by Katharyn » Sun Jan 14, 2007 4:34 am
Post 1 of 2 - Split for length. Next section is below this.
Title: The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle – The Nature of Justice (Part 210)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe as set up in “The Wish” though reference is made to events that occur in both realities. Nothing is referenced that occurs after S5 though. Guess why? Most “spoilers” would be for the first chronicle of this fic rather than the show and if you haven’t read that then much of this will make no sense but you can try and get round it by reading the preface to Part 104 which summarises most of what went before.
Distribution This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens (This applies to all of the Sidestep Chronicle)
Summary: Careers day.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories. You know the drill.
Rating: R – a general rating for occasional content. Individual parts might be less than this level.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever – others couples as necessary but nothing unconventional.
Notes: Okay, yes. I admit it. I’m cheating. Sunnydale High runs a careers day for all students every year in this reality, as revealed in this part and the one that preceded it, not just as we saw at the end of season 2. In part this was because it gave me more room for Willowisms and good story telling, but the other side was it gave me an excuse to do this…
Thanks To: My own special woman Louise who helps me so much with this on top of everything else. Those other friends and family who’ve also helped us overcome everything that was put in my way. Celia and Kerry who shaped this story and continue to do so when I think back to what they told me in the past. Xita for keeping the story hanging around and continuing to give us TKTWATBW.
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle
The Nature of Justice
By
Katharyn Rosser
Sometimes you just don’t have choices, Toni mused as Principal Flutie talked at her and Mal.
While he certainly might be talking to Mal, it was definitely at her. Which was fine, she couldn’t hear him anyway.
She didn’t bother trying to lip read, even though she could sometimes pick out some words from the context. The thing was she really wasn’t very interested in his lecture – even though she was doing her very best to avoid looking disinterested. That’d be rude and he’d just start going on about school spirit and things like that. Probably ‘kids today’ too.
If he wasn’t already.
Every so often Mal would write a key word or phrase down on the wipe board that rested on both their knees to let her know what – in general – was being said. It seemed to keep the Principal happy and stopped him asking for a formal translator so she was good with it.
If Mal had revealed he could sign now then he’d probably be asked to do the honours and she’d have to wait for him to catch up. Then this’d last a whole lot longer. For once the wipe board was better.
Besides, Mal would tell her later anyway.
At her old school the list of summary words he’d have written down would’ve been a lot… Well, much harsher than Bob Flutie seemed capable of. Then again, at her old school, she wouldn’t have even had to bother with those one-word summaries – it’d all be in sign and she’d be expected to pay full attention.
The wipe board was what’d gotten them into trouble in the first place. Mal wasn’t fully there in sign and tended to say the words as well as signing them, so sometimes – when he had to be quiet – the board was still better.
Her own board now sat on principal Flutie’s desk, he’d picked it up a few times but had never managed to ‘brandish’ it at her. No, he’d just shaken his head and put it down again, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was on it.
All it said was ‘Corporate BS?’ though. She didn’t get where the problem was.
It’d been a question, not even a statement.
But it was also what’d made Mal laugh – then he’d written something on his board, now rubbed out, and she’d laughed too. It turned out she’d laughed really, really loudly. Like the rest of the auditorium hearing it all the way up the front loudly. And that was what’d caused the problem and had seen them summoned to the Principal’s office for a ‘talk.’
It was tough not to laugh now too – at least when Mal summarised their Principal’s feelings. This boy was really going to have to work more on his signing if he was going to hang out with her. Or she was…
She could work on his signing too. He was pretty good, considering, but they still didn’t get to have many adult conversations.
‘Adult’ as in using proper words, not ‘adult’ as in what Tara and Willow were clearly so worried about.
It was just… well, they were at school most of the time they saw each other, or running… Going home just to start more lessons in sign – as well as their homework assignments – never seemed to interest them as much as she’d thought it would do when they’d started seeing each other.
There were always distractions and other ways to communicate, only some of which involved computers but more and more included both lips and hands. Watching TV together, curled up with him – unless someone else was there – was their latest way of not working on his language skills.
“Disappointed” Mal wrote, showing it to the Principal who nodded and gestured to himself and the board, as if she needed help figuring it out. Okay, yeah he was disappointed. She got it.
On the other hand, at least he wasn’t one of those people who thought making like a fish and doing the ‘big-mouth-slow-exaggerated speech’ thing would help her know what he was saying. Even lip-readers would find that harder to deal with.
You want me to understand you? Learn my damn language.
