Title: Don't You Forget About Me

Summary: As a whole, Pinkerton barely changed as its students grew older. Sadie Macbeth never abandoned her tyrannical ways, and the Invisible Network never found cause to disband. However, as Macbeth's plans for ultimate rule become increasingly more dangerous, it's only a matter of time before the consequences become deadly.

Thus, the fog begins to settle.

The past catches up with Vin, proving that one cannot hide from their problems forever. Soon he will have to face the music as a man, and not as the scared child he knows he is. Zero must become more invested in the future as a result of her own mistakes – the mistakes she continues to make, marring her life in the worst of ways, creating scars as deep as valleys. Trixie now struggles to keep the seams between the four of them from splitting apart, afraid to lose those she considers family to problems far greater than they can imagine. Newton only wants the best for those he loves, but sometimes opening those doorways means exposing oneself to the brutal reality of life. Life, which is meaningless without them.

And so the final stretch begins. The clock is ticking, and it's only a matter of time before it's all over.

Rating: T (13+, but hey, I ain't your mum.)

Chapter Summary: 'Tis here we lay our scene; Vin and Trixie discuss traumatic experiences of the past, and Macbeth is up to her usual games, however this time the cost is much more deadly.

Chapter Word Count: 3855

*Steps on-stage dramatically, hands raised. Glittery confetti shoots from strategically placed cannons.*

Greetings! I have arrived! And with me, I've brought you the INK fic we've all been waiting for . . .

*drumroll*

One with good grammar!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, no longer shall you be subjected to reading stories with abysmal spelling and grammar. That ain't a problemo here. Oh, and there's plot too. Because I am a sad seventeen year old with no life, who is still tragically in love with the tv show she adored at age 11. Fight me.

All I shall give now is a forewarning: these little guys are proper teenagers now. Therefore, they behave accordingly. This story is rated for bucketloads of coarse language, and mature themes. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. Writing this is fun, man.

Well, turrah. :D

1 - Old Differences

Imagination only worked until the point of complete stupidity. Science, on the other hand, was the root of it. The ideas had to come from somewhere, after all.

'She's not going to try again. Don't be ridiculous.'

'Four years gives her a lot of time to think.'

'To think of what? I really don't think she'll be – well, it's stupid, Trix. She's too stupid for this.'

'It wasn't stupid when she managed it the first time.'

For the first time in a long while, Trixie's words rendered Vin completely silent. After a moment of gaping like a fish, trying to come up with something - anything - to respond with, he exhaled slowly and sat down on the floor, looking up at her as she perched in her swivel-chair. 'So what do we do?'

'What we do best,' Trixie replied, chewing her lip anxiously. 'Wait.'

He gave a short, bitter laugh at this. 'I hate it when you're right.'

Her green eyes snapped up to meet his. 'I don't like it any more than you do. But we don't have even the slightest clue how she's going to go about this. The watch is long gone.'

'We don't know that.' Vin chewed his lip absently, glaring at a spot of carpet beside his left ankle. 'As far as I know, she has no way of getting it back, but I could easily be wrong.'

Trixie nudged him with her toe. 'Hey. It'll be fine. She definitely won't have the watch. It's been too long for that.'

'I s'pose.'

They both went silent again. Vin didn't move, save for the scarce few times his eyes flickered up to the clock, or over at Trixie, who was tapping away at her phone. After a moment or two, she peered over the top of it, her gaze questioning.

'Are you ever going to tell them?' she asked quietly.

Vin didn't reply, though he knew exactly what she was talking about. After the horrific time-travel incident all those years ago, he was the only one who came away with the memories. Trixie discovered it by pure fluke a few months later, as the nightmares still plagued him often enough that he would spend the early hours of the morning curled up in headquarters on the couch, fighting the fatigue. She never asked whenever she found him, but pieced parts of the story together herself from the frenzied mutterings he let out when asleep. He eventually told her the rest some time later, though it took a long while to warm up to the subject.

Zero and Newton however, were just as clueless as the day after Vin had set things right – he'd erased absolutely everything when he returned Macbeth back to their old self. For them, nothing had happened. And, as far as he was concerned, they didn't need to know.

Trixie lowered her phone and caught his gaze, refusing to break it. 'Vin.'

