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+Allison is not a bad person. She has been told that, over and over again, in the past year. It’s usually followed by a resounding but.But she’s damaged. But she’s traumatized. But she made mistakes. But she’s not fit to be around her daughter. That’s fair. It’s true. She ran away from home, helter-skelter, at the age of seventeen, buried her entire life up until that point under make-up and designer clothes and never spoke of it again. Until her therapist told her, she didn’t know that sending your children to bed without dinner, locking them up for days, or slapping them when they mouthed off, is considered abuse.Sure, she knew that you don’t beat your kids, but when Father slapped them, they deserved it. She knew that neglect is a bad thing, but they were clothed and fed and healthy, right? Sir Reginald isolated his children almost perfectly. How the hell was Allison supposed to know that the way she grew up was wrong? Not normal, yes, that she knew, but wrong?Recently, she learned these things. They usually come to light in ‘not a bad person’ conversations. She hates those. But to see Claire again, she submits to them, willingly. Because unlike her own father, she would do anything for her daughter. She’s not a bad person, but she’s trying to be better.There. That’s a sentence she can get behind. Before she flew out for the funeral, she had one last session with her therapist. She asked her how she felt about confronting her siblings for the first time in over a decade. She told her that she wasn’t worried.“Because I know I screwed up and I know I made mistakes, but I’ve still done better than them.”Because Luther never even left the Academy. Because Diego and Vanya are ordinary and boring with small, ordinary lives. Because no matter how bad Allison’s life might get, she’s not selling her mouth for a hit, the way her brother has been doing since they were teenagers. She thought her therapist would approve. She’s looking on the bright side. A sort of ‘could be worse’ scenario. She’s counting her blessings. Instead, the woman gave her a tight, disapproving frown, brows drawn down. “I’m being optimistic,” Allison defended. “Optimistic would be thinking about how lucky you are that your own situation isn’t worse,” she was told. “You are happy that other people’s situation is worse. That isn’t optimism, that is schadenfreude, Allison.”Six hours after that conversation, she’s standing in the foyer of a place that was never a home, feeling understandably annoyed as she waits for the rest of her siblings to arrive. Luther has been here for days. The other three are almost twenty minutes late.Behind her, Mom is assuring everyone for the third time that, yes, she called them. Yes, they know the time. They will be here. On the street, a beat-up muscle car rolls up and coasts to a stop. Allison recognizes Diego only by his nose and the wry twists of his lips as climbs out of the driver’s seat, dressed in casual dark clothes, his hair shorn short. He leans back to open the rear door of his junker and the source of his smile becomes obvious as Vanya comes tumbling out, nodding eagerly, tripping on the curb. He catches her. The passenger door opens and out comes the last of their siblings, dressed in a black leather skirt and purple shirt, combat boots and enough make-up to be visible across the street. He always did have the most amazing eyes. Klaus.Longer, ganglier, his hair shorter than Allison remembers, but there is only one person in the world who could dress like this and actually pull it off. Vanya, still tiny, still short, still mousy in slacks, collared shirt and waistcoat, flanks their addict brother on one side, hooking her arm through his. Diego takes the other and Klaus immediately, automatically, reaches for his hand. Klaus always did that when they were kids, always reached out for whoever was closest and he never outgrew it. One by one, they all had to tell him to stop it, had to pull their hands away, had to yell at him that he was childish before he finally kept his limbs to himself. He cried, said he needed it to be sure they were real, but they all got tired of his excuses. His childishness. Even Ben didn’t tolerate it beyond a certain age. But now here Klaus is, twenty-nine years old, holding hands with his brother like it’s an everyday thing. Diego doesn’t pull away. Maybe, Allison muses as they cross the street together, they’re just trying to keep a handle on Klaus. Which probably means he’s high. The way he sways slightly as he moves confirms that theory. God. Not even for dad’s funeral could he be bothered to keep clean. She opens the door with her lips pursed, ready to comment, when Klaus strips the others off and throws himself forward to hug her. “Sis! You look fab! Love the hair!”He beams at her, open and wide and ridiculous. Behind him, Diego snorts and Vanya giggles, both of them leaning comfortably into each other and Allison realizes for the first time that they came together. All three of them and they don’t look awkward about it. Don’t look like they’re unused to it. Oh, well. They’re the ones who stayed in the city. It makes sense that they’d see each other occasionally. She has vague memories of the rest of them sometimes pairing off, forming little groups. Ben and Klaus were close and sometimes, Vanya was with them. Even Diego occasionally got caught up in them, she thinks. She never really paid attention. Luther and being the Rumor kept her busy. Klaus lets go a beat too late, as always, and the other two move in for brief, less exuberant hugs. “You’re late,” Luther finally announces himself, closing in.Klaus cringes. “Can you keep the bellowing down, please? Some of us have a teeny-tiny hangover this morning. Also, hi, Luther, I’m fine, how are you?”He beams, bats his lashes. Not high then. Coming down. Luther snorts at their wiliest brother and turns to Diego. “Couldn’t you have dragged him out of whatever alley you found him in early enough to sober him up?”There is a pause. A moment where everyone in the room goes completely, expectantly, still. Because, if Allison’s honest, they’ve all known this would devolve into a fight. The only question was who and how fast. (Luther and Diego. Within five minutes. She would have bet on it.)Then, suddenly, something bright blue surges forward and Luther is pinned up against the wall by – “Ben?!”Allison blinks in shock. Is that – it looks like – “Dude,” Klaus calls, “go Ben!”Diego is chuckling. Pogo seems frozen, much like Allison. Luther himself is staring helplessly down at their brother. Their dead brother. Who has him by the neck and is somehow managing to keep him pinned to the wall. Vanya sighs. Allison is still trying to parse the image presented to her when the smallest of them steps forward, hands raised, palms apart, and makes a shoving motion. The blue shimmering version of Ben goes one way, Luther skids the other, moved as if by giant hands. “No fighting, boys,” she chides. Her eyes have gone brilliantly, terrifyingly white.Somewhere, Allison is vaguely aware of Pogo gasping in shock. Luther, coughing and rubbing at this neck, stares between Ben’s specter and Vanya with wide eyes. Vanya, for her part, only turns to Ben like this is an everyday occurrence. “Do you think this might be a bit of an overreaction?”Klaus helpfully holds up thumb and forefinger, squinting though the gap between them, grinning.Ben (Benbenbenbenben) folds his arms over his chest, pouting like he did when they were kids. When he was alive. When he was – “He doesn’t get to judge Klaus. Not him.”“Benny,” Klaus starts, only to be cut off by Diego, narrowing his eyes. His hands are behind his back, where he always keeps at least two knives. Kept. Still keeps?“Explain.”Ben snarls. “The first time Klaus ODed he didn’t have Van down as his emergency contact, yet, so the hospital called the house. Luther answered and told them, I quote, ‘not to call this number again because the junkie wasn’t part of the team anymore’. He doesn’t get to judge anything Klaus did or didn’t do after that.”Klaus, for his part, just sort of wilts for a moment, before drawing their dead brother into a hug. Like he does this every day. Why is no-one surprised that Ben is here?She might say that out loud, because they all turn to her. Klaus shrugs. “Well, from my perspective, he never left, so.”Diego is still stuck on Luther, though. He turns to him. “You’re lucky Ben got to you first, asshole,” he tells Number One. Conversationally. All his teeth bared. “I would have slugged you.”He looks like he still might. Luther bristles. “Dad said-“Oh. Even Allison knows that’s the wrong thing to say. “I want to,” Ben pipes up, petulantly. “Klaus isn’t letting me manifest far enough.”Klaus beams at everyone.Vanya rubs her temples. “Okay. Stop. Rewind. Klaus is hungover because we all got very drunk last night. My head hurts too, I’d appreciate less fighting. Yes, Ben’s here. He always has been. You guys just didn’t believe Klaus when he told you so. Klaus is sober and has been for years. It did wonders for the whole ghost thing. I have powers. I have always had them, Dad just drugged me too much to use them. Can we get this shit over with? I don’t want to be here.”That… is more than Allison has ever heard Vanya say at one time before. Ever. Diego steps up to their sister, throwing an arm around her. She leans into him for comfort. “What she said.”“Oh, yeah,” Klaus announces. “Let’s just do it. My favorite sister-in-law promised me Chinese.”“Why are you even here if you don’t want to be,” Luther grumps, but his shoulders are hunched. He looks as small as his giant frame can look and the way he’s eyeing the united front of their siblings tells Allison he feels the same way she does. Blindsided. Surprised. Because when there weren’t reporters around, the Umbrella Academy has never stood this close together, shoulder to shoulder. And now four of them do (Ben!) and they are not a part of it. Hold on. “Sister-in-law?”Diego rolls his eyes, like this is all too much for him, and wiggles his left hand. Something glints there. “Three years in June. I invited you, but Luther was on the moon and your invitation apparently didn’t make it through your fan mail filter. Whatever. Let’s go make sure the old man is really dead and then we can not see each other again for the next decade or so, deal?”“Happy reunions,” Klaus mutters, “remember. Happy reunions. The cards said so.”“You were shitfaced when you read that,” Diego counters, tugging both of his living siblings toward the sitting room where an urn is displayed on a cloth-covered table, candles lit on either side. “I could read my cards asleep.”“He has, actually,” Vanya offers. “It was hilarious. He predicted burnt muffins for breakfast and then the bakery burnt down two days later.”“I loved that bakery,” Ben mourns as he trails after them, little wisps of blue light trailing in his wake. Allison and Luther are left alone. He turns to her. “What just happened?”Good question. “I think,” she starts, stops, starts again. “I think Klaus is sober, Ben is haunting him, Vanya has powers, Diego is married and somehow we missed all of it.”She wonders if he really did send and invitation to his wedding. She didn’t send any of them one. And Klaus… Klaus is sober? Vanya has powers? And they didn’t – Well, why would they have told her? How? It’s not like she left them with her number. Hell, her PA had strict orders to filter out anything pertaining to the Academy. They wouldn’t have gotten through to her even if they had tried. Klaus is shaking the urn containing their father’s ashes, muttering to it. Vanya is watching him with a grin. Ben and Diego, meanwhile, have wandered off to inspect the bar. Ben is here. He’s… not alive, but here. He looks good. Happy.And Allison didn’t know. She’s not a bad person, she thinks to herself, watching these strangers move with each other. She’s not a bad person. But she’s not a very good one, either. +
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+fuck, I wish you were here, Diego texts, absently watching Klaus have a muttered discussion with their father’s ashes while Vanya sips a mimosa Ben fixed for her. It has an umbrella and everything. His head is still pounding, despite the painkillers and he’d like to say this is the last time he let the chaos twins talk him into anything, but he knows it’s a lie. Vanya and Klaus and their bony elbows mutate into some sort of super person when they’re together. It’s impossible to say no to that person. Ever. Diego maintains it’s the eyes. Fuck, but they both have huge, sad eyes.So when they showed up last night, armed with booze and enough shitty eighties music to get them through three bottles of vodka between them (Klaus might be clean, but he still has the alcohol tolerance of a rock), informing them that they were a) celebrating outliving Reginald and b) pre-gaming the shit show the funeral would undoubtedly turn into, well. At least he had the foresight to set an alarm and bribe his wife into leaving breakfast for them when she went to work. Those eggs saved his life. that bad? Eudora texts back, almost instantly.
1 laid into 4 already re drugs, 6 tried to choke out 1, 7 revealed her powers, and im hungover
what drugs
exactly
is Klaus ok
One day, Diego will figure out how his fey brother and his down-to-earth, cop wife managed to become besties. One day. But then, that’s not even the pinnacle of ridiculousness in his life. He’s married. To a cop. Who is wonderful and patient and amazing and keeps him in work. Because he’s a licensed PI. Who, occasionally, gets help from his brothers, the medium and the ghost, in solving unsolvable cases. (Interviewing the dead victims tends to be a very good way to do that. Who knew? (Klaus knew. Shut up, Klaus, no-one likes a gloater.))He spends his evenings with his wife and three siblings, doing normal people things like having dinner and drinking wine. All of them are in therapy. Except for the dead one. Ben just reads a lot of self-help books and makes noises about writing his own. They talk to each other. They cuddle. Vanya and Klaus live in a tiny two bedroom apartment and sleep in the same bed and wear matching cross-dressing outfits and wonder why everyone thinks they’re a couple and show up at his place on random weeknights because they are that close.His life is, in a word, absurd. When Diego was seventeen and preparing to escape the Academy, he dreamed up a lot of unlikely, ridiculous scenarios. But even then, a normal, healthy, boring and happy life never even occurred to him. Absurd. He takes a quick snapshot of Klaus cradling the urn, softly swaying as he calls the contents a good for nothing piece of shit in several languages. He sends the picture to Eudora. so far so good, he writes. She sends him a smiley face. Klaus’ phone chimes a second later. He fishes it out of the waistband of his skirt, reads the text and beams. “U thinks I look good!”She would. She bought him that skirt. He puts the phone away, shakes the urn, “So, what do we do with the old fart? Flush him down the toilet? Oh, did he leave a will? Did he specify? Can we ignore his wishes? Do we inherit anything? I’d love to turn this house into, like, a halfway house for… queer, disabled, normal people, or something. He’d hate it. A kindergarten? Fuck knows, he hated kids.”Vanya salutes him with her glass. Luther, stiff and obviously still angry, steps into the room. “We’re having a ceremony outside, in the courtyard. By Ben’s….”“Oh, hell no!” Ben exclaims. “I want no part of that statue. It doesn’t even look like me!”Still salty about that, then. Man gets his son killed through abuse and neglect. Man erects statue of said son as if he actually gave a fuck. Statue doesn’t even look like dead son, proving everyone’s point nicely and morbidly. Luther growls. And with the kind of frame One is lugging around these days, it’s kind of impressive. Diego bets on steroids. “Courtyard. Five minutes.”Well. He got over the shock of seeing Ben quickly. Took him all of two minutes to go back to shouting at them all the way he used to. Diego considers reacting when Allison sidles up next to him. “So, you’re married?” she asks. She smiles and to her credit, seems honestly interested. It’s just that Diego doesn’t care. He has more siblings than he knows what to do with, invading his life whenever they feel like it. After thirteen years of nothing, he doesn’t really need Allison.“Yup.”“Congratulations.”“Thanks.”She waits for more and when he doesn’t deliver, turns to Vanya. “Hi! How’s life, sis?”Vanya shrugs casually, dismissive in a way she never could have pulled off a few years ago, when she was still drugged up. Without the pills, their little sister doesn’t just have powers. She has emotions. The first time Diego heard her genuinely laugh, he almost had a heart attack. The first time she screamed herself hoarse with anger, he thinks he actually did. She’s still quiet, still nerdy, but being drug-free, as well as long-term exposure to Klaus, have left her an entirely different person than she was when they were kids. And maybe that’s the best way to put it: she’s an actual person now, instead of a shadow. “Good. I have an audition for first chair next week. My classes are going well. Klaus is between projects right now, so he’s been baking up a storm. I get cake two times a day. It’s good.”She grins impishly as she watches Allison parse all that. If it were anyone but Van, Diego would say she did that intentionally, just to stump their sister. “That’s good. I’m happy for you. Projects?” Allison finally asks. “Should I summon him to watch his own funeral and the stunning lack of impact it has on anyone?” Klaus suddenly interrupts, pirouetting through the room. He’s lost his boots. Of course. Keeping shoes on that man is harder than dressing a toddler. And Diego knows. Eudora has nieces. They do not like getting dressed.Ben makes a hacking noise. “Fuck no. Let’s just get this over with.”He walks right through the bar, visible but not really corporeal. It’s the state he tends to when Klaus isn’t paying attention to keeping him solid. He rarely winks out completely anymore these days, but this state doesn’t seem to put a strain on their brother. They follow him outside, where Luther and Pogo are waiting. Diego slings an arm around Mom’s shoulders, already planning to take her to meet Eudora. Now that Dad’s gone, she can finally leave the house. He can visit her. Hell, she can visit him. Luther drones on for a while, then Pogo adds his two cents. No-one else wants to say anything and Vanya steps on his foot when Diego tries. Whatever. Luther opens the urn and solemnly pours it out. In the heavy, rain-laden air, it plummets like a rock, piling up on the dirt and leaves. Not a very dignified farewell. Once the urn is empty, he gives it a little shake. For a moment, they all stare. “Where’s a breeze when you need it?” Klaus mutters under his breath. Ben mimes blowing on the ashes, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk.Vanya snickers. “Are we done?” He looks around. “We’re done. Great. Let’s get back inside.”Diego turns around, gently steering Mom along, when the sky behind him tears. For a split second he entertains the idea that the sky has opened up and is about to rain lightning on Reginald Hargreeves’ ashes in ultimate, celestial disapproval of his being a shit person and a worse father. Instead a teenager comes tumbling out. +
