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He visited her again, felt her presence was different than the others. He liked it. As kids, they were close, and he didn’t treat her hatefully as the rest of their siblings. Now they were adults, technically he wasn’t, at least in the body he walked around in. She didn’t seem to mind that much, maybe the memory of him disappearing seventeen years ago sometimes returns to her, he can see it in her eyes when she stares at him.
Hope.
What a fickle thing. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t going anywhere, and if she wanted him to leave, he can return to the Academy. Except she said nothing and made tea, and they talked, mostly about what she did as she grew older without him. Her smile was sad, her entire posture spoke of the pain she had to live with.
“It was fine,” she said, looking down at her cup, “after I left.”
“From reading your book, the others left in similar regard, besides Luther,” Five said.
Vanya nodded. “It was only right. Dad didn’t give us much of a choice, not like I wanted to stay…” She didn’t look at him, and he knew what she was going to say. She didn’t want to stay with the others. He didn’t blame her and took a sip of the tea she made.
By ten, she gave him a blanket and said good night. He was calm around her, wanting to hear her voice and her words she spoke, to know her expressions as he once did when she was younger. She was a lot more cagey, nervous even, but she tried to let it go in his presence, as if she had to remind herself that he was her brother, and they once had a close relationship.
Five took off his shoes and dropped his coat on the arm wrist before lying down on the couch. He covered himself with the blanket and tried his best to close his eyes. But all he could think about was her sadness, the loneliness she must’ve felt once he disappeared. He knew he’d have to let her deal with it, they were adults now, not kids between narrow halls, instructed harshly by a man who didn’t act like their father and probably wasn’t meant to be in the first place.
Five sat up, pushed the blankets away and walked down the hallway toward Vanya’s room. He swallowed nervously before knocking on the door.
“Vanya?”
“Five...are you okay?”
He sucked in a sliver of air before opening the bedroom door. She was lying on a double bed, thick blankets wrapped around her as she squinted at him in the dark. He didn’t think he’d have to say this, but decided there was no turning back now. “Can I sleep with you?”
Vanya was at first confused before nodding profusely as Five gently closed the door. He walked to the right side of her bed as she pulled the blankets out. She was wearing simple pajamas, a t-shirt and shorts. Smiling, she said, “Come on, it’s cold.”
Five smiled back and got into the bed, covering himself with the blanket, he laid down and looked at his sister who closed her eyes, pulling the blankets tightly around her.
“Are you lonely?” he asked, knowing it was a dumb question, but it was one that he had asked many times during the future events alone as he grew into an old man. He felt it in his chest, an emptiness that echoed, even how much he looked for purpose. He was always trying to be better than others and to push himself over the edge. He needed to succeed.
“Sometimes,” she whispered, opening her eyes, “I try to keep myself busy. It’s constant though, a need to fill something up inside of me, I guess dad’s neglect really scarred me, and the others, I want to be able to find a reason instead of what he tried to ingrain in me all those years.”
Ordinary.
He told her that many times, and they knew it too. She was ordinary, yet she lived under the same roof as them, had a room to herself, and in someway, also had a reason to be there. The others knocked her down a few times, but Five tried his best to make sure that even if she is ordinary, he still deeply cared about her.
“I missed you,” Five whispered.
Vanya smiled and closed her eyes. “I missed you too.”
Five moved a bit closer to her and her hand touched his hand, and they intertwined their fingers. He felt a bit better and closed his eyes to fall asleep, knowing there was a lot to do, but right now he didn’t have to feel lonely as he always seemed to be. For this night, his chest filled up, and the pain faded as sleep pulled him under.
The next morning, Five woke up, and found Vanya gone from the bed. He blinked, squinting a bit as the sun came through the windows.
“Vanya?” he called, pushing the blankets to the side.
“I’m making breakfast,” she said from down the hall. There was a strong smell of eggs and sizzling bacon, and his heart raced at a strong smell of coffee being made. He turned the corner and found her in front of the oven.
She looked well rested as she smiled at him while she flipped the bacon before touching a strand of his hair. “You have bed head.”
“I haven’t slept that good in a long time,” he commented.
“Is that genuine?” she asked, going back to checking the eggs and bacon.
Five stepped over to the coffee maker that was brewing the coffee. “For you it is.”
“It reminds me of when Allison and I would sleep in her room while she did my make up and played with my hair,” Vanya said. “Except dad was a bit more strict when it came to the boys in the house. He’d yell at Klaus or Luther whenever they wanted to join us. Klaus’s nail polish would chip and he’d want another coat. And Luther simply wanted to sit in the room with us, but the echo of dad’s voice always got to me.”
Five sat down on the couch, finding the blanket she gave to him last night folded at the end. “Dad never liked our connections. I guess he knew at some point it would lead somewhere, and that wasn’t our designated purpose in why he chose us.”
Vanya switched off the oven and separated the eggs and bacon onto two plates and walked over to him. “Dad never gave us any affection, it was only right we’d find it in each other.”
“In anyway we’d take it,” Five presumed, picking up a bacon and biting into it, he didn’t get to eat that much since he returned, and this was a luxury he didn’t have while stuck in the future.
Vanya poured them both a cup of coffee and set them down on the table. “I think it depends on how we dealt with it as adults, and that gave us the answer when we all decided to leave. There was no point in whatever relationships we carried out, all I know is that I’d like to at least know I wasn’t wholly useless in their eyes.”
Five said nothing more, he ate his food and drank the coffee. He liked Vanya’s company, the silence and patience is what he needed, and to at some point have someone to talk to.
“I have to get going,” Five said, pulling on his shoes.
Vanya nodded, setting the plates and cups into the sink. “Okay. You can come over anytime you want.”
Five’s heart raced, but there was a slight pain to it. “And can we...sleep together again?”
Vanya smiled. “Yeah. We can do that.”
He returned the smile, letting that loneliness ease away at her words. He grasped the handle of the door and said, “I’ll see you later, Vanya.”
And as he walked out, he heard her say, “I hope so.”