Chapter Text
Diego Hargreeves and his four other (living) siblings stared in saddened shock as their emotionally-distraught brother Klaus stormed barefoot out the door.
The Hargreeves siblings had just received an earful of more information than they had ever wanted to know about the ghosts Klaus encountered throughout his life --- at least when he was sober, which he had been for over two weeks. Of course, the siblings had assumed that Klaus was high during their family meeting as he was painfully distracted. When they confronted him, that was when Klaus blurted out the gruesome details.
"She has no legs. She's been crawling around for a while now, actually. She's been bleeding everywhere too."
"His whole left side is gone. He doesn't have an arm or a leg … I can see his flesh and his muscle. I can even see his bones."
"There's a man. He's hanging from the ceiling."
That was why Klaus had started drugs, he had explained afterward. It was the only means by which Klaus could make the ghosts go away.
Diego understood now. And he knew that Luther, Allison, Five and Vanya did, too. And here, Klaus had been trying to stay clean through all of this for over two weeks. He had actually started the process three days before the world was about to end. But thank God, Allah, and any other deity for Five and his ability to time-travel. This time, correctly. And this time, with all of the siblings, including Ben.
They had jumped back to Harold Jenkins' family cabin during the time Vanya had been practicing her violin alone in the previous timeline, while Harold had gone out to take care of the surviving attack victim, and prior to her confrontation with Allison. As Vanya remained unconscious, the other siblings easily took care of their target once he returned: Diego had pierced Harold with his knives while Five had zapped behind Harold and strangled him with his uniform tie; Luther, Diego and Five subsequently buried his body and that of the surviving victim while Allison (whose voice was restored due to their return prior to the moment she was attacked before) and Klaus tended to Vanya.
Once Vanya had regained consciousness, she was back to herself. Allison had immediately said, "I love you, sis. I’m sorry for my part in all of this." Klaus had apologized afterward for not pushing harder that they help her, but now everyone wanted to do so. Once Vanya had realized that Pogo and Grace would now be alive again, she embraced her sister and brother. When the guys returned, each made their amends as well. Once everyone had returned to the fully-intact Academy, Vanya and Luther reconciled with Pogo, who agreed to guide the siblings in helping train a very willing Vanya to control her powers.
Vanya had gone on to perform in her concert as before. Klaus had willingly been the lookout this time, knowing that he and Ben could take out any mass gunmen if they would have arrived as before. None had come, and the apocalypse was averted. Everyone believed it was over.
Then, Five had subsequently learned that the Commission was still after them. It had turned out that the only reason nothing had happened at Vanya's concert this time was simply because the Commission hadn’t known about the original Handler's death until afterward. A new Handler had been assigned, and he had deployed two new temporal assassins who weren’t quite as good as Hazel and Cha-Cha; but they knew that their top priority was eliminating the other five surviving siblings in hopes of Vanya not being able to handle the grief and causing the apocalypse anyway.
Of course, everyone’s focus had been on helping train Vanya in controlling her powers. Besides some telltale cracks in the hallway during a lash-out intervention attempt between the argumentative Luther and Diego once, Vanya had been slowly learning how to control her emotions and --- more importantly --- effectively communicate her feelings when any conflicts arose between herself and anyone else. After all, everyone had their own shit to work through, and it had only been a couple of weeks since they had learned that the only way they could conquer any adversaries was being completely united as a family. And everyone had been doing pretty damn well, all things considered…until now.
Instead of coming to Klaus' defense after Luther and Five had accused him of getting high, Diego had thought he had done the right thing by gently telling Klaus that if he had relapsed Diego would understand. After all, Diego had been hard on Klaus while they’d sat in his car following the altercation at the VFW bar as he grabbed and knocked pills out of Klaus' hands, until he had gotten Klaus to burst out, I lost someone! The only person I ever truly loved more than myself. Diego wasn’t able to get much more out of him as they had spotted Hazel coming out of Griddy's Doughnuts and then learned that Hazel and Cha-Cha had kidnapped Klaus after all, and tortured him. Diego later had made the connection between Klaus' odd claims of being a vet and his loss to a briefcase he had stolen from Hazel and Cha-Cha, which evidently was used for time-travel; Luther had badgered Klaus about the briefcase following the ice cream truck disaster, but Klaus refused to talk and Diego had told Luther to drop it. Diego had never followed up on that because, of course, Luther and later Five had told the family of the impending apocalypse that was all of three days out and --- well, the rest was history --- or erased from history.
Diego had known that Klaus was in the process of sobering up and going through withdrawals during the initial apocalypse meeting; therefore, he had understood why Klaus wasn’t up to doing much saving of the world at that moment --- unlike Luther, who had wanted to stay behind believing the moon mission had something to do with this. By the time Diego had gotten help busting out of jail, the family had learned that not only had Sir Reginald Hargreeves sent his "Number One" up to the moon for nothing, but with Pogo's help their "father" had killed himself so that the family would reunite to stop the apocalypse that he had somehow known about in the first place.
