Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The explosion rocked the mansion to its very foundation. The roof simply blew off, as did most of the fifth story, bricks and shingles flinging themselves up into a night sky that shuddered from the force of it. Light, violent and deafening, spilled out from the ruins, roiling like a storm-whipped sea. Like twin serpents in the throes of battle. Streaks of brilliant green and orange fought each other for space within that blinding mass as it was propelled upwards, and as it crested the height of its arc they resolved themselves into two distinct entities. Where their edges met the very air around them warped and shuddered, and when they pulled apart at last reality seemed to let out its breath. The orange light, released from its entanglement, plunged back down into the still-trembling building below. The green took a different path, streaking south through the wounded sky.

Inaccessible Island, named so by perhaps the least stubborn and least creative member of the human race, was barely a blip on humanity’s collective consciousness. Its only official visitors were the occasional conservationist, and given that they could only make the trip for a few weeks each year, there were no eyes watching as the light finished its journey. Not living ones, at least.

Zak’s body had been undisturbed. More than that, it had been preserved, the plunging temperatures and frozen earth holding it locked in its moment of death. The frost that dusted its limbs lit like emeralds before melting away entirely as the brilliant green light pierced Zak’s chest, forcing breath into his lungs and fire into his veins. For a moment, the night was still again, darkness retaking the ruined temple that had so recently claimed another sacrifice.

Then Zak sat up, coughing and cursing, clutching his chest. His eyes burned, flames and tears as one sensation, frustration and terror and pain all coalescing and dripping down his cheeks.

He was alive.

He felt like shit, everything hurt, and he had the worst case of pins-and-needles he’d ever felt in his life but he was alive.

And as Zak pressed his face into his knees, hiding his light and sobs from an audience of no one, he came to the horrifying conclusion that he wanted his parents.

Doyle could feel the stares burning into his back, but he refused to pull his gaze away from his nephews. Zak had quickly fallen back into unconsciousness, natural this time, borne of emotional overload and physical exhaustion. He’d given only token protests about lack of space when Fiskerton had joined him on the med-bay bed, and now lay curled half-on-top of his brother, breaths stirring his fur where his head rested on Fisk’s chest. Fisk, for his part, was running careful hands through his brother’s hair, smoothing it back in a way that seemed too similar to Drew’s prior attentions to be entirely coincidental. Komodo, curled over Zak’s legs like a scaley blanket, seemed halfway to sleep himself, and Zon had taken up residence on the light fixture above. She caught Doyle’s eye, cocked her head, then began to preen decisively.

Alright, fine, Doyle thought. You win this one, jurassic.

He finally let himself turn to meet the combined glares of Doc and Drew.

“What?” he asked, already feeling defensive. He’d have raised his voice, but the still-sleeping Zak had him lowering it instead, hushed and aggressive like an insult during a stealth op.

Doc matched him for volume.

“You wanna tell us what that was in there?” he asked. Doyle couldn’t help his scoff.

“Uh, me saving your asses? Improv? I don’t know what you want from me here, you guys are shit liars and you needed the bailout.”

“Did it perhaps occur to you that we didn’t want to lie to our thirteen-year-old son?” Drew hissed. She gestured towards the room behind him with an aggression that nearly made Doyle flinch.

“I didn’t see you rushing in to correct me,” he muttered, and it was Drew’s turn to go all-too-still.

“You– that’s not fair,” she said, “I– we’re all–”

“Overwhelmed,” Doc cut in. He placed a hand on Drew’s shoulder and she leaned into the contact, closing her eyes for a moment. So domestic. Even finishing each other’s sentences.

Something in the pit of Doyle’s stomach rolled and he dropped his gaze.

“I know,” he said. “I know. Look, someone had to tell the kid something, and I didn’t exactly think you were reanimated by ancient evil magic was the best way to go.”

“We don’t. . . know that,” Doc tried, but his expression said he wasn’t even convincing himself. “The light we saw could have been a reaction caused when the explosion followed a trail of gas back down to its point of origin, and. . . hooked a right. Up a flight of stairs. Through several walls.”

“I’m sure mini-man will find that completely believable.”

“Belief has nothing to do with it,” Drew said, “We’ve always insisted on– on giving all the facts and drawing our own conclusions from them. That’s how Zak was raised. We can’t hide this from him.”

“Why not?” At Drew’s glare, Doyle stiffened, then doubled down. “I’m serious. Why not? You’re his parents. You’re supposed to do what’s best for him.” A low blow, sure, but Doyle had never been known for fighting fair.

“Lying to him is not what’s best for him!” Drew snapped.

There was a quiet, Fisk-ian grumble from the room beyond, and for a moment all three of them froze. The grumble came again, longer this time, more drawn-out. Doyle glanced over his shoulder at the same time the sound resolved itself into a snore, and he relaxed as he realized that Fisk had fallen asleep, arms still wrapped protectively around his brother.

Doyle’s eyes prickled and he blinked hard, turning back to Doc and Drew. Doc was still staring over at Zak, brow furrowed, but Drew met his gaze, glare having softened into something implacable.

“Doyle,” she said softly, “I know how you were raised, but–”

“It’s not about me.” Doyle cut that line of conversation off with a curt shake of his head. He didn’t want or need pity. “It’s about what Zak will do if he finds out he’s still Kur.”

Drew hesitated. “He says his powers are gone.”

“It’s possible they are,” Doc said, still staring past them at his son. His son, who he’d cradled in his arms and carried back to the airship, silent tears rolling down his cheeks with each step. His eyes were still rimmed with red. “We don’t know much about the Kur power, it could have been burned up in– in restoring Zak’s life, if that’s what happened. For all we know he could really be free of it.”

“Right,” Drew agreed, voice firm. “Zak wouldn’t lie to us about something like this.”

Doc hesitated. His support was withheld long enough that Drew shot a look at her husband, something confused and hurt, and he met that gaze with unease in his expression.

“Not,” he said slowly, “Necessarily. He did keep his deal with Argost a secret.”

Drew sucked in a breath and pulled back, Doc’s hand slipping from her shoulder.

“Solomon,” she hissed, and Doc winced.

“I’m just– I’m just saying, Drew, he knew how dangerous Argost was and he still chose to work with him! More than that, he lied to all of us for months.”

Doyle swallowed.

Hard.

“I’m not saying I don’t trust him,” Doc continued softly. He moved to cup Drew’s cheek, and while she didn’t lean into the touch like before, she didn’t flinch away. “I’m not saying I don’t love him. And I don’t think he’s lying, but it’s. . . possible.”

Doyle cleared his throat. “I, uh, I’m not saying I know for sure, but I don’t think he’s lying either. I do think that he’s spent the past couple years being traumatized by a power none of us understand and, y’know, the world at large as well, and that it’s easier for him not to have his powers anymore.”

“So you think he’s lying,” Drew said. Doyle huffed.

“No, I think he’s just been through a hellish experience and he’s put up a mental block around what he views as a source of literal evil. He wants to believe his powers are gone, so– so why rock the boat? Why not let him keep believing it?”

“Because there’s no reason to lie to him!” Drew took a step forwards, and Doyle matched her step for step, something white-hot building up in his chest.

“No re– he tried to kill himself, Drew!”

Silence.

Doyle retreated, the white-hot thing burning out and leaving him cold. He folded his arms awkwardly and dropped his gaze, scuffing his boot against the floor. The electric lights buzzed, or maybe that was his ears.

Another Fisk-snore from behind him broke the silence, but not the tension this time.

“We don’t know that,” Drew whispered, an echo of her husband. “He– he could’ve had some other plan, he– oh God.”

She buried her face in Doc’s chest, taking a shuddering breath. Her husband rubbed careful circles over her back.

Doyle shouldn’t feel like shit for saying something they all knew, but then, thirteen-year-old Zak Saturday shouldn’t have felt like anything, even the world, was worth his life. He was just a kid. Just a fantastic, wonderful kid who’d seen good in Doyle that hadn’t even existed, who’d made it exist, who’d dragged him kicking and fighting into his family and made it Doyle’s own. A bright spark of a kid who always tried his best and believed in being the best, even in the face of the worst. Who made Doyle want to be. . . better. Maybe even good.

Who’d gone down into that basement with no intention of coming back.

“Look,” Doyle muttered, “Just. . . for now. We’ll just keep it quiet for now. Let him think your science mumbo-jumbo is what kickstarted him again, give him time to recover. And if it comes up, we deal with it then.”

“It’ll come up fast if Fiskerton’s got a say in it,” Doc said.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. He’s the one who jumped in and distracted Zak before he could ask too many questions.” Doyle shrugged. “If it comes down to a vote, I’d say furball’s on my side.”

“It’s not a vote,” Drew said. Her voice was a bit muffled, the words pressed into Doc’s shirt. “We’re his parents, his and Fisk’s.”

“So you’re saying it is a vote, just that Fisk doesn’t count,” Doyle tried, the corner of his mouth ticking up in a tired kind of smile.

Drew snorted.

“Right,” she said, “I’m saying we have the house majority.”

“This is an airship.”

That got a chuckle out of Doc, and Drew pulled back enough to smile up at him. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Took a deep breath. Let it out.

“Whatever we decide about Zak,” she said, “We need to figure out what to tell the other Scientists. It’s one thing to tell them the Kur power’s gone, but. . .”

“But they won’t accept that without proof, if at all,” Doc finished for her. “They’ll want to run tests, come to their own conclusions.”

“Over my cold dead corpse,” Doyle growled. “I’m not letting those bastards put Zak under a microscope anytime soon. They gave up the right to run tests when they tried to shove Zak in some freezer somewhere and throw away the key! As far as I’m concerned they can all–”

“Regardless,” Drew cut in, “Nothing they try could ever really satisfy them. Sure, we’ve clocked some of Zak’s more. . . unusual traits over the years, but none of the tests we ran ever picked up on him actually being Kur.”

“So, no piss on this to see if you’re the vessel of an ancient all-powerful cryptid kit.”

Doc winced at his metaphor, but nodded.

“So,” Drew said grimly, “That means they’d be checking the symptoms, not the cause. It also means that if Zak’s abnormal in any area, well. . .”

“They’ll assume he’s still powered up?” Doyle asked.

Doc sighed. “Some of them. Maybe even most of them. I don’t want to believe they’d jump to conclusions, but I didn’t want to believe they’d hunt us across the globe or try to put our son in suspended animation either. The Secret Scientists were supposed to be. . .”

Better, Doyle finished silently. Or maybe Doc had been thinking family. Zak had called half the Secret Scientists his aunts and uncles; most had known the kid since birth. They’d watched him grow up, albeit mostly in the background of a video call, and yet the moment they’d realized what he was they turned on him as one.

And people called him morally bankrupt.

“Back up a couple steps,” Doyle said, mostly to choke the sudden urge to go kick the crap out of some brainiacs. “You mentioned unusual traits? Like the temp thing?”

Drew nodded. “Among others. His higher-than-average body temperature was the first thing we noticed when he was born, and I mean. . . we were concerned something was wrong with our baby. Everyone was. So, well. . .”

“We got the world’s most brilliant scientific minds in on the puzzle. Shared Zak’s medical data, tried to find the problem. Arthur,” and here Doc chuckled, a dry kind of humor, as his eye went distant, “Stayed up so long scouring the files we sent him that he started eating instant coffee straight out of the tin with a spoon. He kept asking if it was at all possible that Zak had been abducted without us noticing.”

“Everyone threw in their own theories, recommended their own battery of tests. But, well,” Drew shrugged, “It all came down to nothing. Zak was perfectly healthy, just. . . abnormal. Eventually we just had to content ourselves with a wait and watch policy; that we might never know why Zak was the way he was. When new details came up, we’d share them, but we never felt they were as urgent as that first time.”

“Our son’s growing itty bitty fangs doesn’t rate anywhere near our baby might be dying, I get you,” Doyle said. “So the Scientists know pretty much every Kur trait to watch for?”

“It’s so unscientific,” Doc grumbled. If he were anyone else, Doyle might have even called it a whine. “If the Kur power’s really gone, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Zak’s physiology will change! Even if it does, the changes could come slowly. There’s so much we don’t know. Trying to diagnose Kur from one or two physical characteristics is– it’s just–”

“It’s okay, big boy, you can call it stupid,” Doyle said. Doc rolled his eye at him but didn’t disagree.

“So basically we’re back to square one.” Drew dragged a hand down her face. “All we have is circumstantial evidence that we can’t share for fear of people– scientists, for Pete’s sake– drawing conclusions from nothing, and if we don’t share that evidence they’ll make their conclusions based on our refusal to do so. At the same time, we don’t have enough evidence to make our own conclusions, and no way to tell if Zak still has powers.”

“Basically we’re fucked,” Doyle said, half on instinct, then. . . hesitated. “Except. . . we do know of one surefire way to find Kur.”

“We are not trying to tap into Fisk’s instincts again,” Drew said firmly.

“Not what I meant.”

“The naga's snake charm?” Doc’s brow furrowed. “I thought we told you about that. Epsilon’s people stole it in order to track Zak, we destroyed it.”

“You destroyed it, hon, and I’m sure it was very badass.” Drew smiled up at her husband, a smile that slowly dropped as no denial came from Doyle. She stared at him, then up at Doc, then back at him.

“No, that’s not what you meant,” she said, and it was less of a statement than Doyle thought she would’ve liked.

Doc didn’t look happy either. “We destroyed it,” he insisted, “It was blown to bits in the thermosphere. It’s probably burned up in reentry by now!”

“In my defense,” Doyle said, an admission of guilt even to his own ears, “I really didn’t want Epsilon’s people getting their hands on it. Again.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” Doc kneaded at his temple with one hand. “Are you seriously saying you found out a dangerous relic was stolen from you and destroyed and you went and, what, jetpacked your way up to get the pieces? Did you put it back in that same Swiss vault? Maybe giftwrap it for Epsilon?”

“Hey,” Doyle snapped, “I’m not stupid, and I don’t make the same mistake twice.”

