A/N: As always, Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated and will also keep me motivated to post more. Even if you don't have anything to say about it besides "great story," I'm totally okay with that. It'd at least let me know you're enjoying the story.
Chapter 4: Friendly Friend Time
That same night, I had a dream.
The first thing I remembered about it was complete darkness before the feeling of strong but gentle arms wrapped themselves around me and held me against a soft surface that pulsed with a light beat. Thump-thump-thump-thump, thump-thump-thump-thump, went the beat, like an unnatural heartbeat…
Like the beat of two hearts, which was a beat I was quite familiar with, but one I had never thought would come from anywhere (or anyone) else besides my own chest.
I immediately opened my eyes, and upon opening them, I noticed that everything seemed a bit blurry, like the vision one got when they first woke after a long slumber. Through the blurry haze, I noticed that I was being held against a person's chest that was covered in a solid white fabric, with large strips of thick brown fuzzier fabric on the left and right that was heavily striped and reminded me of the stripes of a zebra, only brown instead of black. Looking further up, I saw what looked like a large burgundy-red butterfly fixed to the collar of the white fabric. I tried to reach up to touch the butterfly, but I realized that my arms were stuck in place under the thick white blanket I was swathed in.
I realized immediately after that this version of me wasn't my seven-year-old self; it was, in fact, my infant self. Of course, I couldn't do anything but watch the scene play out in front of my infant eyes, but fortunately I didn't feel like I was in any physical danger; this was just a dream, after all…
Or was it? I wondered.
Suddenly, the butterfly started moving towards me, and along with it a face—the youthful face of a man. The man seemed to have a very prominent chin, a sharp nose, floppy brown hair, pale skin, and dark, deep-set green eyes—green eyes that looked identical to my own. I instantly remembered my father mentioning the fact that I shared my biological father's eyes, and looking at the eyes of this mysterious man in front of me, I knew this had to be him—my biological father himself…the Doctor.
The man leaned down further and gently pressed his lips to my forehead, and I—well, my infant self, anyway—subconsciously found myself leaning into his touch, despite him being nothing but a complete stranger to me. I had never seen this man's face before, but at the same time I felt like this was a face I knew well…or at least should've known, if not for the fact that this was possibly the man who gave me up all those years ago.
He didn't kiss me right then, so much as just caressed my forehead with his lips, but there was something about his lips that seemed off. They felt cold and wet, like he'd been crying, and when I looked up momentarily to see his ancient-but-young-looking eyes misty with tears, my suspicions were confirmed.
"Oh, Nova," he whispered in a British accent that sounded so ancient and forever, "I wish it never had to be this way, but it is the only way to keep you safe. To keep you safe from them…from me." The instant he said 'me,' a stream of tears ran down his cheeks and dripped off of his pointy chin and splashed down on my blanket. I felt him cradling me closer to his chest like a vise, not enough where I felt like I was being asphyxiated but enough for me to feel the emotions flooding through him, tearing him apart piece-by-piece. These were the words of a man who had experienced great loss throughout his entire life, and now he was seemingly about to experience it again…with me.
If I were older, I would've felt the need to wrap my arms around him and comfort him—while at the same time trying to ignore the awkwardness of the situation, as I had no idea who this man was besides being a complete stranger from my past—but I was just an infant in this body, in this dream, and had no comprehension of the situation whatsoever, so I had no choice but to go along with it. He held me like that for what felt like several minutes; although, in real life, it may not have been much time at all.
He eventually straightened up and continued walking to wherever he was taking me to—the entire time, he was walking with me in his arms to some destination; although I had no idea where, as I could only see a blurry hallway in which I could hear a gentle hum, like that of a machine—despite the tears still trickling down his cheeks.
My bio-father eventually arrived to a place where the hallway seemed to open up into a much larger space where the mechanical humming sound seemed to emanate from, as well as a harsh scraping sound like a house-key scraping along the strings of an old piano, and the lights seemed incredibly bright. He walked down a set of stairs and stopped at a strange-looking column in the center of the room that reached up to the ceiling. I heard the clicking and clacking of what sounded like the pushing and pulling of levers and switches, like something from the console of a steam engine. I heard my bio-father say something, and then the vague sound of a female answered something back, but the voices sounded muffled to my infant ears, like listening through a pair of earmuffs.
