Okay, so this chapter starts out with a little bit of fluff mixed with almost-kinda-sorta-not-quite sexy times along with a reference back to the first story (you'll recognize it right away, Torry), plus a line that is absolute CLASSIC Graverobber (trust me, you'll know it when you see it, and if you don't, then something's wrong with you), and we finally meet Zack.

The reason this chapter took longer to get published is because I was trying to lengthen it and draw it out, but it didn't really work out as I'd hoped it would. :/ Also, remember in Scattered Wrecks when Graves took Shilo to Amaranth's store to get new clothes? We have a bit of a reprise of that in this chapter. I also included some of my headcanons about what it's like on the mainland versus what it's like on Sanitarium Island, so yeah. Anyway, I'll shut up now and let you read.

I DISCLAIM!

Graverobber opened his eyes. For a moment, he just lay there while the gears in his brain slowly began to turn. Then he remembered what has happening later. "Oh...fuuuuuuck," he groaned, covering his face with his hands. Just then, something changed. It took a minute for his brain to figure out what, but then he realized that water had been running in the bathroom, and it had just been shut off. He turned his head and found Shilo's side of the bed empty. The bathroom door opened and she stepped out wrapped in a towel with her wig clutched in one hand along with some clothes, a bra, and panties.

"Mother fuck," he muttered, sitting up. She smiled as she came over and laid her clothes down on the bed, putting her wig on top of the bedpost. The towel was clinging to her damp body in all the right places, and it was very, very distracting for him. "God fucking dammit, Shilo, you're killing me over here."

"What's wrong, Graverobber?" she said. "Does it bother you that I'm naked?" She quirked an eyebrow and smirked at him.

Oh, that little minx.

"You are never gonna let that go, are you?" he said. She gave him a coy smile and shook her head, then turned so her entire body was facing directly towards him and let the towel drop. He groaned and flopped backwards onto the mattress. After a moment, he felt it shift, and when he opened his eyes, she was directly above him with her wig on, grinning down at him like a Cheshire Cat.

"Revenge is a bitch, isn't it, babe?" she remarked. He used one elbow to push himself up, and with the way they were positioned, as he moved, Shilo was made to move, as well, until she was sitting on her knees beside his legs and he was sitting upright. He put his hands on her arms and looked at her, just letting his eyes wander up and down her naked body. There was a time, he knew, when she would have blushed crimson and tried to cover herself by crossing her arms over her chest to hide her breasts, but that time was past. Now, she sat there without a trace of red on her porcelain skin, and kept her hands resting on her legs, keeping her dark eyes trained on him the entire time.

"You have no idea how fucking sexy you are, do you?" he said, his voice husky. "If this is your way of telling me that you're ready to have sex, then your timing could not possibly be worse."

"And let's say that is what I'm doing," she said quietly. "Why is my timing so bad?"
"Besides the fact that we're in my sister's house and both her kids are home?"

She smiled, then leaned in and kissed him. He cradled her face in his hand and moaned into the kiss, then broke it off suddenly and shook his head, his breath coming in heavy pants. "I can't," he said, "we have to stop, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to control myself with you naked. Put on some clothes, then we'll talk...Or...not, as the case may be."

They grinned at each other, and he planted a quick kiss on her cheek. "Seriously, get dressed and let's go get some breakfast, I'm starving." Shilo laughed as she got up and put her panties on.

"Is food all you think about?" she asked.
"No, of course not!" he said. "I also think about you, sex, and how amazing it's going to be to have sex with you."

She threw her head back and cackled, and knowing that he'd been the cause of that joy she was experiencing made him smile as he pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. "Hey, I'll meet you downstairs, alright?" he said. She nodded, then made a face as she reached around behind herself to do the hook on her bra. He went out of the room, closing the door behind himself to give her some privacy while she finished getting dressed. He got to the top of the stairs, and then came to a halt, one hand resting on the banister as his smile slowly faded.

Downstairs, he could hear Natalie talking to someone. Specifically, a man with a deep voice, as deep as his own sometimes got. It was a voice that he hadn't heard in years, and yet he would recognize it anywhere, and good God, the memories it brought back! He didn't know what to do. He was panicking. On the one hand, he wasn't ready for this yet, but on the other, he knew that if he didn't get it over with now, then it would only be that much more difficult later.

He turned and fled back down the hall.

When he opened the bedroom door, he nearly rammed into Shilo, who had been just about to open it herself. She gasped at his sudden appearance, too surprised to do anything except allow him to gently push her back and step into the room before closing the door. Then she noticed the panic on his face and the terrified look in his eyes.

