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1.
While Number Seven’s book is not a commercial success, it still causes ripples in all the right circles. People can no longer ignore the fact Reginald Hargreeves raised an army of child soldiers, that there’s something inherently wrong about a father sending his own children to fight the most hardened criminals week after week.
Sir Reginald has to react quickly in order to relegate Seven to the limbo of insignificance once more. What better way than to send his poster child (his only pawn left, really), the Spaceboy , on a heavily publicized training program for a mission to the moon, to be the first man to live there? What could be better than a blonde-haired, blue-eyed pioneer, sent into a rocket aptly named the Mayflower, to excite the admiration and awe of the masses?
And if Reginald scraps the plans for Number One’s last-ever mission – deep, deep into the Congolese forest, where only other apes would have witnessed his decaying corpse – then no one needs to know. There or on the Moon, it’s the same; he doesn’t have to see the hulking form of his latest and most constant disappointment moping around the manor. And pretending that his staying on the moon is for an absolutely vital mission will ensure that Number One doesn’t come back for a very, very long time.
He has no time for mediocrity; he has an apocalypse to prevent.
2.
While Diego raves and rages about Vanya’s memoir, he doesn’t know that the book is what saves him from having to go back to the Academy after not being able to meet rent again . Al reads it, curious to learn more about the kid with a chip on his shoulder who keeps wiping the floor with his lads but can’t keep his temper in check enough to be worth a damn in ranked fights. While his sister’s words aren’t kind, they help Al see why the boy is the way he is. Who wouldn’t be, after a childhood like that? (And how do the other kids cope , if they’re not like that?)
So when he catches sight of Diego once again sneaking into the showers early in the morning, sleep still weighing his eyelids down, he waits for him in the locker room, a bag of dirty towels at his feet, a broom in hand. He shoves both at the kid, telling him to get to work so he can start repaying the water bill – he’s not made of money after all. And when he’s finished sweeping and mopping and doing the laundry, and tries to slink off, Al drags him to the boiler room, where a bed already waits. The room’s his as long as he pulls his weight around the gym, he barks, before walking away.
And if the bed used to sit in the room just off his office until this morning, well no one needs to know. Al’s got a reputation, you see.
3.
Vanya’s book is released a few months after Allison has given birth to Claire. Unknown to her, as she’s filming in Canada, Reginald has Grace call Allison’s home in order to try to entice her and her daughter to the Academy. “I would love to meet my granddaughter,” “You must be so proud,” and “I miss you” are some of the sentences he’d programmed into the android for that call, all targeted to appeal to Three’s vanity and deep-seated need for affection and validation.
He’s not eager to let another squalling infant into his home; it feels like the original class of the Academy took ages to grow up and gain even a sliver of self-sufficiency. But if the child has inherited her mother’s genes, she might give better results than Three ever had. Reginald knows he’s not perfect, that he’s made mistakes when rearing the previous generation. His leniency in their upbringing had allowed Three to get distracted by silly ideas of fame and glamour. Reginald has learned from his mistakes. And he’s not worried about any custody issues; if he’s managed to get seven children back in 1989, then one, especially one legally related to him, will pose no problem.
His plans are foiled when Three’s husband answers Grace’s calls, and refuses to either give the phone to his wife, or even entertain the idea of visiting when it is mentioned. “I’ve read the book, and Allison has told me enough. That psycho isn’t getting anywhere near my wife or my daughter. Don’t call again or I’ll call the press and explain exactly why I’m filing for a restraining order. Your boss sure he can withstand another scandal like that again?”
Reginald doesn’t bother after that. With half her genes provided by such a creature, Three’s daughter can only be mediocre at best.
4.
Klaus shoplifts the book from a Barnes & Noble five months after its release; his hunt for the next high, as well as his latest bout in rehab, haven’t allowed him to stay abreast of the literary world, as it were. He reads the book crouched in a cleanish alleyway, Ben periodically commenting over his shoulder, impatiently waiting for him to turn the page (he’d always been the faster reader, the little nerd).
Once they’re finished, they sit there in stunned silence, digesting the fact that their little mouse of a sister had published that . Her clinical analysis of the both of them had hurt, mostly because it had been accurate. Ben’s frowny face is staring at a far-off point; his brother is clearly lost in thought, turning every written word over in his mind. Probably distracted enough that he won’t notice Klaus discreetly popping a few pills; he just got a written lashing from one of his siblings, he doesn’t want to have to deal with a verbal one from another so soon (read: ever). Plus, he’s gone too long between hits and the ghost slouching at the other end of the alleyway has been staring at him insistently. Another thing he doesn’t ever want to deal with.
Klaus absent-mindedly places the book in his shirt when it starts raining and he runs for shelter. There’s a squat he’s frequented a couple of times a few blocks from here; it’ll do for the night, and he might even be able to scrounge something to eat, if he’s lucky.
He’s not lucky. Barely twenty minutes after he’s arrived, a fight breaks out between two meth heads, and bullets start flying. Klaus runs away as fast as he can, contorting his body to make sure the two meth heads are still focused on each other, but he stumbles, falls back on his back, staying there in breathless stupor until the gun fight has ended, and even longer after that, despite Ben’s nagging. He eventually rolls on his side, ignoring the book as it falls on the floor with a dull thump, before getting up and leaving the building as sirens sound in the distance. He’ll have to find a new place now, and he still hasn’t eaten.
Ben remains a few more moments, staring at the book where it’s fallen. A bullet is lodged in it, just under his grown sister’s face. Ben smiles sadly, index finger hovering over her face before the tether that links him to Klaus pulls him away.
5.
