Archive of Our Own

It’s perfectly sunny, the day that Number Five comes home.

At precisely half-past two in the afternoon, the portal spits him out on the same chunk of sidewalk that he left from, on the street outside the Academy. He promptly barrels into three overly-curious people that stand gawking at him, the boy who fell out of a hole in the sky.

Five says, “Shit.”

He lands jarringly, painfully, on his knees, his elbows. Five groans, fighting the urge to cover his head with his arms. Was this street always so loud? There are people, crowding around him in colourful clothes and concerned expressions. They look at him, cowering on the concrete, like he is a feral animal. He feels his face twisting into a scowl, and he scrabbles to his feet, jerking away, trying to see, trying to do something.

A familiar feeling winds its way around his body, thrumming in his veins, burning in his chest. Panic. Where is Vanya? Where is the Academy? Dolores? This is what he wanted. Isn’t it?

“Kid, where did you come from? What was that?”

The sky, when he looks up, is blue. So painfully blue. Five can’t remember if he has ever seen anything that blue.

There is the sky, and the voices, and there are – so many, so many people, and he wants to feel elated, he should be ecstatic after two long years of complete and utter isolation, but.

A woman takes a step towards him, hand reaching out. “Honey, are you all r—"

Five runs.

…

Vanya notices the yelling before anything else. The front door slams open so loudly that she can hear it all the way from where she is sitting in the library, and the shouting, common in this house, follows. She is reading her book – Watership Down, lent to her by Ben – when it happens, and it startles her so bad that she almost drops it. Ben, who is perched on the couch opposite her, shoots her a frightened glance.

The two of them have drifted apart since Five’s disappearance – it made Vanya realise that Five, ever her favourite, was actually putting effort into making sure the other students included her, and when he left, there was nothing keeping the Umbrella Academy from completely ignoring her. Another reason to miss Five so painfully. Ben is the only exception, as they sometimes sit like this in the library for hours at a time, not talking, just reading. It’s the best parts of her week.

“What the hell? Who the fu-fuck are you?” That’s Diego’s voice, she realises with a twinge of worry. If the Academy is under attack, should she stay here to run to her room?

“Stay here, Vanya,” Ben says nervously, eyes darting to the heavy door and back. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”

“Okay,” she says, because what else can she say? In the other room, Luther is yelling.

Ben reaches the door and takes a deep breath. Vanya hopes he doesn’t have to release the Horror – it always makes him feel terrible, and then he’ll lock himself in his room and cry for hours.

She puts her book down on the table, still sitting anxiously, feeling twitchy. She wonders if she should hide behind the couch, if they really are under attack. She stands up. Ben looks at her.

“Hey!” Luther shouts, and then – then there is a splash of blue light. Familiar blue light that she hasn’t seen in two years; a very filthy boy comes tumbling out of the rip in space, and then he is standing right in front of her.

Familiar green eyes, familiar clenched jaw.

“Oh,” Vanya says, choked, and then Five is collapsing into her arms, shaking, his bony elbows digging into her sides, face buried into her shoulder.

“Vanya,” he says in a voice far rougher and raspier than she remembers. “I’m home.”

“Five,” she exhales, hardly believing she’s really awake. His fingers clutch at the fabric of her blazer – she realises she isn’t breathing, and shakily, she draws her arms up around him, wrapping around him tightly. Across the room, Ben gapes, and the door finally opens when the rest of the Academy start to charge through.

“Wait,” Ben tells them, voice wavering. “Stop. It’s Five.”

Vanya doesn’t listen when the rest of them start arguing and snapping at each other, disbelieving, hopeful. They talk and talk. She’s good at shutting them out.

Five’s pointy nose digs into her neck – he is murmuring. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I tried to come back. I’ve been – trying, I swear. I was stuck. I’m sorry. I tried so hard, Vanya, but I’m home—”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, because of course it is. She’s never seen Five this rattled before. She doesn’t even think she’s ever heard him apologise like this before. She squeezes her eyes shut and holds onto him while he trembles and says in a hollow voice, that he is sorry, he is sorry, he is sorry. Her knees feel weak. When he whispers – and she knows this isn’t important right now but it definitely feels like it – his lips brush against the sensitive skin of her neck. It is making her feel very dizzy. “You’re home now. It’s okay now.” What is she even saying?

Oh my God, it’s Five. How long has she hoped? When did she give up?

They stand, swaying. She gently runs a hand through his hair, frowning when it comes away covered in dust and grime. Where has he been? She fights the urge to cry, knowing that he hates it when she does. But Five is home.

Her heart rate is finally slowing, but she is feeling her intense relief and confusion draining away into exhaustion. This is all – this is all very much, she thinks weakly, after two years of loneliness, missing, worrying. Thinking that he abandoned her.

It’s awkward, too, with the rest of her classmates watching on with strange expressions. Some seem suspicious, of what, she doesn’t know, while others seem almost jealous that Five didn’t hug them too.

She makes eye contact with Ben, shows him her hand blackened with dust. She clears her throat, trying to concentrate. “Ben, can you go run a bath?” He nods very seriously, looking at his teammate with a softly afraid expression and scampering off. She asks Luther, “Could you grab Five some clean clothes from his room?”

Luther crosses his arms, shifting his weight. “Well, we should – ask him where he’s been, and tell Sir – I mean, he’s been gone for two years.” A tremor runs through Five at the words, and Vanya realises he is listening. She had been afraid… well. He is aware of his surroundings, that’s good, even if he does seem to be holding back sobs.

“Sir’s interrogation can wait,” she says, trying to look Luther in the eye and failing. It’s hard, trying to assert herself. Trying to act like she knows what’s best here. “Don’t make him do it yet. He only just… just, let him have a bath first, okay?”

Luther seems relieved to have someone else make the decision for him, and the concern on his face for Five is bare and unmistakable. “All right. I’ll get clothes. Klaus, come with me. Diego, go tell Grace in the kitchen what’s going on. Oh, and make him one of those gross sandwiches he likes, with the marshmallows. And Allison, can you please find Pogo?”