A few moments later, my bio-father bent down to me again, and this time I noticed that the red butterfly fixed to his neck was actually a bow tie. I remembered my father-guardian mentioning that my bio-father wore a bow tie (as well as a tweed jacket, which was the fuzzy striped fabric he was wearing over his solid white button-down shirt) on the night I was adopted; and based on the fact that this was the exact clothing my bio-father was wearing at this very moment, and also the fact that he was crying as though he didn't want to lose me, to give me up to another family, I somehow knew this was that night.
"I love you, Nova Susan Song," he whispered, this time brushing his tearstained cheek against my forehead, "now and forever, 'til the end of Time." I saw another tear escape his eyelashes, and this time I felt it fall on my tiny cheek, but I was unable to brush it away.
He then handed me off to another person, who immediately wrapped their arms around me. I looked up and saw, yet again, the familiar large curls of the woman I had seen twice before (at least in real life)—River Song, my biological mother. She bent down to me in the same way as my biological father and kissed my forehead on the exact same place.
"I, too, shall love you 'til the end of Time, my sweet," she whispered. "We shall be together again… Someday." She surprisingly, unlike my father, had more control over her tears; although, I could still see them fogging up her slightly brighter green eyes. She then started carrying me away from my father, who watched forlornly next to the strange column with tearful eyes.
Unfortunately, that was all I could remember of the dream after I had woken up the next morning, back in my seven-year-old, two-hearted body (in the dream, I felt like I only had one heart). At this point in my life, I had started to realize that I didn't need as much sleep as most humans. Normally, humans only needed six to nine hours every night, but for me, I only needed the equivalent of a cat nap (about three to four hours) a few nights a week. Although, this night, after the crazy day with the school intruder, I managed to sleep through the entire night for seven hours straight, luckily (surprisingly) without nightmares of the experience.
After I woke up, I couldn't help smiling. That dream felt so calm, and nothing whatsoever like the school intruder incident, but it also felt so real, like it wasn't really a dream but actually a memory. Before the dream, I could hardly remember anything about my life, much less my adoption, and that must've been the event I had dreamt about—or rather the memory that had flashed before my closed eyelids. When I first saw the curly-haired woman on the night I regenerated, I somehow knew she was familiar to me, and now I understood why: she was there on the night of my adoption. Although, I couldn't remember anything after my biological mother had carried me away from my biological father at the end of the dream, but my guess was that she met with my soon-to-be guardians, explained about the 'regeneration and two hearts' thing and the dangers of using my abilities, handed me off to them, and then immediately left without another word.
Although, seeing my biological father there was a bit strange. At school, the intruder claimed that he was evil, but in the dream—memory—there was nothing 'evil' about him; in fact, he seemed the total opposite. In the dream, he looked exactly like the typical father one would expect, caring and loving toward his loved ones. I remembered how sad he looked when he had talked about what he was doing was going to keep me safe, like he truly didn't want to give me up. Although, he'd also said that he was doing this to protect me from 'them,' as well as himself, whatever he meant by that. Who was 'they,' and why did he want to protect me from himself as well? What was it about himself that he felt was so wrong, that he felt it was too dangerous for me to be around him? I remembered the intruder saying that my biological father had destroyed his own home world, as well as escaping an inescapable prison. He said that as if my father was some genocidal maniac that should be locked up in isolation from the rest of the universe, and maybe that was what the inescapable prison was specifically designed for; but apparently my father had broken out anyway, so obviously the prison wasn't as 'inescapable' as everyone thought. Just this thought made me suddenly wonder whether the kind man I saw in my dream/memory that was cradling my infant body and telling me that he would love me "'til the end of Time" was just a façade to mask his true dark persona. If this was truly the case, I wondered why he called himself 'Doctor.'