'I don't know,' he said quietly, shrugging. 'If it gets to be . . . relevant, then I guess so.'

She exhaled slowly, then nodded. 'I suppose you're right. They don't need that burden. But -' She cut off as the sound of voices echoed through the ventilation shaft into the room. The door had been abandoned years ago when Newton's misshapen experiments were starting to draw attention, and since then they had subjected themselves to crawling through the single vent system that led into headquarters.

'. . . and I don't get it. How? Why? Did you –'

'You shut your mouth right now you little fuckwad, and don't breathe a word to anyone. Got it?'

'Yeah . . . but, oh my god . . .'

'Newton.'

Trixie arched a single eyebrow and got up from her chair, before standing on tiptoe and looking up into the shaft. 'Everything alright in there, guys?'

There was the sharp sound of someone being slapped, then a yelp, before Zero's voice responded. 'Yeah. All good.' Then Newton was promptly shoved out of the shaft, landing sharply on top of Trixie. They both hit the ground with no lack of shrieking, before Zero slid gracefully out of the vent after him.

'Sorry,' she said, offering Trixie a hand and helping her up. 'Newton was being slow and wouldn't kick his ass into gear.'

The ginger in question very pointedly scrunched his nose up at her and readjusted his glasses, before getting to his feet and muttering to himself, annoyance apparent in his tone. Vin chose to pretend not to have heard their conversation in the vent. Judging by her impassive expression as she got to her feet, so did Trixie.

'Any news?' Vin asked folding his arms and looking at Zero. She shrugged slightly, before walking over to grab a hairband from the computer table.

'Nothing new from what I could tell,' she replied, pulling her rib-length, static charged hair into a ponytail. 'She's definitely up to something, though. An unusually large crate of engineering parts arrived this morning.'

Vin and Trixie exchanged a dubious glance. Newton meanwhile, plopped down in Trixie's recently vacated chair and switched on the computer, scribbling something on a notepad while he did so.

'I thought we were just grappling at strings here,' Zero continued. 'But then again, we might be onto something big. What do you guys reckon?'

'It's definitely a possibility,' Trixie agreed. 'Perhaps she might be retrying her old experiments. You know, some of the more psychotic ones.'

Wait a minute. Where was she going with this?

Vin looked pointedly at her with his eyebrows raised, shaking his head ever so slightly in warning. She ignored his alarm, and he indignantly responded with a strange little hand-flail.

'Define "psychotic",' Zero said with a smirk, pulling up a chair and sitting on it backwards, folding her arms on the back.

'Butterflies, voodoo zombies, various forms of hypnosis, and substances that are most likely classed as illicit drugs in some countries – need I go on?'

Zero burst into laughter. 'Man, now I think about it, it's nuts, huh?'

'The point is, we might be seeing Round Two of all that.'

Vin snorted. 'I do not want to deal with that zombie thing again,' he said, going along with the line Trixie had thrown. At least this topic of discussion was on the same path of what the two of them really thought was happening, however vaguely. He finally got to his feet and wandered over to see what Newton was doing, sticking a hand on Zero's head and shoving her down playfully as he passed. Her foot immediately shot out in retaliation to trip him up, and he stumbled, not quite managing to dart away in time. He stuck his tongue out at her, and she rolled her eyes.

'Any thoughts?' Vin asked, nudging Newton with his elbow as he looked at the assortment of computer screens that were currently switched on, seeing Google tabs, Excel graphs, Notepad, and Command Prompt all open at once, plus a number of other programs Vin couldn't recognise. He mentally referred to them all as "porn", because if that didn't stick in his head, then certainly nothing else would.

'Huh?' Newton responded distractedly, punching a series of numbers into a log box. 'Yeah, good idea. Go with it.'

'I didn't give you a damn idea, idiot. I'm asking you for one.'

'Sure, sure . . . seven, three, five, nine, two, dash . . .'

Vin sighed and leaned against the desk, staring at the top of Newton's head with a raised eyebrow. 'Hey Trix, be a pal, would you? Get over here and make out with me.'

'Yeah, fine,' Trixie replied absently, tapping on her phone once more. 'Just give me a minute.'

Newton gave some weird, knee-jerk reaction and promptly toppled the chair, taking Vin down with it. They both hit the ground with a heavy crash, and after a beat of complete silence he nearly pissed himself laughing at the expression on Newton's face.

