Thursday evening, after cooking her first dinner ever without any help from May-Li (who wasn't even available anyway), Jody crept into the lounge and closed the back doors behind her, not wanting to be around to hear the criticism from the other kids and Dee and Sam when they finally dug in. She finally understood why Charlie had temporarily decided to stop cooking after Bird's harsh revelation during Tyler's amnesty; knowing that twelve other people one lived with hated their cooking was downright disheartening. If she'd been in Charlie's place back then, she probably would've never picked a saucepan and spoon up again.
About twenty minutes later, the others started filing into the lounge, a few of them giving her funny looks but most of them not even glancing her way. Their behaviour struck her as odd. She'd expected something from Ryan, at the very least, but he hadn't even acknowledged her presence. Had he actually been serious about changing his ways during his speech at Mike's wedding? What a strange little world...
Not wanting to draw unnecessary attention to herself, she carefully stood up and walked out of the lounge and straight into the kitchen. A small serving had been left out on a plate with a glass of water, presumably for her, so she just sat down and started to eat the bland stuff. She could tell right off the bat that there was something missing but she didn't know what. This was pathetic. Even that soup Joseph and Chloe who were both younger than her made whenever someone fell ill tasted better than this.
Speaking of Joseph... he was about to get his happy ending soon, and it was mostly down to her, so at least she'd done something right these last few days.
"Jody," Tyler started, walking in through the main door with the household laptop in tow. She looked up from her half-full plate in mild intrigue as he sat next to her, and saw that there was a webpage full of personalised mugs open on the laptop. "Which one looks nicer?"
She took a long swig of water in an attempt to wash down her mouthful of food. In all honesty, she had little to no appetite. "Out of all of them? There's, like, twenty."
"No, just these two," he replied, pointing out two very different shaped mugs. There was no contest.
"Definitely the one on the left," she said truthfully, limply twisting her fork into her food. "Is it for your mum?"
"Yeah," he responded with a smile, adding the mug she'd chosen to the shopping basket. "There's this one picture of us on my phone that she really likes. I was thinking of surprising her with it."
"That's nice," she commented, remembering the time Sally had preferred to keep photos of a 'pre-care' Tyler around rather than his most recent photos. She'd briefly disliked her back then, regarding her as a selfish woman who was going to steal her best friend from her, but now that she knew first-hand how difficult it was accepting new people in a family member's life, she saw Sally's actions in a different light. "What are you getting for Kamal?"
He scrunched his face up. "I don't know. He doesn't really do Christmas, and what do you get a guy who already has everything anyway?"
"I'm sure your mum knows. Why don't you ask her?" she suggested, finally dropping her fork and pushing her plate away. "How did you eat this stuff? It tastes so weird."
The corners of his lips visibly twitched. "It's not that bad. It's just missing some salt. I sprinkled some on mine."
"Oh," she uttered, surprised. Salt. She hadn't wanted to add more in case she put too much in. How was she supposed to gauge how much salt was enough? Enough and too much tasted the same to her. "Good to know."
He smiled at her before pushing his chair back and standing up. "I've got to go and get Sam to put his credit card number in before he leaves for the night. He'll probably make a fuss."
"But it's better than asking Dee," she pointed out, looking back at him over her shoulder as he walked away.
"Exactly!" he called back before disappearing through the door.
After he left, she proceeded to bin what little was left on her plate and wash everything. Upon walking into the lounge, she felt as if she'd stumbled into ghost town. Her food hadn't been that bad, had it?
"What's got into you lot?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Joseph's gone a little bonkers," Floss answered from the floor in front of one of the sofas. "He impersonated Dee on the phone to his social worker and now he's been grounded."
"But Dee doesn't believe that he didn't have help from one of us girls," Chloe added. "She thinks there's no way he pretended to be a woman so she's grounded all of us as well until one of us owns up. She didn't even listen to our protests, she just went home!"
Jody sighed as Candi-Rose complained about not being able to go Christmas shopping that weekend. How had her plan suddenly gone awry? She'd broken into the office, located the number of Joseph's social worker and called said man to get him to ask Archie's foster parents (she'd gone into Archie's file to find their names) if they'd consider fostering Joseph. She'd also told him to tell them to come by with Archie on Saturday if they were interested so that they could talk things through with Joseph. Obviously, the social worker had called back for whatever reason and her scheme had been rumbled. That was a massive oversight on her part. How could she have made such a mistake?
"What's worse is that Joseph said he wants to cancel the visit anyway," Charlie spoke up, sounding somewhat hysterical. "So we've all been grounded for no reason!"
Huh? Surely, she didn't mean...? "What visit?"
"The visit he asked his social worker to arrange."
