AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is actually set during the previous fic in this series, this is ground control to major tom, taking place in the December after Louis, Lyla, and Evan found each other again. This is between the concert and (in my fic) the Connelly family being reunited at Christmas of the that same year.

As his fork scraps his plate a few days after his twelfth birthday, the tone of metal against ceramic is an F sharp four octaves above middle C.

"Evan?"

The now twelve-year-old looks up from the table at his father's voice to see his parents' attention focused on him. Lyla looks concerned, as she often does – and what a feeling it is, to have a mother whose worry is recognizable, and to even have a mother who is recognizable - as Louis sets down his own fork. The utensil against the wooden table, tone muffled by a napkin, is a dull D natural one octave below middle C.

"Is everything alright, honey?" Lyla asks.

Even months after being reunited with his parents, Evan still gets a rush of joy coursing through his veins at the fact that he even gets to hear her say those words anyone else would take for granted. But his entire life up until the concert has taught him to be careful with what he says. Lyla and especially Louis now tell him emotion is not something to hide, even if he does not expect his parents to hurt him. He wants to be open with them, yet being vulnerable has gotten him hurt in the past, hasn't it? But above all, he doesn't want to worry them anymore than they already are.

"Yes," he lies, and focus his gaze on his plate to avoid their stares.

"How's school?" Louis asks in the silence that follows.

Evan hesitates. "Fine." He risks a glance up to watch his parents exchange a look.

"Is everyone nice to you there?" Lyla wonders.

Evan has noticed she is always inquiring into how others treat him, if he's happy where he is in life, and what kind of people he is around. Even while deciding on a school to send him to, she had not been satisfied with meeting just his main sixth grade instructor. Lyla had made a point of being introduced to the other teachers, pulling double duty with their own classes and additional specialized subjects, who would instruct Evan. He normally appreciates her dedication, but there is a part of him that wishes she doesn't have so many questions. He hears her and Louis talking when they think he's asleep, and it's clear looking after him isn't easy for either of them.

He can't bear to burden them.

"Yeah," he offers, and this time it's true. There's one teacher who is stricter than the others and a few students make snide comments, but no one is outright mean like the older boys at the orphanage.

"Are you making any more friends?" Lyla wonders, another frequent question of hers.

Evan shrugs. "I still hang out with Hope, and sometimes her friends."

One of the reasons his parents chose the school he currently attends is because Hope does as well, even if she is a year ahead of him. Apparently it had been important for them that he knew someone in class, even though it had been normal in his youth not to be close to other children. He had only really spent time with Noah at the orphanage; the others had been immature and obnoxious and loud, and hadn't exactly included him into their circles. Of course Evan had wanted companions there, but had learned quickly that it was not a place to make anything more than acquaintances.

You weren't at the orphanage to forge friendships, you were there to survive.

Hope, however, is different. It seemed from day one she had taken his hand and brought him into her life, even though she knew nothing about him at the start. She was bold and straightforward in ways he himself never would be, and she never had trouble connecting with others. She often invited him to sit with her and her group in the cafeteria, but the other girls quickly found him odd, and the lunch hour usually found Hope and Evan sitting by themselves. He had offered to let her go back to her friends, but she always said she was content to hang out with him, and he had decided quickly not to push the issue. One friend was better than none, and he found he truly enjoyed her company in of itself.

"Are you looking forward to Christmas break? Only one day left until school is out," Louis says, clearly trying to get Evan to open up about something. The boy knows neither of his parents like it when he keeps things from them, but this is necessary. He has to protect her and Louis.

"I am," he says as cheerfully as he can manage, and this time it's not hard to smile. Christmas means no school or homework or classes, and the lack of all three is seriously appealing. But he decides to end the questioning, as well meaning as it is, before it can continue.

Evan drains his glass of milk – a beverage they insist he drinks with dinner, always citing something about bone density or a previous lack of nutrients, whatever that means – and pushes back his empty plate. The glass being set down on the table hits an A natural two octaves above middle C, while the plate sliding against wood is a B flat one and a half steps below.

"May I be excused?"

Lyla's gaze flicks to his now bare plate. Another concern of hers is him getting enough food, and so tonight he made sure to finish even the broccoli as not to tip her off.

"I suppose," she concedes.

