Work Text:
Change
Podfic:
"Susie."
"Theo."
"I'm sorry?"
"Ms Wardwell, my name's been changed on the roster."
"Oh. Has it?" She looks embarrassed, noticing the dates of the pages. Back to October. Before she went to sleep. "I'm sorry. I think my attendance records are old."
"If it isn't too much trouble. Might I ask why? Is it to honour someone? A family member?"
He could have said it was a play on Dorothea. It was close enough.
"Myself."
Mary pauses now. "Oh." She stands awkwardly, the file in her hands. Theo had stayed after, still organizing his mess of a book bag. There's silence, besides Mary's nerveous tapping of her pen.
"Ms Wardwell... do you really want to know?"
"If you wouldn't mind to tell me? I promise I'm not making a judgement. I only want to understand."
Theo pauses. Thinks. Tries to put this is simple terms. He doesn't know what she knows. Or what she thinks. About... him. About the experience.
"Do you ever feel... detached?"
Yes.
"Would you care to explain?"
Theo tries again.
"Do you ever feel like... like you don't fit?"
Yes.
"Sometimes." There. Something closer. He's surprised she would admit it to him. But, then again, this was the woman who had enthusiastically, a long time ago, given him family records and archived history in an effort to be kind.
"So... you might hear people describe changes...— they might say that someone is born in the wrong body. I don't really agree... It's still my body."
Mary nods.
"It just didn't feel right for the longest time."
Hers doesn't feel right now.
"Alright."
"Have you ever felt like your body was never your own?"
Specifically. Yes. She nods.
Theo doesn't know if he was expecting her to respond. When she nods, he's not sure if she's agreeing of if she understands.
"So it's about people seeing you how you are. How you really are."
Something more visible. Something more real. There was a certainty in this declaration. Mary recognized it as Theo straightened his collar.
Sometimes, at a distance, Mary didn't feel like herself at all.
"I go by Theo because it feels right. To me. Does that make sense?"
"I think I understand, Theo. Thank you. I'll fix it."
He eyes the thick stack of attendance papers. Ms Wardwell had always had so many made at the beginning of the term... it felt a waste to trash them. He’d seen her fix mistakes before. Sometimes it was a matter of making things new. As if there was never a problem.
"You don't have to fix them. You can change them. It's a change. Things can... change."
Mary nods.
"Theo."
Theo nods. "Ms Wardwell, I'm heading out, if that's cool. But... it was good to talk to you. I'm glad you're back."