Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Stone, weren’t Cassandra and Ezekiel just going to break into house?” Eve asks. “Yeah, that’s what they said. They’ve been gone for a while already though, maybe we should call to make sure there aren’t any issues”

Eve calls both of their phones but both immediately go to voicemail. She looks worried “I think something is wrong. Stone you are coming with me to check up on them. Jenkins can you find us some more information about all the possible artefacts?”

Stone and Eve picked up a weapon and go through the door.

--

Once they arrive at the house, they check all the rooms for any signs of Cassandra and Ezekiel, and find none. They are discussing their options when they hear it. It is just a small sound, someone moving and a floorboard creaking. They hold their weapons in position and go to the room were the sound came from, and it looks just as empty as it did before, but now that they know there is something there, they check everything properly. Which is when they saw it.

In the closet two children are hiding, they look to be about eight years old. A white girl with red hair wearing a bright summer dress, and an Asian boy wearing a worn t-shirt and shorts. They are holding hands, and when Baird opens the door they try to take a step back but hit the wall instead.

Baird and Stone look at each other and silently communicate a plan before colonel Baird crouches down in front of the children and tries to make herself as non-threatening as possible.

“My name is Colonel Eve Baird. Can you tell me what your names are?”

She gets no reply, except for the kids moving closer to each other.

“This is my friend Jacob Stone, it is our job to protect people. Can you tell us how you ended up here? Because this doesn’t seem like a very safe place for you to be.” She pauses to give the children a moment to consider her words before continuing. “If you tell us who you are and how you got here, we can help you. We can make sure that you are safe. Can we make sure that you are safe and alright. We don’t want to scare or hurt you.”

The boy flinches lightly at her last words, while the girl brightens up and starts talking softly. “I don’t know how we got here exactly. Can you call our parents?”

“If you tell us your names, we can try to see if we can find a way to contact them.”

“My name is Cassandra Cillian” the girl offers. Baird and Stone look at each other, it isn’t exactly unexpected, but it is still a shock to get confirmation that your friends have been transformed into children.

Jake also moves to sit in front of the children and looks at the boy and asks in his gentlest tone “how about you huh? What is your name?” The reply is a quiet “Ezekiel”

Jake smiles at him, before looking at both the children and Baird and saying “I think I need to talk with Eve for a moment, so we can figure out the best way to get you out of here and some place safe. Is that okay? We will only be on the other side of the room, and we are right here if something is wrong”

Once he receives a nod of approval from both kids, him and Baird get up and move to the other side of the room.

“What are we going to do! We need to get them to Jenkins, he might know what to do?” Jake hisses as soon as they are out of hearing range.

“Yes but how do we get them to Jenkins, we can’t just push them through and expect them not to notice.” Eve replies.

“Maybe we can just explain it, it is not like we can call their parents. They are stuck in the wrong time, we need to give them some explanation for that. We are going to have to take care of them until we can get them back to normal anyway.”

“This is only an hour drive away from the annex right? Maybe we can just drive there.” Eve says thoughtfully.

“Drive there in what? We don’t have a car!” Jake looks incredulous.

“We are in the city we can get a taxi.” Eve suggests.

They go back to the kids who are now quietly sitting on the floor, and tell them “We are going to take you back to where we work, and have somebody there to check you over to make sure you aren’t hurt. And then we will try to figure out how you ended up here”

---

When they arrive in the annex they ask Jenkins to look them both over for any injuries and see what information he can get from their physical state.

Cassandra goes with Jenkins first. The check-up takes a bit longer than usual, because Cassandra is stopping him often so that she can ask questions about what he is doing or how things work. She even stops him once so that she can ramble to him about how a tool that he is using actually works.

Meanwhile Jake and Eve are waiting in the annex with Ezekiel. Eve notices that Ezekiel has an anxious look on his face and decides to try and distract him, and to get some extra information while she is at it.

“So Ezekiel how old are you?” she asks casually. “I am eight” comes the small reply. “That is a fun age, what sort of things do you do besides school? I remember I played a lot of sports when I was your age.” Jake says. “Nothing. I do nothing.” Comes the quick and anxious reply.

Jake glances at Eve, baffled by such a defensive reaction to his question.