Just like the boyfriend she found better things to do with than teach?
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known he was disappointed. His expression and body language were much more telling than his words – at least she guessed they were. Definitely more economical. His words just went on and on. And on a little more.
If Mal could just sign better. She’d have to make the effort to get him to a higher standard; it was her fault just as much as his.
The stupid thing was they chatted mostly on the net, but when they met up there weren’t that many words needed.
More and more she was finding a use for someone else’s mouth. He was a good kisser, or at least if he wasn’t then everyone else in the world must have been a great kisser. She had no basis for comparison but she was having fun all the same.
How long ago had it been that she’d though the whole idea was kind of silly?
Only months.
He made her tingle. She’d taught how to sign ‘tingle’ too, so he’d know what she was talking about. She made him tingle too, he said, but she wasn’t such a total innocent as to imagine that their tingles were the same thing. Men tingled in different ways. That much was clear.
It was when she’d taught him to sign tingle… That was when she’d started to be just a tiny bit afraid of working so close with him, for sign lessons, with that attraction between them. She might pull those fingers and hands onto her body and… and everything…
Jenny had told her about the lesbian hand thing – the Tara/Willow hand thing as it’d been explained to her at the time – and they might be right. It was all about the hands. The rest of him she could take or leave right now, though she was getting more interested in those other parts, but it was his hands and lips that interested her at the moment.
Especially the hands.
Of course they’d wandered already, and it wasn’t like they’d been trespassing, but… There were times she’d thought Mal’s heart might beat so hard it’d stop if she put his hands… Well, if she put his hands where she sometimes wanted them to go.
Much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, Tara and Willow had called it right – they’d probably been right to be afraid of the attraction she and Mal had been developing for each other.
It was easy to feel she could get carried away now. That she might do something she’d never have thought she would, just because of how good she’d been feeling in those moments.
At the time the chat had come along, she’d felt embarrassed but also kind of wanted to resent the implication something she might actually feel like that and get carried away. Losing control hadn’t been on her agenda as recently as that. The idea she’d give it all up to him just because he wanted her to – or she wanted him to – had seemed insulting.
Now…? Now she understood what they were worried about. Even if they were taking that concern too far. It wasn’t like she had lost herself to… She supposed it’d have to be called ‘lust’ – even though the word made her cringe. She was just increasingly aware that one day she might lose herself.
And then she might lose something else.
One night – soon after the chat – she’d found an appointment card for the family planning clinic on her desk in the apartment. For a moment she’d been mad, only avoiding “shouting” at them because Tara and Willow hadn’t been even there. Then Mal had come round and by the time he’d left she’d been feeling…
She’d been feeling lots of things – so had he – but in moments of clarity she’d also been feeling the need to be careful. She figured if she was aware of the potential then she was halfway to avoiding it. So she intended to keep that appointment they’d made for her to get some birth control.
Embarrassing? Hell yeah. Sensible? More and more so. At least they’d never talked about it with her – other than to offer to go with her.
As if she’d go there with them!
Or anyone else.
It hadn’t just been the appointment card though. The box of condoms they’d left, she’d pushed right to the back of her underwear drawer but kept it all the same. Though quite what they thought she and Mal would do with an entire box…
Sometimes Toni thought they might not have a very high opinion of her self-control. Of course, they had very little of their own when it got to tingle-time so she was probably been judged by their standards. It was just they didn’t need to worry about things like birth-control.
So yes, she knew they were worried about it – they didn’t want her and Mal to do anything that heavy, or that serious. But God, how much were they showing that they really did trust her? They’d given her everything she needed to do it safely – support, protection, birth control and left the decision to her and Mal instead of preaching at her.
When lesbians went to buy condoms, you knew they were worried about the consequences.
She blinked, roused from her thoughts as Mal shoved the board back into view. ‘Disappointed.’ Again. The Principal had already said that, but she nodded all the same – just to show some interest.
If she’d ever doubted that Tara and Willow did trust her, and ‘the chat’ had seemed over the top at the time, now she understood the depths of that trust.
Which still didn’t mean Mal was getting anywhere she wasn’t ready for him to go – not that he’d tried. It was more a question of feeling like she wanted him to – and what happened then.
Toni didn’t even know whether he wanted to. Of course, he was a guy – he was bound to want to, but if anything he seemed more reticent about taking things too far than she did. Sometimes he almost seemed afraid of it. That was okay, she was afraid too but of different things. For now they were good, they were tingly, with the hands and the lips and there were still places to go with both of those.
