CHAPTER TEN
sunny side up.

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IF CAMILLE WAS THE SUN, then it was her rays that roused Nadine Vidal out of her slumber the next morning. Nadine opened her eyes and blinked around the unfamiliar room, drool plastered to her cheek and her eyelids gummed together with sleep. She didn't remember falling asleep last night, although she knew it must've been past one am when she did so, which definitely explained the wave of exhaustion that settled over her like a blanket as she threw her covers back. She was thinking about putting on her clothes from yesterday when she noticed the pink suitcase tucked into the corner. She breathed out a sigh of exasperation. Five. That boy had no concept of privacy.

She crossed to her suitcase and picked out a clean outfit. Yesterday she'd gone for style; today she went for comfort, extracting a pair of grey sweatpants and pairing it with a black and white striped top. Pulling the garments on, she had to admit she appreciated Five's gesture. This was nice of him, even if he was a little shit. And even though he'd popped into her room while she was sleeping. Even though, for everyone else, it would've just been the bare minimum.

After finding one of the many bathrooms in this house and brushing her teeth, applying minimal makeup, and tucking her hair into a bun reminiscent of Vanya's from two days ago, Nadine headed downstairs, her stomach growling. She thought she might be able to make herself a piece of toast or something while hopefully not coming across any of the other Hargreeves siblings. How was she supposed to explain to them that she had been instructed to stay here, in their own house, while she was still practically a stranger to them? It wasn't like she could tell them about the assassins, or the Commission. It was too complicated, as Five had said. And she didn't want to drag anyone else into her own mess.

Unfortunately, Nadine had never been one for luck. At the arcade, she would always be drawn to the claw machine, wasting her money only to come home with the crook of her arm bare of any prize. Her name was never called for raffles. In board games, it was pretty much expected that she'd lose. So when she entered the kitchen only to find Allison and Luther Hargreeves at the table, watching Grace hum as she began to prepare them sunny side up eggs, she wasn't even surprised.

She sucked in a breath and attempted to turn around, but by then Allison and Luther had heard her enter and whirl around to face her. Their brows knitted in equal confusion, evidently wondering why she was still in their house, and Nadine found herself cringing back, heat blooming across her cheeks like roses.

"Nadine?" Allison asked eventually. "What are you—"

"I'm sorry." The words tumbled out of Nadine's mouth out of their own accord. She'd meant to say something else, something to divert their attention, but what came out instead was an apology.

Allison blinked. "What?"

"I'm sorry," Nadine repeated, her voice gaining more strength. "For what I said yesterday. You know, about Vanya's book and all."

Allison's face sobered. "I'm sorry, too. Pogo told me that Vanya was really upset, and I feel really guilty. I never should've said those things to her. I was just angry about Patrick, and I—"

"You took it out on Vanya," Nadine finished with a nod. "I know."

Grace, who had been unwrapping a package of bacon, turned around abruptly to face them. Her perfect lips spread into a smile. "Hello, Nadine," she said, sweet as sugarplums. "Would you like a sunny side up egg, too? I don't mind making another one."

Nadine wanted to say no, but her stomach gave another rumble, and she relented. "If it's no trouble," she said, and then slid into the seat beside Allison. It was only then she saw the unease on the woman's face as her eyes locked on her mother. Nadine's eyes found Luther's and saw the exact same emotion in it. They watched Grace with a wariness Nadine would've expected if they were looking at a murderer behind their cell, not the robot who'd raised them their entire lives.

"No trouble at all," said Grace, her tone high and fluty, like a Disney princess, and began to crack eggs in a pan on the stove. There was a sizzling as the eggs began to fry, and Nadine took a deep breath in, inhaling a warm, homey smell that was a stark contrast to the unease that was loitering in the air.

Allison coughed slightly, then turned to Nadine. "Well, it's okay, Nadine. You don't even have to say sorry. You were... you might have been right. Maybe I didn't deserve all of the things Vanya wrote in her book, but I was really unkind to her as a child. I still regret it."

"Still, that doesn't give Vanya the excuse to reveal all that private shit about your past," Nadine admitted. Allison just sighed at that acknowledgement. She knew it was true.

"So," said Luther, injecting himself into the conversation. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Nadine winced. This was exactly the topic she'd been trying to stray away from. "I..." her eyes darted around the room, trying to think of an excuse that wouldn't make her sound like she'd gone batshit insane. "Well... I..." she cleared her throat. "Klaus invited me to stay here. For a few days. I was about to leave the motel, anyway, so..."

"Ah." Luther nodded, but Nadine could've sworn suspicion briefly flitted into his eyes. She looked away, listening instead to Grace's humming and the pops and crackles as the eggs were prepared. Nadine stared at the robot's polka-dotted skirt. It was peculiar that she would look so young—she could pass off as the same age as Nadine and the Hargreeves. She was cloying and beautiful and preserved forever. A flower that would never wither.

