Spectacular Timing, Really.

"I can only assume that's because Adrienne hasn't told you she's been seeing other people while you were gone," Selwyn said.

He had thought all of Adrienne's omissions were especially for him, and he had been willing to put up with it because he assumed they came from some deep insecurity, probably formed while she was living with the Poliakoffs. Obviously, he was wrong, at least on the especially for him front.

The moment passed and Kaiden went on to explain what had happened. What his parents had told him had happened, Selwyn corrected himself.

Oliver. Selwyn had never recalled that Kaiden had a twin, and why should he? He only recalled that Kaiden himself existed because they'd been in the same house.

Adrienne was still sceptical, but maybe that was because she didn't want it to be true.

"Maybe, they wanted you to stay married to him," Selwyn said.

"Consider this: the Poliakoffs can't lose their heir. Usually, if Kaiden dies, Oliver becomes the heir, except that Oliver is as gay a multicoloured unicorn. We already know he didn't want to settle down and make babies."

"So here's what I think," Selwyn turned to Kaiden. Did he even know his brother was gay? Well, he did now. "I think your parents negotiated with Oliver. He agreed to take on your identity in return something. Probably them staying out of his private life."

He understood what Adrienne had meant when she said that there was someone she had been living with during their previous meeting. He'd wanted to think it was with a friend, another girl, but he'd had a feeling it wouldn't have been so easy. Now, he also started to understand she'd meant by his "being up to all manner of things with a friend" of hers.

A lot made much more sense with that explanation, but he didn't want to believe it.

Maybe that was because it was his brother they were talking about and maybe it was because of the fact that they seemed to know more about his family that he did. Even if he'd previously known his brother was gay, he wouldn't have known it the way he was now. Kaiden blinked, unable to find any words at that moment and just stared at Selwyn. It seemed like anything was possible.

"So you know my brother, then?" he asked. He shouldn't have been surprised by that. Not with Adrienne, at least. With Selwyn it was different, he wanted to know how he knew his brother, but he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to ask him directly. Maybe he just didn't want to hear what the reasoning for knowing Oliver was. It probably wasn't something he would want to know.

"It really does seem like everyone knows about everything I should know except for me." he muttered, having no other words but those to say. Maybe it would've been best for everyone if he'd just stayed where he was instead of coming back. It seemed like everything would've been easier.

[ooc: @Kim - I'm listening to Emperor's New Clothes by Panic! while writing this XD]


Adrienne nearly laughed at Selwyn's description of Oliver, and had to cover it up as though it had been a cough. She hadn't expected it to be amusing, considering she was being told that Shylock's former - or she thought it was former - lover had acted like he was her husband at the time.

But he hadn't been. It hadn't been Kaiden at all, through any of it. That is, if Kaiden was telling the truth now. For a moment, she questioned whether or not this was really him, but he had enough of Kaiden's old mannerisms that she found it hard to believe it could be anyone else.

But, clearly - what did she know?

Her lips thinned into a line at Kaiden's question, and that was probably answer enough. And he wasn't wrong about the next thing he said, either. Of course, one of her thoughts was nagging at her and she couldn't discern why. She just couldn't dismiss the surprised thought about how none of it had been Kaiden at all.

The fighting. The dinners from hell. The fact that he just let her leave when it got to the point where she simply couldn't stand it anymore. The-

Divorced. They had annulled the marriage, she thought. But it hadn't actually been Kaiden. She had no idea what that actually meant for her legally, and she actually had to sit forward and drop her head into her hands to keep from feeling like she was going to have some kind of fainting spell. She didn't think she actually would, but Adrienne quite clearly had the ability to over-react to things, and it was all just a bit much.

All she could properly get out was, "The divorce, Sel. What-? Oh, Merlin."

"No," Selwyn answered Kaiden's enquiry first, "but I have a friend who knows him intimately."

It was best not to bring Shylock into this, he decided. Kaiden was already confused enough without trying to understand the complexities of Selwyn's love life.

"Look," he went on, "as much as we may not want it to, this makes sense. Addie's the one who knew you best and she even told me that you'd changed after you got married."

"My friend wouldn't have had the opportunity to notice anything. He didn't know either of you well enough in the first place."

Selwyn paused when Addie brought up the annulment. He had forgotten about that. He had also, in the excitement of figuring out this puzzle, forgotten that he was angry at her.

"Well, that just means you're still married to this one," he said, with a nod towards Kaiden. "He's the one you like, isn't he?"

"Well, yeah, I guess you're right." Kaiden answered, the last bit of his sentence sounding more like a question than a statement.

Divorce? Oh right, Adrienne had mentioned something about that before.

Kaiden dropped his gaze, trying to think. He was (still) married. He'd been married after graduating, had apparently been given hell (maybe?) for being married to Adrienne, then they'd gotten an annulment on their marriage and at this point, he was supposed to not be married. But all of that had happened while he wasn't there. All of that had happened with Oliver, not Kaiden. Even though Oliver was pretending to be Kaiden.

