That Was When He Saw Her Chapter 24, a 7th heaven fanfic

Becca turned left at the stoplight and continued down the road after she picked Wilson up from school. Wilson didn't even realize she was going the wrong way until five streets over.

"Um, where are we? Or, better yet, where are we going?"

"Report cards came out yesterday. I'm going home to get mine and then we're going home, OK?"

"Oh. Do you know what you got in your classes?"

She shook her head. "They refuse to tell us." She paused. "Do they tell you guys?"

"Some teachers do, others don't. It's all a matter of personal preference."

"I see. When does your report card come out?"

"Uh…" He thought for a second. "Today I think. I'm not sure though. We'll see."

Becca pulled up into her driveway. There were no cars there, and no cars in the garage, so she safely assumed no one was home. Apparently, they went back to working twenty four hours a day as soon as she moved out. Becca took her key to the house out of her purse and went inside. She walked over to the table in the foyer and sitting on top was her report card- unopened.

"How nice of them to care enough to look," she said to herself as she picked it up and left the house. She got back into the car and tossed the envelope to Wilson. "You open it. I don't want to know."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. But I'm just warning you, it's going to be bad."

Wilson opened it and scanned her grades. Becca wanted to sneak a peek at his face, but didn't want to take her eyes off the road on a rainy day. A few moments later, the tone in his voice let her know just how bad it was.

"Should- should I read it to you?"

"Sure, why not?"

"OK. English: C-, Geometry: B-, Biology: C, Gym: C-, French: D, History: B, Sewing: B."

"Eesh." She made a face of disgust.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Is this what you usually get, or is this worse?"

"A little worse, but in the general range."

They pulled into his driveway and got out of the car. Becca went and sat down on the couch, where she would be confined for the next few hours. Wilson sat next to her.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are these your grades?"

"What do you mean 'why?'" She wasn't following. "I'm a terrible student."

"But you're really smart, just as smart as anyone I know. You could do better than this."

"No I can't." She sighed. "You don't get it. I told you before we got married. I'm a bad person. Bad people do badly in school. That's how life works."

"You are not a bad person Becca."

"Fine, then it was because of everything that has happened. I've been distracted."

Wilson could not have been more frustrated with her attitude. He got up and walked away from her, out of the house, and out to the mailbox down at the end of his driveway. He pulled out the mail that came today and jogged back into the house so as to not get wet. Wilson set down everything on the kitchen table that he did not need and went back to the living room with the one thing he was looking for. He tore it open and pulled out the contents.

"Algebra I: A, English: B, General Chemistry: B, Photography: A, Gym: A, History: B, Spanish: B-."

She stared at him incredulously. "What are you doing, trying to rub it in?"

"No. I had a lot going on, just as much as you, give or take a little. I still made good grades. You could have done it if you worked at it. You have the mental capacity."

"I disagree with you there."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Why do you ask so many questions?" she countered.

"Never mind," he mumbled and walked away. "I'm going for my run."

"It's raining out."

"So what? I need to clear my head."

Dr. Zapata was just finishing typing something up when Wilson walked into his office. Once he finished the paragraph he was working on, he stopped and turned to face the fifteen year old boy.

"Wilson, I've been meaning to congratulate you."

"On?"

"On your grades. You did quite well, especially considering that you had a lot on your plate this term."

"So you agree with me then? Good. I knew I wasn't wrong."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh," Wilson smiled, "sorry. Becca got her grades yesterday and she did horribly. I mean, she passed everything, but with one D, three C's, and three B's."

"Well, some people take school less seriously than others."

"I agree with you, but that wasn't what she said. She told me that she was a bad person, and that was the grades that bad people get, which made no sense at all, and I told her that. So then she said she was too distracted. I told her my grades and said that if I could do it, she could have at least done better."

Dr. Zapata chuckled. "Oh. So you think she was foolish in blowing off school?"

"Sort of. I mean, I truly think she could have done a lot better. She's really smart. If she applied herself, even if it was just in one class, she could have brought her grade up."

"Street smarts doesn't always equate to book smarts."

"I know that." Wilson sighed. "It's just frustrating to see her waste her brain away."

