Chapter Five

Eleven's POV

Dinner passes with a cacophony of laughter and rushed plans. Eleven stays silent throughout most of it; she enjoys listening and witnessing the bonds these boys share. They treat friendship like breathing: no thinking, no hesitating, no worries; they just do, and somehow that strengthens their bonds. Besides, she finds herself drifting off into fantasies featuring Mike's rosy lips and porcelain skin. Her stomach flips and flops like a fish; she feels guilty. He probably thinks of her as merely a friend, yet he stars in her daydreams. She wonders if he remembers her. They've talked privately two times now, but Mike never mentioned meeting a little girl one night.

She knows that Mike showed her around that time she escaped. Eleven used her abilities to reach out to him through dreams constantly since that fateful encounter. Eleven can recognize her dark-haired boy even in a crowded city street. She just wanted to talk with him first. She needed to double-check. Desperate people rush decisions. Eleven dreamt and hoped of him for so long that when he turned up at her doorstep, it seemed television perfect: some happily-ever-after acted out with by impossibly pretty people reading a clichéd script.

So, now Eleven waits. After talking with Mike a few times now, it doesn't seem like Mystique morphed into the boy. Eleven left enough openings to tempt Mystique or any other member of the Brotherhood. She wants to tell Mike her secret. She wants to watch his face as she tells the story. If she can just stare into his eyes while the words tumble from her lips, she'll know if he feels the same: like a frostbitten explorer, finally offered fire, a bed, food, and a listening ear.

But if the wrong person knows Eleven's secret, hundreds of lives could be harmed. Eleven didn't live alone for all these years, and she already implied that her school had some unique aspects. The wrong person would realize Eleven had attended a school for mutants. The wrong person would then alert the authorities. The wrong person would cause the destruction of Eleven's home and the pain of her family. Eleven believes Mike belongs firmly in the category of the right person: someone empathetic and trustworthy who can keep a secret. However, telling Mike her secret means telling the secret of everyone who attends Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

Eleven can't bare to act that selfishly. Instead, she promises to wait for Mike to ask. If he asks her, she'll tell him her truth. She won't lie, not to him. He taught her that friends never lie to each other all those years ago. Since then, Eleven lied more times than she'd like to admit, but she staunchly avoids lying to the people she loves. She looks at Mike and feels the fateful flush; she loves him. It took less than two days for Eleven to fall in love with Mike. Hell, she loved him since that night they slept side by side in a cramped fort and Mike taught her the constellations. Eleven loved Mike before she understood what love meant.

Mike's POV

Mike lies in bed, reflecting on the day. He feels certain that the girl he met that one night must be Jane. They share the same melodic accent, both have his chunky black watch, and their facial features even seem similar. Jane looks exactly like an elder version of his magnet girl. Still, he wants to wait a little longer before asking her. He doesn't want to bring up ghosts from his past and ruin his present chances with Jane. Well, first he needs to know if she likes him. Sharing an apartment with the girl who rejected you just sounds like a nightmare. Perhaps Nance had been right. Maybe he shouldn't have moved in with Jane. Mike feels drawn to Jane like a magnet; she just has this undeniable pull, and he finds his thoughts straying to her every unfocused moment. But what if she doesn't feel the same way? The thought sends ice water through his veins. Mike shivers and pulls the blanket up to his chin.

Crash!

Mike bolts out of bed. He rushes to Jane's room, then knocks on the door and waits. Silence. He knocks again. No reply. Taking a deep breath and hoping that Jane won't mind, he bursts into her room.

"Jane, are you ok? I heard a crash." He rushes through the words in a desperate hope that she won't get angry. Jane snores faintly and turns over in bed. Mike can't suppress his smile. The brown blankets are bunched up around her feet, and her pillow fell to the floor. He picks up her pillow and places it beside her. The next time she turns over, her head will rest on the pillow instead of the bed. He untangles the blankets and pulls them up to her chin. He then tip-toes out of her room and slowly shuts the door. Lying back in bed, Mike wonders what caused such a loud sound before dozing off.

Bam!

Mike hurtles out of bed. Looking around blearily, he struggles to push aside the dissipating dreams and to think clearly. Then he hears a high-pitched scream. Mike sprints to Jane's room. This time, he doesn't offer machine-gun fast excuses, instead he slides to Jane's side. She looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Are you ok?"

"Bad men. Killed a cat. White room."

"It's ok. There are no bad men here. I'm here. I am a good person." Mike tentatively wraps his arms around Jane and she clings to Mike like a drowning person clings to a safety raft. Mike feels a tad selfish for enjoying her embrace. He strokes her brown curls. Her frantic heartbeat slows and Jane's grip loosens a little. She looks up at him and slowly her eyes start to focus on his face.

