When Reggie arrived at the Latte Owl the sight in front of him was, well, not what he had expected.

A 'We're closed' sign was hanging on the door but when he tried to enter it opened without any resistance. As soon as the doorbell announced someone entered the cafe, a man made his way over to Reggie. Smile on his lips he reached out his hand.

"Joe Harsen."

"Reggie Rowe", he returned the smile and looked past the man. Yana was sitting at a table, several cups around her. Almost as if she had built a wall to hide behind. Her head was resting on the table and she stared into nothingness. Her arms just hung down her sides as if they were completely limp. If it weren't for a slight movement whenever she breathed, one could assume she was dead.

Noticing the questioning look of the other man, Joe began to explain. "She's been here for a few hours. I didn't want to send her away and I also couldn't just take her home."

"What happened?"

The man began to consider his options. Through news reports, both on TV and in the papers, he knew that 'Rowe' was the last name of the Conduit Yana had been here with. The same Conduit that tried to solve the problems of a whole city despite not having to. Of course, Yana had told Joe the reason for all of this. It wasn't important now though. Reggie and Delsin looked alike but Reggie was far too young to be Delsin's father. His brother maybe. If the Conduit didn't know anything about Yana's mother Reggie sure didn't either and Joe didn't intend to rat her out. And so, careful not to say too much, he began to tell about what he knew.

"Her mother came to her workplace. Yana didn't tell me a lot, she was sent home because she had a breakdown and then she must have decided to come here. She started to drown her sorrows in Cappuccino. I tried to talk to her but to no avail. She might need someone who isn't as close to her as I am. Given that she has your number on speed dial means she must trust you - you might have more luck than me. If you excuse me, I need to clean up a few things."

A few things?

Besides all the cups on the table, there were a few scattered on the ground. It seemed like Yana had thrown them on the ground out of frustration or whatever was going on inside of her. It didn't seem like her. Moving slowly he took a second chair, pulling it towards Yana's table and sat down. "Hey Yana.. can you hear me?"

"Mhm", was her only answer. She just continued to stare into space. "The mice say I shouldn't talk to you."

"The mice?", Reggie raised an eyebrow in confusion.

Moving her hand she pointed over to a table near the wall. "I mean them. They've been here the whole time.. told them I would get Brownie if they misbehave."

Reggie turned to look at Joe. "How many Cappuccino did she have?"

"I'm not sure about that. Not all cups have survived if you want to call it that."

"21..", the young woman moved in her chair as she said that. Sitting up Reggie was now able to get a better look at her. Her eyes were red, it seemed like she had cried but there was also anger visible. And that anger was slowly pushing through to the surface. "One for every fucking year!", with that, she grabbed a cup and threw it against the wall.

Reggie was taken by surprise at the sudden movement and almost jumped out of his chair. What surprised him, even more, was the force behind the throw. Yana was seriously angry about something. No, not something. About her mother.

Joe sighed and shook his head. "That's not the first time this has happened."

Reggie turned his attention back to Yana who had her head back on the table. "Okay, Yana? It's time for you to go home", with that he grabbed her by the arms. He didn't need to try hard, a little pull was all he needed to get her up on her feet. She was a little wobbly though so he had to keep her steady while grabbing her jacket which he, with the help of Joe, helped Yana in. It was dark outside and cold. It had been raining before but there was a chance it would start again on their way to Yana's apartment. The last thing Reggie wanted was her to get sick on top of feeling like crap already. At least that was what Reggie was assuming.

Reggie turned to Joe and thanked the man who just shook his head in return. "Not for that. Just make sure she'll get home safely. This", he pointed to the chaos in his shop. "Will look fine in a few hours but Yana.. she needs more."

Reggie simply nodded in silence. He didn't understand what Joe meant exactly but he knew he couldn't just leave Yana alone. And so he put one of her arms around his shoulder before making their way back to her place. Which meant he walked and, most of the time, dragged Yana along because she wasn't much of a help. Not because she didn't want to, she was trying. She just couldn't walk normal and thus wasn't able to keep up with Reggie. Him dragging her, careful to not have her hurt herself, was basically the only option he had right now.

There was a moment where he contemplated of getting a taxi but he refrained from it. The fresh air would help Yana and he wasn't sure if she would throw up during the drive home. And there was another reason for not taking a taxi.

The amount of cappuccino, or caffeine for that matter, Yana had was resulting in her going through a lot of very different moods. In one minute she was sad, on the brink of crying. The other minute she would laugh and talk about the mice who were apparently following them. The worst, however, was when she got mad. During those moments she tried to break free and, Reggie assumed so at least, try to run away. All he wanted to do was to help her and what he got in return was a wave of emotions.

"I wanna go home", Yana mumbled as her face was pressed against Reggie's arm.

