Chapter one:
Callie's heart dropped when she saw her mom hug everyone but her. She mumbled something about going upstairs to go to the bathroom and get ready for bed - half expecting someone to stop her - but as Callie walked up the stairs to the bathroom all her siblings share she couldn't help but shed a few tears and put a hand over her mouth so no one could hear her sobs. Once she got to the bedroom she quickly grabbed a pair of sweats and her mom's old SDPD hoodie that stef had given to her to help to try to make her feel safe after the whole Liam situation and made her way into the bathroom - locking all the doors to the jack & Jill bathroom so there was no chance of anyone walking in.
Callie sat down in the now water filled tub and just thought about how her mom didn't even hug her when she found her and was showing more comfort to Diamond than her own daughter. She wouldn't have even been in this mess if it weren't for Diamond. As those thoughts are running through her head tears begin to run down her face once more. It brings her back to the first night she had stayed with the Fosters. With her bruised side and her cut lip. She couldn't stop the sobs from coming out.
She was so tired. So she quickly washed her hair and body in the tub, dried off and then got dressed and made her way out of the bathroom after unlocking all the doors and moved into the room and onto her bed. She fell onto it without saying a word to Mariana who seemed to already be asleep after the drama at the school had tired her out.
Callie tried to close her eyes and sleep but nothing was working so she just turned to face the wall and stared at it while gripping her mom's hoodie, trying to find strength by wearing it but it wasn't helping to cease her sobs. She eventually cried herself to sleep at 2am and when her alarm went off at 9am she swigged her feet onto the floor and made her way down to the kitchen.
When she saw that neither her mom or mama was in the kitchen she breathed a sigh of relief, not wanting to deal with any more lectures and decided to skip her morning coffee and instead grab some orange juice and made her way out back and sat on one of the couches. She raised the glass to her lips and just took a sip when she heard the glass door slide open. She put the glass down and just sighed. Damn it Callie thought. She just wanted some time to herself.
"Hey Cal, what are you doing out here so early?" She heard her mama ask while sitting on the couch across from her.
"I didn't think 9am was considered early?" Callie said back and Lena gave her a look "sorry I didn't mean to add attitude to that." She paused. "The alarm on my phone went off and I figured I should get up even if it's a little early for a Saturday."
Lena nodded "I noticed you're not drinking coffee this morning," Lena raised her eyebrow.
"Just didn't feel like drinking any. Wanted something cold to drink." Callie paused "plus I do have orange juice occasionally" Callie explained with a small grin on her face. "and I know you don't really like me drinking it."
"Yeah, you're right about that. It's just that it can come with so many health problems when you're young." Lena said, grinning at her while Callie just nods as she picks her glass of orange juice back up. "So you never answered me." Lena paused, seeing if her daughter would look up at her "what are you doing out here?" Callie just shrugs. Lena looks over Callie, seeing if something was wrong with her daughter physically or if she was just mentally withdrawn. She saw that her daughter was wearing shorts and saw a small scratch near her knee and another one further down her leg as well. She looked at the hoodie and briefly wondered if she was wearing it because Stef had given it to her after the whole Liam situation or if she just wanted something warm to wear since they were still in winter. Then she looked up at her daughter's face. She saw that the right side of her daughter's face was clear of any marks or anything else but she looked to the left side and Lena saw that Callie's hair was covering it. "Callie," no response or movement from Callie, "Callie, can you please look up at me?" It took a minute but when Callie's eyes found Lena's, Lena wiped a tear that had fallen and her breath got caught in her throat "Oh Bug, what happened?" Lena asked when she saw that Callie had a scratch and a bruise around her left eye. Lena gently moved her hair so it was behind her ear. "Cal?" She said, trying to get her daughter to talk.
"It's nothing." Callie said, looking down at the glass in her hand.
Lena just shook her head, "That bruise and those scratches near your eye and on your legs are not "nothing". What happened, Callie?"
"I didn't go willingly," Callie whispered.
"What was that, bug?" Lena asked, taking the glass out of Callie's hands and setting it back down on the wanted to grab her daughter's hands but decided against it, knowing that she may close back up.
"I said," Callie started in a stronger voice, "I didn't go willingly." she said, wiping as a stray tear fell. "The truth is I was going to. I figured it would be better to be me than Christina since my life was possibly over but then I thought about something Rita had said to me when I couldn't get adopted and I was going to back out and take Diamond and Christina back to my car when Russell got out of the van he was driving and pulled Diamond into. Instead of going for Christina he went after me. I tried to get away and obviously this was the outcome. Daphne had seen the whole thing so I told her to go to GU and tell mom what had happened and that I still had my phone on me, well, until Russell passed the bag that I put it in to some random guy who was driving by." Callie paused, trying to get her breathing under control, "When he shoved me into his hotel room he told me to get cleaned up and to stop the bleeding. I ju-just. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to get out of the room so I just did as he said. Mama, I did as he said and he was still mad. When he went to touch my thigh after some girl put some makeup on me, I just lost it. I couldn't take it anymore so I grabbed his wrist, told him that my mom is a cop and that she's coming to get me. Told him that she was on her way and when he asked how she would know where we were I told him that my phone was in the van he brought us in and one of his guys said he would go look for it. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at Diamond and I tried to get him to stop talking shit to Diamond but then he just turned to me. Said he would kill me and that he would dump my body in a ditch and that no one would care."
