Title: The Wicked Time Machine: Spring Forwards
Summary: A girl from '08 is forced into going to the future by her friends when the government finds out about their time machine. She takes the GW boys under her wing and bides her time until her WTM is repaired. PWP?
Rating: Teen
Pairings: None. I fail at writing romance. So I've decided to just forget about it.
Warnings: I have no beta reader, so there may be mistakes in this. If you spot any, please tell me.
Disclaimer: If I owned Gundam Wing, would I be writing this? Seriously? Would I?
To kidishcaresh: Yep! I'll be finishing this one. It will take time, because I'm still in school and my teachers are fond of giving me a crap load of homework, because they are EVIL little bastards, but yeah – I'll finish it. :3
To jacann: Glad you're interested! Hope you'll like this chapter, too.
Chapter 2: Of Truth and Flashbacks
March 3, AC 197
"Uh." I stalled.
They looked at me patiently.
"Uhhh..." I looked hopelessly around the room, and I absently noticed that it looked different than how it did in 2008, but I was too busy thinking of a convincing lie to really absorb the details, aside from the fact that the carpet was white instead of blue.
...I looked at the floor a lot, okay?
"Hm..."
Shit.
"Um..."
I really can't think of anything.
"Okay, fine!" I finally snapped, scowling at everyone. I glared when Braid Boy snickered at me. Stupid girly boy... I should smack him one. That would teach him...
"I can't lie worth shit, so here's the truth: I'm a time traveler." I said bluntly, and Asian Dude snorted in disbelief. Oh great, a non-believer. Blondie, however, looked at me with shock, and I noticed that he looked to Messy Hair and nodded slightly. Messy Hair raised a brow, but also nodded back.
That's...interesting. Was Blondie a human lie detector? That's nice; at least one person can believe me...
I continued speaking, acting oblivious.
I'm good at that.
"And if you don't believe me, then too bad, so sad!" I huffed at Asian Dude, who just gave me this vaguely condescending look, which pissed me off – a lot! I hate feeling like an idiot when I'm not!
Which, granted, doesn't happen often. When I'm not being an idiot, I mean. Despite my 'higher' intelligence, I'm really not all that smart. Clever, yes, but smart? No way. Have you seen my grades? I have straight F's – in every class!
Every. Single. Class.
It's quite humbling to see Amanda and Brandon pass their classes with ease.
But I'm getting off topic here; point is, I'm not being stupid this time so there's no need to make me feel like a moron, thank you very much!
I glared at Asian Dude, and I twitched when he smirked at me, as if amused with my icy glare.
Argh!
"You can't really think that we would believe such nonsense," he scoffed, and I threw my troll at him, aiming for his shoulder. He didn't even blink. He just calmly tilted his head to the side, and my beloved purple haired troll flew past his head.
Huh. Looks like I missed my target again – I wasn't aiming for his head, you know.
And blast it! He still dodged it, too!
I scowled at him.
Damn it!
"I really don't like you right now." I said frankly, and blinked when Braid Boy started laughing. I stared at him in bemusement, wondering what he found so funny. I am seriously beginning to think that boy has some problems – he laughs at everything. Who does that?
"What?" I finally asked, absently wondering if 'Jester' would be a better name for him. His weirdness aside, he's certainly cheery enough to be a jester, and seemed to have a good sense of humor.
"You're so blunt!" he told me, chuckling a little.
"Well, duh. Like I said; I fail at lying. So I don't even try anymore." I shrugged, then paused. "Well, I still try sometimes, but..." I laughed nervously. "I tend to freeze up, trying to think of something."
Like I did a few minutes ago...
"Now seriously! Dude – I am a time traveler! I was born in May 1992! Last year – I'm sorry, 2007. Damn this time traveling stuff can get confusing – my friends came up to me while I was relaxing in the school library (it's a good place for a nap) and they told me that they had this plan of making a time machine and they needed my help."
Flashback – April 5th 2007
14 year old Tiana Van Zandt stared, gaping.
