Author's Note: It's here. The long awaited second part. I never thought this day would come (I'm sure you didn't either). Please enjoy.

Callie P.O.V.

I don't know how, but we still have an hour before anyone else comes home. I'm lying on the bed stomach down, my head looking off to the side with his chest pressed against my back and his lips placing a kiss at the top of my spine that tingles down to the ends of my toes as his arms wrap around my torso.

"I hate that clock." I say, looking at his bedside table, and he chuckles into my hair. "It's the only thing that could ruin this moment."

"What, you don't like analog?" He jokes and I nudge him gently with my elbow.

"I don't like something telling me that I'll have to get out your bed, put on my clothes, and walk out of the room like this didn't happen."

"But it did." His tone sounds concerned. "We're not going to pretend like we didn't do this."

"Not in the sense that I'm going to tell you that this can't happen again. Because trust me, this will. But I need to sort some things out. Like, for example, my adoption. And Wyatt."

"I'm sorry," he whispers, his words blowing on my ear as he hugs me closer. "I wish this wasn't so complicated."

"Don't be. I dragged us into this mess, I'll get us out." I roll over onto my back and he sits up a little and rests on his elbow. "But yeah, you're right. This is going to hurt a lot of people."

"We shouldn't be doing this," Brandon says while I sit in his lap on the reclined seat of his car parked near the now empty beach. "Callie I think we should stop."

"No you don't," I murmur as I bring his face up to mine, but as I lean in to capture his lips, he turns his head away and I sigh and lean back. "Brandon, what is it?"

His eyes stay downcast and I'm starting to worry with the way he refuses to look at me. I sit in silence and wait for him to break it, speak first and explain his rejection when he hasn't voiced any regrets in the past month we've been sneaking around.

"I think my mom knows something." He admits. "She warned me about saying anything to you to make you change your mind on the adoption. They don't know that you already did."

"I'm going to tell them." I remind him. "They're going to understand."

"They're going out of their minds trying to find your father so that you can be adopted. And I can tell that you breaking up with Wyatt really shook them. They don't trust us." He rubs my arms now dangling by my sides and then keeps them at my wrists, holding tightly as if not wanting to let go. "And they shouldn't. Look at what we're doing."

"We can't feel guilty for something that isn't even wrong."

"Lying and sneaking around is wrong."

"It's what you wanted."

"All I want is you."

"And the only way to have me is if we do this." I press my hands to his chest, leaving a small space in between our faces, enough so that he can still look at me.

He shakes his head and I finally concede, getting off him and sitting in the passenger seat. "I thought I would be comfortable with this, but I'm fooling myself if I think this hasn't been eating at me for the past month. I'm not saying it's not worth it to be with you."

"I understand." And I do, I really do. "But I don't know if I agree to stay away from you just for our consciences."

"I don't know if I can either."

A smile forms at the corner of my mouth and I take his hand and hold it in both of mine. "Then we don't." I bring his hand up to my face where it stays as I lean in to him, less of a push and more of a prompt for him to come closer, which he does. "Just remember what this all means for us."

The want in my eyes is so strong and when I catch a glimpse of his in the light from the streetlamp, I can see it mirrored back in his gaze. It takes me by surprise when he leans back again.

"Just promise me one thing." He asks.

"Anything."

"Don't stop the adoption. Give them something to be happy about, something you can be happy about. Let yourself have both of us, a family and me. It doesn't have to be either or." He says earnestly, with that look of hope I always found so mislead and only sometimes true when applied to my life, a look I had seen die one too many times on my own face and Jude's.

I think about Stef and Lena, who tell me everyday that they are trying their best to find Robert Quinn, who assure me that I'm not going anywhere, that they won't let me go without a fight, and I shudder to think how easily it was for me to do the opposite, like I almost did with Brandon. And to be honest, I'm relieved to think there won't be another sad face to look at, a rush of regret whenever someone mentions how I am not getting adopted. This could be my moment to have it all.

"Okay." I whisper and he closes the distance and gives me a proper kiss, not the kind where one of us is holding our breath in anticipation for something to happen, for a hand to fly out and wrench us away. It's in that moment I realize this is what it feels like to be normal. We are just a girl and guy sitting in a car, in the moonlight, letting themselves get lost in the way the small touches make us feel connected, emotionally and physically, where kisses don't have to be rushed and halted, our minds fogging up and our thoughts on the other person only.

"Won't it just hurt more when they find out?" I ask when we finally separate. "They won't let us be together, not if I'm your sister."

He squeezes my hand, his mouth set in a line. "I don't think we can stay when they do."

