one day, Piper bought Hayden a new t-shirt...

December 1, 2083 - Hayden Phoenix is 34, Piper Wilson is 29.

A tiny little mini-story, about a new shirt:

She bought this shirt for him, a present for his 34th birthday. Space Invaders was his favorite game when he was a kid - he told her this. He told her how he'd play it so late some nights that he'd be too tired to wake up for school in the morning, and he'd fake sick. Then he'd stay home and play it some more, curled up on the couch under a flannel blanket, with a bowl of his mother's famous chicken soup and some warm tea and honey. Who'd want to go to school?

But he tried on the shirt, and he felt immediately ridiculous in it. He loved it, but not on him. He would love it, on a poster, on a coffee cup, on a calendar, or on somebody else's shirt. Somebody else should wear this shirt, somebody younger and less aware of life's great tragedies. Someone like Piper. Someone like he was, before everything else happened. Because this shirt reminds him of being ten, and playing Space Invaders under a flannel blanket, and the smell of chicken soup.

"You're not that old," she says.

He's not. He's only thirty-four. "I'm old enough," he says. "I'm getting there."

Her smile is playful. "So wear it," she says. "Because today is the youngest you'll ever be for the rest of your life."

He wasn't sure if it made sense, but at the same time, it made perfect sense. So he wore it.

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