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It starts with the knowledge that he’s falling.
He’s sitting in the mausoleum, it’s not quiet. It is never quiet.
The ghosts are screaming, grabbing and hurting. They are looking at him, searching his eyes for promises he cannot make and begging him for freedom he cannot grant. It’s dark but he sees them clearly and they see him clearly.
It’s dark but it feels like there’s light everywhere, because as much as he fears them, ghosts had always a certain beauty to them. No, not their appearances, those were horrible. Filled with cuts and slashes and blood everywhere. Rotting skin and missing body parts. They smell of death and misery, and their tears are as dark as their fears. Broken hands and bones grab him, try to get him to stare at them, fall for their sweet nothings because ghosts are cruel. They are dead, so they do not abide by kindness. They abide by their desires, and only their desires.
But they are beautiful - gorgeous as are fools, they hold in for hope and think they have the right to demand and demand. They eat everything life offers them, hoping to get something back they have lost long ago. They are hopeful creatures, as they are hopeless.
They believe they are allowed a closing, a relief, and an ending.
But their book has never been finished, their chapters stopping in the middle.
And life is as cruel as death is kind.
Life has thrown them out and refuses to give them a goal, a wish, something to hold on, whilst death has tried to tell them, that this is the end, that they reached the train station and now they have to get in.
But they turn a blind eye on the train and turn around to run away, over and over again.
Ghosts are hopeful, for they still believe they deserve an ending, a closure.
But life is cruel because they will not get their desired closure.
They might ask for his help, tell him to talk to their loved ones, to get revenge on their killers, to beg for some kind of warmth, for some life out of him.
But Klaus knows that ghosts are hopeless creatures.
Because no matter how many loved ones he talks to, no matter how many murderers he kills or how many graves he cleans, it will not grant them any form of closure, all things done they will still haunt him and ask themselves why they are not gone, to wherever their train should have taken them - they will blame him and they will be right.
Klaus knows it’s because of him.
They die and at first, they think, that something must be still done.
So they go on their way, float there and hope to get a release. That’s the beginning stage and afterward should come the cold, cruel realization, that they are dead for real, that they cannot leave any more footprints of their existence behind. That it is over for them, and that life does not give anyone a second chance, but death will wait for them and then welcome them in his warm embrace.
That’s what should happen - but then they encounter Klaus.
Klaus is part of the living as much he is part of the dead - he emits a warmth similar to death itself.
So, they seek his embrace out instead, his help. Because if he exists, and he can see them and they can feel him, then there must be a way to breathe once again, right? To get some kind of conclusion to all those left, unfinished wishes and dreams.
No, he’s just there, cursed by a power, by an ability, he did not wish for and ghosts, the nonliving, the dead want to believe they can be happy once more again, instead of making the realization that life must end no matter what, because it is written and engraved in every living being’s existence, an eternal promise to life and death.
But eternity does not last, that’s what Klaus has learned.
It does not last and some things should be left alone.
His father seems not to have learned that statement to its fullest, he fears.
Because here he is again, locked in a mausoleum surrounded by a thousand voices, begging for something, he cannot even give himself.
“I just want to be happy again!”
“I want to go back!”
“I left someone behind!”
“I don’t want to hurt anymore!”
And among all these words, he hears one statement and it echoes around everything he believes in.
“I deserve to live!”
“No,” he whispers and they all still for the first time in years.
“I fear,” he begins, looking at all them, before his eyes settle on a young-looking ghost, ”no one deserves to live.”
Because the immediate truth, the one that no one wants to voice, is that life does its own thing, creates and destroys, and every living being starts to exist so that they can cease somewhen. Maybe they create something, add something to life whilst they stay.
But they do not deserve to live.
Because life is not something granted, it’s not something handed out to people.
It is, so it can end.
He has seen the bottles of water in the corner when he was thrown in, so Klaus knows that he will stay there for a few days.
His siblings don't know where he is, because the only answer they get to, “Where’s Klaus?” will be, “He’s training.”
He knows how they will react to it as well.
Number One will frown, displeased that he isn’t getting any extra training, but he will be too afraid to voice his complaints, and eventually come to the conclusion, that it is probably behavior training Klaus is doing.