There is an awkward silence for a while, until Eve continues asking Ezekiel questions about his life, mostly about what sort of food he likes, and what tv shows and movies he likes. During the conversation Ezekiel moves from one worded replies, to replying in full sentences and even occasionally saying what he likes about it.

When Jenkins shows up with Cassandra and says that he is now ready to check Ezekiel for any signs of what happened, the anxiety that had diminished during Ezekiel’s conversation with Eve about cartoons has returned completely.

Ezekiel looks down when he follows Jenkins into the backroom. Jenkins motions for him to sit on the table, which he does quietly. Jenkins starts with checking his blood pressure, reflexes and temperature, before asking him to take of his shirt so he can check for injuries and his breathing. Ezekiel who had been letting Jenkins do everything without any reaction freezes at this. After a pause Jenkins says “if you take of your shirt I can make sure you don’t have any injuries we are missing and make sure your breathing is alright” Ezekiel looks hesitantly at this, so Jenkins hurries to ad “If you want to get one of the others to stay in the room with us, then we can do that” Ezekiel quickly shakes his head at this, and does what was asked of him.

The rest of the check-up goes on with Ezekiel saying nothing and passively doing whatever is asked. It was concerning to Jenkins, it was clear he didn’t feel safe, but there was nothing that Jenkins can do about such a reaction right now.

---

The kids are seated at a table in the annex, while the adults are talking.

“How can we fix this Jenkins?” Eve asks. “I have no idea, the only time anything like this has happened before was with an artefact that currently is in the library. I have no idea what could have caused this.” Jenkins replies. “And if we don’t know what caused this we can’t stop it” Eve says. “So it is probably another new artefact that we are looking for. For the time being we need to figure out a way to make sure they are comfortable here. Do we have anything to entertain them with?” Jake asks.

“We have pencils and paper so they could draw, or we have any movies that are on Netflix, but that is it as far as I know.” Eve replies.

“If they might stay like this we are going to have to get them more clothes and toys.”

“We are going to have to do that in general because we have no spare clothes they can fit in, and they can’t stay in what they are wearing for multiple days.” Jake says immediately.

“What do you suggest we do?” Eve asks

“One of us can go buy some clothes and maybe pick up some games real quick, and immediately pick up take-out, so we can have dinner soon. I am sure they are starting to get hungry. And the other one can stay with the kids and keep them entertained.” Jake replies.

“Sounds like a plan, you go to the store while I stay with the kids I need to ask them more questions about what they remember anyway”

---

As soon as Jake leaves Eve starts with gathering all the information from the kids that they remember, which turns out to be very little. They have the memories of when they were younger but nothing about their future selves, and all they remember about the day was suddenly waking up in that room. They had spoken with each other for a while and tried to figure out what had happened, before they heard Eve and Jake come into the house, and they had hidden in the closet.

After realising that she won’t get any more useful information from the children she decides to find something to entertain them with, and opens up the kid section of Netflix. They decide to watch fairy odd parents, because that is a show Ezekiel mentioned he likes when Eve asked him about it earlier.

---

Jake Stone stands in the children’s clothing section of a superstore feeling a bit out of his depth. He had gotten the children’s sizes before leaving but he has never bought clothing for children before, but then how much different could it be from buying clothing for himself. They just need some basics for now. If they end up staying kids for longer, then he will come back to buy more clothes with the children, so they will definitely get things they like, but for now this is going to have to be good enough. He gets them each some underwear and socks, a jacket, pyjamas, three t-shirts and another pants.

He knows Cassandra probably prefers dresses and skirts like she usually does, but he has no idea what exactly would be right for the weather, so he decides to wait with buying those until she can come with him.

He heads to the toy sections and tries to decide what would be things that they could also use when they are adults again. He ends up buying a set of coloured pencils, Catan and a starter pack of Lego.

Then he gets some food for breakfast and lunch, before picking up the pizzas he had ordered for them and heading back home.

---

When Jake walks into the library he sees Eve sitting in an arm chair and looking over some paperwork, while Cassandra and Ezekiel are watching tv. Upon seeing him Eve gets up to get Jenkins, while Jake greets the kids and sets the table.

