CHAPTER SIX.

When Graham finally pulled up to Diego's father's home, Diego didn't hesitate to turn and ask Graham if he wanted to come in and meet his siblings. Graham stared back at Diego with a look of confusion mixed with disbelief. The two weren't friends and Graham just could not grasp why Diego was constantly acting as if they were. Maybe he was trying to comfort Graham over his "lost sibling" or maybe he genuinely thought the two were friends. Either way, Graham was puzzled, and frankly, pretty annoyed.

Slapping his hands on the steering wheel, he groaned, "Diego, why do you keep inviting me into places and to places? We aren't friends, man."

Diego raised an eyebrow, "Why do you keep agreeing to go to these places with me?" Graham paused, mouth falling agape as he realized that Diego was right. Every time that Diego asked him to do something, he agreed. Why the fuck did he agree? Now, Graham was befuddled by himself. Laughing to himself, Diego continued, "So before we go in, all my siblings are.. Something else, to say the least."

"I didn't agree to go in," Graham stated.

Diego rolled his eyes, unbuckling his seatbelt, "Come on, asshole." He opened the car door and stepped out. He leaned back down to look in the car, "You need me to unbuckle your seatbelt for you or something?"

Graham clenched his jaw for a moment, "Why do I need to meet your siblings, man?"

Diego shrugged, "Why not? And hey, maybe someday, I can meet yours."

Graham shook his head, "No."

Diego exhaled loudly, "Fine. Either way, you're already here. And I mean, you already met Luther. Might as well meet the rest?" His last statement turned more into a question as he finished.

Graham let out a whine as he unbuckled his seatbelt, "Well, it's not like they can be any fucking worse than you."

Diego scoffed, "You'd be surprised." Graham turned the car off and got out. He pressed the lock button on his key as the two made their way towards the front door of the house. Diego unlocked and opened the door and entered leaving Graham to follow in after him. Graham turned to shut the door as quietly as possible. It was a large door and seemed like it would slam shut loudly if he wasn't careful and really, Graham didn't wanna draw all that much attention to himself. He turned back to find Diego waiting by a room entrance, probably the living room, staring back at him.

Graham took large steps to get over to Diego, "Sorry." Diego nodded and entered the room. It was a living room. In the room stood four people. They all turned to look at the two boys entering the room.

Luther nodded to Graham, "Hey, we met before, right?"

Graham smiled awkwardly, "Uh, yeah. Diego's place. I was standing by the door weirdly."

Diego pointed to the girl standing against a white pillar, "That's Allison." Then, he pointed to the man in the middle of the room, "Klaus." Then, to the girl next to Klaus, "And that's Vanya." He looked over his shoulder to Graham, "There's another one named Five. But only God knows where he's at."

A perplexed expression made its way onto his face, "Wasn't that the one that went missing? When did he like, get back?"

Diego made a face and shook his head, "So, it's like weird? He had used his power to time travel and got stuck in the future. But the day we had dad's funeral--"

"Hold on, hold on," Luther interrupted, "Should you really be spilling our personal business to him? How much do you even trust this guy?" Luther threw a hand out, motioning to Graham.

"Enough," Diego stated, turning his body to face Luther, "And I'll tell him what I please." He turned his head back to Graham and went on, "As I was saying, day of days funeral, this portal or whatever opens up and he, Five, comes flying out of it. Something happened while he was traveling back so he actually got like reverted back to his thirteen-year-old body."

Graham nodded, "Sick."

Luther shook his head and looked to Diego, "There's some stuff we need to discuss about mom and dad. Maybe your friend should come back later."

"Ah, shit. We talking about robo-mommy? I am so in for this conversation," Graham laughed.

"Robo-what now?" Allison spoke, raising an eyebrow.

Diego waved Allison off, "Ignore him. He's just stupid."

"You told him about mom?" Luther spat.

Diego groaned, throwing his hands in the air, "It's not that serious, Luther. And anyway, it's all old news basically seeing as it's all in Vanya's fucking book."

Graham nodded to Vanya, "You got a book?" Vanya nodded, saying nothing. Graham chuckled, "Shit, what's it called? I'll have to check it out."

Diego moved to smack the side of Graham's head, "It doesn't matter and you're not reading it, dipshit." He looked back to Luther, "And whatever it is we need to talk about, it can be said in front of him. He only has one other friend and a niece that just moved in. Not like he's got many people to tell."

Graham let out a dramatic gasp, "That is so absolutely rude. This is why we're not friends, Diego."

