I'm going to be a little mean to Klaus in this one - the poor guy really needs a hug. On the plus side, Diego gets a chance to strut his stuff . . .

Chapter 2

Diego Hargreeves was angry.

As though waking up in a hospital wasn't bad enough, he'd regained consciousness to find himself dressed in a too-short hospital gown that didn't close at the back and his knives had been taken from him. No amount of cajoling would convince the nurses to give them back, either.

He wanted to give voice to his frustration, but his ribs hurt too much. Really, everything just hurt. He knew he was lucky to get out of the explosion at all, but he would have been even happier if he'd managed to do so without the bruised ribs and dislocated shoulder. The bloody head wound that throbbed in time to his heartbeat was mildly annoying, too.

He'd been lucky there, too. All meat and no skull, as the nurse had told him. The ugly cut had bled like a stuck pig, but Diego had managed to avoid anything more serious than a couple of stitches in his brow.

None of that changed the fact that he was practically naked in a hospital and no one could tell him anything about his brothers.

Diego tried to tell himself that he didn't really care. Luther was still a bit of a prick, after all, but even Diego had to admit that the big guy could handle himself. There was a part of him, though, that couldn't deny that he just couldn't help but feel slightly protective of Klaus and Five.

Maybe.

Just a little.

After all, Five had only been back in his teenage body for a few weeks, and Klaus had been sober for even less time than that. Both of them had issues that probably wouldn't lend themselves well to waking up in a hospital.

There were other concerns, too. A drug lab exploding in the middle of the city was not going to escape notice. It was only going to be a matter of time before the police came asking about the heavily-armed man who had been plucked from the scene. Diego had no intention of being around when they finally made their appearance. The events after Patch's murder were still too fresh and Diego just couldn't handle another interaction with his former colleagues.

He waited impatiently for the nurse to finish up and leave the exam area before he seized his opportunity and slid from the bed. The sudden weakness in his knees startled him, but he forced himself upright through sheer willpower. His head spun at the change in position and he wished he could take deeper breaths.

Stupid ribs.

An unexpected breeze had Diego cursing as he reached behind him to pull his gown closed. He was going to have to do something about that. They'd needed to cut off his shirt to fix his shoulder; he understood that and accepted it. He was less accepting of the fact that they'd apparently felt the need to take his pants and underwear, too. The nurse had been unapologetic when he'd asked about it, telling him only that unconscious people couldn't exactly tell a doctor where they hurt.

It didn't stop Diego from mourning the loss of a pretty comfortable pair of pants. Luckily, his boots were sitting on a table nearby. The laces had been cut to facilitate their removal, but Diego could deal with that. It took some manoeuvring, but he managed to finally force his bare feet into the boots and he breathed a shallow sigh of relief. He already felt a little less naked.

All he had to do now was find his brothers and his knives, and escape from the hospital before the police showed up and realized that Diego Hargreeves had once again been found at the centre of a massive and messy crime scene.

Easy.

A voice just beyond the curtain of his room caught Diego's attention. He moved silently closer until he could peek out between the sheets to where two white-coated figures stood.

"The police are sending someone over now to talk to him, so he should be good to go whenever they're done with him," a tall, bald doctor said in a bored voice. "If the police are ever done with him. The guy was armed to the teeth."

Even as Diego cursed his bad luck, he had to wonder just how many times the doctor had dealt with exploding buildings and armed vigilantes to attain that level of disinterest.

"My patient is asking about him," the other doctor replied. She was shorter with a mildly dishevelled bob haircut, and she looked tired. "Said he's his brother, Diego. To be honest, I thought he was making it up - he has a history of hallucinations and drug abuse - and really . . . an angry man wearing a lot of knives? It sounds a little out there, but you remember Klaus Hargreeves, right? Out there doesn't even begin to cover most of the stuff he says."

"It may sound outlandish, but trust me - there were knives." The bald doctor huffed a little and Diego guessed it was meant to be laughter. "Diego Hargreeves, then . . . that's not the name he gave the nursing staff. A man with a fake name sounds like a man with something to hide."