“Except, apparently, for gathering the shards of the same dark artifact in secret for the second time. How is that not literally making the same mistake twice?” Drew’s voice rose in pitch before she aggressively yanked it back down. Doyle was starting to think she didn’t need to bother. If the mini-man could sleep through Fisk’s snoring, nothing short of an earthquake was going to rouse him.

“Honestly I’m starting to think your corrupting dark magic theory might hold water,” Doc muttered. Doyle felt the tips of his ears burn.

“Look,” he said, and it took every ounce of willpower he had to keep his voice level. “If you have to know, I didn’t go hunting for the pieces of the artifact. Epsilon’s people did that all by themselves. I just happened to be smart enough to think to break into one of their bases and check the chatter on snake charm one.”

Drew’s expression stayed tense, but the anger was fading from the twist of her lips. Doc was still frowning, good eye scrutinizing Doyle’s face. They both remained silent.

Doyle took that as a sign to continue.

“It turned out they’d already finished collection and were trying to come to a consensus on how best to restore the artifact. I called in a favor or six, got myself a shuttle, busted into the station, and grabbed the goods. Learned my lesson from the deposit box and decided to keep it on me. Well, not on me on me, just. . . with my stuff.”

Drew parted her lips, as if about to speak, but then just shook her head silently instead. The gesture didn’t seem pointed at Doyle, more like she’d just disagreed with her own thoughts. Doc was less reticent, though he still spoke as if every word had to be forcefully yanked from his mouth.

“That’s. . . fair. Makes sense. It– good thinking, Doyle, is what I’m trying to say.”

Doyle dropped his gaze. “Yeah, well, I still should’ve told you guys before now. I was just. . .”

“I get it,” Doc said, then let out a slow breath. In that moment, he wore his exhaustion in every line of his body. “I’m sorry. None of us are at our best right now, but. . . that’s no excuse.”

“Dude,” Doyle said, “You literally thought you were going to have to bury your kid. That excuses just about anything in my book.”

There was a long moment of nothing but Fiskerton’s snoring, then Drew broke the silence.

“This probably isn’t the best place for this conversation,” she said, glancing over at the still-occupied cot.

“Definitely,” Doyle agreed, “We should move.”

None of them did.

“How much time would it take to repair the charm?” Doc asked. “Rough estimate.”

“Zero hours and zilch minutes,” Doyle said, “I got it all patched up already. Or, I mean, it got itself patched up. Epsilon’s people were keeping each piece in separate little labeled baggies, that was their big mistake. Put all the pieces in one place and it’s like. . . it wants to be whole.”

One of Doc’s eyebrows ticked up, and though he’d expected that reaction, Doyle couldn’t help his second scoff of the conversation. This one felt almost painfully friendly, enough that he nearly choked on the sound.

“What? I’m not even into this voodoo crap, I’m just observing an objective phenomenon or however the fuck you’d say it. Broken artifact sits for a while, broken artifact starts to put itself back together. Two plus two equals hypothesis.”

Doc groaned. “There is so much wrong with what you just said.”

“Well, no time like the present,” Drew said. She’d folded her arms loosely, a sort of self-hug, and was still watching her kids with a fierce softness in her eyes. “You said you’ve been keeping it close?”

“It’s on the ship, yeah,” Doyle said.

“Go get it. Best time to check’s while Zak’s asleep, if. . . if we still need time to think over what we’re telling him.”

Doyle hesitated. He didn’t want to go grab the Kur detector for the same reason they hadn’t bothered to move their highly sensitive conversation more than a dozen yards away from Zak’s cot. He needed eyes on his nephew right now. Some part of him was convinced that the moment he left the room Zak would be gone, once again unresponsive, once again dead. Powerlessness was not a new feeling for Doyle, but fuck, he’d never felt so completely untethered as he had when the Saturdays had come back up those stairs.

He still felt hollow inside. That was what Doyle did, when everything went wrong. He switched off his emotions and forced himself to keep moving, one foot in front of the other. He didn’t cry. He didn’t mourn. He didn’t think of Leonidas Van Rook, dead over the man’s very first selfless act, and he didn’t think of Zak, the most selfless kid he knew, still and silent in his father’s arms.

He wasn’t a baby. He had object permanence down pat.

“Sure thing,” he said, and left the med bay, one foot in front of the other, while his chest froze itself up.

He took a bag of essentials with him wherever he traveled. A deception, as he’d have told mini-man, because the real essentials never left his person. If it would keep Doyle alive, it lived on his belt, and if it would keep Doyle functional, it lived in his bag.

The naga’s Kur detector was the exception to that rule. Doyle couldn’t risk the thing’s tell-tale-glow giving him away when he was near Zak, but after the Swiss deposit box, he also couldn’t risk it being too far from his person. The essentials bag had been the compromise, and hey, hiding a powerful relic under his spare underwear had kept even Van Rook away.

He perched on the edge of the couch that he’d (probably) be crashing on for the foreseeable future, digging through his bag and pulling out the relic. It was a heavy weight in his palm, and as he turned it over, Drew’s warnings about dark magic butted against his thoughts again. He could honestly and completely say that he didn’t believe that shit. However the relic had been created, whatever darkness it supposedly contained, Doyle certainly didn’t feel it, and Drew had never explained it to his satisfaction. Part of him wondered if dark magic was anything like Kur had turned out to be– a power, pure and simple, which was only as evil as the one wielding it.

Well.

He supposed that meant the relic was just morally-grey magic at the moment.

He shoved it deep into his pocket and headed back to the med-bay. Drew and Doc were right where he’d left them, though they’d taken his absence as a cue to bury themselves in each others’ arms. Lovebirds, Doyle scoffed internally, and hated how little he meant it. Doc was saying something, soft and low and incomprehensible, as he and Drew rocked slowly from side to side. Doyle couldn’t imagine how they were feeling right now.

He couldn’t even really imagine how he was feeling.

He cleared his throat on the approach, and Doc broke off mid-sentence, looking over at him. Doyle chanced a glance at the kid– still sleeping– then at the parents– still sickeningly in love.

“Sure you wanna do this?” he asked.

Doc nodded.

Drew said, “We need to know.”

“Debatable,” Doyle grunted, but pulled the relic out of his pocket anyway.

He couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised by its sickly yellow glow.

Doc closed his eyes.

Drew took a slow, even breath.

None of them moved.

“Got anywhere you hide shit from the kids?” Doyle asked after a long moment. “Cookie jar, lockbox, twenty feet of solid cement?”

“We can’t let Zak find out,” Drew whispered, and Doyle would’ve called her out on the sudden change of heart if his own wasn’t sinking. It was one thing to talk about something possibly being true; another to face that reality head-on.

“I’ll leave. Take it with me. Tell the Zak-man I had to go do cleanup and–”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

Doyle blinked. Doc had been the one to interrupt him, and his glare was akin to the one he’d level at Zak after a particularly reckless stunt. He released his hold on Drew, took a step forward and shit, Doyle didn’t know what he’d done but he was going to have to throw down with Doc in the middle of the med bay, wasn’t he. He tensed, ready to block the incoming blow as Doc raised a powerful arm–

–and pulled Doyle into an equally powerful hug.

Doyle blinked. He blamed his sudden difficulty breathing on Doc’s grip. He felt stiff and awkward, unsure of how to move– was he supposed to hug back? Pat Doc’s shoulder or something? Say thank you?

Doc, seeming to share none of his apprehensions, leaned his forehead against Doyle’s shoulder.

“I need my family here right now,” he said. “All of it.”

Doyle was rescued from having to come up with a response by Drew’s abrupt decision to join in on the hug. She caught them from the side, slinging her arms over their shoulders and clinging hard enough to drag both of them down with her weight.

“Stop. Being. So. Tall,” she growled, and when Doc laughed it rumbled in Doyle’s chest.

There was a familiar shuffle of wings, a muffled squawk, and then Zon was trying to nudge her way in between their knees. Doc finally released him, and Doyle focused on ignoring everything that had just happened by kneeling down to stroke a hand over Zon’s ruff.

“Hey girl,” he chuckled, “Sorry, should’ve asked if you wanted to be included.”

He felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to see Doc holding out a hand, and after a beat, Doyle realized what he wanted. He quickly handed over the naga’s Kur detector, forgotten in his palm.

“Now this,” Doc said, slipping the relic into one of the pouches on his belt, “I can take care of.”

“Weapons vault?” Doyle guessed.

“Underwear drawer,” Doc and Drew chorused, and Doyle buried his snort in the back of his hand.

“I suppose we should start trying to draft a report for the Secret Scientists,” Drew said grudgingly. She was frowning in the general direction of the floor. “Stave off the inevitable. If managing to avert genocide isn’t grounds for a temporary truce I don’t know what will be.”

“We didn’t exactly leave things on the best of terms,” Doyle hedged. “We left them more on, y’know, shooting down the ship you’re currently inside of terms.”

Drew clucked her tongue, eyebrows catching together. “True, but– I’m pretty sure it’s Miranda who dealt the final blow. None of our shots were doing any damage until that portal opened up; I think she might’ve had a change of heart. At the very least, she was more concerned with hurting Zak than Arthur.”

“And that helps us how?” Doyle asked. “They said from the beginning they didn’t want to hurt Zak; it just turns out their standards for hurt are real fuckin’ shit.”

Doc hummed low in the back of his throat. “The Secret Scientists are– well, we operate on something like jury rules. A decision has to be unanimous for us all to act. It won’t help us if someone goes rogue–”

“Beehole,” Doyle coughed.

“–but if we can win over even a single member, we might be able to force a stalemate. Enough time for us to work out a long-term solution.”

“Any idea if we still get that truce time from the revolving beast deal?” Drew asked.

“Doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.” Doc pursed his lips. “Though, come to think of it, Paul’s the one who called us in in the first place.”

“Paul?” Doyle asked. The name sounded familiar.

“Doctor Cheechoo, you met him in Chile,” Drew supplied.

“Right. Shit, I haven’t seen him in forever.”

“Neither have we,” said Doc, “he hasn’t been with the groups coming after Zak. On the call, he seemed sympathetic to our perspective, and honestly he didn’t act at all unfriendly to Zak while we were there. Could be uncomfortable with the decision they reached.”

“Or, and hear me out, he might just think being rude to the reincarnation of Kur isn’t a tactic that leads to a long and healthy life.” Doyle paused, then reluctantly added, “But he did seem nice enough when we met.”

“What, because he laughed at your stories?” Drew raised a sharp eyebrow.

“Because he laughed at the really bad ones. It was so fake, Drew, I’m not sure the guy can lie.”

“So another possible vote in our favor,” Doc concluded, “And also you admit that your stories are terrible.”

“It was a tactical maneuver, professor,” Doyle protested. Drew talked over him.

“What about Henry? We haven’t heard from him since before this mess even started. Is he still in physical therapy?”

“I think so.” Doc’s mouth drew into a taut line. “So he’d be absent from the away teams regardless of his personal feelings on the matter.”

“Unknown factor, then,” Drew decided. “Mizuki? We didn’t see him during the fight.”

“Beeman’s ship is pretty big, Drew, he could’ve been there.”

“Well by that logic, so could Paul!”

“Guys,” Doyle interrupted, before this could turn into one of his sister’s debates.

“Right,” Doc said, “Not important. What’s important is that if any of them are rethinking their votes, we have a chance.”

“You write, I edit?” Drew asked, bumping Doc with her elbow. He winced, hand coming up to brace his side, and Drew’s eyes widened. Her voice jumped an octave.

“Oh honey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Doc said, “Just a bit banged up. More worried about you, honestly, that blow you took from Rani Nagi?”

Drew waved a hand. “Oh please. I was so hopped up on adrenaline I barely felt it.”

“Come on, Drew, what’s that thing you’re always telling me? Health is balance?”

His sister smiled at her husband, leaning up to give him a kiss on the nose. Doc caught her about the waist and pressed his lips to her forehead, and Doyle coughed.

He was met with an implacable stare from them both.

“Uh, I got shot out of the sky today?”

“Aw, do you want me to kiss you better too?” Doc asked, and Drew covered her mouth to hide what Doyle assumed was a smile.

He rolled his eyes.

“And you call yourselves doctors.”

“We have doctorates, Doyle, that’s not the same thing,” Drew said, “Though come to think of it, we probably know a lot more than you.”

“Please. I’ve been stitching myself up since I was ten.” Doyle grinned, thrust a thumb at his chest. “Proof of the ten-thousand hour rule right here.”

Doc and Drew shared a look that Doyle most decidedly didn’t see, and didn’t send a twinge through his chest. He turned on his heel, deciding now was a good moment to actually put those skills to use– he hadn’t felt much like patching himself up when they’d first returned to the airship. He hadn’t felt much like doing anything aside from sitting next to Zak’s bed, staring at his chest as if he could will it to rise and fall again.

The Saturdays kept their medical supplies well-stocked, something Doyle had taken advantage of a few times in the past. He couldn’t honestly say he was all that badly off, especially compared to. . . other people. The urge to continue letting what scrapes and bruises he did have continue to fester was strong, but so was the need to do something with his hands.

He felt a presence behind him. A hand touched his back.

He continued digging through the drawer for a roll of gauze and some tape.

“Doyle, hon, why don’t you let me do that?” Drew asked. Her voice was gentle. Soft. It wasn’t dissimilar to the one he’d heard her use on occasion to soothe spooked cryptids until Zak could arrive.

“You should take care of yourself, Drew. You and the professor.” He ripped open a pack of antiseptic wipes and started to scrub at his cheek. Lucky swipe from one of Rani Nagi’s henchmen, the one with the dark scales and the stripe down his back. It wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, but he didn’t know what kind of stone-age germs those snake-men were carrying under their claws, so a thorough cleaning would–

Drew caught at his arm. Doyle blinked down at the wipe in his hand, tinged pink with fresh blood and flaked with the old, realizing belatedly just how hard he’d been scrubbing. His cheek stung.

Neither of them spoke for a long, long moment. Long enough that a sluggish drop of blood had time to make its lazy way down his cheek, dripping off his chin and onto the back of his hand. Doyle let out a half-sigh through his nose and wiped it away, less aggressively this time.

