Chapter Text
It all began on the morning of November 10th 2002.
Well, it probably started earlier than that. Five had been talking about time travel for months, after all, insisting he could do it, discussing theories with Ben; one of the only two in the house he believed had intelligence comparable to his own. Ben would regret not trying to discourage him more; he knew it was a bit of an extreme idea, but Five had been so enthusiastic. Ben had wanted to support his brother in any way possible. Five’s talk of getting them out, bringing them all back in time with him to somewhere their Father could never reach them – Ben would be lying if he said that he didn’t like the sound of it. Maybe it was Ben’s fault for not begging him to stop.
Five had jumped into Ben’s room the previous afternoon, interrupting some homework he had been in the middle of struggling through. Ben let out a shriek of surprise at the unexpected blue flash and turned around to glare at his brother.
“You’ve gotta help me,” said Five, collapsing back onto Ben’s bed. Ben rolled his eyes.
“Maybe if you knock, like a normal person, ” he said, annoyed. He turned back to his homework. “What do you want, Five?”
“I’ve nearly got it,” his brother said, pushing himself back up. “I’ve nearly got it, I can tell – I just need one last variable, but I can’t figure it out for the life of me. Then I can get us out of here... I was hoping maybe you could enlighten me a bit?”
Ben sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to get anymore homework done that evening. “Why don’t you ask Vanya?” he tried.
“She’s not as confident with maths and physics as you or I am,” said Five. “I doubt talking about it will help either, but I could use someone to bounce ideas off?”
Ben looked down at the essay he was trying to finish – he was nearly done, anyway. “Fine,” he said, exasperated. “Dad and Luther aren’t gonna be happy that you’re trying to time travel,” he continued, saying what he’d said many times before. He got out of his desk chair to sit next to Five on his bed. “Are you sure you wanna try it anyway?”
“Yes,” said Five with complete certainty, as he always did. “I know I can do it. I don’t care what Luther or Dad want; I’m gonna do it, and I’m gonna get us out of here. We can go whenever we want.”
He turned to meet Ben’s eyes, and he saw complete, intense devotion. Five would do anything to get them away.
“Where would you want to go if you could go anywhere in the past?” asked Five. “Anywhere in the world. Any time.”
Ben felt a grin grow on his face. “I think it’d be pretty funny to bring a calculator back to the 1800s,” he said. Five let out a laugh.
The two had an animated discussion that lasted until Ben had to start his personal training. Half of the time Five was talking about complicated quantum physics and displacement theory that Ben didn’t understand, but nodded along to, and the other half was them both discussing how they’d convince Luther to go with them when they eventually left for the past.
Five levelled their father with a stony glare when he came to collect Ben for training, but Ben was feeling more relaxed and happier than he would have been otherwise after their chat. He didn’t hate his training quite as much that day.
The feeling carried over to the evening, where he read in peace in his room for a bit, before Klaus came to bother him. He slept well that night.
Ben had been feeling daring on the chilly morning of November 10th; he had brought a book with him to breakfast to read under the table. Usually he would be more wary of their father’s reaction to this, but Klaus had distracted him from his quiet reading time last night and he wanted to make up for it.
He tried not to display any outward reaction at the joint Klaus was rolling under the table, and ignored the looks Luther and Allison were shooting at each other. Today was already shaping up to be a long one, he could tell. He distractedly rose a forkful of eggs to his mouth. There was something building at the table, he could feel it – he could see Vanya out of his peripheral vision looking to her left – at Five. He knew Five had gone to hang out with her yesterday after Ben had gone for personal training.
Nothing good could come of this.
He was jostled out of his half-eating-half-reading by a loud bang on the table from across him. He glanced up, annoyed and a little bit concerned – what on earth did Five think he was doing? He had slammed a knife directly into the table – their father would kill him.
He caught the beginning of the exchange; “I have a question.” “Knowledge is an admirable goal…” but tuned out as soon as Five mentioned time travel. Ben loved Five, but he was a little weary of their father’s reaction to his insistence that he could time travel. He didn’t really feel like watching his brother get dragged away for punishment. Ben was happy to help him with ideas, of course, but it got a little tiring after hearing about it for months on end.
He was prompted to look up again when Five disappeared in a flash of blue from his position at the table and reappeared next to their father. He had done it with minimal movement – something Ben knew Five had been having a little bit of difficulty with and that their father had been working on training him on.
