Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hold on! This could get messy!”

The shimmering blue of Five’s powers had grown to a blinding luminescence, to the point he could no longer see his siblings. He could feel them though, not only as his physical grip on Allison and Diego’s hands, but through the very light encompassing them all. It was a strange sensation: usually the light sat, warm, inside of him somewhere around his diaphragm until he wanted to use his ability, in which case he stretched it out across his body or pulled it into his hands, allowing him to push against the fabric of space or time and slip between the folds. But now he pushed the light up, up, up and out to cover all seven of them, despite how much doing so hurt.

He was sure he was squeezing Allison and Diego’s hands hard enough to leave bruises. It was all he could manage not to scream or collapse or worse, stop. But there was only fiery death waiting for them if he did, and he hadn’t lived forty-five years with his sole mission being to save his family from the apocalypse to give up at the last moment.

Then, just when Five thought he was going to split himself in two, they broke through the ice and plunged into the depths of time.

Unlike traveling with a briefcase, the trip didn’t feel as instantaneous as it should have, as he struggled to keep them all floating in the right slipstream. The world around them was full of shards of conversations and concerts, a jumble of overwhelming sound. But just as when he had traveled to the day of the funeral, something was towing him along to when he wanted to go, something inexplicably trustworthy. He had seen their destination from the very start, just like last time, and was happy to let himself be pulled against the current, so he could concentrate on keeping his siblings intact.

In this space between moments, they shifted in his grip, though he could no longer feel their hands linked with his. He wasn’t sure any of them had bodies anymore—just a little important. Best not to turn everyone into children or rip their consciousnesses from their bodies. Yet as they shifted again, he realized with relief that he could sense them. They had their own stars of light, of warmth, burning within, and all six of them were still with him.

There was Allison’s star, burning bright, up where Five had just seen her head, while Luther and Vanya each shone steadily, light blanketing their entire bodies—Vanya’s light dim with overuse. Klaus’s glimmered in as strange a place as Five would’ve expected from his brother: his feet. Oh, and that must be Ben that Klaus’s light had latched onto like a shadow. Ben’s light felt colder than the others, yet just as bright as it burned where his stomach would have been. And completing the circle, was Diego, whose light radiated right behind his ribs, higher than Five’s, more around his lungs. Fascinating.

Five was aware of this all at once, just as he sensed their alarm and anxiety and amazement and… something intensely sorrowful and confusing rolling off Klaus.

He could sense all of this, so he immediately felt when they began to slip from his grip, sliding to the edges of his cocoon of light. Sparks of panic singed him as he tried to pull them back, picturing his arms wide enough to hold them close, but it was as useless as trying to hug water. They were being dragged away by their own memories, all except for him—he had only a day's worth of memories lived within this time, the Temps Commission knowing better than to send him on any unmonitored missions during the time his family was alive. This was the problem of traveling to a period in which you already existed without a briefcase or other anchor. Time was trying to push their consciousnesses out of their backwards travel into the natural forward stream, into the lives they were already living.

Now, he had to be his siblings’ anchor.

“Hold on!” he cried as loud as he could, but he could barely hear himself. Why was this taking so long? He had never been trapped between moments quite like this, but then he had never traveled with anyone fighting to go the other way. He clenched his hands tighter, hoping Diego and Allison’s hands were still there.

“You’re going the wrong way!”

There was no acknowledgement. He felt them all hit the very edge of his light, and his heart threatened to jump out of his chest.

“Stay with me!”

He couldn’t lose them. Not again.

He wouldn’t survive being alone again.

The horrible empty aching feeling of fear cracked open his chest.

“Don’t leave me!”

Was this really it? Really?

Stop it, Five! You’re really going to start doubting yourself after coming this far?!

“Damn it! Get back here, you assholes! You really want to end up as acorns?! Get your shit together! We still have a world to save!”

Right. That’s right. The words were as much a reminder to them as a bolster to him. If Time wanted to play tug-of-war he wasn’t about to lose. So, he pulled. Instead of stretching out his light, he wrapped it tight around theirs and pulled.

And he thought he felt them turn and reach for him too—

But then he was alone again, somewhere terribly cold. Solid ground hit his feet so hard, his knees buckled, and his legs gave out. Ragged breaths and gasps made their way through the ringing in his ears.

“Did it work?”

Luther. That was Luther’s voice!

“Uh, well, we’re not crushed under bits of moon, so I’m going to go with yes,” Klaus’s voice said.

Five blinked hard, and his heart leapt as Luther and Klaus’s faces swam before him. Vanya was still out cold in Luther’s arms. But it was so dark here. He could barely see them, and that smell…

The iron smell of blood filled his nose.

Shit. He had messed up again, hadn’t he? Someone was hurt!

“Who… acorn…?” He could barely hear his own voice.

“Five?” someone called, and there were hands squeezing his, holding him up, but he couldn’t see. Someone was wheezing in pain. He had to see. He couldn’t—

He couldn’t…

-------

It was a slow process, waking up. Especially after a heavy night of drinking, which judging by his splitting headache, was the case now. He gave himself a moment before opening his eyes, bracing himself for the sardonic tone Delores would give him for overdrinking again.

Except, there was something niggling in the back of his mind. He was supposed to be doing something.

Plus, whatever he was lying on was too soft, like sleeping on a marshmallow. He felt like he was going to sink into it and never come out. Why was he not on his usual patch of ground in their library? Unless…

His brain leapt to nights between kills, sleeping on starchy, stained sheets of the latest motel the Commission had set him up in, and he instinctively moved, bracing himself against the emotions he shoved down until he was alone and safe in the quiet. But as he shifted, pain slammed into him like a hard blow to the sternum. Panic washed over him like ice water half a second before his brain filled in the memories of the apocalypse and Vanya and holding onto his siblings with everything he had and then the blood—

He forced himself to sit up, eyes wide. “Who acorn-ed?!”

“Shit! Five!” Luther was suddenly there, while Five was still taking in where there was. Some sort of run-down motel room by the looks of it, and he was on one of the two ratty, old beds in the middle of it, Vanya on the other. Luther was reaching forward in some sort of comforting gesture that Five didn’t have time for.

He knocked the hand away. “Who acorn-ed?!” he demanded again, though it came out more like a gasp. The pain kept rippling through him, making the muscles in his back seize. It was all he could do not to flop back onto the bed like a useless doll, but the needed to know. The sooner he knew the problem, the sooner he could work on fixing it. Time travel was a bitch, especially without a briefcase, and while he was fairly sure he hadn’t lost any of them in the freezing waters, if one of them had been halfway out of his grip when they landed there was no telling what the effects could be. One of them could have come out half thirty, half thirteen, which would explain the blood he had smelled, and why couldn’t he catch his breath?

His eyes swept the room and found Allison and Klaus hurrying over from where they had been sitting at a tiny table next to the window, coming over to offer more comfort when he needed answers. “Who…?” he tried again, but it must have been Diego, his mind supplied. Vanya was next to him in one piece, and Ben, assuming he had been successful in dragging his dead brother along for the ride, didn’t have a body to bleed, so the blood he had smelled could have only come from Diego.

“Hey, hey, buddy, it’s okay,” Klaus was saying.

Damn, it felt like someone had shoved a cactus into his ribcage. He dug his fingers into his stomach as if he could rip out the pain. “Who…?” he asked stupidly.

“Is an acorn?” Luther said slowly, brow knitted. He glanced over his shoulder at Allison, who shook her head.

“Oh no…” Klaus gasped and looked at the other two. “Do you think the time travel made him, y’know…” He whistled two quick notes.

Five glared. “I’m not…” Breathe. Come on, just one breath. “Crazy.” He moved to swing his feet off the bed. Diego must’ve been in the adjoining motel room—the connecting door between them sat wide open—and he needed to see how badly he’d messed up this time.

“Where are you going, Five?! Just breathe!” Luther said, his hand coming to rest on Five’s shoulder, pressing Five back into the bed.

Five tried knocking the hand away again, but Luther was being insistent this time, meaning Five would have better luck trying to swat away a pile of bricks. But Luther did have a point about the breathing. If Five didn’t know any better, he’d say he was on the edge of hyperventilating, which was not ideal given every breath grew another cacti in his abdomen. “I’m. Fine.”

Allison sat down on the bed next to him and moved as if she was going to rub his back until Five glared at her in warning. She pulled out her notebook instead and began to write something.

“Huh? Why would I tell him that?” Klaus was hovering over them, bouncing side to side on the balls of his feet like a runner getting ready for a sprint. “Okay, okay.” He stilled long enough to catch Five’s eye. “Ben says you’re the acorn.”

Oh. Five let that thought roll around in his mind for a second and realized that, given his level of pain, Ben could be right.

He stopped fighting Luther and collapsed back into the mattress, closing his eyes, searching for the usual spot his powers sat in and quickly realizing that was where all the pain was gushing out of, like an open wound. He had never felt anything like it before. Sure, he remembered the time Dad had made him link spatial jumps until he had passed out. That night, each breath had stung, but not on the level it did now.

And then when he had finally made it back, the day of the funeral, his core had hurt, but time travel always made his nerves raw. The child’s body had been the glaring issue. Was this pain why the next night, at Delores’s department store, he had failed a simple spatial jump? But no, the pain had resolved itself by then, and he had assumed it was because his younger body couldn’t handle as many jumps as his older one. Except, by his count, he should have had two more…

He wondered if he should try a spatial jump to check if he even could but wasn’t about to do that in front of everybody. Instead, he tried to relax and take a deep breath instead of bracing himself for the next shallow gasp.

The crushing realization that he was still stuck in a child’s body came to him belatedly, and he stuffed that down as quickly as possible before the frustration upset his breathing for an entirely different reason.

He could hear Klaus relaying Ben’s explanation of his acorn reference to the others, and it was soothing, hearing the three of them chatter about old memories Five had actually been there for. By the time he felt their eyes back on him, his breathing had slowed to a more regular rhythm.

“I need coffee,” he grumbled, opening his eyes to glare at the room at large. Coffee would do wonders for his headache.

“I’ll make a pot.” Luther seemed satisfied he wasn’t going to try leaping up again and crossed the tiny room to the counter where a cheap coffee maker sat.

“How long have I been sleeping?” Five asked, but before he could ask anything more, Allison presented him with a piece of paper. He snatched it up, realizing there were actual answers scrawled along the page. Clearly, most of it had been written beforehand. “Thanks,” he mumbled as he read, appreciating her foresight.

According to her notes, they had landed in the concert hall in the middle of the night. No surprise there. Dragging them through time had been enough work; he wasn’t able to throw in a spatial jump too. What was news to Five was that he had immediately collapsed upon arrival, and the gunshot wound that the Handler had given him had split open.

Now that Allison mentioned it, his side did hurt; he hadn’t stopped to distinguish the pain earlier from the general stabbing that was his entire abdomen.

He glared at the words because of course, the Handler was still getting in his way. Five hoped she died in the apocalypse, but no doubt she had escaped with her briefcase. Besides that, once they successfully prevented the apocalypse, it would undo any deaths caused by it, so they might wind up saving her.

That was a weird thought.

Allison shifted in discomfort next to him before he forced himself to stop glaring and read on.

They were in a motel now—fortunately, they collectively had had enough cash on them for a few nights—and were trying to gather information while waiting for Five and Vanya to wake up. So far, they had figured out that it was mid-April, sixteen years before the apocalypse. By staking out the Umbrella Academy, they had realized more precisely when they were in their own history. The only instances when all six of the siblings had sneaked out together in the middle of the night was to search for Five. They did it as often as possible at first. Then life got in the way—missions and arguments, injuries and bad weather— and they were lucky if they got out once a week, let alone once a month. Then, five months after his disappearance, Dad had finally put a stop to it and told them if Five were to return, he would do so on his own. This had happened the night after their arrival; Diego, Klaus, and Ben had watched from across the street as their younger counterparts returned home to find Dad waiting in the entryway.

Five months since his disappearance… Something sparked in the back of his mind, the seed of a plan.

Then Allison handed him a second piece of paper, this one freshly written, reporting that he had been sleeping for a day and a half.

“Why didn’t you wake me?!” Five leapt to his feet, and immediately, his vision went dark. He heard his pulse in his ears and felt his body crumple back onto the bed.

A few heartbeats later, his vision cleared, and he found Allison hovering over him. He glared, though no longer annoyed at her. “Point taken,” he muttered.

She sighed and rolled her eyes, before helping him up into a sitting position again. In the few moments he had been reading, Klaus had wandered over next to Luther and was rummaging around a grocery bag on the counter. The smell of dark coffee filled the room, and Five waited patiently this time for Luther to hand him a cup before asking his next question. “I take it Diego’s watching the Academy?”

“Yeah,” Luther checked the clock on the wall. “He should be back any minute.”

“I hope you told him to grab dinner. We’re starving over here,” Klaus said despite the bag of chips he was now munching on. He flopped onto the bed next to Five and offered him some.

Five took a chip to nibble on, washing it down with a sip of scalding coffee. “So, Vanya’s been sleeping this whole time.”

“A regular sleeping beauty,” Klaus said through a mouth of crumbs. “Not sure what we’ll do if she wakes up and is all glowy and murderous again.”

“Any ideas?” Luther asked Five, hope tinging his voice.

Allison flipped through her notepad back to a pre-written page. I’ll handle it.

Clearly, they had already discussed this, and judging by Luther’s darkened expression, Five could guess how things had gone. He snorted. “I’m with Allison on this one.”

She had known how to handle Vanya in the concert hall, while the rest of them had been rather useless.

Luther glowered and turned away. Allison frowned at his back but nodded to Five in gratitude. He shrugged.

Klaus naturally felt the need to break the tension, and for the next few minutes, Five sat, warming himself with his coffee, his headache easing away as he listened to Klaus’s monologue about everything he loved and hated about the time they had traveled back to. Around the time Klaus started to talk about fashion, Five had him tuned out. He watched Vanya instead, daring to let his mind wander in search of a solution to their predicament despite the uncomfortable feeling that came with the thoughts.

Because there was an obvious, easy solution to the apocalypse. It had entered his mind as soon as he knew Vanya was the cause: kill her. Five could have done it easily enough in the concert hall. Get a gun, jump behind her, and shoot her in the head.

But he hadn’t. He had brushed the thought aside, recognizing that it was the Commission whispering in his ear, telling him to kill to mold the timeline into what he desired. The problem with that logic of course was that the timeline he desired most kept all his siblings safe. He would never kill Vanya, simply because he liked his sister too much.

He had chosen, the same as Allison had, and he was certain all of them would have. Vanya was alive and well, aside from the coma and, judging by the bandage someone had placed over her ear, a torn eardrum. Keeping Vanya alive left them with only one solution, impossible as it was. But as Luther had pointed out, Five had already done the impossible that week, three times now.

Diego arrived by the time Klaus had moved onto food, which was essentially a list of his favorite junk food from their childhood.

“You’re awake.” Diego looked him up and down and even dared to try and put a hand to Five’s forehead.

Five shoved the hand away. “Thank you for your keen observation.”

But Diego was undeterred, studying Five’s face closely. “Feeling alright?”

“I’m fine.” Okay. He got it: he looked like a kid. No need to baby him though.

“He’s leaving out the part where he tried to stand up and passed out,” Klaus tattled while he dug around the bag of fast food Diego had brought back. He was lucky he was across the room or he’d be getting kicked.

“I’m fine,” Five insisted with a growl. “Just never had to transport seven people through time at once. You guys didn’t exactly make it easy.”

“What do you mean?”

They didn’t remember. Not too surprising. They had clearly been caught up in their own memories during the trip while he had had nothing to distract him from the entire, lovely ordeal. Or dragging so many people along for the ride and trying to keep their consciousnesses intact had overwhelmed his mind, and he’d hallucinated the whole thing.

He deflected Diego’s question with a raised eyebrow. “Is that food for all of us or just Klaus?”

Once the food was wrestled away from Klaus and doled evenly among them, they dug in, bickering about Diego’s choice of food for them. Allison thought it was too greasy. Klaus claimed there weren’t enough fries. Luther shrugged and said it was better than space food. Five said it was better than roasted rat, which earned him a look of disgust from all his siblings except Klaus who nodded as if he understood.

After they finished, Five went to use the restroom—not the little boy’s room and no, he did not need help. He was told to thud really loudly against the floor if he decided to pass out again. Klaus was still out of kicking range, but he did receive a glare.

After using the facilities, Five paused as he washed his hands, staring into the mirror. No wonder his siblings were all trying to mother him. He was almost as pale as Vanya.

The thought brought back the image of Vanya on stage, tendrils of light pouring out of her, latching onto her brothers—

Five turned off the water and quickly turned away. Focus on the mission. Fix her, and then they would never have to see that woman again.

He ventured back out into the main room, but instead of taking his previous spot on the empty bed, he sat down on the edge of the bed Vanya was sleeping on and twisted around to look at her. This was the sister he knew. Out of all his siblings, he was used to her older face the most, having grown up with a picture on the back cover of her book, always close by.

A swooping feeling went through his stomach as he realized he didn’t know where the book was now. He had kept it on him for forty-five years, and now—

He immediately relaxed, spotting it sitting on the nightstand, just barely visible under his blazer which someone had folded neatly on top.

The bed dipped as Allison sat down next to him, taking Vanya’s hand in her own. Diego sat down next to her at the foot of the bed while Klaus and Luther took seats facing them on the other bed.

“We need to talk about what to do next,” Luther started.

“I was wrong,” Five said suddenly. He was still facing Vanya but could tell the others had all turned to gape at him, speechless.

“Can we get that in writing—? Ow!” Diego rubbed his side where he had received an elbow from Allison.

“About what?” Luther asked.

“About it not mattering that Dad messed us up. Clearly, it did.” The irony wasn’t lost on him.

“So, when you said we needed to fix her, you meant all of the shit Dad put us through?” In the corner of his eye Five could see Diego shaking his head. “How? How could we even begin to fix that giant mountain of crap?”

Truth was, Five had only half a plan so far. “We start overwriting the timeline. There are two options: we get her out of the Academy, or we get someone in.”

“Get her out? As in, you want to kidnap a little kid version of our sister?” Diego crossed his arms. “And then what? We’re supposed to just… raise her to not blow up?”

Five rolled his eyes. He had just said there were two options.

But Allison had already pieced it together and was shaking her head. Then she scribbled something on her notepad and showed it to the others. Five didn’t need to read it to know what it said.

“You’re… going in,” Luther said quietly. “Five, that’s…”

“Crazy,” Diego interrupted.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Klaus said slowly. “This is pretty par for the course.”

“That’s why you brought us back to this time.” Luther leaned forward, resting his elbows on knees as he thought.

Five shrugged, finally turning to face them. “It’ll almost be like I never left.”

“Well, it’s not like any of the rest of us can do it. You’ve got the perfect disguise,” Klaus mused.

“So, you would go in, and try to… what exactly?” Luther asked. Frankly, Five was a little surprised he wasn’t trying to take charge, but was instead looking for guidance.

“I’m still working on that part,” he admitted. “That’s why we needed to bring Vanya with us. But all the neglect she wrote about in her book seems like an obvious place to start.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over them like a blanket, and it took a moment for Five to remember why. Unlike him, who had had decades to reflect on and digest her book, the others were still mad that Vanya wrote it in the first place. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time for them to work through all of that and was about to kindly tell them to get over it, when Diego spoke first.

“And what about you?” Diego’s arms were crossed tight, his foot tapping a staccato rhythm on the floor.

Five shifted a little and held back a wince as a shock of pain went through him. “What about me?”

Diego untangled his arms and it was as if they had been holding back the yelling. “I’m talking about Dad! He’s alive here! We’re talking about sending you back into that house, under that abusive monster!”

Five’s eyes narrowed. Was that all? They were trying to save the world here! “I can handle Dad. I’ve dealt with worse.”

The hellscape of the apocalypse for one. The Handler for another.

“Looks like you’ve already made up your mind,” Diego muttered darkly.

“It’s what needs to be done,” Five snapped back. “I didn’t go through the past forty-five years just to find out my own sister caused the apocalypse and not do anything about it!”

“But this?!” Diego was on his feet. “Why’d you even bring us along? You don’t need us here!”

Five had a fist balled in his shirt, gripping against the pain as he shouted back. “So, what, you thought I’d let you all die again?”

Suddenly, he had that familiar nagging feeling, like someone tugging on his arm, that he used to get when Delores had something important to say. He didn’t need to hear her voice to know she would tell him he was ignoring something important, but she had always been quicker than him when it came to seeing the truth where his siblings were concerned. They were all staring at him. Damn, this was not where the conversation was supposed to go.

“Again? Pretty sure I’ve never died.” Klaus tilted his head to the side as he thought, his eyes watching something just behind Five. “Oh, wait, there was that one time and that other…”

Means when we died in apocalypse, Allison wrote.

“But would that be ‘again’ or wouldn’t we be dying in the same way so it only counts once?” Luther asked.

Why were they discussing this? It wasn’t important.

“Yeah, like a fixed point in time—”

Five groaned. “There’s no such thing! As much as the Commission would like there to be, none of this is fixed in place, or else all of this is pointless! So, yes, it would be again because you all would’ve died in a different way!” The pain was transforming from a dozen needles to a dozen knives.

“You said we died last time fighting whatever caused the apocalypse.” Luther looked like he was having a hard time comprehending all of this. “So, we didn’t die because of the moon…”

“No, the moon had nothing to do with things the first time around.” Five couldn’t keep the condescending tone out of his voice. “Trust me, I would have mentioned it during one of the dozen times you brought up the subject.”

Luther looked affronted by his tone, but then he kept going. “You said we died horribly…”

Nope. They were not doing this.

“Look, none of this is important! How about we concentrate on preventing the apocalypse, so nobody has to die?!” Trying to get his siblings to work with him the past week had been like trying to herd cats, and here they were, off focus again.

But apparently trying to steer the conversation back on course was counterproductive because the pain ratcheted up abruptly from knives to knives that were on fire. He couldn’t suppress a gasp, and that brought the conversation to a screeching halt.

Several things happened all at once. Something touched his back, and Five reacted instinctively, twisting his arm back to catch the attacker, at the same time as pulling at his power to jump across the room to safety. But as he turned, he realized it was Allison’s hand, and in the same half-second, his power snapped back at him like a rubber band pulled too far. Dark spots crowded his vision and the stabbing blossomed across his body to take over any conscious thought.

A few seconds later, the pain faded just enough for him to come back to himself and to feel the hands on his shoulders, holding him up. Another hand was drawing slow, soothing circles on his back.  He could sense them all, crowded close, which is when he realized his eyes were closed tight. If he could, he might have tried to shove them all away or jump to the other side of the room where there was space to breathe. But he was doubled over, his body pulled tight to protect itself, and it was refusing to listen to him and relax even though he could feel the gunshot wound protesting in his side.

So, he was forced to sit there, useless, for a minute. Without opening his eyes, he could tell it had been Klaus and Allison who had caught him, the smell of floral perfume and cigarettes lingering on their hands. Allison was the one rubbing circles on his back, and Five found himself trying to focus on the feeling. It reminded him of years ago, when the flu had ravaged its way through their household one child at a time. Mom had sat with each of them when it was their turn, and Five remembered her humming a simple tune as she had rubbed his back, just like this.

Allison was a mother too. The thought hit him like a stray lightning bolt, bringing a tight feeling in his chest. They were stepping on butterflies left and right just by being there. What if the wrong butterfly was crushed and Claire fell out of existence?

He promised himself he would do some probability calculations later to ensure Allison would have a daughter to return to. If they could return… No. This wasn’t the time for that thought. His mind began to jump to which factors in Allison and Claire’s life would be most important to analyze, and by the time he had a list in mind, the pain had subsided to a manageable throbbing.

He eased himself up into a proper sitting position again with Klaus and Allison’s help and looked around at them all. Allison was still sitting next to him, and Klaus, having moved to catch him, was now kneeling in front of him.

Luther and Diego were both on their feet, looking like they didn’t know what to do with themselves. The two spoke at once.

“We need to check—”

“Are you—"

They stopped and glanced at each other. Diego pursed his lips and then spoke quickly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Five muttered even though he felt like a train had run over him and backed up to finish the job. He still couldn’t quite catch his breath.

“We need to check your bandages,” Luther suggested, which was code for we need to check if you’re bleeding out yet again.

Five didn’t object, too tired, as his siblings helped position him to lean back against the headboard and lift his shirt up. Sure enough, the bright red of fresh blood stained the bandaged taped to his side. Luther brought over a first aid kit and placed it on the nightstand while Five peeled off the bandage to get a look at the damage. He’d need to redo a couple stitches.

He picked up the bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball and proceeded to clean a needle before digging around the kit for some thread.

“Uh, Five buddy, how about one of us does that?” Klaus interrupted.

He looked up to realize they were all still there, crowded around him, staring again. Right.

Luther held out his hands expectantly. Five raised an eyebrow at his brother’s large, sausage fingers, doubting their dexterity. Allison sighed loudly and leaned across Luther, taking the needle from Five’s grip. She threaded the needle and got to work with only a warning glance as preamble, the others taking a step back.

“You looked like you were going to take Allison’s arm off for a second there,” Diego said. He was looking pointedly away from what Allison was doing, and Five had the feeling he was trying to distract himself as much as Five.

Five stole a glance at Allison, who caught the look and raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he managed to get out through clenched teeth. She paused for a moment, so he could finish. “You surprised me.”

Though it was more than that. He wasn’t used to human contact.

He’d been dealing well enough with stuff he saw coming because he could knock the hands away or pretend it didn’t affect him because he knew the Handler was trying to make him uncomfortable. But he hadn’t seen Allison reach for him, and all the unexpected contact he’d had in recent decades were either someone attacking him or a wild animal seeing if he’d finally succumbed to the apocalypse while he slept and was ready for eating.

Something must have shown on his face because he swore he saw pity in Allison’s eyes before he quickly turned away to study the lamp on the nightstand.

“You looked like a cat that just got sprayed with water,” Klaus informed him, plopping back onto the other bed.

Five honestly didn’t know how to take that and the jovial tone in which it was said, but he welcomed the lack of concern. “Glad I could amuse you,” he ground out.

Allison finished sewing him up and wiped off her hands with the towel Luther offered her before grabbing her notebook. You never told us how you got this.

Five frowned at the words as he realized she was right. They had all been a little distracted by Allison’s wound instead. “I attacked Commission headquarters to get Harold Jenkins’s name.” Answering was leaving him out of breath, but he managed a smirk at the memory of what he considered an overall successful mission. “The Handler did not appreciate it.”

She nodded like she understood. Luther must have filled in some of the gaps about the Commission while Five was out.

“That’s…” Five winced a little as he forced himself to take a deep, full breath and started over, looking at Diego. “You asked why I need you here.”

“I didn’t mean…” Diego ran a hand over his face. He looked as tired as Five felt. “Of course, you would need help while you’re still recovering.”

Five rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve dealt with worse on my own. Had a whole building come down on us while scavenging once. Delores was not happy that day,” he murmured and thought he felt agreement from the corner of his mind where Delores always waited—used to always wait. She was gone now. “No, I need you here because the Temps Commission is going to be all over this. In fact, they could already be here for all I know. I need someone out here, protecting the Academy while I’m inside.”

There was that tugging on his arm again. She should be gone now, but that corner of his mind filled with the image of Delores and the exasperated smile she would be giving him.

No matter how long he ignored the thought, the truth of it wasn’t going to go away. As difficult as it had been trying to get his siblings to work with him, it had been an equal relief when they had all immediately agreed to travel back in time with him. But then, what other option did they have? As he had blurted out earlier, there was no other option except to die a horrible death. Who would say no to the escape he had offered?

But they could say no now.

Five almost didn’t want to offer them the option, but he stuffed down any nerves deep enough for them to be eaten by the pain in his core and forced out the words. “Or we go our separate ways.” Their reactions ranged from surprise to confusion. “I probably don’t need all of you for guard duty. If someone wants to leave… There’s no telling how long this will take, and I realize I asked you all to decide with no time to really consider what it would mean. It truly is a mountain of crap and it could take a significant amount of time to sort through it.”

Luther was shaking his head. “Where would we even go?”

“Anywhere. I could drop you off anywhere, and you can start a new life. Or I could… I could take you to any time you would like.” He watched Klaus carefully as he suggested this, remembering the sorrow his brother had associated with time travel, and Klaus’s eyes went wide. Then Klaus brought his knees up to his chest and stared down at his hands as if contemplating the words written there.

It felt like an eternity before one of them responded, but when they did, they did all at once.

“Shit, Five, just stop,” Diego groaned as he sat down again next to Allison. “I know I’m staying. The plan may be crazy, and I don’t like it. But you’re right. It’s our only chance.”

For Claire, Allison said, then scribbled down two more words to show him. And Vanya.

“We’re with you, Five,” Luther reassured, then looked at Klaus expectantly.

Five thought he caught Klaus with a distant, sad smile, but then Klaus scrunched up his face as if in deep thought. “Hmmm…” Klaus pretended to consider it. None of them bought it. “Yeah, I don’t have anywhere else to be. Neither does Ben.” He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at thin air before turning back to Five. “And for the record, Ben approves of the plan. You two were always closest to Vanya, so when you disappeared, and he kicked the bucket…” He shrugged, any humor in his face leaving for a grim smile. “She was alone.”

Allison bowed her head, and Five watched as Luther and Diego both shifted uncomfortably, finding different spots on the floor to stare at. But Klaus met Five’s eye with a steady gaze, and Five was suddenly reminded of a short time before he had gotten trapped in the future, when Vanya had made a passing comment about how Klaus was the bravest of them all. It had stuck with him all these years because, well, it was Klaus. Five had always appreciated Vanya’s insight into these things as the resident observer, but at the time, he’d been too offended that she thought Klaus was braver than him to consider what she had meant. After a few days stuck in the apocalypse, surrounded by the dead, he thought perhaps she was referring to Klaus’s ability. Now however, he realized his sister probably referring to what he was seeing in this moment: Klaus’s ability to own who he was, mistakes and all.

He returned Klaus’s grim smile and nodded. “Let’s fix that then.”

There were a few more nods among his siblings.

“Okay, so we’re all agreed. We get you into the Academy,” Luther summarized. “Before that though, you’re not going anywhere until you’ve recovered.”

Five scowled. “I’m fine—”

“Not five minutes ago Allison was stitching you up,” Diego cut him off. “What’s the rush? We’re no longer in apocalypse week. Stop and take a breath before you have to deal with Dad.”

Klaus snorted from where he was now spread eagle on the bed. “Five’s not going to rest until the day he dies on the battlefield in his war against Time.”

Five decided to ignore that. “I’ll rest for tonight, but tomorrow, I’m going in. The Academy has better medical supplies anyway.” It sounded perfectly reasonable. He’d have to come up with a convincing lie on how he got the gunshot wound.

Klaus sat up abruptly and looked to the empty space next to him. “Wait, really? Huh.” His eyes wandered over to Five, who had the sinking feeling that Ben had just called his bluff.

Five sighed. “What.”

“Oh, you know…” Klaus shrugged. “Ben seems to be under the impression that… Well, I mean if it’s true, then you should really stay and recover because Dad and all our mini-mes would definitely notice…”

“Notice what.”

“That you can’t do your little…” He waved a finger in a circle in Five’s direction and made a popping sound with his mouth. “You can’t use your powers right now.”

Everyone looked at Five, several eyebrows raised.

Stupid, observant ghost brother.

“A few days rest and I’ll be back to normal,” Five enunciated each word like it had personally insulted him. “A week at most.”

-------

A month later, Five stood with his brothers across the street from the Academy in the middle of the night. Five knew none of the others should go past this point. It was up to him to complete the journey. But he stood with them for a few moments, and none of them made any effort to force him forward.

The last time he had stood across from the Academy, he had just finished dropping Delores off at her home and was about to cross the street when the building had come tumbling down before his very eyes, and Vanya had come strolling out, emanating light. He couldn’t believe, still couldn’t, that it had been Vanya. The Vanya has powers part of it ultimately wasn’t that hard to swallow because that was just the sort of thing Dad would keep under wraps. But the fact that his sweet, level-headed sister, the one who usually talked him down and kept him out of trouble, was the cause of the apocalypse was still too much for him to accept.

He wouldn’t have to, he reminded himself, as long as they fixed her.

“The lights are on,” Diego observed.

“Oh, yeah…” Luther frowned in thought. “Vanya used to do that, right?”

“Awww,” Klaus cooed and clapped Five on the back. “Ben says she was leaving the light on for you.” Five felt a rush of emotion at the news and swallowed it down. Klaus hummed for a moment. “And that she would leave out sandwiches for you.”

Five shrugged, hands in his pockets. “I could go for a sandwich.”

And that seemed as good as time as any, so he crossed the street and entered the building without glancing back.

Having no key, he was forced to jump to the other side of the door to the foyer. He stood there for a moment, listening for movement in the house. It was late. Even so, Dad would be awake; he was probably still doing whatever he did in his study. Pogo would be asleep in his room, and Mom would either be somewhere in the house cleaning or else recharging in the gallery. And his siblings…

Five crept up the stairs with all the stealth that growing up in a household with a strict parent had taught him. He could make another jump, but in truth, he was too nervous to. He had dreamt about this for so long, both literally and figuratively. He paused at the end of the hallway that led to all their bedrooms.

During his first few years of living in the apocalypse, he would picture himself sauntering down the hall to his room with all the nonchalance in the world, and his siblings would spot him as he went. He’d play it cool as if he’d just been for a stroll around the garden but had come back with a fantastic tale to impress them all. The fantasy changed when he had endured enough harsh years that his appearance had changed, and he wasn’t sure they would recognize him. Then he pictured himself in the hallway, calling out to them, explaining to them who he was, and seeing the way their faces would light up with recognition.

And then decades passed, he read Vanya’s book a hundred times or so and gradually came to accept that he couldn’t be there for their lives. When he learned of the Temps Commission, it confirmed what he suspected: if he made it back—when he made it back, he would need to jump to a point closer to the apocalypse to successfully prevent it or else stave off Commission attacks for years. The fantasy faded from his mind in all but his occasional nightmare: different twisted versions of the fantasy in which he’d find they didn’t recognize him, no matter what evidence he presented; they didn’t want him anymore after all he’d done; or, when his mind was not up for any subtlety, he’d open each bedroom door to find them all dead amongst the rubble and ash.

Five could hardly believe he stood there now, warring with himself on how best to reintroduce himself, when the solution presented itself in the form of young Klaus.

Ever the insomniac, his brother was the only one awake, bopping to some music on his headphones as he exited his room and took a few steps down the hall before he froze, spotting Five. A beat passed before Klaus took off his headphones and crept forward, as if approaching a wild animal. Five wasn’t sure what to make of the reaction, having expected more cursing or whooping or something more Klaus-like than silence, until Klaus stood an arm's length away and reached forward to gently push against Five’s shoulder.

Oh. Klaus was testing if he was dead.

“Holy shit.” There was the cursing. Klaus tried poking Five again, and again, his fingers didn’t phase through. “Holy shit!”

“Hi, Klaus.” Five stuffed his hands in his pockets and offered his brother a grin.

“Holy shit!”

“So you’ve mentioned.”

Klaus was shouting now, jumping up and down on the spot. “Holy shit!”

“While I appreciate the enthusiasm, I’d rather not deal with Dad yet, so if you could keep it down—”

“Holy shit! Guys! Guys wake up!” Klaus shouted over his shoulder, but there was no need. They were already peeking out their doors to see what Klaus was making a ruckus over this time.

Five looked at the door halfway up the hall, where Vanya’s pale face was now staring at him in shock. “Hey, Vanya.”

And then she dashed forward and flung herself at him, wrapping her arms tight around his chest. Klaus took this as permission to hug him too, and then Five turned and saw Ben next to them, hesitating a polite distance away until Five grinned at him and offered what little space was left in the embrace. If he was going to do this hugging thing, might as well go all the way.

Arms full of his siblings, over the top of Klaus’s head he could see Diego, Luther, and Allison run up, bouncing with excitement.

Although a month with the adult versions of his siblings was beginning to change things, these were the faces his mind would go to first when he thought of his family. These were the faces he had grown up with, smiling out at him from the articles about the Umbrella Academy he managed to scrounge up or, in Vanya’s case, from the cover of her book.

“You’re back!”

“Holy shit!”

“I can’t believe you came back!”

“Where were you?!”

It took a few minutes of exclamations and laughter, and Vanya trembling quietly into his shoulder before Five managed to herd them all into his bedroom. He sank onto his bed, feeling as if he’d just run a great distance to get here, his heart still beating hard against his ribs. Vanya and Ben joined him on either side still each holding one of his hands, though he wasn’t sure if it was because they weren’t letting go, or if it was him keeping the grip tight. Klaus spread himself out on the floor, looking up at Five expectantly like a kid waiting for a teacher to start story time. The others had scattered themselves around the room, Diego leaning against his desk, Allison curling up in the comfy armchair, and Luther standing by his wardrobe near the door.

“Where were you?” Luther asked as soon as Five settled in.

Five shrugged. “Out.”

While this earned a snicker from Klaus, Luther’s expression grew grim. “Five, you really worried all of us! We thought you had run away for good!”

“Why the hell did you come back?” Diego asked.

Five snorted. He knew Diego was desperate to get out from under Dad and out of Luther’s shadow, but it was still an odd thought that a thirteen-year-old could survive on the street. Mind you, that was exactly what Five had done, but there had also been a lack of grownups in the apocalypse to report him truant or worse. Five couldn’t resist inserting a bit of truth into the conversation. “What? And leave you all to your terrible fates?”

Diego rolled his eyes. “So, you’re here to save us?” he played along, voice dripping with irony.

Five’s grin grew. “Yup.” Before anyone could notice any sincerity that might have snuck onto his face, he turned back to Luther. “When I left, I was… angry, so I tried some jumps I shouldn’t have.”

“Did you actually manage to time travel?”

Damn it, it had to be Ben asking, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. If anyone other than Ben or Vanya had asked, Five would have tried passing off the truth as a joke with an oh, yeah, I lived in the future for forty years and I’m actually an old man stuck in a kid’s body. But faced with Ben’s earnestness, Five shrugged and looked at the floor, hoping the shame from the lie of omission could be passed off as shame of his failure. “Dad was… right.” He spat out the last word.

“About it being completely different? The whole, um, acorn thing?” Ben asked shyly.

Five gave him a rueful smile. “Yeah.”

Ben nodded in acceptance, and Vanya squeezed Five’s hand.

“Then what happened? You jumped too far away and got lost or something?” Allison asked, her eyes narrowed in thought. Five could tell she knew he was leaving something out.

He did his best to project nonchalance. “Canada is nice this time of year.” Which Five was sure was true. He’d read it in a book once.

Klaus whistled from where he was lounging, practically posing on the floor.

“Canada?! Damn!” Diego straightened up in attention.

“Yeah. Hey, you mind if we continue this in the kitchen? I’m starving.”

“Oh!” Vanya made a small sound but didn’t say anything more. Five guessed it was because making sandwiches for your missing brother would garner teasing from the others, so he didn’t say anything either as he led the way down to the kitchen or when they got there, and she shyly presented the waiting plate to him. He just smiled at her and took a big bite, all the while listening to Klaus chatter about what he had missed, the others interjecting to correct Klaus’s unreliable narration.

They asked him about Canada, and he told them there wasn’t much to say about his time away. He’d been so focused on getting back to them that not a whole lot happened. He did indulge himself, when asked how he got home, in saying that he had help from a lady named Delores, but otherwise he did his best to deflect. He had a feeling his more observant siblings—Vanya, Ben, and Allison—all noticed what he was doing, but if they did, they kept it to themselves.

Soon, a legitimate excuse to avoid conversation came in the form of heavy limbs and heavy eyelids. His adrenaline was running out, leaving him drained, and now that he was warm, fed, and surrounded by his siblings, sleep was insistent. He was barely aware of Luther announcing it was time for bed, being dragged back to his room, or collapsing onto his bed. He was awake enough to hear Ben ask about the bowling shoes as he and Vanya pried them off his feet, but he hadn’t answered except to laugh into his pillow.

-------

The next day, Mom greeted him warmly when he went down for breakfast, but without surprise, having been filled in by the early risers of the group. He was about halfway through his eggs when he almost asked for coffee, only to remember the lack of coffeemaker in the house.

After breakfast, they lined up for inspection in the living room as if it were a normal day, nostalgia filling Five to the brim. He stood in his usual spot between Klaus and Ben, doing his best to school his face into something neutral as Dad bustled into the room. Five braced himself, unsure what to expect, but Dad barely spared Five a glance as he went down the line and ordered them all into the classroom for history lessons with Pogo. Dad turned towards the door and was nearly out the room—and Five had nearly released the breath he was holding—when Dad’s barked order echoed back at him. “Number Five! With me!”

Five grimaced and glanced back at his siblings who all wore varying degrees of worry or resignation on their faces. At least Klaus tried to give him an encouraging smile and thumbs up. The shrug it came with did not help though.

“Now!”

He forgot to hide his wince as he followed; he’d have to get used to enduring Dad’s harsh tone again. Then he realized where they were going and why Dad had called Mom over, and he successfully hid his second wince.

Having experienced the side effects of time travel several times, Five knew Dad was looking for signs that he had successfully performed a temporal jump from the different tests he was running. Unfortunately, Dad would see whatever he saw. There was no way for Five to hide his physical condition. He was suddenly grateful for Luther’s insistence that he wait the full month to recover.

Once they were in the infirmary, he was ordered to take off his shirt so Mom could place electrodes on his chest, and Five braced himself. He wondered if he should attempt to hide the scar from the bullet wound, still fresh enough to be a dark, angry red, but even after a month of recovery, he still had some pain after using his powers. No doubt Dad would notice that, so maybe he could use the wound as an excuse.

Still, when Dad’s eyes landed on his side, Five remained silent. He wasn’t about to offer anything up; Dad would have to ask.

They stared at each other for a long minute.

“Number Five, explain.”

“Explain what?”

Dad’s eyes narrowed in warning. “You will be punished for the disobedience and disrespect you showed by breaking the rules of this house and running away. If you do not intend to increase your punishment, I suggest you explain yourself.”

Five couldn’t help but glower. “I got shot.” Dad opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, Five continued. “I got shot trying to help some people. I was just doing what you taught us to do. Protect humanity from anyone who would do it harm. In this case, the lady who would do it harm got off a lucky shot.”

That did the trick.

“Luck is nonexistent,” Dad informed him. “You are either prepared for an attack, or you are not. Do not excuse your failure with a concept used to make children feel better for their lack of foresight and understanding of probability.”

It was all Five could do not to roll his eyes. He understood probability just fine and knew that making it out of an impossible situation with only one bullet wound and breath still in his body was not a failure by any means. But Dad prattled on for a bit, and Five let him, happy to let him change the subject.

It was afternoon by the time Dad finished his tests and told him he could leave the infirmary.

After Dad left, Pogo came in with a fresh uniform for him, and stole the moment of privacy to hold Five’s shoulders and smile affectionately. “Five. We missed you, dear boy. It’s such a relief to see you safe.”

Strangely, Five felt more embarrassed by this than the hugs from his siblings the night before. “Thanks,” he muttered.

“Might I ask: where were you all this time? The others said you were in Canada, but surely it wouldn’t take you six months to figure out how to come home from there.”

Five swallowed hard. Anything he told Pogo would definitely get back to Dad, so he pictured himself lying to Dad instead of Pogo’s sincere eyes. “You won’t tell the others?”

“Of course not.”

Make it convincing, Five.

“I… I tried to jump through time, but I couldn’t figure it out. I just kept going through space, and I didn’t want to come back until I figured out time, but…” He realized suddenly there was no need to fake anything. “I kept trying and trying…”

Pogo squeezed his shoulders before letting him go. “Don’t be hard on yourself. You’re still young. You’ll figure it out as your power grows.”

Five nodded, hoping his expression was somber enough to hide his reaction to the irony of Pogo’s words. Pogo must have been satisfied, for he left Five to get changed.

Afterward, Five wandered out of the infirmary, down to the kitchen for a quick bite. On his way, he saw the others outside, running sprints under Dad’s supervision. Five decided it would be best to take his food and hide upstairs, lest he be roped into further physical activity for the day, even though he had just endured several forms of stress tests.

On his way to his room, the singing sound of a violin swelled within the hallway from Vanya’s room. Five had enjoyed listening to Vanya in the past, but now, having the last time he’d heard her be when she was playing the Apocalypse Suite, he felt a bit of trepidation. Why had Dad given her a violin if her ability was based off sound anyway?

But she was playing a mournful tune, and he was quickly swept into the longing of the melody. He took a few steps down the hall and peeked in through her open door. The melody immediately halted its steady descent as she spotted him, and her look of concentration broke into a smile. Having Vanya smile for you so sincerely was a bit like winning the lottery, so he couldn’t help returning it.

“Mind if I join you?”

She stepped back, allowing him inside. Her room was tiny compared to everyone else’s, so there wasn’t anywhere to sit other than her bed or at her desk. He plopped down on her bed, plate of food in his lap, so he could face her. Vanya set her violin down next to him and began to collapse her music stand.

“Wait,” Five stopped her. “What was that you were playing?”

“Sea-Shell.” She handed him the sheet music to inspect. “I’m not very good.”

“You are,” Five corrected easily. He couldn’t read music fluently, but he knew the basics from their lessons. As far as he was concerned, anything with as many runs and grace notes as this piece had was advanced. “Someday you’ll be good enough to make a living off of it.”

She seemed to hesitate continuing to put away her music but was pointedly looking away from him. “You really think so?”

“I know it,” he answered honestly.

She shifted her instrument to the end of her bed so she could sit down next to him. After a minute, she looked up from worrying a loose thread on her bedding. “I really missed you.”

He opened his mouth to respond before promptly closing it again. He wished he could tell her everything—exactly how much and how long he had missed her—or at the very least admit that he had time traveled. But she was so young. All he could manage was to nod.

He watched her bite her lip. Then, she reached a hand towards him, palm up. It took a moment for him to recognize it as a request. He took her hand and squeezed gently.

“Please,” she whispered, staring down at their clasped hands. “If you ever leave again, will you… Will you take me with you?”

Guilt pressed on his throat, smothering him until a tremble went through his entire body, and he knew he had to say something precisely because she was so young.

“I didn’t mean to,” he gasped out, his grip on her hand tightening. “Honest, Vanya, I didn’t mean to leave you—any of you. I just…” He could feel her turning to look at him, but he kept his head bowed, unable to say it if he looked at her properly. “I jumped and then I couldn’t jump back. I tried right away, but…” This was the part he wasn’t sure he’d be able to say to anybody else, but this Vanya still thought herself powerless. She wouldn’t judge him for his failure. He swallowed hard. “But my powers weren’t working. And then it took me a while to figure out how to get back home.”

He finally looked up, waiting for her reaction. And this, this was what he loved most about his sister: she observed him for a moment and then accepted everything with a nod. It was the sort of reaction he had expected when he had told the older Vanya about the apocalypse, yet he realized now she hadn’t accepted it, not for being too young, but too old and jaded by the years. He could tell this Vanya about everything he had gone through, and he had no doubt that she would believe him.

A smothering feeling overwhelmed him as he realized exactly how impossible that was.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, and she nodded again. And this Vanya was so different from the one who had destroyed everything, yet completely the same. “I’m sorry,” he said again, thinking of how lonely she must have been to get to the point that she would raze the very building around them now.

She took his hand and squeezed. “It’s okay, Five. You’re back now.”

He was. He really was.

Five suddenly felt his eyes sting, and he blinked hard. He hadn’t cried in nearly forty-five years, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Vanya surely noticed, but didn’t say anything, instead turning to pick up her violin. “You… You promise you won’t leave again?”

He shouldn’t. He hadn’t talked to his older family about how long they would stay, and he had the nagging feeling this was just a splinter of what Delores would scold him for ignoring the past month. She always said he was too single-minded.

“Promise,” he said anyway, and she beamed at him. He felt a strange combination of fluttering joy and twisting guilt in his stomach.

He looked down at the violin on her lap. “Can I stay and listen to you play?”

“I don’t know…” She wasn’t used to having an audience yet.

“I’ll be quiet.” He picked up the sandwich he had brought up from the kitchen. “Just going to sit here and eat.”

“You’re going to get sick of those if you eat too many.”

“I ate some disgusting stuff on my adventure back home. Compared to that crap, this will never make me sick.” He took a big bite as if it proved his point.

“If you say so,” she said, a muted amusement sitting in her eyes. He didn’t mention the sandwich she had left for him last night, and she didn’t either. She stood and readjusted her music stand, flipping pages to a fresh song. “Don’t laugh if I mess up.”

“I just admitted I messed up big time,” he reminded with a shrug. “And you didn’t laugh.”

She still hesitated, tugging restlessly at the edge of her sleeve.

“Hold on,” he said, setting down his plate, and jumped across the hall to his room, grabbing the first book he found. Then he popped back into her room and resumed his seat. “See?” He flipped the book open to begin reading. “I’m not even paying attention to you.”

He thought he might have heard her give a soft chuckle, but steadfastly ignored her, pretending to be consumed in the book.

Then, she started to play, and this time, it was a jubilant melody. He found himself lifted by the buoyant tune. And yet, when he stole a glance at her face, there was only a wan wisp of a smile.

His eyes found the bottle of pills on her nightstand. Allison and Luther had filled him in on everything Pogo had told them about Vanya’s powers and what Allison had been brought into by rumoring her. Even if this was how he had always remembered Vanya, now he knew the truth, and he couldn’t help but think it was a shame to see her muted by the pills. The music singing from her violin was as expressive as she got.

But there was no way around it. He wasn’t sure if he should explain why she should stop the pills, and even if he tried, it likely wouldn’t be enough to fight against the power of Allison’s rumor. Then again, should she stop taking them? Was Dad right that this was the only way to control her power? He hated the thought, but…

But what if she had become a bomb from bottling everything up? Wouldn’t it be better for her to learn control now and to let little bits out as time went on?

Five stared down at the first page of the book, not seeing the words. Fix her, he had said, but when it came down to it, he didn’t know how.

What he really needed was for the other Vanya to wake up. If anyone would know best how to help, it would be her, right? That was why he had wanted to bring her along. At the very least, it felt wrong to be making these decisions for her without her input.

But until she woke up, Five would have to do his best here. As Ben said, at the very least he could make sure she wasn’t alone.

He just hoped that was enough to save the world.

Chapter Text

When Five was little, if anyone had bothered to ask who his best friends were, he’d say Ben and Vanya. They naturally fell in together as one of the three groups of the household, all being voracious readers, and several evenings were spent together in Five’s room, curled up with their books, discussing the literature they immersed themselves in. They never objected when Five turned the conversation to quantum mechanics and how it might help him understand his powers. In fact, Ben followed right along and did his best to make useful observations. And as she found her passion, they went on to discuss music theory and whichever composer Vanya was drawn to that week. Five fancied them as the academics of the family.

He never gave the friendship serious thought except to say that it was easy being with them.

Then he read Vanya’s book and was startled to find she had included an analysis of their friendship. She figured her and Ben’s passive natures had drawn Five in. His arrogance clashed regularly with the others, but in Ben and Vanya, Five had a pair who would follow his lead, only gently prodding him back on track when they saw him taking things too far. In return, Five was their defender, never afraid to speak up for them if one of their siblings decided to poke a sore spot.

Not nearly enough to change the family dynamic, Five now realized.

Then Vanya had written how, even with as much time as they spent together, they were often in their own worlds while doing it. Ben perpetually had his nose in a book, and Five was constantly studying. And then there was the overall theme of her book, that Vanya would always be alone due to the natural barrier of her ordinariness.

It was a cold outlook on their childhood, but far less harsh than the way Vanya described just about everything else in the book. Even so, Five had reread the chapter several times, as if the words might change from the last time he had read it, at first stinging with shock and frustration, eventually aching with grief and regret. Something innocent had been ruined in his mind, but now he understood it had perhaps always been broken in hers. Years of reflection later, he had to admit Vanya had a point.

So, when the three of them fell into old habits, Five couldn’t help but wonder what needed to be fixed. Something had to be, yet the familiarity of it all was so alluring.

He’d figure it out later, after the first mission since his return. He was looking forward to the post-mission meeting, when the three of them would gather in his room to fill in Vanya on all the details. He remembered what a good audience she always was while he recounted things, often with reenactments and Ben’s witty, running commentary.

His adult siblings had warned him that a mission would happen about a week after his return. They described it as a standard, if not boring, event, the thwarting of a museum heist, only memorable for the five of them as one of their first missions without him.

An early summer thunderstorm tried to dampen his mood with cascading rains, but he had always celebrated rain during the apocalypse—true rain, not the acid rain that he had endured for the first few years that made it painful to breathe. If anything, he found his spirits lifted by the downpour as they crept through the museum, taking out the perpetrators one at a time.

They had lost Klaus somewhere along the way to some distraction or another, so Allison had gone back to find him, leaving the rest of the boys to creep up on the remainder of the targets. They were employing a simple strategy, bottleneck all the bad guys into a single room where Ben would then take them apart, and so far, things had gone smoothly.

Five couldn’t help but smile as the thrill of a successful mission, a mission with his family, sang through his veins. It had been a while since he’d had this much fun.

They were almost done. The remaining thieves had barricaded themselves into an exhibit room at the end of the hall, behind a set of fire doors. All that was left was for Luther to knock the doors down and Ben would take care of the rest.

“Ready?” Luther asked Ben.

“I…” Ben bit his lip. “Can I have a moment?”

“A minute,” Luther conceded with a nod. Then he scowled. “Diego, what are you doing?”

Five could practically see Diego’s eye roll even though they were all wearing their domino masks. Diego had his ear pressed to the doors. “What does it look like, dumbass? I’m seeing if I can hear how many are in there.”

“Do you realize how thick those doors are?” Luther snapped back.

And they were arguing again. Not in the mood, Five turned his attention back to Ben and found his brother was staring at one of the paintings hanging in the hallway. He ventured over to stand next to Ben and gazed up at the canvas.

Five had nothing against art, but not much had survived the apocalypse. Most of what did survive, he didn’t have time for. The very few pieces he bothered to drag back to the library had been paintings with bright, bold colors that Delores favored. The paintings gave him something more interesting to look at, and eventually write on, than gray walls.

The piece Ben had chosen to view probably would have made the cut. It was full of deep greens, depicting a forest pond. The painter had added dappled light shining through the leaves of the trees, reflecting off the pool of water, breathing a gentle breeze into the picture. It was a peaceful scene.

He glanced at Ben, and just as expected, his brother was obviously trying to draw slow, steady breaths, preparing for what he had to do next. The longer Five watched, the younger Ben looked to him.

Perhaps it was because this was the only Ben that Five had ever known. He had only seen ghost Ben a total of three times: once in the concert hall, and twice when Klaus was practicing his newly discovered powers. Unfortunately, Klaus wasn’t very good yet, so Five hadn’t had a chance to say two words to his dead sibling.

Five was suddenly struck with the thought that the Ben standing next to him had less than four years to live.

Only if Five didn’t interfere, that is. Once they fixed Vanya, the next mission on the list was to save Ben. He hadn’t discussed it with any of his older siblings, but he couldn’t imagine any of them disagreeing.

Even so, Five felt his stomach clench, his good mood whisked away.

Had Ben always looked this terrified before using his ability?

“I’ll do it.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized it. Luther and Diego’s argument carried on, but Ben turned from the painting with a confused little frown. Five gave him a reassuring smile, then marched over to the pair fighting in front of the door. “I’m going in.”

This time, Luther and Diego shut up.

“What are you talking about?” Diego scoffed and crossed his arms.

“That’s not the plan,” Luther said in his official Number One Makes the Decisions voice.

Five snorted. “Screw the plan. I can take care of this.”

Luther turned to face him properly, his brow knitted. “Five, what are you saying?”

Five stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I’ll pop in and take them out.”

Diego glowered. “You really think you’re that good.”

“I know I am. Bet I can do it in under three minutes.” He shifted his stance, readying for the jump.

Luther caught his arm. “No, we stick to the plan—”

“You’re really that intent on traumatizing Ben?” Five snapped before he could stop himself.

Luther’s grip on him went slack. “What? No, of course not, but—"

“Okay then.” Five shrugged off his hand for a second, before Luther regained his composure and grabbed him again.

“No, it’s too dangerous.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

“You’ve been having trouble with your jumps!” Luther all but announced. And it was true. While the pain had eased significantly, Five still found anything more than three jumps in a short period began summoning more and more needles into his core with each jump. At least Space once again welcomed him into its embrace with such ease that he had thought he could disguise his condition as a repercussion of the bullet wound. Yet somehow, Dad had known, and this was the first Five was hearing of it.

But not Luther. Five glared, his face growing warm. “Dad told you?”

“He did. Just in case—”

“Just in case,” Five ground the words out through gritted teeth.

“It’s okay, Five,” Ben said quietly, having come up to stand beside him. “Really.”

Five stared around at his brothers, jaw clenched, fuming because he knew he could handle this on his own, but none of them did. It’s not like Five wanted to tell them about his time with the Commission, but it sure would make this argument easier.

“Hey, guys, what did we miss?” Klaus interrupted cheerfully, running up to meet them with Allison by his side.

“Not much,” Diego snorted. “Just Five being an arrogant asshole.”

“Oh, so the usual.” Klaus grinned.

Five didn’t bother responding though because Allison’s arrival had drawn Luther’s attention away, his grip sliding from Five’s forearm. Five leaned over to Ben, who was drawing deep slow breaths again. “Three minutes.”

Ben’s shocked face jerked up to look at him before Five whirled around and snatched one of the knives dangling from Diego’s belt.

“Borrowing this,” he called, and then made the jump before they could react.

In general, Five preferred to have a line of sight to wherever he was jumping. It prevented knocking things or people over, or even knocking himself over if he tried jumping to a space that was occupied by something immovable. There was a reason he was in the habit of using his hands to push through a spatial jump. It gave him a split second of feeling the other side before the rest of him followed. That said, it was a relief when he popped over to the other side of the door and only displaced air. Then he cleared his throat, catching the attention of the four, armed men in the room. “Hey, assholes.”

They immediately raised their guns. Trigger happy. Good. That made things easier. He should have told Ben less than two.

Frankly, Five was surprised Luther gave him even one minute. Of course, that also meant his siblings burst through the doors just in time to see him shoot the last two perpetrators. Two quick, clean shots through the center of each of their foreheads in quick succession. But Five felt his siblings’ eyes on him, and he might as well have been drenched in blood. He dropped his arm to his side, still holding the handgun, holding his breath.

Then someone, Klaus, whistled, and the moment broke. He looked up at his siblings and found them examining the bodies with nothing but surprise or approval on their faces. Because of course, this was just a mission, and as per Dad’s narrative, the bodies on the floor were the bad guys and they were the heroes. All of them, except for Klaus for obvious reasons, had killed for the mission. Five wasn’t sure why he had thought differently for a moment.

He had been so lost in relief, he missed when Ben had moved to stand in front of him. Then Ben gently took his hand and removed the gun from it, and Five was struck again with the feeling he had done something wrong. He had let them see something too close to the Five that had worked for the Commission.

But then Ben set the gun down and thanked Five, quietly so the others wouldn’t hear—especially Luther, who was marching over with a lecture in tow—and Five knew he had done the right thing.

------

It was nearly two in the morning by the time they got back to the Academy. Five was the only one not feeling the weight of sleep, still feeling wired. It was too bad. After a daytime mission they were usually left to their own devices until dinnertime, and Luther would always play something on his record player, loud enough for them all to enjoy and wind down with. Five felt like dancing; the rain always did that to him.

But given the late hour, they were ordered to bed, and none of his siblings needed telling twice. They dragged themselves upstairs, everyone going to their respective rooms without another word, except for Five and Ben. Since their rooms were next to each other, it was easy to linger a little longer together in the hall, and once everyone else disappeared behind their doors, they slipped into Five’s room together.

Just as always after a mission, Vanya was waiting for them, curled up in Five’s blue armchair. She had fallen asleep, a book about composing music still clasped in her hands. Five took a mental note of the subject matter as he leaned over and gently shook her shoulder.

“Hey. We’re back.”

She gave a small gasp as she stirred, and immediately relaxed when she saw it was them.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Everyone okay?”

“No injuries to report.”

She nodded, eyes fluttering back closed.

“You two too tired for this?” Five asked, watching as Ben stifled a yawn. His excitement for the post-mission storytelling was keeping adrenaline humming through his veins, but seeing their exhaustion was quickly dragging him to a halt. “We can tell you what happened tomorrow…”

“No!” Vanya finally sat up straight. “No, please. I’m awake.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Really,” she insisted, rubbing her eyes. “So, it was a museum heist, right?”

Ben went to sit down on the arm of the chair. “It was the art museum down in Bricktown.”

“The one that has the Degas exhibit visiting?”

“That’s what they were going after.” Ben nodded and looked at Five expectantly, despite the clear fatigue weighing down his limbs, making him slouch. “Since it was after hours we didn’t have to worry about any civilians, so things went smoothly. I think Five was having fun.”

Five shrugged. “Maybe a little,” he admitted and then launched into the story from the beginning, going through each encounter and each sibling’s role. It was a textbook Umbrella Academy story. One he might expect to show up in a comic book.

Ben listened quietly until the end. “And then, Five saved me from having to use my power.”

Five snorted. “Saved is a strong word—”

“Not to me,” Ben said earnestly. Five found he could offer nothing more than a shrug. Ben smiled at the reaction. “So how did you do it? There were four armed men in there. We all worried when we heard gunshots. Luther practically tore the doors off their hinges.”

Ben and Vanya looked at Five expectantly for the details, but Five stared back, any answer he might have had, gone. He was beginning to suspect he had been blind as a child. How had he not noticed the tightness in Vanya’s face and the way she hugged herself, her posture growing more and more rigid as she listened to their story?

“Are you okay, Vanya?”

“Huh?”

“Are you okay listening to all of this? It’s…” Five floundered for the right words for a moment, still dazed by this new discovery, that the memories he cherished of them post-mission had actually been another knife in her heart. “It’s not fair to you… We keep going on about what we get to do even though Dad will never allow you to join us.”

“What are you talking about, Five? Even if I did join you, I’d be useless.” She tried to chuckle at her self-deprecation, but any humor that might have been, fell flat before Five and Ben’s silence. She looked away to the floor, and Five could kick himself.

But he pressed on. “If it’s too painful to hear about these things—"

“No!” Thunder boomed loud enough to rattle the window, as if in response to Vanya’s cry. They all jumped up and went to the window to check outside. The rain was coming down in sheets, but it was too dark out to see more than the droplets barraging the window.

After a moment of listening to the pattering against the glass, Vanya put a hand on Five’s arm, getting his attention again. “Please, Five. I want to hear about it. It’s worse otherwise. I’m completely in the dark if you don’t tell me!”

She was right, of course. It was one thing for her to be left out of missions for what she believed to be her own safety. It was very different if they left her out of the loop on what had happened. No doubt the mission would be a topic of conversation at the breakfast table.

“Okay,” Five relented. He looked at Ben and found his brother was studying him with a frown. “Ben?”

Ben shook himself out of whatever thought was troubling him. “Go on.”

So, Five finished the story, keeping the details of his attack on the final four men limited, explaining it away as having them all shoot each other with a well-placed jump, which in actuality had only taken down one of them.

He wasn’t sure if that was why Ben was frowning again. His brother surely had seen that he had slit one of the men’s throats and had obviously seen Five deal with the last two men.

But it was too late to ask. Both his siblings were drifting into slumber when he finished describing Luther’s chastising and subsequent tattling to Dad on their ride home, Vanya had curled up on the armchair again and Ben had initially sat on Five’s bed but was now stretched out across it, eyes closed and breathing steady.

Five wondered if he should wake them or at least move them. But his adrenaline had left him a few minutes ago, so he pulled Ben’s shoes off for him and kicked off his own, before collapsing onto the bed next to Ben and fell immediately into the void of a deep sleep.

------

A few days later, Five was reading in bed by flashlight, not bothering to hide under the covers even though it was past lights out. Dad would probably send Mom in in a few minutes to chastise him and take the book away, but he also had the feeling Dad was intrigued by Five’s sudden interest in books much more advanced than he was reading six months ago. Five knew he should be keeping certain things better hidden, but he had already read a good number of the books in the Academy’s library multiple times. Not much else to do in the apocalypse for fun except read. Forgive him if he was excited to finally read something new.

He was just considering turning in for the night and skipping the lecture he’d receive, even if it would come with Mom’s kind smile, when there was a flicker of blue in the corner of his room. Five blinked, certain he was seeing things, when there was another flicker, and then suddenly, cloaked in ghostly blue, Ben was in the corner of his room, crouched next to his wardrobe.

“Five?” he whispered. “Can you hear me?”

Five stared. “Yeah,” he replied, dumbfounded.

Ben grinned. “Klaus has been practicing. We thought we’d test his range.”

“He’s outside?” He turned towards the window and made to get up and see if he could peek his brother, when Ben stopped him.

“Wait! The camera! Pretend to go back to reading.”

Right. Dad’s creeper cameras. Allison had warned him about that, and he had spent much of his second night back searching for the camera in his room as subtly as possible.

Ben was crouching right beneath the camera, out of its view. Five watched in the corner of his eye as Ben experimented in trying to pick up one of his shoes. His hand slid right through, and he smiled wryly. “Well, it’s a work in progress, but at least we can communicate this way, if only for a few minutes.”

“He’s up to minutes now?” Five asked, rolling onto his side and lifting his book up to hide his face. He was impressed. Last time he had seen, Klaus could barely summon Ben for ten seconds.

After several failed attempts involving Klaus making ridiculous faces, holding his breath until he went blue, and chanting dramatic verses about summoning the dead, Five may have suggested Klaus take his shoes off, purely out of curiosity of whether he had hallucinated during their time trip. Klaus had taken the idea without question, beginning to yank off his shoes when Diego came into the room and dragged Klaus off to help run errands.

Five wanted to ask Ben now if Klaus was barefoot outside, but there were more pressing matters. “Did something happen? Is everyone okay?”

“We’re fine,” Ben quickly reassured. “But Vanya woke up.”

There was a beat of silence as Five digested this news. “Is she…?” He wasn’t entirely sure what to ask, so he settled for, “Is she okay?”

“She’s having trouble remembering what happened. At first, she didn’t remember anything after the day of the funeral, but as the day went on, she started remembering bit and pieces. Like she knows she has powers. And she remembers Harold Jenkins, and hurting Allison…”

Five grimaced. He couldn’t pretend to read anymore, so he put his book away and turned off the flashlight. He stared up at the ceiling before turning his head away from the camera to hide his lips moving. “Is she okay otherwise? Physically?”

“Yeah. She’s still very weak and has got ringing in her injured ear, which seems to be disrupting her powers, but at least her eardrum is showing signs of healing.”

Five hummed a note of acknowledgement. “How’s everyone else? Any sign of the Commission?”

“Not yet. We’ve been keeping up the stakeouts but haven’t seen any trouble.” Ben’s whisper took on a lighter note as he moved onto the next bit of news. “They rented an apartment downtown.”

Five raised an eyebrow even though he was facing away from his brother. “How’d they get the money for that?”

“Luther got a job moving shipment down at the docks.”

Five snorted. “Probably hired him on the spot after seeing his size.”

“Yup. Diego has been focused on the stakeouts, but I think he’s going to look for a job too, especially after seeing how quickly Luther was hired. And Klaus is doing seances.”

“Really?” Five couldn’t help but steal a glance over his shoulder to judge Ben’s seriousness. He rolled over, facing Ben and the camera to hide the movement.

“Yeah, he’s mostly asked to summon old grannies, so nothing he can’t handle. He’s got a whole outfit and act and everything.” There was a warmth in Ben’s voice as he recounted this, and Five pulled his blanket up to cover his own amused smile. “I suggested it. He’s… He’s doing his best for my sake, but that means he’s stuck seeing ghosts. I figured, maybe if he could do something good with it, bring some people closure, then it might make things…” He gave a small, unsure hum, a habit Five often heard when they were studying together, and Ben wasn’t sure how to phrase something. "Easier isn't the right word for it, but..."

“Right. Good idea,” Five said through his blanket. When it came to Klaus, he hadn’t seen an iota of what Ben had, but he had seen enough. He waited a moment, but when it was clear Ben wasn’t going to say anything more on the subject, he moved onto his next question. “I’m guessing Allison’s been looking after Vanya.”

“Yeah. Either that or she joins Diego for the stakeouts. There’s still no sign of her vocal cords healing, so she’s been… frustrated.”

Five made another soft noise of acknowledgement but couldn’t think of any advice to offer. He was about to thank Ben for the update, figuring Klaus was probably close to his limit already, when Ben thanked him first.

“Thanks for what you did during the mission.”

Five felt like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and tried to pull his blanket up higher. He frowned, wondering how Ben would know, before guessing the obvious. “You were there, weren’t you?”

“We knew what day the mission was, so I tagged along,” Ben confirmed. “I had to avoid being seen by little Klaus, but,” Ben flipped up his hood and grinned, “that was no problem.”

Five snorted, though a smile was tugging at his lips.

“I also know,” Ben continued, “because we remember. Sort of.”

“What do you mean?” He had a guess already as to what Ben would say, but he hadn’t expected one of his hypotheses to be proven this quickly. Admittedly, he had had a few different theories of what could happen once they started changing things, and this was perhaps the most ideal of them all. His heart rate jumped with the familiar adrenaline rush that came with another breakthrough in his studies of time.

“It's strange.” Ben hummed, searching for the words. “They know how things went the first time around, but the next morning, they woke up with a vague sense of the second round too.”

“Fascinating!” Five’s whisper was a little too loud, and he reigned his voice in as he continued, speaking fast. “I suspected something like this would happen. The universe must correct itself of the paradoxes we’re creating and having two versions of the same consciousness existing at the same moment was bound to have consequences. And of course, it would happen while they sleep. That’s when short-term memories are usually transferred to long-term, so if there was ever a time for new neural pathways to form in their brains… Wait, Ben, do ghosts sleep?” he asked excitedly. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to get anymore sleep tonight “Do you remember?”

“I do, but…” Ben was shaking his head, and Five realized he was far dimmer than he was a moment ago. “I don’t sleep. When Klaus sleeps, I sort of… I still exist there, next to him, but I’m also in a fog, in another place…” He gave another hesitant hum. “But then, when Klaus channels me like this, I seem to remember the same way they do.”

“Fascinating,” Five whispered again, though Ben’s description of the life—or lack there-of—as a ghost had dampened his spirits a degree. “So, you may be able to remember because of your link with Klaus. Perhaps it has to do with how you time traveled. The only way I was able to bring you with us was through your connection to him, so if you exist outside of the influence of time until Klaus summons you…” He glanced back at Ben and found his brother was looking more and more transparent. “Speaking of which, he’s at his limit, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Ben sighed. “Before I go, I should tell you… Klaus neglected to mention—"

A small, sad sound suddenly came muffled through the wall. Five immediately reacted, his heart jumping again as he sat up and threw back his covers, moving to get out of bed. He hadn’t heard the sound in decades, but he could never forget the sound of his brother crying.

“What is that?” Ben asked, his whisper strained with worry.

Five had bounded to the door before he registered the question. “It’s Ben, he’s—I mean, it’s you, you’re… you know.”

“Oh! …Oh yeah.” Ben used to cry in his sleep, having been plagued by nightmares. If it got bad enough that Five could hear him through the wall, it was time to wake him up.

Standing in front of the door, Five was out of the camera’s line of sight and could finally look at his brother properly. Ben was as faint as an afterimage burned into the inside of Five’s eyelids. He gave Five a grim smile, and Five paused, hand on the doorknob.

“What’s the address to the apartment?” he asked quickly, struck with the desire to see his adult siblings. It was strange having two sets after all those years of yearning to be with even one of them again. Ben rattled off the address, and Five nodded. “Thank you. For the visit. It’s really good to see you.”

“Of course. I’ve missed talking with you.” Ben’s smile was the same, even in death. Another muffled sob came through the wall, and Five and Ben nodded to each other, before Five slipped silently into the hall and then into Ben’s room.

Five shook Ben’s shoulder until his brother was pulled from whatever horror had him whimpering.

“Five?” Ben sat up and hurriedly wiped his tears away with his sleeve.

Five could tell Ben that it was just a dream, but they both knew it wasn’t. Whatever eldritch monsters that had been visiting Ben were very real. Instead, Five said, “Guess what I was just reading about.”

Ben drew his knees up to his chest, and Five took that as invitation to sit at the foot of his bed. “What?”

“The theory of the quantum mind and how it relates to determinism.”

“So… free will?”

Pleased Ben had caught on so quickly, Five launched into a summary of what he had read. He could babble with the best of them, and by the time his mouth began to run dry, he turned to his audience. For a split second, he expected to see Delores with her usual smile and a wry comment, but there was Ben, curled into a ball, fast asleep.

Mission accomplished, Five watched his brother take a few slow, deep breaths before he stood. He turned to the door, before immediately changing his mind and went to the window.