He was tired.

“How about you take first watch?” Drew asked. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder, forcing him to acknowledge her. “You know, keep an eye on the kids. Keep them out of trouble.”

Doyle squeezed his eyes shut. His cheek still stung.

His eyes stung too.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure, I’ll babysit for you, sis.”

“Good. There’s no one we trust more to watch out for them, you know.”

She grabbed a few things from the cabinet, gave his shoulder a squeeze, then turned to head back over to Doc. He listened to their footsteps and voices recede into the distance, echoing in the corridors of the airship.

Zon nudged at the back of his leg.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I know.”

He taped up his cheek and set about checking himself over. Minor scrapes, major bruising, but entirely in one piece. He tested his ribs with a careful hand, and though they protested, none felt broken. He was fine. It was nowhere near the worst he’d ever been injured.

He sat down on the end of Zak’s cot, listened to his even breathing, and finally let himself cry.

Chapter Text

Arthur Beeman didn’t consider himself a particularly good person.

Objective, yes. Logical, of course. Smarter than everyone else in the room? Unless alt-versions of himself counted, he was inclined to say yes. But good?

Good wasn’t objective, logical, or smart. Good was a human social construct as flimsy and mutable as paper maché. Not only that, but good people tended to do a lot more harm than they realized, letting those bleeding hearts of theirs get in the way of results. They didn’t have the stomach to make the hard decisions, the ones that saved lives but hurt their feelings. If given the choice between the right thing to do and the thing that felt right, they would make the wrong choice every time. The Secret Scientists understood that.

Or so he’d thought.

Arthur sighed and, with a vicious yank of his pliers, pried a half-melted telometer out of the charred hole in the Avrocraft’s console. He looked it over for barely a second before writing it off as a lost cause, tossing it over his shoulder onto the steadily-growing pile of scrap metal on the deck. He didn’t anticipate being able to salvage much. He’d have to rebuild the majority of the controls from scratch. While he was at it, he’d probably retool the casing too, considering how easily it had yielded to a single blast from an incredibly primitive weapon. The outer plating of his ship could handle the heat and friction of breaking the atmosphere and had come away from the fight without so much as a scratch, but the interior was far less durable. He hadn’t anticipated needing protection from someone already inside the cockpit.

An oversight, apparently.

The Avrocraft was probably the closest thing he’d ever have to a baby. He’d built it from the ground up, each panel and circuit fitted by hand, and while having to repair it was irritating to say the least it was by no means difficult. In fact, he’d go so far as to say he enjoyed the work itself, the meditative process of deconstructing and reconstructing. It gave his hands something to do while his mind, ever-toiling, worked through whatever was troubling him at the moment.

The last time he’d had a particularly garbled transmission to parse through, he’d put it on as background noise and started upgrading his ship’s blasters. He’d been on the phone with the Pentagon before he was even through replacing the conductors. This time, with necessity guiding his hands instead of autonomy, he was struggling.

Miranda. Hot on the heels of her sister’s betrayal, she had understood and agreed that love was not a substitute for trust. Caring for someone didn’t mean they couldn’t fail you. Zak was a good kid, but he was just that– a kid. The Saturdays wouldn’t hand him a nuclear bomb, so why would they allow him to keep a power that was even more dangerous?

It was something they’d understood, once. When they’d agreed to split the Kur Stone rather than allow that knowledge to belong to anyone, even themselves.

(And then Arthur had argued they should just disintegrate it, and Doc had said they’d had a hard enough time just cutting it with the stone’s unusual properties, and Arthur had said he had a pansy laser array and Doc had gotten all huffy and Drew had threatened to punch him in the nose)

(Arthur did not wind up with a piece of the Kur stone)

He and Miranda had talked about how time changed people, late one night while she was repairing Deadbolt and he was cruising satellite footage for a Saturday Sighting. He’d been nursing a black eye courtesy of Doc’s elbow and bemoaning the Saturday’s lost ability to listen to reason. Tall-and-shaggy had come up with a solution Arthur wasn’t afraid to call brilliant, which meant something coming from him. Yet Doc, who had once been one of the most pragmatic and logical people Arthur knew, had been so caught up in being a good father that he hadn’t listened.

Miranda had snorted. “You weren’t exactly winning any diplomacy awards yourself, you know,” she’d said, “But you’re right. I think he and Drew are both just a little too close to the problem. They’ll see sense once they have some time to cool down.”

“In lockup?”

She’d sighed. “It is looking that way, isn’t it?”

Time to cool down.

Miranda hadn’t yet sent any messages his way. She hadn’t spoken to him since those last dramatic words on the bridge; by the time he’d wrestled the Avrocraft into some semblance of a safe landing, she’d already portaled out. He’d expected her to write and apologize for what she’d done in the heat of the moment, hell, maybe even call, as much as Arthur usually hated face-to-face communication. He’d been ready to forgive her her momentary lapse in judgement.

His phone hung silent on his hip. No messages. The world was scrambling to regain its equilibrium after the cryptid skirmish, it was no surprise that the Secret Scientists were busy as well. They would check in when they had the time, even if it was only to send a quick ‘not dead’ text.

Arthur’s hand slipped. Pain lanced up his arm and he cursed and yanked it back. He dropped the pliers, letting them clang to the ground, and turned his palm over to glare at the back of his hand. Blood welled up from a scrape that ran from his knuckles to his wrist, the bite of a jagged metal strut he’d been trying to pry loose. This was what he got for losing focus.

Irritated at having to interrupt his work for the limitations of the human body, he nevertheless kept himself from stomping as he made his way deeper into the Avrocraft. With the cockpit controls all but fused, he had no way to pop the canopy, and instead had to use the elevator to get in and out. Something else that was slowing his progress.

When was the last time he’d slept? He should probably check that. Then again, he should probably be done with the Avrocraft’s repairs by now.

The elevator finished lowering. Arthur stepped the negligible distance down to the floor of the hanger and headed for the door that led to the facility proper, or what had once been the door. He still hadn’t gotten around to replacing it after the revolving beast incident. Another thing he had to fix.

Fuck he was tired.

He’d made it halfway to his bathroom cabinet and its stock of gauze when his phone buzzed. He grabbed for it with his injured hand, not thinking, and only the corresponding spike of pain corrected his course. Right hand it was, then, and he flicked his phone open with a few deft motions, tempering his anticipation. It might not be Miranda, after all. It could be one of the other Secret Scientists checking in.

It wasn’t even that.

While the Saturdays hadn’t officially been excommunicated after their betrayal, their Secret Scientist membership now occupied a bit of a grey area. It had been something the remaining members agreed to discuss after the Kur thing wound down. In the meantime, having an emergency line of contact was useful on the off-chance the Saturdays saw reason, or something so dire came up that it would unite them all for a common cause. In the end, booting the Saturdays from their communications entirely had simply been impractical. Reactionary.

But that didn’t mean Arthur had been expecting to see a report roll in from them as if nothing had ever happened.

[The Cryptid War] Incident Report, Saturday Account

Oh sweet Canis Major, let that name not catch on. Arthur popped open the file on his way to the bathroom and started to read. Scientia potentia est , and with allies like his, he was going to need all the power he could get his hands on.

Zak woke to a foul taste in his mouth and the pressing need to go to the bathroom. He felt sore, which wasn’t exactly unusual these days, and when he tried to sit up he found his movements were restricted– also something that, unfortunately, was getting less and less unusual.

The good news was, he had a pretty good idea why he couldn’t move.

Fisk had a very. . . distinct. . . smell. The guy cleaned himself with his tongue and ate like the atkins diet had a baby with cinnamon challenge; to say his tastes were eclectic was an understatement. So the fact that Zak’s cheek was buried in soft, thick fur that smelled like morning breath made a good argument for it being Fisk’s arms keeping him from escape.

It wasn’t until he opened his eyes that he realized Komodo had gotten in on the action as well. Curled up atop the slightly-scratchy med-bay blanket was a hundred and fifty-six pounds of reptile, leaching his body heat and, more importantly, digging into his bladder. Zak tried to bring himself to be annoyed, but all he could summon was the tiniest of smiles as he began the difficult task of untangling himself from his brothers. He wriggled out from under Fisk’s arm, sat up to try to get a better look at his leg situation, and realized Komodo wasn’t the only one at the foot of the bed.

Doyle sat facing away from him, unmoving, elbows resting on his knees and shoulders hunched. He wasn’t wearing his usual uniform, having traded it in for a loose-fitting black tee and sweatpants. A line of bandages snaked up over one wrist, and as Zak craned his neck, he could see bruises blooming around Doyle’s knuckles, peeking out from under his sleeves. He couldn’t see his expression from here, but he looked. . .

“Uncle Doyle?” he asked, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t wake his brothers.

Doyle started, frame tensing, head jerking slightly upwards. Shoot, had he been asleep? Sitting up?

Guilt pooled in the pit of Zak’s stomach, though he wasn’t sure why. Something about his uncle’s posture just made him feel slightly sick.

Then Doyle relaxed, turning to look at Zak with an easy smile on his face alongside a butterfly bandage. The feeling receded, but only slightly.

“Hey, mini-man.” Doyle’s voice was rough and soft, a weathered whisper. He sounded like he needed some water or some sleep– possibly both. “Welcome back. Good nap?”

Zak shrugged. He couldn’t remember any nightmares, which was good, but he also couldn’t say he felt completely rested. There was exhaustion deep in his bones that he’d been dealing with for months now, and it never really seemed to go away no matter how long he slept.

“It was fine,” he said. “Were you– here the whole time?”

It was Doyle’s turn to shrug. “More or less. It was here or the couch and I picked the one where I could throw something at Fisk if his snoring got too loud.”

Zak snorted. “Trust me, that doesn’t help.”

He started trying to scooch his way out from under Komodo, and Doyle chuckled before getting to his feet. He circled around to Zak’s side of the bed and held out his arms.

“C’mere kid, I gotcha,” he said. Zak wrapped his arms around his uncle’s shoulders and Doyle scooped him up, lifting him out of the tangle of reptile he’d found himself trapped in. Komodo readjusted with a quiet shff of scales on fabric, but otherwise didn’t stir.

“Nice,” Zak whispered.

“What can I say? I have practice lifting things from under people’s noses. Or tongues, in this case.”

Zak snorted. Punched Doyle in the shoulder. Then, his new vantage point lending him a greater, non-sibling-obstructed range of vision, he noticed his parents.

They were both sitting on the floor, leaning back against the far wall of the med-bay. They were also both very much asleep. Dad had a data pad in one hand, though his grip had slackened somewhat, and Mom was curled half-over his shoulder as if snooping on his work.  Someone had draped one of the medbay blankets over them at some point, which definitely didn’t make any difference comfort-wise but was still a nice gesture.

Zak glanced at Doyle out of the corner of his eye. Doyle coughed. Set Zak down.

“They, uh, passed out somewhere around five AM,” he said. “Wanted to get a report in to the brainiacs or something.”

A report. Man, they hadn’t filed one of those in over a year now. It was weird to think his parents were just jumping right back into work like that but– well, what was stopping them? Not Zak. Not anymore.

Zak swallowed.

“What, uh, what time is it now?” he asked.

Doyle made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat, then glanced at his wrist. He seemed to realize a second too late that it was bare– except for the bandages swathing part of his arm– and yanked his videophone out of his pocket to check instead.

“Like– seven fifteen,” he said.

Zak hesitated. Bit the inside of his cheek.

“. . .I’m not gonna wake them up,” he decided.

He could feel Doyle’s eyes on him.

“You know they couldn’t care less about missing sleep if it means they can spend time with you, right?”

“I know.” That’s why. They wouldn’t take care of themselves and would just be so happy to see me up and about and I can’t– deal with that right now. “I gotta pee though, so. No point disturbing them for that!”

Doyle made a gagging sound and reached down to scrub a hand through Zak’s hair. “ Gross,” he proclaimed over Zak’s indignant squawk, “TMI little dude.”

Zak stuck his tongue out at his uncle as he made a beeline for the medbay bathroom. It wasn’t until he was washing his hands that he caught sight of himself in the mirror and paused.

He looked. . . not as bad as he probably should, considering the number of fights he’d been in over the past few days. No cuts, no bruises, not even a scrape to show what he’d been through. He just looked. . . tired.

He felt tired.

He tilted his head to the side, watching the way the light played over his features. Brown skin, a smattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks, dark eyes. His hair was getting kind of shaggy. He’d probably need a haircut soon. That or he could grow it out like Doyle’s.

He focused, reaching inside himself for the warmth that had been there all his life, and tried to call his power to the surface. Kur’s power.

Nothing. His eyes stayed dark. No flames flickered over his freckles. Zak took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Tried to parse out how he was feeling.

Mostly, he wasn’t. Right now everything was too– raw. Too new. Underneath that calm veneer there boiled a concoction of powerful emotions, good and bad jumbled up in a writhing mass, and Zak didn’t feel like plunging into it just yet. Eventually it would catch up to him, it always did, but for now? He was content to let the numbness hold him.

He didn’t realize he’d zoned out until he heard voices from the med bay, words indistinct but sources unmistakable. His parents and Doyle, speaking in low tones that instinctively made Zak itch to eavesdrop. Instead of following the urge, he dried his hands on the front of his shirt and walked back into the med-bay.

The adults had formed a small huddle near the foot of the cot, engrossed in a conversation that abruptly cut off at the sound of him opening the bathroom door. He wondered, briefly, what they’d been discussing, but the question was swept from his mind by the looks on his parents' faces.

Mom gave him a watery smile that didn’t reach her watery eyes. The corner of his dad’s mouth twitched like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to go up or down.

“. . .hey,” Zak said, instead of I’m not sorry for what I did but I am so, so sorry for what I did to you.

Even if he’d wanted to say something to that effect, he’d have been unable to manage it as his father bore down on him, scooping him up in a lung-crushing hug that lifted him off the ground.

