1.29 Capitulate

Exam season is coming up soon. Naomi's been staying up late "studying" (read: freaking out), working, and actually studying for several days now. Coffee tastes terrible and it makes her even more anxious and hyper but she can't afford to fall asleep during class. So she drinks the coffee, even if she grimaces while doing it. 

On top of that, she's in debate club now. It all happened when she gave a good speech in Simlish class and the teacher asked her to sit in on one meeting of the club. Now... She's not sure why, but they asked her to lead their team tonight in their special debate; a students vs. teachers debate on banning cell phones in the class room. 

She can't wait for the next week to be over. Hell, just getting through tonight is going to be a struggle. 

But at least she'll have some support in the sidelines... 

***

Naomi hops out of the car and sprints to the school. The dress code for the debate is strictly formal, so she had to run home and change her clothes. The entire debacle has taken up an hour of her time, making her nearly late for this review session. Her team needs to prepare their arguments! 

...and then she drives home to get changed and study for exams.

She's still jittery from wonder and nerves; they did well! She managed to argue rationally and calmly, and her teammates defended their pro-cell phone stance to the best of their ability. 

Afterwards, the team gave her a plastic trophy for being "such a good captain." She's not sure if she would go that far, or if they just wanted to be polite, but looking at the trophy makes her grin. 

Her team did her proud! 

She arrives home, the smile still on her face. 

"Hello mother. How are you?"

Sage looks at the nice dress her daughter is wearing, the makeup, and new hairstyle... 

"Oh so is this why you took the car? To go on a date? I thought you were going to debate club." 

Naomi looks away, struggling to keep tears and frustration from showing on her face. 

But she's not very successful. 

"I was at debate club. Tonight was our formal debate. We won." 

Sage smiles, "Oh you did? Why didn't you tell me? I was home today, I could've watched-," 

"You never asked! I didn't want to waste your time, like I did with ballet. I did it on my own, just like you wanted! I went and debated and then came straight back because exams are coming up! And if I don't study I'm going to fail and my future will be over, mother! Over!" 

Mortified that she just back-talked her mother, Naomi runs to her room. 

She wrenches the door open... 

And then slams it shut. 

Sage stares off into the distance, suddenly uncomfortable. How was she supposed to know that her debate was tonight? Naomi didn't even tell her! She shakes her head. 

Teenagers and their outbursts. I suppose this will just need time to blow over. 

Lots of time. 

Right now, however, is not the time to mope. As her tears dry, Naomi opens up her geometry notebook and rummages around for her graphing calculator in her desk. 

The plastic trophy sits on her desk, essentially forgotten. 

There are exams coming up, after all. 

She's not sure what the time is when her vision swims and she can't look at numbers anymore. She tells herself that she'll just have a five minute nap... 

A very long five minutes. 

***

Naomi wakes up the next morning, a Saturday, with barely enough time to do her chores and get ready... 

For her revision session with Michelle, her history classmate. 

"I don't get it," Naomi sighs with frustration, "If the alliance was falling apart, why didn't the..." she flips through her summary, "Confederation of Simliness and er...the Simly conglomerate- what the hell kind of names are these?- try to fix it?" 

"Past problems," Michelle states, as if it's obvious, "They secretly had tensions building up for decades and the alliance was just convenient because they both needed resources at the time. It all came back to haunt them as soon as either side stepped even a little bit out of line." 

Naomi claps her hands, "Ahhhh. That makes sense. Why doesn't Mr. Benson explain it like that? I have all these confusing notes about their bad relations with the Empire of Simmetry but nothing about their actual allies!" 

Michelle shrugs, "I dunno, maybe for him it made more sense? Overall the alliance was doomed to fail and they severed ties." 

Naomi adds some footnotes to her summary. "I'm never going to get through the founding of Simnation in time! I have to go to work at 6," Naomi laments. 

"And I have to be home by then too. It all makes sense when I explain this stuff to someone else, but I'm helpless when I have to review it by myself," Michelle commiserates. 

***

At 5:15 the girls decide to call it a night. 

"Thanks for helping me. That summary was so confusing; I guess I should know better than trust Anita for notes..." 

"Yeah, she kinda hates your guts." 

"I know!" 

Michelle giggles, "She thinks everyone's after her man. Did you hear that Bob broke up with her again?" 

Naomi laughs, and then furrows her brow, "I don't think we should be gossiping about them..." 

"Is it really gossip when it's public knowledge?" Michelle snarks, "But anyways, I do have to go. Thanks for the review session! Sorry that we couldn't get through industrial revolution." 

"No, it's fine, you helped me so much. I'm surprised we got as far as we did considering how many times I had to ask you to explain more..." 

Michelle waves off Naomi's apologies, "Like I said, I learn by explaining, so you helped me out a lot!" 

The girls hug and Michelle calls her dad to pick her up. 

"See you on Monday.!" 

The day of the first of their finals. "See you then!" 

Sage comes home late, well after Naomi has returned from work and called it a night on her studying. Instead of chastising her for being awake, like Naomi expected, or going straight to her room as Sage normally does, Sage enters Naomi's bedroom and asks her to play chess. 

Naomi moves a pawn forward. "Is everything all right, mother?" Naomi asks politely, if tersely. What she really needs to be doing right now is studying, or napping so she can study again. But she's never played chess against anyone, much less her mother, and she's not one to be rude. She knows how the pieces move, and hopes that it will be enough.

"Yes, I had a concert tonight. It went very well, we got a standing ovation." 

Naomi forces a smile, "That's lovely, mother." 

Sage carefully moves a pawn forward, "You're nearly an adult, Naomi," she begins what sounds like an awkward conversation with a non-sequitor, "Politeness and etiquette will only get you so far. Moving past disagreements is also essential in any relationship. Especially if you still need things from that person. Employment, housing... just support, generally." 

Naomi moves her knight, "I see." 

Sage moves another pawn, "For example; I've moved past the prom incident." 

Naomi moves her knight back to its original place and says nothing. 

"I feel that we've had yet another misunderstanding," she slides her bishop diagonally several spaces, "That we both need to move past. For the future of our mutually supportive relationship as family." 

Naomi moves her other knight silently. 

Sage uses the bishop to take the knight. "Don't you agree, Naomi?" 

Naomi uses her pawn to capture the bishop, "...I suppose so." 

Sage slides a pawn forward two spaces, "Good. So you are no longer upset?" 

Naomi uses her knight again, "No, mother." 

"I'm proud of you for being so diplomatic," Sage moves her bishop one black space diagonally, "I can see why you did well in your debate.

Naomi moves her pawn out of the way, not seeing that she's left her rook open, "Thank you, Mother." 

Sage takes the rook. 

Sage smiles warmly, "I'll capitulate to you, Naomi. It's late and we both should rest." Sage gets up from the chair and smooths down her dress, "Don't stay up too late." She walks out of the room, closing the door with a soft click. 

Somehow, it doesn't feel like a victory.

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AN: I had to pull up a picture of a chess board layout to have any idea of how the pieces could move. I like playing chess but am terrible at it. The moving the knight back and forth moves Naomi uses are not good moves (if you couldn't tell :P) She got rid of Sage's bishop and saved one of her pawns, but lost a bishop, a knight, and a rook, all very valuable pieces. 

I feel like writing anyone playing chess makes them seem cold and manipulative, since they do have to be to win, I suppose. 

I also played the entire game of chess out after moving the pieces around as described in the chapter. "Sage" won (she was playing the black pieces as seen above). But again, it was Marcy v. Marcy, so no brilliant tactics were used XP 

Also I completely forgot that Naomi also did debate club until I started writing this chapter. Sorry for that coming out of nowhere!