AN: I am SO sorry for the delay; it feels like it took me forever to get this chapter up. School started on the fourth of this months, plus a lot of stuff has been going on in my roleplay, so with those things combined I've been rather busy. But fear not, here is the fifth chapter! Not only is this chapter, like the rest of the story, dedicated to Tienka but also Only If You Wish It, who was a great help in helping me figure something out for not only this chapter but the story in general as well. 3

Disclaimer: I, Mistystarshine, do not own Gone or the characters.

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Not long after the little talk on the edge of cliff the group went inside. Well, more accurately Caine went inside, followed soon by Diana, the others coming not too long after. Probably talking discussing something they didn't want them to hear. Them, the evil coates kids that probably didn't even have hearts. The thought sent a sick jolt of amusement through him.

But maybe that wasn't completely true. Caine wasn't a good person, he knew that very well. One could say that he had no heart and they probably wouldn't be wrong. But Diana? No, the same couldn't be said for her. Even if it didn't show very often she did have the ability to care, was able to not only tell right from wrong but do something about it. Hadn't she proven that that day on the cliff, when she risked herself to save those kids? Maybe she was even able to love, no matter how much she seemed to have trouble believing it at times, even if he couldn't believe that she loved him. But as for he himself, Caine Soren? Well he doubted he could feel those things. He was the bad guy, the villain, it was a fact. No wonder they wouldn't want him to hear their little conversation, which was probably about him. Let them think what they wanted about him and call him whatever they wanted.

Not Diana though. She wasn't nice, no, but she wasn't evil, and she certainly wasn't heartless.

He pushed his musings to the back of his mind and, upon entering the house, moved over to his room without so much as glancing at Diana. From there was rest of the night was a fun little game of avoid anyone and everyone. No, he wasn't avoiding their looks of pity or afraid of facing them and feeling weak. He just… wanted to be alone. That was it.

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When he finally attempted to fall to sleep it came restlessly to say the least. A better description was probably that he stayed up for hours impatiently waiting for himself to slip out of consciousness despite how awake and active his mind was. Finally, after what felt like forever, it did indeed come. But it was far from pleasant. While he couldn't actually recall his dreams he knew that they weren't pleasant, if waking up incredibly early in the morning covered in sweat was any hint. For one horrifying moment he wondered if he had actually screamed in his sleep. Then came the realization that he couldn't scream anymore. It came with a tint of anger and bitter amusement. He had always hated it when he screamed, hadn't he? It always made him sound weak, like he needed help. Well now he couldn't scream even if he wanted to.

If that wasn't irony he didn't know what was.

It was then that he felt his thoughts begin to turn down the road of self-pity. Oh no, that just would not do. A snarl worked its way across his face as he violently shoved the thoughts out of his mind. It didn't matter if he was in a position that plenty of people would probably say that he had more than earned a little bit of self-pity. Self-pity was for the weak, those that had already given in, people that had accepted defeat. He was none of those things, and he certainly wouldn't go around pitying himself.

So all these thoughts about weakness, some narcissistic voice in the back of his head said, it isn't just a way to keep from feeling oh so sorry for yourself? Because denial probably isn't much better than self-pity.

Now this only helped to strengthen his anger. And it wasn't even anger directed at a person, just general anger about the world. He had only just woken up, hadn't even talked to anyone, and had already managed to make himself royally pissed off. Oh, today was going to be magical, he just felt it.

With a quick shake oh his head he climbed out of bed, made his way over to the dresser, and pulled on some clean clothes. No one else was awake at the moment, or at least he assumed so, they would have to be insane to get up before dawn even arrived, but that didn't mean he was going to risk looking all undignified if he was wrong.

Once he was dressed he headed downstairs and began to walk. Not in any particular direction, just wandering about, just because he could. It was as he was doing this that he realized two things. One, it was actually a little later than he had originally thought, for there was a faint bit of pink beginning to show on the horizon. Not that he had gone outside, it just so happened that the mansion had a great many windows. Two, there was indeed an insane person in this house, other than himself of course.

It was when he entered the kitchen that he saw his brother, sitting in a chair against the counter and gazing off in the distance. Caine glanced at him for a moment, briefly wondering what on earth he was doing up at this time, before deciding that he really didn't care and starting to turn around, intending on leaving before he could be noticed. But apparently his twin had the ears of a freaking bat, for just as he started to turn around Sam glanced in his direction.

"Hey," the 'good' twin murmured. For a moment he cursed both the other boy's ears and his luck for walking into what was probably the only room, other than a bedroom, that had an awake person in it. And the fact that Sam happened to be that person? That was just salt in the wound. But still, he had been spotted, and that little thing called pride wasn't going to let him just walk away. If he did that he might look like he was running, and Caine was not going to run from Sam. So he turned around, a slightly annoyed expression on his face.

