I might actually continue this, if anyone wants me to. I dunno. Might.
She pouted up at her caretaker, begging to be taken to the school.
"Please, ma'am! I'm boyish enough and I wanna learn!" She pleaded, tugging on her caretaker's arm. Her caretaker sighed, irritated.
"I knew I never should've taught you to read, you poor sap. Now you don't want to stop. You're nine, remember it, or I fear you'll surpass even the teacher's in this town," her caretaker said, shaking her head.
"Please please please! I'll be good! And I'll only stay long enough to read through the library, ma'am! Promise!" She almost yelled. Almost. She ran around a person to catch up to her caretaker, having stopped to almost yell. She even dressed as a boy! Come on, she was so bored being in the early 1910's.
The person she passed walked up, having been a teacher just taking a leisurely stroll.
"Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice you denying this young lad an education," The man said, glancing momentarily at the gaping child staring at him.
"Oh, no, sir. The little one is going to grow up a proper lady, she is," Her caretaker said, glaring at her. She wasn't paying attention, deep in her thoughts while still gaping at the man. "If she ever gets her head outta the clouds," She muttered, indignant over her charge. Suddenly the kid jerked into motion, going to run off.
"Easy there!" The man called, grabbing the kid before she got away, her having suddenly bolted.
"Alex! Dang that girl, always thinking or running about! I oughta send her to the asylum for a month to show her reality!" The caretaker snapped. The man looked down at the irritated child.
"Where are you running off to, Alex?" He murmured calmly, like he would to a scared pup. The kid scowled before pouting at her caretaker.
"Lemme go so I can go!" Alex yelled, struggling against his grip. He picked her up and set her on his hip, much to her irritation. She glared at him while he looked at her curiously, unaffected by the death glare no child should be able to give.
"Go where? Honestly, I should put you in the asylum with how odd you are, you." The caretaker snapped, scowling. Alex stuck her tongue out.
"Just go! Adventures await me! Books are calling, bad guys are out there to give second chances to, good guys to blame for the deaths they couldn't prevent!" Alex forcibly said, squirming in the man's grip. He was awfully strong for being a walking twig, she thought.
"Isn't that supposed to be the other way around? Bad guys getting blamed for the deaths they caused, good guys getting second chances?" The man asked. Alex looked at the man, incredulous.
"What sorta world do you live in? Idealistically, yes, but reasonably? No, the bad guys get all the sympathy and the good guys get all the blame! Unless it's war, in which, yeah. Good guys, or rather, the winners of the war, get good reputation and bad guys, the losers of the war, get no sympathy and are expected to pay for it all," The child explained slowly, like he was barmy.
"You're rather intelligent, aren't you? And you'll be going on those adventures all alone? Don't you have a sidekick? All superheroes have sidekicks," He asked, thinking to all those other adventures with superheroes in them. She looked at him oddly.
"It's a hero, not a superhero, one. I'm not a hero, but maybe I could count as an anti hero, two. Lastly, heroes don't have sidekicks! Only superheroes do! Heroes have friends, companions, stuff like that. Heroes are just normal people doing what no one else would, and saving people in the process. Anti Heroes are just normal people doing what they want or think necessary, saving people in the process. Bad guys are just normal people doing what they want or think necessary, killing or hurting people in the process," Alex explained, exasperated. Both her caretaker and her captor gaped at her. She scowled at them both.
"I don't have time for this! Just lemme go so I can go adventuring and building and fighting bad guys!" She snapped, finally loosening her arm enough to tug sharply at the man's ear. He winced, relaxing his grip enough for her to escape. She ran off, the man following her.
"Wait! Alex! Can I come along?" He called, and she stopped, glaring back at him.
"Even anti heroes need a companion to show off to, right? Let me be that companion," He pleaded, not caring that he was a grown man begging a nine year old to take him with her. He knew that if she denied him, he wouldn't be able to keep up with her. She was fast. He also knew that someone had to take care of the child.
"Make sure you're back by Sunday, brat!" Her caretaker called, walking off. "I'm Caretaker Elizabeth! Who're you, sir!" She called as an afterthought. Might as well know to blame when the girl inevitably dies on one of her adventures.
"I'm John Smith! I teach at the local school! Just started a few days ago, actually!" He called back, frowning at Elizabeth. Sunday was four days away, did Alex run off often? He glanced at Alex, already knowing the answer. He sighed heavily.