Vanya tunes them out again, closing her eyes, though she can feel their gazes on her as they reluctantly leave.

Five has stopped murmuring against her neck, thank God, but he is breathing roughly, unsteadily. His desperate, clawed grip on her blazer has loosened somewhat, and it seems like his body has gone kind of limp, like he would fall over if she weren’t holding him up.

“Five?” She tries. “You okay?”

He hums, the vibration sending a thrill through her. When was the last time someone hugged her with this much force, this much care? Two years ago? It’s a sad thought. He says, very softly, “I’m okay now.”

“I missed you,” she says stupidly, and after all that, tears finally sting her eyes. She swallows thickly, very glad suddenly that she can’t see his face.

“I missed you too,” Five says. “So much.”

…

Five hasn’t had a bath since he left. Not enough water to spare for that sort of thing – and it didn’t really rain in the apocalypse. Not in the two years he’d been there – ash just fell, and fell, from the sky, and the cloud leaked acid.

Grace put bubbles in it, he thinks numbly, watching them turn brown and disgusting from all the dirt that clings to every part of his body.

Grace hums as she uses a washcloth soaked in suds to clean his hair. He would do it himself – he hates being treated like a child – but for some reason he can’t seem to move. He’s not even sure how he got here; he remembers Vanya – Vanya, his mind sighs in awe – hugging him, and now he’s here, in the bath.

“My, you definitely haven’t been washing,” Grace laughs breezily, pouring fresh clean water over him. Five shivers, his thin body hunched over. He stares at his hands. They are red from scrubbing. So bony. He isn’t hungry, but he feels empty.

Vanya, he thinks. Where is she? Not here. He is alone again. He saw Ben, and – Ben’s alive, he realises. Is this a dream? Oh God, what if this isn’t real again? It’s happened before, once when he had an infection and another time from eating something spoilt. He spent at least three days delirious and half-awake, thinking he was back in the Academy and Dolores was Grace.

He wishes Dolores were here. She would tell him if it was real or not.

“Close your eyes,” the android nanny advises, and he does.

It’s weird to see his own body. It’s paler than he thought it would be, though he supposes it makes sense. He tried to leave as little of it exposed to the sun and ash as possible, learning his lesson after he woke up with multiple little burn marks all over his wrists from where hot specks of ash had landed on him during his – breakdown. He has scars all over now – like his leg, where he got cut on that metal a few months back, and his foot from where he stepped on a rusty nail in the first year.

She wipes his knees and elbows, putting some kind of salve over the scrapes from when he landed on the pavement. Grace says, “It’s good to have you home. We all missed you very much, Five.”

Five thinks that is probably true.

She leaves after an indeterminate amount of time, to let him get dressed. He uses a fluffy towel to dry off, marveling at the whiteness of it. The cleanness of it. It’s not one of the students’ towels, it’s too thick and nice. Must be a special one, maybe one of Reginald’s.

He looks in the mirror, and sees his own reflection for the first time in forever. He looks – a bit malnourished. Tired. His fifteen-year-old face looks younger than he feels. He looks away, pulls on the boxers, then the shirt. His fingers shake but he does the buttons up okay. Trousers, socks, vest, blazer. His clothes are so bright. So clean. If this is a dream, which he doesn’t think it is, then it’s a very pleasant one.

He runs a hand over the scratchy material, looks in the mirror again, feeling a rush of nostalgia. Familiarity. He looks like a person, he thinks.

But his hair is strange, shaggy. Chin-length – he doesn’t like it. At least he doesn’t have a beard or anything. It’s still wet, so he slicks it back, out of his face, and that makes him feel more like Number Five again.

Five tries to put on the tie next. He loops it around the base of his neck and waits for his hands to do it, and they don’t. They just hover there, useless and quaking.

You can’t remember how, his mind supplies helpfully, and Five feels himself start to crumble. You’ve forgotten how to tie a tie! He doesn’t cry – he hasn’t cried in over a year, and he’s not about to start now. But it’s a near thing. He just needs to find Vanya. She’ll know how.

He just has to find Vanya.

When he opens the bathroom door, he isn’t surprised that his teammates are loitering outside in various states of false nonchalance. So worried about him, so annoyed at him for leaving. Their faces have changed since they were thirteen. Less round. More like the – people he saw in the future. Them, grown up.

“Five, man,” Diego says, and for a second, his face looks dusty, ashen, dead. Five shuts his eyes and opens them again. “Good to see you.” Diego’s stammer is gone, Five recognises faintly, as though peering through a sheet of frosted glass. It makes sense. He has been gone for – a long time.

Klaus claps him on the shoulder and looks at him so earnestly that he almost flinches. “Yeah, little bro. We missed you. Thought you were dead. Where were you?”

If I were dead, wouldn’t you have known? Five says, “Where’s Vanya?”

Klaus smiles but Number Two’s face sours, clearly hoping Five would say something else. There has always been a slight tension between them. Diego said Five did not take the Academy seriously. Five thought Diego took it far too seriously. “What? Why?”

“I can’t remember,” Five says, voice cracking. He tries again, the words bitter. “I can’t remember how to do my tie.”

“Oh,” Luther says, standing behind Diego. His face, failing at being stern, dissolves into sympathy, pity. “That’s okay. We can show you.”

“No,” Five says, backing away, becoming frustrated without knowing why. They’re here, they’re alive, he’s back. He missed them. “I need Vanya.” It’s not frustration, he understands. It’s humiliation.

“Good to see you haven’t changed,” Allison says flatly, and gives him a plate with a sandwich on it. Five doesn’t dignify that with a response, just sends her a thankful look and stuffs the fluffernutter in his mouth. She smiles minutely – the two of them had always had a little bit of a comradery on their missions. So sure, always, that the others on the team (never Vanya, and of course Allison and Luther had – have? – their little thing too) were all ridiculous. So sure that they were the smartest, the brightest, the best members. The fan-favourites – Allison for her beauty and charm, and Five for his ‘endearing’ bluntness.

Five knows better, now. He wonders if Allison does too.

“She’s in her room,” Ben says quietly, from where he is leaned against the opposite wall. He gestures to the door he stands next to. “She’ll help you.”