He's already out of his chair when Louis adds, "Why don't you bring your backpack to the table and your mum and I can help you with homework?"

"Okay," Evan says, hurrying to his room, but shuts his bedroom door behind him. Opening the zipper on his backpack so quickly he momentarily thinks he might have broken it, he pulls out his folder of homework and starts on his grammar assignment. Evan flies through the worksheet as if his life depends on his speed in completing the page.

And so when he takes his backpack to the apartment kitchen, his English homework is finished and safely tucked away in the folder where neither of his parents will see it.

At the end of the school day on Friday, his main teacher passes out report cards.

Other students exclaim or bemoan their grades when they receive the papers, and plenty of his classmates are beaming. But when Evan receives his report card, he takes one look at it and stuffs the printer paper into his backpack. Zipping his coat all the way up to his neck and pulling his beanie down over his ears, he throws the straps of his backpack over his shoulder and darts away from his desk the moment the bell rings.

He's the first one out the front doors.

Lyla isn't on the sidewalk yet. On this and only this day, he is glad that the subway is running behind or that she is probably stuck in traffic in a taxi. Louis still is at work at the bank as usual at this time, and Evan is grateful for the first time since being reunited with his parents that they aren't here.

The taxi driver he waves down doesn't believe him at first when he says he wants to go to Julliard, but the handful of money the twelve-year-old holds out is convincing enough. After the yellow cab drops him off at the university's administration building, Evan pulls open the heavy front door, weaves his way through faculty and students, and slips past the endless desks to head straight for Alice MacNeil's office. Christmas music is playing somewhere – the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Carol of the Bells that reverberates through the floor and his bones – but for once Evan pays it no mind.

The dean's dark eyes widen when he opens the door. "August?"

"It's Evan now, actually." He closes the door behind him. "Evan Novacek-Connelly," he adds, a corner of his mouth turning up at being able to say his full name. It had taken an eternity to even be able to live with his parents again, let alone get his name legally changed. But just saying his new surname gives him a thrill not unlike when he hears a particularly glorious chord or a sweeping rush of music.

"Well, Mr. Novacek-Connelly," Alice says, getting up to open the door again, "what brings you here?"

His feet still don't touch the ground in the leather chairs on the other side of her desk. "I want to re-enroll at Julliard."

She blinks as she returns to her side of the desk. "I beg your pardon?"

"I want to come back," he says simply, because there's no other answer he can give. "You said last time that I was on a full ride scholarship." Money is important to these university people for some reason, and maybe mentioning this will help his case. "Can't you put me back on it?"

Instead of answering, she looks at the door. "Are your parents here?"

He shakes his head, and her smile is different this time as she reaches for her landline phone. "Why don't you give me one of their numbers?"

After calling his parents, Alice cancels all of her appointments and stays with him, asking him about his middle school but always veering away from the topic of Julliard. When Lyla and Louis burst into the office, Evan's never seen them so panicked, but it is the tone is his mother's voice that is the nail in the coffin. The way she says his name is why he came to Julliard on his own in the first place; hiding this from them was supposed to relieve their concerns, not multiply them, but his plan has clearly backfired spectacularly.

"Thanks for calling us," Louis says, still in his business suit, and it looks like he came straight from the bank.

The dean smiles as he closes the door. "Don't mention it. Well, from your reaction on the phone, Mrs. Connelly–"

"Novacek," Lyla offers quickly as she sets her purse on the carpet by her chair, her focus still on Evan. "I'm still Novacek."

"Well," Alice says, clearly having a hundred questions on her tongue, but she continues smoothly. "I take it you two were not aware your son was coming to my office today."

"That is correct," Lyla answers as Louis looks at Evan, and the twelve-year-old wants the floor to swallow him whole. Louis isn't angry, but the usual twinkle in his eye is gone; Evan wishes he could vanish into thin air so he doesn't have to see his father's expression. Disappointing either of them is the last thing the twelve-year-old intended with this plan.

"Evan, why don't you tell your parents why you came here today?" Alice says, and the boy's mouth goes dry.

"I… I wanted to re-enroll at Julliard," he admits in a small voice, not wanting to even answer the question because of what their reaction will be. Letting down his parents is one of his worst fears, and this will surely do it. But it is Lyla's response that draws the attention of the room.

"What?"

