The Beating of Our Hearts Is the Only Sound

Chapter 2: And So It Begins

Klaus                                                 Help me, Klaus

                                 Klaus                                                      Klaus!                        Klaus

         Klaus                                                Klaus, help

                        Klaus!                                                                               Klaus

Klaus!

KLAUS!

     Klaus jolted awake at the sound of a voice. A living voice. He blinked for a moment, trying to remember what was happening. He saw Dave, sitting up and–

     "Dave!" Klaus leapt up from the chair and hugged him tightly. "God, I'm so glad you're okay!"

     "Yeah, me too," Dave muttered into Klaus' shoulder, bringing his good arm up to pat him on the back.

     Klaus pulled away and leaned on the table. Touching Dave's face gently, Klaus couldn't help but smile. The other man looked nervous, though, glancing back to the open door.

     "Someone could walk in, Klaus." Dave leaned back a little.

     "It's okay, I swear!" Klaus knew this meant that he had to explain that they were in the future, which would spin into the whole story.

     "Okay... no. No. You can't just say that, Klaus, you have to explain what the hell is going on right now, or else I'll– hell, I don't know. But explain."

     Taking a deep breath, Klaus began the story he had half-heartedly rehearsed in his mind. "Before I showed up, when you first saw me? I went through the suitcase. When we teleported, we came back to where I'm from. And... and when.

     "It's the 21st century, Dave. 2019. I didn't want you to get hurt, or worse, so I panicked and brought you here." He paused, taking a breath and rolling his eyes. "My family is kind of weird–"

     "Kind of?"

     Klaus laughed bitterly. "Really weird. I knew that we were near my house and they wouldn't ask questions about me bringing in a bleeding soldier with an outdated uniform, when a real hospital would. My mom is great with medical stuff, she's actually... she's a robot. So, like, not my biological mom. We were all adopted and our father built her to take care of us so he wouldn't have to." He made a face; he always got angry when he thought too much about how little Hargreeves had actually cared about them. "Before I teleported, some... some really shitty stuff happened, but long story short, some assassins came looking for my brother and wrecked the house. And apparently deactivated Mom. So Pogo, the monkey– also created by our father– had to take care of you."

     Dave blinked, reaching to gently scratch his bad arm. Klaus didn't realize he would be going through the same weird time-travel symptoms, but probably worse. Because he literally just went through surgery. Christ.

     "Um. Anything else?" Dave's voice was quiet, lost.

     Ben's voice cut through suddenly, but gently. Klaus hadn't noticed him appear again. He usually left Klaus alone when he was asleep, but almost always came back pretty quickly. "Don't. He won't believe you."