The train ride back home was very tense and no one could even look the other in the eye without a fiery argument breaking out. Drake had been placed between Dane and Damien as a buffer between the two's incessant quarreling. Dane had fought Damien about leaving that world without Jade tooth and nail, until Damien forced him to leave. Amon was still too hungover to even care why everyone was in a terrible mood and Blair was upset that she wasn't getting any attention.

Leaning back with a sigh, Drake fished around in his pocket for the broken ring. Maybe he could begin to work on how to fix it and maybe it would work for him because he was connected to Jade.

"Don't pull that thing out," Dane growled softly, laying a hand on Drake's arm.

Damien glanced at Drake, looking at him questioningly, making Drake feel uncomfortable again. He still couldn't shake what he had explained to him that previous night. He had sworn to keep quiet about it, but he felt like hurling or jumping out the train window, in hope of death. He glanced out the window quickly.

"You look a little sick," Dane commented, trying to be kind to Drake to emphasize his bitterness towards his brother.

"I feel awful," he moaned, laying his head on the smooth surface of the wooden table as his headache increased. He wished Jade was there so he could consult with someone other than Damien about it all.

"Are you all right?" Damien asked him. That was another thing. Damien's entire attitude towards him had completely changed. That or Drake was just seeing things from a completely new perspective.

"Oh, yes, everything's perfectly fine, dad," Drake spat at him, lifting his head to greet Damien's horrifying stare mockingly.

Everyone in the booth, even Amon, who was barely conscious stopped what they were doing and looked at him as if he had just said he was going to blow up the train. He wanted to get up and leave to be done with it all, but Damien had already commanded him that he couldn't. So he embraced everyone's attention head-on.

"You didn't," Dane said looking right at his brother. Did he know? It would make sense. Dane was so involved with everything concerning Damien that if Damien himself hadn't already told Dane then Dane probably would have figured out on his own quite effortlessly.

Damien glanced around the booth, meeting every curious eye, "Let's talk about this some other time."

Dane shook his head and then buried it in his hands. "I think we should talk about it now," Drake hissed, standing up, glaring at Damien.

"Fine!" Damien, threw his hands into the air, "The two of you can leave."

Without even protesting Blair, helped Amon out of the booth and closed the door behind them. They seemed to be used to being kicked out of everything.

Drake changed his mind he didn't want to go through this again, what had he been thinking? He just wanted it to all go away. Maybe just for it to go back to how it was because no matter how miserable that was, this was a hundred times worse. He looked out the window of moving scenes again, hoping that he could ignore the conversation beginning around him. However it was impossible.

"So you finally did tell him then?" Dane muttered, shaking his head, disapprovingly.

"Yes," he answered, casually, "with Jade stuck in the time where I'm seventeen she's more than likely to figure it all out. I mean when she sees herself. So I just thought that I'd get it over with."

He gave a final shrug before glancing at Drake, who was turning a pale green. "I'm going to puke," he growled, unable to mute out the words circling around and around him, making him dizzier by the second, "please just let me out of this booth for a minute!"

Damien eyed him with a cruel smile, "You'll get over it."

"Oh have a heart Damien!" Dane barked, "Who wants to find out that they're you! Let him leave."

That brought Damien's conversation with him last night, flooding back in torrents. Sending his nerves and stomach on another whirling ride.

"Well?" he had asked Damien, after he had said that he needed to explain that something to him. If only he had known how terrible it would be, would he have stopped Damien from telling him, but he hadn't known.

Taking a deep breath, Damien began with, "Well, firstly. I'm not really your . . . your um father."

There was an infinity of silence, stretching through the dark room, echoing in every empty corner and bouncing off the ceilings, growing every second. Drake had been shocked by that completely, he even laughed saying, "Oh sure you're not! We just happen to look the exact same!"

"Drake, shut up and listen to me, would you?" Damien had hissed. He hadn't been joking, but Drake still couldn't believe that what he was saying was true. He had never in his wildest dreams imagined that this conversation would start like this. Nevertheless he heard him out. "This will be very complicated at first, all right, but just bear with me."

Damien waited for Drake to say something, which he finally did, "Well, get on with it then!"

