Note: This is the final chapter. Thanks so much for reading. I've really been touched by your comments. If you're so inclined, check out some of my other fic at AO3 (I will never be able to get my head around the no-RPF rule at this site) or come squee with me about Brallie on tumblr (I'm 'iridescentglow' at both).

It was three a.m. and the world was ending.

"How long has this been going on? Did it ever stop? How long have you been lying to us?"

Stef's voice strained under the control needed to keep from shouting. She paced up and down, her posture severe, her cop tendencies seeping out unintended. Lena laid a hand on Stef's arm, but the gesture seemed to do little to soothe her.

The four of them – Stef, Lena, Brandon and Callie – stood in the living room. It was night outside, the street quiet, but all the lights were on at the Fosters'. It was all wrong.

Callie was dressed in pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt. She'd thought, when she'd pulled it on, that it was her t-shirt. It was only now, in the light, that she realized it was Brandon's t-shirt. That made it worse. For his part, Brandon wore a shirt grabbed from his closet, buttoned wrong.

Brandon wasn't answering Stef's questions. Instead, he was hung up on the fact that she didn't wait for a response before opening his bedroom door.

"That's, like, a huge invasion of privacy!" he exclaimed.

"Privacy is a luxury, not a right!" Stef retorted. "When you're twenty-five and living on your own, you can have privacy. In this house, you don't get privacy."

Lena cut in, slipping into school mediator mode, her voice unnaturally calm.

"We were worried, Brandon," Lena said. "Mariana woke up in the middle of the night and found that Callie's bed was empty. We checked the whole house. We thought she'd run away."

The final word of the sentence went unspoken. Again. Run away again.

Callie heard noises from upstairs. Stef and Lena had sent the others back to bed, but Callie would bet good money that they were sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to the argument. She'd caught sight of Jude's face before Lena had ushered her downstairs. The look of resignation in his expression had been crushing. Not hurt. Not anger. Resignation.

"I just don't like being woken up in the middle of the night and interrogated like a criminal!" Brandon said.

Stef let out a bark of laughter.

"Woken up? What the two of you were doing didn't involve sleeping."

"You can't try and make it sound… tawdry," said Brandon. "We love each other. It's not wrong. You can't make me think it's wrong."

"He's right, Stef," said Lena. "It's not about the sex. We don't care about the sex." (Though her facial expression indicated that she did care about the sex, at least a little.) "It's about the lying."

Lena used her left hand to cradle her stomach, perhaps unconsciously. She wasn't showing yet, but she stood as if protecting an imagined bump. It seemed to Callie that Lena wished she could send the blueberry-sized baby upstairs and away from this conversation, too.

Brandon let out a loud, exasperated breath.

"You wouldn't let us see each other. So we had to lie," he said, like it was simple.

If Brandon's exhalation had been loud, Stef's was louder. She threw her hands up, obviously aggravated.

Callie realized she hadn't spoken at all during the conversation. Not one single word.

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. It was all she could think to say.

Stef's face softened then.

"Callie," she said, making an effort to sound calm, "it's not about sorry. You know why we're upset, don't you? You are a hair's breadth away from being Brandon's sister. His legal sister. We're not talking morality or ethics or… ickiness. We're talking about the law."

"So you're saying you don't want to adopt me anymore," Callie said.

"We're saying we already adopted you!" Stef exclaimed, aggravation creeping back into her voice.

"You're our daughter," said Lena. "In every way that matters."

Callie felt her throat close up again, rendering her mute.

The conversation continued on and on in circles. Stef and Brandon, equally hot-headed, sparred back and forth. Lena played peacemaker, with little success. And Callie stood in silence, feeling like the floor was collapsing beneath her feet.

Brandon kept repeating the words "we love each other", like it was a talisman.

"You can't use that as a get-out-of-jail-free card, Brandon," said Stef. "It doesn't work that way."

"Well, maybe it should!"

"Brandon, you're not going to argue your way out of this one," said Lena. "You two cannot be in a relationship. End of story."

"You can't stop us!"

"You need some space," said Lena tightly. "Both of you. Some perspective. There's a bigger picture here. I know you don't see it right now, but you will."

"We're gonna look at schools," said Stef.

"Like reform schools?" Brandon broke in.