"I like it here," Evan scrambles to add. "Better than my school now."

"What's wrong with your middle school?" Louis asks, voice even, but Evan can't help but watch something change in his mother's expression.

"Here at Julliard they said I was a prodigy," Evan says. "That I was special, and unique. I understand everything here."

"Understand everything here?" Louis raises an eyebrow. "Do you not understand things in your current school?"

"It's a lot harder there," Evan finally admits. "But they didn't make me take English or science at Julliard. Just music. And I thought if I came back, it would be easier."

"No."

Evan, Louis, and Alice all look at Lyla when she speaks. There is something akin to steel in her normally soft gaze, but the twelve-year-old doesn't know if it's directed at him or not.

"But-" Evan begins.

But for the first time since they've been reunited, Lyla interrupts him. She has always been so patient and willing to hear his every thought that her cutting him off is honestly a shock, and even Louis looks surprised.

"Not when you're this young. Maybe when you're eighteen, but not now. Absolutely not." Lyla reaches for her purse, and Evan knows in that one gesture that she considers the topic closed.

"But I like it better here," Evan says desperately. "Please let me stay!"

"We pulled you out for a reason," she responds, and he throws caution to the wind for one last attempt.

"I don't feel stupid here!"

All three adults freeze at his words. "What do you mean?" Louis asks carefully.

"Music is easy," Evan admits, but even thinking about uttering his next words feels like pulling teeth. "Regular school isn't." Tears brim in his eyes, sure he is going to have to explain how dumb and slow he is in front of his parents and the dean of one of the best colleges on earth.

But Lyla's eyes soften. "You're not stupid, Evan."

Alice gets up from her desk. "I'll give you three a few minutes to talk," the dean offers, but neither Lyla nor Louis look away from their son. As the older woman leaves the office, shutting the door behind her, Louis gets up to grab a box of tissues before any tears have actually fallen from his son's eyes. Lyla sets her purse back down on the floor.

"Can you tell us what's going on?" she asks gently, and Evan's careful facade starts to crack.

"I got my report card today for the end of the semester," he begins, "and my grades were even worse than I expected. I'm supposed to be brilliant like they told me at Julliard, but brilliant people don't get a D in English, do they?"

"Oh, honey," Lyla says, wiping away a tear that slides down his skin with her thumb. "One grade in one subject doesn't define you."

"But they said I was smart, and I'm not."

"I was never good at English either," Louis says, holding out the tissues, and Evan puts the cardboard box on his lap to pull out a handful of its contents. "And I was terrible in grammar."

Evan's eyes widen. "Really?"

Louis gives him an encouraging smile. "I've been told I'm not bad with words, and I can write lyrics or poetry as easy as anything. But dangling participles and imperatives and nominative cases? I never really wrapped me head around them. The emotional side of words, the meaning and heart, isn't a problem. It's the rules that I didn't get. I even had to go to summer school after Year Eleven. I was sixteen then, so that probably be, what, sophomore or junior year of high school here in the States?"

"You went to summer school, Dad?"

"I wasn't ever a great student, and sometimes I'm surprised I actually graduated from secondary school. Even when I got a masters degree in finance after your mum and I… lost contact, it wasn't easy. I mean, I'm not bad at math, but getting my English credits wasn't a walk in the park." He looks at Evan for a moment. "You don't have to be good at every subject."

The twelve-year-old sniffs. "I thought I had to be."

"No one is good at everything, Ev. Your mum and I will talk to any of your teachers that we need to, and we can also get you a tutor if necessary. Don't feel embarrassed about working with one. They are there to help." The corner of Louis' mouth turns up. "I probably should have had one when I was young meself. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Darling," Lyla says softly to the twelve-year-old, "the reason we don't want you to go back to Julliard is because we want you to be a normal kid, and to have a normal childhood. You can't get that if we push you too far in music too young," she adds, and for a second Evan thinks she's not only addressing him. "Let's go home, honey."

Evan has a habit of laying in bed and listening to his parents talk through his bedroom wall when they think he's asleep, and tonight is no different. Lyla's voice is low, but Evan's always had good hearing.

"If he steps one foot back in Julliard as a student before he's graduated high school, it will be over my dead body."

"Maybe we can get him private lessons," Louis murmurs.