'That's what you get for having selective hearing, man,' he gasped, eyes streaming. Newton socked him upside the face, but a reluctant laugh bubbled from his throat.

'You're an ass.'

Vin grinned and ruffled a hand in his hair, preening. 'Why, thank you.'

'What were you asking me about?' Newton got to his feet and stood the chair back up, now looking at Vin with a higher level of attention.

'Trixie was suggesting that Macbeth might be "recycling" old methods. You know, refining and perfecting them, to catch us off guard since we wouldn't be suspecting it.'

He nodded thoughtfully, his eyebrows tugging together beneath his glasses. 'I guess it's a possibility. What makes you think that, Trix?'

Oh shit.

That was a question they had not been prepared for. Vin and Trixie both froze, unsure of how to dodge this. Vin watched her carefully out of the corner of his eye, and his heart rate began to rise as she hesitated.

Giving their reasoning meant disclosing the past. All of it. Obviously, the generalised suggestion was a stupid topic – it had to lead back around to the incident at some point or another – just Vin hadn't really thought that far through it all yet. Neither, it seemed, had Trixie.

They hesitated for a moment too long. Zero narrowed her eyes and got up from her chair, circling around to stand before them. She arched a single, white-blonde eyebrow.

'You know something,' she said in a low, accusing voice. 'You know something and you're not telling us.'

Vin tilted his head at her, trying to seem nonchalant. 'And why the hell would you think that?'

'I'm not an idiot, Vin,' she snapped. 'But then again, I was just talking to Trixie. You didn't have to drag yourself in.'

Vin faltered, fighting a wave of embarrassment as a heavy flush coloured his face and neck. 'Well how was I supposed to know that?'

Zero ignored him. 'Trix, what's going on?'

Trixie raised her chin, not affected by the other girl's piercing gaze. Vin looked at her insistently, panic rising once more in his gut.

Don't do it, he thought desperately. Please don't; she'll kill me. They'll both kill me.

He never should have hidden it. He should have told them they'd been wiped from existence, and that . . . that Zero had admitted to some kind of affection, deep down. Not that Vin was still sure he believed it – they were twelve. Times change.

Trixie sighed. 'I've been getting donkey vibes.'

Vin flinched, then processed what she'd just said.

'Donkey vibes,' Zero repeated incredulously. 'Donkey vi - Oh, hell no. I'm not going through that again.'

'I just said vibes,' Trixie cut in. 'Well, something of the like. I think we're about to be hit in the face with another hypnosis situation again. You know Macbeth has no originality.'

'This is just a gut feeling?' Newton asked, wrinkling his forehead. 'Trix, we can't do much just based on a g -'

'Yes, okay, it's fine,' Trixie said, cutting in. 'Just drop it.'

A flood of relief washed over Vin as the subject was – for once – dropped. He'd have to thank her later; probably with chocolate, if he could find any. Zero made a funny noise in the back of her throat and sat down again, whilst Newton simply turned back to the computer.

'Newton, what exactly are you trying to do?' Trixie asked, peering suspiciously over his shoulder. 'I swear if you mess with my mouse settings, I'll -'

'Trust me, I'm not screwing around with that again,' Newton assured her, now intently studying what seemed to be a blueprint of Pinkerton's security system. 'I'd rather keep my bits intact, thanks.'

'Well, then?'

'I've noticed some of the cameras in the building have been disabled, but I can't find a pattern in it. I'm trying to figure out why. There's one in the girl's dormitory just outside Van's room, and another by the basement.' He pointed to the blueprint, where small, red dots indicated the lack of video footage. 'See? And that's only two of them. There's at least ten out-of-commission at the moment.'

'Yeah, I don't think you'll want to fix Van's,' Vin sniggered. 'You'll probably catch her and Burt going at it again.'

Newton flushed, and screwed his face up in revulsion. 'Fuck off. At least I disconnected that one straight away. I'm not a freak.'

Zero let out a bark of laughter, which she tried to disguise as a cough. 'Yeah, Vin. You would've been all "free porn", and stuck around.'

'I'm not saying you're wrong,' he replied, shrugging nonchalantly, 'but you're wrong.'

She snorted. 'Yeah, sure, you sicko.'

