A/N: @Sokeefe4EVA2 requested Fitz's POV of the very start of the story, when he first found Sophie in San Diego. This will be told in two parts.
Of all the places Fitz had visited since he began helping his father search for the mysterious missing girl, San Diego might have been the worst.
All of the Forbidden Cities smelled wrong—the air was polluted, and there were no Pures to help filter out the stink and the pollution.
But fires this severe?
Fires that had apparently been burning for days?
The air quality was horrible.
His dad had already looked up the information on the girl Fitz would be observing today. So he knew that she would not be at school, but with her class at a place called the Natural History Museum.
Except...this was not natural history.
All these dinosaurs?
They weren't extinct. And they didn't look like that at all.
Fitz always got a kick out of seeing the different human cultures. It always made him thankful to be an elf.
He knew humans did the best they could.
And honestly? It made him kind of sad. The humans populating (and destroying) the earth these days knew nothing of what their ancient ancestors had done thousands of years ago.
But they were paying the price for it all the same.
But somewhere among the billions of people was one girl, not much younger than Fitz, who was carrying a huge secret. One she didn't even know herself.
This girl wouldn't be the one.
None of the girls ever were.
But when you are sent an article from a human newspaper about a crazy smart child prodigy...you have to look into it.
So Fitz waited in the museum, holding the newspaper with a front page article entitled CHILD PRODIGY CHOOSES CITY COLLEGE OVER IVY LEAGUE and pretending to read it.
He'd already studied the picture, but it was printed in black and white, and didn't seem to be very good quality. That made it impossible to tell just by looking at a photograph.
But he should be able to tell once he actually saw her.
He heard as a bunch of teenagers mocked a younger, smaller girl for answering a question correctly.
This must be the girl in question.
Sophie, according to the article.
When he looked up a moment later, he found that she was looking right at him.
Looking kind of...miserable and embarrassed.
Was that from the way her classmates treated her, or from the fact that he was holding a newspaper article about her?
That didn't matter. What mattered was that he experienced first a thrill—she was way prettier than any human girl he'd seen before—followed by inevitable disappointment.
Her eyes were brown.
She wasn't an elf.
Just an uncommonly smart and uncommonly beautiful human.
And her peers obviously hated her for it.
Thinking he had better make absolutely sure this was the girl from the article—and to give her at least some friendly interaction today—Fitz smiled at her and walked toward her.
"Is this you?" he asked, pointing to the picture.
She nodded.
"I thought so." He squinted at the picture, then back at her. "I didn't realize your eyes were brown."
But apart from the brown eyes...she didn't seem human.
"Uh...yeah," she said, sounding confused. "Why?"
He shrugged. "No reason."
"Are you in this class? she asked.
He smiled again. "No." Then he pointed to the hulking greenish figure they were standing in front of. The sign indicated that this was an Albertosaurus, which was preposterous.
Humans.
"Tell me something," he asked. "Do you really think that's what they look like? It's a little absurd, isn't it?"
He wasn't sure why he was doing this. He wasn't supposed to talk to her, and really wasn't supposed to be making pointed remarks at the way humans got everything wrong.
But something, instinct maybe, drove him forward. He needed to figure her out before he left.
"Not really," she said, looking at it. "Why? What do you think they looked like?"
He laughed. "Never mind. I'll let you get back to your class. It was nice to meet you, Sophie."
He turned to leave—feeling strangely reluctant—but then dozens of small children ran into the exhibit.
He watched as she closed her eyes and brought her hands to her head, rubbing her temples. She looked like she was in pain.
Wait a minute...
Could she be a Telepath?
Testing his theory, Fitz lowered his mental defenses.
The result was an overwhelming amount of noise. Far more than what their little voices were causing, the deluge of mental voices hit him like a melder to the brain.
Well...he'd obviously never actually been attacked with a melder, but that was how he imagined it. In only a couple of seconds, his head was pounding, his hands springing to his forehead as he rebuilt his mental barrier, thankful for the quiet.
He looked up at her and saw that she was now watching him. Her eyes—her brown eyes—held confusion and mistrust.
She couldn't be...could she?
"Did you just...hear that?" he asked, amazed and bewildered.
Had he really just found...her?
He watched as she went pale. Then, she gasped and took a step back. "Who are you?" she whispered.
His eyes widened. "You did--didn't you?" He moved closer, not wanting to be overheard as he whispered, "are you a Telepath?"
She flinched.
That was a yes.
"You are! I can't believe it," he whispered.
She backed away again.
"It's okay," he said, holding out his hands in front of him, trying to calm her. "You don't have to be afraid. I'm one too."
She froze, staring at him open-mouthed.
"My name's Fitz," he prodded, stepping closer.
She continued to stare, taking him in, and he thought he understood why. She had to be living in such fear of discovery. And now probably assumed he was messing with her. "I'm not joking," he assured her.
She wobbled on her feet and looked like she was going to collapse. He reached out and grabbed her arms, steadying her. "It's okay, Sophie. I'm here to help you. We've been looking for you for twelve years."
He'd actually found her.
She started to panic.
And then she bolted.
"Sophie, come back!" Fitz shouted, chasing after her.
He followed her back outside into the polluted, smoky air, but that didn't slow her down. If anything, she just ran faster.
"Wait!" He called. "You don't have to be afraid!"
But in her fear, she ran with apparently no concern for where she was going or what was happening around her.
He watched in horror as she ran out into a street--with a car careening straight toward her. He was nowhere near close enough to save her, but it wasn't going to stop him from trying.
But the driver of the car swerved, barely missing her. Instead, it hit a streetlight. The lantern broke off and plummeted toward her.
This he could save her from--even though it meant risking exposure.
But he didn't need to. Some sort of instinct had taken over and she reached out with her hands--staying the lantern with her telekinesis.
With her telekinesis.
This was definitely the girl they'd been looking for. And she had excellent control for someone who didn't even know she was an elf.
He couldn't help but admire her a little—with some training, she was going to be insanely powerful.
But he couldn't think about that yet—first, he needed to minimize the damage. He approached her carefully, watching as she stared in shock at the lantern hovering in the air above her.
"Put it down," he told her.
She shrieked and dropped her arm, sending the streetlight hurtling toward them.
"Watch out!" Fitz shouted, yanking her out of the way, thankful he didn't have to use his telekinesis to stop the streetlight again. Even humans had their limits on what they wouldn't notice.
They tumbled to the ground, Fitz taking the impact of hitting the pavement right before she fell on top of him.
For a moment, neither of them could move. They simply stared at one another, wide eyed.
"How did you do that?" he whispered.
"I have no idea." She sat up, slowly shaking her head, clearly confused.
"We need to get out of here," he warned, pointing to the driver of the car, who was staring at them.
"He saw," she gasped, looking panicked again.
He stood, pulling her to her feet as well. "Come on. Let's get out of sight." This time, she didn't resist as he held on to her and led her down the street.
He let her decide where they would go--hoping that would help her trust him and not run away again--and they ran together in silence for a while.
And while they ran, he was deep in thought.
Sophie Foster was definitely an elf...but she had brown eyes.
And she thought she was human...but she knew to use her telekinesis.
He also wondered what she was thinking. He needed to know if she planned to run from him again—especially if she planned to tell anyone about meeting him.
But the strangest thing happened when he stretched his mind toward hers.