CHAPTER EIGHT
monkey business

⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:

LIKE A BROKEN TOY, Nadine had been left behind many times before. Abandoned. Forgotten. Easily replaceable. Destined to rot. So it was that when Allison Hargreeves left her and Vanya behind, Nadine barely batted an eye, even though the conversation had been far from saccharine. She was still coated in a film of outrage, though, her fists clenched as if they could somehow bat back the words Allison had spit at Vanya. She knew the woman was hurting, knew Allison just wanted to see Claire again, but pain and heartbreak both weren't excuses to tear somebody else down, and that was what Allison didn't seem to understand before spitting poison at her sister.

Louise had done that a lot. She was like a venomous snake without a rattle for warning, biting down and spreading her toxicity through Nadine's body. Nadine, who could stare at pictures of serpents for hours and replicate them into reality, duplicating every scale, every flick of its tongue, still found herself succumbing to the virus every single time. Perhaps it was because she believed, every single time, that this time, the snake would change. Like Snow White had constantly trusted the old woman outside her window, Nadine kept going back for more from Louise. She died a thousand times over, being rebirthed like a phoenix rising its way out of the ashes, but every time she perished, another piece of her soul withered.

All of this for a scrap of affection.

She recalled the first time she'd revealed her abilities to her mother. She'd been at the park with Louise, sitting on a picnic blanket and scribbling madly on a colouring book while her mother drank wine and watched others walk by. Back then, Louise adored Nadine's company, revelled in it, even. Back then, when Nadine was four, five, she was still Louise's miracle girl. Her angel.

Nadine's memories of that day were fuzzy—she couldn't remember if the sky was a clear blue or clumped full of clouds—but she did remember sitting up, her hair, which had hung just above her ears in unruly wisps, flopping as she did so. She remembered telling Louise she had something to show her, and replicating the image on her colouring book (a girl eating strawberries), blowing it up until it was three times the size. The lines were messy and uneven, and instead of looking real, the image hung in the air like a paper cut out, but Nadine had been so proud of her creation she'd looked at her mother with a big, toothy grin.

Louise had instead screamed bloody murder.

And that was the first time she'd been left behind.

Vanya went back home under the excuse of upcoming violin lessons. Nadine wasn't sure that was true or not (although it may very well have been), because after being pushed aside by family yet again, the woman just might've wanted to get out of her childhood home, get away from any more jeers or jabs she might have been subjected to. She told Nadine she could stay here as long as she wanted, which, on any other day, would've been an offer Nadine was totally up to, but today she was just considering heading back to her motel. It was obvious that she wasn't welcome here, and she was abhorrent to the possibility of running into Diego or Allison again. But it wasn't Diego or Allison she came across as she made her way to the front door.

It was Pogo, limping towards her with his cane in hand. Nadine couldn't help but like the chimpanzee. After all, he'd been the one who'd invited her in yesterday, and seemed truly fascinated by her abilities. He had a lilting, soothing voice, and seemed genuinely good-hearted, even if his loyalties were in the wrong place. He was also intriguing to Nadine, always had been, even as a teenager. The prospect of a chimpanzee gaining human intelligence and free thought always made her shiver with possibility. What if humans could co-exist with other species? It seemed impossible, because humans were ingrained to fight even against themselves, hating each other for trivial things such as skin colour and religion, but it was alluring nonetheless.

"Miss Nadine, are you alright?" he asked, his voice still reassuring. It reminded her of her father's, she realized after a minute, even though the accent was wrong. Both Pogo and Beau Vidal had the same softness in their tones. Or perhaps she was just homesick and projecting her father on the chimpanzee. One of the two.

"I'm fine, Pogo," said Nadine, re-lacing up her shoes. "Sorry I'm here... again. Vanya just called me over to look for Five, and then she got into this fight with Allison. I somehow got stuck in the middle of it, and I'm not even a part of this family."

Pogo took another step towards her. "Don't ever feel unwelcome here, Miss Nadine. I know you weren't adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreeves, but you're like the others, and are connected in transcendental ways." He dabbed at his eyes. "I often wondered where the other children Hargreeves wasn't able to adopt ended up. I'm so glad you found your way to us."

"Thank you, Pogo," Nadine said gently. "I'm not so sure the others think that way, though."

Of course they didn't. They thought she was an intruder and they were right. She wasn't supposed to be here. She never should've come. Never should've inserted herself into their lives when it was clear they didn't want her here.

"They'll come around. I promise you, they're not as callous as they must seem to you. They're just... going through a lot. Their childhoods were definitely out of the ordinary."

"You can say that again."

"Forgive me for asking, but what was your childhood like?" questioned Pogo. "Was it anything like the children's?"

Nadine shook her head. "No, it was... mostly normal. I think that was because my mother always wanted to have a normal life with the child she'd waited for so long for. In fact, any time I did something out of the ordinary, with my powers, I'd get punished. No dinner, sent to my room... she said she wanted the best for me, but look at me now. I'm almost thirty years old and I'm still inadequate at controlling my abilities."

"She pushed them down," Pogo murmured. "I'm sorry, Miss Nadine."

