Author's Note: Installment number 2…

5x03 Trust

What if Callie didn't go with Aaron?

Part 2

Waiting room.

Waiting…and waiting…and waiting.

The last hour kept playing through her mind.

"I need you to come with me."

"Why? What's going on?" Stef reached out and stopped Captain Roberts from leaving the porch.

After an eternal moment of silence, Captain Roberts turned to the two mothers with a hardened look in her eye, but Lena recognized the look. It was the same one that Stef had on her face when she went after Jesús, the night she was shot. She wasn't a family friend; she wasn't her wife's boss; she was all business.

"Your daughter was found on the beach near Siren's Cove. Two undercovers found her, and I regret to inform you that she was shot. She wa…" Everything that Captain Roberts said after that became white noise. The only thing she could focus on was that Callie had been shot.

Shot.

Her baby had been in one of the most dangerous places in San Diego, along the beach, and…

She had to sit down, the room suddenly becoming suffocating.

"The good news is…"

"Good news?!" Lena cried out. "How is there any good news in that? Callie was…"

"She was alive, Lena. She was shot in the shoulder. She lost a lot of blood, but she was alive when we got to her."

Some other things had been said, but Lena couldn't seem to get past the "She's alive" part of the conversation.

"Love," she was saying, "why don't you go with Captain Roberts; I'll meet you there and bring the SUV."

A tearful nod, and that was how she ended up sitting in the waiting room – waiting for word on how their daughter was doing…waiting for the doctors to patch their daughter up and come out to tell them they could see her…waiting…

She sat back and looked at the ceiling for a few seconds before wiping tears off her cheek.

"I didn't have to suspend her," she whispered to no one in general.

"What was that, Love?" Stef asked as she took Lena's hand into her own.

"I didn't have to suspend her," Lena spoke a little louder. "I could've given her detention; I could've let her off with a warning! It's not like she wasn't already having a bad day, and she's not a violent girl; I've never seen her hit anyone!" She took a breath. "God, why did I suspend her?"

"That's the policy of Anchor Beach, Love…"

"Jesús got physical with Vico a while back, and he said he was just having a bad day. I let him off with a warning! I didn't suspend him. Why couldn't I do that with her?"

"Lena…"

"No, Stef!"

"Honey! There's no way you could've known she wouldn't go home! Siren's Cove is the complete opposite direction than the house from Anchor Beach."

"I shouldn't have come down so hard on her. Maybe she would've gone home instead of Siren's Cove. This is my fault…"

"Lena, no! This is not your fault!"

"I could've…"

"You followed the policies and procedures of your position. Love, you can't do this to yourself!"

"Family of Callie Jacob?"

"Yes?" Both mothers stood in tandem and approached him, Lena holding her breath, and she figured Stef was doing the same.

"I am Doctor Hendrickson, and I am the attending physician on your daughter's case. Your daughter did very well in surgery. The bullet nicked her brachial artery, which would account for the blood loss. Luckily, it did not tear through, so she did not bleed out. It also tore through the tendon connecting the deltoid muscle to the shoulder, and we were able to repair that. She will be in an immobilizer for a while, but she should make a full recovery." He took a breath.

"Thank God!" Lena let out on a sigh.

"What about the amount of blood she lost?" Stef asked. "How will that affect her recovery?"

"Minimally. Once she wakes up, she may still be a bit weak, but beyond that, it's going to be monitoring her blood pressure, and just letting her rest."

"Can we see her?"

Doctor Hendrickson gestured off to the left toward the elevator. "The aides were taking her to the ICU from Recovery when I came out here. She is probably situated by now, so yes. If you'll follow me…" He began heading over toward the elevators, both mothers following closely behind.

Once they were on the appropriate floor, Lena's heart began beating faster. She'd already seen her wife after she was shot, and those memories began coming back a little too quickly for her liking. She remembered the same dread coursing through her veins, only this time, it seemed to be a bit more intense. It wasn't her wife; it was her child…her baby.

They arrived at Callie's room as the nurse was hooking up the last of the girl's monitors. The second that the nurse was finished, Lena went over to Callie's right side while Stef took the left. That was when the tears began falling again.

