Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Welcome to an interactive fiction experience! In this fic, you will be playing as David J. Katz. The progression of the story will depend upon the choices that YOU make.

Before you get started, please heed this important instruction: in this fic, instead of clicking the "next chapter" button to advance, you will need to click the appropriate link at the bottom of the chapter.

Try it now!

[Click here to start the story.]

Chapter Text

No, no, you're doing it wrong! Don't click the 'next chapter' button, click the link!

[Click here to start the story.]

Chapter Text

Hello, Dave! Let me orient you.

You are a twenty-something American man. You're tall and strong and handsome. You like epic science fiction, maudlin ballads, and a hamburger with two pickles. You also like kissing men, which is a secret that caused you a lot of inner turmoil and grief over the years—right up until one Klaus Hargreeves crashed into your life, at which point you quickly realized that kissing this man was very possibly the reason you were put on this Earth in the first place.

Holey moley, you love him so much. You love his smile, his laugh, and that mischievous twinkle he gets in his hazel-green eyes right before he says something absolutely outrageous. You love his chaotic bravery, and also the unashamed way he can be flirty and femme and soft, which is its own kind of courage, especially here.

Here, of course, is Vietnam, 1968. You're in the American army. For nearly a year, you've been living in tents in the jungle, dealing with the mud and the heat and the rot, the constant fear and the sound of gunfire. But your tour is almost over! And Klaus will finish up not long after you. In stolen moments, you've been making your plans: you're going to buy a little cabin not too far from San Francisco; you're going to raise vegetables and goats; you're going to go dancing in the city and then return to your cabin to sleep in the peaceful rural silence, with a skylight over your bed so you can always see the stars.

But first you have to hold this hill. Hill 689 in the A Shau Valley. If you don't hold the hill, then the cards will fall and the communists will conquer America and there will be no freedom anywhere anymore. At least, that's what your uncle always told you. Klaus says that's bullshit, but it's not like he ever argues very hard about it. When the guys start talking about politics, Klaus just shrugs and reaches for a joint. Half the time he doesn't even seem to remember who the president is.

Anyway, Klaus is an odd one. You love him intensely, but he sure is odd. He says he's from the future. He says he can see ghosts. You half-believe him; what else could explain his bizarre mix of insight and ignorance, or the way he appeared in your tent in a flash of blue light, clutching a briefcase and wearing nothing but a costume coat and a bloody towel?

He's beside you right now, crouched behind the sandbags. You take comfort from his presence, but frankly this is shaping up to be a hell of a night. It's chaos, bullets whizzing overhead, nearby explosions. All you can see is muzzle flashes.

And then—oh fuck that hurt.

Well, shit. I'm sorry, Dave. You just got shot right in the chest.

You're dead.

[Click here to go into the light.]

[Click here to haunt the earth as a restless wraith.]

Chapter Text

You have chosen to go into the light.

Ha, nice try! You have unfinished business. The light doesn't want you yet.

Look, remember how your boyfriend told you that he was a time traveler? And that he could see ghosts? He was telling the truth, Dave! You'll see him again, I promise. You just need to wait a decade or two. Or three. Or four. Or, um, five. Anyway, it'll go by in the blink of an eye!

[Click here to haunt the earth as a restless wraith.]

Chapter Text

You are a ghost. A wraith. A specter. You drift over continents and decades, barely hanging on to the sense of who you once were, bewildered by the fast-paced changes of a world that you can't interact with.

And then! A tug! An inexorable pull in a very specific direction! You've never felt anything like this before, and you have no means or desire to resist it. The world zips by in a blur, and then you see a city, a building, an attic.

You are standing in an attic.

The fog lifts from your mind. Your memories of Hill 689 are sharp and clear. You have a feeling that time has passed since then, but you remember very little of where you've been or what you've seen.

But you know what you're seeing now: on the floor of the dark, cluttered attic, the love of your life is lying on his side, tied to a chair. He's wearing his army vest. His face is sweaty; he looks ill. But he's beaming up at you.

"Dave," he says, and it sounds like a joyful prayer.

You may be a ghost, but you can feel a sunny smile breaking out on your face. "Klaus."

He wriggles, like he wants to get up, but his arms are tied to the chair.

"Here, let me help," you say, and you rush over and kneel next to him and try to undo the knots—but your fingers go right through the ropes, like smoke.

"Oops," Klaus says, and giggles.

"Sorry." You sit back on your haunches, wrinkling your forehead. "I'm not sure how to get you out of there."

"It's okay, my brother will come back eventually," Klaus says. "The important thing is, you're here. You're here, and you're you. Everything's going to be okay." He's beaming at you, but tears are running freely from his eyes.

"Yes, it will," you promise. "We can still get that cabin. You're going to have to pull double duty feeding the goats, though."

Klaus snorts. "Sorry to break it to you, Dave, but the San Francisco real estate market has gone kind of nuts since we last spoke. We should've bought in the '60s."

You've never understood half of what Klaus says. This is situation normal, and you're overcome with warm affection for your zany, time traveling, ghost-seeing boyfriend. You lean down and try to kiss him, trusting in the power of love to make it work.

What happens next is totally unexpected.

You're lying on the floor. Your arms hurt; there are ropes biting into them. Your head is pounding, you feel nauseous, and you feel hot and cold and shivery all at once, like that time you had a really bad flu.

"Klaus!" you yell, in fear and confusion, and the voice you hear resonating in your own throat is Klaus's voice.

Holy shit, you are Klaus. What just happened? You didn't mean to do this!

Don't panic, you can undo it. Right? Right!

You're in Klaus's body. You can wiggle his/your fingers, you can blink his/your eyes, but when you concentrate you can feel its otherness. With a little effort, you can separate yourself from it again.

And ... whew. It worked. You're looking down on Klaus again. He's blinking up at you, looking puzzled.

"What just happened?" he asks.

"Um, I think I just possessed you," you admit, sheepishly. "Sorry."

"Not exactly the way I was hoping to get you inside of me today, but I guess we have to take what we can get." Klaus grins bravely, making a joke of it. "I wish I could remember any of it. What did it feel like?"

"Pretty terrible," you say. "Are you sick?"

"Dope-sick," Klaus clarifies. "I had to sober up to summon you. I've been detoxing all day, and it has not been pretty. Be glad ghosts have no sense of smell."

"Um, hey," says a new voice, behind you.

You turn. There's a handsome man in a black hoodie standing in the corner of the room, hands in his pockets.

"If you hurt my brother," he says to you, "I'm going to tear you apart with interdimensional tentacles."

"You can see me?" you ask him, astonished.

"Oh hey, Dave, meet my brother Ben! Ben, meet Dave!" Klaus calls from the floor, sounding amused. "Play nice. You have so much in common. You're both dead!"

"Klaus, he possessed you!" Ben says, darting a very dark glare in your direction. "I didn't even know that was a thing that could happen!"