"I'm sure she's not wasting it away, just using it differently."

"I guess."

Dr. Zapata tried to approach the topic from a different angle. "Why do you want Becca to do better in school?"

Wilson thought for a second. "Because I think she is wonderful, and I want other people to be able to see that. Her grades don't reflect how amazing she is."

Wilson started spacing out in his history class. While Mr. Madigan droned on and on about the civil war and how it was not really fought over slavery, all Wilson could do was contemplate Becca. She was a strange creature to say the least, and Wilson was just beginning to scratch the surface of the inner workings of Becca Tanny. Since they had gotten married, his life had been one giant roller coaster. He needed some time to reflect.

He couldn't get off of the fact that she thought she was a bad person since she had said it to him yesterday. What did she mean by that? What exactly was a bad person? Someone who didn't do the right thing, who didn't do what they were supposed to, who was mean and cruel. Becca was none of those things. The only thing she was guilty of was loving life a little too much, and taking herself a little less than serious. If she had never said to him that she thought that she herself was a bad person, then he never would have even thought that about her. It would have never entered his mind in fifty thousand years.

Where could that thought have come from? Did someone tell her that she was a bad person, or was that one of her own manifestations? He had so many questions that he could never ask her for fear of starting a fight bigger than all the ones they had had already rolled into one. Becca was a little volatile the past few days. The only thing that made any sense to him was that it was a self-esteem issue- it had to be. Becca obviously didn't think very highly of herself if she was constantly putting herself down. Then Wilson started to ponder self-esteem. Was it something that others imposed on you, or was it completely self-driven as the word suggests? Could he make her feel better about herself? What would she need to do to get over whatever or whoever had scorned her?

Wilson hoped that he wasn't contributing to the problem himself; she was his to protect, not hurt. He could see how she might feel he was perfect or showing off, in turn making her feel insecure. Wilson knew, however, that he was far from being perfect. Besides his multiple sexual transgressions with Becca, he drank, he partied, he talked about crude things with his friends, he objectified women, he stayed out all night more than once - he'd done a lot of things that, looking back, he wasn't too proud of. Most of it was before he had even entered high school. He was certainly not a role model for anyone.

The only thing he was doing was the best that he possibly could for himself. If the choice didn't serve him or his wife, he wasn't going to make it. He'd turned his life around and cleaned it up in these past few months. She was his main focus for now, until their child arrived. The baby was coming quicker than anyone liked to admit, and that meant that he was going to be responsible for a whole other life besides his own. In four months, he would be thinking about his son or daughter instead of himself. What a shock that was going to be.

Another thing he had realized was that he and Becca were very self-involved. Their problems were the end and be all of the world, and if it wasn't happening directly to them then they simply didn't care. At first he thought that that was because they had a lot going on, which made them selfish, but now he was not so sure that was the case. They were selfish when they had unprotected sex and they were selfish when it came to everything else in their lives. He was just now only learning what it was like to put someone else before himself. He only could pray that they were able to change things before the baby came.

A baby. He and Becca were really going to have a baby. They would be parents in a matter of months. He was so scared but, at the same time, terribly excited. He had been waiting and waiting for the baby to come along for a while now. He couldn't wait to hold it and know what it was like to have that kind of love in responsibility. Becca was already starting to show, and he loved her slightly rounded stomach. Wilson smiled when he thought about it.

The smile lingered on his lips for a few minutes until he came to his astute conclusion not to tell Becca any of his musings, at least not yet. If he could find the answers to his questions without coming right out and asking her, then great, but otherwise he wasn't getting into it. It was all much more complex than he thought their relationship could handle.

A/N: Now, if you read this straight through or have a good memory, you'd know that I say at the beginning of the story that Wilson isn't doing that great in school. Decent – not as bad as Becca – but not amazing. Now he's like some super genius or something. I would have fixed it, but that would have required too much editing and, for a piece like this, I would much rather have the continuity error than edit it out of the time allotted to write.

Oh, and the whole ending was just to boost my word count, and it shows. There's no point to any of it. The whole self-esteem issue was not something I ever wanted to delve into. It's not mentioned again after this.

Are your grades like Becca's? Review.