Stupid Idea

[Amelia Prewett]

Walking down the street in the dead of night with her old school bag slung over her shoulder Mia trudged down with an even darker look than the darkness all around her. With each step Mia felt the bag hit against her thigh ad the sound echoed around. As Mia looked down at her watch, she saw that it was 2.08 am. No one would be out this late, so of course she was the only one to make sound anywhere.

Looking around at the emptiness of everything around her Mia sighed. This was a stupid idea. More than stupid. Idiotic. Mia had intended to run away, but about two hours ago Mia had finally remembered she didn't want to be out on her own and that she really didn't hate things at her home enough to run away. But of course, by that time she hadn't had time to run around becauseshe was on a fast ride heading torwards the heart of London. She could have gotten off at one of the stops, but the bus only had two stops. London and then some small village that had a highway going through it and that was it. Mia thought it best that she get off at the stop, so now, here she was. Walking down some unfamilar street in an unfamilar town, heading in some direction at 2 am because she chickened out of running away.
Only you can manage that...

Rolling her eyes, Mia sighed softly and just sat down on the ground under a street lamp looked through her bag. There was another pair of ragged jeans, an old tee shirt, her wand, and a bag of money; muggle and wizard. Sighing softly Mia got out her wand and gripped it in her hand. She brought her hand back and threw her arm around like she was baout to throw it, but knowing her luck tnoight, she'd never be able to find it.

Leaning her head back against the post and closeing her eyes Mia really wished she was back home. Hitting her head back against the post once more just triyng ot get the point across to herself, Yumi could see the world outside get darker.
"Crap.." She muttered to herself before she opened her eyes and saw that the street lamp had gone out. Feeling her heart beat quicken slightly she gripped onto her wand tightly. She hated pure darkness when she was alone. Mia always thought that someone was going to come and murder her or something.

Serching her mind, Mia really wished she was better at remembering spells. She couldn't figure out what the spell for light was. it was so simple, she should be able to do this. "Lamos..?" She muttered with confusion seeping through her voice clearly. Any other time she probably would be able to remember the spell but this wasn't any other time. "Lumos!" Mia said with a grin as she waved her wand. She finally remembered the spell! What she failed to remember though was that she was underage and useing her wand was off limits.
"Mum is going to murder me anyways..." She muttered to herself just happy to have some light all around.

Hearing an odd noise from down the street Mia gave a quizzical look just watching until she saw a bus appear out of thin air. With a grin, Mia had remembered her mother speaking of this. The bus came to wizards who needed help and all they had to do was-...Well apparently she had done something to summon them and that was all that mattered.

A man walked down the steps saying a mush of words that she didn't even bother to pay attention to. Mia just shoved her way up into the bus and stood in awe at the many different levels it had and everything else around the bus. First thought was that she should go home, but now she was saved Mia didn't want to set herself in the lions den. Telling the driver Maddie and Ian's address, Mia knew that it was the only other place besides Isabella's home. The only reasons he didn't give Isabella's address was because frankly she had forgotten it. With a smug smile on her face, happy for figureing a way out of her mess Mia sat down on a bed with her bag next to her.

Looking at the lights and trees fly by Mia sighed softly. Her and her mother had gotten into another fight tnoight. They always got into a fight around the summer time. Her mum would always say that Mia needed to straighten up a bit, and then that ould set everything off. Plus the stress of Fabian being Fabian, and Emily being Emily and life generally just being life didn't make things much better. The fight wouldn't just be about the little things. There were situations that came back and-..Well Mia and her mother knew how to fight each other. She was her mothers daughter.

