A Sense of Deja Vu
Acepilot

AN - No.23 in the Road Series. I officially rate this as one of my favourite stories in the series. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Chris was borne out of the Deciduous sessions, and though I couldn't find a way to work this plotline into that fic, I just loved it so much that I had to write it out.

Disclaimer - AGU characters are property of KC, Marcus, Cara, Chris and everyone else are mine.

"Case for you Phil," the student-teacher offers from the doorway.

I look up from the papers I was grading over lunch and nod, hoping I'm covering my irritation well. I could have done without the interruptions, but when I took the job of Year 11 coordinator, I knew it wasn't going to be a cakewalk. "Okay."

The student-teacher steps out of the way to reveal -

"Hey, Mr.D."

Chris Peterson.

I roll my eyes and resist the temptation to bang my head against the table. "Mr. Peterson. What a pleasant surprise." Chris grins at me smugly and walks into my office, sitting down on one of the chairs facing my table and putting his feet up on the other. I push the homework out of the way and stick my feet up as well, letting the formality of the place drop. "You know, Chris, when the principal gave me this job, he probably had a song in his heart, knowing that I'd be the one who'd have to deal with you for an entire year." I sigh in defeat. "What did you do today?"

Chris smiles sheepishly. "I was just trying to see how much food would stick to the roof before it fell down."

"Marvelous," I mutter quietly. "So who got stuck cleaning up that mess?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. They kind of just got me out of there pretty quick."

"If it's not cleaned up by the time I'm through with you, then you're doing it yourself," I tell him. "No excuses, no weaseling your way out of it." I sigh and get up from behind my desk, walking over to my dripalator and pouring out two cups of coffee. "I don't understand you, Chris, I really don't. You're bright, you get good results, but you're willing to jeopardize it all by goofing off and messing around incessantly. Why?"

He shrugs at me as I put one of the cups down in front of him. "Something to do, I guess."

I sip from my own mug. "Look, Chris, maybe the problem here is that you need to socialize."

"I do socialize. I've got tons of friends," he tells me, looking mildly surprised moreso than offended.

"Not that kind of socializing," I tell him. "More like...well, the friends you've got now are friends because they think you're a goof. A smart goof, but a goof. So try and find someone who appreciates you for you. Who you can have a conversation with. Someone on your academic level, rather than the people you tend to hang out with."

He seems to contemplate that for a minute. "You know, you may be onto something."

"I am. Trust me." I sigh. "Look, Chris, you really just need someone to stabilize you. I know your home life is crappy, and I sympathize. So find someone - a friend, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, I don't care - who you can hang out with, who you can talk to."

He goes to say something but I cut him off. "And not me."

He pouts slightly. "Okay."

"Alright. Now get back to the cafeteria and see if they need some help cleaning up your mess."

He downs the rest of the coffee, hands me back the mug, and says, "Thanks, Mr. D," before wandering out of the office.

A few moments later, Rick, the Year 12 coordinator, sticks his head around the door. "Well done."

I grin. "I've seen him twenty-five times in ten weeks. You think I haven't learnt how to handle him?"

"Case for you Phil," the student-teacher tells me.

I sigh in frustration, not bother to hide my irritation as I look up from my guitar. My little Tuesday afternoon sanctuary, ruined. The music room is otherwise abandoned, and I'm tempted to swear at him, but I know that won't do any good. "Alright, send whoever it is in."

"Sorry, Phil, they just told me you'd be here," the student-teacher apologizes, before stepping out of the way to reveal -

"Hey, Mr. D."

Chris.

"Hey, Chris. Come in, take a seat." I resume fiddling with the tuning on my acoustic before strumming a G-chord quietly. "What happened now, Chris? We were doing so well. Two weeks since the food-on-the-roof incident without being sent to me once."

He shrugs. "I got bored."

I roll my eyes. "Evidently. What happened now?"

"Well, the teacher left the room, and I was talking to someone, and all of a sudden this uncontrollable urge to dance on the tables overcame me..."

I close my eyes and contemplate the information that I've just been given. "Let me get this straight. You've been sent to see me...because you were table-top dancing?"

He makes a funny humming noise. "Well, I guess you could see it like that."

"That's a new one even for you," I tell him. "Who dared you to do it?"

He laughs. "Why don't you think it's an original?"

"Because not even you're that suicidal," I tell him. "A little stupid to have taken the challenge, but not suicidal. How many people saw you?"