Dinner is a quiet occasion with some awkward silences, because they can’t talk about the de-aging because they haven’t told the children, yet they also do not know them well enough to have conversations with them that go beyond awkward small talk. It really doesn’t help that both Cassandra and Ezekiel appear to be quiet and shy children in general. And the things the kids do say are mostly questions about what is going to happen and when they can go home.

---

After dinner Jake and Eve sit the children down and tell them that they are going to stay with them for a few days while they work on figuring out what exactly happened to them.

Both children look at them with fearful eyes. “What? No, you said you would call our parents and get us home!” Cassandra bursts out. “Actually we said we would try to figure out what happened to you, and make sure you are safe. And considering we do not know what happened to you right now, the safest place for you is here with us.”

“Where are we supposed to sleep then?” Ezekiel asks “we can’t just stay in this room forever. And I don’t think our parents will not be happy with us staying here.”

“We have some spare bedrooms for you to sleep in, and when I went to the store earlier today, I brought you back some clothes to wear, and some things for you to do, so you don’t have to watch cartoons all day.” Jake tells them.

“But we don’t want to stay here! We are going to call our parents to come pick us up. Come on Ezekiel.” She grabs Ezekiel by the arm and walks away looking for a phone.

“What are we going to do now? If they get to a phone they will figure out that something weird is going on.” Jake hisses.

“You distract them, I’ll talk to Jenkins about a solution.” With that Eve hurries out of the room.

Chapter Text

When Jenkins and Eve walk into the room, Jake is filled with relief. Both Cassandra and Ezekiel were crying by now, and scared and angry about him not letting them use the phone. He kept trying to come up with excuses for why they weren’t able to, but that didn’t change that they had essentially abducted two children and were keeping them against their will. And that both of those kids were now terrified.

Having a child be scared of him was not something he ever wanted to experience. It makes him so upset and scared that he does have the potential to turn into his father. It is the last thing he would ever want. He never wants to hurt any children, and he has always been scared of doing that. He is scared that because he was hurt he has that potential. He knows logically that it is pretty irrational and that most people that were abused as children do not grow up to be abusers themselves, however knowing that doesn’t change his fears.

Jenkins sits in front of the children and starts talking to them about how they are safe here and that they can’t and don’t want to call their parents. When this actually calms them down, Jake realises that they are using magic on these kids, on his friends to keep them here. He is so angry that they are doing this. Now not only have they abducted them and are keeping them here against their will, but they are brainwashing them to make them believe they want to be here.

He grabs Eve and Jenkins by the arm and drags them out of the room “How could you do that!” He hisses “your solution is to brainwash them.”

“Hey, calm down we didn’t hurt them” Eve can’t believe Jake would think so low of them.

“Yeah sure tell that to them. Oh wait you probably will so they will forget that they are supposed to be scared of us!” Jake is outraged.

“I didn’t make them forget. That wasn’t brainwashing. It just a small spell to make them feel less pressured to feel unsafe and leave. They are still scared and uncomfortable here, and will still wondering about their parents. It is just pushed to the back of their mind. That is all.” Jenkins tells Jake

“That sounds like a load of crap”

“It is the exact same thing as when you use that diffusion spell on people when you tell them you are the librarians, and it makes them not have objections to what you are saying. They are still themselves and would say it if they get hurt. But they don’t feel pressure to contract what you are saying and simply go along. Which in this case means they will accept that right now they will accept that they cannot go to their parents.”

Jake is starting to look thoughtful and a bit less angry at this “are you absolutely sure it won’t hurt them? And that they won’t just do whatever we say”

“Yes I have seen many people under this spell, and while thinking back on it, if you are not aware that you were under this spell it would seem that your behaviour was a bit unsual, you are still you and it only influences one specific thing.”

Jake is quiet for a long moment

“It will not make them think you are amazing and correct about everything, but it will make them accept that they cannot go to their parents. That is all I did. Do you understand?” Jenkins makes eye contact with Jake.

Jake looks back at him and replies with a nod to the living room “I am going to see how they are doing.” Before walking into the living room.

Eve looks at Jenkins “That could have gone better”

Jenkins looks thoughtful “he will come around. He is only worried about them, and that colonel Baird is not a bad thing.”

---

Jake walks into the living room and pulls a chair up near the couch Cassandra and Ezekiel are sitting on. They are sitting closely together again and their arms are touching. When they are this young it makes Jake think that they are doing it because being close to each other is safer, but when he stops and thinks about it, he realises that even grown up they tend to have little personal space around each other.

