Sat in the tin can of a van (the same one that he'd learnt to drive in the apocalypse) for most of the day, Five only left to use the bathroom in a nearby coffee shop and grab some snacks from the corner store across the street. Which left the rest of his time to be occupied by the faint crackle of the radio (which he'd turned down) and the endless chattering nags and his fingers that continually fingered with the mysterious glass eye in his pocket. Despite all this noise, despite all the hustle & bustle of the world moving around him, Five still felt rather alone. It was new, this feeling; it was something that he'd acquired upon returning to the past. The feeling of being so utterly alone despite bing surrounded by so many. He hated it.

("…Are you drunk?" Dolores scoffed from her perch in the passenger's seat. Her voice barely broke through his melancholy).

"No, I am not drunk" Five huffed in rebuttal to Dolores' snide comments. "I'm working"

("Is this about the eye thing?")

"Yes, it's about the eye thing. This is the place that it was made. We need more information, but the direct approach won't work a third time"

("So now we wait?")

"So now we wait"

Again, he found his mind wandering to strange & dark places, like the significance of his nephew's own glass eye and what the chances might be that he would have such an item so alike to his talisman. Five stared listlessly out of the window as he watched a group of young children scuttle past the van, kicking a soccer ball back & forth between them. The thwack, thwack, thwack of the leather being pounded back and forth, roused old memories that he had thought long buried; thoughts that began to drift back to a time when he had first arrived in that apocalyptic nightmare. He could still see it now—even without closing his eyes—the barren wasteland, the burning rubble and the stench of death…

…Jumping from the van he had hot-wired, Five stepped out on to the desolate remains of New York City. All around him he saw how this futuristic world—his future, his present—had become decorated in broken buildings, dusty rubble and fire that burned amongst the dead & blackened bodies. The endless nothing stretched on for miles and miles, no living person in sight, no hope in sight. "NO!" Five wailed, spinning in dizzying circles as he tried to find even the smallest trace of a life anywhere. Someone. Anyone. Anything…

"…ive! Five!" Luther's voice sliced through his darkest of thoughts, bringing Five back to life with an almighty jerk. Five, noting the barely-there wetness that pricked at his eyes, cleared his throat & blinked rapidly to dispel the liquid as he pushed himself away from the driver's side window and towards the passenger's seat where Luther was trying—in vain—to clamber inside. His lips twitched upwards at the corners as he watched his gorilla of a brother try to squeeze himself into the small opening of the car door. Five would never say so, but he was glad for his brother's oblivious hardheadedness.

"What are you…oh my God!" Luther grunted as he finally heaved his huge frame into the van and hauled the door closed behind him, before turning to his time travelling brother. "…You okay?"

"You shouldn't be…" Five shook his head, "How'd you find me?"

"Um…" Luther turned to look in the backseat where it turned out that Klaus was wrapped around Dolores like he was her lover. (Luther must've moved her before he had tried to get in) It made Five's blood boil.

"Hey! A little privacy, guys" Klaus teased, holding Dolores closer. "We're really hitting it off back here!"

"Wha—? Get out!" Five growled, palming an empty bottle towards his brother's head in his anger. Annoyingly, Klaus ducked out of the way and used Dolores as a shield to protect himself from the objectiles. "You can't be here! I'm in the middle of something! And put her down!"

"Any luck finding your one-eyed child?" Klaus asked as he acquiesced to Five's latter request and leant forward in between the two front seats.

"No…" Five muttered, eyes roving over where Dolores now sat propped up against the backseat.

"One-eyed child?" Luther puzzled, "What's he talking about?"

"Does it matter? It's Klaus" Five bluffed, turning away. "What do you want, Luther?"

"Um, right" Luther shifted nervously in his seat. "So Grace—"

"—Grace?" Klaus piped up from the back, "It's Mom, you dummkopf!"

"Grace may have had something to do with Dad's death" Luther glared at Klaus, before continuing on. "So, I need you to come back to the academy, all right? It's important"

"It's important?" Five scoffed in disbelief, "You have no concept of what's important!"

"Hey—!" Klaus interjected once more, not liking where the sudden turn in the conversation had taken them. "Did I ever tell you guys about the time I waxed my ass with chocolate pudding?"