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+Occasionally, when something really weird or unexpected happens – like Vanya having a nightmare and making all the furniture float – Klaus will have a split second’s doubt on whether or not he’s actually sober. He hates that because it usually makes the cravings worse because a) his mind is on drugs and b) it’s usually followed by a stressful situation of some kind and stress makes his cravings worse. Always. But. This time he thinks he might actually be high, because the sky above their father’s ashes just opened and dropped….Five. As in, their brother. The brother who disappeared, never to be seen again, seventeen years ago. The brother who, with his absence, paved the way for Klaus and Vanya to awkwardly, terribly, get to know each other and, eventually, save each other’s life and sanity. That brother. And he looks exactly like the day he disappeared.Well, okay, no. Klaus can see the dirt and grime stuck to him from here, along with some blood. He looks pale and hurt and dirty, but he’s still Five. Looks exactly like the photograph Vanya has up in the living room of their apartment.Same damn blazer and shorts. Five.Just fell out of the sky. And he’s still… thirteen.“Well, look at that,” Klaus’ mouth says without his input, “it looks like the little maniac did figure out time travel after all.”Five rights himself from the tangled heap he fell in and stares at Klaus for a long, long moment. His lip is split and his temple is bruised and bloody. He looks like miles of bad road and he stares way too hard before asking, voice wobbly, “Klaus?”Klaus likes to think it’s his unique fashion sense the boy recognized because everything else Five remembers about him is about seventeen years out of date. Wow. They got old. Luther moves forward and Five flinches, hard. Since Luther is built like a brick shithouse and about as friendly as one at the best of times (great idea, Dad, send the most emotionally stunted of all of us to the moon for four years, that’ll teach him how not to be a dick!), Klaus decides it’s his brotherly duty to intervene. Also, he really wants to hug his fucking brother. He steps forward, deftly shouldering into Luther’s path and decides to hell with the skirt as he drops to his knees. It puts him just below Five’s eyelevel. Fuck, but the kid was tiny. Is tiny. The tenses are going to fuck him up, he can tell already. “Hi, Five. Where the fuck have you been?”An then he has an armful of sobbing teenager, which feels a lot like an armful of sobbing Vanya, shape and size-wise, except that Klaus has to squeeze his eyes tightly shut this time because, fuck. Five is alive. He’s here. He’s okay. Klaus can touch him and that means he’s alive. Not as good an indicator as it used to be, what with his powers, but the telltale tingle of his own energy feeding back into him is missing. Five is alive. He’s really, actually, truly alive. While Klaus is sober and awake and everything. And then Vanya takes up the rear and Diego follows suit, and the three of them are holding onto their little shit of a brother tight enough to make sure he’s never zapping anywhere ever again. Allison finds a way to sneak in a hand, grabbing onto Five’s shoulder and squeezing tightly.Definitely never zapping away again.At least not without them all on his ass. “You’re strangling me,” Five eventually mutters and there’s some of the zinging snark no-one else ever quite managed to imitate. “Tough luck,” Diego bitches, eyes closed. “Don’t fucking disappear for seventeen years and we won’t have to strangle you, asshole.”Vanya giggles. Beyond her, Ben muses, “You know, I honestly thought my being dead-but-not was going to be the biggest news of the day, but you totally stole my spotlight. Not cool, bro. Not cool.”And that’s how Five finds out that one of his siblings is dead.+An hour later Five is dressed in clean clothes (blazer, shorts, fucking knee-socks, they need to go shopping ASAP), freshly showered and sitting in the kitchen with one of Vanya’s infamous sandwiches and a mug of steaming tea. Allison has draped a blanket over his shoulders and keeps fussing with one corner of it. There is a big plaster on his temple, stark white against already pale skin. Pogo took good care of Five. (Klaus still plans to make Diego or U, the ones with first aid training, go over the kid again later, because Pogo might be Pogo, but he’s also Dad’s man, through and through and Klaus hasn’t really trusted the old ape in a long time. Not with things that are precious.)The rest of them are scattered around the room. Ben and Klaus are perching on the counter, shoulder to shoulder, Mom is by the stove, Diego keeps patrolling the edges of the room the way he does when he’s nervous and Vanya keeps flitting between her favorite brothers and her lost brother, unsure where to settle. Allison refuses to move from Five’s side, which Klaus can tell is going to make the kid freak out soon, and Luther looms in the doorway, cutting off escape. Which is also going to freak Five out because he’s obviously traumatized.Someone needs to teach Luther how not to be a domineering, threatening asshole. It was bad when they were kids, but now that he’s built like a fridge, it’s infinitely worse. If Klaus hadn’t spent the last forever in therapy, Luther’s tendency to loom and glower would be fucking up him, and the other man is barely even paying him any attention. So there. Klaus bangs his bare heels against the cabinets, just for something to do. Five jumps, Allison moves to shush him, Luther starts to reprimand Klaus, Ben immediately bristles, Diego growls, the pots on their hooks start dancing and everything is shit. “Alright,” Klaus blurts over all of it. “Story time, littlest bro. Wow, we have a little bro, now!”Until now, all his favorite sibs have been thinking of him as the youngest, Klaus is fully aware. Because he’s needy and codependent and at times terribly childlike, he’s aware. He’s also aware that that’s a reaction to trauma as much as it’s just, well, him. He’s a fucked up little puppy and at this point, he’s probably as well as he’s ever going to get and, yeah, that’s still a far cry from sane. Whatever. He’s got his shit well in hand for once. God. He’s so functionally adulting today, it’s kind of creeping him out.“And before you say it’s none of our business, the way you used to, let me remind you that we are all adults now and you can’t lord your cleverness over us anymore. Also, we need to know at least the basics so we can figure out what to do next. Also, in case you missed that part, the old goat fucker’s dead and we’re free, yay!”He makes jazz hands at that. Five glowers. But, as it turns out, all it took for Klaus to get one over on his smartest brother, just once, was seventeen years of experience. Would you look at that. “When I ran out of the house, I jumped in time. Little jumps first, a few months. Then a few years. Backwards, at first. And then, forward. I aimed for home, but I overshot. I… Dad was right.” God, it must gall him to say it. Klaus gags just hearing it. “Traveling backwards was hard, but doable. Going forward… I lost all control. I overshot by centuries. It was… bad. I spent a few days there, until I recovered from the jump and then started going backwards until I landed here. Did I ever show up earlier?”Diego shakes his head. “No.”“So this is as far as I go, apparently.”“How long has it been, for you?” Allison asks. To her credit, she’s still managing to keep her hands on the blanket, instead of Five. Klaus didn’t think she had it in her. But then she also managed to resist her old knee-jerk reaction of always automatically siding with One earlier, so maybe Allison isn’t the same as she was at seventeen, either. He shrugs, chewing on a bite of his sandwich. “A few months. I don’t know. I passed out a few times from exhaustion.”He shrugs again, like it’s no big deal. But then, he’s a Hargreeves. It’s in their genes to deal with trauma in weird, unhealthy ways. Adopted genes? Here’s a thought: Did good old Dad ever fuck with their genes? Fuck knows, he screwed with everything else. Here’s looking at you, Luther. “Pogo says you need a few days of rest, plenty of fluids and to regain a few pounds,” Mom pipes up, turning quickly enough to make her dress do that perfect swish that Klaus never quite manages to copy. “But other than that, you’ll be right as rain in a jiffy, dear.”“Gr-eat,” Klaus announces. “Awesome. Pack it in, Five, we’re going home.”He’s met by a chorus of shrill, angry disagreement. Klaus rolls his eyes, sighs, and does the responsible thing. He pokes Ben into the side and hisses, “Explain,” loudly enough for everyone to hear. Because after almost twenty years of being literally glued together, Klaus knows that if he had the thought, so did Ben. Except everyone listens to Ben, because Ben died before he could ruin his reputation as a smart, rational person. He stands a chance with this audience, unlike Klaus. “Five is thirteen,” Ben obliges, with a sigh. “He needs a guardian. Legally speaking, at least. Neither Mom nor Pogo officially exist,” he starts ticking off, “Allison isn’t allowed to see her own kid, so there’s no way she’ll get to keep Five, no offense,” Form the looks of it, offense very much taken, but all she does is purse her lips and give a tight nod.“- and Diego is too busy with work and also, has a record. Luther is just a bad idea, I’m legally dead. That leaves Vanya, who is the only one here with regular working hours and no criminal record. Ergo, Five’s going to be staying with her and Klaus.”“Klaus has a record!” Luther points out, angrily. “He’s a junkie!”“Sober junkie, thank you very much,” Klaus interjects. “I also live with Vanya, who’s all responsible and shit. Aaaaand I’m at home a lot more than the rest of you. Vanya can be the responsible dad, I can be the fun mom. Although I’m not sure about the petticoat. Never did manage to pull that off quite right.”Ben kicks him. Klaus is fast enough to make him incorporeal before he connects. Because he’s an asshole. Then he immediately gives Ben back his body and promises himself to keep it up for the rest of the day, because he’s an asshole, but not a giant one. Number Six smiles at him, crookedly. “And before any of you argue that we don’t need to sweat legalities, I’d like to remind you that three of you are kind of famous and Dad’s all over the news right now. Unexplained teenagers are going to draw attention.”Vanya mouths ‘three’, points at herself and blushes. Yeah. She’s making a name for herself as an artist. Finally. “We could all stay here,” Allison suggests. “Together.”“Fuck no!” Klaus argues at the same time Vanya says, “This place is hell.”She shakes her head. “This place is all our nightmare. We’re not staying here and we’re not letting Five stay here.”“Does Five get a vote?” Five asks, dryly, scooting away from Number Three as he talks. Vanya blushes, ducks her head. “Of course, sorry. It’s just… well, a lot has changed since you left. We’re not children anymore. We don’t have to be here and that means neither do you. You have options. We have… a better idea of just how badly Dad actually screwed us up.” She flashes her icy eyes at him, briefly. “You can have a chance at a normal life, at doing what you want.” She considers, “Except maybe time travel. At least until you figure it out? We all thought – “They thought he was dead. For more than half their lives. Klaus is sure he’s figured that out already. Five nods, grudgingly and just looking at him is so weird because Klaus remembers him in the hazy way childhood memories tend to be when you spend your teens pretty much fucked out of your head on weed, cocaine and heroin, but he’s looking at him from an adult’s perspective, now, and part of him expects Five to have changed at the same rate he has, except time travel. So Five is what Klaus remembers him to be, but also not and he can’t tell where the actual person ends and the memories and assumptions starts. It’s really weird.“I missed all of you. And I want to… get to know you? The adult yous. I came back for you.” Something hollow and aching spreads across his face before he fights it down. “But I… I’ve always hated this place. And I think… I think I’d like to go with Vanya.”Klaus waves a hand. “You know she comes with me and Ben included, right?” Because Five loves Vanya, likes Ben well enough and really only ever seemed to tolerate Klaus. But apparently a few months lost in the future are enough to mellow a kid, because when Five nods, he seems genuinely okay with that idea. Okay then. Klaus beams at him. Then another thought occurs to him. “How the fuck are we going to figure out the paperwork for this?”+
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+ Five is home. He’s home.He’s home. He’s home. He stands under the shower, letting the hot water pound aching muscles, and tries to get used to it. Home. It feels like he’s been gone for decades. From a certain point of view, he guesses he has. Pogo has gone grey. Father is dead. Five hated the old man, but the absence of him is still… awful. He focuses, instead, on the ones he actually came back for. All his siblings have grown into adults, so far beyond what they were as children that it took him a minute to recognize them all. Diego is scarred, Luther is a giant. Vanya is far more confident. Ben is… well. Ben is dead. But not in the ways that matter, he assured Five, patting him on the head. Even Allison seems changed. She’s less abrasive, less commanding. Mom is the same, of course, loving and kind and useless at the same time. Apart from her, Klaus is probably the one Five recognizes easiest. Not just from his mode of dress, but his mannerisms. His way of talking. Number Four has always had too much personality for his small body and even grown, he’s still bursting at the seams. Oh, there’s something sharp and broken there, something Five will take the time to tease apart later, but for now, at least Klaus is still Klaus, loud and crass and himself. At least something is the same. Five is home. He closes his eyes. He breathes. He’s home. +Going with Vanya, Klaus and Ben is easy. He likes neither Luther nor Allison and the idea of staying inside this tomb they all grew up in leaves him queasy. Funny. It’s home. He, unlike his siblings, has never lived anywhere else. But he, unlike his siblings, also had a fairly decent idea of what a monster Reginald Hargreeves really was, even at age thirteen. There are no secrets when you can teleport. Not really. That house has always been a prison. Their rooms, their clothes, their food, their books and schooling and their every step. Everything was regulated. The others, he’s told, held out until their late teens before running away. Freeing themselves. He’s free now, too. A few hours ago, he assumed that returning to his siblings would, inevitably, mean returning to that place. To be punished and shunned and broken down until he was back to being the perfect little soldier Father wanted. Now, he can have his cake and eat it, too. He can have his siblings without needing to endure their father for them. Reginald is dead. Father is dead.Dead. Ben is dead, even if he’s not. Klaus, Klaus tells him, in the back of the car, that what Luther said was true. Hard drugs. And worse, his eyes say, far worse. Vanya has powers that were suppressed for decades. Diego has a secondary power. He can breathe under water and Five can imagine, without even trying, how, exactly, their father tested that power. He’s home. But as he sits between two of his brothers, riding away from that house, listening to them talk, he’s starting to understand that home is broken. Everything he knows is different now. Better, he thinks (hopes), but still different. Klaus mentioned sending Five to school.Five has never been to a school in his life. (Lie. They stopped a school shooting once. Children their age, cowering, crying, begging for their mothers, while Five and hi siblings had to fight adults with guns.) Father home schooled them. But Father is dead. His thoughts are a tangle, eating their own tails. He’s so glad to be here, but here is no place he knows. Not really. The dissonance makes him feel queasy again. Jittery. Lost. “Hey, hey, Five. Hey. You still with us?” That’s Klaus, his face too close. He pulls back as soon as he realizes he has Five’s attention. Vanya is holding Five’s hand. Both of them, Four and Seven, are wearing the same nail polish. Sparkly. Dark blue. He didn’t notice before. Father never allowed them nail polish, before. Father never – Father is dead. They don’t have to do what Father tells them to anymore. Five… doesn’t have to, either. He doesn’t -“Is there really no more Umbrella Academy?”No more fighting? No more men with guns, no more killing? No more Ben, covered in blood, quietly crying in the aftermath? No more Klaus rocking himself as he stares at empty corners?“Nope,” Ben offers, easily. “You should make Klaus tell you about his plans for the house.”Obligingly, Klaus does. He rambles on about kindergartens and queer kids and way houses and the homeless shelter he volunteers at and donating Sir Reginald’s fur coat collection to it, just so they can all watch people he considered scum walking around in his priceless clothes. About painting the walls pink and pastel green and putting plants in all the windows and a bowling alley in the upstairs hallway, what do they think of that? After defacing all the fuck-awful family portraits, of course.It helps. Five breathes. Diego eventually pulls over and they file out of his car with promises to meet up later. Apparently, Diego has a wife and that wife promised to feed them. They’ll come over, bring the food. Give Five some time. Ben waves goodbye to Diego and then, with one last smile at Five, he fades out of sight. “Lazy bastard,” Klaus sighs, throwing an arm around Five’s shoulders. He flinches. Klaus loosens his hold for a moment, giving him the chance to pull away. He doesn’t. Instead, they follow Vanya side by side, up the stairs and into a small, cheerful apartment. There are posters plastered all over and it smells vaguely of dust and cake. Vanya’s violin is propped up on a chair by the bay window. A tie-dye shirt is flung, haphazardly, over the back of the sofa. There are books everywhere, cheap romance novels (Klaus, probably), mixed with history textbooks and music theory. “So, I’m thinking,” Vanya offers, “you can have my bed. I’ll crash with Klaus.”He opens his mouth to refuse the offer, only for her to steamroll him. It’s a new experience. Vanya, confident. “Don’t argue. You deserve a bed and Klaus and I bunk together often enough. Before we moved in here, we only had one bed.”Klaus giggles, waggling his eyebrows. For a moment, Five’s mind jumps to Allison and Luther, always sneaking off, always – “Eugh, gross, no! I can hear you thinking incesty thoughts! You’re too young for that. Stop it! Van is my baby sister and I love her and she’s lacking important traits to ever be interesting and also, gross!”Vanya rolls her eyes, points at herself. “Mostly queer.” At Klaus. “Super queer.” At both of them, “Nightmares.”Like that’s explanation enough. And it is. “Oh,” Klaus suddenly cries, leaping forward to pluck something off the coffee table. It’s a ratty stack of tarot cards. He cuts the deck expertly, like a magician. It might be the deck he’s had since they were children. A few weeks ago. Seventeen years ago. It’ll take a while to connect the children Five used to know to their adult selves.He waves the deck. “Happy reunions! Told you!”It means something to their sister, who rolls her eyes fondly and toes off her shoes, headed for the kitchen. “We have leftover cake. Do you want some?”Cake used to be a contraband item at the Academy. It didn’t fit their diet plans.“What kind?” he asks, skeptical. Apart from donuts, the only cake he ever had was chocolate. He liked it. She snorts. “With the way Klaus has been baking? All kinds.”“Hey!”“Chocolate?”“There might, possibly, be at least two different kinds of chocolate.” She smiles, a small, mischievous thing that he saw sometimes when she did something clever and no-one told her off. It looks right on her older face. Like it belongs there. Five feels something inside of him… not break, not exactly, but reshape. Collapse and rebuild, maybe. Regrow. +
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+Eudora Patch is raised on superheroes. Ok, no. That’s a lie.Eudora Patch is raised and that raising includes an exposure to superheroes, because the Umbrella Academy is everywhere. It makes her uncomfortable, seeing kids her age fighting men with guns on the news because her dad’s a cop and she knows how dangerous it is. Even if they have superpowers. They’re still kids. They should be, she doesn’t know, at school, or something, right? Not – not stopping bank heists. That’s what her dad is for. She talks to him about it once and he agrees, eyebrows drawn tight. “Then why doesn’t someone make them stop?” she asks, fourteen and so smart.He shakes his head. “Bambina, that man,” he flicks a hand at the TV, “has money. And money speaks. You don’t slap a billionaire with child endangerment.”He wants to, though, she can tell. It makes her love him more. So Eudora Patch is raised in a reality where superheroes exist, even though they shouldn’t. She pities them. +She pities Diego, too, when she meets him.He’s so angry and under it, so obviously lost in such strange ways. He fights like a machine, but doesn’t understand slang, has never had McDonald’s, has no social skills to speak off and flinches at physical contact. Something bad has happened to him, Eudora understands that even before they get drunk together one night and his mumbled stories finally draw the line from her (maybe) boyfriend to the childsoldiersuperheroes she pitied growing up. After that, well. She shoves the pity in a box. In that box live all the things she remembers from the Umbrella Academy, as well as all the things Diego tells her, in the dark, late at night, about seven children with numbers instead of names. She files it all away, separates Number Two from Diego, allows herself to pity one but not the other. Pity, she knows, breaks Diego. It makes him angry and helpless and wild. She pities the boy called Number Two, instead, and his six siblings. Number One, the good son, Number Three, the queen, Number Four, the haunted boy, Number Five, the lost one, Number Six, the fallen one and Number Seven, the ordinary one. She listens to him put down the ones he left behind and praise the ones he lost. Five and Six are more saints than siblings, in Diego’s eyes. “They were the smartest of us, you know? When the rest of us were still cowering, afraid of the old man’s ‘training’, they already know it was wrong, what he was doing. They knew we had to get out.”They did, he doesn’t say. In their own ways.It’s a coping mechanism. Diego puts down the siblings he left behind, convinces himself they weren’t worth saving, so he doesn’t have to drown in the guilt. All the love he doesn’t allow himself for them, he puts on the other two. The lost ones. Eudora holds him tight, on the nights he tells her his own brand of ghost stories, and shoves more and more into the box. +Only then the box comes to life. And it’s not neat little broken toy soldiers all lined up in there anymore, but actual people. Somehow, Diego’s stories never really made his siblings out as people. But Seven’s name is Vanya and she is tiny, yes, but also fierce in defense of a brother Diego thought was lost. Fucked and drugged-up beyond saving.Four is called Klaus and he’s haunted and hunted and broken, yes, but he’s also unbearably kind and funny and beautiful. Six, Ben, is dead, yes, but he’s also there, he smiles and likes to read and joke and mimes hitting Diego over the head when he’s being an idiot. And they’re not alone at all, those three, but together, somehow, as well as they can be with death and addiction between them. They’re a family. One Diego left behind. After he helps Vanya finds Klaus that night, he comes home to her in tears and spends an hour sobbing into her shoulder. Because Klaus, sweet little Klaus, got beat half to death by a man he whored himself out to for drugs and then crawled away into a crack house to die and Vanya, sweet, boring Vanya fought for him, tooth and claw and Ben is really there, is still there, when Diego never believed Klaus.Klaus might have died tonight and Diego might have never known.They’re broken and damaged and somehow, while Diego ran away from it all, they stuck together. The guilt is eating him alive. In the end, Eudora has to take him by the hair, yank him around and ask, “So what are you going to do about it?”It takes five repetitions before he figures out that ‘nothing’ is the wrong answer. “I’m going to fix it,” he finally decides and she nods, hugging him as a reward for finally getting it. Her life, she can tell, is about to get a whole lot more exciting. +Truth time: when the child heroes from TV come tumbling into her life, two four six seven, she figures she’s going to be the mom friend. The savior. The one to help fix them. And she is, but it’s not as one-sided as all that. With Diego it never was, of course, but Diego’s abilities were low-key enough, Eudora thinks, that he went under the wire of their father’s attention most of the time. The others? Not so much.So she figures she’ll be taking care of them. She doesn’t expect them to also take care of her. When Diego comes home roaring with rage, bruised and shaking with violent impulses, tells her to go fuck herself and her fucking police family bullshit and then rushes out again in obvious search for something to shatter himself against, she calls them.It’s an impulse she regrets almost as soon as she does it, but they don’t even hesitate. Vanya shows up at her door half an hour later, informing her that Klaus and Ben are on the prowl. “Will Klaus be okay?” Eudora asks. Because she’s babysat the man a time or two and she knows how he gets, at least a little.Vanya shrugs, confident. “Diego needs help. That’ll carry him through.”Somehow, the night ends with Diego, whole and in one piece, back where he belongs. Back where she half expected to never see him again because she knows Diego well enough by then to know that when he hurts, he hides himself away like a wounded animal. But here he is. With her. She’s going to yell at him at some point, but for now, she’s only relieved. It ends with Eudora in bed with her boyfriend and two of his siblings, snuggling like their lives depend on it and sleeping better than she should, after a shit day like this. And then the floodgates are open. Vanya offers to run their errands while she’s out, knowing they’re busy. Klaus drops off plates of whatever he’s baking this week, just because. Ben coaches Diego through finding a new job and when she has a fight with Diego, either Vanya or Klaus will show up with ice-cream and a movie while the other goes to kick their brother’s butt.“Well, Baby,” her dad says over the phone, while Eudora sits on her couch, watching Klaus shimmy around her kitchen as he fixes dinner for her because Diego is on a long shift and she sprained her ankle at training today and can’t really move. “That sounds like you found yourself one hell of a family.”In the kitchen, Klaus drops a spoon full of sauce, only for it to suddenly stop, hover and then reverse in mid-air. Ben flickers into existence briefly, waves at Eudora, and then winks out again. “Hit me, baby, one more time,” Klaus croons to the pasta and Eudora laughs.“Yeah,” she tells her dad, “I guess I did.”+Klaus is her maid of honor. Vanya is Diego’s best man. It pisses off quite a few cousins, but Eudora wouldn’t have it any other way. +“So,” her husband says, conversationally, as she answers the phone. “How would you like to meet Number Five?”Absolutely honestly, Eudora replies, “I’d love to meet your brother, Diego.”+
