Archive of Our Own ^beta

Not to mention, somebody going missing is cop business. So maybe there's no missing person's report, big deal. She knows there's a Hargreeves missing. She'd never forgive herself if she didn't at least try to look for him.

Eudora cases the place, heading up the outside stairs and walking around the motel. She edges past each door slowly, listening for anything out of the ordinary. This is stupid, she tells herself. There're at least a hundred rooms here. How the hell is she going to figure out which one it is? Just because they've kidnapped a guy doesn't mean they're going to be loud about it.

A loud thumping sound from one of the rooms makes her pause. Not music. It's like something thwacking against wood, and there's no real rhythm to it, just slamming over and over again, getting quicker, almost frantic. Eudora notices the cleaning lady near her in the hall and gestures for the key card, which the woman hands over quickly. Eudora slides the key card in, takes a moment to hope this is the right room, and opens the door.

The first thing she notices is that the lights are off. The second is that there's a naked man whimpering in a chair in front of her, his mouth duct-taped. His hands, too, but not his feet. She does a rapid scan—no bullet wounds, a ring of bruising on his neck but no cuts, nothing lethal unless it's internal bleeding, which could be a possibility. Also, not fully naked. He's got a bath towel on. She gets her gun out and scans the room next—no one else there.

"Are you Diego's brother?" she says. 

He nods rapidly, eyes wide, straining against the duct tape.

Eudora supposes that he might say yes to any question she asked him, given that her appearance in the motel room means she's probably here as a rescuer, but even if this isn't Diego's brother, he needs to be rescued. She decides to go on the working theory that he's telling the truth, even though she'd rescue him either way.

It's too dark to get a good look at him, but Eudora can see the blood smeared across his bare chest and dripping from various cuts all over his body. Blood leaks from Hargreeves's temple down to his cheekbone. His arms look pretty bad, too, and his bath towel is stained red in more than a few places. He jerks around in the chair, trying to talk through the duct tape across his mouth.

"I'm Detective Patch," she says, but he gestures with his head towards the back of the room before she has time to say anything else. Not the back of the room—the bathroom. She can see the closed door. 

Hargreeves is still whimpering. If his kidnappers are back there, like he's trying to say that they are, then he's going to give her away. Eudora quickly puts a finger to her lips to shush him. Internally swearing at herself, she holsters her gun, and then she whips her pocket knife out to cut his hands free. He moans a little when she frees his left hand, shaking it to get the blood flowing, and he paws at her arm lightly, his hand on her jacket feeling like he's just breezing by her. Like he wants to grasp at a life preserver but his fingers slip off instead. The weakness in his limbs is more obvious when he tries and fails to pull the duct tape off his mouth. At the second grab, by the time she's freed his other arm, he gets it off. His fingers are probably swollen. Eudora pulls out her gun and resolves to check when they get out of here.

"There's two," he says, and it's more of a gasp than a whisper, but it's quiet enough; it'll do. 

This gives her pause. She'd intended on arresting whoever kidnapped Hargreeves and shot up Diego's house, but she'd hoped that only one would be in the room when she arrived. Facing two well-armed people without backup? Two well-armed people who managed to kill Diego's mom while he was in the house? Mr. "I'm more lethal than a hippo" Diego? Yeah, no. Not a good plan. She concentrates on listening, and she realizes she can hear faint sounds of arguing from the closed bathroom. Definitely two people. Definitely a bad idea to stay.

Hargreeves stands up and almost tips over, but he steadies himself, slowly trying to straighten up. He busies his shaky hands with the task of keeping his bath towel around his waist. When he turns, Eudora can see large patches of bruises, scrapes, and cuts on his back. Eudora grabs at his unharmed elbow, tugging him towards the door. He doesn't need to be pulled twice. Eudora doesn't bother shutting the door, afraid of the noise.

Hargreeves almost trips down the stairs multiple times. Maybe falls down the stairs would be better phrasing. He's quiet aside from his ragged breathing—hurt ribs or just exhausted? He's been kidnapped for what, a day? Two days? Eudora can't remember if Diego had said his brother had gone missing before or after his house was shot up. Either way, he looks like he's been tortured for a while, so his exhaustion is forgivable. She catches him every time he stumbles, her palm coming away sticky when she steadies him by his shoulder—he's cold and clammy, painted with sweat and blood. Eudora resists the urge to wipe her hand on her pants and instead points at her car and takes his elbow again, half-dragging him there. Hargreeves pulls open the door to the back seat instead of the passenger side, which is weird, but not a priority.

Eudora has barely finished buckling her seat belt when a gunshot rings out, and the car tilts down. 

"Fuck!" she says. It's gotta be the tire. Eudora turns the car on and slams on the gas pedal.

Hargreeves himself slams into the back of her seat.

"Seat belt!" she yells. She hears three more gunshots but only one pings her car, and then they're away, out of the parking lot. A soft click behind her makes her freeze—gun, gun, gun—but it's just Hargreeves's seat belt.

The guy is half-laughing, half-sobbing in the backseat. "They're so pissed!"

"No shit." Eudora's eyes flick up to the rear-view mirror, and she can see the tears tracking through the blood on his face. His eyeliner is smudged. He looks nothing like Diego—but Diego had been adopted, that's right. He and his siblings were adopted.

"Probably my fault," Hargreeves says. "You'd think they would know better than to be so vulnerable! Got to present a united front against the person you're torturing or he'll start getting ballsy, prying at cracks in the relationship foundation." He half-giggles as he talks. "I'm the water freezing in the rock. What the hell is that called?" His head lolls toward the seat beside him. Eudora thinks for a second that he might pass out, but he's just looking out the window. "Yes, erosion, thank you. I eroded them. Got them all argue-y."

"Good job," Eudora says, and she means it. She'd have had a tougher time getting him out if they hadn't been arguing in the bathroom.

"Oh, God," he says. "Oh, wow. I'm out. I'm out. Oh my god."

