Disclaimer: I don't own FatF

Worthy?

Chapter 1: A Matter of Worth

To say that blood was important to my family was like saying water was important to rain. Without that little bit of purity to cling to we were, very literally nothing. In a town like ours, where your citizenship could literally depend on which side of the street your parents lived. I was lucky enough that my father lived near the American edge of the town, on the opposite side of the toll ways and border patrol fences that split the town in two. Well, I was guaranteed to be an American, if I could consider that lucky. My family was, as my grandfather put it, unspoiled Mexican greatness...

That is until I came along.

At a very young age I was informed by my grandfather, whom I've always called pappy after watching westerns, that I was different from everyone else in my family. My older sister and four older brother were somehow better then I was. At that age you don't question your grandfather, no matter what he tells you.

At the age of five I set out to find what exactly was wrong with me. I'd never met my father because my mother and he had never been officially married and he probably never knew I existed. Since I wasn't old enough to understand at the time that he had simply left, I didn't consider him a factor in my little quest.

For a while I thought I was just to small, so I tried everything to make myself seem bigger. This only drew attention to me. Then I tried being more girly like my sister. Again all I got was the kind of attention I could easily live without. Finally I tried being more like my brothers, liking cars, playing sports, acting tough and 'Spanish'. That was when they ignored me.

Even now I really wish I could just say I was kidding. 'Haha, you fell for it, silly you' and all of that, but then there wouldn't be a story would there? Without a story then we wouldn't be talking would we?

If I say it started on a dark stormy night I'd be lying. If I said it started the next morning however...

"Blanca!"

Her eyes opened quickly and turned in every direction, looking all around the room before she moved. She had learned the hard way to make sure she checked her room before she got out of bed.

"Blanca! ¡Consiga su asno hacia fuera aquí!"

"Si Pappy!" She called in response to the voice as it leaked around her door a second time. She was out of bed and searching her floor for the jeans she'd worn the night before by the time she finished speaking. She'd managed to worm her way partially under her bed to grab them when she heard his reply.

"Don't you 'Si Pappy' me, ¡Consiga su asno hacia fuera aquí!"

"Si Pappy." She mumbled as she stood and pushed her bare feet into the legs of her jeans, pulling them up to her hips, or rather hip bones, and making sure they were fastened as she hurried out the door of her room. The smell of taco meat hit her like a brick as she turned down the hallway, narrowly avoiding her niece, nephew, and her uncle's tormented looking cat named Chips. "Pappy, ¿Usted llamó sí?" She let her eyes fall to the floor by his dilapidated arm chair, counting the bottles that now lay there, empty. Nine. He was taking it easy, by seven am on a Friday he was usually in excess of twelve.

"Twice." Came the gravely voice of the man sitting in the arm chair. He had a chunk of white hair on the back of his head which he wore in a ponytail and the tanned skin of a Mexican man who had worked for years outdoors. Coupled with the growing size of his gut and swagger in his gate he was starting to become the comically drunk old man. If not for his temper of course.

"Si Pappy." Was all she could muster as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back again.

"Lookit you Blanca, your face... that hair... ¿Usted no puede incluso ascendente limpio más?"

She straightened the oversized, moth eaten t-shirt she always wore to bed and ran her fingers through her hair quickly. Hurridly pulling it into a tail at the base of her neck she tugged her hair tie of her wrist and twisted it around the hair to secure it. "I'm sorry Pappy, I just got up..."

"If you'd been on time for toque de queda usted habría estado encima hace de horas!" He spit on the carpet in her direction as her mother came around the doorway from the kitchen, seemingly drawn by the raised voices. "Looking like them, act like them, next you'll have the 'I heart New York' t-shirt and wear it around MY house!"

She neglected to mention she actually did own an 'I love New York' shirt which she'd kept carefully stashed at the garage. "I didn't mean to Pappy, Estoy apesadumbrado..." She slipped back and forth between Spanish and English out of habit as much as out of respect for his limited English. "Next time..." She began to speak again and chanced a glance at her mother who was pretending to watch the TV between her daughter ad her father.

"Tilt you head."

"Excuse me?" She said, her head snapping straight forward again as she spoke.

"Incline su cabeza!"

She turned her eyes toward her mother without turning her head, her eyes pleading for some kind of help but the older woman just pretended as though she hadn't heard or even seen them. Very slowly she turned her head until she was facing her mother entirely, still begging with her eyes that her mother might help her.

In that moment three things happened, there was a scream like nothing the nieghbors had ever heard from their darkly paneled living room, her grandfather threw his considerable weight out of the chair, and she was smacked soundly across the face.

"Get out."

"Pappy It's just..."

"Get out."

"...but it's only an earring..."

"GET OUT!"

"Pappy..."

The second slap sent her scrambling for the door, barefoot and wearing her pajamas. It took her less then half the normal time to reach it as her mother screamed all manner of Spanish and English phrases at her and her grandfather. The door had barely slammed behind her when her grandfather eased himself back into his chair as her mother stopped yelling. The older woman cast a short glance at the door and then turned to go back to her cooking as the mn groped around the bottom of the chair for a partially full bottle.