Pushing Fate
Setting: Directly in the middle of 'Dim Sum Lose Some' in the PD-verse; set maybe a year after the end of Wonderfalls.
Summary: Jaye never had a brother to look out for her. Ned never had a sister to support him. But when Chuck and Olive set out to reunite the long-lost siblings, they'll discover they have more than a parent in common.
Chuck and Ned stood before the door of the two-story house. A flock of plastic flamingos keeping watch by the driveway was the only addition which marred Ned's memory from that fateful Hallowe'en twenty years ago. He took a deep breath, attempting to summon his flighty courage.
"I would ask what changed your mind," Chuck said quietly from her place by his side.
"Except?" Ned replied, his stomach fluttering with anxiety.
"Except you haven't rung the doorbell, which will be proof that you have changed your mind," Chuck said. She looked up at him, then glanced away. "Right, anything I say now is tempting fate."
He pursed his lips, his eyebrows pressed together in worry. "It's easier to make assumptions about Dad and why he did what he did, than admit I don't
know. I don't know my sister, or what it would be like to know her..." Ned eyed the doorbell, ducking his head. "And the finding-out part makes me a little queasy."
Chuck shifted closer, holding her own hand in lieu of his and saying softly, "Well, whatever happens, I'll be right here, okay?."
He looked at her gratefully, thinking again how lucky he was to have her. "Thanks." Ned let out a nervous chuckle, braced himself and rang the bell. He stepped back and looked up at the rafters of the porch, heaving a nervous sigh.
The sound of approaching footsteps. The door swung open to reveal a brunette with the same gray eyes he stared at in the mirror every morning. She was about a head shorter than him, wearing a flimsy yellow cotton vest over a denim shirt. Her hair was slightly frazzled and her eyeliner was smudging lightly into her crease - the classic look of a shift worker just off the clock. The young woman Chuck had described as Jaye looked from her to Ned. "Hello?"
"Hi, I'm Ned. I thought I'd stop by because, basically, we have the same dad." He blurted out, hands locked behind his back in white-knuckled tension.
She froze with one hand on the doorknob, her expression mirroring his anxiety. The blonde older sister came trotting down the hall, slipping a hand onto her shoulder. "Well, don't just stand there!" she said pointedly to Jaye.
Jaye looked to the side quickly, as though someone had called her name. Then, a look of dawning comprehension appeared on her face. She looked up at him with a wide, plastic smile and yanked the door open. "Right! Come on in!"
His stomach flip-flopped. Unsure of how to take the tepid reaction, Ned looked to Chuck for reassurance. She smiled at him and tucked her folded hands under her chin.
Here went everything.
Jaye looked cautiously over her shoulder toward the kitchen, where Chuck graciously kept Sharon occupied. Turning back to him with a whirl of her sable brown hair, Jaye leaned in. With her sister out of the way, her defenses had fallen back and she looked at Ned with a mixture of hope and fear. "Tell me about Dad."
Ned let out a slow breath, rubbing his hands together to rid them of nervous energy. "Where do you start? It's hard to sum up a person in a few words - it's a bit like taking a picture of fireworks with your phone camera. You can capture the gist of it, but you're always going to miss the nuance, the subtlety, the emotion of the moment..."
Jaye's expression flickered with hurt, and Ned realized that his ramble was less elucidating than he'd intended. He decided to stick to concrete terms. He searched his memory for something positive or even neutral to share. It would be so easy to demonize the father she barely remembered, but Jaye deserved a complete image - not just the shadows with which she was already familiar. Ned mustered his strength and began to tug at the peeling corner of the wallpaper covering the father-shaped room in his heart.
"Dad was a romantic. He liked flashy displays of affection." Probably the one positive thing he'd learned from the man. Ned smiled down at his hands, bittersweet memories trickling back. "He used to put on magic shows for me in our backyard or take my mom on these spontaneous outings. He traveled a lot for work, so he'd be gone for weeks at a time. Then he'd come home and tell us we were going for a drive, and it would turn out that he'd planned a weekend away."
"He was charismatic, you know, a smooth-talker. Maybe it was because I was just a kid, but to me it seemed like Dad was always the center of attention in any room he was in. He could talk circles around anybody. He could fit in anywhere, with anyone. He made it seem- effortless." That was one trait he certainly hadn't picked up. Ned shifted on the couch, hunching his shoulders self-consciously. He'd never learned the secret to his father's confidence. He'd always felt uncomfortable in his own skin.
Ned let out a short, pained laugh, and murmured, "I used to worship him." And then- he was gone.
The pie maker's confession hung heavy in the air.
"I already let him in. He's as in as he can be." Jaye muttered urgently, looking at the hardwood floor.
Startled by the non sequitur, Ned sat back and raised his eyebrows. "Well, um, it's good that you've processed Dad leaving. I don't think I've figured it out for myself just yet."
Looking up as though she'd forgotten he was in the room, Jaye frowned. "That's not- uh, okay." She bounced her knee on the floor absent-mindedly. "How long have you known about me - about this house and everything?"
