TITLE: Scenes from an Unplanned Life
SPOILERS: Anything from the series is fair game here.
DISCLAIMER: I neither own nor claim to own anything relating to the show Drake & Josh. The powers that be from Nickelodeon and Schneider's Bakery own all. I am not making a profit except for the satisfaction of being able to play with words for a little while.
A/N: I wanted to taunt you with one more chapter before the Grand Finale. Ha ha. By the way...Megan speaks!
Chapter 10: Moments in Time
POV: Various
"There," Drake said with satisfaction, stepping back and surveying his handiwork. He grinned. "Perfect."
Jack stared up at him, wrinkling his nose uncomfortably. "It feels funny," he announced, lifting his left hand to touch his cheek with the tip of his index finger.
"Don't touch it," Drake said, grasping Jack's wrist and pulling his hand away. "It'll smear."
"But it itches," Jack protested, wrinkling his nose again.
"It won't when it dries," Drake explained. "So hands off until then."
Jack pursed his lips. "Can I at least look now?"
Drake grinned. "Sure. But be prepared to be terrified. Muahahahah."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He turned and walked into the bathroom, Drake following behind.
The boy climbed onto the step he used to brush his teeth and studied his reflection closely, turning his head from side to side. A wide grin spread slowly across his face, a slash of white among the black paint. "Cool."
Drake felt his own smile widen. "Scary, huh?"
Jack nodded, making eye contact with his dad in the mirror. "I'll be the scariest kid in class!" he exclaimed excitedly.
"I thought you already were," Drake quipped, smirking.
Jack made a face, causing Drake to laugh. "We're still gonna go trick or treating tonight, right?" the boy asked hopefully.
"I wouldn't miss it," Drake assured him.
Jack turned on the step, facing his dad. "You're gonna paint your face, too, aren't you?"
"Of course." Drake answered, raising his eyebrows. "We'll be the coolest zombie rock stars in the history of Halloween."
"Yeah we will!" Jack said, grinning, then looking quizzically at his dad's odd expression. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," Drake said, shaking off the odd feeling of déjà vu that had just come over him at the familiar expression. How many times had he or Josh said those same words? He focused back on the boy in front of him. "I'm sorry I forgot to get the stuff to do your hair. I'll get it today."
Jack shrugged. "That's okay. But don't forget, I want orange."
"Sure thing, bud." He tousled Jack's hair. "Orange it is."
Later that night, two sets of shoeless feet rested side by side on the coffee table, which was pulled up very close to the couch to accommodate the short legs of one very wired zombie rock star. Two pillow cases bulging with candy – one to Drake's right and one to Jack's left – rested on the couch. They had gone to the mall to trick or treat, then had taken a quick round around their building before heading home with their spoils.
Drake looked at his son, who stared back at him expectantly. The makeup was starting to smudge in places, but the dark brown spikes with the orange tips – Drake had given himself blue tips – were still going strong. It was going to take a few rounds of "lather, rinse, repeat" before it all washed out. Strategically ripped jeans and tight black t-shirts completed their ensembles.
Pulling his bag closer, he slid his hand inside, nodding at Jack to do the same. He raised his eyebrows. "Ready?"
Jack nodded, his hand poised inside the bag. "Ready."
"On three," Drake instructed. "One…two…" They looked at each other, grinning.
"Three!" Jack exclaimed and dug his hand into the middle of the bag, finally closing his fingers around a piece, holding it there.
"Got one?" Drake asked, grasping a piece of his own.
"Yup."
"Okay, now let's see it!" Drake said, pulling out his hand and holding it out palm up, revealing his piece of candy to Jack – a bite-sized Snickers.
Jack did the same thing – a miniature Reese's peanut butter cup.
The two Parker men eyed each other. Drake raised one eyebrow. "Keep or trade?" he asked.
"Hmmm," Jack said, tapping the tip of his right index finger against his lips in deliberation, his gray eyes sparkling. "I think I'm gonna keep this one," he finally said, grinning mischievously. He knew how much his dad liked peanut butter cups.
Drake narrowed his eyes. "You're an evil, evil child." Then he winked. "I have taught you well, my son."