"Well, apparently it is," Klaus says, sounding philosophical. "Want to give it a try later? Take this grade-A hunk of meat for a spin?"

Ben curls his lip. "Ew, no thanks."

"Anyway," Klaus says, "Time to get Diego's attention and see if I can get untied. Want to cheer me on while I yell and thump my body against the floor?"

"Oh my god, Klaus, don't hurt yourself," you say, concerned.

"It'll be fine, I'm great at yelling and thumping!" Klaus assures you.

But he doesn't get the chance to demonstrate—because suddenly, in a flash of blue light, somebody new appears in the attic!

It's a teenaged boy in knee socks and a school uniform, clutching a thick briefcase just like the one Klaus always lugged around in Vietnam.

His gaze fixes on Klaus, and he wrinkles his nose.

"Do I even want to know?" he asks.

Klaus cranes his neck to look at the newcomer. "Five! So glad you're here. Can you untie me?"

"That depends," says Five. "Where's everybody else?"

"How should I know?" Klaus asks. "I've been tied up in the attic all day. I haven't seen anybody else since Luther's family meeting this morning."

"This morning," Five mutters to himself, fiddling with the dials on the briefcase. "Got it."

Klaus's eyes abruptly become saucers of panic. "Five! No no no no no! Take your hands off that briefcase! You can't bring us back to this morning!"

Five gives him a sharp look. "How do you know what the briefcase does?"

"I stole one from Hazel and Cha Cha! I went back to the Vietnam War! I fell in love and he died and I just spent the whole fucking day detoxing so that I could conjure him, and I don't know if I'll ever be strong enough to do it again, so please don't undo the day, Five!" Klaus's voice cracks and his lip trembles, and fresh tears start spilling from his eyes.

"This sounds like a whole big load of not my problem," Five says, thumbing at the latches of the briefcase. "I need the whole family working together to prevent the apocalypse; I've got to go to that morning meeting."

Klaus whimpers and squeezes his eyes shut.

Oh my god, Dave, you've got to do something about this! You waited fifty years to be reunited with Klaus, Klaus put himself through hell to summon you, and this strange supercilious boy with a time machine is about to steal your love away from you!

Okay, look, you have to act fast, and you only know of one way to interact with the physical world.

[To possess Five, click here.]

[To possess Klaus, click here.]

Chapter Text

If Five activates that briefcase and brings himself back to this morning, you might never see Klaus again! Non-consensual possession is a bit ethically dodgy, but if war has taught you anything it's that quick action beats careful consideration nine times out of ten. Anyway, you possessed Klaus a minute ago and it didn't hurt him. Five will be okay!

You rush over and embrace Five the way you did Klaus, minus the intention to kiss. Luckily, that whole kissing thing doesn't seem to have been crucial to the mechanic; next thing you know, you're facing back towards Klaus, holding the briefcase. Your point of perspective on the room is a little lower than you're used to, and your knees are chilly.

Klaus is still whimpering on the floor.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," you say. "I'm not going to reset time."

Klaus sniffles, opening his eyes. "You're not?"

"That isn't Five," Ben says, from behind him. "Dave just possessed him." He sounds cautious, but not hostile.

"Yup," you confirm, setting the briefcase down. "It was the only thing I could think of to do. I'm sorry. I'll give him back his body as soon as we've dealt with this briefcase thing. Here, let me untie you." Quickly, you go over to Klaus and undo the knots. He sits up, wincing and rubbing at the rope burns on his arms.

Under the circumstances, you regretfully decide not to kiss him.

And then you go back to examine the briefcase. "He'd set it for 8:15 AM, March 29, 2019," you report, squinting at the dials. "Is that this morning?"

"Yup," Klaus says. "Three days out from the apocalypse, apparently."

You're only half paying attention to him. "So, how can we get rid of this thing?" you ask. "Do you think it would be safe to burn it?" And then, "Wait, what apocalypse?"

Klaus waves a hand. "Five's been to the future. He says the world ends on April 1st."

"Well, shit." You look at the briefcase again. "Maybe we shouldn't take his time machine away from him, then."

"Weelll...." Klaus frowns thoughtfully at the briefcase for a minute, and then scrambles over and does something to the dials. "There," he says, backing off.

You look down. He's changed the setting to 4:00 PM, February 20th, 1968, and you recognize the latitude and longitude of your last camp in the A Shau Valley. "Klaus?" you say, as your borrowed stomach flip-flops. "Talk to me. What's the plan here?"

Klaus looks at you, eyes full of pain but clear and sober. "You're going to go back," he says. "You're going to grab me and you, the day before you died. And then you're going to bring us all to that meeting this morning that Five doesn't want to miss. Easy squeezey lemon peasy."

"But what about you?" you ask. "This you?"

"I don't care," he says. "I want to go back to being the me that never lost you." And then he darts forward, clicks a clasp on the briefcase you're holding, and dances away before the blue light can envelop him.

You stagger. You're holding the briefcase, but you aren't in the attic anymore. You're back in Vietnam. The air is hot and humid, the sky is overcast, the jungle is looming. There are tents, trucks, soldiers.

You know this place. It feels like you were just here yesterday.

"Hey!" somebody shouts. "What the hell are you doing here, kid?"

You turn, and recognize Private Mitchell's sunburned face and blond brush cut. You don't remember him being so tall, though...

Oh. Of course. You're a thirteen-year-old kid in knee pants.

There's no point in trying to explain yourself. You veer away from Mitchell and start running.

"Hey!" he yells again after you.

You need to find Klaus and ... yourself.

This is weird.

It's weird, but it's all so familiar. You really do remember this camp like it was yesterday. Subtracting your fifty years of semi-incoherent wraithdom, it was yesterday.

Where were you and Klaus at sixteen hundred hours yesterday?

You were in the mess tent. Klaus had charmed his way into an extra can of peaches somehow, and you were sharing it with one fork, turning the brush of cutlery on your lips into the secret kisses that you couldn't share in daylight.

"Stop, kid, it's not safe here!" Mitchell is yelling from behind you. He's catching up. His legs are longer than Five's are.

You strain to draw every possible bit of speed out of this spindly body—and then suddenly, in a flash, you're fifty yards ahead.

Wow. That was unexpected.

You trot the rest of the short distance to the mess tent at a leisurely pace.

Your heart flutters when you see Klaus there at the flimsy table, smiling and laughing, looking just like the Klaus you left in the future, only not so sick and not anywhere near as sad.

And, sitting facing Klaus but with his back to you: you. That is seriously weird.

Klaus looks up. His eyebrows shoot up his forehead. "Five?!" he exclaims in astonishment.

You come level with the table. "Yes, that's right," you say, because the truth is way too complicated and you probably only have about 60 seconds before Mitchell or somebody else catches up and tries to make you the CO's problem. "You have to come with me right now. Him too," you say, nodding at yourself.

