CHAPTER ONE!
( SEIZE THE DAY. )

   TRAVESTY, HORROR, DECADENCE, EXCREMENT.

The four pillars of Welton Academy. Joan sighed deeply as she began to unpack her suitcase. Another year at Welton meant another ten months of sleepless nights and innumerable essays. Her parents were dead-set on Joan holding up the family's legacy, she had no room to slack off. Joan adjusted the achievement pins on her Welton blazer after she put her final things away. She took another deep breath, processing the fact that summer was over.

A girl with brown hair that curled at the nape of her neck and an armful of books stepped through the doorway. She looked quite dishevelled but her brown eyes lit up brightly when she saw Joan.

"Hi! I think I'm your new roommate. My name's Violet, Violet Moore," she smiled benevolently.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Joan Levy," Joan held out her hand for Violet to shake, but her arms were full of luggage and literature. Violet gave Joan an awkward smile as she struggled to free her hand. "Oh, sorry," Joan said. Violet let out a laugh and Joan helped her set down her books. Finally, they shared a handshake and Joan sat down on her bed.

"You must be new," Joan stated.

"Sure am, my family just moved here from New York."

"Oh wow, you're a city kid," Joan whistled, propping her feet up on the bed. Violet chuckled lightly and nodded.

"Well, not to be pessimistic, but don't expect to like it here."

"Oh, I don't already. Everyone is so serious," Violet said.

"The best way to make it through is to find the little things that make you happy. If you want, I'll show you around, maybe you can find something worth being happy about. For me, it's the free moments in-between the chaos classes when I can just sketch on the riverbank or put on a record," Joan smiled.

"I'd like that very much," she nodded. "Are those your drawings on the wall?"

"Oh, yeah, just some I made over the summer," Joan said a little sheepishly. There were intricate pencil sketches of women, old and young, of trees, random ornate cups, and foxes in fields.

"They're really good," Violet complimented, stepping closer to see the smaller details.

"Thank you," Joan blushed.

"Are you gonna do anything with them? You could sell these."

"Oh, no I don't think so, it's just a hobby. To be an artist is too far out of mind," Joan shrugged.

"Maybe, but it's still fun to dream," Violet smiled, "Maybe you really could one day."

"Maybe."

Once the two girls were completely settled in, Joan began the tour. Joan decided that she liked Violet, and it was nice to have someone she liked as a roommate. Joan had gotten bad luck for the past few years, stuck with brown-nosing narcissists. Joan generally kept to herself, and though she was on good terms with almost all of her classmates, she didn't really have anyone who she would call a friend. She wasn't the best at getting close to people, and she often preferred to keep part of herself hidden. It was almost an instinct. Although she was quite private, she came off as a friendly and confident person.

❦

The next morning came too soon. Joan forced herself out of bed and quickly got dressed. She and Violet hurried down to the dining hall, stomachs growling.

"I'm kind of nervous," Violet admitted.

"Me too, and I've been going here since seventh grade," Joan laughed. "Don't worry, we'll get through. Somehow we always do."

They sat down at a table with the other junior girls. All of them looked like they were still half asleep. Tired greetings and half hearted smiles were passed across the table.

Before Joan knew it, she was walking into the chem lab. Joan was among the first to sit down. The balding, bespectacled teacher handed out enormous textbooks to each of the students. Joan stifled a sigh as he placed one on her desk.

"In addition to the assignments in the text," he said sternly, "you will each pick three lab experiments from the project list and report on one every five weeks. The first twenty problems at the end of Chapter One are due tomorrow."

Violet sent Joan a disbelieving look, and Joan shook her head as she stared down at the text in front of her. After a long hour of counting the seconds, the bell rang. The students moved on to Latin class.

Mr. McAllister wasted no time getting into the lesson. As his monotonous voice repeated Latin words, Joan looked around at the people in her class. She noticed that Steven Meeks was seated to her right, she figured she would have to ask him for his Latin notes after school, as she wasn't writing a single word down. Violet was seated in front of Meeks, and was trying desperately to keep up with Mr. McAllister. To her right was Gerard Pitts, Joan was happy to have him in her class, he was nice. In the front, she noticed another new kid, he had blond hair and an anxious expression. Joan wondered who he was. Richard Cameron was seated directly in front of her, and to his left sat the golden boy, Neil Perry. To her left was her former roommate, the bootlicking narcissist, Elizabeth Harris. Joan had always thought that Elizabeth and Cameron would make a nice couple. Behind Elizabeth sat a brunet boy named Knox Overstreet, and behind him in the far corner was Charlie Dalton. Charlie was mindlessly twirling his pencil in his hand while he stared out the window. Joan's eyes settled on him for a little longer than the others, she couldn't help but admire his pretty face. Stop it.

"You will be tested on those nouns tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen. You have your work cut out for you." Mr. McAllister said, pulling Joan away from her thoughts. A collective groan rippled through the room. She immediately regretted not paying attention in class. The bell rang and everyone headed off to their next class despondently.

"How are we supposed to learn all that by tomorrow?" Violet moaned.

"I have no idea," Joan sighed.