"Oh, the entire class. A bunch of people in the halls. It was a courtyard facing room, too, so probably some people on their lunch wave." He shrugs. "Maybe thirty? Forty?"

"And how far did you get?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

"I had my top off," he admits, and doesn't even blush. The kid's got self-confidence, I'll give you that.

And the sad thing is, it sounds like something I'd have done. At his age.

"I'm going to give you a severe reprimand," I tell him. "And this is it: Try to keep your top on."

He's holding his breath, waiting for something. "That's it?"

"Yeah. Just...yeah, that'll do." I sigh and start playing guitar again.

He laughs, a brief, relieved-sounding chuckle. "Well, that went a whole heap better than I thought it would."

"Go back to class before I change my mind, Chris," I suggest. "Not that I don't like you or anything, but my patience will run through eventually."

He nods. "By the way, I took your advice."

"Which advice?"

"To get a friend. A girlfriend, actually. She's really nice." He grins, as if remembering something.

"Funny?" I ask, and he nods. "Year 11, or younger?"

"Year 11," he assures me. "Don't worry, I'm not cradle snatching or anything."

"Have her parents met you yet?" I ask, wondering what anyone's reaction to Chris Peterson dating their daughter would be.

"Sort of. We're acquaintances, but I don't think she's told them that we're going out yet." He shrugs. "That day will come, I guess."

I nod. "Good luck with it. And I recommend that you're on your best behavior when you do."

He grins at me. "No fear."

"Alright, get back to class or I'll be the one daring you to strip at assembly."

"Come on, Dad, wasn't Saturday night date night when you were my age?" Cara asks, exasperated.

I nod. "Yes. But you're not my age. So you're not going."

"I think that logic is very unfair," Cara tells me, pulling on a jacket.

"I'm a parent. I can be as unfair as I like," I inform her.

She spins around and glares at me. "Dad, I'm 17 years old! I'm almost old enough to vote! To drink! To - "

"There will be no drinking!" I cut her off quickly, before she starts getting any other ideas. "And I advise you against saying anything about how you're old enough to have sex."

"Dad, lay off her," Marcus suggests from the lounge room. "It's not like she's going to score with anyone, anyway - "

Cara goes red with rage and I have to grab her by the arm to stop her from going and throttling her twin. I have a momentary flashback to any number of memories where I did something similar to Lil and I wonder again at the freakiness of how similar my kids are to us. James, Andy and Cassandra picked up too many of Tommy's traits, I think. "Cara, I just think that maybe I'm not comfortable with the idea of you going out unsupervised with a boy."

"I'm almost an adult, Dad. What are you going to do, chaperone me?" My eyes must have sparkled for a moment, because she utters, deadly serious, "Forget about it, you're not coming."

"And you're not going," I tell her, conclusively.

"This is so unfair!" she wails. "Mom wouldn't have a problem with this!"

"Well Mom's with Lil on a weekend away," I remind her. "So I'm calling the shots, and I say no."

She doesn't have any comprehensible response to that. She just kind of wails in protest and storms off toward the bathroom, muttering all the way.

"Dad, that's a bit harsh," Marcus tells me. "It's not like we're babies anymore. Cara can take care of herself. She's pretty scary, you know."

"You're not helping, Marcus."

Then there's a knock at the door.

Marcus and I exchange a quick glance. "You want it or should I?" my son asks.

I sigh in resignation. "I'll get it." I hope like hell Cara didn't hear it.

Maybe I am being to harsh on her. After all, she's 17. Tommy and Lil were going out by this age. I'd had a girlfriend. I'd had sex by the age of 17. I should trust my daughter's judgment. After all, she's an intelligent, almost-full-grown woman. She'd know not to go out with a creep.

I sigh in resignation and open the door to reveal -

"Hey, Mr. D."

Chris Peterson.

We stand like this for a moment, me with my hand on the door, him standing there looking surprisingly respectable in all-black, from a massive and eerily familiar trench coat down to a relatively formal-looking shirt and cargo pants. He scrubs up alright, I guess.

But that doesn't help the sinking feeling I'm having in my stomach.

"Chris," I begin, taking a deep breath in an effort to remain calm.

He looks anticipative.

"I'm going to close this door now," I tell him. "And when I open it again, you're not going to be there."

He looks like he's about to say something, but evidently thinks the better of it. I shut the door softly, take another deep breath, count to ten, and open it again.

Chris is still there, leaning against one of the pillars on the porch with a smug grin on his face. "So I took your advice."