“We,” he said firmly, “Are going to talk about this, Zak. Extensively. Possibly with a therapist, because you can’t just– do things like that, okay? You can’t–”

His voice broke. He took a breath that shuddered through Zak’s whole body and pressed his next words into Zak’s hair, soft like the bedtime stories he’d read when Zak was younger.

“Never do anything like that again, Zak.”

“I–” What did he even say to that? The only other time he’d heard his father like this, so scraped raw and pained, had been their first infiltration of Weird World. Zak closed his stinging eyes, burying his face in his dad’s shoulder. His arms were caught awkwardly between them, but in this moment he didn’t care if they fell asleep and fell off. It felt so good to just be held.

It took him a minute to find his voice again.

“Can the talk at least. . . wait for a little bit? I’m kind of–” exhausted “–worn out. Right now.”

“It’s going to have to wait long enough for breakfast anyway,” came his mother’s wry voice. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving. I vote we have a nice, relaxed morning before we try to tackle anything. . . difficult.”

“Agreed,” Dad said. “Pancakes?”

From the sound of it– because Zak couldn’t see anything beyond the safe blackness of his huddle against Dad’s shoulder– Fisk chose that exact moment to fall out of bed, crowing something excited before abruptly hitting the ground with a thud.

Doyle wound up cooking. His parents had attempted to argue each other out of preparing breakfast, tactics ranging from citing injuries the other had sustained to a lightning-fast debate on whether cooking was an art or a science, and they had only stopped when they heard the unmistakable sizzle of batter hitting a pan.

“You were taking too long,” Doyle had said in response to the betrayed looks aimed at his back.

“Chee-yah!” Fisk had chirped excitedly. Chocolate chips.

The pancakes were delicious. Light, fluffy, sweet, and gone as soon as Doyle could dish them out. Zak devoured far more than he probably should have, considering his metabolism was likely going to slow down now that the Kur power was gone. Still, for whatever time he had left to shove obscene amounts of food into his face he was going to embrace it wholeheartedly, especially when it had turned out that Doyle was an incredible cook. Better than both his parents, even. 

They were halfway through doing the dishes when the phone rang.

“Not my airship,” Doyle said, and continued scrubbing the pan he’d used. Zak, on standby with a dish towel, blinked innocently up at his parents.

“Busy helping?” he tried, shaking the towel slightly for emphasis.

Komodo let out a drawn-out, raspy sigh that indicated his lack of thumbs quite efficiently. Zon, in a similar manner, squawked and continued nosing under the table for crumbs.

“Aisa-wa,” Fisk volunteered, only to be stopped by their mom’s hand on his shoulder.

“That’s alright, Fiskerton, I’ve got this one. You boys just focus on cleaning up.”

Zon gave an aggrieved chuff as Mom left the room, and Zak couldn’t help but laugh. At the hurt look she angled up at him, he gave her an apology scratch under the chin.

“I’m sure she didn’t forget you, Zon. You just aren’t on dish duty like the rest of us.”

“Pan,” Doyle grunted, and Zak quickly returned his attention to his uncle. He took the dripping pan that was being thrust in his general direction and began to dry it off, watching as Doyle plunged his arms back into the sink to work on the mixing bowl.

“Where’d you learn to cook like that, anyway?” Dad asked. He leaned an elbow against the counter beside the sink, watching Doyle like he would a particularly intriguing specimen. Zak could swear up and down he’d seen that exact same look on his face when they’d first found the slime mold mimics in northern Maine.

Doyle grinned down into the sink. “You conceding defeat, professor?” he asked.

“No, just curious. You whipped that batter up in a matter of minutes with no recipe on hand. I’m surprised it turned out edible at all, much less palatable.”

“Your praise and admiration are the wind beneath my wings. Bowl,” Doyle said, handing it off to Zak, then continued. “You just pick this kind of stuff up when you’re living on your own. Had a roommate once who kept insisting they almost went to culinary school, said everything I did was wrong.”

“So you learned from them?”

“Nah. Got better on my own out of spite. You should see what I can do with powdered sugar and peach nectar.”

Zak finished with the bowl, handing it off to Fisk. They had learned, through a series of errors that involved Zak falling off the counter and spraining his wrist, that it was better to have the taller of them putting the dishes away.

His mother stuck her head back into the room. Her face was drawn.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Dad returned, “Who was it?”

“Who is it,” she corrected. “It’s Miranda. And she’s still on the line.”

Her eyes found Zak’s, and they lingered. She gave him a small, tense smile.

“She says she wants to talk to us. You especially, kiddo. She wants to apologize.”

Zak swallowed. He folded the damp dish towel between his hands. Squeezed.

Okay. This was okay. Better than okay, it was great. He’d been expecting the Secret Scientists to apologize, to open the society back up to their family once they realized how wrong they’d been. That they should’ve trusted, if not Zak, then at least his parents’ assessment of the situation, and worked alongside them to find a cure rather than acting like a concrete ankle tag. Sure, he hadn’t expected them to come around so soon, but that made this all the better, right? A quick, easy ending to the whole Kur thing. Right back to normal.

That was how it should feel. Zak should be happy. Zak should be thrilled.

Zak wasn’t. Somehow, in some strange misshapen way, the quick turnaround made things worse. If doctor Grey was so quick to forgive and forget now, why hadn’t it been enough before? Why had it taken Zak almost dying to make her come around? Why had she needed a report declaring Zak Kur-free before she could trust any of the Saturdays again?

Zak almost felt cheated. If anyone asked, he’d never staged any dramatic arguments in the shower where he presented the Secret Scientists with bulletproof logic explaining that he was still him even with an ancient evil trapped in his body, and then they all started begging for his family’s forgiveness. That would be overdramatic and childish.

It still would’ve been nice. Cathartic. A way to work through all the hurt and anger he’d felt over their betrayal. Still felt, because. . .

Because, well, that was what really didn’t sit right with him about this. He’d thought the Secret Scientists would need more time to apologize because Zak. . . Zak wasn’t sure he was ready to forgive them.

There was a muffled clunk followed by a baritone gurgle as Doyle pulled the plug out of the sink and set it draining. He grabbed the dish towel out of Zak’s hands and brusquely wiped his own before starting to squeeze the water out of his bandages.

“Yeah? Well, if she’s really sorry she can start making it up to us by letting us chase her around the globe for a year and change, see how she likes it.”

“Doyle, we talked about this,” Mom said, and Doyle gritted his teeth. Put the towel on the counter a little more forcefully than was necessary.

“Yeah, I know. But somebody here’s gotta hold a grudge, and it might as well be the black sheep of the family. The rest of you goody-two-shoes are too nice.”

“Hey, I can hold a grudge just fine, thanks.” Mom folded her arms. “And you know full well Doc can too.”

“What are we on now, rematch four?” Dad asked.

Something bumped Zak’s shoulder. He blinked, glanced back, and saw Fisk still perched behind him on the counter. He pulled his foot back from where he’d prodded Zak and made a warbling inquiry.

“Haza-ah?” he asked. Are you okay?

His parents and Doyle turned back to Zak, suddenly attentive. Zak shrank a bit under the scrutiny.

“I’m fine,” he said, “I can talk to her! It’s just. . .”

He let out a breath.

“Does being the bigger person always suck so bad?”

His father sighed.

“He gets this from your side of the family, you know,” he said to Mom. She made an indignant sound, but Doyle just snorted.

“Not gonna argue. That’s why I’m never the bigger person. Sucker’s game.”

“You’re all terrible role models,” Zak said, and walked past his father’s spluttering protests towards the videoconference room. He couldn’t turn back around and acknowledge them because if he did they’d all see the small smile that had crept over his face. He loved his family. And as long as they were disasters, he felt like he was allowed to be a disaster too.

That was something else that getting rid of Kur had lifted off his shoulders. The need to prove he was a good person. For the first time in a long time Zak felt like he could mess up without it being a condemnation of who he was. With no volatile dark side that could go off if he let himself get too angry, he could just. . . feel things again.

Doctor Grey’s face was blown up huge on the videoconference room wall, free from having to jockey for space against other incoming calls. Zak’s first thought upon entering the room was how tired she looked. Like four-straight-days-binging-video-games tired. Nothing-but-energy-drinks-and-coffee tired. Zak’s parents tired. He’d barely ever seen doctor Grey without her hair meticulously pinned up, yet now it hung lank and loose about her shoulders, kinked in places where it had once been twisted into order by a hair tie. She was out of uniform, wearing only a simple gray tank top instead of her usual jumpsuit. Her makeup was mostly gone, nothing hiding the dark circles under her eyes, and there was only a small trace of lipstick around her mouth on the very edges of her lips. She was chewing on her lower lip as she watched the family file into the room. Zak was guessing that was where the rest of it had gone.

“Hello, Zak,” she said. She wasn’t making eye contact with him, but Zak couldn’t tell if she was doing it on purpose or if it was just her camera angle.

“. . .hello, doctor Grey,” he said. She sighed.

“I hardly deserve to be called that after what we almost did to you,” she said.

Zak hesitated. Despite how he felt about. . . well, everything, he couldn’t help but feel like that was a bit much. It wasn’t like she was a medical doctor or anything, and betraying a family you’d known for years didn’t actually invalidate your research on quantum physics. It made you a terrible person, sure, but not a terrible doctor.

“I–” he started to say, but Grey shook her head and cut him off.

“No. Don’t try to placate me, it’s true. I should have known better than to let things go so far. I’m not going to make excuses,” and here she let her eyes slide to the side of the shot. Definitely the camera angle. “Because whatever justifications I may have had, whatever my reasons were, they don’t matter. Not for this.”

Zak watched her throat bob as she swallowed. Then she looked back into the camera, gaze sharpening, eyes narrowing into an approximation of her usual confident expression. Her chewed-clean lips pursed.

“I was a prideful fool. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I apologize anyway. I am so, so sorry Zak.”

She let her gaze linger for a moment longer, pointed, and then the tension went out of her body. She sighed, looking tired once more.

 “I called to let you know I’m revoking my support of the society’s plan for Kur. I still think cryogenic stasis would be the best course of action, but I recognize now that I forfeited the right to advise you on the matter the moment I tried to force you into it. Whatever path you and your family take, I will support. I actually decided to–”

“Wait,” Zak said, because now this apology was really starting to go off the rails. He held up a hand, glancing at his parents. “Did you not put what happened in your report?”

“There was a report?” doctor Grey echoed, eyebrows furrowing.

“We sent it in last night,” Mom said, stepping a bit closer to the screen. Doctor Grey’s eyes moved to a different angle, though still not one that was aimed at Mom’s face. “Did you not get it yet? Are our messages not going through? Did someone block us?”

“No, no, I’m sure it’s not that.” Doctor Grey waved a hand, somehow managing to look even more exhausted than before. “I. . . haven’t exactly been checking my messages. I was working on an apology present of sorts.”

Zak swallowed. That. . . hm.

Doctor Grey had still thought he had the Kur power.

And she’d still called to apologize.

He still wasn’t sure if he could forgive her yet. Though, if he was being honest, just hearing her say she knew she might not deserve to be forgiven made him feel a whole lot less like holding a grudge. It was weird, how emotions did that. Weird and stupid.

“Well,” he said, watching Grey’s massive eyes find a spot above his head to make intense eye contact with, “The short version is, I got Kur ripped out of my body. I’m normal now.”

It still felt so nice to say. He said it again, a small smile touching his lips.

“I’m normal.”

His mom placed a hand on his shoulder.

“We might need a hand convincing the other Secret Scientists of that, though,” she said, “So if you’re serious about making this up to us. . .”

“Of course,” doctor Grey said, face taking on a determined cast again. “I’ll have to read your report for the details, but as I said– you have my support. How did this happen? I thought there was no way to separate Zak from Kur without killing him.”

“There wasn’t,” Doyle said flatly, stepping up to the screen. “Argost got him with that recording of the magic kazoo. He was down for the count when we got to him. Would’ve lost him for good if there hadn’t been significant medical advancements since two-thousand BCE.”

“We were able to restart his heart, get him breathing again,” Dad said. “I guess the Garuda never heard of defibrillators.”

“Oh jeez, is that what happened while I was out?” Zak asked. “ Please tell me no one gave me mouth-to-mouth.”

He was kidding, joking around to pull the focus of the conversation away from how he’d almost died. He didn’t want to think about that right now. Judging by the kissy noises Fisk started making in his direction, Fisk didn’t either.

“Don’t worry,” Dad said dryly, “We had Komodo do it. Had to put those CPR classes to good use somehow.”

Komodo made an offended-sounding grumble, and Zak laughed.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” doctor Grey said.

Dad gave a nod of acknowledgement. “We’re definitely looking forward to being able to stop running. We could all use the rest.”

“Can we finally rebuild?” Zak asked. “I love the airship, but I miss having a real house.”

Doctor Grey cleared her throat. She looked almost sheepish. It was a look Zak had never seen on her before.

“Well,” she said, “About that. You know that apology gift I mentioned. . ?”

“When did you start working on repairs?” Dad asked.

Doctor Grey shrugged. She had looked a little less tired when she’d approached them, reanimated by the sunlight poured over her features, but now that she was standing in the airship’s shadow the exhaustion was back.

“I began shortly after our last altercation. It was something practical to put my energy towards, and I was. . . frustrated. With Arthur, mostly, but also with myself.”

Mom tilted her head slightly. Her gaze was focused on the house in front of them, the house that looked to be completely identical to the one that had been in ruins only months before. If Zak didn’t know any better, he’d have said nothing had happened here at all– not Fisk tearing the place apart with his robots, not the fight with Tsul-Kalu, not the year and change spent exposed to the elements. His house stood exactly as he remembered it. Pristine.

Too pristine.

“That’s a lot of work to get done in such a short amount of time,” Mom said.

“Don’t tell me you had Deadbolt do it,” Zak joked. Doctor Grey glanced at him briefly before turning her attention back to the house. Zak swallowed. Doctor Grey had always been direct , to say the least, and considering her behavior on the call he didn’t think she was avoiding looking at him. . .

“I’ve been experimenting for a while now with alternate applications for my rift technology. This gave me a chance to utilize my techniques in a large-scale project.”

