Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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A/N: For the Realization Challenge. The challenge name has very little to do with this... Oh, and in case you can't tell (cause I don't do much NextGen and I don't think I've written anything using her at all), my main character / narrator is Victoire.

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I awoke with a jolt. Where had the past seven years of my life gone? Really, it felt like I had been 12 just yesterday - in fact, unless there was something else at work here, it HAD been yesterday!

My surroundings, if you could call them that, didn't seem to help matters. It looked and smelled like some sort of hospital, but I almost knew it was of the normal variety. There was something weird in my arm, and several big beeping contraptions near my bed. They looked sort-of like what Uncle George messed with sometimes, except they seemed to have a purpose.

"She's awake!" yelled a nurse who stood a few paces from me. "Let whichever one of her odd family members is out there know she's made it."

Odd family members... She's made it... All of that rolled around in my head for a few minutes, and then it got a lot worse - I realized that the last thing I remembered doing, ever, was flying into that huge oak tree Uncle Percy always meant to take down. Maybe seven years really HAD passed, and I'd been in some weird state of being - alive but not actually doing anything - since the accident. Unless my memories were seriously screwed with, which was unlikely but not impossible, there were probably a few cousins I'd never met. Hadn't Aunt Audrey been pregnant, last I remembered? There was going to be a lot to catch up on.

"Vicky!" What seemed like a human cannon-ball charged at me. I couldn't make out who it was, being technically brain-dead for so long, but I only had two relatives who were boys and about eleven now...

"Louis?" I asked, knowing I had a 50-50 shot. It was either my little brother or, if memory served right, accident-prone Hugo. I remembered those two being inseperable and practically identical to boot, which meant that if I had the wrong one they'd probably be nice about it - even their mothers had trouble keeping them straight at times, if I remembered right, and that was never a good sign.

"Aunt Verry! Come in here now! She remembers me!" Yeah, it was Louis, and it seemed like either me being fine was a really huge deal or some idiot had made the mistake of giving him coffee. Probably both. I didn't remember an 'Aunt Verry,' but you never knew how many family members I didn't know. There had always been too many to keep track of...

Next thing I knew, a woman who looked passingly familiar walked into the hospital room and gave me a good once-over. "It's a miracle," she cooed, and I took a good look at her. She was in her late-thirties, looked a bit younger than that, and was obviously expecting. Great, I thought, between all the cousins there's probably enough for a proper match by now.

"Who are you?" I asked, staring the woman straight in the eyes. I didn't quite know why I did that, but I remembered that it tended to get to people - maybe that was it, maybe it wasn't, I'll never know. I'd also used it to psych out some of the smaller kids, but I'd had to stop that after Roxie took it up.

"Your Aunt Verity," she said condescendingly, as though I was about six years old. It didn't take a genius to realize I'd matured physically and that I might be capable of intelligent thought, but this woman didn't seem to get it. I paused and tried to guess which of the uncles would be stupid enough to marry a woman like that - Uncle George would probably fall for this sort of twit, and Aunt Angie HAD left him ages ago... Yeah, that would be it.

"You're Uncle George's second wife," I said, still staring her in the eyes. I wondered what she made of that and had to stop myself from laughing at the idea. Then again, it wasn't funny - no matter how good a person this woman was, and I wasn't guessing that was much, I almost knew Fred and Roxie just ADORED her. Why of course I can do sarcasm on occasion - why do you ask?

"How'd you know?" she laughed, as though I was some sort of trained monkey or performer or something. It's people like that who get me, people who don't think a pretty girl like me can think for herself.

"Because last I remember, he was the only single one of my uncles," I explained, hoping she didn't laugh at this too. I was forgetting Uncle Charlie, of course, but he'd given up on trying to find someone ages ago so he didn't count.

"Do you think you can walk?" Aunt Verity wasn't being quite so playful now, but I still had to wonder how anyone could stand her. Unless she was better with them than with me, I had a good feeling the younger kids COULDN'T stand her.

"Let me try," I commanded, trying to throw all the power I remembered my mother having into it. I yanked the cord out of my arm (it didn't hurt) and climbed out of the infernal hospital bed. I could definently walk, which almost surprised me. It certainly surprised Queen Condescending, who nearly collapsed.

"Well, in that case, you're going home," she said, as though it was the best thing in the world. "Here's some things that should fit you." She handed me a bag containing clothes and pointed towards the bathroom. I slipped in and came out five minutes later, wearing too-tight jeans and a baggy t-shirt with a cat on it. Neither item was flattering, but I wasn't going to push Aunt Whatsit's limits - at least not yet.

I followed her and Louis out of the hospital and into a parking garage, where she stopped in front of a lime green sports-car. I didn't even WANT to know how she turned driving that eyesore into a good idea, but I hopped into the front seat nonetheless. I wanted to see people again, figure out what I'd missed, meet the little cousins I knew I had... It was going to be interesting.