“We can help you, though—” Diego is snapping but Five just latches onto the air and pulls, blinking straight into Vanya’s room. It’s too much right now, too many people. Not enough space.

Vanya looks up at him from the bed, and there is shock on her face for a moment before it melts into a small smile. He’s missed her smile – it’s a rare and special thing. Always a little melancholy, it seems even sadder than before. His fault, for leaving her here alone. I should have stayed. “Five,” she says, the sound filling his chest with sunlight. “You look nice.”

“Uh. Thanks,” he says stiffly, because doesn’t he just look like himself? Like always?

“I mean, your hair,” she says, her neck and cheeks flushing red. He would very much like to brush a hand over her cheek. He doesn’t. “It’s long. It’s different – but it’s nice.” She looks at the floor. A sense of affection washes over him. Something lost, found. He missed her. He already knew it, but seeing her here – soft, gentle Seven. His favourite classmate, his best friend. Finally.

She looks a little different than he remembers. More serious, withdrawn, and he can see her face slowly growing into the one in that photo of her as an adult that is on the back of her autobiography. Grace took his apocalypse clothes, but the book is still in the inner pocket of his blazer, right next to his heart, in the same place he has kept it ever since he found it. He has the pages memorized, obviously. But he couldn’t just get rid of it. It’s Vanya’s.

He imagines Dolores snickering at him. Smitten kitten. So sentimental. He tells her to shut up. He has plans, yes. Debrief everyone about the apocalypse first, Vanya later.

Five opens his mouth. “Oh. Thank you.” He clears his throat suddenly. “Will you play something for me? I really missed it.” He smiles at her, lopsided, and she glances back up at him from behind her bangs, and tentatively smiles back. Something lost, found.

He forgets about the tie.

…

Vanya still feels a bit like she is imagining things. Five is back, finally, and he’s almost the same as she remembers – like her, he’s aged two years, so he’s fifteen now, and very handsome. But she’s not thinking about that (except she is). Something about having him back, seeing him dressed in their Academy uniform exactly how she remembers him, makes the last two years feel like a nightmare that she has just woken up from.

He has hugged her, even though he used to not really like hugs. He has sat beside her and listened to her play the violin, watching her face instead of her hands. He said, when she played for him – her first audience other than Pogo or Grace in two years – that she had become even more amazing at the violin since he left. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him that with him gone, she had nothing left except hours and hours of practice.

He has apologized for leaving, over and over, but Vanya thinks that two years is nothing. Two years of absence can easily be forgiven, in return for staying the rest of forever.

She has been very patient, waiting for him to explain where he has been, and now – and now! – she’s not even allowed in the room to hear it.

She fights the surge of resentment in her stomach. Her classmates – the astounding Umbrella Academy, are, of course, all allowed in the study with Sir Reginald for Five’s “debriefing”, but she’s stuck outside, back to the wall, furious.

She only just got him back, and now she’s separated from him again. He had looked impatient, when Luther had ushered him in, sending her an exasperated glance like this won’t take long. Don’t worry. But she is worried, and she is irritated at being left out again. Don’t they know that Five is her favourite? Don’t they know that she is his? His… favourite, that is.

Vanya fidgets, tugs anxiously on her hair, and waits.

She’s waited two years – she can wait a little more, she tells herself, but if she doesn’t see him again soon – he’s only been gone for twenty minutes. But what if he goes again — Vanya slides her back down the wall and brings her knees to her chest, rests her chin on her arms, and waits.

…

When Five has finished explaining everything he knows, there are still questions. Reginald, the heartless, cold professor who has ruled over Five’s entire life except for the very worst parts of it, keeps asking him the same things over, and over again.

But he was right the first time. About the time travel. Five swallows his pride, and tells him everything he knows. Luther keeps interrupting, Diego doing the same. Klaus keeps chiming in with unsolicited commentary about what potential causes of the apocalypse could be – he’s not taking it seriously. None of them are, really. He wishes Vanya were here, but he’s also glad that she’s spared this. It’s exhausting. His voice feels completely raw and painful after talking so much, but every breath feels like a gift. Cool, sweet air. He’ll never take it for granted again.

Reginald takes Five’s old clothes – he thought Grace got rid of them, but apparently not – as proof, to study, he supposes. Weird, but better than having no one believe him. Better than forgetting.

Five should give him the book. He does not.

He gives him the glass eye, though, and has a distinctive feeling of well, I guess that’s not my problem anymore. Five thought it would be harder to give up. It is not.

“Very well. Dismissed,” Sir says after two hours, and the Academy file out and Five blinks to Vanya’s room, but she’s not there. He jumps back to the study, then to the library. He ignores Diego’s taunts about ‘the effects of isolation on the mind’ as if he might be crazy. No. He is not.

He just needs to find – Vanya!

“Shit,” he says, taking her by the elbow and pulling her up from where’s she’s crumpled in a strange position on the floor of the hallway. “Sorry. I went to your room, couldn’t find you.”

She is not looking him in the eye. “It’s okay.”

“How long have you been sitting there?” He asks, frowning. She shrugs. “You didn’t have to wait.”

“I just thought you were – well, I wanted to wait for you,” she says, and he understands.

“I’m not – I’m not leaving again,” he says. “I’m staying. With you.”

She looks at him then, her mouth forming an o. For a lack of anything else to say – because really, is there more he can say? Hopefully she will… she will know already, and, God, he is really bad at this – Five takes her small, pale hand and holds it tightly.

She says, “oh.”

“I’ll tell you everything.”

They go to her room.

…

Vanya is struggling to process it all. It’s late now, almost dinnertime, and she is thinking about the end of the world.

The other children already know, from the meeting of course, and she is aware that she is being selfish, keeping Five all to herself like this, but – she can be selfish, for once. He’s with her. He’s choosing her over anyone else in the Academy, even though they’re all vying for his attention, wanting to ask him things. But he’d shut her door in their faces, not unkindly, but firmly.