But now that annulment was supposed to be.. well, annulled since Kaiden hadn't actually been the one who signed off on it with Adrienne. It was a lot to wrap one's mind around, speaking of which..

Kaiden's head hurt.

He really couldn't wait to be able to remember everything that had happened before he'd ended up in Greece. It would be as though he'd been in prison and he'd finally done his time and served his sentence and he'd finally be free. He hated not knowing anything, it was like everyone could be lying to him and he hated feeling like that.

Now that made him curious, Selwyn's statement. He wanted to know, though he didn't like the way it sounded as it came out of his mouth, if Adrienne still did 'like' him. He looked at her almost expectantly, trying his best not to seem that way but was probably failing.

Selwyn wasn't wrong. It did make sense. But although she was reluctant to admit it to begin with, everything was only made worse when he snapped at her. She sat up slowly, turning to glare at him.

"Y'know, I might have known that answer to that if he could remember a damn thing. It isn't very well him, now is it?" She returned fiercely. "I can't claim to like someone who doesn't even know himself."

So maybe she thought that applied to both of the men sitting in that room. She certainly had a problem when it came to knowing what she wanted, and when she was asked to make decisions. But there was also the part of her that still wasn't convinced that Selwyn really thought that being involved with both Shylock and herself could truly work.

That, of course, would explain the way her eyes narrowed and her tone became one of general distaste for the whole situation.

"What do you want me to say, then? That none of this is working? Because it clearly isn't. You two can't go at each other like this, or at me. Because then I might actually lose it."

He hated when she played the victim, like it wasn't her choice to come here and meet Kaiden, and not even tell him. It was pretty clear she'd had no intention of telling him.

And then that whole accusation. Selwyn had no problem with Kaiden. Felt a bit sorry for the guy, actually. He was obviously the only decent person in his family. Sure, he did set him straight about his relationship with Addie, but Addie obviously wasn't going to do it herself. Falling back into her "lying by omission isn't really lying" habit.

"Do you even want it to work?" he asked. "Do you want anything to work? Whenever anything gets hard for you, you say it's just not working. The only reason we've stayed together this long is because I didn't want you to have to move out."

Kaiden didn't know what he was supposed to say now. Clearly they had their own issues that needed to be resolved. He felt bad, though. It was like he was the cause of it all. No, not like. He was the cause of it all.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, everything that was happening now was his fault. Well.. maybe not only his fault. If he thought about it enough, he could determine that it was his family's fault. Everything he's heard, everything he's been told, all of it just came back to things his family did. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to blame himself. Things would be so much easier if he could just remember things.

Adrienne had a point. How could she be sure that the Kaiden before her now was the one she'd "liked" back then? He didn't remember anything about himself so it wasn't like he could just say that he was the same person and be done with it. Even so, he was sure he'd changed a least a little bit from his old self because of his time in Greece. Here he was the heir of the Poliakoff family, there he'd been no one. There had to be a difference in who he was now as to back then.

Too bad he didn't remember.

There was something about how they were acting, how he was acting, that seemed.. familiar to him. Like he'd experienced something like that somewhere before. His gaze shifted from Selwyn to Adrienne, something clicking in his mind once he looked at her.

..."I'm going to see a friend for a few days."

"And when we're you planning on telling me you were leaving?"

"I'd only just decided."

Did he and Adrienne argue about something at some point before he disappeared? (Well, duh. They were a married couple, it happens.) He thought he sounded pretty upset, but he couldn't figure out why. "I-" he stopped himself. He wanted to ask her about that, but was it wise while Selwyn was there? Not just because he was there, actually. The whole situation wasn't good for that. He'd have to ask her another time, he thought.

Adrienne sat forward as she faced Selwyn, eyes narrowing dangerously. If she'd seen herself in the moment, she might have even surprised herself. "Oh, I'm sorry. I can't take care of myself, is that it? I could have found a place, you sod. I was waiting for you to come back! But that's fine. I'm not enough on my own, it seems."

Tossing her hands up in the air, she shook her head at him. Of course, Kaiden didn't have the best timing.

"Not now, Kaiden," she snapped, standing and holding a hand out in his direction though she continued to glare at the deputy headmaster.

"Consider this whole thing over, then. I'll be gone before your last class is out for the day, don't you worry."

Selwyn chewed on his lip and tried to figure out what he wanted. He'd wanted the argument, that was true. Like a fire, it burned away all the awful things. He'd always liked fire, even when he got burned.

He looked down at his hands. He always got burned.

He raised his gaze back to Addie. There were so many things he could say. She wasn't being fair to Kaiden. Losing some memories didn't change the person underneath it all. She wasn't being fair to him. He hadn't meant to lie to her.

But, God, it just never worked, did it? He'd talk her out of whatever mood she was in, and she'd promise to try harder and they'd end up back here.

"Take your time," he said carefully, because if he wasn't careful he'd end up babbling for her to change her mind. "It's not like I'm rushing back there any time soon."

He closed his eyes. How's that for fucking gracious, mum?