"Thank you," Jack said, deepening his voice as much as he could. "Thank you very much."
"But you just wait until I have Skittles and it's my turn to keep or trade," Drake added.
"I don't need your stinking Skittles," Jack said with what Drake figured was supposed to be a Spanish accent.
Drake laughed until his sides ached.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Audrey was putting all of her energy into the stain removal process - she had applied the gel, had let it set, then had soaked it. But the damn spot still wouldn't come out. It sat there, clear as day against Walter's white shirt, taunting her. She had nearly scrubbed a hole in the fabric with a toothbrush; she wasn't going to let it defeat her. But when the drop of water fell from the tip of her nose onto her hand as she bent over the shirt, she stopped. She was doing it again – trying to forget. Ignoring the pain that festered inside her.
She busied herself with the little things these days – like doing the laundry, dusting the knick knacks, rearranging the furniture, buying the groceries. But no matter how many little things she did, it was never enough to ward off the guilt that ate at her.
He had been gone for two weeks and the expectation that the next phone call would be from him had not dissipated. She still expected him to walk through the front door at any time, wearing his patented sheepish grin and dropping his backpack on the floor in the foyer before rummaging through the refrigerator like nothing had happened.
She promised herself that if he would just call, if he would just come home, she would… well, a lot of things. She would stop being so pushy. She would stop trying to run his life. She would eat healthier and exercise more and stop using the "F" word, even though no one ever heard her use it.
She would promise anything if it meant that her son would come home.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Walter shuffled down to the kitchen in the middle of the night, his rumbling stomach drawing him to the refrigerator. He hadn't slept well – he and Audrey's late night argument with Drake kept playing over and over again inside his head. It was a recurring theme lately, especially since the boys graduated from high school. Drake wanted independence on his own terms, they wanted him to earn it.
It was getting rather tiresome, he thought. Drake was a good kid. Sure, he was impetuous. But he had a good head on his shoulders despite it all. Walter had tried to talk to Audrey, had even suggested to her that maybe they should let him go to Europe or something – anything to tame his wild streak. Maybe if he could experience the world a little, he wouldn't be so antsy. Maybe he'd settle down, start to see life as they both knew it to be – not as easy as it looked.
But his wife had resisted. All she could see when she looked at Drake was her child, a person she had carried inside of her and then nurtured for eighteen years. What she couldn't see, didn't want to see was that the boy she still referred to as her baby – much to his dismay – was no longer a boy. But he wasn't quite an adult either. He was at that awkward stage where he ached to be grown up, but didn't quite know how to go about it.
In the end, Walter had come around to Audrey's point of view. They wanted to present a united front to Drake, after all; it wouldn't do any good for him and Audrey to have different ideas about their son's life. Teenagers, especially those as savvy at manipulating people as Drake was, can sense weakness like a lion on the hunt. That was when the battle had begun in earnest, culminating in the argument of the night before that still bothered him.
He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of cold spaghetti – leftovers from dinner. Grabbing a fork from the strainer in the sink, he sat down with his snack, setting the bowl on the table and peeling off the lid. He sat in the almost-dark, the security light by the back door casting the room in an eerie glow. He wrapped his mouth around a forkful of spaghetti and was chewing thoughtfully, thinking that he would try once again to talk to Audrey about Drake. The war of attrition they were fighting wasn't working.
A soft buzzing sound startled Walter out of his reverie and he nearly choked on his mouthful of spaghetti. A blue glow emanated from the other side of the table – a cell phone was vibrating against the wood, the vibration causing it to move along the tabletop. Walter reached for it – it was Drake's and there was a message on the screen alerting him that he had a new text message. Knowing he shouldn't but doing it anyway, Walter pressed the button to read the message: "thinking of u. cant wait 2 c u. xoxo" The sender was someone named Staci with an "i".
Walter rolled his eyes, chuckling softly. Drake had had so many girlfriends, Walter couldn't keep track of them all and had therefore stopped trying. He remembered one particularly disastrous conversation he had had with his stepson regarding what Walter had euphemistically called "the dance of love." He wasn't sure why he had thought that was a good idea, but he had decided that maybe Drake needed a refresher course after Walter had caught the boy with his hand up the shirt and his tongue down the throat of a pretty brunette in the backseat of the family SUV.