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+ Klaus can’t sleep.Dramatic gasp! Shock!Yeah, no. Insomnia is as old a friend as Lina, sitting in the corner, quietly humming to herself, rocking back and forth. Older. Her scarf is folded tightly over her chest, where resuscitation scars glow, bright red. Her nails scrape against the hardwood floors. She hasn’t been a ghost for very long, barely a few decades, but unlike most, there is nothing really keeping her here. She loses herself in increments.When they moved here, she spent hours talking to Klaus. These days, she mostly hums, sings and keens. He watches her move for a while, then slowly starts wiggling forward, out of Vanya’s big spoon death grip. She lets him go, used to his restless sleeping habits. Lack of sleeping habits?Ben isn’t around, probably still hovering over Five. Their little brother. Who is alive and real and asleep in the next room. Diego and U left a few hours ago, after a surprisingly nice evening. It was almost normal, the way it usually is, only now with Five. He’s holding up well. Fronting hard. Klaus is waiting for a breakdown. So is Ben, he knows. His ghost brother will sound an alarm as soon as it happens. Until then, Klaus pads quietly out of the room, slipping into the frilly, fuzzy pink bathrobe Diego bought him as a joke and grabbing his smokes on the way. Tobacco only. There is nothing stronger than cigarettes and a single bottle of tequila in the apartment, for night just like this, when the cravings are a living, crawling thing under his skin and all Klaus wants to do is numb it all away. Stressful day. Emotional overload. He knows his triggers. Lina whimpers as he slips past her, into the hallway. The drowned twins flicker briefly in his peripheral vision, a blind man gropes for him, groaning, his empty eye sockets a bleeding ruin. He spent too much time today keeping them all away and Ben fully solid and himself in one piece. It drains him.Not nearly as much as it used to, but late at night, the dead bleed in. He tries to shore himself up. The twins flicker out. The blind man fades. The keening sound from the living room disappears and Lina stops scratching. The place is clear of ghosts. All but one. Ben sits on Vanya’s dresser, legs crossed, chin in hands. When Klaus peeks in, the gives him a thumbs up. On the bed, Five sleeps the sleep of the deeply exhausted. A bellow from outside the room announces the guy who got murdered in 2B in ’95. Knife fight. Guts spilling out. Klaus pushes further out. Silence. Inside of him, something twists, wobbles. God, he wants to let go. Ben shushes him silently and he notices, for the first time, that he’s snapping his fingers. Nervous tick. Empty hands. He pulls a cigarette out, waves his brother off and climbs quietly out onto the fire escape. It’s cold out. His breath fogs out.Once upon a time, weather like this meant sleeping in shelters or freezing. They confiscated any drugs they could find before letting anyone in and so shelters meant comedowns, meant sobriety. There are many people who die in shelters and few of them die happy. Sometimes, he considered letting himself freeze just to stop the wailing. Ben never let him. The grating of the stairs cuts into his bare feet. He lets it ground him until he hits the roof, stumbles a little, catches himself. Lights his smoke and smokes it as fast as he can, giving himself a tiny little high that barely last a minute. He lights the next one with the butt of the first, then pulls his cards out of his pocket. On the far side of the roof, a jumper is spreading his arms, leaping. Again. Again. Again. He always screams just as he goes over, changing his mind a split second too late. The impact is always terrible. An endless loop. A trap. Klaus has tried to free the poor fucker before, but he’s utterly stuck. The twins come back in. This time, he lets them. They pull out ghost ropes and start playing ghost games with them, jump, jump, jump, skip. One of them dribbles water from her mouth with every movement. The other has been gnawed on, missing half her fingers and one ear. Both of them drip icy water wherever they go. Their eyes are milky pale. He doesn’t look at their faces, flicking cards, face up face up face up. Tower. HermitFool.Death. World. Judgement.Change and his brother and himself and endings and… oh. He draws another and another and another. Moon. Star. Meteorite.What the fuck?He squints at the card in the low light. It resolves itself into the Hanged Man. There is no Meteorite in tarot.“What do you have?” That’s Pedro. He sits next to Klaus with his legs crossed under him and the ruin of the left side of his face carefully hidden. He’s considerate like that. Can’t do much about the way his mangled arm hangs limply, though. Or about the blood.Klaus hums, chews on the dead end of his cigarette, lights another. Walks his fingers over the cards, taps them, hums louder, wriggles. His skin burns and his skin itches and he can almost feel what it would be like to shoot up, right now. The prick of the needle, the flood of chemical bliss rising up his arm, into his chest, spreading. Making it all go away. “Something big didn’t happen. Won’t happen. An absence,” he tells the old man, who chuckles.“What fills it?”“My old man was buried today. And one of my brothers came back from the dead. Weird, right? Like, balance, somehow. Cosmic bullshit. Luther looks ridiculous. Does he really think that coat is going to hide that something seriously freaky is going on with him? How do you get legal custody of someone who’s dead? Is Five officially dead? I mean, were we ever really alive to begin with? Dad bought us. That can’t have been legal. Did he, like, officially adopt us. Is there paperwork? Why have I never considered this before? Do we even have birth certificates? What’s filed under ‘father’. ‘Divine intervention’?”“What fills it?” Pedro asks again. Klaus’s hands dance and his face moves and his blood sings. “Oh my god, do you think I was a virgin birth? Have any of us ever tried walking on water?”“Klaus!”“Jeez, for a dead guy you’re impatient. It’s been a century. Chill.”“You’re avoiding the cards.”Klaus looks down, then up, at the sky, at the jumper, at the twins dripping pink water all over the nice, clean roof. His eyes skitter over the cards, then back. He lets something go and blue mirages surge to life all around him, shoves it back down and makes them fade. Below, the bellow from 2B starts again. Pedro waves a hand in his face. He looks at the cards. He looks away. Fun fact: No-one has ever taught Klaus what the cards mean. Not once. “Return,” he finally mutters, forcing his jumpy brain to focus for a moment. In front of him, Death and the Tower lie next to each other. Change. New beginnings. All around them, four cards are laid out. Seven of Cups. Seven of Staves. Seven of Swords. Seven of Pentacles. All the sevens of the deck. He’s only using the Major Arcana. The cards should not be here. There is no Meteorite card, but that was here, too. “We need to go back. All seven of us. We need to go back to that house.”Pedro nods quiet agreement. Klaus swipes a palm through the reading. “I don’t want to go back there!” he whines. Pedro shrugs. “Then don’t. It’s your life. The cards only advise.”Klaus grunts, kicks, slaps at the cards, uncaring where they land. They’ll be back in his pocket by the time he gets back downstairs. They always are. “That house broke me,” he hisses. “I fucking-““Maybe,” the old man offers, “it will fix you, too.”Klaus reels in his power. All the ghosts fall silent. He clambers to his feet and meanders his way through aircon ducts and abandoned lawn furniture toward the point where the jumper leapt and leapt and leapt. He stands on the edge, arms spread, ridiculous bathrobe flapping around him like a cape. He doesn’t feel like Batman. He needs chemical assistance to feel that invulnerable. Looking down from the tenth floor, though, is a trip in and of itself he decides, as the wind buffets him and he almost – almost - Vanya’s little sad face flashes in front of his mind, the way it always does when in moments like this. But I would be. Alone. So he promised, because he couldn’t baer the thought of failing another sibling. He promised to stay with her and she, in turn, has stayed with him. He loves her, for that. It makes hurting her so very hard. She wouldn’t be alone now, but that thought only brings on ideas of U being the one called on the scene, of Diego made to ID his body. What would happen to Ben without him? Shit, what would happen to Five, now?What – he knows, in an abstract way, that he won’t jump. That he will never jump. He actually likes his life the way it is now. His people, his work. He has a home, a roof over his head, food, clothes. He hasn’t had a dick in his mouth that he didn’t want there in years. But sometimes the walls come pressing down, or your abusive piece of shit father dies and it all just… seems stupid. Klaus Hargreeves, living a clean, honest life. What a joke. And the cards – He doesn’t like what they’re telling him. But just like with everything else, he’ll soldier on. Klaus the trooper. Ooh-rah. Or something. “Klaus,” Ben says, voice quiet. Benny’s long since stopped being alarmed at finding Klaus in weird, potentially hazardous situations. Usually of his own making. They have this quiet understanding where Klaus does what he wants and Ben doesn’t have the power to stop him. Death has turned Ben Hargreeves into a witness as much as it has turned Klaus into a fuck-up.He looks over, sees his brother perched in the edge beside him, feet dangling, ghostly, in and out of the building. The fall wouldn’t hurt Ben. Ben is already dead. Hell, he’s not even sure it would hurt him permanently. But he can’t take the risk that this time, it’ll stick. Besides, Ben is still the only one who knows about this particular subset of his ability. Vanya’s sad face again.Klaus lets his arms drop, sighs. “Buzzkill,” he announces and carefully gets off the ledge. “I thought you were on Five watch?”“He woke up a while ago. He’s with Van now. They wondered where you went.”Klaus flicks one of the remaining cards into the abyss. In effigy, or something. “Reading a future I do not particularly care for.”Ben hums, quietly. Then he says, “Go back to bed, Klaus.”Yeah. That’s probably a good idea. He skips over the twins’ rope on the way to the stairs. Pedro waves at him. Maybe he’ll be able to sleep now. +
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+Don’t tell Klaus, but for most of their childhood, Five was Vanya’s favorite brother. It took him disappearing and leaving her behind for him to get bumped off that pedestal and replaced with Klaus, whose most redeeming quality for a little while was simply that he was there. God, she was a starved thing, wasn’t she? Emotionally flattened by the drugs, alone and abandoned, Number Seven was a haunting in human skin. Vanya isn’t Number Seven. Vanya is drug-free and powerful and alive. And she loves Klaus and Diego and Ben, even Allison and Luther. And she missed Five like a limb.She didn’t realize how much until he was there, looking at her dazedly over Klaus’ shoulder. He still looks the same. It’s jarring, because it’s wrong, but it’s also right. The Five in her memories never grew up, after all. She wondered, sometimes, what he would look like as an adult, if he ever grew into his chin and ears, but she could never picture it. Five is thirteen forever, frozen like Klaus’ ghosts. The Peter Pan of child soldiers.She looks at him, curled up on the bed beside her, and she remembers the boy who would sneak her the occasional candy he zapped out to get. Who sat by her side when everyone else forgot she even existed. Who talked to her about the books they both liked. About music.He seems so small now and god knows, Vanya isn’t exactly big. Maybe it’s the way he sleeps now, curled into himself, protecting all his important parts. The way Klaus still sleeps, on bad nights, an animal curled around a soft underbelly. Speaking of Klaus. He disappeared almost an hour ago. Twenty minutes later, Five came stumbling in, wide-eyed and shocky. He grabbed for her, her arm, her hand, something solid, held on too tightly and fell asleep like that. His grip hasn’t relaxed all that much since. She’s stuck. Ben went for Klaus. She hears them climb through the living room window. The roof. Klaus goes there some night, when he doesn’t want to disturb them. When he doesn’t want to look at them. He comes stumbling back in in his bathrobe, doesn’t bother ditching it as he slides in on Five’s other side. Even over their brother’s head, he radiates cold. Some of it is the spring night, yes, but most of it is ghosts. Klaus’ temperature drops when he lets them get too close, like he’s one of them, already. It’s a decent indicator of how far into the realm of the dead he is at any given moment. Vanya’s temperature, in comparison, rises when she uses her powers. Diego jokes that she literally boils over. He’s not wrong. Klaus nods toward Five, raises one eyebrow. She points toward where he’s strangling her hand. Klaus of all people should understand needing to know people are solid. He does with a sad little sigh, slings an arm around their littlest brother and closes his eyes in an obvious attempt to go to sleep. She can’t tell if he really falls asleep, never could. Just like his lying, it’s a skill he honed when he lived on the streets. Pretending. Faking. For a while, she watches them, two of her boys, and tries to plan ahead. Klaus was right, they can’t go this the illegal way. They need paperwork. The risk of someone reporting their sudden teenager acquisition is too high, especially with the spotlight once more on the Hargreeves family. Someone might take Five away from them and then Vanya would have to shred buildings and level cities and no-one wants that, least of all her. No. For their brother to stay with them, to be theirs, they need to go the legal way. Only she’s not all too sure anything about any of them is actually legal. And then what? School? Five, like all of them, enjoyed a highly erratic education. In some subjects, especially maths and physics, he’s probably college level. Others, like history or languages, were sorely neglected. Is he even fit to go to school? On top of having grown up in what amounts to a cult, he also just spent months on his own. How deep does the trauma go? How well is he going to deal with all the changes?God knows, when Vanya first left, the culture shock kept her in her apartment for days on end. Just the sheer quantity of… everything overwhelmed her. There were so many people, doing so many things in so many different ways, being loud and rude and chaotic. There was no order to anything, not structure. It was torture. Five probably won’t be as bad. She was the one most cooped up inside and he the one with the most freedoms, thanks to his power. But he’s also thirteen. To him, the Umbrella Academy was alive and well a few months ago. To him, their father is still the overwhelming, vengeful god controlling his every move. She shakes it off. No point borrowing trouble just yet. For now, she decides, she’s going to do something productive. Like making breakfast. It’s still early, but Five has always been an early riser and having something fixed when he gets up is going to take away his choice. After a lifetime of oatmeal at exactly 7 AM, just being able to have whatever for breakfast was too much for Vanya, once. Klaus, too, if he’s being honest. A lot of his shitty eating habits are owed to drugs and bad living, but a lot of it is also that, without supervision, he goes nuts. If he can have anything, he wants everything. Hell, even Diego has weird food-related tics. All three of them have an almost manic need to talk during mealtimes. More proof, she guesses, of just how fundamentally they all got screwed over. Five is going to have to make a lot of choices in the next little while. She’ll make this one easier for him. Eggs and toast, she decides, as she starts gently plucking her fingers out from between his. Maybe bacon. Some veggies.Klaus’ hand is there, suddenly, a silent offer to take over. They trade places in Five’s iron grip without waking their brother. Little brother. Funny. He always seemed the oldest of them, if only because of his big brain. Once free, she slips out and meanders into the kitchen. The vague shimmer on the windowsill tells her Ben is perched there, watching the sunrise. “Funny thing about being dead,” he told her once, “you appreciate the small things more.”Like being able to watch a sunrise. She smiles at him, even though she can’t tell if he notices, much less replies, and then goes about making eggs. She’s almost done, when her phone chimes and she has to wonder how Allison even got her number, because there’s a text there, reading, can I come by for breakfast? Will bring coffee XO Allison.It occurs to Vanya, briefly, that she could say no. Diego, she knows, holds a grudge against Allison for the way she left, for being radio silent. But they’re all guilty of that. They all escaped alone, too broken to do it together, and there’s blame to go around. Phones work both ways. As hers just demonstrated. She sends back their address and a smiley face. +
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+ Allison has a plan.She is going to splurge on ridiculous coffee for all four of them (albeit the harmless, sweet version for Five, he’s thirteen) and then she’s going to invade and plant herself in the middle of her siblings and stay there until they understand it’s where she wants to be.Because if yesterday showed her anything it’s that, against her long-held beliefs, it’s possible for Hargreeves to stick together without their past defining their every interaction. She ran. She knows that. Lately, she even owns it. She ran as a teenager from the pressure, the Academy, the house that suffocated her, the man that made her rumor and rumor and rumor until her voice gave out and she fainted. Until yesterday, until Ben and Vanya with their heads stuck together in quiet conversation, until Klaus and Diego holding hands, until Five, she didn’t realize what she left behind. After most of her siblings blew out of the house in a whirlwind she and Luther spent a long time just staring after them. Too many revelations. Too much new input. Eventually, Luther turned to Pogo. “Is Klaus really clean?” he asked. Pogo shrugged, shook his head. “Master Luther, I have not seen either of your siblings in years. But compared to the last time I saw your brother, he looked much healthier and he exhibited none of the signs of an addict.”She was angry with One for giving that priority over two of their brothers basically coming back from the dead, but from the lost look on his face, Klaus’ sobriety was simply the biggest issue Luther could handle in that moment. It’s why she didn’t ask him to come along today. This, she thinks, they each need to do on their own. Because Allison ran, yes, but Luther stayed and he still cut the others out. The address Vanya gave her is in a quiet neighborhood. Not chic, but not shabby, either. She takes the stairs carefully, balancing one of those cardboard trays that never quite stand up to the weight of the cups, until she reaches the right door. She knocks. Vanya opens with a soft smile and a finger pressed to her lips. She’s wearing sweats and a fuzzy sweater in lurid shades of orange that can only belong to Klaus and waves the way into the kitchen without a single word.It’s small and mismatched and warm, with flowers on the windowsill and art on the walls. ‘Quaint’ would be the word, if that word didn’t always carry a hint of condescension to Allison’s ears. On the stove, eggs are sizzling. The table is set for five. For a moment, Allison is thrown. Then she remembers. Ben. Ben is here. Ben has been here all these years. One of the last times she spoke to Klaus it was to yell at him to stop pretending Ben was still here. To stop being cruel.She was the one being cruel, wasn’t she?She places her contribution on the table, frowns. