Hey guys! Back for round four with a whole new story. This here's To Grow Up Classified and it's going to be a chaptered fic! (*Awaits oohs and ahhs*) This is the prologue and was beta'd by the lovely SamayouTamashi. More will be coming when I feel like writing more. _
I'd always known that my situation growing up was…different. Most parents have normal jobs, leave their house in the morning and head to their offices to work their 9-5 jobs, only to return home to their loving family at the end of the day. My family was a little different.
My mom left us when I was nine years old. She decided that living with my father's crazy work schedule just didn't fit with her idea of the "perfect" family. Last I heard, she'd married an accountant. Talk about living the boring life. On the other hand, my father works for the SAS. He is sent on missions at the last minute with little forewarning, if any at all. Dangerous ones are the norm.
When he leaves town I am left to my own devices, but I've made my friends in the community. My neighbors check in on me and bring me food, my friends at school let me stay with them on the weekends so I'm not alone, and dads' friends, if they aren't with him, come and spend time with me too.
Dad's friends are far and wide. Uncle Johnny was his roommate in college. He and his wife, Aunt Rachel, come to visit me frequently. Uncles Wolf and Eagle, or Uncles Daniel and Ryan, worked with dad and were always gone when he was. Uncle Ben dropped in from time to time, but even rarer was when Uncle Cub stopped by. Uncle Cub was a mystery that I learned to accept. Unlike my other "uncles," Cub didn't have a last name, or it was never mentioned to me. Outside of the house, he was simply Alex. I was raised calling him Cub and he was only five years older than me. I'd met him when I was eleven years old and only seen him five or six times in the five years since.
Sometimes Uncle Alex showed up announced, but more often than not, he showed up out of the blue. It was always a pleasant surprise when I walked into my house after school and saw my dad and Cub sitting at the table drinking and talking shop. It never really occurred to me, until a sudden epiphany, that the few times I walked in on that scene, Alex would subtly change the conversation topic to include me in it.
My mom leaving us forced my dad and me into a different kind of relationship. The first time he disappeared, I had to work out how to live without him…at eleven years of age. I kept going to school and managed to feed myself, but when he came back, I had considered myself completely independent for two weeks. It was uncomfortable the first time he tried to order me around and I said no. Things were strained but eventually we sat down and spoke to each other as adults. Pretty precocious for an eleven year old, but we reached an impasse and have been on the same wave-length ever since.
It made perfect sense to me while it confused my friends. I can't begin to comprehend how other daughters interacted with their own fathers, as I was raised in such a different environment. I was forced to grow up in my dad's absence and none of them had ever experienced anything of the sort. In fact, by about age fourteen, they spent large amounts of time complaining that I got all this free time and that my dad trusted me whereas their parents were strict and enforced a nightly curfew and a bedtime. I didn't know what to tell them, as my dad's job was supposed to be kept quiet. A rift grew between the large group and me, but a few of my friends stuck it out and learned to deal with my familial quirks.
My life was quite abnormal while I was growing up…but it was my life and I was pretty used to it. That was the way of the world for six years. That was why I found it a bit strange when I was waiting, expecting my father to come pick me up at school for my doctor's appointment, only to have Alex show up at the door instead.
So! Thoughts? The title was a spur of the moment 1:08am idea. Mind you, it doesn't make sense now but it will later...and if not, someone please recommend a title that does. I'd love to hear what you think!
~Moldy