Watching and Waiting

Rose was starting to worry me.

Whenever she’s around her mum she acts like a ten year old. She becomes reliant on her mum and practically sits on the couch all day watching cartoons. I was beginning to think that she wasn’t acting and that this is actually what she’s like when you get her away from her studies.

By Sunday morning I was becoming really concerned. When her mum came back from the supermarket on Saturday morning, she fixed Rose lunch fit for a ten year old and then again for dinner. After dinner she ran Rose a bath, I was pretty surprised when she actually let her bathe herself.

Then on Sunday morning after breakfast Rose went straight to the couch to watch cartoons. At this point I was really starting to worry. After her mum had cleaned the kitchen she went off to have a shower. Her mum had just closed the door when Rose quickly changed the TV to the history channel.

“I really hate watching cartoons, they’re not even funny anymore” She said as she got up and made herself some tea. I just sighed in relief.
“Every weekend I have to do this to myself. Eat the childish food she puts in front of me and watch brain-killing TV for two whole days. The only time I get to myself is at night when she sends me to bed at 8.” She continued to complain as she made and quickly drunk her tea.

Her mum didn’t have a long shower and was quickly out. At around lunch time I was getting really sick of being stuck in the house with a girl who was pretending to be a ten year old. There is such a time where a person can get sick of cartoons.

It was just before lunch when there was a knock at the door. Her mum asked if I could get it because she was making lunch, I was glad to maybe the person at the door would save me from this kindergarten.

I opened the door to a girl around Rose’s age looking slightly angelic. She had amazingly blonde hair that looked so soft and had so much volume, but in the best way. She too stood there looking a little stunned at me.
“Hi…” she said in a voice that sounded as if she was in a dream state, once that word escaped her lips she just stood there.

“So… are you selling something or do you need help?” she was just staring at me, I’ve gotten used to it in the past weeks since I’ve started living amongst people but it was still weird.
“Oh yeah, is Rose here?” and then she was completely normal as she looked past me into the house.

I excused Rose from her childish meal easily, her mother wasn’t all that fused. Rose was so happy that she didn’t have to finish her meal. I was then able to get Rose and myself out of the house saying that I was going to take her on a play date with one of the other children in her class. It was easy for me since I was supposed to be her teacher.

Rose was so thankful towards me, it was nice to be of some use. We spent the rest of the day in the most adult place we could find; a bar. It wasn’t the nicest place we could have gone but it seemed to be a habit of Rose’s to go to a bar once she had left her mum’s house. She didn’t get drunk just had one drink, but one drink was adult enough.

I must say it felt really good to get out of that time warp. Rose’s friend Andromeda was very… well angelic just like she looks. She seemed to be the most pure soul I had ever met it was very strange.

Her and Rose chatted like old housewives for the whole three hours we were allowed out, though we were leaving her mother’s house once Rose had been sent to bed. Andromeda was going to meet us and go back to the city with us, she had a job interview in there on Monday and didn’t want to have to wake up really early to make it.

There was something strange about Andromeda, wonderfully strange but at the same time otherworldly strange. I had a strange sense she wasn’t human but I think that was just my paranoia that no one could be that nice and pure in these times.

Actually she reminded me of one of my ward’s sisters. This girl was so pure and friendly, she was married at a young age to a man that adored her and treated her like a princess and in return she treated him like a prince. She was the perfect wife in those times and a perfect mother too.

So Rose, Andromeda and I walked back to Rose’s mother’s house to with stand another five hours of elementary hell. Rose didn’t want Andromeda to come in, even though she knew what had happened to her mother it was just a little too much work to make up another story about who she was just for five hours.

Five hours didn’t actually take that long and then we were off on our way home with Andromeda. On the long trip back I found out that Andromeda’s parents were archaeologists who were in love with Greek and Roman ancient history, hence the ancient name.

They had both died in a cave in when she was 10, she then went to live with her grandmother but she then passed away a few years ago. She had no other family left but was able to support herself with what they had left her.

She and Rose had only known each other since Rose started university but that’s been long enough, says Rose anyway. By the time we got back to Rose’s it was the small hours of the morning and we were all tired. Rose made me sleep in the bed while she made up a bigger bed on the floor for herself and Andromeda.

I offered to go back to my place but she said it was too late, after she was surprised that I had my own place. The next day while I went to University with her she told me off for not telling her I had a home, then she made me take her to it after she had finished.

It wasn’t much of a home, just a house really, I didn’t have any personal objects at all, just a few ancient relics from my past but I kept them safely locked up. Rose was amazed when she saw it. I mean it was an old city building with big spacious rooms, 4 to be exact, and I was the only one that lived there.

The building that I lived in is an old protectors house, they were set up for protects without wards. They are able to live in them to wait for their wards but there aren’t all that many protects around anymore or well there aren’t any more than normal there’s just a lot more countries to have to be in now.

Rose decided she had a great idea, she decided that she’d move into the house with me.
I have to say it would be nice not to have to sleep on the floor every night and not be stuck in a room with a study freak, no offense to Rose.

Rose was so persistent upon the idea that she said she’d start moving her stuff tomorrow. She didn’t care that it was a little further away from her university or that she didn’t really know the area she was just glad she’d have more room and wouldn’t have to house with what she called a ‘bunch of losers who aren’t going anywhere in life’ – her words not mine.

So it was settled. She went to university the next day and I rented a truck and moved everything she owned out of her house and into mine. When Rose got home she had another piece of news for me.

Andromeda got the job she was interviewed for on Monday and she was coming to move in with us… didn’t know how I felt about this. I know I was Rose’s protector but that didn’t mean that what was mine was now hers…

I said yes anyway, I didn’t want to make her upset, and Andromeda moved in by the end of the week. Once they were all moved in the house actually started feeling like a home. Every night there was a home cooked meal thanks to Andromeda who I found out was an excellent cook.

It wasn’t actually as bad as I thought it may have turned out to be. In the evenings now I was able to do what I wanted, I didn’t have to feel confined to Rose’s room, I didn’t even have to go into her room anymore and my back was feeling a lot better from now being on the floor.

Andromeda and I were also spending a lot of time together and getting to know each other. She was a sweet girl with a lot of prospects. At one time we got onto the subject of ancient history and she was surprised at how much I knew, she comment was ‘It’s like you lived in the time’. After that conversation she started acting a little weirdly towards me.

I didn’t know if she suspected something, there was nothing that I really said to make her believe that I wasn’t human but she was starting to act a little weird…