With thoughts like those in her head, she really didn’t care about the lecture from Flutie. She knew she’d been caught out and she’d take the punishment, but she really didn’t want Tara finding out. And that meant keeping it from the rest of her friends and guardians too. She didn’t want to let them down after they’d shown the ultimate trust in her.
They didn’t just trust her about sex, they trusted her. Period.
Fortunately – in terms of keeping it quiet - she had two things going for her. The first she shared with Mal, they were both ‘stars’ of the newly successful track team and they hadn’t lost a meeting yet. Flutie was the one who’d called them ‘stars.’
Now okay, that didn’t give them a free pass – and she wouldn’t want it to because of what other kids thought of you when that was obviously happening – but it should help mitigate their punishments. He couldn’t impinge on their training or anything like that without hurting the school. So no detention.
It shouldn’t be too bad. All she’d done was laugh.
The second advantage was that she was deaf. She didn’t have to listen to him and he plainly felt guilty at his own inadequacy as a communicator. She could see it in his face, he was pained every time he looked at her – as if his lecture was something she really needed to know and he just couldn’t get it across to her.
And better still, he was the one who felt guilty about that. It was his failure.
Now if Mal had been able to sign well, that might’ve meant they could take their lumps and get out of here cleanly, but as it was… There was the danger that Flutie might want to get someone in here who could sign better than her boyfriend.
The Coach? Rupert? Jenny? Willow?
Tara.
Surely not just for a laugh and a few things written on a board?
‘Not punish/guide’ Mal wrote. Flutie nodded as she read it and looked up, wondering what the heck they were getting into now. Mal, she could tell, wasn’t happy. He hadn’t been happy being pulled in here at all, this was his first trip to a Principal’s office. She’d been in one – but not this one – for various minor things over the years.
But what was going making Mal even unhappier than he’d been already?
It couldn’t be the Flutism he’d abridged on the board. Perhaps it was their punishments?
The Principal stood and opened the door. Two people who’d been waiting stepped in – one of whom she recognised. That’d been the guy they’d been joking about up on stage in the assembly. In his suit he looked like a corporate stiff. That was why she’d wondered about the BS he’d been spouting. Now he stood back, letting the other person, a middle-aged woman, speak to Mal and offer to lead him away.
‘Tree Surgeon’ Mal wrote, still not happy about it.
Well, it was careers day and it had come up on his survey. The one she’d filled in for him as he’d done hers. She had to admit she hadn’t been entirely serious when she’d been completing it for him. Now he was paying the price.
He promised her he’d filled in hers properly though, which was probably why she’d gotten nothing at all, who could deal with a deaf kid? Who’d want to?
Feeling the sudden need to give him some support, but not about to kiss him in front of Flutie and these strangers, she touched his hand and he tugged her finger for a moment. It was kind of her fault he was going off with a tree surgeon and no matter what Tara and Willow had said last night… It was still tree surgery, one step up from landscape gardening.
She stared at the Principal as the door closed, not worried about how it looked. He’d assume it was a deaf thing, and it was. If he’d been able to sign she’d have to watch him to pick up when he started. He couldn’t even say anything to her. Taking Mal away had gotten her pissed.
Was this guy in the suit her punishment then? Her guidance? Well, he was something to do with careers day. At least that’d give her something to do today. Her test results hadn’t even come back to say where she should be.
The old guy crossed to the desk as Flutie spoke to him and looked at the wipe board that showed what she’d asked about his speech. They were going to assign her, for careers day, to some guy because she’d laughed at his suit and assumed he’d been making large with the BS? No fair.
And she was willing to bet it had been corporate BS, otherwise Mal wouldn’t have laughed in the first place.
Still, good luck in assigning her to him. Flutie had sent Mal away and now who was going to tell her what was going on?
At least she wouldn’t have to listen to this guy. So it should just be boring – whatever it was.
There were a few things she could try if he was persistent – being ‘disabled’ in the mind of others had its advantages. She could just pretend not to get it for long enough and he’d give up… Then it was just a few hours waiting around for her ‘guidance’ to end and she’d be back on the track.
*Sometimes, Toni, we have to use Corporate BS,* he signed. *It’s expected of us.*
If Flutie hadn’t made her bin her gum, it’d have fallen out of her mouth right then.
She was astonished and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten beyond surprised.
Perfect ASL. No one here knew American Sign Language. She hadn’t seen it for months except at the hands of the court translator. Everyone else used Signed English – much easier to learn for them and they could talk while they were doing it – the word order was the same. That was why Mal tended to speak while he signed, even if there was no one to listen.
