Breathe ( Peter Maximoff- Xmen)

A Guest from the Future

It was a bleak day, one of those days where the sky was a wash of pure grey, unpleasant in its blandness. It had that uneasy feel in the air too, where it was dry but you could feel the rain in the air. It's like the world couldn't decide exactly what it wanted to do, so instead it just settled on boring and miserable. It was fitting. She seemed to have settled on the same choice. Thea sat perched on her window staring blankly at the jungle below her. It couldn't be called a garden anymore. Not with the state it was in.

She couldn't understand why he wouldn't let her fix it up. It would take her a few days at most, and god knows she wouldn't ask for any help. She would take full responsibility if he would let her. She could get it looking the way it did when Charles' family first bought the place, maybe even better. The memory of what it was like when she first moved in was still a vivid one, the colors of the garden, how sparkly and new the house had seemed. Much like everyone in it at the time, full of optimism and hope.

Now the garden was left to ruin, overrun by masses of weeds, dead plants and litter. The house itself, though still standing, was a wreck. Rooms empty and destroyed, hallways cluttered and every wall in need of a good coat of paint. A mere shell of the home it used to be. Fitting for the shells of people that lived inside it. Hank tried his best, keeping the house running and vaguely habitable at least, but once glance at his eyes gave away how tired and worn he was. Charles, who barely left his room had found himself in a place so dark, Thea was worried he may never find his way back out again. And then there was her. Thea. A young girl clinging to better days gone by, any attempt of going back to those times leading to unsatisfying ends.

There was no going back it seemed. Not for them.

So forward it was. Thea tried her best to look for joy in the small things, simple pleasures and quiet ways to keep herself entertained. Sharing a house with two fairly quiet men and having very few trips into the world outside she had to create some ways to keep her mind occupied. Her main form of that was keeping the multitude of plants that decorated her room in tip top shape, albeit that didn't take much effort for her, but it was still something to do. Another was her lessons, Hank had been teaching her himself since the school shut down and she was pleased to say she was doing incredibly well in her studies. The third way was to simply explore the house. It's size was still something Thea had trouble comprehending, though she had now explored all of it more than once. She would often time how long it would take to get from one side to the other, noting any shortcuts she could take. She even once tried counting all the stairs in the house, though lost count around the one hundred mark.

She was contemplating trying the whole stairs counting thing again, when a knock sounded up to her. It was rare that anyone knocked on their door, the odd brave door to door salesman or church representative would sometimes make the treacherous path up the mess they called a driveway, but it wasn't often. Still, it was an interaction she wasn't going to turn down.

"I'll get it!" She exclaimed as she heard movement from outside her room. Rushing to swing her door open she raced out and past Hank who had been making his way down to answer it himself.

"Thea" She heard Hank's warning tone from a few steps behind her but it didn't deter her.

" Yeah yeah, we ain't buying, we ain't religious, we ain't interested. I know how it goes" She called back, finally bounding over to the door. It took her a minute or two to bypass the multiple locks but once she managed she swung the door open, throwing on what she hoped was a kind smile.

"Hello, I'm supposed to tell you we're not interested but you have about three minutes to try-" Thea stopped mid sentence when she finally got the door all the way open and was able to catch a glimpse of the guy. He was older than her, older than Hank too she would guess, messy hair, in a way that you know it's styled to look like that. With his eyes hidden behind sunglasses and a cigar clutched in his hand, he looked like the most exciting door salesman Thea had ever seen.