"The important thing is that he came to me with the plan," Shrignold said. "I was helping him out as a favor. Just repaying a debt. I had no hand in making any of the technology or anything. The original plan wasn't supposed to be this big anyways."

"Roy always had some vendetta against his kid, no clue why. He insisted that the kid needed to be punished, or something like that. I wasn't paying attention, really. The original plan was basically just lending him some of my congregation to help him. Along the way he needed a few other people to… let's say volunteer themselves. I helped with that, or had some of my congregation help."

"You are referring to the kidnappings, yes?" Agent J asked.

"No shit, Sherlock." Shrignold rolled his eyes. "We ended up bringing in some people who tried to sue him, the lawyers, I don't even know who else. It got a little out of hand, I'll admit. When we found that that geek had gotten a hold of some precious material though, he got wrapped into the mix. Same with Manny's newest baby sitter and his boyfriend as well." He said the word 'boyfriend' with a venom. With what was known of the cult's inner workings, however, that wasn't surprising.

"I did reign Roy in though! If I hadn't talked him out of it, there would be about four more people here at least. You have to give me some credit for that, huh?"

"That's for the judge and jury to decide, Mr. Gribbleston."

"You're no fun, Jessica."

"So there was no personal gain for you involved if you helped with the plan initially?"

"Well I wouldn't say that." Shrignold smugly said, baiting Agent J into continuing this conversation.

"Please, elaborate." Sarcasm was practically dripping off of vir words.

"Well, if you insist. We had a deal worked out. I help him set all this up and he, well when he's done with his son and whatever he's cooked up here I get custody of Manny and officially introduce him to Lilly."

"Why would you be so interested in this? What would you gain?"

Shrignold's eyes glazed over, glittering with a dark joy. "Manny and Lilly are soulmates. Everyone has a special one, but very few people have a soulmate."

"How do you know that they're soulmates?" The word felt vile on vir tongue, but if playing along got information out of him then so be it.

"Your special one is someone your soul was formed to be with, like two pieces of a puzzle coming together. Soulmates, however, are one soul that was split in two. They weren't made to be together, they were made together."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"It wasn't supposed to, that is private information." Shrignold crossed his arms "I'm done talking for today."

—

Manny hurriedly put books back on the shelf.

"Sorry, sorry, I was organizing them and it took longer than I thought—" A hand rested on his shoulder. Manny looked to see Avery

"Manny, I'm not upset. It was just a bit of a shock." Avery reassured him. "It's very sweet that you thought to do that, thank you."

"Oh, y-you're welcome." The praise shocked him slightly.

"Did you eat today? It's past lunch time and you seen to have been at this awhile." Avery said.

"Nope."

"Come on then, I'll make us some ham and cheese sandwiches."

"Um… can I have something else?" Manny asked timidly.

"Of course, is peanut butter and jelly okay?"

"That's perfect, thank you." The world did not deserve Avery Mitchell, he decided.

His head started to hurt a little during their late lunch, but that wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

Manny finished organizing most of the bookshelf before Lilly came home. She came bouncing into the room and completely ignored the stacks of books, dropping her backpack right next to one.

"Okay, you'll never guess what happened at school today. Melissa brought her pet lizard in! She hid it in her backpack, but she brought it out during lunch and I got to feed it mealworms!"

"Eww, you did that at lunch? While you were eating?"

"Excuse you, but Leap was adorable."

"If you say so." He rolled his eyes.

"No, seriously!" No response. "Tell you what. I'll have Melissa bring them back in once you start school, then you can see for yourself." Lilly seemed very proud of herself.

There was a sharp spike in his headache, the pounding worsened and he felt nauseous.

"Manny, are you okay? You don't look good."

"M'head hurts." It was too bright in here, the light hurt his eyes.

"I'll go get Avery, stay right here." He couldn't bring himself to nod his head, it hurt so much.

Lilly ran from the room and Manny pulled the hoodie's hood up to block out as much light as possible.

"Manny, you okay?"

Manny cracked his eyes open and saw Avery's outline through the hoodie.

"Mmmm"

"Alright, I'm going to give you some ibuprofen and then you should go lay down in bed. Okay?"

"Mhmm"

Avery helped him stand up and he clung to her arm as they walked to the kitchen. She pulled some medicine out, i-be-whatever, and handed him some water to take it with. Then she helped him up the stairs and into his room, where he promptly fell onto his bed.

It was so dark and cool, but his head kept throbbing.

Manny couldn't tell how long it had been, he had fallen in and out of sleep a couple of times, but his headache was finally gone. Pulling himself into a sitting position, Manny got ready to go downstairs.

"There he is! How're you feeling?" Avery said as Manny came down the stairs.

"Better, I think the headache is gone now."

"Seemed more like a migraine to me, bud. You were out for five hours." Well crap. "I saved you some dinner, we had grilled cheese and tomato soup. That good?"

"That sounds great." His mouth watered as he thought about the meal, he was really hungry.

"Have you ever had a migraine before?" Avery talked while getting the food out.

"Nope."

"Well hopefully that's just a onetime thing. Let me know if it happens again though, if it keeps happening we should get you to a doctor." She slid a bowl of soup over to him, going back for the sandwich.

"Mmkay." Manny barely let the food cool down before he dug in, soaking the sandwich in the hot soup.

It was a nice end to the day.

/ A/N

Fun fact: the first recorded use of the phrase "No shit, Sherlock." Is from the 1986 movie Little Shop of Horrors!

Anyways, boo Shrignold :( He's so fun to write but he fucking sucks lol