Title: Many Forms

Author: Anactoria

Rating: PG

Word count: 200


Irene Richards suppresses a sigh, and doesn't meet the eyes of the student standing before her desk.

As the only female teacher in the school, she seems to get landed with all of the messy, emotional things -- though why that should make her any better at dealing with them than anybody else, she has no idea. She just signed up to teach English.

(...and besides, if truth be told, the Veidt boy has always unnerved her a little. He's an attentive pupil, but his curiosity is not that of a teenager. It is too faraway, and too cold...)

She hopes there won't be tears.

There aren't. The boy gives her a tight frown and a nod, as though he's just been informed of a less-than-satisfactory grade, and not the death of his parents. Then he asks to be excused, and sits, writing quietly, in class until a car arrives to collect him.

(Later, Mr. Moreton shows her the boy's history paper, handed in that afternoon. It's A-grade.)

Irene knows it's wrong to be judgemental. Grief takes many forms, not all of them obvious. Still, when the boy leaves school, three months later, she cannot quite say she is disappointed.