Vanya has a difficult relationship with the rest of the students here. She’s one of them, confined to this house, yet decidedly not like them. They aren’t siblings, as Reginald insists on reminding them, barely friends, and since she can’t call herself a teammate, well. What is she? The others are a team, a unit. She doesn’t have that. Vanya is their… classmate, sometimes. Acquaintance. Just someone who orbits the same space as them. But now Five is back, and she can say, confidently:

She’s Five’s best friend. She’s the one who he comes to after his private training, when his hands won’t stop quaking and cracking with blue light. She’s the only one he ever let hug him, and who he accepted friendship bracelets from, and he would sit and listen to her play the violin – not watching, because it made her too nervous, but he listened – back when she had only just started and she wasn’t even any good. He would stand up for her – except when she told him to stop because he would get in trouble. He was her best friend. Who is he now?

He is sitting beside her on the edge of her bed, staring at her like she might break.

The apocalypse, he said. And that, well, that she is still processing.

She had been fighting a sense of jealousy, this whole time. Not of him – though for a while, when she wasn’t furious with him for not listening to her when she told him to stay, she had slightly envied him for getting out of this horrible place – but… of the rest of the world, for having him when she couldn’t. Even though she knew, realistically, from his appearance and general state of mind, that he was glad to be home, her anxiety, which has worsened over the years, had flared up, a voice whispering even if he said he was trying to come back, he still didn’t. He still went away. Did he make new friends? See places the two of us said we would go together?

As it turns out, he went somewhere even worse than she could have ever even imagined.

And imagined, she had: On her bad, self-loathing kind of days, she had pictured him somewhere nice, somewhere with lots of people. A university, maybe, like he always wanted to go to. She gave him a girlfriend or boyfriend, when she was feeling particularly low.

Other days, she imagined him on the streets, miserable, stuck in a horrible time period like a war or something, and she despised herself for not knowing which scenario she hated more.

Captured by scientists and used as a twisted experiment was a common storyline, and sometimes she daydreamed about herself breaking him out, rescuing him.

So, too, was one where went to the 1950s, and grew up there, and he had a wife, never looking back, perfectly happy. Vanya, stupid Vanya, would cry about that one at night.

She never imagined him dead, not once, even when Sir Reginald said he probably was.

“If you have questions can they wait until tomorrow?” He asks, running a hand through his hair. He’s always done that.

“Sure,” Vanya says, nodding, because they can. 2019 is a while away, and saving the world has never been Vanya’s thing. She’ll leave that to the others. She doesn’t know where to put her hands. Does Five remember her all that well? It’s been two long years in a wasteland, for him. He’s sure to—

“Ven,” he says, intensely.

…

Five doesn’t know what he’s doing. He wishes, again, that Dolores were here, and has to remind himself that Dolores was, really, a coping mechanism. He still wishes it though.

Vanya is chewing on her bottom lip, twisting her hands in her lap. She’s taken the news of the apocalypse very well – Sir had been telling them it was going to happen their whole lives, so. He was right about two things – time travel and the apocalypse. He was wrong about Vanya, though.

He looks at his hands again. Covered in little scratches and scars and callouses. He’s glad they’re there; they remind him that it was real. He’s not insane.

He feels a little guilty, or selfish, though, about keeping her all to himself today, and shutting the door on all the others who want to talk to him, but. He’s been back less than a day – he’s allowed to be selfish. And what he wants is Vanya.

He says, “Ven,” mustering up all his courage. This is easy. This is nothing. This is everything. “There’s something I swore to myself I would do as soon as I got back.”

“Oh, okay,” she says, folding in on herself, looking at the wall. She doesn’t understand. “I guess I’ll see you later, then?”

“No, I–” he hesitates, and scowls at his own weakness. “Just.” He doesn’t have the right words. Shit. All that practice with patient, kind Dolores, choosing the exact right words to say and now he’s freezing up and he can’t say anything—

He leans forward before he can talk himself out of it and presses his mouth to Vanya’s.

It’s quick, and light. He counts to three, feeling his heartbeat leap in his throat. She hasn’t flinched away – that’s good, right? That’s good. He pulls back and scans her expression. She looks – very surprised.

Too surprised. Did she not – maybe he miscalculated. He digs his nails into his palms. He is shaking, and all the words come spilling out. “When I was in the future, I regretted not – telling you – I thought that I might never get the chance, if I never… I just had to.” He swallows, forces himself to shut up. It’s a very shitty version of the speech he had planned, but hopefully it gets the message across.

“That was a kiss,” she says, or squeaks. Her eyes are blown wide, her lips parted. He tries not to fidget. Or glance at her mouth. “You kissed me.”

“I did,” he says, still leaning forward slightly.

“You kissed me,” she repeats, whispering.

Five waits, and the longer he waits, the sicker he feels. Cold, all over. Dread. Guilt. Vanya touches her fingertips to her lips and stares, not smiling, not saying anything. He leans back. “You didn’t like it.”

“No, no, I—” Vanya starts, and he suddenly just has this feeling that he needs to leave. So stupid, he thinks. To think that — she would… He stands up, and Vanya startles. “Five, wait--”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, for the millionth time today. “Please just, forget about that.” He doesn’t look at her, forcing down the hot feeling of tears in his throat. What an idiot. Stupid, stupid child. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, Five, I—”

Five, a coward, blinks away, and he doesn’t even know where he ends up. A room somewhere. He curls into a ball and digs his nails hard into his knees. He bites down on his arm, hard. It works – he doesn’t cry. He just makes a very odd little gulping noise – is he even breathing?

He never should have listened to Dolores – she’s just a hopeless romantic. What did he think was going to happen? That Vanya had spent those two years thinking about him like he’d been clinging onto her? Ridiculous. Two years is a long enough time to stop caring about somebody.

She didn’t like it, he thinks. He made a mistake. Pathetic.

He bites his arm and squeezes his eyes shut and does not cry.

…

Vanya is, officially, an idiot.

As soon as Five jumps away, refusing to look at her, she staggers to her feet. She’d been in shock – he took it as rejection. Impatient, as always. Crap, crap, crap, she chants, throwing her door open and immediately running into Klaus.