This looked all too familiar. She had an IV running out of her arm, giving her pain meds and a tube was coming out of her mouth, helping her breathe. She flashed back to when her wife as in the ICU, fighting for her own life. She thought that would've been the worst feeling in the world, but now, she couldn't honestly tell you which felt worse – her wife laying in that bed or her daughter.

"Oh, my…" Lena whispered as she brushed some of the girl's bangs off her forehead and leaned down to lay a kiss on the child's forehead, mindful of the tube coming out of her mouth. Two tears fell down her cheeks. "Mom and I are here, honey."

"You're doing great, Baby," Stef said softly as she brushed more of Callie's hair off her forehead.

"We love you, Callie," Lena said, and it was with this phrase that every bit of frustration she'd felt over the past week completely dissipate. They would talk about everything once this ordeal was over with, but for the moment, she just let it all go. Lena took a seat in the chair provided, never taking her eyes off the girl in the bed. "How long until she wakes up?"

"The doctor said a few hours, at least," Stef answered as she, too, kept her gaze on the unconscious teenager. "I'll be right back."

Lena, surprised, looked up, and watched as Stef left the ICU to talk to Captain Roberts on the other side of the doors. She did not like the look on her wife's face. She had a cold gaze – one that Lena almost didn't recognize the woman. However, after a few minutes of watching the two women talk, she saw her wife's face soften. Apparently, she'd heard what she wanted to hear and began making her way back to the small room.

"What's up?" Lena asked softly as Stef came back in and sat down.

"I had to know if they caught who did this to her."

"Did they?"

Stef nodded. "Sergeant Morris' team was the undercover team on scene, and they were able to make the arrests with the help of Callie."

"Really?" When did their daughter become an undercover cop?

"Mmhmm. Apparently, she unknowingly made enough of a distraction that they were able to gather the evidence they needed."

"A distraction?" Lena exclaimed. "My God, Stef, she was shot!"

"From what Captain Roberts said, that happened after the evidence was collected..."

"I don't care when it happened, damn it! It still happened."

Both women fell silent for a moment.

"Couldn't they have gotten their evidence without our child being a casualty?"

"I will find out at the debriefing tomorrow. Cap wants me there since it was our daughter that got hit."

Lena let out a breath as she turned her attention back to the unconscious girl in the bed. "You'll fill me in?"

Stef went over to Lena's side of the bed and draped an arm over her shoulders, letting her wife lean into her for support. "Of course, Love. You'll be the first I tell."

After a few moments, Stef went back over to Callie's other side, and she pulled a chair up.

Both women stayed that like that for the next hour or so, not even noticing what time it was until Lena's phone chimed with an incoming text. Looking at it, she excused herself to make a phone call.

"Lena?" came her supervisor's voice on the other end. "Everything okay? You're usually here by now…"

"No, Monte," Lena's answer came out shaky, "everything is definitely not okay."

"What's going on?"

"Callie was…" She had to take a breath. "She was shot last night."

"Oh, my God! Is she going to be okay?"

"The doctor thinks so, yeah. Stef and I are at the hospital with her now." She peeked back into the room and noticed Stef motioning for her to come back; the girl on the bed was beginning to stir.

"Okay. Take what time you need."

"Thank you." She hung up without waiting for her boss to answer her and hurried back to her previous position. She took the girl's right hand and reached up to brush her hair off her face.

"Callie," she whispered, beckoning to the child. "Come on, Baby. Open your eyes."

"You're safe, Love," Stef whispered as she placed her hand against Callie's cheek. "Do what Mama says, Baby. Open your eyes."

A few hours and multiple vitals checks later, Callie finally opened her eyes, but much to Lena's dismay, she refused to look at either mother. She just stared at the ceiling, every so often, a tear making its way down her bruised cheek.

Stef had become concerned with the lack of eye contact from their child that they asked the doctor about any possible neurological side effects of the blood loss, but he seemed unconcerned about it. However, to allay any fears the two mothers had, he performed some basic neurological tests, and as he predicted, all was well.