The fight this time had been so much worse. Mia had retreted to her room after but around eleven o' clock, Mia decided that she needed to run away and that would solve everything.
Stupid idea...

~~~

After a long rough ride, Mia stood up and paid the amount due and walked off the bus, feeling the wind behind her as it sped off. Looking up at the immense home Mia put her messenger bag over her shoulder and ran a hand through her hair. She had never thought about the fact that Ian and Maddie and Poppy and Alex and Abby were asleep, like normal people. Well take Poppy out of that one, but the rest of them were. She'd either knock to soft and not be heard or knock to hard and wake everyone up.

Biting on the inside of her lip, Mia dragged her feet as she looked around the house. Maybe Poppy had been sneaking out and was just getting home and could sneak Mia in there with her. Mia walked around msot of the house, just looking for any sign for Poppy.
Nothing.

Sighing softly she made her way back to the front and up the porch. Mia stood in front of the door trying to decide wheather or not she should just turn around now, but made herself stay put. Closeing her eyes Mia brought up her knuckles and knocked on the door as light as she could but loud enough so that she knew someone would hear her. Mia was hoping that ti was Maddie that answered, but if Ian did...Well she would deal with anyone. Just to get inside and away from the outside world.

[Ian Hunt]

I wish I could sleep so so badly. This sudden burst of chronic insomnia is going to end up killing me.
I can't not sleep all night every night and then chase after however many kids are going to be dumped with me during the day for hours. This is going to be the death of me, but I can't close my eyes.
I can't sleep because everything is just...right, for once. Everything is right with a few exceptions, but everything is good on the whole and it's unnerving me. It's really fucking freaking me out.
Well, that's the usual excuse for my insomnia. Tonight, it's because the things that are wrong have swallowed me for a few hours and I'm just going to have to wait this out until they leave me alone again and things get better so I can go back to not sleeping because everything is so unnervingly okay instead.

I lean forward a moment to knock ash off the end of my cigarette and into my make shift ashtray which happens to be a mostly empty bottle of firewhisky. This is probably a stupid move, as I'll probably forget I've been using it as an ashtray and when I next go to get a drink I'll remember the hard way. Oh well, go figure.
I shouldn't even be smoking in the house, because to all intents and purposes, I quit smoking before I even turned twenty. Ha.
As if.

I feel quite tired tonight actually, I think. I think that maybe I could actually sleep tonight, but of course tonight is the one night that I'm not allowed to let myself because tonight is the night that Poppy's gone storming off into the dark and hasn't come back for hours.
I know she sneaks out, I've caught her coming back in several times and on the times that I don't catch her, Maddie does, so it's not as if it's not a regular occurrence and normally I'm sure I wouldn't mind.
Normally she'd be out with Jenny or Mia or Kim or something, and I'm pretty sure that none of them do anything particularly rebellious that I'd disagree with them doing, so it's all okay.
Obviously.

But this isn't normally.
It's not the first time that me and Poppy have ever fought, we do it quite often, I suppose. More often than I'd like but if we didn't fight at all then it wouldn't be right, would it? Something would be very wrong, so it's good that we fight.
I'd still rather we didn't.
It's the usual argument, and I should stop taking it so hard.
It always goes the same and it's always pretty one-sided, she always says much more than I do, she always gets much madder than I do, and then she shuts herself in her room and doesn't come out for hours and when she does she throws filthy looks at me for days.
It's the 'I want to know about my mother' row.
She does know about her mother. She knows her name was Erin, she knows that she died when Poppy was still very little. She doesn't need to know anymore. She's thirteen, she doesn't need to know all about Erin's neurosis and her depression and her suicide attempts and of course that one successful attempt that is why Poppy doesn't know her mother. She's still too young to know all about that.
So then I get the 'I'm not a fucking child' and 'I hate you' and 'I wish I had a better dad' and 'I'm going to live with Aunt Row, she'll tell me everything' and sometimes she'll just scream over and over again 'I hate you, I hate you, I hate you' depending on how worked up she gets.

