Chapter Text
Klaus has a headache. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an understatement, but he’d much rather think about the pounding in his skull from the starvation and dehydration than the fact that there is a giant wooden beam in his stomach. Klaus lets out a low groan as he drags himself an inch closer to where Ben is straining to hold the end of the beam. Ben grimaces as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, “I get that you’re impaled and all, but maybe you could hurry up a little? My arms are burning.” Klaus doesn’t have the strength to do anything but lift his head to glare at Ben as he slowly creeps towards freedom. Sometimes being immortal sucks ass.
After failing to stop the apocalypse for the second time in a row, everyone had kind of scattered. The nukes came raining down and Klaus was forced to suffer as his organs boiled inside his body and he blistered beyond recognition. He couldn’t seem to die. With nothing to numb the pain, he was forced to wait in agony for an indiscernible amount of time with no one but Ben to keep him company. He was pretty sure that he had been passed out for the last few days, but still God refused to open Her gates and let him into the afterlife. Turns out Vanya was the bomb. They couldn’t stop her from blowing up the federal building, and in the end, the whole world exploded.
“You’re almost there,” Ben grunts, performing a miraculous balancing act as he shifts to the other side of Klaus, arms shaking. Klaus must’ve blacked out, his body just going through the motions for the past couple minutes as his brain struggled to block out the pain. He was almost there. Oh, thank God. He almost feels the burning in his stomach subside as hope flares within him. Almost. With one last trembling step, he heaves himself off the beam, and promptly falls flat on his face. Klaus tries to breathe as he hears Ben let the bloodied wood go with a thud. Respiration just feels a little different nowadays, what with one of his lungs punctured and filled with blood.
Gasping and hacking up some more coppery fluid, Klaus manages to flip himself over onto his back, very purposefully ignoring all the dirt and ash and other post-apocalyptic substances that are surely infecting the gaping wound in his gut. He whimpers as something twinges near his hip, “This is the fucking worst.” Klaus flops an arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun, because apparently, the sun can’t afford to take just the day off and give him a break. Ben sits next to him and hums sympathetically, elbows resting on his knees. “At least you can die, Ben, I wanna join the cool kids club too!” As torturous as it is to move, Klaus needs the security of having his knees snug to his chest, all curled up into a ball. Klaus licks the metallic taste away from his gums- at this point, it’s become a habit.
“I almost wish you would die,” Ben crinkles his nose, “it’s definitely more pleasant than this.”
Klaus sticks a thumb up in the air. “Thanks for your vote of confidence,” he grumbles, shivering as his ever-present fever wracks his body with cold sweat.
“Klaus,” Ben hesitates, “I- uh, I didn’t want to be gone when you woke up, but I really need to check on the others, see if anyone else survived.”
Tears blur Klaus’s vision, “Ben-”
“Please Klaus, I need to know if we’re alone or not. I need to know.” Ben walks over and grasps his hand, providing this odd sort of pressure that always feels ethereal with its eternally neutral temperature.
Klaus takes a steadying if slightly inhibited breath. God, he needs to pull himself together, never mind the fact that he’s basically a zombie now. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, you go and I’ll- I’ll wait here I guess.” Ben squeezes his hand before he disappears, simply blinking out of existence as he goes to check on his brothers and sisters.
---
Diego opens his eyes to the quiet of his underwater cave surrounding him. That’s strange. Blowing the water out of his scuba mask, Diego presses his hands to the smooth walls, eyes widening as he realizes that they have finally stopped their ceaseless tremors. Poking his head out of his cave, Diego realizes that the surface of the ocean was no longer boiling. The apocalypse, it seems, has passed. And Diego has survived it. Fucking yeah! Diego gurgles out a small whoop, ready to head to the surface. He is done drinking from the freshwater spring in his cave and living off of seaweed and small fish, he can get back up to the outside world and see what has become of the world as he knows it. What has become of the world as he knows it?
Diego furrows his eyebrows. Are any of his siblings even still alive? Well, probably Five, but that sneaky little bastard is always finding ways to rewrite his future. What has happened to Vanya, to Luther? There was no way that they- Diego shakes the thoughts right out of his head. He’ll deal with that when he fucking gets to it. For now, Diego swims for the surface, being careful to avoid any stray venomous creatures that he has almost died at the hands of on numerous occasions.
When his face breaks the surface, the fresh air feels so foreign and yet wonderful that Diego finds himself gasping for it, despite not really even needing it. He can now see that he is barely a mile out from shore, and he quickly sets out toward land, legs kicking hard at the prospect of standing on solid ground once again. What Diego doesn’t realize is that a very surprised ghost has plopped down in the water beside him without so much as a splash.
---
Ben is tired. Technically that’s impossible, what with him being a ghost and all, but Ben can't help but feel all worn out after finding Allison, half-buried in the rubble and clutching one of Raymond’s hands in her own. Then came Luther, shirt torn open and stained red, chest half caved in under the weight of some chunk of building. That’s why Ben is so surprised when he is not only dropped in the ocean and forced to swim, but also when he finds his brother not floating on the surface like a dead fish, but making a beeline for shore. “Diego!” he calls, before realizing that he’s an idiot. Oh fuck. He’s gonna have to find out where he is. Ben swims as rapidly as he can to catch his brother, snagging his arms around his neck for a free piggyback ride. Diego doesn’t mind.