"What happened, what's wrong?" she asked.
He swallowed. "He's down there," he said.

"What do you mean, who's down there?"
Before he could reply, there was a knock on the door, and it opened just enough for Natalie to poke her head in. "Hey," she said, "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to sleep until noon again, but I guess not. Zack's here, he's excited to see you, Allan. Why don't you bring Shilo down and introduce her?"

Graverobber licked his lips. "Y-Yeah," he said. "Yeah, just...just give us a minute, we'll be right down."

"Okay. Hey, are you alright? You look a little pale."
"What? Oh, yeah, no, I'm fine, I just...I had this dream that freaked me out, that's all."
"Oh, okay. Don't take too long, alright? I made pancakes and bacon for breakfast, and if you don't hurry, Kyle's gonna eat everything."

"Sure. We'll be there in a minute."
She smiled, then left them alone.

Graverobber released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, then went and sat down on the bed, covering his face with his hands. "I can't go down there," he said. "I can't. He's not supposed to be here! He wasn't supposed to get here until this afternoon, I don't...I'm not ready for this! I mean, what would I even say? I can't just waltz down there and say hi and act like it hasn't been fifteen Goddamn years since the last time I saw him, for Christ sakes!"

"Dammit, Allan, pull yourself together!" Shilo said, kneeling on the floor in front of him and putting a hand on his knee, the other one going to his shoulder. "Zydrate or no, on or off Sanitarium, you're still Graverobber, and you always will be to some extent, and the Graverobber I know would never let something like this intimidate him! It's been fifteen years—So what?! You're not a little kid anymore, and I know you well enough to say with absolute confidence that you can get through this! Are you, or are you not the same man that laughs in the face of danger and pisses off authority figures for amusement?"

He took a deep breath and let it out. "You're right," he said. "I'm being a wuss for no reason, I can do this."
"Damn straight you can," she agreed. "And I'm gonna be right there with you the entire time. Now come on. Let's go get some pancakes."

She got up off the floor and held her hand out to him. He took it, and they left the room, going down the hall. When they got to the top of the stairs, a loud laugh could be heard on the first floor, and Graverobber's entire body tensed up. He turned to retreat back to the bedroom, but Shilo caught him by the elbow, and when he turned to look at her, she motioned downstairs with her head. "You can do this," she whispered. He closed his eyes and swallowed, taking a deep breath in through his nose and letting it out slowly, then heading down the stairs one step at a time, gripping the banister tightly with one hand.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairwell and tried to compose himself as best he could before he and Shilo went into the kitchen, where they could hear Kyle telling a story that was probably being way over-dramatized thanks to the fact that he was a ten-year-old boy. When they stepped into the room, Kyle cut himself off with a big grin. "Hi, Uncle Allan, hi, Shilo!" he said, and everyone looked in their direction. The man sitting at the table across from Kyle and Rosella had his back to the doorway, and when he turned around, Graverobber's breath got caught in his throat at the sight of him.

It was almost like looking into a mirror, but with about ten or fifteen extra years added on, and with hair only to the shoulders that lacked the streaks of color.

"There you guys are," Natalie said, "I was just about to go back upstairs and make sure you were alright and still planned on coming down here." Graverobber blinked, forcing himself to look at his sister.

"Yeah, sorry," he said, "I was helping Shilo find her necklace, she took it off to shower and forgot where she put it." He turned his attention back to the other man, who had stood up by that point. "Um...hi, Zack," he said.

"Allan," Zack said. "My God...Look at you, you're all grown up. How old are you now?"
"Just turned twenty in July," Graverobber replied. Zack shook his head in disbelief.

"Fifteen years," he said, "has it really been that long?"
"Well, I was five last time, and I'm twenty now, so, yeah, fifteen years sounds about right."

"I told you he grew up to be a sassmaster," Natalie said, then held up two plates with pancakes and bacon on them. "Allan, Shilo, I managed to save some food for you guys, I'd come and eat it before Kyle makes a move for it."

She put the food down on the table, and Graverobber and Shilo sat down to eat.

"So who is this with you?" Zack asked as he sat back down.
"She's my girlfriend," Graverobber said, pushing some hair over his shoulder so syrup wouldn't get in it. "Her name's Shilo, I found her in a graveyard on Sanitarium Island."

