Vladimir had stood outside of the house for about an hour now. At least, Emil had noticed him an hour ago. Emil didn't want to go talk to the Vampire, but it wasn't like he could let Lukas. He didn't want Vlad figuring out Lukas was Norway.

It was eight when Emil finally stepped into the yard and looked at Vladimir.

"No."

"Why not?" Vlad look genuinely surprised, "We thought that would be interesting!"

Emil walked closer to Vlad and lowered his voice, "We don't do kidnappings. If your boss wants something stolen, ask again, until then, we have no business to do with you."

Vlad wasn't intimidated. He shrugged and smirked, "Your loss, we will just have to get someone else." Vlad turned and started to walk down the empty street, humming softly to himself.

"Vlad?" Emil called out, unable to stop himself. Vlad turned curiously, and Emil looked down, "Thank you. For yesterday with the cops." Emil wasn't happy Vlad had told Arthur what he did, but he wanted Vladimir to know that he appreciated not being ratted out. Vlad didn't say who Iceland was. Iceland was in debt to the Vampire.

Vlad smirked again, "I didn't do it for you." With that he turned and walked away.

Emil watched him go, then returned inside; he had a science project to prepare for.

Peter's house was pretty without being outlandish. It was a big estate and Lukas dropped him off at the drive before leaving. The North had an less than half an hour to set up, so Emil didn't begrudge Lukas the hasty goodbye.

"EMIL! YOU CAME!" Emil nearly jumped out of his skin as Peter burst through the door and tackled him in a hug.

"Hi Peter." Emil gasped as he tried to wriggle free of the smaller boy's grip, "We have a project to do, why wouldn't I come?"

"I was getting nervous!" Peter said, letting Emil up, "You said you would be here at ten, and it's ten oh five!"

Emil just looked at Peter.

"I was afraid something had come up and maybe you wouldn't be able to make it, or maybe you got in a car accident or something!" Peter said with an earnestness that was hard to not find disturbing. Did he really think that? Emil couldn't tell if Peter really was an idiot or not.

"Um." Emil stared slowly, "The traffic was a bit bad, I guess."

"Well, you're here now!" Peter said and grabbed Emil's hand, leading him inside, "I have everything set up for the project, the teacher said it was three parts, the research paper, the presentation board, and the in class presentation. I figured we could do the paper now and start on the board when Lili gets here since she's all artsy!"

"Okay." Emil said, looking around the house as Peter dragged him through it. It was nice, much nicer than his house. Much, Much nicer than Berwald's house. Tino lived in an apartment and so did Mathias, so this was better than thier's as well.

"Whoa! Slow down there lad!" Came a laugh from behind them. Peter stopped and turned, grinning at his older brother.

He was tall and had a mop of red hair, Emil immediately didn't like him. He had all the signs of someone who drank too much and he reminded Emil vaguely of Mathias.

"Allistor!" Peter said with a laugh, "This is Emil! Emil, this is Allistor! He's going to work today, but Arthur's home!"

"Hi." Emil said and bobbed his head. Yeah, this was the sort of guy who Mathias would like, he was loud and confident and acted like he owned the place. Then again, maybe he did own this place.

Allistor grinned wider and ruffled Peter's hair, "You boys have that project today? Well, I made sandwiches and left them in the fridge for lunch."

"Arthur said he would cook for us!" Peter said, bouncing away and fixing his hair.

Allistor shook his head and lowered his voice to a conspiratory tone, "You don't want to eat Arthur's cooking! It might kill ya!"

"I heard that!"

From around the corner came the dreaded Arthur Kirkland. He was had unruly blonde hair like Peter's and ridiculous eyebrows. He started talking about the art of culinary skills and glared at Peter and Allistor while they laughed at him. This seemed like a pretty normal family. Emil couldn't help but look at Arthur and see the enemy though. Arthur had been one of the ones talking to Vlad. Arthur was the lead detective on the North case. Arthur was the enemy.

Arthur didn't look much like an enemy though. He looked like a tired, stressed out guy on his day off, who was arguing with his family about his cooking skills. He looked pretty normal. Then again, Emil supposed all of the North looked pretty normal too.

Arthur could be normal and still be the enemy. If anything, a normal enemy sounded a whole lot better than a super smart enemy or something like that. Lukas or Mathias, or even Berwald as an enemy would be bad. Emil couldn't help but feel smug about being on the winning side.


Arthur flipped through The North case file and tried to ignore the buzz of voices coming from the living room. Peter had friends over to do some project or something. Arthur hadn't met Emil and Lili before, but he recognized them as the kids who had been walking with Peter the other day. Emil had that startling white hair and treated the world with a mild boredom, while Lili was cute, quiet, and polite. As it turned out, Lili was Vash's little sister, Arthur never would have guessed until Vash dropped her off. Both of them struck Arthur as good kids. Peter was the noisiest of the three, and Arthur could hear him talking excitedly about birds or something. Arthur knew they expected lunch at sometime, but he hadn't bothered to make anything yet. He stood and put the case file down. The North could wait a few moments while he made the kids lunch.