Pogo had done a lot of explaining and justifying his part in it. He partially understood Pogo's loyalty, since Sir Reginald had invented the potion that gave Pogo the human soul. But the other part of Diego was still working through forgiving Pogo for not admitting that Mom's programming had been altered, resulting in Diego making his most painful decision ever by shutting Mom down. Thank Christ that Pogo had restored her, and Diego had since noticed an even greater strength within her. He knew she forgave him; he was still working through forgiving himself.
He had let Mom down. He had let Eudora Patch down by looking for Five's drunk ass and not getting her message about finding Klaus in time. And he had let Klaus down by not realizing for twenty-four hours that Klaus had been kidnapped in the first place.
Diego needed to find Klaus, as he (with Ben) and Vanya were the two most powerful siblings and therefore the Commission's main targets. But there was no way he could get through to Klaus right now; he had already tried and fucked up spectacularly. Hopefully Ben could calm Klaus down; and more importantly, protect Klaus if anyone came after him.
So, Diego turned to face Luther; Number One had some explaining to do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Klaus!"
"Leave me alone, Ben!"
Klaus had been sprinting/marching through the city for ten minutes, trying to ignore Ben's pleas. He'd had it with Ben's constant lecturing. Klaus couldn't do anything right, whether sober or high as a fucking kite. So why give a shit anymore.
"Klaus! Please! You have to go back and talk to them!"
"Oh, and why is that…" Klaus grinned cynically at his ghost brother, "Benticles!"
The use of the despised nickname didn't deter Ben. "Because they want to understand!"
"You know what?" Klaus stopped to glare at his brother. "Screw you, Ben! The last time I listened to you, you went on and on about how Luther would stop at nothing to save…oh, how did you put it? Save my scrawny junkie ass? And what happened? Huh?"
"Klaus---"
"What happened?! Oh, yeah, I tried saving his sorry ass at that rave, and got my fucking skull cracked in the process! Only to find that I apparently can't die because even God hates me! Figures that since I was always deemed the most useless member of the Umbrella Academy that God would feel the same way!"
"Klaus!" Ben tried cutting in again.
"No!" Klaus screamed. "I'm through listening to you! Nobody took me seriously until your appearance at the theater. People still don't take me seriously! I still can't talk to Dave…" Klaus trailed off, remembering the last time he had said those very words.
And sure enough, his hands started glowing. Thank the universe (not God, fucking little bitch) that they were on a side street where no other people were around.
Ben, now in blue form, stepped toward Klaus. Before he knew what he was doing, Klaus punched his brother where it counted.
"Shit…" Klaus trailed off as he watched Ben double over in pain. Ben quickly faded back to ghost form; and before Klaus could say anything further, Ben disappeared entirely.
Klaus stood in stunned silence. He looked at his left hand, the weapon he had just used on Ben. He had never struck out at any of his siblings --- besides Five; but of course, that was staged. The only other time since then was when he had head-butted that asshole Marine at the vet bar. And KOed one of the gunmen with Kenny's birthday cake at the bowling alley.
But Ben, who had always stuck by Klaus. Klaus shouldn't have done that. And prior to that, Klaus had told off Diego, who had done his best to care for Klaus over the years whenever a john had precedently beaten the shit out of him, or when Klaus had no place else to go. Both brothers were Klaus' best friends. And he had now burnt bridges with each of them.
Klaus continued walking as he passed Griddy's, and before he knew it, he was standing outside the VFW bar.
How he wished he could go in and see the platoon photo with him and Dave one more time. But Klaus and Diego were banned from there after that brawl and, of course, because of the assumption that he was mocking them in the first place.
After a moment, Klaus felt that dreaded temperature drop again as his hands began glowing once more. He quickly buried them under his multi-colored tank top (covered, of course, by his military overshirt) as he ducked around the corner of the strip mall into the alley. He pulled his hands back out, waiting for Ben or whoever (Dave, please) to appear. Nothing. Great, that meant that Ben was probably talking to everyone back at the Academy about what Klaus had just done to him.
Klaus slouched down against the building alongside the alley, as he felt the energy slowly draining from him. Hurry up and tell them what you will, Ben. Now he had even less of a reason to go back home --- oops, the Academy. Klaus had no true home, here on Earth or the afterlife.
Within a couple of minutes the glowing ceased. Klaus closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. He was exhausted. He needed to regain his strength quickly and figure out where he would go from here.
"Well. Long time no see, Klaus."
Startled, Klaus looked up. Standing in front of him was one of his drug dealers, Sidetrack.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Jesus…" Luther muttered a few moments after Klaus' exit.