Lena was about to say something but instead she just sat closer to Callie and wrapped an arm around her. She was surprised when Callie had leaned into her rather than flinch.
"After that I don't really remember much. I know that for some reason he put down the gun and then Diamond picked it up and aimed it at her, I was trying to calm her down and she was just yelling at him with tears falling." Callie paused to wipe away some of her own tears. "We heard banging on the door and I just pulled Diamond into the other room and she was about to go outside but that guy that was pounding on the door was still out there so I stopped her and we went to hide in the bathroom."
Lena nodded along with her daughter's story, trying not to break down in tears herself.
"When we heard a gun go off I told Diamond that we had to leave and when we ran out police officers had their guns pointed at us and I froze for a second but then I realized they had their guns pointed at us because Diamond was still holding the gun." Callie was starting to lose her tough girl exterior and Lena just felt a shard of glass cut her heart. She hated that her daughter had gone through this.
"What happened after?" Lena asked, running a hand through her daughter's hair.
"I told Diamond to drop the gun and when she did a couple police officers threw us on the ground, I'm surprised I don't have any marks from that, but idk. I haven't really looked at my body since I was trying to wipe away all the dirt when I was having a bath when we got home." Callie paused to pull away from Lena to face her. "When they were about to put cuffs on us mom came running in with her badge yelling that I was her daughter." Callie was about to speak when she got cut off by a sob. Lena pulled her daughter into her and Callie just sobbed harder than when she had broken down with Stef during Frank's funeral. Lena just runs her hand through Callie's hair and whispers sweet nothings to her.
"Shh. shh, baby. It's okay. It'll be okay. I'm here, okay? I'm here and I'm not gonna leave you." Lena feels Callie's arms tighten around her.
"When mom found us I thought she would hug me and ask if I was okay but she was more focused on Diamond." Callie's voice sounded raspy from the crying "I just needed a hug." Callie said, continuing to sob.
Lena tightened her embrace on Callie and heard her say something else. "What was that, hun?"
Callie sucked in a breath. "I just needed my mom to hold me and say it would be okay." Callie, starting to lose energy from all the crying, loosened her hold on Lena so Lena pulled back and wiped the tears off of Callie's cheeks which didn't really do much since the tears just kept on coming down.
"I'm so sorry that you went through this, Callie." Lena said, wiping a tear that made its way out of her eye.
Callie looked into Lena's eyes and more tears just fell. "Did mom tell you what happened?"
"She just told me that you went with Russell willingly based on something Daphne said to her and told me that you were okay. Just made to drink something called lean, I think? I don't know." Lena said, moving some hair out of her face. "She told me that you were okay, which obviously isn't true." Lena shook her head "did you two not talk on the drive home?"
"I, uh." Callie wasn't sure if she wanted to bring this up with Lena "Um, she told me that Troy Johnson confessed. I had tears in my eyes and was trying to keep them in since I knew she was so scared and disappointed and I just asked her what that means and, um," Callie paused, not knowing if this would get her mom in trouble with her wife since they were usually ones to check on their kids welfare before scolding.
"And, what?" Lena saw the look of hesitance in Callie's eyes. "You can tell me anything, Cal."
Callie slowly inhaled and exhaled. "After I asked she kind of went on a rant."
Lena frowns, "What did she say?"
"Someone along the lines of "I don't know. I don't know. Hopefully it means that you'll get your case dismissed, Callie. But you know, you almost didn't stay alive long enough to find out" Mom paused to look over at me for a second but then I started to tear up even more and then before I could say anything she continued to speak. "What's it gonna take, Callie? What's it gonna take for you to start valuing your life? It's just, I don't know..What else to do. I don't… One of these days you're not going to be so lucky and I'm not gonna be able to take you home because they're gonna be taking your body to the morgue" we just sat in silence after that and we obviously didn't say a word to each other when we walked in since she hugged everyone but me so I just went upstairs and had a bath" Callie started crying again. "I thought she would stop me or that you would or even Jude, Jesus, Brandon or Mariana might but it's like they were just focused on you two so I just went upstairs, had a bath and went to bed. I think Mariana could tell that I had been crying but I just went straight into bed, blocking out everything."
Lena looked at her daughter as she started to break down again. Callie started to break down again so she pulled her into her arms. "I'm so sorry, baby girl. We love you kids so much and sometimes we make mistakes. I'm sure mom will talk to you soon about it." Lena pulled back to look at Callie's face and Callie just nodded and Lena pulled her back into a hug.
What the mother/daughter duo didn't know was they had an audience of one who stood with their mouth open.
…um. I have no clue how this chapter got so long, but unlike a lot of stories based on the Russell storyline, this won't just be a one-shot.
Anyways, if you're reading this, thank you and I hope you liked this first chapter. I will start writing a couple other stories based on The Fosters and Good Trouble as well. I have so many ideas and I just need to start writing them :)
Any feedback or story ideas are welcome.