Well, Janie, you requested a dinner party. I just hope you can stand the cliffhanger that comes along with it. Happy reading. Or not, I leave this chapter on a cliffhanger worth its name. Leave your reactions in the reviews!

Klaus arrived with Five two hours later, dressed in his finest skirt. Well, it was Allison's but what she did not know would not kill her. Probably. Seeing Gwen, waiting in the foyer for him, Klaus immediately pulled her into a hug. "Gwenny, what a delight," he exclaimed in his best British accent, "We need to get together for a spa day, love, it's been ages since we caught up!" Completely ignoring Five's disgruntled expression, the fourth Hargreeves child swept the blonde socialite into a dramatic recount of his disastrous date. He did not stop talking until the doorbell rang loudly, bypassing both a frozen Five and mildly offended Simon as he tore the door open. Seeing the specimen on the other side of the barrier made his jaw drop and he remained there, gawking.

"Klaus Hargreeves, meet Jones Lamontagne." Gwen was smug and utterly unabashed by the fact. She stuck her tongue out at Five when he gave her a suspicious look and pulled Klaus away from the door to let Jones inside. "Jones Lamontagne, meet Klaus Hargreeves." The two still had not stopped staring at each other. From the corner of her eye, Gwen saw Five reach out and shut Klaus' mouth, prompting his brother to give a coquettish smirk as he approached Jones. Before he could say something, Simon appeared behind him, stoic as always.

Hands clasped behind his back, the butler gave a small bow and took Jones' coat. "Dinner is served, Miss Silver." He disappeared again without another word, smirking to himself as he came to understand his young music student's earlier behavior.

"This way lady and gentlemen," Gwen said, chuckling as Klaus tittered playfully at her, "For tonight, Simon has decided to grace our palate with flavors from his journeys abroad, which means I have absolutely no idea what exactly he has been cooking." She kissed Five on the cheek as he pulled her chair out and tucked her in before taking the seat beside her, the resulting soft smile turning into a smirk as they both observed Jones doing the same for Klaus, who blushed furiously as he sat down. Five laughed quietly at the terrified look on Jones' face, wincing when Gwen jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. Noticing her mother's absence, she called for Simon. "Simon, is Mother not joining us?"

"The older Miss is on a date," Simon informed them, unable to stop himself from sounding dry, "I expect we will not be seeing her till morning."

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Well, it would be a shame to let perfectly good food go to waste," she commented, shaking her head slightly in exasperation, "Why won't you join us, Simon, I assure that it will be an eventful dinner." He glanced at Klaus, who was draping himself over a red-faced Jones and gave a barely noticeable smirk before sitting down. Nodding in approval, Gwen took a bite of the francesinha in front of her. It was unlike anything the elite usually ate, sticking to dishes they knew how to cook. While Gwen had no idea what exactly it contained, she found it delicious. Apparently, her guests and Five did as well, with both Hargreeves wolfing down the content on their plates while Jones, raised much like Gwen, took his time to actually cut and chew his food. To absolutely no one's surprise, Five and Klaus were finished first.

Once dinner was over, the teenagers retreated to the first-floor sitting room, where Simon tried to play the piano, only to be asked by Klaus to tell stories about his travels. While the butler entertained her guests, Gwen finally allowed Five to pull her aside. "Yes, my love?" He gave her a pointed look, gesturing in the general direction of Klaus and Jones. She raised her eyebrows at him, feigning ignorance as though she could not read his mind.

"Why?" It was not that he minded that his brother had someone to admire, he just did not appreciate being blindsided. He was not, in the least, a fan of surprises. For all he knew, a surprise could kill him.

Pecking his jaw sweetly, Gwen cuddled into his side. "You have to admit that Jones is a little… boring," she said, indicating the teen in question with a toss of her head, "Even I am not that proper." Five nodded reluctantly and she gave him a victorious smile. He shook his head, the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips. "Klaus needs someone to keep him grounded and Jones needs… what's something colorful… a butterfly," she exclaimed, "I think they will be a great match and I have the utmost faith that they will make each other happy."

"What about the procreation obsession?"