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think to bring anything for Ben. Does he… can he eat?”Vanya nods over to the slightly open window where basil is reaching for the sun. “He’s over there. And sometimes. But only when Klaus works at it really hard. We just like to include him.”Allison squints at the window and, for a moment, wonders if her sister is playing a joke on her. But there is something… a heat mirage, maybe, only tinged the lightest blue. A shimmer in the air. That’s… that’s her brother?She waves awkwardly at it. If it reacts, she can’t tell. “Hi, Ben.”Abruptly, the shimmer is gone. Allion stares, helpless. Vanya has turned back to the stove, a casual dismissal Allison didn’t know her sister was capable of. A minute later, shuffling in the hallway. Klaus comes stumbling in in leggings and the ugliest bathrobe ever made, rubbing at his eyes and batting at something to his left like he’s swatting a fly. “Oh my god, you fucking pain in the ass, stop it, you’re a nuisance, I should banish you to the fucking moon, eugh.”A moment later, Ben manifests right where Klaus is smacking, his hands still going through him. Ben lands an obnoxious kiss on Klaus’ temple, or pretends to, Allison can’t tell, and then turns to her, pointing. “I want to talk to my sister, asshole.”Klaus blinks, registering her for the first time. Then he zeroes in on the coffee and practically lunges for it. Laughing at the very Klaus display, Allison saves Five’s kids’ edition and then lets him have at it. Ben, ignoring the display, turns to her. “Hey, sis. Don’t worry about the coffee. It’s cool. How are you?”Klaus hunches over his bounty like Gollum and more or less climbs, one limb at a time, into the nearest chair, knobby knees pulled up to his chest, clutching his cup proudly. Vanya giggles, brushing a fond hand through his curls. Allison watches and aches. When she looks up, Ben’s eyes are already on hers. She guesses he knows this kind of ache. They all sit and Vanya ferries over eggs, bacon and fried tomatoes. “Where’s Five? I don’t want him to wake alone.”“Right here,” their lost brother remarks, stumbling forward, rubbing at his eyes with his fists. Like a child. He is a child. They aged. Five didn’t. That’s going to take a while to get used to. He stops, takes in the tableau in front of him, then shrugs. “Breakfast?” Klaus toes at the empty chair next to him, nudging it back a little. “Sit. Eat. Van makes good noms. Happy tummy.”Five side-eyes Klaus. Hard. “How old are you? Five? Should we get diapers?”Ben flickers and reappears behind Five, clapping hands over his ears and preemptively scowling at their wildest brother. “Don’t. He’s thirteen. He does not need to know the kinky shit you used to get up to!”Klaus, mouth already open, falters. Then he sinks into himself. “I despise mornings,” he pouts. Allison tried not to put Five’s diaper comment together with Ben’s ‘kinky’, because no. Just. No. That’s her brother. She does not want those images in her head.Desperate, suddenly, to be part of the conversation, to not watch like an outsider as her family jokes and plays with each other, Allison blurts, “What happens now?”All eyes settle on her.“Do you mean right this second, because that would be Benjamin judging my life choices under the influence. Or existentially, because, you see - ““About Dad. And Five.”Five flinches. Vanya grimaces. Before anyone can say anything else, the front door slams and a woman with lovely dark eyes, in a pantsuit with a badge and gun on her belt comes marching in, towing Diego. Allison guesses that’s her sister-in-law. Apparently, she has a key. And is a cop. The woman propels Diego forward, who looks grumpy. “There,” she says, “deal with him. He’s been fretting all night.”Klaus giggles. Diego growls. “I don’t fret.”That earns him a whole lot of deadpan stares. He crosses his arms over his chest and pouts. Vanya giggles and points toward the stove. “Eggs?”The woman shakes her head while Diego nods and starts pulling out utensils for himself like he does it every day. His wife turns toward Allison. “Hi, I’m Eudora. You’re Allison, right?”This, Allison thinks, is one context where she doesn’t mind a stranger thinking they know her, for once. She stands up and shakes the woman’s hand. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.”Eudora – funny name, but who are they to talk – nods and turns toward everyone again. “I gotta run. Crime waits for no woman. Klaus, lunch?”He shakes his head. “I have a very unfortunately timed fitting at noon. It’ll take forever because Tammy’s a diva. And that’s saying something, coming from me. Raincheck?”“Sure. Tomorrow then. I owe you donuts.” She winks and Klaus beams, leaning up. She bends down obediently and lets herself be kissed on the cheek. “Stop flirting with my wife, dipshit,” Diego grumbles, leaning against the counter, mouth full of eggs.Klaus flips him off. Eudora laughs and walks around the table to kiss Two, slap his arm and then wish him a nice day. She blows out with a brief goodbye, leaving him behind. “Fitting?” Allison asks, grasping at any straw. There are years of interactions here that she’s missing and she knows it’s her own fault. Klaus shrugs. “I just happen to do the costumes for the theater company at the illustrious and slightly nostalgic Icarus Theater. You know, Vanya’s place? Where she plays? She got me in.”Vanya rolls her eyes. “I got him a stage hand job years ago. He bitched and criticized his way up to the costume department and then took it over. With glitter.”She grins like it’s an inside joke. Diego shakes his head. “Don’t. Don’t joke about the fucking glitter. I still have nightmares.”“The Kraken, ladies and gents,” Ben announces, voice faux-booming.Allison, having worked with all kinds of costume designers before, gives her brother a considering look. She can see it, actually. He’s always had an eye for impossible combinations that work amazingly well and theater costumes are often more dramatic and artistic than movie ones. “It suits you,” she offers, smiling. “Congratulations.”He shrugs. “It’s only seasonal. The theater doesn’t put on plays all year. They need six months a year to let our darling sister shine.” He shoots Vanya one of his bright, boyish grins at that. “But you enjoy it?”He shrugs again. “It’s fun. And they don’t really mind that I’m,” he wiggles his fingers at his temple and adopts a terrible accent, “a little funny in the head. I mean, the ADHD and the ghosts, but the drugs fucked me up, too. Sometimes I lose the plot a little.”“Rarely,” Vanya defends, instantly, the same time Ben says, “You’re still improving.”Klaus’ hand drops away from his temple with a flapping motion toward his siblings. Dismissive.Allison hasn’t ever really thought about… long term consequences of drug abuse. She’s seen the before and after pictures on the internet, sure, everyone has, but she’s never… applied that knowledge. Suddenly desperate to change the subject, she says instead, “Well, all I’m hearing is that we need to go shopping, you and me.” She winks. A squint. Combined with the make-up remains on his face, it makes Klaus look like a skittish rodent. “Will you be weird about it like Diego?”“You tried to drag me into Victoria’s Secret! They thought we were gay. And kinky!”“I am gay and kinky, danke sehr!”“You’re pan. And my brother! Stop talking!”“Why is everyone picking on my sexual proclivities today?!”Diego stabs a finger at the… general Klausness of it all. “Because they’re right there!”Calmly, Five turns to Ben. “Are they always like this?”The ghost nods, chin in hands, looking like he wants popcorn. It makes Allison laugh, because less than a day ago, she knew for a fact that Ben would never do anything ever again and now here he is, happy.Still, she interjects before someone throws eggs, “I always let you borrow my clothes, didn’t I?”Both of them deflate and Klaus squints again, before giving a shrug. “Indeed. I guess. Five needs something that doesn’t make him look like predator bait, anyway.”And that’s that. It’s not much, but it’s more than she’s had in thirteen years. She’ll take it. +
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+ Klaus has work, Vanya has an audition, Ben is going dark to give Klaus a break and Allison is… well, Allison would probably take Five off their hands gladly, but Diego doesn’t want to leave his brother with her. So he agrees to take Five to work. He’s his own boss, so it’s not a problem, and he figures he can give the kid the basics of 2019 internet and let him loose on seventeen years of missed everything. Whatever. They drop off Klaus, and then Diego takes them across town to his little office space. He can see Five judging the place from half a mile off and in a few days, the endless snootiness of his brother will start grating again, but for now, even having that back seems like a gift. Yeah. He’s a sap. He parks and bustles the kid toward the office, hand hovering at the small of his back. He doesn’t think anything about it until Five suddenly jumps a few feet ahead of him in the hallway and whirls around to glare. “Stop doing that!”“What?”“Treating me like a kid!”“You are a kid,” is Diego’s reflexive answer. He grimaces the moment it’s out of his mouth and tries to salvage it. “As much as any of us ever were.”“I don’t need you… protecting me, or moving me around or holding my fucking ears shut when someone mentions sex!” Five’s fists are clenched, his shoulders hunched and his face – Imminent meltdown. Diego wishes, fiercely, for any of his siblings to be here instead of him.Since he’s fresh out of reality-bending powers, he unlocks the office door and motions Five inside, keeping a four foot distance at all times. Then closes the door behind them and sighs.“The moving thing,” he hedges, rubbing at his forehead. “I do it with everyone. It’s not because you’re a kid, Five. It’s because you’re my family.”He’s the biggest of them, barring Luther, who Diego doesn’t count anyway. It’s instinctive for him to cover his siblings and wife with his body. To shield them. Vanya and Dora are tiny, Ben intangible and Klaus has a tendency to offend people by existing. In public, he’s their shield. It’s his job. It doesn’t matter that Dora will shoot anyone who pisses her off and that his siblings have the same training he does, as well as superpowers. He’s the first line of defense. Always.“But seriously, you are a kid. I know it doesn’t feel like it, because dad never let us feel like kids, but I’m almost thirty. You’re thirteen. From this end of the conversation, you’re a baby. And with dad gone, you’re going to actually get a semi-normal life and that means being thirteen, so get used to it.”Maybe it’s the fact that Diego voluntarily talks about things that’s throwing Five, but he relaxes for a moment. Maybe it’s just that Diego isn’t getting angry in return. The two of them used to spark off each other like fire and gasoline when they were young. Or when Diego was, at least. Oh, Five’s still pissed and grumpy, but he looks like he’s actually listening. Meltdown delayed. Hopefully. Until he remembers, “And covering my fucking ears? I’m not five!” “Who?”“Ben. Because Klaus was about to make some sort of dirty joke about, I don’t know, being five? And diapers?”Diego cringes. Seriously. Fuck his siblings for leaving him with this. And Klaus’ absolute lack of filter.“Ok. Sit down. Coffee. I need to coffee to have this conversation.” Actually, he needs alcohol, but it’s ten AM. Fuck. Having to do this sober is cruel.Fifteen minutes later he’s sitting behind his desk with Five angrily slurping the coke Diego unearthed for him on the couch in the corner. Hunched over and tense, he reminds Diego of Klaus. Which is the source of his current headache. As usual. “Ok. Klaus. We need to talk about Klaus.”Five snarls. “No, listen. Ben didn’t cut Klaus off because of the sex thing. I mean, yes, but.” He hates this. He’s being forced to talk. He hates everything. Deep breath. “Klaus. You need the rundown on Klaus. When you left he was what, smoking weed and drinking?”A nod. “He slipped. He said so himself. Hard drugs.”“Yeah. He got all the way up to heroin at the end. We dragged him, kicking and screaming into sobriety. Before that, Klaus did a lot of things for his addiction. Things that he talks openly about but that are really hard to hear sometimes. That was what Ben was trying to protect you from.”The image of their brother on his knees in some alley, sucking off his dealer for a pill or two, a little powder, a little something else. Diego has never seen it, but his imagination more than fills in the gaps. For a place to sleep for a few weeks, Klaus did far more than just pass out blowjobs. Some days, Diego is amazed their brother lived long enough for them to help him get himself out. And he’s still so fucking blasé about all of it, like it was just a fun way to spend an afternoon except, goddamnit, rape. Some of it was rape. It was Klaus, in places and states of mind that made it impossible to consent, made to do all kinds of things. He laughs it off as a defense mechanism. The rest of them can’t. To gloss it over and to distract himself, Diego goes on. “And while we’re at it, you need to be aware that the drugs were only ever a symptom. The problem is his powers. He can’t turn them off like the rest of us.”And wasn’t that a fun thing to realize, to finally, far too late, understand. One can not hit things and Two can not throw things and Three can not use her words and Five can not jump and Six can (could) not let Them loose and Seven can not shake the world to pieces, but Klaus – Klaus is a door that doesn’t latch. He lives in a world populated by more dead than living and he always will.“For Klaus, it’s screaming, wailing mutilated corpses all day, every day. He’s off the drugs, but he’s still –““Fucked-up,” Five interrupts. Impatient to leap ahead, which is so much like him. “He said so himself.”“Yeah. He smokes, but only tobacco. He isn’t allowed to drink alone. He can’t drive because he can’t tell living people from dead ones. We try to touch him a lot, because it grounds him, so if he grabs your hand or whatever, you let him. Music helps, as do his baths. The twitching and flapping is mostly him batting off ghosts. He needs reminders to eat and to be on time for anything.”To be honest, Diego isn’t sure Klaus is ADHD at all. It might just all be his power making it impossible for him to focus or be still. Not relevant for day to day life, though, because the result is the same. Bad concentration, flightiness, terrible impulse control, all of which have been exacerbated by almost a decade of drug abuse. They touch Klaus and let him touch them. They routinely lock up meds and check the alcohol. They make sure he eats, that he doesn’t turn his music up to damaging levels, that his baths don’t get too cold when he floats for hours. They remind him of his appointments – mostly Ben’s job – and coach him through situations that are too complicated for him to follow along for a long time – also Ben.Not because Klaus is dumb or incompetent, fuck knows he’s smarter than Diego when he focuses, but because they can and it makes him feel safer and steadier to have someone by his side. To double check him. He doesn’t trust himself, still. (Or maybe it’s the reality around him he doesn’t trust, can’t trust, because it plays tricks on him, always.)There’s a whole unwritten book on how to take care of Klaus. Oh, there’s at least pamphlets for the rest of them, too, Vanya and noises, Diego and water, their food related quirks, their instinctive reactions to raised voices or violence. But Klaus is the only one who gets an entire book. And Five, for all that he’s still a child, is going to need to know these things, ugly as they sometimes are. They can’t afford for him to accidentally brush Klaus off when he needs help, or to trigger him. Because every now and then, Diego will still get a text late at night that says, going 4 drugs, pls stop me.Five, to his credit, takes in Diego’s entire rant with an intense expression, like he’s really listening. After a minute, he takes a long sip from his can, sets it down and says, “So basically, Klaus is a little kid.”Diego didn’t realize, until this very moment, until basically looking at himself at thirteen, how far they’ve all come. How far their attitudes and their understanding of their childhood have changed. How far they’ve moved from Reginald Hargreeves’ school of ‘if it doesn’t help the mission, it’s weakness’.The comparison is glaring.(He’s proud of them.)Still, “No. Fuck no. He’s an adult. He’s capable. He’s just…,” Diego rubs at his forehead again and downs the last of his cup of coffee before instantly refilling it, burning his tongue and cursing. “You missed this part when you were gone but, Five, we’re all broken. We’re screwed-up, each in their own way, and that’s not going away. Therapy, so much fucking therapy. Klaus is just a little more screwy than the rest of us, because of his powers and because of what Dad did to him.”(Dora comments, frequently, on how weird it is that they all call him dad, despite everything he’s done. Eudora comes from a very normal, happy family, obviously. She’s never had to try to disentangle an abuser from a parent and to deal with the paradoxical realization that they’re one in the same.) Diego prays that Five isn’t going to ask about the mausoleum today. He’s already done too much talking. And he didn’t mean to say the last bit in the first place. In a bid for distraction, he grabs his laptop, boots it and puts it down on his brother’s lap. “Here. Wikipedia and YouTube are bookmarked. Catch up.”Five takes that as the conversation changer it is, nods once and grabs the laptop. Thank fuck. “Two?”… Or not.“Yes?” he grits out between clenched teeth. Too much talking. Too much mud in the water.“It’s… nothing’s like it used to be, is it?”Maybe it’s the wrong thing to say for someone looking for some kind of consistency, but all Diego can manage is a choked, “No, it isn’t.”+
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+ Luther is at sea.Which is funny because he spent the past four years staring down at the Earth, imagining himself at any beach along those blue, blue oceans, happy and relaxed. Allison was there, in those fantasies. Sometimes even the others. Claire.Now he’s back on earth and he’s completely at sea because life has ceased making sense while he was on the moon. And he doesn’t understand why. (Lie.)He has always understood the way the world works. It’s always been easy. Dad was the leader. He gave the orders and the rest of them followed. It was safe. Simple. There was structure and predictability provided by their father. Luther knows his siblings grew to resent that structure, that they chafed at it, but he’s a good son. Dad never said so, but Luther did everything Dad ever asked of him, and he did it as well as he knew how. The others didn’t. That makes Luther the best son. The loyal one. That is his role. That is who he is. Number One, the Good Son. The Soldier. (He hates the title Spaceboy. It makes him sound small, unimportant next to The Kraken, The Horror and even the Séance.)His siblings have their own identities, made of their rebellion. Of their absences. Five is the One Who Ran, in every sense of the word. Klaus is the Failure. Father says so often enough. The Disappointment. Vanya is the Ordinary One.Diego the Runner Up, the one that never quite lived up to Number One. A literal Number Two, always. (Sometimes, Luther feels guilty for referring to them by the names Grace gave them. Dad gave them numbers, that should have been enough. But – but – it’s only him now. It’s only him now, so he can be Luther, can’t he?)He tries not to think about Ben and Allison. Not if he can help it. But that’s how the world works. That is what the world is shaped like when he goes to the moon. He is the Good Son and Dad’s favorite. The others, arrayed at a distance, are something not quite enemy, but removed. Disappointments. Failed Experiments, Dad calls them sometimes, especially Klaus. (Luther blames it on frustration and never says, “They’re people, too.” He knows it wouldn’t be appreciated.)That’s how the world works. These are the roles they are cast into, heroes and failures and Dad to give them all meaning. To orbit and be shaped by. Luther knows how to navigate this world. He knows how to excel in it. It makes him feel safe. Needed. Even on the moon, he still knows his place. It’s hard sometimes, but it’s what Dad wants. So he does it. It’s his mission. It’s important. For four years, it’s the mission. And then it’s over.And suddenly, Luther is at sea. Dad is gone, and with him all structure, all order, all meaning. He keeps up his routines, in the first few days, keeps doing what Dad would want him to, clawing for some kind of hold on things. It works (a little) until the funeral. Until Allison comes in, smiling softly, all grown up and so, so beautiful and Luther looks at her and ‘Disappointment’ is the last word on his mind. He missed her so much.And then Diego comes and he’s not raring to usurp One anymore, but rather looks at him with pity and disinterest. He brings Four and Seven, who are neither Failures nor Ordinary. Vanya has powers and Klaus walks with his shoulders pulled back, straighter than Luther has ever seen. Even if he’s barefoot in a skirt.Ben is there. Ben is – Ben is angry. Luther doesn’t understand why. He was just – Klaus has always been a junkie. Luther is just – Ben is there. Ben was dead. Is dead. Ben died in Luther’s arms, ripped to shreds and there was so, so much blood and then he was gone and now he’s not. Dad is gone and Ben is back and then Five falls out of the sky and Luther’s entire world is upended. It’s all upside down and inside out and nothing makes sense anymore. He can’t – he doesn’t – what is he supposed to do now? He has no orders and everything he knows about the world (his world, One through Seven and Mom and Dad and the Mission) is wrong. Changed. He went to the moon to be a Good Soldier and when he came back, the war was over. He spends most of the day after Five’s arrival (and departure, because they just sweep him up and take him away and they don’t listen when he tells them no, don’t listen, even though he’s Number One, he’s the only one who stayed) in a daze. There is so much – Pogo comes by at one point, patting his arm, his apish face kind. (Luther barely feels the soft touch through his leathery, thick skin, but he doesn’t think about that. Not ever.)Mom makes him hot chocolate and cookies. She smiles as she does. Dad is dead but no-one seems to be sad. No-one except Luther. “Why don’t you share them with your sister?” she suggests and Luther is stupidly, ridiculously grateful for something to do. (And order. Finally.)Allison is in the front parlor, her legs curled under her, tablet in hand. “Did you know,” she starts, not looking at him, “That Vanya’s orchestra is kind of famous? She’s mentioned in a few articles as their up-and-coming talent.”She smiles, too. She seems happy to know Vanya has a good job. (A good life.)“And Diego is apparently a PI. I mean, I think so. He goes by Diego Patch. Maybe it’s his wife’s name?”(How did awkward, never-quite-enough, stuttering Diego find a wife?)He says so. Says, “Do you think he stuttered through his vows?”Allison’s expression turns sharp, her lips purse, angry. “That’s a shit thing to say, Luther. The stutter is a disability and you know it. Besides, did you hear him stutter once today? I didn’t. Don’t be an asshole.”Luther blinks. He didn’t – Dad always said Diego was just being lazy. That he wasn’t putting in enough effort. He never – He holds out the plate. “Mom made cookies. Have some.”Allison’s expression doesn’t soften, exactly, but it does ease up some. “Did you see Klaus?” she asks, idly, as she chews on one. “He looked good, didn’t he?”Luther can’t really read her expression after that, but he thinks it might be regret. He puts the plate down and excuses himself with a gesture, fleeing into his room. He doesn’t want to hear about Klaus looking good in a skirt. Skirts are for women. Dad said so.(Dad said so, so much, and Luther believed it all and now Dad will never say anything ever again and Luther - )He’s at sea and it’s looking more and more like he doesn’t know how to swim. +