And then, for one moment, Caine swore that Sam's memory and his incredible tendency to be very sensitive around anyone that might be dealing with anything emotional at the moment both crawled out his ear and made a break out of the crazy town that was the FAYZ. Because when he opened his mouth again it was to ask a question. Not a simple yes or no question that could be answered with a nod or shake of his head, no, one of those questions that required words. Caine wasn't the type to get all heartbroken and break down crying when he realized he couldn't answer, but he was well within his rights to be annoyed about it. However, Sam looked like he was more affected by it than he was. For as soon as she asked, "what are you doing up?" his eyes widened in horror and he looked like he was about to frantically backpedal.

When he opened his mouth it looked like he was going to apologize and Caine would be having none of that, talking to him like he was some little kid whose feelings had been gravely hurt. So before his brother could get the first syllable out he raised his hand, a clear signal for him to stop whatever he was saying. Without waiting for any sort of response or try and figure out his expression he headed over to one of the counters and began looking around. The thing was a mess, a group of young children living in it unsupervised for months hadn't exactly put it in immaculate condition and upon arriving the coates kids had made absolutely no effort to straighten it up. But before long he found what he had swore he saw a few days ago, a half-used pack of sticky notes, and from there it was easy enough to find a discarded pen.

Allowing himself a brief moment of smugness he headed over to the counter Sam was sitting at, which he leaned against as he wrote, 'I wanted to be up.' He then pushed it forward, not bothering to hide the hint of a smirk spreading across his face.

Sam had to squint slightly to read it as it was rather dim in the kitchen, but neither of them were about to go and turn more lights on and risk waking everyone up. It only took him seconds to read it though and as soon as he did he sent Caine a look of complete and utter disbelief. It showed in his voice as he said, "you just wanted to be up… at the crack of dawn?"

Caine responded by sending him a narrow-eyed look of annoyance. He didn't even bother writing down a response, he didn't have to explain himself to him, especially if he knew that he was lying and might try and get him to explain what the real reason was. Not that he would, it was just an annoyance he didn't want to deal with. Sam let out a sigh before saying, "whatever. I, personally, couldn't sleep." This was followed by a pointed glance at Caine, which he pointedly ignored. Maybe walking away wouldn't have been so bad after all.

A pause fell over the pair as Sam struggled to find something to say and Caine contemplated going back to bed. After all, even sitting in a room staring up at a ceiling, possibly arguing with himself, had to be better than this. But before he could reach a decision on whether that would be happening or not Sam apparently found something to say. "It probably isn't bad that we woke up early, it will take a while to boat back to the mainland, and I imagine climbing down that cliff won't exactly be extremely speedy."

His only response was a roll of the eyes followed by Caine writing, 'really!? And here I thought we would be instantly teleporting over there.' Despite the sarcastic words he wrote he couldn't help but feel a bit nervous at the thought of returning to Perdido Beach. After indirectly starting a fire that had caused who knew how much damage he doubted it would be a very warm welcome from the general public, not to mention that wonderful thing called politics he would be doubt have to deal it. Some part of him began to hope that his brother wouldn't continue to pursue the subject of the travel back or the mainland, as likely as it seemed that he would.

And, miracle of miracles, he didn't. Instead Sam rolled his eyes at the note before asking, "so… Any chance you'd be willing to share where you keep the food around here?"

Relief flashed through him at the words. Food, food he could talk about. It was a safe enough subject when starving wasn't an immediate threat, although there was a chance that it wouldn't stay that way for long. Pushing that unpleasant thought away he quickly wrote down, 'there's cereal, crackers, ramen, and various other unidentified crap in the cupboard. Also some batter and whatnot, but it's not worth fighting with the oven for. Same goes for all the frozen stuff.'

Sam was silent for a moment as he read this, but then a look of sheer disbelief crossed his face. "So you're telling me," he began, "that you ran off to a multi-million dollar mansion and have been surviving off of that stuff… just because you couldn't be bothered to use a stove?" When he finished the disbelief began to give way to amusement. Caine, however, suddenly felt very indignant.

He wrote as fast as he could as he scribbled out, 'No! Have you even looked at that thing? There's no way it's useable.' This was shortly followed by a gesture toward the stove across the room. It was true that it looked like a rather advanced piece of machinery but surely someone could use it, never mind that two fifteen year olds probably weren't the someone's that the creators of the machine had in mind.

