Oh, the Gnarled Path

Chapter One

A/N: This is mostly just to test the waters with this idea. I'm in love with the concept and will admit to liking the style (but won't be keeping it for more than this chapter). I'll probably write the rest of this story out anyway, but if anyone shows an interest, I'll post it. Just let me know! (I promise, I'm not angling for reviews, I just want to know!)

She couldn't remember a time when the adults around hadn't beamed and called her responsible. Mature. Model child.

Of course, the other kids had always seen her in different terms- anal, compulsive, freak. But she even knew how to make that work for her. Or she had, once upon a time when she went to private school and dressed the right way and acted the right way. She had to admit, things had gotten away from her a bit when her mom got remarried.

And in a sense, that was the reason she was where she was.

She was fifteen, and suddenly the praise was gone… she wasn't responsible or mature and she was scarcely even a child anymore, let alone a model one. And none of that would be true if she'd never met him. Or more accurately, she supposed, them.

Not that she really know who she meant by them. The term was too imprecise, too ambiguous. Did she mean the boy? Yes… both boys. But her family, too. Stepfather, stepbrother, stepsister… mother and sister, they meant the world to her, her family always had.

And maybe that was why she hadn't been able to take the easy way out, because family meant too much, and from the first instant- well, suffice it to say, she couldn't keep from opening her heart to her family.

The problem was, she'd try to embrace more than that. She'd found a friend… and then she met him. He was very ordinary, barely a blip on most people's radar, but to her, he'd been something more. She went for him because she thought he could be tidily tucked in a box and sorted neatly into her life… she'd stayed so long because he couldn't. But even though he'd intrigued her, she wasn't crossing the line for him… he wasn't worth it, not worth the loss of her pristine image. (She'd never thought she'd meet someone who was… until she met a pair of bright blue eyes.)

And when she told him that she loved her mother and her stepfather and herself too much to give up what she had for him, well… he proved she'd been right about him not being worth it. And she cried as the names he called her circled through her mind, chasing her on and on and-

Into his arms. The Other one, who made that line disappear, even though she never should have let it go, not with him, never with him.

It was only a few hours insanity, but it would cost her the world when mother and stepfather found out. They Talked very seriously, Spoke about consequences, and-

She volunteered to go. She flew away to father in New York because by then, she knew a secret, one she'd go much farther to protect. Because, the thing was, she was at a loss, and he had been shaking his head ever since it happened, so there was no help there.

Maybe she thought that Daddy would step in and save the day, like she'd always wanted him too. (If she had, she was foolish, to expect anything but platitudes and disappointment.) Maybe she really just did see a chance at Escape.

Regardless, all she'd found in New York was a lesson in drying your own tears, and the inattentiveness required to get out when the Secret grew to big.

So she had left, gone out into the world knowing she couldn't stay and she couldn't go back to her real family and-

Suddenly her attention was drawn back to the present, by the fussing of the baby in her arms. "There, there, sweetie, shh," she murmured, looking around, hoping they hadn't disturbed anyone, "Mommy's got you."

Her name was Casey, she was a fifteen year old mother, travelling by bus to No Where with a fussy toddler. "There, there, baby, it will be okay."