A wicked smile spread over her lips as she looked up at Five, though she absently wondered when he got so tall. "We managed to work around the arranged marriage thing by having you ask my mother permission before my grandparents could meet with the Carmines, correct?" Five nodded cautiously, mulling her words over before his eyes went wide. His gaze snapped between his brother and his girlfriend so quickly that she could not help but think he had gotten whiplash. "I imagine, as long as it is Jones who does the asking, that the same rules of propriety apply here," she explained unnecessarily, wrapping the arm that had fallen off her shoulder around herself again, "It is a great shame to back out of an agreement, you ought to know this by now."

Five fell unceremoniously onto the couch, taking a startled Gwen down with him. "This… you… Gwenny, they just met!"

"Your point being?"

"How can you be so sure that they'll be good together," he asked, feeling his protective side come out, "What if this Jones guy breaks Klaus, who just hit seven months sober?" Yet, there was something about the way Gwen watched his brother and her friend interact that made him hesitant in his protests. He wondered if she had seen something, if she had been informed in a vision that Jones and Klaus would work. "I suppose they would be cute together," he relented, finding it futile and risky to argue with her, "If Jones ever gets over Klaus' Klaus-ness."

Simon stood from the piano bench, rolling his eyes when he caught the awestruck Hargreeves wipe some drool away as he stared at Miss Gwendolyn's friend. So far, the conversation between the two had been one side flirting and one side polite responses. There was no doubt, Simon thought, that Miss Gwendolyn certainly knew how to mismatch perfect couples. "It is getting quite late," he said politely, nodding to Mr. Abernathy, "I imagine the young sir must be getting home soon." Glancing at the clock, Miss Gwendolyn's friend nodded. Simon went to fetch his coat while the teenagers bid one another goodbye. With Mr. Abernathy gone, it was irrefutable that Mr. Hargreeves would be leaving too, and Simon would be left alone with Five and Miss Gwendolyn.

True to his predictions, Simon met Five and Gwen as he headed into the foyer with Jones' jacket. The pair quietly whispered that Klaus had offered to accompany Jones until his driver arrived, however short of a waiting period that was. Simon nodded at the pair and they disappeared into Gwen's room to get ready for bed. The door har not fully closed before Five unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt to tug it over his head. Gwen laughed when he did not even spare her a glance as he undressed and disappeared beneath the covers. "Throwing a tantrum then?"

"You made me double date with my wacky brother," he whined, "I'll never get the image of Klaus undressing your friend with his eyes out of my head."

"Klaus is not wacky," Gwen defended, shaking her head in amusement, "He's just looking for love and happened to find a prospect in Mr. Abernathy." While Five sulked, she took her time to get comfortable, removing her makeup and undoing her elaborate updo at a leisurely pace. Frowning at her nightgowns, she contemplated what color to go with. She settled on a black one, using telekinesis to unzip the dress she was wearing. Finally dressed for bed, Gwen slipped under the comforter and turned to Five. "You know, Klaus needs to be allowed to make his own decisions," she murmured, "I didn't introduce him to Jones solely to see if they had romantic chemistry, I genuinely think that they will be good for each other, whether as friends or more." When Five elected not to reply, Gwen slid her hands over his chest before stopping on his shoulders. "We were good for each other, remember?"

Five relented that his life was far less worth living without some happiness, also known as Gwen, in it and he supposed that if Jones did that for Klaus, he could not complain.

At Ophelia Murphy's the next day, Gwen had barely set foot into the school before she was pulled into an empty closet. The bare bulb above her flickered before a dim light illuminated the space and her captor. Jones glared at her fiercely, a look that only intensified when the blonde could not resist a wicked smirk. "Had trouble sleeping, did we?"

"How did you… never mind-" the bulky teen shook away the thought- "You knew I would like Klaus!" His closet companion gave him a look of absolute glee, and as he retraced his words, Jones winced. Had the space allowed him to, he would have started pacing. As no such space was available, he settled for grabbing Gwen's shoulders and shaking her lightly. "This is soo taboo it is not even funny," he ranted, ignoring the chuckles from the girl opposite him, "There's a reason I am still in the closet as far as my parents are concerned." Even in the barely lit room, Jones could see the mischievous spark in Gwen's eyes. Understanding immediately what she would say, he gave her an exasperated look. "Don't," he deadpanned, "Now is not the time."

