Disclaimer: Hi to all my readers out there, 4th chapter, you should know by now that I don't own Degrassi, I just own Harry, Saxon, Anna and Grace. To all who are awaiting the input of more actual Degrassi characters be patient, I will be entering more in the coming chapters. So enjoy this chapter, please R&R, let me know what you think of it and I'll try to fix any problems you find!
Chapter 4: Stay True to Yourself
Looking around she noticed Harry's bag and picking it up signalled for Marco to come with her to put it in his room, "You know," Anna started as she turned off the light in Harry's room and shut the door, "If you stay long enough you might get a nice view of Harry in only his boxers."
"Anna," Marco said, lightly shoving her.
She laughed, feeling that things were starting to look up at the thought of Grace's… well they were going to jail so she wouldn't have to worry about them.
"I'm serious," She told Marco, "If you stayed the night you'd see Harry in nothing but boxers, and then you'd get to see morning Harry being tackled for a grand entrance, it's kind of a ritual. Harry wakes up and comes out for breakfast, still half asleep, as a lesson not to be anywhere near sleep around me and Grace he gets tackled. So far he hasn't learnt a thing."
Marco laughed quietly at the thought of Anna and Grace tackling their burly half brother, the rough and tough boy apparently had weaknesses that his half sisters had found and were now apparently using to their advantages.
"So your family really likes boxers don't they?" Marco asked cheekily.
"It's our major sleep wear in summer," Anna replied as she began to set the table for dinner, "Grace and I wear our boxers and singlets, Harry sticks around in just his boxers and Saxon usually puts a singlet on with his boxers. Then occasionally one of us will decide to be stupid and shove a clean pair of boxers on our heads and use it for a hat."
Marco smiled and shook his head at the thought of any of Grace and Anna's family running around with boxers on their heads. When they had finished setting the table Anna and Marco settled down on the couch to watch yet more TV while they waited for Saxon, Harry and Grace to come back with the pizza.
When they returned, all three had their arms around each other and had to turn sideways to fit through the door. Anna shook her head at their antics as she whisked away the pizza's and put them in the centre of the table.
"I declare this meal to have started, now dig in before I eat it all," She said as she pulled two pieces back to her plate.
When dinner was over Saxon sent Anna, Grace and Marco off to get ready for bed, Anna and Grace both began scouting out sheets and clothes for Marco to sleep in while Harry pulled the spare mattress into their room.
Then Marco called his parents and got the all clear to stay the night at the twin's apartment while Anna changed Grace's bandages again.
After the lights went out in Anna and Grace's room the 3 teens talked for a while before the twin's began to get tired.
"Good night Anna," Grace said as she made sure her position wasn't going to affect her injuries.
"Good night Gracie," Anna replied from the other side of the room.
The in unison the twins said, "Good night Marco."
Marco laughed quietly at this then replied, "Good night you two," before he rolled over and went to sleep himself.
-
Marco woke the next morning to the early rays of sunlight streaming through the twins window, he groaned and tried to block them out but soon gave up as his attempts weren't working. He looked up at the twins just as the light began to touch their beds, two arms reached out from the blankets on each of their beds and pulled their second pillows down on top of their heads, blocking out the sun.
"Um…okay," Marco said, fascinated by what had just happened.
"What?" Was the muffled response from underneath Grace's pillow.
"You two just did the same thing at the exact same time, that's all, it's strange," Marco said.
The only reply that Marco received this time was an extremely muffled grunt from Grace.
"Don't you two get up right about now?" Marco asked.
"Wait for the alarm," Anna said through her pillow, two seconds later and a loud beeping erupted from the clock on her bedside table, "That would be the wake up call."
With that the twins pushed their pillows off their heads and began to get up. Grace took her time in getting up; not particularly wanting to find out just how much pain her back was still capable of giving her.
"Best time for Harry tackling," she said, looking out of her window at the surrounding apartment buildings.
"Not until we change your bandages," Anna said as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.
Grace groaned but didn't stop Anna from changing the bandages; her twin looked over the gashes as she removed the old bandaging and replaced it with clean bandages.
She had to admit that Grace's back did look like it was getting better, very slowly better but all the same it was an improvement. At least she was starting to get a little flexibility back as she had demonstrated yesterday when she'd gotten a piggy back out of Harry.
All three teens left the room fully dressed and hungry, entering the living room they found Saxon sitting on the couch in front of the television. He turned to look at them as they came in greeting them with a quick "Good morning," before turning back to stare at the screen.
Grace and Anna looked at each other, frowning; this wasn't normal morning behaviour for Saxon. They looked back at their brother and then they noticed what it was that he was watching.
It was the morning news and the report was of a girl living in Degrassi who'd recently been raped. Grace froze, looking at the screen; it was now playing a voice recording that the rapists had set up.