“Did you see Five?” She asks breathlessly, which is a really dumb question and Klaus knows it.

“Uh, no?” he says.

“Right.” Vanya goes around him, takes the stairs to where Five’s room, and Ben’s, are squirrelled away from the rest of them. She’s always envied them for that, but right now her legs are all wobbly and she is going too fast and slams into Ben.

“Did – you – see Five?” She cries, still out of breath.

He looks at her, alarmed. She must look crazy. “No, I didn’t. Is everything okay?”

“Gotta find him,” she says, leaves him, and finally makes it Five’s room. He’s not in there, of course. The place hasn’t even been touched since he left, except for cleaning. She could never bring herself to go in. She considers just collapsing here and waiting, then thinks better of it.

The spare rooms. She spins around. Sometimes she really, really wishes she had Five’s power.

It takes ten minutes of frantic searching to find him, Vanya constantly aware of the ticking clocks in the house, knowing dinnertime is creeping up. For a house with so many big rooms, Vanya can’t ever remember having any guests over.

He’s in a spare bedroom in the west wing, sitting under the window, a book in hand. She says, “Five,” when she sees him, and he looks up, his face contorting, twisting. Oh, crap. Has he been crying? Vanya’s hands tremble, guilt swallowing her. She shuts the door. “I found you. Don’t leave again.”

“Hi Vanya,” he says curtly, looking back at his book. Reverting to rudeness and sulking to avoid being hurt, Vanya recognises. The tight muscles of his face betray the casual tone of his voice. “Did you want something?”

She rolls her eyes, trying to catch her breath and slow her manic heartbeat. She still can hardly believe he’s home, let alone that he kissed her and – she feels her face going warm.

Vanya walks over to where he is sitting and pulls the book out of her hand. Five stands up, reluctantly. She glances at the textbook and realises it’s upside down; he wasn’t reading it. Five notices too, and bites the inside of his cheek, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“I would like to apologise again,” he says quickly, eyes downcast. “I was not – in my right mind, and I shouldn’t have—”

She waits patiently while he rambles, eventually stopping listening and simply waiting for him to get it out of his system. Two years, her mind reminds her, but it feels like only yesterday that the boy would burst into her room at any hour of the day and start sprouting mathematical theories, excited, eyes bright, lovely. She’s missed his rambling. She’s missed a lot of things about him.

She sees that his tie isn’t done up, just looped around his neck in the same manner in which a seamstress would hang a tape measure. Efficiently, swiftly, she ties it for him, adjusting his collar and standing very close while he talks. It pleases her, how they are now the same height. It appears that while she grew taller over the two years, Five did not, and now they are the same.

“—and I perfectly understand if you don’t feel the same way, if I waited too long or, if you just don’t—"

Vanya can’t take it anymore. She pulls him forward, by the tie, and kisses him hard, right on the mouth. He makes a little surprised noise. His lips are dry, and cracked, and he smells like smoke, and she loves him.

After a few moments she lets him go, feeling terribly smug. He looks at her, opens his mouth, shuts it again. His hands flutter in the air.

“Oh,” he says, sort of stunned, voice rough, and then, “You did like it.”

“If you had just waited like five seconds—” Vanya says, unable to keep from smiling, but she doesn’t finish because Five is kissing her again, his hands finally coming to rest on her hips. Their noses fit together perfectly, she thinks. She had always wondered it.

She moves her hands to his shoulders, then cups his cheek – he shivers against her mouth, so her hands must be cold. But he doesn’t push away, just moving closer, one of his arms slipping around her back like he might dip her. Her toes curl in her shoes, and she is a little lightheaded.

Neither of them have ever kissed anyone before, which is very obvious – neither of them know what to do. But it feels right, and she likes it. It’s almost just like she imagined it – and she has imagined kissing and not always with Five, sometimes with a nameless girl or boy like the ones from Allison’s magazines, but usually Five – even when their teeth bump and she starts to laugh, Five pretending to sulk about it.

“Sorry,” she giggles, perhaps a little hysterical. “I just…”

“I know,” he murmurs, one hand clutching the fabric at the waist of her pinafore, the other splayed across her lower back. Protective, holding her in place. “I have wanted to do that for so long,” he breathes, almost to himself. “I thought I’d never get to.” He then leans forward again, but stops, searching her eyes. “Can I?”

“Sure,” Vanya says, nodding like an idiot, smiling so hard she might cry, “yeah. As much as you want.”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “As much as I want?” He looks very mischievous, talking in a low voice. “You’re gonna regret saying that.”

“Oh, no,” Vanya laughs again, even when he is trying to kiss her. She feels delirious. When was she this happy? He smiles against her teeth, gently winds one hand into her long, long hair. She giggles.

Five rolls his eyes and moves to place little kisses on her cheek, jaw, chin, and neck. Vanya’s knees go weak then, and he looks very pleased with himself. He has, clearly, been planning this for a long time.

All too soon, the bell rings for dinner, and they eventually separate. Both are flushed, and their lips are red, and her best friend looks very attractive and very smug about it all. The bastard. Vanya guesses that her hair is mussed up, because he cards his fingers through, working out the tangles, while they walk to the dining room. Vanya straightens her blazer self-consciously, as though she’s just come out of a haze. She feels all tingly, from head-to-toe, and wonders if it’s very obvious. Maybe she’s glowing.

“Is it obvious?” She asks Five simply, and he makes a so-so kinda noise, grinning. She sticks her tongue out at him.

…

“Oh, there you are,” Ben says, relief showing in his face as they approach, and Five is reminded that his teammate isn’t dead yet, though it won’t be long. And, if Five has anything to say about it, it won’t be happening. He’s going to make sure of it. “You found him?”

“I found him,” Vanya confirms unnecessarily, and Five can hardly, hardly, stop himself from beaming. He does, though, and Ben simply nods, relaxing and accepting the answer. He doesn’t seem suspicious, but Five isn’t at his most perceptive right now. He might be a little bit dazed – kissing Seven. Five has been thinking about kissing Vanya since he knew what kissing was. And yes, maybe he is a little obsessed. But he’s had two years of absolutely nothing to do except stay alive and plan what he was going to do when he got back – saving Ben, eventually, and kissing Seven, as soon as possible. One down.