But it was so much slower.
This guy’s ASL though, it was fast and accurate. That meant a lot of learning. A lot of time and presumably someone in the family who was deaf too – he’d need regular practice to get this good. Or maybe he was deaf too and just lip-reading Flutie? No, he’d reacted to the Principal without looking at him – so it had to be a family member who’d made him learn her language.
*Principal Flutie has asked me to let you know this is your… punishment, but he’d prefer to call it guidance. Your careers day will be spent with me and the other students in my group.*
*Really?* she tried to appear nonchalant, but inside she was wondering if this was better or worse than what she’d thought the day would be like. At least she’d get to sign with someone properly, and it might be a bit more interesting.
On the other hand she couldn’t try anything to dodge him by ‘being deaf.’ He’d see through that right away.
She didn’t even know what they were going to be doing today though.
*But I prefer to think as a privilege rather than a punishment. Holland Manners, Wolfram & Hart – Attorney’s at Law.*
---------------------
*I know who you are – the firm I mean* Toni said.
They were walking down the hall from the Principal’s office to the meeting place for the group of students Holland was taking out. There might be a group he had to take with him, but this girl was the one with the excellent test scores. Not that a careers day survey was really a sound basis for deciding anything about a person.
He suspected she was wondering why they hadn’t sent him instead of Lilah – know nothing about signing – Morgan to deal with her Mom’s case.
The tools had been there for his protégé, but she’d chosen not to make use of them – and now she was paying for it. Just from that one sentence he knew Lilah had lost the girl before she’d ever really spoken to her.
Stupid and inconsiderate. The first was unexpected, but the second was typical of Lilah.
*Really?* He had to feign some surprise, it wouldn’t do to be too closely associated with the custody case at this point.
*Don’t you know?* she asked, looking surprised.
*Even lawyers don’t know everything. No more than teachers, or Principals do,* Holland said, raising a smile from her. No more than young deaf women knew everything. The girl, he could already tell, had an edge of superiority to her. Whether that was merited was yet to be seen.
Edges were good – you could work with edges and make decent cutting implement.
*You’re representing my so-called Mom,* she said.
*Perhaps the firm is, I’m certainly not involved. It’s not even my area of the law.* It wasn’t Lilah’s either, but what that woman did was her own business. At least until it contradicted orders from the Senior Partners or impacted on the profitability and goals of the firm.
Which it now very well might be doing.
That was part of why he was here, but only part of it.
Mostly he was here for Careers Day, he’d been asked to be a part of it months ago. Yes, he’d made use of last night to visit former-Mayor Wilkins and Mr Rayne. Yes, he’d have looked in on Toni today to see what Lilah had been doing – which was why he’d obtained the skill in sign – but spending the day with her was totally unexpected.
Sometimes fate worked in mysterious ways.
*So you don’t know?* she asked, hands and fingers flying so fast that he wasn’t sure that the special ‘training’ he’d received would be able to keep up with her. A direct ‘download’ into his mind of the ASL skills of someone who’d been raised with it. It should’ve been sufficient to converse with her.
Not that any amount of knowledge helped his fingers, which were already starting to show signs of aching and they’d barely been together ten minutes.
But of course he knew about her case – though he hadn’t been expecting this precise turn of events. Despite his warnings over the years, he’d never thought Lilah would go so blatantly against the restrictions she was supposed to operate under.
Restrictions passed down from the Senior Partners. And Lilah knew the source.
A more interesting question, for him, would be whether Lilah had any idea what she was doing messing with this case? She shouldn’t have been anywhere near the town, let alone this young lady. After all Toni was in the care of the Two Roses and their friends.
Lilah, as she’d been for years now, was blinded by what had been done to her. It’d been necessary to fulfil the senior partners’ hopes for her but it was increasingly proving to be less than desirable. A necessary part of the change, making her hate Tara Maclay, had started to backfire and impact on her judgement and ability to perform.
*No,* he said. *I didn’t know anything about it.*
Toni snorted at his denial. *So do lawyers know anything?*
*I’ve met a lot of people who’d say ‘no’* he told her, as interested in the way his own fingers, hands and arms were moving as in hers. It was marvellous, even though his hands were already protesting at the new muscles they were being asked to work to communicate with her.
She seemed frustrated that he wasn’t biting at her jibe, but then he’d always been a man who could hold a calm demeanour in the most extreme circumstances – of which this certainly wasn’t one.