I also remembered my bio-father calling me 'Nova,' as if that was truly my name instead of 'Sydney.' Because I had heard the name so many times earlier that day, it must've gotten stuck in my head and imbedded itself into my subconscious. Either that, or, if it was true that this was indeed an old memory, maybe there was more to the name than met the eye. If it was true that Nova was really my sister, and we shared the same secret to not being human, maybe there was a connection between us, after all; in which case, we could literally connect with each other, like with telepathy or something. This dream could've just been me subconsciously connecting with Nova's mind, and I'd seen her memory from when she was a baby and still living with her—our—biological parents before she was adopted to another family (albeit totally separate from mine). I wondered if she was even aware that I had somehow invaded her mind at the time.
Then again, maybe I was just being ridiculous. Two minds using telepathy to connect with each other? Grow up, Sydney, I thought; that doesn't exist, except in Sci-Fi movies.
In any case, if Nova was still alive—and a real person—I wished there was a way to physically get in contact with her; it'd be nice to know her side of the story. I wondered if she knew a lot about our ancestry, including where we originally came from. Then again, if she was also given up to be protected from whatever danger our bio-dad was referring to—which, strangely, also included himself—the chances of us physically meeting was slim to none.
Whatever, I thought to myself with the shake of my head, I'm not going to give up that easily. If my guardians won't tell me anything about my true origins, I'll just find them out for myself… Somehow.
Unfortunately, the Internet got me nowhere. Over the next few days—what else is there to do when you're stuck in house-arrest for an entire week? I thought—I tried looking up things to do with 'regenerating humans,' 'two-hearted humans,' 'Time Lords,' 'River Song,' 'Nova Song,' 'The Doctor (not the physician),' and even a few combinations of some of them, and, of course…zip, zilch, bupkis, nada, goose egg—literally any other word or phrase meaning 'absolutely nothing.' I mean, I got several results to do with everything, but they were nothing that related to anything I was looking for. This was to be expected, seeing as I didn't truly know what specifically I was looking for to begin with. Who ever heard of a human changing bodies at will, or even a human with two hearts? I thought. Since these things weren't common, maybe that was why they didn't appear on the Internet. Typical. And, of course, there are millions of River Songs, Nova Songs, and Doctors in the world, and literally any one of those people could be my long-lost bio-parents and sister, so there was really no way of knowing which were the right ones.
Ugh, I groaned, who knew Internet-searching could be so freaking hard.
Eventually, I decided to give up on the Internet-searching—well, maybe not completely give up, but rather take a break for a while. I figured that while I gradually grew older, my guardians would reveal something new about my true origins and identity; they did say shortly after my regeneration that I wasn't yet old enough to know of such things. Maybe once I 'came of age,' so to speak, they would reveal everything to me. The problem was, I didn't know when exactly that time would come.
"There are things in this world that children of your age shouldn't need to know just yet," Dr. D's voice echoed in my mind. "I understand life can be hard when you have to wait to become a certain age before you can learn something, but that's just the way it is, and unfortunately we can't do anything about it except to wait."
I guess I'll just have to wait a little bit longer, I thought dismally to myself, however long that's going to take…if ever that time would come.
Toward the end of my house-arrest—and after much persuasion to my highly protective guardians—I was finally allowed to leave the house and visit my best friend, who I promised I would explain everything about the intruder incident to. Of course, I had to be escorted there, as they didn't feel comfortable with me being on my own outside the house as of yet. It was kind of annoying, but I didn't want to upset them, especially after I had lied to them about using my abilities when I wasn't supposed to, which I still felt highly guilty about; the experience could've been much worse, had that crazy psycho not been alone, nor had the curly-haired woman not appeared to save us when she did. I still couldn't believe how fortunate we all were to living another day.
At least my parents didn't stick around at my friend's house while I was there, although they did insist on me calling them so they could escort me home. Ugh, really? I thought with a roll of my eyes before they left me with Hazel. If I was born normal, I wouldn't have to deal with this overprotectiveness.
Stupid regeneration, I thought angrily, why did you have to ruin my life like this, huh?
In any case, I was glad to be out of the house again. It felt like the equivalent of being let out of prison—not that I did anything wrong to deserve to be put in prison; I doubted being born a non-human was considered a crime on this planet, but then again, who really knew?