Just as he hoped, Klaus was still there, talking animatedly with a frowning Diego. A few moments passed before Klaus’s attention went to the air beside him, then he looked up at Five and grinned. Five raised his hand in front of him in what could have been considered a wave to those below or nothing to a camera that was surely pointed at his back. Diego returned the wave, and Klaus gave a jaunty salute. Then, Five watched as they went back to their conversation, ambling down the alleyway together and around the corner.

It was paradoxical to miss them, when one of them was in the same room and the other two were right across the hall. Yet Five was used to living a paradox, not only the obvious one he saw in the mirror each day, but the decades of grieving for his family at the same time as fighting with absolute certainty that he would save them. He had buried them, yet they were still alive, in another time than he had existed.

Five slipped silently back into his bedroom and nestled into his bed, wondering when he could visit his adult siblings while musing what the next day with his younger siblings would bring. It was a marvel how full his life had become.

------

The next morning, Five was yawning into his oatmeal, wondering if he could sneak out for coffee, when Mom made the announcement.

“I hope all of you are ready for portrait day!”

There was a collective groan around the table.

“Didn’t we just do one?” Klaus looked like he was melting in his seat.

“About a year ago…” Ben sighed and put down his book to pick at his food.

“Sit up straight, dear.” Mom gently pulled Klaus up from resting his face on the table. “Your father has decided we’ll do a portrait of the Umbrella Academy every year.” She made it sound like sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, but they all remembered the stiff joints that came with sitting still for hours on end.

“Every year? That seems like overkill,” Diego grumbled.

“Not at all. He wants a record of all your progress as you grow up.”

Right. Now that Five thought about it, an annual portrait would account for the four he had seen in the future, though they must have skipped a year for some reason. He was willing to bet that was when his portrait had shown up above the mantle.

The sound of a spoon clattering against a bowl jolted him from his thoughts.

“May I be excused?” Vanya asked.

Great going, Five. He had been consumed with his own displeasure at the thought of another portrait experience, that he hadn’t considered what Vanya must be feeling. Mom excused her with a warm smile, and Five watched his sister flee the kitchen.

He had been too much of a dumb kid to question Dad when he said Vanya was not a part of the Umbrella Academy, so of course she didn’t belong in the portrait. After all, it was obvious; she didn’t have powers. And yet, as Five pictured the four portraits in his mind, he realized that was an idiotic excuse.

Five stared at his food, suddenly not hungry, and wondered if it would be too strange to ask Mom to save the rest for him for later. Deciding against it, he shoveled the rest down, hoping to finish in time to catch Vanya.

He almost did. She was lingering on the stairs, leaning on the banister, and watching the portrait artist set up.

Unfortunately, before he could dash upstairs, a voice rang out.

“Number Five, you are expected in the family room.”

Family room. Five could have laughed. Vanya’s eyes found his for a second before he turned, foot still on the bottom step of the stairs. Dad wasn’t even looking at him, too busy judging where the portrait artist was placing his easel. “I was just going to—”

“Now, Number Five. It is almost time for inspection.”

He glanced up at Vanya again, and she shook her head, warning him not to defy their father. She began to make her way down the stairs, and Five was struck by how hurtful it was to ask her to endure their usual morning routine when the day’s activities excluded her. Indignation coiled in Five’s limbs, and he found himself disappointed it wasn’t a training that day. He needed to hit something.

But anger was counterproductive in this case, he knew. As much as he wanted to fight the old man at every turn, he needed to pick which battles he fought by significance. Of all the injustices of the day, it was clear what he should focus on. He might even get further if he started presenting his case in a clam, collected manner.

With that thought in mind, Five ground his teeth and answered the old man’s summons, standing in his usual spot. His siblings trickled up from the kitchen, and soon the seven of them were lined up, waiting.

Unlike most days, Dad took the time to look them up and down as he went down the line, until he got to Ben, and then he began barking orders about what would be expected of them and how this portrait would be proof of their bond or something.

Five’s only chance was when the old man released them from the lineup, right before he was going to start ordering them into position.

“Why is Vanya not allowed in the portrait?” Five asked, hoping his face portrayed only innocent curiosity.

“She is not a part of the Umbrella Academy,” Dad answered without even glancing at Five.

Okay, forget innocent curiosity. Time for a more aggressive stance.

“But you’re in the picture.”

Standing behind Dad, Five’s siblings were looking at him with wide eyes. The old man finally turned around to face him. Vanya, who had been about to leave, was now at Five’s side, head down, tugging on his sleeve. Klaus looked like he’d won the lottery. Luther looked less thrilled.

“I am the founder of the Academy,” Dad said slowly as if that would help Five understand.

“You don’t do missions with us,” Five pointed out, with every effort to keep his voice even, even if he could feel his expression hardening to a glare. “You don’t train with us. You’re there recording our performance, but most of the time Vanya’s right there helping you.”

The tugging on his sleeve was more insistent.

Light glinted off Dad’s monocle as he raised his head to look down at Five. “Number Five, another month will be added to your punishment if you continue.”

Five rolled his eyes. His punishment so far had been a mountain of essays to catch up on the lessons he had missed, chores under Mom’s supervision, and a month grounded with no allowance. The chores and extra homework were more time-consuming than anything, and Five couldn’t care less about the money—he had gotten docked pay from the Commission on a regular basis for taking time to run his own probabilities before making the kill. The grounding was laughable because they already weren’t allowed out except for missions, which were excluded from the grounding, and the occasional shopping trip with Mom.

Five could hear Vanya’s sharp intake of breath in his ear. “Five, it’s okay—”

“No, it’s not okay,” he cut her off, all pretense of a calm, collected argument gone. “It’s yet another thing that you’re going to have to look at every day that implies you don’t belong. Maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal if we had a real family portrait with everyone—all of us and Mom and Pogo. But just look around this room!” He opened his arms wide and gestured around at framed articles and interviews, at the portrait of their masked faces currently over the mantle. “It’s supposed to be the family room, but it’s all about the Academy!” He finally stopped glaring at Dad’s stony face to look her in the eye. “It all excludes you, and that’s not right!”

He knew he was saying too much. Yes, this was his mission, but he should be looking for a subtler way to change things. His younger self wouldn’t be talking like this, but his younger self hadn’t read Vanya’s book dozens of times over, wasn’t privy to her thoughts or aware of how deeply their dear father’s neglect was affecting her. But Five knew now, and the words were gushing out of him, pushed forth by the geyser of emotion in his chest. “Not to mention, you’re just as much a part of the Academy as he is.” He turned back to the old man and knew he was going to scrubbing toilets for the next year. “I don’t see a tattoo on your wrist.”

Behind Dad, his siblings were statues, Luther’s face bright red. Diego looked like he was choking on air. Klaus was covering his mouth with both hands, clearly suppressing laughter.

“Number Five,” Dad’s voice was sharp as a dagger, “I understand this is hard for you to accept that your sister is not like you—”

“Don’t you dare say she’s not special,” Five snarled. He wanted to shout the truth in that moment, to catch the old man in his lies. Instead, he reached behind him for the hand on his sleeve and squeezed his sister’s hand. “Last I checked, you don’t have some special ability. Vanya deserves to be in that portrait more than you. At least she cares about us.”

“Two more months grounded, no allowance, and dinners alone in the kitchen.” Fitting punishments for his thirteen-year-old self. The monocle glared down at him like a demonic, glowing eye. “Now drop this, or you will be punished further.”

“Punished how?” Five demanded without hesitation.

There was a long moment of thick silence. The old man’s face was as unreadable as ever. “Push-ups—”

Five scoffed.

“All of you.”

Five should have seen it coming. But decades had passed, and he had forgotten how often Dad used shared punishment to deter them from misbehaving.

Diego and Klaus groaned. Luther and Allison exchanged looks of irritation. The four of them collectively glared at Five, and Five hated to admit he felt himself waver, wondering if it was okay to ask all of them to help Vanya. It was his mission to bear, not theirs.

Vanya’s grip on Five’s arm was a vise. “No, you don’t have to—!” she squeaked. Then her voice dropped to a whisper. “Five! Please, stop!”

And so often, Vanya had been the voice of reason, calming Five’s cantankerous instincts, and here she was, outright begging him to back down. Five physically took a step back from their father and the argument before he realized what he was doing.

“How many?”

Five watched, amazed, as Ben moved next to him and got down into a push-up position.

“How many push-ups?” Ben asked to the floor.

Five dropped to the floor, stifling a grin despite the buoyant feeling swelling in his chest. Then he heard Allison sigh, and she joined them, followed by Luther, then Klaus and Diego.

“Fifty,” Dad finally said, and Five nearly scoffed again, until the old man continued. “All seven of you.”

Well, shit.

The message was clear. If Vanya wanted to be treated like a member of the Academy, she would endure their punishment too.

“You are not to leave this room until all of you are finished. Pogo will monitor you,” Dad announced and then turned on his heel, directing the flustered portrait painter into the foyer so they could discuss rescheduling. Pogo moved to stand closer to them, face appropriately grave.

“Gee, thanks, Five,” Diego grumbled sourly. He, Luther, and Allison immediately began, but Klaus simply stretched himself out on the floor like a cat, looking up at Vanya.

“Well, dear sister of mine, have you ever done fifty push-ups?”

For the rest of them, it was a daily routine to do fifty as a part of warmups for their training, but for their sidelined sister…

Five and Ben were still in push-up position but hadn’t started, both watching as Vanya bit her lip and dropped onto her knees and hands.

“No,” she answered meekly.

“Have you ever done ten?” Diego asked mid-push-up, clearly trying to keep up with Luther.

“No…” Her voice was tiny, and Five glowered at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pogo shift as if he wanted to say something.

“It’s okay, Vanya,” Ben said before anyone else could interrupt. “We’ll do them with you. Ready?”

She nodded, and they waited for her to do the first push-up before they followed suit.  Then they paused and waited for her to do the next, and the next, and on the fourth one, her arms were already shaking. She made it through the seventh before she collapsed onto her stomach, gasping like a fish out of water.

Ben and Five exchanged glances. This would take a while.

“I’m,” she gasped into the floor, “sorry.”

“Meh. This is better than sitting through the portrait.” Klaus finally rolled over and began doing his push-ups at a leisurely pace.

“If anyone should apologize, it’s Five,” Luther said in that chastising tone which ensured Five would do the opposite.

A few more gasps later, Vanya looked up at Five and Ben. “Sorry. I can’t.”

“You can. Just take it slow,” Ben encouraged.

“We’re in no rush,” Five told her, even though Diego and Luther had just finished. Allison finished a moment later, and all three of them sat on the floor, watching, frowning. Five shot them a glare when Vanya couldn’t see, pressing her forehead into the cool floor.

A few minutes passed before she struggled up and did another four before collapsing again.

“Sorry,” she gasped again as Five and Ben quickly brought their count to match hers. “Can’t…”

And then Five suddenly recalled what he had read during his month-long recovery with his other set of siblings. Allison had returned from the library one day with several psychology books, ranging from basic child psychology to the long-term effects of parental abuse. Five had ignored the books for the first few days, always having preferred the hard sciences and things he could back with clear-cut numbers. But he had quickly gotten bored of laying around in bed, trying to argue with whoever was around that he was well enough to not be in bed, so he had picked one up one day. He nearly finished the stack of books before Allison, until he got to a chapter about the effects of isolation on child development and couldn’t continue without wanting to chuck the book across the room.

But hearing Vanya’s words reminded him of something he had read, one of the concepts that hadn’t sounded any more farfetched than what he knew to be true about the world, especially given what he knew about Allison’s powers. It likely wouldn’t help anything in the end, but at the very least, he could distract her from the situation and himself from the way his stomach twisted every time she apologized. “Vanya, have you ever heard of the Golem Effect?”

Vanya’s eyes flickered up to him, but the rest of her didn’t move. “No…”

“The Golem Effect essentially boils down to this: if people expect you to perform poorly, you will. So, if someone keeps telling you that you aren’t capable, that you’re unremarkable, you’re more likely to do unremarkable things.”

“Where did you learn that?” Luther asked.

“Isn’t that an excuse?” Diego asked at the same time.

“I learned it last month, and what do you mean excuse?”

“I mean just because someone says something doesn’t mean you have to believe them.”

“Even if you’re told it over and over, and everyone acts like it’s true?” Five asked sharply, saying far more of the truth than anyone had dared to for their entire childhood. Diego looked away, abashed, and he wasn’t the only one. Ben and Vanya were the only one’s staring at him, dumbfounded. Five sighed, trying to remember he too had been ignorant when he was their age. “Sure. Things are more complicated than being caused purely by outside pressures. Which is why there’s also the Galatea Effect.”

“Galatea… Wasn’t that the statue from the Pygmalion legend?” Ben asked quietly, eyes scanning Five’s face for something.

“Hey, hey! I remember that one!” Klaus had finished his push-ups and was now lounging on his stomach, kicking his feet in the air. “That’s where the guy fell in love with the statue, right? And then poof! She Pinocchio-ed into a real girl.”

Diego snorted. “Who falls in love with a statue?”

“Oh, I don’t know. If it was a really hot statue…” Klaus waggled his eyebrows.

“Gross!” Allison groaned, and the boys laughed. Of course, that’s where their minds went. They weren’t old enough to understand that love could be a partnership without the physical, based purely upon trust and late-night conversations and patience and loyalty through the good and mostly bad and speaking the truth to each other and a comforting smile after yet another failed equation.

“Okay, fine,” Diego was still smirking with laughter, “but to be in love?”

“She was alive in his mind,” Five snapped before he could stop himself. “He could hear her as clearly as we can all hear Mom humming right now.”

Mom was humming softly as she dusted the pieces on the mantle, seemingly unaware of their conversation though Five doubted that was the case. The group paused to watch her for a moment, and when they turned back, Diego was scowling.

“That’s different. Mom is plenty alive—”

“I’m not saying any different,” Five cut him off, realizing too late that using Mom in this comparison was a poor choice. “I’m saying she was a real person to him—”

“You’re saying he was off his rocker.”

Five bristled.

“So, what is the Galatea Effect?” Vanya drew his attention back to her, and with one look in her eyes, Five was certain she was trying to steer the conversation back from what was upsetting him.

He took a steadying breath and pushed his anger aside, forcing himself back to a more measured tone. “The Galatea Effect has to do with your own words. Unlike the Golem Effect, or yes, the Pygmalion Effect, the opinions don’t come from others. Instead, it’s your own opinion of yourself and your abilities that affects how you perform.”

“So, if I keep thinking I can’t do it…” Vanya’s voice was tiny. Then she groaned. “Five, that’s so much easier said than done!”

“Exactly.” Five couldn’t keep the grin off his face. “But that’s my point. The saying part of it still matters.”

The look she was giving him was pure incredulity.

“Look, I’m not saying you’ll magically be able to do push-ups right now if you say you can. Nobody but Allison could make reality change so suddenly with a few words. But what we tell ourselves and each other still has power.”

Okay, that came out way cheesier than he would have liked, and again he wished they were talking hard science like so he could start spouting equations to back up such a ridiculous sounding notion. All of them were staring at him, but he couldn’t back down now. He met Vanya’s gaze without betraying any embarrassment while she continued to frown at him.

The silence stretched, and then Vanya pushed herself up on wobbly arms and began the push-ups again. She managed five before she collapsed and didn’t move.

“You’ve got this,” Ben encouraged as he and Five finished following along.

“I can’t,” she panted and looked miserably up at them.

“You’re almost halfway there,” Allison offered weakly, even if it was an exaggeration.

“You can do it,” Luther tried awkwardly.

Vanya gave a small, frustrated sound. “I can’t…”

“Vanya,” Five started, but she glared up at him. He couldn’t recall his sister ever looking at him like that. Even the pale woman from the concert hall held only apathy in her eyes.

“Don’t.” She gave another sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. “I’m not like you,” she whispered. “I can’t do amazing things. I’m just… ordinary.”

Heat washed over him, and Five knew he didn’t have the right temperament for this. He had never had social grace, and Delores could attest he had only gotten worse. There had been a comment or two from his adult siblings on his temper and lack of tact, and even a bet on how long it would take for him to stick his foot in his mouth and ruin the whole mission. But all jokes aside, it was only with these warnings and mental preparation that he was able to lock his jaw tight, his teeth a steel trap against the angry words he wanted to shout at her, to order her to never speaking about herself that way again.

“That’s not true!” Ben objected in a far less abrasive way than Five could’ve ever managed. “You’re so much more than you’re giving yourself credit for!”

“I’m not like you!” she repeated, and Pogo shifted in his seat on the couch, making Five wonder if the obvious guilt on the chimp’s face had always been there, another sign of the truth he had missed. Vanya’s voice rose in both volume and pitch. “Not in the way that matters!”

“The way that matters?!” Five echoed indignantly. He shouldn’t be so astounded; he knew how she felt. But hearing her say the words was different than reading them. “So, if I couldn’t use my powers, nothing else about me would matter?”

Her eyes widened with understanding, though his other siblings looked either skeptical or mildly confused. Five suddenly had the sense that he was a hypocrite. His reluctance to tell the rest of them the truth showed exactly how much it did matter.

No time to change like the present.

“While I was gone, I couldn’t use my powers. That’s why it took me so long to get home.” Five looked around at their surprised faces, daring them to comment with his glare. But none did, not in that moment, so he swallowed down the wriggling feeling in his stomach and focused on his sister. “What did get me home was my intelligence and my resourcefulness. That’s what mattered in the end.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but quickly closed it again.

“You have plenty of qualities that matter,” Ben said, shooting Five a reassuring smile before addressing Vanya again. “You’re kind, patient, and down-to-earth.”

Five could feel his boiling anger reducing to a simmer as he listened to his brother’s steady voice. “That’s right. You’re better than we are at a bunch of things. You’re better at me at keeping your temper. You’re more empathetic than me. You’re better at figuring out what people are thinking.” He searched the past week for a silly example, seeing the frown already easing off her face. “You’re better at remembering to turn off the lights when you leave a room, and not judging people, and remembering to floss, and knowing how to stay out of trouble, and knowing when to shut up.”

This earned a chuckle from all of them, and the sound sent a shot of electric joy through him, leaving tingling in his hands and feet. He couldn’t pinpoint when he had last heard them all laugh together.

“You’re more observant than I am,” Ben offered up. “I think you’re the most observant of all of us. The most level-headed too.”

“More than you?” Vanya asked, skepticism in her voice, but a tiny smile clinging to the edges of her mouth.

“I think that’s why you’re also the best at talking Five down from… well…”

“Getting everyone into situations like we’re in now?” Five supplied.

Diego snorted derisively, though the glare he shot Five was missing its previous sting. He glanced next to him. “You’ve got a better attention span than Klaus.”

“Huh?” Klaus looked up from where he had been drawing on the floor by tracing a finger through the condensation of his breath on the hardwood.

“Case in point.”

“Huh? Nah, I heard you. We’re roasting each other, right? Well, Vanya dearest, you have better fashion sense than Diego. Though that sets the bar on the floor.”

“Hey! What does that mean?!” Diego demanded.

“It means black is a color, not a fashion.”

The two began to squabble, so Five was pretty sure nobody but himself and Luther saw how Allison leaned forward, looking ready to offer her own encouragement, only to shrink back a moment later, her eyes dark with hesitation, a rare sight on her.

Diego and Klaus quickly settled things with a bit of shoving, and Five pressed on. “Anyway, point is—”

“I have a different skill set,” Vanya offered up quietly, eyes on the floor. “You all can do push-ups, but only I can play violin.”

There was still a self-deprecating bite in her voice, a surety that different skills did not mean equal skills.

She needed to know. She needed to understand that there was no great divide between them and her, but there was no easy way to tell her about her powers. Not unless he revealed a significant piece of the future to her.

“Well, yes,” Ben said, pulling Five from his thoughts. “But also, you’re not just ordinary. I mean, you’re a part of this, um…” he hummed, unsure for a second, “crazy family.”

“That’s right.” Five smirked. “You’ve survived thirteen years as a Hargreeves. That automatically makes you one of the toughest people on the planet.”

She looked at him, and he recognized that surviving was a relative term. They had both lived thirteen years under the old man’s thumb, and he knew what it was to survive while cracking, breaking a little under each harsh word. And while his escape had trapped him in a different hell, he had experienced freedom from this one, the one that had broken her cracks into chasms of despair that had eventually swallowed the world whole.

But that was why he had spoken up and gotten them all in this situation, and they both knew it.

“Well then, some push-ups should be easy, right?” Vanya’s voice was tiny, her eyes closed as she took in this new thought. And to Five’s surprise, all his other siblings were silent, watching her, waiting.

Then she pushed herself up, and began again, her arms trembling, face red with the strain, another four before collapsing, gasping for air.

So it went, Vanya would rest for a bit and then try again, no longer with words of apology or personal discouragement when she collapsed. The morning dragged on—thank goodness for young joints, or else Five might have struggled too—and the conversation changed to lighter subjects. Nostalgia and longing washed over Five at the simplicity of it, listening to his family chatter and bicker about all the things that seemed important to them in this moment, things that Five had long since forgotten.

Another rainstorm had blown in, keeping a soothing tempo of raindrops pattering against the grand windows of the room, and in a different world, a world devoid of music, he and Delores would always take a moment to dance in the rain. Now, here he was, warm and dry and with a similar, easy joy settling in his chest.

Finally, after a gentle reminder of their count from Pogo, Vanya finished. Klaus let out a whoop, and Five was pleased to find any irritation his siblings had had about waiting had vanished. He and Ben looked at each other, and Five returned Ben’s grin as they quickly followed suit.

“That’s fifty each,” Pogo announced, his eyes sparkling with approval. “Good job.” He checked the clock. It was nearly noon. “I believe your lunch should be ready soon, if you would like to eat before we begin our lessons.”

Five leapt to his feet, feeling giddy with victory, and took a step forward, about to lean over and help Vanya up, when Allison beat him to it. Surprised, Five watched Allison pull her up, and the two stood for a moment, still clasping each other’s hands.

“Good job,” Allison said after a pause.

“Thanks…” Vanya seemed just as surprised and pleased as Five felt with the unexpected gesture.

Then they lingered in the moment a little too long, unable to come up with anything else to say.

“Awkward!” Klaus sang, still on the floor. Then he rolled onto his back and flailed his arms above him. “My turn!”

Allison ignored him, rolling her eyes. “Come on,” she said to Vanya, and the sisters left the room together, Vanya still red in the face, though whether from exertion or fresh emotion was anyone’s guess. Luther followed, and Diego almost made it past, before Klaus latched onto his leg. Diego relented and pulled Klaus up, only for Klaus then to demand a piggyback ride, resulting in a chase out of the room.

“Thanks for the backup,” Five said to Ben as he watched the room clear out, Pogo going to set things up in the classroom. Then he looked at Ben and found Ben had the same troubled expression he had had the night of the mission. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re different.”

Five stomach flipped. He should have known someone who knew him as well as Ben would see the years in him. As much as he had revered his memories of his siblings while he was away, he had still forgotten several details. Some things came back to him the longer he was home, but Ben must have caught his hesitation recalling the name of the most recent books they had swapped, the details of the biology lessons they had just studied, or the dozens of other little things that faded from one’s memory with the weathering of time.

“What do you mean?” he asked, crossing his arms, and his effort to cover his nerves made the words come out angry.

Ben raised an eyebrow at the demanding tone, but Five wasn’t sure he could keep a poker face if he dropped his scowl. They stared at each other for a moment before Five backed down, dropping his eyes to the floor.

He heard Ben sigh. “You’re different in a lot of ways since you’ve gotten back. You’re messier. You leave things on the floor and toss things aside when you’re done with them instead of putting things back in place. You always eat everything on your plate, even the cauliflower you hate. You sometimes mutter to yourself while you’re reading, and the other night, I thought I heard you talking to yourself. And just now… I don’t think you would have listed off all those things Vanya’s better at than you before.”

And Ben had just said that Vanya was more observant than him. Five felt his face growing warm, his stomach somewhere around his feet, but he forced himself to look up. Ben was frowning in thought. “But most different is your… focus.”

“My focus?”

Ben nodded. “You’re less focused on yourself.”

Five snorted. “I think you just called me self-obsessed.”

“Huh? Oh! No! I didn’t mean…!” Ben waved his hands as if he could wave away his words. “I just meant…!”

“That I’m no longer stuck in my own world?” Five asked, quoting Vanya’s book.

Ben’s fluster dissipated with Five’s words. “You’ve always been so focused on expanding and understanding your powers, but not anymore. Not since you got back.”

Five couldn’t say that he’d already filled a lifetime of days with equations and experiments studying his ability or that he had a new mission in life. So, he settled on a different truth. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find my way back to you all.” He ignored the tight feeling in his chest and shrugged, hands in his pockets. “Maybe that’s made me not want to take our family for granted.”

Five couldn’t identify the entire array of emotions that flickered across his brother’s face, but then Ben settled on a smile. “I’m glad you’re back, Five. I don’t think I would have been brave enough to do what you did today.”

“What are you talking about? You were right there with me.” He chuckled. “You should have seen Dad’s face when you dropped to the floor without complaint.”

“I was just following your lead…” Ben’s eyes caught on something distant. “But when you were gone… Vanya retreated into her room, and I didn’t… I didn’t even try…”

“It’s okay, Ben. Really.” The words were there, right on the tip of Five’s tongue. You’re just a kid. Instead he smirked. “Though from now on, I’m going to be depending on you.”

Ben looked at him properly and smiled. “Right.”

And Five knew in that moment he needed to talk to his adult siblings.

No… He needed to talk to Delores.

The mission was supposed to be about changing things for Vanya, but there was no way he could ignore Ben’s happiness or anything that might get in the way of it. He needed to talk to his siblings about if deviating like this was acceptable, except he had no doubt they would agree without thought. He needed someone who understood temporal physics and everything that went along with even minor changes to the timeline. He needed someone who would tell him straight if he was making an emotional decision.

Judging from the buoyant feeling Ben’s smile gave him, Five already knew the answer, just as he knew all the logical analysis in the world couldn’t keep him from fulfilling his first instinct, to protect his brother.

No doubt Delores would be laughing at him. “I’ve gone soft,” he murmured under his breath.

And he could hear the memory of Delores’s laugh, just as he could hear her wryly reminding him that he had always been soft when it came to his siblings. It also didn’t help that they were so very young.

“Hm?” Ben was still smiling, now with a hint of confusion.

“Nothing,” Five said quickly as he returned his brother’s smile. “C’mon, let’s go eat.”

Chapter Text

Soot was falling from the sky. Five stared as the gray snowed down upon them and acrid smoke seeped into each breath.

He reached for his scarf, the one always tied around his neck, ready to act as a filter until the atmosphere cleared. But his fingertips traced the bare skin of his neck before he caught himself.

The world wasn’t on fire; only one building was.

“Allison, Klaus, and Ben will clear the first and second floor. The rest of us will clear the third,” Luther was saying, and for once Five was grateful to be told what to do. He felt odd, a bit like he was time traveling again. Everything around him was moving too fast, he couldn’t keep up.

Ben nudged Five, passing him his gloves and air mask, and Five fumbled a bit as he slipped them on, staring around at his siblings as they put their protective gear on. The masks covered the lower half of their faces, under their domino masks, a special invention by their father that immediately cleared the harsh smell of smoke from Five’s next breath.

Five was handed a thick rope next, and Luther began instructing him on which window he should use his powers to jump to. The middle window. Okay.

Five looked up at the building and forced himself to look at the world before him instead of losing himself in the soot. It was an apartment building that happened to be a block away from the Academy, the only reason they had arrived before any firefighters. The building’s third floor was on fire and judging from the screaming civilians leaning out the window, the stairs were blocked by the flames, thus the need for the rope and Five’s powers. Right.

His fingers tightened around the rope mechanically and looked up at the middle window where a woman was holding her young child in her arms, both pleading for help. Then Five pushed forward, and he was next to them, quickly gripping the window frame to keep from toppling right back out.

The mother’s screams receded into sobs, watching as he went to anchor the rope on a nearby bedpost. He should say something to them, something comforting; the child was still wailing. Instead, he finished tying the rope and went back to the window to signal to the others that it was safe to climb up, unable to look at the woman’s ash stained face.

Luther carried the mother and child out while Five and Diego brought people from the adjoining apartments through the smoke-filled hall to the bedroom with the rope. Thankfully, the flames had yet to consume their path, and they had gathered two apartments’ occupants into the small room by the time the firefighters arrived and took over the rescue operation. Five watched the scene play out, more orders were given, and soon he found himself back on the ground next to Luther and Diego. They were taking their air masks off, and Five followed suit. Diego said something about how quickly the firefighters were able to put out the flames. Luther responded with some comment about the Academy learning fire suppression.

Five’s eyes were caught on the ash in their hair and the soot staining the top half of their faces, painting their mission uniforms gray. Without his air mask’s filters, the smoke was back to film the back of his throat with its taste. He needed to sit down. If he could find his body, he could sit down somewhere away from their blank eyes. If he could find his body, he could fight the buzzing blankness in his head.

“Knock, knock! Anyone home—”

A hand brushed against his ear on its way to knock against his temple—

Five blinked down at Klaus, hands still around his brother’s arm as Klaus gasped, winded from being thrown to the ground.

“W-what the hell!” Diego bellowed, breaking Five’s grip and shoving him back from Klaus. “What are you doing?!”

Five stumbled a few steps back, into reality. Ben and Allison were next to him, confusion marking their faces with frowns. Klaus must have come up from behind him and…

“Sorry!” Five choked out. “I’m sorry!” he repeated, looking at Klaus as Diego pulled him to his feet. “You surprised me! I didn’t—! I didn’t mean to—!”

“Ow,” Klaus enunciated the word as if that would better express his pain.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Diego demanded.

“I’m sorry,” he tried again, his voice weak to his own ears, the ground tilting beneath his feet. What just happened?

Their blank domino masks were all staring at him as he tried to blink away the gray, tried to be rid of the extra layer between his own mask and the moment in front of him, but the world was intent on moving all around him. He couldn’t quite catch his breath, each shallow gasp still full of soot.

“What’s your problem?” Diego demanded again, but this time concern colored his tone. Five couldn’t find the words through the spinning and the acrid taste on his tongue.

And then Ben was there, so close he filled Five’s vision, and he was speaking soft, careful words of comfort. Five reached for his brother, desperate for something solid in his hands, and his fingers wrapped around Ben’s offered hand. They were still wearing their gloves, Five’s mind told him as he stared, dazed, at their linked hands, but through the leather Ben felt solid and real and alive despite everything. Five watched himself rip off his glove and quickly found Ben’s wrist before his brother could pull away. Warmth greeted his fingertips, and then he found the steady rhythm of a pulse and let everything else fall away for a moment.

When Five finally came back to himself, he found his siblings all gathered in a tight circle around him, all facing outward except Ben. Then he realized there were eager voices, all aimed at them. A crowd of fans had found the Umbrella Academy.

In another life, Five would have felt a surge of pride and glee, but right now he simply felt sick and longed to be home in the quiet of his room. Grateful for the buffer his siblings had created for him, he took a shaky breath and released Ben’s hand.

“You okay?” Ben asked quietly, barely audible over the crowd’s shouts. Five swallowed hard and nodded.

There was a ripple in the crowd, and Dad emerged a moment later. He looked down at the six of them and must have seen the protective ring around Five, the haggard expression Five couldn’t find the energy to hide, and the way Klaus was gingerly holding himself.

“Number One, anything to report?”

Luther glanced over his shoulder at Five for a second before straightening up. “Everything is under control.”

Five blinked in surprise, gratitude washing over him as their father nodded and turned to say a few words to the crowd. Everyone remained silent as Dad ordered them into the car where they pulled off their domino masks, the only sound the engine rumbling as they were driven around the corner, back home.

----

They were still quiet as they went inside and upstairs, leaving a trail of ash as they brushed it off their shoulders and shook it out of their hair. They were quiet right up until they were alone in the hallway outside their bedrooms, out of earshot of any of the adults.

“Okay,” Diego turned to stare at Five. “What happened back there?”

All eyes were on him, and Five glanced at the door to his bedroom, promising the safety of his room. Then, his eyes caught on Klaus, and the way his brother was still holding himself stiffly. Ben sidled up next to Five, brow knit, eyes shining with concern. The reluctant, secretive part of Five shriveled under the gaze.

As tempting as it was to sidestep the question, he owed them an explanation. At the very least, he owed Klaus an explanation. Only problem was, he had no clue what had happened. Sure, he still had nightmares involving the fires of those early years, or he’d find his mind wandering into that hellscape when he didn’t fill it with numbers and equations. But to have his body move on its own, to lash out at his own brother…

He swallowed hard against the nausea clawing at his throat. While he didn’t understand what had happened, he could at least try to tell them why.

“While I was away…” he started but didn’t know how to finish. “There was a fire and…” His mind drew blank on a believable lie. It wasn’t like he could claim to have been trapped in a fire. With his powers, they wouldn’t believe he could be trapped anywhere, even though that was exactly what happened. Their expectant stares pressed the truth out of him. “Everyone died. I arrived too late to do anything about it except find the bodies…”

“Oh, so it’s another chapter in your tragic backstory,” Klaus said dryly.

“Klaus,” Five said, trying to catch his brother’s eye. “Are you okay?”

Klaus shrugged and immediately looked like he regretted the movement. “It’s no worse than what we do to each other while training.”

“Even so, I’m sorry.”

“What are you so worried about me for?” Klaus scoffed. “Shouldn’t you make sure Vanya survived being left out of running into a burning building?”

Five genuinely thought he had heard wrong. He was used to Klaus’s teasing, but this wasn’t said in his usual carefree tone. This was said with bitterness. Five didn’t think Klaus had a single bitter cell in his body, and judging from everyone else’s dumbfounded silence, they didn’t either.

“Excuse me?” Five finally managed.

Klaus looked like he was attempting to sneer but failing spectacularly. “You heard me, Mr. White Knight.”

Five glowered, genuinely confused. “What is your problem?”

“Why don’t you come over here and find out?”

Everyone stared.

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

“That’s enough,” Luther intervened. “Do I need to tell Dad what happened after all?”

“It’s a fight between brothers. Why would you drag Dad into it?” Diego countered before Five or Klaus could say anything.

“If it messes with the team dynamic—”

Diego barked out an incredulous laugh. “Oh, here we go! Can’t let anything change the dynamic or you might not be in charge anymore!”

“That’s not what I said!”

The two began their age-old argument, and as usual, the rest of them tuned the two out. Allison sighed heavily, muttering something about boys, and went to get a change of clothes before brushing past them, down the hall, to the bathroom.

Five turned his attention back to Klaus. “There’s no need to bring Vanya into it when I’m at fault.”

Klaus rolled his eyes—actually rolled his eyes—at Five. Maybe this was a case of teenage hormones, Five hypothesized, utterly baffled by Klaus’s uncharacteristic behavior. Klaus snorted. “We all have a tragic backstory, Five. Not just Vanya.”

Then he turned and stalked into his room, slamming the door behind him.

The sound was enough to snap Luther and Diego out of their heated discussion, and they both turned away from each other to their own rooms, leaving Ben and Five alone in the hall.

“That was weird, right?” Five looked at Ben for confirmation. “I’ve never seen Klaus act like that.”

Ben gave a small affirmative hum, his brow creased in thought. He turned to Five’s bedroom and opened the door so the two of them could enter.

Vanya was sitting at Five’s desk, waiting for them, her arms wrapped around herself.

“You heard all that, didn’t you?” Five guessed. She nodded.

“I think…” Ben plopped down in Five’s armchair. “I think Klaus is probably upset because he has to do special training with Dad after dinner.”

“That always puts him in a bad mood,” Vanya agreed.

“So, he tries to start a fight with me?” Five scoffed.

“Don’t be so hard on him,” Ben placated. “You know how extreme special training gets.”

That was an understatement. Dad played roulette, choosing one of them to torture each week after dinner, all in the name of increasing their powers. Five had yet to endure being chosen since he had gotten back, and frankly, it was a surprise that Dad had chosen Klaus this week. When they were younger, the training was spread evenly among them, but as they got older, Dad had focused more in on who he had deemed useful, which meant his top three or lately, just his Number One.

“Yeah, but we’ve all gone through it, and we all don’t turn into jerks when it’s our turn,” Five grumbled.

“Um, well…” Vanya bit her lip. “You stood up to Dad for me and…” She looked at Ben, who nodded.

“And on our last mission you saved me from having to use my powers.”

Five frowned, trying to connect the dots they were laying out for him.

“Maybe he hoped, before you, uh…” Ben made a vague shoulder throw gesture with his hands, shooting Vanya an apologetic smile, asking for patience when she made a noise of confusion. “Being forced to use your power when it’s something so terrible…” Ben’s voice was strained, and Five was suddenly reminded of the only time the three of them had gotten in a fight.

It had been right after their first mission—the first time Ben had killed anyone, Five realized with a jolt. Ben had rebuffed all of Five’s usual invitations and had even snapped at Vanya at some point, though Five had never gotten the details of the exchange. Ben had only accepted Klaus’s presence during that time, and when Five had confronted him, he had had jealousy burning in his veins, leading to stinging words from both sides.

Five saw it clearly now though. Klaus knew all the best ways to distract from having to use their powers and the ensuing trauma. Klaus would have understood what Ben had gone through in that bank vault far better than any of the rest of them.

“Five?” Vanya called. “Have you ever asked what Klaus’s special training involves?”

“No…” Five crossed his arms, wondering why it had never occurred to him. Special training was something you weren’t supposed to talk about, or no, it was something they didn’t like to talk about. Five had never bothered to tell anyone what Dad made him do, and he had assumed he could figure out what everyone else’s training looked like if he took a moment to think on it. But Allison’s training was the only other person’s he knew the details of because Allison needed someone to rumor, and Dad would randomly choose a partner for her from their siblings. But for Klaus… What exactly would his training entail?

Five knew Klaus’s training took place out of the house, so… A graveyard. Five was suddenly positive what twisted thing Dad would force Klaus to endure, and he immediately understood what Ben and Vanya were trying to tell him.

And Five again thought of that time when he was fighting with Ben. He couldn’t quite remember how they had made up in the end, but he remembered Klaus had had something to do with it.

Five turned to the door. “I need to talk to him—”

Before he could make it one step, a small, tingling chime sounded. It was so soft, if they hadn’t spent years attuned to the sound, they might have missed Mom’s bell, warning them they only had five minutes until they were expected at the dinner table. Or in Five’s case, the kitchen.

“Maybe you can catch him after dinner,” Ben said sullenly as he and Vanya got up to leave the room. “We need to change.”

----

One fresh uniform and a lonesome feast later, Five missed his chance to talk to Klaus. Dad whisked him away while Five helped Mom clear the table and wash the dishes: one of the chores that would usually rotate between the seven of them but was a part of Five’s punishment for the foreseeable future. Ben had offered to help, and it took Five a moment to realize his brother was concerned about him and what had happened post-mission. He had immediately declined the offer, asking Ben to fill Vanya in on the events of the evening instead.

Five finished drying the last pot and put it in the cupboard with a tremendous sigh, resigning himself to having to wait until the next morning to see Klaus.

“That was quite a sigh,” Mom noted as she wiped down the kitchen counters. “Are you feeling alright, dear?”

“I’m fine,” Five muttered.

“You don’t sound fine. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Was there? Five watched her for a moment before deciding it couldn’t hurt to ask. “Do you know what Klaus has to do for special training?”

A small frown flitted across her face, and she set down the rag and faced him. “Sounds like a question for your father.”

He slipped his hands into his pockets and kept his tone casual. “They go to the graveyard, right?”

“I believe so.” She nodded and smiled like it was perfectly natural for a father to drag his son out at night to a cemetery where they had no buried relatives or friends. “But I’m sorry I don’t know anything else about what they do. Only your father and Klaus know that.”

“Right. Thanks…” What she had just said… was perfectly true. Klaus did know. “May I be excused?”

“Of course, Five. Thank you for your help.”

Five paused on the stairs out of the kitchen, thinking for a moment before deciding to go to his bedroom first. Got to make it believable.

A song with a steady rhythm and upbeat singer greeted Five as he entered the hallway, making its way through Luther’s closed door. Five glanced around. Aside from his and Klaus’s empty rooms, all the doors were closed which meant his siblings were probably all dancing alone in their respective rooms. Amused, Five entered his room, wondering if he was still the only one who knew all of them liked to do this, having discovered so over the years by jumping into rooms and catching the dancer unawares.

He quickly grabbed his pajamas and made the spatial jump to the hall right outside his bathroom. One of the benefits of living in a mansion with nineteen bathrooms but only nine people who needed to use them was, while they all shared the ones closest to their room and the main living area, they were all able to claim a different one. Five’s naturally was farthest to get to by foot, in an all but abandoned wing of the house, but that also meant he could do a blind jump there without fear of bumping into anyone unless Mom happened to be dusting in the exact right spot.

Five resisted the urge to look up at the hidden camera in the hall. Dad would probably check the footage later to ensure they had all behaved while he was away. Fortunately, he hadn’t put any cameras in any of the bathrooms because, while he was awful excuse for a human being, he wasn’t that category of awful.

Five closed the bathroom door behind him and checked his watch. If anyone asked, he was taking a bath and fell asleep in the tub. That should buy him a few hours.

He climbed up onto the lip of the tub and peeked out the one, tiny window in the room into the alley below before making another jump. A tingling of itchiness spread across his abdomen with the second jump. It was a vast improvement compared to two months ago, but he knew he shouldn’t try a third jump for at least fifteen minutes or else suffer several needles sprouting along his diaphragm.

The walk to the apartment building took nearly that long, so Five was feeling back to normal by the time he got there. His siblings had rented an apartment on the top floor, so Five took the elevator, ignoring the curious looks and whispers of the pair of teenage girls who rode alongside him. Blasted uniform, giving him away; he should have left his blazer at home.

Thankfully, the girls left without confronting him, and the ride to the fourth floor passed without incident. The elevator doors opened, and the smell of burnt food punched him in the nose.

Five suppressed a groan. Please, don’t make him deal with another fire today.

He followed the hall around to the left, glancing at the numbers on the doors as he went, and stopped when he saw the door to his siblings’ apartment just ahead. It was wide open, airing out the apartment, and judging from the increasing potency of the smell, they were the ones burning dinner.

He peered inside and found Diego and Allison standing in the tiny kitchenette, leaning over the stove, lamenting the charred block of… something that sat on a baking sheet. Five walked up behind them and leaned in to inspect alongside them.

“Wow,” he said dryly, about to comment on their lack of cooking skills.

“Shit!” Diego yelped.

Allison gave an audible gasp, holding her hand over her chest while Diego’s knife narrowly missed Five’s face.

“Five! What the hell were you thinking?” Diego demanded. “Don’t just pop in like that! I could have killed you!”

“Insides might still be edible,” Five suggested, poking the black mass. Better than wasting that much food. He began to look around, taking in the rundown apartment. “Where’s Klaus? I need to ask him…” The words faded to the back of his mind as a new fact took over.

Vanya was awake. Ben had mentioned that, but seeing it was different. She was sitting on the couch of the rundown apartment, looking pale, but much more like herself.

“Um… Hello,” Vanya greeted, shrinking into herself under his staring.

“Hey,” Five said even though he had a dozen other things he wanted to say. Something glued him to the spot, some deep-set reluctance to being there, to having the inevitable conversation, something that he hated to admit had kept him from visiting sooner.

“She doesn’t remember nearly killing us or y’know, killing everybody else,” Diego informed, moving to the wall to start digging the knife he had thrown at Five out of it.

Allison gave up whatever she had been scribbling down on her notepad to whack Diego over the head with it instead.

Five nodded, turning his attention back to Vanya. “Ben mentioned you were having trouble remembering.”

She gave a sheepish wince. “I can’t seem to remember anything past…” Her eyes darted up to the ceiling as if the answer were written there. “I suppose it was right before I destroyed the Academy. After that I remember something bright and feeling so… much and…” Her eyes closed in concentration and her hands twitched up into the air to hold a nonexistent violin. Then they dropped back into her lap and she shook her head.

“Well, don’t force it.” Five found it in himself to cross the room and sit down on the couch beside her. Allison followed, perching herself on the arm of the couch behind him. Maybe it was better if she didn’t remember. “How are you otherwise?”

She gave a soft sigh and sank a little into the couch. “Tired. I’m not sure why I’m sleeping so much. But my ear is healing,” she offered up. Allison shifted in her seat like she wanted to say something, but her notepad and pen lay still in her hands. Vanya’s hand tenderly touched her earlobe. “Everything is muffled, but the ringing and dizziness are starting to ease.”

“I didn’t mean physically,” Five clarified.

“Oh. Um, I’m managing.” She smiled weakly. “Though I’m not sure I’m the one you should worry about. If anything, I should be worrying about you, right?” Her smile grew into something more genuine. “You keep getting in trouble, and Dad will do something drastic.”

He shrugged. “Dad doesn’t scare me.”

Somewhere behind him, Diego scoffed.

“Five,” Vanya said in that tone that would’ve given him pause when he was younger.

“More importantly,” he said, fighting the trepidation settling in his limbs, making him want to jump up and move. “We need to talk about your younger self. About how best to change things for her.”

“Well, yes, but…” Obvious concern was shining in her eyes as she bit her lip. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I think your younger self needs to know she has powers.”

Her brow knit together. She was still studying him closely. “I… I've been considering that, but… Is that ash in your hair?” Her hand was suddenly coming towards him, and he ducked back without thinking, bumping into Allison—

He was standing behind the couch before he could stop himself, his skin itching all over, not from the jump but all the thoughts buzzing within him like a hive of bees.

“Five?” Vanya called, confusion and hurt plain on her face.

“Sorry,” he muttered, brushing carelessly at his hair to be rid of the gray flakes she had noticed. “I can’t—” He wasn’t entirely sure how to end that sentence. He groaned and ran a hand over his face. “It’s been a long day.”

“Okay,” she said after a moment, and she said it in that calm, accepting way that always made him feel understood. He looked at her properly again and saw she was frowning in thought. “Well, if you want to tell my younger self about my powers, you’ll have to be careful.”

Relieved by the change in subject, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked around to the side of the couch so his sisters wouldn’t have to twist around to look at him. “I won’t tell her if you think it’s a bad idea.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Well, I’m worried. Telling me without making me angry or… worse…”

“It may be moot anyway. I’m not sure she’d believe anything I’d say. My words alone aren’t enough to fight against a rumor.” He glanced at Allison, who grimaced.

Vanya shook her head. “I’m sure I’d believe you eventually. I trust you. But that’s not the point, Five, I… I’m dangerous. Dad was right to have me take my medicine. If I know I’m like the rest of you, I won’t be able to resist. I’ll stop taking it and then…” She took a shaky breath. “I’m worried I’ll hurt one of you. I already…” She shuddered, and Allison slid down from the arm of the couch to sit next to her properly and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Diego was still by the wall with his knife stuck in it, clearly listening in, his head bowing for a moment.

They had already had this conversation with her, Five suddenly realized. The reluctance that he had been fighting from the start of this encounter flared again, bees swarming in his arms and legs, aching to move, though whether to escape or to make Vanya stop, he didn’t know. The war rooted him to the spot.

“I hurt all of you. But what I did to you, Five… I’m so, so sorry.” Her voice wavered until it gave up and dropped to a whisper. “I caused the apocalypse. You were alone for all those years because of me.”

The bees were raging. The thought had occurred to him weeks ago, worming its way into the back of his mind where he could ignore it, but now…

There was a moment of terrible stillness as Allison and Diego held their breath.

Five swallowed down the swell of emotion. “Where’s Klaus?” he asked mechanically.

Vanya shrank back as if he’d cursed at her. “What?”

“I need to get back before someone notices I’m gone, but I came here to ask Klaus something.”

“He…” Vanya’s eyes’ went to the floor. Behind her, Allison was glaring, and Diego had turned to scowl at him in confusion. One swallow wasn’t enough; emotion was spreading up Five’s neck to his face in the form of heat. Vanya voice quivered ever so slightly, and Five thought he heard the glass on the coffee table sing softly in response. “He’s in the bedroom.”

Five followed her line of sight to the leftmost of the three doors behind him and quickly crossed the room on his feet rather than with his ability, feeling like he might accidentally pull out all his anger instead of his powers if he tried.

He entered and closed the door behind him. It was almost as cramped as Vanya’s bedroom back home, and he wondered who was sleeping on the pile of pillows on the floor and who was on the twin bed, upon which Klaus was currently sprawled across, reading a magazine. Several colorful scarves were strewn around him, clearly a part of the medium costume Ben had mentioned. Five recognized some of the bits of cloth from when Klaus had tagged along on his visit to the fabric store.

Klaus greeted Five with an easy grin. “Thought I heard your voice. What do you think: purple or orange?” He held up two accordingly colored scarves.

“What does Dad make you do for special training?”

Klaus’s eyebrows shot up and then he sighed and rolled over onto his back to look at Five upside-down. “Oh. That.” He shrugged as if they were discussing what a mild day it was. “You know how it goes. Dear old Dad didn’t appreciate my fright of ghosts, so he thought it’d be best to use some ‘exposure therapy’ or something.” His fingers formed quotes around the words, still with a bored look in his eyes, but Five felt lava pounding harshly through his veins.

“The graveyard,” he spat the words out through clenched teeth.

“Yeah,” Klaus shrugged again, seemingly unaware of Five’s turmoil or expertly ignoring it. “He’d lock me in a mausoleum for a few hours—”

“Where.”

“Hm? I think it was the cemetery off Birch Street—”

“No.” Five already figured that much—there was only one cemetery in town. “I meant where is the mausoleum in the graveyard.”

“Y’know, I’m not sure I remember… Why?”

“Because that’s where Dad will be right now.” He turned on his heel and marched to the bedroom door, slamming it open with a sound terrible enough to match his fury, gaining everyone’s attention. “New plan!” he announced. “I’m going to kill Dad, and we’ll deal with the fallout later.”

“Awww! You do love me!” Klaus had gotten up from the bed and made the mistake of trying to hug Five, earning him a stomp on the foot.

Which of course is when Luther walked in, arms full of groceries. He stared around the room. Allison and Vanya were on the couch, Vanya wiping tears from her face. Diego was trying and failing to figure out how to stick the chunk of wall his knife had taken out back in, and Klaus was hopping up and down on one foot, coming up with some creative curses, while Five stood rigid beside him, the picture of fury.

Luther sighed. “What now?”

“Five’s terrorizing the family,” Diego supplied unhelpfully. “Though I say we hear out his latest plan.”

Allison slapped her notebook against the coffee table, drawing everyone’s attention, shaking her head. Can’t be serious read the page she held up.

“Little Five’s just trying to protect us in the only way he knows how,” Klaus cooed, leaning on the doorframe as he massaged his foot. Five was tempted to stomp on the other foot for Klaus’s choice of words, but before he could, Luther set down the groceries on the counter and turned to him.

“Five? Care to explain?”

He pasted a smile on his face. “I’m going to kill Dad.”

Luther froze. “If that’s a joke…”

Five glared in response.

Luther stared back, mouth hanging open, but before he could collect himself and begin the lecture Five knew would come, Klaus interrupted. “It’s sweet you care that much, but it’s not worth the trouble—"

“Not worth the trouble?!” Five cried and began pacing, finally giving into the need to move. “He’s torturing you right now! And it’s not just you! I’ve barely been back a month, and I can’t believe I forgot exactly how much of an abusive asshole he is! Diego was right: he’s a monster! He doesn’t treat us like humans! We’re just an experiment! He must not remember what it’s like to be a child and clearly can’t comprehend that we have emotions! It’s like human emotions are an alien concept to him—”

“Oooh, I like that. Maybe Dad’s an alien,” Klaus chirped from the peanut gallery.

“The only way to stop all of this, is if I stop him!”

He stopped pacing and turned, half-expecting to find Delores with a patient smile and a raised eyebrow in response to his latest rant. Instead, his eyes landed on Vanya.

“Vanya!” She jolted back into the cushions of the couch as he called her out. “You shouldn’t have to apologize for having emotions! Yes, they had the unfortunate side effect of blowing up the moon, but if Dad had tried to figure out a better way to train you instead of giving up and drugging you ever since you were a kid, we wouldn’t be in this position! So, no! Don’t ever apologize to me again for causing the apocalypse! Because as far as I’m concerned, that’s on Dad!”

He stared around at their stunned faces and could feel a sense of resignation pressing in on his anger, like someone laying a firm hand on his shoulder.

There was a pregnant pause—Klaus muttered something to Ben—and when it was clear they didn’t know what to say, he sighed. “This is when you’re supposed to talk me down, guys. Tell me no, you can’t kill Dad because that would only cause more trouble than it would solve. Everybody would probably be placed in foster care and separated, and they’d try to send you to jail, Five, and the Commission would probably kill you before you could actually kill Dad anyway, so how about you sit down and stop talking to yourself before your siblings accuse you of being crazy.”

Delores always was better at calming him down.

He plopped down in the ratty old armchair next to the couch and threw an arm over his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at them. Then he realized exactly how dramatic that must look, and he suddenly felt very much like the teenager he appeared to be.

An awkward silence followed, and he was sure they were all looking at each other, probably wondering if they should comment on his mental health.

But it was Klaus who broke the silence. “Hmmm. There goes another one. I think you’ve figured out the pattern, Ben.”

Five shifted his arm so he could peek an eye out and shoot Klaus a questioning look.

Klaus leaned over the back of the armchair and grinned. “Another one of your ghosts just went off to the great beyond.”

“My ghosts…” Five echoed. Then he shot up to his feet, spinning to face his brother, ice flowing through his veins. His breath stilled in his chest; Klaus may as well have sucker punched him.

“Klaus,” Luther’s voice was soft yet stern as it broke the sudden tension. “Do you realize what you’re talking about? You can’t spring that on him like this.”

Five wanted to laugh. A strange patchy heat was blossoming over his face. He knew Luther had filled everyone in on the Commission, but it somehow hadn’t felt like they knew. None of them had treated him any different, yet nobody was questioning which ghosts they were referring to. They all knew what he had done—what he had had to do.

Worse yet, Klaus and Ben had seen it—seen their faces, seen exactly what Five had taken from the world.

Five’s pulse was loud in his ears. Klaus could see them.

“I know, I know. Yeesh, you two don’t need to gang up on me,” Klaus was muttering, pulling a face at the air next to Five. “Just wanted to share the good news.”

“Good… news?” Vanya asked haltingly, her voice just above a whisper, as if Five were a wild animal and anything louder might make him bolt.

“There are only four—well, now three—left. I was gonna wait until they had all bid adieu,” Klaus mimed tipping a hat, watching Five with a remarkable lack of concern, “but it seemed like you needed some cheering up.”

“Cheering up?” Five echoed dubiously, forcing him to concentrate on Klaus’s nonchalance, finding it easier to breathe under the indifferent gaze.

“Yeah,” Klaus shrugged like it was obvious. “Because they accept or forgive or whatever.”

A rush of air came out of Five’s mouth, the cross between a scoff and a crazed laugh. Forgiveness? Klaus must have been fucking kidding him.

But… he had to ask.

“Even…” His stomach was somewhere around his feet. “Daisy Watkins?”

The girl, no older than his kid siblings, had been true to her name, the picture of innocent sunshine, always singing or telling her friends a story. She was his first mission, and now that he had more time to reflect, he recognized that Daisy had been the Handler’s test of his resolve. Five had immediately questioned the name when he realized who it belonged to and had taken it upon himself to run his own calculations. But management was right. For the same results, it was either kill Daisy or kill seventeen people. Still, every mission he could, he ran his own probabilities, and he still carried the slip of paper with his orders and Daisy’s name, slipped between the pages of Vanya’s book. He may have carried all their names like that.

Klaus shrugged. “It’s not like I got any of their names, but if she’s who I think she is… Hey you!” He called to the air just to Five’s left. “Your name Daisy?” He shook his head, likely mirroring the ghost he was talking to. “Yeah, unless the cowboy’s name is Daisy, she left a while ago. Most of them left the day we got here which is why Ben thinks they leave when they understand why you did what you did or something.”

Five didn’t have time for this. He didn’t have time to sort through his flurry of thoughts or process his storm of emotions. All he knew for certain, was that he needed to leave. The thought barely registered before he was across the room, standing in front of the open door to the apartment.

“Whoa! Wait a sec!” Diego was still standing by the doorway and threw a hand out to prevent Five from crossing the threshold as if that ever kept Five from going where he wanted to. “You’re not really going to kill Dad, right?”

“…No.”

“Five?” Apparently, his siblings were intent on emotionally torturing him today. If anybody other than Vanya had asked, Five would’ve been down the hall already.

Instead, he sighed. “Yes?”

“What was this really about?” she asked, her voice thin with worry.

Five glared at a small tear in Diego’s dark sleeve. He didn’t have time for this.

“I think I was blind as a kid.” He wasn’t entirely sure why he confessed, but as soon as he did, he realized everything he had just yelled at Vanya wasn’t right. Damn it, he really needed to kick something.

“Huh?” Diego asked, unhelpfully.

“What does that mean?” Luther asked, equally as unhelpful.

Five groaned and held his head for a moment before stuffing his fists in his pockets. “It means I’m changing more than we agreed upon.”

“You mean, not just me?” Vanya asked shyly.

“Cool. Go for it, champ,” Klaus encouraged.

Five finally turned around so he could glare. “Seriously? Go for it? I can’t just do what I want! I can’t follow every whim! Changing the timeline can easily get out of hand. Even with all the equations and probabilities I’m running, one change could ruin the future in unexpected ways!” He couldn’t look at Allison. He couldn’t deal with that right now. “There’s a reason they trained me to be efficient, to make one single change to the timeline.” There was a reason he was a legend in the Commission. It wasn’t his ability to pull off crazy missions: it was his ability to pull of crazy missions with precision. While Hazel and Cha-Cha were a sledgehammer, he was a scalpel. One change. One correction, and nothing more. He would vanish, a phantom, a ghost.

Luther cleared his throat. “Well then, I guess it’s good you’re not with them anymore.”

Five snorted and spared a glance up at his brother. Luther’s face was grim, but not unkind.

“Efficiency… Sounds like Dad,” Diego mused. Klaus made a retching sound in distaste.

“Even so…” Vanya bit her lip and stole a furtive glance at their faces, like she wasn’t sure it was within her rights to finish the thought. She gave a small smile. “I always thought the Umbrella Academy went all out, all the time.”

There was a moment of surprised silence, and then Klaus burst out laughing. “It’s true! Well, dear brother, you heard the lady in charge: time to pull out all the stops!”

We’re here for big changes anyway, Allison held up.

There were grins all around. The idiots had no clue what they were asking him to do, but…

“Just be yourself, Five,” Vanya reassured, this time with more certainty, and Five could swear the glass on the coffee table was singing a pure, round note. “I’m sure that’s the best way to stop the apocalypse anyway.”

Her faith was a lump in his throat. He nodded and swallowed hard. “Well, then I guess I better get going. I need to go break Klaus out of a mausoleum.”

“Wait. What?” Diego asked dumbfounded, everyone’s attention going to Klaus while Five finally left, down the hall, down the stairs, and out onto the street below.

----

Five stood on the sidewalk outside the apartment building for a minute, warring with himself.

Should he do as he had just told his family? Allow himself to get carried away by his emotions, fight Dad at every turn? Or should he act as he would have as a thirteen-year-old and turn a blind eye?

No, that was the wrong premise to begin with. His presence alone changed things. The true question was how much he should change.

Five stood there, another minute, watching cars pass by in front of him, watching the people in each vehicle, going about their lives. A young woman was singing along to her radio, making dramatic faces in the privacy of her own car, and Five thought of his siblings, dancing alone. A middle-aged man in a suit looked dead tired, probably just off work, and Five recognized the look in his face as one Five had seen in the mirror. A family was on their way home, beach gear adorning their station wagon, sunblock still smeared on the noses of the children asleep in the back seat, and Five inexplicably thought of Daisy, of her understanding.

Then a taxi passed by, and before he could overthink it, he performed a spatial jump into a taxi and ordered the driver to keep going and to take him to the graveyard off Birch Street.

By the time they got there, the summer sun had given up, and dusk had invaded, fading the colors of the world like an old photograph. Perfect lighting for a visit to a graveyard, Five mused as he handed the driver a twenty—a minuscule fraction of the pay he still had from the Commission—and stepped out of the vehicle.

He had had the driver loop around the vehicle accessible roads of the cemetery until he had spotted Dad’s car, and then ordered the driver to let him out around the corner. The old man was still in the car, writing something in that stupid notebook of his. Five would have to sneak by, which wasn’t much of an issue. What was an issue were the four mausoleums up the trail from where Dad had parked.

Five sighed and made the spatial jump a few yards up the trail from the car, quickly ducking behind a tree. He chanced a peek around the trunk, but Dad was still consumed by his notes. Five made another jump, as far up the trail as he could safely manage, then dashed up the lawn, dodging between headstones.

Turned out, even with the fading light limiting his vision, it was obvious which mausoleum held his brother. There were chains and a thick lock around only one of the doors’ handles. A fresh surge of hot anger shot through him. It would be the easiest thing to turn around and end Sir Reginald Hargreeves.

Instead, he ignored the itchiness, bordering pain, blooming across his core and pushed forward through the familiar, warm, pressing feeling of a spatial jump. The next moment, he found himself falling in the darkness. Stairs, his brain told him. He hadn’t anticipated stairs right on the other side of the door. His feet met only air for a split second, and he toppled over with a gasp, unable to regain his balance. Instincts overrode thought for a precious moment of falling, and he jumped again, a few steps forward onto solid, flat ground.

Another gasp was pulled from him, this time from the ripple of pain shooting through his body. Four jumps in less than four minutes was not a good idea. Noted. Cool stone floor pressed against his legs as he fell to his knees and curled in on himself for a second, only a second before he heard the shallow, gasping breaths from across the room. He staggered up, onto his feet again, arms bracing around his stomach as he dove forward towards the sound.

The mausoleum would have been pitch black if not for a crack in the stone wall, letting a sliver of light leak through. Klaus had situated himself next to it, his face buried in his knees and hands clasped tight over his ears. As Five’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see the spots under Klaus’s chipped nail polish were white with tension. Klaus had completely missed Five’s arrival, even as Five skid on his knees to his brother’s side.

“Klaus? Hey! Klaus!”

No reaction. His brother couldn’t hear him.

Five grimaced and rubbed his stomach absently. “I guess it’s time for you to pay me back. Just don’t hit me too hard, okay?”

Still nothing. Then, he gently set his hand on Klaus’s shoulder.

Klaus screamed and a fist hit Five square in the sternum. Normally such a blow would do negligible damage, but given Five’s current state, he groaned and curled in on himself again, trying to catch his breath. Yeah, they were even.

“Five?! Is that really you…?”

Five barely had time to sit up straight before Klaus tackled him.  Guess he was still mad. Or, wait, no, his arms were wrapped tight around Five, and he showed no signs of moving. This was a hug.

A really painful hug.

Five reached up and tapped Klaus’s shoulder in the quick pattern they used to tap out during sparring. Klaus didn’t move. Five thought he felt him trembling but allowing Klaus to strangle him would help nothing. Five tapped him again. “Can’t… breathe.”

“Oh!” Klaus grip on him loosened considerably, but he didn’t pull away, chin still resting on Five’s shoulder.

They sat there for a few moments, quiet aside from Five’s soft gasping attempts to regain his breath. He was hyper-aware of Klaus’s embrace, unused to the prolonged contact, but it was a distraction from the knife in his middle. Eventually, the pain receded to a point it could be ignored, and Five’s attention instead went to the way Klaus would occasionally shudder.

“Do you need to cover your ears again?” he guessed as he tried to pull away.

Klaus’s arms tightened slightly again. “No.”

Five waited a moment, unused to one-word answers from Klaus. Two moments of silence passed, and Klaus gave another shudder. Something in Five’s stomach squirmed the way it did when he was asked a question he didn’t know the answer to. He reached up and began to pat Klaus gently on the back.

Klaus snorted in his ear. “I’m not a baby that needs to be burped.”

Five’s surprise came out halfway between a laugh and a cough. “What?”

“You suck at hugs.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” he said, voice full of irony. “Not like I’ve had a whole lot of practice!”

Five felt a chuckle rumble through Klaus’s chest. “Unacceptable, Number Five.” Klaus’s imitation of the old man was horribly good. “You will have to take remedial lessons until you can perform a successful hug with all of its intricacies.”

“Hugs are intricate now?”

“Oh, yeah,” Klaus said in his normal voice. “Like when you’re trying to convey ‘I’m sorry for trying to pick a fight with you earlier.’ That kinda intricate.”

“I guess I’ll have to learn the ‘I’m sorry I attacked you and even sorrier I didn’t recognize you were suffering too’ hug.”

Klaus shuddered again, but finally leaned back. The light was gone. Five couldn’t see his brother, but he could hear the smile in Klaus’s voice. “I knew it. You do like playing the White Knight.”

“If that’s supposed to mean I hate seeing Dad torture everyone, then sure. I’m guilty.”

“Mmhmm. Guess I can’t blame you for focusing on Vanya.” He could hear Klaus shifting the position of his legs. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“Vanya didn’t take it personally… I don’t think. She internalizes so much…” Buried it deep until she literally exploded. Five sighed. “Anyway, she and Ben helped me realize what was going on.”

“Yeah, those two would get it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you actually like your powers. The three of us don’t like what we were stuck with.”

Five had liked his powers. And then he had hated them more and more for each failed attempt to get back home. And now… He hadn’t had time to think about it. He supposed he should be grateful his power allowed him to be here, now. Five squeezed his brother’s shoulder wishing there were some way to say he understood that would make sense without context. He looked around the darkness as if a solution might be hidden within it, but there were no more words, only action. “I think I can get you out of here.”

Klaus hummed in thought. “Have you ever moved more than yourself?”

“Not through space,” Five admitted.

“Well, okay then,” Klaus said brightly. “Just don’t leave pieces of me behind!”

Five grinned despite the darkness. “I’ll do my best. Once we’re outside, we’ll have to get past Dad… I’ll jump us out back, but we’ll have to go the long way through the cemetery.”

“Hm? Who said we’re leaving the cemetery?”

“That would be the best way to get away from the ghosts, right?” Five said slowly, wondering what he had missed.

Klaus chuckled. “Oh, you sweet, summer child,” he said, which was bizarre to hear in Klaus’s young, soft voice.

Five sighed. “Klaus?”

“If we leave, I’ll be punished, which is a pain, and Dad will probably throw you in some dungeon somewhere. It’s not worth it.”

“Not worth it?” Five repeated. The older Klaus had said the same. “Of course, it’s worth it! I’m here to help you!”

“You have.”

“No, I haven’t! I haven’t done anything for you—!”

Suddenly, Klaus was hugging him again. Five pushed him off, steaming.

“Stop it! I haven’t done anything—!”

“You’re a distraction,” Klaus said with unexpected firmness, and when he leaned in again to wrap his arms around Five, Five didn’t immediately push him away again. “You’re warm and alive. And you’re here.”

A memory clawed its way to the front of Five’s mind, a memory of a cold world, in which he had held Delores’s unforgiving plastic body against his chest and wished for warmth, for breath, for a pulse, but she could only offer a whisper of comfort into the back of his mind.

“Okay,” Five said quietly. Then, after a few slow, deep breaths, he pulled his internal light up and out to cover the two of them, watching the wonder sparkling in Klaus’s eyes for a split second before he pulled them both outside, just behind the mausoleum.

It was easy, startlingly so. He knew now to reach for Klaus’s own light—there was no mistake: it was centered around Klaus’s feet—and Space accepted them with little resistance—a small tussle compared to the full-on brawl Time had given him.

Five was treated to another dose of pain but was relieved to find it was not much worse than if he had transported himself alone. Even so, Klaus noticed the way he held himself gingerly as they settled themselves in the cool grass, leaning against the back of the stone building.

“So, that’s what our fearless leader meant when he said you were having trouble with your jumps?”

“Is Luther telling everyone about that?” Five groused between shallow breaths.

Klaus shrugged.

Five waited a long minute, before sitting back, his breath coming easier. “You aren’t going to ask?”

“About? Your powers? The fire? The new ghost following you? Or why all the Academy Ghosts suddenly love you?”

Five’s stomach dropped. New ghosts. He had nearly asked the older Klaus if his younger counterpart had noticed that Five had come back with a whole slew of ghosts haunting him before the conversation had gone off the rails in about a Klaus-like manner as it could.

That said, he hadn’t expected his brother to bring it up on his own.

He took a steadying breath, hoping he sounded merely curious. “New ghosts?”

“Singular.”

“Huh?”

“Ghost. Singular. Just the one Asian guy in a hood, maybe in his twenties. I dunno. He actively avoids me which someone should tell him is weird for a ghost.”

Five nearly laughed in surprised relief. Then he realized he didn’t have a reasonable lie to cover for Ben. Next to him, Klaus scooted close enough that Five could feel his warmth.

“I’m going to guess he was in the fire,” Klaus said simply, no question in his tone.

Five wasn’t about to ignore the excuse Klaus had provided him, so he moved to the next question. “So, who are these Academy Ghosts?”

“C’mon, I’ve told you about them before. The Portuguese lady, the hot Greek guy, the cowboy—"

Five felt himself run cold despite the mild night, any relief he had felt a moment ago chased away by shock.

“—the old Victorian lady with the stick up her—”

“Klaus—”

“—the girl with the—”

 “Okay, okay! I remember!” He could never forget that list.

In the dim moonlight Five could see Klaus give him an unimpressed stare. “It’s not like you to forget.” Then he sighed dramatically and feigned a knife to the heart. “But I suppose my life isn’t important enough to remember!”

Five gave an unconvincing laugh, his mind whirling. Because he did remember. Klaus had mentioned those he had dubbed Academy Ghosts a handful of times during their childhood, complaining about them suddenly appearing around corners or other typical haunting activities.

But Five had never listened closely enough, never gotten the full descriptions, never made the connection: those were his ghosts. How had they been there before he had even killed them—? No, it wasn’t before at all. Technically, nearly every kill Five had made had been before he or his siblings had been born, in acts protected by the Temps Commission, acts that protected the timeline they wanted. This was always the path they had wanted him to walk.

And Klaus had seen them this whole time.

“It’s just been a while since I heard you talk about them,” Five said weakly, thankful he was sitting on solid ground.

“Well, they seem to like you for whatever reason. Now that you’re back they’ve been following you closely. They never did that before you left.”

Five’s stomach was twisting itself into knots. “Really?”

Klaus leaned on Five, shoulder to shoulder. ”I guess they missed you.”

Five’s fingers traced a blade of grass beneath him, and he tried to remember the miracle of when he had first spotted a speck of green reaching up from between the cracks of a concrete world, ready to start life anew. He tried to remember his garden, a place of hope, in which he’d spent his time growing food or even growing a few flowers to present some cheeriness to Delores. He tried to remember the joy and peace he felt there before he summoned the courage to ask. “You spoke to them?”

Klaus must have heard something in his voice, for he shifted so he could look at Five. Five stared ahead, counting on the darkness to hide his turmoil. Then, Klaus settled back against the stone wall, leaning more heavily against Five’s shoulder and made a noncommittal sound.

“They’re not a chatty bunch. The only one who sorta talks to me is granny rudeness who comments about my life choices, but then she pretends she doesn’t hear me when I respond.” Five didn’t need to look to know Klaus was pulling a face. “Now that she’s following you, I’m sure I’ll be getting an earful about all your flaws.”

Five’s stomach flipped at the thought. “And the rest of them? They haven’t said anything to you?”

“I mean… When we were little, there was a pair that would try and play with us, but otherwise…” Five felt Klaus’s shoulder move in a shrug. “It’s like they’re only in this ghost business for the creepy staring. Trust me, that routine gets old quick, especially when I turn a corner and… Bam!” He demonstrated for Five by whipping his head around to stare at Five with unnaturally wide eyes. “But they always give me the silent treatment.” He stretched and sighed. “Y’know that feeling, when you walk into a room and you just missed an argument, so everyone is angry but super quiet?”

“Not really,” Five murmured, but then he was usually one of the ones arguing.

“Well, it used to be like that. I’d think I heard angry voices, but then I’d walk into the room, and they’d just,” he mimed zipping up his mouth, “and stare at me. But that was ages ago. Now they seem calmer or sadder or like they’re waiting for something.”

Why? Why hadn’t they told him?

Unless, they had looked at Klaus and seen what Five did now, seen how young, seen how innocent he was.

And if that was it, then the reason they hadn’t followed him until now… Did Five’s innocence matter too?

Kind people. He had killed kind people.

“I guess if you force me to, I could ask what their sudden obsession with you is about,” Klaus muttered, his reluctance clear, and Five thought of how often they had pressured him into using his powers on missions, just like what they did to Ben. “But it’s pretty obvious.”

“Hm?” Five didn’t trust himself to speak over the lump in his throat.

Klaus leaned a little heavier on him, closing his eyes. “Ghosts only cling to things, places, people that they either love or associate with their death.”

It sounded like a textbook answer, something Dad had drilled into him, and Five wondered for a moment about how willing Klaus was being, talking about a subject that was usually taboo.

Five cleared his throat. “I highly doubt these ghosts love me.”

“Why not? They watched all of us grow up. Dad probably built the Academy over another graveyard or something. Or maybe Dad killed them.”

Five held his breath, edging away from Klaus’s weight against his side, waiting for one of his ghosts to correct Klaus, to scream the truth of his crimes.