Anna looked away from the TV and fixed her eyes on her twin who was shaking her head and slowly backing away from the television. Suddenly she turned and ran off down the hall, slamming the bedroom door behind her.
"Grace," Anna called after her, turning to look at Saxon she scolded him, "Turn that stupid thing off, she was starting to get over this."
With that she strode off down the hall to her bedroom, even though it was hers as much as it was Grace's she still knocked on the door, "Gracie?" She opened the door, slid through and shut it again behind her, "Please don't cry."
Grace was lying on her bed, her face buried in her blankets and her arms over her head, her small body was racked with large sobs every few seconds. Anna moved over and sat on her twin's bed, crossing her legs and putting a gentle hand on a part of Grace's back that she knew didn't have any bandages on.
"Everything will be okay, you'll see," Anna cooed trying to calm her twin.
"No it won't," Grace said, not moving her head away from the blankets, her speech was muffled by her bed covers, "I'm going to have to go to school tomorrow and that report will be on the evening news too and all over the newspapers, people want to know these things and the newspapers can sell these stories. By tomorrow almost everyone will have heard about what happened and then they'll treat me like some street slut. They'll look at me as if I come from another planet."
"Well I won't do that," Anna said defiantly, "Marco's not doing that and neither did Jimmy when he found out, Grace there are plenty of people who'll sympathize."
"But I don't want their sympathy, I want this to not have happened, I can't face them all with a baby that belongs to some guy I don't even know," Grace said to her twin, face still buried in the bed.
"Grace…" Anna began but was cut off by her twin.
"Anna I just want life to be normal again, I want to be able to go through school without having to worry about all of this, but I can't," Grace looked at her twin out of haunted eyes, "I can't see how I can get through this."
"With help Gracie," Anna said quietly, "I'll help you all you need and so will Marco and Jimmy and I'm sure all of our other friends will too. Stay true to yourself."
"Just how am I supposed to do that?" Grace asked.
"Just don't change too much, we'll take care of you but please don't get all withdrawn again," Anna told her twin.
Grace sat up rubbing at her eyes to get rid of the tears, when she stopped Grace looked at her twin, "You don't have to stay with me if you don't want to you know. I'll understand if you want to go and find someone else to hang with."
Anna looked at Grace and smiled a sad smile, "Gracie you're my twin, why would I ever want to hang with those other losers? They could never have even half the attitude that you do."
This made Grace laugh, she'd made herself a reputation for being fickle minded and difficult, she knew this and sometimes deliberately acted that way when the mood struck, "I think they'll be seeing a lot more of the fickle side of me," she said turning serious again.
Anna gave that sad, sympathetic smile again and hugged her twin, "Then at least you can be fickle minded in style and for once I won't get annoyed at you for being difficult. Now come on, are we going to hide in our room for the rest of our lives or are we going to go out today? At least to the kitchen for breakfast cause personally I'm starving."
Grace chuckled and told her twin to go ahead; she'd be out as soon as she'd washed the tear tracks off her face.
-
When Harry woke up he made his way slowly out to the living room he managed to stop himself from running into every wall except for the one just outside his room. As he entered the living room he noted that something was different, he didn't know what it was straight away but thinking about it suddenly it dawned on him why his morning was missing something. He was half way through his breakfast by the time he realised what his morning lacked.
He hadn't been tackled at all that morning.
"Where are the twins?" he asked Saxon who had turned off the TV and was now looking out of the window with his morning cup of coffee in hand.
He looked around at his younger half brother a sad look on his face, "They came out earlier when I was watching the morning news and the report that was on at that moment was about Gracie, she got upset and went back to her room, Anna followed her and I haven't seen them since. That was almost an hour ago."
Harry looked around the room, "Where's Marco?" he asked.
"Right here," The Italian boy said turning to look over the back of the couch.
Just then two solid masses rammed straight into Harry's side, sending him flying off his chair and onto the ground where he greeted the floor, his morning slowly returning to normal. He rolled over so that he could get a proper look at his younger half sisters, he had to laugh at the innocent looks on their faces but soon he tired of lying on the floor and sat up.
In doing so Harry sent the twins rolling away from him, they were soon on their feet and heading towards the kitchen in answer to their stomachs.
"See Marco," Anna said as she emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of cereal, "What did I tell you? You stick around long enough and you get to see us tackle Harry again and again and again."
"You forgot the other million agains Anna," Grace joked as she too emerged with her breakfast, it was a considerable amount smaller than Anna's but then again, so was she.
Looking over the older, but smaller of the twins a sad look passed over Harry's face. She was too young to be going through this, the best he could do to help her was shield her from as much of her troubles as possible. Maybe then she could focus more on staying the Grace who everybody had known and loved. Staying true to herself.