A/N: This is the extra that was supposed to go on the last chapter. As you've probably noticed, Chapters are told by Blood+ characters, while interludes are not 1st person. Extras are written from the perspective of whomever. This one is written from the perspective of James, Haji's kinda not really history bro. Since this isn't added to a chapter any more, it's a bit longer than originally intended.

I love looking into a weird world such as that of Blood+ from the perspective of someone on the outside, so this chapter will be about that.

Disclaimer: I do not own Blood+

Who the Hell is Haji?

Narrated by James (the grad student)

Early on the second day of tours Haji ditched me to go to Paris with his girlfriend. I didn't expect him to stay past the opening, but I did miss having him here. The professionals were a lot older than me, and the interns were drunken undergrads only interested in trying the local wines.

Sure, he didn't drink, wasn't interested in modern pop culture, and said absolutely nothing about himself, but he was good company. Haji always listens to you without much care, and he would come with you to the local bars to watch sports with you and be the designated driver. I don't think he liked any of the sports but soccer, but it didn't matter much since it was France and therefore soccer was almost always on.

Haji's an odd guy. He's as pretty as any woman, but still has decent muscles and enough strength to carry more weight than me. None of us who worked with him on the project know anything about him beyond his first name, that he is fresh out of an Ivy League, and that he knows more about the Zoo than he probably has any right to. Oh. And that he has a long term girlfriend that none of us thought existed but apparently does. As much as I hated to agree with Melissa, she did look like a high schooler.

Still, it sucked to not have him and his occasional sarcastic comments here. At least Melissa had left at the same time as him. Then again, would she be as annoying once her target had left? Maybe, considering she was obviously looking for anyone to hook up with. I would have probably been her next target; I was when Haji had left for a week to pick up Saya.

Tonight, Dr. Wallace had invited me to his cottage to discuss my research. I don't know him too well. This summer, Dr. Benoit (my advisor), Melissa, and I were tasked with writing the scripts for the various tours and helping the museum director (who had been called away a lot this summer for conferences) set up exhibits and signs. Dr. Wallace was set to become the head of historical research here, so he had spent the summer collecting and cataloging thousands of historical documents about the region for visiting academics to use. He was intimidating to work with when I did because he was the top scholar in his field: 18th and 19th century European nobility. He was chosen for this role because some of his most famous research was about the scientific hobbies of the nobility. Just being in his presence was incredible, but spending a semester doing research for him was a dream.

The thirty interns that ran the tours, gift shop, front desk, and activities lived along with lower priority visiting scholars like me in the two-thirds of the attic that hadn't been restored to their capacity as servants' quarters. At least scholars had single rooms while the interns were doubled up. We also had a staff lounge with a small kitchen and TV, but I never spent time there. The cleaning and cooking staff along with the interns' managers and permanent employees all lived in town, but used the staff lounge constantly.

It was a bit of a relief to get away from those close quarters as I walked the two miles out to the remote cottages the department heads used. They were not destroyed in the fire at the Zoo, but had to undergo extensive renovations. Now those four cottages stood in a grove of trees along an asphalt road. A fifth cottage sat empty for any new director they needed to hire, but would be used for visiting scholars in the meantime. The museum director, Dr. Wallace, director of biological sciences, and lead veterinarian lived here. The property manager lived on an estate off site. The stable master lived in the carriage house above the stables.

I knocked on the wood door of Dr. Wallace's cottage and waited as I heard his footsteps approach the door. After the long trek through the woods I was grateful to see his scruffy white beard and hear his warm greeting. As he led me to the sitting room, I could see his recently arrived wife was cleaning up the kitchen from dinner. When he spoke, it was in French.

"My wife can't speak French, so I hope you don't mind if we speak in it," he laughed. I didn't know what was more intimidating: that I would finally be having a private talk with such a distinguished man, or that I would be having a private talk with him about something he didn't want even his wife to hear.

"Of course," I said trying to sound casual. "I could always use practice speaking, since most of my experience with the language is reading it."

"Well, it's what you speak with Haji, isn't it?" I wasn't quite sure how he knew about that.

"Sometimes. He liked to speak in English. His French can sound like something straight out of one of the old documents we read, so I can understand why," I replied.

"That is interesting, isn't it," Dr. Wallace said rather than asked.

"Maybe he learned all of his French from history classes. I've never asked him about that. It's an odd quirk."

"But you've talked to him quite a bit, correct? I saw you going to town with him frequently this summer." I wondered what he was getting at, but I went along with it.

"Yeah, but he's not much fun. He doesn't drink or share appetizers or anything."

"Did he tell you anything about himself," Dr. Wallace asked carefully.

"No, nothing. He usually just listened to my drunken ramblings. I bet he knows everything about me!" He laughed. "But the most I learned about him was that he actually wasn't gay and did have a girlfriend."

