#er headcanons

Jerry loves Radiohead and in 2007 his favorite album of all time will become In Rainbows

Ooh, okay. I'm going to keep it set in the 90s, so here we go:

1. Kerry is the Vice Principal because of course she is. She started as the AP Chemistry teacher a few years back and went for the job as soon as it became available. It is no secret she is after Principal Anspaugh's job once he retires, but she does a good job of pretending she's not. Supposedly, her parents were teachers at the school many years ago and, while they were both well loved, there is some disappointment that she seems to have inherited her Physics teacher mother's strict (but fair) demeanor as opposed to the goofiness of her Calculus teacher father.

2. Carter is the English teacher that everybody loves. When he starts, he's fresh out of college, so he's only a few years older than the seniors. His classroom is right next to Mr. Benton, who teaches History. Mr. Benton is thoroughly unimpressed with Mr. Carter's antics (he refuses to refer to him just as 'Carter') but he has a quiet respect and possibly even friendship when Carter proves he is a lot more mature and worldly than he seems.

3. Doug teaches PE and has a not-so-secret crush on Carol, the school nurse. He personally escorts every student to the nurse's office when necessary and often times even when it isn't. But just as it's no secret amongst the teachers that they have dated before and Doug messed things up, they can't deny that he seems to have gotten serious about improving his behavior and doing things right should Carol give him another chance.

4. Mark and Susan have neighboring classrooms on the Science hallway. Though they are best friends, there was some animosity when Mark supported the hiring of Kerry a few years back. Susan, who teaches regular Chemistry, had to deal with Kerry correcting and checking on her the first year they worked together. The tension between them turned to begrudging friendship, which eventually turned to romance when Kerry got promoted and no longer had teaching duties. Susan returned the "favor" of Mark incidentally setting her and Kerry up by actively setting him up with the new French teacher (who is actually from the UK).

5. Jeanie is the Guidance Counselor and is sought out for advice both from the students as well as the staff. She is patient and gentle, but is not afraid to stand up and advocate for herself and others. Her guidance is less on which college or profession students should pursue, but making sure that they are taken care of and getting their needs met.

1. He has long hair that he often wears in a messy bun (paired with a very big sweater)

2. He wears nail polish

1) Kerry and the twin were given up for adoption but were adopted together by the Weavers

Kerry’s childhood is ultimately the same but this time includes sisterhood.

She is the Oldest Child, which is VERY important to her (even if she is only older by like five minutes)

Her ambition and drive still has a bit of the “What if I was given up for being disabled?” thing going on but mostly is about competing with her sister

Tension in their relationship stems from the fact that, growing up, her sister was praised for athletic prowess and Kerry was praised for academic prowess. Their competitiveness is rooted in the fact that they both secretly feel like they were the disappointing child because they didn’t excel the way the other did

There would also be tension surrounding the fact that her sister would be a lot more outgoing than she was and therefore had a lot more friends (and romantic interests). This would lead Kerry to believe, despite the fact that they were identical, that her sister was the “prettier one.” (This would be less of an issue when she realized she was gay... though that would potentially lead to other stress.)

And, because I’m me and must include my version of Kerry’s adoptive parents, Mildred and Henry, having gone through so much loss, would be thrilled to get two daughters instead of one

And then for the WAY more AU one (aka sadder one)...

2) Helen chooses not to give them up

She moves back to South Carolina with the babies, but doesn’t move in with Cody. She moves back in with her parents. (They’re teenagers after all.)

Cody is still involved but there’s only so much he can do. He goes through with his plan to quit school and sends money to Helen’s mom for the care of the kids. Her mom is softer on him than her dad is.

Kerry still has a weird hip, but this time, instead of choosing not to do anything to treat it because of their concerns about surgery, they can’t afford to. However, instead of just going with it, it becomes a Thing

The sister is encouraged to play and run around but Kerry is not. Helen’s mother, who looks after them while Helen is in school, keeps her inside, insisting she’s “too fragile” for it (or the like)

Cody turns eighteen and joins a local union, giving him a stable income and benefits. He formally approaches Helen’s parents to ask for her hand. They (begrudgingly) agree and he and Helen are married as soon as she graduates. The family of four move into a house of their own.

Kept inside with only her sister as company her age, Kerry ends up painfully shy. She spends many years hiding behind her sister, who defends her against bullies but ends up becoming overprotective of her

Kerry’s still bright and bookish, but she nor her parents know exactly how much talent she has until high school. But, even with everyone touting her as a prodigy who could make her family proud by being the first to go to college, her deepest and truest wish - to go to medical school and become a doctor - is out of reach. She has the grades, but she knows that she could never tell her parents that was what she wanted or else they’d convince her she couldn’t do it.

She settles on public health and health administration as an alternative, hoping she’ll still get the chance to work in medicine (even if not directly). She is accepted and offered a lot of money to go John Hopkins University for undergrad. She spends most of her first year studying harder than ever and trying to hide her accent and any information about her family she can, as she realizes that she comes from a different background than many of them do

College gives her the chance to be independent for the first time in her life. She’s still very shy and socially withdrawn, but she slowly comes into her own in classes. By the time she’s accepted to and then completed her Masters degree in Healthcare Administration from Cornell, she’s a lot more like the Kerry we know.

She gets hired at a third-party healthcare management firm on graduation and spends the next ten years traveling from hospital to hospital to perform independent audits on their budgets. She returns home for major holidays, but prefers traveling. She is used to her independence by now and going home strips her of that.

She ends up in Chicago circa fall 1995 when her firm is asked by Cook County to audit their publicly funded hospitals. One of them is on the chopping block and it’s up to her to determine who.

“Momma, you literally treat people that that sort of stuff has happened to? How can that freak you out?”

“I treat them after they come into the ER. I don’t sit there and watch it happen to them. And, no, don’t start claiming it’s all ketchup or whatever because I’ve seen the scenarios in which it’s not.”

“Would that guy have died? If that had happened in real life?”

In terms of my fanfiction, I repeatedly specify that the Weavers move back to the US in 1973 throughout several fics, but in “matriarchs” I further specify that Mildred doesn’t formally retire until 1976. As one of the few canon details we know about Kerry’s mother is that she was a teacher, I rationalized that, during this three year gap, Mildred would occasionally substitute for local math teachers in the district where they lived.