Nobody's Fool, a joan of arcadia fanfic

Disclaimer: I don't own Joan Of Arcadia or the Avril Lavigne song 'Nobody's Fool'. I'm making absolutely no money out of this.

Hey dudes. For anybody who's still following anything else I've started, I'll get around to updating ASAP. My inspiration comes from weird places though, and today this fic just wouldn't leave my brain alone. So here it is. I think it is a one shot but I'm not sure. Please review and let me know what you think and if it's finished or not.

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It's a random song. Technically it doesn't relate to you at all. Nothing about it appealed to you the first time you heard it, but that's part of what you love about it. It's not the music or the words that have this power over you, it's the times in the past that it played.

Step up - step up (step up)
Step up - step up (step up)
Step up - step up
Step up

Fall back, take a look at me and you'll see
I'm for real, I feel what only I can feel
And if that don't appeal to you, let me know
And I'll go, cause I flow better when my colours show

You still remember the first time you heard it. You were eleven years old, sprawled on the sofa on a lazy summer day, the rest of the house ghostly empty. The next day you told Becky about this song you heard on MTV. She requests that you sing a few lines so you do, groggily attempting to remember the lyrics as she laughs at your lack of musical ability.

And that's the way it has to be, honestly
Cause creativity, could never bloom in my room
I'd throw it all away before I'd lie,
so don't call me with the compromise
Hang up the phone,
I got a back bone stronger than yours

You went round to your best friend's house a week later, and the song made its second appearance in your life. 'This is it!' You scream excitedly. 'This is the song I told you about!'

'No it isn't,' She replies, beginning to sing along herself.

'It is! It is!'

'Really? Must just be your crap voice then. I didn't even recognise it.' Even now the memory of the venom in her voice leaves you a little deflated. It pains you to remember how Becky Coogan could build up all your hopes and then tear them down in just a few short words. She took the best of you and yet you needed her more than anything.

If you're trying to turn me, into someone else
It's easy to see, I'm not down with that
(I'm not nobody's fool) I'm not nobody's fool
If you're trying to turn me, into something else
I've seen it enough, and I'm over that
(I'm not nobody's fool) I'm not nobody's fool
If you wanna bring me down
Go ahead and try - go ahead and try

You bought the album together. The other songs eased their way into your life, but this one remained in the little crevice of your heart that belonged to Becky. Becky had her bad points. She tried to change you. She was vindictive and tactless. And yet you loved her, she loved you.

Don't know, you think you know me like yourself
But I fear, that you're only telling me
What I wanna hear, but do you give a damn
Understand, that I can't, not be what I am
I'm not the milk, and Cheerios in your spoon
It's not a simple, here we go not so soon
I might have fallen for that, when I was 14, and a little more green
But it's amazing, what a couple of years can mean

You remember the late night phone calls, the days out. You remember the closeness you had never experienced before. You remember cuddling up in bed together at sleepovers so innocently and thinking that you would never feel so safe ever again. Now part of you knows you thought right. The song was playing in the background. It was your song.

You remember the morning that it all went wrong. You remember your drunken mother, lifeless on the cold wooden floor. You tried to steer Becky away, tried to avert her eyes to just about anywhere else. It was too late. You remember the look of sheer disgust on her face and most of all you remember that the time you most needed that closeness you shared, all you got was the slam of your front door and the sound of sneakers thudding across your drive. You remember how much you hated yourself that morning.

Go ahead and try
Try to look me in the eye
But you'll never see inside
Until you realise, realise, realise…

You remember the slow and painful process of moving on. You'd had friends when Becky was around. Once things between you and her changed, that changed too. The late night conversations and sleepovers stopped. She blanked you in the halls. You became the loner freak. It got easier when you started at Arcadia High because she wasn't there but still she left you battered and broken, more than your mothers drinking ever did. You bottled your pain up inside, so much of it that it contorted you into a person you no longer recognised. Your new friends helped but that little jagged corner of your heart never quite smoothed over.

Thing are trying to settle down
Just trying to figure out
Exactly what I'm about
If it's with or without you
I don't need you doubtin' me

Last year you got a prank caller; every Sunday at six. The person on the other end of the phone never picked up. Eventually you called in a favour with a friend who worked for your service provided and got the number. You recognised it instantly, Becky's. Maybe you should have been angry but it was the most comforting thing you could have heard. It meant you were still on her mind. You'd rather die than tell anyone what that song still floats through your head every day, rather die than tell anyone that you still let the words sing you to sleep most nights. And you'd rather die than tell anyone that every Sunday evening you sit by the phone waiting for it to ring. You'd rather die than tell anyone that when it does you always pick up, just to hear the shallow breathing of the only person who ever made you feel safe, just to remember a time when you still laughed and sung and wore pink. She never speaks.

You think that maybe the song isn't as irrelevant as it used to be. You think maybe it fits you perfectly.

Go ahead and try…

Tonight is a Sunday. You pick up the phone at six and settle down for half an hour of comfort when the silence is pierced with the voice you often hear in your dreams.

'Grace?'

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