She knew it was terrible, of course, has been horrified and all that. But she hasn’t felt it at home yet. Only her father died, and he’s no great loss. Of course now her mother has to find a good job or they’ll be in trouble, but there are plenty of openings. And while Peter’s not here, for the moment she can believe he’s still alive, and that asshole Stark will get the both of them back to Earth sooner or later. He has to be alive; otherwise it’s only her and Ned left on the Decathlon team.
And that’s another thing that only truly hits her right then: they’re all dead. And even if Peter’s still alive, he’s lost in the depths of outer space. Suddenly she desperately wants to see them all there, safe and happy and not dead. She’d do anything to have even Flash with her.
She walks to the library feeling numb. They declared last night it was safe to reopen the school after a week of repairs from the rioting, but of course she can’t trust them to be honest. There are still scorch marks on one of the walls she passes, near the entrance.
At least she’s not the only student in the hallways for long. There are others who stagger in, looking pretty dazed too. But the first familiar face she sees is Mr. Harrington’s. He goes into the library right in front of her, and for a moment she even thinks she wants to hug him really badly.
There might be other people in the library too, but MJ doesn’t spot anyone, not even the librarian (is she still alive?). Mr. Harrington looks around, presumably sees the same, and says, cautiously, “Should I be sorry about your father?”
“No,” she replies bluntly.
Thankfully he doesn’t react, but just moves on: “Right now, it’s up in the air when we’ll next have any proper Decathlon events or the National Championships, but I’ve been talking to a couple other coaches in the area, and we can at least have some local competitions. I don’t think anyone’s up to auditions right now, and we should probably wait at least a week or so. Besides, that’s not your priority right now anyway, is it?”
MJ knows Mr. Harrington, and while no other living student would be able to tell, she can. “It’s not yours either? Are you allowed to admit that?”
He shakes his head. “Tell the truth, there’d probably be trouble if I express the kind of thoughts I’m having today to my students,” and she knows the rest of what she needs to. Especially after he says, “There’s a rumor going around Ross is going to pay a visit to New York, probably to visit where that spaceship first dropped down. They’re saying sometime next week.”
“I think I will want to lead a protest group, then,” MJ says, and to be nice, she adds, “so we will have to schedule the auditions around that. I’ll be sure to tell you when we’ll be meeting up, so you don’t accidentally schedule them then, of course.”
“Of course,” Mr. Harrington replies, and maybe his lips crook up a little bit. “Meanwhile, you should get to your first class.”
MJ feels a lot better leaving the library than she did going in. Especially when she sees another familiar face. “Hey, Ned!”
“Hey, MJ!” She’s not entirely sure he knew she was still alive, and he really lights up. She crosses the hallway to join him, and they look at each other awkwardly for a moment. They’ve still only ever really known each other through Peter.
But that has to at least change until he gets back, and probably even after that. MJ’s not sure how many interests they’ll ultimately have in common, but now’s the time to start imposing the most important of hers on anyone who’ll take it up.
She’s finally learned to be just a little more subtle about it at the start, though. “You want to hang out after school sometime? Outside of the Declathlon auditions; you’re coming to those. I mean, it’s just…”
“I know,” he says. “And I know I’ll probably just end up becoming your lackey, but you know what?” He shrugs. “I think I might actually be up for that, at least until we get Peter back.”
He’s always turning out to be smarter than she thinks. She ought to remember that one of these days. “Good,” she smiles. “Out of curiosity, how good are you at making posters?”