“What are we supposed to do while we are here?” a small voice asks him as soon as he is sitting down. He looks at Cassandra before replying “Maybe you two can help me with planning your days? I don’t know much about what children do. I bought a game, and some Legos and colouring pencils for you, so there are some things for you to do right now, and if you are staying here longer we can go and get some more things.” When he doesn’t get a reply to that he continues “What sort of things do you normally do after school and in the evenings?”

“I have a lot of extracurriculars that keeps me busy a lot.”

“And what else do you do when you are alone? I mean when you are having free time, do you like to draw or puzzles, or play games, or build something, or play with dolls, or make forts or ..”

He is interrupted by Ezekiel’s quiet voice saying “I build a lot of forts”

“Really that is awesome. We can definitely look at making sure you can do that here. Have you ever build a fort Cassandra?” Jake says enthusiastically.

“Yeah I have done it before at camp.”

“That’s great, maybe you can build one together at some point.”

They talk some more and it turns out that Ezekiel loves both building outdoor forts and indoor blanket forts and Cassandra loves any type of strategic games. They both enjoy drawing and things such as Legos, but that they prefer more advanced things more. Neither of them shows a strong interest in video games, but Jake gets the idea that that is mostly due to neither of them ever having really gamed.

Jake ends up leaving the children to watch one more cartoon before they go to bed.

---

He walks up to Eve and Jenkins and asks “Do we have any ideas yet about how to fix this?”

Eve looks at him for a moment before replying “No, we have no leads at all. Jenkins is looking at the samples he got from the physical exam, and trying to see if that can tell us something.”

“Which it is not doing so far” Jenkins pipes in without looking up from his work.

“What are we going to do with them in the meantime, they are young, are we supposed to babysit them or something?” Jake asks.

Eve considers this for a moment before replying “I think they are both mature enough to keep themselves entertained as long as we are in the same building.”

“Actually since we do not know what caused this, they might suddenly end up sick or otherwise affected, therefore I suggest someone is close by and checks in on them regularly to make sure nothing unusual is happening. Well more unusual than them being eight years old.” Jenkins tells them.

Eve looks thoughtful at this “They need someone to protect them. As their guardian I will sleep in one of the rooms opposite where they will be sleeping tonight, and check in on them regularly.”

---

When the cartoon finishes and Eve and Jake tell the children it is time for them to head to bed. While Cassandra and Ezekiel are both tired, they are also hesitant about having to go to sleep, because there is a large difference between just staying somewhere during the day and unexpectantly sleeping over in a strange place.

Eve, Jake and Jenkins have decided together to place the children in a corridor in the library that wasn’t used much. It is a hallway with four small bedrooms and a shared bathroom. The rooms the librarians normally slept in were larger and en suite, so that they all had some privacy while living together. However it seems like a bad plan to place Cassandra and Ezekiel in the room of their adult selves, and this way it would be easier for Eve to keep watch over them.

“This is the bathroom, there are towels under the sink and toiletries including a toothbrush for both of you are in this cabinet.” Eve says pointing at a small cabinet next to the sink. The rest is all standing huddled around the door, because the bathroom is too small for all of them to stand in it at the same time. However despite being small it is equipped with a sink, toilet and bathtub that can be used as shower.

The bedrooms are identical to each other with a twin size bed, closet and a small table with a chair. Jake hands them both the pyjamas he bought for them when they are standing in front of the bedrooms.

“I will be sleeping in this room tonight” Eve says pointing to the door behind her. “I will check in on you occasionally to make sure everything is okay, but if something is wrong you can come get me.” Cassandra and Ezekiel nods after which she continues with “Do you need anything else, or can you get ready for bed on your own?”

Ezekiel looks up at her and says “it is fine, we can do this all by ourself.”

With this Eve and Jake wish them a goodnight and walk away.

Ezekiel turns to Cassandra and asks “is it okay if I take the room on the right?” “Sure” Cassandra smiles at him.

---

Cassandra is lying in bed, despite being tired she keeps on thinking about the day and everything that has happened. She wishes she could call her parents to wish them a goodnight. Even though she is no longer as scared as she was before, being here is still strange and she wants to go home.