"Right now?" Klaus asks. "Wouldn't you like to stay and take in the scenery a bit?"

"Now," you repeat, with a snap to your words that sounds just right coming out of Five's mouth. "Dave's going to die tomorrow. And you have an apocalypse to prevent."

Klaus blanches. Alive-Dave looks confused.

You don't have time for this. You spin the dials on the briefcase, returning them to the settings Five had entered in the attic. And then you reach for Klaus's hand.

Klaus knows what to do. He reaches across the table with his free hand and grabs alive-Dave's.

Bracing the briefcase under your elbow, you flick its latch just as Mitchell heaves his way into the mess.

Blue light dances.

You're in a large, fancy living room. There are couches and armchairs, and a bar, and a second story mezzanine making its way around the upper perimeter.

Three adults stare at you in astonishment. There's a tall, stylish woman with amazing hair, and a scarred man in black with his arm in a sling, but your gaze is mainly drawn by the extraordinarily huge blond man.

The blond man breaks into a grin. "Klaus! Five! You're okay! You're just in time for the meeting!

Well, and this is your cue to exit.

You slip out of Five's body. Klaus's eyes widen, tracking you.

Five, meanwhile, startles and then looks down at the briefcase in his hands. "Okay, what just happened?" He hasn't seen alive-Dave yet.

"Hey," you say softly, drifting over next to Klaus. "I'm Dave's ghost, from after he died on February 21st, 1968. I possessed Five later today after you summoned me. And then you sent me back in time to rescue me and you before the op that would have killed me."

Klaus nods, glancing from you to alive-Dave and back again, looking fairly dumbstruck.

And you understand ... things can't go on like this. There can't be two of you.

Not just because it would be socially awkward. No, there is something fundamentally contrary to the metaphysics of the universe happening here. You can feel it in your ghostly bones. You feel like a chemical reaction that's about to meet its catalyst. You're about to burn away.

You're balanced on the edge of an abyss, but there are two ways to fall.

You feel the light calling you, just like you did when you first died. It wasn't the right time to go into it then. But you think it might be now.

But you also feel a steady tug towards your own body. You would fit in there so perfectly.

So what's it going to be, Dave?

[To go into the light, click here.]

[To possess yourself, click here.]

Chapter Text

"I have to go now," you whisper to Klaus. And then, like letting out a breath you didn't know you'd been holding, you let the light draw you in.

The last thing you see, before it all fades into eye-searing brightness, is Klaus clinging white-knuckled to alive-Dave's hand.

And then you are nowhere.

And then you are somewhere. You're on a dirt road. It's lined with trees, and a wooden fence, behind which sprawling fields extend to the horizon. It takes you a moment to realize what's so entirely strange about this place, which is that the whole thing is rendered in grayscale.

You haven't gone color-blind, though. When you look down at yourself, your army uniform is still green.

Your wound is gone. Well, that's nice.

You hear a clackety rattling sound behind you, and when you turn, there's a little girl drawing near on a bicycle. The bicycle has a wicker basket full of fragrant gray flowers, and the girl is wearing a white straw hat.

"Hm," she says, "you're a puzzle."

"I am?" you ask.

"You sacrificed yourself so that you could be happy," she says. "It's not a situation that's really come up before. I'm not sure if your actions merit a special reward or not."

"Um," you say. "That's okay. I wasn't really expecting a reward."

"But I think I'm going to give you one," she says. "It's convenient for me, anyway. You'll help me tie up another loose end." She lifts her arm, with an elegance that belies her apparent age, and points toward a break in the fence that you hadn't noticed before, and a little building that you're sure you should have noticed when you looked around a moment ago.

This doesn't feel like a command you can refuse.

You pick your way over the rough ground to the break in the fence. The building, which was half-hidden by the rise of the land when you stood on the road, reveals itself to be a small cottage, equipped with a tidy vegetable garden surrounded by fences, and several gamboling goats. As you approach, the pale white sun becomes warm and yellow in a flawless blue sky, the tomato vines in the garden become bright green bearing bright red fruit, and the wooden siding of the cottage brightens from gray to Mamie Pink.

A tall, long-haired man in a flowing black coat and a black cowboy hat is standing on the front stoop, staring off into the distance.

He turns at your approach, and it's Klaus.

It's Klaus.

"Klaus!" you call out, and start running.

He looks astonished, and then he starts laughing and crying. "Dave?"

You reach him, and you grab him for a kiss.

This time, your lips press together just the way they should, fumbling and desperate and with an accidental bump of teeth. His body presses against yours, solid.

And then he draws back, cradling your face gently with his hands. "How?" he asks. "You joined up three days early, and went into the Marines. I looked you up in the library. You died in 1987. We never even met."

"I think I'm from a different timeline," you say, silently thanking your beloved pulp science fiction books for giving you a vocabulary to talk about all this. "We served together in the A Shau Valley. I died there." Suddenly anxious, you ask, "Do you remember that?"

"Of course I do," Klaus says, brushing your lips with his thumb. "Of course I do." His eyes are as sad as they were when you first met, and the lines in his face are a little deeper.

"How long has it been, for you?" you ask.

"Three years," Klaus says. "Maybe a bit more. And for you?"

"Less than a day," you say. "Or maybe fifty years. It's hard to say." You look around. "So, you found us a cabin after all. And some goats."

"The little girl gave it to me," Klaus says. "I had to paint it myself, though. It was all gray when I got here."

"I love the color," you say.

Klaus takes a breath, and smiles, and kisses you again. Like he's reminding himself that you're here. "Hey, so," he says. "Inside the cabin, there's a pretty sturdy bed."

You smile. "Oh yeah? Then how about we go try it out now, together."

THE END

[Click here if you want to play again from the beginning!]

Chapter Text

You can't leave Klaus, now that you've finally found him again! And the tug of your own body is so strong.

"It's going to be okay," you say to Klaus. "Trust me." And then you slip right into alive-Dave's body.

The world immediately becomes more present. You have a sense of your own solid weight. The room smells like furniture polish and wood smoke and whiskey.

This feels completely different from possessing Klaus or Five. You fit like a puzzle piece. You can tell that this isn't just some temporary requisition of a foreign body; you are you, body and mind. Your memory merges with your own; now you remember Five appearing in the mess tent with the briefcase to bring you here, and you remember being the ghost possessing Five at the time.

"It's okay," you say again to Klaus. "I'm still me."

"And who the hell are you?" Five asks, looking at you with wild eyes. He shifts into a defensive stance, holding the briefcase in front of himself.

The briefcase suddenly starts to hiss and spark. With a yelp, Five tosses it into an empty corner of the room, just in time for it to destroy itself in a small explosion.

"Oh shit," you say, staring at it. "Good thing it didn't do that five minutes ago."

"Klaus?" says the woman with the fancy blouse and the great hair. "What are you wearing? And when did you have time to get a suntan?"

