scream ~ Five Hargreeves

chapter fifteen

To anyone else Lia just looked a bit strange. Wandering about the streets, with a completely vacant look on her face. Drugs maybe? Or perhaps deep in thought? That was what passer's by saw anyway.

Anyone who looked a little closer would suspect drugs. Her feet bloody and bruised from walking about barefoot, her hair windswept, she looked like a crack victim, unsure where they were walking.

But anyone who looked even a little closer would notice that Lia did not look back, nor did she double take, and she did not look lost. A thin line of determination sat heavy on her brow. Despite the dazed look on her face, something inside her knew exactly where she was going. Like she was going down a path she had gone so many times before.

To most that passed her by she was simply another person on the pavement that they would have to move out the way for, an insignificant being in their busy lives. But to one particular person she was a saviour, a constant, and who he needed most.

"Little Lia?" his voice was almost begging, pleading that it was indeed the small brunette that stood in front of him.

Lia's eyes lost their glaze, her brown eyes widening in horror at the sight in front of her.

There stood Klaus, in -well not all his glory. He looked terrible.

His clothes were filthy, every inch of skin showing was covered in either blood, dirt, or any other possible substance. To his right lay a smoldering briefcase, that had definitely seen better days. 

To any of the other siblings, they would have assume Klaus was on a bender the night before. They would have confused his army clothes with costume, his authentic dog tags with 'Klaus' little trinkets', his tear stained cheeks with sweating from partying, his red eyes they'd assume were courtesy of drugs.

But Lia always saw him. She saw the pain, the fear and the loss. She did not know how, but she knew.

Her arms opened and Klaus collapsed into them.

The sight was almost comical if it wasn't so heartbreaking; a giant comforted by a mouse. But it was the gut-wrenching sobs that really hit home to Lia.

She had not heard those cries since Klaus would get locked up with the dead.

"He's gone Lia, He's gone,"

Lia nodded silently. "Come on Klausy, let's get you a drink," she helped him to his feet.

Klaus said nothing for the walk back, his eyes never wavered from the pavement in-front of him, as if he were trying not to think about what happened.

Lia let him walk in silence, never pestering or saying a word. One thought was in her mind constantly, like an itch she could not scratch.

She knew what Klaus was upset about, she could even picture the scene he had just come from clearly in her mind.

But why? 

**********

Klaus was stood in his room, slowly putting the pieces of himself back together. Lia was waiting outside of the open door, giving him just a little privacy whilst he dressed - but mainly to keep an eye on any unsympathetic siblings that walked past.

Lia didn't have to wait long.

An unsuspecting Number Five was on his way to interrogate his brother, with the tact and grace of a drunk moose. As soon as he walked past the door, he realised that Klaus would know something useful, something he could get ahold of and use. 

Five was not good at reading the room.

However before he could even step foot through the doorway, Lia had him pinned against the opposite wall, an arm around his throat, her other hand protecting his head from bouncing of the wall.