing carefully as she scooped a carrot up with her fork. Stef looking her up and down.

She rolled her lips around trying to think of an appropriate answer.

Giving up on any hope of finding one she darted an evil glare, kissed her cheek and spun round off the chair to get to work.

Callie read over her final page for the fourteenth time. She wasn't unhappy with the paper but her grade had been recovering so well she was becoming obsessive about aiming as high as she could. She was finally in some level of stability at Anchor Beach and she didn't want to lose it now. She had even managed to tone down her own distractions, improving her time of batting them back out of her brain.

"Nearly done?" Kasey flopped down on her bed.

Of course there were things that were harder to bat away.

"Kasey..." she warned, not wasting her attention to look.

"Don't worry, I'm not here to distract you, I just left my book up here and Moms are on my back." she grumbled leaning across to retrieve it. "You nearly done?"

"I was nearer before you came in..." she smiled facetiously making a point to bang a key in finality. Catching Kasey's puppy dog eyes she rolled her own.

"Yes, I'm nearly done. You actually started yet?"

"I have about two paragraphs but I think I need to delete the part which suggests that if the Brits had met my Moms they probably would have run off out of frustration anyway."

"Yeah, best delete that before they check it or they'll be dumping you in the harbour."

Kasey gave a flicker of a smile as Callie laughed back to her screen.

She thought about the joke and the glimpse of security in making it that Callie showed. The level of comfort in their family. She then thought about the journey Callie had been through both before and after she arrived and couldn't help but feel the bittersweet twinge.

Here she was, the biggest decision she was going to have to make being how long she could risk being upstairs before her Mom caught her and sent her back to her room. Callie however was blissfully unaware that tomorrow she was going to have to decide whether to face the man who'd robbed her of her innocence as a scared and lonely child.

The last couple of months had been tough for Kasey, but that didn't stop her from still understanding how lucky she was in so many ways. After a longer silence than she intended Callie looked up to her.

"Are you trying to telepathically copy my paper?" she asked plainly as Kasey tried to zone back in.

"Sorry, I just got lost in my brain for a moment." Kasey shook her head, embarrassed.

"Kasey, you have that pity look again. You look so much like your Mom sometimes." Callie groaned, almost frustrated. The majority of her time with Kasey she could pretend to be the most normal girl in the world, but there were times, especially as they grew closer that she seemed to look at her like she was bathed in light.

"I'm sorry." Kasey flopped back on her old bed.

"I just can't believe you can focus so well with a million other things going on and I still have Mariska Hargitay down as a reason the Brits wanted America in the first place."

"I'll take a wild guess that it's because you're sat on the end of my bed instead of reading our textbook." she raised her eyebrows lazily.

"Oh my God!" Kasey sat up onto her elbows, deciding to drop the heaviness from her own mind. "Mom, is that you?" she scrutinised Callie's face as Callie rolled her eyes and chucked the lost book onto Kasey's stomach.

"Kasey..." she heard Stef's voice.

"Crap, now you actually sound like her..." she sprung up looking around as Callie looked to the door to see a stern looking Stef.

Kasey eventually turned and flopped back down. "Have you got some freakin' radar or something?"

"You can kick her out you know." Stef ignored the question and directed straight to Callie.

"I know, I already did." she smiled hoarsely.

"I'm going, I'm going" Kasey grumbled. "I just haven't got in the zone yet."

"Well get in it. Now." Stef hauled the book up of her tummy followed by her daughter.

"You know George Washington's dad -"

"Save it for your paper. Go!" Stef swatted Kasey firmly on the butt with her book as she grabbed it and slumped out.

"Wow that girl." Stef widened her eyes and sat down in her place.

"You know the worst thing is, she'll get a better mark than me." Callie smiled as Stef shook her head.

"Yeah, but yours we'd put on the fridge." she nudged her with a smile, a warm buzz zipping through her.

"How is yours going?"

"I think I'm about done!" she smiled back to the screen as Stef looked on proudly grasping her in a one armed hug.

"You know we're really proud of how you've done over the last few weeks." she shook her gently as she kissed her new loved one's head.

"You have achieved so much and we couldn't be happier with how you have embraced it."

Callie looked down to her feet. She was getting more used to Stef's tactility but she was still never sure how to return it.

"I'm working no harder than anyone else." she shrugged back as Stef shook her head, sighing at the reality. Not only was it not true but she was working through it with a bigger imminent burden.

"Well I'll ignore that you're clearly deluded with that statement." She kissed her head again working off the bed. "And just say keep it up because you deserve your rewards."

Callie gave her a grateful smile as Stef winked back at her. She took her leave of the room and leaned against the door frame. Lena was right. She deserved one more night of normality.

Next Chapter Preview: The family try and get to school on time and Callie makes and important decision:

"OK?" She replied boldly. "Is he...well. Was there any news?" She tried to keep the passiveness in her voice but as it creaked she folded her arms, trying another form of defence.

"It seems things are moving fast and they want to push with the pre-trial for Friday, if you want it. That means we need to know today whether you want to go ahead with it today. You remember what the pre-trial means?" She asked softly and clearly.

Callie bit down on her lip, lost for a moment in the detail on Stef's necklace - simply as an object that meant she didn't have to look at anyone.

"Yes. I remember what it was." She replied with half a smile, her eyes darting up quickly before dropping back down.