Empathy [Ben Hargreeves]

Episode Nine. Part II.

"Changes"

A man was dead in the middle of a collapsed kitchen table in the house where the Hargreeves siblings were searching for Vanya.

Elle's breath hitched at the gruesome sight; his skin was pierced repeatedly by knives and sharp debris. She remained by the entryway of the room without venturing closer like her adoptive brothers did.

"Eloise, stop. Don't look," Diego warned too late. Their spat earlier had not changed his usual protectiveness. Elle appreciated the sentiment, but her chocolate brown eyes had already taken in the scene.

"It's not exactly what I was expecting," Klaus commented as he took in the stabbed remains of Vanya's boyfriend.

"The understatement of the year," Five scoffed.

"No sign of Vanya," Klaus added.

"Let's get out of here, before the cops come," Diego suggested, but it was more like an order.

"In a minute." Five stayed back to pop the ceramic eyeball that he was carrying into Leonard / Harold's empty eye-socket. "Same eye color, same pupil size. Guys, this is it. The eye I've been carrying around for decades, it-it's found its rightful home."

"That's a disturbing way to put it," Elle said with a grimace.

"We got the guy we needed to kill to stop the apocalypse..." Diego said.

"Yay," Klaus cheered shortly. "Let's go--" He was turning towards Elle to leave when Diego grabbed hold of his jacket.

"No, no. Wait, wait. It can't be this easy," Five insisted. "Look, this is the note that I got from the commission. The one that says 'Protect Harold Jenkins' aka Leonard Peabody." He pointed at the dead body, and Diego made a noise in the back of his throat. "But who killed him? Who did this?"

"I have a crazy idea," Klaus said. "Crazy, but why don't we find Vanya... and ask her what happened." He shrugged.

Five spacial jumped from the room in the usual flash of blue static.

"If Vanya got away from this asshole, she might be headed back to the Academy."

☆☆☆

Eloise, Klaus, and Five searched throughout the Academy building and found no sign of Vanya. Diego decided that it was time for him to bail out.

"Vanya is still out there, and so are Hazel and Cha-Cha," Five said to Diego.

"I know. I'm going to get my things and then I'm outta here. I got some unfinished business with those fools."

"Lunatics," Elle corrected. Five pinched her side, and she cursed at him loudly.

Diego turned his back on them and left on a solo mission. Klaus sighed sadly.

"Hey, did Dad say anything about the apocalypse when you spoke to him?" Five questioned the séance. Elle smiled at the fact that Five was finally a believer of Klaus conjuring and speaking to the Warden. "Any clues as to how it happened?"

"No. No clues. Truly terrific shave." Five gave him a weird look. "But no clues."

"Jeez." Five sighed and started down the stairs.

"Come to think of it, he did mention something about my potential, and how I've barely even scratched the surface of my--"

"I tried to tell you that," Elle grumbled and followed behind. Klaus attempted to talk to Five about discovering a new ability, but Five had one focus: the apocalypse. He was like Luther talking about being sent to the moon.

"I've been sober for two-- almost two days now," Klaus insisted.

"Yeah, two days," Five said like it was nothing. He had heard the same spiel from the addict before.

"It feels like forty-five years."

"Who are you kidding, Klaus? I've seen you fidgeting all day."

"Well, I guess we're both fighting our addictions then." Klaus glanced at Elle who was hovering on the bottom step. "You, me, and Elle."

Five scoffed. "I'm not an addict."

"Yeah, you are. You're addicted to a drug called the apocolypse."

"You're wrong."

"First sign: denial." Klaus shrugged and started to walk away from Five who got annoyed and spacial jumped in front of him.

"You and I, we're not the same."

Klaus chuckled at Five's persistence. "I've seen that look in the eye of someone who doesn't know who they are without their high anymore. Trust me. You gotta just let it go."

Frustration got the best of Five. He slammed the ceramic eyeball as hard as he could against the wall a foot from Elle who ducked in fear of getting hit. The shattered pieces sprinkled to the ground.

"Figuratively," Klaus clarified, too late. "But yeah, that works too."

Five stormed off.

The itching and burning feeling returned to Klaus' hands. "One day at a time." He sighed.

Two warm hands captured one of his. "One day turns to two. Two to three. Three days becomes three months, then three years. You break the streak, you start again. You're strong, Klaus."

Elle sounded insightful, but she knew that she hardly had the right to be giving advice that she struggled to follow herself.

Klaus used his free hand to gently trace the scars on Elle's pale skin. "How long?" He knew that she kept track.

Elle shuffled her feet and didn't meet his eyes as she pulled back her hands and stuffed them in her dress pockets.

"Since you've been back?" he guessed.

Elle pleaded with Klaus through her blue-grey eyes, even though it was her own destruction that she was causing. "It was two years, four months, seven days." She only counted cutting, not all forms of harm to herself because in her mind, they weren't the same. "But being here..." Her voice cracked as she trailed off. Without Ben...

"Your limp," Klaus realized suddenly. She didn't have any fresh wounds on her wrists, and the answer clicked in his painfully clear mind. "After I came back from war, I assumed it happened during our kidnapping..."

"Klaus." Elle sighed. She already hated where the conversation was headed.

"I'm right, aren't I? You cut your thighs again, Eloise." His words were formed like a statement, not a question. She winced at the use of her full name coming from his lips. When she wasn't referred to as "darling" or "Ellie," Klaus was being uncharacteristically serious.

"Yes," Elle admitted, a little exasperated. "I broke the streak. I'm a failure. Now I will start again like I've done before."

"Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"You know what. How am I supposed to believe that I can be better if you're still not okay?"

"I... Klaus." Elle sighed and rubbed her wrist that itched with phantom pain. "I don't know what to tell you. We may be super, but we're only human."

Klaus chewed on his lip and shook his head. "We're so fucked up."

Elle nodded, tears in her eyes. "We have these special powers but they feel more like a curse. They've done more harm than good in this family." She pulled Klaus into a hug and spoke into his chest. "Luther has daddy issues, Diego got kicked out of the police academy, Allison's husband left and took the kid, you became an addict, Five disappeared and then came back all messed up in the head, Ben died, and I want to die. Like shit, what did we do to deserve this life?"