Note: Just because a character isn't in the story yet doesn't mean that they won't make an appearance later and just because someone is with one person now or in a situation now, they might not be for the whole story. I love constructive criticism, but don't be rude just because you simply don't like something. Thank you.
Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi, just the original characters.
1. Feeling my way through the darkness
Mostly heading behind the curtains stage left, the actors carried their folded and heavily highlighted scripts off as soon as director, Eli Goldsworthy, dismissed them for lunch. He was known for working everyone to the bone, pulling excellence from his cast even if it meant their stomachs were growling louder than the chorus. His mind was elsewhere today. Groaning behind grit teeth, Eli turned his back to the stage and gripped his brown locks that sat in different directions carelessly on top his head. His eyes shifted upwards when they opened, hopeful that the four year old version of his son would be sitting up there like he used to. Nolan Goldsworthy used to spend his pre-preschool days up on the audience balcony of the Princess of Wales theatre in downtown Toronto, scribbling pirates and monkeys in crayon or zooming his Hot Wheels around on the carpet while his parents rehearsed their show. Eli thought it could never be any better, his small family and work combined happily. While he was no stranger to pain, he hadn't been prepared for things to fall apart like they had. Nolan never came by anymore. Eli hadn't the slightest clue what his son was interested in now.
Spinning around in his forever scuffed black shoes, Eli set his eyes on the stage and exhaled. The second week of rehearsal was generally smoother than it was currently going. With her legs kicking off the edge of the stage, he spotted her, long blond hair tied up on top of her head like a white oversized fondant flower on a wedding cake. She had her script open on the ground beside her and a peeled banana in one hand, her focus mostly on the script.
Holding his hips like he always did when he was feeling stressed, Eli headed down the theatre's aisle towards his wife..ex-wife...kind of almost ex-wife. He didn't know what they were to one another now. They were friends in a loose sense of the word, a director and his actress/former muse. They had been separated for nearly two years, but neither were in a rush to file divorce papers. They weren't looking to reconcile either, the two of them had always done things abnormally.
"Eli," She looked up with almond blue eyes that always stunned him, even after knowing each other sixteen years. "Look," She opened her empty palm in front of him and swallowed her bite of banana. "you know, I'll have the monologue ready. It's your blocking changes, they've thrown my memorization off." She explained with animated hand gestures.
"I know. I'm not worried." Plainly, very out of character for him, he nodded. Stephanie was a beloved talent in the Toronto theatre circuit. Before separating, they worked together on all their projects. He knew she could handle the role of Maxine in The Night of the Iguana. "Actually, I just wondering if you gave any thought to my email...the one about Nolan."
She stated at him with pursed lips for a moment, waiting to see if he was being serious or not.
"My thought on it is that it was very long." Bluntly, she stated, looking down at her script and taking another piece of banana into her mouth. Leave it to Eli to type out three pages in twelve minutes. It had been about his son though, the one thing in the world he was more passionate about than directing. "You rambled."
"So, you don't think there's anything to consider?" Sucking in his chest, he kept trying, gripping his sides with pale fingers. "I'm really concerned, Stephanie. I think I see signs -"
"Just because a teenager is moody and sleeps a lot doesn't mean they're bipolar, Eli. It means they're fifteen." She rebutted, her usual fairy-like presence replaced with a sharp serious expression, as blunt as an axe cut in a tree trunk.
"It's very possible that it's been passed down to him through genetics - "
She cut him off again, "You're giving yourself too much credit, Eli."
He really didn't want to fight, he lacked the energy after being up all night reading about the disorder that had plagued his life for so long, thinking about his son, and working on the play. Eli tried to keep compose, breathing slowly out his nostrils and dropping his head for a collective moment before looking back up at Stephanie. She placed her banana peel next to her script and picked it up with both hands.
"Clare wrote an article last week, it was about a rise in teenage bipolar depression, especially in males, and all I'm asking is we have him tested."