"You're here, in New York, with me. You are safe. I got you. I can protect you." Mike means it. In that moment, with her clutching him so desperately, he promises to himself and to her that he'll always look after her.

"Mike?"

"Yes, it's me. Mike." He laughs with relief. She reaches for one of his curls and twists it between her fingers. The action draws them closer together and Mike knows that if he just leaned down a little, he could kiss her. He aches to let his lips touch her own. She has irresistibly kissable lips: so plump and pink. But, Mike doesn't take advantage of people, so he just smiles at Jane and strokes her head to calm her down, while she plays with his hair.

"Dark-haired boy."

"Yeah, I guess," he laughs. "Do you feel better? What happened? I heard a crash."

"Nightmare."

"But the crash?"

"Bad nightmare."

"But… Nightmares don't cause crashes."

"Lamp fell."

"Oh, well, as long as you are safe. Are you? Ok that is?"

"…"

"I could sit here, if you want? I won't do anything! I swear. I just… When my little sister, Holly, has nightmares she likes for me to sit beside her bed and just tell her stories till she falls asleep. She won't accept anyone else. She likes my stories the best, I guess."

Thinking of little Holly makes Mike's chest tighten. He ought to call his Mom tomorrow and ask how they are both doing. Nancy offered to let him use the landline back at her place, but he shrugged it off each time. Calling either of his parents leaves Mike feeling unsettled and he struggles to sleep for days after the strained conversations. He feels angry with and resentful of how his father ignored Mike and the rest of the family for most of their lives and left Mike's mom to struggle as a practically single mom. At least Joyce had freedom. Before her divorce, the only freedom Mike's mom had was flipping through romance books in the bath. He hadn't realized it at the time, but when they moved to a smaller house and he saw the walls of water-stained Harlequin romances and the revolving door of muscular men taking his mom on dates, Mike slowly put two and two together.

Mike doesn't blame his Mom for the divorce. Actually, he now supports it completely. As a divorcee, Karen bloomed. Her cheeks regained their youthful flush. She stopped baking casseroles and started experimenting with French cuisine. She began working at the Macy's thirty minutes down the road, since none of the places in town wanted to hire her. There she caked on foundation and blended blush for teenage girls and aging moms. She claimed that she was helping these females realize their inner beauty. At the next Presidential election, she not only voted Democrat, but even went door to door trying to convince others to do the same. Her mantra had been that you didn't have to vote like your husband. Most of the time people slammed the door in her face, but sometimes a hopeful and curious smile would answer her instead. Still, even though he supports the divorce, sometimes Mike feels a resulting whip-lash from it. The mom from his childhood memories disappeared, and Karen the divorcee took her place. He likes Karen, but she still feels like a stranger sometimes. Only those waterlogged books hint at Karen's past self, Mrs. Wheeler, Mike's first Mom.

"Would you?"

"Oh, do you want me to tell you a story?"

"Yes… Please."

"Ok, um…. I haven't done this for a while, so I might be rusty. Is that ok?"

"No problem."

Mike usually just re-tells his campaigns from Dungeons and Dragons or fairy-tales, but he wants to impress Jane. So, he tells her the story he repeats to himself every night.

"Once upon a time, a princess was trapped in a tower by evil priests. They shaved her head to prevent her from using her hair as a ladder for princes and tortured her every day. Eventually, she decided to stop waiting on a prince and rescued herself. You see, she wasn't just any ordinary princess. This princess was a mage. So, she levitated down the tower and escaped in the middle of the night and met a toad-faced goblin.

This goblin talked and talked, but she found him amusing and kept him around. They became good friends, but the evil priests were still after the princess. The goblin tried to help her, by showing the princess how to navigate the tunnels of his kingdom, so that she could hide there, but the priests used a tracking spell and soon found the pair. Fearful that her new friend would be hurt, the princess tried to distract the evil priests and give the goblin a chance to escape, but instead he stabbed one of the priests through the eye.

Wounded, the priest slashed the goblin, who jumped back just in time to avoid being hurt. The goblin flipped over the priest and knocked him unconscious with the butt of his sword. Meanwhile, the princess worked on a spell to freeze all of the priests. While she chanted, the goblin fought the priests in order to distract them, but one of the ten priests slipped away. The goblin realized this and rushed to protect the princess, who was in the middle of chanting. However, it was too late for him to parry the sword, so instead he jumped in front of the blade to protect the princess. The evil priest pierced the goblin's heart. With his last breaths, the goblin asked the princess to kiss him. Crying, she did. With a burst of light, the goblin became a handsome paladin. The princess hugged him and asked why he was no longer a goblin. With a laugh, the paladin explained that he was under a curse to remain a goblin until he met a girl who loved him, despite his flaws. Glancing into her eyes for permission, the paladin then kissed the princess again. Smiling, he told the princess mage that she brings out the best in him. With their hands clasped, they walked away from the evil priests and led a life full of love and adventures."

