The Winds Of Change

Posted on Wed Jul 24th, 2024 @ 10:25 by Phoebe Hunter & Matteo Beneventi

Chapter: Besieged
Location: Matt's House
Timeline: 11:00 hours, Saturday, January 30th, 1993
2634 words - 5.3 OF Standard Post Measure

Phoebe knew the man was not expecting her, and she had not considered going to Matt’s until she was already pulling up to his house. She had been on a mission to get some extra food stores and stuff into the school for what she saw coming but her autopilot had led her to him and she could not help but smile as she tapped on the door. She had a key and he told her every time to come in but she was not at all going to do that when they were dating and things were about to get complicated with the announcements with The Genetic Oversight Unit. She was registered as she had to be as a member of Military intelligence but she had, had a choice these new laws gave people no choice. That was not the freedoms she had worked for MI-13 for. What was the United Kingdom becoming?

The peek of slightly distrustful eyes through the curtains of the front room was sign enough of the times. The fact that Matt then had to unlatch the door, where ordinarily it would have felt unlikely to require the security so far from the nearest neighbour, was yet another. He didn't hide his mild surprise, though a soft half-smile at least suggested he wasn't in the least bit upset by the interruption. "Hey."

“Hi… I know I did not call or anything. I was driving and just … came here.” She admitted. “I know you have work tonight but want to hang for an hour or two?” Phoebe wondered. She had not told him about the visions that she had, had last weekend that had left her wanting nothing more to curl up in a ball for the weekend but she suspected that he had noticed on the phone how flat she had been.

"Sure," Matt replied, stepping to the side. A glance at the clock revealed that Phoebe was right about his work commitments, though he'd have been lying if he'd said it hadn't occurred to him to just stop turning up. Now more than ever, the convenience of his powers was a powerful temptation and even though Matt no longer wished to disappear entirely, not when it would mean leaving behind people he couldn't abandon, there was still an argument to be had for embracing a life as far off the radar as possible. With Phoebe around, it wasn't like the school would overlook him as Leo's legal guardian, and providing for himself had never been that difficult before without much of an income. It wasn't a life he was proud of, however, and the thought making Phoebe complicit in a heap of petty theft made him feel more worthless than he already did. With a glance behind her, he closed the door and deliberately slipped the bolt back across. "I didn't expect to see you for a while, not with everything that's happened."

“And yet here I am.” She smiled sadly as she moved from the hallway taking off her boots before moving into the living room. “I wanted to see you. I do not know when I might get this chance again with the new laws coming in.” Phoebe knew what was coming but it did not terrify her as she felt like it was where they had always been heading as a species.

That alone was enough to knit Matt's brow into a deep furrow. "Why would the laws have anything to do with us seeing each other?" A nervous flutter made him immediately anxious that she intended to disappear on him, which might have been ironic had he taken the time to consider how apt such a concern would have been in the reverse.

Phoebe scrubbed her hands on her jeans in a nervous habit as she sat down. She opened her mouth several times to say something but stopped thinking of her words carefully. "Because they are going to be coming for the school to make an example as we are so vocal against it and there is going to be chaos." She admitted wishing she could tell him something better. "I can see it all and there is not one route I can see on how to stop it."

Unsurprisingly, it took Matt a moment to respond. As he stared at the worried creases dominating Phoebe's expression, there was no lack of concern in Matt's reaction and yet the look in his eyes, a deep pensiveness that many would have labeled as brooding, took on an intensity that hinted at the speed at which he was joining dots in his head. He didn't have a lot of firsthand experience with Phoebe's powers but he trusted her, at least enough to know that if she was this pent-up there was cause for action. Not long ago, his first priority would have been his brother, and that hadn't so much changed as simply expanded to include a less insular outlook. Eventually, he reached out to hook a finger under her chin and guide her face up to look at him.

"Then let me help."

Phoebe looked up from where she was tracing the floor with her eyes to look up at him. “I do not know how you can help right now,” She admitted knowing it was a bit step for her to even say that when she had point blankly before Christmas refused to consider it wanting to keep him safe and away from any trouble. Everything was about to change and she had no idea how anyone could help in the grand scheme.

"This may come as a surprise to you, Ms. Farsight." Looping an arm around her waist, Matt pulled her gently towards him. "But you don't need to have all the answers all of the time." He knew that was not the expectation others had, and that Phoebe's powers had conditioned her to anticipate certain contingencies well before anyone else, but if their discussions over the past few months had taught him anything it was that he didn't follow the normal rules when it came to her clairvoyance. She had confided in him that it was part of the appeal of their relationship, a genuine surprise with undisclosed outcomes. "If I'm an unknown factor then we can make it work to our advantage. Hell, I've got two working legs and two working arms, carting sandbags would be better than closing the door here and abusing privilege. I know I can make them forget about me. It's about time I see how far I can make that stretch."

"It is a surprise... people expect a lot." She admitted laying her head against his shoulder as he pulled her against him and she felt a little calmer at the comfort he was trying to offer. "You will need to talk to Claire and you definitely need to talk to your brother if you are thinking like that. Everything in me wants you away from it but we should use the help I think." If he was close she could keep him safe rather than him be out there by himself even if he was not a known factor.

"There is no getting away from it, not without abandoning people I don't intend to leave behind." His situation was unique, one of the few mutants on Earth that stood a chance of staying off the official radar, but Matt had already done that for long enough to know the cost. Rubbing a hand against her back, he rested a chin on Phoebe's head and added, "How about I pack up the bike and follow you back to the castle when you're ready to go?" He didn't mention that, technically speaking, if he really wanted to remain, she was the only one likely to be unaffected by his best efforts to forget he was even there. He would prefer to be there with permission.