Stephanie narrowed her eyes on Eli, right in the middle of his face, and leaned as close as she could without slipping off the stage or coming in physical contact with him.
"Clare is a journalist, not a doctor. The last article I read by her was about Michael Fassbender's work in Ghana." Stephanie had no problem with Eli's high school girlfriend. In fact, the two women had laughed at cocktail parties for Eli's shows a handful of times. She liked Clare Edwards just fine, but she always felt like Eli took her more seriously. After all, Clare was a published journalist and Stephanie was just a blond actress. "She's also not his mother."
"I meant no disrespect, Steph, but let's take him to Dr. Huxley, just to see." Maybe it was nothing, but Eli had felt deeply that it wasn't.
"I'll think about it." Reluctantly, she told him before slipping off the stage, leaving her banana behind her. "I'll be in my dressing room. Don't follow me." Their chests against one another's she told him and then tugged on the bottom of her sheer black blouse, adjusting it over her body. She knew Eli well enough to know how persistent he could be when he felt strongly about something.
2. Guided by a beating heart
"Where are my girls?" His whole face came together in wrinkles as he closed the back door behind him. Slowly, Luke stepped out of his leather work shoes and dropped his briefcase, looking for any signs of life in his home. Silence was a rare thing in the Baker house. His wife was generally in the kitchen when he arrived home, the sound of a sizzling pan singing to him as he walked in. Sadie usually sauntered over, just barely three and a half feet, all smiles and loud exclamations that her daddy was home. Often, his sister Becky was over too and talking without breath.
Luke carefully stepped into the empty kitchen, the oven not even on, and looked around for any proof that someone had been in there recently. Next, he popped his head into the living room, it it was unlit and frozen. He skipped steps as he headed up the carpeted stairs, loosening his tie and undoing the top two buttons as he did. The doors were all closed, but he could hear faint music coming from the room of his stepdaughter, Mika. He laid a set of knuckles against the door lightly and waited for permission. It was his house and Luke didn't feel like he should have to knock, but Mika was thirteen now and his wife insisted that she needed some privacy considering puberty was now in full force. After knocking once more, Luke opened the door slightly and stuck his head in, eyes clenched shut.
"It's just me." He informed happily.
"I know. That's why I didn't answer." Sitting teepee style on her unmade bed, Mika sat with her laptop open to YouTube, watching the video to one of her recent favourite songs.
He assumed he could open his eyes and slowly did, glad to find her fully clothed in jeans and an oversized red sweater with white stars all over it.
"Where's your mom?" He asked nervous to inquire about anything vaguely personal like how her day was or if she had much homework. Luke had come into Mika's life when she was around seven and he always tried to make it obvious how much he cared for her, but she never really let him in. She kept a thick brick wall between them at all times.
"Around." She told him without looking away from the screen.
Luke was about to tell her to turn off the music and do her homework until her ringette game, but he stopped himself. He started to close the door to leave, but spotted her hardcover bible for teens in the waste basket by her vanity and let the door open completely, walking in as if the mauve coloured room was his.
"What's this doing in here, Mika?" His face pale with surprise, he turned and asked her after retrieving the book, holding it up over his shoulder.
"It's garbage." She mumbled, pulling brown locks behind her hoop pierced ear that kept falling like it was part of a milk chocolate waterfall.
He couldn't believe the blasphemy coming out of her glossed pink lips so effortlessly.
"Mika, don't say that. Not in my house." He warned, imagining how his father would react if he was watching this scene play out. "This is very important to me." She didn't seem to care since she didn't react at all, just moving her finger around on her laptop and started the song up again. "You know, I met your mother in a church."
