24A/N: This is the first little story in a series about various moments or points in Deeks' life. I may add some drabbles that I've already posted on Tumblr.
And I just couldn't help myself with the title.
"Please go to problem number 4, boys and girls. Now, for this addition problem we need to add 5 to 8. Marty, what do you think the answer is?" Marty kept his head down, pretending he hadn't heard. Sometimes if you didn't answer, Mrs. Potter called on somebody else instead. "Martin, please come up to the board," she instructed.
Six year old Marty got to his feet very slowly. He dropped his pencil under his desk and then spent as long as he could kneeling down to pick it up.
"Martin, please stop stalling. You're keeping everyone waiting." Marty glanced up under the cover of his eyelashes; Mrs. Potter was staring at him and although she didn't exactly look mad, she didn't look too happy with him either.
Mrs. Potter was nice and most of the time he liked her, but he didn't like it so much when she made him talk in front of the whole class. When he got to the board, he wrote the problem out as quickly as he could, scrawling out a messy 13 at the bottom in powdery white chalk.
"Thank you, Marty," Mrs. Potter said quietly when he finished. "You can go back to your seat."
Marty stared down at his hands, avoiding looking at anything as his teacher ushered him and his mom into the empty classroom. He wanted to go sit at his desk near the back of the room, but Mrs. Potter led them over to two chairs pulled up close to her desk.
"Mrs. Deeks, thank you for coming in today," Mrs. Potter started. He wasn't sure why his mom had to come to his school today; he didn't remember doing anything bad but he must have. The good kids' parents never had to come to school.
"Is everything alright?" Roberta asked, getting right to the point, her hands nervously clutching her black purse. "Did something happen with Martin?" Her hand fell on his knee and he twitched once before relaxing under the reassuring pressure.
"No…not exactly. I don't know quite how to put this, Mrs. Deeks." Mrs. Potter sighed. "Does Marty talk to you at home?"
"Of course." his mom responded to the question with a hint of laughter in her voice. "Sometimes I swear he could talk for an hour at a time without taking a breath."
"Really?" Mrs. Potter asked, sounding like she did when she knew Deeks wasn't was telling a lie. "Because here at school, he barely talks at all most days."
"You're kidding me," his mom said.
"No, it's all I can do some days to get him to participate in class. Sometimes I hear him talking to a couple children he's friends with, but he's usually very quiet and he spends a lot of time by himself." Marty hunched over his raised knees, wishing he could curl up even more as he felt his mom's eyes on the top of his head.
"Is that true, baby?" she asked, coming her fingers through his hair. He shrugged. Mrs. Potter made a noise in her throat and Marty heard papers rustling.
"Mrs. Deeks, I'd like to refer your son for a speech therapy evaluation," Mrs. Potter said and her voiced sounded soft like she was telling his mom something really bad. He had no idea what a speech therapy was, but it didn't sound good.
"Speech therapy, whatever for? Martin speaks just fine."
"Well, yes his pronunciation seems just fine and he has age-appropriate grammar, but I think he has difficulty carrying a conversation. It may seem fine to you, but an evaluation will definitely rule out any deficits. Sometimes parents just don't notice these things."
"But Marty doesn't have any deficits," his mom said, starting to sound really upset. "If he did, I'd be glad to get him this therapy, but he talks to me all the time. He tells me stories and asks questions…" She trailed off and Mrs. Potter didn't say anything right away.
There was a really long pause and Marty finally peeked up; Mrs. Potter was giving her a look that made him want to squirm.
"Be that as it may, Mrs. Deeks, I'd still like you to take these papers home and look them over."
"And then Jacob came out of the bathroom and he had his pants pulled down. He shouted, 'Surprise!' and everybody was laughing expect for Mariah, she thought it was yucky, and Mrs. Potter. She made Jacob go to the principal's office and then I think his mom had to come take him home." Marty paused his story briefly to pull in a much needed breath of air.