Needless to say, it's not really my favourite phase in the whole father-daughter relations thing.
Especially with this wonderful new habit that she's adopted where she'll storm out of the house regardless of the time or the weather and won't come home for hours, and sometimes days. Usually she will be with Row or Charlie or Dawson or Jack and Rose, and sometimes Shell or Bella or Yumi. And this'll mean I just have to wait until I get an owl saying that she's there and whoever will bring her home when she's cooled off, or that I should come and collect her.
And this is what I'm doing right now. It's that horrible period of transition where I know that my daughter is out there in the middle of the night with no idea of where she is or how to find her or if she's okay or not.

The second I hear the door I'm on my feet, dropping the cigarette butt into the firewhisky bottle, and heading as fast as humanly possible without running into the hall.
For a split second when I see Mia I think that Poppy might be with her and everything is alright, but the relief is short lived as I realise she is very much on her own.
And only then do I even bother to wonder why Mia is on the doorstep in the middle of the night.
Glancing briefly at the clock in the hall, I look back at her, "Mia, you know that it's not even 3am yet, right?" I verify, stifling a slight yawn.

[Amelia Prewett]

Mia pulls her bag up higher on her shoulder and nods her head slightly. "Quiet aware, actually." She says. SHe pushes some hair out of her face and looks around. She starts to wonder if this was really a good idea to come here, but this was the closest place she could get besides her home. Plus she ahd no idea which way was home from here, so here was the ideal solution.

Mia stands there for a few moments and glances around again. SHe knows she should say something by this point. Letting out a half sigh, half yawn Mia looks up at Ian. "My mum-....She's stupid." SHe said simply hoping that'd he get the idea. Mia could think of other words to call her mother and to descrive Yumi but stupid worked just as good. She didn't think that Ian would scold her for curse words, but stupid was universal.

Looking down at her bag, she saw that she had packed way to much. But when she was packing she wasn't expexting that she'd chicken out and that she would need as much as she could carry in one bag. Her eyes still scanning over thebag, Mia couldn't help but think that it looked like a balloon seeing how puffed out and full it was.

"Can I just crash here tonight?" She asked him, adjusting her bag yet again. She was hopeing and praying that he would just nod his head and open the door, but she knew Ian. And Ian...Well Ian was a bit slow at things. Mia was just waiting for him to ask 'Does your mother know you're out at these hours?' or something along those lines.

[/blockquote]

[Ian Hunt]

"Ah," I mutter, nodding slightly, opening the door properly to let her in.
I don't suppose I really need more of an explanation than that. Seems she's done the same thing Poppy has, judging by the fact that Yumi is suddenly 'stupid' and from the size of her bag, and I'm obviously not going to turn her away to go wandering off back into the dark. No, don't need that on my conscience as well.

Mia is probably the one out of Poppy's friends that I don't really know all that well, I suppose. Jenny is a family friend, Kim is Gid's daughter so naturally she is...someone that I hold in high regard, but I don't really have a direct link to Mia besides I killed her mother twice and that her half-sister is my sort of niece.
But I'm still hardly going to send her away.

[Amelia Prewett]

Mia nodded her head and took a few stesp torwards until she was in the home. She wasn't sure what she should do past this. If it had been Maddie that had opened the door things would have been easier. If it had been her, Mia probably would have amde herself at home in a matter of seconds. But ti wasn't Maddie ti was Ian, so sh'ed just have to do. Better than going home.

Walking over torwards the living room Mia sets her bag down next to the couch, but instead of sitting down or something of the sort she walks bac to where Ian was and looks around the large home. It doesn't grow or shrink in size any time she comes back here, but it always leaves her in awe. "You normally awake at this time or what?" She questioned looking over at Ian with a rasied brow.

Mia then spins slightly on her heels before she catches the stench of smoke. Clicking her tounge against the roof of her mouth Mia looks around glancing into the surrounding rooms until she see's the bottle with ashes in it. "Might want to get rid of that before you try and drink it." She mummers looking back at Ian.

[/blockquote]

[Ian Hunt]

