"You fancy yourself a do-gooder?" Grandfather's smug baritone echoed around the battered Tiki Lounge as he added insult to injury, reclaiming the spotlight once more whilst Uncle Diego turned on the man. While everyone slowly regained their bearings and returned to their seats, Theodore eventually collapsed into his chair where he held his aching head in his hands. Squeezing his eyes shut, the young man groaned lowly as he hid his pounding head in his arms as they lay on the fruit-splattered table. Much like when he did a full shift, there was always the painful headache that accompanied the return to his human self—not as much mind you, but still enough for him to question why he kept doing it. "The last good man who will save us from our descent into corruption and conspiracy? That is a fantastic delusion. The sad reality is that you're a desperate man, tragically unaware of his own insignificance, desperately clinging to his own ineffectual reasoning. More succinctly, a man over his head"

"Y-y-y-you're—you're wr-wrong" Uncle Diego violently stuttered as his father easily dismantled the larger-than-life vigilante persona that he had built up around himself. Even to Theodore, he sounded like a scared child still trying to defy his father.

"…Look" Uncle Five sighed wearily, "Forget about the President. We have a catastrophic war coming in five days. We need to figure out how to stop it"

"War?" Questioned Grandfather as he turned to Uncle Five, "Men will always be at war with each other"

"No, this is just some war—I'm talking about doomsday, the end of the world"

"Well…you're the special ones, aren't you? Why don't you band together and do something about it?"

"They want a Hail Mary, Grandfather" Theodore supplied, his voice muffled by his arms.

"Don't mumble, Cetus" Grandfather scolded.

"Yessir" Theodore sat upright with a wince as he rubbed at his pounding temples.

"So you've just given up then, Theodore?" Uncle Five scowled.

"Like I told you, Uncle" Theodore turned to his smallest uncle with a mirrored expression of displeasure. "War is coming whether you like it or not—people are going to die, that is the inevitable outcome of war" Next to him, Uncle Klaus winced as some sort of unseen memory played in front of his eyes. "Admittedly, yes, this war is coming a little earlier than it had originally, but the outcome will still be the same. We will fight, we will lose, we will win and the world will continue to spin, because we are nothing more than insignificant pawns in this chess game"

Uncle Five's expression turned more and more sour and each word that fell from Theodore's lips. The young man leant his arms on the table as hie continued to make his point. "Do you know why the world didn't give a shit the first time around? Because it played out on their doorsteps; it wasn't shoved down their throats and so they could go on, ignoring the horrors that were going on right in front of them. Because they weren't happening to them, so it didn't matter. The world is always ending, Uncle, the only reason you care this time around, is because it was shoved down your throat so you couldn't ignore it"

Before Uncle Five could snarl out a reply, Uncle Klaus suddenly jerked upright with a grunt, both arms rocketing into the air as he shook violently. "Jesus!" Theodore flinched at the sudden movement, twisting in his seat as his uncle performed some kind of weird manoeuvre.

"…Is he having a seizure?" Auntie asked, her eyes travelling from her nephew to her brother.

"Overdosing probably" Uncle Diego replied.

"Should we do…something?" Uncle Luther asked as Uncle Klaus ever so slowly turned to face Grandfather.

"Klaus! Now is not the time! What are you doing?!" Uncle Five demanded as Uncle Klaus burnt crimson and distorted gurgling fell from his lips. It was like he was possessed, more so than what Theodore had been only moments before.

"I'm…" Uncle Klaus gasped, his words becoming stuck in his throat.

"Out with it, boy!" Grandfather snapped.

"…Ben!" Uncle Klaus collapsed to the floor once more as he lay in a shuddering mess on the floor at their feet.

"Isn't that the name of your dead uncle?" Loren asked.

"S'posedly" Theodore murmured as he watched his drunken uncle twitch and spasm on the floor (miraculously his glass had remained clutched tightly in his hands the entire time).

"Well…thank you for coming. I've seen about enough" Grandfather recollected his things and made to leave. "Come along, Cetus"

"Yes, Grandfather" Theodore sighed as he followed after the old man without complaint, stepping over his indisposed uncle on the floor.

