Title: Familiar Faces:  Getting to Know You

Disclaimer: Just the usual, don't own anything that you recognise.

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A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews and hope that you continue to like it.

Emma POV

            Once we got back to his room, I was very hesitant about doing anything, this was his room, with photos and stuff around that came from his life. I didn't belong here, this wasn't my life, but in a way it was, or could have been part of if things hadn't happened.

            "While I get the crisps, why don't you sit on the bed, your making the place look untidy!!"

            Was it really that obvious that I was nervous, and he used the classic way to get someone to relax, humour, well I could do that to, "I don't think that it is even possible for part of the room."

            "True, but it isn't my mess, honestly, that is all Charlie's" He pointed to everything over most of the room, except a small part of it, "I gave up asking him to clear his bits away long ago. We have come to a silent agreement that he leaves my bed and desk area clear, take a seat." He gestured to his bed, and so I sat tentatively on the edge. "Sorry, I only have Prawn Cocktail, is that alright?"

            "Definitely, they are my favourite." Taking the crisps off him, I was glad to have something to do with my hands, rather than picking at the lose skin on my fingers, I had been doing that so much today that they were starting to get slightly raw.

            We sat eating the crisps for a little while, then I broke the silence, seeing as he had done a lot of talking already, "so, is Charlie the bloke that was at the table at dinner?"

            "Yeah, he's one of my best friends, though it was slightly rocky last year. Anyway, I was gonna show you some bits," getting up from his end of the bed, he went over to his desk and got out a box, just a small shoe box and brought it over to the bed. Opening the lid, he got out a pile of photos, "These are just a few photos that Dad had, he made copies for me when I came here last year, seeing as I was always looking at them. They meant a lot to me when I was growing up, every time I was finding stuff hard I always looked through them and thought of what you might have said, or suggested I do. I suppose that you were always the brave one in my mind."

            "Me, brave, you must be joking. I can't even talk to new people, I hate going into rooms. The main reason why I managed to get here on scholarship is because I spent all my spare time at the library instead of talking to people."

            "Well you were my bravery and putting up with Cole and preps like him every week comes under brave in my book. I could only just cope with him and the rest of Varsity for a term and even then it was you who got me through it."

            "It isn't like I actually did anything, and I have to tutor them to keep my scholarship and I also need the money." I hated talking about money and so I tried to change the subject. "I found some photos at home, just a few but I only managed to get the one that you took."

            "Oh, yeah sorry about that, you can have it back. Do you want to see these ones?" he passed over the small pile and I started to look through them. They were the same ones that were in the box at home, as I came to the one that was the same as my one photo, he continued "you see why I thought you had stolen it, exactly the same, and I know these photos like the back of my hand, I've looked at them enough."

            "Why does this one look so brown?" I asked turning it round so he could see.

            "Well, I told you that I was always looking at them when I was finding things hard, and last year it got tough at the beginning, being put on Varsity and the Ducks abandoning me. That photo stayed with me to everywhere, including hockey practice and matches, no pocket in a hockey uniform so it was in my skates."

            "Ok, first of all,  I am glad that you had something to get you through, and second, what happened?" I was worried and getting slightly angry with the Ducks, how dare they abandon him. Ok, I don't know the story but I'm sure Adam didn't do anything wrong.

            "Don't get angry, I know that look and tone of voice, I have the same. Anyway, it is a long story, and I suppose that it is slightly my fault."

            "Well tell me, cos otherwise I'm gonna be making stuff up in my brain, or bugging Julie tonight to tell me." Getting comfortable, I sat slightly further back on the bed so that I  not about to fall off, and turned to face him.

            "I better start at the beginning though, it is all linked together, starting when we were all 10 when I was originally on the Hawks." After that he told me all about having to change teams,  winning the Peewees, winning the Junior Good Will Games, getting the scholarships and then everything that happened last year.

            "I can see why they weren't happy with you, but they should have trusted you by then, you have been with them for 4 years, and by the sounds of it, have taken a lot of hits for them. I never thought that hockey could be so dangerous."