"It's going to be okay," she says, wondering if that's true. "How bad are you hurt?"

"I'm dizzy," he says, "but that's probably because I kept slamming my head on that table." He keeps laughing. "Oh, man. Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you."

"Do you know why they took you?" 

"I don't know," he groans, the laughter dying in his throat. "They were looking for Five."

"Five of what?"

"Who are you?" he says. Then, realizing that was kind of direct, he says, "I'm not trying to be ungrateful, I swear. Just, like, who are you?"

"I'm Detective Patch," she reminds him.

"Oh, right, right. You said. No, I mean, what? How'd you find me? I didn't think anyone was going to come."

He looks too vulnerable for his tone to be that calm. She softens her voice, like she used to whenever Diego used to forget that hugs were something that normal people were allowed to have. "Diego was worried about you," she says.

Hargreeves looks baffled. "Me?"

"You're his brother," Eudora says, "of course he was worried. He told me about you being missing."

"I didn't think anyone would notice." 

She doesn't know what to say to that.

He sags against the cushioned seat. "How do you know Diego?"

"We were in the police academy together. I see him around pretty often. He always messes with my cases."

"Yeah, he's doing the whole vigilante thing. Couldn't quite let his hero complex go." Hargreeves smiles. "Your cases, huh? Pulling your pigtails?" He looks to the empty seat beside him again. "Hey, I think it's a fair question. She's Diego's type."

"I’m his type?"

"You seem a little dangerous. The gun and all,” he says. “If you're not dangerous, you're not interesting.

"You Hargreeves guys are messed up,” she says.

"Just now realizing that?” Hargreeves says. “The fact that Diego’s too busy swanning around in a leather catsuit to say hello didn’t tip you off?”

"He's the one who told me you were missing,” Eudora says. She can't help but defend him. "Even if he's not here right now, he cares. He's probably looking around elsewhere. I called him to come back me up, but he wasn't at the boxing ring."

"The what? Nevermind." Hargreeves scrubs his face with his hands. "We've been driving for so long. Where are we going?"

It hasn't been that long, actually, but she doesn't bother correcting him. "The police station."

"Aw, no. I hate that place." Hargreeves frowns almost comically. He looks at the left seat again. "Shut up. Rude, much?"

Talking to himself is not a good sign. "Maybe we'll go to the hospital first, actually."

"Let's just go home," he says.

Eudora spares another glance at him in the rear-view mirror. He's not looking to the left anymore, but he also doesn't seem like he's focused on anything, his eyes darting around wildly. He's started to shiver.  

She feels herself frown against her will and forces her face to smooth out. "You're bleeding all over, and you look like you've got a concussion." 

"A little bit of torture never hurt anybody," he says, and then he starts laughing again. It sputters into a sob and then he takes a deep breath. "It's fine. We have an infirmary at the Academy. Mom will patch me right up. Hah, Patch. Get it?"

Eudora's heart sinks. Hargreeves doesn't know yet that his mom is dead. She can't bring herself to tell him, not when he looks so bad. She's saved from having to say something by her cellphone, which buzzes aggressively in her pocket. 

"It's me," Diego says when she picks up. "I'm at the motel. I'm using the front desk phone. Where are you?"

"Get out of there, Diego," Eudora says, her voice urgent. "I've got your brother. Those freaks in the masks are probably still there. It's not safe."

"Cha-Cha and Hazel," Hargreeves says.

Eudora glances in the rear-view mirror to see if he's talking nonsense to the empty air again, but he's looking right at her. She ignores him.

"What do you mean you've got my brother?"

Eudora swerves to miss a pothole. She hates driving with a tire busted, but she doesn't want to pull over to change it. "Call the anonymous tip hotline and tell them that the two masked people are staying at this hotel. They might be gone by the time the cops get there, but we can at least get evidence, pick up the trail."

"Alright, alright; I'll see you in a few."

Diego hangs up. Eudora puts her phone back in her pocket and turns down another street.

"The freaks in the masks," Hargreeves says. "Their names are Cha-Cha and Hazel. Cha-Cha's the pretty one. Hazel's got a beard. Or maybe he is a beard."

"Code names?"

Hargreeves shrugs. His head lolls again, but he stares out his own window this time. 

"Well, whoever they are, they haven't followed us," Eudora says, "so you're coming back to my house and we're going to clean your wounds. No police station, no hospital, just you and me and Diego. It's gonna be okay."

"Fuck," Hargreeves mutters. "Fuck!"

Eudora almost hits the breaks at his shout. "What? What is it?"

"I left my coat at the motel! Those assholes still have my good coat! Not that my good stuff is in it anymore." He sighs, and when she looks in the rear-view mirror, he's pressing his palms into his forehead. "Fuck. Shut up, Ben."

He's talking to himself again. Eudora drives a little bit faster.

Eudora is not washing Hargreeves’s hair. She has no visor to give him—only peroxide and bandages. She’d thought, at first, that she should offer him a strong drink, but he’s shaking like he’s coming down from something—she’s arrested enough people in her time to know what withdrawal looks like; this probably isn’t just trauma. He’s scattered and mutters to himself now and then. Well, to some guy named Ben, but no one is there. 

“I don’t need stitches,” Hargreeves says. It’s the fourth time he’s said it. His voice is scratchy and the bruises on his neck have turned grapefruit-purple. 

“I know, not yet,” Eudora says, for the fourth time, and she presses a fresh paper towel, soaked in peroxide, into a cut on his chest and holds it there. 

“I’m not gonna. I don’t have clothes.”

He’s in a conversation that Eudora can only hear half of. He’s right, though. She’s given him a clean bath towel, but she doesn’t want to put clothes on him until she’s bandaged all his injuries. He’s already got patches of white all over, and several bandaids, but she’s got a ways to go. She tried having him wipe the excess blood off himself, with a wet washcloth, but he’d attempted it half-heartedly, so she did it for him. The blood under his ears—wiped away. The blood on his chest, the blood on his cheekbone. She taped up a few of his fingertips, since he’s missing a few fingernails. His other fingernails are painted black, the nail polish chipping. So are his toes. 