And then Ben appears, standing a little apart from the others and looking distraught. "Klaus?! Where have you been? I haven't been able to find you since you disappeared from the bus!"

"I've been in Vietnam," Klaus says. "1968-ish. Fighting in the war. I was pretty terrified when I landed there, not gonna lie, but then I met Dave! The love of my life!" He beams at you.

"How did the two of you get here?" Five asks, raking his hands through his hair.

Klaus stares at him. "Umm, you came and got us? Just now?"

You raise your hand. "I think I'd better explain."

Klaus's siblings accept your explanation more readily than you might have expected. Although, when a dignified chimpanzee in a three-piece suit comes in with a tea tray, distributes refreshments, and then asks you to re-start your story from the beginning, you start to understand why Klaus's family's threshold for disbelief might be a lot higher than the average person's.

You're sipping ginger ale, nibbling a chocolate biscuit, and describing your gruesome battlefield death, when there's the sound of a door opening and closing at the front of the house. Everyone looks up, and a moment later, a diminutive white woman and an aggressively nondescript white man walk in, holding hands. They're shadowed by an angry Asian woman in a neat black business suit, who has a nasty red slash across her throat.

"Vanya!" says Klaus's tall, elegant sister, who Dave has by now learned is named Allison. "Hi!"

Vanya looks around. "What's happening?"

Allison frowns at Vanya's male companion. "It's a family matter."

Vanya's face shutters. "Oh. I see. That explains why you didn't call me, then."

"What?" Allison says. "No, it's not like that."

"You know what?" Vanya says, already turning away. "I don't want to hear it. You've been excluding me since we were kids. I used to blame Dad, but now he's dead and it's still happening. So I guess you're the assholes."

"Oh, boo hoo," says the angry woman with the injured throat. "Your family didn't call you to join their tea party. Can we talk about how your boyfriend MURDERED ME so that you could STEAL MY JOB?!"

Nobody reacts to that, which seems weird.

Except for Ben.

"Whoa," Ben says. "Klaus, can you see her?"

Klaus looks at Ben, puzzled. "See who? Vanya?"

Diego turns to Klaus. "What was that, bro?"

Ben sighs. "You're too high, aren't you."

"Umm, Benny-boy, let me tell you, the music from the 60s did not lie about the drugs," Klaus says.

"I can see her," you say quickly, spinning to face Ben. "What should we do?"

"You can see who?" Luther asks, giving you a puzzled look.

"You can see me?" Ben asks, staring at you.

"Oh," you suddenly realize, "she's a ghost."

Five teleports right in front of you with a pop, and stares aggressively up at you. "You can see ghosts?"

"I couldn't before," you say. "But it seems like I can now."

"Maybe because you were one," Luther suggests.

"Sure, maybe," you agree. "But right now, the important thing is that Vanya's boyfriend apparently recently killed a woman."

"I knew it!" Allison exclaims.

"Oh shit," Diego says, and takes off running.

Diego doesn't have any trouble taking Leonard in hand. Vanya is confused and hostile at first, but Helen Cho's ghost is happy to tell you where Leonard stashed her body, and when Vanya sees—and smells—her former coworker's corpse in her boyfriend's attic, she collapses in tears in Allison's arms.

Once Leonard is safely in police custody, you all return to the mansion. There's a lot of hugging and crying.

Vanya mentions some odd things that have been happening around her since she lost her pills, and Pogo shocks everyone by confessing that she has powers, which have been suppressed since she was a child.

Allison pales at that, and relates a suddenly-surfaced childhood memory of visiting Vanya in the basement and being ordered to tell her that she was 'just ordinary.'

It seems for a moment like Vanya might lash out at that revelation—the initial look she gives her sister is frightening—but then Klaus wraps her in a hug and says "She was just a kid, we were all just kids, Dad was the monster," and Vanya's anger dissipates.

Finally, you manage to get Klaus alone in his childhood bedroom.

"I like the drawings," you say, looking around at the scribbled walls. "And the Christmas lights." You remember how Klaus hates the dark. "I love how this place feels like you."

"Messy and full of drugs?" Ben suggests.

Okay, almost alone.

Klaus tugs you down onto the bed with him. "Shut up, Ben," he says.

"Could you maybe hang out somewhere else for the night?" you ask Ben, more politely. "This is the first time Klaus and I have had privacy and a bed to ourselves since our leave in Saigon in July of '67."

"All right," Ben says. "If you promise not to tell me anything about what you get up to without me." He walks away through the closed door.

"Wow," Klaus says, watching him go. "It's so wild that you can see him."

"I figure Luther's guess is probably right," you say. "Since a part of me was a ghost, I've kept that connection to the dead."

"But you're alive," Klaus says, a little anxiously, snaking his hand under your shirt to press it against your bare chest over your heart. "Fully and completely."

"Yeah," you assure him, emphasizing it with a nibbling kiss. "Alive, badly in need of a shower, and ... holy shit. It's the year 2019." You let out an overwhelmed bark of laughter. "Klaus, babe, I'm gonna need you to be my tour guide. Are there robots? Flying cars?"

"Just the ones my father built," Klaus says, and you don't know if he's teasing you or not.

"About the ghosts," you say, instead of going down that rabbit hole. "I'm glad I can see them now."

Klaus looks dismayed. "Oh no! But Dave! I never wanted that for you! It's bad enough that I have to see them!"

"Shhh, shhh," you soothe him, kissing his flailing fingers. "Seriously, I'm glad. I don't think it's as bad for me as it was for you. I'm an adult, I can understand what's happening." Klaus had told you stories, in Vietnam, of being terrorized by ghosts as a child. Of chasing them away with drugs, because it was the only way he could survive.

Honestly, you had always assumed it was a metaphor for mental illness, and you had loved Klaus intensely all the same and wished you had some safer way to chase his ghosts away.

Now you know the ghosts are real. You've been one. You can see them. You can talk to them. And you're never going to let one make Klaus miserable again. "If any ghost starts bothering you," you add, "send them to me."

Klaus laughs. "You sound like Diego in the early days, before he gave up trying to protect me from my drug dealers."

"I'm never going to give up," you promise, seriously, looking Klaus right in the eye.

He lets out a soft little moan. "You realize, I don't see ghosts. Mostly. Except for Ben."

"Because you're high," you acknowledge, squeezing his knee gently. "You couldn't see Helen. But you did see me."

"Yeah, that was interesting," Klaus agrees. "I still don't know why I can see Ben when I can't see the others. I have to be really wasted before I stop seeing Ben. So wasted I stop seeing alive people, too."

"How are you doing right now?" you ask.

"Oh." Klaus gives an uncomfortable shrug. "Starting to feel the edges of the comedown. But I've still got these." He puts his hand in his vest pocket, pulls out a baggie with about five little white pills. "And I think I still have a stash in this room somewhere."

