Vanilla 22, chocolate 4, strawberry 21: Daddy's Little Girl
Title: Daddy's Little Girl
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Vanilla 22 (gossip/a rumor), chocolate 4 (frustration), strawberry 21 (swing), whipped cream (Ivy).
Word Count: 1671
Rating: PG.
Summary: Ivy gets into a fight at school. Nathan would like to know why.
Notes: Crazy amounts of love for my beta eponymous_rose, who stayed up until a ridiculous hour to help me fix the first three paragraphs of this. I forgive you your vendetta against italics, my dear.
Nathan Kendall was not best pleased to have been called away from work in the middle of the day, and it must have shown on his face, because the secretary was looking a little wary. "You can go right in, Mr. Kendall," she said, drumming her pen on the desk. "They're waiting for you."
This was going to be fun. He sighed, consciously made his expression more neutral, and went on back to the principal's office.
This school that both his children attended was generally a very good one. Aaron had been going here for years, and Ivy had finally started to settle into kindergarten-- and now he'd gotten this phone call. His five-year-old headache had apparently started a fight and thrown quite a respectable right hook at her best friend's face.
Well. Former best friend by now, probably. So much for settling in.
Nathan recognized the weeping blonde girl holding a bloodied tissue to her nose as the former best friend Ellen, though the fiercely scowling woman sitting next to her was unfamiliar. The redheaded terror sulking in the troublemaker's seat next to the principal's desk he definitely recognized.
"Ivy Sophia Hirschfeld-Kendall..." he said.
Ivy scrunched further down in her seat and would not look at him.
The principal didn't quite manage to hide his relief. "Mr. Kendall," he said. "Thank you for coming down here on such short notice."
"Of course," he said, stiffly, and sat in the only chair avaliable, between Ivy and the blonde woman. "May I ask what, exactly, happened? Your secretary was a little unclear."
The principal sighed, and turned to Ellen. "One more time."
The girl sniffled back tears and took the tissue away from her nose. "I didn't do anything!" she wailed. "We were playing on the swings and then she just hit me!"
"That's not true," Ivy said with sudden fury, sitting up and glaring at Ellen. "Stop lying, you liar!"
"Ivy," Nathan said, quietly. She screwed up her face, but stopped.
The blonde woman ignored both of them. "You heard what she said!" she snapped, apparently addressing the principal. What was that man's name? "That little brat hit my poor baby!"
Ivy stiffened again, but Nathan intervened before she could start something. "My daughter," he said, putting as much steel into his voice as he could manage, "is not a brat, and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from namecalling, Mrs...?"
"Carson," the woman said, and sniffed, her face taking on a distinctly disdainful expression that Nathan did not care for at all.
The principal intervened before he could say anything, though. "Yes, thank you, Mrs. Carson, we're aware of what happened." He leaned forward and assumed an avuncular, if slightly exhausted, expression. "Ivy, would you like to give us your side of the story?"
Ivy pushed herself further down in her seat and shook her head, pushing her lower lip out. At this rate, Nathan thought somewhat irrelevantly, she was going to end up sliding right off the end of the chair.
"Ivy," he said, keeping his tone very reasonable and even, "would you please tell me why you hit your friend?"
"She's not my friend," Ivy said, shooting Ellen a venomous look.
Ellen burst into a renewed wail.
"You see! You see!" Mrs. Carson was off again, babbling something about mandatory suspension and an option to expel. Nathan tuned her out for the moment. There was something about Ivy's pout that was not her usual sulking face, something almost frightened, and that shook him. He could not remember the last time he'd seen his daughter frightened.
"Thank you, ma'am, we will certainly consider it!" the principal near-shouted, at long last. Nathan started paying attention again. "Mr. Kendall, I'm afraid this carries a mandatory one-day suspension. You'll have to take your daughter home."
Mrs. Carson let out an audible snort at that, though why, Nathan could not quite tell. "Of course," he said. "I assure you Ivy and I will have a serious talk about this little incident."
Ivy shrank even more.
--
Somehow they got out of the office without any more shouting from Mrs. Carson or wailing from Ellen, and the taxi ride home was conducted in near-complete silence. Ivy spent the whole time sulking low in her seat, arms folded across her narrow chest and lower lip stuck out almost past her nose.