"Yeah, you 'found' me," Shilo said, putting air quotes around the word. "No, what happened was that I was trying to catch a bug for my collection, and he was doing something he shouldn't have been doing, and there were GeneCops all over the place, so I had to hide behind a tombstone, and he decided that it was the perfect time to stand up and yell at the top of his lungs. He nearly got us both killed, he's lucky I even spoke to him the next time we ran into each other after pulling that little stunt."

"You know why I did it? Because I thought you were cute. I was trying to impress you."
"You didn't even know my name, and you were already trying to flirt with me?"

"Every event has its reason, Shi," he said.
"Oh, don't you quote Aesop to me about this!"

"How'd you even know that was Aesop?!"
"I'm starting to make connections between the things you do with your voice and Aesop, there are certain pitches and things that you only use when you're either telling a fable or quoting one of the morals, even if you don't realize it."

"She's right," Natalie said as she joined everyone at the table. "I noticed the same thing yesterday when you were reading them to the kids."

"So you're still on Aesop even all this time later, are you?" Zack said.
"I have the book," Graverobber replied. "Mom and Dad left it to me. It's upstairs, I brought it along when we left Sanitarium and came here."

"I like the one about the two guys and the donkey," Kyle said. "You know, the one where everyone thought they were doing it wrong?"
"'The Miller, His Son, and Their A—'" Graverobber stopped short at the look on his sister's face. "Donkey," he finished. "The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey. I swear, I was going to say donkey."

Natalie raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as she took a bite of bacon.

"So what have you been doing with yourself, Allan?" Zack asked. Graverobber's chewing slowed as he exchanged glances with Shilo. How exactly did one go about explaining that they had been an illegal graverobber-slash-drug dealer in front of kids? He swallowed the food in his mouth and took a drink of his coffee.

"I, um...was doing...entrepreneurial...type...stuff," he said finally, "and Shilo was helping me out some."
"Tell him why you left Sanitarium," Natalie said. Graverobber's eyes flickered over to her, and she grinned innocently, a spark of mischief in her sea green eyes.

"Personal reasons," Graverobber said, his tone indicating that he wasn't going to say anything other than that on the subject, at least for the time being. "And Natalie, I swear, if the next words out of your mouth are 'tell him how you got together,' then I will smother you with a pillow in your sleep tonight."

"Oh, well if that doesn't sound interesting," Zack said, leaning back and crossing his arms.

Graverobber shot Natalie a death glare, and she shrugged. "It's your own fault," she said. "You're the one that brought it up, not me." Graverobber pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something under his breath about older sisters being such a huge pain.

He looked up and turned to Zack. "I'll tell you later," he said in a low voice, "it involves some stuff that isn't exactly appropriate to say in front of the kids, and Nat will murder me if I say any of it in front of them."

Zack nodded in understanding, and for a moment, there was a slightly awkward silence.

"Um, Kyle," Natalie said finally, "didn't you have something you wanted to show Uncle Allan?"
"Oh yeah!" Kyle said eagerly. "Hang on, I have to go get it from my room, I'll be right back!"

He got up and took off running. Rosella made a face. "I don't get boys, Mommy," she said, "how come they like icky things like bugs?"
"Because boys are icky just like bugs, that's why," Natalie said.

"I'm guessing he's wanting to show me something to do with bugs?" Graverobber asked.
"He seems to have inherited your affinity for all things cockroach," Natalie explained.

Graverobber nodded in approval. "Smart boy," he said. Kyle came running back in with a book clutched against his chest, skidding to a stop beside Graverobber's chair and holding it out.

"Mom said you like cockroaches," he said. "I think that roaches are the coolest thing in the whole world, and I wanted to show you my book about them. See?"

"You've got an entire book about cockroaches? Let me see that thing."
"See, it's got a bunch of facts and pictures and stuff. Like, did you know that they can go for like a month without food?"

"Yeah, and they can survive on nothing but the glue on the back of a postage stamp. You know, I read that one time, way back when, there was this experiment where they put some roaches underwater for like half an hour, and then took 'em out, and the little guys were able to completely recover. Does this book explain how they survive without a head?"

"Their tracheae don't attach to the spiracles on their head," Kyle said. Graverobber held his hand up, and Kyle gave him a high five.

"Boy, you are makin' me proud," Graverobber said. "You know what I've got? A t-shirt with a cockroach on it, it says Cockroach Hall of Fame. It's my favorite shirt in the world, I wear it all the time."

"You'd have worn that thing in the graveyards if you could," Shilo said.
"I get the impression he spent a lot of time in graveyards on Sanitarium?" Zack said.

