The Arrival
“It’s nice of you to join us. Everybody this is Jean.”
A blur of red hair looks up. She waves her hand in a small gesture. They were a mix of hi, hey, hellos, and sups from the rest of everybody.
“Jean, these are some of the people I told you about. You are not alone in this journey all these people have gone through difficulties cause of the hate that is spread for being LGBT, but I want you to know you are loved here.”
The girl beamed back at him.
“Okay, enough lovey-dovey do you wanna see your room?” Sean smiled.
“Ignore him, he’s just excited about the little work he did to set it up. You can do whatever you want, we can show you the kitchen and get you some food or we can show you your room to just chill. The rest of us are kinda just doing our own things the rest of the day so you could join us.”
“I, think I just wanna hang out in my room.”
“Cool, I can show you,” Angel butted in.
Once the two had started to walk away the rest of the group turned confused towards Darwin.
“Since when are you good with children.”
“I have two younger sisters, both adopted, I just remember them being really overwhelmed when they first got there.”
“Well, I’m gonna go finish my drink,” Sean laughed.
“Hey, Jean, we're about to eat dinner if you want to join us,” Raven asked, knocking on the door.
“Yeah, sounds great.”
The girl tucked a bookmark into her book and placed it on the nightstand. She stood up and went to follow Raven, who had still not moved.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. That was just mine when I was your age,” she responded looking at the worn green sweatshirt she was wearing
“Oh, I’m sorry, I found it in some of the boxes left over. I can take it off if you want.”
“No, no. It’s fine. It looks great on you. Let’s go get some food.”
The red hair covered her face as the girl dotted away in the journal. It was the day after Jean had arrived and everyone was still unsure how to react around her. Most people in the mansion could relate to her experience, but no one no how to react to it. After all, that was part of the reason they were there too.
“Charles, what have we gotten ourselves into.”
“I don’t know, I just followed your crazy plan.”
“Should have known better that I don’t think things through.”
“I guess your right.”
There looked back onto the field. A basketball had rolled over to Jean that was quickly followed by Alex chasing and almost tripping, in an attempt to catch it. The younger threw it up to him and Alex almost missed. They both beamed out to each other.
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“Hey, how about you join us for a game? We’re one short since bozo didn’t want to play so we’ve just been playing knockout and it’s getting quite boring.”
“I don’t know I’m not super into athletics.”
“Oh come on, you can be on my team.”
“Fine.”
The blonde helped her up and the two walked side by side back towards the court.
“Come on guys, we can play an actual game now, I got Jean to join us.”
“Nice, knockout sucks,” Sean cheered.
“It’s not that bad. Usual captains?” Angel said walking to the front.
“Yeah, and I’ve already claimed Jean so you can pick next.”
“Whatever, Darwin.”
“Sean.”
“Raven, you’re with me.”
“Got it.”
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“Though, I think we’re doing pretty good,” Charles added.
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” he responded smiling
“You two are a bunch of dads.”
The former two turned around in defiance towards the unfamiliar voice.
“Woah, sorry, the front door was unlocked so I just came in.”
“The man in black himself. What do I owe the pleasure?”
“Um, I’m sorry, who the hell is this?” Erik butted in.
“Oh, I’m sorry this is Fred Duncan, his CIA name in man in black.”
“I’m sorry, C.I.A?”
“Oh, don’t worry I’m on your side.”
“I reached out to Fred a few weeks after I left myself. He was in the room when I gave,” Charles cleared his throat, “My speech. He seemed to get it and agreed to be an inside contact.”
“Yeah, about that. I found a way to get my hands on some files, but it’s gonna take a while. It’s a tad risky so we have to be careful, who knows how quickly things would go south if we were caught.”
“We’re willing to take the risk.”
“Okay, this is a KFI USB drive I can remotely upload files to this when plugged into any computer. The risky thing is it can do the same thing. So if anyone besides us got a hold of it they would be able to steal all the information on either computer it is plugged into.”
“That’s okay, we can keep it on a separate computer and transfer it to minimize the risk.”
“Ok, I got to get back to work before my supervisors start questioning this long lunch break.”
“Of course, I will see you soon. Do you want me to walk you out?”
“No, I shall be fine,” he said as he closed the door behind him.
“That has to be one of the most formal conversations I’ve ever seen happen.”
“Whatever.”
He chuckled before taking a place on the chair, “A game?”
“Of course,” he said taking a place opposite of him, “But first, you seem bothered by something.”
“Observant as always. I’m just upset you consulted a C.I.A agent, who to remind you are currently after us, without consulting me first.”
“I trusted Fred. He always seemed very open about the idea of protecting those we were after instead of arresting them.”
“You still could have asked me.”
“Would you have said yes? And would that have stopped me?”
“I guess not.”
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