Callie POV

I took Rachel's phone. Multiple tabs on the browser were opened, the small icon on the top right corner of the web browser suggested she had 11 open tabs. Either she had to dig deep for this page or she did not close her tabs regularly. I was putting my money on the first one.

Twitter page was the current opened page. The opened tweet was a few weeks old. It had lot of likes, retweets and replies. Likes was about 141 thousand, some 98 thousand retweets and well over 9 thousand replies. Whoever made the tweet must have a lot of flowers otherwise it would not make this much noise.

"A small moment after the storm has passed," I read out loud before I clicked on the link that was attached to the tweet. A new page opened up and it directed me to a new web page and an image popped up.

It was night time. Moon was seen in the top left corner, night sky was illuminated by red, blue and white lights. I would recognize it anywhere – police, firefighters and ambulance lights. I've seen similar night sky often.

In the background, there was a building. Windows were gone, only some small shards remained. The doors to the building looked broken down. From what I could see inside the building, it looked like carnage. As if an small explosion had happened there. There was no fire, only light smoke remained that reminded everyone of what had happened there.

People – firefighters – were seen walking around the background. One had an axe in his hand, while other was caught speaking into a radio.

Back of media van was see in foreground on the lower right of the image. Yellow tape was pulled across "DO NOT CROSS". But in the middle stood two people. And the focus was all on them. They were the in the center of this image.

Two women.

One person was in cop uniform, the other wearing paramedic uniform.

They stood side by side, facing different directions, but looking at each other.

The cop stood facing the camera. She was standing guard by the yellow tape, to make sure that people don't come to close, don't crossed the line, keep safe. One hand resting on her belt, while other hand placed on the shoulder of the paramedic, who stood with their back to the camera. A red bag in hand, but other hand resting on top of the hand on her shoulder.

Their gaze met each other.

And you could see it in their eyes. There was love radiating between them. They weren't just some cop and a paramedic checking in after the accident. It was much bigger than that. The look in their eyes gave away a deep connection feeling.

It was us.

Mom and me.

This picture was taken when there was an explosion in a fancy restaurant. Gas leak in kitchen. It was a huge deal. News reporters were buzzing around the area like mosquitoes in a warm and wet summer. The place was very popular before and when an explosion of that size, during work hours happens, it makes a lot of noise.

The picture was most likely taken by someone from the news. I remember the place was flooding with reporters. There had been 10 if not more news vans. Not to mention other civilians. Besides the constant blue, red and white lights that had illuminated the sky, flashes were amongst them. I pressed back and returned to the original tweet.

I scrolled down a little to see the comment section. It was a mix of haters and fans and everything in between.

What an amazing picture. I love it

I hope no one was seriously injured. Glad they got it under control before the fire expanded.

This image is so beautiful. Small moment after a storm that shows that we are all human and need some reassurance.

Fucking cops. Fuck you!

There's a building on fire. Why are they standing there, chatting?

They look hot. Love a woman in a uniform.

Ah, man, I loved that restaurant...so horrible that it happened.

The cop can arrest me any time and the paramedic can revive me any time.

You captured a beautiful moment between two first responders

I skimmed over just few of the comments left under the tweet. They were all over the place. The internet is a wild place.

"That photo was buzzing wild a few days back. I remember seeing it on my feed multiple times a day. People would share it, share their opinion about it - good and bad. That's were I recognized the both of you. You're the mother-daughter first responder duo that everyone was going crazy about," Rachel said from across the table, making me look up to her

"Huh," Mom huffed next to me. I glanced back down to the phone to the tweet I had been reading before

"Apparently, you can-" I pointed to the comment as I was reading it "-cuff someone named stamplick69 and play the bad cop all you want," Shivers run through my whole body as I read that comment out loud.

"Handler thebigman_1 wants you to give him mouth to mouth, just on his d-" Amy grabbed the phone from my hand "No! That's...that's wrong!" and started to read the article that was surrounding the image.

"Yeah, it's better not to read those," Mariana said knowingly, she was on these kind of sites the most "People write crazy stuff. They think just because they are on the internet, they can write whatever. But the thing is, your are not as anonymous as you think you are. Nowadays, Google, Twitter, Facebook, any other big company can track you very easily. It's the main reason why they can show you relevant adds to you. They are watching your every move, every click, every page you ever visit."

"That's scary if you think about it," Brandon commented quietly to Mariana, everyone nodded in agreement

"We all agree to it, when when blindly agree to the terms and conditions," Theodor said from the end of the table

"Twitter comments are mild, compared to Instagram," Rachel said

"It's on Instagram as well?" I raised my brown

"It was everywhere a few weeks back. People were sharing it left and right. It happens. Almost every day there is some big thing that happens and the people on internet are having fun with it. It doesn't matter, good or bad. It will talked about on Podcasts and YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and TikToc. Everywhere. People will fight about."

