"You have to be on something, mate, you danced for joy when you got the invitation," Trevor crossed his patchy arm looking at Mike as he affirmed his decision. "Fess up you knob, what'd you get into?"
Mike insisted that he wasn't on anything, but Leper remembered that he talked to Mike the night before, and he'd had some poppers.
"Did you use expired poppers?" Gordon tried to guess the cause for Mike's sudden disinterest in the party.
An idea popped up in Mike's head as he lied, "Yeah, I think they're a bit off, had to throw them away, really gave me a bad dream."
Leper snorted as he pushed up his oversized glasses, "Why didn't you give me them, then, I'd taken them. You wasted perfectly good poppers!"
Raising his finger, Gordon decided, "Look, clearly, you're coming off something, why don't you go back home, clear your head, and when you're finally back to your senses, you'll be in a better mood for the party, okay?"
Still thinking his friend's having a bad moment from expired drugs, Gordon prodded Mike to come down from it, and clear his head.
He thought that if he did, Mike wouldn't bug out so much, and be ready for the party in two days.
"You still have time, party's not until 9," Trevor pointed out that if the bad trip's still affecting Mike, he's got time to come off it before the party, because he and the others knew Mike.
He'll never pass up the chance of coming to this banger of a party where there's willing girls and plenty of drugs to get into.
Wearily, Mike replied, "Yeah, I'll... I'll let you know how I feel."
Giving him time, Mike's friends pulled him to get coffee from a cheap pub and help come off his buzz sooner.
Strong black coffee with nothing but the finest dehydrated beans money can buy!
Some reason, Mike couldn't finish the coffee and he's unable to push himself to drink anymore after sipping on it once.
"This is serious," Leper looked worried as Mike stared at the full cup of coffee in front of him.
Mike went through coffee like no one's business, he'd be in the loo at this point after his fourth cup!
"Are you sick?" Gordon accused him.
Shaking his head, Mike gestured as he calmly told them all, "I'm not sick!"
He swore to his very being he wasn't sick, but he saw discomfort in his friends as they eyed him with concern.
"Mate, I think you need something. Hold on, I think I got something in my pocket," Gordon reached into his pocket as he tried searching for something he kept.
Fervently shaking his head, Mike assured his friends that he didn't need any uppers to get out of his strange mood.
Checking the time, Mike sees that it's almost noon.
Shaking off his friends, Mike hurried out of the pub to track down Lena, remembering the deadline for the turn-in in for her art's in two days, the same day as the party.
As he hurried through the quiet street of the small village, Mike sees the familiar places.
Hardly changed since the village's inception, with only modifications here and there, but the village remained the same since he was a small boy.
The white brick walls seeped with moss, rooftops made of red shingles, and the stone brick streets with some stones missing from their placements.
It's not a populous village by any stretch, a lot of people left over the years in hopes of making it big in the southern parts of Britain, but for Mike and the remaining people in the village, it's their only home.
He and his friends always dreamed of going south and seeing what's there in life outside the village, but there's not a whole lot of jobs paying well these days.
Everyone struggles, naturally, but for Mike and other teenagers his age, they feel it more than anyone. Can't exactly ask for a raise when your boss's willing to put on a story about how when he was their ages, getting the same pay as he did back then, how hard he worked in his field and now blind to nostalgia.
While he's walking towards Lena's home, Mike thought he'd seen outlines of the Doctor and Lila, but when he turned his head, the sun reflecting off his glasses, they're gone, before he continued until he reached the little house with the green door.
Ever since Lena's uncle passed away, she hasn't been able to do much, trying to clean's hard as it is while she's trying to do schoolwork and then some.
As for why Lena was with her uncle at all's a tragic tale on its own. Her parents died in an accident when she was a small child and ended up in her uncle's custody since he was closer.
He thought coming up here's a good enough place to start new, but unfortunately for him, it wasn't so, and it's painfully obvious that Lena's still affected by his death as she avoids his room.
She actively avoids it, even far as refusing to clean it.
One'd think her extended relatives would've stepped up to help her, but the familial history's muddled for Mike.
All he know's that communication's difficult between members in her family, and even if she wanted to try contact them, there's a possible chance they don't get her message readily soon.
Stepping up to the door, Mike knocks on it and waits for Lena as he heard footsteps coming towards the door.
Opening it, Lena looked through the crack in the door as she says, "Who's there?"
Mike spoke up and Lena's baffled as she sees him standing in front of the door as she opened it wide for him to see her clearly.
Dirty brunette long hair, with curls at the ends, pale skin with soft red cheeks, a beauty mark on her right cheek, and her hazy green eyes reflecting him.
"Mike, what're you doing here?" Lena asked him as she stood in the doorway wearing her usual clothes. Thick stitched navy sweater and skirt with tight navy leggings to go with it, topped with black belted Mary janes.
Mike sheepishly replied, "Um, I wanted to come by and see how's it coming with your art. Aren't you supposed to turn it in, soon?"
Lena raised her brow at Mike's interest in her art as she responded with a blunt, "You said it looks horrible. Then again, I can't tell when you're telling the truth or you're swimming, again."
Rubbing the back of his head, Mike affirmed that he's not swimming and he apologized for the rude comments he gave her art piece.
Looking at him, Lena asks, "Okay, you're not this interested in my art, what's going on?"
Sheepishly, Mike explained that he just felt this urge and Lena eyed him with suspicion as she said, "That's out of the ordinary even for you, are you sure you're okay?"
Seeing this made Lena think something's amiss, as Mike never once gave much thought about her art, no matter what, and that's just when he's on something. The fact he's interested isn't telling her much other than he's found something else and this' one the side effects.