However much hell she thought she needed to make his life for today, while he was her ‘punishment,’ it was nothing compared to normal day to day business at Wolfram and Hart.
Not to mention what his daughters put him through on a regular basis.
Her question reminded him of a failing law student who’d asked that very same thing some years ago – and look where she was now. Causing trouble and needing to be reigned in before the Senior Partner’s took their own kind of action against her.
Yes, on first impressions Toni reminded him somewhat of the Lilah he’d known back then. Oh, she was younger of course – less wise to the ways of the world perhaps. To look at as well. Their hair was a similar colour; their builds – though there was a more muscular appearance to this girl and she still had some filling out to do – would probably end up being close. Yes, Toni resembled the Lilah he’d helped to turn her studies around.
And she had something of the attitude about her too. Even failing her freshman year of law studies, Lilah had been haughty and superior.
Toni had a little of that general air of superiority about her. But though he knew she’d disdain the slightest sign of pity or condescension, she had none of Lilah’s haughtiness.
But he couldn’t let the similarities sway him.
Nor would he ever pity her – Wolfram and Hart employed far too many ‘disabled’ people who were masters of their fields, and in many cases extremely dangerous, to ever feel pity for her. Life was, as always, what you made it. Consider yourself to be a victim and you would be one.
The reverse had often been proven to be true.
*How do you know sign? ASL?* Toni asked. *I mean you do hear right? It’s not just lip reading?*
*Yes, I can hear,* he assured her. He also knew how to listen – which was entirely a different skill. One didn’t necessarily go with the other. A deaf person could listen even if they couldn’t hear. Would she demonstrate that vital skill?
*So?* Toni said. *Got a deaf wife or kid or something?*
Holland smiled. *My daughters are both just a little older than you – but both they and their mother can hear. At least when they want to,* he joked. They did tend to ignore the skill of ‘listening’ to him and formed their own little clique that his maleness denied him entry to, but what else should he have expected?
She frowned. *What is this? A guessing game? Am I supposed to figure it out?*
*What do you think?* he asked, specifically to exasperate her even more. Her reaction would be telling. He already believed she’d have absolutely no patience for Lilah. No, they wouldn’t get along at all. If anything they were probably too similar in several telling ways.
*I don’t want to think, I want to know,* she signed firmly.
*Very well, there are ways to learn ASL,* he told her.
She waited for him to continue, but instead they just kept walking. *That’s it?*
*No, there are means of learning it as well. Ways and means.* He smiled at his own joke.
*Ways and means to learn flawless ASL? Without regular practice and without being deaf?* she looked doubtful.
He chose not to answer her, what could he say? ‘My firm used mystical means to give me the language skills of someone… no longer with us?’ Yes, that’d go down very well. Though – in the company she was keeping – perhaps it wouldn’t disturb her too much.
How much did she know about the people she was living with and what they did?
Something, at least. She’d been a captive of Darla and Drusilla in the sewers under the town. She couldn’t have missed the existence of vampires. Nor the magic that’d rescued her. But what else? What about the real nature of the world she’d still barely scratched the surface of.
Perhaps that was something he needed to determine as well?
*Language is a tool Toni,* he said. *May I call you Toni?*
*It’s my name - Holland.*
*So it is,* he smiled again. She wasn’t in the slightest bit afraid of him – not that he’d given her reason to be. And she was still waiting for a reason to respect him. *Language is a tool – it can create and destroy in equal measure. Entire worlds have been created and entire civilizations wiped out at the stroke of a pen.*
Toni snorted again, an unappealing noise from someone who didn’t realise how it sounded, but probably didn’t care either.
*You don’t believe it?* he asked. At the fingertips of writers, a million worlds had been created for people who escaped into in TV, films and books. At the fingertips of diplomats and lawyers, a billion treaties and laws that governed the way people lived and died had been written, signed, abrogated and broken.
*The world is what it is,* she said. *Talking to most people is a waste of time – they don’t ‘listen’ to you anyway.* Clearly her ire was aimed at hearing people, those who should be ‘listening.’ Did she listen though?
*Some of your own experience perhaps?*
*Perhaps, yeah,* she admitted to him.
*Well, I’m listening – so why don’t you tell me why you know my firm?* he asked, wanting to have a first hand impression of the work Lilah was doing for her own, selfish reasons.
And he wanted to know the effect it was having on this young lady.
*My Mom, she wants custody of me.*
*Ah, so you’re with your Dad now?* he asked, deliberately reinforcing his seeming ignorance.