Luther turned around to face the TV in the room, "Screw it. Whatever. Let's do this." He waved a hand over the TV. Diego moved to make his way to stand next to Luther. Graham followed behind, taking a seat on a bench next to Diego. He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees as he looked at the TV.

Luther started the TV and on it played a video of Reginald in bed rolling around. Next to the bed was their mom. She watched as Reginald had a heart attack for a moment before turning and leaving.

Vanya was the first to speak up, "I mean, do you really think mom would hurt dad?"

"You haven't been home in a long time, Vanya," Luther commented, barely looking over his shoulder to her, "Maybe you don't know Grace anymore."

"If he was poisoned, it would have shown in the coroner's report," Diego stated matter-of-factly.

"Well, I don't need a report to tell me what I can see with my own eyes," Luther asserted, holding a hand out at the TV. He glanced between Diego and the TV as he spoke.

Diego nodded, shifting in his spot, "Maybe all that low gravity in space messed with your vision." Graham remembered Diego mentioning to Jericho once that their father had sent Luther up to the moon. At first, he had thought that Diego was just being stupid and joking. Now, he sees that he was in fact telling the truth-- much to Graham's surprise. Diego leaned up to the television and pushed a button, "Look closer. Dad has his monocle. Mom stands up." Diego explained as he replayed the footage. He steps away from the TV, "Monocle's gone."

Klaus chuckled, "Oh, yeah!"

Diego walked past Klaus and clarified, "She wasn't poisoning him. She was.. taking it." Graham remembered the call Diego had made to him, telling him about finding the monocle on mom and throwing it into a lake. He stopped behind Klaus, turning back around. "To clean it," he finished as he stopped moving.

"Then where is it?" Luther asked. "No, I've searched the house, including all her things. She doesn't have it." Diego's eyes dropped to the ground as Luther spoke. Graham could tell that an argument was about to ensue.

Diego hesitated to speak, "That's because I took it from her. After the funeral." He held up one of his knives as he spoke. Graham pulled a face, confused on when Diego had even pulled the knife out.

Allison joined the conversation, "You've had the monocle this whole time? What the hell, Diego?"

"Give it to me," Luther proclaimed, holding his hand out.

Diego looked up at Luther, "I threw it away."

"You what?" Luther spoke lowly, a puzzled yet upset look on his face. Allison scoffed with a sarcastic grin on her face.

He pointed the knife in Luther's direction, taking steps closer to him, "Look, I knew that if you found it on Mom, you'd lose your shit, just like you're doing right now."

Luther's voice was quiet and assertive as he took a step closer to Diego, "Diego, you son of a bitch." Diego moved towards Luther, getting into a fighting stance.

Vanya cut in as she stood, "Hey. No. Calm down." Klaus walked behind Vanya, seemingly not paying attention to the conversation. Vayna carried on, "Look, I know dad wasn't exactly an open book. But I do remember one thing he said." Diego looked to Vanya out of the corner of his eye. "Mom was, well, designed to be a caretaker, but... also as a protector," she explained.

Allison lightly shook her head, "What does that mean?"

"She was programmed to intervene if someone's life was in jeopardy."

Luther chipped in, "Well, if her hardware is degrading, then... We need to turn her off."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait," Diego spoke quickly, pointing the knife at Luther once again. Anger present in both his voice and face. "She's not just a vacuum cleaner you can throw in the closet. She feels things, I've seen it!"

Luther held a hand out behind him, "She just stood there, Diego, and watched our father die."

Looking up from the cup in her head, Allison stuck with Luther, "I'm with Luther."

"Surprise, surprise," Diego chastised, looking back to Allison.

"Shut up," her face scrunching up in annoyance. Diego and Luther both looked back to Vanya, wanting to know what she had to say.

"I-- I don't--"

Diego interrupted Vanya, tossing his arm in the air for a moment, "Yeah, she shouldn't get a vote." Graham grimaced at the comment. From what he could tell so far, Vanya was a quiet, nice person. He could sense the resentment towards her in Diego's voice when her book was mentioned earlier and he figured that this comment probably had something to do with that. All in all, it felt unnecessarily rude to Graham.

"Wh--" Luther tried to speak but was cut off by Vanya.

She looked at Diego, "I was gonna say that I agree with you."

"Okay. She should get a vote," Diego switched up. Graham scoffed to himself. He pointed his knife to Klaus, who was leaning against another one of the white pillars in the room, "What about you, stoner boy? What do you got?"

"Oh, so, what? You need my help now? Oh, "Get out of the van, Klaus!" "Well, welcome back to the van.""

Allison asked, "What van?"