“Hey,” she says, voice soft. Then, a little harder, “Hargreeves.”

“Hm?” He finally makes eye contact with her. “Klaus. It’s Klaus.”

“Klaus,” she says. She sticks a bandaid on a small cut and then grabs a larger white bandage to tape to his chest. “Klaus, are you hurt anywhere else?”

“What?” Klaus looks like a baby deer with his eyes wide like that. Then, “No, no. No bad touch, no worries. Towel stayed on the whole time. Classier than prison.” He grins. 

Eudora hopes the bit about prison is just a joke made in poor taste. The rest, she takes his word for. “I think I’ve got you all cleaned up.”

“Is Diego here yet?”

“No, not yet,” she says. She starts packing up her first aid kit. 

“He’s not coming,” Klaus says, voice singsong. 

“It hasn’t been that long,” Eudora lies. She’s a little worried, too, but she devotes her focus to making sure Klaus doesn’t die from some infection instead of imagining Diego shot to death by those masked murders. 

“Thank you, Detective Patch,” Klaus says, and he tries to stand up. 

“Woah, woah, easy.” Patch ghosts her hands over him to try to get him to sit back down. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Well, unless you’re gonna handcuff me, ma'am—not that I would object, really, since it’s you.” He winks. “I think I should trip my way out of your hair. Don’t want to take too much advantage of your hospitality.”

“I told you, Diego’s coming,” Eudora says. “Not to mention, you’ve only got my towel on.”

Klaus looks down at his waist blearily. “Oh, right, sorry.” He starts unwinding it. 

“Woah, no,” Eudora says, and puts her hands out again, but not close enough to touch. “I just meant you can’t go out half-naked. I’ll get you some clothes.” She pauses. “Don’t leave, though, once you’re dressed.”

“I don’t want to be a bother,” Klaus says, face looking goofy but the smile not quite reaching his eyes. He looks familiar when he smiles like that. She’s thought so all night. “I know we’re a little much to handle, me and my brother.”

“You and Diego?”

Klaus looks to his left, then back at her. “Sure.”

“It’s alright, Klaus. I’d actually be more worried if you left. You need to rest. A concussion is no joke, and that’s without the torture.”

“Okay, okay, okay. I pinky promise I won’t leave before Diego gets here,” Klaus says. He actually sticks out his pinky. 

“Other hand,” Eudora says.

Klaus blinks, and then he smiles and shrugs like can’t help himself. He lets his “Goodbye” hand fall into his lap and sticks out the pinky of his “Hello” hand instead. Eudora links pinkies with him. 

“You’ll regret this now that I’m basically your roommate!” Klaus doesn’t stop grinning. “Free housing!”

Diego’s coming, but Eudora doesn’t bother saying it again. “I’ll go get you some clothes.”

Klaus somehow slips past her, all six feet high of him, and gets to her bedroom door first. He actually looks excited. Real excitement, not the charade he’s been putting on all night after he’d finished sobbing in the car. “Please tell me it’s not all pantsuits,” he says. “You go out, right? Drinking? Clubbing? Something?”

“I’ve got sweatpants,” she says.

Klaus rolls his eyes. “So boring.”

Somehow, she ends up sitting on her bed doing nothing while he rifles through her closet. He holds up one of her black cocktail dresses in front of himself and wiggles his eyebrows up and down. 

If Eudora was her father, she’d say something about poofs or fairies in dresses, but she’s not her father. She’s lived a life more free than that. “I’d like to not have to dry clean the blood out of that if you start bleeding through your bandages, thank you.”

Klaus pouts and puts it back. She pretends not to notice his hands shaking while he adjusts the towel around his waist. 

“You know, I used to borrow my sisters’ clothes all the time. Mostly Allison, because she was the most fashionable of the two,” Klaus says. To no one, he says, “Oh, yeah. That, too.” To Eudora— “And I got taller than Vanya so fast. Poor girl’s built like a sad, violin-loving leprechaun.” Then, “It’s not mean if it’s the truth, Ben.”

Eudora can’t decide between asking a million questions about the Hargreeves family or minding her business. She hadn’t read the memoir, after all, respecting Diego’s privacy. Diego had told her he was a member of the Umbrella Academy in hushed tones the morning after they made love for the seventh time. She’d never been a comic book fan as a child, so it hadn’t meant much to her. It was just a hint at the trauma that kept him closed off. He’d told her about the memoir immediately after it was published—ranted for hours about the disrespect and the hurt—and he’d practically begged her not to read it. She hadn’t, and then she hadn’t thought of it at all since they broke up. But now, now when his family is being targeted, now when he feels just a few hairs away from a peaceful reconcile—

Klaus bangs his arm into the closet door, and she’s drawn out of her thoughts, drawn back into the small peacefulness of the bedroom and the erratic man standing inside it.

“Anyway,” Klaus says, “eventually I got my own clothes.”

“Bought?”

“Acquired.”

Klaus settles on black skinny jeans and an off-the-shoulder shirt with billowy sleeves. It’s soft fabric, she remembers. Light and airy on the skin. It won’t agitate his wounds. The dark green of it, she thinks when he holds it up for her approval, might compliment his eyes if they weren’t red-rimmed from crying. 

Klaus drapes the clothes over his arm like a fancy waiter carrying a towel and starts rummaging in her underwear drawer. “Think this would fit?” he asks, lifting a black lacy thong with one finger. 

Normally, there’d be no chance in hell she’d let a man she just met wear her underwear. No way. But Klaus looks like a light breeze would bowl him over, so even if he was a stalker obsessed with women’s underwear— which she’s sure he isn’t— she could take him down. Plus, she’s too tired to see if any of Diego’s old boxers are hidden around somewhere after all these years, so she waves her hand at him to give him permission. She points him towards the bathroom.

