Chapter Two

Episode 1

Now:

Andorra lingered on the stoop for a moment or two without bothering to enter. An immediate chill had torn down her spine at the sight of the umbrella emblem, one that centralized around her left wrist and made it burn and ache. The sensation had become overwhelming the moment she stepped through the threshold. She'd been immediately bombarded with horrible memories and things that made her skin crawl. A scowl twisted her features.

"Oh my God," She heard Diego snap. She headed toward the library where it had come from. "Who gives a shit about a monocle?"

She reached the ope archway and spotted everyone in attendance, numbers one through seven. She hadn't thought all of them would bother coming to see the old man off. Then again, she hadn't thought she would, either.

"Exactly," Luther replied. "It's worthless. Whoever-"

He seemed to sense that someone else had walked in on their conversation and paused. Luther and Diego were the first to see her, but the others slowly followed their line of sight. A sly, crooked smirk twisted her full lips.

"Hi, there." She said.

"Andy," Vanya sounded as shocked as she looked. Diego appeared angry, which didn't surprise her. Luther and Allison seemed uncertain as to why she was there. Again, she expected as much. What had hurt was Klaus's refusal to look at her, more content to swallow whole mouthfuls of alcohol and suck sharply on his cigarette.

"What are you doing here?" Diego asked briskly.

"I wanted to make sure the boogeyman was dead." She told him . Andorra let her eyes glide back to the two on the couch. "Hey, Vee. Klaus."

Klaus didn't react in the least, but Vanya gave her version of a smile –weak and uncertain like she was.

"Hi," she said as she rose to her feet.

She offered Andy a hug, which the young woman accepted.

"Anyway," Luther said, drawing any lingering attention back to him. "We were kind of in the middle of something. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all." She said as she held up her hands. "Please, continue."

Luther and Diego continued to eye her, but Andy made no motions to leave, something they realized quickly.

"Then go away." Diego told her.

"She's part of this family, too." Vanya said.

Diego's brows rose sarcastically. Not only had he been shocked by Vanya's "commanding" statement, but the context of it, too.

"The hell she is." He said sternly. "She wasn't raised with us."

"Yeah," Allison interjected, but she didn't sound overly enthusiastic about the concept. "She was." Allison glanced to Andy before focusing again on her brother. "She was here long enough, okay?"

Diego scoffed and crossed his arms. It was clear he wanted to keep fighting, but with more people seeming to join Andy's side, he didn't press.

"Anyway," Luther grumbled. He wasn't happy with the conversation's divergence. "The monocle-"

"No one gives a shit, Luther." Diego snapped.

"I know." Luther ignored his brother's outburst. "Like I said, it's worthless. I'm thinking whoever took it wanted it. It was personal. Someone close to him took it, someone with a grudge."

Klaus's face twisted with drunken confusion. "Where are you going with this?"

"Oh," Diego sighed softly. "Isn't it obvious, Klaus? He thinks one of us did it."

Luther opened his mouth to defend himself or possibly refute his brother's statement, but nothing left his lips. It was in his silence that the others began to realize Diego's paranoid statement may not have been as outlandish as they originally thought.

"Oh my god," Klaus muttered in shock. "You do."

"How can you think that?" Vanya asked.

Allison shook her head in disgust while Andy laughed, openly and obnoxiously. She couldn't help it. Luther was supposed to be the "brains" and he just told his siblings he blamed them. Her laughter had been reflexive.

"Great job leading." Diego said, his voice dripping with thick derision.

"I didn't mean-"

"You're crazy." Klaus said. "Crazy."

"I-" Luther's half-hearted words fell on deaf ears as his siblings stood and began to disperse. "I'm not finished." He said.

"Yeah, well," Klaus said sarcastically. "I'm going to go murder Mom, okay?"

Klaus followed Diego out, Vanya shortly after that. Still snickering and shaking her head to herself, Andy left as well. She assumed Allison left at some point, too.

Andy wandered the halls with a small bundle of grapes she'd stolen from the fridge. She ate them as she lazily strolled through the academy. Part of her wanted to throw them at the portraits on the walls, or put them in her mouth and launch them across the rooms, but she didn't. It would've been petty and spiteful, and work for Grace or Pogo. Andy liked Grace and Pogo. They were good to her and treated her like a human being, not like an experiment or project.

Andy jogged upstairs and back to the main floor once again. Part of her wanted to see her old room. She wondered if it was even still there. Maybe Klaus had destroyed it when she left? Maybe Vanya picked it clean? She didn't know, but was curious. Then again, perhaps she thought too much of herself? The more likely truth would be that her room remained untouched, covered with a layer of dust because no one had bothered looking at it when she left, because they didn't care. Luther most definitely didn't and by then Diego and Allison had both moved out, and Ben was gone.