Klaus wants to scoff at that, it is as much behavior training as much it is a simple punishment game his father sets up for him.
Number Two will be also not happy about his own lack of training, but he will ultimately be happy about his lack of extra training. He might be curious about Number Four’s absence, but he won’t question it until he sees the scrapes and bruises Klaus wears every time he returns, followed by that empty look and the lack of life around him. Then he will worry for a bit, but he won’t do or say anything, because he always has been like that when it came to Klaus. Always so afraid of what the cold air around Number Four indicates.
And Klaus understands, because honestly, Klaus fears everything he is, in a different way than Ben fears himself, but somehow, still the same.
Number Three isn’t stupid, so she knows that something's off, whenever their father utters the words, “Number Four is doing extra training.” She has always been rather good with words, has learned to use them to her advantage, with or without power, so she knows, that extra training isn’t extra training. She might spend a lot of time with Number One, but unlike him, she sees their father as who he is, not fully, not in an accurate way like Number Five, a terrifying way like Number Six or a negative way like Number Two, but she sees a part of him, and that’s all she needs. She hovers whenever he comes back from training, tries to stay away, because she also fears the dead around him, but still leaves him candy and nail polish on his bed, hoping he cheers up.
Klaus always has liked Allison, as much as he didn’t like her. She is kind and mature, she knows and understands, but at the same time she understands nothing and it breaks him whenever he looks into her judging eyes, unlike their father’s or Number One’s eyes, but akin to them in their own way.
Five knows. He knows so well, as much as he doesn’t know. Five knows it’s a punishment, knows it’s a barrier that cannot be lifted, behind the words, “You have so much potential.” or “You’re my greatest disappointment, Number Four.” He knows and it doesn’t hurt, that he doesn’t know as well, because he makes it up in his own way. Five doesn’t know about the mausoleum, about the screaming, and his slowly deafening ears, but he knows about Klaus’ cold body, the air around Number Four, that seems so off, and the low temperature in Klaus’ room. He knows about the empty eyes, the shaking and tears long gone. He knows. He knows, so he covers.
Klaus could never see past Number Five and forget him. Klaus could never understand him.
Ben is the exception, because Ben understands the best, the most. He’s got monsters and nightmares in his own stomach, that weirdly get along with the dead. “Maybe they are dead?” That’s what Five assumes when they tell him about the connection. But that doesn’t matter much, because, in the end, they are still there, crawling up his spine in shivers and reminders, that he’s been dubbed, “The Horror” as much as Number Four wears the name, “The Séance” in irritation. It’s a whole fucked-up thing. Ben does not know about the mausoleum to the full extent, but he knows about the dread, the fears and the wish to cease. So, at night he hugs him, to remind Klaus that he’s alive, so in return Number Four stays awake, to protect Number Six from himself.
Their souls are bound in a weird way, they know each other too well not to fear for each other. Klaus couldn't not understand him.
Number Seven has always envied him, has always wanted powers and never understood his distaste for his own ability. She could see the blood on Ben, and nodded her head, admitting that such an ability was inconvenient. But she cannot see the ghosts, cannot smell them or slowly loses her hearing to their screams. She does not understand how it is to be always cold or to wake up at nights - that is if he gets any sleep - to the terrors and nightmares following him to the land of the awake. She does not feel her own heartbeat stopping, being pierced through by endless pain and to lose sight of life - and see it as relief only to be disappointed when he awakes once again. She doesn’t understand, because she’s not him, nor any of their siblings, because she’s free, she has the freedom he wants so much - so he envies her in return and lets her be mad at him, despise him because she does not understand and does not see.
He’s glad she doesn’t understand.
He loses his sense of time when he’s in the mausoleum.
He just sits and sits, letting the dead rage. Sometimes he screams back at them, a foolish hope that they will shut up, that they will hear the desperation in his voice and leave him alone.
But they never do, so his screams are for nothing.
When he’s in the mausoleum, where time seems endless, he thinks more and more than he likes to do. All the drugs are left behind, all his wishes are gone and all his dreams are broken.
And he thinks about how it’s funny.
His siblings call him loud, noisy and annoying. They don’t say it to his face, but they all call him attention-seeking and wish that he’d shut up. There’s once he broke his jaw, couldn’t speak and they were happy about it.