"Lizzie! Sunday is for losers! I'll be back Tuesday!" Alex yelled, doing a two-fingered salute at the woman who had already walked away. A book came flying through the air, smacking Alex on the face.
"Then bring the Bible and you better pray!" A faraway voice called before vanishing. Alex rubbed her face, mourning her nose. It was a solid hit, and the book almost won the battle against her nose.
"So? Might I be able to join you in your adventures?" John asked, and Alex scowled darkly at him. An expression that shouldn't be possible for a kid to do, not having enough experiences. Alex was something else, wasn't she? John smiled brightly at her. She gave him an odd look.
"You better be able to run fast, mister! I'll only be your knight in shining armour if you can keep up!" She demanded, gripping his hand and dragging him along. John was in awe of the little girl before him. Not only did she break the social normal via wearing a boy's clothing, but she ran faster than any child her age, boy or girl, should. He was barely keeping up, and she was running slower than before! Way slower. John gulped as he barely dodged a branch. Just how abnormal was this kid?
Later, he decided to answer that question with one word. Extremely. No nine year old can build a house on her own, let alone a three story house with furniture and decorations! No nine year old can craft handmade books, no nine year old could forge two sharp swords!
John glanced around the first floor. It was rather small, comfortable enough for a grown person or two. It had a few chairs here and there, and tables crudely made full of clutter. All sized for a small child, but accommodatingly, like they were able to be adjusted for when she became a grown adult. He saw the haphazard stairs, longer and thicker than he was used to, leading up almost hidden by a door. She had told him the first floor was for her crafts, the second for her home and the third for her finished crafts.
John walked up the stairs and stared in awe. It was styled as a one-story home, except this one wasn't child-sized or childish in any way. It was almost… Modern. For the 1910's. He absently flushed a toilet in shock. She had plumbing. He walked back down the stairs to see Alex drawing out blueprints while also working on a wooden block, a crude clay knife carving intricate symbols and a piece of coal writing numbers and calculations on the parts outside of her outlines. If John had ever doubted her before, when he looked at the blueprints she was writing all of his doubts vanished.
"What the hell sort of child was she?" He muttered, not intending to say that aloud.
"A brilliant one, or maybe just a trillion year old stuck in a child's body. Whichever you decide plausible enough to believe." Alex replied absently, putting her head in her hands when the wooden block split apart. She tossed the remains with a pile of what John had assumed was just firewood, but now knew to be mess-ups. He looked closer at the pile. There was lots of wood and brick, but…
"Where's the metal? That's a pile of things you messed up, and I don't believe you haven't messed up on metal before." John asked, burning with curiosity.
"Metal can be melted and reformed and reused. As can most of my other materials, but brick and wood can't be reformed, so I use the parts for small decorations and the like," Alex replied, looking like she was about to cry in a frustrated, adult-like way. She was gripping her hair and went back to muttering the calculations and wondering what she did wrong. If he were from the late 2010's, he'd say she looked like a university student.
John jumped when she suddenly stood up, rushing towards him and dragging him outside after giving him a sword and taking one for herself. She had made two, when she was irritated at wood and brick for not letting her make it what she wanted to.
"Woah there! Easy, Alex! You can't just…" John sighed heavily as he ran after the errant child. Of course she could, he thought fondly, she was Alex. The one that knew how to do plumbing, carpentry, architecture, engineering, blacksmithing, and more. That put a new perspective on the housewife stereotype, he mused, they do all the housework… He focussed again when Alex suddenly stopped.
"Oh, they're here. Why are they always here?" Alex muttered, annoyed. John gaped at her, at a loss of what to do. He looked up at the sun, seeing it was almost halfway down the sky.
"Who? W-What are you talking about?" John asked, scared.
"Oh, nothing big. Just… Um. Yeah, there's no good way to put this," Alex muttered, "They're called Slabs. They're uh, made of leather. Aliens and um, witches. They're trying to kill me." She finished. John gaped at her.
"What? But, but that's impossible!" He cried, gripping his sword and Alex's hand tightly. Alex sighed, nodding.
"You're right, I agree. They're after you, too," Alex claimed, and then groaned as John dropped his sword and clung to her legs when the Slabs appeared. She picked up the sword he dropped, already used to dual wielding.
Alex casually fought off the Slabs, irritated.
"Mr. Smith, if you impede my movement for one more moment I'll never take you on an adventure again! You can stay close to me, just stop clinging to me!" Alex finally snapped, annoyed that she couldn't speed around and slice through the Slabs.
