Sadie was bored. Achingly bored. And that was never a good thing. She grinned smugly to herself, thinking of all the mischief she used to cause when she was bored ('accidentally' use one of Dad's papers as liner for the cat's litter tray, hide Lego all over Alex's room, spike the tomato juice with Tabasco… all the acts of a moody, passive-aggressive teenager), but unfortunately this was someone else's house, and you don't mess up someone else's crap. Especially not Reed Richard's crap. She liked the guy, he was awkwardly nice, but she'd be damned if that guy wasn't five different kinds of crazy. Not that she hadn't had experience dealing with crazy – just look at her now! She could shoot water out of her hands! How cool was that? Eh.

Sadie remembered being a little kid and reading comic books about superheroes like Superman, Batman and marvelling over their awesome abilities, their intelligence and their bravery. As a little kid, she'd aspired to be like those people and the reason she'd entered the field of science was mostly because she was entranced by the glamour and the whole idea of being able to help the world progress further into the unknown. But the one thing the comic books hadn't really prepared her for was getting superpowers. In a way, they kind of did. They taught her that she really wanted to keep her identity a secret otherwise people would become far too interested in her personal life than she wanted. But in order to use those superpowers for the greater good, well, that was a little harder.

Sadie had never really been terribly brave or had that many admirable characteristics. Well, at least she didn't think she had.

She craned her neck up and looked down at her tatty grey sweats from where she was lying down on Reed's guest bed. She should really get dressed. Maybe she'd feel better. Her head tilted to the side a little as she tacked something on to that last sentence… in something other than sweatpants. Ugh, no, who am I kidding, sweatpants are amazing, they're so comfy and warm and snuggly and - no, Sadie, you're getting up and putting normal people clothes on, you hear me? It took her a few heaves and one seriously long internal debate to pull herself up from her snug little burrow of coziness she'd made in the duvet.

She felt pretty horrible locking herself away in Reed's guestroom and not really coming out except for coffee and the occasional piece of bread whenever she got hungry, but honestly, she was still coming to terms. She'd been excited at first – who wouldn't have been? Come on, she just got freaking superpowers. It was like something out of a movie! But then the realisation that she wasn't the same Sadie she'd been a few months prior had hit her, and it had hit hard.

Her black suitcase lay in the middle of the room, various articles of blue, black and grey clothing spilling out and she pulled a face, trying to distract herself from the inner workings of her mind. My god, my wardrobe is depressing looking. Maybe I should put some red in there… hmn, how about green? Green, she decided, green is good. Pulling a random sweatshirt over her white tank top, she shuffled out of her room, shielding her eyes at the fluorescent lighting, and rubbed her face blearily.

She padded to the kitchen, in desperate need of her morning coffee fix with double the amount of sugar necessary. And no milk. Because milk and coffee was just icky and anyone who disagreed was clearly out of their minds. She remembered her college days and how to stay awake, she'd drink plain black coffee, cups and cups of it. It gave her seriously bad migraines, stress and caffeine related but, hey. At least she got her paper out. Sadie snorted at that thought and then clapped a hand over her mouth, looking around to make sure there was nobody there that had seen her look like a total loser, and then –

"What're you laughing at, bedhead?" Johnny appeared behind her suddenly and she nearly facepalmed with irritation. Great. Just what she needed. Johnny Storm.

Facepalm? Did she actually just think that? For god's sake, she was an MIT graduate, she should be using more advanced vocabulary – she stopped herself from continuing that train of thought. Coffee deprivation didn't do her any favours, unfortunately.

"One, don't call me bedhead. It's weird and it was also a pretty pathetic insult. Two, what do you want, Johnny?" She rolled her eyes, snapping tiredly, rubbing at her eyes. She was being a bitch, yes, she knew. But honestly, when it came to Johnny Storm, she felt like the only appropriate course of action was to be a bitch.

"Ooh, Sadie, I love it when you get all bossy like that, it makes me go all tingly," he smirked. She shivered at the feeling of his warm fingers brushing against the skin of her neck, but then lightly smacked them away.

"Get off me." She grouched sulkily, jutting her lower lip out. God damn him for being so stupidly attractive. Hating the way her insides responded to his teasing, she abruptly reminded herself that he probably did this to all the girls and she was nothing special. Wait, why did she even care what Johnny Storm thought of her?

He prodded his index finger into her cheek and grinned teasingly, "You're adorable,"

After swatting his hand away, she scrunched up her nose and poked her tongue out, "I know I am. You don't have to tell me." She gave in to the bantering, letting a small smile twist her lips. It did feel nice, having playful arguments. It reminded her of her own family, which she hadn't seen since before the, ahem, spaceship incident. Homesickness panged in her chest at the thought of her family. She hadn't seen Alex in months, she missed her big brother.

He ran his eyes over her body, stopped at her sweatshirt and stepped backwards, holding her at arm's length. Uncomfortable, Sadie wondered if she should cross her arms across her chest. She didn't particularly like the direction his gaze was heading in.

"Uh, Johnny…" she said warily, "… what…"

"You're a DC fan?" he chuckled disbelievingly then shook his head, "Never would have pegged you as the type." She almost felt slightly offended by the shocked look in his eyes. Did he think that just because she was a girl she shouldn't like comics? She'd encountered enough of those people in her lifetime. The ones who looked at her, surprise written all over their faces, when she said she was an MIT graduate with more than one degree in astrophysics. Yeah, she remembered how they said, "Huh. That's pretty impressive, I mean, for a girl." All her dad's old, weird scientist friends who'd looked down and scoffed at her Science Fair projects all through middle school. Yep, she still remembered that.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" she asked the blond who sighed, rolling his eyes. She frowned at his slightly condescending expression and recrossed her arms over her chest, tightly.