Next was math. When the class entered the room, books were already waiting on the desks.

"Your study of trigonometry requires absolute precision," Dr. Hagar instructed. "Anyone failing to turn in a homework assignment will be penalized one mark off their final grade. Let me urge you now not to test me on this point."

The rest of the class consisted of Dr. Hagar bombarding the class with complex questions, harshly reprimanding those who made mistakes.

The bell rang once again and Joan dragged herself into English class. English had always been Joan's favourite, but she didn't know how much more of this day she could take.

When she entered the classroom, the teacher was nowhere to be seen. It was supposed to be a new teacher, John Keating. Joan took a seat and looked around, confused. Suddenly, Keating strolled into the room. Everyone immediately settled down. Keating seemed to be evaluating his students. He strolled down the aisle, then when Joan thought he was going to circle back, he clicked open the door and left the classroom, all while whistling. Joan chuckled lightly, staring at the door.

"Come on," Keating urged, popping his head back in for a second. Once he left, everyone just sat for a moment, still perplexed.

"Well, come on," Neil grinned, taking his stuff and standing up. Everyone else agreed, following Mr. Keating out of the class, some more hesitant than others. Once everyone had congregated in the oak-panelled Welton honour room, Keating's whistling stopped.

"'Oh Captain! My Captain!'" he recited. "Who knows where that comes from? Anybody?"

Walt Whitman. Joan thought. She didn't usually like to participate very much in class, but she found herself raising her hand. She silently admitted that it was partially because she wanted to make a good impression on this new, strange teacher.

"Yes! Ms..?"

"Levy," she informed him.

"Ms. Levy, brave soul. Please tell us where this is from."

"A poem by Walt Whitman," she said, confident in her answer.

"Perfect! Thank you Ms. Levy. A poem by Walt Whitman about Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Now in this class, you can call me Mr. Keating. Or if you're slightly more daring, Oh Captain, My Captain," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Now let me dispel a few rumours so they don't fester into facts. Yes, I too attended Hell-ton and survived. And no, at that time I was not the mental giant you see before you. I was the intellectual equivalent of a ninety-eight-pound weakling. I would go to the beach and people would kick copies of Byron in my face." The class laughed out loud.

"Mister"- Keating turned to his roster -"Pitts," he said. "That's a rather unfortunate name. Mr. Pitts, where are you?" Pitts slowly rose his hand. "Mr. Pitts, would you open your hymnal to page 542 and read for us the first stanza of the poem you find there?"

Pitts leafed through his book. "'To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time'?"

"Yes, that's the one. Somewhat appropriate, isn't it." Keating nodded as the class chuckled around him.

"Yes, sir." Pitts cleared his throat.

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a flying :
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying."

He stopped. "Thank you, Mr. Pitts. 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,'" Keating repeated. The Latin term for that sentiment is Carpe Diem. Now, who knows what that means?"

"Carpe Diem," Meeks, the Latin scholar said. "That's 'seize the day'."

"Very good, Mr..?"

"Meeks."

"Meeks. Another unusual name. Seize the day, gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Why does the writer use these lines?"

"Because he's in a hurry," Charlie piped up. Joan turned her head to where he was leaning against a trophy case at the back of the room, a smirk on his lips. Joan shook her head lightly before turning back to Mr. Keating, not noticing that as she turned away, Charlie's eyes were on her.

"No, ding!" Mr. Keating slammed his hand down on an imaginary buzzer. "Thank you for playing anyway. Because we are food for worms, students. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die."

The laughter ceased and the small smile left Joan's face. It was never a pleasant thing to think about, the fact that life's days were numbered, but at the same time, she felt a little spark ignite inside of herself when she heard those words.

"Now I would like you to step forward over here and peruse some of the faces from the past. You've walked past them many times. I don't think you've really looked at them. They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. Even you, ladies, have much in common with these boys." He adds, as girls were only admitted to Welton after 1951. "The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you. Their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because you see, these people are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in."

Joan exchanged a strange look with some of her classmates, skeptical of Keating's instructions. Slowly, everyone gathered around and leaned forward. Mr. Keating appeared between Joan and Cameron, his face between their shoulders.

"Carpe," he whispered gruffly.

Cameron looked over his shoulder with an aggravated expression of annoyance on his face. Joan couldn't help but laugh quietly, but she immediately stopped when Keating met her eye. Instead of reprimanding her, he only winked. She grinned and turned back to the photos, studying the faces of Welton's former students.

"Hear it?" Keating asked. "Carpe. Carpe Diem. Seize the day, make your lives extraordinary," he whispered again. Everyone stared at the faces in the cabinet in silence.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
❪ ⋆࿐໋ 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒑𝒆 𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒎. ❫

Hello everyone! Here is the first
chapter. This is a rewrite of the
Charlie Dalton x Reader fanfic
I used to have on my page, with
a few slight changes other than
the fact that there is now an OC
rather than just Y/N.

I really hope you enjoyed this
chapter, if you did I would love it
if you voted. I love Dead Poets
Society, and more specifically
Charlie Dalton, with all my heart.
If you made it this far, I love you
and I hope your day is great!