Diego rolled his eyes in annoyance. He had been hoping to make it out of the hospital without anyone knowing who he really was, but Klaus had apparently blabbed his identity almost immediately. A smooth retreat was going to be next to impossible now.

The bald doctor barely paused for breath before continuing. "I guess the police will be wanting to talk with your patient, too, then?"

"They may not get a chance for awhile," the woman countered, giving a small sigh of frustration. "We're sending him for a psych eval. His tox screens and CT scan came back clear, but he's talking to people who aren't there and he was going on about the apocalypse. Like I said, hallucinations and drug use, but he has a history of psychotic episodes, too."

A fire-like rage ran through Diego with a suddenness and intensity that startled even him. Who the hell were these guys to say Klaus was crazy? And a psych evaluation? Klaus wasn't going to pass that, not in a million years. He was Diego's brother and even he sometimes thought Klaus was nuts. Strangers wouldn't give him a second look before locking him up and throwing away the key.

It was all Diego could do to stop himself from storming into the hallway and punching his way past the self-important asses so casually talking about handing his sibling over to the psych ward. Over his dead body would they lay so much as a finger on his brother!

Diego clenched his teeth and glared as the two doctors exchanged more gossip disguised as professional observations about Klaus's mental state and Diego's armoury. Finally, the doctors seemed to reach some kind of agreement on something and moved down the hall and out of sight.

Diego barely spent a moment making sure the coast was clear before he pulled aside the curtain and stepped into the hall. At least he knew Klaus was alive. It was all he had to work with for the moment. He hoped Luther and Five were okay, but he found himself doubting that Luther had been brought to the hospital in the first place. If the big guy had been wounded, someone would have noticed his . . . unique physiology and the doctors would have been gossiping about more than just Diego's knives.

It was thin evidence, but Diego was going to take what he could get. If Luther was alive and running around somewhere, there was a chance Five was okay, too.

In any case, Diego had no choice but to concentrate on getting to Klaus before he could even think of doing anything else. He needed to get the former junkie away from the well-meaning doctors before they locked him up for seeing dead people. From what he'd gleaned from the conversation he'd overheard, time was growing short on that front.

He didn't really know where to start looking for his brother, but judging by the lack of chaos and confusion in the immediate area, he probably wasn't nearby. Diego was going to have to scour the floor quickly and quietly.

After all, how hard could it be to find one man in an emergency ward?

The trick to avoiding notice was to look like you belonged there and had a purpose, so Diego held his head up high like he was a man on a mission. His injured shoulder throbbed and he cursed the fact that his arm was in a sling, again, but he wasn't going to let it slow him down.

No matter how badly he wanted to deny it, though, it was going to be a problem. He was unarmed and injured, two things that Diego didn't like, but in actual fact, it was even worse than that. One arm was in a sling and he needed the other arm behind him to hold his hospital gown closed. It was humiliating. If he let go, the lightweight cotton was going to flap open and anyone walking behind him was going to get a bit of a show.

He knew he had a nice ass, but still . . .

He winced as the hospital loudspeaker let out a shrill squeal before a tinny voice sounded.

"Doctor Reynolds, call on line 4. Doctor Reynolds, line 4."

How did hospitals expect anyone to get better with ear-shattering announcements going off unexpectedly like that?

Diego slowed down as he neared the nurses' station. Hopefully, no one would stop him, but there was a definite possibility that someone would recognize him as the guy who had come in with a dozen knives strapped to his body.

The nurse manning the station was in conversation with two men, the larger of whom immediately took Diego's attention. There was something about the way the blond held himself . . . like he was a man used to violence and who was unafraid of inflicting said violence on others. He was smiling in a friendly manner, but Diego had spent enough time around sleazebags to know one when he saw one. It wasn't his problem, though. Not right now.

He was going to continue on and avoid attention when a name caught his attention.

Hargreeves.

Diego glanced over with alarm even as he tried to school his features into nonchalance. This guy was definitely not a cop.

"Yeah," the man said with a forced laugh. "That's right, Luther Hargreeves. My brothers were on a mission and things went bad. I just need to know if they're here."

Diego almost laughed out loud. Why would anyone pretend to be Luther? It was ridiculous and the man was nowhere near Luther's size anyway . . .

