Notes: So after having some fun with the Hargreeves kids, it's time to go back to see what's been going on with Diego!

Oh, a special thank you for Klaus, I can't thank you for your reviews in a PM, but I appreciate you :D

Let One Escape at Least

"God, this is stupid," grumbled Diego struggling to tie the end of a bracelet made of beads, "I can't…"

It had been around 75 days since Diego had been detained in this psychiatric center. As soon as he had arrived to the sixties, he had realized he had the chance to save John F. Kennedy, but apparently Dallas Law Enforcement wasn't so easy to convince and he had ended up here after attempting to trespass Lee Harvey Oswald's house.

For all this time, he had rejected help and kept trying to prove his point in one way or another, but today was different; his attempt to convince Dr. Moncton that he was making progress had been a complete failure, waiting 90 more days before they reviewed his case? He'd be too late, but that didn't mean it had been completely fruitless, he had decided to change strategies and fake an outburst managing to steal a pen from him during the struggle, that was all he'd need for his break.

"For you, maybe. This'll cheer you up," beamed a Lila dressed in white messy clothes completely covered in carbon while lifting her leg to get a piece of Bacon out of her shoe.

"Bacon," he glanced at her. He had no idea why, but this crazy woman insisted on talking to him and sitting by his side. Truth be told, as crazy as she appeared, she was the only decent conversation around, somewhat annoying sometimes, but if he had to admit, he also enjoyed the banter.

"Smuggled it out of the lunchroom. Do you want some?"

"No."

"To be honest, I was saving it for your great escape," she admitted taking a bite.

She had been suspecting he'd try to escape for a while, but after his attempt to appear cooperative that morning and then the stolen pen, she knew it was coming soon and after debating for a while, she had decided it would do no harm to help Diego break out of this junk yard, then she'd have something better to tell the little weasel and Diego would owe her one, not that she particularly cared about either of them, it was just annoying to spend all her time out of the Commission trapped in this psychiatric center.

"What are you talking about?"

"Just saying, whatever it is you're planning, I can be very resourceful."

"Look, even if I was planning something, and I am not, you would be the last person I would take."

"It's because of the Jell-Os, right?" Maybe she had had too much fun that morning with Diego's poor attempt at convincing Dr. Moncton and had ended up betting three lunch Jell-O's that he'd fail. "You can have them back."

"No, it's not because of the Jell- I'm a lone wolf. I don't run with a pack," that was partly true, but he also didn't want to involve an innocent person in his crazy life this time around, he had had enough with Five's friends from the Commission killing detective Patch, maybe Lila was half crazy, but she had been his sole friend, if you could call her that, since he had landed in the sixties.

"Perfect. Because I'm somewhat of a lone wolf myself," concurred Lila as Diego sighed exasperated, "Just stay away from me, nothing good will come from keeping my company."

"Oh please, drop the bad boy act, we have established you have daddy issues, but I bet you were a mommy's boy when you were a kid," she snickered remembering Five's anecdote.

"Piss off."

"Does that mean I'm right? Are you planning to get out of here to go back to mommy?"

"My mother is dead," croaked Diego avoiding her eyes.

Shit, I knew that, Lila mentally kicked herself, she was just trying to tease him.

"Hey, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to hurt you," she said a little softer than she wanted.

Diego was about to leave but stopped surprised by her apology, "Look, it's been somewhat fun, but I don't want to get you into trouble."

"Hey… it's not like I love being stuck in this place filled with cuckoos, you know?"

"Do you even have some place to go after you leave this place?"

"Well… I could go back with my mom or…" she wasn't even sure why she was suggesting another option.

"Or?"

"You know, we could run away to another place together."

Diego shook his head, "what part did you not get about being a lone wolf? I have things to do and… my damn family is already big and messed up as it is."

"Oh, so you have siblings?"

"Yeah well… you'd think I don't, considering no one deigned to get me out of here after all this time," he said bitterly.

"Maybe they are pretty busy people?"

"Yeah right, they are always like that, this is why I left home in the first place," he gritted.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, I'd kill to have siblings, were all of them really that unreliable?"

"Okay… maybe not but… we fought a lot, one of them even wrote a book about how horrible it was to live with us and another one left us when we were only 13."

So you really still blame him for leaving despite knowing what happened. I wonder what you'd think if you knew what he's been going through trying to protect you all, she thought with a pang of guilt.

"…Did you ever see the one that left again?"

Diego glanced at her, suspicion in his eyes, "why all the questions all of a sudden?"

"What, am I not allowed to have some curiosity?"

The Kraken was about to say something else when the guards called out to them to go back to their rooms, so he just stood up giving her a disconcerted look before leaving.

Lila saw him leave holding her breath and relaxed after he was out of sight, that had been a little too risky, what was she thinking?

Who cares if they all think the little bugger is a jerk, he might care about them, but he's not a saint, he brought all this upon himself by betraying the Commission and mom… and he's still a pain in the ass, she mussed before grabbing ahold of the bracelet Diego had made and fitting it to her wrist.

That same night Diego was ready to escape. He dismantled the pen and fiddled with the lock in his cell until it opened.

Everything was dark and silent, so he thought his escape would go smoothly until the emergency lights lit up in an ominous red, a bulky guard waiting for him right as he turned a corner.

"Ah, shit."

"Hargreeves. What are you doing out here?"

"I'm sleepwalking," he pretended extending one arm to catch the man out of guard, but he wasn't counting his reflexes were a little slowed down by the pills they administered to most patients in psychiatric wards and that he didn't have any of his knives around, so the man stopped his attack with one arm and with the other easily hit him on a vital spot to make him fall in pain, immediately stepping on his shoulder with enough force to dislocate his right arm.