The thing is, he loves silence more than anyone else, except maybe Ben.
He loves the silence so much, wishes for all noises to vanish, to leave him alone in a complete state of numbness and calm.
He loves the silence, but the thing is, he’ll never get it. Not soon at least.
The ghosts don’t have a set time schedule, don’t have to take breaks, so they keep screaming and he can’t stand that. So, if he can’t get his silence, then he’ll have to be louder than the ghosts.
He talks a lot, repeats himself, does silly things, tries to start a conversation whenever he can, mumbles to himself, listens to music and dances around, yelling and laughing. He hates it.
He hates it so much, because the noise steals all his rest, all his peace, but then he remembers he has neither of those things anymore, not since the day he discovered his powers and the ghosts realized he can see them. That was the day he lost his peace, his calm, and he hates all the noise he makes, but Klaus understands that’s all he will ever get.
So, he thinks and thinks, lets his aspirations and ludicrous dreams take over, plays the clown, the godforsaken attention-seeker.
Because he knows somewhere deep down, God has forsaken him, doesn’t believe in him and he accepts it as the truth, because he neither, does believe in himself.
The ghosts are still screaming, no pain, no gain, no fucking closure.
And his throat is sore, his mouth feels like it’s getting torn and his ears feel like they are getting smashed in. All the pain and he screams back, lets himself cry into the desolate comfort of the mausoleum.
This is Hell, he comprehends belatedly. This is all he ever will have, all he will ever get because there’s no “Heaven ”, no grandiose “Paradise” and no “Home” for the deserted.
They keep on howling and wailing.
He keeps on drowning in his own misfortune.
God, he wishes he would end up deaf, as cruel, as horrible, that may sound. At this point, it seems to be the only thing that could save him besides, the drugs, the unforgiving poisons.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed, he just knows that he only drinks a bit of the water every day, too scared that their father may forget about him, may discard him, and leave him to rot in there.
He doesn’t know what he’d do if that would end up being the case.
Klaus just knows that maybe the end is the most relieving, but he doesn’t want to be like the dead, doesn’t want to scream and wail, take everything for granted in it's own selfish but blinded way.
He doesn’t know how long he will have to stay in there, but all his tears have dried and he can feel himself falling apart, more and more by second.
There’s no clock in there, but the sound of one echo in his mind, and he keeps on counting backward and forwards, throwing himself off every tick or tock.
What is he thinking? What is he thinking?
He’s pressed into a corner of the mausoleum, breathing heavily, his sight blurry, and his fears plain in sight. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, but at some point he finds a rock and starts to carve in everything he hears, every word the dead scream at him, he craves it all in that cold, stone wall, like he has carved it all in the walls of his mind years ago, where it will remain until his last breath, until he’s gone and hopefully won’t have to deal with this all anymore. He fears what will happen in case the opposite happens. He fears, fears, fears, fea-
They keep on wailing and he’s starting to cry with them.
He feels so helpless, so lost. He doesn’t know what’s going anymore how long he’s been sitting there.
Klaus doesn’t know how to stop carving things in and suddenly the wall is not-
Suddenly the rock presses into his skin, and he can’t think, so he drags and it cuts - and he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, but it hurts, and for a moment, he thinks.
And he thinks about the way his arm is red, and there’s a little bit of blood after a moment and how the rock feels against his skin, how it stings.
Drags and drags.
And then-then he fucking drops the rock, looks at his arm and thinks.
How did he end up like this, how did he go from screaming to red?
How the hell is he going to hide this?
“The... uniform has long sleeves,” he mumbles, shaken up by himself.
Shaken up by everything he cannot say anymore.
He’s sitting on the cool ground of a haunted mausoleum, scrapes on his knees scratch on his face and cuts on his arms.
There’s blood smeared on the arms and a rock on the ground.
A wall is covered in carvings, ghosts are surrounding him and - and there are bottles of water! But then he stops mid-way of reaching out and thinks, thinks about everything that Ben and Five told him.
And then he remembers.
“Did you know,” Ben muttered, “that water actually blunts the healing of wounds?”
“Did you know,” he mumbles to himself, “that I’m grateful you’re so smart, Ben?”
And he lets the water be and rolls down his jacket’s sleeves. For now, he just has to hide them, for now, he just-
For now, he is just.