"In the other timeline," you tell him, "you got sober today. So that you could conjure my ghost."

Klaus blinks, astonished. "I did that?"

"Yeah." You touch his face, tenderly. "You did."

"Jesus." Klaus giggles, uncomfortably. "Kinda hard to believe I pulled it off. The only time I've ever gotten sober as an adult was when Hazel and Cha Cha tied me to a chair and tortured me."

"You got Diego to tie you to a chair," you admit.

Klaus snorts. "Okay, now it's plausible."

"It was so brave," you add. "You endured so much suffering. Just to see me." You think back to the attic. You can only half-remember it; ghost-you was there, but the alive part of you wasn't. "You were so sad. I'm glad you can't remember me dying."

"Me too," Klaus whispers, staring at you. And then he kisses you. "I don't know," he says, still whispering, "if the world's going to end in three days. If it doesn't, if we get to live here in the future and drive my brothers and sisters crazy with our smooching ... if I never get sober, will you still love me?"

"Yes," you promise, even though it's a scary thought.

Klaus kisses you again. "I want to get sober," he says. "For you. For us. For the fucking hypothetical goats. I think maybe I can. If you're there to face the ghosts with me. I've never tried before, but I want to try now. Will you help me?"

"Yes," you promise again, somehow even more scared this time.

But also proud, and so very in love.

"Okay, here we go," Klaus says. He hands you the baggie. "Flush these, please. And the ones hidden in the stuffed unicorn at the bottom of the closet. And then come back fast so we can fuck. I'm going to be an absolute mess about four hours from now, and I don't want to miss my chance to enjoy having sex with you without worrying we're going to get shot by a sniper or charged with disorderly conduct."

You hesitate. "Is this safe? Cutting yourself off all at once like this?"

Klaus laughs, a little wild. "Maybe not? But this place has a fully equipped medical suite, and Pogo knows how to use it."

"Okay." You tuck the pills into your own jacket pocket, and give Klaus a warm, lingering kiss. "I love you so much," you say, your voice catching in your throat. "Meeting you is the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Me too," Klaus whispers. "Holy shit, me too."

THE END

[Click here if you want to play again from the beginning!]

Chapter Text

"Klaus!" you yell. "Let me possess you, I'll try to talk to him!"

Klaus nods. You think it's a nod. Maybe it's a shudder. Hopefully it was a nod. There's no time to double-check.

You jump back into Klaus's body. The nausea and the fever hit you hard, but you clear your throat and say with as much calm authority as you can muster: "Five, you have a time machine. You don't need to hurry. Let's talk this through."

Five gives you a sharp, suspicious look. "What's to talk about?"

"You mentioned something about an apocalypse," you suggest. You don't have a plan yet; you just need to stop Five from activating that briefcase. "What exactly did you mean by that?"

"The end of the world," Five says, "is in three days. Unless we can somehow manage to prevent it."

"That sounds bad," you say. It sounds crazy, actually, but considering the other wild things that have turned out to be true, maybe you shouldn't discount Five's story out of hand. "How do you know?"

"Because I spent forty-five years in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the future," he says, in a tone that suggests you should have known that perfectly well.

"But aren't you, like, fourteen?" you ask, confused.

Ben leaps into your field of view, waving his arms at you in frantic negation. Five, meanwhile, just bites out a fake laugh: "Ha ha, very funny, Klaus." And his fingers move back towards the briefcase's clasp.

"Ask him how he knows he's not the one who causes the apocalypse by going back in time!" Ben urges you quickly.

"Um, hey!" you say. "How do you know that you're not the one who causes it? By going back in time right now?"

Five rolls his eyes. "That's not how time travel works. Closed-loop paradoxes don't exist outside of science fiction. I know I didn't cause the apocalypse, because I wasn't there the first time."

Oh hey, science fiction! You've read some science fiction. Maybe you can figure out something convincing to say. "In that case, how do you know you haven't already prevented it?"

Ben bounces on his toes. "Hazel and Cha Cha! Tell him Hazel and Cha Cha couldn't have been here in the original timeline. And they've killed a bunch of people!"

"What about all those people Hazel and Cha Cha killed?" you say, wishing you could ask Ben for a little more detail. "That's got to have changed something."

"They're actively trying to preserve the apocalypse," Five says. "So I seriously doubt they've helped us out any." He shakes his head, grimacing. "Why am I even talking to you?" He goes for the clasp, definitively this time.

And then suddenly the briefcase starts spitting and sparking blue! With a yelp, Five throws it away into a corner of the room. You all watch as it bounces twice, emits a small explosion, and then starts to burn with a sulky yellow flame.

"God DAMN it!" Five shouts.

You're a little afraid that Five will storm off and leave Klaus tied up, but instead he pulls a knife from his pocket, slices you free of the ropes, and tells you to take a bath and meet him in the living room.

As soon as he's gone, you exit Klaus.

"Are you okay?" you ask him. "I'm sorry I just jumped in like that."

"No, it's fine," Klaus says. "Whatever you did, it worked. I guess. We're still here. If Five had jumped back we wouldn't still be here, would we?"

"I'm not exactly sure," you admit. "But anyway, he didn't. I stalled him a bit and then the briefcase self-destructed."

Together, you and Ben explain what all Klaus missed, while Klaus makes his way gingerly downstairs to a bathroom and draws himself a hot bath in a deep, claw-footed tub. Its white enamel is chipped and stained in places. This house is huge, and the furnishings seem expensive but shabby.

When Klaus starts stripping off his sweat-stained clothes, Ben says, "This is where I dip. See you later."

"I wish I could wash your back," you say wistfully, as Klaus steps into the tub and slides into the water up to his neck.

"Mmm, yeah," Klaus murmurs. He dips his head all the way under and pops up again, spitting. He scrapes his hands up his face, bottom to top, and smooths his hair back. "This is gonna be kinda tough, isn't it? I never thought I'd have to have a relationship based on talking."

Oh wow. You're already having a relationship discussion. And you've only been haunting Klaus for about twenty minutes. "We don't have to stay together if you don't want to," you say, because you know it's the right thing to say, even thought it breaks your heart to say it. "I'm dead, and you're alive. It's not fair to you if I keep you—"

"Shut up, Dave!" Klaus says, smacking bath water at you. It goes right through you and splashes on the floor. "We're still dating." And then he looks worried. "Unless you don't want to?"

"Of course I want to!" you say. "I love you!"

"I love you too!" he says. "Okay then. We're going to figure this out."

"Right," you say. "Death is no object."

Klaus giggles. "It really, really isn't."

And then, hey, it's not like you can get wet. So you climb into the tub, kneeling to either side of Klaus's hips, and lean over him, planning to give him the closest thing to a kiss that you can manage. Being careful not to slip inside of him again, you bring your lips right up to his, trying to imagine the feel of them touching.