"Yeah, because she was trying to get over my actual dad." As round as they were dark brown, like two Oreo cookies, Mika's eyes glared at him when she finally looked up from her laptop, hoping he would take the hint that she didn't want to talk to him and she didn't want to read the stupid Bible he gave her. It was bad enough he forced her to attend church on Sundays. Luke put the book down loudly on her vanity next to a wooden jewellery box and saw the picture of her biological father taped to the bottom of the mirror. There was a Polaroid of a baby Mika as well in the arms of her mother, but nothing of Luke. A selfie style shot of Mika with Sadie laughing on her knees, but no proof that he was in her life was to be seen.
"Turn down your music. It's trash." Somehow, he managed to tell her, hating that she poisoned his house with hip hop noise. "Make sure you finish your homework before ringette." Quietly, he told her before walking out and closing the door behind him. Miraculously, the music stopped.
"Hey!" A soft breath caught him off guard as his pint-sized wife emerged from their other daughter's room, carrying a small wicker laundry basket under one arm. She reached up on her bare tip toes and met his chapped lips for a 'hello' kiss. "You okay? You looked stressed." She announced, studying his woebegone expression.
"Just...work." He told her. It wasn't a lie since his day at the office had been busy. It seemed like everyone and their dog was breaking their backs these days and required a chiropractor. He didn't want to bug Michelle with complaints about Mika's attitude. He talked to her about the night before and the night before that. Briefly, while still in college, Luke had been married before. A waifish redhead named Ellen who his parents set him up with. She used to always say he complained too much and it drove her crazy. While he and Michelle were nothing like he and his first wife, he took that note into account and kept his mouth shut.
"Ah. Well, come downstairs and tell me about it." She scooted past him, her hips moving left to right at metronome while she did. "Sadie fell asleep on the way home." She had taken their small daughter to the park for tepee afternoon and now she was tuckered right out.
"Well, I'm not starving." Mischievously, Luke told his wife through a sly smile and snaked one arm over the free side of her waist, causing her to laugh as he put a small kiss on her jaw.
"I was going to do laundry, not cook." She informed him as he took the basket from her and started warming up her neck with his mouth.
"We've never done it in there." He pointed out with a grin, glad she was agreeable as she took his hand in her own and moved down the stairs in a rush towards the basement where their laundry room was located.
3. I can't tell where the journey will end, but I know where to start
He should have told his mom to come.
She offered twice, but both times, Drew declined. He hadn't seen Jewel since going out to Calgary for a couple weeks in the summer and he wanted some time alone with his fifteen year old daughter. However, this was a horse of a different colour. This wasn't like one of their quick evening chats over Skype or a holiday visit. Jewel was moving into his loft with him. She was uprooting her entire life and planting it in his. They hadn't lived together since she was two. Since he and Jewel's mother were only ever dating and never very serious, it didn't make sense for them to make their lives one unit. Now, Jewel was a teenager and Drew had barely talked to her in the recent days. She wasn't chatty anymore. Jewel Torres was always an introvert, but she didn't keep things from her father. He was always quite proud of their relationship. He fancied himself a very cool dad, but he knew she was changing. After her mother's funeral, just over a month ago, he could see it in Jewel's eyes that had always been identical to his, that she wasn't okay anymore.
His mother would have known how to handle the situation. She was the one that Jewel spoke to the most when they flew out to Alberta for the burial service. He pulled out his cell to call Audra, but a sea of people flooded through the automatic doors and he shoved it back into the pocket of his slate slacks, expecting to spot Jewel at any moment.
With a bag of luggage rolling behind her and a floral bag thrown over one shoulder, Jewel stood still as the crowd raced around her. She was wearing in a black slip dress under a white hand knit cardigan that had previously been her mother's. Drew just watched his little girl for a moment, looking sort of like an earth angel without a single hint of makeup on her face. She was an even mixture of him and her mother, but her clothing was hanging off her frame now. He had never seen her so thin before. It caught him off guard, but her other grandma had warned him over the phone that her appetite was small since her mother died.
"Hey! Over here!" He waved his hands up over his head and shouted out to her, noticing that she was about to be barrelled over by aggressive passengers. Jewel's trance stopped and she found her Dad right away, waving at her like a castaway would to a helicopter. The corners of her lips lifted slightly and she headed to him slowly.
