time ; diego hargreeves

3 ; the life

Alex slept on the couch at Mila Guadalupe's house. He found out that she had a husband named Roberto. He worked as a barber, and Mila worked in a café like Carmen. Mila and Roberto had a young daughter, Maya, who had taken a liking to Alex and often had him reading her bedtime stories when her parents weren't there.

Roberto, Alex found out, was excellent at forging IDs and paperwork. Alejandro Santiago in these forged papers was born on the first of October nineteen-thirty. Alex was impressed with how well the forgeries went. They got him a job at a bar, and that was what mattered. He earned his keep with Mila and her husband, and did his best to babysit Maya when he had to.

He was slowly building up a life for himself. He had help from Mila and Roberto, and he was thankful for it. It was slow, hard work, but he was building it up. Maybe soon enough he'd be able to move out of Mila's house, just so that he wouldn't be taking up so much space in her home.

"Carmen and the girls talk about you," Roberto told Alex. They were at a house party, one of Roberto's friends, Alberto, was celebrating his daughter's tenth birthday.

"Oh no," Alex said, and Roberto chuckled, swirling his beer in the glass. Alex had orange juice, not sure if he could risk alcohol in his system so soon after bringing it through time, with the fiery powers he had. "Do I want to know what they're saying?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Roberto. Ever since he had appeared beside Mila, who had taken him in like a damn stray, the women in their group had been eyeing him up. Fresh meat.

Alex knew he was attractive, maybe more handsome than average if he was feeling particularly hot, and it was just enough for the women to turn their heads as he passed. His looks had been one of the reasons why he'd been hired in the bar from his old life; a pretty bartender got more patrons, and that meant more money. Nowadays, it meant some of the single women in their community would see him and try their luck, only to be disappointed.

"Nothing good. Nothin' good at all, son,"

"'Son', you're five years older than me, Rob," Alex said, scoffing at him.

Roberto bumped shoulders with Alex. "Old enough. I have me a child, an intelligent, beautiful wife, and a friend in you. I must give my wisdom to you. Those ladies eye you up like a piece of meat. They're good ones, good enough for you,"

Alex nodded. The women in their group were nice, intelligent and hard working. But he was still holding out for Diego. He'd been with Mila and the others for several months now. He'd rebuilt a life in the roughness of the sixties.

He couldn't have done it without Roberto and Mila. They had helped him once he'd brought himself back to life. He'd done everything he could to repay them. He had yet to get a place of his own, but he was making it work. He would make it work. He had the rest of his life to make it work, and he didn't dare try and use his powers to push himself forwards through time; he was inexperienced and didn't understand it, so he didn't want to risk whatever dangerous outcome could come from it.

He was just thankful he'd managed to use those powers to bring himself back to life. He didn't need to use those time powers of his anymore, not yet at least. Maybe if there were any huge dangers in his future, then yeah, he'd use them. Until then, he's store them away and pretend he was normal.

"Ever think I'm not good enough for any of them?" he asked, glancing over at Roberto. "Besides," he said once Roberto tried to argue with him, "what makes you think I'm single?"

"Mila brought you home, penniless and pitiful with no-one with you. You're single, bud,"

Alex scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I'll have you know I was going to get married,"