Nadine waved him off. "It's okay now. I'm getting better. I've been doing a lot of practicing with them lately."

"All right. Well, don't feel pressured to leave just yet, Miss Nadine. I believe Master Klaus has come back home, and he might like to speak with you again. He seemed to enjoy your company yesterday, at least." He gestured to the living room. "He might be in there."

Nadine nodded, her cheeks warm, rosebuds fresh in bloom. She appreciated Pogo's amiability. He had a way with words that made her feel like she'd been wrapped in a dozen warm blankets, like when she was sick as a child and Beau had encased her. She paused, taking a moment to consider the option Pogo had laid out for her, and decided it really would do no harm to talk to Klaus once again. She liked the Séance, she really did; his absurd personality was refreshing compared to the acidity of the other Hargreeves siblings. She thought he might be a good friend, if she stuck around long enough.

Picking her way into the living room, she, sure enough, found Klaus Hargreeves, lying on the couch in a strange outfit, blood and fake snowflakes matted in his hair. He was clutching a joint, and the scent of weed settled into Nadine's own locks as she made her way in, one hand over her nose.

He was in the midst of taking a drag when, apparently, he heard her footsteps, as he sat up. Nadine stared at him for a second. He looked like shit. Dried blood was crusted on his face, and his eyes were lined with dark circles. Occasionally, he'd glance over to an empty spot in the room, which Nadine assumed held a ghost.

Nadine blurted, "What the fuck happened to you?" just as Klaus said, "Ah! Mon amie! You have returned!"

She tried again. "Seriously, Klaus, what happened? You've got blood all over your head!"

Klaus touched his forehead like he'd forgotten, and waved her away. "Oh, no, it's fine, don't worry about it. My little big brother was trying to get me to help him find the owner of this prosthetic eye thing, but they wouldn't give us the file, so I had to pretend the guy beat the shit out of me. So I smashed a snow globe on my head." He gave her a grin. "Fun, right?"

"You smashed a..." Nadine blinked at him. "Why?"

"Well, Five did promise me twenty bucks, so I thought I'd go all out," said Klaus nonchalantly, like he was talking about going out for coffee instead of smashing things into his head.

"Five?" Nadine repeated. "I thought he was supposed to be sleeping."

"Oh, no, that was just to get Vanya away. Which I know, because I was hiding in the wardrobe and heard the entire thing. I don't think he's actually slept a wink since he returned from the future." He wiggled his fingers. "You know, he's a real asshole. He didn't even give me the twenty bucks he promised. He kept talking about the apocalypse or whatever."

Again with the apocalypse. When Vanya had first told her about Five's Armageddon ramblings, Nadine had just thought the man-turned-boy had been a little loopy from being forced out his body and into a younger one, but now, apparently, Five was recruiting Klaus for missions and continuing to babble on about it. She felt a tinge of unease go through her. She didn't want to think about the possibility of the world ending. When she was younger, she'd been terrified that the sun would randomly expand and incinerate her, until she'd learned that wouldn't happen for billions of years, when she'd be long gone. Still, her fear had persisted, and her mind had come up with potential scenarios for humanity's end: alien invasion (the classic), meteor, nuclear war, et cetera. The prospect of all of humanity and all of their achievements being completely decimated in an instant was more than simply terrifying. It kept her awake at night.

She swallowed. "So? What did you find out? About this eye?"

"Oh, nothing." Klaus stretched out his back. "The eye hadn't been manufactured yet or something. I didn't really pay attention. Five seemed to think it was important, though."

Nadine's brows knitted together. A prosthetic eye that hadn't been manufactured yet must've meant it was from the future, perhaps something Five had grabbed when he'd time-travelled there as a real thirteen-year-old. But why was it so important? She was dreadfully confused, and Klaus's weed-soaked ramblings certainly didn't clear anything up.

Which meant she needed to actually speak to Five. Which was an unfavourable prospect, given that he didn't seem to care about Nadine at all. But she wanted to know if what he was saying was true. If the world really was going to end in flames.

Of course, even if there was an end of the world in the near future, it still could be years until it swept across the planet. That didn't make Nadine feel any better, however. She hadn't even reached her thirties yet, and she'd always wanted to live a somewhat long and happy life with a potential spouse. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Shit.

She turned back to Klaus. "Do you want me to help you wrap up your head?"

AFTER BANDAGING Klaus's injured head and helping him pick broken glass and fake snowflakes out of his hair (it was the least she could do after he'd helped her with her hand yesterday), Nadine made her way upstairs, deciding to head back to Five's room and try and find him there. The hours had all tumbled over each other, and she realized she'd spent most of the day wandering around the Academy. Now night had fallen, Grace had given her a sandwich for a makeshift dinner, and she walked down the walls, her boots clicking against the floor. In between bites of turkey and lettuce she spotted him, heading to his room, duffel bag strapped to his back. His face was streaked with sweat and, oddly, he seemed on the verge of tears, which was quite out-of-character given what she knew about him.

She stopped him. "Five."

Five wiped at his eyes and turned to face her. "Oh. It's you. You're still here?"

