Love Will Keep Us - Book 5

Breakfast

"We need to wake them up, Lena. I'm not playing around," Stef lights a smoke, clearly agitated from the night before which the blonde knew as well as Lena even if it was rare her job affected her to this degree.

Well, if she honest that was not 100 percent true for many times during her last 8 years or so on the force there had been countless times a part of her job tore her to shreds, and it was the cases that involved children. The arrest she made last night had not gone so well, and she was really feeling the effects of not only that but she had only gotten a couple of hours of sleep to top it off.  Stef didn't like it when her job affected her family life so she would suck up her exhaustion and spend the day like they had planned.

"I know you aren't, sweetheart, but let them sleep in a little. We don't have to be so hard on them in their last week of freedom before school starts." Lena places her hand on her wife's shaking knee and squeezes it trying to calm the woman down.

She had come home the night before in a foul mood, and Lena had heard her crying in the shower. That too did not happen often and when she had tried to get Stef to tell her what happened, the blonde had only chalked it up to a bad night on the beat and said she needed some rest. Maybe that was true but she could clearly see whatever the bad night was had really gotten to her and she could see that well.

Of course, Lena knew better than to let her wife in on the knowledge that she and Tess had, that Callie had been full-blown drunk. That as something she knew not to say at that moment because  it was a fact that Callie wasn't a bad kid and had a sneaking suspicion that she would wake up this morning and promise herself never to do that again for she was sure the hangover would be painful. Very and that was last thing Callie needed or Stef for that matter right now was the blonde ripping her daughter to shreds. Eventually she would need to tell her but today wasn't the day.

"No, Lena. No sleeping in. We had this day planned. Tess and Stefanie leave tomorrow  morning, and we have the entire day with them. So, we'll get them up and keep our schedule." Stef puffs her smoke as Tess walks in the kitchen smiling softly at her friend.

"Good morning, sunshines!" She says almost too cheerfully as Lena gives her a look.

Tess knows instantly that Stef has no clue about Callie, none at all for she too had been up with the three until almost 3 in the morning. Not that she or Lena were happy that Stef had gotten stuck at work but had she come home earlier it had been WW3 in the home. 

The hard thing was keeping it from Frankie who had some idea to what was going on but had gone back to bed. At least they thought she had but the girl had seen how sick Callie was not really knowing why. Swinging the fridge door open she grabs a carton of eggs. "I'll cook breakfast today! My treat!"

"You'll do no such thing," Stef puts out her smoke as she stands to her feet walking over to her friend. "You are a guest, you and my goddaughter."

"Don't make me mad, Stefanie Adams Foster," Tess warns as she shakes the spatula at the blonde who holds up her hands before grabbing the pot of coffee.

"At least let me make coffee, for pete's sake!"

"Ha! Of course! You make good coffee but let me do the rest. Besides you got home really late. Are you ok?"

"Yeah. I'm fine the job is just a bitch sometimes. That much is what I know." She says as Tess looks sadly to her knowing how sensitive her friend is even if she tries to hide it most of the time. She and Lena both knew Stef tried to hide it all the time if she could but she could be rather transparent.

"Did something happen last night?  Something in particular?" Tess pushes as the blonde walks back over to her seat beside Tess leaning and grabbing her smoke. "I mean we can only imagine what you see on a daily basis, Lena and I.  So it must have been really hard."

"Am I this transparent?"

"Yes." Lena says grabbing her wife's hand again as the blonde lets out a sigh clearly remembering the little boys face from last night and that alone tore her up."Babe, you don't have to tell us. Only if you want."

"It was a domestic dispute call and Mike and I thought nothing of it really. Even if they are always the worst.  I mean as a cop you always prepare for that. You prepare for the worst and sometimes I think I still don't really do that. I've seen alot, things that I don't want to remember. Ya know and I get over it, I deal with it. But, the home was,  it was unspeakable. The worst I've seen and  I could deal with just them. With just the fucking parents. But, the condition of their son. That I couldn't."

"Oh, honey," Lena moves to cup her wife's cheek as she caresses the side of her face while Tess takes her hand and squeezes it. "I'm so sorry baby."

"It's ok. It happens and sometimes there's days that are harder then others."

"What happened with the little boy?"

"Oh I don't know um...well I do CPS came and got him so I hope he's ok now. Couldn't be more then 10 maybe. But it was hard to tell. It's not the first time I've seen this. It was an everyday occurrence in the Bronx. In '79 not so much but I will tell you once Crack Cocaine hit the streets it was another ball game. Yeah, we were dealing with Heroin before but Crack did something else to people and the kids always suffer the most. I arrested this woman once for, trying to sell her daughter for a small bag of crack. I just...what the fuck do you even say to that. Nothing." The blonde says as Lena continues to rub her cheek. She knew Stef's job was hard, she really did and the majority of the time she said nothing about it. Nothing at all. "I just always pray for all those kids at the end of the day. And I pray for the parents because no one grows up saying they want to be drug addicts."

"No, they don't baby."

"I don't know how you do it, Stefanie Marie," Tess shakes her head as she looks at her dejected friend. "It takes a special kind of person to do what you do and a tremendous amount of strength. Which you have and always have had. But, are you sure this is what you want to do still?"

Stef snaps her head to look at her friend and smiles softly, "I don't allow bad nights like that to decide if I should stay. If that was the case I would have quit my first night on the street. I love my job, sweetheart. I really do. And maybe I'm not successful everyday but to know I did something helps. It's who I am."

"She does, Tess. She loves her job. I mean you should have seen how miserable she was working the security job." Lena smiles as Stef winks at her seemingly the weight having lifted a bit, for it was true that whenever she did open up and spill, she felt relieved in a sense. Even if she didn't like bringing her job home with her. Ever.

"Ha! Don't remind me! Especially chasing after rich kids who'd try to sneak on the boats and smoke weed. Man, I do not miss that! Like at all!"

"God I'm sure." Tess says as the blonde looks to her wife smiling.

"I'm ok babe. I am. A day out with my girls and our son will help. It always does."

"I'm glad honey." Lena smiles as she softly kisses her wife on the cheek.