Luther scoffed, "What's it gonna be, Klaus?"

Klaus berated Luther, "I'm with Diego, because screw you!" Diego pointed his knife at Klaus, apparently happy Klaus agreed with him. Because that's what you do when people agree with you, you point knives at them. Klaus went on, "And if Ben were here, he'd agree with me." Graham watched as Klaus looked to an empty spot in the room and hissed moments later.

Diego held three fingers up on one hand, "So that's three?"

"Wait," Luther tried to stop Diego.

He held up two fingers on the other and whispered, "To two."

Allison but back in, "Vote's not final yet."

Diego dropped his hands, his expression baffled, "What?"

"Five's not here," she proclaimed, "The whole family has to vote. We owe each other that."

"Right," Luther concurred.

"No, we should wait," Vanya also agreed. Everyone moved to leave the room, leaving only Diego, Vanya, and Graham. In the back, by another entrance into the room, Graham noticed who he presumed to be mom, standing there. Diego noticed seconds later after watching his siblings leave the room. He looked at her for a moment before moving to approach her. Vanya tread behind Diego over to the woman. Graham stayed put on the couch, unsure of what he was meant to do.

Diego stopped in front of her and spoke softly, "Hey." She seemed to be staring off into space as he placed a hand on her shoulder, "How long you been here?" If she had been there long, Graham hadn't noticed. Granted, he had been flicking his head back and forth between the siblings as if he was watching some live family drama reality show.

The woman looked slowly up to Diego and smiled, "You all seem upset. I'll make cookies." Her smile was wide as she exited the room. Diego and Vanya watched as she left.

"Do you ever wonder..." Vanya paused and Diego looked back to her, "All those moments with mom, the things she said. Like, was it her, or was it really dad?"

Diego turned himself more toward Vanya, leaning down, "What are you talking about?'

"Well, he built her. And he programmed her to be a mom, to be our mom. Sometimes when I look at her, I just see him."

Diego looked away from Vanya, staring into the direction mom had gone, "Maybe that was true at first. But she evolved." He looked back to Vanya as he finished speaking.

"Well, how do you know?" She asked.

He leaned down and snarkily commented, "Because dad only loved himself." Diego turned and exited the room. Graham tossed his hands up to himself. Diego had really just walked off and left Graham in the room with his sister, whom he didn't. He wasn't sure if he was meant to follow Diego or not but decided to anyway. He jumped from the bench and moved quickly to ensure he caught up. He stopped by Vanya, turning to her.

Graham held his hand out to her, "Great meeting you, really. And I absolutely really would like to check your book out, if you don't mind that is."

Vanya smiled softly and nodded, "It was nice meeting you, also. It's called Extra-Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven." She grabbed his hand, shaking it.

"Got it, thanks," Graham smiled before letting go of her friend and turning to jog after Diego. It didn't take him long to catch up to Diego, finding walking down a flight of steps.

"Yo, asshole, hold up," he called causing Diego to stop mid-step and turn around.

"I forgot you were here."

Graham pulled a face, "Gee, thanks." The two continued down the steps. Graham exhaled, "So, where are we off to?" Graham couldn't decide if he wanted to ask about anything that had just happened or if he should wait a bit. Diego didn't say anything as he continued down the hallway. He turned a corner and stopped near another flight of steps. Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared down the hall. Graham stopped next to, clasping his hands behind his back, "Cool hallway?"  The look on Diego's face told Graham that he was remembering something.

Diego let out a long sigh, "When we were younger. About thirteen or so. We were getting called to go do some job or mission--whatever you wanna call it. Everyone was running around the halls getting ready. Reginald was going down the hall, scolding us for not being fast enough-- he was always scolding us about something. I was running around trying to find my knives. I remember running into my room trying to find them and mom came in. She had been going around checking on everyone, making sure they were ready for the mission. She came into my room while I was practicing." He paused for a moment, still staring off.

"Practicing what?" Graham pressed, looking over to Diego.

"Talking. I had a stutter when I was younger. She came into my room to offer help. She said: 'Remember, Diego, just picture the words in your mind.'" Graham watched Diego's face, his expression saddening the more he spoke. He wasn't quite sure why Diego was telling him this but he didn't stop him. Diego turned walking into what Graham assumed was Diego's old room. Diego sat on the bed and Graham joined him. Diego went on, "She was so proud when I actually managed to say what I was practicing. "Don't move." That's what I was trying to say, by the way. Dad came in seconds later, clearing his throat. That moment meant a lot to me." Diego paused again, biting the inside of his cheek. Graham pat Diego's knee lightly--he wasn't really good in moments like these and wasn't sure what to do.