Hazel and I spent hours on end, talking about the school intruder incident that happened last Monday. Hazel talked about how the majority of the kids in our grade had a theory that the crazy man was after me, since I had been gone all week. It made sense, considering that my parents had insisted on me never leaving the house until they were satisfied that the crazy man was gone for good. I told her this was true, but I wasn't entirely sure whether the man was after me or not, but it was a theory of mine, considering how my parents acted when they first picked me up.
The conversation then switched to the topic of my adoption, which I had decided to reveal to Hazel. It wasn't as big of a secret as my regenerative abilities and two hearts, but it was pretty darn close.
The conversation was something like this:
"So it's true?" Hazel exclaimed after I had shared the secret to her. "You really are adopted?"
I nodded. "Yeah. My parents—or rather my guardians—told me this later that same day over dinner. I always knew I looked nothing like them my whole life, and now it all makes sense. They're not my real parents."
"But you said you always sensed that they adopted you," Hazel said with a puzzled frown.
"Yeah, I just never thought it'd actually be true," I admitted. "I mean, yeah, I look completely different from them, but at the same time I didn't want to believe that I was from…somewhere else. You know what I mean?"
I wasn't sure if Hazel would understand what I meant by being from 'somewhere else,' as in, somewhere else that wasn't anywhere on Earth. For all I knew, I could've well been born on another planet.
Surprisingly, she did seem to understand. "Yeah, totally," she said. "I mean, if I found out I was adopted, I don't think I could handle the idea of coming from somewhere else that wasn't my hometown, or people that aren't the people I call my parents. It'd be way too complicated."
"Right!" I exclaimed in agreement. "That's exactly how I feel right now. I mean, if I'm not from here, then where exactly am I from?"
"Do you know?" Hazel wondered. "I mean, where you're originally from?"
I shook my head. "Nope." Then I remembered how my bio-parents sounded in my dream, and I thought better. "Well, maybe. My guardians said both my bio-parents were British, so maybe I'm originally from England, which would be awesome, because I've always wanted to visit England."
"Me too," Hazel replied. "But you know, most of the so-called 'alien invasions' happen there. I wouldn't want to visit, or even live, in a place where I could be easily abducted by crazy aliens."
"Me neither," I agreed, "but perhaps we could visit during a time when the alien invasions are less frequent."
"Less…frequent?" Hazel asked, puzzled.
I had to shake my head. I kept forgetting that she didn't have quite the same vocabulary as I did, nor did anyone else in our grade.
She doesn't know as many big words as you, Sydney, I thought to myself. Talk to Haze as if she is seven, not seventeen.
"It means they could possibly happen less often in the future than they do today," I clarified.
"Ah," she nodded. Then she shook her head. "You and your big words. No wonder you're smarter than everyone else in our grade. Even though you're only in second grade, you seem to have the mind of a high schooler, or even college student."
I had to shrug at this statement. "All these words just come naturally to me. Plus, I do a lot of reading." Or, because of my non-humanness, my amount of knowledge is way beyond that of a normal human, I thought but didn't say out loud.
"Well, it seems you read a lot of big books," Hazel sighed, "like something from Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare."
"Actually, I've read a bit of Shakespeare," I said enthusiastically. "It took me a while to understand the language, but I eventually got the hang of it. Hamlet is one of my absolute favorites. 'To be or not to be.'" I laughed after reciting the famous quote in a British accent, and Hazel laughed too, albeit not as enthusiastically.
"So, going back on your adoption," she said to backtrack the convo to our previous subject, "did your parents—sorry, guardians—tell you anything about your biological parents; like their names, their jobs, where they live, that kind of thing?"
I nodded. "Yeah, they told me a little. My biological mother's name is River Song, which is, ironically, the exact same name as the woman that saved us from the school intruder last Monday."
Hazel nodded as well. "Yeah, I remember that. It's so weird that your biological mother shares the exact same name as her. Do you think they could be the same person?"
"I thought so at first, but now I'm not so sure," I said honestly. "I kind of doubt it. It'd be too much of a coincidence."
"What do you mean?" Hazel asked with a puzzled frown.
"I think it would be very unlikely if the woman that saved us from the intruder was also my biological mother at the same time," I explained. "If my biological mother and I have never met since my birth, I don't understand how she would know where I live and where I go to school. Not to mention knowing exactly the right time to show up to save us from the intruder."
