𝐒𝐖𝐈𝐅𝐓 (X-Men ~ Peter Maximoff)

A Downpour of Tears

1971.

1971.

1971.

The numbers repeated in Jennifer's head, each one hitting her with a blow of confusion and horror.

Nineteen seventy one.

That was nine years away.

Nineteen,

What happened?

Seventy,

Was she dreaming?

One.

Was this a cosmic joke?

There was no possible way this could happen. You couldn't start your day in 1962 and end up in 1971 by lunch time. Maybe she had hit her head a bit harder than she had originally thought, that was the believable explanation, that she was just imagining things.

But that was pushed aside by another idea. Time travel. The very thought of it made Jennifer want to scoff in disbelief, but something told her to consider the insane possibility. True, it sounded absurd, but nothing else could explain the empty warehouse (unless she had imagined it). Erik wouldn't leave her like this, even if she could be a pain in his ass at times. Nevertheless, they had a connection. A connection that prevented abandonment.

Questions swarmed around Jennifer's head. Where did everyone think she was? From the way Charles reacted to her on the phone it sounded like he believed her to be dead, or as good as. (Thinking back, he also sounded very drunk, and – as the cashier had said – it seemed to be a permanent state.) What about Erik? He must've had a sliver of hope that she was alive otherwise he wouldn't have left that strip of material from his cloak, but that was years ago as it seemed. He had probably given up looking and believing by now. Raven and Hank would most likely share the train of thought as Erik and Charles did, respectively.

And her mum? As far as Jennifer had told her she was at a friend's house. Had Charles or the CIA gotten in touch with her, told her the truth or was the last memory of her daughter a lie? Jennifer's stomach churned at the thought of her mother and the stress she had put on her. The cops must've investigated Jennifer's disappearance at some point, would've interrogated everyone who knew her. Her mother had gone nine years without her only child - her only family - and Jennifer was powerless to tell her she was okay, to explain everything that had happened, to hug her.

Water welled in her eyes, tears spilling down her face. It started off quiet, and as each second passed by the tears fell faster and sobs grew louder as the broken and fragmented reality came crashing down on Jennifer. Everything she once had had been ripped from her clutch.

She had nothing. She was helpless, because on top of the fact that had no family, no friends, was penniless, scared, homeless and on a foreign continent, she also had no clue what had happened in the period of time she had skipped. Were mutants accepted in society or hated even more? Did the world know about the events that unfolded on the Cuban embargo line? Was the Vietnam war finished? What had people achieved?

The answers to those questions didn't reveal themselves as Jennifer wept in the middle of the street. The tears continue to glide down her cheeks until her throat dried up, and even after. What reason did she have to stop crying, it wasn't like she had anything to return to, with her circumstances Jennifer would happily stay standing in the street until her skin wrinkled and she dropped dead. But she couldn't do that, she refused to give up, but she also refused to pretend everything was fine, so her course of action was to get the pain and anguish out of her system in one go, which would possibly take a while longer.