"Wake me up when the dinner cart rolls through," Thaddeus said as he positioned a satin eye mask over his gauze bandage.

With his ear plugs already pushed in, he could only guess at William's response. Judging by how relieved he'd been to finally get on the plane and sit down, Thaddeus might not be the only one settling down to sleep.

Well, at least one of them really was.

Since he'd returned from the wizard's lair, he hadn't slept a wink. Night would come and work would continue unabated. Come morning and Thaddeus wouldn't even bother to turn on the coffee maker. The little he'd eaten over the past few days had been ceremonial. A piece of toast there, some salad elsewhere.

"Are you sure you don't need to see the doctor again?" William had asked.

"It's probably nothing more than a side effect of the medication I'm on."

Had he even believed that when he'd said it?

No matter. At least for the next few hours, William would have a reason to be silent.

And Thaddeus could lay back and think.

Thinking - it was about the only thing that had kept him going over the years. Even when Sid seemed to be waiting behind every corner to pounce on him, or his father's wrath moved from his face to his fist, Thaddeus had had his mind. Elaborate fantasies and equations alike filled his hours. It was the only place his family couldn't reach, the one wall they could never surmount.

And oh, what his mind had done! Broken through enigmas and answered long-held curiosities while his own brother could barely pass as a bean counter.

But now his thoughts were focused. There was little to debate, few paths to cross. Now it was time to cut ties.

Oh, he'd thought of it before. When he was a boy, it hadn't been so macabre. He'd merely dreamed of making some grand scientific discovery that would have rocketed him towards a Nobel or digging up the remains of some lost civilization. Other times he pondered over the fantastic inventions that he would one day patent, devices that would so fill his pockets that the rest of the Sivanas would seem like Victorian urchins in comparison to him.

He couldn't remember exactly when his thoughts began to change, but he knew it had been before the accident. Finally, there had been a place where Thaddeus could reign supreme. In his mind, Sid's eye could bleed for hours before finally turning tar black. His father's teeth would come out, one after the other in a stream of coughs, his chin stained red with the blood and saliva that he could barely keep himself from choking on. Bones cracked, skin turned every color of the rainbow, and screams came easy.

Could those thoughts have helped turn the wizard against him? Many nights after, he'd lain awake in bed wondering if the force of his own mind had sent his father flying through the windshield.

Some days he'd considered buying a gun and making his dreams come true. Aiming the scope straight at Sid's quivering face and pulling the trigger. Listening to his father scream and sob, watching tears slip from his eyes as Thaddeus reloaded.

But no, he was no common criminal. That would have been too kind of a death anyway, if only in how ordinary it was.

No, what Sid and his father truly needed... What they truly deserved, they would soon get.