“They were probably just as worried about you as the rest of us,” Klaus continued, uninterrupted. He shifted a little to close the gap between them again. “Y’know, now that I think about it, I didn’t see any of them while you were away, and I still haven’t seen all of them since you got back. I mean, they come and go pretty often, but…” He began counting on his fingers. “The cowboy is still around, and the snobby old prune… I saw the Greek guy last week… And of course, the quiet girl.”

Five’s heart jumped in his chest as he edged away from Klaus again. Daisy? But the older Klaus had just said… “She’s still here?”

“Yup,” Klaus’s lips popped on the end of the word. “Must’ve followed you from home.”

Five froze. “Wait. She’s here?” he asked before he could stop himself.

Klaus snorted, finally giving up all pretenses and linking his arm with Five’s before Five could scoot away any further. “Sitting right next to you, yeah.”

Five glanced, stupefied, at the patch of grass Klaus had indicated.

“Actually, she was the one Academy Ghost who followed you around before you ran away. I always got the feeling she was sweet on you.”

“What?!” Five exclaimed a little too loudly. He paused, listening for Dad, before asking. “Are you joking?”

Klaus gave a dramatic groan. “If you’re thinking of using me to me to date a ghost, you can stick me back in the mausoleum right now.”

“No! That’s not—! I’m just surprised!” And troubled in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Yeah, me too. What does she see in you?”

Five rolled his eyes and nudged Klaus in the side as his brother chortled away.

They were quiet for a while after that, listening to the crickets chirp. Five no longer tried to scoot out of his brother’s grasp, now that he knew Daisy was sitting right there, but the half embrace he was caught in felt uncomfortable. It was too warm, too restrictive, and made him brace for a blow that wasn’t coming.

Except that it did. Everything he had learned, everything that had happened to him that day, the great weight of it descended upon him in that silence, and he found himself wishing Delores was there, even though he knew, given her disapproval of him taking a job with the Commission, talking to her about this would be another rocky affair he didn’t need right now.

“So…” Klaus began, and Five steeled himself for another chunk of his heart to be scooped out. “Do you know what they mean when they say ‘man in the moon?’ Because I look at that,” he gestured to the half-moon above them, “and I think someone must’ve been high as fuck if they’re able to see a guy in there.”

Five barked out a startled laugh at the change of subject, so relieved that it took him a second to realize Klaus had done what he always did: distract from the pain. Though whether he had sensed Five’s mood or didn’t want to talk about ghosts anymore was anyone’s guess.

The conversation was lighter after that. The next hour was spent stargazing and talking about nonsense, occasionally pausing to listen for Dad’s steps on the path or the rattle of chains as he unlocked the door. Eventually, to Five’s surprise, Klaus answered Five’s earlier thought by bringing up the ghosts again.

“Do you think I can convince Dad the ‘exposure therapy’ worked this time?” Klaus asked. Sleep was beginning to invade his voice, his head lolling on Five’s shoulder. “For once he’ll open the door, and I’ll be good. And, y’know, not high.”

Apparently, the old man had found the weed Klaus had hidden in his sock before locking him in. Five felt the need to say something about Klaus about the slippery slope of depending on drugs to be rid of the ghosts, but now wasn’t the time.

Instead, he scoffed. “Sure, and then he’ll have you doing something worse.” Five paused. “Actually, he probably would start asking you to perform seances or…” Ah. Spoilers.

“Or?”

Well, this one couldn’t hurt, right? “Or to conjure ghosts.”

Klaus laughed loud enough that Five had to shush him, and they held their breath, listening for a moment.

“Why would I want to conjure them?”

Five shrugged, hoping he still seemed nonchalant. “You show a killer all their victims, and it will give them pause.”

“Hmmm, yeah, I guess if we ever deal with a killer with a conscious.” Klaus shrugged and chuckled. “I guess I could conjure a buncha ghosts and have them jump up and scream in Dad’s face. Show him how lovely it is.”

“They scream at you?” This was news to Five.

“Oh yeah. I mean, it depends a lot on the ghost. These guys,” he gestured over his shoulder to the mausoleum, “died in such horrific ways that they like to scream right in my face about it.”

“Wow. That’s…” Five couldn’t find the word.

“Mmhmm,” Klaus agreed.

“Dad knew. He knew that they’d act this way,” Five groused.

Klaus yawned. “He couldn’t pick a mausoleum full of nice, quiet grannies who all died in their sleep.”

Five fought his own yawn. He should have stopped for coffee on his way here. “Are they still screaming? Do we need to move?”

“Nah, we’re good.” Klaus’s eyes were closed, and his words came slower. Five would have to say it before he fell asleep.

“Hey, about earlier…”

“Hm?”

“You hide everything so well with your… antics. Your mask is too good sometimes. I should have noticed.”

Five felt his brother sigh. “What’re your powers again?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your powers. I see dead people and you…?”

Five crossed and uncrossed his legs, sensing he was walking into a joke of some sort. “What’s your point, Klaus?”

Klaus chuckled. “Well, seems like teleportation isn’t enough for you. You think you’re supposed to be a mind reader too.”

“That’s…!” A fair point.

“Yeesh! When did you of all people start being so hard on yourself?”

Klaus nuzzled into his shoulder, trying to get comfortable, and Five was struck with the desire to throw him off, leap up, and escape. This day had gone on too long. He felt drained, hollowed out.

He felt like he had when he first read Vanya’s book, and he had realized he had only truly been aware of the extent of Ben’s struggle because Ben had literal monsters pouring out of him, a tangible source of fear and suffering that even Five couldn’t miss. With the rest of his siblings, he would commiserate with them or distract them when he saw Dad being remarkably nasty, but he was too impatient as a child. Too impatient to listen to Klaus whine to realize exactly how scared his brother was, too impatient to recognize Vanya’s silence as anything but an opportunity to talk. But he had learned how to wait, and tonight he had seen Klaus struggling with his monsters as clearly as Ben did with his.

Though that begged the question, what about the rest of his family? Were they suffering in some way because of their powers too?

Five fought through the sinking feeling the question brought him and took a deep breath. Klaus was right. Why was Five questioning himself so suddenly? Yes, he had wrestled with regret before. There were times he had been so weighted by the past that he’d curse his inability to move through time, and then Delores would gently remind him that he was still moving, only linearly. This usually led to an exchange of barbed comments before he cooled off and apologized. She never meant it in a bad way; it was her way of telling him to brush off his latest failure and move forward.

She taught him to be a time traveler of the mind: to imagine himself in the future, to ask himself what he would regret not doing, and to do it today. But focusing on himself in the past, when there was no way to change the things he had done, no matter how horrid, would only inflict him with doubt he couldn’t afford.

As much remorse as he held, he refused to hold regret. He had a mission to save the world and would never turn from it, no matter how much he heard himself echoing his father. There was a key difference between him and the old man.

It had been a handful of minutes since Klaus had spoken, and his breathing had slowed.

“Klaus?” Five asked softly. A barely conscious hum was his answer. “If you ever want to talk about the ghosts or anything…”

He wasn’t sure it was the best offer. Klaus usually avoided the subject. Or perhaps, it was because none of them had shown willingness to listen to him about the ghosts if it didn’t pertain to the mission at hand. Maybe that was why Klaus was so willing to talk about them tonight when Five had bothered to ask.

Either way, his decision was set. Unlike their father, his definition of saving the world had always meant saving them—only now was he beginning to understand what that meant. Efficiency be damned. They were the one sacrifice he refused to make, even if that meant making a mess of the timeline.

“Thanks.”

The crickets had given up for the night, and if it weren’t deathly silent in the graveyard, Five might have missed his brother’s reply.

The heavy warmth against his shoulder was starting to feel more comfortable.

Chapter Text

There was giggling coming from Allison’s room.

This wasn’t unusual. Five had heard Allison and Luther giggling at some shared amusement plenty of times. Other times, like now, he heard Allison and Klaus’s mirth.

What was unusual, was that there was a third voice: Vanya’s.

Five had just finished after-dinner dish-washing duty with Mom and was returning to his room when he heard it. Unable to fight his curiosity, he took a detour and leaned against Allison’s doorway as he peeked inside. “Hey.”

The three of them looked up at him from where they were sitting on the floor, small, colorful bottles scattered around them and the strong, chemical smell of nail polish in the air.

Klaus grinned up at him. They had gotten away with it, the week before. Five had heard Dad coming up the path and had transported Klaus back to where he should have been before disappearing just in time. Dad was seemingly pleased with Klaus’s progress, so this week’s special training had reverted to Dad’s usual target, namely Luther.

“Hey.” Allison and Klaus returned his nonchalant greeting, but Vanya’s voice came out far squeakier than usual. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow. She bit her lip and looked down at where Allison was holding her hand still as she painted Vanya’s nails a soft white.

“Is this too weird?” Vanya asked him, genuinely concerned.

Five snorted. “You’re a teenage girl, Vanya. There’s nothing weird about you painting your nails.”

“Ah! You wound me! Implying that I’m weird.” Klaus feigned a swoon.

Five rolled his eyes. “I’m not implying anything. You’re weird Klaus. And painting your nails has nothing to do with it.”

Klaus immediately sat up straight and patted the empty patch of floor next to him. “Oooh! Does that mean you’d be open to having your nails done?”

“Not my style,” he said as he took the invitation and sat next to Klaus. “But I can help paint.”

Allison made a disapproving sound without looking up from Vanya’s hand. “Nail polish isn’t as easy as it looks you know. You do it wrong and it will turn out all bumpy.”

“Are you underestimating my talents?” Five challenged with a smirk. He may have found some old nail polish during the apocalypse and used it on all sorts of surfaces, including both his and Delores’s nails, adding a splash of cheer into the gray world.

“Well, hot dog! Number Five’s nail salon is open! Count me in!” Klaus handed Five a bottle of black nail polish and a bottle of sparkly topcoat, then wiggled his fingers in Five’s face.

Five was halfway through Klaus’s left hand when heavy, precise footsteps entered the hallway. The four of them stopped talking and were on their feet before Dad even made it to the doorway.

“Number Three, you are needed downstairs for training.”

“I thought Luther was training with you today.” Not for the first time, Five was impressed by Allison’s ability to speak up against their father. He and Allison seemed to be the only ones willing to do so.

“Number One has been assigned reading. Come now. Number Two is already waiting for us.”

That meant Diego was today’s puppet.

Allison quickly screwed the top back onto the nail polish bottle still in her hands, shooting Vanya an apologetic look. Vanya responded with a meek smile, and Five found himself scowling as he watched the exchange. Dad’s timing was horrible. He really had to interrupt the sisters’ bonding?

Five turned his frown on Dad and felt a small sting of surprise when he found a calculating look in the old man’s eyes. This was on purpose. Five felt the discovery dawning a new light on certain memories. Allison had always shown a desire to be close to her sister, but things had never panned out. And now Five saw this was no mistake.

Dad’s eyes suddenly met Five’s, and there was no time to hide his glare.

“Number Five. Join us.”

Great. Five glared for an entirely different reason.

“But I thought Diego was helping today,” Allison said, sounding unsure in the face of the staring contest happening between Five and their father.

“It is time you practice controlling two targets,” Dad answered, his eyes not leaving Five.

After a moment, Five relented and stepped forward, knowing this wasn’t a battle worth fighting. Training with Allison was always a pain, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Dad would give orders to Allison, and she would relay them through rumors, forcing whoever Dad had selected that day to do a handstand or hop on one foot or a dozen other silly tasks while they were instructed to fight the spell of Allison’s power. Allison usually wound up with a headache by the end of it, while the puppet of the day was left drained both physically and mentally.

This was the case for Five, Allison, and Diego by the time Dad released them that night, so when Diego grunted something about food, the three of them trudged down to the kitchen together in silence for a snack.

“Oh! You’re done already?” Vanya hopped up from her chair at the kitchen table, setting down her book and scurrying over to the counter. “I, um, I hope peanut butter and jelly is okay…” She grabbed two plates, sandwiches already prepared and waiting, and set them down on the table. “This one’s yours, Five.” She quickly fetched the third plate and set it in front of the seat Five plopped down in.

Five grumbled his thanks, sank his teeth into soft bread and the gooey combo of peanut butter and marshmallow, and felt a rush of affection for his sister.

He slouched in his chair and melted into the delicious balance of salty and sweet, only vaguely aware when conversation slowly began between the other three. He felt like someone had reached into his skull and wrung out his brain; it had been ages since he had endured a rumor.

He watched Allison and Vanya talking, the genuine smile on Allison’s face and the shy happiness, almost gratitude, Vanya was giving her in return. Now that he thought about it, as often as Allison had sought Vanya out, only to face Dad’s interruption, Vanya hadn’t done the same. As the idiot child he had been, he hadn’t questioned it, happy to have Vanya with him and Ben instead. But now, like so many things, he saw with his adult eyes the complicated reality.

Five polished off the sandwich and leaned back in his chair. His right arm felt dead. He was going to ache tomorrow. Diego and Allison were sniping sarcastic comments at each other while Vanya watched, lips open slightly like she wanted to intervene.

Maybe he should thank Allison for continuing to invite Vanya into her life.

No, that would be much too weird for thirteen-year-old him to have done. He should probably act his supposed age and join in the bickering or start throwing food like Diego now was.

Five’s eyes tracked the tiny bits of crust Diego tore off his last bite of sandwich to toss at Allison, now squealing in displeasure. Apparently, Diego was too tired to use his powers or perhaps his true aim didn’t apply to food, so several of the crumbs sailed past Allison’s head and landed on the floor.

They weren’t going to pick them up. The crumbs were already forgotten.

Five stared.

They were still edible.

Five’s hand gripped the edge of his seat hard. Even after all his time with the Commission, living in times when food was abundant, he still couldn’t let go of a few wasted crumbs. His siblings would give him grief for doing something so ridiculous, but even so, he slid to the edge of his seat, leaning over—

“I heard a rumor you stopped throwing food!”

For half a second, Five was relieved. The food stopped raining down onto the floor.

Then his brain caught up to what he had just heard.

“Not fair,” Diego said sourly, stuffing the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. Vanya relaxed back in her chair now that peace was restored. Allison was picking a bit of food out of her hair.

“What did you just do?” Five asked dumbfounded, wondering if he had imagined it.

“What do you mean?” Allison asked, her attention still on working a crumb out of her curls.

“You rumored him,” Five said slowly. Diego gave an annoyed grunt.

“He wouldn’t stop,” Allison huffed.

“But… You just… Dad isn’t here! And you just…!”

She finally looked up at him properly, frowning like he was speaking gibberish.

Five finally wrangled in his disbelief and managed a complete thought. “You can’t just go around rumoring people!”

“Did you forget what we were stuck doing for the past two hours?” Diego asked dryly.

“That’s different. That’s Dad,” he told Diego before looking back at his sister. “You can’t rumor someone just because they’re annoying you!”

“Oh, please!” She all but rolled her eyes, which did nothing for Five’s temper. “You use your powers to annoy us all the time, but I’m not allowed ask someone to stop?!”

“But you didn’t ask! You forced him to stop!”

He could see her anger rising to match his from the way her chin jutted out and she crossed her arms. “It’s not like I threatened him at gunpoint! You’re making a big deal out of nothing!”

“Nothing?!” Five was on his feet. “Seriously? You seriously haven’t figured out how horrible it is to be rumored? I just killed my arm doing one-armed pushups!” He lifted his right arm with his left and let it fall limp by his side. “And here you are, casually rumoring away!”

“Five! Please calm down,” Vanya tried.

“Uh, do I get a say here?” Diego asked.

Five glanced at their faces, and their lack of outrage gave him pause.

He was tired and possibly, just a touch cranky. Perhaps this wasn’t worth the argument; after all, he realized suddenly, he had had it before. A memory was fighting its way to the front of his mind, through the disintegrating influence of age, a memory in which he had argued how unfair her rumors were while she countered that he cheated with his powers all the time.

At the time it was an argument born out of indignation and petulance, and he supposed he was being childish now too. But there was something else in him that was appalled beyond any perceived unfairness, something he couldn’t immediately identify except that his mind leapt to his time with the Commission, poring over probabilities and equations, the projection of each life, each reflection and ripple of a person’s choices. And damn it, just looking at Allison’s face, he knew she didn’t understand how disheartening it was to have all your willpower suppressed and your action determined for you.

Except, Five realized suddenly, she did. He took a steadying breath and sat down, addressing Allison. “Do you like training with Dad?”

“Of course not.” She looked affronted by the suggestion. “None of us do.”

“Tell that to Number One,” Diego muttered under his breath, and Allison huffed. Vanya squirmed a little in her seat.

Five ignored the exchange. “If you don’t like it, why don’t you refuse to train with him?”

Allison’s eyes narrowed. “What are you getting at? You don’t say no to Dad!”

“Exactly. He doesn’t give you a choice in the matter.” Her expression changed as she quickly understood. Five hammered the point home anyway. “That’s what it’s like to be rumored, to have all of your choices stripped away.”

“So, just because I don’t want food thrown at me, I’m like Dad?!”

He groaned. “That’s not what I mean! I’m trying to get you to see that stealing someone’s free will, for even a moment, isn’t something you should take so lightly! You shouldn’t make it a habit to resort to such drastic measures!”

“Drastic?!” Her voice rose an octave. “Okay! I see! I’m just as bad as Dad! It’s really that horrible to be my sister—”

Teenagers! “Don’t be so dramatic!”

“So, it’s okay if you tell me what to do?!”

“But imagine if you had to listen!” he snapped back. “Imagine if you couldn’t be dramatic anymore just because I said so! Your very personality would change!”

She barked out an incredulous laugh. “Now whose being dramatic? I haven’t changed anyone like that!”

“Of course, you have! Vanya—”

Five’s mind caught up to his mouth a second too late. The warm flush of anger drained away in place of cold panic.

“I mean—” he said, haltingly, scrambling for words, voice cracking. “I mean you—! You could change someone without meaning to!”

He felt all their eyes on him and saw the confusion twisting its ways onto Vanya and Diego’s faces. But Allison didn’t look confused. Her eyes were narrowed, caught on a distant memory somewhere behind him.

But it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t remember from such an insignificant slip of the tongue, would she?

Except, in another timeline, she had remembered the incident in full detail over a quarter of a century afterward. This was why Dad kept Allison away from Vanya.

Then, her eyes widened in realization, and Five’s stomach fell to the floor. He opened his mouth, but his mind failed to find the words to erase his mistake, strike it from the record, plaster his world back together.

It was too late. Looks like Ben won the bet on when Five would taste his own foot.

Comprehension was alight in Allison’s eyes, then confusion clouded them for a split second, and then she was on her feet, her chair making a horrible scraping noise against the floor to match the look of horror on her face.

She stared at Vanya. “No, that’s…!”

“Allison?” Vanya called meekly, unsure under Allison’s gaze. There was a long, terrible moment of silence while Allison stood frozen.

“Geez, Five, what did you do?” Diego muttered.

His comment seemed to remind Allison of Five’s presence, and she finally tore her eyes away from Vanya to look at him. “You’re talking about that time… When we were little—when Vanya was sick—that was… I thought it was such a strange rumor; I didn’t understand. But it made you better.” She looked at Vanya again. “You weren’t sick anymore… I thought…”

Five swallowed hard, stomach squirming. Should he intervene? He still believed young Vanya should know about her powers, but the other Vanya had been so concerned about how she might react. Five had only a vague description of what had happened, but it was impossible to forget the scene of Allison’s neck gushing red when they had found her in the cabin or the feeling of his sister’s warm blood beneath his fingers as he tried to staunch the flow while Mom prepared to close the wound.

But this Vanya had years less of resentment, plus she was still being numbed by the pills.

Five let out a slow breath. Go all out, all the time, right? This hadn’t been how he wanted to make a mess, but that wasn’t to say he shouldn’t run with it.

Vanya bit her bottom lip, her arms curling around herself. “What are you talking about?”

Allison slowly sat down in her chair again. “We must have been… four or five. We were little, and you were sick. You were isolated down… down.” Her brow furrowed. “I think we have a basement or…” She shook her head. “I only remember that there was a long elevator ride down and then we were someplace dark and cold and creepy and you were there, and Mom was taking care of you. Pogo was there and Dad had me there so I could rumor you into getting better. I was supposed to cure you, but I had to say the rumor exactly like he wanted…”

Vanya shook her head. “I don’t remember this.”

“We have a basement?” Diego asked in a hushed tone. He seemed to sense from Allison’s furrowed brow that now was not the time for jokes or interruption.

“The rumor was so strange… I didn’t understand. I thought I should just say you weren’t sick anymore, but Dad wanted me to say it exactly like he asked. He wanted me to say that you think you’re just ordinary.”

Five didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he heard Vanya gasp. The color drained from her face, and Five thought for a second of the pale woman from the concert hall, of the version of Vanya he had to erase to save her, to save the world. But when she spoke, her voice was high with fear, not anger.

“What did you say? Just… ordinary?”

“Do you remember?” Allison asked quietly, sliding to the edge of her seat, reaching out a hand to her sister, resting it palm up on the table when Vanya didn’t immediately take it.

Vanya made no indication she had heard. Her breath was shallow, her eyes fixed on her hands resting in her lap.

The chair Five was sitting in creaked, and he came back to himself. He was gripping the seat of his chair so hard the wood was protesting. There was no going back now. He’d have to tell her the rest. She needed to understand.

In retrospect, he should have planned this entire conversation out, word by word, and figured out the gentlest way to break the news to her.

A kick to the shin jostled him from his thoughts. Diego was staring at him with wide eyes, giving meaningful looks at Vanya and then back at him. Five shot him a questioning look, and Diego shot him one right back before glancing at Vanya again. He mouthed something and glanced at Vanya again.

Yeah, Five was no good at reading lips. Diego scowled at Five’s lack of comprehension and rubbed his forehead, studying Vanya like she had just sprouted a second head and he wasn’t sure how to tell her.

“Vanya,” Allison finally dared to touch her sister’s arm, and Vanya startled, looking up at her with wide eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t remember what you’re talking about, but I…” She hugged herself, eyes closed tight. “I feel like I was trapped. I think I was… alone.”

“You’re not alone now!” Allison proclaimed, squeezing Vanya’s arm and glancing around at Diego and Five for support, a desperate look in her eyes. Brave, confident Allison was almost as scared as Vanya. “I’ll make sure you’re never alone like that again! I’ll make it up to you! I swear, I’ll… I’ll undo the rumor!”

Five’s heartbeat was loud in his ears. “Undo?” he echoed dubiously.

“What do you mean?” Vanya asked meekly.

“I must have changed you.” Allison rubbed the side of her head where she must have still had her headache. “I changed the way you think about yourself. It’s just like Five said—”

“Which is why I don’t think another rumor is a good idea,” Five cut her off.

Allison’s hand stilled as she frowned at him. “What? You were just saying—!”

“You really think it’s a good idea to layer another rumor on top of the first one? There is no easy way to erase what Dad made you do, not when it’s something so profound as changing the way she thinks. There’s no telling what it would do to her! It’s too dangerous!”

“But if I did this,” Allison’s voice cracked with emotion, “if I made her like this…!”

“Like what?” Hurt was clear in Vanya’s voice as she looked from Allison to Five, and Five felt himself flinching backwards, replaying his own words in his head.

“I just meant…” Allison’s eyes were suddenly shiny with tears. “I meant you don’t believe in yourself like you should! Like with your violin; you don’t push yourself to be extraordinary even though you easily could be! There are all these amazing things about you, Vanya, but you let yourself be overlooked—”

“Let myself?” Vanya’s mouth hung open for a moment. “I don’t let myself be overlooked! I just am! You think a little music on the violin can compete with what you can do? What all of you can do?!” Vanya pushed herself back from the table, away from the conversation. “There’s no use pushing myself! You’re all on a different level than me, and I’m just…!”

Ordinary.

The word hung over the heads like a dark shadow. Allison was freely crying now, tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks. Vanya looked ready to join her.

Five felt like he had swallowed a chunk of ice. The conversation wasn’t going as smoothly as he hoped, but he wasn’t sure there ever would be a timeline where it went without tears. He took a steadying breath; it was time for the truth.

“What if you’re not?”

The three of them turned to look at Diego. Five had nearly forgotten he was there, still staring at Vanya.

“Not…?” Vanya’s voice was tight.

“Not ordinary!” Diego glanced around at the three of them. “Think about it! The wording of the rumor! What if it was to make you think you didn’t have powers like the rest of us? Am I crazy or does that make perfect sense?”

There was a beat of silence. Five felt himself deflate with shock. So that was what Diego had been trying to silently say. Frankly, Five was surprised he had realized the truth before Allison, but Allison must have been too close to the situation.

Diego shrunk into his seat under their collective stares. “Okay, guess I’m crazy…”

“No, it does make sense!” Allison quickly assured. “Oh my God.” She turned to Vanya. “It makes perfect sense!”

Vanya crossed her arms tight. “What are you talking about? Don’t make fun—”

“We’re not!” Allison swiped away the tears from her face, her voice rising in pitch to match her rising excitement. “Dad was insistent on the wording. What else could it mean?”

“I don’t know! Maybe I have some sort of disease or something!” Vanya glared daggers at Allison and Diego. “If I had powers, wouldn’t it be obvious? If I had strength like Luther or saw ghosts like Klaus, I would notice.”

“Maybe it’s something like my powers where it’s not obvious,” Diego said. He was practically bouncing in his seat. “Or like Allison’s. Maybe your powers only show up in certain situations.”

“Or…” Five interrupted quietly. “The pills you take suppress your powers.”

“You believe this too?” Vanya leaned back from him, frowning like she had lost an ally in an important battle.

“Yes,” Five answered plainly.

She studied his face, and he saw the pitying look her older self had given him when he had first told her about the apocalypse.

“Wait, Five,” Allison said suddenly. He looked at her and found her eyes dark with confusion. “You knew about the rumor, but Dad warned me not to tell anyone about it, not even Luther. How did you know?”

Five’s heart was suddenly hammering against his ribs, his face suddenly warm. Damn it.

“I read one of Dad’s journals,” he claimed, wincing internally at the thought that his lie was inspired by Harold Jenkins of all people.

“What? How?” Diego sounded half doubtful, half impressed.

“I sneaked into his office, but that’s not important right now—”

“The hell it isn’t!” Diego cut him off. “Which journal are you talking about? Is it the journal?”

“When did you read it?” Allison’s eyes were narrowed.

“That’s irrelevant right now,” Five tried again.

“You’re lying.”

Five didn’t so much gasp as stop breathing for a second. He blinked at Vanya’s critical stare. “I… What?”

“You’re lying,” she repeated. “Why are you lying?”

“I’m not,” he said, a little too quickly. The last time he had lied so poorly, the Handler had shot him.

“You’re not a very good liar,” Vanya informed him.

Five wished he could correct her. He was a perfectly fine liar when he was prepared ahead of time. Lying on the fly was what got him in trouble. Then he had to depend on sidestepping questions whether figuratively or literally.

All three of his siblings were studying him intensely, their gazes pinning him to his seat.

“How did you know?” Allison pressed.

He swallowed hard and opened his mouth, but he found no words. He shook his head.

Diego growled at his reluctance. “Whatever it is, just say it!”

Five shut his mouth tight and shook his head again, floundering for a way out. Every instinct told him he should use his powers to jump away—when under attack, evade.

Vanya seemed to sense this and grabbed his hand. He pulled away, but her grip tightened painfully. “Please, Five! Tell me the truth, or I…!” She glanced around the room for the right words before staring him straight in the eye. “I swear I will never believe another word you say!”

It was an overly dramatic, desperate proclamation, but her face told him she was serious. Her eyes were shining with hurt; she knew he was hiding something big.

“It’s complicated,” he said weakly.

“Five!”

Lying would ruin everything. If she stopped trusting him now, there would be no path forward to save the world.

That was the one thing he couldn’t allow.

He drew in a slow, steady breath, and then took a sledgehammer to the timeline.

“I time traveled.”

Vanya continued to glower. “Five—”

“I went into the future, and I met your future selves. Allison herself told me about the rumor, and I know you have powers because I’ve seen you use them.”

“Five, stop! Stop lying!”

“I’m not! Look at me, Vanya! If you can tell when I’m lying, then you can tell that I’m telling the truth now! I didn’t go to Canada. I was in the future.”

He watched as she studied him, and gradually her irritation smoothed into acceptance. And then the pitying look returned, and he knew she was about to brush him off again. “You must be confused.”

Even with the chance to brace himself, he couldn’t deny the sting of having her doubt him. Would she call him crazy this time too?

“You’re expecting us to believe you managed to do something Dad said you couldn’t and that you lied about Canada and some lady named Delores and the fire,” Allison summarized, voice sharp with judgement.

“Canada was a lie, but the rest of it wasn’t. And Dad didn’t say I wasn’t able to time travel. He said I wasn’t ready.” His heart was still a heavy drumbeat in his chest, but the truth was coming to his lips more and more easily. “He was right. Time travel is a crapshoot.” He looked beseechingly at Vanya. Her grip on his hand had loosened, but he found himself squeezing her hands as if he could squeeze the truth into her. “Remember what I told you? I got stuck. Moving forward through time is one thing, but backwards is complicated. You have to fight entropy the whole way and I… I tried to get home right away, but I couldn’t.”

“Okay, then, let’s hear it.” Allison sounded unimpressed. “What happens in the future?”

Five grimaced. “I can’t tell you that.” Allison snorted derisively, and Diego groaned. Five found himself glaring. “I can’t! Knowing the future is a level of complication none of you need.”

“So, we’re just supposed to take your word for it?” Allison scoffed.

He stared around at them. All three of them were leaning back in their chairs, regarding him with frowns. Diego had been leaning forward, showing interest up until Five said he couldn’t tell them any details. Now none of them believed him, and a part of him wanted to encourage that, to take everything back.

But Vanya was still under the spell of the rumor, and if outing himself as a time traveler would break its power, he couldn’t allow this opportunity to pass. She needed to see the truth if they were ever going to move forward.

“I have proof.”

He released Vanya’s hands and shrugged off his blazer. There was only one possession he still had from his life in the future. He knew it was dangerous to bring it into this household, under the glare of Dad’s monocle, but he had lived most of his life with it in his breast pocket, pressed against his heart. Unfortunately, his Academy blazer didn’t have a breast pocket big enough for it, so a week before he had left his older siblings, he had gone to the fabric store and bought a swatch of dark fabric to match his blazer. Now, he dug his nails into the careful stitches he had placed in the inside of his jacket and tore them loose.

“You wrote this,” he told Vanya as he pulled out her book and showed her the cover.

Vanya froze. Diego jumped up from his seat across the table to get a better look. Allison gasped and moved to grab the book, but Five pulled back, keeping his grip firm along its spine.

“I can’t let you read it, but…” He turned the weathered book over from the picture of the Vanya sitting next to him to the picture of her adult face.

“That’s you?” Allison asked as if Vanya would know. She studied the picture carefully. “That’s definitely you.”

“Holy shit. It’s true!” Diego crowed. His face suddenly lit up. “How far into the future did you go? Tell me you met all of us!”

Five ignored him, instead watching Vanya’s face get paler and paler as she stared at the book. “Are you okay?”

“It’s true then…” she said quietly. “I have powers. I… Why would Dad hide it? All this time, I’ve thought…” A tremble went through her, and her voice rose. “All this time, I didn’t belong! But Dad knew. Pogo and Mom knew.” She looked at Allison, her eyes accusing.

“I didn’t know,” Allison said quickly, reaching for Vanya’s hand, pleading. “I swear to you Vanya, if I had understood, I would have told you!”

Vanya recoiled from her touch. “Would you have?”

Five stomach plummeted. Never had he heard such bitterness in her voice.

“Vanya,” he interrupted before it could go any further. But then her gaze landed on him.

“You knew. Ever since you got back.”

He swallowed down the sting of her biting words. “I was going to tell you. I’ve been searching for a way that would make you believe me over the power of the rumor Dad used on you.”

“Well, you found it.” She gestured to the book, and he pulled it to him without thinking, as if protecting it from her. She snorted at the action. “You could have shown me this anytime!”

“I was searching for a way that didn’t involve telling you about the future.”

“You were looking for a way to keep lying!”

“I was looking for a way to keep Dad in the dark! What do you think he’ll do if he finds out I time traveled? That I know about all this?”

“That… would not end well,” Diego understated.

“So, you didn’t trust that I could keep a secret,” Vanya snapped. She was still so pale.

Five made the mistake of hesitating, thinking of the older Vanya’s insistence that she would go off the pills if she knew the truth.

She stood suddenly, chair screeching against the floor. “No, instead you decided to patronize me with speeches about what really matters and believing in myself, all the while knowing, knowing that I’m just like all of you! But you wanted me to be different, didn’t you? You wanted me to be your special, powerless friend just so you could keep saving me! Look how good he is, protecting his useless sister!”

“No!” he shouted, staggering to his feet. “Never! I never thought of you that way! How can you think—"

“You saw more than anyone! You and Ben! I let you see more than anyone how much it affected me!”

“I wanted to tell you! Please, Vanya—”

“Shut up! Shut up!” she screeched, shoving him into the table as she ran past, out the door, ignoring Allison’s pleas to wait.

Allison and Diego were on their feet, Allison rushing to follow. Some part of Five that wasn’t consumed by his frantically beating heart, caught her arm. “You can’t tell Luther.”

“What?” She halted, purely out of confusion. “Why?”

“Because he’ll turn around and tell Dad,” Diego said before Five could.

Allison’s brow furrowed, her mouth opened to protest.

“Please,” Five begged, and he could feel her rock back on her heels before leaning forward again, towards the door.

Her mouth closed into a thin line. “Fine! Fine. But you need to tell him yourself.”

Before Five could get another word in, she shrugged off his hand and ran through the door.

The silence came suddenly, and Five was left taking stock of his own pounding heart and flushed face, as if he’d just run a marathon.

“So…” Diego stepped around the table to Five’s side. “What now?”

Indeed. What now?

His thoughts were spinning. He needed to talk to Vanya. He needed to make her see he was on her side. How? How could she believe he would ever wish to keep her in the dark?

He had been searching for a way to arrive at this moment. A way that wouldn’t be so messy, that wouldn’t sacrifice so much. Instead, he had completely shattered the peaceful world he had found with his younger siblings. A great, terrible wave of emotion crashed through him at the thought.

She had to know it wasn’t a matter of trust. It was the damn, constant surveillance—

“Shit.”

Panic swelled over him. Idiot, idiot, idiot Five!

“What?” Diego was asking. “What happened?”

“The camera! Shit! I have to…!” He had to get the tape and pray that Dad wasn’t watching live right now.

He grabbed Vanya’s book and his blazer, pressed himself into the embrace of space, leaving Diego and the kitchen behind, and re-materialized upstairs. As soon as he felt solid ground beneath his feet, he dashed forward, towards the south wing of the house, to the room Allison and Luther had described. The farther he went, the less familiar the rooms around him were. It had been a lifetime since he had explored this part of the house, but it was clear to him which one was his goal. Only one door on the third-floor landing was shut. He skidded to a stop in front of it and braced himself as he tried the doorknob, hoping it was locked up for the night, hoping the room was empty.

The knob gave no resistance, and the door swung open.

Five froze.

“Pogo,” he said, breathless.

The chimp sat with his hands clasped in front of him, facing the monitors. Five could see himself on one, his back to the camera as it monitored the room for any breaches of security. Diego appeared on another screen, slowly climbing the stairs. Luther was reading in the family room while Ben and Klaus played cards on the floor nearby. The three of them shared a laugh at something Klaus said, all of them oblivious that the world had been upended a few minutes ago. And there were Allison and Vanya, embracing, sobbing quietly in each other’s arms in the supposed privacy of Vanya’s tiny room.

“I owe a great debt to your father,” Pogo said slowly, solemnly, and Five stood petrified in the doorway. “He will always be the person who made me who I am today.”

The words echoed of a rainy day several years from the present, nearly three months in Five’s past.

“Pogo, please,” Five plea came out in a whisper as he struggled to find his breath. “He can’t know. He’ll keep me from my mission. Or…” He swallowed hard and forced a deep breath. “Or he’ll do something so much worse.”

Pogo was silent for an achingly long moment, before scooting back in his chair and gesturing for Five to take a seat in the chair next to him. The chimp stared at the screen with Five’s sisters before looking at Five. “Please explain.”

Reluctance was tugging at him, calling him to jump away and find Vanya instead. But again, there was no choice here. Five cursed his temper. One slip of the tongue, and he had backed himself into a corner.

He took the seat next to Pogo, sitting on the edge. “How much did you hear?”

“Your father asked that I monitor you in my spare time, ever since you got back, but especially since you disappeared for an unnaturally long period in the bathroom last week.”

“I see.” So, he hadn’t gone unnoticed. Five took a moment to collect his thoughts and consider everything Pogo had overheard before deciding it was best to start at the beginning. “When I went into the future, I saw the apocalypse.”

Pogo leaned forward, studying Five’s face and cupping a warm hand against Five’s neck, just below the ear. It could have been a comforting gesture, if Five wasn’t certain it was a way for Pogo to monitor his breath and heart rate for signs of lying.

“The end of the world?” Pogo prompted softly.

“Yes.”

“Then you must tell your father! Everything he has done has been to prevent the end of the world! It is the very purpose of the Umbrella Academy!”

Five grimaced, anticipating such a reaction. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hargreeves is the reason the apocalypse occurs.” Vanya’s book was still tucked into his bundled blazer, sitting on his lap, and he found himself searching for the smoothness of its spine through the folds of cloth. “We are the reason it occurs. The Umbrella Academy failed. It failed Vanya, and that ruined everything.”

“Vanya?” Pogo’s eyes were wide, and Five could see the moment he fit the pieces together. “Then, you’re saying Vanya causes the apocalypse?”

“No,” Five pressed vehemently. “Everything she endured, all of the…” He searched for a word and thought of the Vanya that had poured her heart out onto the page, forcing open his eyes. “The abuse.” There was no other word for it. “The mental abuse that she’s suffered for years: that’s what to blame. A man she meets in the future forces her off the pills, so she discovers her powers in the worst way and all the lies in the worst way. She lashed out, and in the process, the world was destroyed.” He closed his eyes a moment, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyelids as if it could erase everything he’d seen. “Yes, she did it, but it wasn’t her fault alone. Hearing the truth about Allison rumoring her when we were little broke the dam, and everything that had built up over the years came rushing out.”

Pogo dropped his hand from Five’s neck, and when Five looked up, he saw a deep frown on his face. Pogo sighed, years of weariness in the sound. “The decision to hide her powers was not an easy thing for your father. But Vanya’s powers proved too immense for a child. She had already killed one of your nannies and gravely injured two others before you were even four.”

“That’s why he made Mom?” Five asked, astounded at the discovery. “I always assumed he made her so that he’d have someone else completely under his control.”

“Grace is not so one-dimensional,” Pogo warned, giving Five a disapproving look under his furrowed brow.

“No,” Five said quickly, feeling his face coloring. “I didn’t mean to say she was.” He shuffled his feet before asking Pogo to continue.

Pogo sighed. “Then Vanya, during a tantrum, injured your father. It was just a cut, but up until then, she had never harmed one of us, one of her family.”

Five couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. She had already killed someone, but the old man only decided it was time to act once he himself was injured.

“He feared that it was only a matter of time before she harmed one of you.”

Five had already been haunted by memories of the concert hall and the cabin today. He didn’t need a reminder. But he refused to admit the old man had a point.

He looked up at the monitor, where Vanya and Allison were sitting side by side, Vanya’s head leaning on Allison’s shoulder, their arms wrapped around each other.

“So, his answer was to isolate her? Make her believe she wasn’t one of us? Make her believe she was less than us?” As he watched his sisters, he couldn’t help but pity them for all the time they had lost. He shook his head. “She said herself that he never missed an opportunity to remind her she was ordinary, that the benchmark was extraordinary, but there was nothing special about her.” He studied Pogo’s face and saw the regret in his eyes. “I know you’ve seen it. I know you’ve tried to change her thinking.”

How many times had Pogo sat with Vanya when she was excluded from a mission or training? How many times had Five overheard him offer her soft words of encouragement? Pogo bowed his head, eyes closed. “It seems, in the end, it was not enough.”

Five gave him a moment before asking again. “Please, you can’t tell Dad. If he finds out I time traveled, he’ll find out about the apocalypse, and then what do you think he’ll do to Vanya?”

Pogo looked aghast. “Five, your father would never—”

“Never what? Hurt her? He already did!” Five snapped. “And it’s not just her! Don’t you see how screwed up it is that he has Allison practice rumoring the rest of us, her own family? Especially given what he made her do to Vanya!” He gestured at the two of them talking quietly on the monitor, then looked at the monitor where three of his brothers were displayed. “And Klaus! Do you know about the mausoleum, Pogo? Do you know Dad locks him in, leaves him all alone in the dark with the angriest ghosts Dad could find? And Ben!” Five was standing now, hands in tight fists, holding Vanya’s book tight under his arm. “We all know how much Ben suffers every time he uses his powers, yet we all push him into doing it anyway! We were all compliant in Ben’s torture as much as Vanya’s, and when I think about what happened to Ben—” He sucked in a shaky breath. No, he couldn’t go there. He looked at Diego, now in his room, laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling in deep thought. “Dad set us against each other, always pushing us to our limits—past our limits! How many times has our training resulted in injury? How many times have Diego and Luther pushed themselves too far trying to impress him? How many cuts, bruises, torn ligaments, broken bones are too many? They’re young men looking for even a shred of approval, and Dad has only deemed one of them worthy—worthy to be groomed into his own personal puppet! And poor Luther doesn’t realize what his loyalty will reward him with! The isolation, the lies, the transformation! How can this be acceptable? How can you stand by and let it happen?!” He forced himself to take a breath and look at Pogo. “Something has to change! I won’t ask you to change it, but please, don’t stand in my way. Give me a chance!”

Chimpanzees are physically incapable of crying, but looking at the grief on Pogo’s face, Five wouldn’t have guessed it. Pogo’s lips trembled, and he reached out a hand to Five. “Oh, my dear boy…”

If Five didn’t feel so much like crying himself, he might have ignored the hand, but it was a struggle enough to swallow down the angry tears in this young body. He wasn’t about to break his decades long streak without crying like this, so he took the chimp’s hand and let himself revel in the warmth of another living being. He let himself breathe, gathering himself up, preparing for the next inevitable battle.

“I will erase this evening’s tapes,” Pogo said softly after a minute. “And I expect something will have to happen to the audio for the foreseeable future.” He released Five’s hand and stood, rotating the recording device to reveal several wires. He yanked one out, and the soft sound of Five’s siblings talking to each other vanished. “Perhaps a rat came in and chewed on the wires.”

A knot deep in Five’s chest unraveled, and he felt his shoulders sag in relief. “Thank you, Pogo.” At least one thing had gone right today. Five could feel the weight of the day beginning to drag him down now that his adrenaline was easing off. But the day was not over yet.

He smiled grimly at his new ally. “Would you help me with one more thing?”

---

Things had changed. The trajectory of the world had been knocked off course, into an undeniably new timeline. Up until now they had only changed soft points in the timeline, events too minor for the Commission to waste agents or assassins on. The Commission focused on preserving hard points in the timeline, events that were more difficult to change unless, of course, you killed the right person.

Or you told your sister she had powers. There was no flying under the radar anymore. Five needed to warn his siblings.

He rolled over in his bed, peering through the darkness at the clock. It was a little past two.

Unable to pretend to be asleep any longer, he got out of bed, trying to be subtle about stuffing a change of clothes under his pajama shirt. Then, he was across the house, pushing his way through his bathroom’s door as quickly as he could as his shoes began to slip out from next to his stomach.

It was a risk, a big risk, sneaking out of the house when Dad was still in it. But Pogo had agreed to cover his disappearance on the cameras, and hopefully the old man was asleep. Over the years, Five had learned, mostly through Klaus’s tales of insomnia plagued nights, their father was one of those people who didn’t need a full eight hours of sleep. He usually went to bed around two in the morning and was up barely four hours later.

Now fully dressed, Five made the jump to the alley below and took off running as soon as he felt pavement beneath his feet. He had learned from his last foray out and had forgone the uniform blazer, the summer air still comfortably warm despite the hour. It was a long run to his siblings’ apartment building, but his feet pounding against the ground and his breath heavy in his chest were a welcome feeling. The events of the day and the anticipation of the conversation he needed to have with his family all fell away, leaving only the present.

The city was quiet, the streets abandoned of its people, and Five felt an overwhelming familiarity. The streetlights buzzed like the old battery powered lantern he used to have, attracting insects with their flapping wings. His eyes caught dark shapes bounding along the ground of an empty lot which he recognized as a mischief of rats. There was an uneven echo to his footsteps, bouncing up the empty street against the sleeping buildings. A family of cockroaches scurried into the cracks in the foundation of a restaurant. There was even the acrid scent of smoke in the air—

Five’s heart plummeted for the thousandth time that day as he rounded the corner onto the street of his siblings’ apartment. A crowd was gathering outside, people streaming out of the building, many in their pajamas, awoken by the alarm Five could hear screaming as he ran up the sidewalk. The fourth floor was on fire.

He dove into the crowd, calling his siblings’ names, straining his ears for their voices over the sound of others crying out for their families and the general murmurs of disbelief and of relief the firefighters had appeared so quickly. His eyes scanned over the crowd for Luther, tall enough to tower over everyone. He wasn’t there; none of them were.

Five pushed upstream through the last few families still bleeding out of the building until he couldn’t take the feeling of everyone pressing down on him, crushing him, suffocating him, anymore and blindly tried to make the spatial jump into the lobby of the building. His fingertips felt something smooth and solid a split second before the rest of his body re-materialized, so he pushed backwards, aborting the jump before he found half his body inside of a wall. He cursed loudly, drowning in the crowd, barely able to stay on his feet until finally, finally he found a break in the stream and tumbled into the lobby, gasping. He stood for one breath, two breaths by the door, barely able to hear his own thoughts over the shrieking fire alarm, his skin crawling. Finally, the flow of people rushing out slowed to a trickle. The last few stragglers dashed out of the stairwell, their faces smudged with soot, glancing side to side as they exited the stairwell, and Five felt something in his chest twisting into knots, dread seeping into his limbs. He had yet to spot any of his family.

This was a trap.

He took as deep a breath as he could manage and began to cross the dimly lit lobby. Over the blaring alarm, he could no longer hear the footsteps, the ones that had echoed his at an uneven pace, suggesting a longer gait than his child-sized one, but he was positive they had entered the building behind him. He had nearly turned around to confront the person following him before reaching the apartment building, but that thought had vanished as soon as he had seen the fire. A mistake, perhaps, seeing as now he was surrounded: someone behind him, another crouching in the shadows of the tall potted plant to his left, and likely another two on either side of the door frame, just inside the stairwell.

The firefighters hadn’t arrived yet; there were only temporal assassins with their protective, red masks.

“Seriously?” he sighed to himself. It wasn’t standard protocol of the Temps Commission to make such a spectacle. All of their corpses scattered around an apartment lobby wasn’t exactly going to be discrete.

His eyes darted around the room, looking for something to use as a weapon. Coming up empty, surprise would be his best advantage. He took two more steps forward, and then broke into a run, pressing into the folds of space, carrying his momentum through the jump back to the entrance, a few steps behind the woman who had followed him. She whipped around to face him just as he threw all his weight behind his shoulder and slammed into her stomach. Her gun skid across the floor, and the assassin from behind the plant gave a yell, just as Five jumped again, grabbing the gun and firing.

Adrenaline couldn’t mask the pain of a third jump in as many minutes, reminding him belatedly that he couldn’t rely on his powers for this fight. But two of them were already shot dead on the floor. The two waiting in the stairwell must’ve been still waiting to ambush him, unaware he had seen the apartment tenants eyeing them as they hurried to safety. He took the opportunity to grab the gun off the second body and was about to test the thickness of the walls versus a 9mm handgun, when something tugged on his arm, pulling his attention to the device on the body’s wrist. It looked like a wristwatch, one of the expensive digital ones with a square face that listed both the time and the date. There was nothing else to indicate it was anything but a wristwatch, yet he had the all too familiar feeling like someone was pointing at it, warning him of its importance. He tore it off the body and stuffed it in his pocket before turning and shooting a handful of shots through either side of the stairwell wall. A moment later the masked figures collapsed into view, and Five charged forward leaping over the bodies, only to be met with three more Commission assailants raining down on him from further up the stairs.

It quickly became obvious to Five that his attackers weren’t using lethal force. For whatever reason, somewhere in between sending Hazel and Cha-Cha to kill him and his last meeting with the Handler, the Commission had stopped wanting him dead. But why would he be protected after he had made it clear he wasn’t going back to the Commission? Unless the Handler still assumed she could convince him otherwise.

The timing was also bizarre. He could understand why assassins weren’t sent to the Academy; it likely would have been too upsetting to the timeline. But if today was the day the Commission finally found him in the timeline, then assassins should have been dispatched days ago to deal with his anomalous siblings. Instead, they had moved to attack and capture simultaneously.

Unless, they already had attacked, quietly, and all this mess was for his benefit—

Five’s first shot bounced off one of the men’s protective mask as he moved upwards, but his second found its home in the man’s neck.

No, Ben would have given up all pretenses and made young Klaus warn Five if it had already happened. If they were dead, it would have happened within the past few minutes, a surprise attack while they were sleeping—

Five leveraged the second attacker’s arm up and back, using his full weight, until he felt the shoulder joint give and the man screamed. The third man grabbed him from behind and threw him into an open apartment.

He couldn’t think about that. All he knew was he needed to get upstairs to his family, and these people were in the way. He grabbed the nearby lamp and smashed it sideways across the man’s knee, making him stagger, giving Five just enough time to dive over the couch to the kitchenette and grab a knife from the sink. He threw a dirty plate to distract as the man tried to line up a shot at Five’s legs, then took the opportunity to move in close for the kill. Scavenged gun in one hand and knife in the other, he threw himself back up the stairs just as another pair of agents appeared above him.

Up and up he went, sparing no mercy as he moved to disable or kill, eliminating anyone that presented as an obstacle. The assassins kept trying to push the fight from the stairwell into the halls, but Five found this strangely advantageous. They were too focused on keeping track of their guns, seemingly unaware that anything and everything was a weapon, from the throw rug on the ground to the pens on the table to the drapes on the wall. But their numbers were quickly wearing on him, and his middle was screaming pain as he was forced into a spatial jump when they managed wrestle him to the ground, twice, and again when one tried to choke him out from behind.

Exhaustion had him gasping, and then smoke had him coughing as he finally entered the furnace of the fourth-floor hallway. He paused for a second, only a second, to rip up the sleeve of his shirt—already torn from some attack he didn’t even remember enduring—and hastily tied the cloth around his mouth before darting forward, staying low beneath the dark billows blanketing the ceiling. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could get away with only bruises and minor cuts as his movements grew sloppy, riding purely on muscle memory and instincts. His eyes watered, and he could feel his mid-crisis composure slipping, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest.

The smoke. The ash. Not again. Never again. Where were they? Where was his family?

The air was sweltering, ready to blister his skin, sweat trickling down his back. He dodged around firestorms roaring as they feasted on each apartment, the walls spitting sparks at him as he charged through the hazy veil of heat.

Two more masks appeared before him, and he used the last of his bullets to be rid of them, even as he finally felt the burning slice of a bullet grazing his calf. But he had underestimated the big one, still standing after a double tap to the chest, and Five felt his feet leave the ground before he was sent crashing into a wall, the wood shattering, releasing the flames within to lick at Five’s back only to be extinguished by the man’s weight descending upon Five like an avalanche. Spots burst in front of Five’s eyes, and he fought blindly to find his breath, stabbing the kitchen knife he still held with enough force his hand jammed against the heel of the blade, slicing open. He felt the man stop moving and rolled the body off him, dropping the empty gun, switching the knife to his uninjured hand. Then he staggered to his feet again, gasping in scorching air, the cloth he had tied around his face lost somewhere in the rubble, the metallic taste of blood dripping down across his lips from his bleeding nose.

He had survived worse, he told himself, fighting the impending darkness stealing away the edges of his vision. He survived worse, and his family—

He sprinted forwards, diving into the inferno, his lungs burning, his body protesting somewhere below his floating consciousness.

He stumbled into their apartment, the door hanging off its hinges. The fire had already torn through the main room, but the wall nearest the bedrooms had a massive hole through it, revealing broken pipes, spewing water, keeping half of the room flooded, safe from the blaze.

Rubble littered the ground. A man—Diego—lay still amid the debris, and above him loomed another masked figure, her gun pointed at Diego’s head.

Five wasn’t entirely sure if he had jumped with his powers or his feet, but in the next moment he was slashing his knife across the woman’s neck, his vision crumbling to black for a moment. Something warm rained down on his face, then a thud, and all that was left was smoke and ash.

They were dead.

Finding them had been despair disguised as hope; for a split second he had thought they lived. All the bodies he had seen up until that moment had melted flesh, their faces sliding off the bones like cheese left in the sun. But his siblings were so perfectly preserved that Five had tried to shake Diego awake. And then he saw Klaus’s tattoo, and all that was left was smoke and ash.

“Five! Are you okay?” someone asked in the distance.

They were dead. The world had ended. His world had ended.

“Diego! Where are—Five?” There was movement through the hole in the wall. Luther was there.

Luther was in full rigor mortis. Five had to wait hours for the rigor to break so his brother could finally rest, having delivered his final message through the glass eye.

“Well, that was a harrowing experience! Oh… Uh, hey, buddy.” Klaus joined Luther, and then there was Allison behind him.

Klaus had been lighter than the rest of his siblings. Five had dragged them the short distance through the rubble so they could all lay side by side, and he had been surprised to find Klaus was lighter than even Allison.

“Are you okay?” Luther asked.

“It’s over…” Diego reached out a hand. “We really need to get out of here.”

“Five? Can you put the knife down?” Vanya appeared in front of him, also reaching for something.

He had searched for both Ben and Vanya until he found Vanya’s book and read Ben’s fate. He never did find Vanya’s body.

“Uh, does he not recognize us?” Klaus asked.

“The ash!” Luther suddenly exclaimed. And then the dead man scrubbed a sleeve over his face. “See, Five, we’re okay. We’re all alive.”

Five blinked. Something in him let go and a clatter drew his attention down towards the floor. There was a dead body, a knife, and his numb, bloody hands. A shaky breath entered his lungs; had he been breathing up until now?

He looked up at Luther: Luther who, for all his good intentions, had never been much of a critical thinker, but had figured it out.

Five was suffocating, his heart in his throat, something painful pressed against the back of his eyes.

“Shit, Luther! What did you do?!” Diego snapped, pushing Luther aside, but damn it, he had followed Luther’s lead and wiped his face.

“Ah! You broke our little Five!” Klaus closed the distance between them and didn’t look at all bothered when Five knocked away the hands he had tried to throw on Five’s shoulders.

“It’s…” Vanya said softly. “It’s a relief, isn’t it? Everyone’s okay.”

Then he became aware of someone holding his hand. Allison lifted his hand in hers, refusing to let him yank his hand back, and then pressed his fingers against the side of her neck. Her pulse, Five realized after a moment: she was trying to let him feel her pulse, unaware Five couldn’t feel much of anything at the moment.

Except, strangely, he could feel something warm. Not where his fingers pressed against her skin, but somewhere, slightly above, in her head, behind her left eye, the warmth of Allison’s star pulsed, alive, alive, alive.

Five’s breath hitched. He blinked and something tickled a trail down his cheeks.

Oh. Of course, with sirens blaring outside, and fire raging all around them, that would be the moment he would break his decades long streak. There wasn’t time for this. They were literally in a burning building, and Five needed to scavenge anything useful from the body on the floor, the weapon, the technology. He needed to check if there were any agents alive for interrogation. He needed to think, to plan, to make sure he had a way to keep them all safe.

But then Allison’s arms were tight around him, and then Vanya and Klaus were hugging him too. Any hope of regaining control of himself went out the window as the rest of his siblings joined the embrace. Warmth surrounded him. Despite him losing track of his body, he could feel six stars, anchoring him, and he tried to reach for them. But without a body, all he had was his own light, which he realized suddenly was bleeding out of him. Ah, that must be why he could sense them like this.

That must be why he felt so cold.

That must be why it was so very dark…

---

The first thing he was aware of was something soft and damp gently wiping across his cheek, slowly drawing Five back into his body. An immeasurable heaviness lay in his bones. Sleep had a firm hold on him, dragging him back into its depths with the promise of peace, but… There was something he needed to do.

The cloth continued its steady work. The familiar, stickiness of dried blood pulling his skin taut was slowly wiped away. But the metallic smell of blood was stirred up in its place, and the hand holding the cloth smelled of smoke. The smell brought the memory of the apartment back into focus, and Five fought harder against the heaviness.

He needed the next step in the mission, the next change he needed to make, but…

His body was gradually beginning to feel more and more like it belonged to him and not the darkness, and with it came the pain. A now familiar stabbing was shooting through his core, not as overwhelming as when they had first arrived in this time but only by a degree, making his breaths come shallow and quick, irritating his aching throat. Somewhere beyond the knife set in his center, his right hand and left leg were stinging harshly, and tiny bites told the woes of a dozen minor burns on his legs, arms, and face. He suspected if he concentrated past his middle, he'd feel even more damage, and quickly decided that was not a good idea. Escaping into sleep was much more appealing.

Yet the pain reminded him of the way his opponents had handicapped themselves, avoiding killing blows, trying to impede him even when they had a clear shot at his head.

Something just as painful as his wounds sucker punched him in the chest. He wasn’t in danger, and his younger siblings weren’t for as long as the Commission believed Vanya was the key to the apocalypse. The only ones in danger were the ones who didn’t need to be. He should never have brought them into the past. The timing of the attack no longer felt strange to him; it was calculated to throw him off mentally, to make him panicked and sloppy. His family had been reduced to bait. The only way to keep them safe now would be to strike back against the Commission which was impossible.

But… was it any more impossible than what he had already done?

With that single thought, it was decided. He had passed the first hurdle and let himself sit with the pain for a minute, taking stock of what strength he had left.

The spark of an idea, a path forward, ignited as he considered everything he knew about the Commission, but he needed more information.

“Five?” Vanya’s quiet voice called, and the hand holding the damp rag stilled against his jaw. She must have caught him frowning in thought.

He had to blink a few times for the blurry shapes above him to form Vanya and Allison’s faces side by side, leaning over him. The bed dipped a moment later, as Klaus sat on the other side of the bed, opposite his sisters, the three of them watching him with evident concern.

“Hey, bud,” Klaus greeted. A cursory look around told Five they were back in the hotel they had stayed in when first arriving in this time. Given how terribly his middle ached, he wouldn’t be surprised if he had accidentally jumped back two and a half months to their arrival, if reality wasn’t crashing down on him along with a wave of urgency.

“Time,” he coughed out, throat scratchy. “I need to… What time…?”

“Nearly five-thirty,” Vanya quickly answered, pulling the rag away and setting it in a bowl on the bedside table. “If you were out for much longer, we would’ve taken you to the hospital.” Her eyes scanned his face. “Maybe we still should…”

Five opened his mouth to reply, but Klaus beat him to it. “Nah, he just wants to get back to the Academy. Gotta finish the mission.”

Five frowned, then opened his mouth again, and again Klaus cut him off. “He wants to know the time because he still wants to make it back before roll call—hey! Don’t gimme that look! Ben’s the one reading your mind.”

Five continued to scowl at Klaus anyway before clearing his throat and looking at Vanya. “I’m fine, Vanya, really. Just a few bumps and bruises.”

Klaus hummed in mock thought. “I believe your definition of bumps might be off…”

“Even if it is,” Five grumbled, “this isn’t enough to warrant a hospital visit. Trust me, I’ve survived way worse.”

“That’s not as comforting as you think it is,” Vanya informed him, Allison sighing loudly next to her.

Five ignored their disapproval and looked around the room. “Where are Luther and Diego?”

“They’re, um…” Vanya hesitated and glanced at Allison.

“Cleaning up,” Klaus answered. “So, it seems when one of the Time Police dies, vawoop! Their body disappears, I’m guessing to whence they came. But not so much any guns or whatever that weren’t on them at the time so…” He drew out the word. “As we were making our exit from the building, we were picking up this stuff, y’know, trying to keep it looking like a semi-normal gas line explosion or something so Dad doesn’t pick up the scent of it and haul out you kiddies to come investigate, by which I mean forcing me to search for ghosts.”

Five studied Klaus’s face, wondering if the room was now full of masked ghosts, but Klaus was giving him a breezy smile. He glanced at Vanya and Allison and found their expressions darker.

“You know,” he said.

“About what happened this evening?” Vanya’s sad smile pressed into a straight line, and Allison nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out suddenly.

Vanya shook her head. “It needed to happen.” She cradled his bandaged hand in hers, and a smile slowly bloomed on her face. “It must have been a tough conversation to have, but you did it. You managed to break through to my younger self, and she didn’t hurt anyone!” Her smile faltered. “Well, anyone but you.”

Five swallowed hard and averted his gaze to the ceiling. “But then you all nearly died because of the Commission—”

“Hey! I’ll have you know we fought most of those guys off no problemo!” Klaus was being too nonchalant about the whole situation. “Ben woke me up when they were sneaking in, and Diego took out half of them without even leaving the bedroom.” He mimed chucking knives. “And then Luther took care of the other half—he had just come home from work, so he was already up.”

Allison was writing something on her notepad.

“It’s true. The main issue was actually… me.” Vanya fiddled with the edge of the blanket Five was laying on. “I lost control of my powers, so everyone had to… calm me down.”

Allison held up her paper for him to read, squeezing Vanya’s hand reassuringly. After they had reigned Vanya in—easily, according to Allison—they searched for a path out that wasn’t blocked by fire, and that was when Diego had been surprised by an agent he thought was knocked out. Five could guess from there.

He closed his eyes for a moment and attempted to slow his breathing, trying to calm his mind, still dizzy with a feeling of alarm, warning him he needed to act.

“You sure about the hospital? You’re freezing,” Vanya said softly, her hand closing around his fingers, trying to press warmth back into them.

“I’m sure,” he murmured, then opened his eyes to look at her again. “Are you okay?”

She looked paler than during his last visit. She nodded, her hand going to tug on the earlobe of her injured ear. “It’s good my hearing is impaired like this, or else I probably would have destroyed the whole building.” She gave a nervous, self-deprecating chuckle before sobering. “I was… I was scared that if it ever happened again, I’d do something horrible…” She bowed her head, seemingly unable to continue. Allison squeezed her hand again.

“But you didn’t,” Five stated, and she gave a tiny nod.

They sat in the quiet for a moment. Klaus rolled off the bed and hopped over to the coffeemaker. Allison got up and grabbed the rag and bowl of bloody water before heading to the sink. Five wondered if he should comment on Vanya’s worries about killing when he was still covered in blood.

“What do you think your younger self will do now?” Five asked her instead. To his surprise, Vanya hesitated. “If you’re still concerned about her going off her pills, I can try to convince her somehow…”

“Well, it’s just that…” She looked at a stain on the bedspread, her finger rubbing at it idly. “I saw how your powers gave you purpose, and Ben… He and Klaus hated their powers, but they belonged. They…” She looked up at him and winced. “You know all of this. You read the book.”

“Just about have it memorized,” he said in a joking tone even though it was the truth. She squeezed his hand, careful to avoid the gash on the side of his palm, and he squeezed back. “Tell me anyway.”

She sighed, smiling slightly. “I don’t think you can keep her from stopping the medicine even if you tried. She doesn’t realize how dangerous she is, but even if she did, I don’t think she’ll truly understand until…” She took a shaky breath. “I didn’t truly understand what was in me until I hurt Allison. My power, my anger… Five, I know this is what needed to happen, but please be careful. I barely regained control tonight… A younger version of me is probably even more unstable…”

He squeezed her hand again. “It’s okay, Vanya. My priority is keeping you all safe.”

“I know. But please keep yourself safe too. You really scared us tonight.”

He nodded absently, his mind caught on how best to protect everyone. He forced himself to sit up, and his body protested the movement with another knife to his stomach. Vanya’s hand on his back was the only reason he didn’t immediately collapse again.

“You okay?” she asked studying his face, and he nodded, holding his breath. “You should probably take a quick shower before going back,” she commented, looking at the blood in his hair.

His breath came out in an amused snort. “What?” he said in mock surprise. “You don’t think showing up like this to roll call will go over well?”

She laughed, a quiet but familiar sound, and he found himself smiling, despite everything.

He reached into his pocket and dug out the wristwatch he had taken off one of the temporal assassins. Running a thumb over the face, he could feel something, just below the surface, singing with energy.

“Whatcha got there?” Klaus asked. He and Allison resumed their seats on the bed, each with two cups of coffee to offer one to him and Vanya. The bitter smell was a welcome one, blocking out the smell of smoke still stuck in his clothes. He took the offered cup and took a swig, only then realizing how cold he was, shivering slightly as the warmth sank into his stomach.

“It’s what they’re using nowadays instead of briefcases,” he said, the words ringing true as soon as he said them. He glanced up and saw Klaus nodding while his sisters frowned in confusion. “It’s how the temporal assassins time traveled here, and also what must have made them disappear when their heart rate hit zero.” He flipped it over in his hand, examining its sensors, itching to crack it open and figure out how it worked. He resisted; he might need it in working order.

Allison exhaled audibly, and Five looked up to find her mouth forming a word before she frowned and gave Vanya and Klaus a meaningful look before nodding at the closet in the corner.

“Oh! We haven’t told you!” Klaus grinned. “Seemed only right to tie him up and keep him in the closet.”

Five raised an eyebrow, suspicion suddenly igniting. “Who?”

“Well, when we were going down the stairs, we…” Vanya hesitated before charging ahead. “We saw all the evidence of a fight and figured the bodies had vanished, but one of them was still there.”

Five set his coffee down on the nightstand. “And they’re in the closet right now.”

“Yup!” Klaus said, much too cheerfully. “Boy, it was hard getting two unconscious people past the firefighters and paramedics,” Klaus bemoaned, “but we sorta figured we’d need to have a chat with him about future attacks and all that. Guess we should check if he has a Casio watch too.”

“If he’s awake, I need to interrogate him.” Five stuck the wristwatch back into his pocket and swung his feet around, caught up in disbelief of his luck and a surge of anticipation that he managed to get to the edge of the bed before the stabbing had him doubled over.

“You don’t look ready to play bad cop with anyone,” Klaus mused. He, Allison, and Vanya had all stood as soon as Five moved and were now crowded around like catchers waiting for a pitch.

Five glowered. He had to be ready. He needed to keep moving if he was going to get back to the Academy in time.

“Are you sure…?”

He ignored Vanya’s hesitation and forced himself to his feet, back straight, leg screaming nearly as loud as his core. Allison clicked her tongue and scowled. He glared back, using his irritation at her disapproval to keep himself on his feet. It lasted for all of two seconds before Vanya and Allison each caught an arm before he could nosedive into the carpet.

“It’s okay, Five, just tell us what questions you want to ask, and we’ll take care of it later,” Vanya offered.

He tightened his grip on her and Allison’s hands and pushed forward, taking staggering steps. His sisters reluctantly shuffled along with him until they were standing in front of the closet door.

The only way this would work would be if he presented as strong. He let go of them and stuffed his hands in his pockets, lifting his chin in defiance.

“Open it,” he instructed.

Allison gave him a look that would have any normal child apologetic, and Vanya gave him that familiar, disappointed look.

“Don’t think you’re gonna win this one,” Klaus commented, unhelpful as ever.

“At least check if he has one of the time travel devices on him,” Five tried.

After a moment of glare matching glare, Allison sighed and turned to open the door.

They had taken the man’s mask off, revealing he was young, only in his twenties—hopefully, young and stupid—his face shiny with sweat and twisted in pain. His shoulder was dislocated—ah, the assassin from the stairs. He was bound tightly to a chair, but they hadn’t bothered to gag him, his mouth hanging open when his eyes landed on Five.

“You!” For a moment, there was a touch of reverence in his voice; it vanished with his next words. “You traitor!”

Oh, good. Five still had a reputation; that would make this easier. “I have a question for you.”

“I’m not telling you anything!” the man proclaimed, glaring. Both his sisters were also giving him disapproving looks for jumping into the interrogation.

Five smiled at the three of them. “All I want to know is what the protocols are for an attack on headquarters.”

“Planning another attack? The protocols changed after your last one!” he sneered, clearly not realizing he had outed himself as an idiot.

Five continued to smile, resisting the urge to snark that he knew the protocols had changed after his attack: that was why he was asking. Instead, he kept his tone perfectly pleasant. “Indeed. You know they didn’t even protect the briefcases last time?” He watched carefully, noting the twinge of confusion that crossed the man’s face—this guy was definitely not hired for his poker face. “Ah, that was before your time. They replaced the briefcases with these.” He pulled out the wristwatch.

“You shouldn’t have that!”

Five ignored his outrage, studying the device in his hand placidly. “Can you believe they didn’t protect their equivalent?”

“We do now!” the man declared, equal parts aghast and indignant. “That thing shouldn’t even be in your hands! It should’ve exploded the moment it sensed an outsider holding it!”

“Exploded?” Vanya asked quietly, her brow furrowed with doubt. Allison snorted, shaking her head at the obvious bluff. Five turned the wristwatch over in his hand, frowning as he studied it. There were obvious sensors along its clasp, but nothing to suggest explosives.

“Oooh, I wanna see,” Klaus cooed, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he slid past Allison to lean over where the man’s uninjured arm was bound to the armrest of the chair. The man’s wristwatch was peeking out from under the ripped-up bed sheet he was tied up with.

“Hey! I’m serious! I don’t want to explode!” he cried, leaning away as far as he could as Klaus undid the clasp.

And Five had that familiar nagging feeling again, like someone yelling in warning. His heart leapt.

A storm of blue light poured out of the tiny watch, a potent dose of temporal energy, at the same time Five thought inexplicably of one of the first successful equations he and Delores had come up with, as if she were there to whisper it in his ear. It outlined a way for him to absorb temporal energy, something he had tried for several months, hoping he could store it like a battery and use it for one significant jump. The technique had worked perfectly; the jump, as always, did not. Time slammed into him, a brick wall like his last hundred attempts, though this time it was with enough force to knock him out, and when he awoke he found he had finally succumbed to the cracked mind Dad had warned of and had suffered vivid hallucinations for several weeks before they faded.

But all Five needed now was the successful piece of his experiment. He threw his hands out in front of him and let the memory of the technique take over before the energy could latch onto someone and throw one of his siblings into a different era. The blue storm heard his call and happily chose him as its lighting rod.

“Whoa,” Klaus said for all of them a moment later, sitting up from where he had dropped to the floor. Five lowered his hands and took a deep, healthy breath, unable to help but smirk. The pain in his middle had eased some, as if someone had finally put a bandage on a bleeding wound, and the sudden surge of warmth throughout his body was giving him a head rush.

Allison helped Klaus up as Five stepped closer to the Commission agent, bolstered by the young man’s look of awe. “It would be in your best interests if you told us the protocols.”

The man quickly shut his gaping mouth and sat up straight. “I’m not afraid of you, traitor.”

Five sighed. As clear as his inexperience was, the man had likely undergone the same training for resisting torture that Five had—the Commission preferred to stay secret. But there were other, easier ways of getting information. “Didn’t they give you the primer on what my siblings can do before sending you on this mission? I have a sister who can literally have you sing like a canary if she wanted.”

“So, you’re going to have her torture me?” he asked, eyeing Vanya.

Five stared. “Seriously, what are the hiring standards nowadays? I could torture you on my own if I needed to, but I clearly have two sisters! Do you really not see two different women in this room?”

Unfortunately, insulting the dolt was not helping him open up, his face going red. “I won’t betray the Commission! Our mission is too great!”

Five raised an eyebrow.

“What is your mission?” Vanya asked, eyes searching the man’s face. They all already knew the answer, but the zealous tone he had said it with was unexpected.

“We protect the timeline!” He glanced at Five again. “Frankly, I’m surprised which side you’ve taken, after all you achieved.”

“You mean all the people I killed?” Five muttered.

“All the people you saved! The London job in ’66: one bullet prevented an entire war!”

“So that’s the propaganda they’re spewing to new hires, huh?” Five scoffed. “If the Commission was about saving lives, you’d be helping me stop the end of the world.”

“We’re protecting Time itself!” said the true believer.

Five groaned. There was only so much bullshit he could take at a time. “All right,” he said, leaning over to pick up what was left of the man’s wristwatch off the ground. “We’ll give you some time to think over your situation. Allison can rumor you later if you still don’t want to talk.”

He slammed the door closed, turned on his heel and went to sit on the bed again, downing the rest of his coffee in a couple of gulps.

“Okay,” Klaus drew out the word slowly as he plopped down on the other bed opposite Five. “Questions.”

“It wasn’t an explosion so much as the watch opened up and released all of its stored temporal energy,” Five answered, studying the broken watch. He dug the other wristwatch out of his pocket and turned it over in his hand to compare to the broken one. “I guess this one didn’t release because I’m still in their sensor database as a part of the Commission,” he hypothesized, though he wasn’t sure why they would include such a flaw in something made after he had attacked their headquarters.