My eyes widen and I back up slightly when I realize the gravity of what he's saying. "You mean run away?"

"In less than two years, we'll be going to college. We can tell them, leave, and they won't be able to do anything about it."

"They?"

"The system, the courts, Stef, Lena, anybody that has told us otherwise. We'll be untouchable."

"We'll break their hearts."

"It won't be forever." He's trying to smile and make me feel better and I can tell his hope is becoming contagious. "They'll forgive us, eventually."

I raise my eyebrows at him. "And you're willing to let them go, your own family?"

"I don't want to," he explains. "But I will do what I have to," he kisses me softly, "to be with you." He nudges my nose with his as I lean in to put myself back in our original position, my legs on either side of his hips and his hands grazing my thighs and traveling to the small of my back. "So, are you in?" He asks.

A strand of hair falls down my face as I shake my head up and down and he tucks it back behind my ear. "I've always thought of myself as a flight risk, only taking what I needed to survive. I never thought I would be taking someone with me."

A Year and a Half Later

I knock softly on the door and he's there in an instant, pulling me into his room, closing the door silently. He turns to me and takes my hand, a nervous smile on his face that he tries to make seem more confident. "You ready?" He asks, hands grasping mine and I don't even hesitate as I nod my head in response. There's been too much anticipation for the last 24 hours for me not to be excited that we're finally doing this. And like over a year ago, my bags are packed and slung over my shoulders and I can see his large duffel sitting on the floor next to hit feet. Together we turn off our phones and tuck them at the bottom of our bags, to make the temptation to use them lessen.

We doubt anyone will hear us turn on the car and pull out of the driveway, but my hands stay clasped until we're at least an hour away, and there's still hours before anyone wakes up and notices we're gone. He visibly relaxes when he sees me loosen up and takes my hand for a brief moment, interlacing the fingers as we keep going down the highway.

"There." I point to a gas station and we pull in. I rush inside and grab as many snacks as I can buy, hurrying back to the car where he waits drumming his fingers.

"What time is it?" I ask, closing the passenger door and ripping open a bag of chips as we drive away.

"Four." He glances at my backpack at my feet and then looks back at the road. "We still have a few hours until they find the note I left."

"What did you write?"

"The truth."

Dear Moms, Marianna, Jesus, and Jude,

I hope you're able to read this with a level head to be fully able to understand what I need to tell you. And that is that I love you. We love you, Callie and I. And we don't want to leave you guys without saying that we can't pay you back for everything you guys have given us, whether it is your love or your support and believing in us as you've watched us grow up for as long as we've known you all. You guys have been the greatest family that either of us could ask for, and we can't thank you enough for letting Callie and Jude into our home. For if she were never sent here, I would have never met her, never gone halfway across town to help her get Jude, and never be able to find someone that I will love for the rest of my life.

We want you to know that we will be fine. More than fine really. We'll be able to be together, forever, and that's all anyone really wants. It's what you wanted Mom, to be with that one person for the rest of your life.

And I know you think that we're not going to last, that we will regret leaving our family to pursue a ridiculous future, and we will have no one to turn to when this all blows up in our faces. But you are wrong. We are so sure about how we feel that we are risking more than your disapproval for a life together. And we didn't just decide to leave. We knew that if we were going to do this, we would do it right. We didn't tell you guys, but we got into the same college, same full ride, and for the next four years, we're going to be okay, living wise. We have no doubt that we can get jobs, no doubt that we can move in together and have that apartment that we've wanted since we were 16. We hope that when we finally finish the next four years of our lives, you will be there with us.

God, I'm trying not to cry while writing this, but it's hard, because I'm accepting the fact that I'm not going to see you guys for a while. But we can only hope we don't have to wait too long before we can tell one of you where to find us. Or maybe we'll just show up at your doorstep, wanting to surprise you.

Either way, we will see you again. We promise.

Love, Brandon and Callie

Two Months Later

"Here, help me carry this over there." Brandon picks up the large blue velvet ottoman I walk over from across the empty room and pick up the other side. We set it in the middle of the room, and when he puts it down, I lie on top on my back, smiling up at him.

"Well, it's no love seat, but at least it's big." He laughs and sits on the edge.

"Yeah, there's room for the two of us." I prop myself on my elbows and he brushes a strand of hair that escaped from my messy bun at the top of my head. His hand stays on my face and then he presses his lips against mine. I lay my head back onto the seat as he climbs over my body and wrap my legs around his waist as my hands go up his back, the hem of his shirt sliding up.

