Work Text:
April 2027
You got this, Yaz. She takes a deep breath. It’s just public speaking. Just a hundred people watching her. She’s done runs in front of tens of thousands — yet this is miles worse. Because she isn’t a runner. She’s Yaz Fadoula, accomplished psychologist talking about her mental health journey. In front of a hundred people. And loads more online.
No big deal, right? She’s rehearsed this speech many times before (goodness knows the camp fam must be sick of hearing it). She knows exactly what to say, down to where she anticipates (hopes) the audience will pause to laugh.
She’s not a huge fan of being on camera, and it only got worse when the Nublar Six got plastered everywhere, raised to celebrity status when they were still teenagers. And when she’d finally started to fade into a quieter life, ten different kinds of disaster struck again, and the media were once again hungry for the epic story of the Nublar Six. Yaz thought they’d never leave.
The camp fam initially though she was out of her mind stepping back into the spotlight, even if it is only for a smallish audience (and a much bigger audience online). But this isn’t about publicity. This is about the twelve year old without the words to explain the gnawing ache of something in her stomach. This is about the thirteen year old who’s afraid to talk to a therapist. This is about the fourteen year old who tugs her sleeves down in the middle of summer.
This is about millions of hypothetical children, but most of all, it’s about Yaz herself. Sixteen years old and freshly traumatized, feeling like someone tossed her in the freezing deep end without any instructions for what to do when she woke up each night screaming and gasping awake like she’d dipped under the waves too long.
What she wouldn’t have given to see someone — let alone another openly queer, Brown woman — tell her it’s okay to struggle, that they’re in a similar body of water and that they made it to a place they can stay not just afloat, but happy.
Not just that, but hearing how important it is to talk about it. Maybe the deep end is an ocean she’ll swim in her whole life, maybe she’s closer to shore without even realising, but she has life rings now, something to cling to when life gets difficult, and people she can come on board and relax into. Hell is other people, but heaven is each other, after all.
She’ll say all that in her speech. If she can stomach going on stage. So many people are going to be watching her — not just a runner, not just a track star — but her. Really seeing her.
After all this time, she’s still not a huge fan of being on camera. People, on the other hand, she likes a lot more. And she might have only been a psychologist for a handful of years, but she would call that progress.
The camp fam certainly do. Their picture is folded in her pocket, keeping her warm. Her hand subconsciously drifts to the papery surface, and her fingertips trace the groves of white, weathered creases. It’s an old photo by now, several years old, but for some bizarre, nostalgic reason, none of them want to let it go. Maybe it symbolises their new start. Maybe they all just look really happy in it.
(Either way, they’ll take a new one in a few months, now Yaz and Sammy have a baby on the way.)
“What would the camp fam say right now?” Yaz muses, murmuring to no one but herself.
“Sorry, what?”
Someone else’s voice catches her attention, and Yaz whips around: it’s a person in a headset, holding a clipboard. “What?”
“Yaz, right? You’re on in, like, thirty seconds.”
“Oh.” Yaz nods, her face blank. “Okay.”
And the nerves come back. Her heart hasn’t learned the difference between the horror of being perceived by people, and being actively chased by a dinosaur — this would be a lot easier with the camp fam beside her. It’s a sudden thought, striking her like stubbing a toe, but it’s true. Being alone meant a dinosaur could strike, and you wouldn’t have anyone to help drag you and your messed-up ankle away. The air around her suddenly feels ten degrees hotter and thicker, and Yaz grasps her photo, unfolding it and tracing the shape of the camp fam all smiling together in the dim backstage light.
You’ve got this, Yaz. That was what Sammy whispered in Yaz’s ear before she left, and she’ll be right there on the other side. They’ll all be there. Yaz just has to get through this bit. It’s important.
“And now, a well-known face to I’m sure many of you, here to talk about her mental health journey, Yasmina Fadoula!”
“That’s your cue!” Someone whispers to her, and Yaz takes one last look at the photo, before shoving it into her pocket.
She walks on stage to raucous applause. People are chanting her name, chanting, “Yaz! Yaz!” and she waves, scanning around the crowd. Everyone is yelling, and it’s starting to make her a little nauseous. People keep yelling her name, something moves in the corner of her vision and—
The camp fam. In the front row. Smiling, waving, cheering. Sammy calls out “surprise!”, barely audible over the noise of the crowd, but Yaz blows a kiss in her direction.
Yaz used to feel so weird when her mom came to her track meets and sat in the front row. Seeing her cheering and waving so proudly made Yaz want to ice her out the whole time, full of that moody teenager embarrassment.
Now, it only fills her with joy. They came out of their way, for their whole evening, to see her.
(Of course they did. They’re family.)
Reaching the centre of the stage suddenly feels a lot easier.
Before she begins, her eyes reach Sammy’s one more time. Their child is in the list of hypothetical kids Yaz is doing this for, maybe more than anyone else. She wants to make her baby and her fifteen year old self both proud. The past and the future are both important to nurture.
Yaz clears her throat, and begins.