Drew always started to glow when he saw Jewel. She really was his pride and joy even though he had been terrified and uneasy about having a baby when he heard his girlfriend was pregnant all those years ago. He saw that she still wore the long gold locket he gave her on her twelfth birthday and then devoured her in a bear hug, groaning as he gripped her by the shoulders and held her to his chest.
"How was the flight, baby?" He asked, having never called another girl that since Jewel was born. "Nobody bothered you, I hope." She had flown alone plenty of times since she had to travel to visit him on spring break and sometimes for Christmas, but Drew always worried. Watching Taken was the dumbest move he had ever made, but he was confident he had an inner Liam Neeson in him that could be tapped for if anything, God forbid, happened to his little girl.
"It was fine. Just like every flight." Her voice was low and muffled against his light blue dress shirt. He let her go with a nervous chuckle and quickly started to take her bags from her, throwing the flower bag over his shoulder. Jewel reached up and combed her French braid down her back, a little worried he may have made it static-y by accident. She could see a few girls checking him out, rubbing their lips together. Jewel had seen this happen her whole life. Women always flirted with her Dad, no matter where they were, but now that she was going to be living with him, she was going to be in the middle of it a lot more. She wondered if he had a girlfriend or anybody in his life. She hoped not, that part of his world has always been private from her and Jewel wanted it to stay that way.
"Well everybody's really excited for you to be here." Drew told her as he led the way through the airport, checking over his shoulder to make sure she was with him. "Your grandparents want to see you right away, I stocked the fridge with your favourites," he hoped they were still her favourites. "Your Uncle Mike came over and painted your room and helped me set it up." Of course, Dallas had helped for separate reasons, he just needed to get out of his house, but Drew still couldn't have done it without his best friend. "I hope you still like teddy bears." Completely seriously, he told her as they walked through they car park towards his truck. Jewel didn't react, her mind obviously elsewhere. "I'm kidding!" Drew shouted, tossing her rolling suitcase into the bed of his red pickup. "I know you're not a little kid anymore." He tried to be cool, but it didn't feel as easy anymore. She wasn't a little girl anymore even if she would always feel that way to him.
Drew opened up the passenger side and placed the floral bag on the floor, waiting for Jewel to climb in. He watched her fondly, reaching to lock her seatbelt over her. She grabbed hold of her bare knees and waited for her dad to close the door, but he never did. She stared back at him, uncomfortable by the crooked smile on his face.
"Dad, are you having a stroke?" She came right out and asked.
"No!" Drew shouted. "No." He snapped out of it and just laughed at himself. "I'm just so happy you're here." He was about to close the door, but thought twice and stayed put. "You know you can talk to me, right? About anything?" Drew knew what it was like to lose someone you love. He had been young like Jewel when Adam died, but he wasn't sure what it was like to lose a parent, but he knew that she was going through a lot and he planned to be there completely.
"I know." She assured him, matching his smile with her own. "I'm fine." She didn't sound honest though and it seemed to Drew like she was just trying to convince herself.
Drew hoped she was the same though. The quite horseback riding girl who was self sufficient from the time she discovered how to climb out of her baby proofed crib. While he wasn't a spiritual guy, he spent a lot of time praying in preparation Jewel's Toronto arrival, praying that he would be good at this new chapter.
4. They say I'm caught up in a dream
When she was little, she wanted to learn the piano. She would plunk the keys of her plastic Fisher Price piano for hours on end in the middle of his and his then wife's bed while he tried to sleep, exhausted from night shifts but enjoying spending quality time with his little girl. Zig wondered if she still had an inkling to learn, he couldn't afford lessons or even a keyboard back then. They were struggling since the pregnancy was unplanned, they always said they would wait years into marriage before having children. Zig was a security guard at the time, spending his time watching cameras and stalking through the halls of the Art Gallery of Ontario, his wife in school and studying to be a legal assistant. He still wasn't rich, but he could manage lessons now. He was head of the security team now and worked bigger jobs all over the city, he was even considering applying for the police academy lately.
