Agent-G: gee, I'm happy you like her -. Sharon's personality is actually a mix of me and my sister in the morning. I'm a morning person, she isn't, you should see us at breakfast. And I gave her fear of dogs because of Rahne, I'm an evil writer, remember? And that chapter would be from... scratch. Losing a disk close to a magnetic object ain't a good idea.
ldypebsaby: don't worry, I'm just as dramatic -. You'll just have to see, ey?
supergirlhv: yeah, I thought it would be nice not to go into MarySue land and have her immediately jump at the chance. Backstory? What backstory? -
A/N: I felt like putting a song into this chapter, it's Runaway Train from Soul Asylum. I don't own it! I heard it on the radio and thought it would fit.
Just a little trouble
It was about a month after her arrival in New York and life quite fairly sucked. Sharon had managed to get a fake ID, and to everyone she was now known as Rose Niante. She kept her status as a runaway, only saying she had needed to get away from things. Vague, she staid very vague about her past. The least lies you used, the least you get tangled up in.
She managed to obtain a one-room apartment. Too much rent, too little room. Not that she was complaining, allright, she was.
Sharon had got a job at a small coffee-shop, and the apartment a week ago. The money that Logan guy had given her had made it possible to get through the week before she got her pay-check. The phonenumber was still in her jacket. She was not going to call. She would make it on her own just fine. She would find out what had happened to her dad and didn't need anyone to help her.
Bleary eyed, Sharon tumbled out of her bed, reminding herself she should not again throw her alarm clock through the room. It wasn't even hers. Hers had been professionally demolished the first morning it went off. This was the spare belonging to her neighbour. Somehow, she didn't think he'd take too kindly on her destroying that one. She would get her pay-check end that week.
Forcibly, she folded her bed back into the couch it was by day, before grabbing her uniform for work. A short skirt and a PINK shirt. She hated it. She hated the stupid job and she hated acting so freakin' cheerful so she would get better tips.
Her head still fogged, she stumbled into the kitchen corner of the room and splashed cold water into her face, an attempt to wake herself up that always worked. While blindly groping for a towel, she knocked a mugg off of the counter.
"Damn it!" she cursed loudly at the sound of breaking ceramic. Followed by louder curses as she finally managed to get a clear view of the time.
"O shit o shit o shit! I'm gonna be late!" she cried out. Normally, this wouldn't worry her, and just snap at anyone who told her this, but she NEEDED this job. Rushing to get her sneakers on, and then rushing out the door.
The door jambed, again, and not having the patience to just close it, she never had, Sharon kicked it shut, promptly hearing someone yell across the hall to 'keep it the hell quiet'.
"Right back atcha!" she called back while stomping down the hall, not even bothering with the elevator, the damned thing had broken down even before she had moved in.
It wasn't a nice neighbourhood, so she fit in. The only one who didn't back of after her half growls was her far too chirpy neighbour, which was very annoying. An the other hand quite usefull too, like with the alarmclock.
Work wasn't too far away, running, she could get there within five minutes, the time she needed to get her act together and act as if she was like any other girl, and perhaps a little too perky and bouncy then was good for her. What could she say? She needed this job.
The day was normal, ignoring crude comments from men and boys, amazing herself with keeping herself from slapping them. Ofcourse, that restraint was nothing like towards those snotty 'better then you' women who thought that, just because she was a waitress, they got to order her around.
Snatching a sandwich in between shifts, she watched people pooring in and out of the coffeeshop. On the television was news of another anti-mutant outburst. Looking around, she saw no one paying attention to what was on, as if it was every day.
By the time she could go home again, her feet ached, her head hurt and she could no longer see coffee. No coffee-latte, no black coffee, no nothing!
All she wanted was to go home, curl up on her sofa bed and fall asleep. The door closed behind her, she dumped her jacket in a corner and switched on the radio before making her way to the kitchen.
