AN: This is a complete rewrite I started an earlier version many years ago, but it was too complicated. This is slimmed down and should be a lot easier to write and hopefully more enjoyable to read. I intend to finish this, even if few people read it. it will likely run 10-15 chapters. Its starting point is Callie running away and meeting up with a somewhat good person at the mini-mart. The concept is A cross between the fosters and gilmore girls ... Steff or Lena (possbily both) will make an appearance and maybe one of the siblings too.

"You need a place, huh?"

The girl was probably no older than me and was the first person who had looked at me with even a hint of kindness during the past four hours of walking through the city. It was already night and the temperature had dropped to maybe 45 degrees. All she was wearing was thigh high black vinyl boots, tights a dark micro-skirt and a short sleeved lacy top . We both knew it was simply a matter of days or weeks before, i'd be on her corner too. I just smiled no thanks and walked past, trying to hide how she completely spooked me.

I went into the adjacent store, simply to be some where warm and bright. It was this down market mini-mart with a grimy floor and shells filled with half empty display boxes. It was good for junk food and an assortment of condoms but not much else. Stealing doesn't do much for me, but the working girls out side on the corner giving blow jobs to get by, had angered me. So i just picked up the first sandwich I saw and started eating, fair is fair.

The clerk didn't see it that way, a hungry person eating a freakin sandwich that was a thing. Half dressed 16 year old girls on a corner doing meth hits and wading into traffic looking for johns was what? normal? He started yelling at me as if I was robbing the place of a million dollars.

It was a little hard to fathom. Two wrongs don't make a right, but considering the scene outside, I actually couldn't wrap my head around the idea that he was losing his mind over a sandwich. The guy was an ass, unfortunately i was going to pay the price.

If it was San Diego I would have shot out the door and just headed for the beach, but when you don't know where anything is where do you go. If you are lost, one place is as good as the next. All I knew of Albuquerque was the couple of miles of pavement, parking lots and depressing non-descript buildings I had walk through while I looked for work during the day. Nothing about it was either friendly or safe.

A pack of donuts on the shelf looked good, I reached for them and that set him off even more, yelling so hard his face got red... now it matched his reddish blond hair, and pink eyes. He started to shift in the booth.

And then this rancher lady decided to get into the act. I had seen her out of the corner of my eye, but not taken much notice of her. They say people often ignore older woman.

I certainly didn't pay her any attention, not until she strutted over to me and draped her arm around my shoulder like I was something to her.

She was tall maybe 5'10 with grey blond hair that poked out a couple of inches below her beat-up cowboy hat and wore a bulky lined leather ranchers coat, that seemed to be almost regulation issue in the city.

"Honey this ain't Carson, they expect you to pay first," she drawled.

It was directed at me but she said it while looking at the guy at the counter like she thought he and her might end might end up being friends.

Plucking the donuts out of my hand, she shepherded me to the counter and put them by the register

It happened so quick and she was so self assured, there was no time to respond.

She added a packet of nuts and a bottle of water to my stuff and then reached for her wallet.

"How much do we owe you?"

The guy started to say something, but she gave him a look. Only it wasn't a melt butter look from a back country sweetheart, it was more like a laser that would burn through steel. It did the job. The guy glanced at me for a second, he muttered something under his breath, but then got busy scanning the food. "The big city— friendly huh?" she said.

She punched in the code on the card, still holding me to her side, she was stronger than you would think. And then half walked, half pushed me out the doors.

She didn't loosen her grips until the doors had shut behind us and we were standing on the sidewalk under the stores floodlights

" I got no money."

"Really?" her voice dripped with sarcasm

"Yeah... really."

"If you just give money, you don't' know where it goes." She looked straight at me," Better to buy people food."

The implication sucked.

" I don't drink alcohol,"

She made no response it was like I hadn't said anything. It didn't matter what she thought. We didn't know each other. But to be looked at and not even seen.