"Usually," I nod, then pick the bottle up off the table with a wry shake of my head, "Thanks for the advice Mia."

This is considerably awkward. Annoyingly awkward. I'd quite like to be worrying in peace and smoking myself to death while simultaneously emptying the cupboards of firewhisky, but instead the house has turned into a runaway shelter, so...I'll just have to make do.

"What happened then?" I ask after a moment, leaning back against the doorframe and trying to be as relaxed as I can when I'm as wound up as this and now having to deal with Mia on top of everything else.

[Amelia Prewett]

"No problem, wasn't sure if you have remembered." Mia said with smile to let him know she was joking around. Leaning back against the wall opposite of the door Mia crossed her arms against her chest and shurgged. She wasn't quiet sure she wanted to talk to Ian about the fights she had with her mother, but Mia saw no harm in doing so. It was Ian.

Letting out a long breath and ran a hand through her hair. "It just started because she was stressed out about this guy and me," She said. Yumi was more than stressed out about it though, and Mia could tell. The only thing she couldn't understand was why she was. "Past that I don't even remember. I started to yell. She yelled. Then I had said that she's just afraid I'll turn out like her." Mia said, muttering that last part. Mia knew now that it was a cruel thing to say, and wishes that she could take it back. She'd never say that though. Mia had a pride to uphold. "Then she just stood there and said yes." Mia added.

It was what Mia had said next though that had set everything out of whack. Letting out a long breath Mia then finished, "Then I said 'Don't worry I'm not going to be a slut and get pregnant by three different men.'." Mia cringed slightly at her owns words and the memory of how much hatred she had put in them at the time. Mia never really wanted to hurt Yumi like that. Mia knew the story though and that herself, Fabian, or Emily were planned but it wasn't that Yumi was a slut.
Kinda is..

Looking back up at Ian Mia bit on her bottom lip. "Then we just started yelling more and I went to my room, packed and then I came here." That was the simple version but was just as bad. Mia isn't sure if her things between her mother and her would be the same. "Shouldn't have said anything." Mia muttered looking down slightly. She picked up her foot and started to roll one foot back and forth.

[/blockquote]

[Ian Hunt]

"Oh," I say very carefully after a pause as if I've thought about saying it for a long time.
I suppose I have. The whole pause has been me considering a reply to that, and this is really the best I can come up with.
That really doesn't say much for my intelligence, and I'm just hoping that it's lack of sleep that's diminished by vocabulary.

It's easier to look at it from Yumi's point of view. Maybe it wouldn't be so easy for me to see it that way if I wasn't a parent myself, and it might not be this easy if I didn't have a daughter about Mia's age, but I do, and I agree. She shouldn't have said that.
It's very awful to have your child say things like that to you. I've been on the receiving end of Poppy's temper a few times now.
Although, obviously I can't say out loud that she shouldn't speak to her mother like that. I suppose.

"Think you can talk it all out then?" I shrug half-heartedly, idly picking at the label on the bottle of firewhisky for something to do with my hands.

[Amelia Prewett]

"You think I'm going back there?" Mia asked raising her brown again looking to Ian. There was no way that she was going be going back to that..place again. No. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not the next day, not ever. Mia had decided ages ago that she was going to get away from there as soon as she could, and well, now was a good as time as ever.

Now Mia wasn't planning on staying here for all of eternity but she had other people. Other friends, other family. Aunt Bella would take her in, in a heartbeat. Her Aunt Molly would take her in even quicker. No, Mia wasn't going back there. No way no how. And it wasn't just the fact that they had this one fight, it's because of all the other fights they've had the past couple of years. The fact that Yumi went to Mia when she felt she needed to do some...well when she wanted to do things that she knew she shouldn't but had to vent to someone and Mia was the only one there. Who did Yumi go to when she felt she needed to drink because things at work were hard and needs to be convinced that she can't and shouldn't? Mia. Who does she go to when she thinks there's no way out and she has a razor? Mia. Yumi wasn't fit to raise one child let alone three, so Mia is just going to get away from Yumi.

"Never gonna go back there Ian."

[/blockquote]

[Ian Hunt]