*No, he’s dead. I’m with… it’s complicated.*
He pretended ignorance because he wasn’t quite sure how this extended meeting had come about. Naturally he knew who she was, he had to keep track of both Lilah and the Two Roses. But all he’d intended was to check in on her in passing.
If she hadn’t been summoned to the Principal’s office, if she hadn’t chosen to laugh at him, they probably wouldn’t have met except in a more general way. He might’ve asked the Principal some questions too. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted to attract the attention of the Two Roses who were bound to find out what Toni had been doing today. But now, the way this was going?
Hmm.
What was behind all this? Or was it entirely coincidence?
*So you don’t want to be with your Mom?* he asked, returning his attention to the conversation they were having.
*No.*
You couldn’t be more unequivocal than that.
*But your firm,* she said, *is trying to force me to. I mean they want me to meet the – meet with her. Be friends with her. Then she’ll go for custody and you lot will help her do it.*
Toni looked disgusted with the future as she saw it. And she’d been about to call her Mom some name or another. Probably ‘bitch.’
Now there was a woman he needed to look into. He’d been under the impression that the mother couldn’t be found. And now…? Where had Lilah gotten her from? Or had she had the woman stashed the whole time?
*Hardly. Whoever it is who’s representing your Mom is only putting her case. If you or your guardians had come to us, and you could afford our fees, we’d have put your side of the case just as forcefully,* he explained.
*So it’s for the money?* Toni asked.
*Of course it is.*
Usually it was for the money, the payment in kind or for the influence gained. But in this case… it was something else to Lilah. It was certainly a way to interfere with the lives of Willow Rosenberg and Tara Maclay. To help fulfil her obsession.
*You should make it very clear what you want,* he continued.
*I am, everyone knows I don’t want to go with her,* Toni insisted.
*And?*
*And it could happen anyway,* she said.
He could tell it really was worrying her. She believed it could happen – and it really could. Lilah wouldn’t be doing this to lose. Yes, disrupting the Rosenberg/Maclay household would suit her, but she wouldn’t have started this if she didn’t think she could win.
Misguided as she was, Lilah was one of the best courtroom performers he’d brought into the firm. Much better at that than she was in the office based negotiations.
Losing wasn’t in Lilah’s nature and losing to Tara Maclay… he was sure that’d send her into some kind of homicidal rage. The Two Roses winning this case might ultimately be more damaging to them than losing.
*Why?* he asked. *Why would it happen if you don’t want it to?*
She looked at him as if he was stupid. *Because I’m kid. Kids get told what to do.*
*That’s not an answer,* he said. *Especially as you’re not a kid – you’re what? Fifteen years old?* Best not to show he knew she’d had a birthday just a few months ago. He even knew how they’d celebrated it. The park, a picnic and games. The boyfriend had attended too.
*Yeah,* she corrected. *And everyone treats me like a kid – well, everyone who’s making this decision anyway. No one listens.*
Ah the familiar refrains of youth. *But you said ‘everyone knows?’*
She saw the logical downfall of her argument straight away. *Yeah, but…*
Clearly she didn’t know what her own argument was going to be. She just knew one thing, what she didn’t want. So he asked her a question instead. *Do your – what are they? Guardians? Do they want you to leave? Is staying there just a temporary thing for them?*
She didn’t pause before answering, which was more telling than the answer itself. *I guess… no… I don’t think they do. I think they want me to stay, but they have all these decisions to make about their own futures. I complicate that for them, I know I do. They might be able to go to school somewhere else next year…* She shrugged.
Oh, Toni knew they didn’t want her to go. At least subconsciously. It always amazed Holland what the subconscious decided and never bothered to pass on to the rest of the brain. Instead it just tried to find reasons things wouldn’t work out, rather than how to make it happen. *So which is it? Do they want you to go?*
*No, they don’t.*
Clarity at least. It was no good deluding yourself; the rest of the world was quite prepared to put you in that state if you let it.
*So they don’t want you to go. Do you want to leave them?*
*I don’t want to go into care,* she signed with emphasis on all the right words.
*Excellent choice,* he said, *but not what I asked. Do you want to stay with them?*
Toni smiled, probably thinking back on something that’d happened. He wondered what it might’ve been. *They’re pretty cool I guess. But I keep thinking maybe they should be able to move East if they need to. Without worrying about me.*
Hmm, new information. They’d had post-graduate offers from schools out East? That might impose a certain deadline, if they accepted any of those offers. Other things required their presence in Sunnydale this summer. He’d have to make Mr Rayne aware of the changing situation.