Zak blinked.

“You used portals to rebuild our house?”

Doctor Grey nodded. “It would have taken weeks to safely remove the rubble and debris with conventional methods, but not only was I able to reduce that prep time to nearly nothing by simply teleporting it away, I could repair the original material with precise portal application. The bonding of inanimate objects on a molecular level when they were teleported into the same space was a side effect I observed in early experiments; this just put that to good use.”

“Of course, she did have some help.”

Zak wasn’t proud of it, but he whirled around with a start. Doctor Cheechoo was rounding the far side of the airship, grinning broadly at them. He looked far less tired than Doctor Grey, and much more excited to see them.

Too excited? Zak stayed tense, glancing at Doctor Grey. His parents seemed just as on-edge, and Zak knew they were all thinking the same thing– had this been a set-up?

But Doctor Grey wasn’t backing away or reaching for a weapon. Instead she just sighed, raising a hand in a small wave in Cheechoo’s direction.

“Paul,” she greeted, “I told you not to surprise them.”

“Ah, there’s no hard feelings, right?” Doctor Cheechoo said, drawing to a stop a scant few feet from them. Like Doctor Grey, he wasn’t in his usual attire, but unlike Doctor Grey, it wasn’t the first time Zak had ever seen him in shorts.

“After all,” he continued, “It’s not like I was ever actually on board with what you guys were doing.”

“Is that so?” his Dad asked dryly. “If only there had been some way for you to voice that disagreement. Say, in some kind of democratic process?”

Doctor Cheechoo shrugged. He reached down to try to ruffle Zak’s hair, and Zak dodged out of the way with an irritated growl. He wound up backing into Fisk, who placed a pair of protective hands on Zak’s shoulders and echoed his warning grumble.

Hands off.

“Hey, it’s not like you didn’t make any mistakes either, kid,” Cheechoo said. “Working with Argost? Really?”

Zak was about to snap at him when he raised a hand, waving off the impending snark like he was dismissing a cloud of mosquitos.

“But I’m not here to lecture you. Figure you got enough of a lesson when that partnership blew up in your face. You know Arthur thought you two were tag-teaming the world takeover? Not me, I knew better. You Saturdays have moral backbones of titanium.”

“So you agreed to hunting us down for, what,” Mom asked, one hand settling on her hip, “A joke? If you thought Arthur was wrong, it was as simple as withdrawing your support!”

Cheechoo shrugged again. “Like I said. Arthur was ready to believe you’d all gone darkside. And not everyone in the society knows you guys as well as I do. I spoke up on your behalf, but it still seemed like Arthur and half the society were ready to secede and take matters into their own hands. I figured if we conceded some ground we could at least keep them from hurting Zak.”

Fisk grumbled, and Zak nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I’m with Fisk. Good effort, terrible outcome. F minus.”

Doctor Cheechoo pursed his lips. “Like I said. We both made mistakes.”

Zak let his gaze drop. Fisk’s hands on his shoulders were grounding, making him feel comfortable letting his eyes wander from Cheechoo and Grey. Part of him was still on-edge, worried that they might attack at any moment, but another part was too tired to care. Grey had apologized. Cheechoo had called his involvement a mistake. It was enough for Zak to let his guard down, if only slightly.

Doctor Cheechoo sighed. Zak could only see him from the waist down out of the corner of his eye, but it was enough to see his fingers twitch in a half-aborted gesture towards Zak as he went to ruffle his hair again and seemingly thought better of it.

“Look,” he said, “I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I just figured you’d want your place back, so when Miranda asked if I knew anything about your gardening setup I joined the reconstruction effort. I get it if you guys want me gone, but if you want me fully in your corner it’ll have to wait until after we chat about your report.”

“It’ll have to wait a bit longer than that,” Doyle said. Zak glanced up. His uncle was descending the airship’s ramp, brushing his hands back through his hair as he gathered it into a ponytail. He had a slate-grey suit jacket hanging off one shoulder, and was clothed in a matching pair of slacks, button down, and tie.

His eyes flicked up and down Doctor Cheechoo as he approached their group, sizing him up. His face stayed blank, aggressively so, so Zak wasn’t exactly sure what conclusion his assessment came to. There was only the slightest tightening around the corners of his mouth to indicate he was thinking anything at all.

He turned to Zak and Fisk.

“Come on,” he said. “We gotta get you two into your monkey suits. We’ve got somewhere to be and people to pick up on the way. If you two want to come–” and here his eyes cut back to first Doctor Grey, then Doctor Cheechoo, “You better get dressed appropriately.”

Fisk quietly chittered something about their uncle’s choice in terminology– monkey suits, phah– but didn’t argue. Zak just looked at the two scientists who had rebuilt his home. Doctor Grey looked suitably morose, lips pursed and eyes downcast, but Cheechoo was grinning. He gave Doyle an up-and-down look that was much slower and more deliberate than Doyle’s had been, letting out a low whistle.

“Wow,” he said, with feeling. “Whose funeral are you headed to?”

There was a long, uncomfortable moment of silence. Doctor Cheechoo’s grin started to slip as Doyle eyed him like he was contemplating whether, as a ‘good guy,’ he was still allowed to stuff a handful of flash grenades down his throat.

“Oh,” Doctor Cheechoo said. “I– oh . Wait. Crap.”

The ride back from the funeral had been a quiet one.

Zak had been to a funeral once before, according to his parents. One of Dad's old acquaintances in New Orleans. He couldn’t really remember anything about it– apparently he’d been too young, both to remember and to really understand what was happening around him. Zak wondered if it counted. Should he consider this his first funeral if his technical first was absent from his memory? Were the things that he took part in still a part of him even if he couldn’t remember them?

He’d thought about that a lot, when he’d still had the Kur power. About what Kur had done in the past. About whether Zak was responsible for any of it. It was one of the questions he was glad to be leaving behind now that he’d closed that chapter of his life for good.

When they’d gotten home and disembarked the adults had formed a cluster-huddle a few yards from the airship’s doors. Zak, followed by Wadi and Ulraj, had taken a seat at the base of one of the taller, steeper hills that directly bordered his house. It was one he and Fisk had worn a sledding trail into after years of winters. The last time Zak had been home that track had been nothing but ground-down dirt. Now, grass and wildflowers were starting to retake it. If they’d been gone another year, it might have vanished entirely into regrowth.

Not everything had been completely restored, then, when Doctor Grey fixed their house. There were still some scars left on the landscape. Reminders of what had happened. What had changed.

Ulraj cleared his throat.

“I am. . . sorry,” he said, “For the tragedy that befell your home.”

Zak glanced over at Ulraj. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. Whether that was from the apology or being seated on the bare ground Zak didn’t know.

“It’s okay,” he said, turning back to his house. “It happened a while ago.”

“Still,” Ulraj said, “It must have been quite the event, to do so much damage! And to think you may have to live in such conditions. . . I swear, my people will assist in any way necessary to expidite reconstruction.”

Wadi, seated on Zak’s other side, snorted. Zak blinked.

“Ulraj, repairs were finished yesterday,” he said.

“They were?” Ulraj asked incredulously, then, “Oh. Yes, of course, I– clearly my second eyelids are drying out, my mistake.” He coughed again, harder this time. “You have a fine home, Zak Saturday. Very. . . quaint. Practical!”

“His house is at least three or four times bigger than mine,” Wadi said. She leaned forwards, bracing her elbows on her knees, so she could give Ulraj a gleeful, toothy grin. “I would say it is considered quite large for most land-folk.”

That actually pulled a small, tired smile out of Zak. He looked from Wadi’s mischievous expression to Ulraj’s blotchy one. He didn’t blush like a human when he was embarrassed, but small clusters of color spots in his cheeks tended to bloom purple under stress. It made him look like he had undulating byzantium freckles.

Zak’s smile got a little wider.

“That’s not even counting the sections underground,” he said.

Wadi gasped.

“There is more house? How far does it extend? Is it under our feet at this very moment?”

Zak snorted. “I think I’d be more flattered by that if I didn’t know you were thinking of how fun it would be to try to break in.”

“Excuse you,” Wadi sniffed, “It is not breaking in if it is part of a game. Also, would you like to play capture-the-flag? And hide your flag in the underground part of your house?”

“I think,” Ulraj said loudly, puffing up his chest and tilting up his chin as if to distract them from the purple still dotting his cheeks, “It was very generous of me to offer my assistance with your home, even if it did turn out to be unnecessary. You two have terrible manners.”

“What did you expect?” Wadi asked, “We do not have the advantage of your etiquette training, rich boy.”

Zak’s gaze drifted downwards again, over the panels of his house and towards his uncle. Doyle was standing on the edge of the grown-up-huddle, arms folded and head cocked slightly to the side. Zak couldn’t see his expression from here.

The turnout had been small, but still larger than Zak had expected. According to Doyle, Van Rook didn’t really do friends, and the Saturdays were the closest thing he had. That made it even worse that half their guest list hadn’t really shown up for him . Doctor Grey and Doctor Cheechoo had accompanied them out of what seemed to be courtesy, and as for Ulraj and Wadi, Zak was pretty sure his parents had only invited them because of Zak.

A hand plopped onto his knee. Zak looked down at it, then up at its owner, seeing how Wadi’s smile had faded away. Her eyebrows were caught together and her lips were pursed in a small frown.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, voice softer than when she’d been teasing Ulraj.

Zak looked away, down at the ground in front of him. He fiddled with a blade of grass, rolling it between his fingers as he contemplated tearing it from the ground.

“I dunno,” he said. “I feel like. . . like I should be feeling more. Van Rook. . . he saved mom’s life. He died saving her life. It’s thanks to him that she’s still alive, and I feel grateful, but that’s not. . .”

Not enough. Not for this. Not for the fact that Van Rook was in the ground right now.

Ulraj shifted slightly beside him.

“I understand how you feel,” he said. “In my short time as king, Kumari Kandem has seen more conflict than in the last hundred years. I have attended the funerals of those who gave their lives to protect our kingdom, and each time I felt as if my mourning was not adequate.”

Zak nodded. “It’s not like I’m not sad. It’s just. . .”

“You did not know him that well,” Wadi finished for him. Zak nodded again.

“I mean, most of the time he was on our side he spent with Uncle Doyle. He was my enemy, then not my enemy, and then I kind of started to get to know him and now he’s. . . gone.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Ulraj spoke.

“My people have a proverb– the anglerfish does not seek out more light. It’s about being content with what you have, but I think it applies here as well. You, Zak Saturday, carry a small light– that is to say, you have the emotions you have. To seek out more light– more feelings, different feelings– would require you to be a fundamentally different creature. A stingray, perhaps, or a basking shark. Something adapted to the shallows.”

Ulraj paused.

“Sorry, spooked my school of thought. The point is, you cannot change the emotions you have, you can only accept them.”

Zak thought about that. He plucked the blade of grass from the ground, folding it in half before running his nail along the inside of the seam. The point easily split the fibers, and When Zak opened his hand again two shorter pieces of grass fluttered back to the patchy carpet beneath him.

A hand appeared in his line of sight– Wadi offering him a fresh blade. She had a line of long green strands lined up on her leg, seemingly awaiting Zak’s destruction. A small smile touched his face as he took the blade of grass from her.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “It just doesn’t make it stink any less.”

“Oh, it reeks abysmally,” Ulraj agreed. Zak’s gaze strayed back to the cluster of adults, and Ulraj seemed to take notice.

“Would you like to join them?” he asked. “I’m sure they could not object. Or, if you require something more covert, I have excellent hearing. I’m certain I could relay their conversation if the two of you held your breath while I listened.”

Zak snorted.

“That’s okay,” he said, “If anything important comes up, my parents will tell me, but they’re just discussing the report. I think it’ll go a little more smoothly if I’m not there. Besides, I. . . I’d rather just hang out with you guys right now.”

He didn’t have any complicated feelings about Ulraj and Wadi. Well, he did, but they were the normal kind of complicated feelings, the kind that had nothing to do with them, say, hunting him across the globe. Zak didn’t have to watch what he said in front of them, no more than with anyone else. Sure, they’d tease him if he said something stupid, but they wouldn’t think he was a monster. They’d proven that by now.

He held out his hand to Wadi for another blade of grass. She blinked at him, seemingly confused because he hadn’t destroyed the first one yet, but understanding dawned in her eyes when he started knotting the two together. His dad had shown him how to make a flower crown once, he figured he could do something smaller but similar with these.

“We like hanging out with you too, Zak Saturday,” Wadi said.

Ulraj cleared his throat.

“I can speak for myself, thank you! But. . . she is right, I do enjoy your company. It is a shame we will be returning home soon.”

“You know you’re welcome here whenever, right?” Zak asked. “I mean, now that we have a house again, we can hang out whenever we want.”

“True,” Wadi agreed, “But not all of us possess high-speed aircraft capable of transporting us vast distances in a matter of minutes. We will still be needing rides.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ulraj said, “I have a fleet of ships at my command, and the Saturday estate is quite close to the ocean!”

“We also have an underwater docking area at the base of the cliff, one that connects right to the house,” Zak said. Ulraj puffed himself up, but deflated slightly at Zak’s next words. “So. . . you’re volunteering to pick Wadi up next time?”

“Very chivalrous,” Wadi agreed, a grin on her face. “You are certainly showing us the merits of your etiquette training!”

“I take everything back,” Ulraj said, “I dispise you both.”

Fisk took that opportunity to swing out of the treeline behind them, skidding down the hill and coming to a stop just before running into Zak. It honestly startled Zak a little bit. It was strange not feeling the friendly buzz of Fisk’s presence in the back of his mind, picking up on that hum of I’m here with the Kur power. His siblings had stuck out for their familiarity, easy to sense even when he wasn’t trying, and there had been a lot of nights on the airship where Zak had been lulled to sleep by the gentle brush of their minds against his own. It was going to take some getting used to, not feeling that.

That was one of the things Zak was going to miss.

