This is an unused bit from a chapter of my fanfiction 'Whatever Happened to Baby William'.
"Why do you do that?" a curious voice whispered across the tiny bedroom that William shared with Ellis, Derek, and Joy. Two bunk beds lined the walls of the room, Joy and Derek on the tops, Ellis and William below.
William sighed and finished his prayer before climbing into the bunk below Joy. "Because that's what my Mom taught me to do every night before bed." He whispered back in answer. It wasn't the first time Derek had asked, and William figured it wouldn't be the last. When Derek swung out of the bunk quietly, William figured that it wasn't the end of the conversation tonight, either.
"Yeah, I know, but I don't get it." Derek's eyes burned close to William, and there was a certain maliciousness in them. "Like, why do you still call that lady your Mom? None of us have, none of us ever had, Moms or Dads. We just had Keepers. And that includes you, and you know it now. So why would you still call some lady Mom?"
"She was my Mom." William answered tightly, hands balled into fists, lips thing white lines. He and Derek had never gotten along particularly well. Derek taunted William for anything and everything constantly. Lately his favorite taunts were about William's insistence that he had family, and because William still prayed every night.
"No, she wasn't." Derek insisted, the nasty playful light dancing in his eyes as he moved to make sure William was constantly looking in his eyes. "You never had a Mom, deal with it, stop being such a weird little sissy about it. She was a fake, just like all the rest of us had. You never had a Mom, or a Dad. Or Grandparents, or Aunts or Uncles or anything!" Derek hissed at him in the darkness. Real anger had begun to creep into his voice. "You're nothing special, you're just like the rest of us. What do you think you are, some little Golden Boy, the only one of us to have family? Huh?"
"Stop it Derek! Leave him alone!" Joy's voice floated down from the bunk overhead and a moment later her head appeared upside down over the edge of the bed. "If he wants to think of his Keepers as parents than let him! I did too, and it's none of your business anyway. You aren't his boss!"
Derek glared at her. Before William had come he and Joy had been relatively good friends. They'd both shared a dislike and contempt for the way Samantha felt about Victor and Amy over the other children. But ever since William, things had changed, and it infuriated Derek. "You aren't my boss, either. So buzz off and mind your own business." Derek looked down at William. "And why do you still get down on your knees like that? You know better than that, too. There is no 'God'." Derek grinned, brilliantly white teeth almost glowing in the darkness of the room. He stood up next to the bed. "We are the real Gods of this place. Someday soon all the pathetic idiots who worship so-called 'God' will fall down before our might and worship us." Derek smirked and leaned down close to William's face. "And you can fall down and worship us too if that's what you want, to go down on your knees every night to a power greater than you."
William swung at Derek, but as he did a hand came out of the darkness and caught his fist easily, and at the same moment Derek was pulled back. It was Ellis.
"I've had enough of both of you." She said coldly. "Go to sleep, William. Derek, get back in bed. There is a time and a place to handle your differences. Now it's time to sleep."
"William didn't do anything, Derek started the whole thing!" Joy protested, sitting up in her bed. "He's always picking on William!"
"That's enough, Joy." Ellis answered, and now there was a slightly more mothering tone in her voice. "William is capable of taking care of himself, and he'd have many less issues if he would stop provoking everyone with his nonsense about God and parents. All of you, go to sleep, and not another word."
No one else said anything, and Derek and Joy's snores soon became a gentle background sound. Ellis slept in silence, but William laid awake for a long time after, staring at the bottom of the bunk above him, a hot sick fury burning in his stomach.