"You want to do what?!" She hissed, glancing around to make sure no one was listening in on them. Thankfully, the library was pretty much empty, as it was lunch time and most of the students were in the lunch room or the Student Lobby, and Mrs. Lacey – the librarian – was in her office.
Thank goodness.
Brandon Gilbert winced, and started talking fast. They really needed Tiana's help, since she was so good with computers and knew how to build them. They needed a computer specialist that they could trust, and Tiana was one of the most loyal people that they knew. They would ask her brother, but...that would be a little awkward. Matt was really cool and all, but he was an adult, and not in their age group.
"We want to make a time machine! We know it sounds crazy, but we really think we could do it! Please, Tia? We need your help! You're great with computers, and we need someone that knows their way around them! Please?"
Tiana blinked, and, once again, she checked to make sure that they weren't on drugs or something and, yet again, they didn't show any signs. So...does that mean that they seriously think that it's possible to make a working time machine?
Hoo boy...
"Why me? Why not Bubba? He's a thousand times better than I am!" she argued. "I'm really not all that great, you know..." Tiana mumbled, looking confused.
Amanda Thomas looked pleadingly at her friend.
"That's not true! You're just as great with computers as your brother is!" Amanda reached across the table and held Tiana's hand, squeezing it. "Please Tia, we really need your help."
She looked blankly at her friends, thinking about it. Could she really help make a time machine? A freaking time machine? She didn't think so, but, apparently, these two did. Her friends faith in her skills was scary, because unlike them she knew full well that she wasn't good at anything.
She was a failure. Always have been, always will be. It was that simple.
But, her friends say they need her – really need her – and she has never been one to turn her back on people that need help, especially her own friends, so...
She could at least try, right? And if she fucks up, then she can always go get her brother to help out. She was sure that Matt would love to help make a time machine. He was a geek like her, after all, she recalled with a slight grin.
"Alright, I'll do it."
Amanda squealed and glomped her, and Brandon grinned widely and joined in on the small hug fest.
Tiana giggled, and returned the hugs. She really did love hugs...
"So," Tiana said as they pulled apart. "Where are we going to build this thing at?"
She raised her brows as she watched Brandon and Amanda share a sheepish glance. Why do I get the feeling that I'm not going to like this? She wondered, frowning slightly.
"Um...we don't know yet." Brandon nervously said, and, for the second time that day Tiana gaped at them in utter disbelief.
"WHAT?!"
"Shhh!"
Oh, yeah, now the librarian was paying attention.
I laughed.
"Yeah, that was fun." I smiled fondly. "I thought that they were high or something, but they didn't show any signs of being on any drugs, so I knew that they were being perfectly serious with me. So decided to help them out with making the time machine."
I rolled my eyes, sitting back down in my seat. I glanced back at my bags, and that was when I realized that I didn't have my travel bag with me. I nearly had a panic attack, before I remembered that I left it in the lab.
Oh.
I shook my head, and gave the boys an amused look. I'm so spazzy...
"Anyway, after I agreed to helping them, I asked where we were going to build this thing at. To my disbelief, they told me that they didn't know yet." I snorted. "Yeah, I wasn't too impressed, but then I remembered something." I smirked, and paused dramatically for effect.
I love being dramatic. I blame Speech and Drama for this. You need to have a flair for the dramatics for speeches and plays if you want to make a good grade in that class, just as much as you need to be creative to come up with said plays and speeches.
"What did you remember?" Blondie asked, looking interested in my story.
Actually, they all looked fascinated with my story, even Messy Hair and Asian Dude, surprisingly.
Ninja Master was leaning against the wall next to the lab's door, listening to me closely. Braid Boy was sitting on the arm of the chair I was sitting in (again – personal space much?), and was catching my every word. Messy Hair was still standing near me, but his body language wasn't as aggressive as before and was more...curious(?). Asian Dude was sitting calmly in his seat on the couch next to Blondie, and was looking at me thoughtfully.