Of course, not being chock-full of an ancient evil made up for that. Zak turned to face Fiskerton, smiling. Fisk had changed out of his suit on the ride back– he loved dressing up, but long-term the clothes did not agree with his fur– and he had a few twigs and leaves sticking out of his coat. He sat down heavily behind Zak, shaking himself and dislodging a few of the larger bits of debris, then started eagerly chittering away at him.

“Kusa-asa-wa,” he said. They even fixed Zon’s nest!

“That’s great!” Zak said. “I was a little worried she’d have to sleep inside for a bit. Where’s Komodo?”

“Shwee-ah.” Found his favorite sun rock again.

“Ah. We’re never getting him back, then.”

“Amba.” Goodbye forever.

Fisk twiddled his fingers in a joking wave, a grin spread liberally over his face. Then he caught sight of the half-finished grass circlet in Zak’s hands, and his brows tipped upward in interest.

Zak held it up for closer inspection. “It’s like those crowns dad taught us to make. You want one?”

Fisk’s fine motor control wasn’t something to be scoffed at. His hands might be slightly different than a human’s, but they were unmistakably hands, and they had all the same delicacy and range of motion as Zak and his parents’. He’d been able to weave a flower crown together no problem, and had spent the rest of that afternoon attempting to ambush Komodo with various floral accoutrements. Komodo had been having none of it.

Still, Fisk’s hands were much larger than Zak’s, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to manipulate strands of grass as easily as he’d worked with larger, tougher wildflowers. Zak didn’t want him to frustrate himself trying, and besides. These things were always better when they were given to you by someone else.

Ulraj cleared his throat.

“If anyone here is being gifted a crown,” he began in that haughty tone of voice that made it hard to tell if he was joking or not, “I think it is only logical that I would be first.”

“I’m not making a full crown,” Zak said, accepting another blade of grass from Wadi and looping it into the strand. “I could, I guess, but I was thinking maybe a bracelet?”

Fisk nudged him and pointed at Wadi.

“Husa–kuwada na ah,” he said. She can have the first one, she got the grass.

“You’re right, Fisk,” Zak said, and he attempted to match Ulraj’s imperious tone. “Wadi, for your work as K– as my loyal assistant, you shall be gifted the first bracelet!”

For a moment, there was something in Wadi’s eyes that looked almost sad, but then she blinked and it was gone. She held one hand demurely to her lips and offered the other to Zak, fluttering her eyelashes as he fastened the string of woven grass around her wrist.

“Oh, mister Saturday! To think that I am worthy of such a treasure!” she gushed, clearly trying to stifle giggles.

There was a ripping sound to Zak’s left, and he turned to see Ulraj tearing twin handfuls or grass from the ground.

“If all you wanted was grass, you should have told me!” He said, “I’m more than happy to provide, Zak Saturday!”

And so saying, he tossed both handfuls into Zak’s face. Zak sputtered, hands coming up instinctively to try to block the fluttery, ineffective projectiles. He wasn’t fast enough, and he began to spit as the grass found its way into his mouth.

“You’re dead to me!” he informed Ulraj, in a way that was both cool and not even slightly high-pitched as he continued to hack and gag.

There was the feeling of something landing in his hair, many small somethings, and he looked up to see Fisk’s empty hands held open above him and his innocent expression even further above that.

“Wadi,” Zak said calmly, “Did he just–”

“Yes,” Wadi said with matching solemnity, “I suspect this means we must wage war.”

Freeze tag could be turned absolutely brutal when you were playing with custom rules and four trained fighters. They settled on a few main restrictions. Rule one, players could only be frozen with a hand to the back. Two, weapons were fair play, meaning an attempt to freeze someone could quickly turn into a brawl– especially when trying to sneak up on Ulraj and his shark-sense. They’d elected to use the woods for the game rather than the house, meaning they had no way to barricade themselves inside somewhere but they did have plenty of hiding places. Zak regretted that a little when he realized that, not only were the trees Fisk’s natural territory, but he also no longer had the advance warning of his presence in the back of his mind to let him know when a massive hand was going to take a swing at his back. Still, he and Wadi held their own, and by the time his parents were calling them back a few hours later they’d all been forced to call it a tense draw.

Doctors Grey and Cheechoo hadn’t left yet, despite the sunset staining the sky with streaks of pink and gold. The grown-ups had fallen out of their tense discussion huddle, and they were all turning expectant looks his way when he, Wadi, Ulraj, and Fisk emerged from between the trees.

“Looks like you had fun,” mom said, reaching a hand towards Zak’s hair. He expected her to ruffle it, but instead she withdrew a leaf and let it flutter to the ground.

Zak gave her his most winning smile. “I knew that was there.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, unimpressed. “You’ve got grass in there too, kiddo. You’re in for a bath tonight.”

Zak groaned.

“I see you haven’t changed since the last time I got roped into babysitting,” Doctor Cheechoo said. He was smiling. Something twisted in Zak’s chest, something painful. He swallowed, trying to keep it down.

“Yeah,” he said, smothering his tone in careful nonchalance. “Did you guys have a good talk?”

“Your parents caught us up on all the relevant details,” Doctor Grey said with a nod. “Paul and I can field any inquiries the other scientists may have, at least until our next official meeting. Though we have no real way of knowing when that will be, especially with all of the damage we’ll have to handle in the meantime.”

“Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you were able to get that nasty Kur stuff out of you,” Cheechoo said, letting out a breath, “But it would sure be helpful in clearing out those last few cryptids if we still had someone who could politely ask them to leave.”

Zak’s eyebrows drew together.

“I did. So did Argost. There shouldn’t be any cryptids left near populated areas.”

It wasn’t like he’d just taken Argost’s word for it either; he’d had the other army’s retreat varified through the eyes of his own. It’d given him a headache, having that many consciousnesses jammed into his skull, and he hadn’t thought he’d be able to handle it– but it’d helped that he wasn’t actually controlling them. Not really. Every cryptid who’d joined him had joined willingly, and Zak’s role had been more coordinator than commander. Argost, at the end of everything, had seemed to be having way more trouble than Zak was. He didn’t know if that was because he’d been born with his powers, or if Argost’s cryptids had been struggling against him, fighting to– if not abandon the war entirely– then at least act on their instincts rather than their orders. To be creatures instead of soldiers.

Cheechoo shrugged. Doctor Grey ran a hand through her messy hair, teasing it back behind her ears and giving Zak a wry twist of her mouth that didn’t really qualify as a smile.

“We both dug through the reports from the other secret scientists after our call this morning. The cryptids left, yes, but. . . some of them found their way back. Particularly the ones with more animalistic intelligence, apparently.”

Zak swallowed hard.

He could see that happening. Should have seen that happening. Being brought to the front lines would’ve given any cryptids who didn’t previously know where to find humans an easy trail to follow, and in the glimpses he’d caught of Argost’s army he’d seen things he’d never even heard of before. Beings that sparked an instinctive fear in the cryptids viewing them, even as their minds failed to supply Zak with anything approximating a name.

Nameless creatures he didn’t want anywhere near humans.

His words were rushed, stumbling over each other as they poured out of his mouth. Fisk gave an anxious rumble, running under Zak’s voice. “Well– we gotta go stop them, direct them back to their natural habitats. Why didn’t you say something earlier, we could already be there–“

A hand landed on his shoulder, broad and warm, and Zak looked up into his father’s face. His smile was as warm as his touch, but there was something around his eye that seemed sad.

“Zak,” he said, voice soft, “I love that you want to help. I do. And it’s true that we are the experts here, but we’re also only one family. We can only do so much. Without your powers, you’re going to have to learn a whole different way of handling cryptids, and these incidents are happening now . You need to recover before you can even consider going back into the field, and if you think for even a second that your mother and I would leave you right now, I’m going to have to check you for brain damage again.”

Zak was quiet for a moment, his heart sinking slowly through the bottom of his rib cage and settling low in his gut. He blinked once, twice, as realization spread over him.

He cut a hurt look from his dad to his mom, mouth twisting up in an injured line.

“You already discussed this,” he accused, “ Without me.”

Cheechoo shifted in the corner of Zak’s eye, looking away.

“Awkward,” he breathed, sing-song. Zak fiercely ignored him, focusing on his parents.

It was his uncle who spoke first.

“Don’t be too hard on them, mini-man,” Doyle said. He folded his arms, then seemed to think better of it and unfolded them again, jamming his hands into his pockets. The butterfly bandage on his cheek pulled at his skin as he spoke. “It came up while they were talking shop with the wondertwins over here, it’s not like they left you out on purpose.”

“Okay, I can speak for myself, thanks,” Mom said, rolling her eyes, but when her gaze landed on Zak her expression softened. “But it is true. We all need to rest before going back to work, and we’ll be more help consulting from home than unreachable in the middle of a capture. Besides, we’re not even the ones that made the call.”

“You’re damn right you’re not,” Cheechoo piped up with a broad grin, as if he hadn’t just been doing his best to blend into the side of the house. He bumped his shoulder against Doctor Grey’s, and Zak watched her do something interesting with her face. It looked a bit like she was trying not to sneeze, though in this case, the sneeze was probably flipping Cheechoo into the dirt. “You Saturdays need to take a load off. Get some R n’ R. Let someone else handle clean-up after you saved the world.”

“You couldn’t even handle the revolving beast,” Zak muttered, petulant even to his own ears, and the hand on his shoulder gave a gentle squeeze.

“It’s alright, Zak,” Dad said. “They’ll have us to advise them, and if worst comes to worst, they can evacuate the area and wait until we’re recovered enough to come in person.”

“But what if they get hurt?” Zak asked. “What if the cryptids get hurt? Most of them are probably just confused and scared; it’s not their fault that Argost dragged them out of hiding.”

“Hey, show a little faith,” Cheechoo said, sounding mildly affronted. “I’m still a conservationist, and all the secret scientists know the importance of preservation.”

“I can’t imagine why that might be difficult for him to believe,” Grey said dryly. Cheechoo waved a hand.

“Miranda, you’re killing me here.”

“Excuse me,” Ulraj said from just behind Zak, nearly making him jump. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten Ulraj was there, it was that last he’d looked he hadn’t been less than a foot away. Personal space was a concept Ulraj applied inconsistently at best.

“I believe I may be able to put your mind somewhat at rest,” Ulraj continued, looking directly at Zak even as he addressed the group. His deep pink eyes were steady. “Kumari Kandem is still quite close to one of the major battlegrounds, and my people have experience with many creatures beyond surface-dwellers’ knowledge. Present company partially excluded.”

“Joy of joys,” Wadi muttered.

“So,” Ulraj continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “We shall offer our aid if it is needed. Your scientists can handle any necessary interactions with the locals, and if they require a more experienced hand, I can send small teams to assist them.”

Zak hesitated.

“That’s not a bad compromise,” his father said, squeezing his shoulder again. “What do you think, kiddo?”

“I don’t want your people to get hurt,” Zak said, eyebrows catching together as he looked at his friend. Ulraj smiled at him, a bittersweet smile Zak remembered from the handful of times they’d talked about the previous king. Pain, and an unmistakable fondness.

“And I will say the same thing I told you when you first called to tell us of Argost’s army,” Ulraj said. “Kumari Kandam spent centuries in isolation before conflict sought us out. We cannot hide from harm, and even if we could, to simply stand by while others suffer is no longer something we can abide by. If you would bid us to rest in safety, Zak Saturday, then surely you must understand that I wish the same for you.”

There was a long silence. Zak searched Ulraj’s eyes, looking for any trace of hesitance he could latch onto, could use to turn his argument back on itself. But those steady pink pools gave him nothing, and Zak’s shoulders sagged as he realized Ulraj was serious.

“Well, he’s got you there,” Cheechoo said cheerfully. He bumped his shoulder against Doyle’s this time, and a muscle twitched in Zak’s uncle’s jaw.

“That’s not fair,” Zak said, but his heart wasn’t in it, and the last of his stubbornness reserves melted away as Ulraj pulled him into a hug. The prince patted his back, and leaned his cool cheek against’s Zak’s.

“I know,” he agreed. “But I am willing to fight dirty if it forces you to care for yourself.”

He drew back, hands lingering on Zak’s upper arms, and he gave them a squeeze before letting them drop away entirely.

“Now,” he said, in his regal no arguing with the king voice, “I believe I shall take this proposal to your secret scientists.”

He turned to doctors Grey and Cheecho, giving them a broad smile.

“Which one of you would like the honor of escorting me?”

Grey and Cheecho exchanged a look.

“I mean, I did drive us here,” Cheecho said, “But unless you’re planning on a week-long road-trip back to where you parked your city I don’t think we’re your best option.”

“Besides,” Grey added, “There’s no advantage to you making the call from my lab. We’re all staying in contact digitally at the moment, we can just pass your proposal along and keep you updated.”

“Ah,” Ulraj said, deflating slightly. He stiffened again when Wadi punched his shoulder, leaving Zak snickering as he muttered something under his breath and rubbed the injured area.

“You were looking forward to making a speech, weren’t you?” Wadi asked.

Ulraj, despite not having a nose, sniffed. “I like speeches.”

“Uh-huh,” Wadi said, unimpressed but amused. She smiled at Zak over Ulraj’s shoulder, and Zak felt something flutter in his stomach. “So this would have nothing to do with being able to address the society who has been so unfair to our friend?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ulraj said. “A king would never be so petty.”

“So you admit it's petty,” Zak said, grinning, and the look Ulraj shot him made him laugh out loud.

“You’ve got some good friends,” his father said hours later, as they all climbed out of the airship for what would hopefully be the last time that day. They’d been back and forth, from the house to Kumari Kandem to the meeting spot agreed on by the Hassi, and if they hadn’t been the only ones in the group with an aircraft capable of picking everyone up for Van Rook’s funeral it would’ve been a lot more efficient to just say meet us there and let everyone work things out themselves. As it was, though, Zak was happy to have been able to spend a bit more time with Ulraj and Wadi as they flew them back to their respective homes. He was just as happy to be able to crawl into bed after such a long day. A bed in his own room, his old room, even if Doctor Grey had told him that not everything would be as he’d left it. Some things were irreplaceable, and impossible for even her to repair.