Dr. Wallace continued to laugh. "I was grateful he did. If not, Melissa would've been terrible to deal with this past week. We probably would've had to station somebody outside of his room to prevent her from breaking in. Probably Joel's friend, what was his name? David, I think." I had to laugh in agreement. Never had I been more grateful that Saya existed. I was entirely unaware that he even knew of Melissa's obsession, but then again he did go drinking with Dr. Benoit and the museum manager on occasion. They would gossip to him what he didn't know. "But back to Haji. Are you sure he didn't tell you anything about himself? Anything about Saya?"

I shook my head.

"Well, I've been wondering about him," he said, suddenly less jolly and more quiet.

I cocked my head in curiosity.

"He's always seemed a lot older than he looks. The way he holds himself, speaks, writes… everything about him seems to be more refined than anyone his age these days. I did some searching online, but I couldn't find anything about him anywhere, even about this project. This despite him knowing more than literally anything about this property. He knows things that should have been destroyed in the fire, like the decoration of the Queen's room and who occupied which room on the property. We had blueprints, but nothing that detailed," Dr. Wallace said.

"Well, he's always seemed very smart," I acknowledged. "I just never questioned it. He's very close to Joel's family, so perhaps he has access to records of the property that they never showed us for some reason."

"In anything you read, what did you read about the Knight? I didn't have the time to read much. But I did notice the names of the Knight and Queen were redacted, along with details of most of Joel I's experiments into immortality and anti-aging methods," he explained. "There is no reason for their names to be redacted, unless their names would reveal something they didn't want us to know."

"We would have recognized the names," I said with realization. "You… you think?"

"I think there is a possibility that the Knight got the anti-aging serum shortly before or on the day of the fire. He would have been twenty-two at the time. All they said about the serum that we could read was that it stopped aging, but they did not mention if it gave individuals immortality. If it did, it would explain why the Goldsmith family killed so many trying to replicate the results," he paused. "That's probably why they want to keep as much as possible secret."

"So then, there's a chance Haji's the Knight himself?"

"As much as there is a chance Saya's the Queen."

"Why are you sharing this with me now," I asked.

"I got something this morning, and I trust you with it." He handed me a stack of pages that had been faxed to him. "There was one surviving family of a worker at the Zoo that we didn't find. They found us instead, and sent us this to prove their relation so they could get a special tour when they come to visit in a month."

Dr. Wallace stayed silent as I slowly scanned the papers and processed what they said. The first two were a copy of a birth certificate issued to a gypsy family living in a town near the Zoo and a diary entry. They documented the birth of a baby boy to the family in 1860, the same year as the Knight. The baby's name? Haji. The other three papers contained a single diary entry for 1870 – the year the Knight was brought to the Zoo. It was written by the boy's mother and sisters. They described their sadness and frustration as the father had sold the boy to one Joel Goldschmidt for a desperately needed loaf of bread and was taken to live as a servant at their cursed manor. I looked up from the papers with a dumb look. Could this be real?

"It is always possible that the Haji we know is a descendant. If both Knight and Queen escaped as was rumored it's within the realm of possibility that they had a child," Dr. Wallace said. It was obvious he doubted that reasoning. "But the relative did say he was approach for DNA testing to identify a relative killed in the fire at the Zoo. That's what prompted him to look; they wouldn't tell him who it was they were looking to identify. We didn't request DNA for any of the servants' families to confirm their identity. The bodies were claimed the day after the incident and buried. Those that weren't were identified and buried on site. Haji – the Knight's body was never found."

We both sat in silence for some time, processing what was said.

Dr. Wallace broke the silence. "Perhaps it's better if we keep our mouths shut about this. Joel, or maybe Haji himself, would kill us if we were to accidentally leak this considering the consequences."

I nodded in agreement, but one question had to be asked: "What will we tell the family?"

"We'll figure that out when it comes. They're arriving in a month."

"That's not a lot of time," I worried.

"No, but Haji will be back."

"We can't tell him we know! I'm being honest here – I'm scared he'll kill us," I said.

"Oh, I'm sure he has suspicions that I have my suspicions and I'm not dead," Dr. Wallace assured me. "We'll just have to show him these documents, tell them they're from a family that's visiting, and go from there. He's lonely. Even if he has Saya, he was taken from his family at too young an age. Maybe he needs to know what happened to them, to know his sacrifice paid off."

Once again we sat silently, no longer strangers, but rather holders of a sad story we couldn't tell. It was still to be seen if this was the right choice, but it was one we'd made together, me and the man I'd admired. We would give Haji the chance to reunite with his family.

A/N: So that sets up the next chapter, which is the last one I have planned out for this fic. When that's posted, this story will be marked as complete, but more may still be added it I feel like it.