“And all that temporal energy, you just… dissipated it?” Vanya asked as she sat down next to him.

“Absorbed it.” He shrugged. “I’m actually feeling better now.”

“Mmhmm. Yeah, because you’re a time vampire now.” Klaus flopped over onto his back, speaking to the ceiling. “The whole non-explosion was my second question actually.”

“Second?” Vanya repeated, a shocked laugh joining the word. “What was your first?”

“About this war business, which ghost was gonna start a war? Was it the old bat? I bet it was the old bat—yes, you! I bet you were going to insult someone into starting a war!” Klaus stuck his tongue out at the air at the foot of the bed Five was sitting on. Then, he turned and began to swat at the air next to him. “Shhh! You never know!”

“Is Ben telling you that I’m not going to answer?” Five asked in a flat voice, crossing his arms.

Klaus grumbled something under his breath and threw a pillow at Ben before sitting up. “So… I take it we’re now planning an attack on HQ?”

Five nodded, suppressing a sigh. “They’ll keep attacking until we strike back. I dealt them a crippling blow before, but they have the advantage of having time to recover… It has to be a deathblow.”

“And knowing their protocols will help us do that…” Vanya concluded softly.

Presuming Five’s suspicions were correct. He nodded again.

“Sounds good,” Klaus said like they were planning a picnic. “But what now?”

Five checked the clock. “Now, I get the blood out of my hair and if Diego and Luther aren’t back, I start walking home.”

“I think he means your bluff,” Vanya translated.

Five raised an eyebrow, not following. Then Allison sighed loudly, and he looked up to where she was still standing and found her arms crossed, lips pressed together in a thin line.

“Oh. You haven’t figured out how to use your powers without a voice yet.” Now that Five thought about it, Allison had shown zero interest in trying to figure out how to access her powers.

Allison scribbled something down and showed him. No powers anymore.

Vanya shrunk in her seat. Five raised an eyebrow. “Of course, you still have powers. Your throat was injured, not your head.” They scowled at each other for a moment before Five realized she really didn’t know. Then again, he hadn’t spared much thought to where his powers sprung from before injuring that piece of himself, in the same way one normally didn’t think about their appendix until it was about to burst. He sighed. “Your training with Dad always gives you a headache, right? It’s not like you lose your voice when you overuse your powers.”

“You’re serious?” Vanya lifted her head, looking at him with wide, desperate eyes. “She still has them?”

“As far as I can tell.” He saw the relief in her face and looked up at Allison, expecting to see the same. But her eyes were wide, mouth open slightly. If Five didn’t know better, he’d think she was scared. Then he considered what Dad had used her powers for and what he himself had said an eternity ago, earlier that evening. He grimaced. “I suppose it’s hypocritical of me to ask you to rumor someone after everything I said today. I owe you an apology…”

She shook her head, a sadness washing over her features like spilled paint. She lifted her pen and pad, but her hand sat still against the page.

“Do you hear that? I think the others are back. How about we go check, Klaus? Ben?” Vanya suddenly jumped up, gesturing to the door.

“Oh, oh, yeah. I definitely hear that,” Klaus mumbled as he followed her outside, yawning loudly.

Five stuffed both watches into his pocket and turned to look at Allison as she sat down next to him. She pressed the tip of her pen to paper again, and again, she hesitated to write. After a moment, she sighed heavily and set the notebook down next to her. Then, she turned to him and lifted her arms.

He stared at the foreign gesture. Was she asking for… a hug? He slowly mirrored the gesture, feeling only a little ridiculous.

She snorted at his awkwardness but closed the gap between them before he could object, holding him in a firm embrace.

“Don’t apologize,” she whispered into his ear. He sat up a little straighter in surprise. Even with damaged vocal cords, he already knew she could still whisper, but she avoided it because it was painful to do. “I needed to hear what you said.”

“Really?” he muttered back. “A lot of what came out was in anger.” He winced, recalling everything he said and implied. “Comparing you to Dad was an awful thing to say.”

“I needed to hear it,” she repeated, and if she was enduring the pain to say it twice, then she must have truly meant it. “Before…”

“Before what?”

“Claire,” she whispered so softly he barely heard it.

And he thought of the pictures of the young girl he had seen in the tabloids, her eyes sparkling with intelligence like her mother, a grin for every camera. Then he thought about everything he had read about Allison’s separation, everything he had scoffed at and shrugged off as baseless rumors. A chill went up his back.

“Oh,” he whispered.

A tremble went through her, and then a moment later, he thought he heard a sniffle.

Finally, he wrapped his arms around her in return, wishing for some way to fix things for her but coming up empty. There was nothing he could do, for this Allison anyway.

They sat for a moment. Five could feel warm tears spilling onto the torn collar of his shirt.

“I promise,” he said as she sniffled again, “I’ll make sure she doesn’t make the same mistake.”

Allison squeezed him a little tighter. “I’m glad you’re back.”

Five blinked in surprise. He wasn’t as close with Dad’s top three as a kid, but that wasn’t to say he hadn’t missed all of them desperately. He had searched newspapers and magazines hungrily for their faces, and most often he found Allison’s smiling face, a ray of comfort shining through his dark isolation.

He felt that same ray now. “People keep saying things like that, but all I’ve done is get angry at how awful everything is.”

Allison made a scratchy noise in the back of her throat and it took a moment for Five to realize it was a laugh.

Familiar voices were coming through the closed door as Vanya and Klaus greeted Luther and Diego.

She finally leaned back from the embrace, wiping away the tears clinging to her lashes, and reached for her notepad. Someone needed to get angry, point out what needs to change.

All this time, he’d been wondering if he had the right temperament to deal with his younger family. He still wasn’t sure after the cost his temper had incurred that night, but he appreciated her optimism. He stood and slipped his hands in his pockets. The back of his hand brushed against the unbroken wristwatch, and he wondered at its warmth. “Well, if all that’s needed is a little anger, I’ll have everything fixed in no time.”

She smiled and stood, and together they went to greet the others at the door.

Chapter Text

Five stood in line for roll call, wishing for coffee, hoping he had cleaned up well enough, his hair still slightly damp from a quick shower. There was nothing he could do to conceal the shadow of a bruise along his collar, the dozen freckles of red burns on his legs, hands, and face, or the bandage wrapped around the cut on his palm. The wound on his leg was burning like crazy, but at least it was covered under one of his knee-high socks.

Dad was walking down the line, listing what he expected of them that day. Once he passed by Five without comment, Five spared a glance to his left, past Ben, to where Vanya was still at attention, looking straight ahead. Was she paler than usual? The dark circles under her eyes seemed more pronounced. Five wouldn’t be surprised if she had had as sleepless a night as he had.

Her eyes suddenly caught his, and she gave him a fierce glare before turning her attention forward again. So much for cooling off overnight. Ben shot him a questioning look at the exchange to which Five could only reply with a silent grimace before Dad turned around to face all seven of them. The old man had yet to announce who had the privilege of joining him for special training that evening. As he looked down the line, Five tried his best to look neutral, knowing full well that being picked would not end well. The dose of temporal energy had been like a bandage on a wound, but the wound was still there, smarting whenever he shifted the wrong way. A single spatial jump would likely result in too much pain for him to hide.

“Number Five.”

Everyone aside from Vanya looked at him. So much for hoping Dad was blind.

The old man lifted his chin slightly, regarding Five in that way that made Five feel like the monocle was actually a microscope. “Is there something you would like to share?”

While Diego drove him home, they had discussed what lie he could tell. The most believable was one Diego had come up with: he had snuck out in order to practice his powers and got caught up—Diego had described it in some fairy tale bullshit way before Five cut him off and called it what it was—playing vigilante. But admitting to anything, believable or not, was unlikely to do him any favors.

“No,” he answered evenly.

“Very well. All of you prepare for a morning run. Be in the courtyard in ten minutes.”

Well, shit. Five’s leg throbbed at the very thought. Maybe he should ask for a reprieve from training and deal with whatever punishment was in store for him.

But before Five could admit anything, Dad left the room. Fine. It was just a run around the courtyard. Five had been through worse.

As the grown adults left and the line broke, Five turned his attention to his sister before she could flee.

“Vanya!”

She acted as if she hadn’t heard and left without looking back. Allison rushed after her.

“What was that about?” Ben asked. Diego raised an eyebrow at Five as he lingered nearby next to Klaus, who was watching with interest.

“Is everything all right?” Luther came over, his expression stern.

“We had a fight,” Five said. Diego snorted. Klaus oohed as if this was scandalous news. Five ignored them and looked at Ben. “Could you look after her?”

“It’s that bad?” Ben took a step closer, his face full of concern as his eyes danced over the side of Five’s cheek where, small as it was, one of his burns was an angry red.

Five sighed. “It’s not my story to tell.” Diego snorted again. Five crossed his arms. “My part of the story, we don’t have time for. Maybe after lessons,” he said tersely before softening his tone again. “But in the meantime, she’ll need support.”

Ben nodded slowly. “Of course…”

And with his agreement, they hurried off to change into their training clothes.

--

Everything hurt. Five somehow hadn’t realized exactly how much of his body was injured until he was a quarter the way through his first lap around the courtyard, and soreness permeated every limb, his back, his head. His leg was on fire with pain, and a dozen daggers were in his diaphragm, digging deeper and deeper with each breath. He quickly fell to the back of the group, Ben shooting him a concerned look, and then he was running by himself, his body refusing to go any faster.

“Unacceptable, Number Five!” Dad was yelling. They were supposed to do three laps, but he stopped everyone after the first, waiting for Five to finish the lap nearly two minutes after everyone else. Five stumbled to a stop in front of them, many of their faces filled with worry and confusion at his sudden deterioration, but Five could barely see them through the narrowing of his vision. He thought he caught Vanya looking at him with wide eyes, but her expression hardened again when she noticed him looking.

“Is there a reason you were dragging your left leg?” Dad demanded.

Five wasn’t sure he could answer, words flitting out of his grasp into the dark edges eating away at his mind. This was stupid. He’d suffered far worse wounds before. He wasn’t about to pass out over a few bruises and a couple flesh wounds.

“Number Five!” Dad called over the ringing in his ears. “Your answer?”

Five swallowed hard.

“All of you, inside for your lessons!” he barked at the others before rounding on Five again. “Show me your leg.”

Five shook his head. “I pulled something,” he heard himself say weakly.

The monocle glinted coldly at him. “Your leg, Number Five. Or perform one spatial jump.”

He knew. Somehow, he knew that all the progress Five had made with his powers since coming back had vanished overnight. Then, Five looked down at himself and realized he was making it obvious, his hand digging into his stomach, knuckles white.

He tried to weigh his options, but the darkness feasted on his logic as soon as it came. The world was tilting.

Dad already knew there was something wrong with his powers, he finally realized, and the old man would probably be able to identify his leg injury as a bullet wound. The best option was the jump.

Delores—no, Delores wasn’t there—Something in the back of his mind warned him that jumping is a terrible idea, Five. I can tell you’re considering it, but I know you haven’t forgotten the very basics of relativity! Using temporal energy to move through space won’t work. Please, you’ll hurt yourself—

Five tuned out her concern as he looked around the courtyard, everything blurring. Then, his eyes focused in on his siblings, peering through the window at him, and he fell back on that familiar lifetime longing. But unlike most of his experiences the past few decades, the jump worked, Space welcomed him with an open embrace and delivered him to his family.

The humid summer air vanished from around him at the same time something tore, and the taste of blood entered his mouth.

“Five!” Ben reached him first, and then Klaus and Vanya, and the rest of his siblings surrounded him. And for the second time that morning he felt their warmth around him, just as the pain forced him down beneath an ocean of darkness.

--

The next thing Five knew, he was drowning, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

“Easy, Five dear. Sit up. It’s just another bloody nose.” Mom’s steady hands pulled him up into a sitting position as he blinked rapidly, trying to reconcile why he was in the infirmary, the memories coming back in fragments.

Mom handed him a cloth to press against his nose to staunch the warmth seeping down over his lips as he coughed, throat aching. “Diego, fetch some water for us please.”

Five nearly jumped as Diego moved, realizing belatedly that his brother had been sitting next to examination table he was on. Diego hopped up from his seat and took the bowl and cup from Mom.

Then, Mom moved to rub his back as Five caught his breath, and the full situation came back to him in a rush, Five recalling Dad’s piercing gaze on his leg. He quickly pulled off the blanket draped over his legs and found his pant leg rolled up, a fresh bandage wrapped around the wound. The voice that sounded like Delores had been right; he’d chosen wrong.

“You should have said something about your injury,” Mom scolded gently. “You needed stitches. I’m sure running on it must have been painful.”

Five stared at the white bandage and then up at his mother’s serious expression. He waited for the obvious question. Diego appeared at her side with both the bowl and cup full of water.

She took the cloth from Five’s hand and examined if the nosebleed had stopped before grabbing a fresh rag to dip into the bowl of water and gently wipe at Five’s face. Five thought of Vanya a few hours before, doing the same thing, wearing a similar face of concern.

“There. That’s better,” she cooed softly and set the bowl and rag aside before handing Five the cup of water. “Sip slowly.”

Five followed her instructions, the water cooling his sore throat, washing away the taste of blood. She leaned close and began unsticking something—electrodes—off his head and chest. Dad must have been examining him earlier.

“Would you like to tell me about the fire?” she asked so suddenly Five nearly choked. Diego was watching closely, hovering at Mom’s elbow. Five swallowed hard and looked at her warily. Her tone was stern, but not accusing. “Minor burns, airways dried raw… I’m guessing you were in the fire last night on Oak Street?”

As expected, there was no way to sidestep this. He braced himself and nodded.

“Oh, Five.” She sounded more concerned than anything, and he took another sip of water to avoid her gaze. She sighed softly. “What were you doing?”

He shrugged, his back aching with the movement. “Trying to get people out.”

“And you used your powers to do so?”

She wasn’t going to ask why he was out in the first place? He nodded again.

“I see. That was very brave,” she said kindly. Five found himself looking away again, but in the corner of his eye he could see her head tilt in thought. “Then what happened with your leg? Or your hand? The bruises on your neck are very alarming. Did someone try to choke you?”

“What?” Diego cried in alarm, and Five took a hasty sip of water to hide his grimace.

Was there even a point to lying? Dad would have Alison rumor the truth out of him soon enough. Likely the only reason why Five wasn’t already unwillingly spilling his guts was because Allison’s rumors always lacked their usual potency for a few days following her intense training, and Dad must have realized Five would fight tooth and nail against answering.

Five drained the cup as he decided how much to admit. “I ran into the people who set the fire and tried to stop them.”

Mom considered this for a long moment, eyes scanning his face, and then took his empty glass from him, setting it aside. “Are you feeling hungry? You just missed dinner. I can heat up a plate for you.”

He had lost nearly a whole day. Had anything changed with Vanya? He glanced at Diego, meeting his intense stare for a moment, and knew the answer. Usually, when he woke up in the infirmary, it was Ben and Vanya at his bedside. Hopefully, Ben was with her like he’d asked.

“Food does sound good,” he admitted. He turned, letting his feet slide off the examination table.

“Oh! Careful!” she chided, and before Five could realize what was happening, she scooped him up into her arms. Diego burst out laughing which was completely uncalled for since Five did not squawk in surprise. Undeterred by the laughter or glaring, their mother carried him into the adjoining room. The second room of the infirmary was a plain room, filled only with beds, usually only used when one or more of them was ill and needed to be quarantined from the group. Five had stayed in the room only once before, when he had had the chicken pox.

“You’ll be staying here for the time being,” she told Five as she settled him on the bed closest to the door.

“But I’m not sick!” he objected. Injuries were initially treated in the infirmary, but then they were allowed back in their own beds while they recovered.

She stole a couple of pillows from the empty beds so he could prop himself up against them. “Your father is concerned you may have an illness affecting your powers.”

The lie sounded reasonable enough, but it was more likely that he wanted to keep closer tabs on Five’s movements.

“Would you like anything from your bedroom?” she asked, once he was settled.

Five glowered, but eventually asked her to bring him the book he’d been reading. She left to go get it and his dinner, instructing Diego to call for her if Five’s condition changed.

“You good?” Diego asked, sitting down on the end of the bed. “Everyone was worried.”

“Everyone?”

“Yeah, everyone. Vanya’s mad at you, but you were suddenly passed out, bleeding on top of Ben… She’s not heartless.”

“I know,” Five grumbled.

“So? What didn’t you tell Mom? Who beat you up?”

Five scoffed. “Nobody.”

Diego crossed his arms. “And this is why Vanya didn’t want to see you. She said you’d only lie.”

Five sank back into his pillows, crossing his arms against the sting of her comment. “I meant nobody beat me up.” He sighed, glancing around the room. He had no clue where the camera was. He’d have to trust in Pogo that the audio was still out. “There’s an organization that monitors the timeline. They don’t like when people change it, and telling Vanya about her powers was a big change.”

“So, they beat you up.”

“Yes, Diego,” he said sardonically. “They beat me up.” It’s not like he could explain any further than that. Diego frowned in thought for a moment, and Five nearly smiled. Some expressions stayed the same no matter the person’s age.

“So, you sneaked out because you knew these people would want to beat you up?” Diego surmised. “And you were trying to keep them away from us.”

That was strangely accurate, if wanting to warn his adult siblings counted. Five shrugged.

Diego’s eyes narrowed. “Are they going to attack again?”

“I’d be surprised if they didn’t.”

“Then, take me with you next time.”

Five raised an eyebrow. “So that they can beat you up too?”

Diego doubled down. “I’ll help you protect everyone.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? I’m just as skilled at fighting as you are!” He puffed himself up, trying to look intimidating, but all Five saw was how thin he was. “I may be an even better fighter!”

Five opened his mouth to correct Diego and quickly closed it again. He sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

Diego glowered at the fib but didn’t argue further. He pulled his feet up onto the bed so he could sit cross-legged and lean back against the metal bed frame.

“So…” he said after a moment. “You time traveled.”

Five sighed again. There it was. He closed his eyes for a moment, beginning to feel the heaviness of sleep slip into his bones. “Ask.”

“What was I like?”

He groaned. “Didn’t I say yesterday that the less you knew, the better?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But no.” Five reinforced the word with a scowl. It probably would have been more effective if he wasn’t sinking into a pile of pillows, but he couldn’t muster the energy to sit up. “I’m not telling you anything like that. I don’t want you wondering about every decision in your life, hoping you’re going down the right path to meet a certain someone, or to avoid some hardship. Knowing the future will only impede your present’s free will.”

“That’s a bit dramatic,” Diego muttered.

“It’s not. You should be able to make decisions based on your past experiences and your present feelings alone,” Five said, a little sharper than he meant to. “Say I tell you that you meet someone and fall in love, but that person eventually breaks your heart. Knowing that, would you still fall in love? If you did, would you still pursue a relationship? And if you did, every fight or sign of trouble, could you still view it through the lens of the present, or would you wonder if you had finally reached the end of your time together?”

Diego was quiet for a minute.

“Okay,” he said eventually. “But you’re changing things.”

Five’s eyelids were getting heavy. “I am, and maybe I’m a hypocrite for doing so. Obviously, there are plenty who don’t like it.” He gestured to his various injuries.

Then, he paused. He’d like to think he was acting the same as if he’d been plucked from the timeline for only those six months and been made to read Vanya’s book, to see the truth of their family. He hadn’t seen his own future, so he hadn’t limited his own choices, right?

Okay, that was a stretch. But he’d already decided that he wouldn’t ignore the suffering he saw in front of him, and their future was irreparably a part of his past. Perhaps he didn’t have free will anymore, all his choices stripped away by the apocalypse. Yet even if that was the case, as long as he completed his mission, as long as they lived, did it matter?

He looked at Diego, who was still regarding him with a frown.

“When it comes down to it,” Five said, “I can handle knowing about the future.”

“And I can’t?”

Five grinned. “I’m more mature than you.”

“Hey!” Diego smacked Five’s uninjured foot, so Five kicked him back.

Diego sat back, fuming for a moment. Then, he glanced over his shoulder, checking that they were still alone before leaning forward, his voice hushed. “Can I at least know one thing?”

Five gave an exasperated sigh. “What.”

“Did I…” Diego hesitated. Then, he sat up straight, crossed his arms, and took a deep breath. “Did w-we get out?”

Five blinked. He hadn’t expected the stutter. Diego winced, his face beginning to color.

“Yes,” Five relented. Damn it, he was too soft. “Everyone got out… Well, except Luther.”

A few different emotions flitted across Diego’s face, hope and relief the most obvious, but then he cleared his throat and nodded. “No surprise there. Luther would probably stay until the day Dad finally dies.”

Five hummed in agreement, closing his eyes again, in part to hide his amusement, in part because it was a struggle to keep them open.

“Dad was probably fine with us all leaving as long as he had his precious Number One.” Diego’s voice took on that edge of bitterness Five had heard one too many times.

“Really? You’re still groaning about all that?” Which of course he was, Five realized as he opened his eyes again. He forgot for a second he was talking to thirteen-year-old Diego, not the Diego who had seen Luther lose his faith in Dad and his whole world along with it.

“About what?”

Five rolled his eyes. “The numbers!” Diego’s brow furrowed but before he could object, Five pressed on. “The numbers don’t matter, Diego! They never did!”

“That’s rich coming from a guy named Five!”

“Exactly!” Five declared, and the hunched, defensive posture Diego was sinking into froze in bemusement. “Why do you think when you all asked Mom for names, I didn’t bother getting one?”

“I don’t remember…” Diego grumbled.

“Because I already had a name: Five. Dad named me Five. And maybe it’s a pathetic excuse for a name, but it’s a name, not a rank. I’m not fifth place in anything—definitely not in this family—and I know it.” Five waited a moment, seeing if Diego had a response, but his brother kept opening and closing his mouth like a koi fish. “Look, do you really think I’m below you? Do you really think Allison, Klaus, Ben, Vanya, and I are all below you?”

“N-no…”

“Then why the hell do you think Luther is above you?” Five groused, fully aware he was being too curt with a subject Diego was deeply affected by, fully aware the answer to his question was Dad. But of all things to come back from the future and find had not changed in his adult siblings, he had been irritated to find Luther and Diego’s idiotic rivalry had survived the years he had missed. “The numbers don’t matter. I mean, they’ll always matter to Dad but that’s because he’s an asshole with shit parenting skills.”

“Five, you know we don’t use that language in this house,” Mom chided as she bustled into the room with a tray full of food, Five’s book, and a fresh set of pajamas.

“Even if it’s true?” he muttered, sitting up in anticipation of filling his empty stomach.

“Five.” Her tone left no argument. Neither did Diego’s defensive glare.

“Sorry,” Five said, properly abashed.

She deemed his apology acceptable, and gracefully maneuvered the tray laden with food onto his lap. “I made your favorite!”

The scent of cream stew wafted through the air, making Five’s mouth water so suddenly it stung, his heart aching with nostalgia. Ever since his return home, he’d found each bite of Mom’s cooking packed with memories. Though the memories associated with his favorite sandwich were quickly outranking this dish, nobody could get the balance of spices just like Mom did.

“Thank you,” he said earnestly, and dug in while Mom shooed Diego out, promising he could visit later if Five was up for it.

But once Five’s stomach was full, it wasn’t long before his eyes were closed, and he slipped sideways into a warm dream.

--

The next morning, Diego was at his bedside before breakfast, this time accompanied by Ben. Five got straight to the point before Mom showed up and told Ben about the time traveling.

Ben didn’t gasp or gape; he simply smiled like he finally understood the answer to a challenging riddle. “You were in the future longer than six months, weren’t you? That’s why you’ve been acting differently.”

Five shrugged and looked at Diego. “I wasn’t joking when I said I was more mature than you.”

“No way! You’re older than us?” Diego squinted as he studied Five’s face. “You don’t look it. How long are we talking here? A few weeks? A few months? At most it’s gotta be—ow!”

Diego got a simultaneous nudge and kick as Mom walked in with Five’s breakfast.

“You two better hurry downstairs to eat your own breakfast. Training will start soon!” she warned, and Five’s brothers begrudgingly got to their feet.

“Um, when we visit later, is it alright if I bring Klaus?” Ben asked, his meaning clear.

Five hesitated for a second, unsure about Klaus’s ability to keep quiet, but then he thought about how much Klaus didn’t share about his own troubles. Five nodded. “Sure. And Ben, Vanya—"

“Will visit soon.” Ben smiled reassuringly and followed Diego out, leaving Five wondering if Vanya had shared her own secret with Ben or not.

--

That afternoon, Dad came in barking orders and glaring as if he already knew all that Five had done. But he was there to run tests, hooking up Five to one machine after another, reading squiggly lines with a frown that grew more and more severe as the day dragged on.

He didn’t ask. Five felt like he was sitting on the edge of a cliff, waiting to be pushed off, yet Dad treated him like a test subject without a voice, never speaking to him, only to Mom, instructing her what numbers to record for him to analyze later.

Then, finally, he looked Five in the eye, monocle flashing dangerously. “You are prohibited from using your powers until I deem it acceptable.”

Then, before Five could so much as open his mouth to argue, he swept out of the infirmary, leaving a startling silence in his wake.

“Sure thing, whatever you say,” Five muttered bitterly as Mom helped unhook him from a tangle of wires.

“Rest would do you some good,” she said in that perfect balance of stern yet sweet that made Five wonder how the hell she had been made by Dad.

She had just settled him in his bed again when Ben, Diego, and Klaus showed up. They asked innocent questions about how his afternoon had gone and filled him in on what they had studied with Pogo, until Mom left to prepare dinner.

Then, Klaus was told and had as mild a reaction as Ben.

“Cool,” Klaus said, nodding.

Five waited a moment. “Cool? That’s it?”

Klaus shrugged. “Hmmm, yeah. I mean, it’s a bit cooler than our usual stuff, but we all knew you’d time travel one of these days.”

“You did?” Five wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or irritated by his reaction.

“Klaus does have a point,” Ben agreed. “You’ve always been the most willing to experiment with your powers outside of training. It was only a matter of time.”

Five snorted. “Wow. You have no idea how difficult it was to do what I did.”

“No, I mean… We don’t want to diminish what you accomplished, but…” Ben smiled kindly. “We always knew you’d get there.”

Five wondered if he should admit exactly how long it had taken to get there to dispel the shining look of faith in his brothers’ eyes.

Ben must have sensed his discomfort and encouraged Klaus to ask questions if he wanted to. Klaus shrugged. “Nah, I’m good.”

“What? Really?” Diego was in such disbelief, he almost looked offended. “This is your chance to ask about the future!”

“Though I won’t answer,” Five muttered.

“Only thing about the future I want to know is what Mom’s making for dinner.” Klaus gave a lazy grin.

Five pounced on the opportunity to change subjects, looking at Ben. “Have you had a chance to speak with Vanya?”

“Yes, she told me what’s going on…” Ben glanced at Klaus.

“Oooh, another secret?” Klaus waggled his eyebrows.

“She’s still wrapping her mind around it. I’m sure she’ll tell you soon,” Ben told Klaus before offering Five a consoling smile. “I don’t think she’s really angry at you so much as the entire situation.”

Five nodded, trying to look unbothered, but the fact was he had never gotten in a fight with Vanya that had lasted more than a few hours, after which cooler heads would prevail and he’d wind up realizing he was in the wrong. But there was no apologizing this situation away, and he was left with no idea on how to fix it.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t try. “Could you tell her I’m sorry? And I’ll tell her all I know about her… situation whenever she’s ready.”

Ben nodded, and from there the conversation finally landed on their excuse for being there, in the form of a pile of lesson work. A short while later, Mom interrupted with an announcement of dinner, but not before Five’s bed was covered in papers and books.

After dinner was much of the same, albeit with only Diego and Klaus. Diego began wondering aloud about his future whenever Mom left the room long enough, shooting Five sidelong glances as if Five would let it show on his face whenever Diego got close to the truth. Five probably should have stopped him—Diego surely had a bruise on his arm from the number of punches Five gave him when he didn’t see Mom coming—but each time Diego would get a brightness in his eyes as he spoke about all his possibilities.

It wasn’t long before drowsiness blurred the words on the page Five was reading. Then, he made the mistake of blinking a moment too long, and Mom shooed his brothers out of the room.

A few minutes later, Five lay in the silence, drifting, mulling over exactly when he had started associating Diego with the word dreamer.

--

The sniper scope was trained on her back. She was walking down the sidewalk, running an errand for her father, humming happily, oblivious to the danger. His hands were shaking. He tried to slow his breathing. He couldn’t miss. He had to make this quick and painless for her. It was all he could offer. He closed his eyes and tried to picture his siblings’ faces, tried to remember why he was doing this, even though he knew they would hate him for it. The image of them playing heroes and villains would irrevocably shatter with a single bullet. But Five had given up that idea years ago. They could call him a villain so long as he managed to save them.

Hands steady, he opened his eyes, found his target, and fired, his own heart bursting open as he forced himself to watch the aftermath.

But then it wasn’t Daisy he saw through his scope. Instead, it was Diego, hope shining in his eyes as he asked again to hear about the future.

Terror seized him. His mouth opened to scream out a warning. Something gripped his shoulder hard. A presence loomed over him.

His eyes flew open, and he punched as hard as he could. Someone was yelling.

He was yelling, and next to him, Delores was shouting—your mother! It’s your mother!

And then, in the dim light coming through the open door to the infirmary, he saw her blonde hair.

“M-Mom?!” he choked out. He had struck her. His hands were still balled into fists. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I—”

“It’s okay, Five,” she spoke with a soft soothing tone, as if he had been the one hit. “You were having a bad dream.”

“I…” A dream. He hadn’t hurt Diego, but… “Are… Are you okay?”

She cradled his wrist in her hand, taking his pulse. “Of course, I am, dear. Your father designed me to withstand any accidents you and your siblings might cause.”

“Right…” he whispered to himself, though he still couldn’t catch his breath.

Her eyes scanned his face. “I can’t be hurt, Five,” she reminded gently. She looked down at his hand in hers, and he followed her gaze to find his hand was still in a tight fist. He forced it to relax.

She leaned forward and brushed his bangs out of his face. “It must have been a frightening dream. Would you like to talk about it?”

He swallowed hard and shook his head. She didn’t press, but there was concern in her smile.

“You’re safe here.”

“Not worried about me,” he murmured under his breath as he leaned back.

“Then who are you worried for?” she asked, adjusting his blankets, tucking him in again.

Curse robot moms and their superior hearing. She stared at him, patiently, and he knew from experience it wasn’t worth trying to avoid the question. But there was no way to explain even if he wanted to. He took a moment to slow his shallow breathing, closing his eyes. Diego’s hope-filled eyes were still burned into Five’s mind, so he directed the emotions thrumming hot in his veins at a familiar target.

“Would you say Diego’s safe here?” he asked, opening his eyes to gauge her reaction.

Her head cocked to the side, and Five saw a flash of confusion before her face broke into an amused grin. “Of course, I would, silly!”

“Even with all he goes through? Even with all the… crap he goes through? All the abuse?” The word was becoming easier to say, to admit, and Five wondered if this was a taste of what Vanya felt, writing her book, with each terrible secret pouring out of her.

Mom’s smile was gone. Her hand was still around his wrist, and he thought he felt her fingers tense against his skin for a moment. She may have been made by Dad, but Pogo was right: there was more to her than that. There was more to all of them.

“He wants out,” he told her. “No matter how much he loves you or how much you love him—how much any of us love him—he wants out. He wants to get as far away from Dad’s abuse as he can, and I can’t blame him.” He watched her carefully, wondering if she understood what he was trying to say. Her face was in shadow, the lights in the room still off, but he quickly saw she more than understood. “You already knew. Did he tell you?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t have to.”

They shared a grimace. “I’ve been wondering: why does Dad insist on us calling him Dad when we’re only numbers to him?”

Her head tilted slightly as she considered this. “Do you not view us as a family?”

“I do,” he insisted earnestly, suppressing a wince as his mind went to Vanya’s book again and the one line that had hurt the most to read. “You’re my mom just as they’re my siblings. But he’s… a taskmaster, a professor, a scientist… Pogo is more of a father than he is.”

She sat still, unnaturally so, forgoing her imitation of breathing for a long handful of seconds. “I’m sorry, Five,” she said finally. “I don’t have any answers for you.”

He returned her sad smile. “No, I know it must be strange for me to be suddenly saying these things.” He sighed. “I just need them to be safe,” he confessed.

“I understand. Keeping you all safe and cared for is my primary function, after all,” she kidded to his surprise—she rarely spoke of her true nature in such a direct manner.

Five found himself believing her, even if she was incapable of making any move against their father.

“That includes you,” she reminded. One hand was still taking his pulse, and the other moved to gently brush through his hair. Five’s instincts kept him rigid for a moment; Mom made him feel like a little kid as much as Dad could. But she did so in an entirely different way, like the difference between feeling small and feeling young.

She began to hum a tune he hadn’t heard since his childhood, and again the nostalgia, the longing for that time of innocence, was so strong it felt like something was pressing on his chest. He sank back into his pillow and closed his eyes, allowing himself to sit in the memory of before, and soon the recollection of simple times eased the sickly feeling of adrenaline from his limbs.

--

“Five! Wake up! Five!”

Five groaned. Wake up? Had he been asleep? He rolled over onto his side and forced his eyes open so he could glare at the persistent voice.

Ben’s ghostly image greeted him from across the room.

Five lifted his head in surprise before remembering himself and checking the door. The light to the infirmary was off.

“I had to wait until Mom went to recharge,” Ben answered his unspoken question. He glanced up towards the ceiling directly above him. “I found the surveillance room, and the audio is out like Pogo said. But you should probably pretend to go to the bathroom so that we can talk properly.”

Five blinked slowly, then forced himself up, onto his feet, slipping on his slippers before moving towards infirmary’s bathroom. It was tempting to watch Ben as they walked, for his brother was walking within the wall, only his elbow and leg occasionally brushing pale blue through the wooden paneling. Clearly, it was a ploy to avoid the camera, but Five wondered if it was as uncomfortable to walk transected as it looked.

As soon as he closed the bathroom door behind him, he rounded on Ben, his brother taking a seat on the lip of the tub—which he didn’t phase through. Fascinating. Clearly, Ben had a choice of what he could touch and wasn’t dependent on Klaus to decide.

Five pushed the thought to the back of his mind. “Is everyone okay?”

“You mean, aside from you?” Ben raised an eyebrow. “I’d ask if you want to use your powers to meet with Klaus and Diego down in the alley, but you can’t make the jump, can you?”

Five pursed his lips.

Ben gave him a knowing hint of a smile. “Everyone is fine,” he reassured gently. “We’re here because the Commission agent is finally talking.”

“He answered my question?”

“Yeah…” Ben trailed off, and Five could feel Ben’s eyes on him as he began to pace, weighing exactly how bad it would be if he did make the jump into the alley below.

His leg was beginning to burn, quickly tipping the scales back in favor of reality. He sat down next to Ben. “Well? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

Whatever hesitation Ben had cleared from his eyes, and he stood, reaching up to open the small, rectangular window near the ceiling. He strained to stand on his toes so that he could reach one of his hands out the window, and Five wondered what he had stashed outside that he was now attempting, clumsily, to retrieve.

Something soared through Ben’s hand, through the open window and hit the wall with a dull thud. Five dove, rolling through Ben, uselessly trying to pull his brother down out of the line of fire—

One of Diego’s knives was lodged in the wall, a few leaves of paper stabbed through the blade.

“Sorry!” Ben hurried over to his side. “It’s just a note! I couldn’t bring it inside before I knew where the camera in the infirmary was, so Diego thought…” He trailed off as Five got up and stomped over to the knife, his slippers slapping against the floor.

“I swear you guys are going to give me a heart attack one day,” Five grumbled, yanking the knife out of the wall. “You’re lucky I have a young heart again,” he muttered under his breath as he pulled the papers off the blade and turned them right-side up so he could read them.

The first message was scrawled in Diego’s messy penmanship, expressing hope that he was feeling better. There was something else written, but it had been scribbled out, leaving the note terse and to the point, just like Luther’s note below it, requesting that he take his injuries seriously and rest. What didn’t fit with the two messages was the fact that both were wreathed in hearts. But below was the culprit’s—Klaus’s—message, telling him to stop fainting on top of his siblings. A small heart adorned the exclamation point, which must have inspired the rest of the outpouring of affection. He went on to complain about how the old bat had given him a full lecture on how reckless, among other adjectives, Five was.

Five flipped the page and found Vanya’s small, neat handwriting, reassuring him that his patience would pay off and her younger self would come around soon, along with the warning that young Vanya was considering going off her pills as she predicted. Then she had filled the rest of the page with everything she wished she knew about her powers going in and finished with another plea for his caution, patience, and most of all, honesty when dealing with his younger sister.

Then there was Allison’s note, informing him that the next page was a copy of her notes on what the Commission agent had finally spilled, and a brief thank you for once again understanding why she couldn’t rumor it out of him sooner. She also warned of an upcoming mission, though none of them could remember precisely which day they would be called out of town.

Five quickly skimmed her notes. An attack on headquarters had a fairly typical response: seal off the entrances and exits, send a strike team to neutralize the threat, and protect the most valuable targets, specifically the room which housed the wristwatches and the Handler’s office.

Five couldn’t hide the smirk forming on his face. If he recalled correctly, there had been nothing terribly valuable in the Handler’s office. At least, nothing in plain view.

“I take it that was the information you were hoping for,” Ben commented on his smirk. So, Five filled him in on his observations and his plan, and soon Ben was nodding.

“That would solve our problem…” He hummed, unsure. “But how are we going to get there?”

“Same way all those assassins did: with the wristwatch. I haven’t had much time to examine it, but I found what’s essentially a return home button. We had one standard on the briefcases too.” Five crossed his arms, sighing in thought. “The issue is the devices were clearly not made for transporting seven people. I’ll have to modify it…” Five trailed off.

It had been at least fifteen years since he had fiddled with the idea of using technology to help him time travel. It had been a miserable year, the summer blazing and the winter dry, draining his water supply and ruining his crops. But more miserable than the weather, had been the fight he had had with Delores, for as convinced as he was that technology could help him get home to his family, she was positive he should continue working on their equations. Five had never seen her so angry, as if the very thought of using technology was an insult to her. They had only reconciled when his project had literally blown up in his face, and he had awoken to find her by his side, as always. To this day, she maintained that it had been a wasted effort.

“Looks like it wasn’t a waste after all…” he muttered and could almost hear Delores’s irritated sigh.

“Huh?” Ben’s brow knit together in confusion.

“Nothing.” Five said quickly. He wondered if he should admit he was talking to himself as Ben frowned in thought, looking at something beyond Five before shaking his head.

His eyes focused on Five again. “Any way we can help with your modifications?”

“I have a list of things I need you to bring me,” Five confirmed. He had taken a long look at the broken wristwatch the other night while Diego drove him home. It would provide most of what he needed, but a few more pieces were necessary to direct the temporal field to cover the seven of them. He’d also need to use some of his own power to provide enough energy for the jump, though when he’d be well enough to not rip himself in two when doing so was a problem for another day.

He glanced around and noted six different things he could have written the list on, but with no marker, he recited the list out loud. Ben repeated it back verbatim, his memory as sharp as ever. Satisfied, Five leaned heavily against the bathroom vanity, his body beginning to ache.

“I better let you get back to bed,” Ben said softly, moving with an unnatural silence so he could stand next to Five. “But before you go…”

Five blinked in surprise as Ben raised his arms out towards him. “Seriously? When the hell did all of you get so into hugs?”

Ben was positively grinning. “We’re making up for lost time.”

Five sighed. “You’re lucky I like you, Ben.” He mirrored his brother’s open arms in invitation.

Ben laughed and shrugged as he pulled Five into a hug. “It’s not fair the others got to.”

Five snorted, returning the embrace. It was a bizarre sensation: Ben was solid enough, yet cold and somehow pulsing with energy. “Funny, I could have sworn I felt you in that group hug the other night…”

Ben chuckled mischievously, not realizing Five was serious. “Maybe…”

The pulsating energy was beginning to diminish, and Ben felt strangely softer in his arms. He would have to explain about sensing their wellsprings of power another time.

They broke apart and bid each other goodnight, Five asking Ben to pass on his thanks for the note, which he stuffed into his shirt, before Ben vanished and Five left the bathroom. He crawled into bed, body heavy with exhaustion and pain, heart light with a sense of progress, and fell asleep almost immediately, his siblings’ note pressed against his heart.

--

The blaring alarm wrenched him from sleep, spiking his veins with adrenaline, making him flail as he sat up, finding himself tangled in blankets. Sunlight hit his eyes with the full intensity of midday sun—why hadn’t anyone woken him for roll call?! Then, his addled mind pieced together his situation and remembered what that obnoxious alarm meant.

Mom appeared in the doorway, reaching for the doorknob of the open door before she saw him trying to free himself from his mess of sheets. She hurried to his side to help untangle him. “I’m sorry, dear. I should have kept the door closed so any noise wouldn’t disturb you.”

Five doubted closing the door would have made that much of a difference in the din. The alarm was meant to warn of a mission throughout the entire, ridiculously sized mansion. “What happened? What’s the mission?”

She gave him a stern look as she finished detaching his bedding from his limbs and began tucking him in properly. “Nothing for you to worry about.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she put a hand on his shoulder as she sat down on the edge of the bed like the night before. “Do you recall the gala your siblings attended last Saturday?”

Five nodded. The town had thrown them a fancy party as thanks for stopping the museum heist, and Five, to his immense relief, had not been allowed to go because he was, and would likely forever be, grounded. He and Vanya had had a pleasant evening, sneaking into Luther’s room—or Five barged in while Vanya protested—to play music while they danced in the hall—if grabbing Vanya’s hands and spinning until they collapsed on the floor counted as dancing—and lounged in Five’s room, talking about nothing.

“Well,” Mom continued, “some people at the gala asked your father if the Umbrella Academy could help with a case out of town.”

Five sat up straighter. Right. Allison had mentioned that. “Out of town?” he feigned ignorance. “What could be so important?”

“There’s been a rash of burglaries from several celebrities’ houses.”

“Oh.” Five snorted, relaxing back into the pillows Mom was fluffing up behind him, turning to Delores to make a show of rolling his eyes to make her laugh, already sensing her amusement—

He blinked at the empty space beside him.

“Not the type of mission you were hoping for?” Mom asked with a knowing smile.

He probably would have loved the attention of working with celebrities as a child, but now he saw the situation for what it was. “It’s an overly glorified press tour.”

She began defending the decision, saying something about how the Academy would help anyone who asked, but Five’s mind was suddenly caught on a rush of familiarity.

During the apocalypse, he had lived for every tiny scrap of news about his siblings, whether it was a tabloid gossiping about Allison, an article wildly speculating that the knife-wielding vigilante was actually the Kraken, a blurb about Spaceboy finally making it to space, or Vanya’s name listed with the second violinists in a playbill.

But the real treasure trove had come nearly fifteen years into his isolation, when he stumbled upon a fan’s collection that hadn’t burned, including a binder full of newspaper clippings presenting the missions Five had been there for, and even more that had come after.

There had been an article detailing a mission involving celebrities and thefts, and even more precious, there had been an accompanying photograph. The Umbrella Academy had stood front and center, Dad looming over his siblings’ masked faces, but in the background, Five had marveled when he first found the picture, was a car in which the side of Vanya’s face could be seen through the window. Perhaps even more stunning was Mom was standing behind the car, near the driver’s side door, waiting with a vague smile to act as chauffeur, while a shadowy silhouette of a chimp sat next to Vanya. Having his entire family in a single picture earned the newspaper clipping a special place near the head of Five’s makeshift bed.

But thinking about it now, in this timeline, it begged the question, “Who is going?”

Mom raised an eyebrow, her tone slightly exasperated, but mostly amused. “You’re staying here, my dear.”

“And you’re staying to look after me?” he hazarded a guess.

“You and Vanya, yes.”

Five stared. Mom tilted her head to the side and leaned in to press a hand to his forehead. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he answered distantly, unused to catching a break.

Surely with only the two of them there, he could find a way to talk to Vanya.

--

There was no use denying it any longer: Five had a problem.

Not the issue of getting Vanya in the same room as him, which yes, was a major problem. Five lay in bed that night, after what should have been a lonely day, having made exactly zero progress on that front.

After a series of rushed goodbyes from his siblings, Five had asked as sweetly as he could if he could be allowed back to his room, hoping Vanya would be across the hall. But Mom still insisted on confining him to the infirmary, ignoring Five’s protests with practiced ease and a gentle smile. With his only option being to wait for Vanya to come to him, he had settled in for a miserable day of speeding through math homework and half-assing a paper or two.

He hated waiting. He was no stranger to it, having waited out entire winters in their library’s basement while never-ending blizzards made scavenging impossible. But at least he had had someone to wait with.

Worse were the dozens of stakeouts, learning assassination targets’ routines, learning their lives, forcing himself to understand their impact on the timeline, on other people. He was finally back in a world full of people, yet the loneliness was inescapable, equation after equation his only distraction.

Delores was gone. He had abandoned her body back at their library, but initially, he had continued to feel her presence at his side, her silent anger radiating off her. Then, he pulled the trigger for the first time. Daisy fell, and Delores vanished. He hadn’t felt her presence again until he called her name in her department store.

They had had a long conversation during the walk home, after Hazel and Cha-Cha’s attack, Five apologizing while she poured her anger, hurt, and sadness into him. Then, he felt her fear for him, for what he had become. There were many times that he couldn’t hear clear words from her, only an impression of her emotion, but when his subconscious spoke to him, he never needed words to understand. Comprehending the depth of her fear had stopped him cold, leaving him shivering on the dark street until he had found his anger, recognizing he would have to stop the end of the world by himself, no Delores, no siblings.

Then, things had changed. Luther had insisted he wasn’t alone in his fight, and Five had given in, in no small part due to Delores’s needling. And then, he thought it was finally finished, and he had said goodbye to her again, pressing on with his imagined conversation, pretending he felt acceptance from her instead of exasperation that he was attempting to leave her again.

Attempting, and apparently failing, he now saw. Today, Five had finally been alone with his thoughts for longer than a few solitary dinners, and he came to the troubling realization that Delores was as present in his mind as she had been for most of his life, making ever astute observations about his situation, clearly trying to cheer him up with her wry sense of humor.

“It was the time travel, wasn’t it? Dragging all those consciousnesses back in time and keeping them all intact and together… It was too much. I finally fractured my own mind,” he muttered to himself, rolling over onto his stomach.

“You’re only as crazy as I am, Five,” she answered, perfectly nonchalant even though he could sense her amusement.

“You’re having too much fun with the predicament of my very sanity,” he informed her as he punched his pillow into a more comfortable shape.

He lay there, quiet for a long moment, wondering if he could get away with fetching the broken wristwatch out from where he had stashed it in his room, under the corner of his mattress. Mom had left the infirmary over an hour ago. But he could guess what Delores’s reaction would be if he did.

He sighed. “You understand why we have to use it, right?”

“Use what?”

Five jolted up onto his knees, his leg flaring with pain as he twisted around to find the source of the voice.

“Heart attack, Ben. I swear, a heart attack,” he grumbled as he sat back into a more comfortable position. Then he thought better of it and got up, stuffing his feet in his slippers, heading for the bathroom.

Ben chuckled, as he followed, his ghostly glow flickering with the sound. “Sorry.”

Five grunted in response and finally turned to face his brother once he closed the bathroom door and they had privacy. “So, you just visiting, or do you guys have some of the things on my list already?”

Ben nodded. “We have some tools for you. We haven’t found any of the pieces you need, but I thought you might want to get started with what you already have.”

“That’d be great,” Five said, looking at Ben expectantly, raising an eyebrow when his brother simply stood there. “Should I open the window for Diego?”

“About that.” Ben grinned. “I checked all over the side of the Academy and the fire escape… There are no cameras.”

Five followed his gaze to the window, and sadly it took a second for his sleep-addled mind to understand.

Ben must’ve thought he was hesitating. “I mean, if your leg isn’t up for the climb, I can get the tools for you, I just thought, since I know Diego’s been aching to talk to you and—”

“Right! I’ll go down,” Five cut him off, a fresh wave of excitement flooding through him. He clambered up onto lid of the toilet, ignoring the swell of pain in his leg. Then, he pushed open the small window and squeezed out onto the fire escape, Ben following close behind.

By the time he got down to the ground, his leg was burning, and Ben was hovering like a mother hen. But Five stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded nonchalantly to his brothers anyway. “Hey.”

“There’s are little brother!” Klaus greeted happily, pulling him into a hug, swaying them both back and forth before Five managed to free himself with a reminder of who the little brother really was.

“How are you feeling?” Diego asked, setting down a pair of shoes—Klaus was barefoot—so he could hold Five’s shoulders and inspect him properly.

Five shrugged out of his grip, nearly stepping through Ben. “You have the tools?”

“Right here.” Diego picked up the shopping bag he had set Klaus’s shoes by. Five took it and began rummaging through the inventory inside.

“Anything cool happen today?” Klaus asked.

“You all left on a mission,” Five answered absently. Satisfied with the quality of the tools they had bought, he looked up at Diego. “Ben said you wanted to talk to me.”

Diego opened his mouth to respond, and then fell into a scowl instead. Five snorted. “Well?”

“Oh, so the out-of-towner started today…” Klaus was murmuring. “I don’t remember anything about that mission except that lady with all the wigs.”

“Really?” Ben sighed. “You were instrumental in figuring out who did it.”

“Mmm, yeah, ghost interviews. That’s right…”

Five ignored them and crossed his arms, looking pointedly at Diego. “We don’t have all night.”

Diego mirrored him, crossing his arms. “Klaus, Ben, do you mind?”

“Hm?” Klaus looked between the two of them, then quickly crossed his arms too in an exaggerated motion. Five bit back a smirk. Ben didn’t bother hiding his.

“Give us a moment,” Diego grumbled, giving Klaus a light shove. There was a bit of a scuffle between the two, just like Five had seen their younger selves do the day before, before Klaus shoved his dirty, bare foot into Diego’s stomach, complaining that they were the ones with shoes on. Diego relented, grumbling under his breath, and led Five a few paces away, just out of earshot.

Five stifled a yawn as he waited for Diego to find his words.

“I didn’t…” Diego started, haltingly. “I never… made you feel less than? Did I?”

Five blinked in surprise. “Shit. No. That wasn’t your issue, Diego. I was just trying to open your eyes.” He really needed to learn tact; he’d have to have this conversation with the younger Diego too. He sighed. “Us lower ranking members of the family never had an issue with you. Dad’s ranks did the most damage to you—Well,” he cut himself off, his thoughts catching up to the words spilling out of his mouth, “you, Luther, and Vanya.”

“Luther?” Diego’s lips twisted into a dubious frown. “I get what you mean about Vanya, but Luther…?” Then, after a moment, he shook his head. “No, no, I get what you’re saying about him too,” he said, which would have been a significant breakthrough for his younger self but was about damn time as an adult. He looked at Five and snickered. “Damn, you really are an old man, aren’t you?”

Five raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“I mean that you’re all wise now.”

He snorted and shrugged. “I guess I’ve had longer to think about these things, but credit goes to Vanya’s book.”

Diego’s face darkened. Five rolled his eyes. “You’re still upset about her writing it?”

“You aren’t?” Diego shot back.

Five shrugged again. “If anything, I’m grateful. It was my only news of what happened to you all—other than the tabloids speculating about Allison’s life or articles about missions I missed. It was my only news from an insider, someone who knew the truth about our family.”

Diego crossed his arms. “But weren’t you angry when you first read it?”

Five considered it for a moment, trying to think back all those years to his first read. Certain parts had hurt to read, a deep wound that still ached, but that was what he was going to fix now. “Why would I be angry?”

“She wrote about all our… all our secrets and screwed up childhood and…” Diego struggled for a moment, his face reddening. “She put it out there for the whole world to read!”

“There wasn’t a world when I read it,” Five reminded dryly.

Diego opened his mouth, then closed it in a pout that was trying to be a scowl. Five couldn’t help but snigger at the familiarity of the expression, earning himself a huff and a glare.

They quieted for a moment, and Five thought back on the moment a lifetime ago when he had shifted some rubble and found Vanya’s face staring up at him from the cover of her book. “I didn’t think too much about the world reading it,” he admitted. “It was like she had written it specifically for me, to catch me up on everything I’d missed.”

That wasn’t to say he hadn’t realized what the world’s reaction must have been, to have such a scandalous story about their supposed heroes come out, or the gumption Vanya had to have had to write everything as explicitly as she had, knowing full well what their family would think. But none of that mattered when it was finally Five’s turn to read the book.

Diego gave a grudgingly accepting grunt.

Five snorted at the attempt. “You must now realize how useful her book is to us. It’s basically a blueprint for what needs to change.”

“Yeah…” Diego grumbled. His face scrunched up as if in pain, and Five understood perfectly, the hurt that neither of them were mentioning. Then, his face cleared into a grim, determined look. “Yeah,” he said with more surety.

Five stifled a yawn and glanced back at Klaus, who was now talking to an invisible Ben. When Five turned to look at Diego again, he found his brother barely concealing a smile.

Five sighed. “If you’re about to announce that you also missed me, you can save it.”

Diego’s smile morphed into a full-on grin. “Actually, I was about to call you an old man again. C’mon, it’s way past your bedtime, geezer.”

Five nearly lost his slipper as he kicked Diego in the shin.

Klaus insisted on giving Five another hug even though he clearly saw the way Diego was hobbling over. Then, Five looped the bag of tools onto his arm, climbed up on a garbage can, and grabbed hold of the bottom rung of the ladder to the fire escape before either of them could recover and attempt to give him a boost up.

“Get some sleep!” Diego called after him.

Five rolled his eyes and waved him off as he began his climb, gritting his teeth against the pain. Nobody seemed to get that he was the older sibling.

--

“Say something to her!”

Five huffed into a bite of chicken. What did Delores think he was trying to figure out? Mom had relented the next day and allowed him out of the infirmary for dinner. Even better, since only Mom was there to watch them, Five had been allowed to join Vanya at the dinner table instead of being relegated to the kitchen. This was the perfect opportunity.

“Even a how was your day is worth more than silence, Five.”

“I know, I know!”

“What did you say?” Mom asked, regarding him with an inquisitive smile.

Five blinked, scrambling to recall exactly how much he had just said out loud.

“Nothing,” he told her, quickly stuffing a bite of risotto in his mouth as he glanced to his right, where Vanya was frowning at him.

Another two bites later, Five looked around the empty table. He and Vanya had taken their usual seats at one end, while Mom was standing across the table, behind Dad’s empty chair. One of the records Five had missed in his absence was on the record player, and good old Carlson’s voice was rambling about survival tips more than forty-five years too late.

Trying to figure out how best to breach the cold silence Vanya was giving him was yielding no results. Knowing the fate of the world was dependent on if he could gain back her trust was not helping. Time for a different approach.

“Do you want to sit down?” Five called to Mom.

Mom and Vanya stared at him like he had suggested they wear their plates like top hats. Five crossed his arms. “We’ve got all this room… And Dad’s not here. Come join us.”

“Oh, no, I shouldn’t,” Mom replied. “Even with your father gone, we can’t forget the rules.”

“We won’t tell anyone,” he reassured, glancing at Vanya for help, expecting he’d only receive a glare in return.

To his surprise, even though she was obstinately not looking at him, he found his sister was fighting a smile. “It is a little awkward…”

“Yeah!” Five encouraged, bolstered by Vanya’s agreement. He pushed Ben’s chair out from where it was tucked into the table with his foot. “I’m sure Ben wouldn’t mind if you took his seat while he’s away.”

Mom hesitated, which was better than a flat-out no. Five jumped up, grabbing his plate and glass. “Here! I’m giving you my seat.” He quickly stepped around Vanya’s chair and sat down in Ben’s. “If Ben has a problem, he can take it up with me now.”

A flash of a smile claimed victory on Vanya’s face. From the newfound twinkle in Mom’s eyes, Five had the feeling he wasn’t the only one to notice.

“Alright, just this once,” she relented and crossed the room with steady steps to take Five’s abandoned seat.

Another two bites later, Five hummed in thought. “Not sure this is any better… Now I feel like I’m at an awkward job interview.”

“Oh?” Mom asked innocently, and Five suddenly had the feeling she was sitting stiffly at the edge of her seat, hands folded on the table on purpose. “Am I interviewing you or are you interviewing me?”

Five hid his smirk by taking a sip of water from one of the ornate glass goblets that a normal family would have locked away in a cabinet for holiday use only. “Clearly, we’re interviewing you. Eating in front of you is a power move to see how you do under intimidation.”

Vanya snorted, and Five barely resisted looking at her as Mom’s smile grew. “And how am I doing?”

“Excellently, and I can see here on your resumé,” he held up an imaginary piece of paper, “you’ve dealt with seven terrors daily for… how many years now?”

“Ten years, and I must correct you, sir, not all seven are terrors.”

Five couldn’t help the surprised laugh that escaped him, and he thought he heard Vanya make a small sound, holding back a giggle.

“But some are?” Five prompted, grinning. “And who would that be?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that’s classified information,” she replied smoothly, and again, Vanya made a small sound into a mouthful of baked chicken. Mom’s head tilted to the side. “Though Five, I’m surprised you know so much about how these things go. Have you been to a job interview before?”

He shrugged, keeping his voice light, hoping Vanya wasn’t suddenly wondering about what he had done in the future. “I got tired of this hero business, so I interviewed to be a villain.”

“And how did that go?”

“Terribly. Their screening process is just what you would expect from an evil organization. They make you wait years upon years before calling you in, all the while ensuring all other career opportunities have disappeared from the market.”

“My goodness!”

“And then if you accept the job, they make you go on a perpetual business trip, leaving your home and family behind.”

“But what about vacation days?”

“None. They don’t even cover sick leave!”

Finally, a full-on giggle made it past Vanya’s lips.

And the glass tumblers on the table sang a delightful tone in response. All three of their eyes went to the glasses in surprise. Vanya gasped—

Shards of glass went everywhere, water spilled out to cover the table.

“Oh my!” Mom gasped, and in the next moment both she and Five were on their feet.

“Sorry!” The word was coming out of his mouth without thought, his hand snatched Vanya’s and squeezed. “That was me!”

Mom gave him a confused look at the lie.

“I’ve been practicing! Trying to move objects!” His voice was too loud.

“Take a breath,” Delores instructed calmly, and for the first time that day, he was glad for his insanity.

He followed her direction before clearing his throat. “I was trying to move the glasses, but clearly…” He gestured to the shards with his right hand, his left still clasped tight around Vanya’s. She was squeezing back. “Clearly, I’m no good. I’ll have to practice more. Sorry for the fright.”

“As long as neither of you were injured,” Mom said, scanning them for cuts. Satisfied there were none, she smoothed her hands over her apron. “I’ll clean up. You two should move to the other end of the table and finish your dinner.”

“I’m not hungry,” Vanya said, her voice just a little too high to be normal.

Five opened his mouth to disagree, his plate beckoning him, still half full, but Vanya’s hand was a vice around his.

“Can I finish later?” he asked. “I’m feeling a bit dizzy after… that.” He gestured to the puddle on the table again.

“Of course. Do you need help upstairs?” Mom moved to help.

“Vanya can walk me up,” Five smiled, hoping his anxiety didn’t shine through and quickly turned, dragging his sister behind him.

His feet went to his bedroom before he remembered he was supposed to be sleeping elsewhere. Oh well. Mom could force him out of his room later if she really cared.

Closing the door behind him, he deposited Vanya in the armchair before sitting across from her on the edge of his bed. Golden light from the sunset was casting long shadows about his room. Even in the colored light he could see how pale his sister was, her eyes wide and shiny with unshed tears.

“Vanya…” he started, squeezing her hand gently where it still sat in his. He watched a tremble go up her spine until it burst out of her as a gasping sob.

Then the tears began to fall all at once. Five held on, mind utterly blank, having never seen his sister cry like this. Her cheeks were shining with streaks of tears, her body shaking with each gasping cry—

He could feel each one, reverberating up his arm from their shared grip and just barely where his feet met the ground. The room was beginning to shake. He needed to calm her down before Mom came running.

Five continued to sit, frozen. What should he do?! Sure, he had comforted Ben on occasion, but Ben responded well to distractions of scientific babble. Five very much doubted Vanya wanted to hear the specifics of quantum field theory right now.

So, what else could he do? How did people usually comfort a crying child?

…Right. Just the other day he had been the crying kid, and his siblings had known exactly what to do.

Five crossed the short distance between them to sit on the arm of the armchair, letting go of her hand and wrapping his arms around her shoulders, his cheek resting on the top of her head. It was an awkward attempt at comfort. Perhaps Klaus was right: he did need hugging lessons.

Her sobs vibrated through his entire body now, as if they were his own, and he felt a spring of overwhelming emotions well up within his chest. He wasn’t sure if it was his own emotion or some effect of her powers, but he held her a little tighter anyway.

The minutes slipped by, and soon her eyes dried and her lips stopped trembling. The room was startlingly quiet without her sobs. He didn’t let go, just in case, even as she wiped her face on her sleeve.

“So…” he said eventually. “You went off your pills…”

She sniffled. “Yeah.”

He sighed into her hair. “Should I tell you about your powers now?”

She let out a shaky breath. “Isn’t it a bit late for that?”

He snorted. “True, I guess you know everything now: your powers are for causing a ruckus during dinner.”

“Five,” she chided sourly, shifting in her seat, and reaching up to break his embrace.

He let go, a bit relieved to be done with the awkward contact and took a seat on his bed again. Then, he looked at her properly and found no trace of anger in her puffy eyes. Maybe a bit of exasperation at his poor attempt to lighten the mood, but no anger.

“Tell me everything,” she requested softly.

So, he did. He explained everything he knew about her powers, everything the other Vanya had written in her note. Young Vanya listened in rapt silence, until he got to the part about the pills.

“You’re the strongest out of all of us, and your powers are connected to your emotions so—”

“The medicine stifles my emotions! That’s why…! That’s why I feel like this!” Her voice was full of excitement as she pieced it together for herself. Then, a flurry of intense emotions crossed her face before her face fell. “I’m dangerous, aren’t I?”

The words came out soft, but Five felt the air around him stir in response.

“What makes you say that?” he asked cautiously.

She gave him a look. “Everything you just said. Everything that just happened downstairs. I… I was surprised. I was surprised by the glasses singing and the… the warm feeling…” Her hand lay on her chest for a moment like she could still feel it. “That was enough to shatter glass, and now you’re saying I can do even more…”

He opened his mouth to reassure her. Then he remembered the other Vanya’s final bit of advice from her note: be honest.

“It’s true. But Vanya… Look at me…” He leaned forward until she met his eyes. “All of us are dangerous. All of us have hurt people while on missions. All of us have killed people—well, except for Klaus—but the rest of us… Just ask Ben.”

“That’s…!” Her face twisted as if in pain. “That’s different! Ben doesn’t have the monsters coming out of him all the time. I’m always going to have emotions! I’m always going to…” She trailed off, curling in on herself, lips trembling. “If Dad put me on this medicine instead of training me,” her voice cracked, “then that must mean there’s no way for me to… to stop except for my medicine…”

Five’s hands curled into fists, mind whirling, searching for words, trying to push down the spike of emotion stabbing through him.

“I…” she sniffled. “I thought I could finally be like the rest of you.”

“You can be! You are!” he cried, abandoning his attempt to formulate a deliberate response. “It’s simply a matter of learning control.”

She scoffed, turning away, and he couldn’t blame her. This was anything but a simple matter.

“We’ve all had to learn,” he reminded her. “Think about Luther. He has no way to stop being strong. He doesn’t always know his own strength—remember all the times he cut through his plate during dinner? Or…” A memory from ages ago floated to the top of his mind. “That time he and Diego got in a fight, and Luther slammed something down on his desk so hard the legs gave out. And Diego! There was that mission when, again, they were fighting, and he was very clearly aiming for one of the gunmen, but his knife did a full U-turn and nearly took off Luther’s ear. Or that other mission! The one where Allison was scared—she had a gun to her head—and her rumor was so weak the guy shook it off.” He grimaced. “And you know just as well as I do what happens when Ben is upset, how loud the monsters get. Now that I think about it, it’s the same for Klaus and his ghosts, isn’t it…?”

With everything lined up, the logical conclusion was all their powers were affected by emotion. But then, Five’s should be too. A dawning sense of epiphany slid over him. He had only time traveled twice so he couldn’t call it a pattern yet, but when he thought about what had happened on both the days he had instinctively traveled to…

“The point?” Delores prompted with a fond sigh.

“The point?” Five blinked and looked at Vanya, seeing her furrowed brow and the way she was hugging herself for the first time. “My point. My point is we’re all dangerous, and all of our powers are clearly affected by our emotions.” As soon as he said it, it felt like the most obvious thing in the world. “We’ve all had to learn to keep our emotions from hurting others.” He thought suddenly of Diego down in the alley, genuine concern etched in his face, and sighed. “I don’t even need my powers to hurt people. I say the wrong thing in anger all the time.”

Her face finally softened at his admission. “You’re not the only one. The other day… I’m sorry. Some of the things I said…”

“I’m sorry too,” he said quickly. “I should have told you the truth weeks ago.”

She shook her head. “I know why you didn’t. What you said about Dad… Nothing stays secret from him for long, but I didn’t want to hear it. I was just… so angry.” She shuddered and hugged herself tighter. “If I had been off my medicine…” A shadow fell over her face like a veil. “I know what you’re not saying. Dad put me on this medicine to protect all of you.”

Five grimaced at the defeat in her tone.

“And he left you to suffer,” he added bitterly.

She shook her head again. “All six of you or just me—”

“Don’t you dare pretend it’s that simple,” he snapped, the familiar flush of his temper washing over him as something twisted in his gut. He had done enough simple math and had told himself over and over that the numbers were acceptable. “He put you last and convinced the rest of us that it was true. You’ve had to live this whole time as Number Seven.” He shook his head. “You want to pretend we’re on different sides of an equation? I can run the probabilities. But I can already tell you: it’s an off chance that you hurt one of us versus a guarantee that we all hurt you. Sacrificing one life to save others always sounds pretty on paper. Trust me, I’ve heard all the arguments.” He could feel Delores’s concern pressing in on his anger, a hand on his shoulder. He swallowed hard against a fresh swell of emotion and leaned forward. “But how does your pain count any less?”

She stared at him with wide eyes as he finally took a moment to breathe. “You… you really want me to stay off the medicine, don’t you?”

Five blinked. “I assumed you wouldn’t want to go back on it.”

She hesitated, and he suddenly noticed how pale her face was. “If it ensures all of your safety…” Her head bowed as she shrank back in the armchair. “You say there’s only a chance, but I know something will happen. I know it!”

“Then we’ll handle it when we get there,” he said calmly, inching towards her until he was on the edge of his seat. “We’ve all had our fair share of training accidents,” he reminded, but he knew it wasn’t the same. He knew from experience. “Do you remember what I did to Klaus, at that fire the other week?” He thought of his dream from the other night, of why his mind would produce such an obvious scene of terror, and he thought of running through fire, trying to reach a family that was in the crosshairs because of his lack of foresight. “I know the fear you’re feeling. Trust me, I know.” He sighed heavily and leaned back, closing his eyes for a second so he could picture the determination in their eyes as they all stood together in a circle, hands clasped as blue poured over them. “But I have to trust that they can handle the danger I put them in,” he told himself as he opened his eyes to look at her. “Do you trust us?”

“I… Of course, I…” Again, her eyes were wide, as if she were seeing something in him she hadn’t noticed until that moment. Then, she jerked her head, flinching away from a new thought, and her brow furrowed, her face still blanched. “You shouldn’t speak for everyone.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But I know they’d all be willing to help you through this.”

He had seen it, seen the regret years too late. And if they didn’t see it now, as kids, he’d make them.

He thought suddenly of her book, of the words that had hurt the most to read.

“Please, Vanya. Give us a chance to be a family to you.”

She stared, her lips parted slightly, as he waited for her judgement.

“A family…?” she whispered to herself, eyes wandering from his face, to the walls, to the floor as she thought.

They sat for a long moment, and Five forced himself to wait instead of filling the uncomfortable silence. He strained his ears for Mom on the stairs, but there were only the usual creaks and subtle groans of a giant, empty house settling for the evening.

“Dad won’t accept any of this,” she said finally, eyes clouded with emotion as if she was seeing something beyond him, an imagined future.

Five snorted. “I’ll handle him.”

She raised an eyebrow, dubious.

The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “We’ll hide it as long as possible, and then, I’ll handle him.”

“Five,” she groaned, rubbing the side of her head. The color was finally coming back to her face, but in a flush of irritation.

“If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s arguing with Dad.”

“Five! Be serious! He’ll do something terrible to you. Look at yourself! You’re sick and injured, and he’ll find some way to control you while he takes me and…” Just like that, her color was gone again, and she swallowed hard several times like she was going to be sick.

“Take you and… what?” he asked when it was clear she wouldn’t continue on her own.

“He’ll lock me up.” She shuddered, and suddenly leaned forward, grasping a clammy hand around his wrist. The air was trembling around them. “I can’t…! I can’t go back there!”

“Go where?” he asked, dumbfounded. Then, he remembered part of what Allison had recalled out loud. “Are you talking about whatever is downstairs?”

Five needed to investigate this supposed basement as soon as possible.

“I won’t go back there,” she said with an eerie certainty, and the air was no longer trembling but swirling around them. Her face was bloodless, eyes staring through him, and Five saw the woman from the concert hall. Something slid into place, and Five felt he was on the verge of understanding what had been missing from his siblings’ story of Vanya’s break, what had transpired between him going to return Delores home and returning to find the Academy razed to the ground. Except that begged another question…

A question that wasn’t important in this moment.

“Vanya?” he called softly, waiting for her to see him, heart pounding in a way usually reserved for when he was face to face with someone deadly. And she was, but not to him. He swallowed hard against the adrenaline seeping into his limbs. Not to him.

“Vanya?” he called again, careful to keep the urgency out of his voice. Her hand was still around his wrist. He placed his free hand over hers. She blinked a few times before her eyes focused in on him again. He tried to smile with his usual confidence. “I’d get you out of there.”

She blinked again and let out a shaky breath. Five wasn’t sure how he missed it, but the pale woman was gone, and she was the frightened little girl again. “Promise?”

“Promise,” he said firmly, holding her gaze until the air around them finally stopped moving.

Her eyes were wide again, searching for an answer as she finally released her grip on him. “Five… about the future…”

He braced himself, unsure if she’d take his refusal to answer specifics as another set of lies.

“Ever since you got back, you’ve been speaking up for me more. Is it because of what you saw? Was the future… bad? Are you trying to…?”

“Fix things?” he filled in for her when she hesitated. He considered his answer for a moment. “That’s part of it, yes.”

“Fix?” she echoed, and her expression twisted like he had just confirmed someone’s death. Her expression—

Her expression was the same as he had seen on an older version of the same face, when she had tried to apologize for the apocalypse.

Oh.

He groaned, kicking himself mentally. “I’m an idiot,” he muttered to himself. “I’ve been saying the wrong thing this whole time.”

He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Vanya to wake up and be told what she had done, and then, to be told that they had traveled back in time to fix it, to fix her.

Five held his head for a moment, reeling with guilt and self-directed indignation. Then, he looked at his sister. Judging from the way she shrank back, he was glaring, but he couldn’t help it.

“To be clear: you aren’t what needs fixing. I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. It’s this whole damn situation!” He gestured to the room at large, to the whole damn mansion. “It’s Dad and… and us, the Umbrella Academy! I want to fix this situation for you, and I don’t know, maybe it’s in part for myself, for my part in your suffering. But it’s mostly because you’re my sister, and I love you! I want you to be happy!”

Such words usually weren’t growled in anger. Maybe that was why her eyes were suddenly shiny, and he could feel the air shiver around him. She quickly swiped at her eyes with her sleeves until a sob burst from her lips, and she buried her face her hands, trembling.

Shit. He moved to get up and close the distance between them again, but he felt Delores lean into him and pictured her hand on his, silently suggesting patience. He grimaced and sat back, trusting her more than himself in a situation like this.

And then, he looked around and saw she was right. Unlike earlier when Vanya was crying, the room wasn’t shaking. Instead, the air was shimmering like a silvery display of a heat mirage. He watched the glimmering for a moment, sinking into his seat when he sensed no danger. Exhaustion was beginning to slip into his bones now that the adrenaline had faded, and his body was beginning to ache. Vanya’s sobs retreated into hiccuping sniffles. He swore he could feel Delores, leaning against his side in that familiar, comforting way, like when they would curl up by the fire after a good day’s work. She was watching his sister with concern but radiating pride directed at him, easing the knot in his stomach—the one he had been ignoring ever since Vanya learned the truth. At least someone approved of his confession.

The three of them sat for another long moment. He thought he might have heard footsteps on the stairs, but his door remained firmly closed.

Then, Vanya emerged from behind her hands, nose red, eyes puffy, a tremulous smile forming on her lips.

“I’ve wanted powers so badly, for as long as I can remember,” she admitted the obvious, swiping at a few stray tears still rolling down her cheeks. “I should be excited, ecstatic… And I am, but…”

“But?” Five prompted, determined to take down the next hurdle.

