A/N: This installment is centered around Auggie's relationship with his daughter, Nora. It takes place a few years after "Make Me Proud". I would like to thank everyone who reviewed the last one-shot. For some reason, I'm having trouble responding to them. Every time I click on the "reply" link, my internet crashes. On the matter of thanks, fyd818 gets an extremely big one for her wonderful generosity, and as such, this is dedicated to her. Those of you who catch what she donated, congrats. I'm sure she'll be as pleased as a lottery-winner.

Normality Is Relative

"Honey! Kids, I'm home!" I call, dropping my cane and house keys in the dish on the table by the front door. The dog, Havoc, nearly runs me over in her attempt to greet me, instead skidding to a shaky halt on my feet. He gets heavier and heavier every time he does that. Sometimes it's hard to believe he is a retired FBI bomb-sniffer.

"Daddy! Save us!"

I give Havoc another pat on his flabby (he's gained a lot of weight since we got him, a side-effect of being retired and no one, even me, being immune to his pathetic begging) side and stand up straight. I drag the tips of my fingers along the wall to the kitchen. "What's going on?"

"Manual labor!" Jake, my youngest by two minutes practically shouts.

"What did you two do this time?" I ask, walking to the table where I heard my beautiful wife say hello. I almost run into her chair, but cover my blunder with a well-aimed kiss to the top of her head. God I love her shampoo.

"Allegedly!" Benji interjects.

"Of course." I don't believe a word of it. "Allegedly" was their first word after "food".

"Hey Dad," Tom says as I sit down next to him and his mother tells the twins they have to cut the tomatoes before they can be free.

"Tommy. Didn't hear you there. What're you doing?"

"Math homework."

"Need any help?"

"It's easy."

I hear Havoc's nails click against the hardwood floors, and he collapses next to Annie's chair with a tired thump, his burst of energy gone. Pathetic old thing. "Where's your sister?"

"Her room."

"Why?"

"She won't tell us," Annie interrupts. "You have to go talk to her."

I turn my head a little to face my wife. "Why?" I ask again.

My stunning soul mate is probably sending me a just-do-it glare, but of course, I don't catch it. Not that it matters. The swift, more than tap, to my shin sends the message loud and clear.

~OOOO~

The heavy tones of Bob Dylan greet me halfway up the stairs. Great. Nora only goes for the old music when she's really down.

I knock softly on the first door to the left of the stairs. "Nora? May I come in?" The music blares on.

I wait a few more seconds, listening to Bob Dylan's voice and steeling myself. I push open the door. "Nor?"

Nora shuffles on her bed. At least, I think she does, the music is blocking a lot. I address the room. "Computer. Decrease volume seventy-five percent." The music instantly shifts to the background.

"I was listening to that." Nora's annoyance is only show. Not good.

I walk carefully into her room. The kids are usually pretty good about keeping stuff off the floor, but they have been known to slip up sometimes and send Daddy sprawling. I gesture for her to move over, which she does resignedly. I sit down.

"Now, you want to talk?"

"No."

I smile a bit and lean back against the headboard, stretching my feet out on the bed. "Okay, but your mother told me to talk to you, so I'm just going to sit here for a while. If she asks, we had a good chat." I close my eyes. One. Two. Three –

"She kept me after class."

I don't have time to congratulate my timing as Nora's words sink in. "Who did? What happened?" I keep my voice sympathetic and caring, even while I'm plotting revenge for my daughter.

"Senora Rodriguez. She kept saying 'Miramos el libro,' so I corrected her."

"And she didn't like it?" Truth be told, I don't think there is anything wrong with saying 'we look at the book', but now's not the time to be the enemy.

"First she didn't say anything, just kind of stared at me with this pissed look in her eyes, then she ordered me to stay after the bell. I missed most of lunch!"

I have to ask, even though I know the fallout's not going to be pretty. "Which language did you correct her in?"

Nora pushes herself up from the bed to look at me. "Spanish, of course." She stands up, frustration mounting. "I thought she'd appreciate it. None of the other kids could listen in. She called me a showoff, Daddy. Me!"

I make sure there's no hint of the smile I feel wanting to tug at my lips on my face. Nora's not really a showoff, but she's definitely a performer. There have been a couple of times when Annie or I have caught her speaking multi-lingual sentences to the mirrors, but we decided a long time ago not to interfere. It looks like it's time to amend that decision. "What exactly did she say?"

"I don't know." Is that a sniff I just heard? I hope she's not crying. I'm not ready for crying.

"You don't know, or you don't want to remember?" I ask gently. I hold my arms out, silently asking if she wants a hug. I don't actually expect her to come to me, she hasn't since she was little, but all at once, I feel her fall back onto the bed and snuggle into my arms.

"Both, I think," she mumbles into my shirt, her voice thick both from the fabric and the repressed tears. I fold my arms around her. "I just don't get it."

"I know." What I don't know is whether I should explain it or just let her get it out. I go with the former, my reasoning being that if I don't, I might have to go through this conversation again, next time with tears. "She thought you were making her look bad in front of her students."

"But I—"

I interrupt her before she can complete her sentence. "That's why you said it in Spanish, I know, but some people are more sensitive than others. You remember when I told you about my first couple of weeks in the tech department?" I feel Nora push farther into my chest as she nods. "Some of the other techies thought I was showing them up. I was a field agent coming in cold from the action, newly blinded, and still managing to beat their best decryption times. I can't tell you how much grief everyone gave me before I proved I could be a team player."

"So you're saying I should play stupid? That I should let Senora Rodriguez use the wrong words?" Nora's temper is flaring again. She resembles Annie so much. Always up and down emotionally. Thank God the boys are more stable.

