Sir Reginald Hargreeves was buried two days ago, but his shadow hadn't left the Academy. It hung in the halls like a stubborn ghost.
Zero stood at the edge of the courtyard in the late morning light, watching Klaus dig through trash cans near the fountain, muttering to himself.
He had seen this already — the exact version of this morning — three times. Each time he let it play out the same way, searching for a variation. Some divergence. Anything that might crack the timeline open enough to shift its course.
Nothing.
This was the danger of the near future. It was sticky. Fixed.
"You've got about forty-seven hours before everything really spirals," Zero muttered to himself. "Tick-tock."
Inside, the family was fracturing — again.
Luther had found Reginald's monocle missing and was now muttering about foul play. Diego was nowhere to be found. Allison was hunting through Vanya's book and finding wounds dressed up as words.
And Vanya?
Vanya had gone quiet.
Zero found her in the kitchen, staring into a mug of tea that had long gone cold.
"He really didn't want me to be anything," she said. "He even told the press I was adopted by accident."
Zero sat down across from her.
"You wrote the truth," he said softly. "That's more than the rest of them are brave enough to do."
She looked up at him, eyes searching.
"Do you… ever wish you weren't part of this family?"
He thought for a moment.
"I wish I existed to them the way I exist to time," he said. "I'm always there. Just never seen."
Somewhere Else — Five Investigates
Five had disappeared again.
Zero already knew where he had gone — to track down the owner of that strange prosthetic eye. The object that didn't exist in this timeline. A clue from a future that hadn't happened yet.
Zero considered joining him, offering the answer directly.
But he couldn't.
That's what made his power so cruel. He could only act within certain beats of time. If he told Five now, the ripple could unmake too many threads — even the good ones.
But he could leave breadcrumbs.
He scribbled a name — "MERITECH" — on a napkin and folded it into Five's jacket pocket. A nudge.
Just enough.
Hazel and Cha-Cha
That night, the hotel was alive with low chatter and higher tension.
Hazel and Cha-Cha arrived in the city like two ghosts dressed in kitschy pink and blue. They'd tracked Five. They had orders. And now they had Klaus.
Zero had watched them arrive through a broken CCTV feed two hours before it happened — his vision flickering between present and just-ahead.
He didn't interfere.
Not yet.
Klaus was important. Not for what he was, but for what he could be — if given the right push. And sometimes, chaos was the push.
Reginald's Room
Luther finally broke into their father's room, dragging Allison with him. Inside, they found a journal. Pages missing. Secrets deeper than they imagined.
Zero appeared in the doorway like a shadow.
"You won't find the answer you want," he said.
Luther turned, startled. "How long have you been listening?"
"Long enough to know you're chasing ghosts," Zero said. "Father didn't die by poison. Or force. He orchestrated it."
Allison stepped forward. "You saw it?"
"I've seen hundreds of versions of it. In all of them, he still dies. In all of them, we still fall apart."
Luther clenched his jaw. "Then why not stop it?"
Zero looked away.
"Because in some of them… I'm the one who kills him."
Klaus, Captured
In the motel room, Klaus sat tied to a chair as Hazel and Cha-Cha interrogated him. He joked. Screamed. Cried. Pretended to know nothing.
But through his pain and fear… he started seeing them.
The dead.
More clearly than ever before.
Reginald. Ben. Others.
It wasn't the drugs that helped him connect. It was the trauma. The proximity to time-shifting chaos. Hazel and Cha-Cha were from another kind of order, and their energy pulled the veil thinner.
Zero, in his private world beyond time, felt the shift.
Klaus was waking up.
That was good.
They were going to need him.