Vision, a degrassi fanfic

Becky Baker walks into her house after hanging out with some of her friends, her shoulder bag hanging loosely off of her shoulder as she walks into the family room. The girl's confused for a moment. She sees her mom, dad, and Luke, none of which is out of the ordinary, but she also sees Luke's hockey coach. There's a huge question mark over her face as she looks at everyone, and she knows it. Her dad sees her first. He always does. She's his little girl, after all; his shining star. He motions for her to sit down next to him, and she does, setting her bag neatly on the floor.

She waits patiently for an explanation, one that Coach Blackwell is all too excited to give; Luke's been drafted to play hockey for a team that has players that are good enough to make it into the NHL, the Toronto Ice Hounds. Everyone reacts at once. It's exciting news, and great for her brother's hockey career. She jumps up and wraps her arms around her twin. She's known Luke's been destined for greatness, she's just glad she's there to witness it. It's another blessing from God, she reasons.

Then, something dawns on her. The Toronto Ice Hounds. Luke's going to be playing hockey in Canada. If their family goes through with this, it means that she's going to be uprooted from her friends, school, home, and everything that she has going on in Florida. She's scared, terrified even. She takes a deep breath and makes a mental note to pray about it for later. Right now, she focuses on being happy for Luke and the huge opportunity he's receiving as their parents say yes. Becky hugs him once more.

Later that night, Becky lies in bed, thinking about how much things have changed in just a short amount of time. She's going to be leaving behind everything she's ever known for her brother's shot at hockey. And she's happy for Luke, she really, really is, but at the same time, it's hard not to resent the situation as a whole. Her brother's going to have hockey to help him fit in, but what will she have? She's not sure if there will be any Christian organizations (at her school in Florida she had to fight tooth and nail for a bible study to be able to be offered after school for anyone that wanted to join). She's not sure what she's going to have outside of being Rebecca "Becky" Baker, twin sister of Luke Baker, the Ice Hounds star.

So, Becky does what she always does in times like this, she goes to God. Letting out a deep breath, she closes her eyes and folds her hands over her stomach. She prays for God, giving Him thanks for the wonderful opportunity He has given Luke. She tells Him about her worries of not fitting in at her new school and, even though she has a couple of months before Luke has to be in Canada, she wants to make sure she starts off right in a whole new place. She asks God to give her any clue on how to do that. She says a quiet Amen and settles into sleep.

It hits her a few days later at the breakfast table. The answer to all of her moving school troubles hits her with such force; Luke gives her a look and asks if she's okay. She nods excitedly, a huge smile on her face. She eats the rest of her food quickly before placing them in the sink and going to her room, sitting at her desk and pulling out a notebook and pen, opening to the first blank page. Why hasn't this hit her before, she wonders. She can do theater! She's always loved it, and has acted and directed a lot of the plays and pageants at the church and the school; it'll be perfect! She'll get to direct the play and meet a lot of new people at Degrassi, possibly making friends along the way.

She's so excited, she feels like she could just burst. The only thing she has to figure out is what production to do. She knows she still has time, but she wants this pitch to be perfect when she talks to the principal of the new school, she wants as much time as she needs. She taps the pen on the desk, wondering what it could be. It hits her a few moments later – Romeo and Juliet: The Musical! An excited squeal very nearly passes through her lips as starts scribbling quickly on the paper, filling page after page with ideas for how to pull this epic off.

It doesn't happen overnight. Becky's only one girl. She prays every night for God's help since He's the one that helped have that first spark of energy. Becky also gets her friends to help. Thomas, a boy from the youth group she attends, is musically gifted and he helps her create all of the musical numbers. A girl named Erica who's grandmother goes to the church, helps her tweak the dialogue in certain places so that it will transition easier into the musical numbers.

By the time Luke's supposed to be in Toronto, Becky's ready. Sure, there are still some minor things that could use some tweaking, but she can figure those out after she gives her proposal. So, she enjoys the road trip to Canada, with nothing but high hopes and a sunny outlook on how things will go.

She goes to Mr. Simpson her first day there. She wants him to know how eager she is to put on the school's production this year. They talk in detail about her proposal, and she hands over every sample she has brought to make her pitch seem as cohesive and organized as possible and, much to her delight, Mr. Simpson is totally loving it. She nearly leaps out of her seat when he gives her the metaphorical stamp of approval. Maybe she can make something of herself at Degrassi, too. Maybe she doesn't have to just be Luke's Twin. Maybe she can carve her path in theater while Luke carves his in hockey.

Her whole family is happy for her. Luke confesses he was worried that she wouldn't find her niche as easily, and Becky tells him that she went to God and He delivered. She couldn't have done all of this without Him. Her parents are practically beaming with pride at their two children, the hockey star and the musical director – the musical creator.