"It doesn't make any sense that I could be your father any ways," he continued, shaking his head as if reassuring himself rather than Drake, "I'm not sure how the hell you've compensated for the fact that I'm only seven years your senior-"

"Ignoring the fact that we're identical of course and you could simply lie about your age," Drake had growled, angrily, listening to a loud crashing noise that came from the kitchens. The servants were still cleaning up?

"Look we are the same person all right," Damien spat at him, "when I was twenty-four somehow  you were time traveled into my time, screwing everything up and then Jade after you. Now time doesn't even move here except for with the two of you and the only people who can even notice are the people around you both."

Drake stared at him for a few moments waiting for him to begin laughing, shaking the joke off, but he didn't, forcing Drake to ask, "So all of the memories Jade has of this family you killed?"

Damien cocked his head at Drake, grinning, "Yes, I sent her away when she was like twelve or so to live with a foster family."

"Why did you send her away and then bring her back?" Drake asked, realizing that this question had nothing to do with this new information, but he was curious nonetheless.

The very ends of Damien's mouth twitched, "She became unbearable. Look that's where I'm leaving things for now. We'll talk about it more later."

"Drake!" Dane snapped, breaking him out of his memories.

Damien was giving him that same curious look and was still wearing that obnoxious smile. Drake shuddered as he remembered that he was looking into a mirror. "So we're the exact same person, like I'll be exactly like you in seven years?"

"No," Damien purred, putting the tip of his index finger beneath Drake's chin, forcing him to keep his eyes on him, "we aren't the same people in the slightest bit. I grew up in a different time than you, had different experiences than you. I've been through hell and made it out the other side. We're similar. There can be no doubt about that, but we aren't precisely the same. I am my own character and I won't be written over by you."

"And again," Drake went on, "why did you send Jade away, put her through everything you did just to have her end up in the exact same spot?"

The grin that was spread across Damien's face turned more into a grimace as his hand slipped away and Dane answered for him, "Drake you do understand that everyone in this time that you think is your own age is actually Damien and mine's ages? Like Petra and Erik."

"All right," Drake said, trying desperately to process it all. He grabbed a chess piece off of the game that had been laying idly on the center of the table and began to toy with it so that he didn't have to meet anyone's eyes, especially not Damien's. He wasn't sure how long he could keep his sanity intact, but the less he acknowledged Damien the better. That he knew for sure. He continued to speak, "So, Petra and Erik know about all this?"

"No, just Petra," Dane replied, placing his elbows on the table, probably trying to recapture Drake's eyes, "Erik and Damien never knew one another so he genuinely thinks you're his son, but my point is that just like you are Damien, Jade is Lyra."

"My supposed mother?" Drake couldn't help, but laugh at it all. His entire life had been such a stage. He had been trying so desperately all of these years to play a role that he not only lacked the script to, but wasn't even the right character to. "So she isn't really dead then?"

"Oh, she's dead all right," Damien muttered quietly, rubbing his lower lip with his thumb, "she died a few years before the two of you showed up. I mean I think that's why the two of you showed up later."

"Wait," Drake said, looking up and forgetting completely about his sanity, "you," he paused because the words sounded so ridiculous inside his head, "you loved Jade? That's . . . that's why you hate her so much? That's why you sent her away and make her life miserable?"

"While you and I are quite different, Jade is the exact same down to the very words she uses. The way she sees me is immutable," Damien replied as icily as ever.

"But she did love him once," Dane commented, looking at his brother as if he were concerned, "just not-"

"She saw what a terrible, selfish, manipulative person you are," Drake twisted the sword in Damien's back. "How did she die exactly? On your account, I have no doubt."

"In an accident," Damien growled, raising an eyebrow at Drake's challenging words, "are we done here?"

"No, so all of this time . . . I mean when you thought that Jade had forgotten who everyone was, you thought you could get on her good side and when you realized it was a lie you went berserk, not because it was a lie, but because she still hated you?"

Damien rolled his eyes, "It has not been a very easy seventeen years, Drake. The sooner Alastair sends you back to your own time, the better everyone's lives will be."

"What?" Drake hissed, eyeing Dane.

"Alastair is the one who messed all of this up, punishing me for endangering his daughter, something about being the cause of her death, any ways I'm hoping Jade will time travel to him eventually and end all of this," Damien sighed.

