18 February 1917

Surviving the past for as long as Theodore had (even with the generous aid of the Gussmans), had been a trip in of itself. For the first couple of months at school, Theodore had more or less kept his head down in class and studied hard in order to keep up with his peers because everything that he had ever known was considered either wrong, or too outlandish by those peers; peers, mind you, whom he had a rather hard time trying to connect with them. They didn't get his brand of humour (it was mostly dry and gallows humour, not one that particularly gelled well with American humour or the humour of the time). Nor did they understand his references; references that understandably would not make sense for decades to come, but it still made it hard to made friends.

And when they saw his scars—those lichtenberg branches that webbed their way up & down his arms, or the litter of silvery scratches that had been left behind by his doro's machinations and of course, there was his missing eye. That one had caused more than one person to turn away in fear and disgust. Which was why he had been pretty quickly lumped in with the strange-slash-weird-slash-troubled kids. They were the trademarked unpopular children—the outsiders—who more often than not, found themselves on the back end of a fist and a bitter-tongued word.

Although, even now with Theodore was out of the Gussman's house for five days out of the standard week's seven, that didn't mean that the new change of scenery had magically erased all of that doom & gloom which had shrouded him for so many months at a time. His vera's death still weighed rather heavily on him in both the waking world & the dreaming and more than once, he found himself searching for her face in the crowd; his doro's too, but for very different reasons. And more than once, the Garde boy had found himself jerking awake, wrenched from his dreams—his nightmares, his memories—drenched in sweat and a silent scream on his lips. There would be tear tracks burnt into freckled cheeks and his heart would jackhammer in his chest, like it was trying to escape the ribcage that held it prisoner.

So it was with gladness in his heart, that Theodore woke each morning; far too early to be out of bed and ever so thankful that each student was granted their own room. Even if the walls were thin and the rooms were cramped. At the very least, he was granted at least the semblance of privacy; much like the curtained bedroom back in Dallas. That is to say, that Theodore was still doing better than before; although that wasn't a particularly hard task. Where some days were still filled with the monotonous grey that he had become to know as his day-to-day and some days they were filled with a precarious light, like the softest of hues that painted an early morning sunrise. Those days, those happy days, were like that moment just as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon and sparrows were just starting to rise from their nests with ruffled feathers all askew, and morning dew that kissed each strand of grass. It was like the light at the end of the arduously long and dark tunnel that seemed to stretch on for forever.

To those here who knew him—his teachers, his classmates and the locals—he was simple Theodore "Ted" Hargreeves, the ward of the Gussman pair, well known for their electronics store and the previous dentistry practise that took root in that store. They knew him as an eccentric boy who held one too many quirks to make him normal and he was often seen with a pale parlour from all of his time inside & all of his (not-so-secret) underage drinking. Not that he was alone in that endeavour because that aspect was practically a staple of teenagehood, alongside the adventures of sneaking out (or in, considering the gender-based dormitories) and basically just behaving like the hormone-powered rapscallions that they all were.

Obtaining booze was an easy enough feat for the youths, mostly because if you flashed the cash, then people were more willing to look the other way and people of this era were far more trusting than Theodore was used to, which certainly helped in such acts. And more often than not, Theodore found himself revering back to old habits in order to survive; slipping a bread roll into his pockets when the clerk was looking the other way, nabbing a collection of pencils from a classroom when no one was there to see and so on. He was rarely ever caught (mostly because these were minor things and no one cared), but whenever he was caught, he simply turned the blame onto something or someone else (being the quiet kid had a few upsides) or he would outrun-slash-outmanoeuvre his pursuers.

That's not to say that they didn't feed the boarders (and if you didn't name your stuff, then anything that was lost was on your head), they did, but they weren't exactly five-star meals. If you wanted something outside of the usual watery bowls of soup or thick gloops of gruel, then you had to source it yourself and then guard it with your life. Even with the war nipping at their backdoor, food & water restrictions were only just falling into place; forcing people's belts to squeeze tighter and tighter. Most days though, Theodore was hardly without a bottle in his hand as he found the )non-kosher) drink to be one of the few things that could numb the pain of his late vera's death and the impending end of the world.

Like now, for instance, where Theodore currently found himself perched atop the roof of Morty's Radio Shack with the settling sun at his back and his feet dangled over the edge of the building. Even though he boarded away from their grasp—away from the safety of their home—for those five working days, he still spent his weekends with the empty-nesters. With Fort Worth only a thirty(ish) minute trip out of Dallas, Theodore had taken to spending as much time with the two as he could. It was almost like he was afraid that if he didn't remind them that he was there, that they would forget about him or worse. Theodore may have of been a teen, but he still craved the kind of family that his peers had; one that was picture-perfect and full of love. The Gussmans weren't his parents or his extended family (thank Lore!), but they were all he had and he knew that he would cut his teeth on the bones of anyone who tried to take them away. (He didn't know of the Gussmans had figured out his intentions, but they had yet to kick him out, so silver linings and all that).