Huh – did that mean he was starting to believe me? Cool.
In in response to Blondie's question, I grinned, and gestured around us.
"I remembered this place." I said simply, and then winced. "And damn, did I remember this place..." I mused, ruefully rubbing my left side, where my rib cage was located.
Flashback – February 16th 2007
Tiana was lost.
She didn't mean to get lost. She was just bored and she wondered away from her noisy relatives and went off to explore the forest. Who could blame her? Family reunions were boring as hell. So she went to go explore the forest, something she never did before.
It wasn't like she could get lost, right?
Right.
Bullshit!
Tiana growled, stomping down the barely there path. Hopefully she could find her way back by following it, and not get even more lost.
She looked up at the sky, briefly admiring the endless blue, then went back to watching where she was going. It would be just her luck to get bitten by a snake on top of everything else. As Tiana looked back down, she caught a flash of dark gray out of the corner of her eye. Curious, and not just a little bit hopeful, she looked up.
She frowned as she noticed an old gray house, which wasn't her Old House (the house that her mom was raised in). For one thing, it was bigger, and it definitely wasn't a small three bedroom house with a kitchen and living room. It amazed her that her mother and nine other siblings had managed to squeeze in a tiny house like that.
Must be those wild Indian/Chuculate genes.
But anyway, this house was a great deal bigger than the Old House. It was like a mini mansion, for God's sake! It probably had, like, ten rooms or something in it! It's the biggest house she's ever seen in her life. Well, aside from that really big house out in the Back Roads, but that one didn't really count, as she only ever saw it from far away – not a couple yards away.
Curious, Tiana walked away from the path to investigate this new mystery. She made sure to make markers as she went so that she could find her way back to the path later. It wasn't much, just breaking the tall grass and pointing it towards the path and leaving twigs behind, but it helped. She wished that she knew of more elaborate ways of making markers, but she didn't, so she just went with what she knew.
It was only as she was finishing up with the markers that she realized something important, and promptly banged her head against the nearest tree, cursing her stupidity.
Why the hell didn't she make markers as she went into the freaking forest?!
"STUPID!" Tiana kicked the tree in frustration. Repeatedly. "I am so STUPID! If I had done that in the first place, I wouldn't be here now! Argh!" She punched the tree, not even bothering to wince when her fist hit the bark of the tree. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..."
Tiana glared at her reddened knuckles, sneering at how they throbbed with pain, and then grumpily shoved them back into her pockets and stomped her way to the house, annoyed. Annoyed with her slip up with common sense, annoyed with her petty and childish temper tantrum (she was fourteen now, not four), and annoyed with...with...everything in general, she guessed.
She sighed, suppressing her frustrated tears.
This wasn't the time for anger or tears. This was a time for adventure; She just found an unknown house (which looked depressingly abandoned) in the middle of nowhere, and there was the chance that she could find treasure in there. Treasure in the form of old or rare books or shiny buttons or maybe even a dragon's egg or fairy dust.
You never know until you look.
And being blinded by anger won't help with the looking. Every adventurer has to keep their mind calm, clear and open to everything. Everyone knows that. It's just common sense, after all. Because how can you find anything if you're too angry to even absorb the little details, the tiny clues that help solve any mystery or lead you to the treasure?
You don't, that's what.
Tiana stopped walking towards the house for a minute, and took several deep breaths. She should have done this in the first place, but all she wanted to do was to unleash her anger and fear at everything she could find – which was, well, nothing, really. But since she found a mystery in the form of an old and unknown house, she knew that she needed to calm down if she wanted to investigate it.
She took her small adventures very seriously, even though she knew that they weren't important or even impressive. They were still adventures, and she lived for adventure. She lived for the exploring and the discovering of new things. She lived for solving little mysteries, even if they weren't huge ones.
She loved every minute of it, regardless of the difficulty.
Tiana focused inwards, and relaxed her body, letting all of her tension and annoyances flow away from her in a calm manner – like streams of water – and letting it disappear into the earth, which could handle her small bursts of anger much better than she ever could.
