@#$%in' life.

You wake up in an alley in clothing way too tight for you with your cellphone ringing off the hook to tell you your daughter is ten again and raising hell, to find out you became a teenager and ran off to investigate your life, leaving your baby in the care of grandpa, who happened to be close by enough, and then once you thank them and put out all the fires, you had to go right back to work again.

Life.

At least they had the heart to let him bring Jr. Along. As Saphirus carefully lifted his coffee cup to his lips, the firmly papoosed almost two year old pulled his bottle to his lips as well. Together they drank, and together they lowered their drinks. He was patrolling the grounds of the mansion right now, on the tail end of his security shift. It had been a slow day, with only a dew truancies and a little bit of accidental damage from a power control loss. No biggie.

All the while, Jr. had taken to totally doing exactly what dad was doing. Right now, though, he definitely needed a change. Saph sighed and lowered his diaper bag from his back, getting to work changing the baby right on the mansion lawn, of course with a little pad as a buffer.

His lip curled up as the opening of the diaper exposed the poopocalypse. He got to work cleaning things up while plugging his nose.

F@#$in' life.

It was almost funny how walking around, even on a cold day, could help distract from physical pain. Maybe that was why it was so often used as a method for coping with the pain of labor, for expectant mothers.

Man, she couldn't wait until she was old enough to start planning a family.

But, first... she really needed to figure out what was wrong with her body. Her stomach, in particular. She was on...um.... what, day ten? Eleven? @#$%, she hadn't even really been counting at this point. The nice doctor had looked into it a little for her, but since she didn't have any actual physical injuries for him to use his power with, they had reached a dead end. She had been given instructions to consider it some form of IBD, and was half way through a list of things to try eating, and just see what stayed down.

Hopefully soon she would find something that agreed with her stomach, because makeup could only do so much for the dark circles under her eyes, or the fact that her body was starting to show signs that she was pretty much starving.

Her stroll abruptly ended when she stumbled across a strange scene. A guy...er, she couldn't remember his name, even if she had seen him around the school from time to time, was changing his baby on the lawn.

... in the middle of winter.

Concern spiked briefly, which is mainly what prompted her to head over and invade the presumed fathers privacy.

Oop. Poopy diaper. Those sucked quite a bit.

"Want me to throw that away for you?" She stopped off to the side, politely keeping her gaze away from the infant as she offered to throw the diaper away for him.

"I have a younger brother who I had to change diapers for all the time. I know it's helpful not having to worry about the nappy while getting everything buttoned up again."

Gosh, the baby was cute though! Once he was decent she made silly faces at him and little sounds that mimicked what the baby was making.

"He's so cute! How old is he?"

Without even thinking he handed the freshly closed dirty diaper to the random young woman who walked up.

"Eh, yeah, yeah thanks. Gotta hurry. Cold out here." Jr. was struggling a little bit, trying to turn over and all, but an energy absorbing hand put at stop to that pretty easily. He quickly reclothed and papoosed the baby once more with practiced ease, replying without even looking at the girl talking to him. "He's one and a half. a little more. Not big into counting months." He looked over to her, toward the mansion, and then back at her, a sort of dawn of recognition starting to show on his face.

Where had he... Oh god. "Ehhh... What in the w- Do you have a sister or something? I mean, an- An older one?" Wow, that sounded a little creepy in hind sight, didn't it. "I mean, I know someone who, I dunno, used to look a lot like you, is why I ask... Not being a creeper or none-a that @#$%" The little one repeated the last word, smiling widely through rosey cheeks.

"Aw, man! Nonono, don't say was daddy says."

"Aw, that's a cute age. I bet he's repeating everything he hears by this point."

Diaper in hand, she waved at the little one and started to head off to find a trashcan. The baby was fine, obviously, so her assistance wasn't needed anymore.

She paused when he started awkwardly asking her about a sister, squinting at him slightly as his question got a little creepier the longer he went on. Creepy sound enough he actually addressed it himself.

"I...um, yeah.. I do? But she's blonde and doesn't live here so..."

Realization clicked on like a switch and she paused again, blinking at him. "Oh! I... I think I know what's going on. Gawain mentioned I would run into other people who'd known me when I was older."