"Huh?" Luther blinked at his brother's odd remark.

"It was so painful!" Klaus chuckled, happy that he at least got a small twitchy grin out of Five before he turned to smother it in his collar. Luther, however, was a harder nut to crack.

"What are you still doing here?"

"Aye, aye, aye…"

"What?"

"I—what? Do I need an excuse to hang out with my family?" Klaus asked, taken aback with a dramatic hand over his heart.

"We're trying to have a serious conversation here" Luther gestured to himself and Five.

"What? And I'm incapable of being serious? Is that what you're saying?"

"Luther's got a point" Five added, already tired of this conversation already. "You should get out"

"What?" Klaus gasped, glancing back & forth between the two brothers. Huffing in frustration, Klaus elbowed his way out of the back door and made his way towards the corner store. "Fine!"

"Now" Luther swallowed as he swivelled back around in his seat, to face the front again. "What the hell are you up to?"

"You wouldn't understand" Five dismissed.

"Try me. Last time I checked, I was still the leader of this family"

"Well, last I checked, I'm 28 years older than you!"

"Y'know what your problem is?"

"I'm really hoping you'll tell me"

"You think that you're better than us, you always have. Even when were kids" Luther preached, "But the truth is, you're just as messed up as the rest of us. We're all you have…and you know it"

"I don't think that I'm better than you, Number One" Five sneered, the grin falling from his face as Luther continued to preach. "I know I am. I've done unimaginable things; things that you couldn't even comprehend!"

"Right…"

"And now I'm back—I came back—just to save you all"

As if on cue, Klaus burst from the corner store with arms & overcoat laden with various (stolen) products and a security man chasing after him, the shrill whistle that shouted at him to halt. "HEY BITCHES!" He called, sprinting across the road, dropping a few items here and there.

"YOU! GET BACK HERE!" Demanded the security detail on his tail. Klaus ignored him, instead he hopped over the taxi which had pulled out in front of him and had been forced to screech to a halt in an effort to avoid hitting the wayward necromancer.

"But now, I'm starting to wonder if that was the wisest decision"

Meanwhile, Theodore had made his way over to the corner store where he currently perused the shelves in an effort to find the doctor's aforementioned morning tea. The corner store across from Meritech Industries was a small thing, holding no more than a few of the basic roadtrip snacks at cheap enough prices. Which was fine by Theodore, because he was going to stretch out this task for as long as possible, just to spite the doctor.

"…What's the point of this week, again?" Asked the bespectacled brunette next to him as Helga searched the shelves for 'emergency toppings' (the ice cream store had run out thanks to their intermittent snacking). The brunette, Kenneth 'Kenny' Anderson was an average-sized boy from the other seventh grade class at St Greg's. He was nice enough and although Theodore didn't know him personally, he felt like the other boy could have been a good friend had that ever come to be.

Whilst Theodore didn't know Kenny, he did however know of his mother, Mrs Anderson, because she was listed as being one of the few Loric-approved contacts on Earth. Much like the Goodes (Sam & his late father), Mrs Anderson was known to be someone who could—and would—smuggle any Garde/LANE out of harm's way if needs be; something that was certainly helped by the fact that she was heavily involved with the Parents' Association & School Board. Although, Theodore wasn't sure if Kenny had any inclination about that (the boy did share his mother's love for the other and the fantastical, however).

"To shadow a person of industry" Theodore replied, parroting what they had been told at the beginning of the week as he inspected a packet of out-of-date pretzels and wondered if he could get out of the work studies by indirectly poisoning his mentor.

"Really? 'Cause it feels more like we're just errand boys for lazy big wigs and their cash" Kenny huffed as he picked up another bulk bag of marshmallows.

"I'd pay to hear you say that to Mr Bergman" Theodore chuckled, eyes trailing over the blonde hidden in the other corner of the store, where she prowled down the aisles but her ears remained pricked towards the boys' conversation.

SLAM!