A small smile began to cross Sam's face as he laughed, "yeah right. You know, I think it's just that you can't cook." He could see Caine bristle at the insult, he knew he could, and part of him thought that he found that even more amusing, which only served to further his anger. Quite frankly it took quite a bit of self-control to stop himself from hurling him across the room. Any other time sure, but not when he possibly owed his bother. Maybe. If he did he wouldn't be letting him know that. Yes, he might have helped save his life, but he certainly wasn't going to start kissing his shoes for it.

Just no wall throwing.

Yet.

Instead he wrote down, pausing to glare at his twin between words, 'I'd like to see you actually get anywhere with that thing.'

While Caine himself might have been the kind to rarely, if ever, back down from a challenge he knew very well that he brother was not him in any way, shape, or form, and so he wasn't completely sure what to expect. Sam was silent for a moment before standing up and, in an attempt at a proud voice, declaring, "watch me." Caine just rolled his eyes at this and sat down in one of the chairs, leaning back, fully prepared to watch his brother make a fool of himself.

At first he actually did alright. He walked toward the cabinets, rummaged through them for a moment, before triumphantly pulling out what looked like a tattered box of pancake batter. Caine gave a slow, mocking clap at the sight of this, which Sam returned with a quick glare. Congratulations, he wanted to say, you managed to locate a box. The moment he caught himself thinking what he would normally be saying he felt the self-pity threaten to return, which he quickly shoved away. No, there would be absolutely none of that.

Turning his gaze back to the cabinets he began to open other doors, clearly looking for something. Things were shoved, noise was made, the look on the teen's face became more and more frustrated, and Caine's smirk grew wider. Finally Sam gave in and asked, "so… where do you keep the bowls?"

Before he got up and made any attempt to help him he wrote a note which said, 'and you were questioning my ability to cook.' With that he stood up and headed toward the cabinets himself, flicking the note at his brother as he did so.

As he read it Sam scowled before exclaiming, "I said nothing about finding bowls in the labyrinth you call a kitchen." Caine didn't bother responding to this, instead opening a door, one that Sam had already opened as a matter of fact, and shoving some metal trays out of the way to reveal a large glass bowl hidden behind them. As he pulled it out he managed to confirm that telekinetic does not automatically mean graceful or with fast enough reflexes to catch anything when their attention might be elsewhere, as the trays came falling to the ground with a great clatter.

Immediately he glared at Sam, who looked like he was about to burst out laughing, just daring him to make a comment. But as it turned out it wasn't his brother that he had to worry about, as he soon heard the sound of loud, angry footsteps, which was closely followed by a rather peeved looking Diana barging into the kitchen. She surveyed the situation for about a second before growling, "what the fuck are you two doing at this time in the morning and why is it so loud?"

Caine's first instinct was to try and make some sharp-tongued, sarcastic remark toward her, but that might not work very well if he had to write it out on a small stick note which he would then have to give to her. At the very least it would give her plenty of time to launch some more barbs his way, easily making her the winner of any verbal match that might occur. So for once he found himself glancing at his brother, waiting for him to respond and hoping that it was at least something worth saying.

It was not, of course it wasn't.

"Erm…" Sam began, and already Caine was resisting the urge to bash his head into a wall. Never begin an argument or defense with erm, ever! It was basically admitting that you had lost before you had even begin. Ignoring Caine's look that clearly said to stop himself from saying whatever garbage was clearly about to spill from his mouth he continued, "well Caine said, well, wrote something about not fighting with the oven, I said that I didn't think he could cook, I think he meant that he could and I know he said that he'd like to see me do better, so…"

When he finally finished Diana was looking at Sam as if he had just suggested that maybe love was the way to break down the FAYZ barrier, and Caine was looking up at the ceiling and again forcing himself not to use his powers for petty, word-punishing purposes. What he said was the truth, yes, but he had also managed to say it in what he was pretty sure was the most awkward way possible.

It wasn't long at all before she turned her sights on Caine and exclaimed, "but you can't cook! For god's sake Caine, you burn toast, toast! And if Sam is anything like most fifteen year old boys he sure as hell can't work a high-tech oven either." A slight look of triumph crossed Sam's face at the confirmation that his original assumption was correct, but Caine paid no attention to that. Sam implying that he couldn't do something was one thing, but Diana? It didn't matter that she had seen him fail at that thing many a time, he was going to prove her wrong if it was the last thing he did.

So, with his head held high, he walked over to the fridge, opened it up, and pulled out a carton of eggs. Any milk in the house had long since expired but surely water would make do, right? Never mind that they didn't actually need eggs as you just needed to add water to this particular batter, neither of them actually planned on reading the instructions. It was all intuitive, right?