"You wanna talk about it? Something's clearly bothering you," Graham tried to speak as softly as he could. He wanted to sound less like an asshole and more like a comforting person. Diego was clearly upset and no matter how much Graham disliked him, he couldn't be a dick to him in a situation like this.

"They'll turn her off, I know they will," Diego spoke. "And what Vanya said. I don't like the idea of the things mom did not actually being.. mom, you know?" Graham nodded. Diego looked up to Graham, "I need to talk to her, but I don't know if I can."

Graham moved to place his hand on Diego's shoulder, "Don't know how much help it would be but would you like me to go with you?" Diego's eyes dropped to Graham's hand for a moment before meeting Graham's eyes again.

"Seems kind of like a thing a friend would do for another friend and if I recall correctly, we're not friends," Diego teased.

Graham quipped, "Honestly, just want an excuse to stare at your hot robot mom some more. You never really mentioned before that she was hot, you know. I would've come over a lot sooner."

Diego dismissed Graham with a laugh, "Oh, fuck off." He jokingly shoved Graham's hand away from him as he stood. Graham pushed himself up off the bed, standing next to Diego. Graham went to leave the room but was stopped by Diego grabbing his arm. He turned to look at Diego, raising an eyebrow in question. "Thanks," Diego muttered.

"Yeah," Graham's voice was quiet. The two stared at one another for a moment. Though, quickly, Graham began feeling weird about the staring and stepped away from Diego, "Off to hot robo-mommy we go."

Diego shoved Graham and moved past him, "Go to hell." Graham laughed, following behind Diego back to wherever Grace was. The walk was silent. When they approached the area, Graham kept himself back a small distance, figuring it best to give the two some space. Graham could hear the woman humming to herself.

Diego stood a couple of steps away from Grace, looking around at the painting on the wall, "Mom, we need to talk."

"Okay, but only for a minute. I need to finish this cross-stitch," Grace explained.

Diego continued looking around the area as if he was having a hard time just looking at Grace, "Everything you did for us when we were kids... for me... why'd you do it?"

Grace looked up from her stitching, "Because being your mother is the greatest gift of my life."

Diego took small steps closer to her, "Is that you saying that?"

The woman's voice was reluctant, "I'm not sure what you mean, Diego."

"I mean, our father, he... made you. When you think something, is it like he's telling you what to say?"

"Your father isn't here, silly," Grace spoke. Her voice saddened slightly, "Did I do something wrong?"

Diego's voice dropped, "No, it's... it's not... Look. It's okay... if you hated him. He was terrible to you, to all of us." Diego crouched down next to the chair Grace was sitting in.

"Don't say that," her voice was stern but soft.

"Why not?" Diego hit back rather quickly, "We were just tools in an experiment to him. Nothing more. So I'm saying, I would understand if..." He looked over his shoulder for a moment, ensuring no one besides Graham was there. He grabbed Grace's hand, "You know, if-- if you wanted to hurt him."

"Now, now," Grace said, "Mr. Hargreeves was a great man. Industrialist, inventor, Olympic gold medalist." Graham couldn't help but to find it weird that she referred to Reginald as Mr. Hargreeves. To him, it felt as though she was reading a script. He listened as she continued, "He made the world a better place."

Diego grabbed her shoulders abruptly, "Stop it!" He shook the woman a bit, "Do you hear me? Stop trying to defend him!" Graham couldn't see his face, but he could hear the hurt in Diego's voice. He murmured, "Mom, you gotta feel something. Look, he treated you worse than anyone. You worked for him for thirty years. He didn't even give you a room to sleep in." There was a blank look on Grace's face that turned to a smile as she looked around at the paintings on the wall.

"But I've got such beautiful views here," she attempted to justify. Graham felt bad for the woman. A somber look taking over his face.

"Mom, those are just paintings."

"Of course, they are," she laughed, "What a wonderful world she lives in." Graham couldn't tell but Grace appeared to be talking about one of the paintings on the wall. "Sometimes I wonder if she's lonely," Grace commented. Diego looked off to the side for a moment before walking away from the woman back towards Graham. He didn't bother looking at Graham as he walked off. But Graham still followed behind like some kind of clingy dog.

word count. 3612
This chapter originally came out to 7.5k words and I felt like that might be too long so I divided it into two!! Which means episode three of TUA takes place over three chapters! Because of me dividing it into two chapters, I'll be updating again tomorrow with chapter seven! Which I believe is at about 3.8k words.

posted. march 2, 2021
hexgiris