But Why is the Rum Gone?! [Charlotte]

[John Callahan]

John Callahan was living the life as far as he was concerned. For the first time in a while, John was care-free. The middle-aged man was loving life and spending every minute relishing in the freedom of being on his own. Well... Relatively on his own. Future!Charlie was still with him, and she was a bit of a bitch... but who could really complain about anything when you were in Key West lounging in a hammock while sipping a Rum based something or other out of a coconut. Sure, this wasn't exactly what John had come to expect in his life... Hell, a year or two ago he'd never have expected to be caught dead wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts... With a pair of Ray Bans resting on his forehead... John was living and loving the easy streets. He didn't have to care about money... He'd already made sure that he'd be comfortable earlier in his life...

Hell, John didn't even have the Elite to worry about. After everything went to shit, John disappeared... And nobody came looking. John pretended not to care that they hadn't come knocking yet after he'd buggered off... He pretended to keep his cool and play things calmly... But, deep down inside paranoia had found its roots. For a while, John ignored just about everything. He'd go on a bender here and there... But Charlie usually kept him in check. One drunken night, paranoia took hold and sure enough Charlie had had enough. Before John could say or do anything, Charlie had taken a knife to his collar bone and had begun to dig his tracking chip out. When he'd come to the next morning, John was pissed to say the least. When all things considered though, John was happy enough. It was one less thing to worry about.

As the young man settled into his day and his normal routine, he sipped his delicious rum coconut cool-ata and lowered his sun glasses over his eyes. He could hear the sound of the waves crashing back and forth not fifty feet ahead of him. It was tranquility at its finest and John couldn't have been happier in the moment... That is until Charlie crashing out of their cabana in a huff. She was storming around and was furious about something or other. John wasn't really sure what had crawled up her ass and died today, and he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to find out. The middle-aged man ignored Charlie for the moment and sipped his drink as she continued to cause a ruckus. John continued to lay there with his eyes closed as he listened to the waves and tried his best to ignore the noisy intrusion that was sure to turn his day to crap. Without moving a muscle, John finally spoke up. "The hell's going on? Something crawl up your ass and die for a change?" Yeah, he'd probably live to regret that one... That was more than likely the rum talking, but hey... This was his parade that she was raining on... John knew that he was probably done relaxing now... He might as well try to enjoy whatever was left of it.

[Charlotte Grace]

When Charlotte had made the decision to come back to the past, she hadn’t really seen past getting things done to help with the future. She knew the hell she had come from and had been determined to stop what she had seen as the darkest timeline but…something had changed without her even needing to step in. She didn’t know what but there was no GEIST taking over the world, no King Thomas Kroner or anything of the kind. She didn’t know what had changed it but she was glad it had.

So…What now? Charlotte was at a loss as to what she was going to do now that that particular future had been averted. She had been so bent on revenge against all the injustices she had witnessed in her own timeline that she hadn’t considered what she would do after her mission was completed. In all honesty, she had expected to die during that mission but given it never even took place… Well, it just meant that she was left adrift in a time that wasn’t her own. She missed feeling as though she fit in somewhere, she missed John. Not ‘this’ John but rather than older and far more mature John that wasn’t this bloody one! The contrast was just startling between what this John was doing and what ‘her’ John had been like.

More than a few times since she had begun staying with him, she had to ensure that his paranoid nature didn’t get the best of him. He was so fucking moody that she was convinced he suffered from manstration. Drinking too much and then freaking out about the Elite coming and finding him after he chose to go awol. She had enough of his bullshit and finally cut out the implant, rather easy for her to use her telekinesis to pull it out and get rid of it. At least then he couldn’t keep bitching about it. Sure, he raged at her a bit the next morning but he got over it as she knew he would. She could have ‘helped’ him get over it but she was trying to pay future!John back by not using her mental abilities on his past self. It was not easy.

Charlie and John had developed a sort of weird-ass routine since they had come here, spending their time in the cabana where John seemed to enjoy drinking. She just needed a place to stay, to figure things out before she headed out again but for now she kept John from overdoing things. Young Charlotte would eventually take her place though she would be far less moody than this older version of Charlotte. John was good for Charlotte, of that she had no doubt and she was good for him as well. He had been there when no one else had been and though this John was a bit lost, he would still do wonders for teenage Charlotte.

This particular day, Charlotte had discovered that a particular man who had come to the world as some sort of savior might not be what he seemed. She had various sources, given her power, as well as her dream-walking and she was finding out more and more than this person, Reier or whatever his name was, was bad news. Could he bring about an even worse future than what she had come from? Or maybe just a different kind of the same hell. Either way, he was a threat and she needed to get help in investigating it, but that involved a sober John and that wouldn’t be so simple. He sipped at his drink in his ridiculous Hawaiian shirt and it made her want to chuck him and his stupid shirt into the ocean. It was incredibly tempting but she resisted. Instead, she vented about until he spoke.

Dark eyes landed on John and for a moment she seethed. Quite suddenly, the drink he held was pulled from his grasp and dumped over his head. “You’ve had enough.” She declared through her telepathy. “We have work to do, get ready.”