And then, she meets Eli Goldsworthy. He's a Goth boy that seemed to be in charge of putting on the plays before Becky arrived. She feels bad, at first, she honestly hadn't meant to step on any toes. She just wants to fit in and make friends. She tells Eli they can be partners and she'll do whatever she can to help with the play, and telling him that Mr. Simpson already approved her idea. He doesn't seem as thrilled, but agrees. She beams at him before announcing the play.

Romeo and Juliet: The Musical.

Eli scoffs at most of Becky's original proposal, but figures there's nothing he can do about it since Mr. Simpson picked her proposal. Soon, they're off to casting. Dave's an easy choice for Romeo; Becky can clearly see when he auditions. She's not nearly as concerned about Romeo though as she is Juliet. Juliet's always been one of Becky's favorites, even if she does something stupid for a boy. It's true love and it's so romantic. She wants to get Juliet cast just right,

When Tori comes on stage, Becky's whole face lights up. Her. The pretty Grade Nine girl with the brunette curls and beautiful voice, the best female voice they've heard all day, she's the perfect Juliet. She can hardly contain her excitement as she writes a huge yes next to Tori's name, turning to see that Eli's not impressed. She deflates a little, but she's sure she can convince him, Tori's audition was brilliant, after all.

And then Tristan steps onto the stage, not singing so much as speaking the words. Becky has to fight her face from scrunching up. It's not that Tristan's bad necessarily, she just can't see him in a lead role, maybe as Montague or Capulet, but not as Romeo. She opens her mouth to tell him they'll try to find something for him, when Eli bursts into a thousand compliments, saying that his take on the song was beautiful and original, something that no one who had auditioned as done.

Becky wants to pipe up and tell him that's because that when she and Thomas wrote it, it was meant to be sung. But she just bites her lip and lets Eli sing all of his praises, sending a small prayer to God, asking for Eli to see that Tori is the perfect Juliet for the play.

It all comes crashing down after that.

Eli doesn't cast Tori as Juliet, doesn't even consider the option. He casts Tristan, renaming the play Romeo and Jules. The blonde is heartbroken. She spent week upon week pouring time and effort into this production. She had put a little piece of her heart and soul into it. And Eli wants to change it and make it into a symbol for something that the Bible –the things she holds nearest and dearest to her- is against?

She begs Eli to reconsider. Of course, he's stubborn and doesn't budge. There's a nagging voice in the back of Becky's mind, wondering if Eli wants her on this project at all, but it doesn't matter. She can't go through with this. Working on this play would mean putting out the message that it's okay to be homosexual, something the Bible and her faith protest against. So, she quits. What else can he do? She leaves the play and everything to Eli, her heart breaking as she does it. Theater was supposed to be her chance to make something of herself at Degrassi and now that's gone.

Selfishly, Becky hopes the play bombs. She really does. She knows it makes her a bad Christian and she prays to God for forgiveness every night, but she can't help it. It would teach Eli not to go and take someone else's vision and completely change it into something new and twisted. It's not fair. She knows that God has better things for her to do at Degrassi, but she just wants the play to bomb so that she can have that one hollow victory. It's petty and stupid and selfish, but she can't help it. So she prays every night for forgiveness, promising that she'll work harder on being a better person.

Of course, the play does wonderfully. And, while a small part of her is happy that (most) of her vision came into fruition and everyone loved it, she hates that Eli's getting all of the credit for the visionary story. The only thing Eli did was change Juliet to Jules. Becky did all the legwork for it. But it's Eli who gets all the praise. It's not that she needs the praise or anything, but some acknowledgement of her contribution to the play even being put on in the first place would be nice. After all, she's the one that adapted the dialogue, the one who slaved over making music, AND pitched it to Mr. Simpson on her first day. It's not a small feat. But everyone's so enamored with Eli and his great direction and leadership. It makes her sad and slightly jealous, but she has to accept it.

She has to accept the fact that because her vision was different from Eli, who essentially bullied her out of her own production by not changing the one little thing as casting, all of the legwork she did to get Romeo and Jules (or as she still prefers to call it, Romeo and Juliet) up and running, it's still going to be overshadowed by Eli's poetic vision of the two. It's not fair, but she accepts it.

She has to.

Fin.

Yeah. Remember how I said that KC/Tori was next on my Degrassi to do list? Turns out I lied and wrote this instead. It's basically about Becky and Romeo and Juliet/Jules. I don't think it's fair that Eli got all the credit for the play when Becky had to have most of the groundwork done by the time she got to Degrassi. Sure, I don't agree with her thoughts on gay people/gay rights, but I feel for her that her play was essentially stolen by Eli. And I love Eli, I do, but he did basically bully Becky out of her own production.

Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi. It's a sad but true fact.