Once he let go, she finally danced around and finished a Slab by ripping off their arm and slicing through their head.
"You ripped his arm off!" John cried after they ran away.
"Yep. Leather," She said, tossing him the arm.
"Very clever. Nice trick! Who were they then, students? Is this a student thing or what?" John asked, and Alex glanced at him, confused.
"Why would they be students?" Alex asked, scrunching her nose. How thick was he?
"I don't know."
"Well, you said it, why students?"
"Well, to get that many people dressed up and being silly, they have to be students." John offered, getting a strange sense of deja vu.
"That makes sense, well done." Alex muttered sarcastically.
"Thank you," John replied.
"They aren't students. I was being sarcastic, that was the most idiotic suggestion ever. Why would I cut the heads off of students?" Alex snapped, irritated as they walked back to her home. Glancing up at the sky, she quickly changed directions. To get the idiot home, first. Then to her own home.
"W-who, what are you?" John asked after they arrived at the place where he first ran off.
"I'm the Fugitive. Human, before you ask." Alex replied, sighing heavily. Not her first companion, but losing them, even if they'd lasted a few hours, hurt like hell.
"The Fugitive? What fugitive is nine?"
"A brilliant one, or maybe just a trillion year old stuck in a child's body. Whichever you decide plausible enough to believe. Not a fugitive of the law, just yet. Just the Fugitive. It's like a title. Better than the Rogue, at least. That one was one of the close seconds." Alex replied absently, having been using that comeback since forever.
"Just the Fugitive?"
"Yep."
"The Fugitive?" John repeated, confused.
"Hello!" The Fugitive waved. Her hair was matted down with sweat and dirt turning to mud. His was pristine like usual. She started leaving, going back the way she came from.
"There you are, then. Have fun existing and teaching!" The Fugitive called behind her, irritated when John grabbed her shirt.
"Wait! What are you going to do now?" He asked, seeming desperate for a reason neither knew.
"Oh, this and that. Maybe go adventuring a bit, running around looking for a few things, building some more things," She replied. She hesitated a moment, looking back.
"You could always… go with me. Join me on my adventures day after day," She offered, and John thought.
"Is it always this dangerous?" John asked, both hopeful and fearful. The Fugitive immediately shook her head.
"No, not at all. Some days I spend indoors, crafting and building and enjoying stuff. Other days I go adventuring, sometimes running into bad guys. The last day is a rest day, me going to Lizzie and just hanging about before I get another idea, or catch scent of other bad guys," She explained, shrugging. He stared at her for a moment.
"Today, you didn't give those bad guys a second chance. Why?" He asked, holding his breath. The Fugitive glanced away momentarily.
"Those weren't bad guys. They were just moving bits of leather and stuff. They had no thought process, and me giving them a second chance would have killed you. Had you not been there, I'd have just let them do what they wanted to do. Take me to their leader," She muttered, trying and failing to shake off his hand. He held on just a bit tighter, afraid to lose her for some reason he wouldn't yet guess. His time with her felt more real than his entire life combined. He felt more alive next to her, even before the Slabs attacked them.
"You'd have died! They were trying to kill us!" He claimed, and his jaw clenched when he saw she didn't care. Suicidal at nine? What was the orphanage like if this is what came from them? He was determined to try and keep her alive, and thus the adventures of the Fugitive and John Smith begun.
"I have work, I'm a teacher, but I'll stay with you and join you after that," He said, brusque, "and on my off days I might decide to join you as well." He released her, running a hand through his hair as she ran off silently. He couldn't tell anyone about this, they'd come to the wrong conclusions. A man and a little girl frolicking off into the forest? Right, that didn't sound odd at all. He sighed as he walked away, towards his school.
When he arrived, his maid ran over, worried.
"Where were you? Are you okay? Did they find us?" She asked rapid-fire, and John held up his arms in the universal male "calm down, lady" sign. His maid, Martha, finally slowed her questions down enough to let him reply.
"I do believe that after classes I can do as I please, yes, Martha?" He asked calmly, not to be rude, but more to be concise. "I was just taking care of a few of the orphans in town, they were running amok and the caretaker pushed one onto me." He grinned stupidly.
Now that he wasn't in fear of his heart beating out of his chest in fear, he thought that he'd love to do it again.
