10-May-2006
Title: Enough
Author: Lasha Lee
Series: All the Way To There Arc
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Gage and Nadia are mine. But if any GW characters appeared in this story I wouldn't own them.
This is a short stand-alone fic set about seven years after Street of Dreams. There are no SOD spoilers here, I promise. Nadia has a problem, and goes to Gage for help. (Just a note on the timeline: Gage received his certification to teach when Nadia was five so although just barely, she was among his first real students)
A certain disregard for the rules ran in her blood, or was supposed to anyway. She was supposed to flaunt authority, and get uncontrollable Maxwellian urges to throw paint-bombs at the walls and jump off the roof. And although her family never really called her a freak for the lack of these desires, sometimes she could just see the disappointment in their eyes.
"Not like us. Nothing like we were."
Maybe, she thought sometimes wryly, that WAS her rebellion right there. She was rebelling by refusing to rebel. If she thought too hard on about it, her head started to ache, and she as always just chalked it up to fate being, as Gramp put it, an ironic bitch.
It was also ironic that given a choice on who to spend her time with, she gravitated toward two people who could not have been more opposite from each other. One who got the same comfort and satisfaction from rules and routine as she did, and one who in spite of his best efforts would always be madly and passionately in love with chaos.
She worshipped them both, and it always depended on her mood at the time whom she preferred to be with. Sometimes she felt like they were her shoulder angels, and when she had a tough decision to make she rarely did so without speaking to them first. Usually she found that balancing the older man's sage advice with the younger man's bizarre suggestions gave her the guidance she was looking for.
Today, as much as she loved her Yeye, her rock of stability, she felt like she needed a more radical approach to her current problem.
She needed Gage, and luckily, he wasn't far away.
The spring air billowed out her jacket behind her as she threaded her way across the quickly-emptying school-yard toward the "kiddie" section, and the currently open gate. She remembered cold winter days standing near that gate, watching the older children playing on the other side and thinking she'd give anything to be there with them.
It hadn't turned out to be quite the paradise she'd anticipated. Now that she was on the other side, she found herself standing near the same gate and wishing more than anything she was still small enough to spend each day in her friend's domain. Unlike virtually everyone else in the school, Gage at least understood her. Sometimes, literally.
It wasn't uncommon for the smaller children to linger after class, and she was relieved to find Gage alone today, trying to put his classroom back into some semblance of order, or at least in an order that made sense to himself, anyway. He was on the floor sorting though the multicolored letter blocks, tossing them into plastic tubs.
"Why don't you make them clean up after themselves?" She sat down next to him.
"Because, Poppet, I never made you." He winked at her, not at all surprised by her arrival.
"You never had to make me." She began helping him sort though the toys. "I always clean up after myself."
"Alas, I failed as your teacher, didn't I? I was so sure that once you were under my control you'd become a total little anarchist. I'd have been so proud... " He sniffed loudly. "I blame Justice Skunk. Wufei was always thwarting my fiendishly clever schemes were you were concerned."
She was quiet for a minute, and leaned back on her heals. "Am I really that bad?"
Gage put down the plastic drumstick he'd been beating against a shelf.
"Come again, Poppet?"
She shrugged. "Never mind."
"No you don't. What do you mean, are you really that bad? What's going on?"
"All the girls in my class are having a big party this weekend! All of them! All except for me! And it's not the first time. They hate me, Gage. They never ask me to do anything with them!"
"Do they say things to you in class?"
"No... everyone's really nice to me. No one ever saying anything mean, but... "
"Nadia, 10-year-old girls are not known for their overwhelming wisdom, you know. I suppose I could tell you that it's their loss if they don't want to include you, but if you wanted that kind of advice you wouldn't be here with me, would you?"
She shook her head, proud of herself for not crying.
Yet.
"I know I'm a freak, but... "
"You are NOT a freak!"
She blinked, surprised by his vehemence. "Look at me, Poppet! You are not a freak!"
"Yes I am! I'm different from everyone else! I talk different than they do, I think different! Even when I'm not talking like you, they don't understand what I'm saying half the time. When I do try and talk like them I just feel stupid and all fake."
His lips twitched slightly. "You talk like me around them?"
"Not all the time. I try not to, it just slips out sometimes. They usually just laugh. Sometimes... I think they like me better then, when they think I'm being silly."
"Poppet, have you ever given thought to the idea that perhaps these young ladies don't include you in their prepubescent revelry because they simply think you wouldn't be interested in such things?"