This takes me by surprise, but after a moment I nod slowly. I can't really say I blame her. Not that I think Yumi is a bad mother or anything, because I know she's a good mother...Just, I don't really know.
It's not my business to intervene.

"Sleep on it," I suggest after a moment, "See how you feel in the morning."

[Amelia Prewett]

"Don't have to sleep on it, because I'm not going back there." Mia says stubbornly. Yumi has always talked to Fabian, Mia and Emily about where they get their traits from and why they are the way they are sometimes. Like Fabian, the fact that he has one of the biggest ego's known to man kind is because of his dad, Sirius. The fact that Emily is nomrally found with a smile on her face is because of her dad. The fact that Mia is stubborn, her dad.

Mia knew she probably shouldn't be so frank but Mia and her mother...They just don't get along. Mia tends to see herself liking Yumi more when she's away from her rather than when they're cramped up in that small home of theirs. "Never going back."

[/blockquote]

[Ian Hunt]

"Well, you should sleep anyway," I reply resignedly, "You take the spare room if you like, or you can stay down here. It's up to you."

There's no point trying to change her mind. It's not up to me to bother to try. Maddie can have a go when she wakes up, I'm sure she'll do better than I could anyway.
And I've got to go back to waiting for that owl that tells me my daughter is fine and has just made her way to someone elses house so I can stop worrying already.

[Yumi Hart]

Mia rolls her eyes slightly, but nods her head. She goes over into the living room and picks up her bag and starts to make her way up the stairs.

As Yumi walks down the street, Yumi would nomrally be wondering why she was just walking to Ian and Maddie's home. Why not just apparate? That was not only easier, quicker but she would probably find Mia quicker this way. But right now, Yumi needs this time to clear her head. The things that Mia had said to her...She couldn't believe it. Yumi has no idea why she would do such a thing.

Yumi had rasied her best she could. She made sure that she had everything she needed, and most of what she wanted. She made sure she knew wrong from right, how to talk to adults and to be polite and nice. But apparently that meant nothing because Mia still said all of that and she probably wouldn't take it back. Yumi knew her daughter, and knew that Mia was just like her dad, and Fabian was one of the most stubborn and prideful people she knew at times. Most of the time, it was times much like this one.

Yumi had already beem to Molly's and Belle's now the only other place she could think of was Maddie and Ian's. Yumi didn't tihnk that Mia would run off, and really run off on her own. Sighing softly Yumi knocks on the door with her shaky hands.

[/blockquote]

[Ian Hunt]

The second knock on the door is promising. It's not likely for another runaway to come knocking again in the same night, surely?
So it's more promising for this to be my daughter this time round, or some relative or friend standing on the doorstep to say that she's crashing at their house right now and is perfectly safe.
Or maybe I'm dellusional, I'm not sure.

I head back into the hall immediately, pulling open the door as fast as humanly possible, before letting out a soft half-relieved, half-disappointed sigh as I see who's on the other side.
At least this'll get sorted out with Mia now, but it's not exactly who I wanted.
"She's just gone upstairs, Yumi," I open the door fully to let her in.

[Yumi Hart]

Yumi let out a sigh of relief and closed her eyes. "Thank you," She muttered. She took a step in, seeing that he was opening the door which was she saw as inviting her in. Yumi wasn't sure if she should go up there and make Mia come down and come home or what. Biting down on her lip she let out another shaky breath and looked over to Ian.

"Oh!" She said. Yumi couldn't believe that it had slipped her mind. "Poppy, she's over at Belle's home. You should be getting a letter any time now." Yumi said nodding her head slightly before looking back to the stairs. "She's never done this before," She mummered. Looking back at Ian, she knows that this isn't the first time Poppy has tried something like this. "What do I do?"

[/blockquote]

[Ian Hunt]

I let out a breath I hadn't really been aware of holding, murmuring a brief and mostly incoherent thanks to that.
Figures, I suppose.

"What do you do?" The question takes me by surprise and I repeat it slowly, almost to buy myself time and almost out of incredulity.
I don't know why she's asking my advice on this. Parent-child relationships are hardly a strong point of mine.
"I don't know...you could go and talk to her, or wait for her to come down, or I can go and get her if you want?"