Eudora remembers with some panic a moment later that it has a window. Klaus doesn’t leave, though. He stumble-swaggers out of the bathroom, and her clothes are, somehow, simultaneously too big and too small for him. The shirt hangs on his frame looser than a toga, and the skinny jeans look no better. Too big. But too small—the shirt barely brushes his waist, and the legs of the skinny jeans end nowhere near his ankles. He’s built like a scarecrow or a stickbug, all legs and all bone and no meat anywhere at all. Klaus curls his toes in the hallway carpet. She thinks she ought to get him some socks. 

“Can I borrow a scarf?” Klaus says, and this time his smile is noticeably strained. “A little chilly in here. Skimping on the heat bills, hm?” His hoarse voice cracks, and he reaches for his bruised throat before catching himself and putting his hands in his pockets. He rocks back on his heels. 

Eudora hopes there’s no pity on her face. She can’t afford it much in her line of work, and he seems like one wrong word might tip him over into tears again. “Yeah, I’ve got something. Maybe it’ll match the green of your shirt.”

“It’s always more fun when it doesn’t match.”

Eudora’s in the middle of repainting Klaus’s remaining fingernails when Diego saunters into her living room. Of course he hadn’t knocked on her front door. He's carrying a briefcase, which he sets down next to one of her coffee tables, the one with the lamp.

Klaus fiddles with the lavender scarf wound around his neck and smiles wildly at his brother. “Diego! Welcome!”

“You better not have broken one of my windows to get in here,” Eudora says. 

“Just a picked lock, Eudora.” 

“Don’t call me that.”

“Don't be rude to Detective Patch, Diego,” Klaus says, his eyes flitting between them.

Diego looks Klaus up and down, noticing a few bandaids and bandages on his fingertips, forehead, and forearms. The worst of it, Eudora knows, is hidden by Klaus’s loose shirt and his scarf. Diego lets concern show on his face for a moment. It's in the softening of his frown and the loosening of his clenched fists.

“What happened to you?”

“Just a bit of roughhousing. Patch is patching me up. And giving me a paint job.” Klaus wiggles his fingers. 

Diego’s face twists at Klaus's nonchalance. “Yeah, I can see that. This isn’t a damn spa, Klaus. What’re you bothering Eudora for? Money? How’d you even find out about us?”

“There’s no ‘us’ right now,” Eudora says quickly, feeling herself frown, but Klaus is already talking. 

“I’m sober, thank you very much.”

“Sober, my ass. All these years of failed rehabs and you want me to believe you're sober while you're wearing Eudora's clothes and sprawling out on her couch like this is a hotel?"

"Diego," Eudora says loudly, but the two brothers are off; she can't get a word in edgewise.

"She doesn't want you to call her Eudora, Diego. Can't you listen?"

"Can you listen?" Diego gestures sharply, cutting off Klaus's sputtering. "No, shut up for one second. For once in your life. Jesus. Why are you getting Eudora mixed up in your junkie business, huh? You know she's got a life, right? Real cases to work on?"

"Real cases you've been messing with, I hear," Klaus says.

"She was just at a motel investigating two people who tried to kill Five, by the way. Did you even know he'd been missing?" Diego's wound tighter than a mattress spring. "Doesn't matter now, I guess, since Luther and I tracked him down, but the Academy got attacked! Shot up! I know you don't give a damn about this family, Klaus, I really do know, so I can't even decide if I'm disappointed or not. Where the hell have you been?"

Klaus gapes at Diego, just stares with his jaw slack, and Eudora stands up. 

"Diego—"

Klaus bursts out laughing, and he laughs so hard that he folds at the waist, clutching his stomach.  Eudora moves the nail polish further away on the coffee table so it doesn't spill if Klaus's hysterical trembling knocks into it.

"Oh, wow! Wow! I told them. I told them, you know, Hazel and Cha-Cha. I told them no one would know I was gone. That they kidnapped the wrong guy. And I was right! I was right! Wow. Sorry, Detective, I win this time." He keeps laughing and clutching himself. His knuckles are white.

Diego looks baffled. "Kidnapped? What?"

Eudora sighs. "I received some hints that your missing brother was at that motel. Look at this." She hands him the folded card, which she'd kept in her pocket. "This was left on a van that had 'Your brother says Hi' on the windshield."

"Five's van," Diego says, which doesn't mean anything to her, so she keeps talking.

"When I got there, I found him—" she points at Klaus—"duct taped to a chair and bleeding all over. The people in the masks, Hazel and Cha-Cha, they'd kidnapped him. I snuck him out while they were arguing in the bathroom."

It's Diego who's gaping now, staring at Eudora and then Klaus, whose laughter has dissolved into quiet chuckling. His breathing is ragged. 

"We had some good times. Nice bits of torture, you know the drill. Not to be that guy, but I think I win the suffering lottery," Klaus says. "Other than you, of course." Klaus looks at the empty seat on the couch beside him.

"What did they do?" Diego says, voice low.

"Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that—"

"Klaus," he interrupts. "What the fuck did they do?"

"Well." Klaus waves a hand, looking around, looking everywhere in the room except where Diego and Eudora are standing. "Well, you know. A bit of punching. Got the knives out; slice and dice. Some strangulation, which was kind of kinky." He unravels his scarf and flings it across the loveseat dramatically. "Ta da!"

Diego doesn't say anything. 

Klaus leans over to grab the scarf again and puts it back on, muttering some apology to the empty seat. Then, "Let's see, what else. Waterboarding, slapping around, punching again. The fingernails were a little stressful, I'll admit that."

"Fingernails," Diego repeats. He looks a little wild around the eyes. 

Klaus waves both his hands. The odd "Hello" and "Goodbye" tattoos are overshadowed now by the bandages around a few of his fingertips. "These aren't just for show, you know."