Then it struck him that a dangerous man was pretending to be Luther Hargreeves in order to find out where his brothers were. And suddenly it wasn't so unthinkable.

He was pretending to be Luther, who had spent four years on the moon after being bodily altered by their father and who no longer looked just like his pre-moon self. Luther, who it was entirely possible had escaped the public eye for just long enough that a tired and overworked nurse might believe the impostor was exactly who he claimed to be . . .

Luther, who as a loving brother would be given the information he sought and would then know exactly where Klaus was.

There was little doubt the man was not really worried about their continued health. Diego was willing to bet money that the man posing as his brother was seeking revenge for a certain exploded building and lost drug revenue. The timing didn't fit any other explanation.

How did he even know the Hargreeves siblings were involved?

For that matter, what the hell had happened to Luther that someone could just waltz in and claim to be him? Was he even still alive? Where was Five?

Familiar anger swirled in Diego's chest and he moved to step forward. If these guys had hurt the others . . .

The smaller man at fake-Luther's side shifted slightly and Diego saw the tell-tale bulge of a gun at his side.

Diego stopped with a deep frown and glanced around.

There were too many innocent people milling about. He couldn't let things degenerate into a gunfight; it was simply too risky. How many people would be injured before he could take down both men? And he only had one arm, bruised ribs, and no weapons. It was far too possible at this point that he wouldn't win the fight at all; they would barely break a sweat before killing him and then doing the same to Klaus.

There was nothing else he could do. He needed to find Klaus and get the hell out, and he needed to do it now.

Walking past armed bad guys was one of the hardest things Diego had ever needed to do; the desire to hurt the men who threatened his family was almost undeniable. He had failed to protect them before and Klaus in particular had paid a hefty price for that failure. His brother's time in the hands of Hazel and Cha-Cha still plagued him with guilt and he'd be damned if he just stood by and let it happen again.

Diego Hargreeves walked past the nurses' station with his head held high. He was a man on a mission.

And that mission was to save his brother.

Klaus couldn't help the pained cry that escaped him. He was trying, clenching his fists over his ears to block out the sounds, squeezing his eyes shut to hide from the horrors in front of him, but it was too much. They were too loud, there were too many of them, and more kept coming.

They were calling his name, screaming their anguish and loneliness at him as though he would be able to save them from their torment.

He couldn't save them.

He couldn't even save himself.

His head was a throbbing mass of agony. He'd already thrown up again, but still the ghosts wouldn't show mercy. There was no escape from them.

He was pressed against the wall, sitting on the cold floor with his legs drawn up to his chest as he curled in on himself. He hadn't been able to get far. His injured leg and a sense of nauseating vertigo had sent him to the floor as soon as he had tried to get out of bed. He tried to hide; he tried to make himself a smaller target and avoid their accusing eyes and piercing howls. Being small wouldn't protect him, though. They were relentless, their every wail splitting into his head like an ice pick.

Some part of him was aware that he was crying, but there was nothing he could do about it. Everything hurt and the tears that escaped him were as beyond his control as the screaming spirits that were causing them.

Where was Ben?

He needed help. He needed something - anything to take the edge off, to push him into peaceful oblivion until he could breathe again. At that moment, Klaus Hargreeves would have gladly downed an entire handful of random pills if meant silencing the ghosts.

A sob broke free as he tried to think of Dave, but his thoughts were scattered.

It was too much.

Where was Ben?

There were so many voices. So loud.

And then there were hands on him.

Klaus shrieked in alarm, struggling against them instantly, trying to shrug free of the tightening grips, heedless of his injuries as he flailed.

They didn't let go. Klaus found himself pulled from the wall and he lashed out with his bare foot, scarcely noticing when it made contact with something soft.

The dead could touch him.

The realization chilled Klaus to the bone. They could touch him. It shouldn't have been a surprise. He should have known they could; Ben had touched him before. Ben would never hurt him, but the others were not like Ben.

The others were only pain and terror -

"Klaus!"

Screaming their anger -

"Klaus, listen to me!"

So loud and they would never stop -

"Klaus!"

The voice wasn't like the others. It wasn't angry, it was . . .