"Yes." Nadine attempted to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, which turned out to be a bad move as it was immediately swatted away. It was hard to remember that this boy, with an angelic smile and short-shorts, was really much older than her. "Sorry. I just... I need to talk to you."

Five rolled his eyes, but Nadine still saw a spark of emotion glimmering in them. "I know you're a fan, but I'm not interested in signing your forehead or underwear or whatever. So you can go on your little merry way back home, and leave me alone, Nadia."

Nadine almost choked on her sandwich at that. After she'd recovered, Five tried to push past her, but she stood her ground. "First of all, my name is Nadine, not Nadia," she said coolly. "So I'd appreciate it if you got my fucking name right. Second of all, I'm not here for you to sign anything. This is serious."

"Serious?" Five echoed. "You people have no concept—" he sucked in a breath, and then a fake smile came to his face. Nadine noticed it was partially streaked in dirt, and wondered what he had been doing (besides trying to locate the owner of a prosthetic eye). "Okay, I'll bite. What do you want to talk to me about? Because apparently, we have all the time in the world!"

"Well, first of all, I'd like to know why you lied to Vanya earlier," said Nadine, crossing her arms and taking another bite of her sandwich. "Why'd you tell her you were going to sleep and sneak out to find the owner of a fake eye? And what's so important about it, anyway?"

"Who told you—Klaus," Five sighed at the realization, and shifted slightly in place. "Look, Vanya isn't any help to me. She didn't even believe me when I told her everything last night. I had to lie to get her off my back. And as for the eye?" he dipped a hand into his pocket, taking it out and showing it to her. "Someone is going to lose an eye in the next week. And whoever it is causes the apocalypse."

"Yes, I've heard about the apocalypse," said Nadine. "So, you're telling the truth, then? You didn't just completely lose your mind when you time-travelled to the future? Because based on... well, literally everything about you—" she gestured to his clothes, to the fake eye, to his battered face, to the duffel bag hanging over his shoulder "—it's hard to believe that you're in possession of all of your marbles."

Was she saying that expression right?

"I'm as sane as ever," Five snapped, stowing the eye back in his pocket. "And—" he stopped mid-sentence, his eyes suddenly going wide. Nadine blinked in confusion.

"What is it? Is your mind finally catching up with your body? Are you regressing to thirteen again?"

Five ignored her, lifting a hand and pointing to Nadine's shoulder. "Where did you—where did you get that?"

"Get what?" Nadine stared at Five in confusion. Maybe he really had gone insane. "What are you talking about?"

"Your scar!" Five clarified, and Nadine realized what he was referring to. She finished off her sandwich and dusted her hands off.

"I don't see why it's any of your business—" Nadine started, before Five was seizing her by the collar, bringing her face close to his (which was a comedic scene, given how tiny the boy was and how much taller Nadine was then him). Immediately, Nadine's fight or flight instincts kicked in, and she started weaving the image of a plume of fire in her mind, but Five was already talking.

"I'm not playing any games here, French Girl. Where did you get the scar?"

"I got shot, asshole!" said Nadine, trying to shove the boy off her. Usually, she would've felt bad talking to a teenager in such a matter, but the knowledge that this teenager was actual a fifty-eight-year-old man banished any guilt she might've felt. "Is that what you want to hear? I got fucking shot when I was eighteen!"

Five released her collar almost immediately, his eyes going, if possible, even wider. "That's impossible," he murmured to himself. "It doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't make sense?" Nadine asked, but Five ignored her.

"But... I thought she wasn't there because she'd leave by then, but... what if she was already...? Well, she is from France... what are the odds..."

"Would you like to share something with the class, Number Five?" Nadine asked, leaning in closer. "What's so intriguing about my scar?"

Five finally looked up, levelling his gaze at her. His skin had gone pale, and he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Still, his voice was steady when he finally spoke. "Your full name is Nadine Vidal," he said. "Isn't it?"

"Yes, how did you know—"

"You got shot when you were eighteen by two assassins because you posed a threat to the timeline," Five continued, like she hadn't spoken. "Except it seems that they didn't finish the job." His eyes wandered down to her bullet wound again, and then back to her eyes. They were serious now, any manic banished. Nadine shrank back a little, unnerved, and that was when Five spoke again.

"You're supposed to be dead."

⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:

HAVEN: the image of five, a scrawny thirteen-year-old boy in a cute little uniform, grabbing nadine, who's super jacked and looks like she could kill you in an instant is so funny to me i HAD to add it in lmfaoooo. 

anyways, this chapter revealed some things :)) i mean, it was pretty obvious, but still!! i thought it was super cool, and the reason she posed a threat to the timeline... well, you'll find that out later.

next chapter, nadine is going to (reluctantly) team up (read: be forced to obey five's infuriating commands) and explore her feelings for vanya and camille!! i'm so excited for things to get more intense, and for leonard to get into the picture (spoiler alert: nadine hates him!!), because... well, shit's going down.

merry christmas to everyone who celebrates, and let's hope 2021 is better than this shitty year :))

thanks for reading :))