Zig hoped that his daughter still wanted to learn an instrument. Music was such a big part of his life and he was eager to have something to bond over with her again. When they met up for pizza now or she came over to his place, he just couldn't climb the teenage walls she built of angst and impulse. She seemed so embarrassed by him now.
He couldn't think of any time where Mika showed interest in sports, but ever since her mother took up with ultra Christian, Luke Baker, Mika was glued to a pair of skates. Not unlike hockey, ringette was and expensive sport to be involved in, but Zig knew it was just chump change to Luke the Chiropractor.
Bundled up and still cold, he sat on a bleacher next to the couple he always saw at games. They had driven Mika over to his place countless times even though Mika made it plain she was mortified to have a Dad who lived in such a poor end of town.
As soon as he sat down, one hand in the pocket of his security jacket while the other, gloved, wrapped around a paper coffee cup. He saw his ex, Michelle, approaching from out the corner of his eyes. Internally, he groaned. She was holding the hand of her other daughter, a blond American Girl doll, Sadie. She waved kindly at him and sat on the bench below, right at his feet, while greeting everyone around. Michelle had always been sweet. Everyone told him that he was too good for him, but now that she was more Christian than a nun on Easter, she radiated an unattainable kindness that pissed Zig off. How could anyone match it?
"Hi Mr. Zig." The permanent reminder that Michelle had moved on waved at him, a green apple sucker staining her small lips.
Zig nodded down at her, his lips tight lipped and cold. Sadie looked more like Luke unfortunately, but Zig hoped, for her sake, she would grow out of it.
"Hey, I didn't think you would make it this week!" Michelle exclaimed much to his dismay.
"Why not? I'm always here." He might not have liked ice sports, but he would always support Mika - even if one day she decided she wanted to collect bugs.
"I heard there is a Birks diamond exhibit starting at one of the museums. It's supposed to be very high security."
"Nah, I'm at Rogers Centre right now." He watched over his exe's head as the girls from both teams skated onto the ice. As soon as Zig spotted his last name in bold print on the back of a blue jersey, he grinned proudly. She might have lived with Luke Baker, but she would always be a Novak.
"That's so great. Will you be there on Friday?" Fixing a fluffy hat on top of Sadie's head, Michelle asked excitedly.
"Yep. All night. I'll pick Mika up after." It was his weekend with her after all.
"Actually, Luke has tickets. His work has a box, so he was going to take her to the game. So, she can just go with you after that."
Of course, Luke had box seats to the Maple Leafs games. He was loaded. Zig worked at the arena and he still couldn't even score nosebleed seats to the game. He wished he could take his daughter to a game, but it just wasn't possible right now. Looking up, Zig glared across the rink at the benches. Luke was standing happily, talking to the girls along with the other coach. Without trying, he resented Luke Baker. He felt like he should have been able to give her all the opportunities Luke did, he as Mika's father. Standing next to Luke, he must have seemed like a real loser.
"You know, Luke is really trying to get closer to Mika. He wants a good relationship with her." Michelle chatted, not knowing the power behind her words. "Maybe if you talked positively about him to her, she would feel like she could have one." Innocently she suggested.
"Mika seems to like him just fine." That's how it appeared to Zig. His daughter practically sprinted out of his apartment building to her stepdad's SUV when he picked her up. He wished Mika didn't like him, even though he knew that was immature and selfish.