For his part, Nathan was trying to figure out what to do. Today was shot-- he couldn't leave Ivy home alone, and Gail wouldn't be back until five. Aaron would be home sooner, but he was not quite eleven and however responsible he was, Nathan didn't feel quite comfortable leaving him to deal with a grumpy five-year-old on his own. Aaron had settled easily into big brotherhood, but unexpected babysitting was undoubtedly not what he'd signed up for.
Besides, there was something... off about this whole business. Nathan had never quite believed that Ivy liked Ellen enough to stay friends with her for more than a couple months, but he had not expected such a violent end to the friendship, and certainly not less than two weeks into the school year.
That violence was odd too. Ivy was not an aggressive child, or at least no more than usual for a girl with a newly acquired older brother. She'd always been pushy, certainly, and bossy, but that was more the certain knowledge of her own mind and the passionate desire to get what she wanted than any violent tendencies. Punches seemed almost beneath her. This was out of character, and that worried him.
He paid the driver when they got home, and by the time he got out of the taxi and turned around Ivy was already inside the building and vanishing up the stairs. Clearly she didn't want to talk.
Tough luck.
She was sitting on the couch in the living room when he got inside, her knees drawn up to her chest, her eyes huge and mournful; she looked almost lost.
Nathan sighed, and sat down next to her. "You want to tell me what all that was about?" he asked, though it was not really a question.
Ivy shook her head. "No."
Not the flat refusal of the principal's office, nor even the two-year-old shriek that she still used whenever the dentist was mentioned. Her voice was lonely, and wistful, and small. He put his arm around her shoulders, and hugged her tightly.
"I think you better tell me, love," he said, gently.
Ivy mumbled something into her knees. He reached over and pulled her chin up. "What did you say?"
"She said you weren't my real dad," Ivy said, her tone and expression a picture of misery. "She said you only married Mama 'cause you felt bad for her, because she had me and I didn't have any dad, and she said my real dad didn't want me, and she said I was stupid if I thought it was any different. So I hit her."
Oh, God, poor Ivy. If he'd known she was going through this... "Hitting her didn't make her stop saying those things, sweetheart," he said.
"Yes, it did," Ivy said, with an air of practicality. "She was screaming too much after I hit her."
And then she came out with something like that. Nathan sighed. "Ivy..."
"She said her mama said it," Ivy went on, back to miserable. "She said everybody said it. And if everybody says it, doesn't that mean it has to be true?"
Nathan got a sudden and unpleasant insight into Mrs. Carson's disdainful expressions, and made a silent vow to inflict Gail upon her at the earliest possible opportunity. "Absolutely not," he said, firmly. "If everybody says it, that just means that everybody says it. It has no effect whatsoever on whether it's true or not."
"Ellen said it was true," Ivy whispered. "Is there something wrong with me, Daddy?"
He might have hit Ellen himself, or at least her mother. He certainly would have hit Ivy's biological father if anyone had any idea where the bastard was. "No, sweetheart." Nathan wrapped both arms around his daughter and lifted her into his lap, legs and all. "There's nothing wrong with you at all. There's something wrong with Mrs. Carson and there's a lot of things wrong with your biological father, but there's nothing at all wrong with you."
She sniffled and pressed her face into his chest; a damp spot grew on his shirt. "Really and truly?"
"Really and truly," Nathan said. "Listen, love. I am your father. I will always be your father, for as long as you want me to be. That's what my adopting you means. I am your father."
Ivy snuggled a little closer. "I'm glad," she mumbled.
He smiled, and rubbed her back, and hummed a wordless song.
After a while, she stopped her little sniffling noises and sat up, rubbing at her nose and eyes. "I'm glad you're my father," she told him. "I don't think I'd've liked anybody else."
She wasn't going to like this, either. "I'm glad you're my daughter," he said, first of all, and kissed her forehead. "Now, because I am your father, I am grounding you for a week, young lady. You are old enough to know that hitting people isn't the way to solve problems."
"Oh, Dad!" Ivy stuck her lower lip out again. At least it was a sullen pout this time; she'd lost that dejected set to her mouth.
"And," Nathan continued, over her objections, "when you go back to school on Monday you will apologize to Ellen. Really apologize, I mean, not the way you apologize to your brother."
"I'm not sorry," Ivy muttered.
"Learn to fake it."
She sighed, a heavy, put-upon sigh that both his children had mastered by the age of three. "If I have to?"