“But most of all, I’m scared.”

“Scared of what? I’m serious, if Dad tries to do something…”

“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “It’s… This was the only thing that mattered, this thing that made me different. But now it turns out I’m not and… What if it doesn’t matter?”

“I don’t follow.”

“What if…?” Her voice was tiny. “What if I still don’t belong? What if I’m still… not enough?”

“Of course, you belong! You’ve always…” He couldn’t finish that. He was just as guilty of putting her in a different box as the rest of them. But even still… “You were always enough to me,” he said honestly.

“I know, I…” Her smile was blossoming. “I love you too.”

Oh.

He returned her smile, feeling far lighter than he had a moment ago.

But there still was a tightness at the edge of her smile and the corners of her eyes. He wasn’t the one she was worried about not being enough for. She was probably taking all this new knowledge as confirmation of their father’s feelings for her.

“You’re still scared,” he pointed out.

Something between a laugh and a sob came out of her. “You can’t fix that for me.”

Oh…

They lapsed into silence again as Five tried to think of another way forward. Very quickly, he concluded that he couldn’t force this. If he did, he’d be no better than Harold Jenkins, and that thought brought bile to the back of his throat.

“Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll follow your lead on this. If you truly think the best option is to stay on the pills, I’ll support your decision.”

She breathed out a long, shaky breath. “That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m scared, but I trust you.” She took a deep breath and positively beamed at him, even as a fresh tear slid down her face. “Teach me how to control it?”

Something solid and good had just slotted into place in the timeline. Five grinned back. “Of course.”

Chapter Text

The clock on Five's wall was keeping its steady count, the rhythm of each second passing an irritating reminder of his inaction. But there wasn’t anything further he could do that night.

Once he and Vanya had settled their conversation and Vanya had made her decision, she had burst into tears again, leaving Five befuddled. Had he said something wrong again? And how the hell could one person hold so many tears? He had seen all his siblings cry at some point or another, most often during or after training, but now that he thought on it, he couldn’t recall seeing Vanya cry. Not like this anyway.

He was just about to whisper to Delores for help, when Vanya told him exactly what she needed by getting up from the armchair to sit next to him, arms wrapping tight around him. He returned the embrace, finding it far less awkward than his earlier attempt, and they sat like that for a few minutes as she cried and he eventually began babbling about what their siblings were likely going through on their press tour. Soon her sobs turned to laughter as he came up with increasingly ridiculous scenarios—starring Klaus, naturally, and a lady with way too many wigs.

Mom came in a short while later, and her timing was so perfect, she must have been listening. Five’s stomach sank with the thought. The question was, how much had she heard through the closed door? Had she heard their words or only when the tone of their voices had brightened?

Either way, she acted perfectly natural as she brushed into the room with a tray carrying the rest of Five’s dinner, asking how he was feeling before noting Vanya’s red-rimmed eyes and asking the same of her. They had quickly reassured her everything was alright, but she wouldn’t be deterred. The rest of the evening had Mom fussing over them until Vanya had excused herself, claiming a headache and the need for an early evening. Five quickly made a similar excuse.

After carefully scrutinizing him, Mom agreed that he could stay in his room that night and then had immediately dashed his hopes of sneaking across the hall to speak with Vanya again when she announced that, after she cleared his plate and he prepped for bed, she would sit right outside his door in case he felt unwell at any point during the night.

And so it was, that he soon found himself tucked into bed, with nothing better to do than attempt to sleep and not think about the fact that he’d sent another ripple through the timeline, another reason for the Commission to send more assassins after his family. They had tried overwhelming them with numbers and lost. Next would likely be quality over quantity, though without Hazel and Cha-Cha as options, Five couldn’t think who would be next to try…

Five rolled over and tried a few deep breaths to settle his nerves, but all he wanted to do was jump into the alley below, steal a car, and go make sure his family was safe. No, no, he shouldn’t. If anything, the Commission would have their eyes on the Academy. As long as his siblings were keeping a low profile and taking care to avoid being trailed after visits, they should still be hidden. There had to be something else he could do, something else to distract himself.

As subtly as he could in front of the camera, he pulled out the pieces of the broken wristwatch from beneath the corner of his mattress, turning each tiny bit over in his hand, straining his eyes in the dark as he examined each ridge and twist with his fingertips. The most fascinating piece, the battery, was clearly made to store the energy needed for a temporal jump, not to create it nor to harvest it from the natural environment. He wished he could crack open the face of the battery to get a better look. Unfortunately, the tools his siblings had delivered the other night were still hidden in the back of the linen closet of the infirmary’s bathroom, and after a few minutes he came to the conclusion that there was nothing new he could learn from a simple examination. He stashed the watch back under his mattress and searched his mind for a new distraction.

Vanya. He needed to figure out the next step to help Vanya. He groaned. That was a whole other issue. He couldn’t quite believe he had made it this far, even if it was always the goal. He didn’t know the first thing about training someone to control their powers, except to follow Dad’s example, and that was most certainly not happening.

Though the old man might have useful notes laying about. For the third time that night, he mulled over how to get past Mom without risking passing out from a jump, before deciding he’d have much better luck if he tried the obvious, the way he had tackled many problems throughout his life: a brainstorming session with Delores. If he was crazy enough to hear her voice, he might as well take advantage.

“Delores?” he called softly to the ceiling, feeling a bit foolish without her mannequin there to turn to, yet knowing exactly where she would be anyway. Countless nights, they had spent, side by side, staring up at the brilliance of thousands of stars, no longer competing with city lights, shining for them alone. He could almost feel her there, just to his right, where he’d made room for her beneath his outstretched arm and imagined she would turn to him with that familiar, curious light in her eyes, muted only by sleepiness.

“I need your help with Vanya.”

She didn’t say anything, but he swore he could feel the ghost sensation of her leaning into him, waiting for him to continue.

Better start like they always did while brainstorming. “Okay, so the goal is to have her off the pills, and able to control her powers enough that she doesn’t blow things up every time she’s feels an emotion.”

He could sense Delores’s wry amusement, could picture the way she would scoff.

“No,” he assured, “I’m not going to phrase it that way in front of her.” He paused. “So…”

After a moment he felt her amusement rise again. “So…?”

“I know, I know! I haven’t gotten far. That’s why I’m asking for your help,” he grumbled. “I don’t even know where to start.”

She studied him a moment, and then her eyes would alight with an idea. “How did you start?”

“You mean when I was first learning to control my jumps?” He scowled. “But my powers are so different…”

“Humor me, dear.”

He sighed and relented as usual, as always, trusting her lead. “In the very beginning, it was all instinct or accident. The story as Pogo tells it was that we were still young—just learning to walk—and we were all playing together. I had the toy everyone else wanted, and when I wound up at the bottom of a pile of my brothers, I was suddenly across the room.”

She beamed at him through the darkness. She always loved when he got nostalgic, reminding them both of why they were still fighting the harsh world around them.

“But,” he continued, “I suppose you mean how did I first learn to make a spatial jump on purpose.” He struggled to summon a specific memory. All that came to him were hours of staring across the room, trying to go from here to there, and a lot of yelling until Dad found more creative ways to motivate him. But tying weights to Vanya’s ankles and threatening to have their siblings join them until she finally got into the pool wasn’t going to help anything, so instead he tried to remember when he would practice on his own until he could proudly show off to everyone the next day. “I guess I focused on the feeling of the jump. It has a very specific feeling to it when it starts…” Then, he found himself smiling too. “Vanya mentioned feeling something. So, when she feels her powers triggering, she can learn to deal with whatever is upsetting her.”

“Deal with…?” He could hear the sudden concern in Delores’s voice.

“Is something wrong with that?”

“I know that’s how you like to handle things, but I’m not sure that’s the best option for her…”

“Why not?” he asked quietly, turning to stare at the empty patch of bed his arm was curled around. He was suddenly struck with the worry that her voice might fade before he could hear her ideas.

But her fond, exasperated smile came to him loud and clear. “It means you can’t go through life expecting to be able to fix everything that upsets you.”

Five huffed just for show, picturing how her smile would grow, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach as he understood what she was getting at. “You can always try,” he mumbled.

“And when you come across a problem you can’t fix? What should Vanya do then?” When he didn’t have an answer, her amusement vanished, and he realized too late that they had just stumbled into the usual argument. “Should she get drunk and wallow like you always did?”

“Wallow?” he scoffed. “I did not wallow!”

“You did! You would scrounge up as much alcohol as you could and sit and mope and wallow—”

“And what about you?” he shot back. “You’d start ignoring me, giving me the silent treatment like a little kid!”

“I never saw the point of sticking around while you were like that!”

They startled at the sound of the door opening as Mom’s shadow spilled over the foot of his bed. “Five? Is everything alright?”

“We’re fine,” Five said quickly, and Delores nudged him in the side. “I’m fine,” he amended, realizing belatedly that his arm was still stretched out around empty air. He pulled his blanket up to his chin, feeling his face warm.

Mom watched him for a moment, her face unreadable with the hall light behind her. “Okay,” she finally said, tone firm. “Get some sleep.”

He nodded, and she closed the door again, leaving them in a tense silence.

He adjusted his position, giving Delores a little more space and thought of how many times they had bickered about this and how many times they had done so in this same position, her secure in the crook of his arm. He sighed heavily, knowing it was useless to attempt to outwait her. She was all patience where he was anger, so any time they fought meant he was facing a grudge that had been building for some time.

But before he could attempt to lighten the mood and change subjects, she giggled. “I’ve never gotten in trouble with someone’s parents before.”

He barely stifled a laugh, surprised by the sudden wave of giddiness coming off her, feeling a bit giddy himself as he realized he, a fifty-eight year old man, had just gotten chastised by his mother for arguing with his silent, invisible romantic partner of thirty plus years. “Well, I’ve never sneaked a girl into my room before.”

She burst into laughter, and he had to stifle his snickering with his pillow.

It was a few minutes before they quieted, and he lay there, warm and tingling, his sides aching.

“I know what you’re trying to say,” he admitted once he caught his breath. “About Vanya. She doesn’t have one, obvious problem to fix like we did back then.”

She sobered, watching, waiting for him to complete the thought.

He groaned. “I know all that, but that means I can’t teach her. We’re too different. I prefer action, while she likes to contemplate. I like to talk through my problems, while she likes to take a moment by herself. She’s most like Ben in that way, but Ben’s method of control is…” He paused, frowning. “Well, it’s not control at all. He ignores things and distracts himself by reading. He’s almost as good at distraction as Klaus.” Five sighed, considering his other siblings for a moment. “Allison and Diego have control built into their powers, but Diego doesn’t even attempt to control his temper. And given what happened with Claire..." He shook his head sadly. “Allison isn’t learning about control properly either and is only going by Dad’s example.”

That only left Luther. Five had already noted that the nature of Luther’s powers made his experience the closest to Vanya’s, and when it came to emotion, Luther could go from angry to professional calmness in a matter of moments. Too bad, one of those moments was Dad barking orders. One word from Dad and Luther could swallow down all the anger in the world.

But that level of emotional turnaround was likely what Vanya would need.

He’d have to ask the other Luther for advice. For that matter, he should speak with the other Vanya. Even with her injured ear, there had to be more to how she was managing.

Delores was watching him expectantly, so he relayed his conclusions.

“Not what I was hoping for,” he murmured, adjusting his blanket around them. “I’ll have to wait for Ben to show up and give me another heart attack.”

“But a place to start…” she observed softly. And although no more words passed between them that night, he pictured the stars above them, shining bright with all their different colors, and felt her with him even as he finally relaxed into slumber.

-

The next morning, Mom hovered in a way that again had Five questioning how much she knew. Even if she hadn’t overheard them the night before, she might have seen through Five’s lie about breaking the glasses at dinner.

Or she may have been fretting over how pale Vanya was. Apparently, the headache had not been a ruse. Five suspected it was a side effect of either the stress of the night before or from going off her pills so suddenly. Either way, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment. Even before speaking to his other set of siblings, he was hoping to see Vanya’s powers in a more controlled environment, to see if there were any stopgaps they could put in place on their own, but if she wasn't feeling well they'd have to wait.

He never should have doubted Mom’s care.

One hearty breakfast, a painkiller, and encouragement to rest somewhere quiet later, and Vanya was positively buzzing with happiness, a stark contrast to her earlier grumbling and glowering. They spent the rest of the morning in the butcher shop turned game room, Five mapping out the basics for the modified wristwatch in vague shorthand while Vanya hummed along to the radio and wrote something in her journal. After lunch, they asked to go up to their rooms, and Mom, seeing the marked improvement in Vanya and lack of deterioration in Five, let them go without following.

So, after a quick stop by the classroom, followed by the surveillance room to run one of the strong magnets they used in physics lessons over yesterday’s tapes, Five met Vanya in his room so that they could finally begin.

He explained his idea—Vanya immediately agreed there was a peculiar sensation she had experienced the night before—and suggested that they start with her playing her violin.

“You think that will trigger it,” she said, immediately understanding what he was thinking. She bit her lip, worry welling up in her eyes.

“Yes…” he said, unsure of the meaning of her reaction but positive of his answer. “Once we trigger your power, we can search for how best to stop it.” Saying it out loud reinforced what a reckless plan it was, but Five had attempted worse. Besides, if things got out of hand he’d simply attempt another awkward hug.

And that was how they wound up in Vanya’s room, like his first day back, she with her violin out, while he sat on her bed. She was still humming the melody of one of the songs from the radio as she sorted through her music, before she selected a song, took a few deep breaths, and began to play.

It was the same song she had played that first day, the jubilant, bouncy melody. Her bow moved in quick, jaunty movements, and he found himself smiling as she began sway slightly to the steady tempo.

But then the air stirred in the barest hint of a breeze, and then came the same mirage-like shimmer as the night before.

Vanya noticed, ending the song before the key change. The shimmer quickly faded once there was silence.

“Fascinating,” he murmured before giving her a nod. “Well, that seems to confirm the need for a sound as a catalyst for your powers. I’m guessing last night, you were unintentionally using an internal sound? Your voice or your heartbeat?”

“I guess?” Her eyes were fixed on her violin, the worry returning.

“Is something wrong?”

“No…”

“All right, then how about you play a bit more. I’d like to see how quickly your powers trigger again.”

She hesitated. “Is it okay if I play a different song?”

“Good thinking. We should test different genres of music.”

“Right…” This time she pulled out the other song from that first day, the sorrowful, longing one, took a breath, and began again.

The shimmering started after only four bars. He’d have to erase today’s tapes too.

She stopped playing, and her powers stopped in turn.

Five nodded. “Good. It triggered faster that time and took longer to fade,” he noted. “Did something feel different that time?”

“No…”

“Maybe it was the emotion of the song,” he hypothesized. “How about you play something technical, like scales.”

She acquiesced, silently shuffling papers around, and Five was distantly aware of an increasingly exasperated feeling emanating from where Delores was sitting beside him. He ignored her for the moment as Vanya began to play, and the shimmering began as she hit the top of the octave.

“Fascinating,” he murmured, leaning forward as he studied her.

She shuffled her feet, raising her violin and bow in front of her chest like a sword and shield, and he realized belatedly that he might as well be studying her through a monocle.

A horrible, squirming feeling shot through him, and he jolted to his feet, making her jump, the strings on her violin resonating softly. He raised his hands, placating. “Sorry. I’m being cold. I know I sound like…” He trailed off as she shook her head.

“No, this is always how you talked about your powers. Like they were an experiment or a puzzle.” She lowered her instrument, neither of them noting her description still made him sound like Dad. “I guess I need to get used to it, I just…”

“Something’s wrong.”

She took a shuddering breath, holding her violin close, and her eyes suddenly grew shiny with tears. She groaned and threw down her bow and violin on her bed, the instrument bouncing dangerously close to the edge as she scrambled to wipe at her eyes with her sleeve. “I can’t do this! It’s too much! It’s all just… too much!”

A breeze swirled around the tiny room in agreement with her words. Now that he was standing, he was close enough to feel the vibrations pulsing off her. He took a steadying breath, keeping his voice quiet and even. “What’s too much?”

“Everything!” she cried, and he could feel the word echo through him. “I feel like I’m bursting with these emotions, and I have to find a way to turn it all off, but my violin…! When I’m sad or angry or anything, I play! I play to feel and to sort through it, and now I can’t do that without risking a tornado in my room!” She gestured to her desk where her journal was flipping through pages, and a cup full of pens was rattling, ready to tip over.

“This is just the first day. We’ll figure this out,” he said firmly. “It’ll be okay. You won’t have to give up your violin.” The sheets of music began to flutter off her music stand. A swell of emotion threatened to overtake him, and just like the night before, he wasn’t sure if it was his own or an effect of her power. “You know how Luther can go from angry to calm in a matter of seconds? I’ll ask him how he does that,” he said quickly, words pouring out of his mouth, hoping to distract, as his heart began its drumbeat rhythm, readying for battle. “I’ll say I want to learn how to control my temper, so I don’t get into trouble so often. It’s okay, Vanya!” He dared to put a hand on her shoulder, even as the air around her shivered, making his hair raise. “It’ll be okay. I have no clue what Luther does, but it’s like switching the radio station it’s so… sudden…”

His mind was whirling, replaying what he had just observed. She sniffled, shooting him a confused look after a minute of silence. Her confusion must have been enough to distract from her fear and frustration, the air finally settling back to normal. “Five?”

“What do you do when switching between songs?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“When you’re going from one song to another, a happy song to a sad one, like you did today.”

“Happy and sad…?” The corner of her mouth quirked up.

He sighed. “I know. That’s oversimplifying it.” He raised an eyebrow. “What would you call them?”

She thought for a moment, tears clinging to her lashes even as she smiled shyly. “The first song, I tend to picture traveling somewhere new, some place sunny. The second song, I see the ocean at night.”

Five blinked. “Oh. Okay.” Delores began to snicker. “Hush you,” he muttered under his breath.

“Hm?”

“This is something you added to the music yourself, right?” he pressed onward. “It’s not just a reaction to reading the music, it’s a quality that you’re trying to add to the music.”

“Well, yes…” She frowned, tugging at the cuffs of her sleeves. “I suppose I could play everything flat…”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m trying to suggest. I’m asking what you do between songs. How did you go from one to another without carrying over the happiness or… or the sunniness into the next song?”

Comprehension shone bright in her eyes. She sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled her violin onto her lap, cradling it. “Before each song, I take a moment to breathe. I read somewhere that it was good to take a breath before playing because it helps keep you from tensing up.”

Five opened his mouth and found he had no words. He had first made it a habit to breathe deep, slow breaths back when he had limited bullets and only one shot or else dinner was running away. But it was when he had only one shot to give his target a painless death that had forced him into practicing breathing not only his hands but his mind into stillness.

The two of them looked each other, and Vanya giggled while Five sighed.

“It is sort of obvious…” Vanya said.

“I think you mean very,” he groaned. How many times had he told Ben to breathe when the monsters were screaming, and his brother was descending into panic? Mindful breathing was How to Calm Down One-Oh-One. He sighed again. “Well, then, I think we have our answer. Or at least a starting point.” He sat down next to her. “Fortunately for you, kid, I’m an expert breather.”

She chuckled. “What makes you an expert?”

“Years of experience. Should we practice together?”

She shot him a doubtful look. “Practice breathing?”

It did sound ridiculous. He shrugged. “Breathing with a purpose.”

She looked down at her violin, considering for a moment, and nodded.

It was certainly not the most exciting way to save the world. Five showed her how he counted his breaths, and she showed him what she usually did before practice, focusing on her diaphragm.Then, they sat there quietly for a handful of minutes simply breathing together.

After, Vanya sat up a little straighter, and Five felt far lighter than he had all week.

“About what you were saying earlier…” Vanya said as she sorted through her sheet music, reorganizing the pieces that had fallen off the stand. They had decided she should try playing and see how quickly she could dissipate the shimmering with a few deep breaths. “About Luther…”

“Forget that. I was just speaking off the top of my head,” Five brushed it aside absently as he stretched out his injured leg.

“Do you think we should ask for his help though? He is good at turning off his emotions.”

Five hummed in acknowledgement, distracted by the sudden concern Delores was expressing, though he couldn’t immediately interpret what for. She had been perfectly content a moment ago.

“I guess I could talk to him,” he answered when Vanya shot him a curious look over her shoulder.

“Allison said you should tell him everything…” she recalled. She finally selected a song and carefully lay the sheets on her music stand. “She thought maybe I should tell him everything too…”

Five scoffed. “There’s no way that’s happening. We might as well confess to Dad directly.”

She made an unsure sound. “I suppose the very thing we need to ask Luther about is why we can’t ask…” She spotted his raised eyebrow when she turned around to fetch her violin from her bed. “Luther’s ability to turn off his emotions is probably what makes him so good at being Dad’s Number One.”

Five mulled this over for a moment, his mind wandering to the Luther living outside of Dad's gravity, and Five realized his brother was already more open with his emotions compared to his younger self. Then, he realized there was that swell of concern from Delores again, though this time he also felt her uncertainty. She had always been more hesitant, more cautious than him, and would often wait for more information before expressing her doubts. The habit meant she won most of their arguments and had managed to keep Five out of trouble on several occasions, but it was always irritating when she spoke up too late. Five usually ignored her as she hesitated; getting her to tell him before she was ready was like pulling teeth.

He turned his attention back to Vanya. “Well, I never thought about it that way, but I suppose you’re right. Instead of following his own…” He floundered for the right word. Instinct? Thoughts?

“Heart?” Vanya supplied.

Five snorted at how cheesy it sounded but nodded. “Instead of following his own heart, he defaults to Dad’s orders.”

“It’s kind of sad…” Vanya stared down at the violin in her hands, and Five wondered at her empathy, her ability as the person Dad ignored to feel for the person Dad poured everything into.

He nodded, pensive, and Vanya gave him a small smile before turning to settle her violin against her shoulder. The song she had chosen was wistful, yet hopeful, and Five quickly pushed Luther out of his mind as the room filled with a beautiful, silver shimmering once more.

-

Luther and Diego were arguing again. Five wasn’t entirely sure what about, having tuned out the conversation the moment the jabs began, concentrating on the tiny metal pieces of the wristwatches as he worked at the table in the corner of the motel room. This was the sixth night since Ben had appeared to announce that they finally had all the materials he had requested, and after nearly a week of work, Five was finally done—all except the power source. It would have to charge for a full day and even still, there was no getting around it: he’d have to use his own powers to act as a catalyst and get the watches past activation energy, just a simple push up the hill before they could ride the energy down to their destination.

Five set his tools down, listening to the way his brothers were snapping at each other while his sisters moved around them with all the ease of a river around a couple of stones—Vanya had taken it upon herself to keep a steady stream of coffee coming while Allison was busying herself by cleaning. Today was apparently laundry day, so she had been moving about the room separating out their clothes into piles and hanging hers in the now empty closet—they had let the agent go after Ben had scared him into promising to cut all ties with the Commission or else be doomed to an eternity as an eldritch horror’s plaything. Klaus was sitting next to Five, drooping like a wilted flower as he dozed, and Five felt a pang of pity. Maybe lack of sleep was why his brothers were going on ten minutes of verbal sparring, instead of helping Allison like they should have been, neither attempting to hide their looks of exhausted crankiness.

“Hey! You assholes done fighting?” Five called over his shoulder. “Because I’m ready to go home.”

The argument immediately ceased, and Five watched in amusement as Diego shot Luther one final glare, while Luther schooled himself into a calm state.

“Finished already?” Vanya asked in surprise, setting down the coffee grounds she had just grabbed.

“You all seem to need an early night,” Five mused.

“You got that right,” Diego grumbled, getting up to grab his boots. Vanya went through the connecting door to the adjoining hotel room they had rented, presumably for her own shoes. She had taken to accompanying Five and Diego on the ride home, during which Five would ask for thoughts on young Vanya’s progress. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much to suggest aside from continuing as they had been and preparing her younger self for some tough conversations with the rest of their family. She insisted that support from everyone had been the key to keeping her powers in control.

Five would have asked Luther for advice as planned, but his brother was still working the night shift at the docks. Tonight was the first time he had been present for Five’s visit, though after the display of arguing, maybe it wasn’t worth the conversation.

The change in atmosphere stirred Klaus from his drowsiness, and he unraveled his limbs in a catlike stretch. Allison finished writing something and presented it to Five.

You rest too. If we have the dates correct, we arrive back from the mission tomorrow morning.

“Right…” Five paused, considering the timing for a moment. He’d have to deal with Dad’s looming presence again before the wristwatch was ready. He sighed heavily, sinking in his chair.

“You good?” Klaus asked, stifling a yawn.

“If you all are back that soon…” He crossed his arms as he thought. “Vanya’s only been off the pills for a week. She’s still trying to find her baseline.” Five had been dodging what could only be described as mood swings. At least they had had plenty of opportunities to practice mindful breathing but throwing the rest of the family into the mix was sure to have consequences.

He rubbed his forehead, already sensing the formula for a headache. “Then, there’s Dad. She’s having some success calming her powers, but she’s only faced minor annoyances so far. Facing Dad when she’s still so angry with him will be a challenge.” He frowned for a moment, recalling Vanya’s saucer eyes and pale face during that first conversation about her powers. “And the fear,” he amended. “I’ve been meaning to ask: do we have a basement?”

Diego finished stuffing his feet into his boots and froze. “Huh?”

“The Academy. What is all this I keep hearing about a basement?”

Given his teenage siblings’ reactions, he had suspected it would be a touchy subject, but he still didn’t expect the immediate, taut silence that met his question.

“Oh shit,” Klaus whispered, rigid. “You weren’t there.”

“This is about what triggered Vanya into…” He grimaced. There was no other way to say it. “Into the apocalypse, isn’t it?”

Nobody met his eye, the room suddenly full of statues.

“What exactly is down there that’s so terrible?” He crossed his arms, glaring around the room when none of them moved to respond. “You need to tell me. I need to know what I’m up against!”

Luther scrubbed a hand over his face, still staring at the ground. “It’s supposed to be a containment room, but it’s essentially a vault. A soundproof vault.”

“An anechoic chamber…” Five’s stomach dropped, ice pouring over him. The old man had locked up his sister. He shouldn’t be surprised: their father had done the same to Klaus.

But that begged the question, the obvious question he had pondered all week. The old man had been dead, and there was no reason for Vanya to go down there herself. Unless…

Somebody had brought her down there.

“Who…?”

He didn’t need to finish the question. One look at Luther’s face, and Five understood. He leapt to his feet, knocking over his chair.

“You!” An inferno incinerated his icy shock, heat going straight to his head. “How could you?! No—” He shook his head, his feet carrying him over to stand in front of Luther, leaning over, trying to catch his eye. “No, of course, you would. Even with Dad dead you have to be his perfect Number One. It’s too much work to think for yourself!” There was lava in his veins, his hands opening and closing into fists, just barely resisting grabbing Luther and shaking until his brother met his eye. Some monster was tearing open his chest. He turned, heading for the door before his anger made him turn back. “I can’t believe I considered you an option to help teach her! But you’re too brainwashed to be of any help! You’re just a damn puppet!” He laughed a mocking sound that nearly hiccuped into something else, something pitiful. What an idiot! His hand went to his forehead, gripping his hair like a madman as he tried to go for the door again before pacing back. “All that time on the moon, I thought you understood loneliness like us! I thought you understood how much even an ounce of compassion would matter! But no, instead, you turned around and decided to repeat her childhood trauma!”

“Five! That’s enough!” Vanya cried. He had seen her come back in the corner of his eye but hadn’t been able to stem the words pouring forth. Now, she was impossible to ignore, moving to stand in between him and Luther. “Luther and I have already talked. This is between us.”

Five glared at her, the firestorm still roaring in his head, but he saw the fierce look in her eyes and forced himself to bite his tongue. It wasn’t worth arguing with Luther anyway: he was just sitting there, looking grim and guilty, taking it in silence.

Five turned on his heel and finally managed to stomp out the door, slamming it behind him, marching down the stairs into the parking lot, next to the broken-down car Diego had bought for a pittance. He was tempted to endure the pain of a jump into the driver’s seat so he could hot-wire the car home, but then he felt her familiar presence behind him.

“I think it’s time for some breathing,” Delores said pointedly.

“Breathing?” he exclaimed sourly as he whipped around to face empty air. “Seriously?”

“What exactly have you been teaching Vanya this past week then?” she countered.

Five cursed under his breath and kicked one of the tires, immediately regretting his outburst when his leg wound repaid him with a flare of pain. He groaned and leaned against the car, holding his head and closing his eyes for a minute, listening to the occasional car on the nearby highway, listening to the sound of people going about their lives.

Forget breathing; what he needed was a stiff drink. But returning to the Academy drunk would only glue Mom to his side until Dad was home to administer punishment, so he forced himself to focus past the flush of heat spread across his body to the feeling of the cool night air in his lungs.

“Five?” Vanya called quietly a few minutes later.

He sighed and cracked open his eyes, lifting his head to look at her. Diego was hovering a few paces away.

Vanya slid next to him, leaning against the side of the car beside him. “I know you’ve spent the last two months defending me against Dad, but it’s a bit late to do it with Luther.”

“You two are really okay?”

“He was just trying to protect everyone.”

Five scoffed. “Everyone but you. He was emulating Dad like always.”

“Five…”

She didn’t need to say anything more. They both knew he understood why. It was easy to guess both the logic and the emotion Luther had faced when he made his choice.

What Five was having trouble with was whatever had torn open his chest.

He eyed Vanya, wondering if she knew, like she always knew with him. Thank the universe she and Delores would never meet.

Vanya was quiet a moment. “You of all people know how difficult it is to make the best decision to protect everyone.”

Five crossed his arms. “That was different.” He had sacrificed strangers while Luther had thrown their own sister on the altar.

“Was it?” she asked.

“Of course, it was. I was doing a job.”

He had said those words a thousand times to himself and had managed to convince himself every now and again, but the look she gave him made it clear she couldn’t be fooled even once. She knew exactly how intimately he knew each target.

He knew Tillie Baker liked two sugars in her tea, and Charles Crawford was ornery with people but gentle with his horse. He knew Aris, son of Aris of Laurion, loved to recite poetry even though his memory was horrible, and Vera Cardoza was cheating on her husband out of loneliness. He knew that Charlie had to die before he got in a shootout that injured the local barmaid, and Vera had to die before she confessed her affair. He knew Aris’s death would prevent the spread of plague to his household, and Tillie’s death would mean her grandson would get his inheritance and finally quit his dead-end job.

He knew Daisy’s father would scream in the streets as he held her body, and the neighbors would hold their children a little closer, preventing the toddler next door from being kidnapped later that week. And he also knew that Daisy’s older brother would fall into a debilitating depression and miss his chance to go to college. He knew how hard it could be, being the one left alive.

He knew all that, yet he had killed them anyway. The only time he had killed without such knowledge was when the Handler was literally breathing down his neck, telling him to tie the couple up and make it look like a home invasion.

Five’s skin prickled as something skimmed along his neck to fall onto his back, and he twisted, breath catching in his throat.

He blinked. He and Vanya stared at each other with wide eyes, his hand still clamped around her wrist, twisting her arm back at an unnatural angle. He let go, staggering back a step at the same time as Diego bounded over, behind Vanya.

“Sorry!” Five cried, turning away, running his hands through his hair, pacing back and forth in the small distance between the parked cars. “Shit!” Again? What was wrong with him? “I’m sorry!”

“No! No.” She raised her hands up in front of her, glancing back at Diego for a moment. “We’re okay. You’re okay. I shouldn’t have done that so suddenly.”

Five finally quit pacing, still rocking back and forth on his heels. He laughed a single, bitter laugh. “You all keep bombarding me with hugs, yet I still can’t handle a pat on the back.”

“Yeah, what’s with that?” Diego asked.

“None of your business,” he countered before he could stop himself.

“Sure. Because Vanya’s the only one allowed to care about you…” Diego grumbled, moving away to lean against the back of the car, facing away from them, but still within earshot.

Vanya gave Five a thoroughly disapproving look, but apparently, he still looked frazzled enough to earn a sigh of pity.

She waited for him to catch his breath before she spoke again. “I’m sorry I touched you without warning.”

“You don’t need to make excuses for me!” He gestured up at their hotel room, looking for somewhere to direct his flash of anger. “Or him!” He glanced up and saw belatedly that Klaus was in the window, face pressed against the glass as he peered down at them before quickly ducking away like a kid spying on a forbidden conversation.

Vanya didn’t even look up, understanding he was talking about Luther again. “Someone has to,” she said gently, her voice taking on an amused lilt. “You two have an over-inflated sense of responsibility.”

He choked on a surprised scoff. “What?”

Amusement was alight in her eyes. “You two are actually a lot alike.”

He opened his mouth to object, to remind her she was comparing him to an idealistic idiot, but he already knew what she was getting at. There was a reason they often butted heads; they both had stubborn streaks.

“You really forgave him?” he asked instead.

Her head tilted to the side as she smiled ruefully. “I’m the one who needs forgiveness.”

He wanted nothing more than to brush off her unasked question again. But, looking at the earnestness and the fear pulling the corners of her smile taut, he knew better now.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, being in that house again, it’s that it was all of us. We all caused the apocalypse.” He slipped his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I forgive you for your part.”

The tightness vanished, and her smile smoothed out into something more genuine. “I thought you said you blamed Dad.”

“I do.” He shrugged again. “I maintain it’s ninety percent his fault.”

“Ninety?” The amusement was back. “Are you sure?”

“True, that might be too low. I could run the numbers if you’d like.”

Vanya finally chuckled, the same laugh he had heard earlier that day from her other self.

They were quiet a moment. He glanced up at the window. Klaus was peeking over the windowsill, only the top of his head visible. Five sighed. “I’ll apologize to Luther tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow…?”

“The wristwatch is ready; it just needs to charge for a day. Then we can finish this.”

“Oh! Wow.” She laughed nervously. “Okay.”

He couldn’t help but smirk. “You ready for your first mission with the Umbrella Academy?”

“I don’t know…” she said dazedly.

“You’re ready,” he told her and waited for her to smile again before he called over his shoulder to Diego. “Come on. Stop lurking and take me home.”

Diego huffed as he came over and unlocked the car. “Just using me for the car…”

Five rolled his eyes, fighting a grin as the three of them climbed into the sedan.

Diego took notice of his good mood and suddenly reached over before his hand froze, hovering over Five until Five raised an eyebrow, and Diego had the gall to finish the movement, mussing up Five’s hair, earning him a jab to the ribs. Then, he started the car, making Vanya grin and Five roll his eyes again when he insisted on blasting the radio and singing off key the entire ride home.

Five’s newfound good mood stayed with him through the horrible singing and carried him through his farewells, into the alley, up onto the fire escape, and in through the bathroom window. It carried him right up until he finished climbing down from the lip of the bathtub and turned toward the door.

Light slipped through the crack beneath the door, illuminating what should have been a dark, abandoned hallway.

As he stood there, paralyzed, a shadow moved in front of the door and knocked.

-

“Number Five, come out.” Dad’s voice was sharp, like a slap across his face.

When the hell did they come home?! They were supposed to be back tomorrow!

Five held his breath, warring with himself. He could try sneaking right back out the window, or he could face Dad and try bluffing his way out of trouble.

“I can hear you.”

Shit. Shit!

It was no use. He tore off his clothes as quickly and silently as possible, stuffing them in the linen cabinet, and threw on his pajamas. Then, he took a steadying breath, pushed down the squirming in his stomach, and opened the door.

“Welcome home,” he said, his voice perfectly even.

“What were you doing?” the old man asked in that tone that unreadable tone of his.

Five tried to scoff. “Using the bathroom.”

“For over an hour?”

“I fell asleep,” he answered stupidly.

Dad almost looked as disappointed in the lie as Five felt.

“Come,” he ordered and turned on his heel, striding down the hall without glancing back to see if Five was following. Five had half a mind to stay right there, but he trudged forward, bracing himself for a lecture.

Very quickly, Five realized they were heading for Dad’s study. Five had only ever been called to stand in the doorway to wait for Dad to finish something or to be yelled at. It was easy to guess where this was heading.

Or at least it was, until Dad moved into the room, to the right of the fireplace, and pushed on the wood paneling. It immediately swung open, revealing a room behind it.

“Come!”

Five stared, unsure if the secret room or being invited into the forbidden study was more surprising. Either way, it as a bad sign. Sighing to himself, he followed the old man into the shadows.

Then, the lights flipped on, and Five had the immediate sense that the study was a front. The workshop was downright messy compared to the immaculate study; this was where the true work was done. There was a workbench to one side, sporting various tools, and against the parallel wall was a desk housing a large, whirring machine with some sort of television attached, displaying a black screen with green numbers—were those probability maps? The other walls were lined with shelves and cabinets, all housing different, unidentifiable gadgets at different stages of completion, but what caught Five’s attention was the great skeleton of a contraption in the middle of the room. The nearest Five could liken it to was an elevator, though that made little sense without an elevator shaft. It was barely half finished, spewing springs and leaking wire guts, yet there was something else, something powerful sitting at its base. Five could feel the pull of the energy source from the doorway.

This place would have been good to know about when Five was trying to rig together the wristwatches.

Though, in retrospect, maybe he had known about this place. While scavenging, he had found several gears and wires in the rubble of what he had thought to be Dad’s study.

“Sit.” The old man pointed to the stool next to the workbench and went to one of the cabinets. Five sat at the edge of the seat, looking around, taking in everything. Some of these machines were eerily similar to things from the Commission’s gadget room.

Dad pulled out a monitor with several wires attached, and placed it on the workbench, plugging a handful of the wires into one of the metal boxes sitting at the edge of the bench. Then, he turned to Five, with another handful of the wires, these with electrodes attached to the end of them.

Oh. This again? Five sat still, not fighting, but definitely not helping as Dad attached several of the nodes to his head, and a couple under his shirt on his chest. Five stifled a yawn, the coffee he’d been guzzling all night finally beginning to lose its potency. Dad must’ve thought he had been sneaking out to try time traveling again or something. The monitor turned on with a loud beep, and the old man read the screen for a minute.

Then, he went to a different cabinet, this one locked, requiring a key from his pocket. What he pulled out this time, was a silver cuff, like a shackle, but with no chain attached. Two tiny light bulbs were embedded in the metal next to a row of three small black buttons. Five had never seen anything like it, yet as the old man brought it closer, he felt a spike of inexplicable panic.

His instincts screamed danger; Delores screamed danger. “Get out of there! Run!”

He bolted to his feet, ignoring the mess of wires still attached to him, turning to the door—

A strong, cold hand wrapped around his forearm—

He forgot himself. He tried to jump.

Pain sliced across his core, making him double over, gasping, eyes squeezing shut—

“No, no! Five! Look out! Fi—"

Abruptly, the world stopped. The pain stopped. Delores’s cries stopped.

Five let out a shaky breath, opening his eyes, half-expecting to find the Handler, having paused time again.

And strangely, it did look like a time stop; everything had a film of sepia over it. But the world was still moving. The monitor on the workbench was beeping obnoxiously. Dad’s hands were on his shoulders, pushing him back down onto the stool.

Five blinked down at his arm. That… was still his arm, right? The cuff was secured firmly around the wrist, and, though it was hard to see it with how dim the lights had gotten, one of the tiny light bulbs was now emitting a pinprick of red light.

Nausea slammed into him like a freight train, and he vomited something tasteless… no, bitter? The coffee. It went all over the old man’s shoes.

Some part, deep inside of him was satisfied by that. The rest of him was too busy retching to care. He shut his eyes tight as his body shuddered again and again and again.

Eventually, it stopped, long after his stomach was empty, and he was left shivering.

A warm hand pressed firm to his forehead, and he flinched back. His eyes opened and found Mom. When did she get here? Dad’s voice was clipped, a jumble of words. Five closed his eyes again, feeling the two of them move around him, unable to take it in.

“Five?”

Five blinked out of his stupor and found Mom’s worried eyes watching him. More time must have passed, though he had no perceived duration. The monitor with all its wires was gone, and the floor had been cleaned of his mess.

“Can you hear me?” she asked softly. He tried to reply affirmatively, but the word came out as a moan. She shifted, and he realized her arm was wrapped around his back, holding him close to her as his head lolled on her shoulder. Her hand appeared before him, a small, white pill in the center of her palm. “Take this. It will help with the nausea.”

A distant part of his mind, where logic lived, warned him that the pill was from Dad, and he should spit it out. But the pill was suddenly on his tongue, and she was tipping a glass of cool water into his mouth. He swallowed without thought and shuddered as he gagged on the water.

He closed his eyes once more, concentrating on the feel of shallow breaths in his own chest, trying to slow them. He felt his body leaning against her, felt the nausea clawing at his throat begin to retreat, felt her hand running smooth concentric circles on his back.

A few minutes later, he heard someone enter the room. He opened his eyes and found Dad returning from whenever he had left. Their eyes met, and the old man came to stand in front of Five, just out of range of any more vomit.

“It will take your body a few hours to adjust. I suggest you sleep in the meantime.”

“What…?” Five croaked and cleared his throat. “What did you do to me?”

“Your body needs rest that you are apparently incapable of providing it.”

Five blinked. The sepia haze had lifted significantly, but everything was still strangely dull looking. “What?”

“Put him to bed and monitor him the rest of the night.” He left again, before Five could comprehend.

Mom lifted him up, carrying him out of that horrible workshop, out of danger. Five felt he was on the verge of understanding, just as sleep poured emptiness over his brain.

-

“Five? I’m sorry, sweetie, I hate to wake you…”

He groaned in protest. It had been a fitful sleep, the type from which he woke frequently but not fully, only enough to note his heart inexplicably racing and the chill running through his bones. He caught glimpses of dreams, nothing but blurred shapes and colors, and woke each time with Delores’s name on his lips. But it was Mom who had answered his calls, sitting beside him, offering soft words as she wiped the sweat from his brow.

Now, her hands were firm on his shoulders, as she called his name.

He blinked, his eyes struggling to focus on her face in the dim light. “What…?”

“Your father wants you downstairs for roll call,” she said, one of her hands going to grip his. He followed her gaze.

Oh. Red lines littered his arm, surrounding the metal cuff, the hand she was gripping was still digging his nails into his skin. Mom pulled his hand away and examined the scratches before leaning forward to gently place a hand against his forehead, testing his temperature. “Can you sit up?”

Could he? He blinked at her again and sat up, almost surprised at the ease of the action and the lack of pain. He wasn’t numb—he could feel her hands on his back, helping him up—but there was a cold, pervasive weariness sitting like lead in his limbs and a strange sense of disconnect between his mind and body. It hearkened back to that hazy day, the day of the funeral, when he suddenly found himself in skin far too young, limbs far too short. It hadn’t taken him long to adapt; hopefully, it would be the same case now.

Mom handed him a fresh uniform, and when his fingers moved clumsily to tug at the sleeves of his pajama shirt, she silently began to help him dress, giving him no time for argument or embarrassment.

Once he was in his uniform, she pulled him to his feet, holding him steady as he fought to find his equilibrium. It was only then that he realized the lights were not as dim as he originally thought, the morning sun shining bright through the window. Even as his eyes adjusted, the colors of the room remained dull, like a sun bleached photograph.

“Ready?” Mom asked as she brushed his hair out of his eyes. At least his ears were working fine.

“Lead the way,” he murmured, his tongue feeling lazy in his mouth. She hooked her arm under his elbow and set a slow pace to the bathroom. He had regained enough of his balance by the time they got there that Mom allowed him the privacy of completing his morning routine on his own, but she was quick to take his arm again when he exited and they began the trek to the family room.

As they walked, he found himself adapting to his leaden bones, slowly shedding the last bits of sleep clinging to his mind, allowing it to wander until he finally completed his thought from the night before.

The shackle was cutting him off from his powers. He thought of his first year in the apocalypse when his powers had refused his call, but faulty as they were, he had still felt the usual warmth at his core. All he felt now was a bleak, cavernous void, like someone had scooped out a second heart he hadn't known he had had.

Was this what it was like for Vanya? For all those years, had she lived in a faded world like this? But for her, it had been faded in other ways too.

He thought of Luther with his own emotional suppressant, not in pill form but just as effective. He thought of Vanya, playing her violin, and of her book, of how the only way she had felt safe enough to say everything she had needed to was on paper while living across town.

By the time they hit the stairs, Five could guess what the concern Delores had felt during that first lesson was. And by the time they reached the family room, his body felt like his again, from the clammy skin down to the bone aching exhaustion to the familiar mixture of regret and determination swelling in his chest.

Five made to slip into his usual spot for roll call—his siblings had yet to arrive—but Mom caught his elbow and silently directed him to stand opposite of where the line would form, next to where Dad usually stood to bark his orders. So, he was going to be presented to the class? Time to make an example of Number Five.

A few minutes later, his siblings began to trickle up from the kitchen.

“Speak of the devil!”

“There you are!” Diego and Klaus called to him as they spotted him across the room, Ben and Vanya close behind. Then, their faces fell as they got closer, and Vanya gasped. He didn’t look that bad, did he?

“What happened?” Diego demanded.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked as they crowded around.

“I’m fine,” Five said, attempting a reassuring smile. None of them looked reassured. “How was your trip?” he tried.

“You look awful,” Klaus answered.

“So, you really were sick?” Allison asked as she and Luther joined the circle. “Vanya said you seemed fine yesterday.”

Before Five could answer, the sound of Dad clearing his throat interrupted, drawing them all to attention, his siblings scurrying into line. Their eyes flickered to him, even as Dad performed the usual inspection before turning on his heel and standing next to Five, not sparing him a glance.

“Number Five will not be joining you for training today. All of you, take note: pushing your ability past what I have deemed safe will result in injury. Number Five was foolish enough to attempt to time travel.”

Attempt? Five could hardly believe his ears. Dad still hadn’t figured it out? But of course, he wouldn’t; Five’s thirteen-year-old disguise was too perfect for someone who didn’t pay attention to personality. The old man looked at Five and saw what he wanted to: an ignorant, inferior child. He didn’t think Five capable of time traveling, at least not backwards and not so soon that he would show up back at the Academy, biologically the same age as when he had left. A ripple went through his siblings as they shot him confused or bemused looks.

Dad was still lecturing, even though Luther was the only one giving his full attention. “His failed attempt has injured him so severely, he must wear this,” he lifted Five’s arm for the grand reveal, his fingers a cold vice around Five’s forearm, “a special cuff I have designed to help him heal, as a broken bone needs a cast—”

Five couldn’t help but laugh.

Okay, to be fair, he probably could have held it in, but why should he? “A cast? Really? It’s a ball and chain. You cut me off from my powers. You might as well have cut off my arm!”

The monocle glared down at him, irritated, but unsurprised by the interruption. “If you had followed my instructions, the cast wouldn’t be necessary.”

“I haven’t made a single jump since you told me not to!” Five objected. “Don’t pretend this is for my own good!”

“It will ensure you heal, since you have been insistent on using your powers—”

“I haven’t!”

“It is no use lying. I monitored your energy output before we left and saw the difference when we returned last night.”

What was he talking about? Five scoffed but could see there was no winning the argument from this angle. “Well, if this is truly a cast, when did you make it? Shouldn’t you have created it in response to my injury? No, it was sitting there in a drawer, waiting to be used!” He looked at his siblings and pasted on a smile. “I got to see his workshop. I bet there’s something for each one of us there. Right?” He turned back to Dad. “You have some horrible, special punishment for each of us, just waiting for us to step out of line one too many times, a contingency for the moment you realize you can’t control us.”

Dad pursed his lips, waiting a second. “Are you finished? If you feel the need to interrupt again—”

“You’ll what?” Five raised the cuff in front of his chest so it glinted in the light, his nails digging fresh scratch marks where his wrist met metal. “You really think there's some punishment you can give me that's worse than this?”

Dad scowled down at him, silent for a moment, calculating his next move. “If you insist that the cast is punishment, I can make it so. Interrupt again, and you will have to wear it another two weeks after you’re healed.”

Five snorted, smirking in what he knew was a sad excuse for a victory. “Look how easy that was.”

“I have tried to lead you through trust and respect, but you insistently make it clear you do not respect the rules of the Academy or me—”

“You’ve done nothing to earn my respect yet,” Five snapped, and if he didn’t know better, he’d say the old man’s eye twitched.

“But I must insist you show your siblings respect,” Dad ordered, and Five balked at the attempt to twist things back on him.

“What the hell does that mean?” he growled, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized exactly what it meant.

“The Umbrella Academy is a team, and so we share in rewards and punishments alike. If you insist on acting out, you are punishing your siblings,” the old man gave the familiar lecture, the one he had given Five dozens of times during his childhood, knowing it was the one way to ensure Five fell in line. “Should they share in wearing the cast? Should each of them wear it for a week after you?”

Five’s heart was forcing ice water through his veins, an uncontrollable shiver running through him. He should have seen this coming; he didn’t even have the excuse of forty-five years after what had happened on portrait day. He wanted to ask, to demand if this was why their father had adopted so many of them: so that he could hold them hostage against each other.

Instead, he swallowed hard, nails tearing into the skin of his wrist, and forced his rigid posture to relax into defeat. The old man saw the retreat and had to push it. “That is six extra weeks.” Because, of course, he wouldn’t leave Vanya out of it. Even if she was supposed to be powerless, she was another weapon to use against Five. “Should the punishment be collective, or will you take responsibility for your actions?”

Five forced himself to stay statue still for a second, unsure what he’d do to Hargreeves if he didn’t. “I’m the one who can’t keep his mouth shut,” he forced out, his teeth clenched so tight his jaw ached. “I’m the only one who should be punished.”

A ripple went through the line as his siblings looked at each other, whispering, nodding.

Diego stood at attention, addressing their father. “We’ll share the punishment—”

“No, you won’t,” Five interrupted sharply, his eyes going to the end of the line.

“But…!”

“You won’t.” Five glared at Diego, watching as his brother shifted his stance, ready to argue, until Allison suddenly understood and gripped Diego’s arm. Diego shot them both a confused look, and Five’s answer was to let his eyes flick to Vanya again.

Her face was flush, as she stared back at him with wide eyes, her breath coming in short, shallow bursts. Ben noticed the look and took a subtle sidestep towards their sister.

“I’ll be fine, everyone.” Five spoke to them as he turned back to Dad, hoping to keep the old man’s attention. “Just take a breath.”

Dad watched Diego for further resistance. “Now that that’s settled,” he began when Diego crossed his arms and looked away, “Number Five, you will come with me—"

Five didn’t hear the rest of Dad’s sentence, for that was when the old man reached out a cold, bony hand and grabbed Five’s wrist.

Maybe if he hadn’t been so tired or if his emotions weren’t running high, Five could have hidden his wince as Dad’s grip happened to close around raw, scratched skin. But he did wince, an unmistakable, uncontrolled flinching of his body to pain.

Vanya gasped.

The gleaming monocle cracked.

The moment froze. Then, Five watched, his stomach plummeting as their father’s eyes went to Vanya.

He turned, his grip on Five loosening, and Five matched the movement by moving between him and Vanya, one foot sliding back into a fighting stance ingrained into him since he could walk.

“Grace, fetch Number Seven’s medicine. Number Three, Five, and Seven, stay where you are. The rest of you, go with Pogo to the classroom.”

Nobody moved. Then, Mom complied, hurrying out of the room.

“What’s happening?” Luther asked quietly, eyes darting around between the rest of them. “What was that?”

“Go with Pogo.” Dad’s voice was sharp. “Number Five, step away.”

“No.” Five sank a little lower into his stance. He could hear Vanya’s shallow breathing behind him.

The rest of his siblings were still frozen, all except Luther, who shifted a couple steps in the direction of the classroom. “Come on everyone,” he called when nobody followed.

Klaus took a sideways step past Allison. But Diego caught his arm, and Klaus slunk behind him, protected by the glare Diego was leveling at Dad. Ben bit his lip, arms curling around his stomach; Five could feel Ben trying to catch his eye.

Allison was the only one who responded to Luther’s call by turning on her heel and stalking to his side.

“Number Three, you are not excused.”

She whirled around, skirt swirling dramatically around her, her chin jutting out. “I won’t rumor her again!”

The air disappeared from the room.

“Again?” Luther echoed, studying Allison closely, then their father’s face.

“You won’t need to, if Number Five steps away, and Number Seven stays calm,” the old man answered evenly.

“No,” Five repeated.

“Number Five, you don’t realize the danger—”

“She’s not the dangerous one,” Five snapped.

“If I must remove you by force, I will.”

Five let his mask fall, let the assassin stare coldly at the man before him. “Try it. I don’t need my powers to take you down.”

Their father was silent a moment, studying him warily. “She needs to be contained—”

Vanya gasped, pressing herself into Five’s back, her forehead pressed against Five’s shoulder blade. The pictures frames on the table behind the couch splintered.

“No,” Five snarled. “You aren’t taking her down there.”

“You don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“I understand. I understand more than you do.”

“Enough!” Dad’s voice finally raised to a yell. “This is no time for your childish attempts at grandeur! You do not understand what is at stake, and for once in your life, you will obey.”

This wasn’t working. He wished he could hear Delores’s calm words, keeping him on track, but she was as silent as the night before.

Physically attacking Dad wouldn’t help, that much was obvious. They were likely an even match without Five’s powers, and then he’d have to deal with Luther and probably Mom too. And then what? There would be no safety for Vanya in this household.

No, he had to change Dad’s mind somehow. He had to offer something to make sure Vanya didn’t wind up in the vault.

“You still think I failed to time travel.”

Finally, finally the old man’s eyes left Vanya to look at him.

“I know exactly what is at stake,” Five said quietly.

Here was to hoping Klaus was right about their father killing himself to draw them all together in time to save the world. Five’s breath was shallow in his chest; he forced a deep breath before continuing.

“April 1^st, 2019,” he said plainly, watching Dad’s reaction carefully. “You know what happens then, don’t you? I know too. I saw it with my own eyes.” He could see the spark in the old man’s eyes and knew he had him on the line. “I’ll tell you about it. I’ll even let Allison rumor me to tell the truth. But only if you leave Vanya alone.”

Mom had returned, pill bottle in hand. She lingered in the doorway.

“She needs to be contained,” the stubborn bastard insisted, though his tone, remarkably, was a degree quieter.

“If you have to throw someone in your dungeon, throw me in,” Five growled. “You won’t get my story otherwise.”

They both glared, scrutinizing, searching each other for their next opening. In the corner of Five’s eye, he saw Ben move, stepping close to Vanya. Dad’s eyes flickered to Ben for a split second, and Five knew the silent presence of an ally was all he needed to finish the fight. “Do we have a deal?”

“No.”

There was a swooping feeling in Five’s stomach as he turned in surprise. Vanya straightened up to look him in the eye, her face bloodless, her eyes cold.

“No,” she said again, voice icy, injecting a fresh shot of adrenaline into Five’s veins. “This isn’t right.”

Her words vibrated through the air, and he could feel them shiver through his bones, rattling his teeth. Ben was leaning back in alarm but stood his ground, glancing at Five.

Five nodded to his brother, then slowly reached his hands out to grip her shoulders. A trembling ran up his arms even though she was no longer speaking, and after a moment, he realized he was feeling her heartbeat. It took a second for him to concentrate past the quivering, to see, as he suspected, her breaths were shallow.

“Breathe,” he said softly, watching the anger flashing in her eyes. “Vanya, you can’t do this.”

“This isn’t right,” she repeated in a hiss.

Five could feel everyone watching, holding their breath and was surprised Dad hadn’t already intervened; Five could feel him looming over his shoulder with all the intensity of a panther waiting to strike. He shifted his feet, anchoring his stance in case Dad tried to drag him away.

He kept his volume quiet as he answered. “I know, but you can’t do this. If you do, he’ll think he’s been justified.” He paused to take a deep breath, in part for himself, in part to remind her to do the same. “You have to prove him wrong. Show him that you can control it.” Her face twisted as she struggled with herself, but her eyes remained steely. Five took another breath. “I know you’re angry; I am too. But you must breathe, Vanya. Prove him wrong.”

Finally, she took a deep breath, but her intensity didn’t change. “I won’t let him take you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sensed slow movement as Dad inched forward. Five’s hands slid down to get a better grip on Vanya's arms, just above her elbows. They had to show him. This was a test they couldn’t afford to fail.

“You can and you will,” Five said firmly, hands tensing, preparing to either push or pull his sister depending on Dad’s strategy. “I promised I wouldn’t let him lock you up, and this is the best way to make sure he doesn’t. If I’m down there, I know you’re not. Let me do this.”

She reached up to brace him, matching his grip, their forearms resting against each other, and he could feel her trembling, a reaction outside of her powers. “I can’t. I can’t do this. It’s too much. I can’t stop—I don’t want to stop being angry at him.”

Damn it. Delores had been right to be concerned; he had given her the wrong impression. “That’s okay. You don’t have to stop or turn off your feelings or anything like that. I’m sorry I ever implied that was an option. I know, of all people, I know. I can’t stop being angry. You know I can’t.” He saw himself, hurling words like daggers, slamming doors, trapping himself. “I’m angry until I hurt someone or myself. That’s all you need to avoid here, Vanya. Remember what we discussed—what you were afraid of doing? This is the moment you avoid it. This is the moment you protect us. Be angry and scared and whatever else, but right now, don’t act on it. Breathe through it, and later, later you can go to the roof and play the angriest song you know, play it as loud as you can and tell the whole world how angry you are, but right now, if you release your anger, you’ll only hurt one of us or yourself. So you must breathe!”

She visibly shuddered, then inhaled. Dad continued inching closer, forcing Five to adjust his stance again, pulling her ever so slightly closer to him, closer to where Ben still stood, no longer stiff with alarm, his feet planted, hands on his stomach, facing Dad. Five felt a rush of affection for his brother.

Vanya slowly exhaled, but her eyes went to the old man, her grip tightening on Five when she saw how close he was.

But then Allison was there, marching over so that she stood in front of Vanya, her shoulder brushing Five’s as they formed a makeshift wall. And there was Diego, just behind Allison, the two of them glaring at Dad, and Klaus slid into place behind Diego, sandwiching Vanya between him and Ben, looking terribly nonchalant about the whole thing.

All of them stood close, all of them within the blast radius, and Five felt a fierce, warm emotion surge within him despite the room holding its breath, waiting for Dad to finally interrupt the moment.

But it wasn’t Dad; it was Luther. “What are you doing?”

It was a strange question. It should’ve been obvious to any onlooker.

“Protecting our sister,” Allison answered, her shoulder bumping against Five’s as she crossed her arms and lifted her chin defiantly as she stared Dad down. Five almost turned so he could see the old man’s face, but he kept his gaze steady on Vanya, watching as color was drawn into her cheeks, her eyes darting around between them all.

“The Umbrella Academy is a team,” Diego recited. The slight squirm in his hands and feet was the only indication of his anxiety about throwing Dad’s words back at him, but he pressed on. “We protect our own.”

Five could see Luther over Vanya’s shoulder, could see how his mouth hung open a moment, clearly insulted by Diego’s implication if Luther didn’t join them, and then Five saw the way Luther looked at their father, his brow creased in that familiar, clueless way. That was the issue, wasn’t it? Luther couldn’t comprehend what they were protecting Vanya from.

But Five didn’t have time to deal with Luther’s ignorance. What mattered, were the tears shining in Vanya’s eyes, and the way her breath was hitching. A shimmering was beginning to blanket them.

“As much as I appreciate the gesture, none of this is helping her breathe,” Five informed them dryly. Vanya’s next shuddering breath came out closer to a laugh than a sob, and the trembling along his arms was receding.

“Oops. Sorry,” Klaus stage whispered.

It was definitely a laugh this time, and contrary to what Five had just said, her breaths were coming more evenly, her eyes closing in concentration, tears clinging to her lashes. Five felt his breath fall into rhythm alongside her, just as they had practiced all week. And after a minute, he may have been mistaken, but it felt like they were all breathing together as the shimmering formed a halo around them.

Slowly, it faded, and reality returned. Vanya opened her eyes.

“Do you trust us?” he asked her quietly, and she smiled, small and fretful, as she nodded. “Then, you’ll let me do this.”

She sniffled, swallowing hard, and after a moment, she nodded again. "Okay."

Five took a steadying breath, steeling himself, and finally turned to look up at the intruder to their scene, not understanding why Dad had allowed the entire episode to unfold without interruption.

The answer was immediately obvious; the old man’s face was furrowed in a familiar way. It was the same intense stare Five had felt upon him while training: the concentration of a scientist watching his rats run a maze.

A fresh dose of anger poured over Five, but before he could begin his barrage of furious words, the old man turned away.

“Grace,” he called to where Mom still stood a few paces away, next to Pogo, both watching with obvious emotion in their eyes. “Give Number Seven her medicine, then take Number Five to the containment room and lock him in. Everyone else, to your lessons.”

And with a blunt sense of finality, he turned on his heel and marched into his study, the door clicking shut behind him.

-

The elevator grew colder and colder, the farther down they went. Five was already feeling unnaturally cold from the shackle, and now he hugged himself against the chill, edging closer to Mom.

“Thank you,” he said to her. “For not forcing Vanya to take the pills.”

Mom kept her eyes forward, her posture so stiff his back ached just looking at her. “He said to give her the pills. I did that.” And she had. She had handed the bottle to Vanya before turning to take Five to the elevator. His siblings had gawked, recognizing the defiance. Klaus had even whooped.

Vanya had accepted the bottle but only reluctantly let go of Five. And Five, for all his words, was admittedly reluctant to go. But Ben had his arm around her shoulders, and Allison quickly moved to wrap herself around Vanya’s other side, while Diego puffed himself up, giving Five an overly serious nod, Klaus bouncing around them, taking Vanya’s hands, gushing over her shimmery new trick. Only Luther had stood apart, asking again what was happening.

The elevator lurched as they reached their destination, and Mom led the way into the frigid tunnel. Five resisted the urge to rub his eyes. While the entire morning had appeared in dull color, suddenly surrounded by stark gray, Five felt like he had stepped off the elevator into a foreign world. Or a very familiar one. But at least the sun had been there to cast orange and red hues through the smoke filled sky; the lighting in the tunnel encouraged only dark shadows on Mom’s face as they reached their destination and she turned to him.

“This is it,” he said softly, feeling his stomach twist as he looked at the metal door.

“This is it,” she confirmed and opened the door for him, though she made no move to force him inside. It was just as small as he had imagined. They exchanged grim smiles. Her head tilted to the side as she studied him. “You have been helping Vanya explore her powers all week, haven’t you?”

He gave a half-shrug in response.

She nodded, leaning forward to take his hand and examine the raw skin of his wrist. “I don’t like what this device is doing to your well-being.”

Five snorted. “Me neither.”

They stood there a moment longer, Five allowing his mother to gently smooth down his hair and brush off his shoulders as if he was getting ready for an important meeting. He supposed he was.

Then, he stepped into the vault and looked around at its barren soundproof walls. It was empty. “She was four or five?” he asked as Mom followed him in.

“Four.”

“How long was she in here?”

She folded her hands in front of her in that familiar, perfect posture, but then her shoulders sagged. “Nearly a week before we got the medicine dosage right.”

Five let out a slow, shaky breath and ran a hand over his face. “Could you…” He shook his head and sighed. “Could you go up and make sure she’s alright? That they’re all okay?”

“Are you sure you want me to leave?”

“Yes,” he said, even though he wasn’t. He still didn’t feel Delores’s presence, no matter how much he wished for it. The blasted shackled must have done something to his brain. Wasn’t that a lovely thought?

“I’ll be back with your breakfast soon,” she assured as she stepped out. She looked at the heavy door and stood statue still.

“He did say to lock me in. No getting around that one.” Five sighed as he sat down against the far wall, leaning against the foam absorption wedges, uncomfortable but bearable. Then he watched as she closed the door, an apologetic look on her face as she watched him through the window for a second before she left.

The silence that descended was unnatural. Even the apocalypse, devoid of people, had been full of crackling fire, whispering wind, and scuffling creatures. No, this was something new, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

The familiar ache of loneliness curled around him, a shroud laden with despair. It was moments like this, when he still knew his next step, when it wasn’t yet time to search for oblivion at the bottom of a bottle, but there was nothing to do but wait or escape into sleep, that Delores was at her most talkative. She would distract with her wry humor and encourage him to visit his garden, to bring out the paintings, to immerse himself in color, to remind himself there was a beautiful, vibrant world waiting for him back home. He’d usually wind up planting flowers he knew she’d enjoy later or searching for a new blouse for her—something colorful or shiny would earn him a delighted laugh.

“Delores?” he called, feeling foolish in a way he hadn’t since those early days, when he had first spoken to the mannequin, when there was a part of him that knew it was the equivalent of playing with dolls. But that was before Delores became something else, before he could feel her presence without needing to check where he had left her plastic body.

Five couldn’t feel her here. He was alone, his beating heart the only sound.

He sighed and settled in, wondering if Dad or breakfast would show up first.

-

Five jolted out of his stupor to the sound of the door unlocking, unsure of how much time had passed. It had been long enough for his adrenaline to finally recede though, leaving his body in the sluggish state he had woken up in that morning.

He listened to the grinding of the locking mechanism and wondered if it was worth the effort to stand. Judging from the glimpse of a dark clad elbow through the window, Dad had arrived, and he likely would demand Five get up off the floor. But the lack of sound was doing nothing for his unsteady equilibrium, so he stubbornly stayed where he was. Then, the door swung open, and the last person he expected stepped inside.

“What are you doing here?”

“I brought your breakfast,” Luther answered, lifting the tray of food he was carrying in offering as he entered the vault. When Five made no move to get up, he knelt next to Five and set the tray down. The smell of the fried eggs hit Five's nose and reached down his throat to knock on his empty stomach, making him quickly turn away, swallowing hard against the sudden warmth in his throat.

“Are you okay?” Luther was reaching out, hand hovering awkwardly in the air. Five knocked the hand away before Luther could decide its destination.

“Why are you here?” he ground out, leaning away from the food.

“You don’t look so good.”

Five snorted. “Thanks.”

Luther frowned, brow creasing with obvious concern.

“Feeling nauseated,” Five admitted. “Though I’m not sure if it’s from hunger or this damn thing.” He raised his arm so that his sleeve fell back to reveal the shackle.

“I feel sick when I’m really hungry too,” Luther said absently, his eyes glued to the movement of the metal around Five’s wrist. “The regimented diet Dad has me on can be hard to follow sometimes.”

Five raised an eyebrow, unimpressed with the choice of conversation and unused to Luther not saying what he wanted. But that was the other Luther he was thinking of, wasn’t it? He sighed. “Is that why you’re always snacking?” he asked, playing along, taking the opportunity to begin bracing for the inevitable fight.

“I don’t do that.” Luther paused, scowling. “Do I?” He glanced down at the tray of food between them, brow furrowing for a second as if he had forgotten his excuse for being there. “You should eat!”

Luther grabbed the mug of tea and pressed it into Five’s hands. The scent of ginger and honey was less aggravating than the smell of oil and egg, so Five took a sip, grateful for its warmth, noting that his sense of taste had recovered since the night before.

A few minutes later, half the tea was gone, along with a slice of toast, and Luther was still kneeling, watching carefully like Five might somehow cheat his way out of eating. Five sighed, feeling a touch stronger already.

“Why are you here?” he tried again.

“I asked if I could bring you your breakfast,” Luther repeated.

Five scoffed at the continuing lack of answer. Fine. He should be reserving his strength for Dad anyway. “You ask Dad if you could come down here?”

“Yes.”

Really? “And Dad said yes?”

“He did. He was a bit distracted though,” Luther admitted. “He was searching through some papers.”

Rechecking his research before confronting Five? Then, Five had truly managed to take the old man by surprise. He wasn’t sure whether he should feel proud or insulted.

He began nibbling on his second piece of toast and tried to ignore Luther’s stare.

“I…” Luther finally started, a war of emotion fighting its way across his face as he looked around the vault. “I didn’t know this place existed.”

Five shrugged. “I didn’t either until recently.”

Luther’s eyes met his. “He really put Vanya down here?”

Five was suddenly struck with the urge to laugh. “You saying you wouldn’t?” he muttered bitterly, and confusion clouded Luther’s face.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Luther snapped defensively. “The others wouldn’t tell me anything. All I know is that you have answers.” He paused, backing off as quickly as he had escalated, and finally shifted from kneeling above Five to sit properly in front of him. “I also know that cuff is making you ill, but you were willing to take all the punishment for us.”

Five swallowed down the last bite of toast and took a bite of egg as he considered his brother, unsure what to make of the intense stare he was receiving. “Are you saying you would have done differently?”

“No! Of course not! I just thought…”

“That I wouldn’t?”

“No!” Luther scrubbed a hand through his hair in frustration.

Five took another bite of egg. It was already getting cold, but his stomach wasn’t rejecting it yet.

“I’ve never seen Dad so angry,” Luther said quietly.

“Congratulations.”

“You…!” Luther started, and again Five could see him struggle for a second before swallowing down his frustration. Why was he bothering? Dad wasn’t here to appreciate his effort.

Luther answered Five’s thought with his next question. “Is it true you time traveled?”

So, those were the answers Luther was looking for, and he was attempting to stay calm until he got them. Five shook his head. “I haven’t told anyone the details, and I’m not about to tell you.”

Luther pursed his lips and crossed his arms. “You didn’t tell me anything. I was the only one who didn’t know.”

“Only because you would’ve told Dad.”

“Dad has our best interests at heart—”

 “Like when he throws us in a cell?” Five gestured around them. “When he takes away our powers? Holds us as hostages against each other?”

“You were misbehaving…” Luther muttered.

A single, bitter laugh escaped him. “Well, you caught me, Luther,” Five said sardonically. “I sneaked out. I lied. I talked back.” Then, he gestured around them, all thoughts of saving his fight for Dad vanishing. “And what the hell did Vanya do to deserve this?”

“I don’t know. Nobody will tell me.”

“Nothing! She did absolutely nothing, except to be born just like the rest of us! She just happened to be too powerful for the old man to control!”

Luther shifted, tucking his feet under him as he leaned forward. “So, all that up there, that really was her?” He accepted Five’s raised eyebrow as confirmation, and then his eyes wandered around the dark walls. “But there must have been a reason.” He seemed to find whatever he was looking for in one of the corners, his face alighting with comprehension. “If she was out of control, then it was to protect us.”

“Oh, very good, Number One,” Five said, dry as dust. “Full marks as usual. I suppose you think it was right to put Vanya through all of that?”

“He was protecting us…” he repeated.

“And what about Vanya? Was he protecting her too?”

Luther had to think long and hard about that one. “If she had hurt one of us, she wouldn’t have forgiven herself.”

Something squirmed in Five’s stomach. “Wow,” he said, sharply, ignoring the truth of the statement. “Really had to twist things in a pretzel to make that one work.”

“You keep making Dad out to be the bad guy, but he’s not.” Luther crossed his arms, leaning away from Five’s sarcastic barrage.  “Everything he does is to—”

“Save the world,” Five chanted in the same cadence Dad had used for years. “So, every action taken to save the world is right? If I told you I killed innocent people to save the world, that would be okay?”

“That’s not the same! Dad would never kill innocent people!”

Five openly scoffed, his face flushing with anger, something painful pressing on his chest.

“You know what, I can’t deal with you when you’re like this!” Luther declared, getting up to leave.

“I’d say the same, but I haven’t been dealing with you, Luther. I’ve been arguing with Dad this whole time!” Five called to his brother’s back.

Luther spun back around. “What does that mean?”

“It means, Number One,” he shouted, “that you’re a puppet!”

For a second, he thought Luther might punch a hole in the wall; the other one would have. But instead, the puffed chest and raised arms tensed for a moment, and then dropped, physically shaking the anger from his limbs. Five saw him take a steadying breath—there really was no secret calming technique—and he crossed his arms, defensive over aggressive.

For some reason, that only made Five’s temper reach a boil. He clambered to his feet, dizziness forcing him to lean against the wall as he shouted. “You want to know why I told everyone else, but not you? It’s because I trust you, Luther, but I sure as hell don’t trust Number One!”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“It does!” He couldn’t stay still any longer and began to pace the short distance of the vault, ignoring the tilting of the room, each forceful stomp on the floor enough to keep him upright, the stomp of his foot against the floor sending shock waves up his legs, making his injured leg throb. “Number One is all about pleasing Dad and being the perfect, little soldier to execute Dad’s vision. Number One doesn’t care about us! But Luther? Luther is a righteous asshole, and an idealistic idiot, and a childish, fervent, stubborn simpleton who always insists that we’re not alone, who is always silently checking us for injuries after a mission, who cheers everyone up once we’re home by playing music loud enough for us all to hear. I trust that guy: the guy who is always pushing us to do the right thing! To be better! I trust my brother, not Number One!”

That painful ache from the night before suddenly burst open his chest, and he was yelling at Luther again, the vault absorbing any echo, leaving his words bare. “How can I trust you, when you looked at me and still deemed me good despite everything I’ve done? You still gave me a chance, but then…! Then, you turned around and didn’t afford that same luxury to her! You went back to Dad’s script. You used his definition of good, the good of the mission, instead of your own!”

“Five—”

“I don’t even believe in good versus bad anymore, but I know what I can live with!”

“Five, stop—”

“It might not be the good choice, but I’ll always choose you! I’ll always choose our family!”