"Yeah, that does seem very strange," Hazel nodded in agreement. "It was like she somehow knew exactly what was going to happen and knew when exactly to show up."
"Or she somehow sensed the danger, either before it happened or as it was happening, and immediately came running to our rescue," I added my own thoughts.
"I can't imagine what would've happened to us if she hadn't shown up when she did," Hazel said in a shuddering voice. "We'd probably be dead."
"Yeah, probably," I nodded in response.
Actually, the reality was that Hazel and everybody else would be dead, but I, on the other hand, would probably be fine, as I had my regeneration energy to save me. Then again, for all I knew, maybe the regeneration from when I was four was just a one-time thing; in which case, I was never going to be able to regenerate again even in my later life. I suddenly remembered the intruder saying that he wasn't truly certain how many regenerations I had, so for all we knew, that could've been the only time. To be honest, I didn't want to find out whether I had more regenerations or not; the first time was excruciating enough.
"So what about your father?" Hazel asked to bring my mind back to the present. "Know anything about him?"
I nodded again. "Yeah, a bit. My biological father's name… It's kind of a weird one; it's more of a title. My guardians—or rather my bio-mom—said he called himself 'the Doctor.'"
"Doctor who?" Hazel asked curiously.
I sighed and shook my head. "I guess that's the big question, isn't it? I don't know. Not even my guardians know…or, at least I think they don't. Maybe if I ever meet my biological father, I'll ask him. Although, that might be difficult. There are a lot of men in the world that have floppy hair and wear bow ties and tweed jackets."
Hazel frowned. "Um, have you been taking crazy pills, Syd? No one wears tweed jackets anymore, certainly not with a bow tie. Those jackets are, like, ancient."
"No, they're not," I said defensively, "they're only, like, two centuries old."
"Uh, that's ancient!" she said in an obvious tone.
I shrugged. "Well, I doubt my biological father wears tweed jackets all the time. He just happened to be wearing one on the night of my adoption; at least, I was told that." And saw that in a dream, I thought but didn't say. "I don't know what else he wears, and honestly I don't care. It's not like he'll actually come back for me. I mean, he was probably the one that gave me up to begin with."
"But you said your guardians said he loved you and didn't want to give you up," Hazel pointed out. "He only just did it to protect you from his enemies who wanted to kill you."
I shook my head sadly. "Yeah, well, I don't think that was really the case. I think my guardians just said that to protect my feelings. Who knows what my biological parents' true intentions were for me, but I honestly don't care. The bottom line is that I am perfectly happy with my life here with my guardians, with people who actually care about me and would never give me up for anything even if my life depended on it. They promised me that they would never stop loving me, and I believe them."
"What about me?" Hazel asked curiously. "Are you perfectly happy with me? I mean as a friend?"
"Of course!" I said as if it would be insane to think otherwise. "I can't imagine what my life would be like if we never became friends."
"Probably boring," Hazel snorted jokingly.
I laughed in agreement. "Yeah, totally!"
"What do you think your life would be like if your biological parents hadn't given you up?" Hazel wondered.
I let out a massive puff of air. "Much different from my life now, that's for sure. It wouldn't be normal."
"What do you mean, your life wouldn't be normal?" Hazel asked, puzzled.
I sighed. "Well, it wouldn't be boring; just hectic. 'Hectic' means things would be very chaotic in my life…or at least that's what I think my life would be like. Depending on how many enemies my biological parents have made throughout their lives, and how much they want to wipe us off the face of the universe, my guess is that I would have to live my life constantly on the run; in other words, we'd be hopping around from place to place without being able to settle for longer than six months. Basically, building up friendships would be difficult, and possibly dangerous, because if my parents' enemies found out the identities of all the friends I've made, I could get them in trouble…or worse, killed. If we met, I could get you killed if my parents' enemies found out about your friendship with me."
