A/N: I'm going on vacation for awhile, so the updates are going to be slightly irregular. Sorry.

December 22, 1974

"IT'S NOT FAIR!" Klaus screamed.

His mother was doing what she could to comfort him. However, in the mood he was in right now, comforting wasn't working. Besides, Xuan was upset enough as it was, so she probably wasn't the best comforter. Angrily he kicked at a chair. Xuan wrapped restraining arms around him as furious tears flowed down his face.

That afternoon Hoa's health had taken a turn for the worse. When he'd asked what it was, the doctors had said that it was just age. There wasn't any cure for that. In other words there was nothing that they could do. They said that she was going to die within the next month. A year if they were lucky.

They didn't have enough money to keep her in the good part of the hospital. Ever since the war had ended business had been slow. Ever since he was ten he'd been doing odd jobs. He'd managed to juggle two or three at a time recently though. After all, with his odd growth spurt he could pass for about fifteen or sixteen now. Even so money had been very tight in the past few years. They just didn't have much for hospital bills.

From what he'd seen and heard the charity ward that they were going to put her in was much, much worse then where she was now. There wasn't anything he could do about it, and all he could think about was how unfair it. Right now he would probably have to drop out of school and get a full-time job to cope with the charity ward. That was fine with him. He didn't like school. At the same time though, he knew that whatever he earned wouldn't be enough.

Feeling weak he got up and started to leave the room. Xuan looked after him, obviously worried.

"Klaus-" she started.

"I just, I just need to be alone right now, alright?" he said, looking back at his mother over his shoulder.

She nodded, but she still looked unconvinced. Tiredly Klaus clomped up the stairs to the attic. It had gone through some changes in the last few years as he attempted to put his personal stamp on it. Binders full of tarot cards, books, pencils, and a few other things sat on boxes being used as makeshift bookshelves. The walls were pasted with drawings and the occasional stolen page from a library book.

Fighting tears he shuffled through the boxes that littered the room. After awhile he found and took out the jar where they kept their money. 40,000 dong. Klaus recounted the bills. It was still 40,000 dong. That wasn't much, especially with those new hospital bills that were going to come up.

Klaus wanted to run away and cry somewhere. He wasn't going to though. He wasn't nine anymore and acting like he was wasn't an option. Deep down he knew that thirteen wasn't such a big stretch from nine. It would have to do though. Klaus was going to have to think up something that would work. How was he going to turn 40,000 dong into a sum that would work for them?

Putting the jar down he knocked over another box. Items tumbled out and covered the floor. Swearing under his breath he started to pick them up. As he did so a long leather jacket tangled around his legs, causing him to trip. He hit the floor and gritted his teeth. That was just great. All he needed to do was trip over the stuff and break his neck. As he shoved the items into the box he noticed something.

An old photo was on the floor, its back to him. It looked crinkled, like no one had been paying much attention to it. Frowning he picked it up. There was writing on the back. All it said was the date though, September 29, 1961. Klaus's frown deepened as he flipped it over.

His mother was in the picture. It was undeniably her. Her hair was braided, like he'd always seen it. In fact, she was wearing the exact same clothes that she always did. Being dead did that to you. Yet, there was something different. For one thing she was heavily pregnant. There was also a priest in the background. The thing that really caught his attention was the other person in the picture with her though.

The man standing next to his mother looked very pale, which was saying something since the picture was in black and white. He wasn't wearing anything too fancy, unlike Xuan. At the same time he had his arm around her and was giving this odd sort of smirk to the camera. Because of the photo's age it was difficult to tell anything horribly distinguishing. There was one thing he did know though. The man in the photo looked like him.

Pausing he noticed the jacket in the photo. Then he looked down at the floor at the jacket that had nearly tripped him. Bending down he picked it up. In the pocket was a pair of dark sunglasses. That and the photo were probably the only things he had from a father who had…no. He didn't know what had happened to his father. From the way his mother talked about him though, he knew he wasn't dead.

He had to get through this. He had to make it to his fifteenth birthday. Otherwise no one would ever explain his father to him. His mother had said that she'd explain when he was fifteen. That was two years from now. He wasn't old enough now. Klaus was, however, old enough to get the family out of what was happening. He knew what he had to do. He'd probably just been too scared to do it before. The solution wasn't exactly normal after all.

Normal. That was the word that caught his attention. He wasn't normal. He hadn't had a normal upbringing. So he could use an abnormal way to get out of this. Well, it wasn't that much of a stretch. Lots of people did it. He smirked to himself. Putting on the sunglasses and pocketing the 40,000 dong he descended the stairs.

"It's going to be alright," he assured his mother as he headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked, looking kind of shocked that he was wearing sunglasses in the middle of winter, "And where did you find those sunglasses?"

He smirked again.

"In the attic," he answered as he picked up his jacket and put it on, "As for where I'm going, don't worry about this. I'm going to fix this."

"By…?" said Xuan, looking at him worriedly.

"I'm the premonition kid," he said, "What do you do when you can see the future and you need money? It's called gambling."

She looked at him; a little shocked but also incredibly worried.

"Klaus-"

"Maybe it's not the best idea," he said, "But I'm going to be careful about this. Don't worry mom. Just leave it to me."