She is a bit nervous about tomorrow and having no idea about what is going to happen. Hopefully she and Ezekiel will get to go home soon.

---

Ezekiel is sitting up in his bed with the lights on, he doesn’t want to be here. Cassandra is okay, but he doesn’t like the adults. He doesn’t trust them and he wants to go back home to his mom. However he wouldn’t mind having a break from school for a while, being here might be better than being there.

He is scared about tonight and sleeping here, and worried that they will use this time to get him alone or that he will mess up and they will get angry with him. That is why he has the lights on, so he can stay awake and do his best not to mess up. His mom never gets angry with him for it, but he knows other people would.

He asked Cassandra for the room on the left, because it is closest to the bathroom, so if he messes up, maybe he can clean it up without anyone noticing, but he doesn’t think that will work, so he tries to stay awake.

---

When Eve checks up on Cassandra and Ezekiel they are both sleeping peacefully. She considers turning of Ezekiel’s light, but she figures that maybe he is scared and leaves it on before she gets ready for bed.

Chapter Text

Ezekiel wakes up with a start and immediately scrambles to sit on the bed with his knees pulled up. He lays his head on his knees and closes his eyes while he tries to regain his breath and put the dream out of his mind. His skin feels like it is crawling and being touched. This is so unfair. He hates being woken up by bad dreams almost every night. Tears are starting to well up in his eyes, and that’s when he realises with a shock that his pants are wet and so is the bed. He wet the bed again. He was trying to stay awake to avoid this. To make sure the people he is staying with right now wouldn’t get mad at him.

What is he going to do now? How can he fix this before they punish him? His mom never gets angry at him about this, she tells him it isn’t his fault, but it is different. These people, they don’t care about him, and now he had ruined their mattress. They were going to be so angry and disgusted with him and think he is stupid. He needs to clean this up, and make sure they don’t find out.

He hurries into the bathroom and grabs some toilet paper and a towel, and starts trying to dry off the bed. He tries to use toilet paper to dry of most of the urine, but it isn’t working well enough. He can make it less soaked, but it is clearly still wet, and it smells. There is nothing he can do to make this go away, his pants are all wet, he is starting to make the floor dirty and he doesn’t know how to fix this. They are going to find out and be so mad, his breathing is starting to speed up, his heart is starting to race and his body is producing more adrenaline. He just wants this all to be over. He needs to do something, anything to fix this.

He is so caught up in his thoughts and just trying to breathe normally that he doesn’t notice that someone else woke up and approached his room.

“What happened here?”

“Nothing!” The scared boy makes an effort to calm his voice “Nothing happened. Everything’s fine. You can go back to bed.”

“Why are you awake?” Eve feels like she is missing what is upsetting Ezekiel so much.

“I just woke up to use the bathroom that’s all.”

“Your bed is wet. And so are you. Did you wet the bed?” Him having wet the bed could explain why he is being so defensive, she can’t remember much from being eight years old but she thinks it would probably feel embarrassing. However it doesn’t explain why he looks so upset, scared even, it seems too strong a reaction for the situation.
He can’t do this. She can’t be mad at him, what if she does something. He starts backing away, moving towards the far side of the room. His mind fills with memories. It is getting hard to think, he can’t deal with this.

She is moving closer and he backs away until he is standing in the far corner. Against all logic he is hoping that she will just leave him alone.

“Ezekiel, Ezekiel, it is okay, you don’t have to cry, I am not mad at you. It has been a weird day, things like this can just happen sometimes. It’s okay. We can clean it all up, and find you something clean to wear.”

He hadn’t even realised that he had started crying, but now that she points it out he becomes aware of how wet his cheeks are. He needs to convince her that everything is okay. She can’t know that something is wrong. He needs to stop crying. He takes a few deep breaths to try and calm his breathing a little. Once he is breathing has slowed down a bit he can stop himself from crying. He still feels like he might start again if anything happens, but at least for now he has stopped.

“I’m sorry, this is just a strange place and I miss my mom and being here is scary. That is why I got so upset. I promise I can clean it up.” He hopes she will believe what he is saying.

“It’s okay, we can clean it up. No one is going to get mad at you having an accident, these things can happen.”

“Okay...”

“How about you go take a shower or bath and then I am going to find something else for you to wear and bring that by.”

