This is a one-shot of Joan and Grace alternately reflecting on their friendship. Joan's thoughts are in normal text, Grace's in italics.
I don't own Joan of Arcadia or the characters ...I wish that I did and could keep them on the air!
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You aren't sure why she chose you. You feel sometimes like the utter antithesis of everything she stands for, the epitome of everything she's against. And yet, she seems to find you worth keeping around.
You aren't sure why she chose you. No, that's not true. She chooses everything sooner or later, tries everything she thinks of. But most of it, she drops after losing interest startlingly fast. You aren't sure … why she kept you once she chose you.
You're glad she did, though. For all that she's so harsh sometimes, she adds a spark to your day. Her biting wit makes you laugh and you admire her defiant outspokenness, her willingness to be herself at any cost.
You're glad she did, though. For all that she can be shallow and sentimental, she balances it with loyalty, fervor and love. She helps you grow, forces you to consider other points of view. She brushes herself off from disaster, failure, defeat only to throw herself again wholeheartedly into some new project ... and you grudgingly admit that you admire her for it.
And sometimes, once in a very long while, that hard shell opens up and you get a glimpse of softness underneath. You'll be crying, uncertain, lost, and she'll put a hand on your arm, wrap an arm around your shoulders. And there in those awkward uncertain hugs is an ocean of comfort straining against a dam built by years of lonely reclusion.
And sometimes, once in a very long while, she'll say or do something so profound and RIGHT that it hits you right here, right in the depths of your soul. And when it happens, you melt a little. You let down a few more of your defenses. You finally let yourself open to new possibilities you hadn't ever dreamed of.
And you find yourself wondering how it is that you could be so lucky to have this friendship that sustains and blesses you, keeping you grounded in a life that so often turns topsy-turvy as you follow the mission you chose to accept.
And you find yourself wondering how it is that you could be so lucky to have such a friendship … and whether your father is correct when he says that such beautiful things come about only by the Grace of God.