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+Five remembers Klaus best. No.That’s wrong. That sounds like he was gone for years and years (he was), like his siblings are a distant memory. He was only gone or a few months (he wasn’t). He tried to keep count, but between the endless jumps and the exhaustion and the fear and the nightmares and the cold and the heat and the hunger – He remembers Klaus best because everything about Klaus is vibrant. His joy as much as his despair, his glee, his sadness, his drunkenness, his sobriety. Hell, his clothes. Everything about Klaus stands out.Yesterday, with seventeen missed years collapsing on top of him like the weight of a falling building, Five clung to that. He remembers Klaus best and Klaus is still Klaus. Diego says nothing is the way it used to be, but Klaus is still Klaus. Five recognized him on sight. That means something.Except it doesn’t. Oh, he wears skirts and make-up and has no filter, fidgets and insults and offends as easily as he breathes and loves just as casually. He smiles at his siblings like they hung the moon and snarks at them just as hard. But he’s also quiet, and lost in a way Five never knew. When he left, his brother was jittery with terror. This new Klaus is quietly resigned to it. He talks in a strange mixture of verbosity and vulgarity, mixing in languages Five doesn’t understand. There are lines on his face, in the rare moments it’s still, time lived. (His siblings have existed without Five for longer than Five has been alive.)Diego says Klaus is screwed-up. He says Klaus can’t live alone, can’t tell ghosts from reality, can’t drive a car or remember to eat. Diego says their little brother is broken, but still good. Still Klaus. A different Klaus. One Five doesn’t know. Diego says it all in a calm voice, without a stutter, soft and gentle in a way he’s never been before. Vanya isn’t Vanya, Ben isn’t really Ben anymore, Allison isn’t Allison and Five’s favorite nuisance, the brightest, most constant of them all, is – He pushes it down and pushes on, the way he was taught. If he thinks about it, he’ll fall down a rabbit hole. So he doesn’t think about it. Instead, he does what Diego tells him to do (that chafes) because it is sensible and smart (that chafes even more). He takes the laptop offered to him and learns what YouTube is and uses it to catch up to the year 2019. He learns who the president is, that gay marriage is legal, that the Middle East is still a warzone and women are still not treated as equals. He had only vague notions of these things in 2002, because he was (is) thirteen and he could only get news when he snuck out. Now he reads and reads and feels like an idiot. Uneducated and uninformed. The Dalai Lama is still alive. There was a financial crisis that crippled most of the globe and sent the economy in a tail spin it still hasn’t recovered from. Heath Ledger is dead. He googles who Heath Ledger even was, ends up watching half of some Batman movie adaptation and then looks up to find Diego calmly talking on the phone to someone. He’s tapping his pen against his notepad as he does, leaning back in his swivel chair, feet up on the desk. His eyes land on Five as he listens to whoever is on the phone (which is sleek and flat and has no buttons). He winks, dropping the pen to raise his hand in a fist, thumb extended, wiggling it up and down. Good? Bad? He’s checking in with Five. Number Two, the most insecure after Vanya, the one with the stutter, the one who was always compared to One and never, ever matched up, is asking Five how he’s doing. He looks comfortable there, behind his desk. In his element. He looks at home in his skin, which Five didn’t even recognize. He probably knows about Heath Ledger. He probably saw his movies. He’s probably been to the cinema before. Maybe on a date with Eudora. Because Two is married and Five wasn’t there. Because he was arrogant and stupid and childish and thought he could travel through time without repercussions. Because he thought he was above the laws of physics. Diego scribbles something on his notepad, holds it up. 4 texted - getting groceries. Want anything?Klaus. Is getting groceries. Klaus. Inside a supermarket. Five tries to think about what he wants. He has no idea. The only food he’s ever chosen for himself were the donuts at that dumb diner they snuck out to at night. Everything else was provided to him, first by the nannies, then by mom, and then by necessity. In the future, he ate what he could scrounge up and didn’t complain. He needed energy to jump. To get home. Only home is gone and Diego is a different person and even Klaus, vibrant, bright Klaus, is different, is broken and damaged (because Five wasn’t there to protect him) and Five doesn’t know what he wants to eat. He doesn’t know – Diego says something, abruptly, into the phone, then flings it onto his desk and jumps to his feet. Five blinks and wonders what has him in such a hurry. Then he realizes it’s him. He’s… breathing really fast isn’t he?Oh, no. Father doesn’t like it when he has these attacks. He says they make Five weak and vulnerable. He tries to force it down, like he was taught to, but then Diego is there, a hand on his shoulder, wide, dark eyes on his face, and his lips are moving. He grabs for Five’s hand, sets it on his own chest. It feels warm. He takes a deep breath in, then lets it out. Again and again and eventually, over the rushing in his ears and the tightness in his chest, Five figures out he’s meant to mirror his brother. He tries. It hurts.He thinks he makes a noise, because Diego lets go of his hand to run his fingers through Five’s hair. He keeps breathing. His hands are warm and feel rough on Five’s scalp, despite moving gently. Callouses. From knives. Diego breathes. He still has the knives. Still uses them to defend himself. The scar on his temple is new, but the one below his eye is old, a nick from a broken window, shattering glass. Five remembers him getting it. Diego breathes and Five very carefully breathes along with him. Eventually, the rushing fades enough for Five to make out words, to hear, “- and out, slow and steady, that’s in, in – and out. Keep breathing, Five, you’re doing good. Feel where you’re touching me, try to focus on that. How does it feel? In – out. I’m touching you, too, feel for that. Focus on it and breathe. In – out. You’re fine. You’re safe, everyone’s safe and you’re home and it’s going to be okay. Just breathe. In – out.”Five does. In. Out. Decades later, wrung out and tired and sweaty, he slumps into his brother’s hold. “Sorry,” he mumbles.A big, calloused hand strokes through his hair. “Happens to the best of us. Nothing to be ashamed of.” There is a pause and Five can practically hear Diego fighting to say, “Want to talk about it?”He doesn’t. Fuck, he doesn’t. Talking is weakness. Emotions are weakness. Weakness hurts. Father always made sure of that.But – Diego said it was okay. Father is dead. The Umbrella Academy is dead. When Five is done being terrified, he’ll celebrate that one. “I wanted to go home. But this… this isn’t it.” He sounds small. Childish. Hates it. Buries his face in his brother’s shoulder and closes his eyes. It feels good, to be hugged like this. It even feels good when Diego sighs and scoops him up like he’s a little kid, setting him in his lap. He’ll complain later. “It will be. Everyone who loves you is still here. And we’re going to figure this out. Together. I’ll even help you reign in Klaus, promise.”Five cracks an eye open. Yawns. “With what?”“With everything. You know he’ll go overboard trying to take care of you. He always does.”“Still, huh?” It’s comforting. “Yeah. I got sick last winter, asked Klaus to run to the drug store for me. He came back with seven different meds, soup, tea, ginger, tissues, heating pads, a hot water bottle, a new blanket, vitamin pills and a stuffed octopus.”“What?”Diego snorts, dryly. “We named him Oscar. He lives on our sofa now. Dora like to snuggle him when we’re watching TV.”Five laughs. It’s a little wobbly, but it’s a laugh. Everything is different. All his siblings have moved on. But maybe, he thinks, there will be time to get to know them again. To hear their stories. “Your wife would rather snuggle a stuffed animal than you?” he teases.Diego lightly smacks at his shoulder. “I’ll let you have this one because you’re emotional right now. Don’t diss Oscar.”Five is aware that his brother is playing the fool to cheer him up. That’s alright by him.“I wasn’t ‘dissing’ Oscar. I was dissing you.”+
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+ Asking Klaus out for lunch was a ploy. She usually does at least twice a week and it would have seemed weird for her not to. Or at least it would have implied that she has other plans. She does. She just doesn’t want Diego to know because, well, technically, she’s going behind his back. Not for long, she’ll come clean, but there is something she needs to do and she needs to do it alone because she’s afraid she’ll disappoint him if he’s there to witness it. And she’s not making much sense here, is she?From the beginning then: Diego is a momma’s boy. She’s known that since she saw the butt ugly cross-stitch of his name proudly displayed in his bedroom for the first time. Diego loves his mom. She was his main line of defense against Reginald Hargreeves’ terror regime, his tutor, his teacher, his blankie and his safe place. He still compares every single cookie he eats to his mom’s and every hot chocolate, too. He drops her into conversation regularly even now, more than a decade after he stopped seeing her more than a few times a year. She makes pancakes with smiley faces on them and she folds underwear and she makes the best cake and she helped him with his stutter and she read to him and she bandaged his wounds and – Eudora is terrified of Grace Hargreeves and has been for years because how is any woman supposed to measure up to a perfect mother like that? A mother who raised seven extraordinary kids in a house run by an abusive madman and never once faltered or apparently even stopped smiling. She used to wonder, sometimes, why a woman like that didn’t just pack up those kids and run, run, run, but she never dared to ask. It was Vanya who solved that riddle when she casually dropped into conversation that their father, “had to reprogram Mom to stop comforting Klaus when he had nightmares because she refused to stop otherwise.”So. Turns out Eudora’s mother-in-law is a robot. It throws her for a few days until she rationalizes it. Diego can breathe underwater and hit the trashcan in the kitchen from three rooms away, every time. Klaus sees the dead. Vanya has a tendency to destroy light fixtures when she loses at Risk. Their father’s manservant/assistant is a chimpanzee given human intellect through some sort of experiment no-one ever talks about. And their mom’s a robot. Okay. Not the weirdest thing. At least it explains why Grace never ran. She probably couldn’t. Why she seems to be the absolutely perfect Stepford mom. Because she’s literally programmed to be. Do robots need sleep? So Eudora’s fear to not measuring up to Diego’s mother’s cooking, baking and other housekeeping skills is put to rest because she can’t compete with a machine and she’s aware of it. Besides, years spent with Diego are enough to prove to her that the only one who ever compared them was Eudora. Diego never did. Maybe it’s because he makes such a concerted effort to keep his Academy life separate from his new one, or maybe it’s just because he’s not that much of an asshole, but either way, it’s fine. Fear put to rest. Fantastic.It left room for a new fear though: What if Grace is really fucking weird? Diego and his siblings, bless them, have absolutely broken bizarre-scales. They like to tell her the story of how they figured out Diego’s secondary power when Luther gave him a five minute swirlie for a random prank and how Pogo, the monkey butler, made them clean the bathroom together as punishment and don’t see anything wrong with it. What if Grace acts like… well, a machine? What if she has weird quirks or makes mechanical noises or her facial expressions are something from a horror movie? She’s a machine after all.Diego, Eudora knows, has been waiting for years for an opportunity to introduce her to Grace. And she’s terrified that Grace is going to freak her out. It would break Diego’s heart. So, in the name of not doing that, she’s making a preemptive move. By visiting the Umbrella Academy on her lunch break. And geez, they weren’t kidding when they said they grew up in a palace, were they?She rings the bell. The house is so big, she can’t hear it ringing inside the house. For a long minute, nothing happens. Then the door opens on a brightly smiling face, framed by perfect blonde curls. “Hello,” the woman chirps, “May I help you?”She looks young, which shouldn’t be a surprise, but is. Also, Caucasian. Which, again, why wouldn’t she? She’s a machine. Diego isn’t her real child any more than any of the others, so there would be no resemblance and she doesn’t age, either. Logical. She’s beautiful, though, and she looks… kind? Can a machine look kind? Cheerful.“I…uhm, yes. I’m Det – Eudora Patch. I’m Diego’s wife? I wanted to speak to his mother.”The bright red smile dims for a moment then grows impossibly larger at the mention of Diego. “Oh,” Grace says, “I am so glad to meet you! Diego always talks about you. Please, come in. What can I do for you?”So far, aside from a little manic cheer, she seems perfectly normal. Or at least… non-robotic. Maybe this won’t be a total disaster. Eudora steps inside and immediately, her assessment of ‘palace’ is replaced by ‘museum’. It’s dark, inside, and musty. Old. Everything is placed just so. It doesn’t look like a house that was once home to seven unruly children. Grace closes the door and folds her hands over her stomach. She’s dressed like a fifties housewife, all perfectly done up like a doll. Klaus described the look to her once in a fashion-induced haze. The hair, though. The Mom of Klaus’ memory always had a flawless updo. This one wears her hair down. Eudora wonders if it’s real, human hair. She shudders. See, this is why she wanted to come alone. “What can I do for you?” Grace asks, again, patiently smiling, before waving, “Let’s go sit.”They sit. Eudora looks for words. Eventually, she decides on the truth. “I wanted to meet you. Diego wants to introduce us, but I was… uncertain. I thought I’d better do it alone.”The blonde head cocks to one side. “Why?”In for a dollar –“Because you’re a machine. And Diego loves you and I didn’t want to make him sad if you freaked me out.”Grace doesn’t seem to take offense to that. Instead, she shakes her head. “Oh, but I was programmed to mimic human behavior perfectly. You needn’t worry about that!”Personally, Eudora doesn’t think any one human being is supposed to smile that much, but okay. “I suppose to. Still, I wanted to make sure. Diego really does love you very much.”Something happens on the mach- Grace’s face at that. First it goes a little blank, smile sagging, then turns incandescent. “He talks about me?”“All the time,” Eudora confirms. “He feels so bad about leaving you here alone all these years. And he misses your cookies. All the others taste wrong, apparently.”Grace ducks her head and blushes. Actually blushes. Eudora supposes that’s excellent craftsmanship, but the longer they talk, the more she forgets that she’s technically speaking to a computer. The reactions, the expressions, the movements. It all seems real. Human. “I suppose I did get a bit lonely, in this big old house,” Grace offers, “but I was still glad the children were gone. Their lives must be better out there.”“I can’t speak for Allison or Luther, but the others are happy, I think. I know Diego is. But they miss you.”“I suppose they might visit more often now. Do you think so?”She sounds lonely.“Definitely,” Eudora confirms, even though she has no actual clue. “Or maybe you could visit them? Us. I know we’d love to have you.”Grace’s head turns toward the foyer and the front door. “Mr. Hargreeves doesn’t like me to leave the house,” she hedges, then gives a tiny little shudder, like an electrical shock. “But I suppose he’s not here anymore.”She focuses back on Eudora. “Do you think I’d be alright outside? I’ve never been.”God. Eudora is definitely over the robot thing, because the only thing she feels at that is rage. The same rage she feels when Klaus bares the scratch scars on his arms or when Diego hunches over his plate like it’ll be taken from him or when Vanya stares at empty space for hours, expression blank. It’s the rage Eudora has dubbed the Reggie Rage. “I think you’ll be just fine. And if you need help navigating the outside world, I know a few people who would love to help you.”Diego and her, most of all.“You really think so?”“Absolutely.”Her phone chimes then, a quiet alert set to remind her that she needs to get back to the precinct. “I’m sorry Mrs. Hargreeves – ““Oh, call me Grace, dear. We’re family, after all.”“Grace. I have to get back to work. But I’ll make sure Diego gives you a call so we can arrange something, okay? Maybe dinner? We could take you out.”That beaming smile is back and it doesn’t seem creepy anymore. It seems like a smile of a woman who is finally escaping prison and reuniting with her children. They both stand as Grace nods. “That sounds lovely. Thank you for visiting me!”Then, without warning, Grace steps forward and hugs Eudora, who, stunned, takes a moment to react. When she does, Grace sighs quietly. “Eudora,” she whispers. And then, “I always wanted more girls.”When they both step back, she wipes at her eyes. Whatever she may have started as, Eudora decides as she follows the other woman to the door, Grace Hargreeves is definitely human now. Or at least close enough to make no nevermind. “Goodbye, Eudora,” Grace chirps, waving.“See you later,” Eudora returns, waving back.+
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+ Don’t tell the others, but sometimes, before the big lump went to the moon, Ben went and checked up on Luther. Sure, the guy’s an asshole, but if that were a disqualifying factor for Hargreeves siblinghood, they’d all be only children. So there. Luther’s still one of them even if he’s… not. So Ben used to check up on him. That was early days, before Klaus could really manifest him for long periods of time and he existed in two states: invisible and intangible or just not there. Just not there is pretty much non-existence. He blinks out of reality and comes back and the only way he knows time has passed is by looking at his surroundings. Back when he first died, he’d blink out and come back and Klaus’ hair would be inches longer or he’d have lost twenty pounds or gotten a new tattoo that was already healed. These days, non-existence is measured by the way the sun has moved or the clock on the kitchen wall. Hours, at most. Invisible and intangible is another matter entirely. He’s there. He’s aware. It’s just that no-one besides himself and Klaus is aware of that. Question: if a ghost haunts a forest does is make a sound? Answer: only if The Séance is around. Usually, in this state, Ben hangs around Klaus. Not only because (he’s pretty sure) Klaus is his only tether to this plane of reality, but because for the longest time, Klaus was the only one who, literally, knew Ben existed. And Ben was the only one who gave a shit about Klaus. Ben always blinks back into existence next to Klaus because Klaus is his tether, his doorway, his beacon. But he sticks around after that because he can’t imagine not doing it. Ben and Klaus against the world. They were each other’s entire universe for so, so long. Still. Sometimes, Ben used to check up on Luther. Usually when Klaus was getting it on with someone and Ben didn’t want to see because gross. He tried checking in on Allison a time or two, especially after Luther went to the moon, but California is outside his reach. Can’t move that far away from Klaus (yet). Which is why, when she leaves the apartment after breakfast, he follows her. She’s his sister and yeah, she ran, but so did the rest of them. And he missed her. Her laugh, her at times surprisingly biting sarcasm and her random, unexpected kindnesses. Allison has always been able to afford those because she never had to fight for scraps like the rest of them. She bent reality to her will, ensured her own happiness. It left her with kindness to spare that the rest of them never had. Today, she climbs into a taxi, gives the driver the right address and then closes her eyes and takes exactly seven very deep, very even breaths. Her hands are clutched around the handle of her bag and her shoulders are tense like a life wire. Even for Ben, who has spent the past thirteen years doing nothing but watch, her expression is indecipherable. Loss, maybe. Heartbreak and joy and stress and pain and – too many things. The cabbie notices, rolls down the partition with a little whirring noise. “You okay there?” he asks. He sounds like he might actually care if she wasn’t. Ben wonders if he recognizes Allison. Three blocks away, her face is plastered on a billboard, tall as a house, but she’s not wearing makeup today, her hair scraped back from her face. She looks more like child Allison than glam Allison. Ben can’t tell if it’s intentional or not. She breathes one last time, then opens her eyes, gives the cabbie a smile in the mirror. “Family stuff,” she tells him.He makes sympathetic noises. “Sucks, huh?”She chews on her lip for a moment and Ben, sitting next to her, silently chants, tell him, tell him. She looks like she needs to. God knows, she's not going to get an emotionally helpful conversation out of anyone left at the house.