She can’t be expecting him to just leave the door open. That is just asking for something to happen again.

“Or do you need help with showering?”

“No! It’s fine I can do it myself! I don’t need your help.” He needs to remain calm. He can’t go around acting like something is wrong, but he has been messing that up so much since coming here. Everything is jus5 so confusing and he doesn’t know what to expect out of them.

There is a moment of silence during which eve is thinking “Do you want to help me first with picking out something for you to wear and we can see whether we have any bed colours with a fun colour, that we can put on your bed once it is dry. Unfortunately we don’t have any with cartoons or anything, but I think we might have something with a nicer colour than white.”

Ezekiel nods immediately to this, and is incredibly relieved to have found a solution to the problem with showering. Hopefully she is okay with him doing it by himself and not trying to create a trap.

They head downstairs and Eve opens a closet that has spare bedding. She grabs a spare blanket and several pillowcases to let Ezekiel chose which duvet he wants on the bed. He chooses one that is dark green.

With that taken care of she starts looking around living room and kitchen for the bag of clothes that Jake bought. Ezekiel follows her around awkwardly while she is doing this, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

After a moment she ends up telling him “I can’t find the bag anywhere, I am going to ask Jake where he left it. Maybe it is easiest if you stay here for a bit. Do you want something to drink in the meantime? I can make you some chocolate milk?”

“Can I get some water?”

“Of course always, can you get it yourself? There are glasses in there.” eve says pointing to a higher cupboard.

“I can’t reach that, it’s too high.”

“Oh of course, we’ll figure something out so you and Cassandra can also grab those” eve says while grabbing a glass and filling it with water before handing it to Ezekiel who murmurs a thank you.

Eve feels bad about having to wake Jake up, but she does really need that bag. She can’t let Ezekiel stay in the clothes he has on right now.

She has to knock on Jake’s door several times, before he opens the door looking disheveled. “Baird? What’s wrong?”

Eve gets to the point right away “I can’t find the bag of clothes you bought yesterday, and I need new clothes for Ezekiel”

“What? Why? What is wrong with the clothes I gave him for the night?”

“He wet the bed. He woke me up when he was trying to clean it.”

“How is he?”

“He is upset, but I think he is okay. He is waiting in the kitchen now, and then he is going to shower, and I think it is going to be awhile until his mattress is dry, so I think
afterwards I will sit with him downstairs.”

“I’ll be downstairs in a moment with the bag. I’m up now anyway, so I can stay up with him.”

“That is not necessary, I don’t mind staying up with him.”

“Okay I’ll just get the bag then.”

---

Ezekiel is sitting at the table staring at his glass. He is tired and uncomfortable and just wants to be back home.

Eve walks in with the bag with clothes Jake bought. “So we have a bit of a problem. Jake only bought one pair of pyjamas and no sweatpants, so you are going to sleep in your underwear with a shirt.”

Ezekiel really does not feel comfortable with that at all. “I can sleep in my regular pants, or just sleep in these, it’s fine really.” He tries to reassure her.

She looks at Ezekiel who seems very uncomfortable and remembers how he acted earlier about the shower, and as an adult about certain things. She has some ideas about why he is uncomfortable with it, and if that is the case then all she can do is to try to not make him feel bad. She quickly thinks of a possible solution “yeah you can wear the shorts you had on yesterday. And your mattress is also going to need to dry for a while, before you can go back to sleep. So how about after your shower you come downstairs to the living room for a bit.”

Ezekiel agrees to this, and goes to have a shower while Eve goes to clean his bed and put it in the laundry.

---

When Ezekiel comes into the living room after having showered, Eve is sitting on the couch reading something on her phone. When she notices him she says “Hey Ezekiel, come sit down, I made us some hot chocolate to drink.”

Ezekiel moves to sit on the couch and after a quiet moment Eve turns to him and asks “So I was wondering if something unusual happened tonight, if maybe you had a bad dream or something?”

“No, I didn’t, everything’s okay.” Ezekiel assures her.

“Then is this a thing that happens regularly?”

Ezekiel’s only response to this is a shrug.

“It’s okay if it happens regularly, but then we have to know, so we can buy things so that next time it is easier to clean up, and you can just take a quick shower before going back to bed.” She wants to support this young Ezekiel no matter what is the case, but she needs to know what it is so they can make sure they are prepared for it.