Vin swatted her on the arm, and she punched back twice as hard. He yelped when that triggered a spark of pain and a small pop, before rolling out his shoulder thoughtfully. 'Huh. I think you made my arm better.'

'Wasn't meant to be a favour, dickhead.'

'Oh, you still love me.'

'Shut up.' Zero punched him again, grinning when he made an indignant noise.

'Anyway,' Newton continued, cutting in, 'it might be something worth taking a look at. If Macbeth is up to something, we'll need all the information we can get.'

'See what else you can find first,' Zero said. 'Then, if we need to, Vin and I can have a look around.'

Trixie made a murmured noise of agreement, before opening her own copy of the security database on her phone and poring over it without another word.

Afternoon gradually faded into night, and eventually the four of them left for dinner without any further discoveries.

As a whole, Pinkerton was still the small boarding school it had been when it was first established. Determining its innovative value entirely depended on the success outcome of the students who would graduate after completing their final year of schooling. Should this go well, similar institutions would be produced. Thus, little had changed since Vin had first arrived here many years ago, fresh out of the orphanage and too distrusting of the world to believe there was such thing as true, genuine kindness. Though the school may not have budged an inch, he certainly had.

Zero stirred her tea thoughtfully while Trixie and Newton poured over the day's math homework. Vin watched her for a short moment over the rim of his own cup, a strange sort of anxiety settling in the bottom of his stomach.

To be honest, he hadn't needed to give The Incident any thought for a long time. But now, since it was back on the table (considering Macbeth had spent that morning very pointedly teaching them all about the "science" behind time travel, and how that was the true reason as to why babies didn't come from storks anymore) his brain kept reminding him of what he'd done at the most damn inconvenient times, and the fact that he was going to be in a lot of shit if the truth got out.

Remarkably enough, that didn't help.

Neither did the fact that Burt and Van had chosen to have another one of their lovers' spats just outside the cafeteria.

'. . . well it's not my freaking fault, is it?'

'Yes it is! You were supposed to remember, damn it!'

'Then maybe we should break this off for a while.'

'What the hell?'

'Van -'

'You know what; fine. I always knew you were fucking cheating anyways.'

'I told you -'

Zero elbowed Vin in the ribs, startling him. 'Stop nosing.'

He pulled a face at her. 'Come on, this is the fifth fight this week. It's like a train wreck – it's awful, but you can't stop watching.'

She scoffed. 'Yeah, but it's none of your business.'

'Do you reckon he has been cheating?'

Zero quirked a careful eyebrow. 'Why do you care?'

'Because you'd have to be pretty stupid to be the person Burt cheats with.'

She narrowed her eyes. 'Stupid,' she repeated. 'Really, Vin?'

'Well, yeah.' Vin shrugged. 'I mean, we all know what Van's like. She'd cut that bitch in half.'

'Cut you in half, maybe. She'd be upside down on a coatrack before she even got near me.' She shook her head incredulously, before getting to her feet. 'I've got to go – but, honestly, Vin. Reassess your priorities.'

Vin watched her leave, feeling slightly miffed about her statement. Though, despite her unusually decent composure, the back of her pale neck was flushed.

'Trixie to I.N.K – according to my scan, the safe is alarmed. It's too complex to disable now; Sadie's coming. Bring it with you.'

From their place in the rafters, Vin and Zero exchanged a careful nod, before Zero secured her rope and leapt down from the beam with her usual grace and dexterity. Vin guided it through his hands and lowered her toward the safe, which was not-so-discretely hidden behind the headboard of Macbeth's bed. He gave her a moment to grab the safe, which unexpectedly added ten kilos to the load on the rope, and hauled her up as quickly as possible. Wagner glared at him from the fish pipe that ran past his head, swimming back and forth agitatedly. Vin didn't have the energy to stop and leer – even when a bug proceeded to bite him on the collarbone. He yelped in surprise, and almost swatted it out of instinct.

'Hurry up!' Zero hissed, craning her neck to look up at him, making her sway dangerously. 'What's taking you so long?'

'Well I'm sorry, you doubled in weight when you grabbed that damn steel safe!' he responded, voice squeaking ever so slightly with the physical strain.

'Trixie to I.N.K; what's taking so long? Code Red, Macbeth's nearly there!'