Jody refrained from letting her frustration show. There was no point letting the others know that they'd all been grounded because of her, and she was going to own up tomorrow anyway when Dee came in for her next shift. But why had Joseph ruined her hard work? Granted, he'd had nothing to do with the plan whatsoever but he wouldn't have turned down the visit without knowing what its purpose was. Dee would've told him when confronting him. She didn't get it. Didn't he want to get fostered, especially by his best friend's foster parents?
.:. QK .:.
Dee called in sick the next day and was replaced by yet another relief care worker—one who wore her long brown hair in a ponytail like Jody and had apparently met Candi-Rose before—so Jody wasn't able to own up first thing in the morning like she'd initially planned. She considered fessing up to Sam instead but by the time she spotted him in the office, she had to leave for school and so she had to let the other girls and Joseph remain grounded for another eight or so hours. On the walk to school, she wanted to have a quiet word with Joseph himself who was being ostracised by the other girls but between Tyler and Candi-Rose, she simply didn't get the chance.
When they got back home from school, however, Jody grabbed Joseph before he could protest and dragged him into the garden with her. The cold December air chilled her to the bones but she braved it, determined to get an answer out of him since she was going to be grounded forever in vain thanks to him.
"Right," she began firmly, sitting on the cold hard bench. Something squelched underneath her but she ignored the gross feeling, peering up at the boy standing next to her. "Why did you cancel the visit?"
"Look, I'm sorry for ruining your efforts," he apologised quietly, looking down. "That's why I've decided to take the whole blame on myself even though the girls all got grounded as well."
"Don't worry about that; I'm going to fess up anyway," she stated, seemingly surprising him. What? Did he think her so shallow? "You just answer my question: Why don't you want to get fostered?"
"I do," he countered, leaning against the outer structure of the bench. "I just can't get fostered by Archie's foster parents."
"Why?" she asked, confused. She vaguely remembered some sort of dream wherein she'd got fostered by Tyler's faceless and nameless foster parents. Wouldn't all care kids with best friends also in care want to be fostered together? "You were so upset after Archie left and you're always saying you don't get to see him as much as you'd like to. I thought that if you couldn't get John and Jacinda, Archie's foster parents would be your next choice."
"It's not that I don't want them to foster me; I like them a lot," he said, digging his gloved hands into his pockets. "I just don't want to impose."
Impose. Why did he talk like such an old man sometimes? "Who says you'll be imposing? You're his best mate. Why would he suddenly see you as some kind of intruder?"
"Because he's a bit weird about sharing," he answered, as if that explained everything. When he didn't elaborate, she just gave him a pointed look, and he sighed. "Do you remember what happened right before I moved into his room?"
"Yeah, you two went around asking everyone to vote for one of you to stay. I voted for you," she recounted, feeling her lips curl up into an amused smile. At the time, she'd been unable to believe that a boy as smart as Joseph had really thought that Mike and May-Li would kick a resident out based on a popularity vote. She and Tyler had purposely voted against each other to even the numbers out, impressed that their carers would play such a trick. "You do know that Mike and May-Li were bluffing?"
"Yeah, I figured it out afterwards," he responded bashfully. "Anyway, the voting only happened because we were fighting and that only happened because Archie didn't trust me when I said I didn't steal his jacket."
"And...?" she prompted, not getting the point of what he was trying to say.
"Like I said, he doesn't like sharing. We had a few... incidents after I moved in with him as well."
"So don't touch his stuff without asking," she said bluntly. "I don't see why it'd be a problem anyway. Foster kids usually get their own rooms."
"Yes, but don't you see? He doesn't like sharing clothes and stuff so he'll hate sharing parents. I don't want him to start hating me for taking up half of their attention."
Oh. Now she understood. Care kids tended to get testy about sharing parents; it was sort of expected. She'd seen it with her own two eyes when Tyler had been really jealous about Sally playing rounders with them during her first visit to Ashdene Ridge to the point that he'd taken a mean dig at Rick about his own mum. Archie was even younger than Tyler had been then and there was a good chance he'd take Joseph moving in with his family the wrong way.
"Hmm."
"See? Besides, I don't even know if he'd want his foster parents to foster me in the first place."
"Why don't you ask him yourself?"
Jody turned around to see Sam standing behind them with a huge grin on his face. She exchanged a look with Joseph, wondering how long Sam had been standing there and how much he'd heard. She'd wanted to fess up on her own rather than getting caught.
"What do you mean?" Joseph asked, breaking the silence. "Ask him myself?"
"He's waiting for you in the Quiet Room right now, with his foster parents," Sam explained. "Go on. Chop chop!"
Joseph widened his eyes at Jody before pushing himself off the bench and walking towards the house. She wondered if he was actually eager to see his visitors or if he just wanted to get out of the cold. Probably a bit of both. She stood up, looking at Sam. She'd been properly rumbled now, but how?