"How long did they have you?" Diego asks. He sounds a little scratchy, and he pulls at his face, looking away.

"They were in the house," Klaus says. "I guess whenever they shot up the Academy. I'd been taking a bath. I was listening to music when they grabbed me. So rude. Didn't let me finish my song. Locking me in their car trunk for hours wasn't too polite of them, either. And then the closet! I swore I'd never go back in one of those again!"

"Not since that talk show," Diego says, sounding like he's half-joking, and then he sits down heavily in an armchair. Eudora sits down, too, in another armchair. It would feel too awkward to sit in the spot on the loveseat where Klaus's imaginary friend sits.

"Exactly," Klaus says. "The audacity!"

"Talk show?" Eudora says, and Klaus finally makes eye contact.

"I came out on live television when I was fifteen or so during an interview. Wasn't even on purpose, really. Daddy was so pissed."

"It was brave," Diego mutters. "Brave and stupid."

"I'll pretend like I only heard the half of that," Klaus says. Then, "Is it brave if it was an accident?"

"You are brave," Eudora says. Affirming language, and all that. Trauma victims are a little out of her purview—she's a cop, not a therapist—but she knows the basics, and she doesn't want to hurt him any more than he's already been hurt. 

Klaus opens his mouth to say something and then closes it again. His gaze settles on the empty seat he's been talking to all night.

Eudora turns to Diego. His head is in his hands. She feels a pang in her chest and tries to draw him out of the funk he's in. "Diego, if Klaus wasn't the brother who you said was missing, who the hell were you talking about?"

Diego looks up. "Five. He went missing years ago and came back the other day. And then after the house got attacked, he went missing again. We thought those freaks in the masks got him."

"Your brother's name is Five?"

"His number is Five," Klaus says. "I'm Four. Diego's Two. Dear old Daddy gave us number assignments we grew up with, and then Mom gave us names later; she's such a gem. Five went missing before Mom named us, so he doesn't have one. Hey, hey," he says, head tilting, "maybe we need some kind of belated naming ceremony. What about Aidan? Or Nicky? That's a good name for a brat. But I'm partial to Nathan, myself."

"Jesus," Eudora says.

"I think that name is taken," Klaus says. "Besides, I'm agnostic."

She ignores him. "That's—that's so dehumanizing. Numbers? Just numbers?"

"Where've you been all this time? Didn't Vanya's memoir come out years ago?'

"I never read it," Eudora says. 

"I asked her not to."

"So nice of you to be nice to Diego," Klaus says. "But, yes. If we're people, we can't follow orders as well! But I think we turned out rebellious enough. Except Luther, anyway. I'm flighty Four. Or druggie or junkie or jailbait, depending on who you ask."

"You're a little old to be jailbat," Diego says wryly.

"Well, now I am. But back in the good ol' days—" Klaus spreads his hands, a "What can you do?" sort of gesture.

"I've arrested you before," Eudora blurts, and both Diego and Klaus turn at once to look her in the eyes. It's kind of eerie. "Uh, sorry. That gesture. You've just looked so familiar all night. I think I remember now. Years ago—I arrested you, once." For prostitution and possession, she doesn't say. She's not sure if that's something Diego's supposed to know about. Klaus's smile gains a bit of an edge. It doesn't reach his eyes at all.

"I don't remember. But I bet we had a wild time!" Klaus winks.

He'd been high out of his mind and had a black eye, if Eudora remembers correctly. She can't remember if they'd exchanged words beyond the Miranda rights, and she can't remember if she'd noticed any hand tattoos, but his green feather boa had left tiny faux feathers in the backseat of the police car that she'd had to vacuum out later. 

"Thank God I never had to arrest you," Diego says. His head is in his hands again, but he just sounds tired now. "One perk of being kicked out of police academy, I guess."

"You wouldn't have done it," Klaus says.

"Yes, I would have."

"I mean, you'd have tried. But I'm a fast runner." Klaus grins. "Besides, imagine how brokenhearted Mom would've been if you'd come home and bragged about throwing your own brother in a jail cell!"

"That would've been on you," Diego says, pointing a finger at Klaus. "She'd have been disappointed in you."

Eudora is reminded abruptly that their mother is dead and Klaus still doesn't know. She's in the middle of trying to figure out how to bring that up when Klaus's stomach growls loudly.

"Sorry, sorry," he says, waving a hand. "Don't mind me. I haven't eaten in a few days."

"Let's move this conversation to the kitchen," Eudora suggests. 

"Yeah, sounds good." Diego stands up and grabs at the briefcase he'd brought in.

Klaus points at it. "What's that about?"

"I'll explain in a minute."

Eudora puts a topcoat on Klaus's fingernails while Diego gets the food ready. Klaus will just have to paint his own toenails when he's through withdrawal and less shaky. She's not touching his feet. He doesn't seem to mind her unspoken rejection, focusing instead on the way his fingernails now look like zebras.

"Look, they've got stripes," he says, flashing his hands at the empty kitchen chair closest to him.

Eudora glances at Diego to see if he'd noticed how much Klaus talks to himself, but Diego's busy spooning pasta into bowls. 

Diego looks so intent, focused even on this simple task, and for a second she forgets why he's here, forgets the shooting and the kidnapping and the murders and the disaster her life has become. There's a flash of memory—of him pouring cereal for the two of them while he's in his purple boxers, giving her the bigger portion even though she's nowhere close to running out and it's just cereal, anyway, but she'd been overcome at that moment by a swell of love. She doesn't know why. She'd been in her underwear, too, and one of his shirts, because he got all gooey-eyed when she wore his shirts. It was so corny; it was like a scene from a montage in a romance movie. But it had been their scene, their montage, their romance movie. They'd eaten their cereal and he'd kissed her, even though she had milk breath, and she’d kissed him back, despite the same thing, and they'd made love again, lazing around on their day off, hardly leaving the bed despite the sunny weather outside. 