It was a good thing Vin had bound himself securely to the beam, or else he would have fallen off with that final tug. Zero had barely come high enough for him to grab her around the waist when Macbeth's bedroom door swung open far below them, and Sadie stalked in, muttering to herself. He pulled Zero up onto the rafter and wrapped his arms securely about her torso, giving her just enough time to fire the grappling gun at the roof vent before they went flying. The two of them tumbled into the shaft with a dull clunk, the safe hitting Vin in the gut and winding him for a moment. Zero turned on her headpiece.

'Zero to Headquarters – we've got the safe. You can dispatch Newton to deactivate it.'

'Affirmative. Mission accomplished. You two are free to go,' Trixie's voice crackled in response, and the line cut out.

'We can't bring it back to Headquarters,' Vin said. 'There might be a tracking device in it.'

'No shit,' Zero said flatly. 'But it's Newton's problem now, and I really want to go to bed.' With that, she swivelled around on her butt and began crawling along the vent. Then she paused, looking back at him over her shoulder. 'You coming?'

'I – yeah. Okay.'

For a long moment all was silent except the quiet echoes made by their shoes. Vin winced as the bite on his neck started stinging more than it had before, and he gingerly reached up to touch it. The skin there had swollen up into a great lump, and pain shot through his entire body like an electrical shock when he touched it. His fingers came away red.

'One of these paths branches off to the air-con vents over the dorms,' Zero was saying. 'I think mine's nearer, but you can probably walk on foot to yours.'

Vin didn't reply. He was too busy looking at the dark, glossy substance that was now starting to dribble down his chest. The swelling had now become equivalent in size to a ping-pong ball.

'Uh, Zero?' he said quietly.

'You'll be fine to sneak out,' she continued, misinterpreting his hesitation. 'Everyone already thinks we're screwing, what with how often you're in my room. The prospect of you walking out of there with the dodgiest look on your face probably won't change anything.'

'No, I . . .' He tried to plug the blood flow with his hand, only making the pain worse. He yelped like a wounded animal, and Zero spun around.

'Oh shit,' she whispered, eyes going wide. 'Fuck.' She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him towards her to assess the damage. 'Vin, don't pass out on me, got it? You're not allowed to close your eyes.'

Vin could only shake his head mutely. His vision was blurring, and he was only semi-aware of Zero tugging him along the vent, and speaking to someone on her headset. Her voice a lot higher than usual, and she sounded freaked out. That was a bit odd, he thought dumbly. Zero never worried. She never worried about anything.

She suddenly stopped dragging him, and pulled up one of the grate panels, before pulling Vin in close to her and swinging down. They landed with a thud on a bed that seemed somewhat familiar. Zero dumped him flat on his back and hovered over him, looking terrified. Her mouth was forming a single word, over and over again . . .

She shook him by the shoulders, and it felt like a giant bubble had exploded in his head. He could hear again, just a little bit.

'Vin!' she was saying. 'Vin, listen to me, damnit!'

Her edges were blurry. Weird.

A spot on her pale cheek was smeared red. Smeared, like the mascara under her eyes, but that was black, not crimson . . .

'You're bleeding,' he said simply, before wincing as another shock of pain went through him.

'It's your blood, idiot,' Zero choked out. 'What the hell did you do?'

'My blood,' he repeated faintly, ignoring her. 'It's in your hair.' He reached out to touch it, tangling one of the white-blonde locks in his fingers. The blood was vibrant in contrast to it, but he liked the blonde better. 'So pretty.'

It was getting darker.

'You're fucking delirious, Vin; don't you dare go to sleep! Trixie and Newton are coming, they'll know what to do.'

'So . . . pretty . . .'

'Vin!' She smacked him upside the face with enough force to send a shock through his system, and he let out a yelp of pain. 'Don't go to sleep!' Her hands were shaking as she pulled his head into her lap, and began poking his face.

'Why . . . y'doin . . . that . . .'

'Keeping. You. Awake,' she hissed. 'But I'm not the scientist around here, so I have no clue if this will even work!' She pressed the pads of her fingers with considerable force against his cheeks, his nose, his temples, his mouth . . .

It felt like he was he was drowning. He heard a door crash open dully in the distance, shouting, talking . . .

The last thing he saw before he was pulled under was bright blue irises, and the blonde . . .

28/2/17