Saturday

Author's Note: I received a request to do the popular 'Adams Foster kids when they were younger' story, and thought I'd give it a try. Just for reference, in this story, Callie and Brandon are 8, Mariana and Jesus are 7, and Jude is four. This is a one shot for right now.

It was a lazy Saturday at the Adams Foster household, with all 5 kids happily playing in the backyard. It had been a stressful week for the two moms, with parent-teacher conferences, after school activities, and a pair of twins sick with a particularly stubborn cold. Even though the two of them still felt rather ill, constant and unrelenting persuasion from their 3 siblings convinced them to enjoy the September day. Stef and Lena could be found lounging on deck chairs on the front porch, sipping lemonade. Their simple bliss came to a screeching halt when they heard a deafening, high pitched scream come from the backyard.

Sprinting over to the backyard, Stef and Lena observed the scene. Their 5 kids were crowded around their youngest brother. The yard was a mess, the grass covered in water balloon debris, plastic dishware, and toys. The most concerning feature of the unclean yard was a fallen beehive, resting on the ground a few feet from the kids.

"Lena, get the bug spray. Get to the other side of the yard, you four!" Stef commanded, nearing the little boy who sat on the grass, bawling loudly.

As Lena rushed to spray the beehive, Stef picked Jude up and brought him into the kitchen.

"Did you get stung, baby?" She asked him, stroking his hair out of his face.

He nodded and extended his arm to show his mother a swollen welt caused by the bee sting. He continued to cry loudly until Lena entered the room with the first-aid kit.

"Hi buddy." She cooed, sitting in front of him and taking the stinger out of his arm with a pair of tweezers.

"Better?" She asked, smiling down at him. He nodded and sniffled. "Hurts." He mumbled, his eyes dropping to his feet.

"Well then, let's make this feel better, little man." Lena said, bringing him to the sink to wash it off. She whispered calming words softly, setting him on the counter and applying some numbing cream to the sting.

While Lena was busy attending to Jude, the doors swung open and Jesus emerged, holding Mariana tightly against his chest. She was covering her mouth with both hands, sobbing.

"Oh no! Miss Thing! What happened?" Stef asked as she separated the twins, lifting Mariana to sit on the corner a ways away from Jude, who peered over with sudden interest.

Stef carefully pried Mariana's hands from her face, only to be greeted by a large amount of blood. Jesus popped up from around the corner and spoke in a shaky tone. "We were just playing… and I told Mari to race me… and she fell and hit her face and it exploded!" Lena stepped to Jesus' side, scooping him up and feeling his forehead. "Do you two still feel sick?" She inquired, looking at both twins.

They both nodded. Mariana spoke as Stef wiped the blood off her face and hands. "I wanted to beat Jesus… but my head felt a little woozy and I fell and hit the birdbath…" As the mothers began to talk to each other, they heard Callie scream from the front yard. Stef left Mariana on the counter for a minute and dashed through the house to find Callie laying next to the large cactus in their yard, her blue shirt covered in a stain of blood.

"Oh my god! Callie! Brandon, what's going on?" She demanded at her guilty looking son.

"We were just playing… and I pushed her… and she landed on the cactus…"

Stef sighed, picking Callie up and walking towards the stairs. "Brandon, we will talk about this later… just… go inside… somewhere you won't get hurt…" She grumbled as she walked into the house. She sat Callie on a stool in the kitchen and turned back to Mariana, cleaning up the remainder of the blood and looking for a bandage for the cut on Mariana's lip. "Callie… I'll be there in a minute… Jesus, could you grab your sister an ice pack please? Good boy."

"Man, I'm so going to kick Spencer's butt on Monday for getting us sick…" He said angrily, handing the ice pack to his mother.

"Jesus… violence never solves anything." Lena said from across the room, where she was still attending to Jude.

Callie piped up from her place on the stool. "What about when the Union won the Civil War? That solved a lot of things." Callie said confidently. Stef and Lena frowned. Callie's newfound interest in history was both a blessing and a curse.

"Okay. We can talk about this later. Come on, Callie. Let's go fix you up." Stef said, helping Callie down from the stool and taking her to the bathroom. Stef went to wash her hands and told Callie to sit on the toilet lid as she grabbed another first-aid kit from the sink cabinet. Stef looked Callie up and down. She noticed drying blood on Callie's hand as well as fresh blood on the side of her t-shirt. "Pop that shirt off for me, babe." Stef said, kneeling in front of Callie with a wet rag.

"No. I want Mama." Callie said defiantly. In this moment, Stef hated Callie's high pain tolerance, wishing she would just cry and want to be cuddled and taken care of.

"Let's go, Callie. I'm not in the mood to do this with you." Stef reached over to Callie, lifting her shirt off and turning her to the side to study the injury. "Whew. None of the spines stuck. Give me your hand, Cal." Callie begrudgingly turned her palm to Stef, who looked at it closely.

"Okay, I think the easiest thing to do is just to put you in the shower. Take your shoes and socks off, please." Callie grumbled and did as her mother told her.

"Excuse me. Did you say something?" Stef asked in her cop voice, raising an eyebrow at the girl.

"No…" She said, stepping in the shower and wrapping a towel around her waist to protect her shorts from getting soaked.

"Good. Let me check the temperature first." Her mother replied. Stef detached the shower head and lifted Callie's arm from covering the injury and began to spray the puncture wounds. She then moved to Callie's hand, and got a reaction this time. "Ouch! Mom, that stings!"

"I know babe. I'm sorry, but I have to get it clean, love." She turned off the water and dried Callie off with an old towel. She rustled through the crate of first-aid supplies before finding a large gauze pad and a roll of gauze. She located the antiseptic gel and an ace bandage for Callie's hand.

"Okay. Arms up for me, sweets." Stef said, beginning to attend to the large patch of puncture wounds on Callie's torso. She applied the gel carefully and laid the pad on top of the wounds, wrapping the gauze around it and tying it off. She repeated a similar procedure on Callie's hand, then found her daughter a shirt and helping her put it on. She led Callie to the breakfast nook and gave her a few ice packs to put over the wounds.

By this point, Lena was almost done caring for Jude. She placed a Skippy the turtle Band-Aid over his arm and kissed it. "All better. Why don't you grab a popsicle since you were such a good boy today?"

"Me too?" Mariana asked with peaked interest, trying to speak clearly despite her swollen mouth.

"Yes," Lena said lovingly. "Callie too. In fact, why don't we all have popsicles and sit on the front porch for a while?"

"I think that sounds nice. But first, Lena, where did we put the shovel and hachet?" Stef asked, opening the freezer.

"Stef… Honey… what are you doing?" Lena wondered worriedly.

"I am going to go destroy that stupid cactus that is trying to kill my little girl. I hate that thing. You want to watch me hack up the evil cactus, Cal?" She asked with a smirk.

"Yeah!" Callie jumped up excitedly, running into Stef's arms and crashing into her mother, making direct contact with her injured torso. Stef watched Callie grimace as tears pricked her big brown eyes.

"Oh, come here, pretty girl." Stef coaxed, lifting Callie into a gentle embrace and lightly scratching her back. Callie nestled her head into Stef's shoulder and Stef smiled. Her sweet daughter was back.

The 7 Adams Fosters enjoyed the rest of the afternoon on the front porch, spending a beautiful day together, where they belonged.