Ficlet: "Her Name Was Not" (joss100)

Fred ficlet; it doesn't really fit any of the prompts. Well, maybe "parent"? Maybe?

Any thoughts on it would be much appreciated. It's weird. I'm not linking it to the table or the joss100 comm yet, because...I'm not sure about it. Meh. I'm in a mood tonight.


They named her Winifred, because Roger's great-aunt was dying and she looked up from the hospital sheets and said that it would just mean the world to her and ease the pain of her final hours if they'd only give her name to the baby girl they expected inside of a week. What else could they do, you couldn't refuse the wish of a dying woman, and the world didn't need one more baby Catherine anyway, did it?

Roger's great-aunt died two days before the baby was born, and it would've been a lot easier to go back to the original plan and not have to exchange all of those jumpers monogrammed with C's for W's. But they'd promised, and it wasn't right to break a promise, no matter what.

They taught her that, once she was born and her name wasn't Catherine but Winifred. They taught her about keeping promises, and doing right by the dying, and lots of other things besides. Winifred had wide eyes and good ears and a sharp mind. She learned a lot from them, and quickly.
***
She was Winnie until seventh grade, when the other girls in the locker room after gym class decided that if she wasn't going to grow breasts, wear makeup, or join the cheerleading squad, she must secretly be a boy, and started calling her Fred. She smiled, because nice girls didn't tell people to fuck off and big girls didn't cry. She wished her name was Susan or Elizabeth or Carolyn or Nancy, something unambiguously and certainly female, but it wasn't, she was Fred, and Fred she would remain.

After a while, she got used to it.

After a while, she decided she liked it, because why not? Being Fred made her unique, right? Different. Special. Not that "Winifred" in and of itself wasn't different, but...

What good would it do to hate it, anyway?
***
In tenth grade Kevin Olbrook asked her to Homecoming, and it was the happiest Tuesday of her life, because Kevin was on the basketball team and had the most amazing green eyes and drove a souped-up car he'd put together all by himself.

The happiest Tuesday of her life was followed by the most miserable Wednesday. In the morning she saw the rest of the basketball team gathered around Kevin's locker, and when she slipped by on her way to biology she heard Derek Townsend say "You're going to Homecoming with Fred? So that means you're queer, right?" In the afternoon, she opened her locker and got hit in the forehead with a folded-up note, written on the back of a pep rally flyer, telling her to forget the whole thing, Kevin had changed his mind. She wasn't surprised, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell.

She went to the movies on Homecoming night instead, wearing the dress her mama had started making way back in August, with her hair piled up on her head like a lopsided crown. She saw a bad science-fiction movie that was less science than fiction, and bought a pack of cigarettes at the vending machine in the lobby on her way out the door. She didn't smoke them or anything, but carrying them around in her purse made her feel a little bit better for a few minutes. Then she just felt stupid, and threw them away.

She stopped for ice cream on the way home, and the guy behind the counter kind of flirted with her a little. She told him her name was Anna. He didn't seem to care.
***
In Pylea she held on to being Fred with both hands, digging her fingers into the syllable as deep as she could. Short name, simple name, solid name, easy to remember. Fred, Fred, Fred. Dirt and scratches marked up the driver's license once she didn't have a pocket to guard it, but somehow those four letters stayed clear. Fred Fred Fred.

Fred was she, Fred was her, she could find her way if she remembered Fred.

She wrote it in the dirt, painted it on the walls, scratched it into her own skin. Fred.

She never would have had room to write "Cordelia." Too hard to remember that.

Fred was solid, though, short and easy. She wouldn't disappear being Fred. It was a stone.

She watched Pylea with wide eyes and good ears. She took it apart with a sharp mind. She learned it quickly. She didn't waste any time hating it. And when they called her a cow, she decided she didn't care.

She had the truth like a stone around her neck. Not a cow. Fred.

Fred, Fred, Fred...