Mike looks down, while Jane snores quietly. He ruffles her hair and tip-toes back to his room. Sinking back into bed, Mike falls asleep thinking about that embrace from the girl sleeping across the hall from him.

Mike awakes up before his alarm starts beeping. He slips out of bed, stretches and wonders if any of the others woke up yet. Mike, unlike Dustin and Will, belongs to an endangered teenage species, the early birds. Lucas also tends to wake up earlier, but Mike attributes that more to Lucas's self-discipline than natural tendencies. Part of Mike hopes that Jane also woke up, but his romantic side keeps imagining making her waffles in bed. Wow, he really needs to stop fantasizing.

Hobbling into the kitchen, he sees Jane sitting at the table with a plate of Eggos. Smiling, he slides into the seat beside her own.

"So, my sister was hoping to drop by this evening, probably around dinner. She doesn't have work today, and wanted to see our new place. Is that ok? Will's brother, Jonathan, might come. He works weddings, parties, and by appointments, so his schedule is less predictable. Um…So I'm not really sure. Is that ok? They wanted to maybe get take-out and play games or watch a movie."

Jane blinks blearily and rubs her eyes. Gesturing for him to wait, she takes a bite of waffle, chews, and then looks up with more lively eyes.

"Okay… May I join?"

"Yeah, of course. You know her coming over is just an excuse to meet you, right? She doesn't really care that much about our apartment. I mean, she cares… But more in a there are no rats and no gas leaks type of way. Not a spend the entire evening at our place sort of way. Otherwise, Nancy would probably invite us to go out or something. She's been trying to push me to go out and meet people since we all arrived. It's exhausting… I mean, she means well. This is how she shows that she cares. She wants us to make friends and be social. But, I'm just not like that."

Jane blinks, drags her waffle across the plate to soak up more syrup, and takes another bite before speaking.

"But, you talk a lot."

"Yeah, because I'm nervous!" Mike laughs… Oh wait, shit he said that out loud!

"Why are you nervous? Am I a bad roommate?"

"No. No! NO! You are fantastic. I'm just not really used to making new friends, I guess. I mean… the boys and I grew up together and besides Max, we never really branched out. And we met Max the last year of middle school… So We went all four years of high school without making a single new friend. We aren't anti-social exactly. I guess we are just kinda nerdy and geeky and sorta content being just friends with each other. I mean, we are the party. We were always the party."

"Who is Max?" Eleven stares into his face, and he swears that the corner of her lips have tightened.

"She's Lucas's girlfriend. They started dating practically less than a week after she joined the party. She's cool, I guess."

"Lucas's girlfriend?" Eleven's face has slackened into a lazy smile and she picks up her fork and knife and begins to eat her remaining waffle.

"Yeah! Lucas is great! You'd like him. He's in California with Max. He decided to become a cop, so he's not attending NYU. It's a shame. He's really smart, but he always had a strict sense of justice and liked to pretend to be Rambo or some action hero or another. I guess it kinda makes sense. Plus… He faced a lot of racism in our tiny town. I think he wants to be a cop to try and protect people unfairly discriminated against… He never said that… But I kinda got that feeling from him when he talked about it, and Max sorta implied the same thing."

"What do you mean by party?"

"Oh, it's this D&D term… Oh, sorry. I mean Dungeon and Dragons. It is this game we play sometimes."

"May I play? I heard about it and wanted to try, but no one would play with me." She puts her fork and knife down, and looks mournfully at the empty plate.

"Oh, uh. Sure! I would love to… I mean, that would be fun." Mike keeps rambling like some idiot. He needs to just shut up and go make breakfast.

"Thanks. I always wanted to play." Jane smiles and his heart stops.

"Where did you hear about it?"

"From this boy I knew."

"Oh, um… what was he like?"

"Nice, he talked a lot. I liked listening to him." She blushes. What if Jane has a crush on this guy? He can't compete with a childhood crush. He thought that he may have a chance yesterday, but maybe Jane treats everyone that way? She hasn't talked with Dustin or Will as much, but he never gave her an opportunity to talk with them. He kept hovering around her and striking up conversation. What if she found him annoying? But, she hugged him multiple times. You wouldn't hug someone who irks you, right?

"I moved away, shortly after I met him."

"Do you miss him?"

"He was my first friend." She starts to fidget with the black plastic watch on her wrist. Again, Mike swears that watch looks exactly like the one he gave his magnet girl. He wonders if he is the little boy she is talking about. He watches her fidget and a wave of guilt washes over him. She doesn't want to talk about it.

"Want more waffles?"

"Sure!"