Klaus ignores the rock on the ground and the scribbles on the walls.
Out of five bottles of water three remain and then the door opens, and moonlight fills the mausoleum.
His father walks in, glances at him and sees the eyes devoid of any emotion, the face filled with scratches, the walls covered in scribbles and two, empty water bottles.
“Come on, stand up, Number Four,” he says, before turning around.
Klaus does as said, knees aching and soles burning. He takes step after step, every contact to the ground, feels like he’ll fall any second, but he pulls through.
The mausoleum is a bit far away from the house, but not too far, so after half an hour, they make it back.
“Go to your room and clean yourself up.”
Klaus nods, and then walks the stairs up, willing himself not to throw up. He does that when he’s reached the trash bin in his room. He’ll clean it up tomorrow.
He takes fresh underwear and pajamas out of his closet and makes his way to the bathroom.
He stops in the hallway to look at the calendar and closes his eyes when his brain finally adds up the numbers.
He’s been caged in the mausoleum for four days, surely, because he’s Number Four.
Klaus walks to the bathroom and takes a bath for one hour.
It’s 1:23 am when he crawls into his bed and it’s 3:47 am when he wakes up, his nightmares following him once again.
At some point - around 5:00 am - his mother walks in with a medical kit and he holds his sleeves down and asks her if he could bandage his wounds alone because he really needs to be alone for a while longer. She blinks in curiosity but agrees.
When she leaves the room, he sighs out in relief and bandages the cuts, after disinfecting them.
Breakfast starts at 6:30 am, he comes downstairs 30 minutes earlier and helps his mother with the last of the work, which is really not much. The sleeves of his uniform hide everything they should and he manages to smile a bit, although he’s sure his eyes still look blank because Grace keeps glancing at him with worry. But she won’t ask since it’s not her place and because both know he won’t give her the truth.
And in the end, no matter what, she won’t do anything about it, because that’s just how she’s programmed. She tries hard though and he understands.
Around 6:15 am, only 15 minutes later, he stands in front of his chair and keeps staring at the clock, not wanting to forget time once more.
He hears footsteps and then a voice speaks up.
“Klaus?”
He turns to look at Five, who’s surprised to see him. Five frowns though when he sees his face.
“Are you okay?”
And he knows he isn’t, knows nothing is okay anymore, and the ghosts are still screaming, never have stopped. He also knows his eyes are a clear indicator as to why he’s not okay, but he smiles anyway.
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Normally, he would add more to the sentence, to convince his brother for real that he’s okay, but this time he’s tired.
And maybe, just maybe, some unconscious part of his mind wants the other to know that he is anything but fine, wants help.
Five’s frown doesn’t vanish immediately, but then he sighs and nods, as he walks to his place.
Two minutes later, Vanya and Ben come down.
Ben immediately walks up to him, frowning and scanning him for any wounds. Klaus hopes, just pray, that he won’t wonder what’s behind the clothes, the sleeves of his blazer. Then Ben shakes his head, and grabs Klaus’ hand, holding tight.
Vanya keeps glancing at him from her place, and he knows she understands now, knows it has taken her awhile - and talk with Ben and Five - but she knows now, so he looks into her eyes and she smiles.
By 6:23 am Allison, Diego and Luther come down, and to be honest, Klaus is a bit surprised, that Luther didn’t come downstairs first, but then again, he forgets people change. Well, most people, he’s still the same.
“Klaus!” Allison gasps, surprise, and relief, mixed on her face.
Diego nods at him, and Luther looks him over for wounds before they go to stand in their places.
Then they wait for their father.
He comes down eventually, looks at them, lets his gaze linger on Klaus and then stares at Vanya, whose seat is opposite of him.
“Sit down!”
Klaus doesn’t feel hungry, but takes two to three bites, before he stops. His throat is still raw and it hurts to eat, but he gobbles the food down anyway. Ben’s gaze lingers on him, eyes narrowed.
At 7:00 am they finish to start training.
“This can’t go on anymore.”
It’s Luther who says it to everyone’s surprise.
It’s 7:00 pm and training is done, so their father gave them a free evening, due to having a meeting he needs to attend.