Ezekiel looks down at his hands to avoid her eyes “I guess”

Eve takes a moment to decide how to reply to this and decides to ask “how is it taken care of when this happens at home?” She figures that reacting to it the same way as he is used to will be best.

“I’ve got this pad on my bed, which I just wipe off and hang to dry, and I put the other one on the bed, then I shower and switch pyjamas, and if it is needed I would get a different blanket. I usually have this thinner blanket under my duvet because that is easier to wash. My mom usually throws the things in the laundry the day after.”

Eve goes to assure him “Then we will make sure we have those things here as well, so that you can just do the same thing.”
Ezekiel nods at this.

They sit and talk together for about half an hour, during which Ezekiel starts to feel more comfortable around Eve. He tells her about how he lives alone with his mom, and how he always has to stay late at school because his mother works really long days, and even with staying late he is back home before she is. He talks about how they try to watch a movie together at least once a week, and how that is his favourite part of the week.

When it has been about half an hour and Ezekiel keeps yawning, Eve decides that she will just flip the mattress over and deal with it tomorrow if it is still wet. When they finish making the bed, she wishes Ezekiel a good night and tells him that she will not wake him up until ten because he was up for so long during the night, but that if he gets up earlier, Jake and Cassandra should be downstairs. They are both tired and fall asleep almost right away.

---

When Jake wakes up in the morning, and checks his phone he sees that Baird send him a message telling him that her and Ezekiel would sleep in, and that he should check up on Cassandra and keep her entertained.

Considering it is already seven in the morning, and the children went to bed early last night, he immediately goes to check on whether she is awake.

As soon as he opens the door she gets up to meet him, he goes to reassure her that she doesn’t have to get up yet, but apparently she is already fully awake and is getting bored. He tells her to go shower and that he will do the same and to meet him in the kitchen afterwards.

---

When both Cassandra and Jake are in the kitchen, Cassandra turns to him and asks “Where’s everyone else?”

“Well, Ezekiel and Eve are still sleeping right now, they were up for a long time during the night, so they are going to wake up later, and Jenkins is probably working in his office”

“Why were they up last night?”

Jake considers what he should tell her. He knows that adult Ezekiel wouldn’t want anyone to know, so he figures it might also be true for this younger quieter Ezekiel. He doesn’t want to lie to Cassandra though. “Everything’s fine, they were just both awake and are sleeping in now.”

“But why were they awake?”

“I think you should ask them that, now do you want to breakfast? I planned on all of us eating it together, but I think it’ll be a late breakfast if we wait for them”

“Okay. What do you have for breakfast?”

Jake shows her everything he bought and together they decide to eat a small breakfast now, and to make pancakes when the others wake up. They talk about what sort of things they like, and Cassandra mentions how much she loves solving logical problems, and when Jake mentions whether she likes Sudoku’s he realises that they weren’t popular yet when she was a child. So once they are done with breakfast, he prints out some Sudoku puzzles and tries to show her how to do them. However as soon as he has finished stating the rules, she already understand how to do it, and after a few puzzles she can handle the difficult level.

They spend the rest of the morning doing Sudoku’s and talking with each other. Jake discovers that once this young Cassandra is really similar to the adult that she knows, and once she starts to feel comfortable around him, she talks a lot about everything that interests her.

It is great getting to see her being really able to express the things she is interested even at this young age. Even though seeing it also makes him sad for himself. Even as an adult he didn’t feel able to tell anyone about the things he liked. And when he was this young, he had learned that having those interest was weird and made him a freak. He knows Cassandra’s upbringing wasn’t perfect and that she sometimes regrets how focused it was on academics, but he can’t help but feel jealous that he never got to have this.
However listening to her geek out and explain things to him, and ramble on about the origin of different theories, is amazing and he is thankful she got to be like this sometimes. This happy and completely in her element.

He is listening to her explain the proof behind some kind of theory, he can’t remember which one, and to be honest he stopped understanding it about ten minutes ago, when he notices that Ezekiel is standing in the doorway watching them.

“Hey, how’d you sleep?” Jake asks, interrupting Cassandra, who now has also noticed that Ezekiel has joined them.