Drake had simply said, "It's called sex, Walter. It's okay, you can say it," his eyes twinkling in amusement. He wasn't embarrassed at all, but Walter had been so mortified he simply gave up and fled from the room.
Feeling guilty for invading Drake's privacy, he exited out of the message box and set the phone back down on the table, noticing a set of keys on the table, too. Taking a couple more bites of spaghetti, he stood up, secured the lid back on the bowl, put the bowl back in the refrigerator, and dropped the fork in the sink.
Yes, he decided. He would try to talk to Audrey again. They just couldn't go on the way things were. Something had to give or Walter was afraid Drake may actually follow through with his threat of leaving.
"Don't be surprised if you wake up one morning to find me gone."
Neither he nor Audrey wanted it to get that far.
What he didn't realize as he made his way back upstairs was that it already had.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"Fuck him," she said resolutely to her reflection. The sound of the word being spoken in her own voice never failed to send a frisson of forbidden excitement down her spine.
Megan stood in the bathroom, contemplating how long it would take this time before the redness in her eyes went away. She didn't want them to know; she wasn't supposed to care, right?
She always said she'd be happier without him, always seemed to find joy in his misery. She did her best to convince everyone that she was endlessly irritated with his very existence. But there were times when she would let the façade slip – like the time she got what she later considered to be too excited in front of her fellow Campfire Kids when she thought Drake was going to be on the radio. Or the time she kissed her brothers on the cheek and actually told them she loved them (oh my god!) after they showed her the truth about Cory.
It had been almost a month – 26 days, to be exact – since Drake had left without even saying goodbye. That had hurt more than she wanted to admit, but she refused to show it. Besides, her mom had shed enough tears to fuel the next Great Flood.
She had always been a private person. She had always kept her admiration of her brother a secret, never letting him know just how proud she was of him. She had always basked in the glow of his success even while covering it with sarcasm. She had always meant to tell him that she was proud of him – someday.
But someday had never come and now it was too late.
Maybe if she hadn't tormented him so much. Maybe if she hadn't made it her life's goal to prove to him just how much she didn't care. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Megan Parker didn't show weakness. Being strong and putting up a brave front was just something she had done ever since her parents had gotten divorced and her dad hadn't come back. But even she had a limit, a breaking point. In the end, it was the silence that broke her – the not talking, the not laughing, the not hearing Drake's guitar drifting down the hallway.
So she cried. Almost every day now, although she hated herself for it. It used to be spontaneous, but she had learned to control it, usually waiting until she was in the shower with the water running before letting it happen. But she hadn't yet been able to prevent her eyes from getting red and so she had been forced to add an extra fifteen minutes to her morning ritual to give them time to recover. When she left the bathroom, there couldn't be a single visible scar.
"Fuck him," she said again, tossing back her hair, her voice more confident. It was something new she was trying – feigned disinterest. Eye drops weren't working, so maybe she could will the redness away. Maybe she could fool herself into thinking that his sudden absence from her life hadn't torn a hole in her heart. If she could, then maybe she wouldn't cry at all.
Maybe.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
It was supposed to have been fun, the best day of his life to that point. Only it wasn't. He stood in his new dorm room, trying to decide which side he wanted – his roommate, whom he hadn't met yet, hadn't arrived and so he had first pick.
Drake would've had it figured out in a second – which side had the better view of the open field out back where girls would no doubt sun themselves in bikinis; which side was closest to the refrigerator; which bed was more comfortable. For him, it would've been a cinch. But for Josh, every decision these days was agonizingly difficult.
Take, for example, the decision regarding which things to take with him to college. It had taken him a week of packing, unpacking, and repacking before he finally settled on what to bring. For Drake, it would've been easy – a couple pairs of jeans, a few t-shirts, his MP3 player, and his guitar. All the necessities of life.
What would Drake do? He asked himself that a lot these days. Maybe he should have a bracelet made – WWDD?