Klaus is currently taking a bath (after Ben searched the whole damn room for drugs because he knows ).
Allison nods at that, and even Diego doesn’t protest. They know it can’t go anymore like that.
Five is frowning - has been frowning the whole day.
“Five,” Vanya mutters, staring at him.
“I know, it’s just,” he says, stopping to gather his thoughts for a second, “the timeline can’t be messed up.”
“Wrong,” Ben mutters, “I’m here, aren’t I?”
And that hits them all hard. Ben shouldn’t be alive at that age, but Klaus did his damn best to keep him alive and Five helped.
“Still-”
“Five,” interrupts Vanya, “we came here to fix things, to fix the world and the broken bonds between us. We can’t fix either if we let Klaus die.”
She says it without hesitation and it hurts them all, makes Ben close his eyes for a second and take a breath, makes Five look to the side, pain written in his eyes. They all know.
They all know there’s no guarantee, that one day - after just one wrong “extra training” trip - Klaus won’t come back alive.
Ben can’t sleep when Klaus is gone, because he’s out of his sight.
Five can’t sleep when any one of his siblings is gone, because he doesn’t want to find their lifeless, cold bodies once again - except it’s funny, because Klaus moves around, laughs and talk, but his body temperature is as cold as the temperature of a corpse if not colder, and his eyes are more than lifeless.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” Five replies and Allison steps closer to put a hand on his shoulder.
“Easy,” Ben speaks up, without a second thought, “we mess the timeline up.”
“Ben-”
“We already did it the moment we traveled back, the moment we started training Vanya and the moment you saved me; there’s no going back anymore.”
Everyone stares at Five before he sighs and breaks out into a smirk.
“Well, I can’t argue with you. Let’s make a plan.”
And everyone’s smiling by then.
It’s 9:24 pm and Klaus leaves the bathroom, dressed in pajamas when he walks into his room, everyone’s sitting in his room, looking up when he comes in. He’s grateful the sleeves of his shirt are long.
“What’s up?” He won’t question why they are in his room. He has broken into their rooms a lot of times, so it’s only fair in his opinion.
They stare at each other, and then Diego sighs and looks at Klaus.
“We have decided to fuck up the timeline.”
And Klaus is too mentally exhausted to question why and how the hell Five agreed to it, so he nods.
“Cool.”
Then he blinks.
“How are you going to do that?”
“We,” starts Luther, and Klaus really doesn’t expect the next words that come out of his mouth, “are going to murder Dad.”
“Oh, su- wait, what the fuck?!”
Diego breaks out laughing. “I told you it was a good idea to let Luther say it!”
Luther rolls his eyes and sighs.
After a few seconds, he realizes, that everyone - except Diego, that laughing bastard - looks serious.
“... This isn’t a joke?”
“No,” responds Luther.
And Klaus can’t help himself. “Are you on drugs?”
God, he knows Luther isn’t but it still would make somewhat more sense than anything else.
Luther shakes his head. The drugs are still an off-topic for him.
“But- how even?”
Five approaches him. “He won’t expect it, and I mean he did train us to kill people... he just never told us we couldn’t kill him.”
Five’s smirk is usually really annoying, but just this once Klaus can admit, that he’s happy to see it.
It’s actually really easy.
Reginald Hargreeves arrives at the mansion, walks in and is greeted by Allison, Vanya, and Ben sitting in the living room. He starts scolding them for being awake, and in the middle of it, Allison speaks up.
“I heard a rumor,” she starts, and he stops ready to disturb her, but behind him, Luther grabs him. “That you fell unconscious.”
She could have rumored him to die - they tested it before when she was younger, and it worked - but she still doesn’t like using her powers, and Diego wants to kill the old man more than she does anyway.
Luther holds the man’s torso up and Diego throws a knife.
Pogo and Grace walk in to welcome Reginald back, the moment the knife hits his heart.
Everyone stares at them, and they stare at Reginald’s corpse.
After a few minutes of the awkward silence, Klaus speaks up, because the ghosts are getting too loud.
“I mean, you can’t tell me, that you didn’t see this coming.”
Grace looks up, does some calculations and nods her head.
“There was a 95% possibility of this happening after the last few weeks.”
“Shouldn’t you have told Father then?" Vanya asks.