Diego of the present day turns to look at her and the memory is gone, like a whiff of smoke, like a summer breeze. There's still love behind his eyes now, but he looks drained. No purple boxers, no bare chest. He's all leather and knives now. No cereal, either, but that's less important.

Diego brings out, a few at a time, two bowlfuls of pasta, two cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice, and a stack of waffles. Klaus had been adamant about the waffles—well, it was more like he'd pleaded, Bambi-eyes and all. He'd seemed half-joking, like he thought she'd think he was silly. She did think he was silly, but he also seemed to genuinely want some waffles, and if those were his comfort food then he was getting some damn waffles. She only had frozen waffles to toast, no batter for homemade ones, but he seems gleeful enough about it anyway when Diego sets the plate in front of him.

Klaus keeps three waffles in his stack but balances one precariously on the edge of his plate, close to the empty chair next to him. Diego sits between Klaus and Eudora, and Diego digs into his food, not noticing Klaus's behavior. Or maybe he's used to it, she thinks. Eudora has no idea how long Klaus has had this imaginary friend. It could be a result of his drug use, or it could be something he's kept since childhood. She doesn't know. Either way, though, it's a little sad to watch him balance that one waffle on the edge of his plate while he drenches the other three in syrup, so she gets up and gets a fourth plate out. When she sets it down in front of the empty seat, Klaus and Diego both stare at her. Diego's expression is unreadable, but Klaus's is full of wonder.

"Thanks," he says, voice hoarse, and he puts the single waffle onto the plate without another word.

Diego looks, now, like he's swallowed a goldfish whole. Eudora tries to tell Diego with her eyes that if he says anything about Klaus's imaginary friend—while Klaus is sitting here with trauma practically pouring out of his ears—that she'll have plenty of choice words for him later. It's probably none of her business, she knows. At the same time, though, they're in her kitchen. This is her house. And she remembered what Klaus had said—no one was coming for him. No one would notice that he was gone. 

And he was right.

Eudora is sitting here, watching a stick-figure of a man fork waffles into his mouth with trembling hands, and she knows, chillingly, without a doubt, that if she had not seen the signs on that van and followed her gut, Klaus would have died. He would've been found much later, by some cleaning lady or security guard, rotting in that chair, duct tape and bath towel and all. Like the way the old man from the diner had been found. Klaus would be dead. Because no one in his family had known he was gone. Not a single person looked for him except Eudora, and she'd never even met him before—she'd even been looking for another brother, too, this Five person. Not Klaus. 

Klaus looks up from his waffles, makes eye contact with her, and gives her a small smile. His fork shakes in his hands.

It makes her want to cry.

"So, I did call the anonymous tip hotline," Diego says, and she turns her gaze on him instead, slicing through the sadness in her head like butter. Compartmentalize, have a sympathy breakdown later.

"But," she prompts him.

"But, I poked around myself first," he admits, voice a little defensive, and Klaus rolls his eyes.

"Diego," Eudora chides.

"Like I was going to let those bastards just sit there!" Diego puts his spoon back in his bowl a little too aggressively. It makes a loud clinking sound. "I waited until I saw the woman leave, alright? I wasn't putting myself in too much danger, or whatever. I went up there, knifed the guy, and then I ransacked the place. I found this receipt," he says, and he pulls it out of his pocket. It's for Griddy's Donuts. 

"That's evidence!" Eudora rubs at her brow. "Jesus. Inadmissible now."

"And a raggedy black coat, and this briefcase." He gestures downward at the briefcase, which rests by his feet. "I don't know what the hell's in it. I want Five to take a look at it before I try to open it, in case it's a bomb or something."

"More forethought from you than I'm used to seeing," Eudora teases.

"My coat!" Klaus exclaims. "You've got my coat?"

"It was yours?"

"Yes!"

"It's in my car," Diego says, unbothered by Klaus's fretting. "Your tire is busted, by the way," Diego says to Eudora, his voice just as teasing as hers had been.

"Bullet," she says.

Diego near-snarls.

"I'm fine," Eudora tells him. "Look at me. I'm fine." She waits until he’s done looking over her, until he makes eye contact long enough, and she can’t decide how she feels about the protectiveness in his eyes. She loves it because she knows he cares. She hates it because she’s her own person, and she’s separate from him, now; she doesn’t need him; he doesn’t have the right. But she loves it because she’s just as protective over him. She knows she is. So if this is what it takes, a moment of reassurance, for Diego to calm down, she’ll give him the moment. She’d given him a thousand moments, and she’d give him a thousand more, if he’d just get his life together. But he’s a boulder. He refuses to try to change. 

"I'm fine, too, thanks for asking," Klaus says jovially. 

Eudora and Diego break eye contact, and Diego's shoulders sag. "I'm glad you're okay, Klaus," he says. "I mean it."

Klaus just stares at him. "Right, right," he says, shaking his head a little. "They were looking for Five."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Made me tell them about the eyeball." Klaus won't look at either of them now. "I don't know why the hell it was relevant. But it wasn't enough. They wanted more information."

Diego has another sip of coffee, composing himself. "What else did you tell them?"

"Nothing, really," Klaus says. Then, looking up, his mouth presses into a thin line. "I swear, I swear, nothing else. I didn't really have the time."

"I believe you," Diego says.

"Is Hazel dead?"

"The guy?"

"Yeah."

Diego looks between Eudora and Klaus, uncomfortable. "I'm not sure."

Eudora frowns. "What do you mean, you're not sure?"

"I mean I stabbed him a couple times, throwing knives or whatever, and I knocked him out, but my priority was gathering evidence really quick, not checking his breathing," Diego says, raising his hands defensively. "I needed to know what the hell was going on. I hope I killed him. But I heard sirens before I could finish the job."

"I thought you said you called the anonymous tip line," Eudora says.

"Okay, so maybe I didn't. But somebody called the police. Maybe because of the gunshots," Diego says. "You know, your car tire and all that."