"Why did you call them here? He told Dee he wanted it cancelled."
"I spoke to him about it this morning before you all left for school and, I don't know, I just got this feeling that he didn't really mean it."
She chuckled. "Since when did you get so good at reading us lot?"
"Maybe since yesterday when Tyler started acted shifty the minute Dee came into the office and told me that one of you girls impersonated her."
"Ugh, what?!" she groaned. "He gave me away?!"
"Don't be too hard on him. I wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't the only other person in the room."
She nodded. That sounded about right. "I was going to fess up right after talking to Joseph, I swear. Please unground him. He actually had nothing to do with it; it was all me!"
He shrugged. "I don't know; I don't think Dee will agree. He still lied when he took all the blame on himself."
"Please, Sam!" she begged. Joseph had only taken the blame to protect her. It wasn't fair. "You can try and convince her when she comes in tomorrow!"
"Alright, I'll see," he relented, shivering as he scanned their cold surroundings. "Come on, let's go inside. It's freezing out here."
.:. QK .:.
"Alright, kids, into the minibus!" Sam shouted from the lobby. "We want to get there before it gets crowded!"
Jody watched on wistfully as the others ran down the stairs and out of the door from her perch on the edge of the coffee table. Christmas was just three days away and it really showed in the way the others desperately shoved each other as if getting into the minibus first would somehow speed the whole process up. Tyler was one of the last ones down and upon seeing her, he stopped by the foot of the stairs, nearly tripping Jay up as said boy pushed past him.
"Are you sure you don't want me to get you anything?" he asked, shrugging his jacket on. "You can reimburse me when I get back."
"I'm sure," she replied sadly. "I can't think of anything she wouldn't be able to throw away, and besides, I don't even know his address. We've never really done the whole presents thing."
She hadn't even got a card the last time.
He nodded. "I'll see you when I get back then."
As Tyler left, Sam checked the time on his phone before yelling, "Joseph!"
Said boy came running down the stairs a few seconds later, wrapped in a thick blue blanket. "Yeah?"
"Behave for Dee, okay?" Sam turned to Jody. "Both of you."
She huffed. "Yeah, yeah. Of course, we will."
Sam popped into the office to tell Dee he was off and Jody got up and made her way into the lounge, approaching the window that overlooked the driveway and roads. She was apparently grounded until both Mike and May-Li returned from their respective leaves which basically meant she wasn't to leave the house until the new year. A loud, drawn-out sniff interrupted the silence shortly before the sound of the telly being switched on filled her ears. Tearing her eyes away from the now-full minibus, she turned to the boy who looked far too happy for someone who was grounded for the remainder of his stay at Ashdene Ridge.
"How can you be so happy? Aren't you bothered that you didn't get to go?" she questioned, joining him on the sofa. "Don't you have Christmas cards and presents to buy?"
"Nope," he answered happily, pulling his blanket closer to his chest. She winced; she was sure it was her fault he had a cold in the first place. "Sam's going to buy them all on my behalf and I'm just going to pay him back."
"Hmm."
A comfortable silence fell between them as he watched some sort of documentary and she scrolled through her phone, surveying her newsfeed. She rolled her eyes hard as she came across an article titled 'Ella Cavendish joins reality TV show'. So much for becoming a dancer. Ella was, as Jody had expected, more interested in a quick claim to fame rather than a real career in dance. She wondered how Lord and Lady Newcastle were taking their illegitimate daughter's exposure in the media. They'd been ruined ever since Thomas' video had made the rounds.
"Jody?"
"Yeah?" she asked distractedly, scrolling further down to see something about Brexit.
"Thanks for going behind my back and making that call to my social worker."
Putting her phone down, she turned to him. "Are you being sarcastic?" She was a little surprised, to be honest. She never knew he had it in him.
"No, I'm serious," he insisted, his face reflecting his words. "I would've never worked up the guts to ask him myself. If it weren't for you, I'd still be moping around about John and Jacinda."
"No, you wouldn't. Sam's the one who actually got him to get Archie and his—your—foster parents over here," she quietly reminded him, strangely humbled by his gratitude. "I just got you grounded."
"You still made that first step for me when no one else would, not even me... and yeah, being grounded isn't great but it's worth it. I'm only here for two more days anyway."
Jody felt her throat tighten at that and looked away. The two of them had never been close over the last two years but like everyone else who'd walked in through that green porch door over the years, he was her family, and a tiny part of her hurt at the thought of waving him goodbye despite knowing that he was getting his forever family.
"Well, in that case, you're welcome."
She turned to face the TV, watching in mild interest as a satellite photo of Mars came up on the screen. The doorbell rang and Dee went to answer the door but Jody took no notice; the chances of May-Li popping in for a random visit were very low, and Mike was still abroad.