He could hear his brother's voice now, as clear inside his head as if he was standing right in front of him. "Dude, not the magic stuff. No way. This is your chance to be someone else, someone not you. Think about the girls, Josh. College girls." And he would waggle his eyebrows and flash his high-voltage grin.
"I'm here to learn, Drake," he would patiently explain, while at the same time trying not to let on that visions of pretty college co-eds had plagued his thoughts more and more of late. "College is a place of higher education."
"What was that?"
The sound of his father's voice drew him back to reality. "Huh?" he asked dumbly.
Walter gave his son an odd look. "You were saying something…?"
He didn't realize he had spoken out loud. Gosh, he really was losing his mind. "Nothing," he said quickly.
"Where should I put this?" Walter asked, gesturing with his chin to the box in his arms.
"Uh," Josh said. He still hadn't decided. Finally, with one more quick look around the small room, he pointed to the far side. "Over there."
Later that night, as he sat all alone in his new home, he would discover that this side of the room did have a better view of the open field out back, after all.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
It had been a long ten days – all of them spent waiting for the certified letter that was currently resting unopened on the bar in front of him. Drake sat slumped on a stool, his tired eyes alternately focusing on the envelope and on Pete, who was taking inventory behind the bar, periodically scribbling something on a clipboard.
At that moment, Drake's eyes were studying the envelope again. It looked harmless enough – after all, it was just paper and ink. But it terrified him. His fingers closed around the edges, lifting it off the bar, his eyes scanning the surface. There was an official company logo embossed in the upper left-hand corner. His name and address were printed across the front.
It looked like any other letter. Except it wasn't.
He dropped it on the bar again with a very faint thump and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. The words, "Just open it already," drew his attention away from the envelope and onto Pete, who was leaning against his forearms on the bar, looking at Drake across the polished wood surface.
Drake took a deep breath, pushing it out slowly past his lips. "I…can't."
Pete appraised his friend closely, tilting his head slightly to the side. "Are you afraid it'll say you are or you're not?"
His throat closing, Drake whispered, "I don't know."
Pete pressed his fingers along the top edge of the envelope and pushed it towards Drake. "You won't know either way unless you open it." When Drake didn't move, Pete said, "If you don't, I will."
Drake looked at Pete, moved to grab the envelope, then pulled his hands away, pressing them against his thighs to keep them from shaking. "You do it."
Picking up the envelope, Pete raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you want me to open it?" he asked.
Drake just nodded, staring at the envelope.
"Okay," Pete said, then wedged his finger under the flap and worked it across slowly, being careful not to tear it. He reached inside and pulled out the report, unfolding it as his eyes scanned the words. After what seemed like an excruciatingly long moment, he looked back up at Drake, who had been staring at him in silence, dark eyes wide.
"Mazel Tov," Pete said softly, a tiny smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "It's a boy." He laid the report on the bar in front Drake.
Drake exhaled sharply, his eyes darting from Pete's face to the paper in front of him and back again, his trembling fingers finding the report and worrying its edges. He looked at the report – the words looked like so much gobbledygook to him – except for a sentence near the bottom of the page, in bold letters, that began, "It has been determined with 99.999 percent certainty…"
He read the line a half dozen times, then turned his eyes towards his friend, who was looking back at him with an odd expression. "Guess what?" Pete asked him.
"What?" Drake responded over his pounding heart.
"You're smiling," Pete replied, displaying one of his own.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
She wore flip-flops and cutoff cargo pants and had a tattoo of a ladybug on her ankle. Her dark eyes flicked to Drake across the metal table outside Starbucks.
"When Mom told me you were back, I didn't believe it. But here you are." Her nails were painted black, Drake noticed, as she wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup. "I would've come to San Diego, you know."
Drake shrugged. "That's alright," he said. "I'm the one who needs to put in the work to set things right. Besides, I've never been to Berkeley."
He looked at her – she barely resembled the girl he remembered. Megan Parker was all grown up – she had her hair pulled up, a few dark strands blowing across her face in the breeze. The final remnants of adolescence had disappeared. She was beautiful, he realized; the truth of it startled him.