"Oh hey," he says softly, eyes wide. "I felt that."

You blink. "You did?"

He nods. "Just barely, but I definitely did."

Oh. Oh wow. You smile. "In that case," you say, "I think we can work with this."

Thirty minutes later, you and Klaus walk into the living room. Klaus is barefoot, wearing a swishy black leather skirt and a white cashmere sweater that he pilfered from his sister's room. He looks amazing.

He's still feeling pretty terrible from the withdrawal, as you know firsthand from having recently inhabited his body, but he's hiding it well.

In the living room, Luther is sitting on the sofa, chin cupped on his hands, looking glum. Five is standing at the bar with a tumbler of amber liquid.

Ben—presumably invisible to the others—is perched on an armchair, reading a book.

"Hey there, Klaus," Five says. He reaches for an empty glass. "Drink?"

"No!" Klaus says. "I'm turning over a new leaf. Hopping on the wagon. My body is a temple now."

Luther looks up. "Really?"

"Yes! If I get high, I might lose touch with Dave!"

Luther frowns. "Who's Dave?"

"My boyfriend!" Klaus flounces over to the bar, and pours himself a cup of water. "He died in the Vietnam War. Show some respect for our veterans, Luther."

"Um. Thank you for your service, Dave," Luther says gamely. "Nice to have you with us."

Ben drops his book. "Oh. Come on. Dave gets a hello?"

"Ben says your hair's still stupid, by the way," Klaus tells Luther.

"None of this is important," Five says. "We need to talk about the apocalypse."

"No!" says a new voice. You turn and see that a grouchy looking man in black has just walked in, hand in hand with an oddly perfect blonde woman. "We need to talk about Vanya."

"Hi Diego!" Klaus says. "You're just in time to meet my ghost boyfriend!" He catches the glare that Ben shoots at him. "And Ben, Ben's here too."

Diego looks briefly disconcerted, but he doesn't totally lose his momentum. "Guys, I just had a talk with Mom, and it turns out that Dad was lying to us for almost our entire lives. Vanya has powers. She's more powerful than any of us! Those drugs she takes, they were never for anxiety. They were to stop her power. We've got to tell her!"

Vanya's not at her apartment. Luther suggests trying to catch Allison before her flight leaves for California, since she's been spending time with Vanya and it's possible she knows where Vanya might be. Driven by Five's sense of apocalypse-anxious urgency, you all race to the airport in a limo from Reginald Hargreeves' garage.

It's a pretty hectic introduction to Klaus's family. You manage to glean that Grace—Klaus's mom—is a robot. That's cool, right? And Five, as previously mentioned, is fifty-eight years old, although he looks fourteen. "Time travel accident," Five grouches in explanation.

At the airport, since they don't have plane tickets, Luther, Diego, Klaus and Grace are barred from passing the security check—and when the hell did airports start having more security than Fort Knox?—but it turns out that Five can bypass this by teleporting. A minute later he pops back, clutching a startled-looking Allison by the arm. "I know where Vanya's new boyfriend lives," Allison says. "And he's sketchy as hell. Let's go."

Honestly, you've been starting to think that Klaus's family is a bit nuts, and that they have a strong tendency to catastrophize minor problems. This Vanya situation doesn't seem desperate enough to warrant all this frantic running around the city.

But well, it's not the first time in your life (or death) that you've been wrong! When you get to Vanya's boyfriend's house, there's a miniature blizzard happening directly over its front porch.

"Uh oh," Klaus says.

Luther rips the front door off its hinges and you all pile in.

A mousy woman is standing in the middle of the living room, her face a rictus of anger. She's clutching a red leather-bound book. Plates and cutlery are swirling in the air around her.

In front of her is a dumpy-looking man in a plaid flannel shirt. He's saying "Vanya! I just wanted you to come into your own!"

"You lied to me, Leonard!" Vanya shouts. "Everybody lied to me!"

"Hey! Vanya!" Luther shouts over the clattering of airborne cutlery. "Calm down!"

"Don't TALK to me!" Vanya shouts, and her eyes flash white.

All of Vanya's living siblings, and Grace, are flung hard at the walls of the room by glowing energy tentacles. You run up to Klaus, frantic to check that he's okay. He's gurgling, pressed against the wall two feet off the floor, and his veins are turning black.

Leonard, somehow, is still safe in front of Vanya. "That's my girl!" he cheers. "Give them what they deserve!"

Oh, this is not okay. This is not okay AT ALL.

You've got to do something, Dave!

[To possess Leonard, click here.]

[To possess Vanya, click here.]

Chapter Text

Maybe if this guy Leonard wasn't egging Vanya on and/or pissing her off, she'd calm down! It's worth a try, anyway.

You've never possessed anybody other than Klaus so far, but you're pretty sure it will work on any human. You run up to Leonard from behind, and halt inside his body. For a moment you're just standing in the same space as him; you can see his nose the way you normally see your own nose, but you're not in him.

And then suddenly you are.

"Vanya!" you say immediately, with Leonard's voice. "Don't hurt your siblings! I'm sorry I lied to you. Can we sit down and talk about it?"

Vanya falters. The plates and utensils dip, and then clatter and crash to the ground. The energy tentacles vanish, and Vanya's siblings and Grace all fall. "What happened to 'give them what they deserve?'" Vanya asks.

Grace comes to her feet easily, looks around the room with a tsk, and starts gathering up the broken crockery.

You dart a worried look at Klaus. He's coughing and holding his head, but at least he doesn't seem to be worse off than anybody else.

"I changed my mind," you say to Vanya. "Your siblings seem pretty nice."

"Vanya, Grace just told us that you have powers," Luther says, climbing to his feet. He seems to be recovering faster than the others. "Dad lied to all of us. He was scared of you."

"I know," Vanya says, holding up the red leather book. "I just read it in his journal." She glares at you—well, technically she glares at Leonard. "How did you get this?"

"Oh my god!" Klaus says, holding the wall while he regains his own feet. "There it is! Pogo was so pissed at me for losing it."

Vanya turns to Klaus, looking angry. You brace yourself, ready to throw yourself (Leonard's body) in between them. "You read it?" she demands.

"What? No," Klaus says. "I threw it away so I could pawn the box it was in for drug money. I was such a disaster back then."

Vanya frowns at you (at Leonard). "You went through our garbage?"

"Apparently, yes," you say. Who IS this guy you've possessed?

"That's not all he's been up to," Ben says, walking into the room in the company of a grim-faced woman in a black business suit. "Klaus, look who I found upstairs."

You're puzzled for a moment—since when can Ben talk to people?—but then you notice the gash across the woman's throat. She's another ghost.

"My name is Helen Cho," the woman says. "This man murdered me." She points at you.

Klaus's eyes widen. "Oh, uh, hey. Luther. Why don't you give Leonard a hug?"

Luther stares at Klaus. "What?"