As she came back to herself, she was suddenly acutely aware of the birds singing in the tree tops, a woodpecker attacking some hapless tree, and the buzzing of busy bees in a near by flower patch (she better watch out for those – it would suck if she got stung). She took another deep breath, inhaling the scents of the forest around her, and held that breath.
And then let it go.
With a relaxed smile, Tiana opened her eyes and then continued walking to the house.
She may not be any good at actual meditation, but she was definitely good at imitating it.
Tiana smirked to herself, and then looked more closely at the house that she was approaching with clearer eyes.
Once upon a time, this house was probably a grand house for the high society, with a spectacular garden, a lovely white picket fence, and a wonderful porch to sit out on and have tea and chat with friends.
But it wasn't like that anymore.
The once grand and impressive house was worn down by storms and time itself, and it's white paint has long since faded away, and the wood was rotting. The stairs that lead up to the front doors was falling apart (she eyed them warily, wondering if she could climb them without falling through), the gardens were wild and untamed, with weeds everywhere, and the picket fence was in dire need of repair. The windows were cracked or completely shattered, and the roof had some holes in it.
Overall, it was a dump.
But that didn't put her off. No, no, not in the least. It made her even more intrigued, and she wondered what happened to the previous owners, and what their story was. Were they some rich family that hit hard times and fled from their home in search of a more affordable place?
She didn't know.
But she was impressed with how she could pick up on all of these details now. She didn't even fully notice the appearance of the house while she was peeved. That just goes to show you that thinking with a clear mind has more advantages than not having one.
Tiana carefully walked up the steps, cursing when the third step went out on her, and quickly went to the next on. Surprisingly, that was the only step that broke, although quite a few of them groaned warningly at her. She would have to be extremely careful when going back down them later.
Tiana opened the door, squeaking in surprise when it fell of the hinges and landed on to the floor with a loud bang. Holy shit, that was scary...
"Sorry," she muttered to the door, which looked rather sad to her, just laying there on the floor, and stepped over it, entering the old house for the first time.
She explored the house thoroughly, finding some old gold buttons, animal droppings, an old, lonely looking doll that was remarkably untouched aside from the dust that coated it, and a book on proper etiquette for ladies and gentlemen. She laughed at the last one, greatly amused by it. The cover was nibbled on by stray animals, but the pages were still very much readable. Tiana planned on reading it later when she got back to her uncles house.
It should be fun to read, at the very least.
She stuffed the book and buttons in her jacket pocket, thankful that she had large pockets, and carried the doll with her as she exited the last bedroom, absently petting it's golden blonde hair. It was a very pretty doll, with a cute pink dress and matching hair ribbons, white stalkings, and little black shoes. She was thinking of naming the doll Eleanor or Marigold.
Every doll – especially porcelain dolls – need a name. They should also be treated with respect, because she had a feeling that porcelain dolls are much more intelligent than some people give them credit for. So, it would be a good idea to get on the doll's good side, just in case.
Tiana smiled, hugging the doll close to her as she walked down the hall. The house had seven bedrooms, two bathrooms (a little outdated, but not too bad), a kitchen, a study, a dining room, and a spacious living room. It was a little bigger than she first thought, but it was about right.
"Well, little miss," she addressed the doll, holding her up to her face. She smiled at the large and dreamy blue eyes the doll had. "I hope you don't mind me stealing you away from this old house. I would really like to own you myself. I'm sure you miss having an owner – someone to talk and play with. Although, I admit, I don't really like to play much, but I do love to talk." Tiana said cheerfully, laughing a bit. "I also hope that you don't mind me calling you Marigold – you do need a name, after all. I can't just call you 'hey you!' and be done with it. That would be rude."
The newly dubbed Marigold didn't say a word (which was probably a good thing. Tiana would have freaked out if it had), but she imagined that the doll looked happy and agreed with her perfectly.