"So, we were kind of famous for a while?" Mom asked to clarify as she handed Rachel her phone back. Jude asked to see the tweet and Rachel handed the phone to him next. The idea bothered me for some reason. I don't like to be in the center of attention, I don't want all these strangers looked me, commenting on me. Internet fame was not for me, that much I was sure about. I don't care about likes and retweets and shares. The only opinion I care about came from the people that were closest to me. The people in this room. My family. My friends.

"For a while, yes. The buzz is over now," Rachel said "There was another racist cop, who had killed a young black boy, who was out for a jog. Thinking he was running away after he robbed someone."

"Another one? Where?" Stef sighed. It was hard to keep track of all of them now. Seems like we hear about a new case daily.

"New York," Rachel replied

"The three of you are cops," Caroline spoke up "How does these kind of news affect your work. Do people view you differently now? How does news like these affect your daily work?"

"People seem to hate us even more than they did before," Mike said and lifted his glass up to his lips. His tone was very telling - he hated that because of these few cops who had gotten themselves into trouble for the way they are and act, the name of the cops, who really are good cops, is smeared. And it highly unlikely that their name will be cleared because of these disgraced cops.

"That's a heavy topic," Stef said and glanced down to her glass, Lena put her hand on Stef's back, sensing the tension in her wife's body. even I felt it. I saw how she squared up, her back straightened, how she clenched her jaw and how her grip tightened around the glass she was holding.

"I'm too drunk to get into it," mom said from my side with a light humor in her voice

"But I'm not drunk enough," Stef said laughing taking example from Amy and turning the subject into more lighter one. She made mom and everyone else chuckle. When the laughter dimmed down, she continued "If you don't mind, I would like to postpone this topic to later time."

"Of course. I understand. No need to discuss it today. It's a heavy one." Caroline said

"I know for a fact, that not all the cops are bad," I said and briefly looked around the table "The three cops in this room, they changed the way how I see cops, how I see the whole police system. They changed my life, for good." Mom patted my tight, apprenticing the comment.

"We can vouch for that," Jesus said after sharing a look with his twin, I looked up to them and we smiled at each other, understanding how these cops saved and changed our lives

"If this topic is not off the table," Brooke spoke up, leaning on the table with her elbows so that she could have a look at the twins and me from all the way across the table "Brandon never told me-"

"It's not my story to tell," Brandon said simply already knowing what Brooke was going to ask

"How did you meet each other?" Brooke looked at Stef and Lena, the twins and Jude, then Amy and me "All the combinations," Brooke added at the end with a light humor in her voice

"It's actually not much a story," Jesus added as he glanced to Mariana

"It's a short story," Jude said

"I still want to hear it," Brooke sounded really intrigued, but their parents leaned on the table, telling me they wanted to hear all of the stories as well.

"Go ahead moms," Mariana said to Stef, after Stef and Lena looked at their adoptive children.

Lena was the one who started "First we met the twins. Stef was the one who actually met them first."

That started a story telling time for all of the adoptions. First it was the twins, then Jude and in the end me. The parents did all of the talking, we - the kids - just sat and listened to our parents telling them their side of the story. It took a while to go through all of it as Brooke's family had a lot of questions. About everything. Starting with some back information about our lives before the system and ending with questions about the CPS, fostering system, adoption process, birth parents.

At one moment, Rachel got up, walked over to B, tapped on his shoulder, gestured to her phone in her hand as she whispered something to him. I noticed a brief glance my way from B, before the two of them left to the other room. They were gone for a minute, tops. Before sitting down, B once again glanced my way, but Rachel, it seemed, was sort of trying not to look at me. I was curious what it was about, because I had a feeling it was about me for the reason they had glanced my way. I wasn't sure I could just ask them. Got the feeling they would not tell me what it was about. Maybe it wasn't about me at all. Maybe, it was about Rachel's husband or something personal.

For a while I listened, how Lena talked about Jude's story. Jude himself, had gone to bed shortly before as he had been dozing off. I don't blame him, he's had a long day. As I did. Not really in the mood for re-living the post-Colleen and pre-Amy time or the story of why and how I met Amy I excused myself and left the room.

The conversation continued, I heard my mom talk about her and Aaron fostering before. Then, the sound of her voice faded, but I heard footsteps following me. I stopped and turned around. Was surprised to see B standing in the hallway. He approached slowly, with his hands in pockets.

"What?" I asked, I didn't mean for it to sound snappy. But it did. Maybe because it was late or maybe because I was exhausted. "Sorry," I apologized for my tone

"Come with me," he said and went for the stairs. I followed.