"What happens to this time and all of you when that does happen?" Drake asked with a frown.

"I don't know," Damien shrugged, "but anything will be better than this infernal hell. If you two stay here you'll eventually grow so old that you'll die and then I guess I'd die, maybe then time would restart, but that isn't really how I want to live my life," he responded, glumly.

"And Jade and I hearing one another's thoughts . . . did you and Lyra-" Drake began.

"No," Damien growled, angrily glancing at Dane wearily, "please I'm sick and tired of this."

Dane frowned at his brother.

"No, you have to answer this," Drake insisted. Damien was shocking him with how open he was being with his answers, "Why do Jade and I hear one another's thoughts?"

"Because you're both from the same time!" Damien exclaimed and then fell face forward onto the table, moaning.

"But that doesn't-" Drake began again.

"That's enough for now Drake," Dane warned him.

Drake shot his uncle a glare, "Then can I please just step out into the hall for a minute or two then? It's been a long two days."

Damien lifted his head, eyeing Drake suspiciously. "What will you do out there that you can't in here?"

"Why do you get to boss me around?" Drake snapped at him as he stood.

"Because," he said smoothly, "sit down."

Drake's limbs seemed to give way beneath him and suddenly he fell, glued to the seat. "God, why do you hate me so much!" He screamed loudly at him.

Damien squinted at him until a smile broke open his face as he shook his head, laughing, "I honestly don't know."

Dane put a hand on Drake's shoulder, comfortingly, "It makes sense that you two hate each other. You're just too similar!"

Damien shrugged. He didn't care a bit. He had had seventeen years to figure this out. Drake only had eight hours. It was beginning to suffocate him. What else was a lie? Was literally everything fake? He looked around himself uneasily, around that little booth until his eyes met Damien's.

"W-what's my real father like then?" He managed to whisper. All of those years trying to please Damien, he cursed himself. A waste of time.

Dane looked away and Damien simply raised his eyebrows at him; a thing that he seemed to be doing a lot of lately. "You really don't want to know, Drake and if what I'm hoping will happen once you are restored to your own time. He won't be there."

Drake frowned at Damien, watching him tug on the ends of his sleeves as if he could pull them down any further, "I want to know! I have the right to know after having you as such a poor substitute!"

Damien laughed at him! He laughed at him, mocking him, spiking Drake's anger. "You were really hurt by all of that weren't you, not quite physically, but you were hurt deeply" he stopped to laugh again, "for years you tried so hard to do my every wish. It became so obnoxious that I-"

"Damien!" Dane shouted at him, shaking his head disapprovingly.

"What?" Damien snapped. "We both had worse." He glanced at Drake with a smile as he pulled at his sleeves even harder, "What did you want me to do? Hug you? Pat your back? Say good job son? I tried! I did try at first, okay! I truly did Drake. And you . . . you wouldn't have any of it. You hated me first!"

"I was a child!" Drake laughed, holding back the sorrow that had dug a hole so deep in his heart that it was just about to puncture through the other side.

"You had the one thing I could never have!" Damien shouted at him, slamming his fist on the table, making the glass vase and chess pieces set up rattle violently and fall over. He stood up, his eyes lit on fire. So this was why he hated him. He was viciously and lividly jealous.

Drake opened his mouth and then shut it and then opened it once more, "It wasn't my choice, Damien. I never asked for her. I mean you were the one who actually made us-"

"She had died only five years prior," Damien interrupted him hotly, "and I was over it mostly, until the two of you- and now seventeen years later and she still hates me. I- ugh, just go ahead and leave. Get out and leave me alone for an hour at the least. I cannot bear the sight of you any longer."

"No, wait when we came we were infants right? How the hell did you find us and how did you know it was us?" He questioned him, cautiously.

Damien bit his lip hard enough that a diminutive stream of blood began to dribble from the tip of his chin and trickle three plump red drops onto the mahogany table. Dane watched each drop fall, blinking as each thumped onto the table.

"Drake," Dane began for Damien once more, however Damien held up a hand.

"You showed up at my door in two baskets, different years obviously, no doubt Alastair put the two of you there," he began, not only with a shaky voice, but also with trembling hands, "I wasn't going to kill two babies and you cannot transport children from world to world very easily if they are not under your care and the orphanage of the world I was in would have been certain death. So the four of us kept the two of you."