"Someone didn't catch your heart, did they?" Another maid asked, smiling sweetly. John frowned, looking a bit lost.
"No. No, not at all. There's just this kid… She's a very brilliant little girl," He replied, "Actually, I might just take her as my own, if she likes. Her caretaker usually ignores her."
His maid looked worried, and then her face calmed down. She smiled at him, and he noticed the odd expression added to it. Worry and… Something else, he mused.
"I was just worried for your health, sir. My apologies." The day ended soon after, making way for night time.
He was lost. In a forest. With no Fugitive around to help him. He sighed heavily. What path did the Fugitive take to lead him there? Eventually, not even an hour later, he recalled with a bit of shame, he made it. He walked up to the house.
"Hello? Alex? You around?" He called, the door locked. The Fugitive looked up from her work, pulling off her 22nd century glasses and stretching. No, this was her dull day. There would be no adventure until Sunday. Three days away. She was charting what she knew of the forest, scribbles and question marks crossed out with large "WHERE"'s over the uncharted areas.
"It's the Fugitive, D-John!" The Fugitive called out, unlocking her door. Unlocking the door John was at.
"Come in, come in. Not like you to just stand about, John. Today I'm just, er," She said, subtly covering the maps, "making things. Like bowls, books, knives, alcohol."
John was curiously looking about, walking in at her prompt. A few things caught his notice, here and there. A watch similar to his was stood on top of her book-drying rack. He froze suddenly, having just registered what she said.
"Alcohol?" He asked, spinning to stare the nine year old down. She nodded eagerly.
"Ooh, yes. Alcohol. I'm currently just running it through the process again and again, until it's well and truly excellent. Age it a few decades and when I'm seventy I'll make a profit off of it. Maybe when I age to the ripe old age of old I'll drink some myself. For now, I'm just making high quality alcohol with no intentions of drinking it any time soon." She said, omitting the fact that school kids frequently bought her lesser quality alcohol. High quality for the times, but extremely low quality for what she expected from a drink. She made quite a profit off of it, and even gained enough for a nice bit of land. A few hundred acres, really. She literally owned the property her house rested upon. Which she thought was excellent.
"You shouldn't be allowed access to alcohol, let along be able to make it." John said, voice airy. As if his head was in the clouds.
"Mm, yeah. I'm not allowed access, I make it from scratch. I have a few vineyards and a bit of farmland only an hours' run away. About three hours if you want to walk, and two-ish hours away at the pace that you run at." The Fugitive explained. She noticed that he wasn't paying attention, staring at something she made.
It was a drawing, really. Just an idea. A hope. The Fugitive sighed at the drawing, walking up to it. Two people entwined together by branches. The branches were the words "I'd stay by your side, Death unable to do us part" over and over in impossibly small text. Impossible for her, and she never had wanted it before. "Not in her first few eternities of existence. Until she was born here," She thought. Maybe she was just an imaginative and hopeful nine year old genius. Maybe she was some trillion-year-old being that caught Death's eye and have been forced through many different universes until she wanted to leave.
"Even as a nine year old genius you still have the want to get that knight in shining armour to sweep you off your feet?" John asked quietly, and the Fugitive looked over at him.
"No, not a knight in shining armour. Just… someone. Anyone to live the rest of my entire life with. Whether it be a friend, a romantic interest, a companion…" The Fugitive muttered in reply. She ripped the paper off the wall, storming outside. The paper was flapping dramatically behind her as she sprinted towards the fire she had started.
John ran after her, trying to stop her from throwing it in the flame. He watched, pained, as it burned.
"It was beautiful," John murmured wistfully.
"It was impossible and childish," the Fugitive snapped, going back inside. The Fugitive sighed heavily as she sat back down at her desk, hands clenched tightly around the knife as she went to carving the image of a fire. She'd buy the paints to make it seem realistic later. For now she just needed to do something.
"How did a nine year old get so impossibly old views? It's not impossible-"
"Just extremely, extremely improbable, and unless you want to stay with me forever, and find a way to be able to, then stop talking about it." She interrupted him, and went to carving. He watched her, and they spent the next hour or two in silence.
The Fugitive groaned, sitting up with a few cracks and pops as she stood and stretched. It was time to take John home.
"Let's-"
"Let me- I mean, if you want me to, that is to say, er, if you'd like, I could adopt you," He stuttered, and the Fugitive stood there. She looked at him, seeing his expression. He didn't seem the type, she thought.