Giggling at the child from having repeating the small cuss, she excused herself for a moment to throw away the diaper, then headed back over.

Man, it was awkward trying to introduce herself again to people she couldn't remember knowing.

"I take it the lady you knew was Megan also, but like... my older self. I'm one of the people who have apparently been de-aged in those random attacks happening around the city."

She eyed him for a second. Were all of the people who she knew so strange? She hadn't met a single regular person so far. Super buff dad-man was just the newest face.

"I can't remember anything from when I was older, I guess... I don't know, its all still being figured out apparently. I have no clue who you are, though."

Actually.... if he was security for the school and also potentially someone who used to know her, did that make him a good candidate for confessing to the things she had learned from Ty?

She pondered that quietly while wiggling her fingers at the baby again.

He gave her a look when she mentioned he had to be repeating everything he heard; it was something along the lines of 'please kill me'. No one had any idea how difficult it was for him to stop cussing. He'd been doing it nonstop for over 30 years, and now people expected him to quit cold turkey?!

She seemed a bit put off by his question, which made sense, because who the @#$% asks a teenage girl if she has an older sister. @#$^ that was max level skin suit stalker or frat boy chad kinda stuff. But he had reasons, and well, she confirmed them in a way that he never would have expected.

As she spoke, his eyes slowly widened a bit, and he, well, stared at her.

"No... Fu- eh, fudgin way. You're Megan." He leaned in just a bit to get a closer look, shaking his head a bit. "Yeah... Damn, it's you."THe baby threw his bottle, and Saph casually caught it out of the air and held it for a second before giving it back.

"I'm Saphirus." He paused for a second, hesitating just a second. "I guess you could say we worked together for a bit." Jesus, he was telling her? Well, what, she didn't know... Jr. was pretty fascinated with her, honestly. Maybe it was the bright blue eyes, but he grabbed at her fingers, tossing the bottle again, which was caught once more before it got out of arms length.

"Same thing happened to me, you know... I guess I grew up again just a day ago. No one knows what's going on... Anyway, how'd you end up here?"

He leaned in, she leaned back. Her nostrils flared a little at the awkwardness of it all as she struggled not to fall backward for a moment.

Saphirus... what a strange name. Her eyes lit up a little when he mentioned that they had worked together, since that was another piece of the puzzle that was her life currently. She put that thought on the back burner for the moment in order to focus on the little baby currently grabbing her fingers.

"Oh my gosh, you are just the cutest!" She tickled the wee lad a bit, earning a giggle or two out of him, before she was again distracted with what he had said.

"You... grew back up?"

That was now. As far as she knew it was permanent. She hand't heard of anyone re-aging back to what they had been before. It was both exciting, and terrifying and she wasn't sure what to make of it yet. She had a girl friend! And she'd been an asshole in her older years! What if she didn't want to re-age!?

Gulping slightly, she tried to focus on what he had asked her instead of the looming dread. "Well... when I woke up none of the addresses I could find led anywhere. Like, the home address on my ID card was just some storage shed business on the other side of the city... and all of the contacts in the phone I had led to disconnected numbers, so I didn't have anyone to call and ask questions to."[/color]

She wriggled her fingers at the baby again, forcing a smile to keep from upsetting the child, even though she felt a frown tugging at her lips.

"The address to this school was the only one that led anywhere, so I figured I would stop by and try to find out what had happened. I um... Kinda broke in, because I wasn't sure what was going on and I kinda get the feeling I wasn't a very good person when I was older." Was she blushing? Maybe just a bit. It was embarrassing now reflecting back on it.

"Mirror found me and was able to help walk me though a bit, but even they don't really know what I was like, cuz I guess I was really private or something?"

She chewed on the inside of her lip a little, wondering if she should bring up what Ty had told her now.

"I met another kid here who was able to see stuff in my past from things that I had been wearing at the time, and... Well, I know I wasn't a very good person. I just don't know who to talk about it."

The teen refocused on him, Saph, and finally frowned. "How did we work together? I haven't been able to find any leads as to what exactly I did for a job, other than some vague references to cutting hair at one point."