"Call you up in the middle of the night / Like a firefly without a light / You were there like a blowtorch burning / I was a key that could use a little turning"
Sharon was so tired, when she opened the small refrigerator, she saw that she only had left overs from last night's dinner. Perhaps it would have been better to accept the offer, she could use a little help.
"So tired that I couldn't even sleep / So many secrets I couldn't keep / I promised myself I wouldn't weep / One more promise I couldn't keep"
Quietly, she pulled out the dish and sniffed at it with distaste. Pasta, Sharon had half a mind to throw it out, but sleeping while still hungry wasn't advisable.
"It seems no one can help me now / I'm in too deep; there's no way out / This time I have really led myself astray"
Settling down at the small table, she pokked the pasta suspiciously, as if expecting it to come alive, before eating it. They probably had better then this at that Institute, but she had been too proud and the offer had fallen onto deaf ears. Should she call again? No, she probably wasn't even remembered.
"Runaway train, never going back / Wrong way on a one-way track / Seems like I should be getting somewhere / Somehow I'm neither here nor there"
While swallowing the next bite of pasta, Sharon mused over her lack of progress concerning her father.
"Can you help me remember how to smile? / Make it somehow all seem worthwhile / How on earth did I get so jaded? / Life's mystery seems so faded"
It had always been her and her dad. No 'baby-sitter' could keep up with her, could out match her in her sneering and some even ran screaming. Sharon remembered quite clearly that dad said that she would one day make a fine drill-instructor. Ofcourse, that wouldn't be the case now anymore.
"I can go where no one else can go / I know what no one else knows / Here I am just a-drownin' in the rain / With a ticket for a runaway train"
This also had advantages, Sharon grinned, she could just pack up and leave, if her father had still been around, she wouldn't have been able to. Sharon immediately chided herself: she needed to find her dad, this was only a necesity.
"And everything seems cut and dried / Day and night, earth and sky / Somehow I just don't believe it"
Once again, she poked her dinner, then decided against eating more and she threw it out, adding 'grocery shopping' on her to-do list for tomorow during her break.
"Runaway train, never going back / Wrong way on a one-way track / Seems like I should be getting somewhere / Somehow I'm neither here nor there"
As she emptied her plate into the garbage-bin, her thoughts wondered back to the offer made a month ago, like they often did. She couldn't help it, but Logan had told her they could help her find her father, and right now, she was stuck between choises: stay or go.
"Bought a ticket for a runaway train / Like a madman laughing at the rain / A little out of touch, a little insane / It's just easier than dealing with the pain"
A chuckle came over her lips as Sharon returned to her couch. Joining the X-Men? Her father would disown her the second he heard it. Well, no, perhaps he needed five minutes to stop laughing and then he would disown her.
"Runaway train, never going back / Wrong way on a one-way track / Seems like I should be getting somewhere / Somehow I'm neither here nor there"
Her eyes drifted shut slowly as sleep overtook her, the radio continued in the background, but she was too tired to do anything about it.
"Runaway train, never coming back / Runaway train, tearing up the track / Runaway train, burning in my veins / I run away but it always seems the same"
Sharon woke up not much later by a loud banging on her door: "Rose! Rose! Wake up! There's a fire Rose!"
That had Sharon right to her feet. As she sniffed, she found that it was correct: there was a stench in the air that betrayed a fire. Before she made it out the door, however, Sharon grabbed her jacket out of habit and slipped it on.
"Thanks for the warning, Greg," she said, before grasping her neighbour by the hand and dragging him to the fire escape stairs, the smoke was coming from the 'real' stairs.
"This is just (cough) freakin' dandy," Sharon coughed as they made their way outside, to find nearly the rest of the occupants standing outside and no sight of police or firemen.
"Figures," Sharon snorted, "not high on the priority list."
When the fire was extinguished, all that was left of Sharon's appartment were ashes and cinders. She was left with only her workclothes and her jacket.
Next chapter: Sharon sees no other choice but to call the X-Men.