As he passed the living room, he saw what looked like an explosion of construction paper and pictures. The three were sitting on the ground moving things around on a presentation board.

"Arthur!" Peter yelp looking up, "When's lunch?"

Arthur scratched his head and shrugged, "What do you want?"

Peter looked at his friends, wide eyed, "What do you guys want?"

"I'm good with anything really." Emil said without looking up from the presentation board. He moved a picture up and a typed paragraph down, putting a sheet of construction paper behind it.

"Whatever is easiest for you, would be fine." Lili said with a little smile, "Thank you so much for having us over."

"No problem!" Peter said, "How about bacon sandwiches?"

"Just bacon?" Arthur asked, he wasn't sure they had enough bacon for all four of them. Of course, he could always eat something else.

"Yes!" Peter said and laughed, "I guess tomatoes and lettuce would be good too."

Arthur nodded and moved past them into the kitchen, he scanned the fridge and found where Allistor had hidden the bacon. It had occurred to him that this was one of the few days he had off in quite a while. He had been making a conscious effort to relax and worry less, after all there wasn't much he could do on the North case until his team had gotten the report back on that car from the camera. Arthur wanted to start looking for more word on the street about the North. On Friday, after they had gotten back from the school, he had given Vash the job of combing through police reports again, and Kiku was supposed to organize crosscheck that kids information with the office's database. Alfred had thrown a fit that their team hadn't gone out to look at the crime scene again, but Arthur hadn't seen the point. The police had been through in their report and he didn't want to spend anymore of his life staring at that clean vault. Just before they had called it a night on Friday, Alfred and Vash had gotten in another argument. Arthur couldn't remember what it was about, it probably wasn't even important. At least they had today to cool off. Arthur's team argued a lot more than he like, but he argued with them too, so he supposed they were all to blame. Gilbert had spent the rest of Friday sitting on the ground next to Alfred's desk and chatting about nothing. He was an annoyance, but he had been useful.

Arthur's phone buzzed, that wasn't good. No one ever called him.

"Hello?"

"Arthur! We caught them! I just got a call from Kiku, the police contacted him, there was a break in to a storage container with the North's card!" Alfred said, excitement made him talk fast, so he was almost uncomprehensible, "They think it took place less than an hour ago!"

"What?" Arthur snapped, "What makes them think that?"

"They found tire tracks less than an hour old! Vash is already over there and has the report from the camera about that car! It matches the model!"

Arthur thought he might dance with joy, this was the best thing that had happened since the camera! No, this was better! If it took place less than an hour ago, the North might still be in the area! He doubted it, but maybe!

"Text me the location and details, I'll be right there.!" Arthur said, rushing out of the kitchen and grabbing his jacket, "Is the rest of the team already there?"

"Everyone except me and Gilbert, I was going to pick him up on the way. Kiku and Vash are handling things though." Alfred said, Arthur heard a crash from the other end of the phone and Alfred cussed, "Sorry, I've got to go, I'll meet you there!"

Arthur hung up and stuffed his phone in his pocket, struggling into his jacket. Suddenly he froze, "Hey! Peter! I just got a call on my case! I've got to go! I'll be back as soon as I can!"

Peter's head poked from around the corner to the living room and he frowned, but Arthur was already pulling the door shut.

Arthur drove like a mad man, the moment he was at the storage lot, Vash hurried up with a folder. Police were everywhere and Kiku was over talking with a group of them.

"It was just lucky that the break in was discovered so quickly." Vash said, and pointed to a clump of police with a pair of nervous looking young men, "The storage unit belongs to those guy's parent, the Vargas, and it was just chance that they had come to pick up a refrigerator to give to a friend, and they found the unit was clean, had been reorganized, and a few trunks were missing. They called it in immediately, and the police chief noticed the tire tracks in the dirt around back. The had a team out to look at it and they said it was an hour old at most."

Arthur shook his head with a grin, "This is amazing! Thank goodness for friends who need refrigerators! You have the finished analysis of that van?" Vash nodded, "Good, send a copy to all of the police units in this area. We need a license plate and tell them to stop all vehicles matching the description."

"I all ready have." Vash said and Arthur smiled, but Vash turned his attention back to his folder, "Those idiots aren't coming are they?"

Arthur's face fell and hardened, clearly Vash was still mad about yesterday's argument, "If you're referring to Alfred and Gilbert, yes they are. Please try to get along. At least be civil."

Vash gave a curt nod and Arthur suppressed a sigh. He knew he had a good team, he just wish they worked together better. "All right, let me see the scene."