“You’re hurting yourself!”

Luther finally moved from the doorway, cutting Five off mid-stride.

For the second time that day, Five blinked down at his hands as Luther pulled his hand back from where he had finally managed to scratch his forearm open, a few specks of blood dotting his skin. He hadn’t noticed over his leg burning and the heavy malaise trying to drag him back down. Luther leaned over his arm, examining the scratches with far more care than they needed, cradling the offending hand with far more gentleness than someone with his strength should be capable of.

This, Five suddenly understood, was the monster that had ripped open his chest.

Forget the fact that Luther had been the first to reach out, assuring him he didn’t have to fight the apocalypse alone. Forget that he had been the one to talk Five into doing the impossible. Five had thought, stupidly thought, that he understood his brother. It was probably the similarities—the ones Vanya must have been referring to beyond their stubbornness—the years of isolation, the need for a mission, even getting stuck in the wrong body.

He thought he understood, even with all Dad did to grind it out of him, that Luther was soft in a way Five wasn’t. It was something he had been counting on, to call him out when he went too far and to pick up the pieces when he made a mess.

“You know what the worst thing about you is?” Five asked quietly as he pulled his hands away. “You’re a good brother when you act like yourself.”

Luther’s eyes continued to stare at the space where Five’s arm had been for a moment before he looked up at Five. “Just now, you were talking about the future me, weren’t you? How old was I? How many years had passed?”

“What does it matter?”

Luther swallowed hard, and his hands opened and closed into fists. “I was an adult?” he pressed before his voice dropped to a soft murmur. “And I still didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

Luther didn’t answer, his brow still creased, something sad and rueful in the way his shoulders hunched.

They were quiet for a long moment. With the door open to the vault, Five could hear the subtle, echoing sigh of air through a large, empty space.

“Diego’s right: I don’t know what I’m doing as a leader,” Luther admitted suddenly, and Five stood up a little straighter. “I don’t know what to do half the time, so… I just do what Dad would. He always does what’s right.”

Five turned away, disappointment stinging through him.

“But…” Luther continued. “I don’t know if he always does what’s good.”

Five blinked and eyed his brother warily, unsure if he’d heard correctly. But Luther had his head bowed, somber and silent, mirroring the older Luther sitting in Five’s memory from the night before.

Without his anger, Five found himself running cold again, so he crossed his arms against a shiver. “If you realize that, why don’t you ever say no? Why don’t you ever refuse him?”

Luther’s brow furrowed like Five was suddenly speaking a different language. “How can I? He’s depending on me. He depends on all of us, but most of all, he needs me to keep everyone on track.” He looked at Five, hands clasped as if pleading. “We do good work, Five. We save people, and one day, we’ll save the world. How can I say no to that?”

Five had thought more than once that he was lucky he hadn’t been named One, and seeing the pitiable desperation on his brother’s face, he thought it again. He sighed heavily, turning away, his body too heavy to support for much longer without another shock of adrenaline, so he sat down again in his spot against the wall. He stared down at his abandoned breakfast and speared a bit of egg with his fork. “What if I told you he didn’t do the good thing or the right thing?”

Luther was silent and still, long enough for Five to finish his food, before he took a seat next to Five. “I’m not the best leader for the Umbrella Academy then.”

Five shrugged as he took a sip of cold tea. “You could be. You care for us and believe in us as a team. We all know it.”

Luther frowned, confounded by the thought. “Diego—”

“Diego’s got something to prove,” Five brushed off. “He’d ease up on you if you eased up with all the numbers. Try not being an asshole about it sometime.”

Luther scowled at that and gave Five a pointed look. “It’s not just Diego.”

Five snorted. “I’d ease up on you if you weren’t always parroting Dad.”

Luther stared. “You would?”

“Don’t get me wrong: I’d call you out when you’re being an idiot. And you’re an idiot a lot of the time.” He ignored Luther’s huff and shrugged again. “You want to keep us on track? Mimicking Dad and micromanaging us is not the way to do it.”

Luther crossed his arms as he considered this for a moment. Then, he studied Five skeptically. “You wouldn’t want to lead?”

Five was shaking his head before Luther finished the question. “If it’s to protect our family, I’d lead a whole fucking parade. But I can’t keep you all together. Trust me, I tried, and it lasts for all of five minutes before you all wander off into your own messes again…”

And given Five now had Dad and the Commission’s voice ingrained in him, he knew he couldn’t be what they needed. As much as he wanted to protect them, he would always be a better sword than a shield. He could never be what bound them together.

“You’re talking about the future again,” Luther concluded quietly. Five didn’t bother responding. Luther nodded to himself and soon he had that knit brow he always got when attempting to comprehend something beyond him. “I think we have different definitions of what a leader is. Dad expects—”

Five groaned loudly. “I don’t care what Dad thinks! If you can’t give me your definition, then this isn’t worth discussing.”

They glared at each other for a minute until Luther looked away, down at his hands again and around at the dark walls. Finally, his eyes went to the shackle on Five’s wrist, and Five saw the buried anger leaking through, Luther’s hands forming fists, before his shoulders slumped with the weight of a deep sadness. “Sometimes I wish I could be more like you.”

Five scoffed. “No, you don’t.”

“Maybe not before,” Luther admitted, and he gave Five that wide-eyed, innocent, sincere gaze that always ticked Five off. “You’re more mature than when you left.”

Five had to swallow down the last dregs of his tea to hide his amusement.

“I’m sorry for what I did in the future,” Luther said suddenly.

Five nearly choked, sputtering into his cup. “You don’t even know what happened!”

“It’s clear I hurt you,” Luther answered seriously. Oh grand. This was his own attempt at maturity, wasn’t it?

“I’m not the one he hurt. I wasn’t even there!”

“I betrayed your trust, didn’t I?”

Five shook his head in disbelief, studying his brother a moment before deciding. After all, anything he said to this one would get back to the other eventually. “I understand why you did it. I probably understand better than anyone, which is why it was so disappointing hearing that it had been you,” he grumbled. “I should be the one apologizing for yelling last night.”

The Luther in front of him was utterly bemused. “What does that mean?”

“Sleep on it,” Five answered, scowling to ward off any more questions.

Luther raised an eyebrow. “Is this going to be another weird quirk of yours? Speaking cryptic nonsense to confuse us?”

Five’s scowl only deepened. “What weird quirks?”

“Ever since you got back—” he started.

Five groaned loudly, cutting him off. “I didn’t fool a single one of you, did I?”

Luther raised an eyebrow. “Were you actually trying to fool us?"

Whatever comeback Five had evaporated from the tip of his tongue, and Luther’s teasing smile vanished as the whirring engine of the elevator sent a low growl down the tunnel in warning. Their father had arrived.

-

They stood, Luther hopping up to attention before noticing Five’s struggle to push himself up using the wall. He pulled Five up so they could stand tall together, his hand hovering around Five’s elbow just in case. Five sighed; he had just sat down. Dad’s timing was impeccable as always.

His sharp footsteps echoed through the open door as he crossed the tunnel and entered the vault, Allison just behind him, a fiery look on her face. He paused in the doorway, scowling. “Why are you still here, Number One?”

Luther shrank. “I’m sorry, Dad. I needed to ask Five for answers.”

“And did you get them?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. We will compare notes later,” he said brusquely, ignoring Five’s derisive snort. “Now return to the others. You’re missing your lessons.”  He stepped forward, out of the doorway, so Luther could exit and Allison could enter. “Number Three, you are to repeat this rumor exactly as I specify.”

“I won’t,” she said to Dad’s back, arms crossed, still standing outside the vault. Luther paused as he crossed the threshold, watching her defiance with wide eyes, fingers twitching like he wanted to reach out and take her hand.

Dad didn’t bother turning to look at her. “Number Three—”

“It’s okay, Allison,” Five said quickly. “You have my permission. It’s the only way he’ll believe everything I’ve got to tell him anyway.” He glared up at their father. “I only ask that she be allowed to leave the room right after the rumor.”

“Naturally,” the old man agreed, probably thinking about how he would censor the truth later.

Allison looked at Five, lips pursed for a moment. “If you’re sure…”

And then, before she could take a single step forward, an alarm began to shriek in terror. Five froze, his heart pounding.

“What is that?” Luther cried, grabbing Allison to him as they whirled around together, looking for the threat.

It was as loud as the mission alarm, but this had a screaming quality to it the other alarm lacked.

“Get inside!” Dad ordered with an agitated sharpness Five had never heard before, and Luther and Allison immediately obeyed, rushing into the vault.

“What’s happening?” Luther asked, positioning himself to stand protectively in front of Allison and Five.

“The Academy is under attack,” Dad answered, as he hurried out of the vault.

“What?!” Luther and Five shouted at the same time. Five felt a swooping feeling in his stomach; he had one guess of who would be attacking.

“Stay here,” Dad ordered. “I will retrieve the others.”

“But we can help!” Luther leapt forward, blocking the door as Dad moved to close it. Then, Luther realized what he had done and took a step back. Both Five and Allison rushed to fill the space he had just left.

“We’re going with you!” Five informed the old man and made to move past him. But Dad had always moved too fast for his age and easily caught Five by the arm in a painful, steel grip.

“I have no time for your attempts at heroics, Number Five!” he yelled, pushing both Five and Allison back.

“But Vanya!” Allison cried. “You can’t bring her down here!”

“Shit!” Five muttered, icy shock running through him; his mind hadn’t made that leap yet. “She’s right,” he told Dad. “She can’t come down here no matter the circumstances up there!”

“She can and will,” Dad barked fiercely and with one sudden shove, he pushed Five and Allison out of the way and closed the door with an almighty noise—

The silence was immediate, Five’s ears still ringing from the alarm. The three of them crowded together around the door’s window, watching as Dad ran—full-on ran—down the tunnel to the elevator. Five pushed uselessly at the door, already knowing there was no escape, not without his powers, not without someone else’s powers. He turned to Luther and found his brother, wide-eyed, fists clenched at his sides.

“Why isn’t he letting us help?” Luther asked, voice strained, eyes tracking the movement of the elevator up out of sight.

“That new alarm,” Five hypothesized, “must mean the threat is greater than what he thinks we can handle.” Or at least what a group of kids could handle.

Luther’s brow furrowed, turning to look at him. “Like what?”

Five shook his head. “We don’t have time for that—”

“Can you open the door?” Allison demanded before Five could.

Luther’s mouth fell open. “What?”

She stepped forward, effectively cornering Luther between her, Five, and the door. “We have to go help!”

“But he said to stay here. He’s just going to fetch the others,” Luther said as if the two of them hadn’t just heard the directions themselves.

“They’re in danger!” Allison insisted fiercely, taking another step forward.

“They’re probably getting shot at right now! And not by thieves or bank robbers, but trained killers!” Five agreed, following Allison’s lead and moving so they were both in Luther’s space.

“You don't know that!” Luther’s eyes were wide and round as he shook his head. “He’ll bring them here,” he repeated, conceding a step backwards. “Everyone will be okay.”

“Not Vanya!” Allison objected. “He can’t bring her down here!”

“She was trapped down here, alone, for an entire week,” Five snarled at the thought. “Can you imagine what that would do to a four-year-old girl?”

Luther’s mouth hung open as his back finally hit the door. “It might be scary for her, but as long as everyone’s safe—”

“Scary?” Five echoed in disbelief. “She’ll have a mental break if she’s forced down here!”

“You don't know that…” Luther said again with a quietness that said he had suddenly realized otherwise. Allison made a small, horrified sound, her hand going to cover her heart.

But before Five could decide on how much to tell them or how much to take back, the room trembled, dust falling from the ceiling. They stared up at the ceiling as it trembled again, the lights blinking. Then there was a pause, and another two trembles.

“What is that?” Allison asked.

“That must be what we can’t handle,” Luther guessed wildly.

“Luther…!” Allison started but then turned suddenly to Five. “Are you going to stop me if I rumor him into opening the door?”

“No need,” Five said calmly, even though his body was tingling with the need to move, his pulse loud in his ears. “Luther’s going to make the choice for himself.”

“I…” Luther’s fists were no longer at his side but raised in front of him, clenched so tight his knuckles were white. “It’s safe here. The others will join us soon…” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Vanya’s panicking,” Five noted, voice as sharp as one of Diego’s knives.

“How can you tell?”

“The rhythm.”

They stood still for a moment, watching the pattern in which the dust fell from the ceiling. Two puffs of dust, then nothing, then two puffs, nothing…

“Oh God,” Allison whispered, recognizing her sister’s heartbeat. She whipped around to face Luther, her eyes fierce. “I heard a—”

Five stepped into what little space was between them, getting in Luther’s face, refusing to let his brother avert his gaze. “Really? You’re going to depend on someone else to take the choice from you? You know what to do, Luther! You know what the good choice is!”

“I don’t!” he bellowed even though everything from his voice cracking with emotion to his trembling fists to the anguish in his eyes told a different story.

“Then ask!” Five yelled back. “Ask us for help! You keep insisting we’re a team! How many times have you called me out, reminding me that I’m not alone anymore? We’re right here, Luther! Ask!”

“What should I do?!” he cried.

Five finally stepped back, breathing hard, trying to collect himself instead of listen to the distressed rhythm of Vanya’s heart. “You know what we’re going to say.”

“But Dad…” Luther whispered, bringing his fists to his temples.

“It’ll be okay, Luther. We’re with you.” Allison lay a hand on his arm. He looked at her, eyes dark and desperate before shutting them tight and taking a deep breath.

His face twisted as if in pain, and then he turned and roared out a sound of pure frustration. The door crumpled under his hands. It swung open with a terrible sound, metal crying as it bent against its mold. Luther straightened up, gasping with exertion.

Allison and Five exchanged a nod, bounding over the threshold, but a few steps into the tunnel, Allison paused, grabbing Five’s arm, forcing him to slow to a stop too. They turned back to look and found Luther was still in the doorway, frozen. Five cursed under his breath as they dashed back to Luther’s side.

As they closed the distance, he could see a deep well of fear darkening his brother’s eyes. Allison grabbed Luther’s hand and gave Five a pointed look until Five grabbed Luther’s other wrist, and together they pulled Luther over the threshold. Finally, Luther stirred from whatever had been holding him captive, and he looked at the two of them, dazed, for all of one second, before adjusting his grip on them, his hand squeezing Five’s as he took a few steps forward, dragging them along until all three of them broke into a run.

They rushed to the elevator, steps echoing in the tunnel, the alarm from earlier having gone silent, and then they had to wait out the long ride up, trapped in the steel cage as everything rumbled around them, knocking more dust from the ceiling, keeping a steadily increasing tempo. Luther’s hand was clammy but his grip firm until the elevator began to slow to a stop, and he let go to wrench open the gate. They leapt into the hallway, ducking around the thick curtain that usually hid the elevator, and dashed up the hall, around corner after corner. Five had to trust that the others remembered the way out of the unfamiliar labyrinth of halls, the ground threatening to trip them with each tremble. Dim sunlight was fighting its way through a sudden thunderstorm, lighting their path with a pale light.

“Through here!” Allison called as the courtyard came into view. Luther nearly took the door off its hinges, and they were out in the storm. Rain clouds billowed in an unnatural smoke-like fashion above them, as wind lashed heavy rain at their faces and tried to drag them back inside. The ground was rumbling beneath them, bucking wildly as they flew across the courtyard, and just as they were about to reach the door to the family room, the sky exploded. Blinding lightning struck the roof, a tremendous sound cracking open the heavens, making the three of them fall back, knocked to the ground, screaming, yelling, before they could gather themselves up again.

“Vanya!” Allison cried, as they finally tumbled inside, finding the room empty.

Klaus hurtled towards them as they entered, all flailing limbs before he straightened up, gasping. “This way! Vanya just…!” He gestured wildly with his hands. “Exploded!”

“What?!” Five’s stomach dropped. He dashed forward, following Klaus, the others on his heels.

“There were these guys with masks breaking down the door—both doors—front and game room—and the ghost—your ghost,” Klaus said to him, “was suddenly shouting at me that he was getting help. And Pogo hit some alarm I didn’t even know existed, and Mom was…”

Klaus didn’t need to explain what Mom was. As they rushed into the foyer, they saw her and couldn’t help but pause.

She was in the middle of the room, a dozen red masks already fallen around her as they poured in from both the front door and down the stairs. She was fighting the battle on both fronts with an ease that lived up to her name, moving far faster than anyone in a long pinafore dress should be able to, dancing around her opponents, striking with cold, efficient precision. Her apron was torn with bullet holes, and as they watched one of the assassins was swinging their empty shotgun like a bat and managed to strike her, clean on the chin, sending her head back much too far. A knife came hurtling from around the far side of the stairs, burying itself in the man’s shoulder, distracting him just long enough for Mom to grab her own head and pull it back into place.

“Over here!” Diego called, snapping them all out of their stupefaction, waving from where he was crouched behind the banister. The table that usually sat in the middle of the room was upended in front of him for cover. They charged across the battlefield, Allison shrieking that she had heard one of them shot himself in the foot when an agent on the stairs got too close.

“Target spotted!” an agent by the door was shouting into a radio. “Begin phase two!”

The pit in Five’s stomach told him who the target was while, all at once, the Commission scattered, running back up the stairs or leaping back towards the front door to make their escape. Mom caught one by the arm, showing a fierceness Five had never seen as she yanked the assassin's arm back at an unnatural angle. “Who is your target?” she asked, voice lacking its usual warmth. “Which one of my children are you here for?”

Five supposed he should tell her, but that thought flew from his mind as they made it to Diego’s side. Vanya was just beyond him, sitting on the floor in the shadows of the stairs, hugging her knees to her chest, sobbing. Ben was curled protectively around her, arms around her shoulders, holding her close. His eyes were wide with fear and then relief as he spotted them.

Allison immediately crouched next to them, joining the embrace, shushing Vanya’s sobs with kind words. Ben looked at Five. “Dad was trying to take us…” He trailed off as Five nodded.

“We know,” Five said grimly, and before he could look around to yell at Dad, Luther gasped and broke off from the group, rushing to the opposite wall where Dad lay in a crumpled heap, Pogo carefully examining him. Ice water poured over Five, and he caught himself tugging uselessly at the shackle again. He glanced back at Vanya and caught Ben’s eye. He didn’t have to ask what happened.

He stood, torn for a moment, listening to Vanya’s inconsolable crying and Mom continuing her interrogation, Diego and Klaus joining her, before deciding the priority was to check their father wasn’t dead.

A few steps closer, he could see the subtle rise and fall of breath in Dad’s chest but decided to complete his trek to Luther’s side anyway.

Pogo looked up at his approach, hands still gingerly prodding the back of Dad’s head. “We should have Grace look at him, but I do not believe it is severe. He was simply knocked out.”

“Did…” Luther’s voice wavered. His hands were clenched in tight, trembling fists once more. “Did she…?”

“She was scared,” Five answered sharply.

Luther eyes flashed with rage, and Five straightened up, leaning forward onto the balls of his feet. He’d be no match for Luther without his powers or any sort of weapon. The best he could do would be to slow his brother down enough for Vanya to get away or, hopefully, for Allison to intervene.

But then Luther made a choked, hurt sound.  “She was terrified,” he said with the sort of softness that spelled danger. “Terrified of him.” Suddenly, he was howling in anguish. “How could he do this to us?!” His fist met the wall in a sound like that of the lightning strike, the sound of something breaking, leaving spiderweb cracks in the wood paneling.

The room went silent, Vanya’s sobs and the interrogation suddenly cut off by shock.

He sank to his knees, holding his head. “How could I let this happen?”

“Oh, my dear boy,” Pogo said, achingly gentle. “I know this is difficult to accept, but you are only a child.”

“He was supposed to be the adult,” Five agreed bitterly.

Luther shook his head. “He put me in charge.”

An over-inflated sense of responsibility, huh?

"Did anything I say down there get through that thick skull?” Five grumbled. Judging from the disapproving look Pogo was giving him, his tone was ruder than he intended, but they didn’t have time for niceties. “I guess I didn’t let you finish telling me what Dad’s definition of a leader is, but if it involves being our second father, you can forget it. Like it or not, you’re just a blind kid." He met Luther's affronted glower with a glare. "Don’t give me that look: I was a blind kid too. But I cheated. I saw the future, and it forced my eyes open. Now, it’s finally your turn to see reality, and I understand that it’s a lot to sort out. But right now, we don’t have time for you to spin out.”

“You can really be an asshole sometimes,” Diego informed him. Mom had apparently given up on her interrogation and knocked the agent out, so Klaus and Diego had wandered over.

Five pasted on a smile. “You remember those gunmen who are setting up their phase two and will be knocking down the door any minute now? I’ll be nice when we’re out of danger.”

“He’s right,” Luther said as he stood. His face was still colored with emotion, but he took a breath and crossed the short distance to stand in front of Vanya, fidgeting even though he was the one standing while she still sat on the floor, her eyes red-rimmed, head lulling on Ben’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Vanya. I didn’t understand. I still don’t, but as much as I want to talk to you and try to understand what he’s done and why he would…” He swallowed the rest of that thought and shook his head sadly. “We need to find a safe place. Somewhere we can defend and mount a counterattack.” He reached out, offering her a hand up. “I promise, I’ll listen later.”

She studied him for a moment, judging the sincerity of the offer, and then accepted his hand, letting him pull her to her feet. “I’m sorry too,” she sniffled. “Is Dad… Is he okay?” She hiccuped down a sob when Luther nodded, and she turned to Five. “I couldn’t control it! I’m so sorry!”

He shook his head quickly. “I understand. We’ll figure it out.”

“But first we gotta not get shot,” Klaus added helpful as ever. Vanya nodded, swallowing hard and squaring her shoulders.

“So, what’s the plan?” Ben asked as he and Allison stood.

“I was thinking the classroom,” Luther said. “It doesn’t have windows for them to break through, and we can use the desks to barricade the door.” He paused, looking around at their circle of seven. “Any other ideas?”

Judging from how quickly Diego’s irritated expression was painted over with a dumbfounded stare, he had been preparing to argue his point. “The… hallway,” he said haltingly. When Luther didn’t immediately shoot his idea down, he explained. “We should try to hold the hallway leading to the classroom too. It’ll give us more room to maneuver.”

Allison nodded. “We can drag some desks out of the classroom for cover, and the narrowness of the hall will limit how many can attack at once.”

“Bottleneck them.” Luther nodded. “Agreed.”

“Klaus and Vanya should stay in the classroom. And maybe you should too, Ben. You can be our last resort,” Diego suggested.

Ben hummed in thought. “True… I wouldn’t do well in the hall unless all of you were behind me.”

Five began to drift away from the planning session, only half-listening, scanning the ground for any discarded guns or weapons he could use as he made his way over to the pile of red masked agents in front of the now closed front door. Mom had been gathering them together, binding their hands behind their backs with rope—produced from some drawer of one of the weapon cabinets in the hall—even though they were all still unconscious. Pogo was next to her on the stairs as she retrieved another, the two of them talking quietly about something.

Finding no obvious weapons on his cursory glance, Five crouched in front of the pile and removed the closest agent’s wristwatch, examining it for a moment before concluding it was no different from what he had been working with all week. After a moment’s thought, he began removing the rest of the assassins' wristwatches and had just stuffed the last one in his pocket, when Mom arrived, carrying another agent over her shoulder, Pogo by her side. The two of them had similar, grave expressions as they looked at Five, inflicting him with a sudden sense of dread.

“Five, may we talk?” Mom asked as she added the agent to the pile and pulled a length of rope from her apron to begin tying the man up.

“What is it?” he asked, matching her quiet tones.

Pogo shifted on his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. “Are these the people who set the fire on Oak Street?”

Ah. Mom hadn’t ended her interrogation early. They had simply figured it out without being told.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“I see.” Pogo tilted his head as he studied Five over his glasses. “Do you know who they are, and what they want from you?”

Mom finished tying an intricate knot and straightened up to look at him properly. Five swallowed, trying to determine how much to tell them. A simple explanation was in order, he supposed. Something along the lines of what he had already admitted to Diego.

“I do.” He glanced around at the bullet holes in the walls and the cartridges littering the floor. “I’m not sure what all this was about. It’s not their style to make such a mess, but I suspect it was a scare tactic.”

“A power move,” Mom said softly.

He nodded. “She enjoys them. Even if they’re wasteful moves like this one…”

“And why would this person be trying to scare you?” Pogo pressed.

“Because she’s going to offer me a choice. She always does. In this case though, she wants to make it clear what I’d lose if I refuse.”

Pogo and Mom shared a look.

“Don’t worry,” Five said hastily. “I can handle whatever she wants.”

Pogo stepped forward and took one of Five’s hands in his. His palm was wrinkled and warm. “Neither of us is doubting your capability, but the last time I agreed to let you handle something, you came back terribly injured,” Pogo reminded. “And it was these people who hurt you. If their leader wishes to force you into something, we must not give her the opportunity.”

“We will have to implement special measures,” Mom said with a startling crispness.

Five opened his mouth to object. He drew breath, words forming on his lips. They froze, eyes going to the shadow moving in front of the windows of the front door.

He was out in the storm again. Thunder cracked open the quiet, rain pummeling his face as something rammed into his side, knocking the wind out of him. A sudden darkness swallowed him whole.

-

An explosion, his mind supplied as he struggled to grasp wisps of consciousness. The front door had exploded, something giant flying through the air while debris rained down on him, and Mom shoved him. Something heavy had landed on him, but just as quickly, the weight had lifted. Then, he had been lifted. He should have been on the floor amongst the rubble, but his arms and legs were dangling, something wrapped snug around his middle.

His eyes blinked open in time to see a red mask in front of him. Then, a giant fist hit the man square in the chest, sending him flying. Five’s arms and legs swung uselessly, a marionette with its strings cut, as whatever, whoever was carrying him turned towards a large hole in the wall where the front door should have been. Familiar silhouettes were running towards the Academy, dodging or attacking more assassins.

“Five!” someone shouted over the ringing in his ears and the smattering of gunshots outside. “Let him go!”

They swung back around just in time for the giant hand to catch Luther’s fist. Five felt the blow rattle through the body of the person holding him. Luther stared, dumbfounded for a second that someone had matched his strength, before bouncing a step back, winding up for another punch.

Allison and Diego were close behind.

“Shit,” murmured a voice above Five, before shouting, “We’re not your enemy!”

“I heard a rumor—”

“Shhhh!” Allison—adult Allison—appeared before Five’s eyes and hijacked the rumor, a finger pressed to her lips in a hushing motion while her young counterpart gasped, a hand going to her throat as she mouthed words silently.

Five finally managed to look up at who was carrying him and was unsurprised to find Luther, looking as massive as ever as he caught his younger self’s second punch easily in his palm. Young Luther looked equal parts confused and frustrated.

“I said let him go!” he cried, a touch of fear notable in his voice, and the older Luther had to step back as he caught another blow, keeping Five back, braced safely under his arm like he was holding some groceries and didn’t want the eggs crushed.

Five groaned, his face was stinging from a cut on his cheek. He could see young Diego stalling near a pile of rubble, the remnants of the front door and part of the entryway, under which Mom and Pogo were struggling to slip out of, a knife ready in his hand.

“Wait!” Five called, his head finally clear enough to grasp the situation. He began struggling against Luther’s grip, his chest aching with the movement. “Put me down, idiot! They think you’re abducting me!”

For a split second, Five felt Luther’s grip loosen. Then, his brother was yelling in pain. Five’s head whipped around in alarm, but the only people scrambling through the ruins of the entryway were Klaus, Vanya, and Diego. They were ducked low as they stumbled inside, but the gunfire ceased as soon as they were in. The Commission agents were out on the street, beyond the iron gate, hunkering down, not advancing.

Before Five could think too hard on the bizarre tactic, Luther shoved his younger self back a few steps and reached over his shoulder to yank a knife out of his back. “You stabbed me!” he said, sounding more offended than angry. Judging from what little blood was on the blade, it was more of a shallow slice than a stab, young Diego having misjudged how thick Luther’s coat and skin were.

The older Diego, looked up, irritation replaced by amusement, a retort forming on his lips for a second before his eyes grew wide, and he chucked a pair of knives, bending them around Luther to meet the knives his younger self had thrown, metal clanging as they met in midair before clattering uselessly to the ground.

All of the kids froze, staring at the identical knives on the ground. Young Luther lowered his fist, looking up at himself.

Then, both began scratching like they had been attacked by mosquitoes.

“Shit.” Five struggled with renewed urgency against Luther’s hold, and this time his brother acquiesced, lowering him to the ground. “Are you itchy?” Five demanded. He glanced around at all of them. “Are all of you itchy?”

“No,” both Luthers and both Diegos answered, and all four idiots had the gall to look annoyed by the others’ answers.

“Now that you mention it…” Klaus said nonchalantly even though he was practically dancing in place as he scratched all over.

Five groaned. The Commission handbook was right. “Back up! All of you need to back up at least twenty feet!” Except his adult siblings were cornered by the entryway and the kids scattered around the foot of the stairs. Five glanced outside where he could still see red masks peeking out from behind parked cars and rubble from a nearby building. What were they waiting for?

“Why?” Allison asked, still holding her throat as she scratched her arm, eyeing the other Allison warily.

“You shouldn’t even be in the same room!” Five grabbed hold of young Luther, dragging him back a few steps. But his family’s curiosity was apparently too much to resist—or perhaps it was the denial in action—and instead of backing away, Klaus, Ben, and Vanya had wandered forward from the safety behind the banister.

“How do you know these people? They’re not…” Allison trailed off, shaking her head. “It can’t be.”

“They’re us,” Ben concluded softly, and Five had to do a double take as he grabbed Allison's arm and began dragging her backwards too.

Ben was standing, perfectly still in between Klaus and Vanya’s fervent scratching, and unlike the others, he wasn’t suddenly sweating buckets.

But uncontrolled perspiration was stage six. It didn’t make sense; they were deteriorating too fast! Unless, this was something else…

“They can’t be us,” Diego croaked. “There’s only five of them.”

Next to him, Mom had finally freed herself and Pogo from the rubble, and they were looking Diego over for the source of his distress.

“Uh, but there’s…” Klaus froze, his confusion transforming into a look of sheer horror. He recoiled back, tripping over his own feet, falling onto his backside, staring up from the floor. His mouth hung open but for once, no words emerged.

The bottom of Five’s stomach vanished. He swallowed hard, unable to look at Ben. “You need to back up!” He looked to Mom and Pogo for help. “We have to get them out of here!”

“Where’s Ben?” Allison’s voice was an octave too high.

The room seemed to gasp all at once. And something other than paradox psychosis was happening. He could see it in their glassy eyes and shallow breaths.

“No.” Vanya’s whisper was harsh in the silence.

“Y-you lied!” Diego suddenly shouted at Five, face red, mistrust clear in his eyes. “You said w-we all got out! You said…” He trailed off, his eyes no longer seeing reality, some sort of convulsion trembling through his small frame, forcing him to his knees.

Five stared around uselessly as his siblings, teenage and adult alike, began falling to their knees, one by one, holding their heads, gasping for breath as their eyes glazed over.

This wasn’t happening. It was supposed to be just a hypothesis. No, this had to be the psychosis. Maybe the handbook was wrong about the symptoms.

He still had a hand on Luther’s arm and tried to drag him to his feet. “Come on! We have to get you out of here!”

“It was… my responsibility…” Luther murmured, eyes seeing something Five couldn't.

“It wasn’t—! It isn’t!” Five pulled Luther’s arm over his shoulders and began dragging him across the room. His chest ached where he had gotten the wind knocked out of him, and he barely managed to get his brother to the right of the stairs before his legs threatened to give out. He sank to the floor, gasping. “Get up! Damn it, get up! Please!”

Cursing when Luther gave no response, he half-stumbled, half-crawled back to fetch Allison. She was just as despondent but lighter to drag across the room.

“Number Five!”

Five whipped around to find Dad standing, his eyes blazing, his suit and posture perfect, no evidence that he had just been a heap on the floor.

“How long have these doppelgangers been here, in this time?” he demanded. Behind him Pogo was attending to Klaus, trying to draw him to his feet.

“Doppelgangers?!” Five could feel heat rising to his face. He settled Allison on the floor a few feet from Luther, anger giving him the strength to turn and march over to their father. If he hadn’t practiced breathing with Vanya all week, he might have given in to his first instinct, but defensive retorts wouldn’t help them. He needed whatever answers Dad had. “This is the first time they’ve been close enough for paradox psychosis to take effect.”

“Forget the psychosis,” Dad barked. “If they have been here for as long as I suspect, then the two versions of the same consciousness have had enough time to reach a resonance point.”

Five froze. The Commission has no documented cases of anyone living past the psychosis, but nobody had lived in the same time as themselves without trying to make direct contact almost right away. What was the purpose of traveling back to a time you had lived if not to warn yourself of what was to come?

“Paradox resonance was just a hypothesis,” he murmured, dazed, his mind racing. “I thought, perhaps, when I heard they were remembering the alterations to the timeline… But then the memories would go both ways!” The younger counterparts would be remembering pieces from a life they hadn’t yet lived, a life they were not supposed to live if Five was successful.

“Number One has mentioned a recurring dream of being on the moon. You missed the signs because you were not looking for them,” Dad snapped, which wasn’t entirely true. He had asked Ben and Vanya if they had had any unusual dreams but had only received shrugs in response. Dad gestured to his siblings as he stepped forward, looming over Five, monocle glinting coldly. “What do you think they are enduring right this instant?”

Five’s pulse was loud in his ears. He never should have brought them back with him. He should have resolved to do this alone.

Five looked around at his family, young and old, at their pained faces. With the realization of Ben’s fate, it was clear what memory they were trapped in. How clear was the memory for the children? How clear was it for any of them? He hadn’t been there to see their grief firsthand, to see how it broke his family apart. He couldn’t bear to watch now.

“How do I stop it?” he pleaded their father. “How do I help them?”

“You do nothing of the sort,” he answered with all the harshness Five deserved. “Grace, keep the children away from the doppelgangers. Pogo, with me.” He turned on his heel and hurried out of the room, Pogo quickly following, depositing Klaus on the bottom step of the stairs with a regretful look.

Mom repeated reassurances over and over as she picked Diego up, slinging him over her shoulder, and he began struggling against some invisible enemy, impeding her attempt to carry him from the room.

Five stood there, useless in the middle of all their suffering. What was the Commission waiting for? Why weren’t they storming in to put him out of his misery?

“Five!”

His heart jumped at the sound of someone calling for help.

“Ben!” Five choked out, barely able to speak over the lump in his throat. Ben was still there, his distress recognizable from the way he was holding himself, arms around his stomach, rigid, like any wrong movement would permit his monsters to erupt forth. But as anguished as he was, Ben, as always, was pushing through it. He was kneeling next to Vanya, trying to keep her calm.

Five stumbled towards them, his legs shaky, and collapsed to his knees next to them, just to the left of the stairs.

Vanya’s arms were wrapped around herself as she rocked back and forth, her eyes fixed somewhere beyond them. Five wasn’t sure she knew they were there until she spoke to him in a small voice. “You said the future was bad…”

“What?” Five wracked his brain for when he had suggested such a thing. “It’s not!” he lied over the sudden gust of wind swirling about the room. He glanced over his shoulder at the other Vanya, and found, even in whatever physical or emotional pain, his family was crowding around her, trying to fight together against her growing paleness.

“But Ben is…!” The Vanya next to him was shaking her head, her eyes squeezed shut. “Ben is…!”

“I’m right here, Vanya,” Ben reassured, his voice cracking with urgency as the wind whipped around them.

“I couldn’t keep control, and I hurt Dad. And now he’s going lock me up and never let me out ever again! I’ll never be allowed near any of you ever again all because I couldn’t control it! I can’t control it—”

“No, Vanya—”

“I’ll hurt one of you!” she screamed, an errant tear slid down her cheek, and all Five could think to do was to hug her, his arms wrapping tight around her, the vibrations pouring off of her almost painful as they rattled his bones. A second later, he felt Ben join him, an arm around Vanya, an arm around Five. They held on, teeth chattering against the storm.

“You won’t!” Ben cried. “It’ll be okay!”

“Breathe, Vanya! Please, just focus on your breath!”

“It was me, wasn’t it?” she sobbed. “In the future, the reason you’re gone…”

Five didn’t understand her meaning until Ben’s arm squeezed tight against his back. Horror shot through Five’s veins. “No! I swear, that isn’t what happened! It was a mission! You weren’t even there! Ben was protecting everyone, and then…!”

But his shouting was lost to the wind. She was beyond the reach of words. Her eyes opened, a shining white, and there was a split second of pure silence, like back in the vault, as the wind seemed to rush into her.

All Five could manage was to let go of her and wrap his arms protectively around Ben’s head instead. The shock wave that burst from their sister sent them flying across the room. They hit the floor hard, skidding on the smooth tiles until a heavy hand grabbed Five’s shoulder, bringing them to a stop.

They lay there, on the cold ground for a second, arms still wrapped around each other, Luther’s large, warm hand on Five’s shoulder. A tremble went through Ben, or maybe it came from Five.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to get out, though he wasn’t sure who he was apologizing to.

He had screwed everything up in his singular desire to save them.

But he couldn’t break now. He sat up stiffly, his eyes immediately going to the cold, white light pouring off his little sister, tremulous waves of power vibrating off of her, shaking the ground beneath them, matching the sound of the sobs of his other siblings scattered around the stairs.

“I’m sorry you found out like this,” he said quietly to Ben, unsure if his voice could be heard over Vanya’s powers. “I’m sorry you found out at all.”

Ben still had an arm around him, and Five felt another shiver run between them.

Collecting what strength he had left, he let go of his brother and tried to stand. His legs gave out almost immediately, Luther catching his elbow before he hit the ground again.

He looked up at Luther as his brother eased him back down. Vanya’s shock wave had thrown them to the edges of the semi-circle his adult family had formed, huddling behind the rubble of the front entryway. “About last night…” Five started. He had no right to be angry now.

Luther shook his head. His eyes were unfocused, his face covered in sweat, but he was clearly more conscious than his younger counterpart. “You already apologized,” he reminded.

Five nodded and turned to the rest of his family, all kneeling on the floor, piled around the older Vanya. Her eyes were closed, her skin the color of paper as she made a visible effort to keep her breathing even. Allison had an arm around her, tears clinging to her lashes. Klaus was on her other side, holding his head, muttering something to himself. Diego had a hand on his shoulder and gave Five a grim nod as Five slid towards them on his knees, Ben following suit.

“Ohhh, this is a bad trip,” Klaus moaned. “At first it was ants all over my skin, and now it’s like my skin isn’t even mine. It's like I’m seventeen again, and—” His voice broke. “And it sucks and doesn’t even make sense.”

Five couldn’t help wondering what other bit had made sense.

“Shut up,” Diego groused, shooting Ben a worried look, before glaring at Klaus. “Aren’t you supposed to be concentrating?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Klaus groaned, bringing his knees up to his chest and burying his face in them.

“Ben has an idea,” Diego said before Five could ask.

“I…” Ben seemed to understand as soon as he opened his mouth. He stared Klaus. “Oh.”

Five nodded, fighting to hold onto the relief and hope the thought brought, a seed of warmth in an abyss of despair.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, yet again, this time to all of them, unsure what else he could offer.

Vanya’s eyes opened. They were shining white, but unlike young Vanya, she looked at him and saw him. “I’m the one who needs forgiveness.”

Five shook his head. The night before seemed like a thousand years ago.

She cut him off before he could repeat his answer, her voice tiny. “I’m losing control again. Or…” She looked past them, a quiet sadness in her face. Allison leaned into her, squeezing her shoulders. “I’ve already lost control. It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it? Even with all we’ve done to change things…”

“She’s just learning,” Ben defended, before drawing back, abashed under all their eyes.

“You’re just learning,” Five agreed.

Vanya’s face twitched into a rueful smile, and she reached out and grabbed Ben’s hand, squeezing tight. Then, Allison nudged her and pointed.

They all turned. Floating down the stairs, undisturbed by Vanya’s powers was Vanya’s violin and bow. The instrument flew to them, bouncing ever so slightly in the arms of an invisible runner, only stopping when it was right in front of Vanya, a clear offering.

Vanya’s fingers twitched, but she didn’t move to take it. “What…? How will that help anything?”

Klaus groaned and flopped dramatically into Diego’s arms. Both their faces were a worrisome, patchy red.

“More work?” Klaus muttered, and a moment later his hands flashed a brilliant blue.

Ben gasped, edging a little closer to Five’s side, as the ethereal form of his ghostly self finally became visible, kneeling before Vanya, offering up her violin like a knight offering up his sword. He gave his younger self a tight smile, and Five couldn’t help but think how much healthier his dead brother looked compared to the rest of them. Perhaps it was because he didn't have a body, or perhaps it was the veil of death, that space beyond time that he had described months ago, giving him some resistance against the paradox resonance. Now that his consciousness had been summoned into the living world however, Five could feel young Ben starting to shiver.

The other Ben turned back to their sister, pushing the instrument towards her. “You can still reach her.”

Vanya continued to stare and slowly shook her head. “I can’t.”

Allison squeezed her around the shoulders again and nodded when Vanya looked at her.

“If anyone can do it, it’d be you,” Luther said. Diego murmured an agreement, rubbing his head while he continued to hold Klaus up. Klaus’s eyes were screwed shut. He looked ready to pass out.

Ben flickered like a candle caught in the wind.

He hurriedly turned, and both Bens looked upon each other, eyes wide. Neither seemed to know what to say for a second.

“It won’t happen to you,” Ben declared as he flickered again. He glanced at Five, seeming to realize that it wasn’t up to him alone. Five nodded; there had never been any question in his mind. Ben smiled, determined, and placed a hand on his younger self's shoulder. “I promise. Things will be different for you.”

He flickered once more and faded from view. The violin tipped forward, falling to the ground.

Young Ben caught the instrument, his head bowed. Five thought he heard a sniffle. Then, Ben grabbed the bow from the ground and hastily scrubbed his sleeve across his eyes before he offered the violin to Vanya. “Things can be different for her too.”

Vanya was quiet a moment and then finally accepted the violin. Her eyes danced over the instrument like she was gazing on the face of an old friend. “I haven’t played since…”

She looked across the room, to the center of the storm. The stairs were cracking and crumbling. Young Klaus, Allison, and Luther were huddled together on the ground against the far wall, Luther’s arms wrapped protectively around the other two. Mom was in the doorway to the family room, trying to fight her way to the children, her hair whipping out of their perfect curls.

A large shadow interrupted Five’s view of the rest of the room as the older Luther staggered to his feet. He leaned forward, offering Vanya a hand up. She took it, trusting Luther to steady her, and Five suddenly had the lonely feeling that this was a glimpse into all he had missed, living apart from them the past two months. They stood side by side, his hand on her back, as she lifted her violin to her shoulder.

The room took a deep breath.

Her bow sang across the strings, releasing a pure, round note. Then, a simple, melancholy melody sprouted forth. It stretched up, reaching, growing. Five couldn’t place the melody, yet it was familiar in a way that hit him square in the chest.

Light enveloped Vanya as she stepped forward, Luther following for the first few steps before letting her go on her own, making her way through the waves of light shuddering through the room as if she were facing only a gentle breeze.

“Wow,” Ben breathed, and Five agreed. The light of one Vanya met the other’s, and there was lightning and fireworks, bursting and arcing with danger. But the song circled around, gathering its strength, fighting its way into an urgent, pulsing melody, falling and rising with each breath, tripping back into a minor key, until it found its footing and began climbing again, reaching for something powerful, something hopeful, something that could easily break into despair. And then, it did break, tumbling back into the first, lonely melody. But the explosions of light were easing back and receding into sparks, and the melody held a resolve it didn’t have before as it settled from the rapids into a lake, the waters still and smooth. And Vanya was finally standing right in front of herself.

The violin sang one last determined note, and the light faded into a white halo around the two of them. She was saying something, too quiet for anyone but herself to hear, and they embraced.

Something in the base of Five’s stomach finally unraveled itself as he breathed out. But he couldn't give into the allure of relief yet. Now, he had to find Dad and—

A tidal wave of blue swept through the room without warning, and for the first time that day, Five felt warmth return to his fingertips. The sepia veil lifted from his eyes, and his mind jumped to the elevator in Dad’s workshop and the energy singing from within.

He turned to the Allison, Diego, and Klaus next to him and could see them stirring as if from sleep, their eyes sharper.

“What was that?” Diego called to the room. Klaus was stretching in Diego’s arms until Diego let go, letting him roll onto the floor.

“Dad’s solution to the paradox resonance: he used the same type of energy I use for my spatial jumps to disrupt the temporal energy pushing your consciousnesses into a single mind, using the inverse energy to reinforce that you are spatially independent of each other to provide relief,” Five answered absently as he stood, pulling back his sleeve. The tiny red light bulb was still shining on the shackle, but now the second bulb was blinking green. That seemed right; while he was no longer cold, there was still a gaping void in his middle.

He took a few steps sideways to peek out the shattered door. Just as he feared, there was a ripple going through the waiting agents as they adjusted their position.

“But isn’t energy just… energy?” Diego asked as he and Allison stood next to Ben. Klaus seemed content on the floor between them. “I swear you make this stuff up.”

Five raised an eyebrow and began to move away from the open door with hurried steps, grateful when his siblings sensed his haste and followed, Klaus scrambling to his feet. “As much as I’d enjoy watching you flounder through a lesson about spatiotemporal energy transformations, we don’t have time. What matters, is the energy should have disrupted the resonance enough for now that you should all be feeling better, and we need to move to a more defensible position.”

“The classroom,” Mom confirmed as she and Luther helped young Luther, Allison, and Klaus to their feet. Both Vanyas were hurrying over, and Five turned to them, either encouragement or gratitude on the tip of his tongue.

He heard the click of her heels first.

They had only made it to the doorway of the family room. He grabbed the person nearest—Ben—pushing him forward.

“Five?” Ben called softly, and it was only then that he realized how rigid he had gone, holding his breath. No good. She would pounce all over any sign of discomfort.

He barely managed a reassuring smile as they all began to turn their attention to him before he felt Ben go rigid too.

The color drained from the world as the moment froze, a photograph in time. The faded colors the shackle had caused was nothing compared to a time stop.

He let his smile fall as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and was surprised for a second, having forgotten about the wristwatches he had collected earlier. Their subtle warmth was a friendly hand wrapping around his, and he stood a little straighter as he turned to face the Handler.

“I was wondering when you would show up,” he said, watching warily as she pulled the veil of her hat up. There were more lines around her eyes and a faded bullet wound on her forehead, but she still had the same arrogant smile. “You got old.”

“And you’re still in those adorable shorts.” Her eyes slid from his legs to Ben’s, and Five quickly sidestepped in between them. Her smile grew. “I did hope to retrieve you sooner than this, but you had to hole up here.” She began circling the foyer with the air of one observing the architecture. “I had to go to a lot of trouble just to knock on your door.”

He snorted, unamused, and took a couple deliberate steps forward, cutting off her arc around the room while remaining in a protective stance in front of his family. “There are easier ways of getting my attention.”

“Ah, but you see there wasn’t. This house is,” she waved a gloved hand to the room at large, coming to a stop in front of him, “protected. Or at least it was.”

“Until Dad used up the energy protecting it just now,” Five realized. So that was what they had been waiting for. She wouldn’t have been able to send a message through the pneumatic tubes or put a time stop in place while a powerful source of spatial energy was so close by, and the Commission was no match in a frontal assault with one, let alone two, Umbrella Academies. He sighed to himself. “Well, you have my attention now. What do you want?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to save you again!” She didn’t bother to hide her smirk as she said it.

“Again?” Five echoed dryly.

She blinked innocently, fooling nobody. “Well, I saved you before, didn’t I? After forty long years, living off scraps…”

“And now?” Five asked. She had yet to give him an opening. Best to keep her talking. “What are you rescuing me from this time?”

“From yourself!” She took a step close to him, and he had to curl his toes in his shoes to keep from stepping back as she placed a hand on his shoulder and stepped behind him, slowly circling him, examining his family, young and old. “Look at this fantasy you’ve created for yourself! As if you could pick up and resume this life after all you’ve done. But of course, you had to have the best of both worlds… Oh, Five.” Her voice was dripping with mock sympathy, and he braced himself as her hand skimmed along his back and she leaned close to speak softly in his ear.  “Surely you know how this is going to end. You know this is destined to be a tragedy.”

It was all to get a reaction. He knew that, and that was enough to keep him still, even as his skin prickled and every instinct in him screamed for him to knock her hand away, to attack as she spoke the painful truth. It was just another power move. He wouldn’t give her the pleasure of a reaction so long as her hand stayed on him and away from his family.

“What do you want from me?” he asked evenly.

She lingered a moment, her breath tickling his ear, before she yielded to his poker face and straightened up, taking a few steps out in front of him, allowing him to breathe again. “It's simple: one last job.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Just one?”

“Perhaps the most important job you’ve ever done for us,” she answered with what he sensed was deliberate vagueness. “In exchange, of course, for your family’s safety.”

How many times would his family be held hostage that day?

Five sighed, weighing his options. They both knew today’s attack on the Academy would fail, and she didn’t know about their imminent attack on Commission headquarters…

But today’s attack had served its purpose in bringing them to this frozen moment. Could he take her down, injured and without his powers, before one of her bullets hit his family?

Was he even willing to take that risk?

“Why should I trust you?” he asked while his mind whirled, searching for another option.

Her head tilted as she studied him, seeming to sense she was only one step away from getting what she wanted. “I’ve always kept my end of the bargain. You’re the one who keeps reneging on our deals.”

He scoffed. “So, you’re the honorable one here?”

She smirked. “More or less.”

He shook his head. “No, I know how this goes. You say one thing, but you’ve already set up the dominoes so that they’ll fall in your favor. You’ll find some way to twist this.” He paused, glancing behind him at one Vanya, then the other. “The apocalypse,” he concluded, turning back to judge her reaction. “You’re still fighting for it to happen. I won’t let it.”

She chuckled and gave him a pitying look. “You’ve stayed in this house too long. This isn’t a fight between good and evil, and even if it were, we both know you wouldn’t be the hero.”

“I gave up on the idea of good versus evil a long time ago,” he countered, his temper rising. “But being in the Commission only reinforced what I learned all those years, digging around people’s houses, digging through the remnants of their lives. People are people.”

He knew she wouldn’t understand. She pursed her lips, but he cut her off before she could argue, stepping forward to glare up at her. “People are people: their lives are complicated and messy. And that is precisely why each one is significant. I ran the numbers on every single job. I know the weight each life has on the timeline. People are foolish enough to think they don’t matter, but each person has an effect far beyond their comprehension. Every life has value. You really think I’ll let you end them all?”

“Please. Spare me your little assassin with the heart of gold routine, will you?” She leaned in far too close again. “We both know the truth. You would kill anyone I asked of you if I could guarantee that your family could survive.” She dared to emphasize her point with a belittling bop to his nose before leaning away and turning her back to him.

Finally, an opening. He was going to take one of Diego’s knives and bury it in her black jacket. As he moved his hand from his pocket, his hand brushed against the wristwatches again, and he was struck with a sudden idea. Moving with quick, silent steps, he grabbed them and quickly slipped them into Mom’s apron pocket before reaching just past her to Diego’s belt—

The click of her revolver stopped him in his tracks. “You really think you can take me down with that thing on your wrist?”

He cursed under his breath and turned back to her, hands empty. “Can you blame me for trying?”

She smirked and lowered the revolver to her side. “I expected nothing less from you.”

They stared each other down, and he sighed, resigned. “One last job, and the Commission won’t touch any of them, not for the rest of their lives.”

“Agreed.” She holstered her gun, reached out a hand, and they shook on it. Then, she got that glint in her eye, squeezing his hand tight. “I’ll give you a moment to say good-bye.”

Five frowned, stomach sinking as he wrenched his hand out of her grip. “They can’t hear me.”

“Can’t they?" Her smirk was spreading into a grin as she revealed the snare he had blindly walked into. "That energy your dear father used to protect their minds against the psychosis… You don’t think that would protect their minds against a time stop?”

Five turned on his heel, his heart in his throat as he searched their frozen faces for consciousness, trying to recall exactly what had been said, exactly what the kids would have heard.

A hand fell onto his back again, and he whipped around. Her eyes were predatory, her grin victorious for finally getting a rise out of him as she countered his frenzied punch with ease, using his momentum to pull him flush against her.

He was going to kill her, he decided.

But before he could, the familiar tug of time travel grabbed him around the middle and wrenched him from the moment, leaving his family behind.

Chapter Text

Five took a quick breath as they landed, the stifling feeling of perfectly still air vanishing as time was allowed to flow around them once more. The Handler still had an arm forcing him flush against her, making it a simple matter to grab her shoulders and slam his forehead into her nose.

The effect was immediate, warm blood raining down on his face as she released him, staggering back with an angry, sputtering cry. The look of shocked fury as her nose gushed a river of red down her face was almost worth the reaction of everyone else in the room.

A dozen Commission agents had been waiting for them, half of them tackling him to the ground, knocking the air out of him, his teeth snapping shut as his jaw hit the cold, hard floor of the entrance hall of Commission Headquarters. He struggled uselessly against their weight but could do nothing as the sting of a needle pierced his neck and a cold, burning pressure was injected beneath his skin.

The world slid on its axis, its edges growing dim and gray as the drug quickly took hold. The last thing he was aware of was the Handler’s gurgling laughter before he was in free fall, down into nothingness.

Voices drifted down to him from above, somewhere in the darkness.

“…working perfectly…"

"…course it is."

"…astounded, frankly. How did you know?”

“I do my research.” The smirk was obvious in her voice, driving him rapidly closer to consciousness. “Do you know who our founders were?”

“Can’t say I do.”

“It’s quite the story,” the Handler mused. There was a pause, and the sound of heels on the floor. “Oh, look who’s coming around.”

“I’ll get another dose—”

“No need. He’ll be out soon enough anyway. Finish the alignment.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the underling answered, a note of hesitation in his voice.

Five felt a presence draw close, looming over him. “Hello, Five,” the Handler cooed softly.

He blinked several times, struggling to find his body, and finally, like a lens cap being removed from a camera, he found himself looking up at her knowing smirk. At least he could admire the dark reds and purples of the fresh bruise painted across her face, under her eyes and over her swollen nose.

“Did you have a nice nap?” she asked with her usual mocking tone, undercut by the way her broken nose trapped the consonants in her throat. She reached up and brushed his bangs out of his eyes, and he searched desperately for his hands. But his body remained numb and heavy.

Her smirk grew, her eyes glinting as her fingernail slid down across his cheek. “You made the right choice, accepting this deal.”

“Not… a choice,” he ground out with a tremendous effort, his voice gravelly.

“Of course, it was. You could have chosen to fight. I imagine I would have shot only one or two of your siblings before you killed me.”

Five didn’t bother answering with words, choosing instead to glare. Completely unfazed, she leaned back, calling to the other person in the room, the underling calibrating some complicated machinery.

An involuntary chill curled up his spine as Five finally took in the rest of the room around him. It was lit by bright lights, the walls painted white to create the illusion of a sterile lab. He was on a cot positioned next to a great, humming, breathing machine that took up an entire wall. Blinking lights and monitors filled with numbers were embedded in the wall near the foot of Five’s cot, and the man the Handler was now speaking to in hushed tones stood in front of the monitors, his fingers dancing over the keyboard beneath. The machine reminded Five of the things he had seen in his father’s workshop, which was why he was both horrified and completely unsurprised to find several wires pouring out of the machine had latched onto the inner workings of the shackle on his wrist. Another set of wires connected the machine, the shackle, and a third device, sitting on the edge of his cot, this one shiny and square with rows of long, thin needles, currently retracted. Not for long.

Five fought once more to find his body, perhaps even to find his powers now that his shackle was being used for something other than suppression, but came up empty. He suffered an eternity of anticipation, trapped, useless, unable to summon a single means of escape or defense.

Then, finally, the machine gave a shrill beep, and the humming grew to a whirring.

“There we go,” the technician said, nodding to himself as he moved from the monitors to Five’s side, the Handler right at his elbow. He reached for the square device, examining the metal teeth for a moment, his eyes darting up to meet Five’s. He cleared his throat. “I have another dose ready—”

“No need.” The Handler swooped in like a bird of prey, snatching the device from his hands. “His stomach, right?” She yanked up Five’s shirt and through the numbness he could feel the weight of the metal device descend upon him.

“Up a bit,” the technician murmured, shooting Five a furtive, apologetic look as he directed her to place the needles along his middle, just above the source of his powers.

“Perfect.” She grinned at Five, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. She had won.

She pressed a button on the device and the needles sank into him with a sudden hiss, like a hungry animal sinking its teeth into his flesh. Deep beneath the numbness, his body recognized it had been damaged. Sharp pain tore through his deadened body like an electric shock.

“Congratulations are in order,” she told him, leaning close. “You’re our first employee to work for all three of our departments.”

The machine gave another shrill beep as the technician entered in a command.

It started gradually, a shiver spreading up his arm from the shackle, a tremble running through his middle from the needles. Then, thousands of bees were inside of him, emerging from his bones, their buzzing prickling his skin, trembling in his chest with each breath. Instinctual, undeniable fear swelled in his heart, filling his head. He refused to let it show on his face, to let her see, even though he knew what would come next. The needles in his stomach were merely bee stings. The knives would be next as the machine tried to access his powers—

Even anticipating it, he wasn’t ready. The pain leapt past anything he had experienced before. Every nerve in his body was alight. He was both burning and freezing, lightning replacing the blood in his veins. He was surely screaming, but the sound didn’t reach him, his vision a blank white. The air around him was gone, and there was nothing beneath him.

Pain was the only thing left.

He was dying.

The truth of it cut into his mind. His heart was exploding, his pulse sending shockwaves throughout his body, speaking the truth of his mortality.

He was dying, and he would never see them again.

He had experienced this before. There were fights he nearly lost, wounds that had stolen his breath, a knife between his ribs, a couple bullets he hadn’t been quick enough to evade. This feeling, this sudden, inescapable fear had slammed into him at the most inconvenient times. But that was when he punched back all the harder, clawing, fighting, using anything and everything at his disposal. And he always made it out.

But there were times when he didn’t have something to fight, when the fear had seeped into him slowly, an insidious dread that crept into his head before he noticed. His first winter alone had hit sudden and harsh, and he hadn’t prepared properly, forcing him to fight both starvation and hypothermia. And then, years later, the drought had taken its time with him, subduing him into a shell of a person, barely with the energy to search out food or water. The miracle of rain was the only thing that had saved him.

But there was no chance of rain here, no coming spring, no attacker to defeat.

He was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Suddenly, inexplicably, everything changed.

It was as if someone had pulled him from the fire only to drown him in the depths of an ocean. Before was nothing but pain, and now there was… everything.

A deafening roar, a furious maelstrom of light and color, battering him from all directions, grains of sand, whipping through him as seconds, words, half-caught glimpses barraged him. The hourglass of Time had tipped over, directly into his head, its smothering sands cold and unforgiving.

It was too much, too much, too much—

His consciousness begged for the release of oblivion, but it didn’t come. He tried to scream, to fight the onslaught, to escape—

But he had no voice, no body, no powers.

Eternity drowned him in its icy depths, ignoring his useless struggle. He’d never reach the surface.

Panic shredded at his mind, disintegrating his sanity as death drew close.

No, this went beyond death. This would destroy him, tear him apart, erode him bit by bit until the very concept of Five Hargreeves was no more.

Someone’s arms were around him, pulling him against the tide until they broke, not through the surface, but into a familiar slipstream.

He didn’t question it, didn’t have the strength to, because they were there. His family had found him: six stars of light gathered in a tight circle.

That was right. They were traveling back, narrowly missing the apocalypse, hands clasped tight. But just as suddenly as they had found him, they were now slipping from his grip. He could do nothing but call to them, pleading with them to stay.

Despair threatened to overtake him, looming like a shadow despite the blinding cocoon of light. His existence was precarious as it was; he wouldn’t survive being alone again.

“Stop it, Five! You’re really going to start doubting yourself after coming this far?!” someone shouted at him, though he couldn’t recall who, and he had responded…

What was his response? He didn’t remember the words, but he knew he had shouted something desperate to keep them with him.

They weren’t with him now, he realized suddenly, as if with one foot in a dream and one in reality. What he was seeing now had happened months ago. His family was back at the Academy, probably still reeling from the paradox resonance and every truth that had carelessly dropped from his lips during that frozen moment of time.

His adult family must have understood by now, what a selfish mistake it had been for him to bring them back with him. And the children, their ideals still perfectly molded in the image their father had crafted, must have been horrified with him. He had seen it already when he had explained everything to the first Luther, who had kept his morals aligned with the Academy for all those years.

He could still hear the hesitation in Luther’s voice. “I mean, you had a code, right?”

Five was sitting on Diego’s bed, in the dingy back room of the gym, holding the cup of water Luther had just handed him, watching as his brother sat in front of him, eyes searching, desperate that Five would give the correct answer. “You didn’t kill just anybody.”

Five had answered truthfully, immediately, knowing he had to destroy any illusion of who he was and what he had done that Luther might be ready to create for him.

But with the kids, he had done no such thing. He had pretended to be the same person who had run out their front door months before. He had pretended he still belonged as one of them. And now they knew, not just his crimes, but that he had lied.

He wasn’t their Five.

“Enough of this futile searching,” Dad barked. It was late, the lamps in the entryway casting long shadows on their father’s face as he glared down at the six of them. Their heads hung, not in reaction to the chastising, but under the heavy air of defeat. Dad continued, unconvinced by their misery. “If Number Five is to return to the Academy, he will do so under his own volition. The rest of you are to focus on your studies and training. We will have to work that much harder now that there are only five of you. Your responsibility has grown tremendously with this setback.”

“But—” Allison started before cutting herself off, her mouth twisting with frustration as she swallowed down her words.

Dad watched her a moment. “Speak, Number Three.”

“But Five is a part of the Academy,” she said, the words bursting out of her, recognizing the rare chance to speak in contradiction to the old man. “Shouldn’t we do everything we can to find him and bring him back?” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “As a member of our team?”

“Until Number Five returns, he is not a part of our team. It is best you put him from your minds until then.”

Allison opened her mouth to say something more, but Dad was already turning away—

And then, like a record skip, a disorienting shift, they were in the hallway right outside their bedrooms, mid-conversation, and Luther was turning away, only to have Diego shouting, grabbing him, punching him in response. Luther retaliated, shoving Diego back, sending Diego crashing to the ground as he continued yelling, cursing. One sweep of the legs later, Luther was down too, and they were wrestling in a contest everyone knew was unfair.

“I heard a rumor that you stopped fighting!” Allison screamed at them, and they stilled for a second before separating and leaping to their feet, Diego swiping at a bloody nose. Their heavy breathing was loud in the suddenly quiet hall.

“How could you say something so terrible?” Vanya asked, her voice wavering and tiny. She was the only one not lingering near the door to her own bedroom, instead standing a step outside of Five’s.

“Because he’s as heartless as Dad,” Diego snarled, wiping blood on his sleeve.

“I mean both of you. Both of what you said!” Vanya said, her voice rising in both pitch and volume. “It’s not a waste of time to keep looking. Five’s out there—”

Diego scoffed. “And if he doesn’t want to be found? You really going to drag him back here?” He gestured around the hall. “To this?”

Klaus hummed in thought, leaning heavily against his door-frame.  “We won’t know until we find him and y’know,” he shrugged, “ask.”

“We’ve spent enough time searching. The Academy needs to move forward,” Luther said with a dull finality.

“No matter what Dad says, Five’s a part of the Academy,” Ben said, his voice quiet but sharp.

Diego crossed his arms, turning away, toward his door. “He ran away. Maybe he doesn’t deserve to be a part of the Academy anymore.”

Five pulled the trigger.

He didn’t miss. He never missed. He’d learned that lesson back in the apocalypse when a miss meant a wasted bullet and no dinner.

His hands were still and steady, and now Daisy lay dead on the concrete below. He watched through his scope as people reacted, as the screams began.

One life. Five forced himself to watch as blood began to pool around her head in a halo. One life given to save thousands. It was remarkable, the math. He’d run the numbers over and over and each time they gave him such a simple, elegant solution.

The screams weren’t stopping. A crowd was forming.

A vile, monstrous solution.

One bullet had changed everything. One bullet, and he could never go back to being one of them.

He was back in the pneumatic tube room, yelling at the Handler. “I don’t belong anywhere thanks to you. You made me a killer!”

She scoffed. “You were always a killer—”

Which wasn’t true. It wasn’t.

But she had seen it, the one time she had gone on a mission with him. Nobody from management had done that before, and he assumed it was because of the date, because it was after his family had been born. It would be so easy to make an unscheduled stop, to ask his father for help with the equations, to give them all a warning, or to leave a letter for himself.

She didn’t give him the chance, sticking to him like glue, disrupting his usual ritual of numbers and stakeouts, insisting on methods more drawn out than he preferred, and by the end of the day, the flower merchants were dead.

It was easy. She witnessed his efficiency and his blank face and had assumed that was how it usually was. But for him, that was the first time without the numbers, without even knowing their names. He had shot them and had felt a startling emptiness. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough, relieved to find she didn’t follow.

He really was fit to be an assassin.

It was a thrill. It was a terrible, amazing thrill to shed all the numbness that had seeped into his bones over his long, lonely life. He turned off his brain and existed solely in the moment, everything dropping away until he was nothing but muscle, blood, and breath, moving with precision and skill to complete his mission.

It felt like a mission with the Umbrella Academy.

The thought made him sick. He refused to corrupt his memories of them with this.

So, he ran the numbers. He got to know his victims. He made it personal on purpose.

He was good at killing, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make it difficult. It should be difficult, he decided somewhere along the way. That was the price for another chance, a chance to live in a world full of people and color, a world with precious books about time travel and a shot at home. The price needed to be significant.

And so, it went, one assignment after another, one life after another. He took a breath, pulled the trigger, and waited for the emptiness to be filled. The guilt was welcome as it carved a chasm in his heart between this time and his time with them, fragmenting him, but only for a moment. As easy as it would be to allow himself to be swallowed by what he had done, he still had a world to save. He breathed and pushed it all down, down, down into the dark where he didn’t have to think about it, where he could drown it with a stiff drink and a torrent of numbers.

Besides, if he didn’t kill the mark someone else would. Someone sloppy like the Swedes or sadistic like Hazel and Cha-Cha. And he only ever killed the target. Everyone else accepted collateral damage as a part of the job, but he didn’t. He was the best.

Didn’t she understand? It was necessary. Of all people, she should understand!

He adjusted the duffel bag on his back and waited for Delores’s response as they walked home from her department store after Hazel and Cha-Cha’s attack.

Her answer was silent, but just as effective as if she had shouted. Pure fear and concern emanated from her, so strong he nearly stumbled on the sidewalk.

He spun around, anger surging, powerful in his veins, because there was no reason, no reason at all for her to worry. She should be telling him he did the right thing, the only thing that he could have done. Or she should be angry with him, snapping at him with that quiet, tight tone she got when she was furious.

There was nobody there. He stared at empty air, the mannequin swinging unceremoniously against his back, and a chill swept through him, snuffing out his anger as a different, familiar emotion took its place.

He couldn't deal with that. Not now. He didn't have time to break down now, days away from the apocalypse, with no help.

He ran, his feet pounding against the pavement, his breath coming in short bursts as he sprinted somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t standing there in the midst of his failure, his insanity staring back at him.

The air was thick, swimming with the humidity of a summer day, the sun burning on the back of his neck as he dashed as fast as his feet could take him. He didn’t stop until he tripped and fell in a spectacular way. For a moment, he lay there, reveling in nothing but the smell of hot asphalt and dirt and the sound of his own ragged breaths. Then, his palms and knees were stinging, something was digging into his shin, and sweat was settling uncomfortably between his shoulder blades, forcing him to finally sit up. The something was the road, he realized as soon as he looked around. He was at the edges of downtown, where the roads were cracked and torn, the pavement buckling like some giant creature had tried clawing its way out from inside the earth. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps a giant monster had caused the apocalypse.

He stood, brushing the dirt from his clothes, checking his skinned palms for blood but finding them clean, even if the skin was turning an angry red.

He wasn’t far from the ruins of the Academy. Just a few city blocks to the left and he’d be there. He could visit the pitiful graves his thirteen-year-old self had made for Pogo and Mom. Or he could go to the right, where the city’s downtown used to be, where the roads were even more chewed up, the buildings ready to crumble under the right gust of wind. It was less than a mile to the cause of the apocalypse.

The abyss. There was no other word for it. It stretched on and on for as far as the eye could see and sliced down into the earth for some unfathomable distance. He had tried scaling it a few times in his early twenties; he had admittedly been too scared to try when he was younger. The abyss was large enough to have its own weather, the wind whipping about, filling the earth with a terrible hollow groan, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. But he had never managed to reach the bottom. As soon as he was deep enough for the sun to be blocked from view, the climb became too perilous, and he decided the benefit of knowing the cause of the apocalypse wasn’t worth the time, resources, and risk of the climb.

He could go there now, stand at the edge, and let instinctual fear consume his brain for a few minutes. He looked to the left, where he could instead let himself fall into an abyss of grief. Then, he realized what building was directly in front of him, and rushed inside, eager for option three.

The musty smell of rotted wood and rodent urine greeted him, a familiar smell now that didn’t deter him as he dove over the dust-caked bar to where dozens of bottles waited, full of liquors and sprites, ready to drown him.

He hadn’t been much of a drinker yet. He’d enjoyed his fair share of nights with alcohol buzzing in his veins, enjoying the numbing dizziness as he watched stars skim across the inky sky. But those nights only served to reinforce his loneliness; Delores’s voice would blur into a smudge, an impression of feeling he had trouble reading. But right now, that's what he needed. He grabbed the nearest bottle, it’s label unreadable through the dust, and yanked the cap off.

The acidic sting of vinegar punched him in the nose, and he cursed a loud, long string of words as he turned on his heel and threw the bottle with all his might. The crash was a spectacular sound, the glass raining down from where it had shattered against the wooden wall. He whipped around and grabbed another, strangling the glass neck before he could dig the cork out with his pocketknife—vinegar again. Another bottle was in his hands before the last one hit the wall. And another, and another. And then he was just throwing bottles, relishing the simplistic satisfaction that came with the physical exertion and the splendor of each crash.

Until he heard a groan behind him.

He froze. Delores was sitting on the bar, right in front of him, clearly exasperated, but giving him his moment to vent by remaining silent. He glanced over his shoulder as the groan was joined by the crack of old brittle wood. His last bottle had hit a support pillar.

“Oh shit,” he murmured as he heard Delores gasp. Dust was suddenly snowing down on him, and then chunks of the ceiling—

His feet were moving, adrenaline taking over before his brain had time to process what was happening. He reached for his powers despite already knowing he was empty as the building rumbled like thunder around him, a great roaring lion on his heels, but he was already in its mouth, its jaws snapping shut—

“Five!” Delores was screaming in his ear, her fear for him wrapping around him like arms trying to drag him to safety.

Debris slammed into him and next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him, blinking up into darkness as the terrible sound raged all around him for what must have been an eternity. And then it was over. The sound of his own breath was harsh in his ears, his whole body shivering to the beat of his pulse.

He was alive.

His breath caught in his chest at the thought, and then a strangled laugh escaped his lips, treating him to a mouth full of dust. He braced himself as he sputtered out a cough.

“Five?” Delores’s voice was small with fear, as if she might bring down more of the building by being too loud of a voice in his head. “Are you hurt?”

Five blinked against the darkness. His eyes were beginning to adjust, giving him a better picture of the rubble a few inches from crushing his face. Another laugh trembled through him. Then, he considered her question, realized he was, in fact, completely unharmed except for a few new bruises on top of his skinned knee and palms, and gave in completely.

The alarm he felt from her did nothing to stem his laughter and soon he was holding his stomach as he failed to catch his breath.

Delores was not happy. “What the fuck are you laughing at?!”

Which made him laugh harder and keep laughing until his ribs began to ache, his head floating. He couldn’t catch his breath.

“You were nearly crushed to death—you can still be crushed to death—so whatever is so damn funny can wait until you get out of here!” When he didn’t immediately answer, she cursed under her breath again, muttering about concussions before leaning in close to check his head. Five squeezed his eyes shut.

“This isn’t funny!” she snapped despite how quickly he was sobering. “You nearly died!”

“But I didn’t,” he murmured, the mirth seeping from his bones as suddenly as it had come, leaving him drained. “That’s what’s funny,” he told her, still not trusting himself to open his eyes as she loomed over him. “A whole building just came down on me, and I’m alive by pure luck! I don’t even have a broken bone or a cut or—”

“Stop! Stop! Are you trying to jinx yourself?!”

He grinned despite himself. “That’s an unusually superstitious take coming from you.”

“Well, you’re still laying here like an idiot under all this rubble that could shift at any moment!”

“Fair point,” he conceded, a giggle encroaching on the end of his words.

“Oh, no you don’t! If you start again, so help me—”

“Pure luck!” he told her again, hearing the manic edge to his voice, a sudden shiver running through him again. “I should be dead! I… I should be dead!”

“Five!”

He swallowed any further words, breathing in the fierce anger boiling off of her.