Dolores says knowingly, I told you she liked you. Five says, yeah, yeah.

“Oh, great,” Diego says sarcastically, clearly annoyed about something. Five isn’t sure what, and he isn’t sure he particularly cares.

Vanya kissed him. She likes him – well, he assumes she does, they haven’t really talked about it, but she blushing furiously behind her hair and she seemed to like the kiss, so… he ignores Diego and steps just a little closer to her, their shoulders brushing. A happy feeling settles inside him, and breathing is suddenly easier.

“At least now you can stop leaving out those sandwiches all the time, Vanya,” Allison says lightly. She doesn’t look annoyed, just bored. “And the lights – bit of a waste of electricity.” Five doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Vanya seizes up, ducking her head. She’s – embarrassed, Five thinks, about something. “Yeah.”

Leaving out sandwiches? Lights?

Ah. Realisation, and then powerful affection, washes over him. She did that for him. He has to close his eyes from the force of the emotions that threaten to overwhelm him – Vanya waited. For him. It takes all his self-restraint not to kiss her again right there, but that would be a bad idea. As much as he would like to show everyone she is his, secrecy may be important for a little while. Besides, he knows Vanya likes having secrets. It makes her feel sneaky.

Vanya is looking stoically at her shoes. Klaus, picking at his nails, says, “I still can’t believe crazy old Daddikins was right about the apocalypse.”

“Don’t call him that,” Allison hisses, smacking his arm. “If he hears you, you know how pissed he’ll be. Do you want to be punished again?” Ah yes, the infamous I am not your father spiel. Five, who’d never seen Reginald as anything more than a particularly cruel dictator, had never been on the receiving end of the lecture, but he had often heard about it from his teammates.

Number Four shrugs, and Five realises that Klaus is under the influence of something. It hadn’t occurred to him before, having been disoriented, and… preoccupied, but he remembers from Extra Ordinary that around this age is when Klaus started getting into more serious drugs the first time around. He’ll have to do something about that, he thinks, as Klaus waves a hand and says, “I don’t see what the big deal is anyway.”

“The big deal is that Sir has told you not to call him that, so don’t. You’re just asking for trouble. He’s our mentor, not a father figure,” Luther says firmly, arms crossed, and Five barely resists sneering because he knows Luther out of all of them sees Reginald as a father figure the most. Klaus and Diego roll their eyes, clearly thinking the same thing.

“All right, Number One. I’m just processing everything, you see? Five’s back, he hasn’t changed a bit, but the apocalypse is happening and look, it’s been a wild day.”

Five can agree with him on that. “Imagine how I feel,” he drawls.

“Yeah,” Klaus agrees, nodding far too enthusiastically. His eyes are weirdly glassy. “Five’s having a rough time too. I mean, not speaking to another human being for two whole years has to leave some mental scars, not to mention he must be extremely--”

“Vanya, how are you doing?” Ben interrupts, which Five is extremely grateful for, as he doesn’t need another person questioning his sanity and especially not with Vanya right there. He’s glad he didn’t tell them about Dolores.

“I’m, uh, processing too,” Seven says weakly, and Five bites down hard on the inside of his cheek because – it’s not like she’s had much time to process. She’s been kissing him. “Just, you know. Re-adjusting to a general lack of a semblance of privacy.”

The joke lands. “Oh my God, true,” Diego groans. “I forgot how annoying it is when you randomly jump into our rooms.”

Five doesn’t bother hiding his smirk. “Shouldn’t matter unless you have something to hide, Two.”

“Well, I for one will not be held accountable for anything you catch an eyeful of when you barge into my room,” Klaus emphasises, and the Academy all make noises of absolute disgust. Five assumes he must be talking about drugs, because what else could he be doing that they all know about?

“Gross, Klaus,” Allison says, nose wrinkled.

“What?” He defends, raising his hands. “It’s a natural part of life.”

Five is confused – he glances to Vanya to see if she understands, and she has a kid of flat, grossed-out-but-not-surprised kind of face on. Diego says, “Dude. Shut up.”

“I don’t recall you being such a prude when I was the one who got the cameras taken out of our rooms,” Klaus says proudly, looking around to the others as if seeking back up. He gets none, and Five finally realises – he’s talking about sex. With… himself, presumably. Five knows about sex in an abstract kind of way. Grace had told them all about how it worked when they turned eleven, and then Five hasn’t really thought about it since. “Asshole.”

Diego shakes his head. “Dickhead.”

Finally, Grace ushers them into the dining room, and they all shuffle to their positions around the table. Seems like it’s some kind of soup tonight – Five is glad. He’s not entirely sure what he’ll be able to stomach after his time in the wasteland.

“Sit,” Sir Reginald commands, and they do, and Five eats most of it. It tastes like maybe the best thing he’s ever eaten.

And if he reaches out and his ankle brushes Vanya’s under the table and catches her smiling into her soup, well. That’s good.

This is right.

After dinner, when they have their homework time, Five jumps back into Vanya’s tiny room and flops down on the bed just like he used to, before.

Vanya looks very flustered when appears, saying, “Oh, hello,” in a small voice and flattening her bangs with her hand, smiling.

“Hi,” he says, just looking at her, unable to keep from smirking. He thinks about her, kind, sweet Seven, his Seven, sneaking down the kitchens and leaving out a sandwich for him every night, just in case. He imagines if he had come back at night, and found her there with the lights on for him, he wouldn’t have even waited to tell Reginald about the apocalypse – he would have just confessed his love for her right then and there.

They stare at each other – eventually she cracks, and covers her face with her hands, going pink.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she whisper-laughs, her hair draping over her shoulders. He tucks it back behind her ear. “Don’t you have math to do or something?”

Five scoffs. “I have more interesting things to think about than math, Vanya.” He sits up and leans forward into her space, finding great pleasure in the way she giggles, flustered, into her hands. She definitely knows he’s talking about her. The amount of love he feels is overwhelming – it fills his rib cage, feels like it’s spilling out of him, making him glow.

