"Mother!" exclaimed Eva and looked at her in surprise and ran towards her. She wrapped her in her tiny arms and clung onto her body like she never wanted to let go of her.
Natasha could feel her pajamas getting a bit wet with the tears of the little one.
"Oh boy!" she mumbled and looked at Morpheous helplessly who looked equally puzzled and drained. He had no idea what was happening to them, but the reluctance on the face of Natasha made it clear that it wasn't her. She couldn't be Nefeli.
"Eva!" said Morpheous and opened his arms and that tiny one came running towards him and hugged him tightly.
"Balthazaar saved us. He saved us all by sending us into the future!" she said and then looked at him with her eyes filled with happiness.
"Who did what to you guys?" asked Natasha with a worried expression on her face as till now she was thinking that the two were misunderstanding her for someone else but now they were talking about time travel, which was next-level stuff for her.
Eva turned back and looked at Natasha and said,
"I guess you may not have any recollection of it, just like brother didn't have the last time he was pushed back into the past, but I do." Then she looked around the room, at the things, at the gadgets and then looking at Morpheous she chirped,
"We are into the future with mother. We are just going to live happily ever after!"
"Uh-hum... Leonard! Leonard!" yelled Natasha as this time travel babble of the little one was scaring her a bit.
"I am coming..." yelled a man from upstairs and then entered the room a few seconds later.
"Father!" yelled Eva and ran to him just like the way she did when she saw Nathasha. "How have you been?" asked Eva.
"Ermm... ok I guess!" replied Leonard and looked at Natasha in surprise and rolled his eyes as he was asking - "What the hell is going on?"
Daniel who was behind them was also equally shocked to see the girl hugging his father and calling him as her father. So he looked at his mother and then at his father and yelled, "Are these your kids, dad? Did you cheat on mom?" There was visible anger in his voice and he looked at Eva and Morpheous with eyes filled with hatred.
"This is so not how I expected my Saturday morning to start!" mumbled Natasha and walked towards Leonard and Daniel and holding their arms in her hands, she looked at Morpheous and Eva and said, "We will be back in a minute!"
And saying that she dragged her clueless husband and mortified son to the living room.
"Who the hell are they?" asked Daniel looking at his father with distrust in his eyes.
"I legit have no idea!" exclaimed Leonard.
"Guys! Guys! shush. I think they are in deep trouble. I think they have lost their parents and partially a part of their memory. I guess, something bad has happened to them and they are just pushing that memory away. They want to cling on to anything that they see now and are building stuff in their head. I have seen so many cases like this in my hospital."
"Oh, Man! That makes sense now!" exclaimed Daniel and then after a pause, he said, "But that guy talks weird. He looked at the fan and thought that it was a weapon."
"You kidding me!" exclaimed Leonard.
"Oh trust me, he did. And he was talking about some Amber place shit and that he was in a fight and stuff with someone," said Daniel, trying hard to recollect the conversation that he had with him.
"Did you call 911? Maybe there are people looking for them. Maybe they need help to recover from this trauma."
And the Rutherford family became busy deciding what to do with those two whom they had given shelter. They had assumed that they were neighborhood kids and took them under their roof as it was Halloween night yesterday. They assumed that their tattered clothes and disheveled looks as part of their costume. But only now did they realize that there was something more to those two. They were not hammered and alcoholic teenagers.
Meanwhile, inside the room, Eva was happily looking at everything around and mumbled,
"The future looks so much better. Doesn't it brother?" and saying that she hopped towards the window and pulled the screen aside.
"Look at our garden! We are living so well," exclaimed Eva and it was then that Morpheous decided to break away her illusion.
"I do not think they are our parents Eva."
"What on earth are you trying to spout brother?" exclaimed Eva as she turned back.
"They were not with us when we traveled in time Eva. They were already dead. We didn't move into the past, we have moved into the future Eva. So how can they travel with us?"
"But maybe... Maybe Balthazaar went into the past when our parents were alive and brought them into the future for us. He could have done it right? Right?"
Eva wanted an affirmation from him. She badly sought for it, looking into his eyes. But he didn't give her that. He stood there like a rock, waiting for the truth to sink into her.
"It is a game of fate. Destiny has played a cruel joke on us. They have faces, similar to our parents but not their virtues Eva. I can tell, they aren't them."
"You can tell? You were never even close to mother and father. You never even acknowledged them," she yelled with tears in her eyes and then turned away.
"Eva, we should go. Nothing entitles us to trouble others. They will not understand us. They will not believe what we say. I can read it from their eyes. We need to go and look for our people. We should look for Damianos. He wasn't keeping good health, Eva. We should go out and search for him."
Even though that little one was quite a mature one, but she still couldn't believe that her fate could be so brutal to make her part away from her parents the third time. Morpheous's words made sense to her, but for a moment she had believed in the present. She had already seen future of them living together and having a 'Happily Ever After'.
Standing there she kept wiping away the unruly tears from her face but her tears had a mind of their own.