"You'd gain nothing, sir," The Fugitive said, shaking her head, "Let's go, before we're running in the dark."
They walked, John feeling the pain of denial, and the Fugitive feeling the pain of existing. Neither much liked the pain they were feeling, but neither said anything to relieve them of this pain. Martha was stood at the edge of the forest, having seen John walk in hours ago. She was visibly worried, and the Fugitive sighed. John, seeing Martha, didn't notice the Fugitive slip away silently.
The Fugitive wandered in town, venturing around and getting things she needed. The Fugitive ran into a few people, but neither her nor they minded much. Until she ran into her orphanage bullies. The Fugitive was fast, she knew. Speed couldn't get you out of a closed circle, not if you didn't want to be noted as even more abnormal. The Fugitive knew that she wouldn't be able to do what she planned tomorrow. Even if she fought back and succeeded, she'd still be sore.
The Fugitive backed away wearily, lucky that her hidden pockets held her items and cash well. They'd never find it, even if they did pick her up and shake her around. Wearily wary, she turned and sprinted. She dodged around everyone, trying to get to the forest before they caught her. She cried out in pain when a rock hit her in the leg, slowing her down significantly. She'd have a hard time making it back to her home, she knew. It soon got dark, and the Fugitive found out that she was right. Too right.
John was woken by a commotion, and when he got decent and walked out, he saw the Matron worry over a beaten and bruised body as it was rushed to her office. The doctor was out of town for another few months, so the school's Matron would have to do unless you wanted to travel a few hours by horse to a bigger city. He walked out, seeing his maid.
"Oh, Martha! What's going on?" He asked, looking after the body. Poor sap, must've angered the wrong people around town.
"Some orphaned kid, Alex he said his name was, got beaten." Martha replied, about to continue when John ran off after the Matron. He only knew one orphan, true, but he knew that there couldn't be many orphans named Alex around the small town. His Fugitive was hurt.
He sat by her side, worried when the Matron of the place said that she didn't know when Alex would wake up.
"It's fine, Alex can rest on my bed for however long it's necessary." He claimed. John didn't know why, but he truly cared for Alex in the small time they've known each other. When she was safe in his room, he relaxed for but a moment before she woke up. The Fugitive woke up spectacularly, almost out the door before he knew what was going on. She was extremely slow, and he almost made it in time to stop her. He ran after her.
"Alex! Wait!" He called, and she barely twitched, slowly gaining more and more speed as she ran, glancing out windows and changing directions almost casually by the time she was caught. He ran up, gasping for breath. She had ran directly into Baines, for which he was grateful. Baines was one of the few that could hold the squirming child without much trouble.
"Thank you, Baines. I'll take her from here," John said, taking her directly from Baines' grip. She had been running into the library when she ran into Baines. He wondered if that was on purpose. The Fugitive finally relaxed enough to be put on John's hip. She scowled at that, glaring through black eyes at John. He flinched at the sight.
"Now, Alex, who did this to you?" He asked, wandering further into the library.
"Just orphanage bullies, sir. Nothing to worry about," The Fugitive replied flippantly, getting John to set her down with a few good gestures and tugs of his ear. She wandered around, pulling out a book on physics, as she was followed by Baines and John. The Fugitive climbed up to sit on a table, book in hand as she read through the opening paragraph. Her nose scrunched up at the simplicity of it. The Fugitive did not know physics, though, so she continued reading.
"Orphanage bullies? Is that why you're always running away from the orphanage?" John asked, intent on knowing why a nine year old thought it necessary to live on her own. She shook her head, rubbing it too. She had a headache. She had a bodyache. Everything hurt. She cared more that her head hurt though. She actually used that more often. Idiotic bullies, she'd show them. The Fugitive already was more successful than all of them combined, what else could she do to embarrass them? Outlive them?
The Fugitive decided to focus more on the book than the conversations going on around her. That turned out to be a mistake. She had no clue what was going on, but she was being lead to the headmaster's office, her caretaker being retrieved as well as her suspected bullies and witnesses. John never left her side, and by that she meant he was literally carrying her on his hip the entire time. For once, she didn't mind. She rather enjoyed not having to walk while reading the physics book.
Her grip tightened to an extreme grip and she looked up at the asshole trying to take her book. It was her caretaker. She scowled, holding the book to her chest and folding herself into John, who was still holding herself. The book she was holding belonged to her and her only until she finished reading. If she had to use her only friend as a shield? Well, he was grown enough to protect the both of them. Neither of them would get hurt, not on her watch.