THUNK!

"Hey! Look what you did to me!" Uncle Luther suddenly cried out as he jumped to his feet and ripped open his shirt to reveal the shaven ape chest beneath. "Look at it!"

"Oh God!" Theodore murmured, pausing in his step. "This again?" He wasn't the only one. While Auntie Allison had slapped a hand over her mouth in surprise at the sudden display of rebellion from Number One, Uncle Diego watched amusedly as their father's disappointed stare turned from him to the ape-man standing over the table.

"Oh shit, why?" Uncle Five swore as he defeatedly collapsed back into his chair; all sense of professionalism gone out the window. There was a beat of silence as Grandfather stared down Uncle Luther, crumbling his sudden confidence like it was nothing more than glitter on the wind.

"You, in the culottes" Grandfather pointed at Uncle Five and then gestured towards the bar, "A word, in private?"

"…Cheque, please" Auntie instructed as Uncle Five followed after Grandfather like a little shadow.

In turn, as the others prepared to leave Theodore flopped down into one of the benches of an unoccupied table. Laying lengthwise along the bench, he let his feet fell over the end of the seat as he draped his arm over his face and hid in his elbow. A low pitiful groan fell from his lips as he tried to sort through everything that had happened—including the small episode in between Uncle Diego's threats and the parade of powers, which was starting to come back in flashes. "Well, that could've gone better" Loren mused.

"No shit, Sherlock" Theodore mumbled as images flashed before his eyes like they were on fast forward. Threat. Pounce. Attack. Uncle. Fear. Mama. Glass. Tail. Stop. Confusion. "Geez, what did we do?"

"You really wanna know?"

"…No, no, probably not" He sighed, letting his mind go as the sounds of his uncle and grandfather floated over from the bar.

"…You seem to be the sensible one of the bunch" Grandfather noted over the island music still crackling through the speakers.

"That's because I'm the oldest" Uncle Five replied. Theodore could just imagine the look of confusion written on his grandfather's face. "Y'know, technically, I'm old than you right now"

"Ha! He used the word 'technically!" Loren laughed, likely remembering the drunk conversation from the day before. Theodore just snorted in reply.

"Cognac?" Grandfather offered, likely unsure of where to start with the schoolboy.

"Mm, just a smidge" Uncle Five accepted.

"The other night you quoted Homer at me. Why?"

"You forced us all to learn it as kids—in the original Greek, no less"

"So he's always enjoyed those Greek stories?" Loren asked.

"I guess so" Theodore replied quietly, trying to keep his obvious eavesdropping on the down low.

"…This world ends in five days if we don't get out of the timeline" Uncle Five continued on.

"Worlds end" Grandfather replied, echoing the sentiment that Theodore had expressed earlier. "Palaeozoic, Jurassic, and so on"

"We can do something about this one"

"Man's greatest flaw: the illusion of control"

"I need your help. All right? You're my last sane option" Uncle Five sounded more desperate than Theodore had ever heard him (admittedly he had only known him about two weeks) and he tried to listen closer as the conversation took a more solemn turn. "Otherwise I gotta make a deal that I really don't wanna make…What do you know about time travel?"

"In theory?"

"In practise?"

"I know it's akin to descending blindly into the depths of freezing waters and reappearing—"

"—As an acorn. Yeah"

"What transpired when tried travelling before?"

"…I botched it"

"How?"

"I jumped too far forward, got stuck in the future for 45 years in an apocalypse. Then I jumped too far backwards, except this time I brought my entire family with me"

"Maybe your appetite is disproportionate to the size of your abilities. Start small: seconds, not decades"

"Seconds?"

'Mmm"

"Look, no offence, but I need a bit more time for what I'm trying to accomplish"

"So much can change in a matter of seconds—"

"Amen, sister!" Loren crowed, throwing his metaphorical hands in the air.