"Jesus!" Kenny swore as both boys jumped at the sudden noise and they turned to find a stroppy Don Klaus storming past on his way towards the freezers in the back of the room, his long matted coat swishing behind him as if they had a life of their own. No one could ever claim that Don Klaus knew about the art of subtlety or espionage. The cashier watched Don Klaus like a hawk as he moved about the shop grabbing whatever pleased his eye, shoving bits & pieces into various pockets & crevices on his body as he went. And no sooner had he shoved several packets of gummy worms down his pants, did he make a break for it.

"HEY! STOP!" Bellowed the cashier as he hurdled the counter and raced out after Theodore's don, leaving the door wide open & the store unaccompanied. He was soon joined by the security detail (some trussed up bodyguard) who had been stood on the stoop sucking on a cigarette. Tobacco and shop forgotten, both men chased after Don Klaus like their lives depended on it, a furiously aggressive whistling playing as the soundtrack to the comedic chase.

FWEET! FWEET! FWEEEEEET!

Tantalising temptation tickled at Theodore's brain at the suddenly unmanned store and he found that his arm didn't need to be twisted any further as he followed in his don's footsteps & sticky fingers pocketed a few (unpaid/stolen) sweets for a later date. Years of creative thinking helped him to hide the stolen food on his person, in places that wouldn't necessarily draw attention; roll-ups were shoved down the sides of his school socks, several bags of gummy worms, sour sherbet lemons & jerky went into his blazer pockets; whilst a couple of liquorice wands were slid in to the pocket protector amongst a couple of odd pens & pencils and so on.

Moving over to the register, Theodore slapped down a few bucks for the doctor's morning tea—the only things he did pay for—before he was out of the door and eagerly watching the embarrassingly comedic scene play out in front of him, as if nothing were amiss. Standing on the curb outside, Theodore nibbled at one of his liquorice wands as he watched Don Klaus sprint across the road with both of the cashier and the security man sprinting after him. "…STOP! HEY! STOP RIGHT NOW!"

"HEY BITCHES!" Don Klaus cheered as he ran straight through the intersection, dropping a couple of items from his laden arms as he went. Cars honked their fury and several drivers lean out of their windows to shout abuse at him, but the necromancer paid them no mind.

"Ha!" Kenny laughed as he joined Theodore on the curb, "It's like Hansel and Gretel!"

FWEET! FWEET! FWEEEEEET!

"YOU! GET BACK HERE! STOP! HARGREEVES! YOU GOTTA PAY FOR THAT!" Cried the cashier, just as a taxi cab chose that moment to emerge, sending Don Klaus flying over the hood.

"Oooh!" Theodore hissed at the impact, as he watched his don roll over the top of the car before popping back up on the other side and flipped the driver the bird. "Oh no, he's fine. Annnnd there he goes…"

"OUTTA THE WAY, ASSHOLE!" Don Klaus screeched, letting out a yelp-like squeal when he noticed that the long-legged cashier was hot on his tail. Mere moments later, he was zig-zagging across the concrete and down a side alley with the remains of his stolen loot in his arms. Theodore couldn't help but grin and blinked languidly after his insanely wayward don.

"He's a Hargreeves?" Kenny asked, turning to Theodore with brows pulled in puzzlement.

"Mm" Theodore hummed, "He's my d—uncle"

"Wait—! So you're related to…that?"

"Unfortunately"

"Wow…" Kenny turned back to watch the necromancer slip away into the shadows, much to the chagrin of both the security man and the cashier. "I do not envy you"

"Yeah…"

Simultaneously, whilst Theodore had been paying more attention to the opportunity to scavenge a well-packed convenience store and his junkie don than his own surroundings, Helga found herself incredibly interested in his every move. In particular, the small almost-there slip up when Theodore was talking about his uncle. If Theodore had been paying more attention to what was going on around him, he would have noticed how intensely she stared at him.

He would've noticed how her eyes grazed over the strange design seen through the sweat-slicked school shirt or even how the canine chimaera tied to the pole out on the street seemed to watch him with an eery intelligence not found in Earthen animals. But Theodore had not, and so he did not notice it when the LANE Echo tracked him from the doorway of the shop. But Helga had certainly noticed Theodore, had taken note of the barely there mark hidden beneath his school shirt and now the hunt was on.