"There is no way you are dating my daughter," I tell him, with what is attempting to be authority but ends up sounding more like a plea.

"Well, we haven't actually gone on a date, yet," he tells me. "We've only kind of admitted we liked each other. And maybe we've made out a few times. But this is our first actual date."

"Chris, maybe you didn't hear me," I try. "You're not dating my daughter."

"Why not?" he asks, looking more amused than anything else. "She's great. She listens, she's funny, she's smart, she's everything you told me to look for. Besides, she's pretty -"

"If you say 'she's pretty hot', I'm going to hit you," I warn him quietly, and he takes the hint and doesn't finish the sentence.

"Look, Mr. D, I promise, nothing's going to happen," he tells me. "Besides, I thought you were starting to actually like me as a person. We were getting along."

"For a start, I'm tolerating you because I find you intriguing," I tell him. "Secondly, there is a big difference between liking someone and letting them date your youngest child."

"I thought Marcus was younger," Chris tells me.

"That's because you asked Cara," I point out. "Now, I think we're pretty much done here."

"No, you're not!" Cara interrupts me, appearing at the top of the stairs. I spin around and glance at her, and a sinking feeling begins in the pit of the fatherhood part of my stomach. There she is, my only daughter, dressed up for a night out on the town.

She looks so grown up. And I wonder where the little girl that I used to console when boys threw mud at her (or told off for getting in trouble for throwing mud at boys), that I used to try to cajole in to playing catch, that I used to pick up and carry around on my shoulders, went.

"We're going to a movie and that's it, Dad," she tells me, swooping down the stairs in the exact same elegant way her mother has perfected. "It's a first date. Nothing major is going to happen."

I want to fight her some more. I want to tell her that she's not going. But she is. There's nothing I can do about it. She's going.

I turn around and see Chris gaping. I take the opportunity to elbow him in the stomach, and he snaps his jaw shut right quick. "Fine. But you're home by 10."

"By 11, Dad. The movie doesn't start until 8.30."

I sigh. "Fine, 11. And, Chris, if anything happens - "

"You'll have my butt in a sling, I know." He grins at me a bit nervously. "Is it okay if I take your daughter out?"

I sigh in the final, doomed resignation that every father must experience, but nod, finally, reluctantly. "Alright, Chris. See you both a 11. At the latest."

Cara grins and stands on tip-toes to kiss me on the cheek. "Thanks, Dad. I knew you'd cave eventually."

I glare at her, but kiss her on the cheek as well. I contemplate slapping Chris on the shoulder, but I don't know if we're quite there yet. "Watch it."

When they're gone, I wander into the living room and collapse into my favourite chair. Marcus grins at me. "Does this mean I get to go out with girls now?"

"Shut up, Marcus."

"A case for you Phil," the student-teacher tells me.

I look up from the papers I was grading over lunch at him. He has the decency to be grinning apologetically. "Alright, send whoever it is in."

The student-teacher steps out of the way to reveal -

"Hey, Mr. D."

"Hi Dad."

Chris Peterson. And my daughter.

Covered alarmingly in food.

Cara is soaked with what would appear to be milk and has bits of macaroni and cheese plastered all over her uniform. Chris appears to have escaped the worst of it, merely wearing what once appeared to be gravy and the small remains of the mac and cheese.

I gaze at the pair with a critical glint in my eye, but - though I hate to admit it - I'm refraining from collapsing into hopeless laughter. "I assume there's a good explanation for this."

Chris points at Cara. "She was trying to break my food-on-the-roof record."

"But bozo here didn't tell me to throw it on an angle," Cara mutters.

"So we were right under it when it all collapsed," Chris finished.

"It was his fault, really, Dad," Cara insists.

"It was what?" Chris yells in indignation. "Who's idea was it? Who tried to talk you out of it!"

"You should have tried harder!"

"Alright!" I interrupt them, and they both snap back to look at me instead of each other.

And being watched intently by two gazes framed in the remnants of lunch, I finally lose my battle with giggles and collapse into utter hysterics on my desk.

After laughing to the point where I almost wet myself, I finally claw my way back up to face my daughter and her boyfriend again. "Go and clean up. Detention tomorrow lunchtime." They both sigh in identical indignation, before turning to walk out of the office, but there's something I have to know. "Hey, you two," I call, and they turn back to face me. "Did she break the record?"

Chris sighs. "By two cartons of milk."

That's my girl.

that was different. Chris is a character who's going to have a few run-ins with Phil in upcoming stories, so I hope you all like him. please review.