Title: In Each Family A Story
Author: cinaed
Rating: PG
Prompt: 024. "Choices"
Disclaimer: Not mine. Unfortunately.
Spoilers: "Let The Seller Beware" and "Spellbound"
Pairing(s): David Hodges/Greg Sanders
Summary: Errors in judgment run in the Hojem family.
Author's Notes: You know what, amazonqueenkate makes a really good scapegoat. And again, this is her fault. *grins*
Word Count: 1,163

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Sometimes, Olaf wondered what his life would have been like if he had never met Sonja, never looked into her eyes as blue as the pale morning sky, never fallen head over heels for her when she had taken his hand and asked to read his palm.

He certainly wouldn't have had to leave the university where he'd been training as a lawyer. He wouldn't have had to abandon his motherland and go to the far-off land of America with his wife who had been five months pregnant during their wedding. He wouldn't have ended up working for his distant cousin in his small bakery in a place called San Gabriel, California, where he hated the smell of yeast and loathed the way flour never quite got out from under his fingernails.

There were many days when he would just stand in front of the stoves, feeling the scalding heat redden his cheeks and make his eyes water, and think longingly of the university and the old, musky smell of books and knowledge. But, as he always said, "så man reder, så ligger man." He had made his bed, and so he would lie in it. Besides, he loved Sonja, loved her dreamy, knowing eyes and her bright laugh, loved the way she would look at him and say in her soft, calm voice, "What will be, will be, Olaf," whenever he was indecisive or upset.

And most of all, he loved their daughter, Karina, who had her mother's eyes and his older sister's winsome smile. If falling in love with Sonja had been an error in judgment, well, then, Olaf found himself grateful for having lost all common sense with one look into her eyes, because it had given him Sonja and Karina.

*


Karina had her mother's eyes and her eldest aunt's winsome smile, and her younger aunt's temperament. From the stories her father told, Aunt Johanna had always been fierce and prideful and stubborn to a fault, chasing after impossible dreams and never admitting she was wrong. Karina was all that and more. She despised her parents' nostalgia for the old country, despised the fact that she was not anything more than a first-generation American, despised the fact that her father worked in a pathetic excuse for a bakery and that her mother believed herself psychic.

She wanted to be an all-American girl, wanted to be an actress in Hollywood and marry an actor and have Hollywood children, wanted to be famous and rich and important, wanted to be normal and eat bacon and eggs instead of Hjortebakkels.

And so, when she was seventeen, she ran off to Los Angeles, attracted to the city lights like a moth attracted to a flame. She returned home a little over a year later one dreary, rainy night, a wedding band on her finger but no husband in sight. Her eyes were not much like her mother's anymore -- they were tired and angry and sullen, because she could hear the silent, 'I told you so,' even if her parents never voiced it, even if they never actually thought it.

"His name is Greg. Greg Sanders. Adam and I, we...just can't handle a child right now," she told them, and was gone with the next flash of lightning, leaving Olaf and Sonja to stare in a mixture of bemusement and wonder at the drowsy-eyed child and the birth certificate on the table. On closer inspection, the baby had unfamiliar eyes, large and brown, but Olaf thought he saw a hint of Sonja's calm joy in that gaze.

The weeks passed, and the 'right now' never came, because Karina never returned for her son, and soon the weeks became months, the months years, and after a while Olaf and Sonja couldn't remember what life had been like without their little child genius around, because Greg was brilliant and beautiful.

True, Olaf felt that Karina running away had been an error in judgment on her part, but at least Greg had been the result, and Olaf couldn't help but be grateful that Karina had inherited his sister's disposition, because it had given them Greg.

*


Greg grew to be a boy with his father's brown eyes and his grandmother's bright laughter. Olaf liked to boast that Greg's brilliance came from his side of the family, and no one really argued. The boy embraced both the old country and the new, learning about tradition and still managing to be an all-American boy who loved surfing and science.

Still, Greg had inherited a bit of his mother's restlessness and attraction to city lights, and so he left San Gabriel and called home and sent postcards from places like San Francisco, then New York, and finally a place called Las Vegas. Unlike his mother though, Greg put down roots, and made Las Vegas his home.

Perhaps it was coincidence, or perhaps it was just irony that he would return to San Gabriel much in the manner his mother did, on a dreary, rainy night, an unfamiliar man with intense blue eyes at his side and a half-determined, half-terrified expression on his face.

"This is David. David Hodges. David and I...we're...." He faltered then, and in the next flash of lightning, Olaf saw how much his eyes looked like his mother's -- tired and anxious and something akin to hopeless, as though Greg already knew what their response would be. Still, when he spoke, his voice was soft and earnest, with no trace of further hesitation. "We're together." And when he put his arm around David's waist, there could be no confusion as to what he meant by 'together.'

Sometimes, Olaf wondered what his life would have been like if he had reacted differently, if he had disowned Greg and banished him from the Hojem house forever, if he had called him a drittsækk or even a sjitstapper, if he had ignored the fact that he loved his grandson and driven him from his doorstep and back into the rain.

He supposed he would never know, because he had turned to Sonja for guidance, and she had smiled and said in her soft, calm voice, "What will be, will be, Olaf," and so he had swallowed and extended a hand and said, "Come in, David."

Olaf was certain that many might think that Greg had made a serious error in judgment -- he had given up a chance for a normal life, with the white picket fence and 2.5 children, for a man with a cynical smile and a low, sarcastic voice -- but Olaf couldn't help but be grateful that Greg had come to them and told them the truth and brought David to meet them, because it had given them David and a Greg that they had never known they were missing.

In each family a story is playing itself out, and each family's story embodies its hope and despair.
~Auguste Napier

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