5. Wake me up when it's all over
He had finally finished studying for his Calculus test and Wes Dallas's brain was all, but fried. He sat cloaked in darkness, sprawled out wide on the living room couch. His mother had gone to bed as soon as she came home and he didn't know where his dad was. The house was practically a ghost town since Pratt passed. The pictures of his twin, younger by six and a half minutes were all hidden now and sometimes, to Wesley, it felt like his parents couldn't even look at him since he and his brother should have been identical. They weren't, but most people thought they were. His brother had been with him for all of his life, minus those six and a half minutes, so Wes couldn't wrap his head around how his parent's never wanted to talk about him. They acted as if Wes had always been an only child. His science teacher, Miss Bhandari asked him about Pratt, always gave Wesley little mementos of his twin or told her favorite stories about the twins, so Wesley found himself spending more time at school than at home these days.
Since he was by himself, he opened up his laptop and played his favourite video of he and his brother, the two of them at their forth birthday party, a basketball theme. Wes wasn't sure why that was the theme, but imagined his dad had picked it. Wes favoured things that challenged his mind like history and reading. Pratt was the athlete. It was never said out loud, but Pratt was their dad's pride. He saw himself in Pratt. Pratt could win with a slap shot, a dunk, a high kick, you name it. Wes wondered sometimes if his Dad could have chosen, if Wes would have been the son who died.
On the computer screen, Pratt had his lanky little arms wrapped around Wes's neck, both of them donning purple Raptors jerseys. Ten of their small friends, almost all male, rushed around them in on the stone backyard patio. The Dallas family had a privileged life with their father the athletic therapist for the Toronto soccer team and their mother, a real estate agent in the Yorkville neighbourhood. The boys were spared no expense growing up and their birthday party playing before Wes's brown eyes showed that to be true.
He heard keys jingling closer and closer suddenly, but he hadn't heard the door open and close or even a car outside. He turned around and let his eyes adjust to his father standing tall in the dark. While Mike Dallas was still functioning at work fine since the death of his boy, he was a hollow version of himself when not distracted and, these days, there was never enough to occupy him. He had been hanging out at Drew's place often, helping him prepare for his daughter's arrival, but he was backing off now that she was had come in.
He stared back at his father, but their eyes never met. Mike was too focused on the screen behind Wesley, the sound of the blissful young boys laughing as they unwrapped gifts from their friends.
"Mom left your dinner in the fridge." Wes told the shadowy version of his father.
The Dallas family used to try and have a couple family meals a week, but they were always all so busy with their respective lives. Since Pratt passed three months ago, they rarely all age together and when they did it was silent. All the things that used to exist in the Dallas family had vanished. His mother used to be a force to be reckoned with and now she was just a sad sluggish shell. His dad was the liveliest guy into the neighbourhood and now he was walking dead.
"Turn that off." Monotone, Mike instructed firmly from behind the living room couch. The sight of his now deceased son as a little boy was too much, the sound of his pre-pubescent voice taunting him.
"I want to see him." Looking back at the screen, Wes whispered.
"Wes, just turn it off." Mike exhaled and went to go to the fridge, but Wes didn't listen. The teenager was usually more obedient, but not tonight.
Mike left his empty body and found himself in the living room near Wes, his hands lowering to the coffee table before picking up the laptop and smashing it across the hardwood floor with a simple toss. The screen went to black immediately same keyboard shook and pieces jumped off the machine.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Wes jumped up and shouted. That was his laptop! His life was held inside of it and his dad had just destroyed everything.
"I said turn it off!" Mike stepped right into his boy's face and shouted even louder, his mouth in the shape of a capital 'o' as his body shook with fury.
"You're a fucking psycho." Wes dared to say and took off downstairs to where his room was, leaving his homework behind.
It scared Mike, but he actually reached forward to grab Wes. He was considering smack him, but he managed to stay put. He heard the basement door slam and he fell to the middle of the couch with ships hands between his knees. Mike sighed for a moment, trying to remember how to breathe, and then sobbed. He needed help. He didn't know what he was doing anymore. He wondered if he was a total failure as a parent and a husband and if anyone else felt the confusion and despair he did. Strangely, he hoped so
AN: this was an introduction, but I'm very excited about this story. The characters will all interact with one another and other people from Degrassi will come into the plots. Please review. I love reviews.