"That's exactly where we're going."

"For real?"

"For real."

"Reggie..?"

"Yes?", he looked at her.

"I feel sick."

That was all she managed to say. Leaving Reggie confused as she pulled away from him, he was ready to scold her because of it but stopped himself just before she threw up on the sidewalk. Moving one hand over his face Reggie let out a sigh. This was worse than taking care of Delsin when he had too much to drink.

~ooo~

Delsin and Fetch had talked for a long time and she had told him everything she knew about Augustine and Curdun Cay. There were no new realizations. There was the fact that, during her time in Curdun Cay, Fetch had heard that there was some kind of 'dark secret' concerning Augustine but what that was? No one knew. So was that something new he had learned? Not really. What was he supposed to do with a secret no one knew about anyway?

It was a good hour later that he left the building and called his brother. The phone rang longer than usual. Remembering that Reggie was supposed to meet someone, Delsin began to wonder if he was interrupting said meeting and was ready to hang up right before the call was answered. "Hey Reg.. I'm sorry about earlier.. am I bothering you right now?"

Reggie looked at Yana who was still sitting on the sidewalk. "Not really. I guess the meeting of the Conduit Club is over if you call me."

He rolled his eyes. " I just wanted to talk to her.. to see if she knew anything that could help us out. Your reaction didn't help in gaining her trust, don't you think?" There was no answer from his brother. Great. "Are you doing your pouty Reggie face? You know I hate that."

"I'm sorry, I'm a little occupied right now. It's just that.. you know what, forget it. You're probably not just calling to tell me the two of you are finished with your little 'Let's get to know each other' meeting, are you?"

"No", the Conduit scratched the back of his head. "I need your help regarding my new powers. I need to know what else I can do with those and you're my man for that: I need more core relais", it took a minute or two and several locations appeared on his phone. He gave a content smile to no one in particular. If he knew one thing it was that he could always rely on his brother no matter what.

"There you go. I hope you know I'm doing this for the tribe."

"Thanks Reg, I'm gonna let you know what I got from the relays", he was looking forward to it so bad, it was audible in his voice. Just thinking about the things he had learned from the smoke powers were fun to use. Especially the 'flying' around part and the fact he could use shortcuts through vents - he was hoping his newly acquired neon powers would give him something like that as well. Well, not only that his powers were fun but they were also necessary to defeat the D.U.P. and ultimately Augustine. The fun part was a positive side effect.

"I really don't want to know."

"Yes you do", he grinned. "Goodbye pouting Reggie."

Delsin had barely hung up when he called Fetch's number. She answered a lot faster than Reggie and, given that the two Conduits had stopped talking maybe 10 minutes ago, Delsin wondered if he would bother her with the call too. There was a high probability that she would tell him to stop calling her for the next few hours if not days. She definitely wasn't happy about the whole chase and power absorbing earlier this day. "Hey Fetch, you know those glowing boxes the D.U.P. has placed all over the town? I wanted to, let's say, drain a few of them. It helped with the smoke and I got some new powers through that so.. since you gave me your neon powers I wanna try that again."

"Gave?", her voice sounded like she felt: like he was messing around with her. "You use the word 'gave' when in reality you took them without permission and put me through all that shit."

"What shit exactly?"

"Everything. I mean.. I had to relive all those memories again and now you're running around town with my powers on top of that - it was something that made me unique. And now you make it sound like I told you 'Here, take whatever you need'."

"You didn't want to talk."

"Because I thought you worked for Augustine."

"And I thought we talked about this", he paused to wait for an answer from Fetch but it never came. So he continued. "Okay, let's forget about that for now. I called to ask if you want to join me on my little trip around town. You're the only one who can explain this stuff to me anyway."

After thinking about it for a minute Fetch agreed. "Why the hell not? I've bagged my dealer limit today so I might as well tag along. Just a heads up: I think those things are able to track us."

Delsin was relieved about her answer. He did find the part about the core relays being able to track Conduits a little weird however. On the other hand, he hadn't been locked up in a prison for years, he guessed that could make you paranoid about things like that. "There's supposed to be one at Second and Main. Let's meet there."

"On my way."

With that he hung up. During the call with Fetch he had made his way up to the roof of an apartment building and took in his surroundings. To his right there was a large neon sign to which he walked over and absorb its energy. Not that he needed it right now but the way the colors danced through the air, moving from the sign to his hand was just fascinating to watch. It made him wonder what other surprises the night held for him.

For a moment his thoughts drifted to his brother and the, to him, strange circumstances of Reggie leaving the theater. As well as the call they had shortly before now. He sounded off. Like he was hiding some secret from him. Of course he had secrets, everyone has those but still.. right now Delsin felt like he was left out of something important.