"Oh, come on Alex! You need to be a nice lady in front of the headmaster and give me the book!" The caretaker said, exasperation in her voice. The Fugitive decided that she much preferred John's nice hold over the caretaker's painful grip and clung like a burr to him when the caretaker tried taking her away.
"She prefers going by the Fugitive," John said, holding his only friend closely. They both knew that they'd be friends for a good while in that moment. Neither knew the other enough, but they knew each other too well to want to let the other be taken away from them. They knew each other for two days, and both knew those two days were the best they'd had in a while.
"The Fugitive- what nonsense has she gotten you into?! That girl is unholy! Just set her down! I'm done! She's going to the asylum, blaming these nice boys here for something she probably asked for! Saying I'm unfit for duty! It's unreasonable!" The caretaker said, and the Fugitive frowned, clinging to John just that bit tighter. The Asylum. She'd be treated unwell. She'd be practically forced into insanity with their old methods. The Fugitive, reduced to madness. Reduced to nothing, and left to be abandoned.
"She didn't blame anything on anyone. She just said that she had a few orphanage bullies beat her up. We found some witnesses and now here you are with those boys." Baines said, looking indignant. He had no clue why he was dragged into this, but he wasn't going to let this peasant talk to his teacher like that. He was above that. They all were above being petty. Half were rich and the other half were poor. The poor should know their place.
"That's enough." The headmaster called, and the room was silent. Almost. Three of the five boys, the three she recognized as her bullies and the other two boys she's never really payed attention to, were snickering at the caretaker, and Baines. The Fugitive finally peaked out, and saw the caretaker's attention away from her. She relaxed so she could see better. She was cold now, though.
"Now, we're here because John Smith and Jeremy Baines decided to bring up this young lad's injuries with me and tell me who were the most likely suspects for beating the child up. Now that I know the child's a young lady, and that her caretaker and bullies just left her there on the street, I have decided to take action." He said. The Fugitive was confused. What about the leader of the town? Or this area? Was there no one better for this?
"Since the leader of this area had to go to a meeting, I have been appointed temporary dispute manager until he arrives again in a few weeks," Oh, how convenient, "So what happened?"
Everyone started to speak at once besides the Fugitive. The headmaster was looking at her, and she was the only one not speaking and yelling and trying to be heard. He thought it odd, but that didn't matter.
"Silence!" He called, "I was talking to the girl," He finished. The caretaker started speaking, and shut up just as quick with a glare from the headmaster. All eyes focused on the Fugitive, and she glanced around, clutching just that bit tighter onto John. Whether she was an insane nine year old or a tired trillion year old, a room focused entirely on her without her being the one in control was intimidating.
"What happened, Alex?" John said, shifting his weight. The Fugitive looked away from the headmaster's eyes.
"I said it was nothing, sir. You should have just left it as nothing," She replied clearly, heart beating faster when she was set down to face the daunting room all alone. She was scared, she admitted. Being so small, and so weak… She was unreasonably afraid. She knew this. The Fugitive gracefully hid behind Baines. Screw that, no one had to get punished, and she wasn't going to say anything when there's a group of teenage boys that would happily beat her to death if she did speak. She was in no condition to be able to survive that.
The Fugitive slowly grows her balls back, and steps out from Baines legs and bowed like a boy. "I deeply apologize for this inconvenience, sir headmaster sir. I just fell down a tree I was climbing. There was no lack of care, no bullies, and my caretaker was forced to assume I ran away, since I do that quite often," The Fugitive straightened, face blank and eyes hard, "I had no clue that my offhand comment made Mr. Baines and Mr. Smith think I had bullies, and I ask of you to forgive me and them for bringing this unimportant matter to your attention." She said, not realizing that she was formally saying things that no nine year old should know how to say let alone use correctly in a sentence.
The Fugitive's balls once more vanished and she turned red, hiding behind Baines once more, clutching to his pant legs. John had walked away, so she couldn't easily hide behind his legs. The Fugitive was glad she was a very small kid. The Matron arrived at that time, and the Fugitive decided that Baines didn't need circulation in his leg anyway. It wasn't her decision in the end, though, and her only shield moved away after shaking her off. The Fugitive gripped her physics book like it was her only hope of salvation. She hated the attention, and ran out of the room as fast as her pained body would allow.