The look on his face would be... somewhat hard to describe as she played with Jr, and coo'd about his cuteness. It was a sort of mix of absolute shock and maybe a bit of amusement. Megan... was nice. This person who was a younger version of the Megan he'd hunted a giant cockroach with... was a good person, seemingly.

"Yup. Woke up in an alley." He left it at that. He watched her closely as she described her story. He'd known that Maya/Gawain knew Megan, so it sort of made sense she ended up here. Still, there seemed to be something bothering her. He laughed a bit when she said she might not have been a good person older.

"Heh heh! I wouldn't say you were a bad person. An Asshole, for sure, but you did the right thing when it counted most." He didn't shy away from the truth as he knew it. He was talking to her, after all, and she deserved to know things about herself. Still, it might stray too close to Judge territory if he wasn't careful. He wasn't sure what to really say about that.

She asked how they worked together, and he thought about it for a second, letting JR. Tug at his finger tips. "Ehh... Well, we toppled a criminal empire together. Couldn't have done it without you. The, uh, other you." He grinned. "You also gave me a hair cut eight or so years ago."

He looked toward the front door, motioning that way. "It's a little chilly out here for Jr. You mind if we talk inside?"

He point blank called her an A-hole and she blushed madly. Megan couldn't figure out if she was supposed to be more irritated at him for calling her that, or her older self for apparently being it.

The teen found herself blinking repeatedly at the older man, who had just casually told her that she had helped him bring down some kind of criminal empire with him.

.... the @#$%?

Her stomach chose that moment to make the most horrible sounds, like steel girders bending, and she blushed deeply again. Dammit, her stupid @#$%ing stomach was trying to ruin her whole life, wasn't it? She'd forgotten her list of foods in her room, too.

The baby laughed at the sounds though, so at least her suffering has brought him some entertainment.

She nodded mutely at his suggestion to head inside. Her boot heels were starting to sink into the grass anyway and her spiders weren't fans of the cold. She followed after him silently, mulling over the new information he had provided and trying to meld it with the info she already had.

"So... would this criminal empire we- Er...she helped to bring down happen to have had anything to to with, like... a giant bug?" Was this an appropriate time to bring the whole murder thing up? She wasn't so sure... but, aside from hunting down a very busy Mirror she was stuck with Saphirus, who seemed to know a good deal about her.

... Actually... how had mirror not known about any of that? Weren't the X's supposed to me all close and stuff?

"Mirror never mentioned me being a part of the X-men..." She started, hesitantly. "I found no records of me having been a.. erm.. crime fighter, either. Or, at least a publicly known one."

She might have been drilling suspicious little holes into the side of the mans head with her eyes. "How exactly did I help you bring down a criminal empire?"

His eyebrows definitely raised as her stomach made a sound his own used to make all of the time back in the day, when it was sucking on his spine. Now that he thought of it, she was looking a little... thin? Like... Maybe gaunt. "You, eh..." He paused for a second, a thought dawning on him. "When was the last time you ate?"

As they headed inside, she dug more, and he felt around with his sixth sense to be sure they were alone. "Yeah. Roach, he called himself. He was your friend, until he wasn't... He killed a lot a people, and you... Well... You did what you had to do." He closed the door behind them, and immediately started walking toward the kitchen, nodding to two students as they passed, careful not to speak while they were in earshot.

"You aren't part of the X-Men. It was personal for you. It was for me, too. He tried to kill me and my wife. And you... well, like I said, you had history." He opened the door to the kitchen, and opened up the fridge, digging around a little bit.

"As for how you helped. You're very good at what you do. Probably one of the best when it comes to surveillance, and you knew him well. His habits, his connections." He turned back to her, and tossed a package of raw hamburger on the table. "Hungry?"

The teen squinted at him and frowned slightly. "... A few hours ago..." It certainly made her feel self conscious that she had visually changed enough in the last week or two that people could pick out her eating problem with a glance.

The topic shifted to something much heavier than when she had last held down a meal, and she found herself nearly stopping multiple times as he laid out multiple facts about what she had done and who she had been. There was a confirmation in there that she really had killed at least one person, the others... not confirmed yet.

By the time they reached the kitchen she had a lot on her plate to deal with, mentally, and very soon, physically.