Nathan leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Yes, you have to. Now let's figure out how we're going to explain this to your mother."
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Vanilla 22 (gossip/a rumor), chocolate 4 (frustration), strawberry 21 (swing), whipped cream (Ivy).
Word Count: 1671
Rating: PG.
Summary: Ivy gets into a fight at school. Nathan would like to know why.
Notes: Crazy amounts of love for my beta eponymous_rose, who stayed up until a ridiculous hour to help me fix the first three paragraphs of this. I forgive you your vendetta against italics, my dear.
Nathan Kendall was not best pleased to have been called away from work in the middle of the day, and it must have shown on his face, because the secretary was looking a little wary. "You can go right in, Mr. Kendall," she said, drumming her pen on the desk. "They're waiting for you."
This was going to be fun. He sighed, consciously made his expression more neutral, and went on back to the principal's office.
This school that both his children attended was generally a very good one. Aaron had been going here for years, and Ivy had finally started to settle into kindergarten-- and now he'd gotten this phone call. His five-year-old headache had apparently started a fight and thrown quite a respectable right hook at her best friend's face.
Well. Former best friend by now, probably. So much for settling in.
Nathan recognized the weeping blonde girl holding a bloodied tissue to her nose as the former best friend Ellen, though the fiercely scowling woman sitting next to her was unfamiliar. The redheaded terror sulking in the troublemaker's seat next to the principal's desk he definitely recognized.
"Ivy Sophia Hirschfeld-Kendall..." he said.
Ivy scrunched further down in her seat and would not look at him.
The principal didn't quite manage to hide his relief. "Mr. Kendall," he said. "Thank you for coming down here on such short notice."
"Of course," he said, stiffly, and sat in the only chair avaliable, between Ivy and the blonde woman. "May I ask what, exactly, happened? Your secretary was a little unclear."
The principal sighed, and turned to Ellen. "One more time."
The girl sniffled back tears and took the tissue away from her nose. "I didn't do anything!" she wailed. "We were playing on the swings and then she just hit me!"
"That's not true," Ivy said with sudden fury, sitting up and glaring at Ellen. "Stop lying, you liar!"
"Ivy," Nathan said, quietly. She screwed up her face, but stopped.
The blonde woman ignored both of them. "You heard what she said!" she snapped, apparently addressing the principal. What was that man's name? "That little brat hit my poor baby!"
Ivy stiffened again, but Nathan intervened before she could start something. "My daughter," he said, putting as much steel into his voice as he could manage, "is not a brat, and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from namecalling, Mrs...?"
"Carson," the woman said, and sniffed, her face taking on a distinctly disdainful expression that Nathan did not care for at all.
The principal intervened before he could say anything, though. "Yes, thank you, Mrs. Carson, we're aware of what happened." He leaned forward and assumed an avuncular, if slightly exhausted, expression. "Ivy, would you like to give us your side of the story?"
Ivy pushed herself further down in her seat and shook her head, pushing her lower lip out. At this rate, Nathan thought somewhat irrelevantly, she was going to end up sliding right off the end of the chair.
"Ivy," he said, keeping his tone very reasonable and even, "would you please tell me why you hit your friend?"
"She's not my friend," Ivy said, shooting Ellen a venomous look.
Ellen burst into a renewed wail.
"You see! You see!" Mrs. Carson was off again, babbling something about mandatory suspension and an option to expel. Nathan tuned her out for the moment. There was something about Ivy's pout that was not her usual sulking face, something almost frightened, and that shook him. He could not remember the last time he'd seen his daughter frightened.
"Thank you, ma'am, we will certainly consider it!" the principal near-shouted, at long last. Nathan started paying attention again. "Mr. Kendall, I'm afraid this carries a mandatory one-day suspension. You'll have to take your daughter home."
Mrs. Carson let out an audible snort at that, though why, Nathan could not quite tell. "Of course," he said. "I assure you Ivy and I will have a serious talk about this little incident."
Ivy shrank even more.
--
Somehow they got out of the office without any more shouting from Mrs. Carson or wailing from Ellen, and the taxi ride home was conducted in near-complete silence. Ivy spent the whole time sulking low in her seat, arms folded across her narrow chest and lower lip stuck out almost past her nose.