“I met my siblings for the first time in years yesterday,” she blurts, her eyes a little wide, like she doesn’t mean to. But once she’s started, she keeps going. “They’ve made their lives without me and it’s my fault but I…I don’t think there’s space for me there, with them.”Oh, Allison. When they were kids, a bunch of oddball freaks, they tried. They tried so hard to leave a space for her on their little outings, their meetings in the attic, their little rebellions. Nine times out of ten, she turned them down. Better things to do. Luther. A new hairstyle. A new magazine.(They would have taken Luther if she insisted. Klaus would have loved to help her with her hair. Vanya would have given an arm to read a trashy magazine with her.)The cabbie nods sagely, takes a turn and then says, kindly, “It’s worst when you’re the only one you can blame.”Ben is starting to like this guy. He zaps to the front seat, studies his weathered face. Grey hair under a cap. Stereotypical old taxi driver. His eyes are kind. He looks like the kind of cabbie who'd sometimes drive Klaus to a shelter free of charge when it was late and cold and wet.“When my sons told me he was one of those queers, I threw him out. Said not under my roof. Five years, he was gone. Made his life without me. And a fine one, too. Didn’t come back until his mother, bless her, died. Has a husband, a great job, friends, a house, even. And I missed it, because I was an ignorant ass. I’m trying to make up for it, but I keep getting distracted by kicking myself.”Allison gurgles a laugh. “Yeah, pretty much.”“Just keep trying,” he advises.She nods. “I think I’ll have to. I don’t want to miss the next thirteen years, too.” She says the last part quietly to herself. Her grip on her bag relaxes. Ben finds himself smiling. Up front, the cabbie makes a little sound. Inquiring. She looks back at him. “Now, I know this is really rude and a bad time, but my son-in-law is a huge fan of yours. Do you think I could get an autograph for him?”There is a moment of silence. Then Allison bursts into laughter. “If you promise not to tell anyone I had a breakdown in your cab,” she barters, suddenly all stunning starlet again. “Breakdown, what breakdown?”She ends up writing a personal little note on the back of an autograph card she pulls, pre-signed, out of her purse. Because Ben is related to someone who routinely does things like that. She pays her fare, tips the cabbie a twenty and then waves. He waits until she’s inside the Academy before driving off. Inside, she slumps again. “Keep trying, huh?” she demands of thin air. Ben… didn’t think breakfast was all that terrible, actually. No-one flung anything at anyone, there was no yelling and no nasty digs, despite Diego being in the room and Klaus not being fully caffeinated, yet. But – he tries to put himself in his sister’s shoes. No room for her, she said and… he guesses he can see that. She was part of the conversation, but not of the flow of it. Missed the inside jokes, the little shared looks. Lacked the basic input, like Klaus’ job at the theater and who Dora is and what Van meant when she talked about her ten o’clock. Little things. Normal things. Things that happen when you miss over a decade of someone’s life. But, he guesses, showcased like this, they might hurt. Ben doesn’t know. Even when everyone thought he was dead and gone, he was still there. Watching. He knows what’s under Luther’s coat, he knows where Diego used to go at night, before the police academy. All the things Klaus doesn’t talk about, glossing over them with gross, bizarre but ultimately harmless stories to steer the others away from the truly deep waters. The times Vanya played her violin until her fingers bled because it was all she had. Ben has always been outside of his siblings lives, ever since he was sixteen and died in a spray of blood and monsters, but he’s never missed anything about them.Allison did. Willfully. Which, from the perspective of someone who wanted nothing more than to be there for them, seems pretty incomprehensible, but then, Ben never got Number Three. Something changed her mind, though. And, well, that deserves a chance, he thinks. He pats her shoulder, intangible hand passing right through, and tells her, “Keep hanging in there, sis.”She doesn’t hear him, of course, but that’s alright. Ben’s still here. That’s what matters. And this time, so is she. +
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+ Allison has been sitting down for all of five minutes when Luther comes ambling into the room, the same sad puppy look on his face as yesterday. For one long, unkind moment, she considers getting up and leaving. This morning was hard. Not because anything really happened, but because it didn’t. She went to see her siblings and they let her in, gave her a seat at the table and then kept doing their thing. They were friendly, but they didn’t really… make an effort?That sounds very conceited. Like others need to make an effort just because of who she is.But Allison isn’t used to being dismissed.To people looking at her and then shrugging and moving on. Although her siblings have always been able to do that, really. They grew up with her demands, her rumors, her big dreams. They fetched, carried and played when she made them, because that was what life was like, and then they escaped. It was a part of their daily lives. Nothing special. She wanted her homecoming to be special. She thought – Well, she thought wrong. And she had a plan. She inserted herself. She was welcomed, if not with open arms, then at least not with derision. She secured herself a shopping date with Four and Five. She can get to know them. She can make friends with her siblings. And she will.But Luther’s radiating concussed misery so strongly that she kind of wants to smack him. God. Is he actually grieving Sir Reginald? Does he actually miss the man? “Where were you?”There goes her chance to flee. If she leaves now, he’ll only trail after her until she caves. Did she ever find that slavish behavior attractive?“Breakfast at Vanya and Klaus’.” And Ben’s, but she’s not saying that because it would unleash another rant about how Klaus must have been lying all the times he said Ben was there, right?“Oh. I wasn’t invited.”“Neither was I. I invited myself with coffee.”His mouth opens. Closes. He hunches those massive shoulders, letting his head hang. His proportions are all off and she wonders just what it is that happened to him.“You could have asked me to come along.”Damn it. She braces herself. She’s being a better person, she reminds herself. That involves honesty and communication and not taking the easy way out. “I didn’t want to.”“What? Why?” The shoulders are back up, feet spread, fists clenched. He looks ready to fight. Has he always done that? Used his intimidating stature in a simple conversation?“Because you would have cracked some joke about Diego’s stutter or done something else to piss them off.” He would have, too. Without a script to follow, Luther’s constantly chewing on his own feet. He exhales heavily through his nose. “I told you I was sorry. I didn’t know about the stutter thing. Dad always said-““That’s exactly the problem, Luther! Dad said. Dad did. Dad wanted. You take everything from him for gospel truth, never even wondering if maybe, just maybe, he’s wrong. Because boy, do I have news for you.”“You used to be the same!”“Yes. As a child. But I left and I learned that there are other truths out there than Reginald’s. I learned how wrong he was about… most things.” Not all of them. He wasn’t wrong about her power ruining her life. “We all did. But you just stayed and kept your eyes tightly shut.”“I was doing my job! I was being Number One!”She stands, finally, pushing to her feet angrily. She hates fighting with Luther, but she hates swallowing this down even more. Reginald’s lies and manipulations, his refusal to let them learn anything about the outside world, to socialize them like normal human beings, cost her her daughter. She won’s swallow that. Not anymore. “Grow up, Luther. You’re not Number One anymore. You’re just the one who was never brave enough to leave.”“Oh, because the others are so brave! They’re wasting their potential!”Sometimes, he opens his mouth and their damn father comes out.“No. They’re living life the way they want to, without input from Dad, or anyone else. You should try it some time. You might like the person you are without Dad’s hand up your ass.”There. She spins on her heel and marches out of the room and up the stairs. Luther is either too angry or too hurt to follow. On the first landing, she smacks almost face first into Pogo, standing silently in the middle of the way, his cane planted against one foot. He looks up at her with a pinched, tired look.“You heard all that.”He nods. Then he licks his broad lips and sighs. “There are… things, left over in your siblings’ rooms. They left with only the bare essentials and never dared return until yesterday. Perhaps you would like to look at them?”For a moment, Allison is stunned silent. Pogo… they all loved Pogo as children because he was kind and patient and sometimes let them get away with small mischief. But he also never, not once, tried to intervene on their behalf with Reginald. Not once did he try to stop some cruel training, to distract the man from a punishment. Loyal to the bone for all the wrong reasons, Allison thinks. So she recognizes this for what it is. A peace offering. Action after thirty years of inaction. It’s Pogo speaking up after being silent all their lives. (Maybe she’s being unkind. Maybe she knows, deep down, that Pogo had no more options than they did. Less, because escaping this house was never an option for him. Not with what he is. Still: he was an adult. They were not.)She nods and, without a word, brushes past him, listening to his quiet footsteps as he joins Luther in the parlor. She heads for their old bedrooms. +
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+ By the time Klaus finally finishes informing Tammi why, exactly, there will be no orange sequins on her green costume (pumpkins come to mind and carrots and also children going nuts with crayons), Vanya is waiting for him, violin case set against her leg.She’s chatting with Ella, one of the army of clever techs that work at the theater. Ella’s dark hair is half done up in cornrows. Van’s fingers twitch and Klaus’ lips do, too. Little sis loves herself some pretty hair on a pretty girl. They lean close together and chuckle quietly and maybe he should give them another five, but they’ve been flirting like this for six months and no dice. Also, Klaus wants waffles. He didn’t choke Tammi with orange fucking sequins. He deserves waffles.He tells the ladies so as he slinks up to them, throwing an arm around each. “I deserve waffles!”Ella elbows him. Van leans into him. He ruffles her hair and leans back. “No, seriously, waffles. All of them.” He pauses. “Ella could come. You could finally have a conversation about that tantalizing sexual energy that’s been lesbianing up the place for forever.”He bats his lashes at both of them and watches them blush in mismatched shades. Beautiful. “Klaus!” Vanya hisses at the same time Ella scowls his way. He beams back, utterly unperturbed. After growing up Hargreeves, a little girl with a grudge isn’t scary anymore. Unless that girl is Vanya. Then yeah. Absolute terror. She pranks. “Don’t be an asshole, Klaus,” Ella scolds and Klaus blinks at her, owlish, because he’s just helping her along here. He says so. Ella’s scowl gets deeper. Uhm. There is a slight chance Klaus missed some minor detail of this interaction, a feeling he is intimately familiar with and strongly dislikes. Just saying. Seven, bless her, intervenes just in time. She hooks her arm forcefully through his and smiles at Ella. “What my brother means, is that I’d love to get coffee with you sometime. What do you think?”There is a pause. Ella blinks. “Brother?”Oh. Ohhhhh.“Why does this keep happening?” Klaus demands, resting his head on his tiny sister’s shoulder with a mournful expression, arm moving to settle on her waist instead. “We’re not the incest numbers.”Blindly, Vanya pats his face.“Maybe because of that?” Ella suggests, pointing at their general…themness. “We had a rough childhood. It makes us clingy,” Klaus informs her, primly. “One of our other brothers wears a lot of leather. Klaus clings to him the same way. It makes for fun misunderstandings,” Vanya adds, finally stopping her patting of Klaus’ face before she ruins his make-up completely. “That time that one guy tried to subtly invite us for a session in his sex dungeon was totally not my fault!”“You didn’t have to accept!”Ella raises a hand to her face, gives up, and just guffaws out loud. Then she clears her throat, straightens and turns to Van. “I would love to get coffee with you sometime soon. Just promise to leave this disaster at home.”She points at Klaus. The chutzpah! The sheer gall! Welch Beleidigung!Vanya giggles. “I can’t promise that. He follows me places, sometimes.”Outraged, positively afire with the sheer impertinence of his littlest sister, Klaus sniffs once and then turns on his heel, flouncing away as dramatically as humanly possible in those new heels. He can feel a blister coming in on his heel. Next time he’s wearing his trusty Converse with this dress. Give it a little street fashion edge. Ouch. Behind him, both girls laugh before Vanya says a hasty goodbye and then follows him, as he knew she would. Hey, he just got her a date! Now he really deserves his waffles!They make their way, without much fanfare to their favorite waffle house by the theater. They come here often enough to have usuals and greet the waitresses by name. It’s nice. Some days, Klaus is still incredibly surprised by how stable his life has become. By how many roots he has. Usually, it doesn’t even chafe. He nods toward the sax player floating in the corner, playing a soft, mellow piece from his day. Mournful. It’s enough to drown out the tortured groans of the dead gangbangers hanging out by the window. It’s nice. “Ben says you were up on the roof a long time last night. You okay?”He nods, shrugs. “Pedro kept me company. And the twins. Jumper dude dropped in.” He grins, teeth bright. Van rolls her eyes at his deflection. She digs a stack of cards out of the pocket of her oversized jacket instead. “These showed up on the kitchen table after you left.”His hands are already reaching for them, automatically shuffling and cutting the deck, even as he grimaces down at them. His sister, knowing him far too well, hums quietly. “You read something you don’t like.”Hands still cutting, shuffling, cutting, flicking, he shrugs. “Well, the good news is, something bad that was supposed to happen isn’t. So that’s mildly comforting.”Leave it to their darling father to booby-trap his own demise for maximum trauma. But something derailed it. Yay for that. Klaus’ bet is on their littlest brother. No-one else did anything noteworthy and Five has always had major Chaos Energy.“And the bad news?”“The house,” he tells her, flicking the cards, one two three four five on the table. They land in the same constellation they did last night, except the Sevens end up closer to Vanya, like calling to like. “All of us, back in that house.”“Yesterday?”He shakes his head. Not the funeral. Something else. Something still to come. And he gets the vague feeling that it’ll be longer than a couple of hours, this time. He doesn’t want to go back. Most of his nightmares live there. Van grabs his hand, playing with the edge of the Tower, and squeezes it. On the table, the cards restack themselves without anyone touching them and then disappear back into her pocket. Once they’re gone, her eyes lose their slight whiteish tinge again.“We’ll be fine,” she promises. On cue, the waitress drops a giant stack of waffles between them and smiles. Klaus smiles back. +
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+ Over the next few days, things settle around them into something that’s not quite what it was before their father died and not quite new. They still have the same jobs, the same routines, the same overflow of cakes because Klaus only works a few hours at the moment and bakes the rest of the time. (Vanya’s students love the unicorn glitter cupcakes. Vanya, who finds glittery grease prints all over her sheet music afterwards, does not.) But now, they have it all with Five trailing after them and Allison making an effort to drop in at least once a day. She usually brings something, reminding Vanya a bit of a cat, bringing little gifts to ingratiate itself with its owners. Only Allison is trying to make friends with people she once refused to even consider siblings. (Yeah, they all saw that interview.)On the second day, she brings a lot of Five’s old clothing and Vanya is reminded, once more, of how regulated and smothering their lives used to be. They had three kinds of clothing. The Academy uniform for every day, pajamas, an exercise clothes. That was it. Until they all started sneaking out and supplying their own wardrobes, that was all they ever wore, all their lives. Well. She supposes there were probably diapers and onesies, at one point, but she wouldn’t put it past their father to dress newborns in itty-bitty blazers and shorts.It makes her cringe a bit to see their brother in those clothes, but she lets it go. In the spirit of not overwhelming him with choice just yet, it’s a good idea. And he starts mixing up the outfits almost immediately, pajama pants with work-out shirt, track pants with uniform sweater, shorts with a tank top stolen from Klaus. It’s a good start for their shopping trip next week. Allison watches the progressively more rebellious combinations with Vanya over coffee one morning and laughs. “I had one pair of eye-searingly pink panties,” she confesses. “I used to wear it on every ‘special training’ mission and cheer myself up with the idea that the old man had no clue.”The confession is both crude and surprising enough to make Vanya almost snort coffee out of her nose. She presses a hand to her mouth, forces herself to swallow. At the counter, Klaus and Five have both halted their baking efforts to turn and stare at them through the open living room door. “Just imagine,” Vanya giggles. “one gust of wind and – ““He would have had a heart attack! Saved us years of misery!”They’re both laughing.Klaus mumbles something to his brother, twirls his finger at his temple and goes back to explaining why rainbow sprinkles are an absolute must when making those damn unicorn cupcakes. +Apart from the clothes, Five gets used to other choices. Other options. Vanya is careful to introduce either/or scenarios to him after a few days. Chinese or Indian for dinner? Juice or milk with breakfast? Ben catches on then and starts doing it, too. Does he want to tag along with Diego or Vanya? Stay in or go out? He does fairly well with it. Sleeps a lot to recover lost energy or just because sleeping in is a novelty to him. Diego let them all know what happened the first day, the panic attack over how different things are, and they make sure to keep close enough to help if necessary and keep the more outlandish aspects of Life After the Academy away from him for now. He starts carrying Vanya’s tablet everywhere to look up things as they come up and make notes in a sketchbook pilfered from Klaus. He binges on superhero movies with Eudora and only tries to mutilate Diego a little when he shows up with an Iron Man toothbrush the next day. He also uses the toothbrush religiously, so there’s that. It’s okay. He cries sometimes or gets frustrated and starts verbally flaying anyone within range, but it’s easier to withstand as an adult than it was as a kid. They can counter his scathing wit now and they all know where he comes from. There is no mention of school or anything, yet. First, he needs to settle. Then paperwork. Then school. Klaus jokes, once, about it. “Can you imagine our Fivey surrounded by a bunch of young teens eight hours a day? He’ll either reign supreme or set the place on fire before lunch on the first day.”It is, unfortunately, not an entirely outlandish theory. Hence the waiting. Secretly, Vanya thinks, they’re all hoping some sort of alternate solution is going to drop into their laps. So far, no luck. Next to all of that, the fact that Klaus is having a low-key battle of wills with his tarot deck almost falls to the wayside until he throws the entire deck out of the window one evening, slams it shut, locks it, places the basil in front of it like that’ll keep anything or anyone out and then drops onto the couch, arms crossed, scowling. “Uhm,” Diego hedges.“You okay?” Eudora asks.Vanya just rubs at his curls until he has his breathing under control. Ben, perched on the back of the couch behind him, one leg on either side, just looks pinched. Five is already asleep. “Fuck the cards,” he snaps, then turns his head sharply to one side. “Shut the fuck up, Lina. And you two, stop fucking dripping on the carpet, Jesus. Out!”Something that always just feels like pressure and cold to Vanya brushes outward from him as his hands glow briefly blue, and then he slumps. “Fuck the cards,” he repeats. “What’d they say?” Ben coaches.Four shakes his head. “Nope. No, no, no, and double no. Hey, Allison promised to take us shopping didn’t she? I think Five’s up for it. We should do that.” He whips out his phone, starts texting and gets an almost instant reply. “Oh, cool, Mom’s coming. Awesome. So, hey, shopping tomorrow, any of you in?”They all decline before Diego tries to get back on subject. “Klaus, the cards – “Klaus cringes. It’s a full body motion, legs drawing up, elbows tucking in. Like he used to, after they dragged him in from the streets. Or after his special training. Or whenever Dad raised his voice. He shoots her a helpless look.She sighs, tugs on his hair, gets him to settle his head on her shoulder. “They want us to go home,” she tells their family. Ben flickers, Diego curses. Klaus just becomes smaller. “Not yet,” he tells them. “Let’s go shopping first, okay? Because the cards insist we need all of us and I- not yet. Five… Five should get more time to adjust.”“Well,” Eudora suggests innocently. “What do the cards say about bringing other people? And those people bringing gasoline?”It’s enough to startle a laugh out of all of them. “I love you, U,” Klaus declares, dramatically. “Awww, you too, boo,” she coos back.“Stop flirting with my wife, dipshit!”+