*That’s nice Toni,* he said, stopping to face her. *But again, not what I asked you.*
She looked at him with a strange expression – he was confusing her. Not with his questions, but she was confused about why he was asking them. What it had to do with him. *Okay, yes, I want to stay with them,* she said.
He smiled. At last.
*What is this?* she asked. *Part of my punishment? Are you a social worker or shrink as well as a lawyer?*
*No, neither of those,* he said to her. *And it’s not punishment either. Even if there was an element of punishment about today, let me assure you we’re already finished with it. Nothing that happens in this group today will get back to Principal Flutie.*
*So?*
*I’m trying to show you something,* he explained. *I don’t really know you, but I know something about you already.*
*What?* she challenged.
*What do you think?* Answering a question with a question – not the done thing. But then whoever came up with that rule of etiquette probably never had to teach anyone anything, nor had they ever had any children.
*That I want to stay?* she asked.
He laughed. *That’s a matter for you alone. I want you to see the power of the right words – whether you speak them, sign them or write them.*
Toni waited for more.
*Let’s look at what you said,* he suggested. *‘I don’t want to go into care.’*
*So?*
*That says to me, the most important thing to you is not being in care. As a judge I’d understand that, but it sounds like you aren’t bothered where you are as long as it’s not in care,* he explained, trying not to make this too brutal a reality. They had a day to get through – this wasn’t the time to fall out with each other.
*I don’t want to be with my Mom,* Toni said. *Either.*
*But you only said you don’t want to be in care. You told me you didn’t know whether your foster carers want you to stay or go – so it sounds to me like you aren’t talking to them about it,* he said. *When you accepted staying with them, they may even think you chose it to avoid being in care – not in any way because of them.*
*I don’t sound like anything,* she pointed out, and he recognised it for what it was – a defensive reaction due to the lack of anything else she could say.
*My apologies. That was an unfortunate choice of words from a hearing person. But I recognise a change of subject when I see it too.*
*So?*
*So, to me, your priorities appear to be – not being in care first, and everything else below that. Judges and lawyers can be harsh, Toni,* he admitted. *But not often in a case like yours. At least not to you.*
*What do you mean?* she asked, looking interested now rather than defensive.
He knew what he was doing, even though he’d never planned to. He was making Lilah’s job harder. Certainly he was helping to make her case more difficult to win.
*I had to push you to get you to say you wanted to stay with your guardians. If I was a judge, trying to make the whole process easy on you, I might’ve sent you to your Mom because you really didn’t seem to mind so long as you weren’t in care. They might not have pushed you as hard as I did for the truth.*
There it was. That was the way he saw it. Perhaps faced with a choice of in care or her Mom, things would come out differently?
She was about to object. She was about to argue with him, but he watched as she swallowed that impulse. Perhaps she was having the same feelings about the day as he was; this was just the start of it. And even though there’d be other kids along with them, she might not want to provoke anything now.
Or she might just have realised he was right.
*So you’re saying I have to speak up for myself?* she asked.
*Doesn’t seem like you’d usually have a problem with that,* Holland joked.
Toni looked at him, paying attention to his face after his signing.
The one flaw he’d discovered with signing – and perhaps its strength too – was that one couldn’t easily pay attention to both the words and the expression… Despite his ‘acquisition’ of the language skills, he hadn’t enough experience to do that just yet. But then how many people who could hear actually listened or took full notice of body language or facial expressions? He was probably one of very few because it was his job to read people.
*Well, look at this from another perspective. What do you think being a lawyer is all about?* he asked as they stepped into bright sunlight outside.
Toni shrugged. *I don’t know – I never thought about it much. Working with the law I suppose?*
*If you’ve not done your job well enough, or the other side is determined to make a fight of it – perhaps,* he said.
*What do you mean?* Toni asked.
*The law is a tool and much of it is open to interpretation,* he explained, wondering whether she was going to grasp this after her rather simplistic assumption.
It was an assumption most people – adults and some lawyers included – also held. She was no more than a product of a media that showed the masses the seemingly glamorous side of the lawyer business. Usually those shows included moral dilemmas that the law was reassuringly happy to resolve for people.
Dead wrong.
The law was based on a set of supposedly moral texts, but it wasn’t moral in and of itself.
*So?* she asked.
*So being a lawyer is really about what people want,* he stated with his fingers, hoping he’d added some inflection with his style – rather than just the simple words.
*Like people want murderers in jail?* she suggested, probably guessing he and his firm were more likely to defend a murderer than pursue one. She’d be right too.