“Is that why you came here?” she hissed. “To a place you know is unsafe? We agreed that you wouldn't go in these buildings! They're too close to the abyss and structurally unsound!”

He wished she would revel in her anger like he did with his, but she had never been good at that. Already, her fear was descending over them in a suffocating weight.

“I should have stopped you,” she groaned. “I should’ve stopped you from entering, from throwing bottles… I thought you needed a moment. I just thought you needed a little time before we move on—”

“Move on?” he echoed sharply and this time his laugh was bitter and sarcastic. “I think I need more than a moment after learning we wasted years of my life on an equation that doesn’t work!”

“It’s not a waste, it’s just…”

“It didn’t get me back home, did it?!”

“But there are still pieces of it we can salvage, and you know far more now than you did when we started!” she countered. “You know we don’t waste anything here. You… You’re always figuring out a way to reuse our scraps and this is no different.”

He swallowed hard, suddenly feeling the full impending threat of the building on top of him. “What if I can’t figure it out? What if there isn’t enough to piece together anymore?” He was saying too much, speaking truths that he had kept buried deep in the back of his mind. But it was somehow easy to say them now with his eyes closed and death suspended a few inches above him. “I’m tired. I’m just… so tired.”

“I know.”

He released the breath he was holding, slow and steady, something in his chest unraveling with the simple acceptance and understanding in her voice.

“It’s okay to rest, Five. Goodness knows I would love nothing more than for you to take better care of yourself. Take the time—I know you hate the thought, but please—take however long you need to rest and gather your strength again.” Her voice broke with emotion, quivering in a way he had never heard from her before. “However long… However long you need, but promise me… Don’t have this be the end.”

He didn't answer, unable to speak around the sudden lump in his throat. She didn't deserve half of what he put her through.

“They’re still waiting for you," she told him after a minute of his silence.

“No, they’re not," he said thickly. He wanted to curl into himself, but he didn’t dare move. All he could do was hug himself a little tighter, digging his nails into the fabric of his shirt. “You read the book. They’ve lived their entire lives without me already. They’ve moved on.”

“They haven’t. Not like you think. They still love you.”

“They don’t—”

“They love you and they will continue to love you—”

“They don’t know me!” he spat out. “Look at me! I’m not the person they’re waiting for! The Five they love doesn’t exist anymore!”

“Face it! He’s gone!” Diego was shouting.

The six of them were scattered around the hall, lingering outside their bedrooms, tension obvious in their posture, warring with the exhaustion darkening their eyes.

“You don’t believe that!” Allison answered hotly. “There’s still a chance—”

“It’s been over six months!” Diego cut her off, his hands in tight fists.

“He’s out there,” Vanya said quietly. She was curled in on herself, shrinking further when they all turned to stare. “If we keep searching…”

“Oh sweetie,” Klaus murmured. He was melting against the door-frame to his room, looking far too world-weary for a thirteen-year-old. “You heard Dad.”

“If he’s coming back, he’ll do it on his own,” Luther said in that stiff, measured voice he got when he was quoting their father.

“But what if he’s lost or hurt? We can’t give up!” Vanya looked around desperately for an ally. “Ben?”

Ben grimaced. “We’ve already searched all over town…” he said slowly, reluctantly, avoiding Vanya’s gaze all the while. “Even if we do continue to search, where would we even look?”

“We can’t keep wasting time on someone who doesn’t want to be found,” Diego muttered.

“You think he’s hiding from us?” Allison asked incredulously.

“This is Five we’re talking about,” Ben said, his voice gaining a sharpness it had lacked a moment before.

“That’s right.” Vanya perked up, looking at Ben and Allison with gratitude. “He would never abandon us!”

“He found his chance and took it!” Diego snapped, stomping a few steps toward her. “He isn’t coming back! Not for you, not for any of us!”

“Enough!” Luther stepped in between them. “This isn’t the time to fight. Now more than ever the Academy needs to band together.”

“Really? You’re upset that we lost a teammate?” Diego spat out. “I’m talking about losing our brother!”

“Then that was a mistake,” Luther answered coldly. “Apparently, he didn’t love us like we thought he did.”

Five staggered backward, horror shocking him back into consciousness.

What was this? What the fuck was happening?

Was this real?

He stared around at them and recognized the scene as what he had seen earlier as Diego punched Luther, and then the two of them crashed to the ground in a one-sided tussle.

This couldn’t be real.

It couldn’t.

This was some sort of dream or hallucination.

He looked down at his hands. He appeared to have a body, but nobody else was reacting to his presence.

“Hey,” he called. Ben and Klaus were closest, but neither looked away from the scene Luther and Diego were creating.

“Ben!” he tried again, yelling this time, but his voice lacked any sort of echo. He stepped in front of Klaus, reaching for his brother’s shoulders. “Klaus! You can hear me, can’t you?”

His fingers slipped straight through Klaus, and still, he got no reaction.

Though, on second thought, perhaps that was good. If Klaus couldn’t see him, he wasn’t dead.

Right?

He moved about the hall anyway, calling their names, his hands ghosting through them while all attention stayed on Luther and Diego until Allison rumored them apart and Vanya asked in a wavering voice how they could say such horrible things.

“She’s right,” Five told them uselessly. “It’s not true.” They didn’t answer, Diego instead claiming Luther as heartless. “That’s not true either,” Five said to himself. “Just look at him! That’s all Dad!”

The argument finally dissolved when Diego stormed into his room, Luther, Allison, and Ben following suit, retreating to their respective rooms. Klaus gave a tremendous sigh and a wilted, pitying smile to Vanya before slipping into his room, leaving her alone. Slowly, she turned to Five’s room and reached out, her hand on the doorknob.

“Vanya?”

She turned so suddenly, he thought she had heard him, but she rushed right past him, closing her door behind her with a soft click.

The sudden silence of the hallway was smothering.

“This isn’t real,” he said. The last real thing had been the Handler and her horrible machine. “This is some sort of nightmare induced by the pain.”

Whatever escape this scene was providing him seemed to be only temporary, and if he stayed still long enough, he could almost feel it, the echo of his nerves screaming as his body was torn apart, atom by atom.

But perhaps the pain was better than this nightmare. Shouldn’t his mind be conjuring images of comfort? Instead, the darkness of the hall swept in around him, cold and unblinking, judging his failure—

“How do I stop it? How do I help them?” he pleaded, feeling incredibly small as he stared up at their father.

He was in the foyer, his siblings shuddering and distraught as the paradox resonance forced them into memories best left to be rewritten.

“You do nothing of the sort,” Dad answered with all the harshness Five deserved—

There was a gun at his feet, dropped by the Commission agent he had just taken out. Vanya was still on stage, the air tingling with her power as her violin continued to sing, and it would be the simplest thing in the world, to take the gun and jump behind her, to fire the shot that would save the world.

But he didn’t, and the decision was passed to Allison. And now the world was ending, and he had nobody to blame but himself.

People on the street looked up and saw it coming. They screamed and yelled and ran with nowhere to go as death rained down.

The noise was unbearable. Fire swept through the streets, devouring people and animals alike as shock waves caused buildings to crumble. It was the end of everything.

This couldn’t be real.

Yet, as the foreign storm of sound and images poured into him, the truth whispered to him in a familiar voice. He could feel the epiphany sitting at the edges of his consciousness.

He grasped blindly for something familiar, unable to chase his thoughts until he was on solid ground again—

But there was only water below. He crept closer to the edge of the pool, the waters shining innocent blue, but the weights bound to his ankles were digging uncomfortable welts into his skin and Dad’s gaze was heavy on his back. So, he took a deep breath and plunged into the icy depths, sinking like a rock. One jump, he told himself, one jump, and he’d be back on dry land and special training would be over for the day. He reached for his powers and emerged—

An acorn was digging into his knee. He shifted his position so he could concentrate as he peered through the sniper scope, lining up the shot. There was his target, Charlie, swaying a little as he left the saloon.

Five’s hands were steady, but he knew that could easily change if he lost his momentum. Keep going. Just breathe and pull the trigger. Just breathe—

“What are you doing, Five?” Luther was pushing him back into bed as Five gasped for air. “Just breathe—”

Five was pleading with his sister as he embraced her, holding tight against the vibrations trembling through his bones, Ben hugging them both, matching his desperation. “Breathe, Vanya! Please—"

“—please, breathe!”

They were crowded in a tight circle, tears leaking out from behind their masks. Allison was yelling, trying rumor after rumor while Luther continued compressions. But Ben’s body lay still and unresponsive—

There was snow, the day of the funeral. The five of them were gathered around the coffin, and Vanya had tried to say something comforting.

“How would you know, Vanya? You weren’t even on the mission,” Diego snapped.

And it was true; he hadn’t been there. He had left them, however unintentional it had been, and then Ben—

Ben was struggling through another nightmare. Five hurried to his side, reaching out to shake him.

“It’s okay! I’m here!”

His hands passed uselessly through his brother, and Ben continued to twist and turn.

“I’m here,” he tried again—

And this time he was speaking to Klaus. But Klaus had his hands over his ears, his knuckles white in the tiny sliver of light slipping into the mausoleum—

And then Klaus was collapsed on the ground in an alley, eyes closed, face pale as death. Five watched as Pogo knelt next to his brother and checked his pulse, breathing out in relief. “Oh, my dear boy, I thought we lost you.”

“Didn’t know I was found,” Klaus muttered without opening his eyes—

Six stars of light burned before him. He would know them anywhere.

And there was the seventh star, wrapping its light around them, trying futilely to keep them close, but they were slipping out of reach. They would land separated, scattered across the years, and if they went that direction, they’d wind up too far back. Five saw now, how horrifyingly close he had been to losing them at the same moment he noticed in the corner of his eye—

“Come with us.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

Allison and Luther were standing in that small space between their bedrooms, their faces lined with sorrow so obvious Five couldn’t miss it.

“There’s nothing keeping you here,” Allison insisted. Behind her, half-packed boxes sat on her bed. “Diego’s gone. Vanya’s leaving. Klaus won’t be out of rehab until next month, and when he is, he’s going to stay with Diego. You’ll be alone.” Luther’s brow furrowed, and Allison sighed. “You know what I mean. There’s no reason to stay.”

Luther shook his head. “The Academy—”

“Is done! Let someone else save the world! The police, firefighters, paramedics…! It doesn’t have to be us!”

“I can’t leave.”

Anguish filled her face, filled her entire body, pulling her arms tight around her middle, and she held her breath for a moment before whipping around, the words coming rushed and choked. “I heard a rumor you left with me.”

And for one moment, he acquiesced, stepping forward, taking her hand, and they stood there, quiet.

Then, the spell broke.

“Allison,” he began quietly.

She shook her head. “I suppose I can’t rumor you forever.”

She dropped his hand and turned away, back to her room to continue packing, and Five stood next to Luther. The two of them watching as their family fell apart, shattered, heartbroken.

“This isn’t real,” Five told himself even though he knew better.

This had happened. The question was if it had happened exactly like this.

Three departments, the Handler had said. Corrections, Management, and now this, the third division of the Commission, where the numbers Management crunched came from: the Infinite Switchboard. He only knew the bare minimum about the department. Given the way the Handler had glossed over the switchboard when giving him the tour of their headquarters, instead claiming all their information came from agents on the ground, he suspected she didn’t want him to know about the department. But there had been no agents on the ground in the apocalypse, so Five had listened in on a few conversations and opened a few restricted doors and found the truth.

Obviously, he wasn’t working as a switchboard operator. Most likely, he was being used to power the switchboard itself. And that thought confirmed the idea lingering at the edge of his mind.

This was real.

He was time traveling.

How?

If this was time travel, it was like nothing he had experienced before. To travel without making a physical jump, to be unable to interact with the environment except to relive what his past self had done, made no sense with everything he knew about his powers. This was something he had never accomplished before; this was time travel of the mind.

Something flickered at the edge of his consciousness, the glimmering seed of a thought. But he left it alone, distracted by another: the Commission’s source of temporal energy was running out.

During his days as an assassin, he hadn’t been sure if they had a source at their disposal or not. The briefcases could have been powered by absorbing the natural energy of the world and a hyper-efficient equation that eluded him. His first inkling that this was not the case was the first time he saw a briefcase destroyed—they really needed to make them bulletproof. The glimpse he saw of the briefcase’s internal wiring before the clean-up crew whisked it away suggested a battery. Seeing the wristwatches also had batteries and knowing what he did of the switchboard, his theory was all but confirmed. Now, he was sure, not only that their source existed, but that its energy was running out. There was no need to hook him up to the machine otherwise.

There was irony somewhere in there. The reason he had asked the idiot in the closet about what happened during an attack on headquarters was that the Commission would surely protect the two places most important to their survival, the two places he needed to infiltrate: where they stored the wristwatches, and their source of temporal energy. And now, not only had the Commission taken him straight to one of those places, but the source would fail even without his intervention. His job had gotten a whole lot easier.

Except… Five couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something.

He’d have to figure it out as he went, for getting back to his body was more important. If this was time travel, then there had to be a way to control it, and control would get him back to his body.

He looked up and found himself in their library, working by lantern light, marker still in his hand as the numbers on the wall in front of him blurred together, his makeshift bed calling his name. He scowled at the equation in front of him. He never had finished this one. The idea had been to project his consciousness back in time, into a younger body.

Ironically, that was exactly what had happened, but this equation had involved overriding his past conscious by separating his older consciousness from his current body, a concept he had never gotten past. None of Delores’s flowery analogies had helped.

“I’m not going to get this,” he admitted and felt her disappointment like a sinking stone in the back of his mind.

She was saying something about instinct, but his mind was too muddled for him to make out the exact words.

“I need more than instinct; I need hard numbers,” his past self was grumbling. “Instinct is what got me into this mess!”

Delores was sighing, and he couldn’t blame her. He knew better now. All he had was instinct during a fight as he slipped through space, his mind blissfully rooted in the present. His instincts had never failed him mid battle, his powers always answering without a single number in mind. Why should things be different with time?

Except, there had been that night in Gimbel Brothers. He’d only made a few jumps evading and countering Hazel and Cha-Cha before his powers had shrunk away from his call, curling in tight around his middle, fighting him when he tried to draw it into his hands. He should have had two more jumps by his count, but instead, it had felt just as it had his first year in the apocalypse, when he couldn’t even count Space as a friend.

If he didn’t understand what had gone wrong then, how could he manage to understand this new form of time travel?

It could have been attributed to exhaustion. He was sweating from his efforts as he ducked low behind some shelving, trying to catch his breath in vain.

“Bastard jumped again,” Hazel was saying, just audible over the police sirens outside.

“Come on, let’s go,” Cha-Cha said sourly, and Five strained his ears for the sound of their hurried escape out the back door.

It definitely could have been exhaustion. He held Delores a little closer in his arms, staring down at her face, and knew that it wasn’t.

It was the fact that he had only just reunited with her, that she was injured, her legs lost because he had somehow miscalculated how long it would take the Commission to catch up to him.

Ah. Of course.

He had already had this epiphany.

He was back in his room, listing out how everyone’s powers were affected by emotion, realizing that the day he had come back to them, the day of the funeral, had been the first time in years that all six of them had been in the same place. And then, the day he had pulled them to so they could rewrite their past had been the last day his kid siblings had been united in trying to find him.

And now, with all of time open to him, his instincts kept driving him into his own memories and those of his siblings…

Emotion, it seemed, was key to his powers. It even explained why he was stuck in his teenage body, the body he had been in the last time he was with them.

Fascinating. The logical extrapolation was control of his emotions would gain him control of his powers, even in this new form.

He blinked and remembered that Vanya was in the room with him, eyes puffy from crying, waiting for him to finish his analysis of their powers.

He could try the same solution they had attempted for her. But would breathing work when he technically didn’t have a body?

He still had the nagging feeling he was missing something, but he pressed forward anyway, concentrating on the remembered feeling of breath filling his lungs, of the pull of tension deep in the center of his chest.

He blinked and knew it had worked even before his eyes opened by the sudden feeling of his sniper rifle in his hands. However, he realized just as quickly, it hadn’t had the desired results.

He watched Daisy through his scope for only a second more before he pulled the trigger. He forced himself to watch what he had done—

No, breathe. Focus. Push down the suffocating emotion and breathe—

The rifle was still in his hands, and there she was again, walking down the street. His finger squeezed the trigger—

Stop. Just breathe—

It was a record skipping, looping the same few seconds over a third time, a fourth time, a fifth—

Not one to keep pressing a method that clearly didn’t work and unable to think clearly enough for another way out, Five allowed himself to give into the horror of the moment, watching the blood seeping from the girl’s head, and suddenly he was looking up at his father again, his family all around him in visible pain, holding their heads, crying quietly as the paradox resonance tried to merge their minds into one consciousness.

He didn’t want to ask again, but he was useless to stop his mouth from moving, from pleading for guidance only for his father to answer that there was nothing he could do.

He wasn’t ready to believe that yet.

If breathing didn’t work, something else would. Though it was a shame; the calmest moments he had felt recently had been sitting with Vanya, emptying his head as much as he was capable of without the aid of adrenaline.

He tried to focus on the scene continuing to play out in front of him, of scrambling to Vanya and Ben’s side as her voice came out in a rush between sobs. “I can’t control it—”

“No, Vanya—” he heard himself try.

“I’ll hurt one of you!” she cried, but she was wrong. He was the one who had hurt them, foolishly allowing his personal desires to take control of his better judgement. His inability to let them die had blinded him to what a selfish choice he had made, ripping them from their time with no guarantee he would be able to return them to their lives, and now they had paid the price twofold and would continue to pay with each passing moment.

There was nothing he could do to fix it.

“I can’t. I can’t do this,” Vanya declared miserably. “It’s too much. I can’t stop—I don’t want to stop being angry at him.”

He and Ben were still crowded close to her, but it was earlier in the day, Dad looming over his shoulder, an inescapable interloper. Five couldn’t remember what he had told her, but he immediately remembered thinking Delores had been right—

It was just the three of them in Vanya’s room, and Vanya was asking about Luther’s ability to turn off his emotions when he felt a sudden spike of concern from Delores—

He and Delores were walking home from Gimbel Brothers, and he had just finished telling her about his time with the Commission, explaining the necessity, explaining that these people would have died anyway, when her rush of pure concern pressed in on him, staggering him—

He was on the ground, the world spinning, his body aching, and an overwhelming, crushing sense of defeat surging through him.

Okay, he got it. Maybe ignoring emotions wasn’t the same as controlling them.

His face was buried in his hands as he lay on his back, smothered in emotion, his breath hitching, threatening to break into a sob. It didn’t. Instead, he sucked in a breath, letting it hiss between his clenched teeth, and cursed as loud and as long as he could, the words bouncing back at him in the echoing emptiness of the world.

“Agreed,” Delores said softly, somewhere to his left.

He felt a rush of affection for her, even if it made him feel like crying all over again, forcing him to take another breath and shout his grievances to the sky again.

Five couldn’t remember exactly when this had taken place, but the adult body meant the apocalypse. Judging from the cleanly shaven face beneath his hands and the cleanliness of his clothes, he had just attempted a jump back in time.

But he had missed something. He was always missing something.

He shouted until his lungs were empty, his skin tingling, his throat aching. This must have been one of the times he had slammed into the wall of time and passed out only to awaken flat on his back, still trapped at the end of the world.

The moment stretched, his ragged breath loud in his ears. He refused to remove his hands from over his eyes, unready to face what came next.

Instead, he lay there, thinking of the family who had lived on Alder Street: two working parents with three teenage kids, their homework still strewn about the kitchen table, their bodies still in their seats. Their neighbors on one side were a young couple, expecting, if the half-built crib was anything to go off of, and on the other side was an elderly couple who had a desk drawer full of love letters spanning decades.

All these people with such ordinary, simple, beautiful lives.

It was all up to him.

But he was so tired.

“Five?” Delores called softly.

“I… can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t… do it. I…” He couldn’t breathe with the lump in his throat, but the words were suddenly coming out in a shout. “I can’t do it! I can’t—”

All at once, Five knew exactly what moment in time this was.

“Stop it, Five!” Delores bellowed again, but they weren’t in the blinding blue. His past self was still lying on the ground, stunned into silence for a second, only a second, before his anger flared. He sat up, venom on his tongue.

The words died in his throat as soon as he finally, finally opened his eyes, his heart leaping.

His past self was a meter back from where he had been on the ground, a meter further back from her, swaying on his feet, disoriented from the sudden spatial jump, and Five found himself separated from his past self’s body. His present consciousness still sat on the ground, having expected her.

The woman appeared to be in her late twenties, like he had been at the time, her head clean-shaven, her eyes bright with life. She was sitting next to the mannequin, even wearing a dress the same pattern as the mannequin’s blouse, the skirt of which faded into a smudge of color and smoke, fading into a startling nothingness somewhere just below where her knees should have been.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked in Delores’s voice. Her face was different than the mannequin’s, her nose smaller, her skin and eyes a shade darker.

Five watched as the shock on his own face transformed into despair. This was right before the bottles of vinegar and the building collapse, when he had been so disturbed to find after an unsuccessful jump that he was hallucinating, he had made a mad dash away. Face to face with an undeniable creation of his own mind, he had realized it was over.

He had gone crazy. It was too late. His mind was ruined, and he would never get back.

Except, Five knew better now.

This was what he had missed.

But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

Emotion was building like a tidal wave at the edges of his being. Soon it would crash down, knock him off his feet, and drag him away, but before that, he had to claw his way back to the beginning.

If it were any other memory, he wasn’t sure he could have found it through sheer desperation. But desperation was all that had held him together in this moment, holding six stars within his own. He was losing them, and then it would all be over. He would fly apart at the seams—

“Stop it, Five! You’re really going to doubt yourself after coming this far?!”

And again, in the corner of his eye, Five saw what he had missed, what he had been missing this entire time. He turned, and the wave of emotion crashed into him when he saw her face and for the first time, he recognized she had her own star.

“Delores?”

He didn’t understand.

A tempest of emotion and half-formed thoughts knocked him sideways, and he was back in their library, in the midst of one of their arguments. Judging from the length of the beard, he was older, in his late forties or so, and after a few shouted words from his mouth, Five realized this was after another failed attempt, another lost battle. There was a large bottle of whiskey in front of him, in which he was trying to lose himself and to which she was objecting.

Angry words flew between them, and he had the clear sensation of her storming off even though her plastic torso stayed in her usual spot. He had felt this sensation before, that she was not where the mannequin was, but his previous self scoffed, oblivious to the importance, too busy pouring himself another drink.

All he had known at the time was drinking made her voice harder to hear until eventually she went silent altogether. Five now saw why.

He leapt after her, his anger simultaneously giving him the energy to push out of where his body sat and threatening to carry him off into the unknown again. The ground beneath him seemed to be fading away, giving beneath him like quicksand as he ran, and she was too far ahead. He wouldn’t reach her—

He stretched out his arm and in desperation, reached for his powers, instinctively trying to close the distance between them. But instead of making a spatial jump, he felt his light stretch out, like it had while dragging his siblings through time. Her star of light greeted him, and he grabbed hold just in time, even as the reality of it all hit him like a kick to the chest.

She moved effortlessly, like a stone skipping along the surface of water, flashes of color and sound skimming into their minds until she found the moment she wanted and let herself sink below the surface, slipping steadily into the stream.

They landed in the middle of a park on a sunny day, birds delighting in the weather, children squealing with joy on the nearby playground, people strolling along the walkway with their dogs. She stayed there, in the middle of it all, and he could feel her anger still coming off her in waves as she curled up in the middle of a flowerbed, the tulips undisturbed by her presence.

Several minutes passed. He tried in vain to gain her attention, his hands passing through her like they had with his siblings, his shouts never reaching her ears. It wasn’t long before he settled in to stew, wrapping his starlight around hers, determined not to lose track of her.

An hour or so passed, and she remained where she was, watching the people going about their lives, the squirrels chattering at each other in the trees, the wind sending a few dried leaves skittering along the ground. With each passing moment, her anger began to pass too, until finally she sighed, and he could feel her starlight grow bright as she prepared for another jump.

Up, she brought them, still oblivious to her hitchhiker, to the surface of the icy waters, and after another stone’s throw, they landed in darkness.

Five nearly lost his grip on her during the trip, for as her temper had cooled, his had only grown. His fury was almost enough to drag him off to another unbidden memory.

The buzzing of an alarm snagged his attention before he could lose his hold on the moment. Someone was groaning in annoyance. Then, there was a rustling of blankets, and the alarm stopped shrieking. Delores radiated amusement, before she slid forward a few minutes in a disorienting jump, to when the alarm was blaring again. The occupant of the bed moved to slap his alarm clock again, but then a voice called to him from the hall, speaking in rapid Thai until a teenage boy finally emerged from the pile of blankets, yawning loudly.

Five stared, his irritation growing as he watched the boy stretching, answering the call of his mother. So, this was what Delores did when they fought? Find some random person to follow instead—

Five saw exactly how wrong he was the instant the boy slipped out of bed. He was standing, but his feet weren’t on the ground. The teenager was hovering a couple of inches off the ground.

He floated over to a dresser, fumbling in the dark, and Five felt another tug around his middle as Delores pulled them out into the kitchen, several minutes later, just as the boy floated into a seat at the breakfast table, his mother apparently chastising him for how wrinkled his school uniform was.

It was only after breakfast, when he made it to the door of the apartment that the boy’s feet touched the ground.

Five wasn’t sure what he was feeling anymore. He knew there were more children. Their father had never hidden that fact, but they had never gotten the full story out of him.

It was remarkable how normal the boy’s life was. They spent the day shadowing him at school, as he goofed off with his friends at lunch, as he applied himself studiously during class, and afterward, when he went to his after-school job. Five found himself as invested as Delores evidently was; she only skipped forward to give the boy privacy or when the monotony of commuting or restocking shelves was too unbearable. Five couldn’t help wondering if she had done the same thing to him, fast-forwarding through all the pieces of their life together that she found boring.

That evening, the boy finally returned home and immediately, joyfully hopped into the air to begin floating about again, even though it quickly became obvious that the rest of his evening was to be spent on nothing but homework and preparing dinner.

It was just the two of them, the boy and his mother, chatting as they stood side-by-side in the kitchen chopping vegetables, the boy groaning at something his mother was saying with a sharp tone. Five studied their narrow faces, the texture of their hair, the shape of their eyes. This, he concluded with a sudden ache in his chest, was the boy’s birth mother.

He turned to Delores out of habit, looking to her presence to steady him before he remembered his anger, and startled at her appearance or, more accurately, her lack thereof. After a day of going unheard and unacknowledged, she had faded into a blur of color, like a heat mirage. The only thing he could be sure of was that she was smiling. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew, just as he was sure that if she could be heard, she would give the boy a gentle scolding for not listening to his mother. She persisted in her silence, but he knew.

He always knew with her.

He swallowed down his words and went back to watching.

After dinner was more homework, Delores peering over the boy’s shoulder, apparently able to understand the lesson, and then there was a bit of television, and finally, time for bed.

Five expected them to jump as soon as the boy settled in for the night, but they stayed, watching the mother as she pored over bills, the distress obvious on her face as she divided her papers into obvious piles of what to pay and what she couldn’t afford.

A hand reached forward from Delores’s star, a solid picture of flesh emerging from the blur, and came to rest just above the mother’s hand. There was no true contact, just a gesture that nobody but he and Delores would ever see.

The mother got up and started prepping for bed a short time later, and finally, Five felt Delores drifting upwards again. He braced himself just in time for the jump—

What followed, was much of the same. First was a young woman teaching at an elementary school, then a toddler just learning to walk, and then a young man enduring his first big fight with his boyfriend. They followed each of them for a day, Delores reveling in the most mundane of human interactions while Five studied each subject closely for signs of powers. But only the teacher displayed anything out of the ordinary, flitting about like a hummingbird when she returned home and began playing with her dog, running back and forth at unusual speeds. Five couldn’t be sure with the other two, but there was no way the first two had been a coincidence. Then, they jumped a fifth time—

Five straightened up, taking in the light streaming from between the curtain and a man leaning over in bed to kiss his wife good morning.

“Morning, beautiful,” he greeted, and when he leaned back, Five’s heart leapt into his throat.

Allison yawned and smiled up at her husband. “Good morning.”

She shifted and with a bit of effort, rolled onto her back, her pregnant belly suddenly obvious under the blankets.

“Why?” Five’s voice came out broken, but he could no longer keep quiet. He rounded on Delores. “Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Why would you come here, of all places?!” He reached for her, but it was as useless as trying to grab fog with his bare hands. “How could you?!” he yelled as he tried again and again to grab her and turn her to look at him. “I’m back in the apocalypse, and you get to come here, to see them and live all these moments that I couldn’t! You got to be here…!”

Five jumped back, jolting to attention as Allison walked straight through the both of them, waddling towards the bathroom.

He was wrong. Delores wasn’t here any more than he was.

He shook himself, not ready to give up his defensive cloak of anger, and rounded on her again. “You could have told me everything! Everything I missed! You could have told me about this, about the other ones like us! About you! About how you’re some genius time traveler!” He was losing his grip on the moment, the world melting around him. “Why didn’t you tell me about your powers or how to use mine? You knew the equation the entire time, didn’t you?! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

The world went dark around him, and part of him despaired, knowing his opportunity to see Allison was lost.

“Trust me,” Delores was saying, her hand resting just above his heart in an illusion of comfort. "I've got you."

“Liar,” he growled. “How could you keep this from me? How could you keep me from them?”

He was in the middle of an argument with her again, but this time he wasn’t trying to get drunk. Instead, they were in their library, and he was on his feet, shouting, his face hot, his heart pounding. “I don’t care what you think! You’re just a figment of my imagination!”

“For the last time, I’m not—”

“For the last time, I don’t want to hear it!” he shouted, turning back to an assortment of wires and metal pieces, and Five suddenly recalled what the argument was about.

"You won't even listen?!"

"Maybe if you said something that made sense, I would!"

“You…! Selfish, arrogant…!” She didn’t finish the thought, instead giving into a noise of pure frustration, and just like the first argument, he had the sensation that she was storming off.

“Arrogant? Selfish?” Five's current self echoed indignantly as he hurried after her, leaving his past self behind to yell his own sound of frustration. Somehow he was positive of her location without being able to see her, without even reaching for her starlight. “You’re the one who kept this from me! I thought there were no secrets between us—how could there be when you were a piece of my own damn mind! But you lied! Every single word you said to me…! How could you?!”

As he drew close, he could feel her star growing bright, preparing for another jump, and he latched on with an iron grip. They landed in a forest at midday, a scene of pure serenity, the hush of wind through the canopy, a colony of rabbits nibbling on the underbrush. Delores paced for a minute, continuing to shout Five’s many flaws out into the open space.

“…the most single-minded, stubborn…! He can’t even admit that he might be wrong…!”

Like she was any more virtuous? He opened his mouth to counter, but then he felt how the flood of anger pouring off her had suddenly turned cold in sorrow.

She sighed heavily and sat next to one of the smallest of the rabbits. “That’s not actually true,” she told it. “He does listen to me on occasion. This is all because he’s losing faith that we’ll figure out the equation… No equation, no Academy, no saving humanity…” she murmured to herself, a mantra the two of them had shared. She shook her head. “He doesn’t realize what he’s fighting against.” But then she laughed, a shaky, almost frightened sound. “I guess I’m fighting predetermination too, but not for anything so grand as saving the world...”

She watched the rabbits continuing to feast, their ears twitching.

“Seventeen years until she arrives.”

Her star grew bright as she rose swiftly towards the surface of the waters.

“I have to save him.”

Five didn’t follow. He stood there, in the quiet forest, feeling like he had had an entire building come down on him, her whisper filling him to the brim.

She was just as loyal as he had always pictured her. She hadn’t abandoned him. Every time he called for her, she had answered, no matter how much he drank or yelled or pushed her away.

He was the one who kept abandoning her.

“I thought you weren’t real!” he cried. “You weren’t supposed to be real…!”

His voice broke, and the moment slipped through his fingers like sand in an hourglass.

“Why didn’t you tell me all of this?” he pleaded, as sorrow washed everything else away, and he finally recognized that was the wrong question. “Why didn’t I believe you?”

“You’re not real,” he told her.

For years, he had talked to her and imagined up her responses, just as he had with all the others: stuffed animals, dolls, all sorts of beloved toys. Most homes had at last one friendly face waiting to greet him. He would gather them up with their unerring smiles and lonely eyes and talk to them while he explored their house, asking them where they kept their non-perishables and if there were any tools handy. It was natural to speak his thoughts, his frustrations, wishes, and sarcastic jabs to them, just as he would talk to his plants years later, when the soil wasn’t frozen and the sunlight returned strong. Talking was better than the silence.

But Delores was the only one he kept. When he had collected all he needed from their houses, he would make sure each stuffed guardian found their place with one of the bodies, whether that meant perched nearby or later, when insects had picked the bodies clean, in a skeleton’s arms. It was a silly little ritual, but it was all he could offer the dead. Delores was like him though; she didn’t have a home to keep vigil over.

And she had been there, right there, during the worst moment of his life…

So, talking to her had been the obvious thing to do, and imagining her responses was the natural progression to that. Her painted smile could mean anything, and he was surprised to find she disagreed with him as often as she agreed.

It was amazing what his instincts could tell him.

And then he heard her.

“You’re not real,” he insisted, holding his hands over his ears as if that could block out her voice in his head.

They had been playing their usual game of guessing who had lived in the house—how big the family was, what the adults did for work, what their hobbies had been—when she had called out suddenly in warning. He narrowly missed sticking his hand into a black widow’s web, whirling around, looking for who had spoken. It was only after she called his name again, quiet and confused and a tiny bit hopeful, that he realized what had happened.

She gasped in delight, immediately launching into a rush of words, claiming she always knew he would hear her eventually—he already had been reacting to the general gist of her words, though often guessing the specifics wrong. She had figured as he grew more attuned to Time, he would start to hear her. And she was right! She was so happy—

“You’re not real,” he told the voice. He had gone insane. He had finally cracked, whether from isolation or a delayed reaction of the time travel. Or maybe, just maybe, he had been crazy since day one, the shock and grief too much to handle. Either way, she wasn’t real, no matter how she insisted otherwise, coming up with a fantastical story of how she was a fatherless child like him and his siblings, born with the ability to move her consciousness through time, a time traveler of the mind. She believed he could hear her because their powers used the same energy—

He ran from the room, from the house, dashing out into the middle of the street, suddenly desperate for air. Crumbling concrete dug into his legs as he collapsed to his knees, attempting to draw breath, staring up at the open sky. It had taken a few years, but it was finally returning from ash gray to a dusky shade of blue.

“Five?”

He closed his eyes. The mannequin was still inside. There was no escape.

“I’ve gone insane,” he announced to the empty world.

“You haven’t.” She paused. “I’m sorry. I’m going too fast for you. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

His bitter laugh reverberated down the empty street. “I’ve gone insane,” he repeated. “You’re not real.”

“I am.” The voice sounded appropriately upset at his words.

He opened his eyes again. There weren’t any clouds today. No wind. Everything was so still.

“What will convince you?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he answered immediately.

She tried anyway.

But she was fighting against his imagination, his instincts, the marvels of the human mind. Worse, she was fighting against insanity. Everything she tried could be explained away by a lost memory or a hallucination.

“The… The next time it will rain!” she cried desperately. “I’ll need to skim forward to find it, which means I’ll have leave you alone for a bit, but—"

“Stop! Stop it!” he cried, digging his nails into his scalp, pressing his forehead into the pavement, ignoring the sharp edges of the gravel jabbing into his skin. He rocked back and brought his head down again, his teeth clattering together in his skull, wishing the ground would crack open and accept him into its silent peace. “Stop!” he cried again, as he brought his head up again, his forehead aching.

“I’m stopping! I’m stopping!” she cried. “Please, don’t hurt yourself!”

He laughed humorlessly, the sound closer to a sob, and finally pulled his hands away from his ears to scrub at his face, tears suddenly stinging in the back of his eyes, threatening to fall. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, curled in on himself, on his knees, in the silence. The sun was beginning to set by the time he straightened up and looked at the empty world around him.

“The equation to get home,” he said finally, voice rough.

She stayed silent.

“Well?” he growled impatiently.

“I don’t know it…”

“But I’m supposed to believe you’re a time traveler?”

“What I do is mostly instinctual…”

He snorted. “Then find the moment I figure out the numbers and bring them back here.”

“I can’t.”

He crossed his arms, gritting his teeth.

“I can’t find it,” she admitted.

He scoffed loudly.

“I’ve looked for it! I went decades into the future and worked my way backward, but I can’t find it! The equation isn’t there. Everything I found, the work wasn't completed…”

Well, now he really didn’t want her to be real. “So, you found my dead body then.”

“What? No! You make it out! You… You make it out.”

“But you can’t tell me how, or you won’t tell me how. Well, then, it doesn’t matter if you’re real or not. You’re no good to me either way.”

“You know that’s not true,” she said, voice pleading. “Why are you arguing against this? You should be hoping I’m real because then you’re not crazy! I can offer you so much more than a figment of your imagination!”

He leapt to his feet, suddenly furious. “Look around!” he bellowed, opening his arms wide. “I’m alone here! Alone! The only one I can depend on is myself! What you’re offering…!”

He couldn’t finish, the words dying around the lump in his throat.

“It’s not enough,” she whispered.

He didn’t correct her. Instead, he swallowed hard, turned on his heel, and left her there in the middle of the street.

She went silent after that. It was a week before she tried speaking to him again, and she did so with a fragile optimism, no longer insisting on her existence, instead simply coaxing him into talking to her again. It didn’t take long before he began answering. They both carefully avoided their argument until it was stuffed so far back in his mind, it was nearly forgotten, and he finally went back for the mannequin.

Years slipped by.

“You’re not real,” he whispered to himself, still dizzy from jumping so suddenly, staring at where the hallucination sat, worry and confusion filling her face. Her moving, human face, so different from the mannequin, yet somehow with the exact same air about her.

With his insanity, his failure, now staring back at him, despair swallowed him whole. It was time to accept the truth of his situation. He was not an actor on the stage. He existed there to simply be a witness to the apocalypse.

He closed his eyes tight, adrenaline shivering through his body.

"Five?" she called, her voice full of concern, and he couldn't stand it anymore.

He bolted, his feet pounding against the pavement, his breath coming in short bursts—until he was in a bar, until there were bottles of vinegar in his hands, until the building was coming down—

"They still love you,” she was telling him.

“They don’t—”

“They love you and they will continue to love you—”

“They don’t know me!” he spat out. “Look at me! I’m not the person they’re waiting for! The Five they love doesn’t exist anymore!”

“Bullshit!”

“Excuse me?” he recoiled as much as he could with his back already flat on the ground and rubble inches from his face.

“You heard me. I hate to break it to you, but you’re still very much the same as you have always been! Still an arrogant, stubborn, know-it-all asshole!”

"If this is supposed to be a pep-talk—"

"Still the clever, brave, adaptable, scrappy person who dropped into the apocalypse all those years ago... Yes," she cut him off before he could counter, "you're older. Your priorities have changed. This world has hardened you. But you still recognize them, don’t you? When you read the book, you know them. They’ll know you in the same way.”

"Delores..." he started, but found himself empty of words.

"The only way you could cease to be the Five Hargreeves we all know is if you give up here. So, please...! For fuck's sake, get out from under all this rubble!"

It was unlike her to curse, stunning him into silence this time. He didn't have an answer anyway. He felt her fear for him, cold and consuming, spill over him, from the crown of his head down to his toes. Usually he'd turn to anger to fight that suffocating feeling, but he was too burnt out to try.

"Please," she pleaded again, her voice cracking this time.

He was such a fool.

"How far does the jump need to be?" he sighed.

Hope surged from her like sunlight breaking the harshest of winter's nights as she hurried to get him the answer.

It took several minutes before he gathered enough strength to complete the jump, his body still aching from his earlier attempt at time travel. He found himself a few feet outside the entrance of the bar on the crumbling asphalt of the street and immediately sat up from his prone position, relief surging through him at the sudden openness around him, his breaths coming easier. It felt like waking from a nightmare. A cool breeze brushed against him in contrast to the still air beneath the rubble, and something in him, an instinct honed throughout the years of mostly living outside, sensed a storm on the horizon. He watched the clouds for a moment. It’d likely rain within the hour. Now that he knew he’d be staying in this empty world, he had things he needed to do, fresh water to capture, books and blankets to keep dry, his garden of crops to check on.

But he couldn’t bring himself to move. Not yet.

He looked at the felled building beside him, and finally felt his own fear swoop in his belly.

"Sorry," he choked out. "I swear I wasn't trying to—not on purpose...! I'm so sorry."

Trembles ran through his body, uncontrollable shivers as he stared at the death trap before him. He wrapped his arms tight around his stomach and bowed his head to his knees, closing his eyes tight until the trembling stopped.

When he came back to himself, he was on curled on his side. He must have fallen asleep for a bit, passing out from exhaustion. Delores was humming something, a soft, sweet melody as she sat in her usual spot beside him. He listened to her gentle voice for a minute and felt sure of his decision.

“I think it’s time,” he said, and the melody halted, mid-note, as he sat up. In the corner of his eye he saw her turn to look at him. “I’ve been fighting so many impossible battles, I think it’s time to give into one and let the impossible win.”

She was confused. He could tell, even if he had had his eyes closed. But they were open now, as he turned towards her, leaning on one hand so he could meet her gaze straight on, his point obvious. He could see her.

Shock made her eyes go round, her mouth falling open; then a flurry of emotions, hope, elation, confusion, anger, sorrow, all warring on her face, twisting together until she finally let out a shaky laugh. Then, she shook her head and settled on anger, the corners of her eyes tightening into a squint, her mouth screwed into a frown. “Shouldn’t this prove it? I’m different than you imagined, right? I certainly don’t look like the mannequin!”

He didn’t answer with words, instead allowing his gaze to skim down her form to the place where she should have had legs, but instead the edge of her skirt blurred into a nebulous cloud of color.

“That’s…!” Her hands went to her lap, adjusting her skirt, and he watched in fascination as solid legs took shape out of the cloud, like a lens finally coming into focus. “I don’t use my legs usually! Of course I’m not going to think about them enough to project them!”

He raised an eyebrow, and this time his eyes went to her bald head. Her hand skimmed along her scalp, and she ducked her head, avoiding eye contact. “My body doesn’t have hair…” she muttered. “And, well, you didn’t seem to mind that the mannequin was…” Frustration burst forth to cover her embarrassment, and she glared at him, arms crossed tight. “Of course the mannequin is going to affect how I project myself! I see myself clearest with you, and you see me as…!” Her eyes flicked up to meet his again, and she froze for a second, before crumpling into a defeated slump. “But all of that sounds like convenient excuses. That's what all of this was about: seeing me is confirmation of your insanity.”

“Not necessarily,” he finally admitted. “There could be a gas leak or some sort of chemical exposure that has me hallucinating.”

“Yet this all started right after you tried the time jump, didn’t it?”

“I suppose I could have hit my head when I passed out right after. But more likely…”

“You emerged an acorn…”

He smiled sadly and shrugged.

“Then, the impossible fight you’re thinking of giving up on…” She closed her eyes, her edges blurring like watercolors bleeding onto a page for a moment before she looked at him again. Her emotions pulled in tight around herself, but he could still feel the sorrow and anger at the edge of his mind where she lived. “If I told you I was real right now, you would give in?”

“Yes,” he answered simply and honestly because he didn’t understand her reaction.

“So, you would give in because you’re tired, not because you believe.”

“I mean I would believe—” he cut himself off, flummoxed. “What are you getting at? I would—I will—believe—”

“You don’t right now. You’re going to have to force yourself. That’s the point!”

“It’s not forcing, it’s…” He groaned and rubbed his brow in frustration. This was definitely not how something like this was supposed to go, but he let the words spill out of him anyway. “What I’ve been forcing this entire time is not falling in love with you! So, when I say that I’m no longer going to fight it, I mean I’ll let myself love you whether you’re real or not! I don’t care anymore how much my brain says you aren’t, my heart believes you exist and that alone—no matter how paradoxical—makes you real to me, okay?!”

Warmth was blooming up his neck to cover his face and burn his ears, but he continued to glare at her, daring her to defy his feelings.

She stared back, mouth open in a perfect little oh until she blinked once, twice, her expression softening. “Well…” she started softly. “Okay.” Her eyes studied him, dancing over his face, doing nothing to ease the heat covering it. “Are you really okay living in conflict like that?”

“I’ve been living in conflict over you this whole time,” he corrected. “I’m saying it’s time I let my heart win.”

“And ignore your head?” she asked skeptically, and he was rewarded with the sight of her raising an eyebrow. “You’ve never been good at that.”

“I’m willing to try.”

“Even if it means you’ve gone crazy…?”

“Even then.”

She turned away from him for a moment. “Well… You’re only as crazy as I am.”

“Yeah?”

“I fell in love with someone who doesn’t fully believe I’m real.”

“Ah.”

It felt like dancing in the rain after an unbearable drought, like soaking in the warmth of a fire while star-gazing late at night, like the first breath of air after breaking the surface of deep waters, like the first bite of fruit grown sweet and earthy with his own hands.

Except, his brain said, except…

The thought was a shackle, dragging him, hurtling back down to earth.

“I think this is normally when people would be happy,” she said softly.

“Well, we always were an odd couple.”

He looked at her and wanted nothing more than to take her hand. But he didn’t dare move. One touch and her picture might shatter. One touch would be more evidence for his logical mind to prove that she wasn’t…

So, instead he let himself linger on her face, the roundness of her cheeks, the low bridge of her nose, the deep brown of her eyes.

“Is, uh, something wrong?” she asked, brow furrowing.

He shrugged, watching her forehead crease with fascination. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen another moving face.”

“Reflection not doing it for you?” she mused, though the dip of her chin and averted eyes told him the story of her embarrassment.

He snorted at the joke, all the while telling himself he should look away but finding it impossible. “I’m not as…”

“As…?” She looked up at him again, eyebrow raised. Whatever she saw in his eyes seemed to return her mischievous curiosity, something he was all too familiar with, but now was accompanied by a new, spectacular smirk.

He didn’t bother hiding his own smirk. “As aesthetically pleasing.”

She rolled her eyes. “Such a way with words,” she muttered, and he grinned.

They stayed there until the sun was covered with clouds, his lone shadow washed out by the gray light of the summer storm, all the while she let him drink his fill of her, staring unabashed. Then, her eyes closed for a moment, eyelashes dark against her olive skin, as she steadied herself before looking him, something new in his eyes, something expected.

He finally averted his gaze, and he might as well have been under the rubble again, shame closing in on him from all sides, smothering the breath from his lungs.

“Five,” she called in a voice so perfectly neutral that he felt a flash of envy. “It’s okay.”

That could mean a dozen things, but he immediately understood. He shook his head, unable to open his mouth for fear of what might escape.

“It’s okay,” she tried again, her voice warming with sympathy.

“It’s not,” he croaked, his breath coming shaky, strangled by his emotions.

“It’s okay that you’re not okay. It’s okay that you’re tired.” She was quiet in a way he was all to familiar with, a quiet that meant she was preparing to say something he wouldn’t like. “I think it’s time for a break.”

Anger, molten metal, surged through his veins, forcing him to his feet. “A break?! Are you joking?! I’m the only one who can do this!” he shouted as if she somehow had missed that in all their years together. “I’m the only one who can save them!” He opened his arms wide to encompass the city, the world, everyone, everything. “Nobody else is going to do it!” He turned slowly in a circle, his eyes searching the shadows of each building as if someone might step forward from the rubble to volunteer and prove him wrong. “What would have me do, Delores?” he demanded, rounding on her, his voice cracking with desperation. “What should I do?”

“Take a break,” she answered firmly, quietly.

“I can’t—!”

“You’re only human, Five!” she cut him off, and the bizarre thrill of seeing her glare cut through his own fury. “And if you keep going like you have been, you’re going to kill yourself!”

“I’m not…!” Words failed him. He could almost hear his father chastising him for dropping his guard, but Delores had always had the uncanny knack for slipping through his defenses. “I didn’t mean to…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I wasn’t trying to…”

He looked at the pile of rubble behind her, the building that had nearly ended him—ended everything. If he went, then that was it. There would be nobody left to fix whatever had gone wrong.

“What would be lost?” she asked, her voice growing gentle again, but he saw the resolve in the set of her mouth and felt it like the ocean swelling around him, pulling him to shore. “Tell me: what would you lose if you took time to rest and gather your strength again? If you just… lived here with me for a while…”

The idea was appalling. To not try? To not search for a way back?

To stay here, trapped in this cold, empty world.

Or to be here, with her, instead of constantly split between the world of the living and dead. To live in the simple moments with her, reading together by the fire, late night talks with her snug in the crook of his arm, listening to her hum tunes he didn’t recognize, trading sarcastic jabs, tripping over himself to make her laugh.

What would be lost?

The rush had first been in a vain attempt to return home while he still looked like the boy that had left. But Time had already stolen that young face away.

The wind was picking up, the chill going straight through his sweater, making him shiver.

“If I stop trying,” he whispered through numb lips, “even for a little while… I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to start again.”

She finally stood and moved—or drifted—to stand before him, her skirts melting into the shadows. He swallowed hard and forced himself to look her in the eye.

“I’m not strong enough,” he confessed, voice rough.

“You are. You’re just tired right now, and that’s making you feel weak.” She seemed to sigh, and Five held his breath, hoping to feel hers—she was close enough that he should feel the rush of air—but coming up empty. “You’re stronger than you feel in this moment, so please… Please rest. You’ll feel strong again soon.”

“What you’re offering… What you’ve always offered me…”

“It’s not enough,” she finished for him, voice hushed, unable to meet his eyes.

“It’s too much,” he corrected and was treated with her wide eyes as her head jerked up to look at him. “I was lonely, and I could feel you there. I needed someone to talk to, and I started hearing your voice. I needed someone to love, and…” He didn’t have the words for a moment, the thought too immense and complicated and… simple. “You were you.”

He watched, fascinated, by the jolt of fluttery emotion radiating off her as her eyes studied his and her lips parted. Then, her mouth twitched into a sardonic smile.

“No wonder you can’t believe I’m real,” she joked, but her voice was flat and heavy with sorrow. “I’m too convenient.”

What she was offering was either water in the desert or a bullet to the brain. “It’s most likely that you’re a conjuring of my mind," he admitted, "ensuring my survival.”

“I didn’t realize…” Her smile was gone too soon. “What can I say to ensure your survival now?”

He blinked at her, stunned by a rush of affection for her. She really wasn’t going to try convincing him anymore.

Rain began to fall, just a sprinkle dotting the ground, tapping gently on his shoulders like a friend with a reminder.

“Be here with me,” he answered easily.

Her smile was brilliant. “That, I can do.” He watched entranced as her smile softened from joy and amusement into understanding. “And…?” she prompted.

He swallowed hard, feeling transparent before her. It was a familiar feeling, but he was unused to the accompanying, knowing gaze. His fingers fidgeted, brushing uselessly at his dirty sweater, but he met her gaze evenly. “Promise me…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Promise me one thing: promise this isn’t the end.”

Her mouth fell open, her brow drawn in clear concern, but she seemed to think better of whatever she was about to say. Instead, she took a step forward, and ever so cautiously, she placed the image of her hand over his heart.

“Trust me. I've got you. I promise, I…” She shook her head, and he watched her hand press firm against his chest.

And there was that sensation he loved to fool himself with, a ghost imprint of pressure against his skin. He could almost feel it. He could. He could.

The rain began in earnest, each drop hitting his skin with such certainty, dripping down his face like tears.

“I promise you three things,” she said, and her voice was fierce with conviction as she raised her free hand, lifting one finger. “You will get home.” She raised another. “There isn’t a version of the timeline in which they won’t recognize and love you. And,” she raised a third, “this isn’t the end.” She smiled again, and as she stood, perfectly dry in the middle of the downpour, he knew her to be the most captivating being in the world. “We’re nowhere near the end.”

What a fool. He had been blind, not only as a kid, but his whole life.

She was real. She was real.

A storm of relief and shame, of shock and elation, of guilt and gratitude, of love and regret raged in his head.

She had told him repeatedly, and every time he had rejected the truth. Over and over… How many times had he hurt her with his obstinate ignorance?

He needed to find her, and for a multitude of reasons. This was her, wasn't it? This form of time travel he was experiencing. There was so much he needed to understand.

He had to find her.

He tumbled headfirst into a somersault, his aged knees protesting as he sprung to his feet, swinging the broken chair leg across the back of one of the men’s heads with a spectacular crack, splinters of wood flying everywhere. A fist slammed into his kidney from behind, staggering him, but he didn’t have time to gasp for air as he dodged another blow, countering with an elbow to the nose.

Management had realized after his last mission that he could handle more complicated corrections, corrections where the target knew someone was after them because the last assassin was sloppy, corrections requiring the beat-down of several armed guards, and now he was in a full-on brawl against four men, all of them a couple heads taller and more muscled than an old man who had endured a few years of malnourishment here and there.

Adrenaline was singing in his veins. A giant of a man towered over him, brandishing a ridiculously sized machete. Five grinned up at the giant and opened his mouth to comment on what the man was compensating for. The mocking words died in his throat as quickly as they had come as he remembered his brothers weren’t there to appreciate the joke. Allison wasn’t there to scoff. Delores wasn’t there to roll her eyes and immediately come up with a better joke.

He dove forward, kicking, pummeling, until his mind went spectacularly blank, all thoughts focused on dodging the next blow, on finding the next weapon, on striking hard and true.

And then they were all out cold.

Five stood there for a moment in the sudden stillness, feeling a brief surge of pride with the accomplishment, before reality set in. He grabbed an open bottle of tequila from the table and took a healthy swig.

Vera was waiting in the next room, likely listening to the din, knowing now that death was about to kick in her door. Five finally pulled his gun from its holster. Best not to make her wait.

He found her praying, hands clasped tight around a rosary, tears streaming down her face. An axe of emotion was dangling above him, ready to slice him from throat to stomach. But this wasn’t about him. Make it quick.

He jumped behind her before she could lift her head, and the bullet went clean through her skull before she could cry out, her prayer the last words on her lips.

He stared at the slumped body, the blood, the bits of skull and brain matter, and let the axe fall.

Why was he seeing this? This had nothing to do with Delores. How was he supposed to track her from here?

Someone’s eyes were on him, stirring him from his emotions, but when he spun on his heel, gun at the ready, there was no one there—

Instead, he was staring down at a bloody blade.

He hadn’t expected it to feel like that: the feel of a knife as it entered flesh, the resistance of the skin and muscle, the spray of hot blood as the knife was withdrawn.

He needed to move before someone discovered him.

He continued to stare at the knife and then Aris’s body on the ground. His young, sun-kissed face was marred with shock.

Five felt a spike of frustration. Again, why was he seeing this? What was the purpose? To make him feel bad? He knew what he had done.

Focus. Where would she—

There. For a single moment, he was walking home from her department store again, waiting for her disapproval when her fear and worry hit him instead—

Nausea slammed into him, squeezing his throat, and he was back in their library, curled up on his bed, his stomach rejecting every bit of precious food and water he had eaten that day.

Damn. He was going to have to clean that up.

“Your wound is infected.” Delores’s voice seemed a thousand miles away as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “There should still be antibiotics with the medical supplies. I think you put them on the third shelf, on the right…”

He didn’t respond, collapsing back onto his pillow. He’d get up in a minute when the world stopped spinning… Just a minute…

“Five.” It was the sharpness of her concern that pulled him back from the edge of sleep. “You need to get up. You have to help yourself. I can’t do it for you.”

There was something in her voice, something desperate and sad. It was the only thing that got him to his feet—

He was fifty-seven, a gun in his hands, as he breathed deep, letting the air in his lungs push the ache in his chest down into his stomach to be eaten by acid. He breathed until his buzzing mind went blank and he could open his eyes, line up the shot, and fire—

An irrelevant memory, an irrelevant moment. Think. Where would she be? Push everything else aside and focus.

He was ten years old, and Dad was checking the weights around his ankles were attached snug against his skin. Five knew this would help. His jumps were so sporadic, this would help him finally gain control.

A shiver ran up his spine as he stared down into the deep waters.

The last time they had tried had not gone well. His lungs had burned as he struggled with his powers, and then panic had drowned all other thought.

When he awoke, he was on the pool deck, coughing, spewing up all the water he had swallowed while Mom sat him up, her curls dripping tracks down her face, water clinging to her lashes. Both of their eyes remained dry, however, as he steeled himself.

This time would be different. He could do this, he told himself, even as his heart pounded frantically in denial.

Dad straightened up as he finished scribbling something in his notebook and gave Five the signal. “Begin.”

Five jumped before he could think twice, before he could even take a deep breath, and plunged into the water, sinking deep and fast, his ears aching with the sudden pressure. He called for his powers, searching for that warmth in his middle. He struggled for a minute, but it wasn’t working. It wasn’t working, and his lungs were burning—

He couldn’t breathe, the smoke choking him as he ran down the hall, another pair of red masks moving to block his way. Five wanted to shout or curse or laugh, but his body rushed forward to complete the memory of the fight.

This was what they mean by a hell of one’s own making, wasn’t it?

He lost track of how long he was under.

He was going in circles. It was a special type of torture, reliving each trauma. His mind kept catching on the most random details. The shape of a cloud, the song on the radio, the aching of his back, meaningless distractions all held his attention. But no matter how much his brain tried to escape, his hands always moved to make the kill, his eyes always saw his family suffer, his body always screamed with pain. The tide kept dragging him under.

But when he found himself on the verge of drowning, dry land appeared beneath his feet in the form of his family, simple fragments of time with his siblings or Delores or even Mom or Pogo.

It didn’t take a genius to recognize what was happening.

“I promise you three things—”

“You can’t,” he exclaimed, cutting her off. “You can’t say I’m going to make it home because you don't know that I will! I don't know that I will! I’m going in circles, and the crazy—the truly insane part of it, is it’s my own damn fault!”

There was no denying it. Delores may have been the one to drag his consciousness from his body initially and was somehow allowing him to borrow her powers, but he was the one driving himself into these memories.

He knew why if he was honest with himself. These moments were some of the only in which he had allowed himself the guilt. He never had time for it otherwise. He didn’t have time now.

Or maybe he did. Maybe he had all eternity to finally face it.

Well, that was a horrifying thought.

Not to mention, a thought he had no clue what to do with—

He blinked and found himself looking through a scope. Daisy. Again. And then the moments after. The screams. The halo of red.

His shoulder ached. He was putting too much weight on his old joints in this position.

Such a mundane, callous thought.

And there was the self-disgust to accompany it, except…

Except it hadn’t come from him.

His mind was grasping for a distraction again and had searched for the feeling of Delores automatically, forgetting that she had left before he pulled the trigger.

The stuffy, humid air suddenly went so thick Five couldn’t breathe.

How…? It didn’t make sense. This wasn’t how it went the first time around.

Delores was there, standing behind him, her emotions pulled in tight around her, invisible to Five’s previous self. But the Five of the present wasn’t being crushed by the full weight of the kill like his past self, and although he still couldn’t see her, he sensed her presence as plainly as he had for most of his life.

That was wrong. She hadn’t been there. She couldn’t be there. He knew she had left.

While it was true that he had spent most of his time between kills with alcohol in his system, he should have sensed her as soon as he sobered. But he hadn’t. Not unless he counted those moments when he first awoke, the last vestiges of a dream clinging to his consciousness, fooling him into nearly calling her name. Or the spike of alarm he felt from that space in the back of his mind he associated with her, the spike that must have been his instincts, gasping mid-fight, when he didn’t see a hit coming in time to dodge. Or the roiling disgust, the intense hatred as he made each kill, the feeling he felt from her now, which had matched his own feelings so well, he hadn’t been able to distinguish them as coming from her.

Five let her hatred sink into him, scorching flames. He had never felt anything like this from her before.

He didn’t understand.

She hated him.

He was standing over Aris’s body, the knife still in his hands, feeling the full brunt of her vitriol, draped around where her presence sat in the corner of the room.

She hated him, and he didn’t understand. How…? Later, after this… Why…?

The world was coming apart at the seams because of all people, he had thought… Not her. Never her.

He was dangling in the air, feet searching in vain for something solid, and the woman on stage staring with a blank coldness, her hatred draped around her in a blinding white light.

Not her.

The tendril of light lifting him off the ground was pulling at something vital in him. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain.

“Five!” a familiar voice called in alarm.

He opened his eyes in surprise. She shouldn’t be there. He had just said goodbye.

She wasn’t. Instead, he saw Allison, standing behind Vanya, raising a gun, doing what Five should have from the beginning.

But then she chose to save their sister, and the world was ending. He had done nothing to stop it. He had failed—

No. Don't think like that. He wasn’t about to fall into the trap of guilt again. He needed to keep moving. Look at the facts.

Five breathed deep as he collapsed onto the stage alongside his brothers.

One breath in.

Delores was real. She had been there for the kills and hated him for it.

But she hadn’t hated him before, in the apocalypse, or after they had reunited in her department store.

His breath came out in a shaky rush.

Unless she had been lying.

Another gasp in.

She had never lied about being real. She had left out a lifetime of secrets, but she had never outright lied. And she had never shied from sharing her feelings with him.

His breath released more evenly this time as he remembered that moment, soon after they had reunited, when her rush of concern staggered him—

“I have to save him,” she told the rabbits.

Oh.

He understood all at once: he was taking things out of order, her order, not his.

A renewed sense of urgency filled him. He needed to find her.

Easier said than done. She could be anytime, anywhere. He didn’t know where to begin.

Except, that was wrong. He knew exactly where she had been and recently.

Delores must be laughing at him now. She had been there, in the room at Commission Headquarters, pulling him from his body. He just had to find that moment. Simple really.

Except that he had no clue how to do that.

Good thing he had eternity to figure it out.

Fortunately, it didn’t take nearly that long. Focusing on a single point in space, the same space where his body was, finally gave him a place to plant his feet. Then, it was just a matter of concentrating on his singular desire to see her, a type of longing he was well-versed in.

And there she was.

He turned on the spot, and the room went quiet despite being suddenly full of men, the tremendous whirring of the harvester vanishing. A handful of the men were in white lab coats, the others in full three-piece suits, looking like they were there for some stuffy party. They lined the walls, focusing on the middle of the room, where an old man had just appeared in a flash of blue. The man was small in stature, bowing with age in a way that suggested several years bent over a desk, his clothes disheveled and of a different fashion as the other men in the room. But most important, was the briefcase in his hands, cradled sideways in his arms.

Five was too early. He cursed under his breath even though nobody could hear him. This was better than nothing though. Now, he just needed to skip ahead somehow…

The suits were clapping as if they had just witnessed a magic trick, the white coats rushing in, their hands reaching for the briefcase, as the old man crumpled to his knees, crying out in between laughter and sobs, “It worked! It worked!”

Five growled in irritation. Half of him didn’t want to see this moment, but half of him knew he couldn’t leave until he saw her. He slid around and through the crown, kneeling close to her presence, glaring at the briefcase, willing the old man to hurry up and open it.

“Which did you get?” one of the white coats was demanding, his hands sliding over the edge of the vinyl casing.

“Reginald took the twins,” the old man reported as he wheezed for breath. “But then I found this one, a girl… She’s even more attuned to time! We’ll have to rethink the spatial equations, but she’ll be more than enough!”

“C’mon,” Five groused. “Let her out already!”

As if his words had been heard, the old man finally opened the case, and Five’s irritation shot up to cold fury. Just as he’d expected, they had her, just an infant, wired up to power the briefcase, but he hadn’t anticipated her stillness. Her body was so tiny and limp as one of the white coats gingerly extracted her from the tangle of wires. Babies should cry, right? Their faces should flinch in the sudden bright light, their tiny hands should form tiny fists, and their skin should go pink as they wail. But she was stayed quiet and pale.

Five nearly lost his footing in the moment as he followed her across the room, the white coats buzzing excitedly about familiar equations as they moved her and the briefcase to a workbench set up next to the harvesting machine. The machine was missing the polished white face-plates it had when Five had last seen it, revealing its metal skeleton and wire guts. The suits were crowding around the old man, saying something about debriefing before the old man could meet his younger self. That wasn’t going to end well.

Five watched for a few minutes more, but the baby showed no signs of revival, even as they inserted tubes and painful looking needles. Finally, his shock and nausea were too overpowering. The moment slipped away.

His instincts were the only reason he kept his foothold in space. Even as the walls melted into a rush of color and sound, the ground beneath him was solid. After a disorienting moment, he tried again to feel for her presence.

There she was, just a wisp of shadow radiating curiosity and trepidation, completely absorbed in the conversation of the women in the room. The machine was completed, the breathing of the harvester filling the room. The women were chatting while they pushed various keys and recorded the numbers appearing on the machine’s monitor on their clipboard.

“All right, show me what you got!” one of the women cooed to the machine as she began slowly dialing up a large knob.

A spike of fear colored the wisp, recognizing she was being addressed, and then she exploded in a flare of blue and pain.

Five staggered back; he had never felt physical pain from her before—

He found her again, her wisp now a full glimmer, both defiance and dread rolling off her as she pressed her glimmer against the controls of the machine, against the same pair of women as before to no result. They turned the knob, and there was the blue and the pain. And this time, Five kept his grip long enough to see the shorter of the women open a hatch to retrieve a freshly made briefcase—

This time she tried words, her voice young and unsteady, unused to speaking. But even as she spoke slow and broken, she spoke deliberately, no to the machine and why to the women.

But they still turned the knob—

“Always in such a rush…”

Five jolted at the sound of the familiar voice.

The Handler was chiding a young girl as she led the girl into the room.

“But Mom!” the girl whined, and Five recoiled from the thought. He was hard pressed to think of a woman worse for the role. “I’m ready for a mission!”

“That’s adorable that you think so,” the Handler cooed with a condescending pat on the girl’s head. “But all that training we’ve been doing will mean nothing if you can’t use what makes you special.”

The girl shrank into her dark, messy mop of hair, muttering that she had mastered everything else the Handler had expected of her.

“You should be thanking me,” the Handler continued as if she hadn’t heard. “This is where you can master your powers.”

“Here? But who would I be mirroring?”

“The infinite switchboard itself! Copy that power, and then we can go to lunch.”

Five watched with dawning comprehension, as the girl looked doubtful for a second, before straightening up to approach the machine with a confidence clearly mimicking her mother’s and placing a hand on the machine. “There’s a person inside!” she exclaimed after a moment.

“A person…” the glimmer said haltingly. “Am I… a person?”

The scene blurred into another one, the girl was back, alone this time, an open book on her lap as she sat on the floor, leaning against the harvester.

“What about Delila? Then we could match!” the girl giggled, her finger keeping place as she skimmed down the page. “Or Della? Delores?”

The glimmer was more colorful this time and matched the relative size of the girl beside her. “What does that one mean?”

“Delores? It means… sorrow or pain. Wow, that’s sad. Literally.”

“It’s appropriate.”

“Awww!” The girl puffed her cheeks out in a pout, turning in the direction of the glimmer even though her eyes stared straight through. “Don’t be like that!”

“No,” she said with more certainty. “I like it. It’s all I was at first, but now I’m going to be something more. I’ll make Delores mean something more too…”

“Well, okay. Delores it is. But I’m not calling you that. Let’s see…” She looked down at the book of names again. “Oh! I could call you Dollie for short!”

“I’m not a doll.”

“Hey, if you were, I could carry you around, and we’d go everywhere together!”

Delores sighed. “If you have to call me something for short, what about Lola? Then, we can match…” she offered in a singsong voice.

The girl grinned—

Everything melted into another moment. The girl was visiting again, talking to Delores about the latest gossip going around the Commission.

And then another moment, another visit, and then another.

They practiced their powers together. First, just the girl, for mirroring Delores was the only way that she could hear Delores’s voice. Then, in a fit of longing between visits, Delores performed her first time jump, jumping forward to the girl’s next visit. Soon the girl could mirror for stretches as long as an hour, and Delores could skip through time just as easily as Five had through space at their age.

But then the girl got older, and the Handler gave her more responsibility. Her visits became more and more infrequent until they stopped altogether.

Five watched, as Delores leapt forward in leaps and bounds, searching for her next visit, only to come up empty. While she was able to dance between moments, swimming easily up or down the stream of time, it seemed she couldn’t find the surface to glide upon: spatial travel had eluded her in these early years. Delores was alone again.

She kept jumping forward, only interrupted when someone came in to manufacture a new briefcase. But the pain of the process was remarkably less each time, until finally, Five realized with awe, Delores had left her body behind. Moving her consciousness through space was a simple matter after that, and again, her longing to find her friend was enough to free her.

Five held tight to her star, and they landed just in time to see the friend’s unexpected birth.

The girl had been lucky, born to a young married couple, ready-made parents who overcame their shock and confusion and decided to keep the child. But the parents, their faces—

No.

No, it couldn’t be.

He was back in his body and a gun was in his old, weathered hands, firing two consecutive shots.

It was done. The flower merchants were dead, and Five felt an open void in his chest. He waited for the guilt to fill it, but the void remained.

A moment later, anger reached up from his stomach to strangle his heart, and he moved, quickly making his escape from the room. He needed to be alone. Thankfully, the Handler didn't follow as he hurried out onto the bustling street, keeping his head low, making a beeline for the nearby motel, rushing to his room, slamming the door behind him.

He stood there, his full weight pressed against the door as if to keep an assailant out, trying to catch his breath, trying to find relief that he was alone again.

Except he wasn’t. Five turned away from his old self and found with mounting horror that she was there. Delores was sitting in the corner of the room, watching him, her emotions wrapped close around her like a cloak, hidden, if Five hadn’t known to look for her.

Their first meeting and he had introduced himself as the killer of her best friend’s parents. No wonder she had hated him.

Five wasn’t sure where or when he was anymore. He was back in that space between moments, actively time traveling, unsure of where he’d land. The storm of color and sound whipping by echoed his mind reeling with as much chaos.

There, he realized suddenly, was his body. He could feel himself surging upwards, towards consciousness. Soon he would break the surface and return to that eternal moment of pain, hooked up to that monstrous machine.

That was what he had wanted, to find his body and wake up.

Yet… Delores had bought him this chance to move his consciousness around like this. He’d have to be a fool not to realize that returning now would do nothing but trap him in the pain again.

Perhaps that was right. After everything he had inflicted on his family, on his ghosts, on Delores, perhaps some of his own suffering was in order.

Besides, the wild waters below were too confusing for him to manage. There was no way he’d be able to sort out that mess, let alone control it.

He rose, consciousness ready to sweep him up all at once.

Perhaps that was right, perhaps he’d never master the chaos below, but he wasn’t about to give up a chance to try.

He’d already decided to move forward for his ghosts. He could do it for his family and Delores too. He owed them that much. They could decide later how he should suffer for the pain he’d inflicted on them, but only after everyone was safe or he was dead, not a second before.

Besides, Delores didn't deserve to endure any more of his ignorant assumptions. Speaking with her was the only way he would understand all he had seen.

So, he clung to the mess below and didn’t fight when the pandemonium swallowed him whole.

Again, and again, and again.

He was beyond exhausted, but that had never stopped him before. Besides, it was getting easier to find his footing; more often he found solid ground beneath his feet than the vastness of the ocean.

Yet as often as he found himself at her side, Delores remained elusive. Where would her present self be? Which moment? They had a whole lifetime of places together: their library, theorizing, arguing, laughing together; out scavenging, chatting, singing, playing one of their games; or perhaps staring up at the stars in quiet, comfortable companionship.

She stayed with him for months at a time, experiencing life in the same linear fashion he did, only leaving his side when they argued or on the rare occasion he slept early. There was logic behind this, besides the obvious, he quickly realized. Despite being such an expert time traveler, she had some difficulty returning to the exact point she left him, only able to return within a few hours of her departure, her own consciousness repelling her like a magnet from getting too close to visiting the same moment twice. That must have required a physical body, something to define a person spatially to counter the paradoxes, Five theorized as he realized he could visit a moment repeatedly if his body had been there. If he could figure out how to override his past consciousness, he could take control of his body and make a different choice, effectively rewinding time. That could be incredibly useful. But no, that was a diversion best left for after he found Delores.

But she was everywhere. He chased echoes of her as she danced up and down the timeline.

She followed people, powered and ordinary alike, watching the mundane with such delight until she had her fill. Then, she’d find a quiet spot, to watch a tree grow, a bird build a nest, a flower bloom and spread its seeds.

He always knew she loved to learn, so he was unsurprised to find her in classrooms and lecture halls. But just as often, he found her at concerts, listening with rapt attention, treating them like scavenger hunts, searching for the moment the musician first found each melody. As often as she sang to him, or they had sung together, he hadn’t realized how deep her love went for something so fleeting for her. Each song was hers for only a few minutes before she would have to wait, hoping to find someone to play the record for her.

It was the ephemeral, Five slowly understood as he discovered a similar pattern with Delores and museums. She was fascinated by the effort to preserve what was ultimately ephemeral. She could track a painting from the moment the artist’s brush first hit the canvas to the day the painting burned, cracking and melting into ashes in the apocalypse. Yet she chose to sit in museums, watching as specialists worked to restore old works of art.