It's been too long since I felt his body pressed against mine, too many nights spent in his car and motels as we took the road trip of our lives. Back home, everywhere we went, it felt too open, too vulnerable, as if Stef and Lena had eyes and ears everywhere we went. But as we took advantage of the newfound freedom we gave ourselves, the guilt of what we did soon caught up to us.

During the day, I could kiss him like we were behind the school during free period, hands sneaking under clothes, and I had to remind us both that we were in public, a fact that only made us more eager to act on our urges. But at night, when we made our bed the room we paid for, it was far from the same as spending a forbidden night in the twin bed in Brandon's room. The unfamiliarity of our surroundings and the way we would never unpack our bags made everything feel temporary. In order for this to feel right, we needed someplace permanent. Otherwise, we were running towards nothing but an idea.

This apartment was more than an idea though. It was solid, permanent, and ours. So before he could pull away and tell me to help him unpack, I pull down the waistband of my shorts, take one of his hands, and place it under the fabric, where the sensation of his touch makes me bite my lip until he takes his fingers away.

"Now?" Brandon asks with one hand holding him up as the other goes under the t-shirt I borrowed from him and reaches up to the bra I was wearing.

"I think we brought the ottoman in first for a reason."

"But we have to unpack." He fake complains as he kisses my neck.

"We can unpack later." I feel him grin cheekily against my skin. "And what better way to celebrate our new apartment?"

He connects his forehead to mine, our deep breathing matching each other as hands continue to wander over clothing and skin, a heat rising up my cheeks although I have nothing to be nervous about. I mean, this is Brandon, the only person who can make my skin feel like satin with the way he caresses it, the only person I have left right now.

The wind from the AC raises goosebumps on my skin, but underneath the surface is a fire warming me up from my core, as if it's reacting to the way he presses his lips to mine so passionately. "You're beautiful." He breathes out. "I love you."

"Never stop saying that."

"I won't." He connects our lips and I sigh.

"Just." He takes off his shirt. "Don't." My lips kiss his chest and then back up to his mouth. "Stop."

Two Years Later

The bed creaks slightly as Brandon climbs out and I groan when he turns on the lights. "Don't leave yet." I reach out for his body, lying on my stomach with the dark blue covers covering my bareback.

"I have to get to class." He reaches down next to the bed and pulls his jeans on. I tug one of the belt loops towards me and make him sit on the edge of the bed before I sit up and wrap my arms around his torso, the warm skin of his back pressed against my chest.

"Did you enjoy your birthday?" I caress into his ear.

"More than you could possibly imagine."

"Oh, I think I can imagine." My lips graze the back of his neck and he cranes his neck to look over his shoulder at me. "You're happy right?"

He smiles as he takes one of my hands and kisses it softly. "Absolutely. How could I not be?"

I rest my chin on his shoulder. "Maybe because you're 20 years old and celebrating it with just me and some friends."

He nods, understanding what I'm insinuating, and rubs my arms. "I miss them too Callie. But we agreed to wait until the summer."

"I know, I know. And I'm still good with that plan." I pause for a moment. "But what if we don't have the chance to?"

"What do you mean?"

"I just have a feeling that something is going to happen." He turns towards me and rests his forehead on mine, calming me down.

"We're safe, Callie. I know it was scary the first year, us being paranoid, but we can't live in fear that someone will find us."

"Not just someone. Stef and Lena." I pointed out.

"It's been two years Callie. At this point, they wouldn't still be looking. They would be waiting for us to come and find them." His hands move up my back, fingers winding into my hair and I clasp my hands together behind his neck. "Don't worry about it anymore, Callie."

I nodded slowly. "Okay." He kissed me quickly before standing up and grabbing a button up from the closet.

"I have to be at a lecture until three today. You want to meet up for lunch before I go to my thing?"

I hesitate before answering back, "Sure." I lie back down and Brandon walks over and places his hands on either side of me, his face inches from mine. Without thinking I cup his face and kiss him hard, a desperate way of asking him not to go. "I just want to stay in here with you." I murmur against his lips.

He nods in agreement, but leans his head away from me. "We have lives now, Callie. No more hiding." He disconnects my hands from his body. "I love you." He yells out the bedroom door.

"Love you too." I answer back. The front door slams shut a minute later and only then do I drag myself out of bed and put some clothes on.

Taking out my phone, I look one more time at the number on my recent call list before listening to the voicemail, almost wanting to cry at the voice coming out of the phone, a voice I have never heard but is so familiar to me.