Lena was frowning. This was obviously not a plan that Stef had shared with her.

"Like… boarding schools," said Stef. "With great music programs."

Stef gave a wincing smile, as if this was a punishment that wasn't really a punishment. Brandon looked dazed, as if the reality of the situation was finally dawning on him.

"Let's all get some sleep," said Lena, still frowning. "Discuss this with clear heads in the morning."

Brandon seemed about to say something – flare up again – but Callie saw the fight die in his expression and he said nothing. When he met Callie's eyes, she looked away, down at her own feet.

She listened to him stomp out of the room and up the stairs. From the second floor, there was a distant scuttling, the sound of lighter footsteps separating, back to their own rooms. Then there was the noise of multiple doors closing, although Callie guessed that the only slamming door belonged to Brandon.

Stef let out a sigh, her anger and affront draining away, replaced by obvious tiredness. Callie shuffled over to her, half-afraid she was about to be rebuffed, and hugged Stef. The hug was tentative, until Stef squeezed her tight, and Callie found herself clinging to her for dear life.

"Callie, go up to bed, get some sleep," Lena said to her softly, laying a hand on her shoulder.

Callie let go of Stef and turned to Lena, hugging her just as tightly.

With the smell of Lena's lilac-scented perfume lingering in her nostrils, Callie crawled into her own bed. When Lena closed the door, her footsteps trailing away, the room swung into darkness.

There was silence, and Callie thought that maybe Mariana was asleep. Then there came her voice from across the room, unusually reedy.

"Why would you do this again?"

Callie propped herself up in bed and looked over at Mariana. Even in the dark, she could see that Mariana had been crying; she could hear the tears in her accusation.

"Don't you want to be part of this family? Don't you want that?"

Callie couldn't bring herself to reply.

She had thought, in idle daydreams, that maybe Mariana would understand. Mariana the romantic. Mariana, who spent each day mooning over Zac like she was a 19th century heroine. Mariana, who really had been a sister to Callie.

"You're just selfish," Mariana said finally. "You never really cared about us. You can't have done."

Mariana made a show of turning over in bed to face the wall. Callie stared at the hunched line of her back for a long moment. Then she pulled the covers over her head and curled up, knees against her chest. She realized she was still wearing Brandon's t-shirt. When she pressed the cotton to her face, she found it smelled like him.

It was perhaps an hour later when Callie climbed out of bed. She packed quickly, expertly, taking only precisely what she knew she'd need. Mariana, in her bed, still lay facing the wall. Callie wasn't sure if she was asleep or simply ignoring her. Good riddance, she imagined Mariana thinking, attributing to Mariana a viciousness that she'd never shown in real life.

Callie stepped out into the hallway, backpack on her shoulder. Her footsteps made a light shuffle-squeak sound against the floor as she crossed to the stairs. She passed Brandon's room. There was a line of light under the door, and she heard muffled noises that might have been him pacing up and down. She didn't even consider going inside his room. She felt as if it were wired with alarms.

Anyway, as she now realized, what had gone on inside the sanctuary of Brandon's room was a fantasy. Every dreamy kiss, every hushed word; it was all fantasy. Tonight – Stef and Lena's disapproval; Mariana's teary accusations; Jude's sad look of resignation – was the reality.

Callie walked down the stairs and out the front door. It was still dark outside, despite the fact that this night seemed to have lasted for 20 hours already. Tiredness was beginning to catch up to her, chasing after the adrenaline of the last couple of hours. Letting the door close behind her, she hesitated and then sat down heavily on the stoop.

She had to go. She knew that. She'd tried to be the good daughter and failed. It was just another ill-fitting role; another version of herself that rang false.

She'd exchanged her pajama pants for jeans, though she still wore Brandon's oversized t-shirt beneath her jacket. She slipped her phone from her pocket. She needed to toss it soon – otherwise they'd be able to trace her. She hesitated again and then tapped out a message.

Come down. Say goodbye.

Each brief word hurt her.

Callie sat on the stoop, knees drawn up to her chest, head drooping low. A couple of minutes elapsed and then she heard the door open behind her. She willed herself not to spring to her feet and throw herself into his arms.

"Callie, what—?"

She couldn't see Brandon's face, but she heard the alarm in his voice.