For all I knew, this may have been true for me, even in real life. Maybe this was the real reason why my bio-parents gave me up—so that I wouldn't have to deal with the insanity of constantly moving to new homes and never being able to develop close friendships wherever we went, knowing I would be putting them in danger by allowing them to be a part of my life. This thought made me wonder if this was what my bio-father meant when he said he was giving me up to protect me from himself; because he had considered himself a danger-magnet, he wanted to send me as far away from himself as possible so I, and anyone else I would meet throughout my life, didn't have to experience all the dangerous things he was unintentionally attracting. Just this thought sent a shiver down my spine; having danger be attracted to you seemingly 24/7 sounded like a pretty sucky way to live, and it was certainly not an ideal way of life for me. Then again, maybe it'd be fun to live like that for a bit, like an adventure.
"Do you think that's true for you now?" Hazel asked. "I mean, from everything you said just now, do you think any of that could be true for you in real life, even when you're living with your guardians?"
I shrugged. "Maybe. If it's true my biological parents do have a lot of enemies who know about my existence, I wouldn't be surprised if they were after me, even if I did absolutely nothing wrong. I honestly don't think it's fair to be hunted and killed just for being born. I mean, what could an infant possibly do to anger someone that much?"
"Cry and poop?" Hazel snorted.
I scoffed. "Well, besides all of that. If the truth is that they're mostly angry with my biological parents, they shouldn't take it out on me as well, just because I'm their daughter. If anyone is to blame for their anger, it's my biological parents. Whatever it was that my parents did, it sure angered a lot of people to the point of them hating my parents, and therefore wanting my parents dead for what they did."
Hazel raised a skeptical eyebrow. "No offense, but they don't sound like very good parents. I mean, if angering people is part of their job, I wouldn't want anything to do with them if they were my parents."
I shook my head. "I don't think that's part of their job. My guardians said my biological parents actually save the world. Like, they stop the bad guys from taking over the world. It's defeating the bad guys that make the bad guys angry, therefore they become my parents' enemies."
"Oh, so your biological parents are like superheroes?" Hazel asked.
I shrugged. "I guess. Or, at the very least, they're crime-fighters. I don't know if they have superpowers, like Superman or Captain Marvel, but that would be really cool."
If my biological parents truly were superheroes from another world, that would explain where I got my regeneration abilities and two hearts. Maybe one day I would develop a pair of laser eyes as I got older, or make my body bullet-proof, or something.
"Well, if you're the daughter of real-life superheroes, that would mean you would have some kinds of superpowers too," Hazel pointed out.
"Yeah," I said a little hesitantly, knowing Hazel wasn't that far away from the truth.
"Do you?" she asked as if to confirm her theory.
"Uh…I don't know," I lied. "I don't think so…at least not right now. Or maybe when I'm older, they'll…manifest, or something."
"Manifest?" Hazel asked, puzzled, yet again, at my choice of advanced vocabulary.
"Like, they'll just appear later in my life, when I come of a certain age," I replied. "Who knows when that could happen? Maybe it won't ever happen. Maybe I'll just be powerless, like everybody else."
Hazel abruptly shook her head. "Don't think like that, Syd. Of course you'd want superpowers! I mean, who doesn't?"
"True," I said in agreement; although, my agreement wasn't so enthusiastic as Hazel seemingly expected. The idea of having superpowers did sound very interesting, but I thought it would be better as an imaginary concept. Even though I possessed actual 'superpowers' that I barely knew the origins of, I recently found out the dangers of using them, and I realized that possessing the abilities wasn't as exciting as I had originally hoped, especially since I was never allowed to use them. Apparently, every time I used them, even for healing minor injuries such as a measly paper cut, I attracted all kinds of dangers, such as the school intruder and possibly much worse. Because of my laziness and utter stupidity, the whole school had to suffer for my mistake, and I vowed myself that I would never ever do anything like that again voluntarily…at least, unless I absolutely had to use my abilities.
Still, I wondered how my best friend would react to my superpowers if I'd (hypothetically) revealed them to her.
"Say I did have superpowers—uh, which I don't, but say I did," I said hesitantly, "or, say I was from another planet—again, which I'm not—how would you feel? Honestly?"
Based on Hazel's answer, I would know whether to feel comfortable to share them or not.
"Honestly, I would think that would be the coolest thing ever!" Hazel said enthusiastically, and I had to feel a slight twinge of doubt at her declaration, as I didn't really know how to believe it.