Five is the only one that enjoys the book. It’s his only link to his siblings apart from the memory of their dead bodies, covered in ash. The fact he’s the only one of his siblings not depicted in a negative way also strokes his ego, at least as long as he still holds the innocence and the arrogance of youth. Later, when he’s older, wiser, more bitter, he’ll admit – if only to himself – that it probably has something to do with the fact he left before he could fuck up his relationsip with Vanya, too.
But he also enjoys the book because on bad days, it’s proof that his siblings really existed, that he hasn’t imagined them in a bout of insanity, to alleviate his loneliness, that there had been a before , something beyond this wasteland.
(Even Dolores cannot help him on these days; despite all her assurances that he’s not mad, he’s as sane as she is, he only met her after he arrived in the apocalypse. How could she really know?)
Over the years the book also helps him hold onto memories: how Luther would shovel food into his mouth whenever their father wasn’t present at dinner, Diego’s face whenever he mastered a new trick with his knives; the way Allison’s hair would move around her whenever she danced, the curls bouncing to her carefree movements; Klaus’ cackle whenever he pulled a successful prank; the way Ben’s eyerolls moved his whole head on his shoulders. And Vanya, Vanya, Vanya. He may have been her sole confidante, but she had been his safe haven in that madhouse, always eager to help, either by letting him unburden by ranting to her for hours, or by filling his head with nothing but her music, until the equations finally made sense.
And look at her now, still keeping him sane, years after her death, years after the death of everything but him.
(He will go back. He will save her. He will save them all.)
7.
The fight with their father-not-father’s new experiments quickly turns ugly. It’s clear their replacements have been briefed about their powers, and that they are better at being a team than the Umbrella Academy has ever been. Thankfully, Reginald only had that catastrophic supper to get an idea of what they can do. He knows that Luther is super strong, but not that he is near invulnerable; he knows Diego is an excellent fighter, but not that he can control trajectories; that Allison’s voice is not her only weapon, that she’s as deadly as Diego; that Klaus can make ghosts tangible, multiplying the number of opponents in the blink of an eye; that Five is deadlier than Allison and Diego combined, and that’s without time travel; and that Vanya could bring the very sky down on them all if she so chose.
And yet, as Five sits gasping and shivering behind an overturned couch, he can’t remember the number of times he’s had to rewind time to save one of his siblings; he only knows that his powers have burnt out, that he couldn’t blink two feet to save his life if he had to. That doesn’t mean he is defenseless, though, as the blond woman sprawled in front of him had learned. Thankfully, only Ben-not-Ben and the glowing cube are still standing (or floating, in the case of the latter).
(And seriously, what the fuck .)
Ben finally goes down, Diego knocking him out while all his tentacles are busy fending off Klaus’s ghosts, and the man himself busy fending off Klaus’s taunts about his moustache. That only leaves the cube, which is currently being held against the wall by Vanya’s powers, as they’ve found nothing that can affect it. Five, however, can see Vanya faltering, blinking more and more rapidly as her hands shake. He is too far from her to help, as are all the others; Allison leaning protectively over an unconscious Luther, Klaus and Diego even farther than he is. He can see Vanya’s powers start to flicker, can see that the cube is gearing up to fire its energy beam (one of those had sliced Allison’s hand clean off as she’d been fighting the black-haired woman, her scream brutally cut off as the Sparrow had kicked her under the chin, snapping her neck with a loud crack that will haunt Five’s nightmares). He is at his wit’s end; he can’t jump, he can’t even seem to be able to scream a warning, all he can do is close his fist around the first object he finds, and just throw it with a strength born of desperation and rage because this wasn’t fair, they were supposed to be home and –
And Vanya’s book flies through the room, spinning and spinning until it hits that fucking cube, right as Vanya’s energy fizzles out, right before it fires, its beam now directed at the ceiling instead of his sister. Five watches as the balcony collapses on the glorified die, finally pinning it down.
Silence, then:
“Oh hell no, once was enough,” he hears Allison snap, “ I heard a rumor you burnt that book to ashes. ”
Five whips his head to watch as Reginald’s eyes glaze over, the familiar shape of Vanya’s book in his hand as he throws it into the fire, staring at it until it’s completely swallowed by the flames. Allison strides over to Hargreeves, hissing words into his ear with a fierce expression on her face that doesn’t let up until he’s walked out of the room.
As one, all the siblings converge towards Luther, who’s still lying on the floor, though now twitching. Klaus takes a quick detour to grab the briefcase, that ridiculous hat still on his head. When Five stumbles for the second time, a small hand comes to hold his elbow, steadying him.
“I’m sorry,” Vanya says quietly, “I know you’ve held onto that book for a long time.”
“It’s fine,” he grunts, shrugging her hand off to grab the briefcase from Klaus.
And it is. He doesn’t need it anymore to maintain his sanity and remember his family, now that he’s surrounded by the real thing. He’s got their backs, and he guesses they’ve got his. That’s what family is, what he’s been missing so fiercely all these years, he thinks to himself as he fiddles with the briefcase’s settings. No one says a word; it’s obvious they can’t stay there, that this isn’t their 2019.
They all grab onto each other, Vanya on his left, Klaus on his right. Right before he activates the device, Klaus leans towards him.
“I can’t believe you kept Vanny’s book on you. Admit it little brother, you missed us,” he whispers in a sing-song voice. “Our sappy little psychopath, holding onto a memento of us. Oh! Did you have any other? Locks of our hair in a locket? A whole wall in your closet dedicated to pictures of us?”
“The happy memory of your dead faces and blessed silence, you complete and utter moron, ” he snaps back, a sarcastic smile stretching his lips as he activates the briefcase.
Unfortunately, that’s also what his family is, Five reflects as a flash of blue swallows them all. Idiots, the whole lot of them.