Eudora resists the urge to put her head in her hands. He never listens to her, the bastard. But the police went to the scene, at least.

Klaus clears his throat. "I know our old man baby brother is well and capable of taking care of himself," he says. "But. Is Five okay?"

"Yeah, he's okay," Diego says. "Luther and I found him drunk in the library cuddling a mannequin. I think it's his girlfriend."

Klaus bursts out laughing. He has to put his fork down. "Oh, my God," he wheezes, "I forgot about that! Five has a girlfriend and she's literally plastic!"

Eudora doesn't think he has much room to talk, since he's been talking to empty air all night.

"We're so fucked up! Oh, my God! A mannequin! Fuck!" Klaus runs his hands through his hair. "Good on him, finding somebody in the apocalypse. Wow. I fully support our big little brother in his romantic endeavors. All power to him. Fuck.”

Eudora looks between Klaus and Diego. "The apocalypse?"

Diego frowns at Klaus. "He's just saying odd shit. Don't worry about it."

Klaus eats like a bird. By that, Eudora means that he starts by wolfing his food down, but it devolves into small pecking, pushing the food around his plate with a fork and eating in tiny bites. She's not sure if it's a drug thing or a trauma thing or just a Klaus thing, but either way, it means she and Diego wash their dishes while Klaus finishes eating at the kitchen table. He's talking in a low voice to his imaginary friend while he eats, occasionally laughing a little.

"He's been doing that all night," Eudora says, quiet enough that Klaus can't hear. 

Diego eyes his brother and then looks back down at the bowl he's scrubbing. "He hallucinates that our brother Ben is still alive when he's high."

Eudora feels like she's been kicked in the stomach. "Oh."

"Yeah."

Diego finishes with the bowl and hands it to her to dry.

"A week or so after Ben died, Klaus started claiming Ben had come back as a ghost, that he was here with us. Klaus can see ghosts, that's his thing," Diego says. "But we knew he was lying."

"How'd you know?"

"We just did," Diego says. "He wasn't making any sense."

Eudora nods, even though she doesn't understand. Diego's shoulders are wound too tightly, so she nudges him gently. "So your brother sees ghosts and talks to himself," she says lightly. "I can't imagine the family dinners."

"We weren't allowed to talk at dinner," Diego says, and his nonchalance throws her off. It's like she's playing a game of tennis but the tennis ball keeps catching on fire when she least expects it. 

Eudora thinks she'd like to resurrect Diego's father and kill him again. Or, at least, give him a good threatening. The more she hears about Diego's childhood, over the years, the more she wants to grab that old man by the throat and shake hiim. 

And speaking of Diego's parents.

"I don't think Klaus knows, yet," Eudora says quietly.

"Knows what?"

"About your mom."

If Diego was any other man, he'd have dropped the silverware he was washing. But he's Diego Hargreeves, so he just tightens his grip, freezing a little. Then, "Oh."

"He was talking about her earlier. Having her heal him in the Academy infirmary or something. I don't think he knows how badly the shoot-out at your home went."

Diego closes his eyes. “Okay. I’ll deal with it.”

Diego and Eudora finish washing and drying in silence. Klaus keeps chatting with Ben, and Klaus occasionally hums some tune. Eudora smiles despite herself, a little wistful. This is what we could’ve had, she wants to tell Diego. You and me and kids. She wouldn’t have quit her career for him. But putting a pause on it? A kid or two? Diego would’ve been a good father. He would’ve had to learn how, since he didn’t exactly have a stellar role model, but he’d have learned. And she’d bet good money he would’ve been a stay-at-home, and Eudora's income and Diego’s inheritance combined would become the breadwinners.

Or forget the kids. Just Diego and her, here in this house, playing tag with promotions, going out to bars and having holiday parties with friends, sleeping in on Sunday mornings, theorizing about cases together even though they wouldn’t work the same ones. Not whatever the hell they have now. Eudora lives alone, playing cat and mouse or whack-a-mole with a vigilante.  She’s thirty one years old and the possible love of her life lives in the back of a boxing ring. 

“Thanks for giving Ben a plate,” Klaus says, when they both sit back down. “He says thanks. He can’t eat, but he’s sure it’s good.”

Eudora smiles at the empty seat. “No problem,” she says, because it’s practically harmless to play along. And it’s worth it, for the way Klaus beams at her.

Diego clears his throat. "Klaus, there's something you gotta know."

The smile doesn't disappear, but it loses its genuineness. "What? Let me guess, my bedroom got destroyed in a hail of gunfire."

"Mom is gone, Klaus."

"What, like taken?" Klaus leans back in his chair. "Those bastards messing with her brain, or some shit? Trying to get her data? She wasn't in the motel—"

Data, Eudora thinks. What the hell?

"I mean, she's dead, Klaus," Diego says, his voice ragged.

Klaus leans back in his seat, almost slumped there, like a marionette with cut strings. "Luther shut her down?"

"No—during the attack—"

"Well, we can just turn her back on, right?"

"Klaus," Eudora says, because he's pulling at strings, he's walking through grief like it's some sort of puzzle. And it can't be easy for Diego to hear, either.

"She's a fucking robot!" Klaus throws his hands up in the air, green sleeves billowing around his thin wrists. "What the hell do you mean, she's dead? She can't die! Computers don't die! We'll just turn Mom back on again!"

Eudora can't do anything but stare.

Diego, on the other hand, knows whatever the hell Klaus is talking about. "The wiring—"

"All that fighting to stop Luther from shutting her down and you're just going to give up? Fuck you. Fuck you! It's Mom! What the hell is wrong with you? You loved her the most, Diego! I remember! I fucking remember!" Klaus shoves his chair back and stands up. Eudora jumps out of her seat, too, and Diego rises. 

"Klaus, M-m-m-mo-mom—"

Diego hasn't stuttered this badly in front of Eudora since they were together.