As she rounded the corner with every intention of climbing yet another flight of stairs, she heard something in the library again. It sounded like Klaus and he was talking to nobody. Not an entirely surprising thing, sure, but it made her curious enough to check.

When she made it to the archway, Andy saw Klaus berating an urn.

"You always were a stubborn old bastard!"

Her brows rose in shock at his angry declaration.

Klaus's shoulders slumped and his head dipped as he let out a long sigh.

"Who else needs a drink?" He mumbled.

Andy watched as the young man in the skirt dragged his feet across the carpet and to the bar. He reached over it sloppily and knocked against the Old Man's urn sending the lid flying off and causing the internal bits to spread across the bar's surface.

Her laugh was loud and instant. It was born out of shock and disbelief, but apparently terrified Klaus. He spun, forcing his skirt to flutter in the air as he did.

With eyes wide and hands high in the air, he shouted, "I didn't do it! It was like this when I got here!"

Andy's lips curled back into a wide smile. It took him a moment, but Klaus soon realized that she was the one who'd spotted him and he calmed substantially.

"Oh, Jesus," He sighed as he pressed his hand to his bare chest. "I thought you were someone else."

"Nope," She said as she entered the library and slowly made her way to him. "Just me."

"Yeah," He mumbled, sounding barely glad at the fact. It caused her brows to twitch together . "Hey, can you do your-"

He waved his hand semi-mystically over the pile of spread ashes. Andy eyed him. She knew what he was asking, but the fact that he had was, well, stupid.

"No," She replied as though it should've been obvious. "My thing's water. That is, literally, a pile of ash."

Klaus shrugged casually and turned his attention back to the mass. She could see him thinking about what to do before finally grabbing an empty glass. He began to sweep the ashes into it and dump them back into the urn, all the while grimacing and scowling as though he were dealing with the squishy bits of a body instead of the truth.

"That's good enough." He said when the majority of them were back in place.

He placed the top on the urn once again, set it aside, and after taking a deep breath, blew the rest off the bar. They scattered, floating to the carpeted floor where they disappeared within the intricate design. Klaus moved behind the bar to make himself a drink. It appeared as though he'd learned his lesson and didn't want to risk losing even more of the dwindling ash supply.

"You uh," He said as he glanced periodically at Andy, "You can go, now."

His glib behavior had been bad enough, but then he waved his hand to dismiss her. Andy's brows furrowed while a pit formed in her chest.

"Klaus," Her voice was soft and undeniably sad.

"What?" He snapped. Klaus planted his palms firmly against the bar's surface and stared back at her coldly. "Klaus, what?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but a dozen things wanted to come out at once. As a result, she could only manage the same, repeated apology she'd given before.

"I'm sorry."

He scoffed derisively and shook his head. Instead of replying to her comment, Klaus proceeded to scoop up the urn and very fancifully and sarcastically say, "Excuse me," before he sauntered off.

Andorra's heart physically ached. Klaus was all she had left and it had become clear that, despite the time that passed, he still hated her. On some level she didn't blame him. On the selfish other level, she felt as though he should've gotten over it by now. It'd been nearly ten years, after all.

Seventeen Years Ago:

Andorra couldn't sleep. She'd been at the academy for less than a week and the sounds of the house still creeped her out. She was used to sleeping random places with equally random sounds and it tended to take a little while to acclimate. Nothing more than a side effect to growing up on the streets.

At the academy, there were creaks and groans, loud snaps and honking cars, and… whimpering. Confusion took her as she sat up. Andorra's room had been in the back, furthest from the roads and with a window that overlooked the center garden. She hadn't been too close to anyone, but she still heard someone whimpering.

The thought of the house being haunted had crossed her mind more than once, but she got over that fear relatively quickly when Vanya explained that one of her brothers could talk to the dead. For some reason, that helped.

She slowly rose from her bed, planting her bare feet on the old and warped wooden floor. She kept her ears trained and, consumed with a strange level of bravery, she went in search of the sad, scared sound.

The floor creaked lightly under the weight of her narrow frame. It narrated her journey, but there was no one else around to hear it. Further and further she crept down the hall with the sounds growing louder and louder. She finally found the source. The whimpering came from someone's room.

Her curiosity peeked as she pushed opened the cracked door. In the dim light, she saw him lying in bed. He wriggled beneath the blankets, shifting from side to side. She moved closer and saw the sweat had formed on his forehead. It became obvious that he was in the middle of a nightmare.