"Jody?"
Her ears pricked up at the familiar voice and it took all she had not to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. She twisted her head to look over the back of the sofa and sure enough, Luke was standing right there in front of the lounge's double doors.
"Luke?" she uttered softly, totally thrown off by his presence. She'd told him to never show up without getting Simon to inform her first, and while she didn't mind the idea so much anymore because Millie now knew about her, she'd thought he was still sticking to those rules. "What are you doing here?"
He looked at her, confused. "Your social worker told me you wanted to see me?"
What? Out of the corner of her eye, she registered an imperceptible shift in Joseph's body language. She blinked before turning to him. "You...?"
"You're not the only one who knows how to call other people's social workers," he said casually with a shrug of the shoulders.
"Oh, I give up with you children!" Dee exclaimed, throwing her arms up. "It is far too easy to break into that office! Mr Milligan has got to improve the security around here!"
After Dee stormed out and was safely out of earshot, Joseph added, "Actually, Sam made the call but it was my idea."
Now that made more sense from a logistical point of view. "But why? How did you know I wanted to see him?" She'd never even admitted it to herself, choosing to blame Millie for not being able to reach out to him even if she wanted to.
"Tyler told me when I asked him why you look so down these days."
She smiled, a warm but rare feeling enveloping her. It was beautiful, meaningful times like this that she remembered that she was loved despite being just another blip in the social care system.
"So," Luke interjected, regaining her attention. "I was wondering if you'd like to come over to my place for Christmas Dinner."
"Seriously?" she asked, unable to believe her ears. What about Millie? Would she want her there?
"She's spending Christmas down at her mother's," Luke said, making her jump. Had she said that out loud? "It'll just be you and me."
"But we haven't done Christmas since..." She couldn't remember, actually. Since she was eight? No, they hadn't had the money. Seven? Nope. Kingsley had come home drunk for the first time that night and she and Luke had been forced to hide until Boxing Day.
"Since you were around five, I know," he finished for her, though knowing how old she'd been didn't help her recall anything about the occasion. "So, what do you say?"
She wasn't sure how this was going to work with her being grounded and all, but she was already halfway to saying yes when she asked, "Are you sure you don't want to spend it with her instead? Isn't it your first Christmas living together?"
"I'm the one who suggested she join her family down in London after I got that call from Simon," he revealed. "I would've done it earlier but I didn't think you'd want to spend Christmas with me."
"Of course I want to, you idiot!" she blurted out, her hand flying to her mouth. She'd never dared to speak to him like that before. It just wasn't done. She shook her head. "Sorry. I just thought you'd never ask."
In spite of her rude outburst, Luke grinned, looking more like her brother instead of Millie's boyfriend than he had in a long time. "I'll just go and ask the care worker if that's alright then."
Excited, she turned to Joseph who was still seated. "Thank you."
"Oh, there's no need. Thank Sam; he's the one who made the call."
It took her a moment to realise what he meant by the statement but when it finally dawned on her, she laughed, playfully swatting him on the arm. "Shut up!"
A/N: And I have gone full circle; in the first chapter, I had Jody brooding on Luke not sending her a Christmas card and now, nearly a year later, he invites her to celebrate Christmas with him at his place.
Thanks to my two lovely reviewers!
Charlie—Poor Rick was done dirty like this and it looks like the same has happened to Joseph. Even Sapphire got a couple of mentions after she left and she never even appeared in TDG!
Luke returns!
yourfire - Two reviews at once. I love it! I'm glad you agree with me on the Jody/Brandon front. It would've been a great disservice to the poor guy if Jody had gone as far as to marry him and have his kids while still thinking of another man, especially one she never actually had a relationship with.
Actually, I said that others see a girl thinking about marriage and love as girly and would say that Jody thinking of such things is out of character but that I don't agree. Yes, she doesn't believe in fairy-tale romances like Candi-Rose does but I believe that she does think marriage (not necessarily love) should be forever. We see this when she imagines getting married; in both instances, she grows old with her husband, no matter who he is.
However, she's definitely looking for something real at this point and does not want to be a faker like her mother. I'm pleased that that last sentence conveyed what I wanted it to convey. I worried that it was too cheesy.
Regarding your remarks, I'll be honest. Upon watching No Escaping again, I realised that Brandon had a younger sister in canon (as seen in Jody's imagination of her and his family at the beach) and decided to change it. I edited the earlier chapter to reflect that before I even posted chapter 35. Sorry if it seemed sudden or jarring but I meant to show that Jody had gradually overcome her fear of having a bath. I thought it was fairly obvious that she was starting to get over it in the chapter her fear was first mentioned. You've got a good eye for detail, though, I'll give you that.