Dear Reviewers:

MlynnBloom: Thank you! Always happy to be getting reviews!

Lady Emily: Yes, I know! Sunny, what are you doing?! You can't trust Fiona! Sunny: "Well if I didn't, there would be a huge plot hole!" Oh yeah. Sorry. Anyway, thanks!

LolliPopsAreTears: Let's see...the troupe...well, most of them are dead, as you know from the books, but I don't know what happened to the freaks. Yes, Fernald is still alive, as you found out in the last fic, but he is no longer a henchman, as you also already know. But anywho, I'm glad you like my fic so far!

Nny11: Yes, we all want to know everything, and the answers will be revealed soon enough. Just keep reading! ...Please?

NewbiaTheElf: Yeah, I know what you mean. It's just that there are so many good parts I want to write, so I'm not surprised that a few things feel rushed. I'll try to take it slower and concentrate on the important details.

QQuagmire: Ah, Fedora. What a mysterious character... He won't be silent forever, I'll tell you that...

Phoenix72389: Poor Fiona. So misunderstood... Oh well.

Sorry this chapter took a little longer. But anyway, here it is!

Chapter 5: R i b b o n

Where could she be?

Klaus sat rigidly in front of his typewriter. A blank white page stared expectantly back at him. Usually being here at his typewriter brought inspiration, gradually causing the gears and wheels in his mind to turn and think. A bit like Violet and her ribbon, Klaus thought. Papers need words on them; books were full of words. Whenever he found a plain sheet of paper in his typewriter, it was never bare for very long.

Yet words escaped him now.

There were so many things crowding together in Klaus's mind, but nothing that was possible to put on paper. It was like every concept and notion was only half-developed and being grafted to some completely different thought. He felt like his subconscious was an abstract artist's painting, where something could make sense if you look at it one way, but could be perceived as total nonsense if you change your perspective.

Klaus did his best to decipher several questions he needed to have the answers to. Finally he got his fingers to move and press the keys.

Where could she be?

It had been weeks since Sunny's disappearance. Klaus had been all over the city. He interviewed everyone he thought might have some explanations. He had hardly gotten any sleep over the past several days. And he had been left with nothing.

Klaus stared at the single sentence he had typed out and repeated the question over and over to himself. He needed some serious help with this one. There was rarely ever a problem he couldn't find the solution to, but now he was finally stumped. Who could he enlist to find the answer for him? There were professionals for this sort of thing, right?

Klaus blinked and shook his head. He was one of those professionals.

He thought about the many cases he had solved over the years. Some had been more challenging than others, but there was always the end resolve, the moment of truth, the conclusion of the mystery when the culprit is unmasked and brought to justice. And now, here it was, the only case he couldn't solve, and it was the one that really mattered.

Where could she be?

Klaus sighed and lightly tapped his fingers on the typewriter keys. After staring at a speck of dirt under his fingernail for several moments, he gave up and leaned back in his chair. Examining his small apartment room, he let other memories seize his attention.

There was a picture hanging on the wall that Klaus paid special attention to. It was a photograph of he and his sisters, one that had been taken after that first fire. They looked so weary, eyes empty and sad, faces void of expression. Klaus tried to remember one of their older family portraits. Their parents were standing behind them, looking very proud and sophisticated, and the siblings were grinning widely at the camera. That portrait had been destroyed when their parents were killed, along with everything else that made their lives enjoyable.

And now Sunny was gone too.

Klaus swallowed hard. No. Sunny can't be gone.

But she is. You're never going to find her.

I will find her. I will soon and it will be like none of this ever happened.

But what if you don't find her?

I will. I'm sure I will.

You know you're only telling yourself what you want to hear.

Then quit telling me things I don't want to hear.

I'm only telling you what's true.

Klaus's eye twitched.

Great. Now watch as I slowly go insane.

You've always had that twitch.

Not always.

Ah yes, that's right. You've only had it since that day your sisters died.

They didn't die.

Just think about it. Sunny's gone. For forever, most likely. You saw Violet that day in France. What do you think will happen now that Sunny's really gone?

Violet...

They'll be dead to you. Soon enough, they'll be dead to you.

No...

That twitch... it's under your left eye.

What? So?

Don't tell me you don't remember. Think way back, to right after the fire.

I'm thinking and I'm getting nothing that has to do with my left eye.

Not even while you were living with your first guardian?

Klaus blinked. Olaf hit me...

You had a nasty bruise there for a while.

I did... He forgot about the argument his doubts and his hopes were having. Instead, Klaus let himself drift back to that evening. He could remember it so vividly, the green wallpaper in the dining room, the long table, the smell that drifted through the air...

Klaus then thought back to that other day, not too long before, when he and Violet had visited the house. He remembered how deserted it was, how lifeless, how blameless it seemed, as if everything that had happened there was perfectly excusable. An image of the dining room came back to his mind, a picture of how it looked only a few weeks before. The same green wallpaper was now peeling, the same dusty chandelier was hanging from the ceiling, the same long table was empty, light reflecting off it's polished surface.

The same long table that hadn't gathered dust...

Klaus let the front legs of his chair fall back to the floor.

The table. It hadn't been completely empty, he remembered now. Something had been on it. Something he hadn't paid attention to. Something he hoped was the key that could unlock the answer to this mystery.

A ribbon.

Klaus's heart jumped. That's what it was. A ribbon. He had seen Sunny's ribbon. Why hadn't he noticed the ribbon?

He grinned excitedly. He had been on the right track the whole time. He wouldn't fail his sister. He was going to find her.

Klaus looked back up at the picture of he and his sisters and focused on Sunny's little face.

You're going to find her?

I'm going to find her.

Klaus stood up and grabbed his hat, placing it on his head and pulling on a jacket as he dashed out the door.