            "It isn't for anyone else, I just seem to be accident prone."

            "Not accident prone, just everyone else is jealous and wants you out of the way." Never having seen him play, I don't know for sure, but if he was put on Varsity last year, then he must be brilliant. "Sounds like you are really good, can't wait to see you play."

            "We got practice tomorrow after school, why don't you come along? I'm sure that Coach won't mind cos we have girlfriends watching from the bleachers all the time, I might even be able to persuade him to let you sit in the bench." Bench, not being up on sporting terms I wasn't sure, but that sounded like it was where the team sat.

            "Er, I don't think that would be a good idea." Remembering any experiences I had already had with anyone on the team, I am sure that most of them hate me. "Except for you, Julie, Connie and Charlie, I don't know anyone. Everyone else hates me, well some I know do, others I don't even know."

            "They do not hate you, from what I heard with what happened with Luis, he deserved it and he hasn't taken it to heart. Everyone else doesn't know you and will give you a chance. If you are thinking of what happened on Saturday, Portman gets really edgy when it comes to a game and he was pumped up for it, you were just a delay."

            "As long as you promise, I will be there, but I don't want to sit on the bench, I'll just sit at the back and watch." Hopefully no one would notice me.

            "We will see tomorrow. We have talked about me a load, what about you? What have you done with your life?" Uh oh, my turn, there wasn't anything to tell him.

            "Compared to you, nothing. I went to school, lived in the library, got a scholarship to here, told mum, got disowned, came here, went home for Christmas, found out about you, got disowned again. Then you know the rest." Looking back at him, he was trying to hide his sympathetic look. "Don't even think of pitying me, it is the way that life goes. I've made the most of what's been thrown at me, and look where I am now. Two weeks ago, I didn't even have a brother, and my dad was dead. Now I have you and my dad is alive. Anyway, life wasn't that bad really, I was just summarising, the bits in the middle were good."

            "I didn't mean to pity you. You had an eventful life to, and we each had tough times, I just had the thought of you pulling me through." We sat there, neither of us sure what to say next, so I got up and walked over to his desk, there were a couple of photos on the desk.

            "Are these the teams you have been in?" In one photo, they were all in green shirts, with a man in the middle holding a trophy, the other, they were all in white shirts, with the same man holding a trophy.

            He got off the bed and came up behind me, pointing to the green shirt photo " That is from Peewees after we won the championship and the other one is after the Games. They are both the official photo taken, and we all got given a copy."

            Looking at them, some of the people were different "How come Julie and some of the others aren't in this one? And who are all the other people?"

            "That's cos they joined us just before the Games, we needed replacements for some of the team who couldn't join us."

            "Ok, but who is this guy next to you with bushy hair, I'm sure I would have noticed him at school with hair like that!" I pointed to the guy in the photo and looked to Adam for an answer. He took the photo off me and sat down on the bed.

            "He had to leave us after the Games, his mum was sick, he needed to look after her. He was my best friend after the Peewee final. He's the one who first called me 'cake-eater'."

            "What? Is that supposed to be a good thing? It sounds derogatory."

            "It was to start with, but after the final it was meant as a good thing, just something that everyone occasionally calls me." I went and sat back down on the bed, as I did, he put the photo down and looked up at me, "I think I get why dad always pushed me so hard with hockey, and why he never wanted me to leave the Hawks. I always thought that it was to do with money and class. He through such a hissy fit and continued to support the Hawks until the Peewee final. Part of the reason that mum and dad split has got to do with us being signed up to the Hawks. Dad pushed me harder into it and Mum took you away from it. Its the only thing that makes any sense." He seemed so happy that he had figured it out.

            "Yeah I suppose, but we can't be sure, you'll have to ask Dad to know for sure." Calling someone Dad without referring to a dead person, still felt weird.

            "I'm not gonna ask on my own, you are coming to."

            "No way, I can't" Before we could get any further into the conversation the door opened.