Vash lead him to the back entrance of the unit and gasped. This was a huge storage unit. It wasn't the biggest that he had ever seen, but it was certainly impressive. He didn't even want to think about how long it must have taken to clean it, but clean it was. Spotless. Everything had been organized to be stacked nicely against the walls and there was nice walkway between everything. How long did this take? Five minutes for a vault was ridiculous, but this was a storage unit! Maybe a day? Although, knowing The North, it probably took them less than an hour. Arthur marveled at the spotless floor and even looked behind and under some of the boxes; swept clean.

"Dust everything." Arthur said slowly, "A place this big, they must have messed up and missed something. Where was the card found?"

"Here." Vash said, walking past Arthur and further into the unit. He pointed to the ground that appeared to be the exact center of the middle aisle. Vash looked around and sighed, "It's going to take forever to find fingerprints in this."

Arthur nodded, but smiled, "On the up side, to reorganize everything, they must have touched everything."

The door bust open, "YO! We're here!" Alfred said striding into the building with a grin, Gilbert followed him, looking around curiously.

"Less than an hour ago? That's crazy good lucky." Gilbert said and yawned, "But I'm wishing they had waited til my nap was over."

"We all had things to do, but this is our job." Vash said coldly, not looking at the pair of newcomers.

Arthur sighed and looked around the storage unit again. That slight feeling of admiration filled him. How on earth did they do it?

"Well, lets get started looking for prints, get Kiku to check if they used the same cleaning fluid as last time and someone go interview the Vargas." Arthur said and started out to his car again to get equipment.

"I call it!" Alfred said quickly, "Gilbert and I will interview the Vargas!"

"Talk to Kiku on your way out." Vash said with that same, icy tone.

Arthur wished that Vash and Alfred didn't clash so much. Still, he and Alfred had enough heated arguments to make Vash look like Alfred's best friend. Kiku got along with everyone, mostly because he talked so little, but occasionally he took sides and made conflict worse.

Arthur's phone rang.

"Hell-"

"Arthur! The fire alarm went off and the house is filled with smoke and I can't get a hold of Allistor!" Peter's voice was panicked and Arthur could hear that horrible beeping of the house fire alarm.

"You set the house on fire?" Arthur couldn't keep the anger out of his voice, though he knew Peter was already scared and didn't know what to do, "I just left a minute or two ago!"

"We didn't! We didn't!" Peter said, his voice high pitched and tight. "We don't know what happened! Emil called the fire department!"

Arthur knew Allistor's work was too far away to make it worth the while to go deal with the problem, but Arthur's team was catching up to the North! His team could handle things here without him micromanaging, but they were so close to a breakthrough! He needed to be here!

"I'll be there in a minute." Arthur growled and hung up. What on earth could those kids get into in such a short time span? "Vash! Listen, I just got a call from Peter, I've got to go."

Vash looked up sharply, "Is Lili okay?"

Arthur sighed, it was probably best if Vash just came with him and took Lili home. "I'm sure she is, it's just that my fire alarm went off and they don't know why."

"I'll meet you there." Vash said and got into his car without another word. Arthur shook his head and got into his own car.

What on earth did those kids do? As Arthur drove, his anger melted away and turned to fear. Did they all get out of the house okay? Turning the corner to his road felt like the hardest thing he had ever done. Part of him didn't want to see the house standing there in flames. He didn't want to see Peter or Lili or Emil trapped inside. The fire alarm went off, the house was on fire, where the kids out? Why had he gotten mad?

"Sir, we found that there was something burning on the stove in the kitchen." The fire chief said calmly, "The dish towels next to the stove caught on fire and set off the alarm, nothing else was damaged, but I'd suggest letting you house air out for a bit."

Arthur stared at the chief. The bacon. He had left the bacon on the stove. "Thank you." Arthur said, feeling numb, "Thank you so much."

Vash had already left to take Lili home and Peter and Emil stood a little distance away watching him. Arthur turned to look at them slowly. They stared back, Peter fearfully, and Emil with a totally blank expression.

"Peter, I owe you an apology." Arthur said, walking over to the boys, "I yelled at you, and it wasn't your fault. Good job contacting the fire department and getting everyone out of the house."

Peter looked like he was about to cry, but he forced a smile and nodded, then looked at the ground, "Sorry to call you from work."

Arthur just shook his head, "No, I'm sorry I got so mad."

Arthur sighed with relief and smiled at the boys. Then he stepped forward and pulled Peter into a hug. Peter hugged him back fiercely and for a moment they just stood there. Arthur looked up at Emil and pulled him into the hug as well. Peter broke and started to cry.

Arthur just hugged them, "I'm sorry. I'm just glad you're okay. You did good."

So, quite a bit happened this chapter, I felt like I have been neglecting UK, so he got a much longer section than Icy. Things are starting to look bad for the North XD I've already started chapter 6, just not done yet!

Please reveiw! Thanks to everyone who has! Your support means so much to me! 3