She dug in her purse – a small knitted pouch that she wore cross-wise across her body – and emerged holding a pack of cigarettes. She held them out to him, lifting her eyebrows in a silent question.
He demurred, shocked, and watched in silence as she helped herself to one, lighting it up with a red plastic lighter and inhaling deeply. She kept her eyes on him even as she turned her head to blow a stream of smoke into the atmosphere.
"I've shocked you," she said, one corner of her mouth turning upward.
Drake smiled slightly, nodding. "A little. I've never seen you smoke before."
She fixed him with a steady stare from her dark eyes. "You haven't seen me do a lot of things."
True enough. And the hardness that edged her words shot a dagger of guilt through his heart. He remembered her being softer, sweeter. She had been evil, sure, and she had lived to torture him, but she had been sweet. Maybe it was just nostalgia coloring his memories.
"Look, Megan…"
"Don't bother," she said, taking another drag from her cigarette and flicking the ash onto the sidewalk.
A flash of anger coursed through him. "Why won't anyone let me apologize?" he asked exasperatingly, almost to himself.
"Because it doesn't matter, Drake," she said, sitting up and crushing out her cigarette in the flimsy tin ashtray on the table. "It's just words."
Drake's shoulders visibly slumped. He leaned against the back of the chair and sighed. "I don't know what else to do," he said sadly.
Megan watched him in silence for a long moment. She used to think she hated him. But at that moment, she knew she never had. And that she never could. He was her brother, after all. And despite everything, she loved him.
She took a breath, let it out. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft, without the hard edge it had before. "You're doing it, Drake. This," she said, motioning between them. "You came back," she continued. "That's all you can do."
They sat in silence for a long time, then finally drifted into small talk. He told her about Jack and his job and their life in Florida, how they were going back in a few days – Jack was starting first grade. She told him about school – she was studying anthropology – and about her boyfriend, Kevin, who was an economics major and two years older than she was. They had separate lives now, far removed from each other in both years and miles. But they would always be connected.
While they had been talking, two more cigarette butts joined the first one in the ashtray. Finally, they stood to go. Megan looked at her brother – now was her chance to finally say what she had meant to say all those years ago. "Fatherhood agrees with you, Drake. I'm proud of you." She smiled a fragile smile, her eyes shining. "I've always been proud of you."
Drake blinked against the tears that sprang suddenly to his eyes. He didn't know what to say. Her hug took him by surprise and it took him a moment to return the favor. She was shorter than him, coming to just under his chin, and her black hair tickled his nose in the breeze. After a long moment, she pulled away, blinking up at him. "Now go away, you boob, before all of my mascara runs," she said, laughing as she dragged her fingers under her eyes. "I have a reputation for being a cold-hearted bitch to uphold, you know."
Drake smiled. "Believe me, I know." The look she shot him made him laugh.
"Do me a favor," she said suddenly, her voice casual even though her eyes were serious.
"Anything."
"Don't go another seven years without calling me," she admonished gently.
"I won't," Drake whispered.
"And," Megan added, brightening, "don't tell Mom or Walter about the smoking."
A slow grin spread across Drake's face. "Sweet, perfect Megan has a dirty little secret? I'm shocked," he said, placing his hand over his heart in exaggerated surprise.
"Cute," she quipped, smirking. "Just promise me."
Years ago, his first instinct would have been to use her secret as blackmail fodder. But now, he simply nodded. "I promise." Then he grinned again. "Does Josh know?"
Megan rolled her eyes. "You mean 'The Doctor'?" she asked facetiously. "He's not a real doctor, mind you. But that doesn't stop him from dispensing medical advice. He threatens to tell on me if I don't quit." Her voice was hard, but her eyes were full of affection. "He keeps sending me boxes of nicotine patches and e-mailing me stuff about shots and hypnosis."
Drake laughed. "Sounds like Josh." Then, "But he's right, you know. Those things'll kill ya."
"Of course he's right," she said. "But I like to make him squirm."
Drake just shook his head. "Some things never change."
Megan just smiled. "You wouldn't want me any other way."
"You're right," Drake said. "I wouldn't."
On to the final chapter...
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