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It was April of 2001, and Reginald Hargreeves had a problem. He was trying to train his children to be an elite team of heroes, but lately they’d been as listless and sluggish as Grace on low power mode. They ran slower, jumped lower, and were just plain tired overall. He needed a way to inject some energy and morale back into his team, and adding an extra hour into daily training just wasn’t doing it.
At least all of the silence gave him more time to think. That afternoon, while the team was laying around in the backyard on break, Reginald sighed over a cup of tea.
Grace placed his cream cheese sandwich down in front of him, its plate not even making a clink.
“Grace, that was almost as quiet as the children have been lately.”
“Thank you, I’ve been practicing.”
“Hm.” He took a sip of tea. “I’ve noticed that the children seem happiest on their daily break time. Perhaps celebrating a holiday together as a family would raise their spirits. Are there any coming up soon?”
Grace looked over to the calendar nailed to the wall. “Easter is in a week. Oh! That would be fun. I could help the girls dye the eggs, and Five could hide them, he’s always so clever when it comes to -”
“No, no, all of that involves too much work. And they’re lazy enough as is. Are there any others?”
“....Well, Passover starts on Saturday night.” When Reginald just raised an eyebrow at her, she continued. “It’s a Jewish holiday fairly similar to Easter, except it focuses more on the festive meal. Plus, there’s only one thing that gets hidden, instead of all those eggs,” she laughed.
“Fascinating. Where did you hear about this?”
Grace shrugged. “It was in one of your books on international cultures.”
“Well then. Gather the children and tell them to help us prepare for Saturday night!”
-----
“Thank God we finally get to eat,” Ben groaned. “The Passover story retelling went on forever.”
“It was supposed to ‘go on forever,’” his father said, “the point of this holiday seems to be enduring as much suffering as Moses and his people did before they left Egypt.”
“Um, I don’t think that’s the-”
“Besides, patience is a virtue,” his father asserted, ending the conversation.
At the other end of the table, Vanya turned to Grace. “I hope our soup turned out well.”
“I’m sure it did, sweetie. You were right, it did taste better once we added the chicken.”
Across from them, Diego twirled his butter knife in his right hand. “I hope there’s still some gummy fruit slices left for dessert,” he said, glaring at Klaus.
“Hey, don’t look at me, the only dessert I stole was the box of chocolate pops.”
Allison made a face. “How can you two eat all that stuff? It’s so bad for you.”
Klaus grinned. “Who said I was gonna eat all of it? I’m planning to melt half of it down into chocolate pudding so I can use it to wax my --”
“Klaus!” Luther started, sounding freakishly like his dad, “That’s disgusting. And Diego, ‘gummy fruit slices?’ What are you, six?”
“No, I’m Two. Ben is Six.”
“Ha ha.”
“You’re just pissed because I’m the one who’s gonna find the Afikomen.”
“You wish --”
“Who wants soup?” Grace asked, getting up from the table. It was best if Luther didn’t know that she’d told Diego where she hid the Afikomen that afternoon.
_____
It was the first April after all the Apocalypse bull had boiled over, and Vanya Hargreeves had a problem. None of her siblings believed that she really had a girlfriend. One who wasn’t evil, no less.
“Oh my God, I have a picture of her right here on my phone!” she said, pointing to a picture of a brunette winking at the camera and posing with an electric guitar. “Here she is! Frankie’s performing a solo in our symphonic rock piece this Sunday!”
“I don’t know,” Luther smirked while putting the seder plate down on the dining room table. “That could just be some girl you paid to pose as your girlfriend. Or some celebrity I don’t know about.”
“Paid to pose as my - with what money, Luther??”
“Hell, I don’t know. It’s your life.”
“Well, I believe you, Vanya.” A newly revived Dave Katz walked over to them, then jabbed a finger into the hall. “Eudora does too.”
Patch -- also brought back from the past -- waved from the hallway. “She’s really pretty, Vanya.”
“Thank you.”
“Whatever,” Luther scoffed. “Klaus! Diego! How’s the soup coming?”
The two of them poked their heads in from the kitchen. Klaus waved to everyone with his “HELLO” hand. “Only five more minutes till it’s done.”
“You know, Klaus,” Dave mused, “I’ve been thinking of getting hand designs like yours, except with ‘SHALOM’ written on either palm. Get it? Because it means both hello and goodbye in --”
“Babe, you are such a dork,” Klaus laughed.
“Well, I was only gonna draw them on with permanent marker, instead of getting a real tattoo, since that’s against the faith and all. Can’t have the rabbi thinking I’m a godless heathen,” he joked.
Just then, Five warped down to the foot of the stairs, emptied coffee mug in hand.
“Hey, brother,” Diego started, “Are you still up for singing the Four Questions? Since they have to be done by the youngest person in the --”
Five warped straight up to Diego’s face, jabbing the mug at his nose like a dagger. “No. I. Am. Not,” he gritted out. “I am NOT the youngest, because the last time I checked, I’m almost sixty! If anyone’s the youngest out of all of us, it’s Ben.”
“Well, consider this,” Ben started from his chair, “I don’t want to do it.”
Vanya shrugged. “Fair point.”
Diego stepped away from Five. “By the way….has anyone seen the gummy fruit slices? I searched every cabinet in the kitchen and I couldn’t find any.”
“That’s because I didn’t buy any.” Allison strode in, placing an elaborate fruit salad on the table.
“Allie!”
“What? I’m auditioning for a movie where I’d play a French Revolution peasant who marries a duke! Peasants are skinny and don’t gain five pounds every night from eating pure sugar!”
“But I -- screw it. Patch! Looks like we’ve gotta set up a full-scale investigation to find some.”
“Full-scale?” Patch laughed. “Like city-wide? State-wide?”
Diego struck a fist to his chest and smirked. “We’ll search to the ends of the earth if we have to.”
Patch just shrugged. “As long as the ‘ends of the earth’ includes your seat at the table.”
“My seat at the -- oh.” Diego picked up the box of candies lying on his seat and shook it around. “Yeees! Did I ever mention that I love you?”
Patch walked over to him. “Eh, you might have said it once or twice.” They kissed.
Five made a face at the sudden PDA. “Well…..do I still have to do the Four Questions?”
“Jesus Christ, I’ll just do them if it shuts everyone up.” The door closed behind the voice, and the guitarist girl from Vanya’s phone walked in.
“Frankie! You made it!” Vanya ran over to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She turned back to everyone and smiled. “See, I told you she was real.”
Luther just crossed his arms. “She could still be just an actor. Still doesn’t seem real to me.”
Frankie just gave him a lazy smile. “Well, the fact that you’re this much of an asshole doesn’t seem real to me, yet here we are.”
Everyone except Luther burst out laughing.
“Now I see why you like her,” Klaus cracked.
“Alright, alright,” Luther groaned. “Can we all just sit down and eat now?”
So they did.