"Oh, by the way, I'm Tiana. Tiana Van Zandt --"
Crack...
Tiana paused, blinking in confusion. She was now in the center of the living room, and she was a bit concerned with the sudden cracking sound that seemed to echo around her. It sounded rather ominous to the girl.
Wary, Tiana carefully took a few more steps but she suddenly let out a loud screech when the floor under her broke. She quickly silenced herself as she fell through the floor, however, refusing to scream like a little girl, and made sure to land on her side and that Marigold wouldn't be under her.
She didn't think the doll would appreciate being squished and possibly broken by her weight.
"Ouch! Fucking ow!" Tiana cursed, whimpering as she held her left side. She let go of Marigold, and carefully sat up, wincing as she did so. Damn, her side hurt like a bitch. She hesitatingly poked at it, and sighed in relief when she didn't feel any broken ribs. Just a lot of bruising.
"Holy fuck...I can't believe my luck. Not only did I fall through the floor, but I did so with no real injures to speak of. Geez. I'm not sure if I should bless the gods, or curse them all."
Like usual.
Tiana snorted, and gingerly stood up, grabbing Marigold as she got up. She held the doll close to her uninjured side, and took a good look around her. It was very dark, and the only light that she had was from the huge hole that she just made.
She frowned thoughtfully, noting the worn out mats and little nick-nacks on the floor. She even spotted an old dress, which for some reason reminded her of a slave's dress from an old movie she watched when she was younger. Did that mean that this used to be a hiding place for escaped slaves?
Or was it just a basement? Hm, she didn't recall seeing any stairs...
She shrugged, wincing as her side protested the movement (who knew that shrugging made the muscles in your sides move?), and began looking for a door or some stairs or something. The room had to have some way in and out, because someone had to put that stuff down here at some point in time. It didn't just magically appear, after all.
"And look! I was right! There's some stairs right there!" Tiana cheered, and quickly, but carefully, dashed over to said stairs. "See Marigold? The Tia Monster isn't as stupid as seems!"
Marigold didn't comment.
Tiana sighed, rolling her eyes. "Oh, whatever. I just want to get the hell out of here and go home. I've had a really long day, okay?" she whined, and then cursed when she ran head first into the door at the top of the stairs – or, what she hoped was a door, anyway.
Tiana felt around for a door knob, but instead found a thin handle, like the kind you would normally find on a slide-glass door. Hm. That's different. Inwardly shrugging instead of outwardly (she learned her lesson), she slide the door open and blinked when she saw the living room. She didn't remember seeing a door in there...
Tiana carefully walked out on to the living room floor, and then turned around to frown at the door she just went through. She noted that there was a strange knot in the door, like some sort of accident happened with the plaster or something, and it was where a door knob would usually be. She vaguely remembered seeing it before, but that dismissed it was nothing.
She curiously grabbed the...knob, and then pulled to the right, sliding the door shut.
Tiana smiled, nodding approvingly.
The door blended in nicely with the walls, and one couldn't even see any cracks or an outline of the door – not even at the bottom of the door.
Clever.
Too bad she couldn't fully explore this new development. The sun was beginning to set now and she really didn't want to stick around in this forest alone – in the dark – with the wild dogs, bob cats, rabid racoons, and Big Foot.
Fuck no. No way in hell was she sticking around!
"I'd gotten lost in my uncle's forest and I stumbled across this place. It was pretty run down back then, and the floors were rotting away like you wouldn't believe. I ended up falling through the floor of this room – over there – " I pointed vaguely to where the coffee table was. "And ended up in a hidden room. The previous owners used it to hide slaves in, and then sent them off to be freed. Anyway, I didn't get killed or get a concussion from the fall (amazingly) and only hurt my ribs. Just bruised, not broken or anything."
"So, remembering the place, I suggested it to Brandon and Amanda. They loved the idea and my uncles gave me the house and a part of the land. They weren't using it for anything, after all. So we built our secret base here."
I shrugged.
"And that's my story."