Charlie POV

            "You think we should interrupt?" It had been 2 hours since Banks and Emma had left the dinning room and it was 10 minutes til curfew. Julie and I had thought it best if we saw how they were getting on. We didn't know where they had gone, but the rink was empty and our dorm was the next place we were gonna check. As we got to the door we could hear them both talking, and knowing how Banks didn't like his private life being general knowledge I wasn't sure if they would want interrupting.

            "We have to, if they get caught by one of the dorm parents then they will be in a lot of trouble." Ever the responsible one, "anyway, they have been talking for hours, and with the barrage they are gonna get from everyone tomorrow, they need to sleep."

            It was true, Cole had come into the dinning room and when he was talking to the Varsity table, he became quite loud and told everyone in the dinning room that Emma Nash was Adam Banks' sister. The whole of our table had turned to me and Julie, with a look of shock. We were then hit with a torrent of questions, we couldn't actually hear all of them, we just said that it was true and if they wanted to know anymore then to ask Banks. At that point everyone got up from the table, but Julie soon stopped them and told them that if they interrupted them tonight then they would have her to deal with. Let them at least have tonight alone. Russ then remembered what Luis had said not long ago and set the whole table laughing at Luis' misfortunate comment.

            So after having spent a couple of hours in Guy and Ken's dorm with the rest of the Ducks, doing our normal night before school routine of watching videos, Julie noticed the time and dragged me out of the room. Here we were about to go into we don't know what, they could be arguing, or laughing, or crying. Hang on, do I really want to see Banks' crying? What a scary thought, one thing that a guy never wants to see is another one crying. But I didn't get much chance to think this over because Julie gently opened the door and stepped in, seeing as it was my room and it would look strange me standing outside, I followed her.

            "Hey guys, how is it going?" Julie asked, using her caring voice. As I walked into the room, I noticed that they were not crying but they were not extremely happy either.

            "Ok, we talked a lot and I found out all about your hockey careers. It sounds really eventful, going from deadbeat team to state champs in one season." Not really surprising that hockey had been covered.

            "Yeah it was really, sorry to interrupt the two of you but curfew is fast approaching and they are usually really strict on the first night." Don't I sound really responsible, got to say something as not to ruin my rep, "don't want to get detention before term starts, Coach would not be happy."

            "True, and I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a long day, with lots of questions." Julie had to bring that up, looking over at her, she had a worried look, as if asking me whether she should have said anything. Whether I thought she should or not didn't matter, she already had.

            "Thought there might, didn't think there would be any chance that Cole wouldn't tell anyone. I suppose we better go then." With that Emma stood up and started walking towards me and Julie.

            "Hey Emma, eat breakfast with us tomorrow, I'll introduce you to all the Ducks," Banks must have noticed the panic in her face as she turned to face him. "Don't worry, me and Charlie will collect you and Julie from your dorm in the morning and we can go down together. They may be my friends but I really don't want to face all the questions on my own, and I'm sure they will want to ask you a load as well."

            "I suppose that I'm gonna have to meet them at some point, but as long as you promise that they won't hate me, and if you put me anywhere near Portman, you will die." Obviously she was still scared of him.

            "Definitely. One last thing, here's you photo back, and you might want to take this too. It was part of our birthday present when we were three." Banks got off the bed and walked over to the three of us. Handing Emma a black parcel and the photo, she looked at the parcel intently, then unfolded it. I recognised it immediately, a hawks shirt, really small, obviously to fit her when she was three. On the back was E Banks with the number 8, "Dad got them printed with the numbers that he had us signed up as, mine was 9."

            Emma didn't say anything, she just wrapped Banks in a big hug, it lasted for a while, and then she walked out of the room. Slightly worried, Julie followed after her, and I faced Banks, "So, did it go ok? No major arguments or anything?"

            "No, we just told each other what had been happening in our lives over the years, then I showed her my photos, the ones of the team and of the two of use when we were young." He walked over to his bed and started putting the things back in a box, I knew that it was best to leave it, so I started getting ready for be. We didn't talk again until the light was out and we were in bed.

            "Thanks Charlie"

            "Anytime"