Taking some pity on him, Gwen patted his cheek in an indubitably patronizing way. "Let me tell you the story of how Henry and Annie-May Silver were thwarted by a couple of fourteen-year-olds." Exiting the closet, after first ensuring that there was no one in the hall to catch them, Gwen dragged Jones along as she recounted how she had almost been forced to attend a very intentional dinner with the Carmines only for Five to sweep her off her feet. "Get to know him, figure out if he is debutante ball material," she suggested, stopping outside the library, "If it does not work, it will remain clandestine." Cutting off her sentence there, she left him with the unspoken possibility spinning in his head. Matchmaking or not, she had a study hall to get to. Which is to say, she had a spa night with Klaus to plan in the back of the library where no one would think to look for her.

Afternoon saw Gwen stumbling into the house when Simon dropped her off at home. She had been feeling dizzy on and off all day, her eyesight sometimes going black before it returned. Eventually, she gave up on powering through and asked to go to the nurse's office, claiming she suffered from severe menstrual cramps, where she remained until Simon came to pick her up. Something was not as it should be. Her blacked out moments felt much like when she was pulled into a vision but all she saw was pitch black darkness. Every nerve was tingling, warning her of something. Hoping to sleep it off before Klaus came over, Gwen sluggishly made her way to her room, dropping her bag on her desk. The dull thud had barely reached her ears before someone grabbed her from behind. Someone whose mere touch told her it was not Five. Using telekinesis, she launched a book in the estimated direction of her attacker. A masculine grunt of pain registered vaguely in her mind but the man did not release her. Forcing herself into his head, she saw flashes of the same white-haired woman she had seen in Five's mind. Fear nearly knocked her over and she just managed to tip over the grandfather clock before a searing pain shot from the back of her head through her body. Everything went black.

Klaus Hargreeves did not think he had ever felt as appreciated as he did whenever Gwen was around. She helped him expand his closet with clothes that did not suit her complexion but worked wonders for his. She invited him over for mani-pedis and always turned to him for help with revamping her makeup looks. Ben tagged along a lot of the time, still unused to being seen by anyone, yet Gwen always made sure to have a steaming cup of hot chocolate for him to sip while Klaus painted her nails. However, Ben had decided to go see a movie with Allison while Vanya was out with Diego, therefore he was alone to find the book lying on the floor beside the grandfather clock he knew Gwen cherished. Glass, from the broken closet door, was spread over the floor. Klaus did not hesitate to run out of the house back to his own. He knew Five would be in his room, waiting for spa night to be over, and almost ran into the door in his haste to alert him. There was no doubt about it. "Five," he shouted as he almost pulled the door off its hinges, "Something's happened."

While Five would normally jump to Gwen's room, he followed Klaus, who barely stopped to breathe before turning on his heel to go back to the Silvers'. He needed to know what his brother had seen, needed assurance that Gwen was okay and that it was nothing more than Klaus being dramatic. Seeing the mess in the usually immaculate room made his world spin. There was glass everywhere, the book he kept on his bedside table lay open on the floor beside the knocked-over clock. He tried to calculate what exactly had happened, something that was made all the more difficult by Gwen's powers. It took longer than he wanted to admit to put together a plausible scenario. The only piece he could not place was the grandfather clock. If his calculations were correct, Gwen and her likely attacker had been too far from the clock to tip it by accident. The glass door, probably broken in the struggle, would indicate so, meaning that it was intentional. Five barely heard Klaus' panicked rambling, his brother's voice sounding as though he was hearing it through water as he tried to figure out what it meant. When it hit him, Five felt sick.

"Five?" Klaus observed his brother warily as he went deathly pale. "Five, what is it?"

"It's the Commission," the boy whispered, ignoring the glass cutting into his skin as he fell to his knees, "The Commission has Gwen."