"A nice big bear hug," Klaus says. "He looks like he needs one. Here, come on, I'll get it started. Family hug!" He runs over and wraps his arms tight around you. "Okay, here's the thing!" he says, squeezing you. "Our guy Leonard murdered some chick named Helen Cho. Somebody wanna come over here and help me restrain him now?"

Vanya staggers back several steps, now staring at Leonard in horror. "You killed Helen? Oh my god. I slept with you!"

This seems like an optimal time to confess what you've done. "Hi Klaus," you say quietly. "It's me, Dave. I jumped into Leonard when Vanya was pinning you all to the wall. I thought I might do a better job than he was doing of calming her down."

Klaus blinks, and lets go of you. "Dave?" And then he hugs you again—full of enthusiasm this time. "Dave!!!"

"Ooooh," Five says. "Now I understand what happened in the attic earlier."

Vanya's embracing with Allison on the other side of the room now, and doesn't seem to have caught this exchange. But Luther, closer to you, says "what happened in the attic?"

"Let's just say, if Klaus ever suddenly starts speaking calmly and making a lot of sense, you should ask him to answer some question only he would know," Five says. "Just to be on the safe side. Hey, Dave?"

"Yeah, I know. It's time to get out of this body," you say. You've enjoyed your nice solid hug with Klaus, but the fact that this is Vanya's boyfriend's body does make it a little creepy, even apart from the fact that he's a murderer.

"Well," Five says. "If you can stand wallowing in the slime a little longer... just to keep things simple, how about you turn yourself over to the police?"

Helen's ghost comes with you to the police station. She's eager to help you make your detailed statement to the police, explaining exactly how Leonard killed her and where he hid the murder weapon and her body.

Ben comes along too, just for the company. "It's weird that you can still see us," he comments at one point. "I don't think Leonard had any ghost-seeing powers."

"I guess it's because I'm still a ghost, even when I'm in his body," you say. The police officer who's taking your fingerprints gives you a weird look, but doesn't say anything.

Eventually, all the paperwork is done, and Leonard is locked up safely in a cell. You depart, leaving him startled, confused and dismayed.

It's late evening by then. You find all the Hargreeves in the mansion's basement kitchen. Grace is washing dishes, Allison and Diego are playing pool, Klaus is fiddling with an unplugged electric guitar, Five is drinking coffee and pacing, and Vanya is eating soup, hovered over by a worried-looking Luther.

"It's done," you report. You wait for Klaus to repeat this for his siblings. "Leonard's not going to be killing anybody else," you add, giving Vanya a reassuring look that you know she can't see. "He was a real piece of work, by the way. Turns out he had a record—he killed his father when he was fourteen years old. Leonard isn't even his real name; it's Harold Jenkins."

When Klaus repeats that last bit, Five does a spit take with his coffee. "Harold Jenkins? You're sure?"

"Absolutely," you say. "I overheard the police talking after they ran his prints."

Klaus repeats that, and Five grins so hard it looks like his face might split in two. "Holy fucking shit," he says. "I think we just saved the world."

What do the Hargreeves do after they reunite and save the world?

They go late-night bowling.

The alley is lit with rainbow disco lights. The music is upbeat and pulsing. The teams are Luther, Vanya and Five versus Diego, Allison and Klaus.

Ben and Helen hang back and largely ignore the game, chatting about baroque composers.

You stay close to Klaus, cheering him on.

After he sends three balls in a row straight into the gutter, he turns to you and says, "Hey, are you any good at bowling?"

"I was on my high school team," you say modestly, omitting mention of the state championship you won in eleventh grade.

"Want to give it a go?" Klaus asks, holding up the pink ball he's just retrieved from the supply.

"Sure!" you say. You possess him, throw the ball, and then step out of him immediately so that he can watch the ball roll down the middle of the lane and hit a perfect strike.

"Booyah!" Klaus shouts, pumping his fist in the air.

"Oh, come on. That was cheating," Five protests.

Vanya frowns. "How was it cheating? He didn't go over the line."

"That wasn't Klaus," Five says. "That was Dave."

"Well, it's okay for Dave to participate too," Luther says, with a please-can't-we-all-get-along smile. "As long as Klaus is okay with it."

"The whole reason we put Klaus on that team was to cancel out Diego," Five grouches.

"It doesn't matter who wins," Allison says. "We're just here to have fun together as a family before I fly back to California in the morning. Right?"

"Says the woman whose team just pulled into the lead," Vanya mutters. "Okay guys, watch this." With a flourish, she picks up the lightest ball in the rack. She flings it down the lane, and watches it gently curve, rolling into the gutter just before it reaches the pins.

And then her eyes flash white, and all the pins fall down anyway.

Strike! declares the automatic scorer.

Allison rolls her eyes. "Oh, come on!"

"It doesn't matter who wins, right?" Vanya replies sweetly.

Klaus huffs out a snicker. "Are you enjoying hanging out with my family?" he asks you in an undertone.

"Klaus," you say in all sincerity, "every day I spend with you is the best day of my life. Even when I'm dead."

He looks a little overwhelmed. "Oh my god, Dave. Me too." He blinks, and swipes at his eyes. "Hey! Want to practice kissing?"

"Any time and always," you say. "I love you."

THE END

[Click here if you want to play again from the beginning!]

Chapter Text

If somebody is suspending your boyfriend two feet in the air with energy tentacles and sucking his life force out, then it is OBVIOUSLY okay to possess them and make them stop. So here you go!

You run over to Vanya and throw your ghost arms around her. You squeeze, bringing yourself inside the space occupied by her body.

You expect to suddenly find yourself looking through her eyes, like you did with Klaus—but instead, it feels like you're being sucked down a drain. You have a moment of disorientation, and then you find yourself in a small, dark, rattling space. An elevator. This doesn't make any sense.

Vanya's in front of you, stormy-faced, her gaze tilted up to the floor indicator. She's accompanied by two girls—a young child and a teenager. They look like they could be her sisters—biological, not adopted. They're both wearing school uniforms. Their expressions mirror hers.

What the fuck is happening?

You tap Vanya's shoulder. "Hey! Where are we?"

Vanya looks startled, and the two girls vanish. "What? Who are you?"

"I'm Dave," you say. "Klaus's boyfriend."

"What are you doing inside my head?" Vanya asks.

"Is that where we are?"

"We're in the basement now," she says, just as the elevator dings and the doors slide open. She starts down the hall.

"Um," you say, trotting to keep up. "Hey. I'm not sure if you remember what just happened..." Just happened? Or was still happening? "You're doing something out there. With your power. You're hurting your siblings. You need to stop."

She stops walking—it's the end of the hall. There's a heavy metal door with a wheel lock. It's ajar, so you can see the small room beyond filled with strange grey foam cones. "He locked me in there," Vanya says, pointing.

"Who?" you ask. "Leonard?"

Vanya shakes her head. "My father."