Nadia stared at him, thunderstuck.
"Think about it, my little love. You've not exactly the throw-caution-to-the-wind type. Never a speck of dust on you. Now if I were planning to, say, go digging for fossils in a riverbed, I'd probably think to myself "Nadia? She'd never be interested in something like that. Or if I wanted to simply sit around gabbing about boys, I might decide 'Nadia wouldn't enjoy this. She's not the gossipy type.'"
"I love digging for fossils!"
"I know you do. I taught you to love it. But do they know that? Have you ever let them see the other side of you, the side that would roll around in a pit of mud if there was the slightest chance you'd learn something from the experience?"
She didn't reply.
"And now I'll be even more honest with you, Poppet, since I have your attention. There is a good chance that even if you were included in their activities you'd be bored to tears. You are different from they are. You are not a freak, but whatever causes the wiring in our heads to be wired as it, you got the Deluxe Package. Your grandfather swears on his life you spoke at less than two months old. No one but me ever believed him, but right from the start we could tell there was something about you."
"Something weird."
"Something amazing." He corrected gently. "Something remarkable. If your parents weren't so dead-set on giving you a 'normal' childhood you'd be through with college by now. And I agree with their decision, for the most part. If you feel like a bit of a freak among your own peers, I can't imagine how you'd feel being the smartest person in a room full of people twice your age. You get enough of that at home."
"Was it hard for you too when you were my age?"
"Well, Poppet, it wasn't quite the same, you know."
"But you were a genius."
"Were? What's this were business? Once a genius, always a genius!" He looked indignant, and laughed, reaching over to tug on one of her curls. "Let's just say that the other children had perfectly valid reasons for not wanting me to tag along on their outings. Things tended to happen, you see. Strange things. Things no one could ever explain. Things like all the seats on the bus ending up covered in honey. No one could ever prove it was me, mind you, but THEY didn't need to be geniuses to figure out those things didn't happen when I wasn't along for the ride."
Gage leaned back on his hands, digging his fingers into the thick red and yellow carpet. "Nadia, what do you want to happen? We could make a false tip to the police and have them raid the party. I'm sure we could come up with some creative ideas about what to have them look for."
"I can't do that, Gage."
"I know, Poppet. It's what I would have done, and I can promise you that while incredibly fun and fulfilling it is not a good way to get invited to future shindigs." He though for a minute.
"Do you remember what we talked about other night?"
"You were trying to convince Shan to show up at dinner dressed as a hooker and give Yeye a heart-attack?"
"Well, after that. And it would have been hysterical if he'd been man enough to do it! Anyway, we were talking about going into the salt marsh next month and catching some of the nato eels when they hatch."
"Of course. I've got the aquarium all ready for them."
"What if I took your entire class? I'm sure your teacher would enjoy a sanity day, and you can all go mucking about looking for natal natos. Give the little buggers a chance to see you're more than just a pretty brain."
"Think it'll work? I guess I didn't think that they figured I just didn't like to have fun."
"Poppet, I make no promises in life, you know this. Your only other option is to pretend to be something you're not. Makes for a pretty miserable life, that. And sooner or later, people will always see through you. I think we geniuses tend to underestimate those around us. They're smarter than they look, some of them."
"I like that you tell me the truth." She put the lid on one of the plastic tubs and shoved it onto a shelf. "Even Yeye would have just tried to cheer me up. Or he would have gotten mad and called up the mothers of the other girls and made them invite me. I would have died."
"Ah, love in its most nefarious form. Our elders always think they know best for us, conveniently forgetting how they would have felt in such an abominable situation. And being that you were my first pupil, I am a bit partial to you, you know."
"Well, given that you taught me to speak like something ripped kicking and screaming from the bosom of a Shakespearian masterpiece, then you can trouble yourself to extract me from the problems it tends to cause around my bewildered peers."
Gage chuckled and stood up, brushing off his hands. "Come on, Poppet. I better get you home before your parents become convinced you've run off to join the Deran Day Circus." He gave her a fast one-armed hug and motioned for Nadia to get the lights.
As he went to lock the classroom door, Gage paused. "Don't change, Nadia. No matter what, don't let them change you."
"Did you? Let them change you?"
He twisted the key in the lock. "No. I changed me, Poppet. Because I wanted to be a better person. If you have to change, change for Nadia. Don't change for me or your parents or your Yeye or anyone else. Just be Nadia. And that'll be enough."
She slipped her hand into his, and they headed for the transporter.
The End
(:./lasha/enough)