"What, if I had superpowers, or if I was from another planet?" I asked for clarification.
"Both," Hazel admitted. "An alien superhero? How cool would that be? I mean, that's what Superman is, right?"
I nodded. "Right, but Superman is fictional. I'm talking about me, right here and right now in real life. I was just wondering, if I were exactly like Superman, with superpowers from another world, would you still want to be my friend?" I subconsciously held my breath for her honest answer.
Luckily I didn't have to hold my breath for that long. "Of course!" she exclaimed. "Who wouldn't want to be friends with a superhero, especially an alien superhero?"
I smiled. "Oh, good! I'm glad you think so, because I…"
I suddenly had to bite my tongue at this statement. Are you crazy, Sydney? A voice in my head exclaimed incredulously. You can't tell her your secret. Remember what happened with the school intruder? You practically brought him here when you stupidly used your regeneration energy to heal that paper cut, which very well would have healed on its own. If you tell her about your powers, she'll want proof, which is something you cannot show, ever. She'll suffer for your mistake if you bring danger to her house, and you'll have to live with the guilt for the rest of your life.
This was true. I didn't want to put her, or anyone else, in danger again, but at the same time I didn't not want to show off my abilities to her, especially when she was completely honest about how awesome it would be to be friends with a superhero. I wanted to be completely honest with her, but I also didn't want to lose the only friend I had by not telling the truth. I guessed this was a spoiler I was going to have to save for another time—a time when both of us were in a life-death situation; not that I would wait for one of those to happen and then drag her into it all willy-nilly. No, I promised myself that I would never use my abilities unless I absolutely had to, and that was exactly what I was going to do.
Hazel paused. "Because you what?" she asked, puzzled.
I had to quick-think on my feet. "Uh… Sorry, I…just remembered that my parents—uh, guardians—recently signed me up for a martial arts class. I completely forgot to tell you. Whoops, silly me," I said with an awkward laugh that sounded, even to my own ears, so obviously like a lie.
Actually, the 'martial arts class' thing wasn't a lie; that part was one-hundred percent true. Earlier on in the 'house-arrest,' my guardians said they would've felt much more comfortable if I'd learned to defend myself by joining a legit martial arts class. They admitted that when I got older, they wouldn't be around anymore to 'babysit' me, so I needed to find ways to defend myself while I was living out on my own. A part of me agreed with this, but at the same time I thought they were being overprotective again…as per usual, I thought. Then again, maybe this would be good for me in the near future; I would need some extra protection if something similar to the school intruder incident happened again.
"A martial arts class?" Hazel said incredulously. "Why?"
I sighed with a shrug. "I guess because they were so paranoid that something similar to the intruder incident at our school might happen again, and they feel I should know how to protect myself, and others too. To be honest, I don't think they're wrong, because you never know when things like this might happen again, and that someone, like that woman, may not be around to save us next time."
Hazel shrugged as well. "I mean…that does make sense. When do you start?"
"Next week," I confirmed. "I'm gonna be training on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week after school. I'm pretty excited, but at the same time I'm wondering if it's really necessary. I hope I'm not gonna be doing this just to ease my parents' paranoia. Then again, maybe this'll be good for me, so I can save other people as well as myself."
"How long are you gonna be doing this?" Hazel asked curiously.
"Maybe until I'm as good as Jackie Chan?" I replied uncertainly. "Who knows? My parents say they want me to train for at least a year, but hopefully it'll be less. Maybe this will come as naturally to me as everything else, and I'll be a pro by Christmas."
Hazel nodded. "Yeah, you do seem to learn things much more quickly than everyone else in our class. I wish I had a mind like yours. I feel like if this keeps up, you'll eventually start being able to read minds."
I had to laugh at this. "Yeah, that would be really cool." For all I knew, this was yet another superpower I would develop later in my life. Or maybe it was an ability I already had, but I just hadn't discovered it yet. I guessed I had to wait to find out—at least until I would meet my biological parents in person. Who knew when that could happen…if ever?
First, regeneration, then telepathy, I mused, I wonder what other superpowers I'll get later in my life.
A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!