What's happened to us... | A The Music Freaks Backstory AU

The Final part... (The rest of the backstory things)

So, where we left off on the flashback,  Linda (Luke's mother) goes to to the Wickham's appartment and finds that Shannon (Zander's mother) is under a very deep depression. She stopped going to work, and had been locked in her room, stuck inside her head and, under her dispair, basically forgotten that she had a son. Meanwhile, Zander (a 5-year-old, mind you), in the appeared absence of his mother was in an equal state of loneliness and depression when Linda finds him.

-- The realization that his mother basically forgot about him ends up making him resent her and deem her as a bad mother for a very long time. (Of course, he wasnt able to understand that she was dealing with a lot of trauma at the time, so its truthfully nobody's fault)

Linda talks to Shannon and promises to help her, and not leave her (or Zander) alone. She takes both him and his mother to her house (The Holy Peterson Household ), and that's one of the first places Zander ever actually feels safe at.

-- This, later causes him to be attached to both the place, and Luke's family. I mention at some point in the story that whenever  he wants to escape his own house and family, he goes to Luke's.  Zander considers both Carl (Luke's dad) and Linda as his second parents, getting used to calling Linda "Mom" since he was about 6.

I find it funny to think that he once called Linda "mom" accidentally, later asking if its okay for him to do that. Linda would probably tell him that it was okay as long Shannon was okay with it, and then Zander just continued doing it without ever asking Shannon.

Meanwhile, there's a whole scene where Shannon is terrified of going into Linda's house, since it has an almost identical structure to the old house she had with Alan. (Remember that these two families were neighbors, Zander and Luke met at the Neighborhood's park).

It takes her a while to build up to courage and actually feel safe in the place, but as she and Linda grow closer together, she actually considers this place home too.

I also want to mention that, after this, Shannon finally starts going to therapy and actually process her trauma!! Hooray!  She moves forward, and the sad apartment slowly becomes the cozy place that Micheal and Hailey meet years later.

I must mention that after not-too-long, she does get a PTSD diagnosis for reasons more than obvious. 

Im not sure what the original idea was here, but I don't think it would be very logical for her to have ever even THOUGHT of dating any other men after the nightmare that was her ex husband, so I just wanted to settle that.

-- FINALLY, a point that later shows up is that Shannon has a hard time talking and connecting with Zander because she basically thinks he cant remember most of his childhood. And in a way that is true, his memories are pretty blurry, but that doesnt mean he's just gonna go on and behave like a normal child with no trauma (which is what she expected for a long time).

NOW

LUKE AND ZANDER'S STORY:

As we already know they met at a park where Zander was alone reading music sheets his mother gave him, Luke decides hes the coolest person he's ever met, and they become friends.

They meet up to play at the park until Zander is forced to move (as they meet more frequently, Shannon meets Linda properly. This is when Linda starts realizing she is being abused by her husband, although shes  to afraid to act, until its too late and the fight with Alan happens, causing her to leave the neighborhood.)

It is mentoned by Zander that he didn't attend any sort of kindergarden back when all of this happen. 

After the Petersons are able to get his mother out of a hole, they suggest that Zander attends the same daycare Luke is going to, so that she wont have to worry about taking care of him while she works, and so he can socialize with other kids his age.

As soon as Shannon claims that she doesnt have the money to get him in, they tell her they'll pay for her anything Zander needs.

And so, Zander starts going to the daycare. He obviously finds it hard to talk to other kids and is kind of a loner. I would assume Linda and Shannon explained the family situation to his teacher so that she was comprehensive with him. 

Perhaps she was a little disturbed, and didnt try to draw that much attention to him. But once Luke recongizes him there, he deliberatly starts hanging out with him. 

One of their first interactions I remember writing was basically beginning of their friendship.

In one of his first days at the daycare, Zander didnt have anything to eat, since his mother wasnt really aware that he had to take lunch with him. So, Luke sits with him at lunch and offers him half of his sandwich. Zander refuses, asking why he would do that. Luke insists, asking why he wouldnt  do that. Its a long back and forth, which ends with both of them laughing and Zander accepting  the sandwich, they become best friends.

Through the years, Zander begins to heal. Him and Luke go to the same elementary and are basically inseparable.

Theres another scene where they explain to Hailey the story of how Luke starts wearing glasses (because, yeah, he wears glasses in this AU, there is no justification for this.)

They were in class one time, and the teacher asked Luke to read something from the board. He was probably sitting in the back of the class with Zander, and as much as he tried to see, he could'nt.

 So he asks the teacher: "May I please step closer, miss?". She lets him stand up, and he begins walking up to the board. But he just cant make it out, so he gets closer, and closer, and closer, and closer! 

He is basically standing next to the teacher, squinting at the board, as he finally yells out, confidently "OH, I GET IT! IT SAYS 'APPLE'!" And the teacher is just completly baffled.

 "Sweetie, it says 'Add'".  And then everyone looses it.

"Maybe you should tell your mother to get your eyes checked out, okay?"

So they do that, and when he gets his eyes checked he's probably super nervous, but Zander is there super exited because the optics store looks super cool.

Luke gets these HUGE, THICK glasses, and looks like the nerd emoji.

I like to think that he eventually broke them and had to start wearing those goggles for little kids who play sports and jump around.

Also, think about the possibility that now that he could see the world in detail, he actually was able to take a good look at people's faces, including his pretty best friend :)

Neither of them really develop crushes on each other  until later, though.

Luke and Zander stick together for most of their childhood, even when Zander gets picked on and bullied, Luke chose to stay by his side.

I THINK THATS ALL FOR THE WICKHAM'S BACKSTORIES! AGAIN, FEEL FREE TO ASK QUESTIONS, I WOULD LOVE TO CHAT ABOUT HOW SCENES WOULD GO OR JUST ABOUT RANDOM OPINIONS ON THE CHARACTERS.