Zak gave his father a tired smile.

“Yeah,” he said, “I really do.”

They picked their way along the path to the front door, the house looming silent and dark before them. Zak was reminded, viscerally, of arriving back home after weeks-long excursions into uncharted territories. Even back when he hadn’t been allowed to interact directly with most cryptids, he’d still managed to get elbow-deep into every other part of his parents’ work. If one of them stumbled through the door reeking of Algerian Sea Centipede musk, they all did, Zak included. He wasn’t necessarily a huge fan of the more boring parts of research, but being brought on those expeditions had given him a love for different places. Different people. Different species.

And a real appreciation for the places he could call home.

“Think it’s gonna look okay inside?” Doyle asked. “I mean, reassembling the place like the world’s biggest jigsaw can’t have been flawless. At the very least I’m thinking you might need some new paint.”

“We’ll just have to see,” Mom said. “Though frankly I’m more interested in how Paul handled my greenhouse.”

Dad opened the front door, and it swung inwards on silent hinges. Zak sniffed the air, but didn’t smell anything like fresh paint or wood polish. He wondered if his sense of smell was going to get worse now, or if he’d get to keep his slightly heightened senses.

Mom flicked on the hallway light on the way in, and Zak toed off his shoes beside the door before his brain had fully caught up with his muscle memory. He glanced down. His family had always kept a mat here to put their shoes on, in case they tracked in anything particularly oozy or wet from the outdoors. It hadn’t been anything special, just a plain brown rectangle of fabric, but seeing his shoes sitting on bare tile made Zak’s stomach twist. The entryway was surface-level, and the mat had been cloth, meaning it had probably gotten wrecked by the elements in the time they’d been gone. And Doctor Grey, familiar with the Saturday decor only in broad strokes, hadn’t known to replace it.

As Zak stared silently at the floor, Komodo wound between his legs, nearly bowling him over. It was enough to bring him back to the present moment, and the conversation going on around him.

“–have to see what kind of couch she popped into the living room,” Doyle was saying. “Because if it’s nice I’ll crash in there and if the back support’s not where I need it I’m heading back to the airship.”

“You can stay in my room,” Zak said, more out of habit than anything else. There was a part of him that thought back to seeing his uncle at the foot of his bed this morning and still felt vaguely sick with guilt, and another that. . . really liked the thought of having someone nearby tonight.

“No thanks. I remember how jealous the gorilla got, and I’m not into spending the night roughing it outdoors in the name of equal uncle time.”

Fisk made an offended sound, and Zak patted his arm on his way by. His fur was warm to the touch.

“You did get pretty pushy about it, Fisk,” he said, making his way down the hallway. He passed by the entry to the living room, Doyle close behind, and glanced inside.

He froze.

A shadowy figure reclined on the bulky silhouette of the couch, just barely illuminated by the light from up the hall. Before Zak knew what was happening, Doyle had thrown an arm in front of him, putting himself between Zak and the living room. His parents’ casual chatter cut off behind them.

“What is it?” Dad asked, voice tight as a bowstring.

There was an annoyed huff from the living room.

“Finally,” Francis said, leaning into the light. “I was starting to think you would never return.”

Chapter Text

Zak said a word he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to know and the hand Doyle had thrown in front of him came up to clamp firmly over his mouth.

“What was that?” Mom asked, voice sharp.

“Nothing,” Doyle said quickly, “We’ve, uh. . . we’ve got a guest.”

Fisk growled, low and nasty and threatened, and Francis rolled his eyes. It was a gesture made more of body language than anything else; a tilt of his head and an exasperated scoff that conveyed what his sunglasses hid. Sunglasses that looked. . . very unlike his usual pair. More like the cheap kind you could pick up in a New York corner store.

Zak ducked out from beneath Doyle’s hand, slapping blindly at the wall and feeling quietly self-satisfied when he hit the light switch on his first try. The overheads flicked on just as his parents drew up behind them, and Zak could hear the tell-tale sound of claws on hardwood that meant the commotion had Komodo circling back.

Zak squinted at the figure seated on the couch.

Francis looked. . . different.

There had always been something clinical about the way he dressed. Sterile. Like the person who’d picked out his clothes had been banned from meeting him in order to avoid contaminating the study. He dressed like an adult– one specific adult– and even before finding out the true nature of his and Epsilon’s relationship, Zak had been a little creeped out by the matching outfits. Francis would probably call him a hypocrite for that; but there was a difference between Zak’s family wearing blaze orange for practical reasons and Francis being decked out in full mini-me.

Zak hadn’t thought he’d ever see Francis in anything other than his uniform, so this outfit was. . . surprising. Francis was wearing jeans, for Pete’s sake, jeans and a hoodie and a t-shirt with Bulbasaur on it. Bulbasaur. Zak squinted at the text emblazoned under the Pokémon– be-leaf in yourself– and tried to figure out if he’d fallen asleep on the ride home without realizing it. This couldn’t be real. He had to be dreaming.

“Nice hair,” Doyle said, and Zak tore his gaze away from Francis’s shirt with some effort.

That was another major change. Francis’s pale green pixie cut was gone, hair buzzed short and dyed a soft honey-brown. As Zak watched, a muscle in Francis’s cheek twitched.

“It’s temporary,” Francis said, voice stony. “It’ll wash out with my next shower.”

“What are you doing here?” Zak exploded, finding his tongue. “You– you’re in my house!”

“As always,” Francis drawled, “Your powers of observation are astounding. How us normal humans manage without magic fire eyes is beyond me.”

Zak made a noise not dissimilar to Fisk’s growl, and felt a hand land on his shoulder. He glanced up to see his mother just behind him, lips pursed in a thin line.

“Alright, alright,” she said, “Let’s all take a deep breath, okay? Francis, answer the question. What are you doing here?”

Francis didn’t speak for a moment, looking back at the gathered Saturdays with an inscrutable expression. Zak felt something nudge at his inner calf, heard the quiet rasp of scales, and knew without looking that Komodo had just wormed his way to the front of the pack. He tilted his heel inwards slightly and was gratified when his brother pressed back against his leg, a comforting gesture that took no words at all. Like the hand on his shoulder, it steadied him slightly, and at the very least kept him from decking Francis here and now.

Eventually, after what felt like enough time that Zak could’ve marathoned the entirety of Weird World, Francis let out a breath. His shoulders slumped and his gaze slid away, face tilting down towards the floor.

“Trust me,” he said, “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be.”

“So your people sent you,” Zak concluded– not that he’d expected anything else. He was about to ask for more detail when Francis cut that line of questioning off with a harsh, humorless burst of laughter.

“They most definitely did not,” he said. “Do you think I’d be dressed like this if I was here in an official capacity? No, I–“

He broke off. Zak watched his throat work as he swallowed.

“I’m here because it’s the last place anyone would think to look for me.”

Zak stared.

Francis’s words took a moment to settle in his brain, to fit into something that made sense. If Francis didn’t want to be found, that meant someone was looking for him. If his people didn’t send him, that meant. . .

Mom inhaled sharply above him, a subdued gasp.

“You ran away?” Zak asked, incredulous. 

“If you want to put it in the most childish way possible, yes,” Francis said, “I ran away.”

“Francis. . .” Dad said, tone softer than it should have been, and Zak shot him an incredulous look. He couldn’t be buying this, could he?

If the look Dad and Mom were sharing was any indication, at least some level of consideration was being put on Francis’s words. Doyle shifted beside them, folding his arms, but didn’t say anything. His eyes were locked on Francis. Zak was pretty sure he hadn’t looked away since they’d first noticed him.

Dad took a deep breath.

“This. . . is going to be a big conversation,” he said. “It’s very late. All of us are tired. I’m not sure we’re prepared to have this conversation right now.”

“Do we want some coffee and coco?” Mom asked. “That might help.”

“I don’t think Miranda stocked the kitchen or anything, we’ll have to go back out to the airship if we want drinks.”

“Ugh, seriously?” Doyle asked, finally tearing his gaze away from Francis. “That settles it, I’m sleeping in there. If I’m more than twenty yards away from coffee tomorrow morning I might slip into hibernation.”

“I could just grab some now,” Mom said, sounding bemused. “I mean, if I’m heading over there anyway. . .”

“That really isn’t necessary,” Francis tried, but he looked like he’d just noticed an avalanche hurtling towards him and was fully aware that talking it down wasn’t an option. If Zak wasn’t currently filled with the same kind of frozen terror, he might’ve laughed. Instead, he just heaved a sigh, taking a seat on the couch opposite Francis. Doyle followed suit a moment later, and Komodo elected to crawl onto his lap. Doyle didn’t protest.

“Nonsense,” Mom told Francis, already turning to head out of the room. “You’re a guest. Boys, play nice. Fisk, can you help Doc and I carry the drinks?”

Fisk chattered agreement, but didn’t leave just yet. He made direct eye contact with Francis instead and pointed between them in the universal I’m watching you gesture. Francis looked unimpressed.

“I’ll be fine, buddy,” Zak said. It was Fisk’s turn to look unimpressed now, but he followed Zak’s parents out of the room all the same.

The living room fell silent.

“. . .we all should’ve just offered to go with them,” Doyle muttered.

What followed was a frankly unbearable twenty minutes. Zak didn’t want to ask any questions before his parents got back and Francis didn’t seem to care about making small talk, leaving the four of them to look around at each other with open suspicion and nothing to do with it. By the time the sound of footsteps began approaching the living room again Zak was teetering on the edge of asking Doyle if he knew how to waterboard someone.

He wouldn’t really do it. It was just.

Francis.

Mom swept back into the living room, followed closely by Dad and Fisk. Mom and Fisk were each balancing three steaming mugs; Dad a tray of cookies that he carefully set down on the coffee table. Fisk made a beeline over to the couch where Doyle and Zak were seated, offering a mug to each of them– coffee for Doyle, hot chocolate for Zak.

“Alright,” Mom said brightly, pressing one of her mugs into Dad’s now-free hands. She set the other down on the coffee table in front of Francis, giving him a warm smile that Zak could say with near-certainty he didn’t deserve, and leaned back against the arm of the couch.

“Let’s go over this again,” she said.

Francis made a face, mouth twisting in a moody line as he stared down at the drink in front of him.

“I really don’t see why you thought this would be helpful,” he muttered.

“Most people would just say thank you,” Zak said, and though he still couldn’t see Francis’s eyes he was pretty sure that was a glare that was being leveled at him.

“I didn’t ask for refreshments,” he snapped, “And this completely derailed our conversation! I don’t see why I should have to communicate gratitude for–”

“Boys, boys,” Dad said, raising the hand not holding his mug in a placating gesture. He’d taken up residence on the living room’s new armchair, and it hadn’t escaped Zak’s notice that that put him squarely between his and Francis’s couches. He wasn’t sure what that meant. Did Dad think they were going to start a physical fight, or did he just want to be out of the direct shouting line?

“I understand tensions are high here. We’ve had a. . . long day, and Francis has had a long trip. Let’s all just take a deep breath and talk this out.”

Zak clenched his jaw, but did as he was told. Breath in. Breath out. Francis didn’t appear to be taking Dad’s advice, but he at least stayed silent for a long moment, staring back at Zak before breaking eye contact to pick up his mug. It was one of Dad’s, Zak noted, the one with the atomic structure of caffeine printed on the front.

He took another deep breath and swallowed the nasty possessiveness that lurched up his throat. It left a nasty aftertaste, so he followed it with a sip of hot coco.

“Well,” Francis began, staring down into his drink, “As Zak said, I ran away from home. The chaos caused by Zak’s mishandling of the Argost situation provided the perfect opportunity, as my people were far too busy with damage control to notice my absence. I’ve been waiting for an opening like this for. . . a while now. I had to capitalize on it while I could.”

Mishandling. Great. Nice. Francis was as charming as ever.

“But why come here? ” Zak asked once again, only barely keeping his tone civil. Francis glanced up at him for the briefest of moments before returning his attention to his drink, giving it a sniff that seemed aggressively scientific before scrunching up his nose in distaste.

Fisk chittered, and Francis gave him a blank look, setting his mug back down with a soft clink.

“What,” he asked, voice so flat it was barely a question. Zak heaved a sigh. It wasn’t unusual for him to have to translate for his brother– even the Saturdays sometimes had trouble parsing out his speech, forget strangers who weren’t used to the mild touch of psychoferry around his words. He didn’t usually feel this irritated by having to interpret, though.

“He pointed out that your people are already watching us. Everyone has a file and all that? Remember? You could’ve disappeared into any random place you wanted, coming here doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

Unless you’re here to spy on us, Zak thought, but didn’t say. Not out of politeness, but because he could tell from the looks being exchanged between the Saturdays in the room that they were all thinking it already.

Francis surprised him by making an unexpectedly vulnerable move– he drew his legs up onto the couch, wrapping his arms around his knees and leaning his chin against his hand. It made him look very small, a tiny blot of color against the brand-new white couch, and Zak realized abruptly that his uniform had made him look a lot bigger than he really was. Zak had known from their fights that Francis was lighter than he should be, but he hadn’t realized just how much that trench coat had bulked out his figure. Without it, Francis seemed. . . oddly fragile.

Zak swallowed, then hurriedly took another sip of his coco. Nope. No. He was not feeling bad for Francis. He was probably just playing them, pretending to be a harmless little kid to get them to let their guards down. Zak wasn’t falling for it. Not even if they’d left their last meeting with a. . . weird sort of understanding between them.

“You misunderstand,” Francis said. “To my knowledge, the Saturday estate was still in ruins, and was likely to remain so for some time. Due to the depth at which the below-ground section is located, my people are unable to scan it from orbit, and rely on sporadic satellite photography that only captures the view from above. It would have been easy enough for me to sneak inside, and once there, I would have been able to make camp for a while while I sorted out where to go next. I wasn’t anticipating the. . . increased scrutiny your presence will bring, and I certainly wasn’t anticipating that your home would be miraculously rebuilt when I arrived. I thought I had found a location under just enough surveillance that my people would not suspect anyone hiding under their noses, but. . .”