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+ It’s Shopping Day. After the way Klaus has been ranting and raving all morning, Five has started capitalizing the name in his head. It’s a reminder that this is probably going to end in disaster and not to let his guard down. For one, because being in public outside of a mission setting is still very strange and for another, because Klaus has been muttering about pastels for the past eight minutes. They’re standing in the street in front of their apartment – Five is still getting used to that, to only having a few rooms, to constantly being on top of someone else, to Klaus and Vanya, but he thinks he’s figured out a trick. Instead of comparing it to everything he used to know, he treats is like it’s all completely new. Like he’s never met his siblings before. It’s imperfect because he wouldn’t love strangers, but it helps him not have so many expectations. Less expectations mean less surprises when they’re disappointed and that means less panic attacks. That’s what they’re called, apparently, and it’s normal to have them in stressful situations. No-one was surprised he used to have them and they all cursed when he told them how Father made him deal with them. Apparently, they’re not a sign of weakness. Many things Five was taught to deride are actually okay. He knew that, in some cases. He knew Klaus’ penchant for typically female clothes wasn’t bad, or that Vanya liking girls was just fine. He knew their father was wrong about these things but he didn’t realize how many other things he just absorbed without questioning them, didn’t even know to question them. Seven says he is dealing with things in a very mature way, a mixture of pride and sadness on her face. She also says he’s going to start seeing the therapist she and Klaus go to. The woman is, they say, not usually for children, but she knows about the whole powers thing, so it’ll be easier. That’s non-negotiable. Five was told, in no uncertain terms, that if he jumps out of the office during a session, Vanya will be Disappointed and Klaus will eat all his ice-cream in front of him without letting him have any. From the big production they made of it, he thinks they meant to showcase that there will be no more special training as punishment, no slapping or going to dinner hungry or being locked into his room.Five is… glad for the reassurance and resentful for being glad and it’s all very confusing. “Oh, we’re shopping in style, look at that, bro,” Klaus announces, suddenly, stopping Five from rabbiting further into his head. Their father’s classic car comes rolling down the street with Mom at the wheel and Allison in the passenger seat, waving with a big smile on her face. Five is glad Mom is coming. She hasn’t changed at all, apart from her hair, which she now wears down. Father didn’t like it that way, said it got in his food, so he made her put it up. Father is gone. (Five is glad.)Klaus shoves him into the backseat, makes a crack about needing a booster seat and gets an elbow in the ribs as soon as he settles. “Hey,” he complains, “no phasing through Ben!”“Ben isn’t here, asshole, nice try.” “Language,” Mom chides, fondly, pulling back into traffic perfectly. “Sorry, Mom,” the two of them chorus, then turn to each other, snickering. Some things never change and Klaus is forever stuck at twelve when it comes to his sense of humor, so Five finds familiarity there. Three shifts in her seat. “So, what’s on the agenda for today? Five needs everything, I want to buy some more casual clothes. I brought mostly couture stuff,” – Klaus sighs dreamily, “but I wouldn’t mind a few things I can go out in without being noticed.” She winks. Klaus sighs again, louder. They ignore him, so he pouts. “I’m just here to make sure you both look fabulous. And maybe spruce up Mom a bit? Now that dear old dad has bit the big one, she can wear what she wants. I think it’s time to introduce her to pants. Mom?”Mom doesn’t look away from the road, but she shrugs. “I’m not sure, dear. Don’t you like my dress?”She’s wearing the polka dot one. “Of course I do!” Klaus vehemently defends immediately, because sometimes he’s not a complete asshole. “You look fab in it and you know it. But you’ve been wearing the same five outfits since forever. Jeans? I bet you’d look badass in a leather jacket. Oh, we should have taken Diego, he could take us to his favorite fetish shop!”Automatically, Five smacks him. Allison laughs. “Right. Wardrobe for Five, casual dress for Mom and me, whatever catches his fancy for Klaus. Lunch is on me. Sounds like a plan?”It sounds like a recipe for chaos, but it feels like those nights when Father was out and they’d all gather in the attic and plan a jailbreak to Griddy’s. It feels like family. Five missed that. So much so, that he even lets Klaus high five him, even though he usually really wouldn’t. Plan made, Allison turns back to face the front and starts digging through the glove compartment until she finds an ancient tape, which she slips into the radio. Immediately, some upbeat dance tune from the sixties starts pouring out and before long, they’re all grooving and laughing, like on donut night.Even Mom taps her finger on the wheel and smiles a little wider until they pull into the parking lot and head inside. Five has never seen a mall like this before. Even when he jumped without permission, he only ever went to stores he knew, the small places around the Academy. This place is massive, gaudy, loud and teeming with life. He’s gawking like an idiot.The only good thing is that Mom isn’t doing any better, head swiveling from side to side with absolute delight as she takes in the sights. Maybe, he thinks, her loud joy will distract his siblings from the fact that he is absolutely overwhelmed by… everything. He can hear four different kinds of clashing music, the voices of hundreds of people, the fountain a few feet away. He smells too many foods to identify and in the thirty seconds they’ve been inside, four people have either bumped into him or narrowly avoided doing so with a curse and a glare. He glares back, shoulders tensing, fists clenching in preparation for jumping out of there. He doesn’t need clothes. He has his uniform, which is ugly and terrible but at least familiar. There’s a gaggle of kids his age by the fountain and they’re wearing… awful things. Jeans with too many holes and neon colors and good god, next to them, Klaus looks fashionable and sane in his lace up leather pants, crop top and unzipped purple hoodie. Someone crashes into him from behind with enough force to make him stumble forward. “Clear the damn way, kid, this isn’t a zoo!”The guy snaps, jostling Five again and he can smell the man’s breath he’s so damn close and he is pissing Five off and – “Excellent behavioral model for today’s youth, good sir. Maybe drop a few f-bombs while you’re at it?” Klaus saccharinely suggests from where he’s suddenly magically appeared right next to Five, steadying him. He’s fine! The man turns to glare at Klaus automatically, then computes the make-up and clothes and sneers. “Listen here, girly-“He obviously considers it the height of insults to call a man a girl. Klaus clasps his hands over his heart and beams, “You really think I look girly? Thank you!”“Fucking fa-““Finish that,” Five snarls, standing on tiptoe to better hiss in the asshole’s face, “And I will eviscerate you, dickhead!”He can’t wait to catch up to his brothers in height.“Aaaaand that’s our cue,” Klaus chirps, grabbing Five by the hand and tugging. “Little brother’s not had his nap yet, boo bye, try not to be a bigoted homophobic asshole so much, will ya?”And with that he’s dragging Five away, Allison and Mom following behind silently. Once they’re out of range of the fuming jerk (who is turning a worrying shade of red, Five notes gleefully), Klaus stops, turns, and beams at him.“Look at you, being all protective of me! It’s cute! But I’m actually all grown up now, Fivey, and I can dickstomp those assholes all by myself.” “You’re my brother,” Five snaps, “I’m the only one who gets to call you names!”Klaus hugs him. Five squirms. Then he’s released with the words, “Oh, look, they have leopard print leggings!”He doesn’t realize Klaus is still holding onto his hand – or that he’s letting him – until they’re well inside the store.+
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+ Allison has taken Five away. Allison is mean. Klaus was being very, very conservative in his clothing choices for the kid. He was! Those leggings were for him, not littlest bro! And the teddy t-shirt, too! Scout’s honor!But she just swooped in, said something about sensible jeans and nice shirts and tugged Five away. And the little traitor went with her. No protest! And after they bonded over dickstomping the fuckhead, too!“You look sad,” Mom judges, peering at him from too close. “Should I make cookies?” she sounds unsure and Klaus decides he better take a few minutes out of his sulking to make sure she doesn’t fry a circuit trying to apply pre-programmed patterns in a mall setting. “Nah, I’m fine, mother mine. Just peachy, in fact. It’s just that no-one appreciates my sense of style. He flicks the leggings for emphasis. She pats his shoulder, exactly three times, as always. “I think you have a very nice sense of style. You always looked excellent in my nude heels.”That’s why she’s the best. He slings an arm over her shoulders, flings the leggings in the vague direction of the return counter, beams at the poor salesgirl there in semi-apology and starts leading her out. “Excellent point. You know what would look fantastic with those nude heels? Skinny jeans. Stone wash, with a flowing, flowery kind of blouse. Very conservative and straight, just like you. Shall we find you some?”“Some what, dear?”“Skinny jeans and a flowy blouse, Mom.”She looks down at her dress, then up at him, frowning. Klaus can practically see here adaptive programming struggling with preset commands. Some things are wired into her too deep to overcome, like not arguing with Dad and not interfering in their ‘training’, but others she can circumvent. And hell, who knows, maybe now that Satan is dead, she’ll have the space necessary to purge his evil doctrine from her servers, once and for all. Yay! Go emancipation!Go Mom! He gives a little cheer, then flips off the judgmental looking ghost of a construction worker hanging out by the bras. A soccer mom gives him a scandalized look. The ghost blows a few pink spit bubbles, swings a ghost hammer at something not there and then flicks out when Klaus snaps his fingers. The only other dearly departed in here is a skinny bird of a girl by the check out, twirling her hair and completely missing the knife stuck between her ribs. It moves when she breathes. Klaus shudders.“Dear? Dear?” He blinks. “Sorry, Mom. Ghosty at three o’clock.”She hums. “Oh. Is it a nice one?”She’s been asking that for twenty-five years. One day, Klaus will be able to tell her yes and have it not be a lie. Even the sane, aware ones tend to be dicks, all rude and demanding, just because he can see them. “Sure is. She says hi.”She beams at thin air. Obviously she’s finished taking a crack at her base commands because she tells him, “I think I might try some jeans, now, if that’s alright with you.”“That,” he tells her, “is just perfect. And hey, if we find the right size, we could go twinsies!”They reach the right rack and Klaus starts pulling out jeans, holding them up against her waist. Those measurements are really unfair. His mom’s a babe. Machine made, but still a babe. She stands there patiently for a few moments, watching. It’s a familiar move. She’s learning new behavior. Once she’s assimilated it, she joins him and they make a right mess of the shelf. Klaus feels a little bad. He worked in retail once, for exactly seven hours. Worst of his life. Honest!He starts folding the ones that are the wrong sizes, but, well, there’s a reason he didn’t make it to the eighth hour. Eventually, they have three different jeans in two different sizes, enough for Mom to try and he swans off to find her matching tops, trusting she’ll follow. Which… she doesn’t. He turns and she’s gone. Spins one way, spins the other way. No Mom! “Mom?”He spins a few more times until a sales girl in a really dope skirt stops at his side. “Can I help you?” She doesn’t call him sir. Thank god. “I appear to have lost my mother,” he informs her, holding up the hello hand briefly before bringing it up to his chin, “About ye high, dressed like a fifties housewife, perfect blonde hair.”“Cool tat,” she comments. He flashes goodbye at her in response.Behind her, dead knife girl is watching their interaction with narrowed eyes. From the look of her nose and chin and the way she followed the girl over here, they’re related. He waits until the living girl has turned her back on him to stick his tongue out at the dead one. She jumps, visibly startled and Klaus starts following the sales girl, occasionally calling out for Mom. Seriously. Allison is going to be so pissed. Mom’s first day out and he loses her!Dead girl falls into step with him. “Can you tell her I’m okay? She blames herself because she didn’t go with me that night. But it was just shit, you know? Bad luck. Shouldn’t have taken that shortcut.”She’s too lucid to have been dead for long. Aware she’s dead and tied to a person. Oh, this one’s fresh, alright. Not a year, Klaus’d bet. He hates those. But he also likes them because they’re the rare ones he can actually help. More person than haunting. “You got a name, fair lady?” he asks.Apparently he’s too loud, because living girl half turns, giving him the stink eye and taps her name sign. Amber. Okay.Dead girl snorts. “Jade.”Amber and Jade, huh. Definitely sisters and definitely new agey parents. Maybe stoners. Klaus doesn’t judge. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a flash of blonde. She’s standing in front of a mannequin, staring at a white blouse with black polka dots. It’s… very her. “Oh, hey, found her,” he chirps at Amber, then turns. “Mom, what the heck? Ally’s going to kill me if I lose you, you know?” Not to mention Diego. Shudder. Jade snorts again. “Seriously,” Amber drawls, a note of what-the-fuck in her voice. “That’s your mom? Keep your kink at home, dude!”She turns to leave and Klaus a) cringes because no and b) calls, “Hey, wait. No. I mean, yes, whatever. Jade wants you to know that it wasn’t your fault for not going with her. She took a bad shortcut and had shitty luck. Also,” he turns to the ghost. She grins. “Tell her thanks for not reading my diary when she found it.”“Thank you for not reading her diary when you found it.” He hitches up an eyebrow. “You done now, dead girl?”She laughs before leaning in to study her sister’s face. Shock, disbelief, grief, fury and, oh, there it comes. Belief. And then relief. All the –lief you could want. She stares at him, wide-eyed. “Yeah, I’m good,” Jade decides, already fading out at the edges. A few more seconds and she’ll be gone. “Love you, Ams.”Aaaaand gone. “She said she loves you. Now, try to get over it, okay? She has. And thanks for helping me find my Mom. Who is, actually, my Mom.”He waves and then grabs Grace, pulling her away. The aftermath of scenes like this is always either teary gratitude or teary fury and he hates both. Better to scamper off. His job is done and he sucks at emotion. His therapist said so. “Why did that girl not believe I’m your mother?” Mom asks, once they’re safely half the store away.“Because we look the same age.”“May I have that blouse?”“Which one?”“The one I was looking at. Why is the girl crying? Because of the nice ghost?”And, Klaus realizes with a start, this is it! He actually met a nice ghost! And he can tell Mom about it. He grins. “Yeah. But she’ll be fine, no cookies necessary. And we’ll get you the blouse, too.”She smiles back. “That’s nice, dear.”Yeah. It is. +
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+Grace knocks on Pogo’s study door that evening.She has been back from her daytrip with the children for exactly four point three hours. Sundown was two point four hours ago. Dinner was shrimp salad with a side of rice. Luther did not show up for dinner. She knocks.“Yes?”Pogo is sitting at his desk, papers in front of him. He is working. His expression is - - - interested. No signs of stress indicated. Grace notes, for the two thousand and forty-sixth time the inconvenience of Pogo’s facial structure. She is programmed to read micro expressions, but his simian face lowers her success rate immensely. She cannot accurately tell what he is feeling. That is inconvenient for predicting and anticipating behavior. She steps inside.“Hello, dear,” he greets. “How was your outing?”“We went to seventeen different stores, eleven of which carried clothing. Allison bought four complete outfits, Five received seven pairs of pants, twelve shirts, nine sweaters, fourteen pairs of underwear and twenty-eight socks, as well as two pairs of sneakers, one pair of boots and a jacket for cool weather. Klaus bought a skirt and three pairs of leggings. We went to a food court for lunch. The children – “Pogo raises a hand, a smile on his face. Grace pauses.“Let me rephrase. Did you enjoy it?”Grace considers. “Yes.”She pauses. Mr. Hargreeves liked concise answers. His time was precious. But Pogo makes no indication for her to move on, so she smiles and adds, “The children have grown so much. Klaus is so strong and Allison is so beautiful and Five is here again and the mall was so big and bright and there were so many people. Klaus promised to take me there again.” She considers, then risks it, “I have received new clothes as well. Klaus says the jeans make my rear look bootylicious. I do not know what that means, but Allison assures me it is good.”Pogo laughs. It startles her. She has not heard him laugh in seven hundred and forty-eight days. Once he recovers he wipes his eyes, giving a long sigh. “Oh, my dear, thank you for that. Now, was there something you wanted or did you come only for a chat?”There are three separate stacks of paper in front of him. He looks to be consulting four sheets at the same time. He is busy. Grace should not interrupt any more. She hesitates. “I should let you return to your work.”“Nonsense.” He sighs again. This time it misses the indicators of joy. “This here is… a very old regret. Older than you, in fact. I dare say, it’s as old as the children. It’ll keep an hour longer.”Grace does not flinch because Mr. Hargreeves did not build her to flinch. She smiles instead, wide and bright. She does not like the sensation and stops again. Pogo frowns. Sadness or irritation, her software fails again. Experience says sadness. “Grace?”She looks away, looks back at him. Smiles. Stops. “At the mall,” she tells him, somewhat less brisk than her usual. Mr. Hargreeves would be mad at her dallying. Pogo leans forward, silent. “The children called me ‘mom’, as they do in private. There were no outward reactions when Five did it, but seven separate strangers reacted to Klaus or Allison calling me by that moniker. Four indicated confusion, one anger and two disgust. When asked, Klaus explained my apparent age confounded them.”She halts. The next words in her processors are dangerous. Two words only. In her tenure in this house, they have led to seventeen instances of reprogramming and four hard resets. She remembers, unbidden, trying on her new clothes at the shop. When she exited the changing room, Klaus and Allison cheered. She lowered her head and hunched her shoulders to avoid the attention of people watching, unsure of herself. She had no frame of comparison for the clothing she was wearing. The lack of data confused her.“Own it,” Three told her. Four and Five nodded along. Her middle numbers, cheering her on. She straightens her shoulders and tilts up her chin. Mr. Hargreeves is dead. Grace went outside today and there were no repercussions. Her children want her back in their lives. She has a new daughter to get to know. A granddaughter she saw pictures of for the first time today.Own it. “I want,” she says those dangerous, dangerous words, “to look older. I want to look old enough to be my children’s mother. I want to be outside with them and not be met with disgust or anger. I want to be able to claim them in public. I want them to call me Mom and hug me and I want the world to know that they are mine. I want to meet my granddaughter!”Grace is the name that was given to her by her creator. Mom is the title she chose for herself a hundred, hundred times when she put them to bed and read to them and fed them and dressed them and attempted to stand between them and all their creator. She failed in that, every time, because he made her and unmade her when he so chose, but he is gone now. And Grace wants. There is a momentary pause. Pogo was present for nine instances of reprogramming. He was present for zero instances of hard resets. Then he hums. “I think… since your soft tissue is self-replenishing and repairing, there must be a blueprint, so to speak, in your systems, correct?”Grace nods. If she needed to breathe, she would hold her breath. Own it. Mr. Hargreeves is not here anymore. “In that case, changing the programming to reflect a different skin texture and structure shouldn’t be too much of an effort. If you give me an hour or two, we might go downstairs to the lab and see what we can do, if that’s alright with you?”She nods. “That would be excellent. Thank you.”She spins on her heel, leaving the room in a flurry of skirts. In the hallway she considers. She should be cleaning up the kitchen and preparing for breakfast tomorrow, as well as starting a load of laundry and dusting the bedrooms. In the bags the children left by the front door for her, there is a photobook on oil paintings. Allison bought it for her. She decides to go look for it. +