"Callie, it's me, Jude." The low gravel sounded so much like Donald's it made my head spin. "Wow, hearing you speak, even in a voice mail message, it's surreal. Then again, you haven't heard me speak since it was cracking every other syllable, ha ha ha..."

I shut the phone off and sit on the ottoman, my knee hopping up and down from the combination of anxiety and anticipation running through me. Then I stand up, take my keys, and walk out of the apartment.

I should have told Brandon. I shouldn't be going on my own to see them, not when I can't know what they'll say.

It's like Donald all over again. I went to his apartment to make sure he wouldn't confuse Jude when he saw him. Now I'm protecting Brandon from his own mothers.

"No more hiding." He said. And I know he's right, we deserve to live our lives without worrying what people will think of us. But that doesn't make me any less terrified about what I'm doing.

"Callie?"

I turn slowly towards the voice and come face to face with an older, short-haired, slightly shocked version of Lena, whose clasping hands with a woman whose age only shows through the way her eyes crinkle when her mouth forms the still same smile of Stef.

Without the usual warning, they wrap me in a Mama Sandwich, crushing me within their tight embrace, causing me to sigh with both relief and lack of room to breath. I almost wanted to tell them to loosen up, but I could tell how much they needed this, this feeling that I can't escape from grasp again, and I deserved the pain their love was giving me.

In the middle of the Washington Square Arch, they got to reclaim one lost sheep that wandered away from the rest of the flock.

"Where's Brandon?" Stef asks me as we sit on a bench, a favorite people watching spot.

I fiddled with the hem of my shorts as I looked at the other people in the park. "School." I turn back her quickly. "I didn't tell him about the phone call."

"Oh." She sighs, clearly disappointed not to see the son that carefully planned out the way to leave her behind two years ago but still wanted to smother with kisses the moment she saw him. "He probably wouldn't want to see us."

"No Stef, that's not it." Fiddling with the ring on my finger, I try to reassure her. "We were going to visit this summer. We thought it would be better if we came to you than you guys finding us. Guess that plan had some problems," glancing between the two of them. "To be honest, we thought you guys had stopped looking a long time ago."

"You're talking about a cop and a school principal. We don't give up on people, it's in our job description." Lena jokes, easing my nerves slightly.

"How did you guys find us?" I ask, the question that's been shouted in my head for two days, since I got the phone call from Jude.

"'Young Piano Student at NYU Wins Statewide Competition.' Marianna caught the headline while searching your names on the internet. She did it every month, thought it would be the way to find you. 'You can find anything on the internet, especially missing people', she claimed. Jesus owed her 100 dollars."

I smiled, remembering the late nights of practicing, the coaxing it would take to make him come to bed, the subsequent performance he gave that brought everybody off their seats. "I wish you guys were there to hear it. It was beautiful."

"We found a YouTube video. He sounded different, much more mature. I thought he was amazing before, but those professors really got him to another level." There was a look on her face that could only be described as motherly pride, a look I recognized when she looked at all of her kids, myself included.

"Callie." Lena says, "Why didn't you tell Brandon about the phone call? We told you, we wouldn't be mad."

"Actually, Jude said you wouldn't be mad." I say while brushing back a stray hair from my braid, interlacing my fingers in my lap and staring down at my hands. "It was hard for both of us in the beginning. We were scared and worried that you would show up one day, mad and force us to finally face what we had done. But Brandon took the separation harder. When I lived with you guys, I got used to having mothers to take care of me, having more than one person to depend on. But when we left, I somehow got back into that mindset that all I would need was your son, that nothing mattered except that we were together. And I was happy. But he grew up with three parents and two siblings. He didn't think it would be so difficult to live this way, having one person to turn to. He even stopped writing songs about me and started making them about you guys. That piece he played at the competition was a love story, but it wasn't ours. It was yours." I pressed my palm to my eyes as the tears started to slowly trickle down my face.

"Amazing how it's what led you guys back to us," I say as I take their hands and clasp them tightly while they smile gently and I squeeze their fingers. "He never wanted this to be forever, but it was his idea to run, and he's scared that you'll never forgive him. And that's why I didn't tell him." I look at them through wet eyelashes, "I came alone because I need you to give us a chance. As much as he loves me, and I him, we need our family. And I think we're ready to come back. If you'll have us back." I trail off.

They glance at each other and I see they have both noticed the ring on my fourth finger, holding up the band to see the tiny lettering.