"Shut up! All of you, shut up!" Klaus yells, even though it had only been Diego talking. "I need to concentrate. Shut the hell up."

"What are you doing?" Eudora asks, trying to calm her voice. She doesn't know where the hell to start—their mom is a robot?—but he looks like he could pass out at any second.

Klaus closes his eyes. "I'm trying to summon her ghost."

Diego finds his voice again. "Klaus, stop."

"You're the one who always said she wasn't just a robot," Klaus hisses, opening his eyes to jab his finger at Diego. "'She feels things. She's a person.' Well, then, where is she? Where the hell is she, if she's dead? She should be here! I see fucking dead people, Diego!"

"Klaus, sit down, we're gonna get a noise complaint," Diego says. He walks over to Klaus like he's going to push him down into the chair, face like a thundercloud that can't decide between rain and lightning, but he doesn't touch him. Klaus, for a moment, looks like he's going to shove Diego, but he doesn't move either, just breathes raggedly.

"Shut up, Ben," Klaus mutters, and the tension lessens, but it doesn't go away. "I want my jacket."

"Klaus—"

"I want my fucking jacket, Diego."

Diego storms out. Eudora turns to follow him, but stops herself. He'll come back if he's going to come back. He left the suitcase, anyway.

Klaus sags against the kitchen table, one thin arm keeping him upright, once Diego is out of sight. He's still breathing heavily, and he visibly trembles.

"Are you okay?" Eudora says. 

"Yeah," Klaus laughs. "Yeah, peachy." He shakes, but he won't sit down. "Diego ever tell you our mom is a robot?"

"No, he forgot to mention that," she says, and Klaus laughs again. 

"Yeah, I can't imagine working that into a conversation. 'How was your day, Patch?'" He deepens his voice. Then, higher-pitched, 'It was good, Diego, how was your day?'" Deep again, "'Great. My mom is a robot!'"

"My voice isn't that high," Eudora protests.

Diego comes back before Klaus can say anything else. "Here's the jacket." He throws it on the table, barely missing Klaus's and Ben's plates.

Klaus lunges for it, scrambling at the pockets, and too late Eudora and Diego realizes he's got drugs in there. Diego makes a grab at Klaus's hands, shouting, but Klaus pops a pill anyway.

"Stop, stop, stop!" Eudora shouts, and Diego stops his yelling, and Klaus stares at her. "Alright. Sit down, both of you. Diego, please stop yelling, we'll get a noise complaint. Klaus, please don't take any more drugs in front of a detective, thank you. Do not make me arrest you. And it's rude to have drugs in my house. I could lose my job."

When they're both seated and looking sheepish, she sits down, too. "Klaus, are you done with your food?"

"Yeah. Thanks," he adds.

"Diego, will you wash his plate, please?" Eudora looks at the single waffle alone on a plate. "Can he throw Ben's food away?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's fine." Klaus waves his hand. "He can't eat."

"Alright, please take care of that, Diego."

Diego does, even though he shoots Klaus a glare. Klaus sticks out his tongue. It's childish, but it's better than nearly fistfighting over a jacket. 

"Klaus, do you have any other questions about what happened? At your house?"

Klaus takes a second. "Is everybody okay? Allison and all them? And Pogo? Was Vanya there?”

"Yeah, they're all okay," Diego says from the sink. “Minor injuries. And Luther is a gorilla.”

“A what now?”

Diego shakes his head. “You just have to see it.”

“Right.” Klaus stares down, into the middle distance. Or maybe he’s looking at the briefcase. Eudora can’t tell. 

"Hmm. Did my bedroom get destroyed in a hail of gunfire?"

"I didn't check. And I don't really care. The house has a million rooms.”

Eudora frowns, but Klaus doesn't look like he minds. "Fine," Klaus says. "Well, I'm not coming back."

Diego puts down the dish he'd been drying. "The hell do you mean, you're not coming back?"

"Tonight," Klaus clarifies. “What, you want me to come back to Mom’s robot corpse resting in the living room?” Diego flinches at the word corpse, but Klaus keeps talking. “A screaming lecture from gorilla-Luther about how useless I was in a fight I wasn’t even present for?”

Diego turns to face them both. “So what, you’re gonna freeload off Eudora some more?” 

“If you think this is the first time I’ll sleep on the streets, Diego, it’s honestly no wonder you flunked out of detective school.”

“You can stay here,” Eudora says, cutting off the brewing argument. “I’ve got a pull-out couch. You can stay here.”

“He’s gonna steal stuff,” Diego warns.

“Hey!”

“Klaus isn’t gonna steal stuff. Right?”

“No,” he mutters. She’s not sure if she believes him—she knows withdrawal is hard, knows the temptations are out there—but he shouldn’t be sleeping on the streets tonight. Or at all, really, but especially not when he’s still vulnerable to infection. 

“And you’ll let Diego take the coat. I don’t want you using drugs in my house. I’m serious, Klaus, it could get me in big trouble.”

“Fine.” He shoves the jacket towards Diego’s end of the table. Then, without heat, “Thanks, Patch.”

“You’re welcome.”

Diego doesn’t seem happy about it, but he doesn’t say anything. If this were any other day, this would be the part where Eudora thinks again that this is why their relationship failed— he can’t communicate; he’s either stony or a wall of anger, unable to have a conversation about a problem because he thinks there’s no solution. But now, she’s glad. She’s tired, and she doesn’t want to broker a fight between him and Klaus again. She guesses when their mom is a robot and their dad is a piece of shit, they don’t learn much about conflict resolution aside from duking it out in during a bank robbery.

Eudora gestures for Diego to follow her to the living room. She needs to talk to him more about the investigation, cop stuff Klaus doesn’t need to know about, and she knows it’ll turn into a conversation about their relationship, which isn’t something Klaus needs to hear either.

They leave Klaus in the kitchen, his tired eyes wandering everywhere, from the briefcase to the empty chair beside him to the ceiling and back to the briefcase again.