And so, his weekends were spent with the Gussmans doing this and that, whilst the rest of the week was spent at school, filled with boring lessons that seemed so archaic to the Garde boy. It was also during those weekends that he found himself venturing further & further from the safety of the old electronics store. Going first, to the end of the alley betwixt Commerce & Knox to collect the mail and then further, down the street to run an errand or two. In fact, in the six months since the beginning of school, he had made considerable strides towards acclimatising with this new world and dealing with his depressive feelings. And (even numbed by the cheap booze) he would admit to seeing the change that it had made in him. Fena Eleanor still beamed whenever he mentioned doing something outside of the house or anything even remotely productive.

Occasionally however, Theodore would board straight throughout the weekend for some reason or another—either because of a school event or because the Gussmans were hosting some sort of event in their home that chilled Theodore to his core. (Willingly interacting with that many people? No thanks!)—but for the most part they left him alone in this tentative system set up in place. Like he had noted before, people of this era were far more trusting than he was used to. He was pretty sure his vera would have of never allowed him this much freedom in the past (future?) without having a heart attack or an aneurysm, or y'know, blowing up the world like he had done.

Tomorrow Theodore would have to go back to Fort Worth for school, but for now, he just simply enjoyed the quietness of the evening settling into his bones. Down below, the bustling of the townspeople had dwindled from the well-to-do garden ladies and their bowler-hat bearing men to the workings of the scantily dressed ladies of the night and their lust-filled patrons that followed after them like shadows, into the darkest of alleyways to share in their acts of debauchery.

It seemed no matter the era, the younger & prettier you were, the more men would bow to your will; or so Theodore had observed. Although, more than once it was those very same girls who toted the older men behind them on leashes made of their own neckties, who ended up in the newspaper where their mutilated bodies danced beneath broad headlines or their faces plastered across the back of milk cartons thanks to families looking for wayward daughters (if they were young enough for that sort of thing). So, yes, it seemed that these people were far more trusting than what he was used to; but they far wilder too.

Like that pair of his classmates whom had more or less adopted him (much in the same manner as Milton Greene III had done once upon a time), deeming them his friend without much cause for his input. Not that Theodore protested or complained, he was just glad to have some kind of meat shield to use against the terrors of people and, as an added bonus, Fena Eleanor had finally gotten off of his back about making his friends his own age. If you were to ask him about how that particular venture had happened however, Theodore wasn't really sure if he could pinpoint the exact moment that he had become friends—best friends—with those two. He only knew that one day he had been pathetically lonely and then the next, he wasn't.

He knew that it had happened at school one day (because where else could a recluse make friends?), where he met the two people who would become his grounding pillars; his rock in this storm we call life. In time, they would be brothers & sisters-in-arms, but for now they were just young teenagers on the cusp of adulthood; swimming in that awkward place between maturity and immaturity. These two—these brilliant two—were named Harlan Cooper and Lila Pitts. Both of them were a year or two older than Theodore, but when you looked at them, you would never know that.

Despite the fact that both Harlan & Lila were a full year or two older than Theodore, they were both still held back (as was common amongst the students of the remedial school). Neither had explicitly explained why such a thing had happened to them (most likely because it was an embarrassing subject that often led to taunts from the older students and contempt sneers from the teachers), but Theodore had still been able to ascertain a few things from the snippets that he did know. For Lila, this was thanks to her behavioural issues (something about palming a mid-sized alligator at someone, in a fit of rage). For Harlan it was because of his learning difficulties and general stubbornness in regards to everyday speech (something that was probably the result of his undiagnosed/unrecognised autism).

They were strange people, but as far as friends went though, Theodore could have of done a lot worse. See, Harlan was a sturdy boy, built from years of hard work and broad-shouldered from years of a corn-fed diet. Adorned in silky blonde locks, the teenager always seemed to wear a sort of a boyish charm that made him seem both innocent and trustworthy. It was also the kind of thing that lent a stranger's simpering shoulder towards him to lean on, or the kind of look that let him get away with just about anything.

Harlan had these big doe eyes that stared at the world around him with wonder and coward from grating noises like the alleycats who abhorred any who came near. He was quiet too, like the orange-speckled butterflies that populated the area; those ones that were so quiet, that surprised you when they appeared out of the blue. And just like the butterflies, Harlan was quiet too, in fact so quiet that he almost gave Theodore a run for his money. The few times he did speak, he spoke of his mother's warm hugs, of his father's stern tones and a great big lake on the backend of their Dallas farm (one, surprisingly, not too far from his own) which he always loved to visit whenever he had the time.

Lila, on the other hand, was a lithe girl who wore smiles that were nothing but teeth. Ones that were all predatory cunningness or mischievous stubbornness that rivalled the alligators who populated the Fort Worth area and occasionally lingered on the edges of the school field. Dark locks framed her sharp face in a pin-straight haircut and beady eyes that gleamed with an intelligence that begged to be released, that begged to be noticed amongst the other riffraff.

(Theodore often pondered that perhaps it was this cunning that had landed her here at Saint Patrick's College, for doing that very thing she seemed to crave with a vengeance). She was a smart aleck in every sense of the word, and her rap sheet was practically half a mile long already & they hadn't even made it halfway through their high school career. Where Harlan was soft features, warm hugs & tittering chuckles, Lila was all sharp corners, pointy elbows and barking laughter. Complete contrasts that made up the two sides of the same coin (sometimes Theodore wondered where in that equation he fit, but it seemed to work for the moment. Perhaps he was the edge? Or the embossing on either side?).

They were strange people, yes, but Theodore wouldn't have them any other way.