Somewhere behind him he heard Diana mutter, "I swear to god, if I die in a fire you start I will come back as a ghost and haunt you for the rest of your life, both of you if more than one makes it out." Caine completely ignored that little comment, instead pouring a large amount of the mix into a bowl, not even bothering to try and measure of it. Meanwhile Sam figured that Diana's insult had been enough to push him into joining in and grabbed a cup and filled it with water. Not a measuring cup mind you, just a random coffee mug. It was then added to the mix, which was soon followed by two eggs which, after their presence failed to make it look like anything resembling batter, they silently agreed could only be solved by adding another egg.

Caine heard footsteps behind him and turned around slightly to see Diana looking down at the mixture with a look of disgust. Sam, who was looking at it with an expression that showed the he knew that something definitely was not right, began, "maybe we should-"

However, before he could finish that thought Diana interrupted, "I swear to god Temple, if you finish that sentence with 'add another egg' someone's going to get slapped." He fell silent at this, which sent a wave of amusement through Caine. It seemed even the big hero of the FAYZ wasn't going to risk arguing with Diana when she had been woken up early in the morning by him taking part in something she swore was stupid.

With that Sam grabbed a wooden spoon that he had grabbed, because apparently using whisks was for those that wanted the easy way out, and began to stir. The results were lumpy, had a texture that, while none of them touched it, he assumed resembled dough, and had a slight yellow tint. It was then that Quinn walked in, apparently also woken up by the clatter but much slower in arriving. Or not wanting to get involved in what might have been a fight. As he entered a look of confusion crossed his face and he opened his mouth, only for Diana to beat him to the punch. "They, for some reason known only to their diseased minds, decided to try cooking and wake everyone up in the process."

Diana received a glare for this, which she responded to with one of her own. Quinn blinked a few times, probably trying to get over the shock of seeing Sam and Caine cooking, or attempting to cook, together, before saying, "but Sam… dude… you really can't cook."

Immediately Diana let out a sharp laugh at this. "I freaking knew it! But apparently with their powers combined the fact that neither of them can cook will magically evaporate." Despite his annoyance with Diana he took the opportunity to poke at his brother, making the sticky notes and pen fly from the other counter to the one they were currently cooking on to write one word, 'hypocrite.'

Sam glanced at the note, glanced at Caine, looked like he really wanted to say something, and instead shook his head. He then grabbed a pan, removed from the cabinet during his search for a bowl and, although he did not know it, the exact opposite of what you should use on that kind of stove. As he placed it on one of the burners Caine poured a large amount of the batter in, much more than should have been used anyway. Diana snorted in the background and he heard her muttering something to Quinn, although he could not make it out. For some reason unknown to him he felt a sudden flash of something that might resemble jealousy over her talking to him, but before he could really think about it he was interrupted by a great pillar of black smoke starting to rise from the pan.

While he turned around to gaze at Diana, still in her nightgown he couldn't help but note, Sam had turned on the stove, setting it at a five. He didn't know what exactly five meant and assumed it was a medium or relatively low setting, but apparently that was very wrong.

Caine took a step back, Sam had an alarmed look on his face, Quinn muttered something that sounded like a curse word, and Diana hissed, "you. Me. Afterlife. See you there." For a few moments they stood there in shock, wondering exactly where they had gone wrong that it was already smoking like this. That few moments was all it took for the pan to begin to bubble. A big, hot-read lump began to form in the middle of the pan, rising as it threatened to pop. Not wanting to wait around and see what would result if that happened Caine frantically waved his hand, causing the pan to fly from the stove and into the sink with a rather loud clatter, spilling drops of batter across the floor as it did so. Unfortunately it wasn't quite fast enough, as all that smoke managed to set off the fire alarm, waking up anyone that might have possible been sleeping.

As Caine quickly turned off the oven, which was still sporting smoking specks of batter that looked like they were going to burst into flame any minute now, Sam and Diana rushed toward the sink and turned on the water to cool down the burning pan, which caused more smoke. Quinn rushed around to open some windows and release some of the smoke from the rapidly-filling room. Meanwhile, the sound of rapid footsteps alerted him that there would probably be a lot of explaining to do.

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One round of arguing about stupidity and pride, many sarcastic commented, and quest to find a way to turn off the fire alarm later and they ended up having a breakfast of cereal and crackers, Sam and Caine refusing to make eye contact while Diana smirked at both of them.

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AN: That… was a lot longer than I expected it to be. Originally that was just going to be a quick scene at the beginning of the chapter but it kept growing and growing and well… became its own chapter. I wanted to get some more Caine and Sam interaction in though, so at least that happened? Anyway, in the next chapter we'll finally get to the island leaving, so no worries. :3