He took her hand in one of these moments, his fingers brushing through hers, and sensed a jumble of emotions from her. It took a minute for him to parse it all out: the bittersweet nostalgia, the intense fascination, the fond amusement, and an unnameable, hollow ache.

Mourning, he recognized easily, struck by the familiarity, and he was sitting in their library again, his fingers skimming along an article about the Umbrella Academy, a smile on his lips even as he blinked stubbornly against the tears pressing against the backs of his eyes.

“Tell me?” Delores asked as she leaned into his side, and he would tell her whatever story came to his mind as he studied the grainy picture with his family’s smiling faces.

Each story he now knew she could’ve seen with her own eyes, yet she would always ask.

It was becoming easy to track her. His need to find her had resolved into simply wanting to see her.

Then, he began indulging himself and his lifelong desire to see his family. All the moments he had missed were right there, waiting to be stumbled upon. He finally got to meet Claire and saw the day Allison and her husband brought their baby home from the hospital. He got to spend a day with Vanya as she ran errands around town. And there was Diego, working hard at the police academy, trying to make his own way in the world. And Klaus, goofing off with a group of people Five didn’t recognize, but with whom Klaus seemed to have an easy connection with. Luther was on the moon, watching the quiet beauty of the sunrise, and they were all there, including Ben, enjoying a normal, familiar day as the Umbrella Academy.

It wasn’t so bad, being able to live in the past like this.

He saw Vanya, wiping away a steady stream of tears as she wrote the last few pages of her book, and Allison, surrounded by fans, signing autographs until she was handed an old interview with the Academy to sign, her smile going rigid. He saw Klaus, shouting at Ben before stumbling into an alley to meet his dealer, and Diego, gritting his teeth as he tried to explain to his superiors why he was acting as a vigilante at night before they announced that he was no longer welcome as a police recruit. He saw Luther, at home, sitting at an empty table, eating breakfast under the weight of a heavy silence.

Five sighed, watching his brother stare around at all the empty chairs. “Living in the past is its own type of awful, isn't it?” he murmured to Luther. Then, he groaned. “Delores is in the present, isn’t she? She hates when I wallow. Not,” he amended quickly, “that this is wallowing.”

Luther remained oblivious, shoveling a heaping spoonful of cereal into his mouth. Five didn’t need an answer though.

It was obvious now that he had thought of it. The one period of time he hadn’t brought himself to visit yet: when he had messed everything up.

His family would be confused and angry with him. They would have every right not to want him back.

“Not a single timeline…” he muttered to himself.

They had every right, but he knew better than that. No doubt they were already planning his rescue.

This should be easy; traveling forward through time was natural. Except the last couple of times he had tried forward jumps without the controlled aid of a briefcase hadn’t ended well—

He landed hard, his skin tingling all over, barely noticing the sudden change from humid summer air to the brisk chill of March. Then, he sat up and realized his mistake, his clothes flopping around on his shrunken limbs and his siblings staring down at him, stupefied—

He collapsed to his knees in front of the Academy, the tears on his face whisked away by the dry, hot wind, ash snowing down upon him—

No, don’t go there. He could do this.

He glanced back at the blackboard, taking in his equations one more time even though he had long since memorized them. Delores was radiating reassurance. He nodded to her, to himself, and then began, blue light encompassing his fists, his power building—

It didn’t work. Again.

Again, and again, and again. It didn’t work. He was still trapped.

He cursed at the top of his lungs, sending a rat scurrying out of its nearby hiding place in alarm, before he collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. Delores sat nearby, quiet worry seeping from her presence.

“Stop that,” he ordered.

She didn’t.

Glaring, he shot up, back onto his feet, going for his backpack.

“What are you doing?” she asked cautiously.

“What does it look like?” he muttered darkly. “Going scavenging. It’s time I try technology.”

“Five—”

“Don’t start!” he cut her off. “I know you think the equations are the way to go, but clearly my powers are too unreliable or weak or… something! If I can build something though…”

“You’re stronger than any time travel device in existence,” she countered, her voice stiff. “Besides, you’ll still need the equations to use any technology.”

“I don’t want to argue with you on this.”

“I don’t either. But this is only going to be a waste of time.”

He scoffed. “What’s that you always say? Do today what you would regret tomorrow not doing? I’ll regret not trying this. I have to.”

“You don’t!”

He didn’t understand her anger at the time. “So, that’s it? You won’t help me?” he accused.

“I’m trying to help you by keeping you on track!” She fumed for a moment as he threw his backpack over his shoulders. “I can’t help you with this,” she finally admitted, voice suddenly quiet. “The only way I could… I can’t. I can’t go back there…”

“Back where?” he asked, equal parts confused and irritated at whatever excuse his brain was coming up with for why Delores would be just as ignorant about time travel technology as he was.

“I don’t want to argue,” she repeated tiredly.

“Meaning?”

She was silent for a long moment, so long he nearly turned and walked away.

“I’d get trapped if I go back…”

He raised an eyebrow, his frustration growing.

“You know how you ignore all the bad memories? When you talk about your time back home… You only talk about the good.”

Five shifted back and forth on his feet, not liking turn the conversation had taken.

“You know instinctively that you could get trapped in those bad memories, so you’ve chosen to ignore them completely.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say—”

“You ignore all the bad, sometimes to the point that I think you’ve forgotten. I worry about what will happen if you go back without acknowledging it, but I know if you do, you’ll be okay… You’re stronger than I am. I know no matter what happens, you’ll find a way to keep moving forward.” She chuckled, self-deprecating, a deep melancholy rolling off of her. “If I go back, I’ll only get stuck. I don’t have your strength, and I don’t have people like you do. Not anymore. Not there…”

“I don’t understand,” he told her, feeling somehow defeated, like he had lost some argument he didn’t know they were having.

“No,” she said softly, a smile in her voice. “No, you wouldn’t, and I don’t want to start another argument by trying to explain.”

“Delores—”

“I won’t help you with any time travel technology,” she said definitively. “It’s too painful for me.”

He stood there, stunned. He turned back to the blackboard, to his latest, useless equation, and then looked down at his dry, cracked hands, stained with sunspots.

“And if I say I have to do this? I have to try?”

A flash of intense anger hit him like a slap to the face. He had never felt anything like it from her before, but it was already gone, her emotions withdrawn out of his reach.

“Fine,” she said suddenly terse. “Go.”

He rankled at her unexplained behavior, feeling his own rush of temper, and turned on his heel, marching off to find something, anything that might help free him—

Again, and again, and again—

The promise of fish had lured him out onto the rickety pier. Delores was strapped safely into his backpack, and his bicycle parked back on shore. He was a few years younger than he had been during their argument about technology, recounting the different ways Mom used to prepare fish for dinner, weaving his way around old, rotting planks as the water sloshed beneath him. He strained his eyes for movement in the dark waters, for any sign of dinner.

Then, there was a terrible sound.

“Five!” Delores screamed, and there was nothing but air beneath his feet, his stomach swooping.

He crashed straight through the dock into the water, sinking like a stone, his backpack weighing him down. Panic pushed the air from his lungs. Nauseating fear poured over his brain—

He was staring up through the clear pool water at Dad, fear forcing his mind blank even though he knew this was just part of the process. This would help his access his powers. There was no need to be afraid. This was for his own good. Why the hell was his body reacting like this, when he knew that this would finally push him into a deliberate, controlled spatial jump—

Space spat him back out on the dock, and he knelt there, coughing up water for a minute. His wet clothes were pasted to his body, restricting his movement as he struggled up onto his feet, obstinately ignoring the shaking in his hands.

Then, he realized he was missing the weight of his pack on his back.

He scrambled to the edge of the dock, falling on his knees as he peered into the water.

She was still down there.

“Delores!” he shouted, looking around the empty dock for anything he could use to pull her up. “Shit!” He pulled at his wet hair, his stomach dropping, his heartbeat heavy and frantic. There was nothing. There was no help. There was only him.

He staggered up onto numb feet and backed up several steps. Then, screaming one final curse to the sky, he sprinted forward, off the dock, diving back into the water.

He should have taken a deeper breath, he realized about halfway down, when his lungs began to ache, then burn, then scream for air. The waters were dark, too dark, to see her. Yet he knew. She was right there, right… there!

And his arms were around her, his entire body curling around the bag, and one jump later, they were back on the dock, gasping and sputtering. He tore her mannequin from the bag so he could hold her to his chest as he collapsed. Shivering and shuddering, he closed his eyes and put all his energy into breathing, into not dissolving into sobs.

They were out of the water, so why did it still feel like he was drowning?

“You’re okay,” she was saying over and over. “You’re okay.”

It had been over five years since he had stopped seeing her, but he still felt her every now and again, a tugging on his arm, a steady hand on his shoulder, or most often, the feel of her leaning into his side as they fell asleep. He felt her leaning into his embrace now, easing him off his adrenaline.

“You’re okay. You’re safe.”

“You’re…” he croaked out against a cough. “You’re okay?”

“I can’t be harmed by something like that,” she reminded gently—

“We’re okay,” Vanya was saying hastily, holding up her hands in a placating gesture while Five cursed—

“I can’t be hurt, Five,” Mom reminded in a soothing voice—

Delores's presence was radiating both comfort and regret. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I should’ve made the jump with you, but you moved so fast… I’m sorry you had to dive back in…”

“Just a bit of water,” he muttered.

“Not after what you went through…”

Something in her tone rankled his frayed nerves. He opened his eyes to look at her blank, plastic smile. “What do you mean?”

“What your father put you through. It’s natural for you to be fearful of water—”

“What my father…” He scoffed, sitting up, turning away. “I’m not scared of water or swimming or anything like that, and certainly not because of anything my father did!”

“I know about the special training—”

“Training!” he repeated. “Exactly! It was just training! I don’t know what you’re implying, but it was just part of the process. It helped make my spatial jumps reliable, and I’m all the better for it!”

“Better? Five, I’m sure you don’t want to think about it, but—”

“But nothing!” He was on his feet, moving to shove her back in his bag. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! You weren’t there!”

She was quiet in that way that always meant more was coming, so he braced himself as his hands went to his breast pocket. The glass eyeball was still intact, but he winced as he gingerly pulled apart the first few pages of Vanya’s book. Most of his notes were written in pencil, but the few spots where he had used pen were already smudging.

“What about that? What’s written there…” Delores started, her implication clear. “Your father—”

“Vanya’s experience was very different from mine.”

“Even so, what you went through—”

“Enough! Why are you even talking about this?”

“When you go back, you need to be prepared. What he made you do—”

“They didn’t make me do anything!” he shouted, and he was years later in a world years younger, his voice bouncing off the empty storefronts. Delores felt unusually heavy on his back, or perhaps he was still tired from his encounter with Hazel and Cha-Cha. “I was the one who pulled the trigger. I was the one who killed those people. And I was good at it! I only ever killed the target, nobody else. I wasn’t sloppy like the Swedes or sadistic like Hazel and Cha-Cha. The Commission would have killed those people one way or another, and all that is beside the point! We both know preventing the end of the world is more important. You should understand, out of everybody…!”

She hadn’t asked who had attacked them or why, but he found himself explaining anyway, pouring out every truth of what he had done for the Commission, apologizing at first. But the longer she stayed quiet, the longer he had to talk himself around into a defensive stew. He adjusted the duffel bag on his back and forced himself to wait for Delores’s response as they walked home.

“Understand the way you’re trying to rationalize it to me…?” she finally asked. Then, she said something that made no sense. “I’m worried about you.”

“About me? Were you even listening?!”

“Yes, and I know you, Five. I know what you’re doing,” she said with that firmness he found simultaneously irritating and nostalgic. “You pretend you’re okay. You pretend you weren’t hurt by all this too and focus on how you hurt others. You focus on your mission, on how to make it right, no matter the cost to you, ignoring your own wounds—”

“So that’s it? We’re finally back together after two years—we’re finally here just before the apocalypse, and you want to talk about how wounded I am? You think I’m not fit to stop all this?”

“That’s not at all what I’m saying!”

“Then, what are you saying? Are you going to call me crazy like Vanya did?”

“Of course not! I, of all people, know—”

“That’s right! You should know! We have a real chance here, and I can’t afford to be distracted by whatever this is! I am going to stop the apocalypse, with or without your help, with or without my family! Even if I have to do this alone…!”

He trailed off, suddenly swallowed up by the pure concern emanating from her, so strong he nearly stumbled. He couldn’t hear clear words from her, but he didn’t need to. Her fear silenced him for a minute before he could latch onto his own anger again. For that minute, he paused, shivering in the middle of the dark street, enduring the weight of her emotion—

Exhaustion and the threat of pain kept him horizontal on the bed as he spoke with his sister, squeezing her hand. “It’s okay, Vanya. My priority is keeping you all safe.”

“I know,” she said, and this time Five saw the way her eyes darkened and lingered on his various wounds. “But please keep yourself safe too. You really scared us tonight.”

But his past self was nodding absently—

Ben was close enough to fill his vision, soot in his hair, not questioning why Five’s fingers were searching his wrist for a pulse.

“Breathe, Five,” he was saying quietly, while Five continued his shallow gasps. “You’re okay. We’re all here. We’ve got you.”

They all gathered close, and Ben's pulse was steady against Five’s fingers—

Allison was pulling his hand up to her neck to press against her pulse.

Five was covered in blood and ash, and they were surrounded by fire and rubble. But that was the moment he felt her starlight, and his breath hitched, tears spilling down his cheeks.

She pulled him into a tight embrace, and then, they were all there. All of them—

There was Luther cradling his arm, inspecting his self-inflicted scratches, and then, Allison was glaring up at their father as she fiercely refused to rumor him. Vanya was alone in the kitchen, spreading peanut butter on a piece of bread, and Diego was checking in on him in the infirmary. And Ben was fussing over his bullet wound as Five made his way down the fire escape, and Klaus was leaning into his side, asking again why he was being so hard on himself. Mom was telling him that her primary function was to care for them, for him, and Pogo was smiling kindly as he told Five how much he was missed—

“There are only four—well, now three—left. I was gonna wait until they had all bid adieu,” the older Klaus was miming tipping a hat, “but it seemed like you needed some cheering up.”

“Cheering up?” Five echoed dubiously.

“Yeah,” Klaus was shrugging like the conversation was no big deal even though Five’s heart was pounding in objection. “Because they accept or forgive or whatever.”

A rush of air came out of Five’s mouth, a cross between a scoff and a crazed laugh.

Why? Why would they ever forgive him after all he had done?

“I know you’re still a good person, Five,” Luther was saying. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have risked everything coming back here to save us all.”

They were back in Five’s room, and Delores was in his arms, radiating a touch of irritation after nearly being tossed out the window but more significantly a warm sense of agreement with Luther.

“But you’re not on your own anymore,” Luther continued—

“Now, he’s depending on us to come for him, but we need your help to do it.”

They were standing in the doorway to their father’s study, waiting for his answer now that Luther had finished pleading their case.

“There is no need for your involvement,” Dad brushed them off, without looking up from his desk. “This is a matter for the Umbrella Academy to solve.”

Diego scoffed loudly. “Last I checked, we are the Academy.”

“You,” Dad corrected with a sharp voice, “are doppelgangers. You have no place here, nor anywhere.”

They shrank where they stood in the doorway, looking like children abashed by their father’s chastising despite their grown age. Except for Allison.

She marched into the forbidden study, grabbing the messenger bag swinging from her hip, and overturned it, dumping the contents on their father’s desk with a thud.

“Careful!” Five cried, darting forward to check if any of his work on the wristwatches had broken. Then, he realized he was back in his invisible but undeniably present form. Even better, he had finally found a moment soon after he had left with the Handler.

Allison glared down at their father, and then Vanya darted forward, matching Allison’s proud posture.

“We belong with our brother!” Vanya declared. “If you’re not going to help, then we’ll figure out some other way to use the device Five was building!”

Dad finally dropped his pen, his eyes scrutinizing the rigged wristwatches, his fingers hovering an inch above the metal surface.

“You know how to finish it?” Diego demanded as he and Luther flanked their sisters.

Dad leaned back, in his chair, examining them over his steepled fingers for a heavy moment before answering. “As I said before, you are not needed here.”

“You’ll need our help with the rescue,” Diego insisted. Allison crossed her arms, scowling as if she were dealing with a child she knew was about to lie to her.

“There will be no rescue.”

“You’re going to abandon him?!” Luther physically recoiled from the thought. “Just like before,” he said quietly. “You insisted he would come back on his own—and he did. But what he had to do to come back…! You didn’t lift a finger to help us look for him! You abandoned him! You… You said the same thing about all of them! That they’d come back when we needed them, but all you did was abandon all of us!”

“Is it not obvious why?” Dad’s voice was a dagger to the heart. “You are a failed Academy! Why else would you try something as reckless and inconsiderate as time traveling back to change your own history?”

Luther paled, somehow looking smaller than everyone else in the room.

“We haven’t failed yet,” Five growled uselessly.

“We’re trying to save the world,” Diego snapped. “You know, just like you always said we would!”

“Then, you have proved my point. If the only way to prevent the apocalypse is to change your history, then it means you are the very cause of everything I have worked to prevent—”

“You worked?!”

“It is time that you leave,” their father dismissed as if Diego hadn’t spoken. “I have no use for an Academy that allowed one of their members to lose access to their powers,” he said with a pointed look at Allison, “and another one of their members to die.”

The slap of Allison’s notepad on Dad’s desk cut off the rest of their furious objections and stammered denials.

Not important, the page she held up read. Need to focus on getting Five back.

“That’s right,” Vanya said fiercely. “The person who has done the most to prevent the apocalypse isn’t you. It’s Five.”

“We aren’t leaving until we have him back,” Luther said quietly yet firmly.

“They’re not giving you much of a choice, are they?”

Five whipped around at the familiar voice. Delores was floating in the doorway, watching him with a small smile.

Then, to Five’s utter amazement, Klaus, who was still leaning heavily against the door-frame, turned to look at her. “Now, what do you mean by that, little lady?” he asked, putting a bit of twang into his voice.

Delores turned to face Klaus, her smile growing. “Your brother… You’re not giving him much of a choice in his own rescue.”

“Nope.” Klaus gave a lazy grin. “You think he’d object?” He put on a scowl, his voice changing from carefree to gruff. “I’m the greatest time assassin that ever lived. You can’t take them on without me.” He dropped the frown, his voice brightening. “Or something like that?”

Five stared between the two of them, bemused. The argument between his father and the rest of his siblings had grown so heated, they were now yelling at each other, but Klaus and Delores were content to ignore the shouting.

Delores’s eyes were sparkling with mirth. “Something like that…”

Klaus hummed in agreement, nodding. His eyes scrutinized Delores’s blurred edges. “I’m surprised you have an opinion on this. Haven’t heard you speak in years.”

“I’m surprised you’re not participating in the argument,” she countered, mirroring his flippant tone.

He shrugged. “They’ve got it covered.” He paused, and they both turned to look at someone else standing in the doorway, someone invisible to Five. Klaus snorted. “Sorry. Dead children don’t get to yell at their fathers.” Judging from Klaus’s groan, Ben didn’t appreciate that answer.

“Look at what you did to me!” Luther roared, regaining everyone’s attention by dramatically ripping open his shirt, spraying buttons everywhere. “Look at it!”

“Oh, shit,” Five groaned. “Why?”

“Oh, damn,” Klaus said faintly, thoroughly distracted.

“Five.”

Five turned away from the scene to find Delores smiling at him, gesturing out into the family room, before she turned away, vanishing. He followed with his own spatial jump and found his second set of siblings whispering excitedly to each other as they hastily crept along the wall towards the study, only to freeze when the sound of Pogo clearing his throat reached them. Five watched for a moment as they straightened up, varying levels of chagrin on their faces. Then, he looked past where Pogo was standing and saw Delores was again signaling for him to follow her.

He followed on his feet this time, looking around at the damage left by the Commission’s attack as he entered the front entryway. Mom was sweeping by the remnants of the front door, humming softly to herself, seemingly unbothered by the insurmountable amount of rubble littering the floor.

Delores settled herself a few steps up the stairs, sitting, smirking as he approached. “Took you long enough.”

“Hey, you try mastering a completely different form of time travel than you’re used to and see how long it takes you!”

“I’m sure I could do it faster than it took you,” she teased. Secretly, he agreed.

He stared at her, taking in her bright eyes and blurred edges. She was wearing a dress with a familiar pattern, the same as the brightly colored floral blouse he had gifted her early in their time together.

“I don’t—”

“I’m sorry—”

They stopped speaking over each other, and Five felt a heavy awkwardness he hadn’t felt with her for years. He gestured for her to go first, and the corner of her mouth twitched into a smile for a second before her face fell. “I’m sorry. I thought this would be the first time and place you would come. Instead, it seems you’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

“That’s what you’re sorry for?!” he scoffed before he could stop himself. Then, he shook away his initial flash of anger. “No, that’s…” He sighed tiredly and leaned back against the banister, forgetting himself for a second. But the banister was solid and stable against his back. He looked down at the smooth, polished wood, at his lack of reflection and shadow. “I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

“First time for everything…” she joked lightly.

He chuckled, suddenly struck by how much he had missed her, even if they hadn’t truly been parted for long. She waited patiently for him to continue.

“I’m sorry,” he began, and it didn’t feel like nearly enough. “I didn’t know.”

“How could you?” she said kindly. Too kindly.

“Klaus can see you,” he blurted out.

"Well, I'm not exactly attached to my body anymore…" She simply raised an eyebrow. They both knew that wasn’t what he wanted to say.

“Why didn’t you tell him to tell me about you?” he demanded anyway.

“I did.”

Before he could argue the point, blue light poured out of her, bleeding from her blurry edges onto the stairs and into the air like watercolors spilling onto paper. Five’s breath caught in his throat as he realized, yet again, this was something new.

He was positive they hadn’t moved. He could still feel the banister against his back. But they appeared to be down in the kitchen, several years in the past. Five found his own face from across the table, he and his siblings chattering away as they ate breakfast. They couldn’t have been more than five or six years old.

“Hey, Five! Guess what!” Klaus called, his feet swinging back and forth under the table, kicking Diego a few times until Diego shoved him.

“What?” Young Five’s eyes narrowed, predicting Klaus’s usual mischief.

“This ghost says she knows you in the future!” Klaus announced happily.

Young Five scoffed loudly. “That doesn’t make sense! A ghost can’t be from the future. They’d be alive now!”

A flash of blue blinded Five for second, and when his eyes adjusted, he found he could see the foyer again, the kitchen gone. He turned to Delores, torn between amazement and frustration. He wanted to ask what he had just witnessed; it clearly wasn't true time travel so much as the projection of a memory.

“Why didn’t you insist? Have Klaus explain more to me?” he asked instead, miserably, already understanding why. She smiled sadly at him, and he sighed. “Because he’s afraid of ghosts.”

“He struggled to look at me, let alone talk to me. I wasn’t going to force my presence on him. Probably the only reason he took my message was because I didn’t have any obvious, frightening injuries…” She shrugged, sighing in fond amusement. “And because he knew it didn’t make sense and was amused.”

“So, you let him believe you were just another ghost when you weren’t! You lied!”

She gave him a knowing look. “I never lied. I simply didn’t press the issue. The alternative was to hurt him. It wasn’t worth it.”

“Wasn’t worth it?” he echoed, dumbfounded. “I thought you weren’t real! For all those years…!” He reeled, turning away to grab the banister in a white-knuckled grip, as if that could keep his anger from throwing him out of the moment. “Damn it!” he swore at the top of his lungs, giving himself a second before he turned back to look at her. “I thought you weren’t real. You let me think it, and I kept saying it! Over and over, I kept telling you that you were nothing, a figment of my imagination! Over and over until I abandoned you!”

Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, her eyes wide and dark.

“Say something!” he demanded. “Tell me how you could do that. How could you let me keep going on and on, all those years?! How could you stay with me when I kept saying such cruel things?! How—”

“Stop! Just stop!” she finally interrupted. “Stop pretending it was that simple! You always do this! You always ignore reality, when the truth is, you were just as hurt as I was! You’re acting like this was all about me, but it wasn’t. Whenever we argued about it, you would work yourself up into such a state, questioning your own sanity… How could I keep putting you through that, especially when I knew there was no way for me to convince you?”

“If you had insisted—”

“Have you forgotten all the times I did? But if I told you something you didn’t know, you figured you had intuited it. It was something you read and forgot. It was something you imagined up. Hell, I tried telling you what the weather was going to be for a week, and you figured that you were getting that good at reading the sky. I tried telling you what was in the next room while we were scavenging, and you figured you had been in that house and forgotten. You began questioning your own memories and senses whenever I insisted. I was fighting against your imagination with nobody else there to confirm or deny reality. There was no way I was going to win.”

“But there was someone. It took decades, but then there was the Handler. If you had told me she was coming, it would have proven everything. And if I had known what she wanted, if you had warned me, maybe I would have made a different decision.”

“I know. But that’s precisely why the Commission was the one thing I couldn’t tell you about.” She shook her head, radiating sorrow. “If you stayed, you would have died in that wasteland. You were dying, Five. It was slow and inescapable. The way you kept drinking… The way you had given up on our equations… As much as I didn’t want you to go… I couldn’t deny you that way out.” Her head bowed, her entire being shrinking with regret. “Trust me, I wanted nothing more than to find the right equations and get you home before the Handler arrived.”

He grimaced, thinking of that field full of rabbits.

And he understood. Whatever she would have said to convince him of her reality during apocalypse week he would have scoffed at for all the same reasons he had before. Perhaps with even more sourness than usual, given his time restraint.

But that didn’t excuse it. “What about the last few weeks?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. You’re always connecting the dots before I do. You know exactly why I’m angry.”

She frowned. “I’m not a mind reader. If you want me to apologize for lying by omission, I’m sorry.” When his glare didn’t relent, she responded with her own. “I need you to trust me, just long enough to get you out of this, but if that’s too much for you now…”

She stood suddenly, and for one fleeting moment, he thought she was leaving, that he was losing her again. He moved without thinking, his hand darting out to grab her wrist.

Real, solid, warm skin met his.

Delores gasped, jolting backwards out of his grip, holding her wrist to her chest as if she’d been burned.

They stared at each other.

Then, she inched forward, extending a hand, and Five was reminded of young Klaus when Five had returned home. Her fingertips gently pressed into his chest, just below his collarbone, and didn’t pass through him.

“Oh,” she whispered, her eyes flicking up to meet his.

Emotion swelled in his chest until he could stand it no longer. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her into a crushing embrace. Her arms were trapped between them, pressing almost painfully into his chest, but he didn’t have it in him to pull away.

“Five?” He could feel her shudder.

“You’re real,” he choked out.

She made a small affirmative sound.

“You’re real,” he repeated, and that was all that mattered. She was so warm.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Her arms shifted as if to break his grip, finally stirring him from his amazement, and he found himself squeezing, keeping her in place.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he pleaded, surprising himself with the rawness of his voice.

“I did…”

“You didn’t!” he snapped, his temper rising to cover his hurt. “Not once during the past few weeks while I’ve been planning to kill you!”

She went rigid. “What?”

“This whole time, I was working towards destroying the Commission’s source of temporal energy, and not once did you tell me it was you! Why? Why wouldn’t you warn me when you know? You know exactly what I’m capable of. You’ve seen it. The very first thing you saw of me. Why…?” That was as close as he could get to asking what he truly wanted to know, the words stuck by the lump in his throat.

She shuddered, and very suddenly he realized what he was doing. He loosened his grip enough to lean back and look at her face, and her appearance immediately stemmed his anger. She was no longer blurred at the edges, finally appearing as fully human as he now knew her to be and just as vulnerable, her face pale.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, releasing her, and quickly taking a step back. “Sorry! You’re not used to being touched and here I am—”

“No,” she said quickly. “I was just… caught off guard.”

He watched as she finally dropped her arms from where they were still clutched protectively to her chest. She inched a little closer, her mouth in a small frown as if she were faced with a confounding puzzle. But there was something in her eyes, under the mask of concentration. She wasn’t projecting emotion at him, but he could read the conflict in her, that familiar hesitation as she tried to choose her words. So, he made the decision for her and sat down, rubbing his knees, forgetting his young joints for a moment as he found a comfortable position on the stairs and offered her the spot next to him.

Her shoulders drooped with obvious relief as she seated herself next to him, and her eyes cleared to shine with mischief as she smiled up at him. “I guess I need those hug lessons Klaus mentioned.”

He chuckled, caught off guard by the thought, the tension hanging over them breaking. Then, he remembered when Klaus had joked about that. “Wait. You were there for that?”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

Oh. “You were the quiet girl?”

“The one Klaus refused to help you date,” she confirmed with a grin.

“But I thought… He said a young girl…” He trailed off, looking at her face, that of a young teenager, then down at himself. “You’re matching my age, aren’t you?”

She snorted as she tried to stifle a laugh. “I can project as any age I want. It’s always felt most appropriate to match you.”

“Then why am I stuck like this?”

She was positively smirking. “I believe you put a decimal in the wrong spot…”

He glared. “I know that. I meant my mind is older than this. Why do I still look thirteen?”

“Probably because you’re still so attached to your body.” Her eyes searched his. “You can still feel it, can’t you? If you concentrate, you can feel what’s happening to your body…”

He grimaced, trying not to dwell on the thought, lest it scoop him up from the moment back into the pain of the present.

She nodded. “That’s good. It means you can still wake up easily.”

He nodded back absently, mulling over this new information for a moment. Then, he refocused on her and her patient smile. “I thought the girl Klaus was talking about was Daisy,” he admitted.

“Daisy? Chatterbox Daisy?” She raised an eyebrow. “You thought she could ever be described as quiet?”

“I thought maybe death changed things. Or time. Time changes—”

“—everything,” she finished for him, her voice solemn.

They sat, silent, facing each other, knees nearly touching and Five had a fleeting moment of full awareness, of looking at her with fresh eyes. She was just as exhausted as he was, but she was just as determined.

“When I first found you…” she began, and he held his breath. “My first thought… My first reaction was anger.”

“You hated me,” he corrected.

“Is that what you thought?” Her head tilted to one side as she considered this. “Well, maybe at first… But I recognized the Handler had used you.”

He scoffed. “You don’t need to sugarcoat it. I killed your best friend’s parents.”

“I was there.” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to let me tell my perspective or not?”

He swallowed his next objection. “Go on. Please.”

She watched him a second before deciding he was serious. She gave a heavy sigh. “You have to understand, I was raised believing in the Commission’s ways.”

“But they were torturing you!” he objected, immediately quieting under her pointed look.

“I was raised in their headquarters, surrounded by loyal employees, listening to their tales from day one… What was a little torture when I was helping to save the world?”

Five suddenly couldn’t meet her eyes. He found himself watching his mother for a moment. She was still sweeping near the front door, the broom making a soft, rhythmic sound as she continued her steady work.

Delores took pity on him and continued her story. “I assumed you were one of them, someone who believed themselves a protector. I realized the Handler had lied to you about that mission. She’s the one I hated, but I knew if I clung to that, she would only lead me back to headquarters, back to being trapped. If I clung to my initial anger at you though… I could follow you out that door, finally out into the world…” He looked up at her again and found her smiling sheepishly. “It’s selfish of me to say… but I was lucky that it was you. I got to watch your stakeouts and explore a bit of the world beyond killing. I got to watch your targets and understand what you were looking for. The significance of a person… I learned a lot from you, and that was what allowed me my freedom. I wanted to be a significant human being too, not just a source of power to be used by others.” Blue was bleeding out of her again, her voice growing wistful. “It was easy to move about the timeline after that. Everyone had moments worth experiencing, so all I had to do was attach myself to someone and watch. I wanted to learn everything…” Five couldn’t make sense of the rush of colors swirling around them until he caught a flash of a familiar orange sky. “By the time I found you again… By the time I found the apocalypse, I was a different person. And so were you. I didn’t recognize you at first. It wasn’t until I finally remembered where I had first seen Vanya’s book that I made the connection.”

They were in their library, their home, and there were their past selves, bundled up by the fire as they read a book together.

Five shook his head. “Even after you knew what I’d become, you still stayed with me.”

“Is that really so hard to understand?” she asked. “You still love Vanya, don’t you?”

He scoffed, leaning back and crossing his arms. “That’s different! She was pushed past her breaking point—”

“And you weren’t?” she demanded, daring him to relitigate her earlier point about the state the Handler had found him in.

Five hated when she did that. He sat there, gritting his teeth, racking his brain for another angle, another way to prove his point. But all his mind came up with was Vanya’s melancholy eyes as she asked for forgiveness.

“I don’t want you minimizing it,” he finally admitted. “I really was the best. It was easy. They were already dead. I saw the bodies. Every, single house we went to, they were there, everyone, already dead.” He swallowed hard, realizing there was an edge of derangement in his voice. “But that’s not right. It shouldn’t be easy.”

Her brow was knit with concern as she nodded. “Okay… I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I hear you, I just…”

“I know,” he sighed and shook his head. “You worry about me.”

Her creased brow smoothed as her eyes lit with amusement. “Well, someone has to; I know you won't…”

The tangled knot of emotion in his chest unraveled just a little. He chuckled and offered his hand to her, setting it between them, palm up. It took only a moment before her fingers were skimming over his skin, his fingers twitching under the tickling sensation, and then her hand was in his, their fingers interlocking in a tight grip.

In all their decades side-by-side like this, the warmth she was radiating was completely novel.

The thought was smothering.

“Five?” she prompted, squeezing his hand.

“Why did you let me say goodbye at Gimbel Brothers?”

Her mouth fell open, her eyes wide. “That was…” Her gaze dropped to the space between them. “The life we spent together was in the apocalypse. Like it or not, I’ll always be a reminder of that time. I understand why you would want to leave that behind…”

He wished she were wrong, that that hadn’t been a key part of his decision to leave her there, but he came up empty on a truthful denial.

“As I’ve recently learned, the past has a way of coming back at the most inconvenient times,” he said instead. “It’s an inescapable part of me now. But you’re more than that time. We both are.” Nonchalance to counter the weight of his words, he shrugged. “I meant every word of what I said in that goodbye.”

He froze, the final piece in hand, the full picture suddenly obvious.

Blue washed over their library, and the two of them turned to see themselves, a few months before, in her department store. Five watched as his younger self adjusted the placement of Delores’s mannequin on her pedestal before leaning back, slipping his hands into his pockets.

“I bet it feels good to be back amongst your friends,” he had said softly. “And it’s okay, you can say it. We always were an unlikely pair.”

“Is this the part when you try to leave me again?” Delores had asked with an exasperated sigh. He couldn’t see her back then, but Five saw her now, sitting next to the mannequin, her arms crossed as she frowned at him.

His past self chuckled, not expecting the jab, but pressed on.

“This isn’t easy for me, Delores, and I… I want you to know that I cherish every single minute I ever shared with you, all twenty-three and a half million of them. A lifetime.”

Her irritation melted away into an aching sadness.

He chuckled again, this time to cover his nerves, oblivious to the change in her expression. “Now look at us. We’re lucky enough, we get a second one.”

“Perhaps it’s good you made a mistake with the equations…” she mused softly, her smile halfhearted. “You have the body to match.”

He laughed quietly, this time with genuine amusement. “Yeah. You are right. I do have a lot of growing up to do.”

Five turned away from the memory, looking at the Delores with him on the stairs. He wasn’t sure which one of them had pulled forth that moment of time, but he saw the quiet resolution in her face as she watched it fizzle away with a flash of blue, listening with rapt attention to his past words. “I’ll never forget you, Delores.”

He waited for her to look at him again before speaking. “You’re real which means you’re alive. That means you can die.” She grimaced, confirming his suspicions. “You don’t have a body to match a second lifetime, do you? That’s why the Commission needed me. Their source of temporal energy is running out. That’s why you didn’t tell me it was you. You’re already dying.”

Her hand squeezed his painfully hard for a second. Then, she shrugged. “My body is, yes.”

He stared, slack-jawed, at the casualness she said it with. “You’re dying,” he repeated as if she might have misheard him the first time.

“I haven’t been connected to my body for decades,” she reminded.

“But it’s still your body! It’s still important! What happens to you, this you,” he waved his free hand at her, “if you die?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Delores,” he growled.

“Five,” she countered his growl with a flat tone. “Did you forget that ghosts exist? As far as I can tell, I’ll simply become one of them, instead of this… half-formed illusion.” She smiled. “Maybe being a ghost will feel like this.” She squeezed his hand gently this time. “Like I’m finally whole.”

He knew it was over with just that.

“I’ll save you,” he tried anyway.

“You can’t. My body is simply too weak at this point.”

“Let me try—”

“No,” she said firmly. “You need to focus on your own survival right now.”

“I just found you! I’m not about to lose you again!”

She sighed, and he had to turn away from the pitying look she was giving him. Her voice was softer this time. “You won’t.”

He gritted his teeth, torn between jumping up and escaping from the conversation and pulling her into a crushing embrace again and knowing that neither option was viable.

“As long as you need me, I’ll be there. And if death does mess with my consciousness, you can talk to Klaus.”

“That’s not good enough,” he declared fiercely, facing her again, pulling her hand close. “I’m not going through him every time I want to talk to you! I don’t want to have to share every moment I have with you with a go-between!” He held his head. “And it’s Klaus. We are not bringing Klaus into our relationship.”

“Hey, now. I rather like your brother. He’s funny.”

Five groaned.

Delores giggled.

“You’re remarkably unconcerned about this,” he grumbled.

“Well, I doubt we’ll need him to talk.” The amused glint in her eyes grew brighter when he made a confused sound. “You still haven’t figured it out…?”

Five frowned and was about to ask what she was talking about when the obvious occurred to him. He sat there, speechless a second, the answer to a question he had nearly forgotten suddenly hitting him. “Dad wasn’t lying. There was a difference in my energy levels before and after their trip because I did use my powers. I used them to talk to you.” He supposed it was like a radio, their powers using the same frequency, or perhaps it was matter of projection, of two minds meeting in a place that existed as a constant across all time and space, or… He shoved all those theories to the back of his mind for later. “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

“Well, it took you years to master, and even then you had to learn it in steps.” She smiled wistfully, suppressed laughter in her voice. “You even got me in the habit of projecting emotions because that seemed to be the only thing you would react to when you were more aligned with Space…” Five wanted to ask what exactly that meant, but he didn’t want to interrupt her growing smile. “The number of times you guessed wrong why I was irritated…!” She shook her head, chuckling fondly.

“I remember.” The fact that she could disagree with him, unlike all the other imagined friends he had tried out when he was young, was what had initially attracted him to her. He should have known then, but it always came down to her not liking how he was neglecting his health. He had chalked it up to his survival instincts clashing with his desire to keep pushing himself.

He let himself soak in her grin for a moment before finishing the thought. “Ben can still use his powers. You would still have yours. Nothing would have to change.”

Her smile froze as she hesitated. “Is that what you want…?”

He had spent decades guessing at what she wasn’t saying. He could guess now. He sighed. “Time changes everything. Even us.”

She grimaced. “You know everything I kept from you now. And I’m…” She seemed unable to form words for a second. “It’s like you said… You meant every word of that goodbye.”

“That was before.”

Everything about her in that moment spelled out her hurt, from the slump of her shoulders to the darkness welling in her eyes. “It really makes that much of a difference…? Knowing that I’m real?”

“Yes,” he said plainly, immediately regretting his bluntness when she winced.

“Not in the way I love you,” he corrected. The sound of his mother’s steady sweeping was loud over Delores’s stunned silence, and Five felt an imagined heat crawling up his neck to stain his face red even though he knew only the two of them had heard his outburst. But as unused as he was saying things so plainly with other people in the room, she needed to hear this.

He sighed, trying to choose his words carefully. “You shouldn’t be asking what I want. You know already. It’s all I’ve talked about for over forty years.” He looked around at the rubble in the entryway. “I want a better ending. For the world, for my family, for everyone…” He turned to look her in the eye, hoping she could read his sincerity. “Before all this, you were a constant, an untouchable piece of the universe, immune to harm or death or worse. I walked out of Gimbel Brothers believing I was leaving you happy. The picture in my head, of you living a second life with your friends, as relieved as I was to be back with your family in a world that was normal: it was all real. I could give you not just a better ending, but the best damn ending I could dream up.

“I can’t give you that ending anymore,” he said, his words quiet, lingering in the space between them. Comprehension was alight in her eyes, their hands still clasped tight. “But that’s why you shouldn’t be asking what I want. That’s not the right question. What matters is what you want.” He found himself mirroring her smile. “So, tell me Delores. What do you want to do after this?”

She closed her eyes, still smiling as if she were savoring something precious. Five wondered if she’d allow him to hug her again.

“I want to keep learning everything I can about this world,” she finally said, opening her eyes, her smile blooming into a grin. “I want to continue watching over everyone. I want to always have a place by your side…”

He answered her grin with his own. “I think we can make that work.”

Then, she let go of his hand so that she could finally close the distance between them, scooching over to lean against his side, taking the place she had always taken, the place she would always belong. He wrapped his arm around her, marveling at her softness compared to the plastic of her mannequin.

They sat like that for a good minute, and now that he was sitting still, Five felt the full weight of his exhaustion in his limbs, something hollowed out in his core.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, achingly gentle.

“Tired,” he admitted in a mumble.

She straightened up in his embrace to study his face. “You’ll be heading back to your body soon…”

He squared his shoulders. “I’m not that tired.”

She raised an eyebrow at him but relented with a sigh. They both knew what was waiting the moment he awoke.

“Come then,” she said, extracting herself from his embrace, grabbing his hand to pull him up as she stood. “There are several things I need to show you while you still have the strength.”

Waking was as disorienting as it was painful.

“One thing at a time,” Delores had said after showing him several pieces of the timeline. “Before anything else, you need to wake up.”

A shaky laugh had passed his lips at the thought of what was waiting for him. “Right.”

“Five…”

“No,” he waved off her concern. “I can handle it.” He groaned, rubbing his forehead. “But after seeing all that?”

She winced. “It was a lot…"

He sighed and looked up at her. "It was necessary."

She nodded and offered him a hand. "Ready?"

He took it, but stayed where he was. "Are you?"

Her face scrunched up in displeasure, her nose wrinkling in an adorable fashion. "I promised myself I would never go back there, but it's unavoidable now…"

He squeezed her hand, and only when she nodded at him did they leave. Together they rose, up, up, up out of the deep waters until—

He broke the surface, slamming back into his body, and immediately performed a spatial jump, just a foot to the left, just enough to shed the machinery and tubes hooked into his body. He fell off the cot, hitting the floor hard, and within that single second, the pain caught up to him.

The inferno consumed him, his skin blistering, his lungs burning. He had tried to steel himself before facing this, but the pain was overwhelming, chasing his thoughts from his head.

“Breathe.” Delores’s voice broke through everything else, and he immediately complied, sucking in a lungful of air and immediately sputtering it back out in a cough.

“Breathe,” she repeated. “In… and out…”

It took a few tries before he could match the steady tempo of her voice, and with it slowly came the rest of the world, the smooth tiles beneath his hands and knees, the harsh fluorescent lighting above him, a very familiar voice droning on with an unearned tone of superiority.

He groaned and sat up, blinking until his eyes could focus on the figure in the doorway and the crowd of assassins in front of her, filling the room, bared fangs waiting for permission to snap down on his neck.

“I think she’s talking to you,” Delores said dryly. He could feel her presence, sitting right beside him, but he could no longer see her.

“Hm…? Oh. Threats. You’re gonna have to start from the top. I’d rewind, but…” he mumbled. “Not worth it…”

“You okay?” Delores asked, a tinge of worry in her voice.

He nodded. “Head full of cotton.”

There was a dramatic sigh from the doorway, and Five blinked up at the Handler again. Her nose had healed crooked. Damn it, there wasn’t even a bruise left.

“Are you going to tell me how long, or do I have to guess?” he groaned.

The Handler raised an eyebrow, but whatever answer she gave, Five tuned out, as he listened to Delores make a sound in hesitation.

“Not sure you want to know…”

He looked down at himself and stretched a leg out. “Fuck.”

“Yeah…”

“I thought we’d get it a little closer to when I went under.”

“These things are difficult to pinpoint,” Delores answered, an apology in her tone.

“You’re talking to the girl,” a voice declared.

Five blinked up at the Handler again. Right. He and Delores were both there in that moment, and he was visible to other people in the room.

“Her name is Delores,” he answered plainly.

“Oh dear.” The Handler shook her head sadly. “You seem to be under the mistaken impression that she’s alive. But our doctors have tested her. She’s brain dead,” she said with a repugnant amount of satisfaction in her voice. “This Delores you’ve created is nothing more than a culmination of your loneliness and insanity.”

He scoffed, all but rolling his eyes. “A few years ago, you could have scared me into believing that,” he admitted. “But not anymore.”

“What a pity,” she said, though her voice did not reflect her words, “to see a brilliant mind in ruin. But we tried using you for your mind. We tried using your skills… Now, only your powers matter.” She turned to one of the assassins, a particularly burly man. “Get him back on the cot.”

Five laughed. He had thought the Handler had an idea of what she was dealing with when she had called so many assassins there, but now she was ordering only one of them forward?

The man’s giant hand grabbed him, Five’s skinny arm fitting snug in the man’s grip.

“Ah. Thanks,” Five muttered sardonically when the man dragged him up onto his feet. The man’s gun holster was right in front of Five.

Then, Five was two steps back, the gun raised, trigger pulled even before his entire body emerged from the jump. A dull thud sounded as the dead body hit the floor.

Everything was still for a moment.

“He doesn’t need his limbs anymore,” the Handler said flatly, and the assassins raised their weapons as one.

“Do you want to give them a warning?” Delores asked.

“Oh, sure.” His eyes scanned over the crowd. They weren’t red masks; they were quality assassins. The Commission’s most talented and most violent crept forward, a variety of weapons in their hands. What a shame it wasn’t a fair fight. “I spent all that time in the icy depths, and sure I came out an acorn most of the time, but compared to that… I don’t just glide across the ice. I’m an Olympic level skater now.”

“I don’t think they know that reference,” Delores giggled.

“Oh. Okay, how about this? You may be tigers, but this is my jungle. And I’m a gazelle.”

Delores chuckled. “Okay, see, now even I don’t know what you’re trying to say. You do realize gazelles don’t live in the jungle, right?”

“Yes, but I’m supposed to be crazy. Cracked. Lost his marbles.”

“And your best attempt at crazy talk is to misidentify a gazelle’s habitat?” Delores sighed. “Just tell them you’ll kill them if they come any closer.”

Five shrugged. “Oh, they already know that. I was just trying to warn them about how powerful I’ve gotten. They threw me into the ocean and forced me to learn how to breathe underwater. But we’re on dry land now. Breathing is easy.”

“That one,” one of the assassins said through a smiling purple mask, “I understood.”

Five grinned at her. “Good.”

They charged. Unable to use bullets for fear of hitting the harvesting machine, they dove at him, slicing, stabbing, and crushing.

It really wasn’t a fair fight.

Eight heartbeats later, Five stood in the middle of the room, wiping his bloody hands on his shorts.

“She ran,” Delores sighed. She was over by the doorway, peeking out into the hall.

Five snorted, unamused. “Forget her. We’ll catch up later.”

He turned on his heel, and nearly tripped on a body. Delores was suddenly next to him, and he thought he felt her hand reach for his arm as he swayed dangerously. He shrugged, looking in her direction. “Guess that took a bit more out of me than expected.”

“The fight or being drained of your powers for so long?”

He wanted to ask exactly how long long was, but it was better to think about that later. Though the fact that his limbs were longer than when he went under was a good clue.

No, right now, he needed to focus his energy on what came next. He dragged his feet over to the wall where the machine’s controls were.

“How do you open this?” he grumbled, staring at the monitor and plethora of keys and buttons beneath it. “Do you know?”

When Delores took a second too long to answer, he looked up and found her standing before the machine, staring at it if he had to guess.

“Even when I can't see you, you have an awful poker face,” he told her softly.

“What?” she asked, clearly distracted.

He didn’t respond with words. What they were facing was unspeakable anyway. Instead, he moved to her side and offered his hand, palm up. She placed her hand over his, a whisper of a touch against his skin. Then, she leaned into his side, the familiar sensation of her presence soothing.

Footsteps jolted him out of his reverie, and he slipped into a spatial jump, raising one of the many dropped blades over the head of the person coming through the door.

The man yelled in alarm, scrambling backwards, crashing into the woman behind him, who yelped in surprise. “Don’t hurt us! We’re here to help!"

Five blinked at the two cowering analysts. “It’s… Herb, right?”

Herb nodded, adjusting his glasses from where they had slid askew in his panic. “Yes, sir, Mr. Hargreeves.”

Five’s eyes slid to the woman, who visibly swallowed before responding. “Dot,” she said, her voice cracking.

“You’re scaring them,” Delores sighed.

“Mm-hmm.” Five didn’t lower the blade.

“We’re here to help,” Herb repeated, nervously ringing his hands.

“You know as well as I do that the analysts are mostly harmless,” Delores said tiredly.

“They’re still a cog in the machine,” Five muttered, ignoring the Herb and Dot’s confused looks.

“And I am literally a piece of the machine,” Delores shot back.

Five grimaced and dropped the weapon. “Sorry,” he said, mostly to Delores.

Herb nodded. “We’re not with the Handler. We’re a part of the resistance!” he explained quickly, raising a fist in front of him a meek show of enthusiasm. Five raised an eyebrow, and Herb seemed bolstered by the lack of discouragement. “We came to free you! This place has been under guard, so we couldn’t get in until… until now…” He trailed off as Five stepped away, letting them in the doorway, revealing the bodies littering the ground. Whatever shock he was feeling, Herb quickly brushed off, following Five in, Dot shadowing him. “I see you didn’t need help. Well, I guess we’ll have to start hiring after all this,” he joked. “What matters now is getting you downstairs. Your siblings are mounting an attack!”

Five smiled at that. “Right on time," he said, though there was never any doubt with Delores leading them to the right moment. "Good job."

"It was nothing," Delores said humbly, even though he could feel the rush of pride rolling off of her.

"It was some tricky time traveling," he corrected, shaking his head in amusement. He turned back to Herb and Dot who were clearly trying to ignore the fact that he was talking to thin air and gestured to the machine’s controls. “Can you open it?”

“Open?” Dot asked, bemused. The way she was staring around the room made it clear she had never been here before.

“Do you know how?” Five addressed Herb. “Have you worked this thing before?”

His last question came out more heated than he meant it to, but Herb was already shaking his head. “I’ve been here a few times, but it was only to receive new briefcases.” He leaned in, studying the keyboard beneath the monitor. “Let me see…” He began typing, his fingers dancing over the keys with the skills of one experienced with a typewriter.

Five leaned back against the wall, exhaustion and pain beginning to tug at his consciousness.

“That device…”

He looked up at Dot and where she was pointing at the contraption that had connected him to the harvester.

Her shoulders sagged as she pieced it together. “We knew you were down here. The Handler insisted on making so many changes,” she gestured to one of the guard’s uniforms. “When she had us switch from briefcases to the chronometers, we all thought it was the one sensible change she made. The chronometers are more secure and easier to carry around—easier on the wrist. But… Then, there were problems with their energy output. We thought she wanted you to fix it.”

So, the Commission called the wristwatches chronometers? Five snorted derisively. “In a way.”

Dot’s head dipped in shame. “We should have figured out a way around the guards,” she said quietly.

“We’re cleaning shop now,” Herb said, far too cheerfully as he continued to type. “Once we get rid of the bad apples—”

“No,” Five cut him off sharply, and Herb paused, looking over his shoulder at Five. “It’s over,” Five said. “As of today, the Temps Commission is done.”

Herb’s mouth hung open slightly, but no words came out. His fingers still sat over the keys. “But… The timeline…”

“Will be fine,” Five said curtly. "The Infinite Switchboard will be destroyed, and there will be no way for you to monitor the timeline like you have been."

“They need to see it,” Delores whispered to him through the sudden tension.

“Open it. Then, we can talk,” Five insisted, and after a moment, Herb nodded and got back to work.

A short while later, or perhaps a long while later—Five’s sense of time was too muddled to tell—Herb exclaimed in victory. A large, square panel of the machine, right where Five had figured it to be, where he had been waiting, gave a soft hiss, like silk sliding against itself, and the machine rolled her drawer out.

He saw the tubes and wires first. They were impossible to ignore, spilling off her clean-shaven head in a poor imitation of hair, piercing the veins in her arms, dangling from her body. And then there was the grotesque metal collar around her neck from where they were stealing her starlight. It was similar to the shackle that had been on Five’s wrist but was clunky and inelegant in comparison. Five was sure his father would scoff at the inferior design.

Dot and Herb gasped in horror. Five couldn’t tear his eyes away, but he could feel Delores right behind him, facing away, unable to look.

“All this time…” Dot’s voice was strangled.

Five swallowed hard against the smothering feeling in his chest and forced himself to look past the wires.

His stomach swooped. She was barely recognizable as the woman he loved. Her cheeks were sunken, her skin sallow.

There was no connection anymore between this body and Delores. He knew that, but he still found him reaching out, to feel, just once, her hand in his.

He froze, his blood-caked nails were stark red compared to her simple, white robe. His stained hand hovered just above hers.

A handkerchief was thrust in front of him. Five looked up at Dot, at her hesitant, sympathetic smile, and accepted the handkerchief without a word.

Soft. After scrubbing his hands raw, unable to be rid of all the stains without water, his hand finally closed around hers. Her skin was so soft.

“Five?” Delores was pressed against him, her back leaning against his. Somehow she felt heavier against him than her usual feather-light touch. “I’m right here.”

He let out a shaky breath, unaware of when he had started to hold it. “You’re the one dying,” he muttered. “I should be comforting you.”

“I’m ready. I’ve been ready.”

“I’m not,” he admitted in a whisper, his throat suddenly feeling strangled. Herb and Dot were watching him closely, emanating concern and confusion. He closed his eyes tight as he asked one last time. “You’re sure…?”

“Yes.”

Then, before he could overthink it, he gave himself over completely to his trust in her and plucked one of the wires from her head. He managed to pull out three before the machine began slowly beeping in a steady, polite protest. He pulled out seven wires before another sound, this one more grating, interrupted.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the Handler’s voice echoed a bit over the loudspeaker.

Five gritted his teeth and glanced around for the camera.

“If you continue, you’ll kill her. Are you truly willing to murder the woman you love?”

Five scoffed under his breath, finally finding the security camera in the corner of the room, grabbing a gun from the closest body on the floor, and firing one clean shot through the spying lens. He set the gun down near Delores’s feet, careful not to burn her with the muzzle, and began untangling wires again.

“Mr. Hargreeves, um… sir, are you sure? What she said…”

“Look at what’s in front of you,” Five answered sharply, and both Herb and Dot stilled. “Is there even a life to take here?”

A moment later, the two of them stepped forward and began helping to extract Delores until finally she was free. The machine’s beeping grew to an obnoxious shriek, drawing both Dot and Herb away to fuss over the controls.

Five lay his hand against the side of her face, cupping her cheek, still hoping in vain to feel some spark of her beneath his fingertips.

Nothing.

She wasn’t there, and yet… She was warm. It was just like when he had embraced her on the stairs in the foyer, yet completely different. He had never felt such a simple thing as body heat from her before.

The weight of it all hit him so suddenly, he nearly crumpled beneath it; his adrenaline was being outmatched by emotion and exhaustion. He gathered the last of his strength to slide one arm under her shoulders, his other under her knees, and lifted. Her body wouldn’t spend its last moments where it had been trapped for its entire life. He made it only a few steps away before his knees buckled. Trying stubbornly to stay on his feet, he stumbled to the wall, but he couldn’t feel his legs beneath him, his vision swimming.

He blinked, struggling against the growing dimness, finding himself on the floor, Delores held close to his chest, her head lolling on his shoulder. She smelled like plastic and disinfectant, but there was something else beneath, something uniquely human, uniquely her. Tears suddenly pricking his eyes, he buried his face in her shoulder and breathed it in.

She had said she wanted to stay with him, even as a ghost. He wasn’t truly losing her. But as he sat there, breathing her in for the first and last time, tears staining her white smock, there was no mistake. There may have been no life to take, but there was no question: this was a death.

“What did you do to him?!”

“Nothing! He’s just resting!”

A hand on his shoulder jolted Five back into his body, and he found himself with his arms still full of Delores's weight, his body feeling just as heavy and useless. Allison—adult Allison—knelt close, looming over him, and something bright—Ben—stood over her shoulder, an imposing figure over a pale Herb and Dot, the latter trying somehow to look smaller than the former.

“So,” Klaus said as he appeared over Allison’s other shoulder. “Just taking a nap in a room full of dead bodies?”

“You were taking too long,” Five groused, trying to sit up from his slumped position.

Allison’s hand was still on his shoulder, holding him in place as her other hand went to rub against his cheek with the edge of her shirt sleeve.

“What’re you—” Five sputtered before he recognized the feeling of tears being wiped from his skin.

He hurriedly batted away her hands with his free hand, scrubbing his own sleeve across his face before adjusting his grip on Delores, preparing to stand.

Allison clicked her tongue in disapproval. He glared up at her, only to be met with an exasperated sigh as she leaned in close again, her arms open and outstretched. He continued to glare, not understanding for a moment. Then, Allison gently readjusted the Delores’s smock, smoothing a wrinkle from the white cloth. Five’s grip on her thin frame tightened for a moment.

“I have her.” Allison’s voice was barely more than a strained whisper, but as they stared at each other, Five felt his decision, something loosening in his chest, his shoulders drooping, before the decision was clear in his mind.

“Okay.”

He watched as Allison gathered Delores’s body up with all the care of a mother lifting a sleeping child. Then, he staggered to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall the whole time. Ben stepped forward, his arms opening up just like Allison’s.

“Before you say no—”

“You’re not carrying me.”

Five knew that frown better than his own. Ben stepped a little closer, defiant. “You can barely stand. How are you going to—”

“Zhoop!” Something skimmed along the back of Five’s neck.

The only reason Five’s fist didn’t make contact with Klaus’s solar plexus was because his brain registered his brother’s ridiculous sound effect in time and Klaus had had the foresight to lean back in a dramatic, swoon-like fashion, dodging as best he could with one of his hands trapped in Five’s grip.

“Klaus!” Ben admonished, but their brother grinned unabashedly.

“At least you didn’t throw me this time,” he said to Five as he straightened up.

Five’s pulse was racing, his entire body filled to the brim with fresh adrenaline, words as elusive as a full breath.

“Klaus,” Ben tried again. Allison was shaking her head, exasperated.

“It’s my specialty,” Klaus had the gall to say with a straight face, “bringing the dead back to the land of the living.”

Five barked out a shocked laugh, finally letting go of Klaus’s wrist.

“Hey, now,” he retorted, “I’m not dead yet.”

That said, his adrenaline wouldn’t last long this time. He needed to find some of his stolen power as soon as possible.

“Hurry up,” he called back to them, already having made a spatial jump across the room. Then, he was out the door, his legs numb beneath him. Looked like jumps would be easier than walking.

The din of gunfire and yelling told him which way to go, and three chained jumps later, through the Handler's abandoned office and into the hallway, he was at the stairs, and then, down the stairs, and there were the rest of his siblings. He landed clumsily next to Diego and Luther, catching himself against the wall the two of them were bracing against as a shock wave of shimmering light crashed through the room.

“Do the rest of us even need to be here?” Diego grumbled, but the awe was obvious in his voice.

“I’m feeling in the way,” Luther admitted.

The two of them hadn’t noticed Five yet, their attention where everyone else’s was: on Vanya. She was in the center of the room, the main entryway of the building, glowing more fantastically than Ben was, dozens of agents collapsed at her feet, several more yelling at each other for a tactical retreat.

“Are they down there?” Five asked, squinting in concentration as he tried to focus past the spectacle of his sister and down the hall.

“What? Whoa! Five!” Diego did a double-take. “You look like death—”

“Are they keeping the chronometers down there?” Five repeated.

“The wristwatches?” Luther clarified. “We think so. The room on the left-hand side.”

Five nodded. They were close. Just a single hallway between them. His graying periphery caught sight of Ben, Klaus, and Allison running down the stairs to meet them. Before he could turn to them, a quick succession of flashing lights down the hall caught his attention. A few silhouettes at first, and then, the red-masked agents were suddenly crowding the hallway where there had been nobody a flash of light before.

“Shit,” Five murmured as he realized what they were seeing. The agents didn’t care about the paradox psychosis or any other paradox inflicted damage when they knew they’d very likely be dead in a few minutes anyway. They were time traveling in small bursts, every few moments returning to the present without completing the loop, multiplying their numbers exponentially.

But Vanya was already prepared, the room hushing, as if holding its breath for a moment as light gathered around her before rushing forth in an incredible show of power. With just that, the red masks fell, rag-dolls joining the others already on the ground.

“Vanya,” Five called when the coast was clear. And he was next to her, steeling himself as he looked up into her pale face. But it wasn’t the pale woman from the concert hall—it wasn’t the apocalypse that looked down at him. It was his sister, his terrifyingly powerful, amazingly compassionate sister.

“Five! You’re okay!”

Her voice reverberated through his chest, rattling his bones. He blinked hard against the narrowing of his vision. “Can you get us close?”

Her brow creased with worry. “You look ready to pass out.”

Five blinked past the darkness encroaching on his vision and the brightness of her powers and saw the sweat on her face, the short, gasping breaths she was taking. “So do you.” He grimaced. “Do you have enough for one more round?”

“I…” She bit her lip.

“We’ve got it from here,” Luther cut in. He and Diego stepped in front of them, and then all the rest of them, his family pulled in close in a protective circle. Delores’s hand ghosted against Five's empty palm. Luther glanced at Five and opened his mouth, probably to give his own opinion about Five’s appearance, before his lips pressed into a thin line for a moment. He must have sensed this was not the moment to try and deter Five. “Diego, Ben, you’re up front with me.”

Five ignored his brothers' banter about Luther's command as Allison sidled up to him, adjusting Delores’s body over one shoulder so she could offer an arm to Five. Behind her, he could see Klaus throwing an arm around Vanya to help keep her upright and moving. This wasn't the time to argue, so he let Allison hook her arm under his. And then they were all charging forward. Their vanguard worked with the ease of childhood experience, Diego deflecting bullets and throwing knives while Luther hurled great chunks of rubble from Vanya’s earlier attacks as they advanced. Then, when another wave of agents became overwhelming, they would all plant themselves defensively as Ben took point, unleashing his monsters until the number of agents were manageable for Luther and Diego again.

Five began counting his heartbeats as they went, his blood loud in his ears, despite the deafening chaos around them. Judging from his count, they were moving quickly, but the onslaught felt unbearably endless. The tangled mess of paradoxes collapsed all around them was turning his stomach, the nausea growing warm and suffocating in his throat. The temporal energy all around them should be helping keep him conscious, but this misuse had him clinging to Allison until his nails went white.

Just a few more steps. Just a few more, and he could see the room.

There! Right there! He could feel the pull of the chronometers, of clean temporal energy, and even better, the door to the room was open. One quick spatial jump—his family was right behind him—one jump and—

The crack of a gunshot came first.

He blinked, confused as to why he was suddenly on the ground. He had made it, successfully into the room, and he could breathe again. The thrum of the temporal energy, energy that had been harvested from him, surrounded him, poured into him in a steady stream, and he welcomed the giddy head rush that came with it.

But he was on the ground, and there had been a gunshot, and his family was shouting his name, fear in their voices. The Handler stepped out from behind the open door, tapping a few buttons on the chronometer around her wrist, gun still in her hand, in the same moment that Five realized why his legs weren’t listening to him.

Blood, hot and bright red against his skin, gushed unrestrained from the wound, pooling around his knee. He’d feel it in a few seconds, when the fresh adrenaline from the temporal energy wore off.

Oh. Or that could happen.

His family’s voices went quiet, like a radio clicking off, and the temporal energy around him stopped humming. Instead, it pulled tight around him, a series of rubber bands around his skin. It was still seeping into him, but pure water had turned to molasses.

Five didn’t have time to fully understand this new sensation however, for the Handler was moving out the door, her gun raised, ready to shoot down everyone now trapped in the amber of the time stop. Good thing Five didn’t need his legs to move.

The bullet entered his chest, a couple inches below his heart. It was a clumsy spatial jump, essentially landing him on top of her outstretched arm, but the gun had been sent skittering across the floor as she toppled over in their struggle and that was all that mattered.

“You…!” Whatever curses she was about to hurl at him were cut off by his fist to her jaw. Unfortunately, he was lacking his usual strength, and she popped up a moment later, going for her gun.

He didn’t understand how he hadn’t already passed out, but he didn’t much care if it meant he could continue fighting. Time was still squeezing its way into him, healing the gaping hole where his powers had been torn open by the harvesting machine, but it was also making his body numb. And his wounds…

He had sat up. His wounds… No pain. No blood…

He had to…

The gun. He needed to get up and…

Someone was shouting his name. A familiar voice, a familiar sense of fear for him pressing against the back of his mind.

Delores. Relief hit him like a physical blow, knocking something loose, allowing him to breathe again, and he latched onto her voice like a lifeline, turning to his left, where he knew she was despite his eyes seeing nothing but air. As much as he had believed her when she said she wanted to stay, he hadn’t been sure what the death of her body would do, and he hadn’t sensed her when his siblings had woken him. He hadn’t felt her presence until this moment, held in place by their stolen power, brimming with the energy that connected them.

“Five, listen,” she said, her words rushed, her voice barely concealing panic. “Absorbing this frozen time is going to freeze you too, but it’s also the only thing keeping you from the effects of that gunshot wound. You’ll have to keep going. I’ll take the lead on the original plan and do something about the Handler, but you’ll have to distract her. Keep her talking.”

He nodded and drew a deep breath. She needed him to stubbornly cling to consciousness? He could do that. He staggered up onto numb feet, squaring his shoulders. The Handler was picking up her gun and turning to face him. He was between her and his family, but if she decided to start firing again…

“Now, trust me.” Delores’s hand held his tightly, and he let her guide him, lifting his hand up until he felt it, something new beneath his fingertips. The thick layer of time binding the moment in a standstill was sandwiched between their grips. The bands of energy pulled painfully taut around him, and he gasped. He could feel it, everything held within this moment of time, his siblings, the Handler, the dying agents, Delores.

“Let me direct it,” Delores called, and he didn’t fully understand what that meant. But he tightened his grip on her and imagined pushing the energy thrumming between their palms into her hand and felt immediate relief.

Then, he blinked and realized the Handler was aiming her revolver directly at Vanya. A gunshot cracked the silence at the same time he felt Delores yank their hands down, and blue splintered the world.

The Handler fired again, and again, and again until she emptied the cylinder, her finger pulling uselessly on the trigger. But her bullets were caught in midair, frozen by an invisible barrier, the only evidence of which were the thin blue cracks emanating from the swell of blue light pouring from Five and Delores’s hands.

The Handler dropped the empty gun and began tapping away at her chronometer instead, and Five couldn’t help but watch in fascination. He had never seen that look on her face: panic. She was panicking. For all their encounters, she had always been the one in control, the one with a trap waiting to ensnare him. And now, as her technology failed her, she must’ve known what came next.

He chuckled out of utter bemusement at the turnabout, and she froze, her eyes flicking up from the wristwatch to glare at him. She must have realized what he was seeing as she straightened up, her frustration replaced with a mask of calm, her hand going to her boot to produce a long, vicious looking knife.

He snorted at the weapon. “You take one step towards them, and you’re dead. And dying is the one thing we both know you won’t allow.”

She smirked, although it wasn’t convincing with the way she was eyeing the light encompassing his hand. He felt Delores pull a little harder on the energy, and Time responded gladly, buckling at the edges of the room, gathering itself around him and Delores. The Handler swallowed hard, but her smirk stayed stubbornly in place. “Someone needs to protect the timeline.”

Five scoffed, unamused. “Oh, right. I forgot about the propaganda you’ve been spewing to new recruits.”

“Propaganda? It’s the truth—”

“It’s bullshit!”

She leaned back a little, looking entirely too smug about his reaction. “Without the Commission’s corrections, the timeline will fall into chaos.”

“Natural chaos. Free will enabled chaos. Not whatever predetermined bullshit the Board decided is the proper timeline.” He paused before correcting himself. “Or I guess it’s just your decision now that the Board is dead.”

Something flickered in her eyes at that, but her self-satisfied smile stayed in place. “You really don’t see it?” She laughed, a mocking sound. “You went back in time to shape the timeline in what you deemed right.”

“A timeline in which people stay alive? Yes!” he snapped, and he could feel the bands of time squeeze around him as if in response. “I did! If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it. But stopping the apocalypse is different than what the Commission has been doing!”

She was shaking her head, tsking in disappointment. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with. There is no escaping the apocalypse. It is meant to happen. Your sister’s apocalypse was chosen simply because it was the most merciful.”

“It killed everyone,” Five snarled through clenched teeth.

She waved away his words, rolling her eyes. “It was quick. If you knew—”

“I know!” he declared. The blue in his hand was curling up his arm, thrumming with its own pulse. “I know exactly what’s coming, and unlike you, I’m going to stop it. That’s the difference! You’ve all known this entire time, and you’ve done nothing to prepare, nothing to fight. You just accepted it. Accepted the death of humanity like you had no choice.”

“There is no choice. There is no way around it, no timeline—”

“There is always another timeline! None of this is predetermined. Hell, none of it is determined if I can keep going back. I don’t care how many times it takes. I’ll find a timeline free of the fate you’ve assigned it.”

Her jaw tensed, then her entire body, like a snake preparing to strike, and something in her stance changed, her knife no longer aimed at his siblings but at Five. “You actually believe that,” she said quietly, a dangerous edge to her voice. “I don’t get it,” she admitted. “You were never like this before.”

The denial was at the tip of his tongue, a reflex she had instilled in him, but he swallowed it down. “Not while I knew you,” he conceded. “You made sure of that. You could have pulled me from the apocalypse at any point, but you waited decades until I was desperate enough to accept your terms.”

“I saved you,” she had the gall to claim. “I was the one who convinced the Board that you could be an asset to us. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be rotting in that hell. You owe me.”

That again? His indignation prickled with heat, just below his skin, but that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? One look at the glint in her eyes, and he could sense the trap. He could also see her desperation. The blue light encompassing his hand was blinding, and Delores, he knew without being able to see her, was smiling, ready and waiting for him to finish.

There was no need to play the Handler’s game. It was time for this all to end.

Still, he couldn’t resist one last jab. “Is that what you told your daughter?”

The effect was just as he hoped, her face tensing, eyes darkening.

“Do you see your mistake yet?” he asked, not expecting an answer, not wanting an answer. “You didn’t allow your lackey to drug me when you hooked me up to the machine, so I was awake. I was awake for all of it.”

Comprehension was finally dawning on her if her stricken expression was any indication.

He smiled, mercilessly. “All that time… All of time, open to me. You think I’d let it pass me by without learning everything I could about this place? About what is coming? About time itself?”

He planted his feet, and with Delores guiding his hand, they pulled on the fabric of time like pulling down a great curtain. The thin, spider-web splinters tore open, and the world exploded with blue.

It was a storm, a twisting maelstrom of energy as Time finally broke free of its chains. Pain ignited in his chest and his leg as the bands around him released, and he could hear his family behind him, yelling in alarm. A series of rapid bangs, like firecrackers, came from the room the chronometers were housed in as the stolen energy was ripped from their batteries, the blue starlight rushing forth to join the storm, and the Handler was screaming as the chronometer on her wrist burst, her arm mangled and bleeding. Bleeding too much, too quickly. Red poured forth unchecked as the Handler's time sped forward. Her knife flashed as she dove forward in one last, desperate attack.

But nobody could touch them. Five and Delores stood in the eye of the storm, and he could see shapes forming in the blinding blue, familiar shapes and images wrapping around them.

They were teenagers again, his lips cracked and a mannequin at her feet, the sky of the apocalypse still hazy orange. And they were fifty again, his beard long and unkempt and her face wrinkled to match his, their library, their home, full of their life together. And they were thirty, he was in his scavenger gear and she was in her favorite sparkly dress, their gardens growing green and vibrant around them.

A whole lifetime of moments spent side-by-side.

Delores swept the last vestiges of the time stop, a thick heaviness, into their clasped hands, and the bullets frozen in midair finally fell to the ground, just as the one who shot them did. Even in death, the Handler's face was still pulled back in a sneer.

The rest of the blue began to freely pour into him, as if someone had turned a valve. It was cool water over a burn. The pain of his wounds was a minor sensation compared to the rush of his stolen power returning to him.

But he did notice the spike of fear Delores was now feeling. And he did notice how difficult it was to breathe, the taste of iron on his tongue.

Oh.

He coughed, blood spewing from his mouth, but he still couldn't breathe. He kept coughing, but the blood kept coming. He couldn't breathe! He was choking; he was drowning!

It was as if the temporal energy knew and grew quiet at the sight of him. Five quickly found the force of the storm had been the only thing keeping him upright. He fell forward, his family’s shouts in his ears, Delores crying out for Klaus to conjure her, her hand slipping from his grip.

It was the end. The end of the Handler, the end of the Commission. The end of another in his long list of missions.

He fell, and the End met him before the floor did, scooping him into its embrace. There was an ocean below, but this time, Five found the waters perfectly still and empty.