“You think I’m more interesting than math?” She asks playfully, half-joking. “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to—" Five interrupts her with a kiss, again, impatient, giddy, just because he can, because he’s waited so long, and now she’s his. After, she tries to frown, but can’t quite manage a serious face when she’s blushing so hard. He likes it. “Are you going to start doing that whenever you want me to stop talking?”

“You can keep talking,” he says, and kisses her again, and again. She smiles, maybe tries to say something against his mouth that he doesn’t understand. That’s okay. Her eyelashes are brushing his face while he tilts his head to one side, trying to find the best angle for kissing. Her skin is soft and warm, sweet. He feels warm.

He forgets to breathe, of course, because he is an idiot. He can’t help it – it’s like he’s drowning. He can’t stop even when he has to pause for breath and Vanya laughs at him, again. He doesn’t really mind – it’s nice. Her hand rests on his shoulder, the other winding its way into his hair. All he can smell is her – like wood, and old books, and soap.

Is kissing her going to be like this every time? He wonders, heart stuttering, mouth moving. Because – he doesn’t think he will ever be calm about this. It just means too much – his thoughts seem to dissolve into static noise when Vanya gently tugs on his hair. It feels so nice.

Her tongue touches his bottom lip, soft, experimental. Five, disoriented, thinks he might make an embarrassing noise in his throat, a kind of whine. Or a groan. Vanya – tugs lightly on his hair again, and he can’t – he can’t think about anything. Their teeth bump again – too excited – and he runs his thumb across the velvety skin of her jaw, and she exhales shakily, mouth parting, wet, and they are kissing and Five –

He hasn’t touched another living person before today in two years – so he is a little overwhelmed. Extra sensitive. That’s what he tells himself, as a shiver runs through his whole body, and Vanya responds by pulling him closer, holding him tighter. And God, he loves it, he feels home finally, and he’s never letting her go and, and, and--

Vanya’s fingers in his hair. Vanya’s mouth on his, gentle. Her hand soft on his shoulder. Vanya.

It’s too much, all at once. He pulls away, gasping. She lets go, seeming embarrassed; he looks at the wall, trying to collect his thoughts even though it feels like his mind is made of spaghetti, and he shakily takes his hand back from where he was clutching her blazer and runs it through his hair. “Sorry,” he says, breathless, dizzy. “Just – haven’t – overwhelmed.” Lame, lame, lame, he thinks. He tries to give her a smile.

“No, no it’s okay,” Vanya says, giving him space. Or giving herself space. She is looking at him; he swallows. It’s been a big day. Her mouth shines. “I shouldn’t have.”

He isn’t sure what she means. “It’s fine, I’m fine,” he says, but he’s not, because he feels like he’s about to have a heart attack or maybe pass out.

“Yeah,” she agrees, nodding emphatically, her hands twisting in her lap. Her cheeks are pink, mouth red and soft. He needs to stop focusing on her mouth for goodness’ sake, it’s driving him crazy. “Of course.”

“It’s nice,” Five says, looking at her eyes, not her mouth, his heart racing. “So nice.”

How many kisses will make up for two years?

Her face breaks into a big smile, all wobbly. “It is.”

He could look at her smile all day. Forever. He clears his throat, runs a hand over his face. Oh lord, he is blushing. Vanya leans back against the wall, places a hand over her heart. Is hers beating as fast as his?

Did he ruin things by pulling away so suddenly?

He looks at her. Vanya has her eyes shut, smiling faintly. Maybe not.

“I really like you,” she says, almost silently, like a confession. And, he sees when he glances at her curiously, it is a confession to her; she hides behind her hair, chewing her lip – now he’s distracted.

“Hmm?” he says, thinking about doing – that. “Oh. Oh. I really like you too. Really. Obviously.”

He thought she would have already known that by now, but she still brightens considerably when he says it. Maybe he didn’t make it clear enough before. She says, “Cool,” and then goes red again.

“Cool?” He teases. “I guess it is.”

“Shut up,” she mumbles happily.

“I think you can do better than th—” Number Five doesn’t get to finish his snarky comment because Vanya, in a rare show of boldness, leans forward and cuts him off, kissing him on the mouth. A peck, really, but it still makes his heartrate spike. She looks happy with herself for doing the same thing he did – he must be making a face. “Nicely done.”

“Thanks.” She runs her eyes across his face – he almost squirms at the attention – and leans forward again and kisses him on the cheek, lingering. He doesn’t know why she chose there, of all places, but he appreciates it.

“When I was in the future,” he says, “I found a book.” Ah. So he is changing the subject, now. Dolores laughs at him.

Vanya tilts her head. “Oh?”

“A book written by you,” he clarifies. “About us.”

“About – us?” She squeaks, tensing, and he realises his mistake.

“About the Umbrella Academy,” he says quickly. “An autobiography.”

Vanya relaxes, dropping her head back. “Oh.” She breathes out. “Was it… did you like it?”

He smiles. Of course his opinion would be what Vanya asks about, not the contents of her own novel. “Yeah. I liked it. It was very scathing. However,” he holds up a finger, “I now know what is going to happen in the future, and I’m going to make it better.”

Vanya frowns, and he fights the urge to kiss away the crease between her eyebrows. “Like what?”

Five reaches into the pocket of his blazer, where Extra Ordinary resides. And then, carefully, he tells her everything.

…

Vanya’s emotions feel like a rollercoaster – not that she’s ever been on one, but she thinks it must be like this.

One minute, she’s kissing Five – kissing Five, she can hardly believe it, and she even finally fulfilled her most secret special fantasy of kissing his dimple  – and it’s the most wonderful thing ever and she never wants to stop.

And then Five tells her that Ben is going to die in one year on a mission, which he knows because he time travelled to the future – she’s still maybe not quite had the chance to fully process that either – and read a book that she wrote, or will write, and. It’s a lot.

He tells her he has it all planned out, how they’ll save Ben. She believes him, and she’s scared, but she trusts him. Plus, he showed her the book, and that’s pretty hard to argue with. It’s her own face – the only picture of her ever taken.

