Chapter Text
Lewis still isn’t feeling quite right, and he can tell Nico isn’t feeling right either, but this isn’t the normal kind of “not right”. His brother isn’t the same person who had been complaining about everything and anything last week. They did something to him, Lewis knows that, but it’s made him… happy.
Nico’s acting as if there’s nothing wrong, and Lewis knows he has to hide how he’s feeling from Toto and Niki, but it’s almost believable. He hasn’t had a chance to talk to his brother about what happened during his meeting, too exhausted most nights to do anything but sleep and, if the tutors aren’t in, then Nico is out for most of the day.
Lewis makes sure to set his alarm extra early so he can catch Nico before he slips out of the house. He doesn’t even know where his brother goes, but he’s got a feeling it’s something to do with the weird agency.
“Nico!”
It’s early in the morning, barely six o’clock, and Nico is already about to head out of the door.
“Wait a couple of minutes and I’ll go with you,” Lewis says, hopefully.
“I’d rather go by myself, Lewis, but thanks,” Nico says with a smile that looks far too friendly for how his brother has been acting for the past couple of months.
“Where are you going?” Lewis asks, coming down a couple more steps, ready to run if Nico tries to escape because they need to talk about this.
“Nowhere important,” Nico says, the smile still there and beginning to hurt Lewis’ head a little.
“Can it wait then,” Lewis says. “I need to talk to you mate.”
Suddenly Lewis’ head feels as if it’s about to split open and he has to sit down, his vision filling with little black dots.
“You don’t look very well, Lewis,” Nico says. “Maybe you should go back to bed. I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”
Lewis nods. He doesn’t feel very well and, even though he knows he probably isn’t going to get a chance to talk to Nico later, going back to bed does seem like the better idea to him right now. He turns around and heads back up the stairs, letting Nico sneak out of the house like he does every day.
“She seems fine,” Rob says at breakfast.
He’s been watching Susie a little closer than usual over the past couple of days. He’s sure Susie’s alright. Maybe she didn’t develop her powers the normal way, but there doesn’t seem to be any negative out come from it. There’s nothing to worry about. Convincing Claire that there’s nothing to worry about is going to be a little more difficult.
“Maybe she’s just good at hiding it,” she says. None of the kids have come down for breakfast yet, even if it is almost mid morning. Both Claire and Rob are used to it by now. Rob had hoped he might be able to talk to Claire about… whatever the other week had been about, but he hasn’t yet built up the courage to bring it up again. Or to deal with the woman he knows is going to be on his hands when he does.
“Why don’t we ask her?” Rob suggests. “If there is something that’s making her feel bad, I’m sure she’ll tell us about it. She wouldn’t want to hurt herself, would she?”
“Like she would tell us anything,” Claire mutters.
“Your dad then,” Rob suggests. She knows how close Susie is to her grandfather. If she’s going to tell any of them, it’ll be him.
“I don’t know,” Claire says. She hasn’t really said more than she needs to to her father since the day of the assessment.
“We have to do something,” Rob says. “We don’t do anything, you’re just going to worry yourself sick over it. We’re going to have to talk to Susie about it, aren’t we? Or do you have some plan where we don’t?”
Claire shakes her head slightly, trying to come up with an argument, but she knows there isn’t one.
“Alright,” she says, quietly. “But I want to be the one to talk to her.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Rob asks.
“I’m her mother, Rob,” Claire says, nodding. “I have to.”
“Boys, could you come in here please!”
Fernando frowns when the call comes up the stairs, putting the book he was reading down. The tutors are supposed to be coming round today, but that’s not for another hour or so. Andrea had asked him to do some reading before the next session and Fernando hadn’t forgotten about it, he’d just decided it would be best to do it at the very last minute.
But not going down the stairs will only make Jenson and Ron start worrying about him again, and Fernando doesn’t want that to happen, so he goes down to see what’s going on.
Ron, Jenson, Kevin, and Andrea are all in the living room. Jenson is sat on the sofa with a very confused look on his face, with Kevin his usual bouncing self beside him. All four of them look up when Fernando comes in.
“What is… going on?” Fernando asks slowly.
“Come in Fernando,” Ron says, waving for Fernando to sit beside his brothers. Fernando quickly sits down beside Kevin, Jenson placing a hand on his youngest brother’s shoulder to try to get him to stop bouncing, but it doesn’t work.
“Right,” Ron says. “Before we begin, I just want to make it clear that nothing’s going to happen right away, whatever we decide, alright?”
Andrea gulps. He hadn’t thought it would be possible to be any more nervous than he had been when he spoke to Ron, but now he knows it is. It very definitely is. Speaking to Ron had been done in private, and if it hadn’t worked out then Fernando would have never needed to know. Now, if Jenson and Kevin decide there isn’t a connection, then Fernando will know there’s absolutely no chance of this happening.
Or he’ll convince himself he doesn’t belong in this family, but Andrea doesn’t even want to think about that.
“Ok,” Jenson says when nobody says anything. “Are you going to tell us what’s going on now?”
Andrea and Ron exchange worried glances and Fernando feels his stomach flip. He’s done something wrong. He doesn’t know what, but it must be something.
“Andrea thinks he is connected to us,” Ron says. He’d talked to Andrea about how was best to approach the boys about this, and they both decided being as upfront as possible is the best idea.
“A connection?” Jenson asks, still a little confused.
“Really?” Fernando asks. He wants to grin, but he also doesn’t want to show how disappointed he would be if he’s understood this wrong. “Are being serious?”
“Yes, Fernando,” Andrea says. “But we need to know what you all think first.”
“This is brilliant!” Fernando says, grinning. It’s all he’s wanted since he and Jenson visited Ferrari. That and for Jenson to not hate him. He’s already gotten his second wish, and now he’s about to get his first. “I told you!”
“Well,” Andrea says. “It does still depend on what Jenson and Kevin think. This is about the whole family.”
Fernand’s smile falls a little as he realises what this means. Jenson and Kevin have to agree. He looks over at his brothers, half wanting to know what they’re thinking, half scared they’ll be against this.
“Jenson?” he asks quietly.
“What are you thinking?” Ron asks.
“You’re sure about this?” Jenson asks, sitting forward.
“I think there might be something there,” Rob says. He’d been feeling strange for months and this seems like a reasonable explanation for him.
“And you?” Jenson asks Andrea. He wants to know that they’ve actually thought this through. None of them need any more instability.
Andrea nods. “As sure as I can be.”
“Jenson, do you feel anything?” Ron asks.
Jenson shrugs. He’s not entirely sure. He’s not had a new connection for years and has been pretty happy where he is. But he can see how important this is for Fernando, and it isn’t going to do them any harm, is it?
“We could give it a go,” he says.
“What about you, Kevin?” Ron asks with a grin, knowing the youngest boy would go along with anything as long as it didn’t upset anything. “Do you want a new parent?”
“You’re going away?” Kevin asks, a little confused.
“No, I’m not going anywhere,” Ron says, laughing lightly. “You’re going to have two parents.”
“Two?” Kevin looks between Andrea and Ron, things clicking into place inside his head. Then he turns to Jenson and Fernando, wanting to know what they’re thinking, but they’re both smiling too. Well, two parents can only be better than one parent. A grin breaks onto his face and he nods.
Fernando is beaming, having to use all his willpower to not jump up and wrap his arms around Andrea. This is all he could ever want. It is impossible that anything could ever go wrong now.