Roberta was chopping up vegetables and meat for stew at the counter while he colored at the kitchen table. If Marty had been paying attention, he would have seen her watching him fondly.
"And then you know what happened, mommy?" he asked as he colored a small clown fish.
"Oh, I couldn't begin to imagine," she answered, tossing a handful of seasoning inside the pot she'd filled with beef, carrots, and potatoes.
The phone rang and she hastily wiped her hands on a towel before picking up the receiver. Marty tuned out the conversation, focusing on making the third fish on his picture rainbow colored. He was just looking for an unbroken red crayon when he noticed his mom's voice rise.
He turned around quickly, picture forgotten as Roberts said,
"But I just met with Martin's teacher last month, why do I need to come in again? Has Marty been misbehaving?" His stomach suddenly felt sick.
For the last few weeks, Marty had tried really hard to talk at school. He tried to answer Mrs. Potter whenever she called on him, but sometimes his voice was too quiet and sometimes all that came out was a 'yes' or 'no'.
He didn't know why it happened. It wasn't like he wanted to be bad.
Mrs. Potter always looked worried around him and when she didn't think he was listening, he sometimes heard her talking about him to another teacher. One of the other kids said she took students who couldn't talk right down to the room at the end of the hall and made them say words. That didn't sound so bad to Marty since Mrs. Allen seemed pretty nice, but he didn't think he could talk to her any better than everyone else at school.
Sometimes he wanted to say a whole lot. He wanted to tell everyone about his mom and dad and his favorite toys, but the words got stuck on the way out. Other times he was afraid of what would come out if he did start talking. He didn't want to know what Mrs. Potter's face would look like if he told her about the yelling.
So he kept quiet, even when he didn't want to and now his mom was in trouble again. Marty stared down at his unfinished picture and hoped that Daddy didn't get mad at them too when he found out.
He listened to his mom say goodbye on the phone, saw how sad she was again and decided he needed to do something.
The next day, Marty was nervous all morning while he got ready. He sat on the bus, looking out the window as he practiced the same sentences in his head over and over again. He didn't even have the energy to talk to the older boy who played with him sometimes.
Mrs. Potter was sitting at her desk when he walked into the classroom and looked surprised when he walked right up to her. Usually he stayed in the hallway until she made him come in.
"Mrs. Potter, I'm sorry I don't talk to you like I'm supposed to," he started immediately, the words tumbling out in a rush. Mrs. Potter's mouth popped open a little and when she didn't say anything, he continued. "I promise I'll try really hard. Just please don't make me go to speech cause I think my dad will get really mad. And I don't want him to get mad again." His heart pounded in his chest, filling up his ears with sound as he waited for Mrs. Potter to say something.
"Marty…" she shook her head.
"I promise I won't be bad." Mrs. Potter closed her eyes, her face pinched up like something hurt. Quietly, she grabbed his hands in her and pulled him closer. He was surprised that she didn't look mad at all and even more surprised when she hugged him hard like mom did.
"Marty Deeks, you are never bad. You are a wonderful boy and I'm sorry if I made you feel like you aren't," she said, her voice sounding wobbly at the end. He looked down uncomfortably but Mrs. Potter gently tilted his chin back up. "And I want you to know that if there is ever anything that you want to tell me, I'm always here, but I promise I won't force you to tell me anything ever again. Do you understand?" Marty nodded, even though he wasn't quite sure he did.
"Good, you can go find your seat."
Marty isn't sure what to think but as the day goes on and Mrs. Potter keeps her promise, he thinks maybe he can try talking a little bit more. Just for her.
A/N: Although I do work with speech students, I'm not entirely sure how students were qualified and treated back in the 1980's in a school setting. I've heard several adults mention having speech when they were kids, but they typically had issues with articulation rather than more complex language deficits.
For anyone who's curious, little Deeks has selective mutism in this story. I also am working with the headcanon that Deeks' dad started being more absent in his son's life at this point.
