Home is nowhere, for Adrian

[Dr. Eva Thompson]

It had been too long since Eva had been in the burbs. She had grown up there but as soon as she went to college she never quite went back. The place was too full of memories for her to want to return. Eva's Father had sold the house and moved out as soon as Eva went away to college, he too couldn't bear to be in a house so completely filled with memories of a woman who was no longer there.

Eva's mother had loved interior decorating, and there wasn't a square inch of that house that she hadn't left her mark on. Her essence was so alive in that house, or at least it had been. Years had passed and Eva had no way of knowing what had happened or what had been done with it. Would the walls still be all done in pastel, would there be lace curtains, would the house always smell of cedar and vanilla; Eva didn't know. But for the first time she found herself wanting to find out.

Maybe Eva was finally moving, maybe on some level she had always missed having a real home, but for whatever reason Eva found herself driving deep into the suburbs i the hope of getting a look at her old house and neighborhood. Maybe whomever lived there would be nice enough to humor her and let her have a look inside.

As Eva entered the old neighborhood she found herself driving on auto pilot. It had been so many years since she had been here but she remembered every inch of it. Eva found herself turning in to a familiar driveway leading to an unrecognizable mess. Without thinking Eva opened the door and stepped out of her car, the keys still in the ignition.

What stood before her wasn't her house, it wasn't a house at all. The roof was ripped open like a gaping wound. The white vinyl siding had twisted and become black and sheets of plywood were placed over the windows like bandaids that just weren't big enough to do any good. It was all like staring at the mutilated corpse of a person you once knew. For all the good times had, and all of the love that had been in that house there was no soul left in it. A place that had once been a sanctuary could no longer do so much as keep the rain out.

Eva felt herself sink onto the hood of her car, she sat there unable to do anything but stare. It had been so many years, why didn't she think to visit it once before now. She had no idea how long ago the fire had actually occurred, but when she set out today this was most certainly not what she wanted to see.

Eva heard a movement that startled out of her frozen state. She turned around to see a figure that was still a distance away.

Eva had to shake herself out of this, she didn't want to cry over a house she had so eagerly abandoned. Like a good scientist Eva always felt comforted by facts, the more she knew about a situation the better she could deal with it emotionally.

"Excuse me." she cried out in the direction of the figure.

Maybe this person woudl eb able to tell her what happened.

[Adrian Vega]

Adrian hadn't really thought of where we was going but he decided that he didn't want to be in the house anymore and that's why he'd walked out the door and started making his way down the street and, of course, there was always a nosey neighbor here and there seeing who came out of the house, but lately there wasn't so many of them jumping to greet any of the pack members, since things have gotten a little hostile in the pack house the single women of the neighborhood and their daughters have probably realized. Adrian saw it as a nice change as opposed to their usual attempts to make any kind of conversation just to get whatever it was out of them, it never really worked. He snorted at the thought, walking from the porch to the small fence that surrounded the house, although it was a fence it seemed more than inviting than not to him and he never understood the purpose for it, it didn't even have a lock.

He really, didn't think about it when he saw a young woman, looking at an old condemned house where the only not painfully annoying family had lived for several years before one of them had died, for some reason they moved after that. Adrian didn't really live with the pack then, he was trying his luck at living in the city and getting used to everything since he had spent the majority of his new life at the mansion in Buckley Park trying to gain more control over his lycan form, since he wasn't used to how his wolf body moved and reacted then. It didn't seem that the woman had noticed him as he started down the street towards the city.

It was a slow walk and after maybe a minute or so he could clearly hear someone shouting in his direction, and instincts caused him to turn around and look back, it was obvious that the shouting was directed at him since no one else was outside besides the woman and it was woman yelling. He stopped and raised an eye-brow, this was certainly unexpected, but Adrian always welcomed meeting new people and she was bold enough to initiate it. He walked back in her direction, still puzzled to why she had called out for him. Maybe she wanted to know about the house, or maybe she had noticed him when he walked out of his home. He really didn't ponder on that too much as he got closer.

"Yes? Do you need something?" he shouted back at her as kindly as he could, still a fair distance away. He didn't want to come off as a jerk.

[Dr. Eva Thompson]

Eva had already begun trotting after the stranger even before she got his attention. It was strange that her need to find out about the burnt out house was so great. Eva wasn't usually so impulsive or emotional, but everyone had their weak points. She didn't want to loose this stranger before she had a chance to ask her questions, questions she could only hope he would know the answers to.

Eva moved at a pace only just above walking, not fast enough for her effort to look out of the ordinary. She was still a good distance away but as the figure turned Eva was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of deja vous. She couldn't quite remember when but she had seen this man before. Eva didn't think it was anything mystical, she saw a lot of people and she there were some people she met multiple times. It was a fairly common feeling when you saw a lot of patients on a daily basis, but something told her she had seen this face long before her days as a doctor.

In fact she could picture it so well that she was almost convinced she had seen this very man on this very street before. It had to be some coincidence, she must have seen this person years ago and yet this man looked exactly as she had remembered him. He wasn't anyone she knew well, just a person who hung around the neighborhood. Maybe he was the son or younger brother of the person she was thinking about because no one aged that well.

"Yes" she responded trotting a little closer "Sorry to bother you but do you know what happened to this house." she said gesturing to her former home.