Her heart broke for him. He looked so scared and like he was in actual pain. She understood completely. There were only two nightmares she'd ever had, but they were perhaps the worst things she'd ever gone through in her young life, and she never wanted to go through anything like that ever again. As a result, she didn't like seeing anyone else doing the same.

Andorra resolved to put an end to his torture. She approached his bed with sure, calm steps, and touched his arm. He'd been lying on his back, thrashing from side to side and didn't seem to feel her.

"Hey," She whispered. She wanted to use his name, but honestly, she couldn't remember who he was. The numbers got jumbled in her head and even though Vanya had told her, Andorra hadn't been there long enough to separate faces. She just knew Allison and Vanya. The guys all blended together. "Hey,"

Again, he didn't respond. Andorra chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about what to do. After a moment, she took a seat beside him and leaned over his body, planting a hand on each shoulder.

"Hey!" She said more forcefully than before, shaking him one good time.

His eyes shot open and he sprang up with a half-stifled scream. He looked truly terrified as his eyes darted frantically around the room.

"It's okay," Andorra said as reassuringly as she could.

His gaze met hers and she could tell that there had been a second or two where he didn't know who she was. Her brows furrowed as she looked at him. He breathed too heavily. He was going to hyperventilate.

"Slow down." She told him. He looked confused. "In," She began to breathe through her nose and to her relief he did the same. "Out," She breathed out through her mouth and he copied.

The two of them breathed in tandem for a few minutes before it sounded like he would be alright.

"Are you okay?" She asked with genuine concern.

"Yeah," he nodded sharply. "No, yeah, I'm fine." She didn't believe him, but Andorra didn't feel as though she had the right to press.

"Okay, well, goodnight."

Andorra stood and turned, ready to go back to bed, but something clamped down on her wrist. It was him.

"Uh," He said hesitantly. "You uh,"

She noticed the way his eyes darted around the room, kind of like a cat's when they saw something. It freaked her out and made her do the same, but she didn't see anything. It then donned on her that he might be the one who saw spirits. That knowledge did not help her nerves.

"You don't have to go right now." He finally looked up at her and offered a crooked shrug. "I mean," his voice shifted to something much more nonchalant. "You can stay if you want."

She wasn't sure what to think. She didn't know him. They might have shared a roof, but ever since she set foot inside, everyone except Vanya had treated her like a leper and she wasn't allowed to talk to Vanya most of the time.

What kind of sick bastard isolates his kids?

On the other hand, she could see how scared he was. It sparked some weird desire to protect him, a desire she hadn't felt before.

"Okay," she nodded. Andorra slid back onto his bed and sat down while he moved his legs out of the way so she could. "I'll stay for a little while."

He smiled and appeared to be genuinely relieved. It made her smile, too.

"So, uh," He began. She watched as he leaned over to the bedside table and retrieved a tin box. From inside he pulled out what a joint, placed it between his lips and lit it. "What's your name again?"

She arched a curious brow as he drew in a lungful of smoke and held it for a few seconds before letting it loose. She'd been surprised that he so openly and freely smoked weed in his bedroom.

After he took a second hit, he offered it to her. Andorra shook her head. She'd never done drugs and didn't much feel like she'd begin. He shrugged a shoulder.

"Well?"

"Andorra," she told him.

With a new lungful of smoke, he grimaced and forced out, "I'm not calling you that." His voice sounded off as he struggled to keep as much smoke in his lungs as he could. "How 'bout Andy?"

"Okay," she said with a casual shrug of her own. No one had bothered giving her a nickname before. "Who are you?"

He exhaled loudly and longly before offering his hand. "Klaus, or Number Four."

She shook his hand. "I'm not calling you Number Four."

He grinned crookedly.

Now:

Klaus continued to drag his feet, now weighed down by his boots, as he entered the kitchen. He hated wearing shoes.

He was heavy and drawn, a feeling he'd become used to, but now knew the reason behind. He hadn't been prepared to see Andy again. With the rest of his family, he knew what to expect. He expected to be dismissed and ignored, things that hadn't changed since they were teenagers. He planned to capitalize on it and then slink through the shadows to steal anything he could. And then Andy showed up.

The anger he felt towards her surprised even him. He thought he would have been over it by now, but apparently not. Seeing her again just brought all of it to the foreground.

Klaus set the urn down on the kitchen table and reached into his pocket. He retrieved a small baggy of blue and white pills. With practiced ease, he dumped some into the palm of his hand and smiled.

"Three?" he scoffed. "Okay."

Without reservation, Klaus tossed them back and bit down for a faster high. He couldn't wait for them to take away everything he felt, from the irritation at being barked at by Luther to contact their dad, to the betrayal that consumed him whenever he saw Andy.

Where did she get off acting like everything was alright? She should've known better.