A minute later we were in a small room, located next to Brooke's room. It resembled a small theater room. two of the walls were covered in mirrors. There was a small platform, stage if you will. Microphone and audio system was set to it. As we had learned at the play, Brooke did know how to sing as well. There were enough song and everyone got equal part to sing. Brooke had a good voice.

One of the corners looked to be Brandon's section. Piano, violin, cello, guitar. Other music instruments might be hidden somewhere in the rest of the house. Computer to compose to as all the wires went to it. This was where they practiced, where the magic happened - where B composed and Brooke rehearsed the play and songs.

Brandon sat down by the piano and reached for the guitar "Like old times?"

"Jamming all through the night?" I asked reaching for the guitar, smiling.

"We can jam as long as you want," Brandon replied

I sat down on the near chair. Got comfortable and warmed up. Remembering how the strings felt, trying the chords. Feeling the weight of guitar on my lap. I tried to string to hear if they were tuned. It was. I'm not sure what I expected. It's not like it's my guitar at home, who I haven't touched in months.

"How did you do it? Compose the whole thing. It was amazing by the way. I loved every piece."

Brandon shrugged at first as he set his hands on the keys "Most of the songs I wrote I thinking about all you guys. My family. The first one, the opening one - " he played a small part of it, while looking at me "-that was all of us. The kids. How we grew closer and closer every time you used to come over." He stopped, placed his hands in different spot and started playing what sounded more darker tone "This one," B said talking about a song he wrote for when in the play one of the character learned of some harsh truth "- I thought about the time, when mom was shot and Lena was assaulted by the substitute teacher and-"

"I get it," I said starting to strum "Personal experiences."

"There are strong emotions there. I will never forget these moments. Those that are on the complete opposite specter, you know. The really bad and sad and really good and happy moments. They impact me the most and I can draw inspiration from them. Doesn't matter how much time has passed."

"Makes sense," I said as we both adjusted to now just jamming. Freestyle. At least I was. Maybe B was playing something he had written before.

We jammed for a minute or two without talking. Just feeling the music. Enjoying it and having fun.

"What did Rachel show you...during dinner. Not too long ago. You two walked off for a while-" I asked abruptly, surprising myself. I kept my eyes on the strings, afraid to see how B was looking at me. Angry, upset, sad.

I heard him sigh.

I slowed the pace a little.

"There are these photos on the internet. Of the...of the bombing," I looked up to him, put my palm over the strings, stopping the strings and sound coming from them "Eyewitnesses or bystanders took them. She found some of the images and in one of the images...it was you and Amy. Just after the explosion. When Amy found you. There's an image. It was shown on the news, posted on the internet, news pages-"

I put the guitar down to the ground "Show me!" Brandon stopped as well and turned towards me.

"No. You don't need to see it."

"Show me!" I insisted, but silently wanted B to shut me down again.

"No! We all agreed to-"

"We? Who else has seen it?"

"We all have. Our family. Your mom, Cooper. Us. We all saw it."

"Why did no one show me? Or tell me about it."

"Because-"

"Because what?"

"Because you lived it, Callie! You were in hospital for a month. 6 months of recovery. You got addicted to drugs. You barely got out of it. If you want to look it up-do it yourself. It's on the internet, you can find it. But do you know what I think -" he paused a little

"What?" I challenged

"I think you don't want to see it. It's been months. If you really wanted to see it, you would have already googled it! Found it yourself!"

I stared back at him. I always thought there were images. There always are for similar tragedies. Why would this bombing be any different. There were videos of it that I had seen on the news. Well, one clip that I saw while I was in hospital. But I never did look up the rest. B was right. I don't want to see it. The event was too vivid in my memory. Too painful. Still. After all this time. Probably will be that way for the rest of my life.

I grinned my teeth and breathed out "Change of topic," I said in defeat, picking up the guitar and resumed playing, my eyes down to the guitar.

We had jammed for a minute, when Brandon spoke up "Brooke's the one."

"You mean THE one?" I asked, my eyes big

"Yeah," he said with a big smile, there was a spark in his eyes that I had never seen before "I'm going to propose to her."

"Today? Tomorrow? In a week?"

"I don't know yet. But I am sure. I have never been so sure about anything, Callie. She's the one. I love her so much and I can't imagine my life without her. She completes me. She makes me a better person, a better man. She's always there for me, always listens to me."

"Does Stef and Lena know? Does Mike?"

Brandon nodded "Not yet. You're the first one I told this."

I switched up the chords and started to play something more upbeat, cheerful "I am so happy for you. Look at you, all grown up. Do you have a ring?"

"Not yet. I was thinking maybe we - all the kids - we could go together. You could all help me pick."

"Mariana- you need Mariana!" I joked, he laughed.

"I need someone to ground me. I still need money to pay rent and buy food you know."

"True," I nodded with a smile, knowing how Mariana could be "It's a plan!"