The Fugitive recalled the way to the library and hid in there for a while, curled up in a dark dusty corner that no one would think to look in. She was just done with the world. One, two people? Fine. Three? Slightly uncomfortable, but still acceptable. More than five? She just couldn't. Over a hundred? Slightly better. Less personal. The Fugitive curled into the corner further, reading the physics book. It was dark by the time she finished, and no one had caught her yet. She was safe.
Sneaking around, she put the physics book back and pulled out about five different history, science, and maths books each, taking them to her little alcove. There was a lantern lit a shelf away from her spot, and the light from the lantern cut through just enough for her to see.
The Fugitive was found sleeping with an intense and heavy tome about philosophy. It was open on the third page after the actual book started. About the fifteenth page in the actual book. John sighed heavily, sitting next to her as he put his head in his hands. He didn't know she'd run off. He didn't know she hated crowds at all, and then she ran with fear and embarrassment written all over her face and he felt bad, chasing after her. Baines, Latimer, and him had made up one fifth of the search team set up to find her. Matron, Martha, and Martha's maid-friend made up another. He was tired. They had went to bed late and got up early to find her.
The Fugitive woke up to find herself over a book, an exhausted teacher next to her and relieved students in front of her.
"We found her," Latimer said quietly. The Fugitive looked at him, frowning.
"You aren't going to force me to speak in front of my bullies again, are you? Had they been convicted or punished in any way, as soon as I was alone with them I'd be dead," She muttered quietly. They all were tired, the library was a quiet place, and so thus they all decided to speak in a quiet manner.
"They forced you to do that?" Latimer asked, looking at Baines. He knew that if he ever was forced to speak about his bullies… Latimer shook his head.
"Your name. What is it?" The Fugitive asked, standing up. Her book fell out of her lap, and they all unanimously jolted at the loud noise. Heavy tome, a foot or two, gravity. None of them anticipated the result, and they all were wide awake, hearts pounding.
"Latimer. Tim Latimer," Latimer replied. The Fugitive nodded.
"Beat you to death? How… brutal, and unsophisticated." Baines muttered and the Fugitive mildly wondered who 'Tom Riddle' was and why Baines reminded her of him. Sophisticated bullies, how nice.
"Yes, yes, I understand that the richer the bullies the less physical activity they do in their bullying activities. You'd know about that, right Baines?" The Fugitive muttered, only mildly surprised when she was picked up off the ground and set on a giant twig's hip. He seemed to like doing that, didn't he?
"I'm trying to help you," Baines muttered back, irritated at the over intelligent nine year old. How utterly rude of her. He tried not to pout. He had come to like her in the moments he's known her, and she only thinks of him as a rich bully. He decided to prove her wrong. He ignored the voice in the back of his mind telling him that he barely knew her. She felt… comfortable. Safe. Like a grandma who would bake you cookies and give you presents because you were her favorite and only grandchild. Safe.
"Thank you for that, Baines. So much help you have given to me." The Fugitive murmured, grabbing a book off of the shelf as John walked past it. She made sounds of protest when the book was pried from her grip and put back. The Fugitive went to skulking, and Baines stared at her. He had no clue why, either. She acted childish, yet gave him the comfort of an old granny. Odd.
Baines and Latimer were sent away to recollect the other teams, and John walked towards the headmasters office. When told the teams, the Fugitive shuddered. The three bullies were on one team. Had they found her, there was no way she'd have been found alive by anyone else. Sleeping, too. The Fugitive suddenly was much more appreciative of Baines, Latimer, and John. So much more appreciative.
"Cold?" John asked.
"All three of my bullies that were here yesterday are on one team. I shudder in fear of what would have happened had they found me instead. Beaten to death doesn't sound very pleasant, I don't think," The Fugitive replied seriously, "I need to genuinely thank Baines later, and thank Latimer too. Had you guys not checked the library before the people who know that I'd be in one of very few places…" The Fugitive buried her face into John's neck. She didn't like the idea of being broken and bleeding out in a place she thought safe.
"Yes, that'd be bad. I had a suspicion it was those three, but without your word I couldn't do anything. I, personally, am glad that we know the criminals who would dare harm a genius nine year old girl." The headmaster commented, and the Fugitive froze, just knowing that whatever punishment they got, they'd be back for her. She was lucky that she could just run off at any time. Which she regrettably changed her mind on. She couldn't run off, because John knew where she lived.