Their father was not impressed – and Ben tuned them both out again, hoping it would end quickly, until he heard a shout from their father, calling for Five to “GET BACK HERE!”. He quickly looked up, and saw a head of dark hair and uniform jacket quickly disappear behind the wall, followed shortly after by the sound of their front door slamming. Five had run off.
Ben knew he’d be back after he cooled off a bit – Five had never liked being denied by their father, and this one had been building up for months. Ben was confident Five only needed a little bit of time to calm down. Then maybe he could help Ben with their maths homework, he had been having a bit of trouble with that, and Five owed him from having interrupted him yesterday.
But Five didn’t come back.
They went through the day and their training in a very strange mix of trying to ignore his obvious absence, awkwardness, and tenseness – their father was good at pretending nothing had happened, and it was easiest to go along with that. Luther looked perpetually annoyed all day; he hated it when anyone tried to rebel against their father, and Five was the best at that.
Ben began to get worried when Five hadn’t returned by lunch time. It was a little nagging thing at the back of his mind; Ben knew Five would come back, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of uneasiness at one of his siblings being missing. They had all been together their whole lives – the only time one of them wasn’t in group training was if they were doing personal training. It was a Sunday, so none of them had personal training. Ben and Five were supposed to be paired for sparring, and now Ben had to swap with Klaus and Diego.
Surprisingly, it was Allison who pulled Ben aside.
“Where do you think Five went?” She whispered, both of them watching Diego chase Klaus around the training mats. “He should have come back by now, right?” She finished, concern lacing her voice.
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, glancing down at his twisting hands in his lap. He hoped Five would come back soon; the Horror often got restless if Ben got too anxious and he didn’t want another sleepless night.
“I hope he brings us lots of souvenirs from wherever he’s been to say he’s sorry,” said Allison. Ben smiled a bit. He would be nagging Five about that for at least three days straight once he came back.
Five still hadn’t returned by dinner time, and Ben’s worry had spread to everyone else. Diego and Klaus were fidgety, and even Luther looked more concerned than annoyed when he glanced at Five’s empty spot.
Vanya had been doing private study all day, and so hadn’t heard that Five still wasn’t back. Her face quickly turned to one of dismay as she saw that he hadn’t joined them for their meal.
Once they began eating, she leaned over to Ben and asked as quietly as she could; “Where’s Five? Is he being punished for running off?”
“No,” Ben whispered back. “He hasn’t come back yet. I’m really worried – I hope he comes home soon, Dad’ll be really mad,”
Vanya went pale and only nodded in agreement before turning back to her food. Neither of them wanted to be caught whispering at the dinner table. The rest of the meal was finished in silence, Ben and Vanya both sparing periodic glances at Five’s empty spot. Diego also kept looking over, absently digging his knife into the table harder.
Diego caught Ben as they were waiting in line to clean their teeth. Allison and Vanya had one bathroom, while the boys had the one opposite. Vanya was waiting alone outside hers for Allison, while Luther had already finished and Klaus was currently occupying it.
“Five hasn’t sent you any s-secret messages or anything, has he?” Asked Diego, trying to scowl but coming across as looking worried.
“What?” Frowned Ben, confused.
“You t-two are always sch-ch-eming together; you guys have to have a way to t-talk to each-other, r-right? Don’t you?” Asked Diego, now looking a little bit unsure.
“We’ve never needed one; we’re always stuck in here,” said Ben, now a bit unsure himself.
“Oh,” said Diego, frowning. “Well, w-when he comes back, you have to help me kick his a-ass, got it?”
“Absolutely,” smiled Ben. He was sure Vanya would be happy to join as well. Then he was going to organise a joined effort with the rest of them to annoy him for all of next week. He deserved it.
That night, Ben woke up to a shout from Klaus, followed by several crashes and the sound of glass breaking.
Ben scrambled out of bed quickly, rushing to the door. He ran towards Klaus’ room; had something happened?! He could see Luther and Vanya also sleepily sticking their heads out of their rooms.
Ben reached the door, but didn’t bother to knock. He thrust it open, and was greeted with the image of Klaus sobbing on the floor, the shattered shards of what was once a liquor bottle glinting around him. The floor was soaked and the room stunk of alcohol.
“K-Klaus?” Asked Ben, now frightened. He felt Vanya come to stand behind him, peeking over his shoulder, and Luther gently try to push through, but Ben held up and Luther settled for standing beside him instead.
“What happened?” Whimpered Vanya. Klaus looked up at them.
His eyes were red and a glassy sheen coated them. His bottom lip trembled. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Which was very unusual for Klaus.