"Come say goodbye," she croaked out.

"Goodbye?"

He took a seat beside her on the stoop, grabbing at her arm. She remained still, non-reactive. She couldn't look at him.

"Callie—?"

"It's time for me to go," she said.

"You're leaving? Right now?"

"I'm leaving either way," she said. The gargantuan effort needed to keep from crying was making her voice sound blank. "To some boarding school. To a group home. I'd rather leave on my own terms."

"I'm coming with you," he said immediately.

"No…"

"We can run away and be together," he said eagerly. "It'll prove to everyone that this is for real."

"No," she said, more sharply this time.

Brandon was silent for a moment and then he said:

"Either you let me come with you or I'm going upstairs to wake everyone up."

Anger flared inside of her. Brandon wanted so badly to control every situation. He could never see from anyone else's perspective. His matter-of-fact threat opened up wounds for her, both fresh and festering.

"This is your fault," she burst out. "You could never accept that it had to be a secret. You kept pushing. I kept telling you and you kept pushing—That stupid date. All those times we almost got caught. It was a joke to you! Getting caught was a joke!

"And I know why… I know why you don't care that everyone knows now. It's because – no matter what – Stef will always be your mom. Your real mom. Flesh and blood. I don't have that. I'm already pretty sure I've lost Jude. These people"—she gestured to the dark house behind her—"they'll never be my real family. I'll never have that."

Some of her accusations were fair. Some, she knew already, were completely unfair. But she felt each one as if it were true, the heat of anger coursing through her veins. She stood up, grabbing her backpack. If she was mad at him, she could bring herself to leave. If she could just stay mad at him—

"Callie…"

Brandon stood up, too, his face registering shock. She caught his eye for a moment and then looked away.

"Callie—I'm sorry—I didn't think," he said. "I was stupid." He paused, desperation sounding in his voice. "If I could fix it—if I could—"

"You can't."

Brandon was silent for a long moment. Then he said:

"If you want to leave, I won't do anything. I won't tell them anything. But. I want to come with you… I want to be with you forever."

The words hung in the air and Callie felt ready to scream or cry or both. Brandon could say these things and not hear the implausibility of it all – that nothing ever lasted forever; that love would always break your heart.

"Listen…" he said slowly. "I'm gonna go upstairs. Get my stuff from the house. Either you'll still be here when I come back down or… you won't. Your choice."

He didn't try to kiss her or hug her or even catch her still-evasive gaze. He just gave a slight shrugging-wincing motion and turned back to the house. He slipped back in through the front door without another word.

She shifted the straps of her backpack from one shoulder to the other. The scream-or-cry sensation still brimmed up inside of her, filling her throat, making it hard to breathe.

She needed to go—without him.

She needed to get away. But…

But…

If she ran, wasn't that just hiding by another name?

If she ran, wasn't she just consigning herself to life up a tree? Hiding. Always hiding. Hiding from herself—hiding from what she really wanted—hiding from what she was terrified to have.

The minutes were ticking by and Callie realized the darkness was slowly lightening. Dawn would be coming soon and, with it, daylight.

Callie forced herself to contemplate her real dilemma. If she and Brandon existed in daylight – if they existed in real life – she would have to face the fact that one day it might end. That he might leave her. That he might break her heart. She wouldn't be in control of it anymore.

If she ran away with Brandon, their relationship would become unequivocally real.

They drove.

They drove into the sunrise, along empty streets.

Brandon's car was too old to have GPS and they'd both left their phones at the house. So there was no cheery mechanical voice to guide them; no squiggles on a screen to show them where to go. They were map-less. Rudderless. There was no plan except to drive.

So they drove.

"Second thoughts?" Brandon asked.

Fear still churned in Callie's stomach, but she managed a wry smile.

"Second thoughts," she said. "Third thoughts. Fourth thoughts. But if you turn the car around, I'll kill you."

A smile flooded across Brandon's face, and Callie couldn't help thinking that if she saw that smile every day, maybe she didn't need anything else.

As side streets gave way to highways and the pre-rush-hour traffic swept them up, they passed signs for places she'd never visited, never even dreamed of. Each one was now a possibility. The world unfurled before them, vast and terrifying and exciting.