Ben.

Klaus took a shuddering breath, barely swallowing the scream that threatened to escape him. "Ben?"

The hands that held him didn't let go. He was being held down, pinned to the floor with pitiless grips that wouldn't relent.

"Ben, help me!"

"You have to calm down, Klaus! Stop fighting; you're going to hurt yourself! You're okay!"

How was it okay? What about the situation was even possibly okay? Klaus forced his eyes open, shocked to see the people holding him down were scrub-wearing orderlies and not blood-stained spirits.

"What the hell?" he wailed, fear giving partial way to sudden confusion. Where had they come from?

An unfamiliar doctor leaned into his view, a needle in hand as he reached for Klaus's arm. "Hold still, Mr. Hargreeves."

Klaus let out a small laugh. As if he could do anything else with his limbs encased in iron grips! His heart pounded in his chest as he watched the doctor inject something into his arm and he felt the familiar sensation of the needle being pulled from his skin.

"What was that?" Klaus asked shakily, both hoping and dreading that it was something strong and fast-acting.

"Just a mild sedative," the doctor replied in a cautiously soothing voice, like Klaus was a scared animal or something. "It will help you relax a little."

Right. Relax. Of course.

"Ben?" Klaus tried to see beyond the figures of the hospital staff above him, but they blocked his view of his brother. Klaus could feel the tension start to leave his body. He blinked, trying to get his eyes to focus. "Ben?"

"I'm here Klaus," Ben replied, his face appearing over the doctor's shoulder. "Don't worry. Diego is here and he's okay. He's coming to find you."

It seemed to take a long time for Ben to answer, the words strangely distorted, and Klaus watched him through tear-blurred eyes as Ben frowned down at him.

"Okay," Klaus replied with growing lethargy. It didn't seem quite so important anymore. He forgot what his question had been in the first place. His mind swam and the hands finally started easing their hold on him. He tried to move, but his limbs were heavy and uncoordinated. He stopped trying.

There was a sudden whirlwind of motion as he was pulled upright before being deposited in the bed once more amidst a sea of different scrubs and murmuring voices as people worked around him and over him.

The sounds melted into each other, forming a strange, discordant hum that filled the room like dozens of mosquitoes buzzing around his ears.

Their words washed over him as he floated in a disjointed haze, somewhat present, but detached from himself as his body was moved and manipulated without his conscious awareness. He could feel his heart rate slowing and the pain in his head easing slightly.

He waited for the welcoming arms of unconsciousness to take him, but nothing else seemed to be happening. The crowd of orderlies gradually dispersed, leaving only the doctor, a nurse, and Ben standing over him as Klaus rolled his head lazily on the bed.

There was movement behind the doctor.

He blinked again, watching in muted horror as he realized that the dead were still there, lingering just beyond the living. The low hum was ever present, evident in the murmuring of their voices as they gathered in his room and waited for him to be theirs once more.

"No," he breathed, squirming ineffectively to try to get away. Why was he still awake? He didn't want to see them!

"It's okay, Mr. Hargreeves," the doctor assured him. "We're going to send you to a place where there are some other doctors to help you. You're going to be okay."

The doctor spoke to the nurse in a hushed voice before the nurse left the room.

"You need to knock me out," Klaus begged, his voice slurred even to his own ears. "Don't leave me with them."

"We're just going to arrange the transfer. It'll only be a few minutes. Don't worry; you're okay," the doctor replied dismissively, apparently not interested in granting Klaus's request.

"Nothing about this is okay," Ben said venomously, glaring at the doctor as he walked away and left Klaus alone with the ghosts.

Klaus tried to focus on his brother. Ben understood. Ben could see it; he could hear it. There just wasn't anything he could do about it.

Klaus wanted to cry. He couldn't think. He couldn't calm himself enough to sleep, not with the macabre spectacle forming at his bedside.

He was stuck halfway between unconsciousness and wakefulness; between being helpless and wanting desperately to be able to fight back.

His world was nothing but a prison of drugged haziness and the reality of a nightmare made manifest.

And when the first silent tears fell, Klaus couldn't even raise his hand to wipe them away.

tbc