Shilo laughed. "Oh, you have no idea!" she said.

"Are the Largos still on that island?"
"Rotti finally kicked the bucket, but his devil spawn are still around," Graverobber said. "Amber took over the company. Sorry, you wouldn't know her as Amber, you left before she changed her name. You know her as Carmela Largo. These days, she's Amber Sweet, and she's addicted to the knife, not to mention Zydrate. Can't keep one appearance for more that a day or two at a time, and sometimes she changes the way she looks within just a matter of hours. In the meantime, Luigi grew up to be a stab-happy psycho with the world's worst temper, and Pavi...well..." He glanced at Kyle and Rosella, sending a silent message that Zack easily picked up on.

"I'm guessing it's not pretty?" he said.
Graverobber shook his head.

"What's devil spawn?" Rosella asked.
"Devil spawn is like..." Natalie began. "It..." She sighed. "Great, now look what you've done," she said to Graverobber.

"Would you have preferred that I call them rotten little B-blank-blank-T-A-R-D-S? Or that I refer to Amber as a spoiled rich B-blank-blank-blank-blank? Or perhaps you would have liked it better if I had used the phrase mother-F-U—"

"Okay, okay, that's enough, I get it!" Natalie said.
"You can't keep them in the dark forever, Nattie," he replied. "They're gonna learn it all sooner or later, and if they were mine, I'd much rather them hear that sort of language at home from a family member or on TV than out on the streets or at school, because that way I'd at least be able to explain what it means and why they shouldn't go around repeating it to everyone. That's how we learned it, remember?"

"Yeah, because our father couldn't control his mouth when he was drunk, which was pretty much all the fricking time. And I'll thank you not to tell me how to parent my children, Mr. 'I'm-Never-Having-Kids.' If you change your mind and do end up becoming a father, then we can discuss parenting methods, but until then, keep it to yourself and let me do things my way."

"Buuuuuuuurn," Shilo said, and everyone except Graverobber laughed.
"Wha—Whose side are you on?!" he demanded.

"At the moment?" she replied, flashing an innocent smile and batting her eyelashes at him, which only made everyone else laugh even harder. "AAAAAnywaaaay," she said, turning to Natalie. "We were talking last night, and we realized that we're gonna need more clothes than what we were able to bring. There wouldn't happen to be, like, a thrift store or anything around here that we could go to, would there?"

"There is, actually," Natalie said. "I'd be happy to give you directions, but you have to do something for me in return."
"Whatever it is, the answer is no," Graverobber said. Shilo whacked him on the shoulder. "Ow!"

"Sure," she said, "what is it?"
"You're gonna regret it, kid!"

Natalie pointed at her son. "Take him with you. I need him out of the house for a while. It's not even nine, and he's already managed to drive me crazy."

"We can absolutely do that," Shilo said.
"Oh, thank you so much. Here, give me just a minute and I'll write down those directions."

She got up and went to go find a pad of paper and something to write with, leaving Graverobber rubbing the place where Shilo had whacked him and giving her a look that said, Seriously? What the hell was that for?! She simply shrugged in response to it.

"You two certainly have an interesting dynamic going on between you," Zack commented.
"Yeah, so we've been told," Graverobber said. "It probably has something to do with the fact that we were best friends before we became a couple."

"We still are best friends," Shilo chimed in. "It's just that now, we also happen to be dating."
"Which is a term I would use loosely, seeing how we haven't actually gone on any dates," Graverobber added.

"Oh, potato, potahto," Shilo said with a shrug.
Zack laughed. "I like her," he said. "I'd say you found a keeper, Allan."

"Yeah," Graverobber agreed, "I think so, too."

"Here you go," Natalie said as she returned with a piece of paper and handed it to Shilo. "Dylan was good friends with the manager. Tell him I sent you, maybe you'll get a discount. Kyle, run and go get dressed real quick, alright? Uncle Allan and Shilo are gonna take you out of the house for a while. And wear a jacket, it's chilly outside!"

"Uncle Allan?" Kyle said from the backseat of the truck.
"What's up?" Graverobber asked.

"How come you have all those colors in your hair?"
"Because I'm weird and I just like it better with them than without."

"Oh. How come Shilo has red in hers?"
"She likes the way it looks, same as me."

"Turn left up here," Shilo said.
"God, this reminds me of when I took you to 'Ranth's place and you got that dress. That thing looked amazing on you, I wish you'd brought it along."

"Who says I didn't?"
"Did you?"
"No, but I could've."
"Why didn't you?"
She shrugged.