Los Angeles
Phoenix
Las Vegas

"You know, my grandma and grandpa got married in Vegas," Brandon said, over the noise of the freeway. "Eloped. They only knew each other five months. Admittedly, they got divorced a few years later…"

"So that worked out really well for them," Callie said and Brandon laughed.

Callie closed her eyes against the morning sun that slanted in through the windshield. The stress of the last few hours was finally ebbing away, leaving her exhausted. She tucked her legs up under her, curling up against the seat. She laid her cheek against the worn leather.

"I'd tell you I'll wake you up where we get there," Brandon said, "but I have no idea where we're going."

"No, I should stay awake," Callie mumbled, though she couldn't force herself to open her eyes. "Can't leave you to drive on your own."

"I'm not on my own," Brandon said. "You're here with me."

Callie smiled, opening her eyes to slits. She reached out to Brandon, her hand covering his where it lay on the steering wheel. She squeezed his hand, savoring the warmth, the connection. Then she drew her hand away and closed her eyes again, giving in to the pull of sleep.

At a gas station somewhere on the road to nowhere, Brandon woke Callie up.

Amid the parking lot exhaust fumes, the two of them sat on the hood of Brandon's car and ate a gas station brunch of dusty baked goods. The blueberry bagels were stale, but Callie felt like she'd never tasted anything better. As she swallowed her last bite, she looked over at Brandon.

"You need to get some sleep," she said.

She reached over and gently took his face in her hand. She rubbed her thumb lightly across his cheekbone, just below the dark shadows that collected under his eyes.

"I feel like I could keep driving all day," he said, twisting his head to kiss the joint of her thumb.

"…You definitely need to get some sleep," she said.

"Callie… you make me feel like I could run forever and never crash. It's the craziest feeling. Like I could run a marathon, climb a mountain—" (Brandon laughed softly and Callie felt the reverberation run through her hand.) "I mean, obviously I can't do either of those things. But you make me feel like it's possible."

"I make you feel crazy," she said.

"Yeah. But in a good way. You really… changed my life."

"Wrecked your life, you mean."

A familiar sensation of guilt coiled in the pit of her stomach. She pulled her hand away from his face, letting it fall onto the hood of the car. Looking for something to occupy her hands, she reached for the bag of bagels, yanking off its twist tie.

"No, Callie, listen…" Brandon said intently. "Before you showed up, my life was all straight lines. Like… do well in school, get a piano scholarship, get a nice girlfriend, go to college. You know I never actually stopped to think about whether I was happy? I had it all planned out and none of it ever really made me happy. They were just checks in boxes. And I figured one day if I made enough checks, it would all click.

"Then I met you. And it clicked. Even though you were supposed to be my sister. Even though you weren't in the plan. Even though…"

Brandon trailed off. He leaned forward, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Maybe I do need to get some sleep," he said.

She almost let the moment go. She almost bit her lip and said nothing. It was Brandon who made these big statements about their once-in-a-lifetime love. It was he who was able to articulate his feelings; analyze them with such precision and put it all into words. She had none of the same talent. But, for the first time, she wanted to try.

Callie fidgeted with the white twist tie from the bag of bagels. She twisted it around her little finger and then smoothed it out again, before repeating the process over again. Twist. Smooth. Twist. Smooth. Then, finally, she began to speak.

"I had a picture in my head of my life, too," she said quietly. "It was pretty simple. No college. No scholarships. Just me and Jude. A quiet life." She paused, steadying her breath to keep from stumbling over her words. "Then there was you. And quiet didn't seem so satisfying anymore.

"I have to figure love always does that," she continued. "Real love. It comes into your life and screws up your plans. And you let it, because the alternative is losing—losing—"

You.

Callie could only mouth the word before Brandon was kissing her. Kissing her like their lives depended on it.

"I love you," he murmured between kisses, "I love you, I love you, I love you…"

"I love you, too," Callie said, feeling her heart swell, burst right out of her chest.

Brandon drew away, looking at her intently.

"I think it's time to stop running away," he said. "We need to run toward something."

"…What does that mean?"

She couldn't help but be unnerved by the intensity in his voice, the over-bright, over-tired look in his eyes. Absently, she continued to fidget with the twist tie in her hands. Twist. Smooth. Twist. Smooth.