"Like to run your mouth, smart-ass? It's gonna be hard after I break your jaw," grunted the guard taking out his baton.

Diego tried to fight off the pain, but before the man could attack him again a loud metallic noise filled the room and as he fell, Lila was revealed standing with a wide smile and a metal bed pan on the floor.

"Lila?"

"You're not the only one who wants out, wolf man!"

Diego tried to stand up with a groan and as Lila approached to help him up, he grunted, "watch my shoulder."

Lila got close to him almost reaching for a kiss and just as Diego leaned in enticed by her fearlessness, she pulled at his right arm and fixed his shoulder making him cry in pain.

"Auuauuuauuuu!" she joined in the scream with a howl.

Diego couldn't help to feel a thrill of excitement run through his veins, there was no denying it, Lila was pretty resourceful.

The small woman passed Diego's arm through her shoulders to support him and both started trotting almost thoughtlessly to the emergency exit. But then, just as they saw the exit door, it was blocked by three blond men holding guns and looking pretty menacing.

Both of them were stunned as the men lifted their weapons ready to shoot, then it was run or die, so without a second thought they both ran as fast as they could. Lila was definitely not expecting this, who the hell were those thugs?

"Who are those guys?"

"No idea!" Yelled Diego as puzzled behind her.

Then they reached the controls room and Diego stopped inside.

"What the hell are you stopping for?" Asked Lila genuinely nervous.

"We need a distraction," he explained opening the other patient's cells before taking Lila's hand and running forward. "Follow me."

They went into the maintenance room and Diego opened the laundry chute for Lila, she nodded and launched herself as fast as she could, the thugs would catch up to them in a matter of seconds.

As soon as Diego landed beside her, they could hear innumerable gunshots over their heads, they wasted no time and holding each other they kept pushing forward in the lower floor until they found themselves in an intersection.

"Which way?" asked Diego.

"Right."

"Why right?"

"Why not?"

"Okay," whispered Diego as they sprinted in that direction until they bumped into two policemen.

"Thank God you're here. Three men just tried to attack us," urged Lila pointing at the direction they had come from.

"Get your hands up, now," ordered the policeman Lila had bumped with, thankfully enough Diego's policeman had fainted with the impact.

Lila gasped.

"Wait, you don't understand. We're not the bad guys," tried to explain Diego still on the floor.

"Shut your mouth and stay on the ground!" Warned the policeman focusing on Diego before Lila kicked his hand sending the gun flying, then holding his shoulders she propelled her knee on his gut and finished with a fist directly on his yaw knocking him out.

"Where'd you learn how to fight like that?" murmured Diego looking at the man on the floor, still processing what had happened.

"My mother," smiled Lila, "come on," she took his hand and pulled him to keep going.

"The rest of the escape was a piece of cake considering there were a bunch of wackos dressed in white wandering near the center by the time we got out," finished Lila with a wide smile.

Five had been listening to Lila intently, a pang of guilt crossing his face when he heard Diego had been stuck in that place for 75 days.

At least Luther was doing better than that…

"I assume I owe you some gratitude for getting him out of there," he murmured absently thinking about the thugs that had attacked them, could they be…?

"Not like I did it for you, you little punk, besides…" Lila trailed off.

"Besides?" Five glared at her.

"Well… your silly brother might still be planning to prevent the assassination of JF Kennedy," she smiled innocently.

"Preven—," Five shook his head exasperated, "is he an idiot?"

"Afraid so. It must run in the family," she deadpanned.

"Let me guess, this is all he has been thinking about since arriving at the clinic?"

"…Maybe, doctor said something about a hero complex and daddy issues…"

"You're a moron. Why did you let him out of there?"

"What, do you think it would have been better if he rotted there for years?"

"No, but you could have changed his mind, or I don't know, you could have waited for the actual assassination to happen before helping him escape?"

"Hey, I'm not his babysitter, besides, he can be very persuasive when he wants," Lila chuckled, "he's kinda cute when he gets all worked up like that."

Five grimaced, he should have guessed Diego would pull off something like this, he had always been the one who was most inspired by the idea of being a hero despite his timid stuttering personality as a kid. It was a matter of time before he did something stupid to alter the timeline. "You are completely useless," he growled trying to think how to fix this.

"Hey, for once I was trying to do something nice, okay?"

Five looked at her slightly surprised but decided not to comment. "How does he plan to do it?" He asked instead.

"That's the best part, hear this, he wanted to force Oswald into a car, cut off his trigger finger and tell him he had 24 hours to exit Dallas."

"What, why not just kill him?"

"Something about not killing a man before he's committed a crime."

Five rolled his eyes, "It's still stupid, what if he's ambidextrous?"

"I know, right!?" Exclaimed Lila. "Anyway, I told him his plan was stupid and bought some time."

The Boy sighed, "okay good… you'll have to tell your mother about this, she needs to send me to stop Diego, I'll think about something."

Lila knew he was right, there was only so much she could do to stall Diego from his attempt to save the president without breaking her cover and truth be told, she had some questions to her mother about the goons that had almost killed them too.

Notes: Mostly a call back to season 2, but hopefully the changes were worth it!

Seems like Five will need to pay a visit to Diego soon, hopefully it will go better than it did with Luther... yeah, right :P

I'll try to post this Wednesday, but I've been a little stuck again on a particular chapter, wish me luck finishing it today!

Also, as always, thank you so much for reading and to the lovely people that have left comments :j

PS: Anybody playing Diablo IV this weekend? lol I'm guessing there will be more Zelda players, but I gotta get those rewards from the Server Slam!