Callie was consciously avoiding and refusing to talk to the two women; every time Lena would reach out to hold Callie's hand, she had started pulling away. After the fourth time, Lena quit trying, hurt and confused by the teen's rejection. What was going on with her child?

Stef's phone had rung a few hours later, and she excused herself to take the phone call. Lena could hear her outside the door reassuring someone about Callie's condition, which she then drew the conclusion that she was speaking to one of the other children.

Lena looked up at the clock, noticing that it was dinner time. She smiled slightly in relief when Stef said she had told Brandon to order pizzas to be delivered. The two of them needed to get to the bottom of their daughter's actions sooner rather than later.

Thirty minutes later, Callie had closed her eyes again, dozing slightly while both mothers sat beside the bed, watching her sleep.

"What are we going to do, Stef?" Lena whispered so as not to awaken the sleeping teen.

"I don't know, Lena," Stef whispered back. "I don't even know where to begin."

"Me neither."

"I mean, not coming home is one thing, but going to Siren's Cove?" She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. "She knows how dangerous that area is. I'm not even talking about the drug ring through there. If she'd been there at high tide…"

Lena bit back and swallowed the lump that had begun forming. She knew all-to-well what happened at Siren's Cove at high tide. On more than one occasion, her wife came home with warnings to their at-the-time-young children about that place. Twice since entering into this relationship, Stef had been the first responder to a drowning there; one time was a child.

"Does she, though?"

"Excuse me?"

Lena looked up at Stef. "Does she know how dangerous that area really is?"

"Yes, Lena," Stef answered very matter-of-factly. "She and I just had a discussion about it a few weeks ago, before all of this – " She motioned to the bed. " – went down." Stef began massaging her temples. "I just…I don't know what to expect from her next."

Lena blew out a sigh. "Me neither." She looked at the fragile looking girl in the bed. "What are we going to do, Stef?"

Two people in her life that she loved the most had been shot; Callie had tendencies to do dangerous things without any regard for her own safety - that she'd proven when she ran away the first time, but how did the mothers stop this? Was there a way to stop this, or were they going to have to watch their daughter kill herself?

It wasn't until she felt Stef's arms around her and her wife was whispering in her ear, "I know, Love. I know. We'll get through this," that she knew she'd spoken her anxieties out loud.

"We will take her home when she's discharged," Stef continued quietly. "We will talk to her, assure her of any of her doubts, tell her how much we love her, and then ground her until she's old enough to collect retirement."

Lena let out a teary laugh as she stood up and approached the head of the bed. She needed to be closer to her daughter – needed the reassurance of her breath; needed to run her fingers through the girl's hair; needed to hear her breath, see her chest rise and fall…just needed to be close.

She knew they'd messed up when she realized they didn't say how much they loved her, despite what was revealed to them in the aftermath of Justina's wrath. On some level, Lena knew that was part of the reason that Callie was at Siren's Cove – may not have been all, but it was some – and thusly, she felt responsible for her baby being shot…at least, in part…and she hated it.

She leaned down to kiss the girl on her forehead before whispering, "We love you, Bug. We are not giving up on you; we are not giving you up; we are your mom's, and we love you!" She kissed her forehead again.

"More than you can even know," Stef chimed in softly. "And we always will."

"You're not going to undo my adoption?"

"Not a chance," Lena answered.

"Love, I need you to listen to me." Stef joined her wife beside the teenager in the bed. "I am so sorry that you haven't had the love you've needed over the past 6-or-so years; I can honestly say that I have no idea what it must have been like for you growing up in the system, but we are a family, and that means forever. Mama and I signed those adoption papers, and we meant it. Somehow, my love, you're going to have to trust us or trust that no matter how rough it gets, we will be here for the long haul. We are not going anywhere…ever."

"Can you do that?" Lena asked as she word an errant tear from her daughter's cheek.

Callie could only stare at Lena. She wasn't sure whether or not she could believe that, and that disheartened Lena.

"I can try," Callie whispered to the two mothers.

Lena cupped the girl's face in her hands. "We can all try."