I held up the sandwich and saluted her with it almost like i was giving her the finger.

"Thanks."

I started to turn away but was nearly run over by this burly guy as he walked into the store. As he side stepped around me, he leered a bit and looked me over, head to toe, lingering over my hips than up my chest. I could tell he wanted to say something, but seeing the rancher lady sort of put him off, suddenly he seemed to forget what he was doing. He started fumbling with his car key fob, locking the car door he had already locked and then continued walking..

There was a small little twinkle in the back of her eye as she watched the guys move past.

"Surprised you didn't run," she said flatly.

I wasn't exactly sure what she was talking about.

The working girls who had offered to hook me up earlier inn the evenings were still down at the corner of the lot about 100 feet away, an occasional titter or shout broke through the noise of the traffic. They were paying no attention to us, I sat down on the low curb between the store and the lot and started eating my sandwich.

The woman stood just a foot or so away from me. So I ate my sandwich keeping my eyes on the ground.

I had no idea why she bought the sandwich, her attitude toward things and people seemed to change from moment to moment. It was too weird.

" You wanted to get arrested. That's why you didn't run." She didn't seemed at all shocked at the idea, more amused and maybe even curious.

"That ain't gonna happen now is it?" Truthfully I hadn't thought that far ahead. But it didn't make a big difference.

"you could have gotten shot,"

"For a sandwich... right"

"Did you see his hands go under the counter?"

I looked up her, I had seen it but not thought much of it.

"That's where store clerks keep guns"

I don't know whether what she said was true or whether she was making it up, but either way it made my skin crawl. I had visions of the cold blue light of the ICU and Steff lying there still and almost as pale as a cadaver on a slab. One woman shot was more than enough for me.

I looked up at her from my seat on the curb holding the half eaten sandwich in my hand.

" We have a spare room. You could crash there"

I didn't say anything, but started playing with the donut package.

I could feel her eyes on me.

"No thanks." I mumbled into the ground.

I didn't know her and where this room was and what she was expecting, or for that matter, how many 'friends' she had there.

Rather than go away, she sat down next to me on the curb.

" I've raised three kids, you know." She said it matter of fact, almost to her self. "I got a daughter probably 15 years older than you banging around Southern California doing all sorts of crazy thing. I need some good karma."

I wasn't looking at her but I heard something in her voice. A softer tone then before. I don't know can you hear Honesty? And she was sort of interesting, I admired the way with just a look she could shut a guy down.

"I get wanting to not depend on people, they can suck big time"

I stopped chewing. If only to swallow.

"Sorry about the alcohol thing, that was harsh" She added , it was as if she knew something about that, maybe had been to an AA meeting or two.

I looked at the sandwich then at her, wondering trying to figure the odds. She had this lined and weathered face and her eyes were the color of the sky on a clouded day. It was a face i wouldn't mind ending up with.

"Honey part of life is about taking advantage of a good thing when its in front of you. Besides country air makes everyone better."

She rubbed my knee and got up and walked over to a fairly new SUV and opened the passenger side door . She motioned with her hand " I got a three hour drive and I got a list of things i want to do in the morning.

The car looked safe and certainly less grubby then the street corner we were on. It wasn't too hard of a decision, I picked up my damned blue duffel bag up off the pavement and move toward the car.

Once inside the interior looked familiar, the damn thing was a subaru, which was just too ironic.

As we drove off a cd started up, A piano concerto came on starting up mid stream into the piece with a burst of rapid fire notes traveling a mile a minute. I recognized it from listening to Brandon practice. I had never asked its name. He had never offered.

The thought of what I didn't know and perhaps never would made my stomach heave a little and I felt some of the tuna fish sandwich I had just wolfed down come up and burn the back of my throat..

She looked at me quizzically.

Then without saying anything, punched a button on the console. Some local radio station, I knew the song. Macklemore, rapping about gay love and marriage. Fuck me, well it had worked out well for Jude, maybe it was a good omen. Maybe