"What's it like on Sanitarium Island?" Kyle asked suddenly.

Shilo and Graverobber looked at each other.

"It's...different," Graverobber said finally. "Very different from here. You know how people get their organs repossessed sometimes? Well, that happens a lot more often on Sanitarium. And people get surgery a lot more often and do much crazier things than you're used to seeing. A good example would be these three girls who worked at this diner that Shilo and I liked to go to. One of them had blue hair, and another had green hair, and the other had purple eyes. But there are a lot of other people on the island that have even crazier things than that done. Your mom's never told you any of this before?"

"Mom doesn't like to talk about Sanitarium. She says it was a nightmare."
"Yeah, well...that's one way of putting it."

"Hang right," Shilo said. To Kyle, she said, "And another thing about Sanitarium is that the graveyards are really different from what they are here."

The ten-year-old tilted his head to the side curiously. "The graveyards?" he said. "How are they different? Aren't they still used to bury people?"

"Yeah, of course they are," Graverobber said, "it's just...Okay, you can't tell your mom that we told you this, alright? I'd probably get in big trouble if she knew. But the graveyards are different because not all of them are outside. See, what happened was the outside graveyards got so full, and there were getting to be so many of them, that there started to be not enough room to bury everyone. So what they did was they started building these indoor graveyards. They're basically these big buildings, and the inside of them are made to look like outdoor graveyards, and people are buried in them just like in outdoor graveyards, but everything is inside. Shilo's mom is buried in an indoor graveyard."

"She is?" Kyle asked, turning to Shilo.
"Yep," Shilo said. "I used to go to her crypt with my dad when I was a little girl to give her flowers. There was a portrait of her hanging on the back wall."

"What's a crypt?"
"A crypt is like a stone house that's in a graveyard that you put someone's ashes or coffin in," Graverobber explained. "Usually family members share one. In fact, my mom and dad, your grandparents, they're buried in a crypt together somewhere on the island."

"Oh!" Shilo cried. "Right here, turn into this parking lot!"
"I got it, I got it," Graverobber said. "Oh, hey, look at that, it's a consignment store. Perfect, that's right up our alley."

Shilo snickered at the irony of the phrase "our alley," and Graverobber flashed a lopsided grin at her that seemed to convey he had worded it that way on purpose.

"Alright, Kyle," Graverobber said as he parked the truck and shut off the engine. "You remember the rules your mom gave you?"
"Don't act all hyper, always stay with you or Shilo, I'm not getting any toys, don't be loud, and don't climb on the shelves and stuff," Kyle said.

"Exactly. Alright, unbuckle and then stay where you are, it's a big step down, so I'm gonna come back there and help you get out. Shi, you okay getting down on your own?"

"I'm a big girl, Allan, I think I can handle getting out of a truck without breaking my ankle," Shilo replied sarcastically, and then opened her door and did exactly that. Kyle snickered behind his hand. Graverobber rolled his eyes, then got out and opened the back door, helping his nephew get down from the cab of the truck.

When they got into the store, Graverobber's eyebrows went up. "Wow," he said. "It looks smaller from the outside."
"It's bigger on the inside," Shilo said. Kyle laughed, but Graverobber only looked at them in confusion.

"What?" he asked. "What's so funny? I feel like I'm missing something here."
"It's bigger on the inside," Shilo repeated. "Haven't you ever watched Doctor Who?"

"...Is it bad if I say no?"
Shilo rolled her eyes as Kyle continued to laugh.

"Kyle Morrison, is that you?" a voice asked. A man somewhere around Natalie's age was approaching them. He had reddish-blond hair that was receding, and gray eyes with a kind look in them, and he was smiling at Kyle.

"Hi, Mr. Clark!" Kyle said.
"You've grown since the last time I saw you," Mr. Clark said. "Where's your mom?"
"She's at home with Ro. This is my uncle, he came here all the way from Sanitarium Island."

"Ah, so you're Natalie's famous little brother. It's nice to meet you, I'm Ryan Clark, I went to high school with your sister's husband."
Graverobber shook the offered hand. "Nice to meet you, too," he said. "I'm Allan, this is my girlfriend Shilo. Natalie asked us to bring Kyle with us because she needed him out of the house."

"Kyle, were you getting on your mom's nerves again?"
"Not on purpose!" Kyle protested.