There was a couple of minutes of this, where Nadine attempted to deduce the meaning of all of this discomfort hanging in the air from Luther and Allison's impressively neutral faces alone. Then Allison's brother finally spoke. "Mom?" he licked his lips uncomfortably. "We need to ask you some questions about the night that Dad died. Do you remember anything?"

Grace turned to face the trio. Her golden locks were perfectly coiled into an old-fashioned updo, her eyebrows smooth and immaculately styled, her lips red as rubies. Nadine searched for a sign of malfunction, wondering about Luther and Allison's unease, but Grace's eyes were bright and her lips still curved into a smile. She seemed... fine. At least, based on what Nadine knew about her. Which was actually quite a bit.

"Of course," she replied. "Sunset, seven thirty-three pm. Moon was waxing crescent, dinner was Cornish hen, wild rice, and carrots."

"No," Luther interrupted, before Grace could go on listing the constellations that had been visible from the window or something. "No, uh... later that night," he corrected. "In his bedroom. Did you go and see him?"

Grace stared back at Luther for a couple seconds without speaking, so that all could be heard were the still-sizzling eggs and bacon. Then, like she'd been sparked back to life, she chuckled. "I don't recall," she said, but her voice was a little too smooth for Nadine's liking. Nadine looked back to Luther, furrowing her own brow. Was he past insinuating that his siblings had murdered Reginald Hargreeves and had now moved onto his robot mother? But... there was something suspicious about Grace's tone. And she hadn't even denied Luther's claim.

Grace turned back towards the eggs, her hums filling the air again. Nadine noticed Luther and Allison stare at each other, having a silent conversation conveyed with nudges of the chin and eye movements. Allison seemed to agree with whatever Luther had told her, as she turned back to her mother. "Were you ever... I don't know, angry with Dad?" she asked cautiously. Again, Grace didn't respond immediately, instead scraping the eggs off the pan and onto plates. Then she spoke, her voice cheery.

"Your father was a good man. A kind man. He was very good to me."

Her smile never left her face. Suspicion began to broil up in Nadine's gut. There was definitely something going on here.

"Yes," said Allison slowly, "but after we all left, it must have been difficult."

"Oh, there were days," Grace chuckled. "You kids kept me oh so busy, and then..." her voice cut off abruptly, her smile fading as she shook her head.

"What?" Luther prompted.

Grace didn't respond, but her saccharine smile climbed back onto her face again. Allison leaned forward. "Mom, what were you gonna say?"

"Eggs are ready!" Grace chirped, changing the topic quickly. She turned back to the counter and arranged three plates of eggs before heading over to the table to dish them out. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Now, eat up. All three of you."

Nadine looked down at the sunny side up eggs on her plate. Oeufs miroir. Grace had given her two, and a slice of bacon to go along with it, and she'd arranged it so it looked like a smiley face, with the eggs as eyes and the bacon as the mouth. Ravenous, Nadine dumped salt and pepper onto the dish and was just beginning to dig in when she noticed the other two were looking at their meal apprehensively, as if it might be poisoned. Based on the scene Nadine had just been subjected to, she knew it wasn't an irrational fear, but she doubted Grace would even be allowed to poison them. After all, that certainly couldn't be in her programming.

She took a cautious bite. It was fine. There was no curious aftertaste or odd smell around the meal. It tasted normal, and normal was delicious.

Allison and Luther still looked skeptical. Nadine let out a laugh. "It's not poison," she said through a mouthful of bacon. "Otherwise I'd have died by now." She bulged her eyes out and crossed her hands over her chest to imitate a dead body, but the two Hargreeves just looked at her like she was crazy. Buzzkills.

Once Grace had finally flounced out of the room, Allison turned to Luther. "That was really weird."

Luther stared at the space where Grace had disappeared and dug his fork into his eggs absentmindedly. "She's hiding something. She knows something about Dad's death, I can tell. Which means what we saw on the tape was real."

"What tapes?" Nadine asked, taking a sip of the orange juice Grace had given her. She was purposefully investing herself in this potential murder mystery so she didn't have to think about the whole dilemma she was facing with Five and those masked gunmen.

Hazel and Cha-Cha. Their names were Hazel and Cha-Cha.

"Basically, Pogo was trying to cheer me up last night by showing me these surveillance tapes, from when I was a kid," Allison explained. "Which sounds really weird when I say it out loud, but that's the sort of thing our dad did. Anyway, I was looking through them and I found one from the night he died, from his room. Our... our mom was there."

"Shit," Nadine breathed. "But why would your mother kill Hargreeves? He created her, did he not?"