It’s well past lights-out by now, and they’ve been talking for hours. Five’s voice has changed the more he talks – it’s harsher, scratchy. He says it’s because of the ash, and the smoke.

He says he hadn’t seen the sky since he left. (Vanya may have cried when he said that, just a tiny bit, but the sheer panic on Five’s face – he has never been any good at comforting – had made her laugh again.)

He tells her in a hushed, cracking voice, about how he had to eat expired food, and sometimes, on bad days, cockroaches. He tells her about the sandstorms, the acid rain, the dead bodies, the mannequin he befriended to stay sane, the week that his shelter collapsed on him, when he thought he’d die in a tomb without seeing anyone ever again. How he dreamed about sandwiches and friendship bracelets and domino masks and her.

She kisses him for every bad thing, and tells him about how Allison used to stand at her bedroom window and whisper at the sky I heard a rumour you came home. About how Klaus stayed sober for an entire six months after he left just in case, and got high again the first time when Reginald put up that stupid painting, and hasn’t been sober since. About how Ben went on live television for an interview and begged the world to look for his friend Number Five, and then gave out ‘missing person’ posters with Five’s face on them to fans, to put up around the city.

She tells him too, about when Allison rumoured Vanya to be silent and she couldn’t talk for a whole week, and no one noticed, not even Ben; and when Diego got into a fight with Luther and snatched Vanya’s bow out of her hand and threw it. Luther caught it and snapped it in half, not even realizing what it was. About how Reginald punished her for being in the way, by not replacing it for a month.

She confesses that she tried to run away once, but became too afraid and went back home. Five says he’s sort of glad she did, because what if he came back and couldn’t find her? She says he would have found her anyway.

Tomorrow, they’re going to sneak onto the roof so he can see the stars again, but for now, the two of them just lay side-by-side on Vanya’s far-too-small bed in the weak moonlight. She has a suspicion that Grace knows that Five is in her room, but is letting them have this. They all missed Five, even the android.

“Long day, huh,” Five whispers into the dark.

“Mm,” Vanya says, closing her eyes. “But a good one.”

Five hums. “Yeah?”

“I’m just – really glad you’re home,” she says, starting to get choked up again. She can practically feel his pleading gaze on her.

“Please don’t start crying again.”

“M’not,” she lies.

“Really? Because it sounds like it.” He sounds torn between teasing and uncertain fear.

“I am not,” she sniffles. “I just… missed you.”

“Oh,” Five says, guilt heavy in his voice. “I missed you, too.”

She swipes a hand across her face, chiding herself. She needs to get her emotions under control. “You’ll stay, now?”

He swallows. “Yeah. I’m staying.”

“Okay.”

He presses his face to the side of her head, almost a kiss. He inhales, lips grazing her temple, and she kind of wants to giggle because it’s sort of a funny thing to do, but he’s not laughing. He just breathes in the smell of her hair – like soap, probably – and eventually his heart evens out and he moves away again. She misses the warmth when it’s gone.

“Do you still make those friendship bracelets?” Five asks mildly, a few minutes of quiet later. He’s laying on his back, like her – Five takes up a lot of room with his posture and personality, commanding attention always, probably to compensate for his general skinniness. He even does it in his sleep. Vanya knows from when he used to comfort her after nightmares, that even though he’s laying in a normal position now, in the morning he’ll be completely twisted around and taking up all the space, face smushed into her pillow, arms thrown out. It’s terribly endearing, even if it was torture for her before. When she was – pining, she supposes. Crushing on him.

Maybe it won’t be so bad anymore, she thinks wryly, turning her face and seeing him gazing at her with an expression that is way softer than he’d ever let show in the daytime. “Friendship bracelets?”

“Yeah, you used to--” Five doesn’t finish, frowning. “That’s okay.”

“No, wait,” she says, chewing on her lip habitually. Not in a cute way, in the kind of way that makes her mouth cracked in the morning, but she still catches the way his eyes flicker to the movement. It makes her feel light-headed, to be seen the way he looks. To be wanted. Loved. “I remember. I made them with Grace. I used to give them to you after missions.”

His eyes sparkle. He almost looks the same as he used to. She likes Five like this – happy. She likes him when he’s bossy, arrogant, blunt, but there’s something very special about having this all to herself. Just for her eyes and no one else’s. “That’s right.”

“I… don’t make them anymore,” she admits, and the words not since you left are unspoken, but from the look on his face, he hears them. “Why, though? I can make you another.”

“I don’t need another one, I have a whole box of them in my room,” he says, sort of sleepily. “I just was wondering.”

“You still have them?” She asks, incredulously, and then she feels silly for being surprised. She knows – she knows he has feelings for her. Unbelievable as it may seem.

“Well, duh,” he says, sounding thirteen again. “When the person you fancy makes you friendship bracelets, you keep them, Vanya.” Fancy. It sends a thrill through her. She might never get used to it.

“That’s really sweet,” she says, then, tentatively, “kind of romantic.”

“Kind of.” He snorts. Then, “One might even say it’s cool,” he says breezily, grinning wickedly when she covers her face.

“That’s not going away any time soon,” she mutters.

“No, it’s not,” Five says cheerfully, and then rolls onto his side to face her, throwing an arm out over her waist. Just like she predicted. But unlike in the past, he draws her closer, buries his face in the crook of her neck. He’s acting nonchalant about it, but Vanya can hear his heart pounding. Oh, she loves him. “Goodnight, Seven.”

“Goodnight, Five,” she says to him, smiling, and reaches up to lightly place her hand over his, the one that holds her hip. His breath hitches – she pretends not to notice, though that bubbly, ridiculously happy feeling overtakes her once again. Carefully, she laces their fingers together.

Tomorrow, they can work on saving Ben, and then the world. They can, and they will, because…

Because Five came home. In another universe, he didn’t, and Vanya and Five sleep alone, decades apart. But in this one, he is here with her, for the rest of forever.

And when she wakes up the next morning – he’s still there, with his face smushed into her pillow, chin resting on her shoulder, one arm wrapped secured around Vanya’s waist and the other hand tangled in her hair. Home, at last.