Oh, shit. "That's awful," you say softly. "But your siblings didn't know. You have to stop hurting them."

"They were all special. They all had powers. They didn't even notice I was gone," Vanya says, as angry tears well in her eyes.

You notice sparks of blue starting to float away from your ghostly body. You're feeling odd, heavy and light all at once.

You have a feeling that if Vanya doesn't calm down, she could tear you apart just as surely as her siblings.

"Sounds like there's a lot of that going around," you say. "Did you know that your father used to lock Klaus up, too?" You can remember the way Klaus kept his voice steady while he told you this, one night in camp, but the glowing cherry on the cigarette he was holding had trembled in the dark, betraying his true state. You know that he never talked to his siblings about this, and you hope he won't be angry at you for betraying his confidence now. But you have to get through to Vanya before it's too late.

"What?" Vanya says. "Really?"

"Your father did terrible things to all of you," you say. Technically, you don't know any details of what he did to the others, since Klaus either didn't know or didn't tell you—you didn't even know his siblings' names before today—but you feel like it's safe to assume. "But he's gone now, and you all have a chance to start fresh in your relationships with each other. But not if you suck all your siblings' life force out with energy tentacles."

"Oh," she says, looking surprised. "That's a good point." And then she collapses.

This time it's like you're being sucked up, by a vacuum cleaner, which ends with you connecting to Vanya's senses and seeing through her body's eyes the same way you did when you possessed Klaus. This gives you a strange sensation of falling both up and down simultaneously, because meanwhile out in the real world Vanya's knees have just gone out, and she's falling to the floor.

She doesn't hit it, though. Allison and Klaus catch her under the armpits, one on each side, and lower her gently.

You've missed something, out here in the world outside of Vanya's head. You must have disrupted the energy tentacles as soon as you jumped into Vanya; everybody looks like they've already had time to recover. Grace is wandering the room, tidying up the broken plates. Luther is holding Leonard from behind, by both arms, looking grim.

"Her eyes are back to normal," Allison says, looking down at you (at Vanya). "Vanya, can you hear me? Are you okay?"

The crisis seems to be over, so you'd better get out of Vanya's body, Dave!

You separate yourself from her. Klaus looks up at you with a happy grin. "Oh, there you are!"

"Um, hi," you say, rubbing the back of your neck sheepishly. "Sorry I, um, possessed your sister. I just didn't know what else to do."

"Klaus," Vanya says, sitting up, "did Dad lock you up somewhere? When we were kids?"

Klaus freezes.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, Klaus," you say. "I had to say something she'd listen to. She was sucking your life force out."

"Okay." Klaus takes a deep breath, and nods. "Remember that old mausoleum? In the cemetery we buried Ben in? He used to lock me in there, to make me face the ghosts."

Vanya nods to herself, taking that in. "It wasn't just a dream, then."

"What wasn't a dream?" Allison asks.

"I saw a soldier," Vanya says. "Inside my head. He said he was Klaus's boyfriend. He knew things about us."

"Oh yeah, that's Dave," Allison says. "He's dead. I met him in the limo. Ben's here too, by the way. Oh, and a woman named Helen Cho."

Vanya looks startled. "Helen's here?"

"Her ghost," Allison specifies belatedly. "She showed up right after you dropped the energy tentacles. She told Klaus that Leonard killed her. Her body's in the attic."

"I did it for you, Vanya!" Leonard calls out from across the room.

Vanya looks appalled. "Oh my god."

Luther, Five and Diego head off to the police station with Leonard in custody. Diego says he has a good relationship with the police department, so you're hopeful that the handover will go smoothly. Grace goes with them; Diego seems reluctant to let her out of his sight.

This leaves you, Klaus, Vanya, Allison, Ben and Helen.

"Girls and ghosts!" Klaus says, clapping his hands. "What should we do?"

"Well, I'm feeling kind of wiped," Vanya says. "I think I'd like to go home and have some soup."

"You shouldn't be alone," Allison says. "Not after what just happened. I'm so sorry I was right about Leonard."

Vanya frowns. "Thanks, why don't you rub it in a little more."

"Sorry," Allison says with a wince. "I'm trying to be a good sister, I really am."

"Okay, let's just all agree that we're terrible at being a family," Klaus says.

"Is that helpful somehow?" Ben asks.

"Ben wants to know if that's helpful," Klaus reports. "And the answer is yes, because if we lower the bar far enough, we can step right over it without tripping."

"Ben's really here?" Vanya asks, softly.

"Yes," Allison says, squeezing her hand. "Klaus hasn't taken any drugs all day."

"Oh, I got sober to see Dave," Klaus says. "Ben haunts me no matter what. But never mind that. We're gonna have a sleepover and paint each others' nails, it's final, I've decided."

"I love you," you whisper to Klaus later that night. He's lying on the living room floor, next to his sleeping sisters. They've piled dozens of blankets on the floor to make a comfortable nest. Vanya is nestled into the crook of Allison's arm.

"You don't have to whisper, you dope," Klaus whispers back. "Nobody can hear you."

"Ben and Helen might," you point out. They've fallen asleep leaning against each other on the couch. "Hey, that's kind of weird, isn't it? That they're sleeping?"

"I think they're sleeping because I'm tired," Klaus says. "Three ghosts at a time is kind of a lot."

"Oh shit, are we draining you?" you ask. "How does your power work, anyway?"

"I really don't know," Klaus says. "I've never used it on purpose before."

"I don't want to hurt you," you say, concerned.

"You don't," he says, reaching out to run a finger along your jawline.

You shiver. You can just barely feel it.

"When you died," he says, his voice so soft you can barely hear it, "I felt like the universe ended."

"I'm sorry," you whisper.

"So many shitty things have happened to me," Klaus says. "And every single one has fucking knocked me down. I'm not brave. I'm not strong. I take pills and I drink until I can't feel the pain anymore. But then you died. And somehow ... even though you weren't there, you made me strong enough to flush the pills and find you."

"Oh babe," you whisper, brushing a ghost kiss across his knuckles where his hands are clasped in front of his chin. "That wasn't me. That was you. You're so much stronger than you think you are."

"Dave, I've been sober for fifteen hours, and I feel like I'm dying," Klaus says. "I want to do this. I've never wanted it before, but I want it now. But it's going to be so hard."

"No matter what, I'm proud of you and I love you," you say. "We're going to figure this out together. When you need help, we'll find help for you. And I'm going to be with you every step of the way."

He manages a wavering smile. "Okay, Dave. I believe you. I love you."

"I love you too," you say again, because you can never say it enough. "And when you're feeling better, let's practice more kissing."

His smile gets brighter. "Hell yeah. Practice makes perfect."

"Yup," you whisper, brushing a deliberately ineffective kiss against his lips, and grinning. "And we're gonna need so much practice."

THE END

[Click here if you want to play again from the beginning!]