"No," I reply slowly. "What I'm saying is Senora Rodriguez might, on some level, see you as a sort of threat." Annie and I were afraid this might happen. If the school board hadn't been so stubborn, we could have gotten Nora out of the required language course, but they absolutely refused to let Nora test out or take classes at the local university instead.

"How could I be a threat to her? I'm not the one giving out the grades!"

"Yes, but you are the twelve-year-old who speaks her language, and more, fluently. It doesn't make much sense, I know, but it's true."

"She's afraid of me?" Nora is trying to wrap her rather naïve mind around this new information.

"That's one way of putting it," I reply. We sit in silence for a long couple of minutes, listening to the dulcet tones of Bob Dylan, before I break it. "Next time, phrase it as a question. Preferably in English."

"Like how?"

"Well," I have to think about this for a moment. I haven't had to sugar coat corrections since grad school. "Say something like—"

"How could Alexander the Great beat Genghis Khan?" Jake effectively interrupts my example.

"Are you kidding? His army would whoop the Mongols' butts!" Benji rebuts, a step behind his twin.

Nora groans and tunnels her head back into my shirt as her brothers thunder passed her door, still arguing. "Why can't my family be normal?"

I laugh, while in the inside I'm groaning. Everything's becoming clearer now. Nora's early. The parenting books Annie and I read said this wouldn't happen for another year. Then again, our kids were always above the bell-curve. "What do you mean?"

Nora raises her head a bit to look at me. I'd bet good money she's giving me a don't-screw-with-me look. "They're arguing about the superiority of ancient military commanders. They're nine, Dad."

"They don't know what their saying. They're just copying what Chloe told them last time she babysat." At the same time, I hear: "That is so shallow. Genghis Khan made sure his empire would remain strong and kept it simple. It beats Alexander's take-take-take attitude completely," echo down the hall from the twins' room. I hope Nora didn't pick it up.

"And Tom? How do you explain that?"

"What?" I play dumb.

"He's downstairs doing trig. I'm a grade behind him and two years older and I'm only just starting pre-algebra!" Nora sits up to look at me fully.

I am ready for this one. "Hey, when I was his age, I was doing advanced math too. Are you calling me strange?"

"We're all strange, don't you get it? The whole family is weird! Why can't we just be a normal, suburban family?" Nora is almost desperate; her voice is climbing. I wrap my arms tighter around her, pulling her back against my chest.

I try a joke. "Trust me, Nor, suburbanites are not normal. Your mother and I once went undercover in suburbia, and, well, you've heard the stories."

Nora's not buying it. She wriggles in my grip. "Fine. I just want us to be normal."

"Like my brothers? Do you want the boys to roughhouse, be obsessed with sports? Do you want me to work a nine to five job, carry a briefcase? Come home after school to see Mommy wearing an apron and gossiping about the neighbors?" I grin at my baby girl, who's perhaps not so much a baby anymore. "Come on, love."

"Okay," Nora mumbles. "Maybe not the apron. Or the sports." I have to stifle another smile. While the family isn't exactly interested in football, Annie and I have made it a priority to keep the kids active. Only Nora really hates the gym. "But I wish my teacher wasn't intimidated by me."

I shrug and Nora's head bumps against me. "Think of it this way: you are lucky."

"How so?" Nora doesn't believe me. I struggle to find the right words.

"Well, when I was growing up, I was the only one of my brothers who had a plan. I knew I was going into computers. I wasn't sure how, but I knew what I wanted. Uncle Gary didn't. He hadn't found his talent, his niche, in life. It took him thirty-seven years to realize he loves to paint. What do you love?"

Nora's reply is quick. "Languages. Communicating."

My smile is softer and I almost whisper in her ear. "You know exactly what you want to do, don't you?" I feel her nod. "You won't have to waste your life looking for the thing that makes you want to live. You won't have to wake up one morning and realize you wish you hadn't spent that extra year in college looking for a major."

I reach for her chin and force her to look at me. "Now tell me you aren't glad you don't have to watch your brothers waste their lives doing things they hate like I had to with Gary."

Nora stares at me for a moment, and then pulls out of my grasp to look away. I let her. "I guess I am."

"So do you think it's worth a teacher thinking you're a showoff because you're doing what you love?" I continue, driving my point home.

"Maybe," she whispers.

"Trust me, it is." We're both silent again. After a while, I kiss the top of her head and stand up. I offer my arm. "Now let's go see if your mother needs us to help with the dinner."

"The twins were supposed to do that."

I raise an eyebrow at my daughter. "Come on, I'm sure you don't want to miss her rant in Russian about her newest batch of students."

Nora jumps off her bed with more energy than I would have expected considering her mood only moments before. Not that I'm surprised, though. My girl never wastes an opportunity to pick up curses in other languages.

I put my other hand over hers in the classic gentleman-escort position. We just reach the bottom of the stairs when Annie begins her colorful rant, having run into an innocent Havoc after rushing (unsuccessfully) to stop the pot of rice from boiling over.

I push Nora gently toward the stove in a silent command to get her to help save supper.

"How's the math?" I ask Tom, coming up behind him while Nora gets a sponge.

"Finished," he replies.

I smile and hand him the silverware I just got out of the drawer. Tom grumbles a bit before starting to set the table.

My smile softens as I listen to my family: my wife and daughter trying to resurrect the burned chicken while speaking in rapid-fire German; my eldest son clanking silverware and asking me for clarification on game theory; my twins thumping around above me, simulating what sounds like a medieval battle in the upstairs hallway; and, if I interpret Havoc's tail whacking my foot correctly, my dog waiting for the girls to give up on the chicken.

Nora's right, our family is strange. And I couldn't ask for anything better.

A/N: Next up is the twin-centered. I am also contemplating writing one for Havoc, but I haven't really thought of how to phrase it. As always, reviews are more than welcome.