“Are you okay?!” Ben asked in alarm. He rushed over to his brother’s side, avoiding any glass shards, and gently hoisted him up. Luther quickly came over to help, and the two of them supported Klaus out of the room before he could get high off alcohol fumes. Luther and Ben exchanged glances, and silently agreed to take him down to their basement recreation room so he could sit comfortably on one of the couches. They moved at a slow pace, Vanya worriedly hovering behind them. Allison and Diego had also appeared by this point; and Ben flashed them both a smile showing his gratitude for their concern.
The two seemed to know where they were taking Klaus, because they rushed ahead towards the stairs that led to the basement. Vanya ran towards the kitchen, and Ben assumed she had gone to get tea.
It didn’t take Luther and Ben long to bring Klaus down to the basement. Allison and Diego had moved a pile of random books and papers off of Klaus’ favourite couch, and were waiting with looks of concern on the one opposite. Klaus had been silent except for an occasional wet gasp, and it had unnerved Ben a lot, since Klaus was naturally a talkative person. Ben and Luther set Klaus down gently on the couch, and he all but collapsed.
Ben sat down next to Klaus, gently rubbing his back. Luther went over and sat next to Allison on the opposite couch, and they both watched in concern. Diego was leaning forward, ready to kill whatever had caused this reaction from Klaus.
“What happened?” Ben asked softly.
Klaus shivered. He opened his mouth, but seemed to be choking on his words. “It’s…” He managed to choke out, his voice breaking, but his face twisted and turned red – before he started crying again. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks and he let out a sob before burying his face in his arms.
Ben looked over at the other couch in alarm, unsure what to do. This was not something he was used to doing with Klaus. More often than not, the others comforted him at night, after a nasty mission or brutal training session.
They were distracted by the clinking sound of teacups coming down the stairs, and then Vanya appeared carrying a tray of steaming tea. She quickly set it down on the low coffee table between the two couches, and after looking around for a second, decided to take a seat on the floor after taking a cup for herself.
Ben took a cup from the tray, and gently passed it to Klaus. “Drink,” he goaded, hoping the tea would help open his throat and calm him down. Klaus’ hands were shaking; tea dribbled down the sides as he absently rose the cup to his lips, still hiccuping and his face still red.
They waited in silence as Klaus managed to take a long gulp. Finally, he set the now empty cup back down on the coffee table, his sobs having turned into deep, harsh breaths. Klaus sounded like he could break back down any minute, and Ben was hit with a spike of deep worry.
“What happened, Klaus?” Allison asked gently after a few seconds of silence. “You’re kind of scaring us. Are you okay?”
Klaus shook his head. He took in a slow, deep breath, and let it out shakily.
“It’s Five,” he whispered hoarsely. Ben barely caught it; but as soon as he comprehended Klaus’ words, his eyes widened and he felt a horrible, deep pit of fear settle in his stomach.
The others hadn’t heard, clearly, as Luther leaned forward a bit and Diego said, “S-sorry, again?”
Klaus took another deep breath. “It’s Five,” he said again, this time more loudly. His voice was scratchy and wavering.
Vanya’s eyes widened at that, instantly connecting the dots. Allison raised a fist to her mouth in uncertainty, not wanting her hunch to be correct, and Diego didn’t show any outward reaction. Luther was a bit slower on the uptake.
“Five?” He asked in confusion. “What about him? We haven’t seen him since –”
He cut off abruptly all of a sudden, and Ben knew that they knew.
“He’s dead,” whispered Klaus, as if it had needed confirmation. “I saw him. In my room.”
There was silence. “...A-are you sure it was him?” Asked Ben after a minute, unable to bear it, his eyes wide.
Klaus nodded. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I saw him... he just appeared in my room, and because he likes to do that, I – I thought he had just come back,” He continued, his voice low. “I started talking to him. You know, asking him where he went, laughing at him because d-dad was gonna k-kill him, and I expected him to tell me to shut up, or something, b-but,” he said, his voice cracking. “But, he j-just kept staring at me, and – and when I went to poke him to get a reaction – I thought h-he was just being weird – my hand…”
Klaus didn’t need to finish. His hand had gone through.
Klaus began to sob again. “A-and I have n-no idea what h-happened, b-but I was s-so shocked, I just saw blue, and then he was gone; and I thought he had teleported but he couldn’t have, because I felt something, and when I t-tried to get him t-to come back, he wouldn’t c-come, and I –”
Klaus had dropped his drink and started crying, because he had just found out the brother who had run off that very morning was dead.