"—One could overthrow an empire, one could fall in love. An acorn doesn't become an oak tree overnight"

"…I was really hoping for more than that"

"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help"

"I'm sorry too. I gave you such a hard time as a kid, I didn't know any better"

"Hm. No skin off my teeth, old man"

Theodore didn't know he had drifted off to sleep until he was being jostled awake by a kick to the shins. "Mm?" He groaned irritably as his eyes blearily peeled open and he dropped the arm draped over his eyes. Blinking rapidly at the sudden change in light, he eventually propped himself up on his elbows to see that both Uncle Five and Grandfather stood at his feet with mirrored looks of amused displeasure. A familiar folder was tucked under Uncle Five's arm and it appeared that wherever had transpired after he had dozed off, had resulted in the acquirement of said folder. Theodore suspected that that meant Grandfather might be sending him away, and he wasn't quite sure how he felt about that.

"Gr—Grandfather?" Theodore yawned, his jaw audibly cracking at the action as he sat up.

"I see your shoes have mysteriously gone missing" Grandfather noted, making Theodore freeze like a deer in the headlights.

"U-um—I—I" He stammered, slowly tucking his feet beneath him as he cowered slightly beneath his grandfather's gaze. "No?"

"So there's no shoe-devouring monster under the floor, then?" He quirked a brow as his lips twitched into a tasting smirk.

"O-oh, you remember that…" Theodore trailed off as he turned away, his cheeks flushing red when he remembered the scenario in which Grandfather was referring to. At the same time, he tried to ignore Uncle Five's piercing stare as he watched the unfounded fondness passing between grandfather and grandson with barely contained jealousy. "Of course you do"

"Anyhow, I believe these belong to you"

Theodore perked up at the small suede jewellery box offered to him. Sliding to his feet, Theodore excitedly took the box offered to him and with eyes gleaming brightly, he flicked the lid open to find a string of smartly polished beads lined up in row, much like how a string of pearls would lay. Carefully pulling the string of beads from the box, Theodore's eyes fluttered from the glittering apatite to the shining pounamu. "Thank you, Grandfather" Theodore breathed, smiling brightly up at the man with unconfined happiness at the gift he had been given.

In all the time he had been in his grandfather's care, not once had he ever been given more than one or two beads at once; but here he had a whole string of highly polished stone beads, ones that he wasted no time in wrapping around his wrist alongside the other make-shift bracelets.

"Mm" Grandfather hummed, his face remained stoic but Theodore could see the happiness dancing in his old eyes. "This fellow, here—" He clapped Uncle Five on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over as the spotlight was briefly drawn back to the schoolboy-assassin. "—Will be in charge of your lessons from now on"

"Grandfather?" Theodore's brows knotted in confusion as his stomach dropped to his feet. His excitement was quickly replaced with trepidation as he began to realise where the old man was going with this. It sounded like he was saying goodbye for forever.

"You will behave" Grandfather's voice was thicker than usual, unlike anything Theodore had heard before. A quick glance out of the corner of his eyes showed that Uncle Five hadn't really noticed the change, far too occupied with awkwardly standing off to the side, rocking slightly on his heels in his impatience.

"…Y-yessir" Theodore nodded as his heart thudded in his chest.

"Very well, then I believe this is farewell" Grandfather nodded, readjusting his blazer as if his hands needed something to do whilst he retained a sense of professionalism.

Theodore held no such qualms as he launched himself forward and wrapped himself around the old man, startling a quiet noise out of him in surprise. Burying his head in his grandfather's chest, Theodore gripped tight to the back of his blazer as he listened to his heart beat in his ear; a small whimper muffled against the cloth. Ever so slowly, he felt Grandfather's arms come to rest around his shoulders, returning the desperate hug in a much more hesitant manner.

As the two stood there—grandfather and grandson—silently faring each goodbye, they missed the look of utter shock and jealously that had engraved itself onto his uncle's face. Shock that Reginald Hargreeves would openly—willingly express any type of affection for another human being and jealousy that it was his nephew and not him, who was the recipient of his father's love (however restrained it may be). There was guilt that warred with impatience as he rocked on his heels; wanting nothing more than to split the two apart and frogmarch his nephew back to Elliot's. But a single voice twisted in his mind: How did his nephew attain the fatherly love that he never did?