Francis trailed off.

That. . . did make a kind of sense. Dad had suspected the Secret Scientists might have stationed someone here to watch for them; Francis’s people putting a satellite on the job fit just as well. As far as hiding in plain sight went, it wasn’t a bad plan, and the few people who knew how much Francis disliked Zak wouldn’t think he’d go running to anywhere he was likely to show up.

There was just one problem.

“Why not turn back when you saw the house had been humpty-dumptied?” Doyle asked, putting words to Zak’s suspicion. “You knew we’d be coming back, and bringing all that scrutiny with us.”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice at that point,” Francis said quietly. “Doctors Cheechoo and Grey showed up just after I did, and I was barely able to hide in time. I couldn’t risk them relaying my whereabouts and I was. . . tired. After my journey. So I waited in here for your return.”

There was a pause. Mom was still leaning against the couch, just a few feet from where Francis was curled up into that too-tiny ball, and she reached out towards him with one hand before seeming to think better of it and drawing it back.

“Francis,” she said slowly, seeming to weigh each word before she spoke it. “Why did you decide to run away? Your father must be very worried about you.”

Francis stiffened. He looked up, eyes catching Zak’s for the briefest of moments, and Zak was pretty sure he was the only one in the room who caught the brief hesitation before he spoke.

“You won’t tell him where I am, will you?” he asked. “My. . . father. I don’t want to work with my– our–”

Francis paused. Swallowed.

“His people anymore. I’m not asking you to harbor me. I’m only asking for your silence. I can be gone by tomorrow, once I’ve re-evaluated my plan.”

His pale fingers dug into the fabric of his sleeve where his arms were crossed over each other. He wasn’t looking at Zak anymore, once again staring down his untouched drink. Zak remembered the way he’d looked during that first encounter, when everything was going sideways, Epsilon unconscious and Francis absorbed in his handheld. That single-minded focus didn’t seem too different from now, and Zak wondered what that meant. Back then, Mom had called it a coping mechanism, and Zak had written it off when he’d found out Francis was faking the whole thing. Now. . . now he wasn’t sure. Francis had feelings, no matter how deeply he tried to bury them, and maybe there was something to his coping mechanism too. Maybe Francis focused on whatever was in front of him in order to ignore what was going on inside, like the perfect agent he was supposed to be.

Mom and Dad were exchanging a look. Zak glanced between them, catching his mom’s slight nod, and when Dad returned the gesture Zak knew exactly what decision they’d come to.

“We’re not going to contact your father without your permission,” Dad said, “And we’re not going to kick you out, either. It’s late. We should all get some sleep. We can make plans in the morning, but for now. . . do you have any pajamas with you?”

Francis didn’t move for a moment. Then he shook his head.

“You can borrow some of Zak’s,” Dad said.

“What?” Zak asked. “Wait. I don’t even think we’re the same size.”

“It’s just for tonight, Zak,” Mom said. “Your uncle’s taking the couch, so if it’s alright with the two of you, Francis can stay in your room.”

Zak looked over at Francis, who was mirroring his expression of muted horror. It was one of the few times in their acquaintanceship that Zak felt like they were definitely on the same page.

“There are two couches,” Zak said.

“Yes, it hardly seems necessary,” Francis added, nodding vigorously.

“Totally not necessary,” Zak agreed, holding up his hands.

“Your hospitality has already been so. . . hospitable,” Francis said, gesturing towards his untouched mug of coco and the tray of cookies on the table, “I couldn’t possibly impose any further.”

It said something about Francis that the biggest flag that that was a load of crap was the implication that Francis was ever even slightly concerned about being polite.

Mom’s eyes swept over mug and cookies alike, and she hummed low in the back of her throat, a hand coming to her chin.

“Mm, yeah, speaking of,” she said, “When’s the last time you ate? Do you need us to make you something else? Something more. . . substantial?”

Zak realized, then, that he’d never actually seen Francis eat or drink anything. Not tonight, and definitely not during any of their past encounters. It hadn’t registered as unusual or anything, considering that every time they’d met they were either fighting each other or something else, but with what Zak now knew about Francis’s origin he wondered if the guy even. . . needed to. His people could’ve tinkered around with his genetics, improving their already perfect agent, and if Francis’s naturally green hair was any indication there were some quirks to the cloning process. Maybe he ran on solar power or something. It wasn’t impossible.

Francis was already shaking his head in response to Mom’s question.

“I’m alright,” he said, “I already ate. Like I said, I thought this place was going to be in shambles. I brought supplies with me.”

“Alright,” Dad said, “But let us know if you want anything. Anything at all.”

“A shower?” Francis ventured. His lips twisted and his gaze dropped to the floor. “I’ve been. . . on and off public transportation for the past few days. The masses are disgusting.”

“Ah, I remember my first time on a subway,” Doyle said with a wry smile. “Saw a man pick gum out from under a seat like he was pulling it out of a wrapper. Fastest way to lose faith in humanity.”

Francis shuddered.

“I can show you where the bathroom is,” Zak said. “And get you a towel with the PJs. I’m not sure if there’s soap and stuff in there right now? But if there isn’t you could probably just. . . use the shower in the airship?”

He looked towards his parents, voice pitching up as he asked for their approval, and received a nod from his father in response.

“On that note,” Mom said, raising an eyebrow at him, and Zak was abruptly reminded that she’d threatened him with a bath after his game of tag earlier. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to remember, instead continuing with, “You need to brush your teeth after you’re done with your hot coco.”

Zak groaned, though it was halfhearted.

“I brushed them after dinner, though!”

“And now you’ve had sweets, so you need to brush them again. Especially if you’re planning on having a cookie with that drink or yours.”

Zak grumbled into his mug, but didn’t protest further. Over the rim of his cup, he caught Francis looking his way, expression unreadable. Zak blinked, then glared down into his drink, breaking the pseudo-eye-contact.

Francis didn’t have a cookie. He didn’t try his coco, either. Instead, he just sat there on the couch while the Saturdays finished their drinks, watching Zak’s family. Fisk volunteered to bring everyone’s mugs to the kitchen once they were done, and took the now-empty cookie tray with him as well– Zak had had two, ultimately, and Fiskerton six– but he left Francis’s mug where it was. Zak wondered how long it was going to sit there. It wasn’t like Francis was going to put it in the dishwasher.

“Come on,” Zak said, hopping off the couch. Francis just looked at him, unmoving, and Zak found himself clarifying despite being unsure if Francis even needed him to. “We can go see if the house shower has soap.”

Francis unspooled, hands bracing against the couch cushions as his feet found the floor again. He stood, bare feet on bare floorboards, and Zak thought again how weird it was to see him out of uniform. Probably not as weird as it was going to be to see him in Zak’s clothes, though.

Francis turned, ducking behind the couch for a moment. He came back up with a backpack in his hands that Zak hadn’t even noticed before, and was now his highest-priority mission to rifle through. He didn’t think Francis would be stupid enough to leave clues in there as to what he was really up to, but hey– no harm trying, right?

“Lead the way,” Francis said, and Zak would’ve expected him to sound resentful but mostly he just sounded. . . quiet. Huh.

Zak turned, heading back into the hallway, and heard a soft thud behind him accompanied by an unhappy sound from Doyle. Claws skittered against the floor and Komodo drew up alongside him, head swiveling to watch Francis as he followed them both. Zak realized, then, with Komodo very blatantly guarding him, that he hadn’t even been concerned about being alone with Francis. Not because he thought he could take the guy– though he totally could– but just because it. . . hadn’t occurred to him to be scared. What did that mean? Was he just distracted? Too tired to worry? Or was he just out of fear at this point, like he’d used it all up on Argost and Kur and– everything?

Come to think of it, his parents had been ready to put Francis alone in the same room with Zak. Overnight. While both of them slept. If he and Francis hadn’t both been violently opposed to the idea–

It was then that Zak realized his parents had just used his and Francis’s mutual hatred to get him to agree to bunk with Doyle, also known as under guard , without arguing.

Oh.

Sometimes it completely blindsided him that his parents were geniuses.

Zak was going to have to think about how he felt about this later.

He flicked on light switches as they made their way deeper into the house. Everything seemed to be working fine, so however Doctor Grey had put the house back together hadn’t disrupted the electrical system. Hopefully the plumbing would be alright too.

“You didn’t tell them.”

Francis’s voice was quiet, but it still startled Zak for the abrupt way it broke the silence between them. He glanced over his shoulder, blinking a couple times as he took in Francis’s posture– head tilted down, eyes apparently on the floor, arms folded in a way that looked more defensive than anything else. He really was so small without that trenchcoat.

It took Zak a second to figure out what he was getting at.

“About– you and Epsilon?”

Francis nodded, just slightly. It was barely a nod at all.

Zak turned back around.

“Of course not,” he said, like it was obvious, even if it definitely hadn’t been. Francis had no way of knowing Zak had kept the clone thing to himself, and no reason to think he would. Zak had been keeping a lot more secrets lately, and most of them had come spilling out in the worst possible way– but not this one. This one, Zak had held on to.

“It’s personal, right?” Zak asked, refusing to look over at Francis again. “So. . . I’m not gonna tell them. Not if you don’t want me to. Not unless it puts them in danger or something.”

“Just like that?” Francis’s voice wasn’t skeptical so much as it was confused. “We. . . we hate each other, though. Why would you care what I want?”

Zak was quiet for a moment.

He thought, even if he lived a hundred years, that he’d never forget the way the Secret Scientists had looked at him after they found out. He knew he couldn’t forget the way they’d treated him since. The way they might still treat him, even now that Kur was gone. Like what he was was all he was and who he was didn’t matter anymore.

“You know us good guys,” Zak said with a shrug. “We’re so predictable.”

They didn’t exchange any more words until they actually reached the bathroom. Zak turned the lights on, and though he noted there was toilet paper stocked up in there– thank gosh, Zak did not want to have to go all the way out to the airship to pee– there wasn’t any shampoo or soap in the shower’s built-in shelf.

“Well,” Zak said, “That answers that.”

Francis let out a breath.

“I suppose I could always try just showering with water,” he said. “I don’t actually want to go back outside.”

“After all that complaining you were doing about the unwashed masses? ” Zak asked, raising his eyebrows. Komodo huffed from somewhere around his knee in the closest thing he had to laughter.

Francis frowned, shifting from foot to foot. He adjusted his backpack strap where he had it slung over his shoulder, fingers playing over the fabric.

“Yes, well,” he said, “I would prefer proper cleaning supplies, but avoiding being captured on satellite is more important. Sneaking in earlier was one thing, but they’ll be watching much more closely now that you’ve arrived. I’d be caught for sure if I actually walked out the front door.”

“Right,” Zak said, then, with dawning comprehension, “Wait. Does that mean you can’t leave the house at all right now? You told my parents you could leave tomorrow morning if we wanted!”

“I wasn’t lying,” Francis snapped, a bit more of his usual jerkiness back in his voice. “I could leave. It wouldn’t be ideal, but I could. I know when shifts change, when the cameras would be least closely monitored– everything is recorded, of course, but I could time it as such that by the time they noticed me in the stills I’d be long gone.”

Zak was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, once again, the same question he’d been asking since Francis showed up, like repeating it would get him a different answer. This time, without any grown-ups in the room, maybe it would.

“Why are you here, Francis? Really.”

Francis let out a breath.

“Is it really so hard to believe I simply wanted my freedom? Surely you of all people can understand that.”

“I mean, sure,” Zak said, “But you– you love that job.”

“Yes, well.” Francis looked away, and Zak watched the corner of his mouth tick downwards. “They made it quite clear that I wasn’t supposed to love anything. It’s not as if they can be surprised by this outcome.”

Zak wasn’t really sure what to say to that. Ultimately, he decided not to say anything, turning on his heel instead and heading back down the hallway with Komodo hot on his heels.

“I’ll go grab you some shampoo and stuff from the airship,” he called over his shoulder. “And a towel and PJs and everything. If you leave the door unlocked I can put them inside for you.”

“Make sure they’re clean,” Francis called after him, and Zak rolled his eyes. “The only thing worse than wearing your clothes would be wearing used ones!”

“He’s such a stuck-up jerk,” Zak muttered to Komodo, and Komodo rumbled in agreement.

He bumped into Fisk on his way out to the airship. His brother looked him up and down with his big red eyes wide and attentive, reaching out to push Zak’s bangs out of his eyes with one hand.

“Haza-ah?” he asked. Are you okay?

“Yeah,” Zak said, and was surprised to find he meant it. Not forever, maybe, but for now– for now he was okay. “Just tired. I gotta grab Francis some soap, and–“

Fisk held his other hand up, showing Zak the bottles and fabric he’d had tucked into the crook of his arm, and Zak couldn’t help his tired grin.

“You’re the best, Fisk.”

Fisk gave a self-satisfied churr and dropped the bundle into Zak’s arms. He’d grabbed one of Zak’s least favorite sets of pajamas, an oversized NASA-themed pair that had been a gift from Beeman and hadn’t seen the nightlight since they’d gone on the run. They’d probably fit Francis.

He didn't hear the shower running yet, so Zak left everything outside of the bathroom door and knocked to let Francis know he’d made the handoff. Francis didn’t thank him, but he didn’t snap at Zak either, just told him he’d grab the items in a moment. It was a perfunctory exchange, and Zak didn’t feel weird not telling the guy goodnight as he left.

He felt weird now, though, standing in front of his bedroom door.

Fisk nudged at his shoulder. Gently.

“I know,” Zak said. “I know, I just. . .”

It’d been over a year since he’d last set foot in his room. Even during the Tsul-Kalu thing Zak hadn’t had any reason– or the heart– to come looking around. He didn’t know how much of his stuff had been salvageable in the end, and once he opened this door he’d have to accept whatever was behind it. Would his bed be the same? Would his drawers be full of clothes that wouldn’t fit anymore? Would the walls still be plastered with posters, or had the elements wrecked the fragile things completely? Did Zak even want them to be there?

He took a deep breath in.

Let it out slowly.

Zak moved forward.