"Ok, I'll make you some. Do you have any coffee? Or anything besides Eggos?" Mike moves to put some Eggos in the toaster. He slides back into his chair and turns to stare at Jane. Her delicate features remind him of an elf.

"I think I got juice… I also got butter and syrup." She gestures to the syrup beside her plate and Mike laughs.

"Thanks, there's a lot of options, but I'll have to go with the Eggo waffles."

"They're a classic."

"I think they are your entire diet."

"Do you really need anything else?"

"I don't know, real food?"

"But Eggos are better."

"Don't you get sick of them?"

"Not yet. They didn't really have Eggos back at my school, so I'm making up for lost time."

"You survived how many years without Eggos? I just can't imagine it. What did you eat?"

"It was a painful time for my palate, but I survived. The school cafeteria doesn't take personal requests."

"So, when did you eat your first Eggo?"

"When I was twelve."

"Describe the memory. Give me details."

"I was… camping… with a friend and we ate Eggos and looked at the stars. It was the first time I felt… Happy and content. It was nice." Jane looks up at him wistfully, her ears tipped scarlet. Her eyes appear to be staring somewhere else, somewhere no longer real. At that moment, she reminds him of one of the princesses in one of Holly's books: delicate features, an ethereal air, a distracted look, and indescribable beauty. The waffle pops up and he bursts out of his chair to get it, before putting in another set for himself. Holding the burning waffles between his thumb and forefinger, he drops them on Jane's plate and blows on his fingertips to divert the burning pain.

"It sounds like you are attached to Eggos more for an emotional reason than their taste. They seem like a way of trying to reclaim your childhood by trying to remake this memory."

"… Probably."

"Sorry, I probably shouldn't have done that." He walks over to get his waffles.

"No, it's okay. It's probably true… Just maybe a tad odd."

"Yeah, it is I guess," He laughs awkwardly. "A lot of crazy stuff happened to Will, and then after my parents divorced I realized how important good therapy can be in helping people heal. After all that, I sorta decided I wanted to become a therapist too, and I've been trying to really listen to people and understand them ever since. It's probably stupid, since I talk so much… I'm not always a great listener, but I want to get better."
"You want to help people? That sounds… Noble."

"I mean; I think everyone wants to just help others. We all just have different ways of doing it."

"Not everyone."

"Who made you feel that way?"

"Just people from my childhood."

"I don't want to be rude, but have you ever thought about their motivations?"

"Good people don't do what they did."

"Sorry, it's a painful memory to talk about over breakfast, huh?" Mike turns to go grab his waffles. Idiot. How could be so stupid? To imply that she's wrong about something when he's just this delusional, privileged kid? He feels a cold hand wrap around his wrist. His face flushes as he turns to look back at her.

"It is nice to talk with you. I'm just not always the best talker. I can sound blunt."

"Nah, it is better to speak bluntly and honestly than to compliment and lie. Friends don't lie to each other." Shoot, is he being too forward? He just awkwardly assumed they were friends. Her ears flush scarlet and she looks up at him with those big, doe eyes that make his knees feel weak.

"Friends?"

"Yeah, if you want to be?"

"Y-yes." Mike turns away quickly to hide the grin threatening to split his face in half. He plies his lukewarm waffles out of the toaster and plonks back down to breakfast.

Together, they make plans for the day. Jane offers to help them find desks and decorations, while Mike insists on a trip to the grocery store for real food. He never spent much effort bothering to cook before, but he glanced over his mom's shoulders sometimes while she was cooking. It shouldn't be too difficult. He and Jane were about to abandon the boys when Dustin and Will finally slogged into the room. Tired of waiting, Mike rushes the boys through breakfast, while Jane goes off to shower.

"So… How was last night? Anything exciting happen? I heard some banging?" Dustin asks while wagging his eyebrows up and down. Mike just smacks him.

"No, idiot. She just had a nightmare and her lamp fell."

"Hmm… Sounds like a shoddy excuse to me."

"No, they didn't do anything. Both of them are too timid," interrupts Will.

"I'm not timid!"

"She's been giving you plenty of signs that she's into you, yet you pretend that you have no clue, despite constantly claiming you want to be a psychiatrist for three years now. Either you need to think about a new career, or you're just timid."

"Isn't that sorta harsh, Will?" Asks Mike.

"Sorry, I just have a headache."

"Nah, it's cool. I just wondered."

"I'm on Will's side. We've barely moved in, but it seems obvious you both are some lovesick puppies. Why haven't you made a move?"

"What if I'm wrong? What if I'm just egocentrically interpreting her actions into reciprocation when she's actually just nice like this to everyone? If I'm wrong, it would ruin everything. All our social interactions would be super awkward. For now, I am just content being able to talk with her and be her friend."

"You sure about that, buddy?" Asks Dustin.