"It's on your sweater, dumbass."

"Oh… right, hey! Don't call me a dumbass," she grumbled and tacked on as an afterthought, "bitch."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me,"

He didn't say anything for a while, just glared at her with a playful twinkle in his blue eyes. She raised her eyebrows challengingly, meeting his eyes with her sharp grey ones. She narrowed her eyes, giving him the super-deluxe death glare she was famous for back in high school.

"I could cut the tension in here with a knife," Sue's voice commented offhandedly from behind her and she turned around to face the other blonde.

"Ha!" Johnny exclaimed suddenly. She jumped in response, and he continued, "You blinked! I win! You lose!"

She whipped back around to face him indignantly, "You did not win. I so won that one, don't even pretend I didn't."

"You blinked, I saw you!"

"Oh my God, you two are acting like annoying little children – reminds me of my nightmarish babysitting days," Sue muttered irritatedly.

"It's not my fault –" she tried to protest, to defend herself, but was cut off abruptly by Johnny.

"Sadie's just being annoying, it's not my fault she can't take banter –"

"Oh! Excuse me!? You're the one being a dick, I was just standing around and you had to come over and talk to me –"

"I was just trying to be friendly, I mean after you'd holed yourself up in your room for days on end, I thought it'd do you good to have some actual human interaction –"

"Johnny Storm, I don't believe that friendly is a word that appears in your vocabulary."

"I'm so friendly! You're the one who's being bitchy!"

"SHUT UP THE TWO OF YOU!" Sue finally cracked, her voice the loudest Sadie had ever heard it, her voice bouncing off the walls and echoing throughout the room. She looked pissed, Sadie noted, cowering under her fierce icy blue gaze. Even Johnny looked intimidated by his sister, he'd slunk back against the wall with his head slightly bowed. Sue's face was tinted red and her fists were clenched tightly by her side, knuckles white.

"I know we've been cooped up in here forever, and you all hate each other – I get it. But we can't go out! Someone will see us and we'll be swamped by paparazzi! Please, just give it a little bit longer. I promise we'll get out soon." She said quietly, almost pitifully. Sue cast her bright blue eyes down to the floor and slumped backwards into a chair, hands rubbing tired circles into her temples. Sadie looked at Johnny and agreed wordlessly to put World War 3 on hold – for Sue's sake. He crouched down beside his sister, rubbing a large hand soothingly across her back and whispering something in her ear. Sadie watched Sue nod wordlessly and rub at her eyes, sniffing quietly.

Swallowing hard, Sadie missed her family more than ever as she looked at Sue and Johnny. She missed arguing with Alex over differential equations, she missed helping her mom painting. Although she was a shit artist, she loved painting with her mom. Her mom could make anything fun, she recalled fondly, how she'd turned looking for her dad's graphics calculator into a game of hide and seek. Her mom was her best friend and she really regretted not being able to talk to her. Her mom would know what to do. Her mom always knew what to say to make her feel better.

Sadie even missed her dad. As much as she had hated the guy all through her high school years, and especially all through college – oh, god, college. She took a moment just to squeeze her eyes closed against the memories washing over her.

The primary reason for her taking up science as a career option was her father. However, comic books had kind of helped her to find her passion for science and nudged her along the way. But she'd had a serious mental breakdown halfway through her final exam block and tried to quit doing her BoS in favor of an arts degree. She'd loved all the English Lit classes she'd taken and decided that she was sick, sick sick of math and science, called her father up and told him she was transferring. He flew down to MIT, sat her down and talked it out with her.

Well, talked it out was a gentle way of putting it. He'd practically forced her back into her field of science, yelled at her until she'd gotten it through her head that like hell was she giving up when she'd nearly finished. She had cried, yelled at him but now she could kind of see what he was getting at.

She loved the old, crazy guy. She really did, especially now that she'd seen what he was trying to do and how much he'd supported her through thick and thin. And looking at Sue and Johnny, she couldn't help but feel like she should be with her family right now. Hell, she hadn't contacted them since she'd appeared on the news that day. They must have been so terrified, freaked even. Their daughter, a genetically mutated freak with unstable water powers. She swallowed unsteadily, dashing the beginnings of hot tears away.

It was still pretty weird how long it had taken for the ramifications of her new, ahem, condition to set in. She had been perfectly happy with the water powers before, but now, upon realising what it meant, she'd sunk into a deep pit of confusion and just fear.

She gritted her teeth, sniffed once and held her head high. She wasn't going to cry. Not in front of Johnny and Sue. No, she was going to – she winced as the words crossed her mind – call her dad. On the surface, it sounded like a shitty idea. It probably was a shitty idea, but her dad might know what to do in this situation. Besides, she could really use a good verbal chewing out. All sarcasm intended.

Author's Note: Well, hey guys. I have so much stuff I need to say right now. Firstly, I'm so incredibly sorry for ditching you guys for what felt like forever after I just said that I'd be posting new chapters. I got a new laptop and all my outlines got deleted and I couldn't log on to my account because I a. lost my password and b. couldn't log on to the email account I'd signed up with.

So, what happened was I started using my other account I had - to save my username because it was pretty cool. I have that one running right now and I just wanna run this idea past you guys before I do it. I'm going to repost this story on my new account, same name, same summary, same everything.

Please review (feel free to yell at me for not updating in what feels like forever) and tell me what you want to happen next for Johnny and Sadie! If you want, PM me and we can talk about story ideas!

TL;DR: computers suck, I want to repost this under a different account, I'm a huge jerk for never updating. Love you all!