Mike prodded and she ended up letting him come inside the house where he sees it virtually untouched since Lena's uncle passed away.
There's some changes where Lena moved things around to clean, but she usually put them back where they were prior, and hasn't done much with the interior.
Not that she's able anyhow, since the wages in the village wouldn't pay much to refurnish the house.
She's fortunate that due to the circumstances, that she'll have time to earn what meager money from her job as an assistant in the only grocery in the village to pay for the yearly tax on the house.
Mike followed her to her room that she converted into an art studio where there's an canvas on the easel facing the wall.
Lena's worked on this piece for a few weeks now, always finding something wrong with it that she ended up fixing, and that it resulted in her tossing out many of her attempts.
This one's the last attempt before she turned it into the school she hoped to attend.
It's not much, but Lena's wise not to hope, and Mike studies the last attempt at her art piece.
She called it "Requiem" and the theme behind it dealt with some topics such as a person's life and what it amounted to.
Probably a coping mechanism for losing her uncle in an untimely matter.
It's a painting made with a few different paints, it's tricky, but Lena found a balance that kept her art piece from having paint running and ruining everything else.
Her art contained one person with two other versions of him and it's centered in a way that shows how events change a person.
The youthful man showed pride and joy, his tail bushy before he turned into his variant in the middle where he's older and his bright eyes slowly dimmed and filled with crow feet. He then turned into the second variant where the glint in his eyes disappeared, his smile solemn, and everything that once was gone from him, as his face painted with a perpetual frown.
"It looks stunning," Mike tried to tell Lena as she sighed while looking at her art as she's trying to ready it for the send-off in two days.
Shaking her head, Lena admitted that she doesn't think she did a good job with this last attempt, and there's people who're better painters than her that're able to do things with their paints that she can't imagine trying on her own.
Mike tried to tell her, "Come on, they cheer at a canvas with a squiggle, nothing else, they have to take notice with yours."
He attempted to cheer her up, trying to tell her that she doesn't have to worry about any perceived mistakes with her art.
There's people who overthink a canvas with just two squiggles of different colours and that's that.
Not to mention a toilet with a hand sticking out of it, that somehow garners attention, but heaven forbid something decently normal gets any respect.
Frowning as she wipes her hand on a rag, Lena tells Mike that there's always someone better than her that'll likely win their place in the college.
"You can't give up," Mike gestures as he tries to comfort her as he sees the doubts in her eyes as she looked at her art, always finding something wrong with it, and disappointed in herself.
This change in him's enough for Lena to call him out on it and he swears that he's not on anything, honest, and stated that he came to understand her more.
"That'll be a first," Lena remarked as she eyed him with suspicion. She asked if he's up to a trick and he swore on his enteral soul that he wasn't, but he could tell that his antics wore her thin over the years, as she's unable to trust his word.
Checking the time, Lena wearily asked if Mike needed anything else, she needed to do chores around the house, and Mike excused himself as he left through the front door.
As he departed from Lena's home and made his way around the corner, he heard instantly, "Remember, you have to learn why the original events happen."
Jumping, Mike turned his head to see Theodore and Lila standing in front of him.
Mike raised his brow as he asked, "Where were you?"
Theodore replied with, "Sorry, I should've been more specific. You can change events, but we can't, so you'll have to do everything on your own."
Lila summed it as, "Think of us as Al and you're Sam."
Mike can see them, but no one else can and he's the only one capable of interacting in this mission, since they're unable to do the same.
Can't be helped, it's balance, and Mike wanted it in the first place, so it's all on him whether or not he goes through with the changes he sought.
"I'm not going to the party," Mike tells Theodore.
Crossing his arms, Theodore reminded him that while Mike as he is now might not want to go to the party, there's other factors that might've forced his attendance.
Shaking his head, Mike stressed he's going to work with Lena and help send in her art, that it's the honest truth.
"Saying and doing are two different things, Mr. Jenkins, while it's amicable, you're still missing the point," Theodore raised his finger at the teenager. "Why do you do the things you do and what made you do them in the first place, you can't change without understanding consequences."
Keeping him on his leash, Theodore reminded Mike he still needs to learn why he is the way he is and why it led Lena to leave the village.
Knowing that she's upset with him because his foolishness cost her a chance at college's not the only thing Mike needed to successfully alter history.
Mike pointedly asked, "Well, what do you want me to do, I already tossed my stashed and everything."
Shifting in her spot, Lila asked Mike what he remembered that led to Lena to fail sending in her art piece in the first place.
Mike tried remembering and said that something happened during the party, but his mind rippled with bubbles, he can't remember it clearly, only that he called Lena and she came to help him.
"Did you OD, again?" Lila asked him if that's a possibility of why Lena came to the party.
Thinking to himself, Mike hazily recalled something happening to the party, and him calling Lena, but nothing stuck.
Hence, he thinks if he avoids the party, he'll avoid ruining her chances.
"You still have three days to figure it out, two until the party, remember Mr. Jenkins," Theodore reminded him as he paced around the area.
Mike pointed at him as he asked, "Can't you give me something more to go on?"
Quietly thinking, Theodore thought about it before he answered that it's possible that Lena sending her art in's not the only way to keep her friendship with Mike.
"Remember what you told us about the village, Mike, think real hard about it, sometimes the answer to our problems right in front of us," Lila tried to help Mike understand his situation while keeping it closely vague so he's able to learn his from his past mistakes and hopefully catch on before the deadline.
Lowering his arms, Theodore checked his pocket watch as he said that they'll see Mike around, but for now, he'll be on his on, and if he needs them for anything, just to call out to them.
Mike watched as Theodore and Lila disappeared, just walked through a wall, and vanished.