"Whatever happened to predictability…"

*Author's Note: I know this gets redundant at this point, but this is my first fanfic I've decided to go forward and publish. I'm the middle of watching the new re-boot, Fuller House, and was really drawn to Stephanie's character and wanted to explore the idea of her repressing her sexuality due to her upbringing. So I am trying to stay somewhat in cannon as far as the overall plot lines of her moving home to help DJ, etc, but obviously this conflicts with the story lines about her dating guys and such. Also, I don't have a beta at this point, so please feel free to point out any glaring mistakes and I'll do my best to fix them. I currently have two more chapters written and at least a general idea of where I'm going after that. Please comment and let me know if you like the story thus far and/or any thoughts you may have.

Chapter 1

There was a time in her life where Stephanie swore she'd never come back here, at least not to stay. This house, filled with so many amazing memories of her giant, rambunctious, cheesy, adorable family. This house, out of eye and ear shot of so many observers over the years, also was the birthplace of all her questions and doubts and pain.

Growing up, Stephanie always knew there was something different about her. Her family knew it, too, but always just saw her antics as being the product of her place as the middle child, the one who had to clamour just that little bit more for attention.

And, sure, that was definitely a part of it. But there was another part that was never quite noticed by her overly involved family. It wasn't noticed for several different reasons. Of course, Stef herself was nowhere near ready to deal with what was going on with her, so she buried all the thoughts and feelings in the deepest recesses of her consciousness. But it was also a huge product of the times. Back in the late '80s and early '90s, differing sexuality was never discussed or even mentioned, except maybe as the coded punch line of a joke that would go over most people's heads.

But times have changed, and so has Stephanie.

Throughout the years of traveling, partying, and DJ-ing across the world, Stef really let loose and allowed herself to explore those hidden parts of herself that she would never dare to show in the old family home. There were no repercussions in that lifestyle. Stephanie could have a fling with some brooding 'riot girl' band member for a half a month in Ibiza and no one would ever be the wiser. She could spend a wild night or two with Rihanna's crazy crew, and no one in her family had any way of ever finding out.

It was on one of those wild nights that Stef met Deanna, the radical black lesbian who would blast Stephanie's whole world apart.

At first, when Deanna made some snide comment about Stephanie's privileged upbringing, Stef was incensed, even muttering her trademark, "how rude!" under her breath, and vowed to never speak to Deanna again. But then they kept running into each other, and with each new biting comment, Stephanie started to see more and more of the truth in what Deanna was saying. Stephanie did grow up in a world completely apart from injustice and discrimination. It took her a long time, but Stef finally came to understand and embrace the fact that this critique of her upbringing, this acknowledgement of her privileges, didn't mean that the Tanner clan was mean or hateful in any way. But they were blind, whether willfully or ignorantly, to the greater world at their doorsteps. And they were oh so very white. Living in San Francisco in the early '90s, they were only a few hours away from the Rodney King beating, trial, and riots. But Stephanie never even learned the name Rodney King till the late '00s.

There was another, more personal, revelation that happened with Deanna. Deanna was flabbergasted that Stef had never heard of Rodney King, and threw out, "that's like me telling you I'd never heard of Harvey fucking Milk! How can you even have a conversation with someone if they haven't even heard of your community's martyr?!"

Her community?

While the name Harvey Milk wasn't ever spoken about in her house growing up, she did learn of the story, or at least a somewhat sanitized version of it, in high school civics class, being such a local and relatively recent occurrence. But Stephanie had never even thought to claim the local city official who was killed in an anti-gay hate crime as somehow associated with herself. Sure, she'd had some flings with women over the years, but Stef had always refused to label herself. She'd always just rationalized those flings away as drunken experiments. She'd spent her entire childhood in San Francisco and had never even been to the Castro District, so how could she claim allegiance to some larger gay community?

Stephanie didn't even say anything in response to Deanna's question. She was just stunned. She couldn't speak at all as she contemplated Deanna's implication. After an awkward moment where the group around them stilled due to Deanna's outburst, conversations picked up again and Stephanie got lost in the hum of it.

Then the band they were there to see started playing, and Stephanie immediately joined Deanna and the rest of the throng on the dance floor. Stef didn't even realize that Deanna or anyone else was there at first. She just felt the first pulse of the bass and knew she needed to move, to let the music take her over, so she could forget, if only for a while, everything her brain and heart were fighting to tell her.

It was right there, in the middle of the dance floor, completely lost in the music, that Stephanie let herself go. She opened her eyes just a fraction, almost sensing that Deanna was still close by but needing confirmation. And sure enough, there Deanna was, also lost in the motion and the din and the moment. Deanna's short dreadlocks were moving gracefully with the beat and the rest of Deanna was sensuous and beautiful and everything Stephanie didn't know she needed in that moment. She took one step closer with the beat, and then another, until Stef's front was flush with Deanna's entire back.

Deanna didn't need to turn around or ask questions. She knew who it was, and she knew why. They stayed that way, dancing together to the rhythm, until the song changed. With the opening sounds of the next song, Deanna swayed and side stepped and gracefully turned, until they were face to face, then front to front, once again moving together, seamlessly flowing with the music as it washed over them.

Nothing else mattered in that moment for Stephanie except the girl in her arms, the one and only person up until that point in her life who had pointed out that unpredictable thing that had existed in the deepest, darkest depths of Stephanie's heart all along.