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When Nicholas Benedict was first presented with the adoption paper, he was overjoyed. The promise of everything he’d ever wanted: belonging, love, family.
(well, maybe he had not always dreamed of having a family. It's not like he actually believed he would be adopted one day, and he had his brother, anyway, Nathaniel was enough and that was more than most other children at the orphanage had, he couldn't be too greedy, now, could he ? That was enough)
(until it wasn't. You can't survive solely on bread and water.)
So when he was told that he would have his name changed, he didn't put up a fight; he was glad, even. Gwen. He repeated the word in his head over and over again, searing it into his memory. Gwen. The symbol of a new life. Gwen. The sound of acceptance. Gwen. Gwen. Gwen.
Nathaniel would understand, surely. They wouldn't share a name anymore, but their bond was stronger than that. They had shared a womb. They had shared nine years of life, and as many nights as roommates. They'd shared good books and bad laughs, and a thousand other memories, all of them more important than a name. He would understand and, worse come to worse, they would work it out, of course they would.
(Maybe he could change his name too, when he comes of age. They didn’t have space to take him in too, but he is still part of the family, right ? Nathaniel Gwen. It sounds nice, too)
***
When Nicholas (not Gwen, not Benedict, just Nicholas) moved out at barely 18, he took his books, his clothes, an old picture with him and he never came back. He left the rest behind.
***
Nathaniel is not nameless, but his name is meaningless, and maybe that is worse. Nathaniel Benedict is Nicholas Benedict's brother, but Nicholas Benedict is no more. So he lets drop the curtain on his old name and on his past.
***
Nicholas knows one cannot remain nameless forever.
Names are only words; words are fleeting, easily discarded, transformed and lost, but words are also fixed in stone, pressed like flowers and pinned like butterflies in the pages of dictionnaries.
Yet, for all of Juliet's complaints, names are so much more at the same time; names are identities and ideals and means of being perceived.
And if he signs everything "Nicholas" and avoids using his last name, he knows it can't last forever.
It would be easy, he thinks, to choose a third name. Something greek, maybe, he's always liked mythology. But none of them fit, like a shirt that looks nice on the rack but falls all wrong once it is worn.
So he improvises, introduces himself to his mirror with a different name each day, waiting for one to fit just right.
***
It slips out, one day. After days and months and names after names, he doesn't realize the words he's saying until they're already hanging in the air.
Nicholas Benedict.
And it feels right.
(He had tried to find his brother before, but he hadn't managed to locate Nathaniel. He had given up, then, on being a Benedict; it didn't feel right, to be a Benedict alone.)
(But several years have passed since then, and if the hurt doesn't diminish, it fades into the background)
***
Nicholas Benedict is not a blank page, but it is close. A book that was started, left behind and picked up again.
He has clues. He knows he likes books and learning. He knows he believes in people and in kindness and in children.
It is going to be a difficult task, finding out who Nicholas Benedict is, but a start is better than nothing.
***
Nicholas Benedict is a man on a mission, and games of names take a step back. Transmissions and secret messages take priority, and he has no time anymore to reflect on who he is.
He recruits agents who become family. (Intentionally or not, he doesn't mention name changes, even on the adoption papers. They don't either.)
***
He doesn't think about his name much anymore, even when the Emergency is over.
Maybe, there's not as much to it as he thought. Maybe, a name is just what your family knows you by.