"I don't know," said Luther. "We're going to call a family meeting later. You know, talk about it." Nadine didn't like the way he'd emphasized the word family. It was a reminder that she was still an outsider. She decided to quickly finish her breakfast (well, not that quickly. In France, each meal was savoured) and try and find Klaus, so that he could repeat her excuse for staying back to her if anyone asked about it. She stacked her dishes into the sink and began to wander around the mansion, searching for her odd friend.

She eventually found him outside, where he was scrounging through the dumpster, looking for something. A joint dangled from his lips, there was a silver flask in his hands, and he threw bags away haphazardly, snipping away at someone Nadine couldn't see. She walked up to him, hands in her pockets, and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "...what are you doing?"

Klaus turned, spotting Nadine standing a good distance away, dodging both the acrid smell of garbage and potential projectiles, and his mouth curved into a half-smile. "Bonjour! What's up, mon amie?" Then he seemed to have processed her question, as he griped, half to himself, "I'm trying to find whatever... priceless crap was in that priceless box so that Pogo will get off my ass!"

Five, who Nadine hadn't noticed had clambered out the window and was now climbing down the fire escape, the heavy bag he'd been lugging around last night strapped to his back, remarked, "I'd ask what you're up to, Klaus, but then it occurred to me... I don't care." He obviously hadn't been listening to his brother's moans.

"What box?" Nadine asked, but Klaus was already beaming at the sight of his brother.

"Hey!" he let out a bark of laughter, smoke curling out of his mouth as he did so. "You know there are easier ways to get out of the house, buddy?"

"This one involved the least amount of talking," said Five, leaping down from the latter into a skilled crouch. "Or so I thought."

"Hey, hey, hey, so..." Klaus leaned forward. "You need any more company today? I could, uh... clear my schedule." He took a drink from his flask.

"Looks like you've got your hands full."

"Oh, this? No, no. I can do this whenever. I'm just—" there was a clatter as Klaus took a step back and fell into the dumpster, the noise making Nadine's heart jumpstart before she realized everything was fine. Klaus seemed to recover quickly, as he continued, "I just misplaced something. That's all. Oh! Found it! Thank God!"

He emerged from the dumpster, half-eaten bagel in hand, and took a reluctant bite. Nadine stared at him, wondering if his drug habits had killed a couple trillion brain cells, nausea coursing through her as Klaus chewed. "Delicious!"

"I'm done funding your drug habit," said Five, and then turned to Nadine. "And you. Remember what I told you last night. Don't go out alone."

"I know, I know, I got it," Nadine said, but by then Five was already starting to walk away. Klaus called after him. He still had the bagel in his hand.

"Come on! You don't—maybe I just wanna hang out with my brother." He turned to an empty space, muttering something, and then turned back to Five's retreating form. "¡Mi hermano! I love you! Even if you can't love yourself!"

Five slipped into a plumbing van, and it was only seconds later that he was driving away. Nadine stared after the vehicle, flabbergasted. Five definitely had just stolen it.

Klaus spat out a mouthful of bagel. Nadine swallowed. "That was... quite the show," she said. "It's actually impressive, the lengths you'll go. So, what's this about a box?"

Klaus waved his hand airily. "Oh, it's nothing. I just found this box in Ol' Reggie's study 'cause I thought it might have something I could sell. There was nothing in it but a bunch of old papers, though, so I threw them in here and pawned off the box. Apparently, though, whatever I threw out was valuable. Pogo was getting on my ass about it."

"Why'd you throw the papers out?" Nadine asked.

Klaus took another drink from his flask. "Because it looked like a bunch of junk. It didn't look valuable."

"You mean, whatever was in the box didn't look like something you could use for drug money."

Klaus scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I'm a poor man, ma cherie."

"Please stop calling me that," said Nadine, and then remembered the entire reason she'd come out here anyway. "Listen, I'm going to be staying at your place for a while. If anyone asks, tell them you invited me."

"Ooh. Mysterious. I like that. You know, it kind of reminds me of the time I was staying at a friend's place, and he asked me to tell everyone he was at the bar whenever he went out. I did a little digging, and it turned out he was actually going to the pet store, and buying collars and shit for whenever he had s—"

Nadine grimaced. "Klaus."

Klaus blinked. "Right! You're still here. Yeah, yeah, I'll do it. But only because I like having you around. You bring a certain... flavour to the household. Maybe it's because you don't argue with everyone all the time."

Nadine shook her head, amused, and then turned to head back inside. Just being out in the open made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, which was irrational, given the likelihood of Hazel and Cha-Cha finding her here. Regardless, the prickling was enough to coerce her into seeking the comfort of the Hargreeves mansion, so she left Klaus, his dumpster bagel and his ghostly companion behind.

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