Ezekiel replies with a small shrug and “it was okay.”

“Hello! Me and Jake were planning on making pancakes when you and eve got up, do you want to help too? You do like pancakes right? I think they are really great, and everyone likes them, but maybe they have different stuff in Australia?” Cassandra rambles.

Ezekiel looks a bit wary at her “yeah, they’re okay”

Having decided that they are all making pancakes, Jake goes to wake up Eve and inform her of this, before going back downstairs to try to attempt to make pancakes with two kids without messing up the entire kitchen.

Making breakfast together goes surprisingly well, Cassandra does most of the measuring and whisking the batter, while he and Ezekiel bake the pancakes. Well he mostly has to bake the pancakes and closely supervise Ezekiel who is sitting on his knees on a chair so that he can easily reach the stove, which makes Jake realise that they should buy a stepping stool for the children to stand on.

However with supervision it does go okay, and Ezekiel seems to enjoy it, even though his pancakes end up in a lot of pieces. He reassures Ezekiel that they will taste the same regardless of how they look.

When he goes to check on Cassandra for the last half of the batter, he makes sure they point out how well she made it and measured everything out. He asks the girl to also put the things she used in the sink and wipe down the tablet, which she all does while talking to both him and Ezekiel about times she has done this before. Ezekiel chimes in how he helps his mother with making dinner most days.

When Eve comes downstairs and the pancakes are almost finished, he asks her to help them set the table. During breakfast they tell Eve about what they have spent the morning doing. And Jake and Eve tell the children about the plan of the day, which is that Jake will go with Ezekiel to the store to buy some things and that Cassandra will stay with Eve and Jenkins.

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During the drive to the store Jake tries to get Ezekiel to talk some more, he already talked more this morning than the day before, and Jake is hopeful that similarly to Cassandra he will start to really open up and be his usual self. But then again even adult Ezekiel is pretty quiet, sure he comes across loud and obnoxious, but mostly he doesn’t say that much. Jake has no idea what this younger Ezekiel normally is like, but he does get the feeling that from the things Ezekiel has said about his home life this morning that at least at home he talks more, and if they are staying this age for a while, then Jake wants him to feel at home at the annex.

Plus it will be a lot easier to keep him from causing trouble, if they know more about him and what he likes. Adult Ezekiel has never offered up any information about what he was like as a child and how his childhood was.

However asking this Ezekiel questions about it now only seems to make him uncomfortable, which is very understandable, so Jake needs to find common ground that they can talk about. However so far the only neutral topics that Ezekiel seems interested in talking about are movies and cartoons, which are good topics, but this Ezekiel only remembers things that were popular over a decade ago, and Jake doesn’t remember enough about tv in that time to be able to talk about it. When Ezekiel was a child, he wasn’t any more, he didn’t watch the same things as Ezekiel did, and so far he has been able to play things of as it being different in the US, and while that keeps Ezekiel from getting suspicious it doesn’t allow them to talk about this topic.

So he ends up talking more about cooking, which isn’t something that he knows a lot about either, but he is a responsible adult, he understands making food every day, and this way Ezekiel talks more about his home life. Of course Ezekiel doesn’t exactly cook, and just helps with it, but he does do it almost every day and he clearly enjoys it.

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After breakfast Eve takes Cassandra with her to where Jenkins is working. She brings some colouring supplies in the hopes of having that occupy Cassandra, she should have known that that would never work. Cassandra keeps asking Jenkins questions about what he is doing, and Jenkins keeps on giving long explanations which only encourage her.
It turns out that Jenkins is no closer to figuring out what happened then he was before, and he thinks that they should call Flynn for help, and have him check out where it happened for any clues.

Cassandra is starting to wonder what sort of thing they are thinking might have happened. When she asks them whether they think she and Ezekiel were abducted, they reply that that is not what they think. So she is very confused about what they even think might have happened to them, because that seems like the only logical explanation. They refuse to tell her what they are thinking, and she tries to figure it out by looking at the data Jenkins gathered, but it doesn’t make any sense.
She is just getting ready to start asking questions again, when Jake and Ezekiel show up and suggest that she go with them to play a card game. She doesn’t think Jenkins and eve really know what happened anyway, she decided to ask them later when they know more, and to go have fun for now.