"What you said earlier, about Stef and Lena not being your real family. Well, they could be. They should be."

"Brandon—"

"No, hear me out. I want you to be my family. My real family." He took a deep breath. "So let's get married."

When Brandon said the words, Callie stopped. She stopped fidgeting. She might have even stopped breathing.

Brandon reached for the twist tie in her hands, which now lay slack in her grasp. He wrapped the piece of plastic-and-metal around her ring finger and said again:

"Let's get married."

"We can't get… married," Callie said haltingly.

If the twist tie had turned to solid gold on her finger, she couldn't have felt its presence more acutely.

"We can," he said.

If she just stalled on the logistics of it, she wouldn't have to respond to the proposal.

"You need, like, permission from a parent," she said.

At one of her previous placements, her 17-year-old foster sister had run away to marry her boyfriend and returned sheepishly a few hours later, still unwed, wheedling for a signature like a kid with a permission slip. Idiot, Callie had thought at the time.

"One thing I'm certain of is that we both have fake IDs," Brandon said archly.

"The police took them."

"They never ran the paperwork. I got everything back after they let me go. I don't think they exactly meant to give me back the IDs, but they were right there in the envelope…"

"It's… semantics, Brandon! We're not getting married."

"Don't you want to?" he asked imploringly.

The question stopped her short. Didn't she want to? In her heart, didn't she want to?

She looked up at his eager face. It was obvious that he felt that he'd found a neat solution that erased all of their problems. He'd found the loophole. She could be Callie Foster, after all. Beloved daughter-in-law. A part of the family, with a piece of paper to prove it.

But it wasn't such a neat solution. It didn't erase their problems. It didn't erase her fears. And daughter-in-law wasn't the same as daughter. It would mean giving up a part of herself; sacrificing the dream of a family because she wanted him more.

Getting married would mean choosing him – unequivocally. It would bring their relationship out into the light, once and for all. It would mean trusting his promise that he'd love her forever. No more running. No more hiding.

"We're two hours from Vegas," he said. "We have a full tank of gas. Let's just do it."

When she still didn't reply, he went on:

"What's the plan otherwise? Running away didn't work out for you before. I don't see how it works now. I left the house with $50, which is pretty much gone since I filled up with gas and bought overpriced bagels that taste like cardboard."

He gave a wincing smile and continued:

"It was fun to pretend we could really just drive forever. But we have to go home at some point. This way, when we go home, we're married."

She couldn't help but feel betrayed that Brandon had only been playing along with her plan to run away. He'd intended to return all the time, even as she'd begun to believe that maybe they were starting a new life together. Yet Brandon had been planning something a lot bigger than driving till they ran out of road.

"Stef and Lena would… figure out a way get it annulled," she said. "Jude would hate me because I didn't invite him. Mariana would think I did it to spite her or something… Jesus would just laugh. He'd think it's ridiculous. Because it is ridiculous. We're sixteen. We can't get married."

"Fine," he relented, "I see your point."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he resumed speaking.

"So… we wait," he said. "We get married when we're 21, 22. We go to separate boarding schools. We do what we're supposed to. We stay apart. We go to college. We become upstanding citizens. Then we get married."

He reached for her hand, his fingers brushing her twist-tie ring.

"I don't mind waiting," he said. "I'll still want to marry you when we're 21. Or when we're 81, for that matter."

"I don't…" she began and the words felt dry against her tongue.

Brandon's grasp on her hand slackened.

"I don't want to wait," she managed at last. "I want to marry you. Today."

If the minister was surprised by their age, their dubious Hawaii-issued IDs or the fact that their wedding ring was a twist-tie from a bag of bagels, she didn't show it.

Callie stood in the cheesy Vegas chapel, dressed in jeans and Brandon's t-shirt, feeling foolish. Then Brandon smiled at her and she realized she felt foolish and happy. If she could just see that smile every day for the rest of her life, maybe she didn't need anything else.

As they were leaving the chapel – husband and wife, hands gripped tight – the minister offered them the guestbook. Its pages were packed with messages: some joyful, some irreverent, some drunken; graffiti scrawls lodged beside messages rendered in neat cursive.

Callie watched as Brandon paused to write a message of his own—

The marriage of Callie Foster, who stared at floorboards, to Brandon Foster, who loved her.