John's Pov

Of course, Eva was sitting in the middle of a group of people saying that she hates how the underground is run. She just has to stir up trouble when it is the least convenient.

I sighed, quite annoyed at this point with her. I walked over to her and crossed my arms, "Eva can I please talk to you for a minute, alone."

Eva rolled her eyes, "I'll be back," she said to the people she was talking to.

She walked over and I ushered her out into the hallway., "Eva, if you could not keep saying how much you think this place sucks that would be great. Please just keep it to yourself, this place is stressful enough."

Eva laughed, "and if I don't say anything nothing will change. Isn't that protesting 101, say it and don't stop until something is changed."

"Yes that is important but now is really not a good time for that. In a couple of months go for it. I will be all ears but right now I really don't have time." I said. There was just too much going on. I always used to have people tell me their opinions and what they think we could change for the better but right now I just didn't think I could handle it. I needed to focus on the five other problems I had to deal with first.

"I don't care how busy your life is, cause mine sucks. This place needs to change. I heard great things about the underground, how many mutants were helped by it but now it sucks. It's terrible." Eva said.

I sighed, "Rebuilding a nationwide network isn't easy"

"Well maybe if you hadn't let it collapse in the first place," She said.

"you-" I started but she didn't let me finish.

"Cause weren't you in charge of the Altana station before it, you know blew up, or more accurately from what I heard disintegrated? From what I've learned from talking to people, that's what led to the collapse in the first place." She said talking quickly, "the underground used to be such a fairytale for me but now that I'm here it's terrible. There's not enough food, water, blankets, space. People are taking up every available space but you kept a room empty for months."

I sighed, "Eva, a lot of us have a soft spot where Andy and Lauren are concerned"

"Well, you shouldn't. They're mass murders." She said.

I tried to explain what really happened but she just waved me off.

"I don't care what your explanation is. You can't just focus on them. This world is bigger than them, this problem is bigger than what happened to two people." Eva said seriously.

"Eva, I know but talk to me again next week. There is just too much going on. And please just keep this to yourself, please don't cause more problems." I said apologetically.

Eva sighed looking slightly pissed. "Whatever I'm just saying you could do better," she said before she stalked off.

I sighed I wanted to help her, I really did but I just didn't have time. Caitlin wanted to talk to me and so did Marcos and Lorna not even thinking about Esme and Leah wanting to talk to me about trying to get some more stuff for the younger kids. I just didn't have time for Eva right now.

Lorna's Pov

"Dawn's so beautiful," I said as I watched her play with a pink flower toy on the floor of Marcos and my bedroom.

"You know we say that like every 5 minutes," Marcos said looking up from what he was working on. He was making Dawn a crib out of some spare prices of metal since we didn't actually have one here.

"That's because it's true," I said laughing as I turned back to Dawn.

Dawn started crawling a couple of months ago. My Aunt had sent me a few videos of her crawling around on her floor. I watched as Dawn crawled over to me and into my lap. I smiled and set her on her feet in front of me.

Marcos came over and let Dawn grab onto one of his fingers as she stood looking a bit wobbly in front of me. Dawn was holding onto two of my fingers with her other hand.

She was smiling and giggling in that cute way that young toddlers do. She took a wobbly step towards me and fell into my lap.

"Oh, baby so close. Are you okay?" I said laughing a bit as I caught her. I turned to Marcos, "She's trying to walk"

"Yes, yes she is." Marcos said as he pulled Dawn into his lap and sat her on his knee, "She's trying to get around on her own. Trying to get away from us already." Marcos said laughing.

I frowned, "Do you think Max will try to attack us again?" I asked.

"I don't want to think about that Lorna. The Inner Circle has caused us enough issues. Let's just take this happy moment and talk about it with John and the others later. Okay?" Marcos said as Dawn squirmed in his grasp.

Marcos let Dawn crawl back off of his lap and went back to playing with her toys.

I sighed as I watched her. I just didn't want anything to happen to her. I wanted to stop the Inner Circle and I wanted them to stop bothering us. I just wanted to have a normal family life, but that wasn't possible. Not right now. Maybe sometime in the future but right now, it just seemed impossible.

Mia's Pov

I was in my room playing some chords on my guitar. It was something I did when I didn't want to do anything productive but couldn't sit still.

There was a knock on my door. I sighed and set down my guitar and opened the door. Caitlin was standing there.

"Hey, Caitlin. What's up?" I said as I walked back to my bed and flopped onto it.

"I'm worried about Andy." She said wringing her hands nervously.

I frowned, "Aren't we all?"

Caitlin walked over and sat down next to me, "I know, I know, it's just he won't talk to me anymore."

I sighed, "He's a teenager. It's normal."

"Can you talk to him, please? I'm worried about him" she said.

"Fine, it's not like I have anything else that won't piss me off to do," I said thinking of my other option which would be scouring the internet about anything relating to Lauren. Undoubtedly it would only piss me off.

I sighed as Cailin left. I really didn't want to talk to Andy, he's been frazzled ever since we'd gotten back from talking to Caitlin's brother. He had an idea of where Lauren was. He didn't even have anything concrete, but he wasn't going to give up.

I groaned and pushed myself off the bed and walked down to Andy's room. I knocked on the door and got nothing. Of course, he didn't even answer. I knocked again.

"Andy, it's Mia. Open up" I said as I pounded on his door.

He opened the door, "What do you want."

"To talk," I said, rocking back and forth on my heels.

He sighed and tried to shut the door in my face but I stopped it with my foot. "Can't get rid of me that easily."

Andy glared at me but didn't try to close the door again but instead walked back over to the desk in his room.

"Before you ask, I'm fine," Andy said, throwing a crumpled-up piece of paper into the trash.

"I wasn't going to ask but since you brought it up," I said. Andy rolled his eyes as I continued, "You don't seem fine."

"I'm fine Mia," he said as I pulled the piece of paper out of the trash. It was a list of prison names half of which were crossed off before he clearly scribbled over the whole paper.

"Andy, you know it's okay not to be okay, right?" I said, taking a step towards him as he walked over to his bed, "With Lauren getting arrested, we don't expect you to be."

He stopped walking as soon as I mentioned Lauren. He stared at the floor for a second before taking a deep breath, "I'm fine."

"You sure?" I said.

He nodded. I decided not to press him further.

"So what are you doing," I said sitting on the desk and swinging my legs.

"Looking through all of the prisons in New York trying to find Lauren. Not making much progress though," he said showing me a list, this time without anything crossed out.

"I glanced through some of the higher security prisons but none had any big mutant wings to them. Those are mostly in Texas and Arizona." I said setting the list down and started watching Andy, "We could go back to Hopewell and see if the cops left anything behind that might give us any clues. It's doubtful that we would find anything but-"

Andy cut me off, "Let's go."

"We probably won't find anything. So don't get your hopes up." I said.

"I know, but it's something. It's something for me to do to distract me," he said, "When do we leave."

I sighed, "We can leave in the morning."

Andy nodded, "Okay, I'll see you then."

I knew he was trying to get me to leave. I sighed and walked out saying I'd see him later. I knew we wouldn't find anything but I just couldn't tell him no. He wanted to find his sister. He'd do anything for her. I just wanted to help him.

*I know this is mostly filler but there are a couple of important character things introduced in this chapter that are important moving forward. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and ignore that this chapter is kind of bad. They get better I promise.*