She had been friends with a big, murdering bug. A bug who had killed a lot of people, including an attempt on the man in front of her and his wife, apparently... She had been friends with him. No... not him. It. Something that horrible didn't deserve an ounce of respect to its name.

But.. what did that make her? Of all of the things she had found out in such a short time, discovering that she had ended the lives of multiple people over the course of a few years was... distressing, to put it lightly.

The swirl of emotions and uncertainly was plain on her face as Saph turned back around and slapped a plastic sealed package of raw, ground meat on the counter in front of her.

There was a painful stab of shame at how quickly her mouth started to water at the sight of it, before her gaze snapped up to him and her expression pinched in an irritated way.

"... If that is a joke, it's not funny. The Doctor has me on a list of food to try and keep down, and beef hasn't worked." Of course, when she'd tried it, it had been cooked.

She tried to corral the conversation back to the important things. "Why was I friends with... with such a monster? How?" She wasn't as cold and calculating as her older self had been, not let at least. It was easy for hr emotions to get a hold of her at this stage of life.

She just couldn't see herself, from who she was now, turning into what she had been in the future. It.. It just didn't add up.

"Why would I come all the way to this city just to make friends with killers and then become one myself? Why would I-.. why did-" She paused, wondering how to best say it.

"I should be in prison for the things I've done. None of this makes any sense."

She lied about eating a few hours ago. Huh, he'd been getting very goodie two shoes vibes from her, but at least she was still able to crank out a white lie when she needed to. He knew he was saying a lot to her, but honestly, he was too tired to bullshit her, and he knew she needed answers. He'd needed them too when he'd become young.

The problem was... None of the answers were good ones. All he'd done was relive loss that hurt just as deep as the worst aches he'd felt in his life. She was going to get that too, so it was better to rip the band-aid off.

He stared at her as she protested the beef, talking about a doctor's list. That drew a bit of a chuckle from him. "Yeah? Lemme guess. You cooked it up? Seasoned it? I saw you almost every night for a year. It's ready for you how it is. Dig in. Couldn't hold anything else down.. Heh, cept liquor."

He started digging in the fridge again, this time to make a bottle. "Don't worry, I won't look. You seem a little more shy than... eh... you were."

He finished, and handed Jr a new bottle, turning to make himself a pot of coffee as well. "I don't know why you were friends with him... From what I could tell, he wasn't so bad when you met, but... I dunno... Sometimes people have a way of..." He turned to her a second. "Getting worse." He then pressed brew on his coffee, reaching into his pocket and producing a little action figure. He rinsed it under the sink before handing it to Jr. in the hand that wasn't holding the bottle.

"Honestly, I never saw you kill anyone who didn't sincerely want to kill you in that moment... And what you did to Roach... It needed to happen. If anything, you should be wearing a @#$^ing medal for public service. No one sacrificed as much as you did to save the world from that monster."

He pulled out one sugar from a packet jar, and poured it into an empty coffee cup, walking over to the coffee pot at staring at it as it poured.

"You're a hero."

Ex-@#$&ing-scuse me!?

"So what, on top of being a murderer and and asshole, I was also an alcoholic?" What a gem. She'd really turned out just like mom had planned, hadn't she?

He turned away to do other things and her traitorous eyes dropped down to the meat. She sniffed, loudly, still incensed that he'd just throw meat at her like she was a wild animal. She eventually reached out to open it, looking thoroughly discussed the whole time. The second the smell hit her it was like someone was waving the most delicious meal in front of her face. Her stomach growled loudly again, her mouth watered. @#$%.

"I sincerely doubt that my fiance would have wanted to kill me, and yet I found articles from a few years ago about his death in this city and the method was extremely telling." She was still struggling with that one, but in a really weird way since she couldn't remember it and apparently it had been years since she'd last seen him.

"All I've managed to gather about myself so far is that I ended up a really bitter, hateful person who went down a dark path and ended up with no where to go. I highly doubt that would have had many options if I helped ruins some criminal enterprise in-"

She froze, still in the process of licking blood and meat juices off her fingers from the meat she had wolfed down.

Maybe that was what all those weird voice mails were about? The vague threats of violence and murder, among other things.

"...This city hates me, doesn't it? I'm not safe here."

A kind of cold horror was settling in. But, maybe there was still a silver lining. "Is that why I changed my face?"