Mr. Clark laughed. "So, what can I do for you?" he asked.
"We had to leave Sanitarium in kind of a rush," Shilo explained, "and we weren't able to bring very much with us, so probably sooner rather than later, we're going to end up running out of clothes, and we figured it would be better to take care of that before it became a problem, so Natalie gave us directions over here, and now here we are."

"Well, as long as you don't mind secondhand things, then I can definitely help you out."
"Back on the island, most of her clothes came from a thrift store that a friend of ours owned, so we're definitely alright with secondhand," Graverobber said.

"In that case, welcome to the utopia of secondhand clothes."

So for a while, they wandered around browsing through things and finding all sorts of interesting things that didn't just include clothes. At one point, Graverobber called Shilo over to where he was, and when she went to see what he wanted to show her, he held up a pair of neon blue tights, a huge grin on his face. Her initial reaction was, "Oh my God," and then after that, they both said at the same time, "They're Zydrate colored!" before bursting into laughter.

They agreed that she couldn't leave without them.

Not wanting to be left out, Kyle also helped look for things, and he discovered a belt buckle made to look like a cockroach, which he eagerly presented to Graverobber, insisting that he needed to buy it, and Graverobber laughed, agreeing that it was pretty cool, so he decided that to hell with it, Kyle was right, he needed something like that, so he'd go ahead and get it. Shilo also found a pair of black leather round-toed lace up boots that went midway up her calves and were reminiscent of Victorian coal mill boots in style, and she decided to get those so that she'd have more than one pair of shoes to choose from.

"I'd say that was a pretty successful trip," Shilo said as they were leaving.
"Promise me you'll wear those tights tomorrow," Graverobber replied. "I can't wait to see what they look like on you."

"I promise," she said laughingly. "Hm...I wonder what I should wear them with?"
"You brought that pleated leather miniskirt that you wore on your birthday, right? Why not wear them with that?"

"That's a good idea, but then that still leaves the question of which top to wear."
"You'll figure it out," he said as he helped Kyle climb into the truck.

He sighed as he put his seatbelt on and stuck the key in the ignition. Shilo looked over at him. "What's wrong?" she asked. He shook his head.

"Nothing," he said, "I was just thinking about this whole Zack situation, that's all."
"Stop worrying about it," she said, reaching across the space between them and putting a hand on his knee. "You did fine earlier. If you ask me, you were freaking out for nothing. I mean, I don't know the entire story or what reasons you have for feeling the way you do about it, but just from what I saw, that's my take on it. Seriously, I mean you handled things beautifully. No differently than you would have otherwise."

"Uncle Allan?" Kyle said. "Do you not like Zack?"
Graverobber twisted around to look at his nephew and blinked. "What makes you think that?" he asked.

Kyle shrugged.
Graverobber sighed heavily.

"It's...It's hard to explain," he said. "When your mom and I were kids, Zack and our dad argued about some stuff, and there were certain things that Zack said and did that just...Look, Kyle, as much as I hate having to say this sort of thing and be one of 'those' kinds of grown-ups, this is one of those times when the only thing I can really say that'll make sense to you is that you'll understand when you're older. And it's not that I don't like Zack, it's just that...I haven't seen him since I was younger than you are now, so it's been a really long time, and I just...He's probably changed a lot since then, because I know I have. So he's not really the Zack that I remember, and that makes it kind of hard for me."

"So he's Zack, but he's not Zack?"
"Kind of. That's one way to look at it."

"I think a good way to explain it," Shilo said, "would be to say that it's like they're meeting each other for the first time all over again."
"Exactly," Graverobber agreed. "That's perfect. She's right, it's like I'm meeting Zack for the first time all over again. And it...it's weird for me. And I'm sure that it's weird for him, too."

For a moment, he just sat there staring blankly at nothing. Shilo gently touched his shoulder. "Allan," she said softly. "Graves. Are you alri—"

"Yeah," he said abruptly. "I'm fine. Let's get back before Natalie starts to think we ran off or something."

I have a younger brother, so trust me, I know from experience what ten-year-old boys can be like. In fact, I'm not saying he is, and I'm not saying he isn't, but Kyle might be a little bit influenced by what my brother was like at age ten. And I seriously did find a pair of neon blue tights online the other day when I was Google image searching various clothing items in a few different styles to give myself an idea of things that Shilo might wear, and somehow that got included in the results for something, and I went, "HOLY SHIT, ZYDRATE BLUE TIGHTS FUCK YES BITCH" and thus they got included in this chapter and you bet your ass she will be wearing them in future chapters because they're FUCKING ZYDRATE FUCKING BLUE and that should be the only excuse needed, so there.