"Well, I’d say that went rather splendidly."
Diego glared at Five. "Seriously? Sometimes you can be a real asshole." Then he sharply turned to Luther. "So, Number Fucking One, what’s this about you choking Klaus and throwing him across the room?"
Luther's oh, shit glance went from Diego to the other siblings, who apparently had no clue as to what Klaus had meant, either.
Diego felt his blood boil as he placed his hand on his knife harness. "Well?!"
Luther resumed his deer-in-headlights stare at Diego. "Uh, well, it was right after I found out that Dad sent me to the moon for nothing---"
"And you decided to take it out on Klaus?!" Diego kept his hand where it was. "What the hell, dude?!"
"I---I was drunk!" Luther stammered. "And I wanted Klaus to conjure Dad! When he said he couldn't…I don't know; I lost it."
"So, you choked him for that?" Diego was livid. And threw him across the room?"
Diego saw Luther swallow before muttering, "Uh, no. He tried to stop me from going out to get high for once."
"What the hell, Luther?" Vanya interjected as the room began to shake.
Allison quickly ran aside Vanya and threw her arm around Vanya's shoulders. "It's okay, Vanya," she whispered. Vanya took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and the shaking stopped.
"He was going through withdrawals, remember?!" Diego defended his absent "little" brother (who, according to Five, was now ironically ten months older). "He was too fucking sick to even walk! And yet, he found you high at the rave?!"
"Diego---" Allison cut in.
Diego sighed. Allison had apparently forgiven Luther for his one-night stand, for Klaus to have just made that remark about Luther and Allison being too loud in the bedroom at night. Diego knew that he needed to be kinder to Allison, considering what she had endured in the previous timeline. But Diego could not excuse Luther for whatever shit he had pulled that day.
Luther let out an exasperated breath. "Look, I don't remember anything after taking those drugs. I mean, not until…" He looked at Allison and trailed off.
Just then, the room glowed bright blue as Ben stood before him.
"Ben!" Luther exclaimed suddenly before everyone noticed a pained expression on Ben's face. "Are you okay?"
Ben cuffed his hand over his mouth as he let out a cough. "I'm fine," Ben muttered as he crouched for a moment before standing back up straight.
"Where's Klaus?" Diego quickly demanded. "Is he okay?"
Ben coughed once more. "Not really," he said gruffly. He cleared his throat and continued, "Last I saw him, he was probably ten blocks away. He won't talk to me."
"Hey, Ben," Five finally piped up. "We're trying to piece together what happened to Klaus and Luther at the rave that night."
"Since when do you start caring for Klaus, of all siblings?" Diego sneakily wondered.
"I do care about him!" Five objected. "The Commission wants him for multiple reasons, after all."
Of course, Five had to bring up the Commission, Diego thought to himself. At least Five did indeed show some sort of caring.
Ben eyed Luther, and then the others.
"Come on, Ben," Diego insisted, having picked up Ben's nonverbal cues.
"Diego, you have to promise me you won't hurt Luther."
Diego glared at Luther before demanding to Ben, "Spill it, bro."
Ben hesitated, and then he sighed.
"Luther's so-called 'date' didn't come to the bar alone. The guy she originally was with…he got pissed and went toward Luther, with another guy who had a baseball bat."
"Jesus!" Allison looked horrified at Luther.
"I told Klaus to help him. Before that, when we were out looking for him…" Ben glared at Luther, "I'd told Klaus there was nothing that Luther wouldn't do for him."
"And?" Diego said impatiently.
Ben sighed again. "Klaus jumped on the dude's back and got thrown to the ground. He hit his head, apparently, because the next thing I knew, other people crowded around Klaus and…." Ben trailed off again.
" What?! " Allison and Vanya exclaimed in unison.
"They said he was dead!" Ben blurted out. Before Diego could process those words, Ben continued, "A couple of the girls tried CPR on him. Everyone was standing around, scared. Everyone but…." Ben stopped himself once more.
"Luther." Diego coldly stared at Number One.
"He and the girl were too high to know what was going on," Ben glared at Luther. "So the bouncer kicked them out." He turned back to Diego. "That was actually how Klaus wound up talking to Dad. He was revived a few minutes later.
Diego felt his anger rise more as he continued staring daggers at Luther. Meanwhile, Ben faded away.
"Shit!" Vanya exclaimed worriedly. "We still don't know where Klaus is!"
Diego glared once more at Luther. "I'm gonna go find him," he said as he turned toward the front entrance.
"Diego---" Luther started to say, horrified.
Diego quickly spun back to face Luther. "Don't talk to me. Right now I want to send a few knives your way. But right now, I need to find my brother.
No one said anything further as Diego marched out the front doors.