"I'll do him myself if he wants them. It'll save money. I know how to teach, and most importantly how to teach him. But I'm not taking him to state competitions and endless adjudications and having him play in Europe. I refuse to force the upbringing I had on him."

"He's got a real gift."

"Do you think I can't see that?" The tone of Lyla's voice raises a bit, but she sounds more hurt than angry. "But do you think that I would ever take away his childhood just to trot him around like a trick pony? He's been used enough as it is."

"Lyls-"

"We both know he'll probably win everything we enter him in, but he needs a life outside of music. As it is, he's already having trouble not hyper focusing on it. I don't want to make him think his worth is in how well he plays with the London Philharmonic at sixteen. Evan can do whatever he wants when he graduates from high school, but I will never do the things my father did to me just to turn it back around on our son."

There's a moment of silence before Louis speaks. "When I was trying to find you, I read online that you played in Europe. But I assumed it was after we met."

"I stopped playing professionally after Evan was born. Part of it was because thinking that I lost him destroyed me, but it was also because I was burned out. I wasn't a prodigy like he is, but I was gifted at a young age."

Lyla pauses, and when she continues there is a hint of a ragged edge to her voice.

"My father was my instructor, and he pushed me to the very limits of my abilities. He promoted me, had me do appearances, and made me practice until my fingers bled. We toured the world, and though Milan and Paris and Moscow did want me, it was all arranged by my father. The first time I attended a normal school was Julliard. We told people he homeschooled me, but he really hired a tutor so I could travel. Mr. Jonas was more of a father to me than the one I had."

"Where was your mum in all this?"

The beat of quiet is longer this time. "My mother died of cancer when I was seven," Lyla finally says, voice thick. "I think my dad's way of grieving was ignoring it and focusing on giving me opportunities neither of my parents ever had."

"Me dad was the same way," Louis offers as the silence stretches on. "Not the playing with orchestras in Russia part, but he definitely didn't grieve properly when Mum died." It is his turn to pause. "Marshall supported me more in those first few years than our own father did. And I get it," he adds with an airy, mirthless laugh, "Dad was trying to provide for us and pay the bills, but we needed him with us more than we needed extra money. Marsh and I were teenagers when it happened, and honestly I never forgave Dad for not being there for us."

"Have you ever told him?" Lyla gently inquires.

"Oh definitely. It was the night Marsh and I left. It was back in ninety four, I think? Maybe ninety five. But I distinctly remember using a few choice words, and he had some of his own before I walked out. Marsh and I went with the band to stay at our aunt's place in San Francisco until we all got on our feet, and I haven't seen Dad or Ireland since." Another beat of quiet. "He wasn't abusive like your dad seemed to be the night I officially met him. Me father was just emotionally shutting down when I needed him most."

"I don't think this is something you should let hang over your head for the rest of your life," she says after a moment. "You reconciled with your brother. Maybe think about trying the same thing with your father." Evan hears his mother yawn. "Well, the stress of today has been exhausting. I'm going to turn in."

Evan listens to his parents bid each other good night before he hears Lyla go to her room, Louis staying at the couch as always, and the twelve-year-old watches the moon through his window before finally falling asleep.

But he is woken at five in the morning by Louis' low voice.

As Evan blinks blearily, he hears snatches of "Hey, Dad" and "I got the time difference between New York and Ireland right, yeah?" and "Well, there's a reason I haven't told in you in over ten years that I have a son of me own." The boy drifts back to sleep to the sound of his father's melodic voice drifting through the apartment, and tries to trust that everything will be alright.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: For the life of me, I can't find the name of the actor or the character of the boy Evan was friends with at the orphanage. So unless someone drops by to clarify, I'm calling him Noah.

Of course there's no reference at all in the film that Evan has issues with grammar. I did not pick that subject at random, however; I was drawn to writing not because of the rules, but because of the feelings words could elicit. I actually wasn't great at grammar in school, but I enjoy the emotional side of writing immensely. I think Evan could honestly be the same. However, the extreme contrast of going to a world-class collegiate level back to middle school would be staggering. And all that is on top of the fact that child prodigies apparently tend to have more significant weaknesses in subjects other than the one they excel in.

If I had everyone telling me I was a genius in one subject but I struggled in another, that would be difficult to cope with. Let alone for someone like Evan with all of his issues outside of academia.