Chapter Text
“Dad, who the hell are these assholes?” Such a familiar voice. A voice that Klaus knew better than his own.
Was that Ben?
Ben was alive?
Ben was alive!
Most of the siblings were confused for a moment, they saw the man but took a while to recognize him, Klaus was the only one who really knew what Ben looked like as a full-grown adult after all. Nonetheless, they had seen his ghost materialize thanks to Klaus’s powers and they knew that face and that voice and slowly recognition dawned on them and confusion turned to shock.
Klaus’s reaction itself was a mix of shock and elation so intense that he found himself frozen to the spot, for the first time in his life he was at loss for words.
Klaus never really got a chance to mourn his brother, not really. His siblings mourned Ben as teenagers and young adults but Klaus had only just lost his brother, his constant companion, the Jiminy Cricket on his shoulder, days before when he stopped feeling and seeing the ghost of his better half, he’d been repressing that grief for a while and prioritizing the apocalypse and their return home and the fact that his siblings needed him.
Sure, Klaus wasn’t all that good at doing the right thing or even knowing what the right thing was, he was often so self-involved or distracted by the dead that he didn’t notice what was happening around him but he cared. Empathy for his siblings came naturally, it always had no matter how selfish they thought he was, he’d do anything for his family; he knew he could a burden and a hilarious annoyance half the time so the least he could do was be there for moral support, he’d damned if he allowed any of his siblings to suffer alone.
Yet, right at that moment Klaus couldn’t even remember that he had other siblings because Ben was standing right there and all of Klaus’s emotions that he had been pushing down came bubbling up and boiling over until he felt like his brain was short circuiting. He couldn’t tell right away if he was looking at ghost or the real thing but everyone else was staring too so it had to be real, it had to be Ben.
Except Ben never used that tone with them, he did call them assholes but it was always affectionate, and Ben never had a scar on his face, and that uniform was so appalling that he’d never be caught dead in it (pun fully intended). Worst of all, this Ben looking at him not with affection or concern or frustration or annoyance or even anger, but with something far worse- indifference.
This Ben acted like he didn’t even know Klaus in the first place.
It was Ben, but it wasn’t Ben. Not his Ben.
Nonetheless, Klaus still wanted to run to this Ben, still wanted to hug him and smack him for calling him an asshole. He was so lost between the that urge and the shock that he barely noticed daddy dearest was alive, barely registered that his siblings were talking to the hateful old man.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Someone, Luther apparently, was arguing with Dad. “What the hell is a Sparrow Academy?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Luther?” Five mocked, derisively and full of venom, but that tone was not directed at his brother, it was not Luther he was looking at. “He met us in ’63 and decided to change the timeline, he decided not to adopt us.”
“And who the fuck are these dudes?” Diego interjected, waving vaguely at the silent shadows standing imposingly on the balcony.
“I’m guessing Lila wasn’t the only wild card.” Five deduced, snarky and still staring down their father… or not father apparently. “Just how many of us were born that day? Because obviously,” he waved at the balcony people as well. “it was far more than you told us. What happened? Did the other parents not want to sell their miracle babies the first time around?”
“It is of no consequence.” Reginald dismissed. “I thought you would be pleased. You no longer have me to blame for your failures and shortcomings.”
“Wait, then what happened to us?” Allison asked, alarmed and confused, most likely thinking about what this meant for Claire.
“I haven’t the faintest idea, nor do I care.” Sir Reginald scoffed.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Luther asked, clearly distressed.
“Does this mean we’re free?” Klaus spoke without thinking, finally tearing his eyes away from Ben to look at Reginald.
The siblings stopped bickering for a moment and looked at Klaus, his words suddenly sinking in and expressions of surprise, wonder and even relief sparked in each of them. Except Five, he was still glaring daggers at their father.
Allison and Diego didn’t wait for a reply, as soon as they processed the implications of Klaus’s question they were heading to the door. Luther lingered in obvious distress, Vanya looked torn but stuck close to Five. Klaus went back to staring at Ben, or whatever his name was now, who was staring right back with a sour and challenging scowl.