Grace smiles at her. “He never asked.”
Everyone’s reminded why they love their mom.
Then they all glance at Pogo, who looks with sorrow at the corpse of his master, before he sighs.
“I’ll go get the documents for Grace ready and... and will think of means to fake the way he died.”
They all grin brightly at him, and they know he won’t be mad at them.
It’s just before they all are ready to celebrate, that Klaus realizes something. He freezes on his spot, and Ben notices.
“Klaus?”
Everyone looks at Klaus after hearing Ben.
“Shit,” he mutters, before staring at them all, “what do I do if he haunts me too?”
Now, they all are thinking about it, worried and scared for their brother.
But then Grace - she’s the best, really - points something out.
“Considering the way your ability works, Klaus dear, moving out and leaving everything behind that belongs to him, should keep him away?”
And Klaus brightens up because there are only a few ghosts who can follow him around, and he’s sure his father isn’t one of them.
Five smiles - yeah, smiles - before speaking up. “I don’t like this mansion anyway.”
“We could sell some of his stuff? And the mansion too, of course,” Allison points out.
Now they all are grinning once again and Diego turns to Pogo.
“Can you reprogram Mom? So, that she can leave the house,” he asks, before he narrows his eyes, “and give her fewer restrictions!”
Pogo nods, not really wanting to protest. “Of course.”
Reginald Hargreeves death is reported as a suicide one day later, any evidence of murder gone and a few days later Grace gets her - very illegal but very good - legal documents. Then they sell the mansion and pretty much all of his stuff and buy a nice apartment, far away from there. It’s big, so everyone gets their own room, except Ben and Klaus, who decide to share, because Klaus still can’t fight off the nightmares and Ben wants to remind him and himself, that he’s not alone, and they are alive. So, they have a spare room that turns in an unofficial art room, music included (Vanya's really happy).
They are especially happy, that their mother has their own room as does Pogo.
They realize that they have the possibility of public school, which honestly would have done them well, but with all the risks of the time commission finding them and everything else, they decide that Pogo and Grace can continue to home-school them.
Everything seems to have worked out - until a few days later, where Grace went shopping for clothes with them and Klaus is trying on some hoodies and shirts in the fitting room.
He’s been a bit distracted, too caught up in his mind - even though he knows he shouldn’t be that careless, he feels so, so tired - so he doesn’t hear Five and then it is too late because Five walks in and Klaus’ arms are bare. Five blinks and Klaus waits. Five out of all people.
He waits for the rejection, the insults, the worry, the guilt.
Actually, he’s not sure what he is waiting for anymore.
But then Five closes the door and walks to him, before standing still in front of Klaus. He lifts his hand, in Klaus’ sight, and ruffles his hair, before he hugs him.
Five is hugging him, what the fuck.
It’s stiff and awkward, but after a few seconds, not sure what else to do, Klaus returns it. And Five doesn’t speak up.
He doesn’t encourage him to stop.
He doesn’t encourage him to continue.
He doesn’t do anything but hug him.
And Klaus has always loved silence, but never the wailing of the ghosts, so he speaks up instead.
“I… don’t know,” he mutters, unsure how to voice it, ”I don’t know what to do.”
Five hugs him tighter for a moment before he relaxes.
And then he asks him. “Are you okay?”
Klaus doesn’t know anymore, but the thing is, when does he ever know anything. When is he ever okay?
“... No, I’m not,” he answers, clutching onto Five’s blazer. “I haven’t been okay for years.”
“That’s okay,” responds Five. “I’m here if you need me.” And so are the others.
Out of nowhere, he remembers that Five has sixty years to his life. That he's seen a lot and done a lot.
Klaus looks down at his arms and thinks about all those times in the mausoleum and all those rocks.
It’s been over five minutes, and then Five stops hugging him and looks him into the eyes.
“I’m going to be always here, so if you ever need help, anything, please, reach out.”
Klaus doesn’t know what reaction he expected, but this isn’t it.
He’s kind of glad though.
It’s a start, after all, so he says it.
“I think… I think I need help.”
The ghosts are still yelling but, but Five’s holding his hand in a reassuring manner and he knows, it’s a start.
The hand is warm, and he wonders if those ghosts maybe are just like him in the end.
He wonders.