"Is this what I think it is?" Stef breathes out, and I have to search her face to figure out if she's excited or nervous with the way she stares at me, but it's mostly incredulous. "Did you two-"

"No, no, of course not. It's not a wedding ring or an engagement ring. We're too young and we couldn't - wouldn't do it without you guys to see it." I trace the small phrase etched onto the rose gold band. "'Share my love and you'll never run out'," I speak the words out loud, "Brandon's ring says 'No matter how far, I'll be around'."

"What is it from?" Lena asks, another memory popping into my head with a smile that follows.

The first time I heard it was when it was whispered in my ear on my seventeenth birthday, not long after the adoption was finalized, the intimacy of it in the way he sang it so softly, as if the words themselves could travel under the bedroom door. Bringing myself back to the present day, I explain, "It's a lyric from one of Brandon's songs. A friend joked that that would be a cool tattoo, and fortunately we decided on rings. It became a reminder that we weren't alone and people are never far from the ones they love as long as they still have the love in their hearts for them."

Lena wipes her face as the first tear escapes and she leans against Stef who keeps one hand on mine while grasping Lena's, their wedding bands still gleaming after four years of marriage. "And you still are in our hearts. We never gave up because we always felt like we were so close to seeing you again. And that kind of hope never dies."

This time I initiate the hug and they wrap me up, this time more gently and lovingly. Instead of tears flowing down my face like I expected there to be, I felt like the Grinch when his heart grew bigger, yet there wasn't enough room for these two amazing women that took me in when I was at my lowest.

I know I had to go to the extremes for them to understand what Brandon meant to me, that if I had told them I loved their son when it seemed that choice could get me sent away, I would only be left feeling powerless against those that tried to tell me how I would feel. But we're here now, clinging to each other, our hearts always meant to reunite after so much heartache.

There was only one thing missing.

Brandon P.O.V.

I hear the keys in the door minutes after I get back the apartment and start boiling the water, ready to make spaghetti in the hour I had between classes. The door opens up and I hear more that one pair of footsteps enter the living room.

"Brandon," Callie shouts. "Can you come here?"

"Sure," I answer, "Where did you go earlier, I thought you would still be -"

My mouths stops forming words when my jaw drops as I see who's standing next to the old otto man. It's a baffling scene of Callie smiling like it's Christmas and my mothers looking like they've already gone through the wringer. My initial reaction is to grab Callie's hand and run in the opposite direction, but she's next to me now and leaning towards me with the same excitement we shared when we found this apartment online.

"Callie, what's -" her hands gently press on my chest as she kisses me, her lips slightly parted, distracting me for a second before she pulls away.

"I said you shouldn't have spent your birthday with just me. And I may be a day late but I want to make it up to you."

Eyes widened, I finally look Stef in the eye while holding Callie closer, her gaze still affixed on my face, as if she had to watch me instead of the two women standing still by the door.

"Did you bring them here?" It doesn't shock me with how betrayed I sound, because I don't know if I wanted to be surprised like this. I've been stalling for two years to have this conversation and this ambush was making me seriously pissed.

"They found us, B." She says quietly. "I got a call two days ago saying they wanted to see us." My breath hitches at the confession. "I didn't tell you because I wanted to protect you." She pleads.

And with that, I let go of the dam I built to stop the guilt from taking over me, because nothing makes me feel weaker than Callie being the one I have to lean on. It's not an issue of feeling like I need to be her protector, but I can't be her Jude. I need to share the problems we have, not give her more that she can take.

But before the feelings I've been holding back bring her down with me, a hand reaches out to my face and connects to the skin of my cheek, and I get a good look at my mother with the biggest smile on her face.

I can only remember Callie's face being the closest to mine as we were pressed in a hug that filled me up where I was left empty. Her head was against my chest as we all breathed together, healing the broken ties we left behind. And as we all took the load of emotions off each other, Lena smiled at me before taking Stef's hand and kissing her fingertips, while I do the same with Callie, my own words running through my mind as our fingers interlace and the rings make the line of my second song for Callie.

Share my love, and you'll never run out

No matter how far, I'll be around

I'll run with you, and need nothing else

Leave me behind, I won't be myself

Because without you with me, I am not whole

Take part of me, I cannot withhold

My heart is where I can only call home

As long as you have it, I won't be alone

Second Author's Note: Quick life update. Currently doing something that will help further the career I want in life, so writing has been on the back burner. The poem at the end is entirely my own, I wrote it at two in the morning in the darkness of my room. If it somehow resembles something else you've seen, you can take my word that I didn't copy it. I would love to know if the wait was worth it, so please communicate your thoughts via the internet. Thank you for your patience, have a wonderful day (or night in my case). Love you all.

- riversong15