“So you just washed your hands of us? What are we supposed to do now?” Luther sounded desperate, and a little pathetic, as he addressed Reginald.
“That is entirely your problem.” Sir Reginald huffed, the way he did whenever he was running out of patience, and glanced at not-Ben. “Number One, escort these trespassers out this instant.”
Ben immediately stepped forward but Five didn’t care in the slightest, he advanced further on Reginald and grabbed him by the collar with all the menace his gangly thirteen-year-old body could muster.
“I have a question.” Five asked in a hard voice, stopping Allison and Diego on their tracks and giving all the siblings flashbacks of that day at the breakfast table just before he disappeared for the better part of seventeen years. “How did you know which babies to keep and which to discard? We didn’t tell you where or when you found us or who our mothers were, even we don’t have that information.”
“I never said I did not acquire you. I simply did not keep you when it finally became clear who was who.” Reginald retorted drily. “Which, incidentally, would have been significantly easier if you had informed me that two of you are twins and one was assigned a different gender at birth.”
Reginald had the gall to sound irritated, inconvenienced, as if it was their job to be more forthcoming and aid in their own abandonment.
Five frowned, he let go and took a step back, his face set in stone and his mind reeling, they all could all guess that he was thinking of all the possibilities and consequences of this timeline, all the damage control they’d need to do. Isn’t that always how it was for Five?
“Twins? What twins?” Luther again, prioritizing the wrong thing; he looked around at his siblings as if they could answer, as if suddenly the answer would become obvious.
“You got rid of six children just like that? What did you do to us?” Vanya sounded appalled, angry (at least she had the right priorities), the air around her hummed dangerously and her eyes flashed white.
“Number One.” Sir Reginald called again, more insistently.
Ben snagged Klaus and then Five by the back of their shirts and tried to shove them into Luther and Vanya in the process of escorting them all out.
“Ben, please…” Klaus squirmed and then he was cling to the hideous uniform not-Ben had on. He begged but he wasn’t sure what he was begging for- please remember me? Please don’t do this? Please come with us? “Please, don’t… don’t leave me again, Ben.”
“Who the hell are you calling Ben?” Not-Ben practically growled, shoving Klaus off him.
“Why are you doing this?” Vanya spoke up once more, anger shifting into something far more dejected, her face crumpling as she watched Klaus try to reach not-Ben again. Suddenly, her voice boomed and rippled the air as she addressed the quiet figures above them. “Why are any of you still here? Why didn’t you leave him already?”
The shadowy figures shifted uncomfortably and appeared to be exchanging looks, Klaus noticed for the first time that one of them wasn’t even human, just a floating glowing cube that spun a little restlessly at the sound of their yelling.
Not-Ben paused too and gave him a troubled frown but a second later his attention shifted to Vanya he shook Klaus off again and tugged at his own shirt.
Familiar tentacles burst from not-Ben’s body and all hell broke loose.
Five immediately tried to push Klaus and Vanya out of the way, Allison and Diego rushed back to help them, Klaus and Luther tried scurry out of the way, Vanya landed on the floor with a hard thud that made the entire house start to rumble and shake. Between Vanya and Ben’s powers on the loose, the siblings just wanted to retreat as fast as possible, they trusted Vanya to control herself enough but they knew what Ben’s tentacles could do, had seen them tearing people in half on a regular basis.
Nonetheless, the tentacles caught them all and shoved them out the front door forcefully enough to chuck them onto the street like used soda cans and leave bruises even on Luther. For Ben’s standards it was careful, gentle even.
The front door slammed shut, leaving the six of them reeling on the wet sidewalk. It had started to rain, curtains of heavy fat drops distorting the air around them. Allison and Klaus immediately scrambled to Vanya, hugging her and whispering calming words until she managed to take a breath and stop making the whole block shake like a goddamn earthquake.
“What do we do now?” Luther asked what was on all of their minds.
“I told you we should have killed dad.” Diego interjected bitterly and for once nobody could really disagree.