"Maybe twenty years now. When I was in boarding school, Dad sent me a postcard with the address. I snuck out of school on Hallowe'en because I hadn't heard from him in a while and I wanted to surprise him. Instead, he surprised me- with a new family." The pie maker replied, his head tilting slightly and his brow furrowing in distress.
His half-sister let out a moan, one hand flying to her forehead. "You must hate me. I'd hate me. Ned, I'm sorry I'm the reason our dad ran off on you."
This statement jerked him from his reverie. As the pie maker stared at the half-sister he'd never asked for, he recognized that though she had her mother's mouth and cheekbones, they had the same heart. The same protective outer shell, the same insecurities, the same fear of risk and rejection. And like it or not, as a brother, he owed it to the both of them to set her straight.
"That's not true. I used think that Dad abandoned me because of you, and I spent a long time resenting you for it. But that's not what happened. Dad abandoned me because of him. He had his own reasons for leaving, and it's not because either of us did something wrong or bad." Ned spoke with the same amount of certainty with which he had believed the opposite for years.
Lines of tension faded from Jaye's shoulders. She peered at Ned through her fingers, then let her hand fall into her lap. "I think that you're the only one to tell me that that I'd actually believe."
Ned offered her a crooked smile. "I don't know about you, but I've spent too long trying to puzzle through Dad's motives. Maybe he really was emotionally stunted and afraid of getting close. Maybe he was just a jackass. But the truth is, I don't know. And I'm ready to find out the truth, whatever it means."
Troubled, she bounced her knee and fiddled with the edge of her sleeve. "I had a family and an Ivy-League education to help me, and I still didn't turn out half as well-adjusted as you. You'd fit right in with the Tyler clan. My family would jump for joy if they had you instead of me."
Ned laughed incredulously. "If I had a family like yours, there's no way I'd be who I am today. Maybe I'd have gone to university instead of culinary school. Maybe I'd have done something more academic and never figured out what I actually wanted to do with my life. Who knows? But you of all people shouldn't mistake successful for well-adjusted. I'm a work in progress, just like you. I might be a couple of steps further along the road, but I think we're walking the same path."
Like air deflating from a balloon, the sincerity drained from Jaye's face. She folded her arms and looked away, drawing her feet under herself. "I don't know about that. Our 'paths' or whatever aren't as similar as you might think."
He could see her slipping away from the conversation. In the kitchen, he could hear Chuck and Sharon growing louder as they shifted toward the living room. But there was one question that had been burning within - one thing he needed to know while they still had a modicum of privacy.
"Jaye, I wanted to ask- from what you can remember, or from what Karen told you-" His face flushed, his heart suddenly in his throat for some stupid reason. "Did Dad ever, um, mention me at all? Anything about a son, or, I don't know, wanting one maybe?"
She bit her lip, clenching her arms tight to her body. "Not that I can remember. Not that Mom ever mentioned. But you could ask her, once she gets back in town."
"No, forget about it. It was stupid to ask." Ned inhaled sharply, scrubbing his face with one hand to hide the redness of his eyes. He let out another sharp, humourless laugh. "What a bastard. You know that feeling where you thought you'd dealt with something by pushing out of sight, but really it was out renting a bulldozer and getting ready to run you over?"
Sharon announced her unwelcome return with a haughty laugh. "Oh please, that's Jaye all over. She's the queen of avoidance. She doesn't deal with her problems unless they actively have a gun in her face."
"Shut up, Sharon." Jaye hissed.
The blonde ignored her. "She was too chicken to tell her boyfriend about her feelings until after he had already re-married his ex. Instead of fessing up and talking to him, she actually pushed him into the marriage and stood as a witness! Can you say, 'commit-o-phobe'?"
"Shut up." Jaye repeated, fingers clenching the arm of the couch. Her gaze had shifted away from her sister and towards the cow-themed tea seat on the end table.
Chuck hovered anxiously, wringing her hands at the rising tension. "Sharon, can I have a word with you in private?"
"You know, Jaye is so scared of change that she tracked our deported maid across the border and tried to smuggle her back in the trunk." Sharon went on, letting out the oblivious laugh of the family over-sharer.
Jaye slid her hands over her ears, then slapped the couch fiercely. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! I'm doing this my way!" She snapped, refusing to look at Sharon and addressing the cow creamer instead. Flushing with anger, she snatched her keys from the side table and bolted out the front door.
notes.
I appreciate the dysfunctional functionality of the Tyler clan in Wonderfalls, but I think that the family dynamic would change radically if Karen had married Darrin after she had already had Jaye with another man. Without Aaron in the picture to balance out the squabbles between Sharon and Jaye, I think they would have had a rockier time trying to sort out their issues. Gaining a new step-mom and step-sibling would have been tough on little Sharon. I think they would have eventually made it, but there would be a lot more deep-seated problems for a 24-year-old learning to deal with her newfound ability to talk to animate objects.
I am a huge fan of the idea of 'the same actor playing different characters in different shows is actually the same person in all universes'. One more installment to go - it's almost done and should be up around New Years. Merry Christmas to you, whenever you happen to read this!
Don't write the story. Live the story.