Drake waited for him, expecting that he had simply paused and would continue again, but after a few silent minutes, he prodded him, "When and how did you realize who we were?"

Damien turned away from him and looked out the window hard and Dane took the opportunity to step in. "At first Damien and Jade got along quite well as daughter and father, while you isolated yourself. It was a hint that the two of you seemed so close almost like you could read one another thoughts, but that could just have about anything. After Jade turned five, Damien was sure of who she was and couldn't bear to be in the same room as her or even hear her from down the hall. He remained as distant as he possibly could. She was devastated. He couldn't avoid her all of the time obviously and eventually things became so bad that I worried for his health. So we . . . well that is myself and Amon, we sent her away and you stayed."

Drake glanced at Damien, angrily, "So when you demonstrated that kiss after she came back. . ."

Drake thought back to that moment. He hadn't been giving much notice to any of it at the time. All he could remember was Damien showing her how Drake was to kiss her. He didn't notice that Damien had been passionate in the least bit. In fact he'd seemed the complete opposite. "You," he spoke out, "you hide your love for her with your hatred. It's all fake! The more you hated her, was actually the more that you loved her."

Damien ran his hand down his face scratching the stubble on his jaw and giving Drake a sideways glance. A look that made Drake's insides hurt. "With each year she comes closer to my age and with each year it becomes harder and harder to ignore her. Now will you get out?"

Drake's mouth twitched. He was irritated with Damien. This was important. He needed to know every last detail. "Why the hell did you wait so long to tell me all of this?"

"I said leave. Is that not what you have been begging me for, for the last half hour?" Damien snapped at him and reaching up onto one of the shelves, grabbed a heavy book, flipped it open and stuck his nose in it as he sat back down to show that the conversation was over whether Drake would leave or not.

Dane lifted his eyes to Drake's carefully and shook his head, nodding towards the door. Drake bit his lip, more frustrated than ever and looked at the dark wooden door. He wasn't done with Damien yet.

"And what exactly is your plan to get Jade back?" He snapped back at him, reaching over and yanking the book from his hands.

"That is it!" Damien hissed, standing up and pointing his finger at Drake. "Don't make the mistake of underestimating my temper again, Drake."

"Are you just going to let her rot away in that world?" Drake, looked at Dane for some sort of support.

However with a very pale face, Dane only whispered, "Drake, please just leave all right. Everyone needs to cool off a bit."

"Do you not care about her?" Drake laughed at him. What would . . . no what could Damien do to him? "You are such a coward! You bow down to his every word! God, you're like his personal slave!"

As fast as a blink of an eye Damien had struck Drake across the face sending him across the table. He hit his head hard against the wall on the other side of the booth and then fell into the seat as a cascade of books rained down onto him. "Do not speak to your uncle - er um. Don't speak to my brother that way."

Drake sat up smiling at him. He couldn't help it, even though he could already feel his eye swelling where one of the corners of the books had hit him and the pain flooding his cheek. "Our brother don't you mean, Damien?"

Damien shot him a sarcastic smile, before sitting back down and picking his book back up, furiously.

"Drake," Dane muttered, "your nose."

Slowly, Drake lifted his hand up to right above his lip, where a warm liquid was beginning to drip into his mouth. The bitter, salty flavored reminded him of Jade's phobia. "Hmm," he murmured.

He glanced at Damien just in time to catch him, peeking over his book, but in an instant his eyes were cast downwards once more. Drake watched him closer waiting for him to look up again.

Suddenly there was a loud banging on the door, making Drake jump right out of his seat, sending the books that were covering him falling to the floor.

"Damien," Petra slipped her head through the door. Drake looked at her in astonishment. He hadn't known that she was going back home with them.

"Yes?" He replied without so much as looking up from his book.

She shot her eyes at Drake, "What the hell happened to you? Oh my gosh, are you all right?"

"Petra," Damien said, setting down his book and looking at her expectantly.

"Right," she said shaking her head, giving Drake one last heartfelt look before turning to Damien, "so about Jade."

"Drake," Dane spoke, "I will walk out with you. Let's leave these two alone."