For his part, Nathan was trying to figure out what to do. Today was shot-- he couldn't leave Ivy home alone, and Gail wouldn't be back until five. Aaron would be home sooner, but he was not quite eleven and however responsible he was, Nathan didn't feel quite comfortable leaving him to deal with a grumpy five-year-old on his own. Aaron had settled easily into big brotherhood, but unexpected babysitting was undoubtedly not what he'd signed up for.
Besides, there was something... off about this whole business. Nathan had never quite believed that Ivy liked Ellen enough to stay friends with her for more than a couple months, but he had not expected such a violent end to the friendship, and certainly not less than two weeks into the school year.
That violence was odd too. Ivy was not an aggressive child, or at least no more than usual for a girl with a newly acquired older brother. She'd always been pushy, certainly, and bossy, but that was more the certain knowledge of her own mind and the passionate desire to get what she wanted than any violent tendencies. Punches seemed almost beneath her. This was out of character, and that worried him.
He paid the driver when they got home, and by the time he got out of the taxi and turned around Ivy was already inside the building and vanishing up the stairs. Clearly she didn't want to talk.
Tough luck.
She was sitting on the couch in the living room when he got inside, her knees drawn up to her chest, her eyes huge and mournful; she looked almost lost.
Nathan sighed, and sat down next to her. "You want to tell me what all that was about?" he asked, though it was not really a question.
Ivy shook her head. "No."
Not the flat refusal of the principal's office, nor even the two-year-old shriek that she still used whenever the dentist was mentioned. Her voice was lonely, and wistful, and small. He put his arm around her shoulders, and hugged her tightly.
"I think you better tell me, love," he said, gently.
Ivy mumbled something into her knees. He reached over and pulled her chin up. "What did you say?"
"She said you weren't my real dad," Ivy said, her tone and expression a picture of misery. "She said you only married Mama 'cause you felt bad for her, because she had me and I didn't have any dad, and she said my real dad didn't want me, and she said I was stupid if I thought it was any different. So I hit her."
Oh, God, poor Ivy. If he'd known she was going through this... "Hitting her didn't make her stop saying those things, sweetheart," he said.
"Yes, it did," Ivy said, with an air of practicality. "She was screaming too much after I hit her."
And then she came out with something like that. Nathan sighed. "Ivy..."
"She said her mama said it," Ivy went on, back to miserable. "She said everybody said it. And if everybody says it, doesn't that mean it has to be true?"
Nathan got a sudden and unpleasant insight into Mrs. Carson's disdainful expressions, and made a silent vow to inflict Gail upon her at the earliest possible opportunity. "Absolutely not," he said, firmly. "If everybody says it, that just means that everybody says it. It has no effect whatsoever on whether it's true or not."
"Ellen said it was true," Ivy whispered. "Is there something wrong with me, Daddy?"
He might have hit Ellen himself, or at least her mother. He certainly would have hit Ivy's biological father if anyone had any idea where the bastard was. "No, sweetheart." Nathan wrapped both arms around his daughter and lifted her into his lap, legs and all. "There's nothing wrong with you at all. There's something wrong with Mrs. Carson and there's a lot of things wrong with your biological father, but there's nothing at all wrong with you."
She sniffled and pressed her face into his chest; a damp spot grew on his shirt. "Really and truly?"
"Really and truly," Nathan said. "Listen, love. I am your father. I will always be your father, for as long as you want me to be. That's what my adopting you means. I am your father."
Ivy snuggled a little closer. "I'm glad," she mumbled.
He smiled, and rubbed her back, and hummed a wordless song.
After a while, she stopped her little sniffling noises and sat up, rubbing at her nose and eyes. "I'm glad you're my father," she told him. "I don't think I'd've liked anybody else."
She wasn't going to like this, either. "I'm glad you're my daughter," he said, first of all, and kissed her forehead. "Now, because I am your father, I am grounding you for a week, young lady. You are old enough to know that hitting people isn't the way to solve problems."
"Oh, Dad!" Ivy stuck her lower lip out again. At least it was a sullen pout this time; she'd lost that dejected set to her mouth.
"And," Nathan continued, over her objections, "when you go back to school on Monday you will apologize to Ellen. Really apologize, I mean, not the way you apologize to your brother."
"I'm not sorry," Ivy muttered.
"Learn to fake it."
She sighed, a heavy, put-upon sigh that both his children had mastered by the age of three. "If I have to?"
Nathan leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Yes, you have to. Now let's figure out how we're going to explain this to your mother."