Well, She wasn't taking this well. He shrugged a bit as she asked about being an alcoholic. "Hey, don't be too hard on yourself. You couldn't even get drunk, so I think it was more of a... I dunno what it was. Social? Habit? I dunno."

He pulled his coffee pot as soon as it was good to go, pouring gently, with his arms outstretched so JR. wouldn't try to touch the pot.

"Uhhh, yeah, about that... I guess your ex he went insane and tracked you down. Tried to kill you. Roach saved you, only to get sorta killed. You killed your crazy Ex because he killed Roach, but I guess Roach came back?" He seemed as confused as she probably was about all of that. "I dunno. I was drinking when you told me most of this stuff. Now, all I drink is coffee." He shrugged again, took a sip, burnt his tongue a bit, and winced.

By the time he turned back she was all done with her meal.

"Honestly... I could tell you were a good person. Didn't know you were like this." He gestured to her. "Cause, you honestly seem nice, but a lot happened to you. You survived. I can't say I know a lot of people who had skin as thick as yours." He sipped his coffee again. "Cept me, maybe."

He caught another falling bottle, and placed it on the counter. "No idea why you changed your face. Maybe you were bored."

Couldn't even get-.. what?

Her Ex WHAT?!

Her brain was throbbing from the overload of information.

She was a confirmed killer, but apparently a justified one. Also, an ass, but a nice one. She had thick skin and yet, her life had been hard?

"Ugh... I was supposed to college and @#$%, where did I go wrong." The teen leaned her elbows against the counter in front of her, resting her face in her palms.

"I don't wanna seem like i'm complaining, because, I mean... what good would that do? But I just never expected.. this" A few of her spiders dropped her her hair, scuttling around the counter curiously while she moped a bit more.

"I was in school, and I do f@#$in bomb in school, and I was gonna get married and, yeah, that was a bit scary, but everything knew is scary. How did I screw it all up? My parents liked Trent, even though he was a few years older than me. Was he Psycho the whole time? Did I do something to ruin it?"

She plopped down in a seat to watch as the spiders horsed around happily.

"If he lost his marbles and came after me, I must have changed my face for that reason. I can't fathom any other reason, because i'm @#$%ing gorgeous. Why ruin that?"

Another thought struck her then, one that was more more permanent and terrifying.

"Y-you changed back from a kid?" A chill raced down her spine. "What if I do to? I don't want to go back to being some old bitter woman who can't even drink. Oh god, half my life gone and I never even had kids. They say after a certain age it gets harder."

She looked stricken in a weird way, like... it was funny, but also horrible at the same time. Then again she was contemplating losing the second life she had been given.

"I was a beat up, cynical old maid with terrible fashion taste and questionable morals.... There... there would be nothing to live for."

Okay, maybe she was being a bit dramatic, but it felt justified given the situation.

Huh... He'd set her off on an existential crisis. He looked around for a second, and adjusted his position real quick. It looked like he couldn't talk to her like he talked to... her? That was going to be hard to get used to. Back in the day he was pretty direct with her. They said what needed to be said, and exactly what was on their mind at the moment.

You know, how you talk to someone when you could die at any moment. No beating around the bush. This was different. He was saying things that were clearly kicking her ass.

It was unsettling to see her so fragile. "I dunno, kid. Things just happen sometimes. Most of the time it has nothing to do with what you did." He almost shrugged, but instead placed a hand on Jr's chest. The little guy was falling asleep.

He did snerk when she mentioned she was beautiful. She wasn't wrong, but it was funny to hear her say it.

He shook his head through a chuckle as she freaked out more. "C'mon, you were what... 30? If that's half your life I'm bad at math..." He paused, and looked at her intently for a moment. Should he tell her?

Well, he wasn't pulling punches thus far. Band-aid off. "Eh... Megan... Look, You told me a lot. It was a rough time. We talked a lot to blow off steam... You told me... Eh... Well... You can't have kids, I guess. Something to do with your power." He shifted uncomfortably. Wow, that had been a rough one. Maybe he should have kept it to himself?

Jees. It all seemed to make sense now, too. The only time he'd ever seen her act nicely was around children. Who knew she'd always wanted them? Christ.