As Diego swims, Ben thinks. He has to figure out a way to get Klaus to Diego. It isn’t really that his life depends on it- more like his mental health and general well-being. They get to shallow water and Ben lets go as his brother stands up, and stumbles a bit, but manages to stay on his feet. He trails after Diego as his brother wanders like a lost puppy looking for a landmark or something that could tell him where he is. He turns to where Diego is standing over a sign: “Welcome to Galveston,” it reads, and below that: “Population 50,457.” Ben closes his eyes, committing it to memory. Galveston. Then, he prepares for his next jump.
Vanya, he thinks, opening his eyes to an entirely different scene. It is still kind of discombobulating, but Ben has gotten used to his “ghost hopping” as Klaus calls it, and closing his eyes helps. He is back where he had found Allison and Luther, pretty close to where Klaus is, actually, and it takes Ben a second to spot her. She lays, clothes once again shining white in spite of the debris that surrounds her personal crater. The fifty-foot in diameter depression in the ground indicates that she certainly went out with a bang. In Vanya’s arms are Sissy and Harlan, dead despite all his sister’s efforts to save them. The image before him makes his heart clench, so he snaps his eyes shut again. Time to see if Number Five is anywhere around here.
When Ben blinks his eyes open, he is confused. The air currents, the lack of humidity, the world around him- nothing has changed. Ben shuts his eyes and tries again. It seems that Five is in a different time, just like when he disappeared the first time. He’s not going to get anywhere in his search for his (much) older brother right now, he’ll just have to try again later. Having exhausted his to-do list, Ben ghost hops back to Klaus to report his findings.
---
Five wakes up trapped. His arms are crossed over his chest while his ankles are chained, rendering him immobile. He’s in a small, poorly lit white room, only accessed by an iron door with a thick pane of glass. Through the distortion of the glass, Five can see a woman with an elaborate green hat- the Handler. “Not this shit again...” Five mumbles, easily phasing out of the room and out of his restraints, popping into the hallway on the other side of the glass with a flash of blue light. Five irritably straightens his tie and pulls at his jacket sleeves in an attempt to flatten out the wrinkles that have appeared. When he’s finished, he looks up to see that the Handler has turned around, sporting a dainty smirk on her face.
“Hello, Five,” she says, not moving from where she is standing.
Five glares back, “And that served… what purpose?” She really hadn’t needed to lock him up, she knew it that it wasn’t going to do any good.
The Handler adjusts her hat before replying, shifting it to a steeper angle on her impeccable white curls. “Oh,” she waves a dismissive hand, “It was fun to see you squirm just a bit.”
Five’s frown deepens as he sets off down the hallway in search of a lounge, and, in turn, some coffee. The Handler makes no attempt to talk to him as they make their way down the fluorescent-lit halls, her clacking heels trailing his quieter uniform shoes. When Five finally finds a room with a couple couches and a full coffee pot, he phases up onto the counter to reach the mugs before coming back down and pouring some for himself. “Want anything?”
The Handler shakes her head, sitting down. “I’m fine for right now.” She pats the spot next to her, crossing her legs. “Join me.”
Rather than walk around the small table in the center of the room, Five phases to the couch and sits down. Five sips in silence for a few minutes before asking, “Well?”
Humming and tapping her fingernails against her thigh, the Handler lets out a light huff. “Well, I was hoping we could cooperate for the time being? I can help you with your current... family issues.”
Five scoffs, taking another sip of his bitter black coffee. “And what is it that you want me to do in exchange?”
The Handler grins, “You know me so well.”
“You have the tendency to get more than you give.”
“True. However, the world wasn’t supposed to end in 1963. The timeline has been derailed and it must be set back on its proper course.” She sends him a charming smile. “You can help me with that, Number Five.”
“And this ‘proper course’ will cause the world to end in 2019?” That doesn’t seem like a great deal if Five is being honest.
The Handler chuckles nonchalantly. “Oh goodness no, that was all just a big mistake.”
It takes a second for Five to process her words before he can barely hold himself back from gaping at her in anger and flat disbelief. “A big mistake?” How the fuck could the end of the world be a mistake? Mistakes are trusting Klaus to go shopping. Or drinking instant coffee just because you need some caffeine.
“We had a slight misunderstanding. Don’t worry, the problem has been taken care of.” The cheshire grin on her face unnerves him enough to not question it, he knows what the Handler is capable of.
Five is still composing himself after that bomb when there comes a sharp knock on the door. “Lila?” he asks, staring at the familiar girl. Diego’s girlfriend- of course she works for the commission.
The girl in question steps through the doorway and opts to ignore him in favor of addressing the Handler. “Mother,” (Five scoffs, he knew there was something off about her), “what is a criminal doing in the Commission?” Criminal? Children are annoying.
The Handler tilts her head at her daughter, “There are no criminals here, simply valuable assets.”
Five rolls his eyes, setting his coffee on a side table, “You can leave now, the adults are talking.”
Lila doesn’t seem to like that, and she responds in kind with her usual blunt sass. “But mom, why can’t we just kill him? He deserves it and you know it.” Lila slyly reaches towards a knife on her belt, fingering it with a grin, “Whatever it is you need him for, I’m sure that I could do it instead.” He ignores the knife, she’s not anyone he needs to be afraid of.
A small pout appears on the Handler’s face at the backtalk, “I highly doubt that. Leave, and we will discuss this later.” At least their relationship involved more communication than Five had ever had with Reginald.
Lila restrains herself from saying anything else and instead backs into the hallway, shutting the door with a soft click. Five immediately pipes up, “So I stop the apocalypse and you give me back my family. You’ll put us all back into the correct timeline?” The Handler nods in assent, giving the go-ahead for Five to ask his most important question. The question that’s been burning in his mind ever since he last saw Hazel.
“How do I stop the apocalypse?”