Phoebe nodded clearly not wanting the situation but she knew there was no escaping it al. She shifted a little feeling just how heavy her body felt with trying to maintain balance in her life with making sure the kids routine was normal as well as pushing herself with the knights. “What about the pub?” She wondered.

The same thought had been worrying Matt all morning. "Given everything they've already been through, I was starting to think it might be a bit much to ask them to keep me on. I know they won't ask me to leave." A good part of the reason was the level of vagueness Matt had maintained around his presence, manipulating the situation enough that he wasn't forgotten entirely but didn't tend to stick in patrons' minds either. "Local sentiment isn't like to improve, bringing the authority's to their door doesn't seem fair. I'll be okay." Lack of income would create its own challenges but he hadn't sunk all his savings into the property.

Phoebe shook her head. "They do not know you are even like the people in the school. They barely recognise me." Phoebe said hopefully. "But talk to Claire. There might be something she can offer or do to help." She had never spoken to Claire about Matt because she wanted to keep her lives separate but there was no time for that now with Robert about to cause issues and the government turning on them.

"It's not about whether they know now, it's about how much longer it will be until they find out. At the very least, someone's bound to find about about Leo eventually and then I'm the brother of a mutant if nothing else."

As much as he hadn't quite arrived at a decision before the moment had pushed him towards one, Matt had been thinking along similar lines for a while now. Since the pub had been vandalized, since the village had slowly started to segregate into those who supported the school up on the hill and those who wouldn't have spared a bucket if it burned to the ground. The few times he'd broached the idea of stepping towards his responsibilities instead of away from them with Phoebe, they'd always circled back around to her desire to keep him separate and safe but it hadn't taken powers like hers for Matt to see the writing on the wall. Hiding was always an option for him but it wasn't what he wanted anymore. Surviving wasn't enough.

"Do you have any kind of timeline on these problems you're sensing?"

"Days. The laws go into effect on Monday." It had been why she had come to see him so that she could at least say goodbye or good luck or whatever this became she had no idea what was coming other than bad. She shifted a little and pulled out the all too familiar sketches she had made from her back pocket and held them up. "I had a vision which left me out of it last weekend which is why I did not come to see you. I drew this."

Matt studied the drawings quietly, each turn of the paper to take in a new detail deepening the frown that creased his forehead. "This is what you see?" Talking about their powers had always been a silently agreed-upon grey area, not very often ventured into because Phoebe, at the very least, seemed to treat their time together as a means of escaping her everyday reality. Aside from initial disclosures and the occasional speculation about why their powers interacted the way they did, there had never been a lot of description given to the actual presentation of their powers or what it looked like when they were fully activated.

"Yeah." She said seeing the frown deepening by the second. They had never discussed how her abilities worked, much like she did not question him about his just that it was hard to use on her as she just could not seem to forget it. But Phoebe knew that was because she could see him in the future. "I was out for the count and in my out-of-it state I used the closest text book to draw this."

"I'm sorry." A kiss to her forehead lingered, a show of concern directly for her well-being rather than the hellscape her sketches depicted. Matt was used to having very contained priorities, his motivations being quite insular by comparison to this woman who wanted to save the world. Meeting her had compelled him to be more, to do better, but he wasn't experienced enough to avoid the instinctual reaction that focused on a very specific consideration. Maybe he couldn't do a lot about what she'd seen but if Phoebe was forced to endure it, and suffer the ramifications thereof, the least he could do was not lose sight of her amidst the flames of a future set to burn. "Are you okay now?"

The woman nodded. For the most part she was back to normal just finding herself drained longer than she was used to and it meant she was going to sleep earlier than normal and using what energy she did have in the right way. "I am for the most part." She assured. "Not had one like that in about 3 years."

"Is there anything that keeps it from getting that bad?" The keenness of Matt's gaze was fixed entirely on his girlfriend's face, now that the additional revelation about the extremities of her powers gave him something new to worry about. Most of the time, he was such an unassuming presence by nature that his intensity got lost on others. So far, it hadn't scared Phoebe away, which was a relief given that the constant pile-on of additional pressure was making it harder and harder to mask just how much he was prone to deep introspection.

“I don’t know. This time was different last time I lost memory around then. So I must… I am okay,” she assured quietly. “It doesn’t happen often. Three years ago was a stressful time…” she laughed a little. “I guess this is too but …” the woman trailed off as she tried to remember what she had been stressed out about three years ago but all she think on was Robert. “This time I am not alone and there are people around.” Maybe Catriona and Claire finding her had made her recovery better.

"Even more reason for me to follow you home then," Matt reasoned, his gaze drawn back to the chaos of Phoebe's sketches. If this is what was coming, then there was no point thinking he'd be safe in his little cottage anyway, and it would be far easier to be on the right side of the castle's boundaries before the apparently inevitable need to slip across battlelines. "When do you need to go back?" If there was time still, he wouldn't begrudge her the reprieve of a quiet dinner and movie.

Phoebe looked around and shrugged. "I have time." She assured. She did not need to be back anytime soon when she had been out on her own personal mission for supplies and this had not gone how she had thought it might have gone with her saying goodbye for a bit. "If you want to do something."

"Let me cook lunch," Matt offered, hazarding a guess that an opportunity to avoid public scrutiny wouldn't go astray. "I've got the grill working and we should probably use up some of the food in the fridge if I'm not going to be here for a while." Releasing her gently, Matt turned Phoebe around to face the door that lead towards the kitchen and placed his hands on her shoulders to guide her forward. "Come on, there's beer involved."