*People – the general population – don’t want the wrong person in jail,* he countered, wondering how she’d reply to such a statement. It was one of his little tests. He didn’t believe what he’d just said in the slightest.
*Do you really think so?* she asked. *I always thought people wanted to see justice. I never thought they were overly bothered who it was against.*
He smiled. Very good. She was plainly a Realist, with a capital ‘R’.
*True enough, Toni. But in general they feel better about themselves if a guilty person is punished and the innocent go free.*
Toni nodded, willing to accept that much.
*After all,* he added, *you never know whether one day the knock on the door will be the police coming for you… Even if you didn’t do anything. They like to be able to have some faith they’d be okay, even if criminals can beat the system because of it.*
*So that’s what you do?* she asked, after thinking about what he’d said.
*Sometimes,* he told her. As he’d already made clear – if it went to court then the ideal solution for the client had already been missed. In criminal cases you were always looking for dismissal of the charges before it even got that far. *It’s not just about crime though, people want what they’re entitled to as well.*
*Or think they are?* Toni asked.
*Or would like to be,* he completed. *You don’t look like you have much faith in my profession,* he observed. He was pleased with himself for remembering not to say she ‘sounded’ like that.
*Nor do you,* she signed.
He just smiled. The difference was he knew he was being realistic. Toni was trying to be cynical, as best he could tell. Either way, she wasn’t a dreamer. She dealt with the world as it really was.
*How can lawyers argue both sides of a case though? It’s right or it’s wrong,* she said.
*But, it’s not our place to decide that – that’s what judges and juries are for,* he told her, wondering if she’d make the next leap. *If there is a jury.*
*So let the judge decide,* she suggested, pleasing him immensely.
*The judge does decide – if it gets that far. They guide the jury into how to think. Once you get into the court room, the judge is the most important person in there. They can dismiss a case at any stage – which might be what you want – or let it go on without even asking the jury. But we’re the ones who make the arguments that guide the judge,* he signed as they paused outside the main entrance to the school.
*So you make arguments you don’t believe in?* she asked.
*Sometimes,* Holland admitted. *Other times I’m convinced about what I’m doing. You should never underestimate the human ability to delude ourselves into changing our beliefs.*
She looked at him as if to say ‘I don’t change my beliefs.’
And he’d believe that of her from what little he’d seen so far. Perhaps she just hadn’t had cause to yet? Or perhaps she’d never realised it was happening over a period of time?
*Our function,* he continued, *is to get the client what he or she wants.*
*Not justice?*
*Sometimes it’s the same thing,* he assured her – and that could be the case.
*Often?* She didn’t look as if she expected him to say ‘yes.’
*Look at it this way – its justice if the judge and jury are on our side at the end of the case.* So he’d always been told in law school by the more pragmatic academics, ones who’d actually stepped into a court room to run a case.
*That’s not right,* she said.
He nodded; it was a signal to continue if she wanted to make her point.
*Just because you argue better – that’s not justice. What about the people who can’t afford you?* she said.
*I won’t lie to you Toni, that’s a problem in our society. But there are public defenders – people who could get paid a lot of money but instead choose to help deliver justice. And most of us in law firms or private practice do some pro-bono work.*
Her hands formed a question about what that meant.
*Free,* he explained. *But obviously that’s not a big part of our time. Then there are no-win, no-fee agreements. But most of what you call justice is done by the state or the government.*
*And you say they make less money, right?*
*That’s correct.*
*They do it for justice then?* she asked. *They’re idealists?*
*Or because they don’t feel comfortable working for a law firm – they may feel as you seem to,* he agreed. *Working to your definition of justice. And yes, that’d make them idealists – at least by my standards.*
Idealists, or in some cases slackers who weren’t willing to put in the work for any client who wasn’t handed to them on a plate.
*But I can’t see how there’s any other way to define justice,* she insisted.
Oh, she’d been talking to him for a few minutes and thought she was ready to define justice? It was beautiful, just perfect for what he had planned for the day. She’d get a lot more out of what was going to happen than any of her classmates if she was willing to ask such questions.
*We’ll get to that,* he said, holding the door open for her. Inside, all the other students he was supposed to be taking with him to the Court House. But it was Toni Alessi who was going to hold his interest.
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Continued Below. Split for Length.
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance*
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BUt you're right - he can be distracted by serious stuff. Who contributes more to that fund? My guess would be Rupert. I can't see Jenny making wagers she isn't sure she'll win very often 
Not to mention the idea that you have this story planned out completely.