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+ “So,” Vanya asks her favorite baby brother, putting down her violin to give him her full attention. “How was shopping?” There’s an evil glint in her eye she can’t quite help. After all, she has been shopping with Klaus before. Even the promise of Mom couldn’t make her go this time. Wordlessly, Five points toward the teetering pile of bags by the front door. Then he slumps down next to her and declares, “I’ve decided to stop growing. That way, I can avoid further shopping trips until these literally fall off me. If I stretch them, I figure I can make it a decade.”Vanya laughs. Thank God Klaus did an about turn at the door, dropping his bags and brother, picking up the goodie bags Vanya packed earlier. Then he turned right back around to continue his shopping experience by ransacking a second hand store with his homeless teenage chicks. Briefly wistful, she thinks of the days when she packed those baggies (condoms, toothpaste and brush, deodorant, baby wipes, hand disinfectant, granola bars) only for Klaus. These days, she buys the components in bulk but she still seals the Ziploc bags with the same brief prayer every time. Let them help. Easier times. More painful and infinitely lonelier, but easier. She doesn’t miss them a moment. Instead she pokes her brother in the side. “Come on, let’s start running this pile through the machine.”He grumbles, but rolls to his feet and grabs a few bags to follow her into the bathroom. She finds a pair of scissors and starts removing tags while Five peels stickers. “Why wash them? They’re new.”“And potentially full of gross chemicals from production. Also, you don’t know who tried them on before you bought them.” She gives an emphatic shudder.Five seems to consider that briefly, then concedes the sense of it with a nod. They make piles on the floor, light, dark, color. Unsurprisingly, the only bright items are adult sized. Color her shocked.Since they’re already here, she decides to continue the lesson. “Split them by color or they might stain each other, then make sure not to stuff the machine too full. Like this.” She shoves in a bunch of the dark stuff, sticks her hand in on top of it and wiggles it. Still room. “Add detergent here and program the setting like this. Apart from Klaus’ more outlandish stuff, we wash basically everything on this setting. Press start and in a couple hours, we switch it over to the dryer and start the next load.”Five watches her hands intently as she moves and then, abruptly, slumps. “How do you know to do all that stuff? No-one ever taught us. I-“ he flounders. “The baking and the cleaning and the other day Klaus told me to water that dumb plant and I just poured in water until the pot was full and Klaus freaked out. How the fuck am I supposed to know how to water plants?!”He’s almost shouting at the end, visibly, well. She’d say angry, if she didn’t know it was helplessness. Visibly helpless. Overwhelmed. Damn it. They’ve let it slide too early, have stopped being careful. On the other hand, careful doesn’t really get you anywhere in the long run. She sighs, rubbing a hand through his hair. It’s telling that he doesn’t yank his head away and sneer. “We learned,” she tells him, calmly. “I spent a hell of a lot of time googling stuff everyone else grows up knowing. Klaus learned mostly by trial and error.” And wasn’t that fun. Flooded rooms, burnt food and pink-dyed clothing. “To be honest, from what Eudora tells me, Diego was mostly hopeless until she came along.”A snort. “He still is. He was there when the plant thing happened. He didn’t get it either.”No, Diego just likes to fuck with Klaus and his ridiculous attachment to their kitchen herb. But telling Five that right now wouldn’t help. “Point,” she fibs instead. “But we figured it out and you will, too. After all, you’re the smartest of us, right? Besides, you’re only thirteen. You have time.”She gently steers him out of the bathroom. “Now tell me about the trip. Did Klaus dress Mom up?”He chuckles. “In a leather jacket. Diego is either going to freak, or get jealous.”“Probably both. Mom being out and about is going to put him overprotective super mode.”There are exactly four cupcakes left. Klaus will get zero, they two each. She plates them and shoves them at her brother, grabbing some juice for them both. “Might not be the worst thing,” he concedes as he eyes the cupcakes, trying to decide which plate will be his. “People are rude.” Oh, the irony for Five saying that.“What happened?”“Well, we were barely in the door when that entitled asshole – ““Language!”“- Entitled dickhead -“+
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+“Family meeting!”Klaus swans into the room, arms spread wide. The first scarf he ever made, a multi-colored monstrosity, is wound along them like a snake on an exotic dancer. His left hand smacks into the doorjamb as he comes through, but he toughs it out, grins winningly at the room in general and probably hopes nobody noticed. Ben rolls his eyes so hard his head hurts. Which is a feat, because he’s dead. Why, oh why, does he have to be spiritually tethered to the lovechild of a drag queen and Kermit the Frog? Why?Vanya eeps at the entrance. Five scowls. “Nobody cares who stole your unicorn cereal, Klaus.”Klaus flaps one end of the scarf at their littlest brother. “Pfft. I know it was you, buttercup. And that’s not what this is about. Come on, up you get, I texted everyone else, we should get moving.”Ben perks up. Did Klaus finally man up and is preparing to confront the Issue he’s been ducking for almost two weeks? One can only hope. He zaps himself over to the door, sticking out his tongue at Five as he goes, because hell yeah, Ben can zap too, now. “Wait?” Vanya looks up from her book for the first time. “We’re going somewhere?”Klaus hustles her to her feet. “Yes. Family meeting. Come on, come on, I called Mom, she’s fixing snacks and you know how Luther gets! Chop, chop!”“We’re going to the Academy?”Excellent. Luther will be there. If he’s an ass again, Ben can practice being corporeal at him. He remembers one too many instances of Luther turning a drugged-up Klaus away at the door to feel very charitable toward their biggest brother. Maybe after a few more smack downs. Which he can’t wait to get in, really. Klaus being sober is the best thing. Not only because he’s sober, but also because Ben can finally defend him. “Shotgun!” he declares.“I’m driving,” Klaus adds.“No, you’re not,” Vanya counters.Five rolls his eyes, toes on the new sneakers they got him and tells them, “I’ll meet you there.” And he’s gone. Ben gets shotgun. Klaus does not drive. They make it there in one piece. All of which is good news. Outside the house, they’re met by Diego and Eudora, arm in arm. Eudora detaches for a round of hugs, while Diego hangs back, scowling. “Why the hell are we here?”Ben, already hugged, leans a little into his brother’s side, enjoying the chance to be physical. “Klaus has decided to deal with The Issue.”“You mean the reason he’s been acting like a bag of cats lately?”Ben hitches up one eyebrow.“More than usual I mean?”Klaus squawks his indignation, but lets himself be towed across the street by the girls. Diego and Ben follow. “That would be the one.”“Oh, ok, that’s – Mom?!”The woman who has opened the front door is… well. She’s blonde. But she’s wearing jeans and a nice blouse instead of a dress and her face – “Why do you have wrinkles?” Klaus bleats.They catch up and Ben studies their mother. She looks… different. The clothes are new, but after Klaus’ and Five’s reports, he expected that. The face, though, is a surprise. She looks older. Obviously older. There are fine wrinkles around her eyes and mouth and some of the almost supernatural glow she always had is gone. She’s still undeniably Mom, but also… not. If Ben met her on the street now, he’d think she’s a good-looking middle-aged woman. Nothing like the pin-up she was before.And that’s when he gets it. Klaus mentioned someone commenting on their ‘kink’ at the mall. He laughed it off, unconcerned, but Mom – oh, Mom.Ben steps forward before any of his siblings and hugs her. It’s a rare treat for him, and the way she immediately hugs back, just a little too tight, feel a lot like home, still. “You look gorgeous,” he tells her. “We should go out some time soon.”She beams at him and he steps back, lets the others get a hug in while Diego still sputters. “But why do you look so – ““Hello, Eudora,” Mom says, holding out her arms.“How do you know each other?!”Dora winks. “You took too long introducing us, isn’t that right, Grace?”“Call me Mom, dear.”They grin at each other. Diego opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, gives up and hugs them both. “But why?” he asks, steering them inside.“Because I want to look like your mother when you take me out for dinner, silly.”Diego stops abruptly, rooted to the spot. “You don’t have to do that. None of us care!”“I know. I wanted to. Now come inside. I made cookies.”Ben can tell, from the way his brothers stiffen, that they, at least, catch the significance of those words, too. I wanted to. Hearing Mom say them so easily, so openly is… a gift. For the hundredth time in the last few weeks, Ben allows himself a feel a vindictive little churn in his stomach as he thinks, I’m glad you’re dead. Then he shoves at Diego while Klaus hooks both arms around Eudora from behind and starts marching her forward, chanting, “Cookies, cookies, cookies.”Vanya follows them all, laughing. Inside, Ben can hear Five yelling at Luther about his ‘filthy mittens’ on ‘his cookies’. It’s followed by Allison’s laughter.This family meeting is going to be fantastic, Ben can tell. Especially when Luther twitches as Ben enters the room, fully solid and very, very tangible. He cracks his knuckles. Luther grimaces.+
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+ It takes about five minutes for them to devour the entire stack of cookies Mom made them. They are delicious and Diego gets Dora to admit that yes, they are the best cookies she’s ever eaten. Which is just as well, because as soon as they’re gone, Luther goes back to munching on his foot. They’re all settled around the couches and chairs, with Ben curled up by Allison, which has had her beaming for a whole minute now. Luther stands at the head of the little seating square, demanding, “Why are we all here?”Klaus flaps a hand. “Well, obviously because I called a family meeting.”Luther huffs. Allison’s smile dims. “Since when do you of all people get to – ““Ah,” Klaus cuts him off. Which is a surefire way to get the big guy pissed enough to start choking people out. Let him. The days where his siblings let themselves be slapped around because that was simply the way it was are long over. Dora is going to shoot him if he tries to touch Klaus. “I am a member of this family and I needed to meet with you all. Hence family meeting. Now, big guy, sit down before you get a heart attack. You’re too pretty to die young.” He winks as he rolls to his feet, dislodging Vanya, who shuffles over to snuggle up to Five instead, looking highly entertaining. As usual with Klaus, Diego takes his cues from her. He stays on his ass.Luther opens his mouth to protest. Behind Klaus’ back, Seven lets her eyes flare white. Luther shuts his mouth. Look at that, the big idiot can learn. Ben shoots Van a thumbs up and, to Diego’s surprise, Allison does, too. Dora hides a grin behind her hand before she goes back to watching. Diego half expected Luther to start in on her, first, but apparently Mom hugging her was enough to let him know Dora isn’t negotiable. Instead he picks on Klaus, the way he always has. The easiest target. The weakest. Vanya wasn’t interesting as a child and now she’s an unknown, but Klaus. Klaus is known to Luther – known as their father’s Greatest Disappointment. And who would Luther be, if he didn’t carry on that great and noble legacy. Klaus takes a little bow. “Now that I have your attention, we need to talk about the cards.”“Cards?”“Thank you for asking, Luther, yes, indeed, the cards.” He pulls his tarot deck out of a pocket, flips, splits and shuffles for a moment before pulling out the Hanged Man blindly and flicking it at Luther. It lands at his feet. “Those cards. You see, ever since Daddy dearest has moved on to take his seat as CEO of Brimstone International, Shitty Parent Division, they have been telling me the most interesting things.”Luther hunches his back, shoulders rolling forward threateningly. “Show some res—“ Allison doesn’t let One finish. Instead she claps her hands once, sharply, to interrupt him without shouting and then tells him, very quietly. “Think before you speak, Luther. We’ve talked about this.”Mom brings up the rear with a chirped, “Be polite to your siblings, Luther, dear.” Diego beams at her and she beams back. The new face is going to take a little getting used to, but she did it for them. More than that, she did it because she wanted to. He could never argue with that. And, hell, now he can take his mother to meet Dora’s dad and her family and not have to explain anything besides ‘adoption’. Leave the skeletons at home in the closet, where they belong.Klaus bows again, showy little thing that he is. “They keep telling me that something didn’t happen. Something that was supposed to but didn’t.”“Did we do something wrong?” Ben asks. “Nah. If anything, we did something right because whatever didn’t happen? It was bad. Like, seriously bad. It-“ Klaus twitches a little, the way he does when his cards do impossible things, or ghosts tell him secrets he never wanted to know. His eyes flick to the far corner of the room and he mutters something quietly under his breath in German. “Very, very bad. I don’t know what stopped it. I know it has to do with Dad croaking. Something happened that wasn’t supposed to and the bad thing was derailed.”“Ok,” Five drawls, “but isn’t that, I don’t know, a good thing?”Shooting a finger gun at him, Klaus nods, shrugs, shakes his head. “It might be. If the cards didn’t keep screaming at me about it.”Diego can tell, from the expressions, that Klaus is losing their siblings. At least the ones who haven’t been around him for years. “Usually, it’s only future events that keep coming up, right?” he coaches him along. “Yeah. Past stuff, it pops up once and then it’s done. A sort of info thing. The cards are only so dastardly persistent when there is something still to be done. And they keep insisting we will all return here, so I thought,” he sweeps a hand to encompass the room. “Why not, right?”They all chew on that for a moment and Diego can tell that no-one’s really sure what to make of it. Something not happening that they know nothing about isn’t exactly – well. It’s a non-event. Negative space. Finally, Luther takes the lead. “We should summon Dad.”Diego’s immediate “What the fuck?!” is lost under a lot of similar outcries, followed by Klaus’ surprisingly acidic, “We?”One shrugs. “Yeah. You’re clean, right? You can do it. Ask him. He’ll know what to do.”“Because everyone in this room is really big on doing what Dad wants,” Diego snorts.Ben shakes his head. “Dad didn’t have all the answers. Do you still not get that, Luther? He sent you to the damn moon for no reason.”“He sent me on a mission!”“Yeah? What was the mission?”Allison puts out a hand, as if to stop Ben, but once he’s on a roll, especially a protective one, there’s really no stopping him. Diego exchanges a look with his wife and then settles in for the show. Luther flounders, mouth open.“Dad used us, Luther. We were his good little soldiers and he did what he wanted with us. All of us. We were experiments and toys and pets, but never human beings and you’re the only one who can’t see it.”“Dad loved us!”Five snorts so loudly it hurts his throat because he starts coughing right after. Vanya whacks him on the back before looking up. “He locked me into a cell in the basement for weeks before putting me on drugs that almost ruined my life.”Klaus raises a hand, “Locked me in a mausoleum with a bunch of really angry ghosts.”“Made me do precision jumps until I passed out,” Five adds. Allison, looking at her feet, adds her own two cents. “He made me rumor people until I had migraines and threw up.”“Target practice,” Diego just says. Twenty years later, he still has nightmares of accidentally hitting Klaus, of slamming knife after knife after knife into his frail, skinny chest. “That was training!” Luther defends and fuck, looking at him now, with a decade of space, a lot of therapy, a career, a wife and a functioning family under his belt, all Diego can feel for the asshole is pity. Luther is almost thirty, same as them, and he still hasn’t caught on to the thing they all knew by the time they were sixteen. Hell, Five knew before he left. Ben shakes his head, shushes everyone. “Tell me how you know he loved us, Luther,” he prompts, quietly, intensely. He’s got that very calm, patient look on his face he used to get when talking Klaus down from a ledge, or away from a syringe, or out of some dark alley. Focused and patient and very, very sure. Luther is so tense by now, he’s shaking, fists clenched. Ben stands between him and the rest of the family, including Mom. Which is just as well. Ben can’t be hurt anymore. If Luther tries, Klaus will just make him intangible. And fuck, what does it say about them, that Diego is planning for of of his siblings trying to hurt the rest? He looks at Dora, suddenly ashamed. She grabs his hand, squeezes. “He took us in.”“He bought us,” Ben corrects, gently. “Like every other curiosity in this house, he collected us for study. To look at. To show off.”“He fed us and taught us and…” Luther trails off.“Things any parent is obligated by law to provide their children with. That’s not love, Luther, that’s not wanting to go down for child neglect.”Not that Dad would have. Money speaks louder than bruised children, every time. “What else, Luther?” Ben’s still gentle. Still calm. Klaus is chewing his nails and Vanya’s eyes have gone white as she half shields Five, who is frowning. “He-““He hurt us,” Allison speaks up, and her voice matches Ben. Calm nad firm and impossible to ignore. Maybe it’s the mother in her. “He punished us. He taught us things that are wrong. He made it impossible for us to ever fit in normal society. He neglected us. He hurt Mom whenever she tried to help. He tortured Ben and Klaus and Vanya.”Luther’s back hunches, impossibly more, shoulders tensing further. “He –““How do you know he loved us, Luther?” Ben reiterates and Diego always thought he’d enjoy watching One get taken down. But then, he also thought it would involve fists. This is worse.All he wants now is to look away. Klaus has already closed his eyes, stands behind Ben, swaying in place, silent. “He – he must have. He must have, right? He was our Dad.”“He should have,” Ben agrees, quietly. “Parents should love their children.”Being dead has given Number Six a terrible, terrible kind of wisdom. “But did he?”And Luther looks up from the floor, for the first time, looks at them. At Diego and his scars, Klaus, quietly humming to himself, hands over his ears, at Five and Allison, pale and tensed, at Vanya, afraid and white-eyed. At Ben, dead for almost fourteen years because Reginald sent him and Luther on an impossible mission. Dead because Luther didn’t listen to him, too busy following orders.Suddenly, Luther deflates. All the fight, the tension, the anger, bleeds out of him and all that’s left is a sad, giant child.“No,” he says. Diego finally closes his eyes.+
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+When Luther suddenly spins on his heel and flees the silence that has settled over the room, Allison takes a single deep breath and then follows. The others stay where they are and she is grateful. For the past few weeks, she’s been nagging at Luther, tugging and pulling, looking for an angle to finally make him see, because just telling him has never been enough. Luther has a singular talent for selective hearing and the worst case of bias confirmation she’s ever seen. That is a term her therapist taught her. On the phone yesterday, the woman said she was proud of Allison for everything she’s done in the last few weeks. For how far she’s gotten. After watching Ben kindly, cruelly tear Luther down, she isn’t sure she deserves that.She finds Luther where she knew she would, sitting in the open attic window, staring up at the sky. The moon isn’t visible, but she knows that’s what he’s looking at. He is… very stuck on it. “Luther?” “Just leave me alone,” he snaps, miserably. Ben did a good job at getting through to him and god, Allison didn’t know quiet, bookish Ben was capable of something like this. But then, she doesn’t know him very well anymore, if she ever did. In a way, she’s grateful. She wasn’t getting anywhere. Ben did. But looking at the damage, maybe not so much. She’s still considering what to do next, when he turns. His eyes are red and damp, his eyebrows drawn down. Miserable is the word for it. “Ben was wrong, right? He didn’t – he had to love us. He was our Dad!”Carefully, she steps closer. “Honestly? I don’t know. What I do know was that, when I first saw Claire, when I first held her, it took less than a second for me to realize that I would do anything for her. I would kill for her. I would die for her, and I would burn this world to ash if it meant she would be safe and happy for just one more minute. And that’s how it should be. That’s how parents are supposed to love their children. And that’s not how Reginald felt for us.”If he loved them, he didn’t love them in a way Allison understands. But that’s a bandaid she’s not going to give Luther. Not now. Now, she thinks, a clean break is best. And really, the odds of Sir Reginald not caring at all are pretty good. “But why? I did everything he ever asked of me. I stayed. I went to the moon for four years! Why wasn’t that enough?”Screw careful. She walks right into him, almost toppling them both outside, and wraps her arms around his bulk the best she can, squeezing. “I don’t know. None of us know, Luther. You just learn to live with it. To find other people who can and will love you.”He sobs into her shoulder. “I tried so hard to be a good son.”Yeah. That’s pretty much the problem they all have with Number One. Long after they understood what was happening to them, he still held on to the childish notion that if he tried just hard enough – He’s over it now. Pretty far over it, Allison would say. She rubs his back. “I know you did. I wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t any of our fault. We were children and he was wrong. But you still have us. You have me. You’re not alone, Luther, and we do love you. We’ll help, if you let us.”Even if she has to bang some heads together to make it happen. Their siblings have pulled themselves from the muck by their own hair and they’re doing a pretty good job with Five, now. They can damn well help Luther, too. For a while, they stay like this, silently holding on. Then, when her back starts twinging, Allison offers, “Why don’t we go back down? I’m sure Mom’s whipped up at least one batch of cheer-up cookies by now. They’re best warm.”He hesitates, clutching her closer. “The others – ““Have all had the same realization at one point or another.”Most of them twenty years earlier than Luther, but better late than never. He shakes his head. “No, I mean… Dad really hurt them, didn’t he? Did he really lock up Vanya and Klaus?”“Yeah. I didn’t know either until a few days ago.” And wasn’t that a fun conversation to walk in to, Klaus and Vanya on the couch, competing over who had the most humiliating claustrophobia induced panic attacks in public. (Vanya is okay in elevators with music. Klaus doesn’t even like public toilets.)“Guess I got lucky with the moon, huh?” he tries a chuckle. It falls flat. “No, Luther. This isn’t a competition. He hurt us all. Just,” she pauses. Then inspiration strikes. “Maybe, instead of being a good son, you could try and work on being a better brother, now.”Too early. So she glosses over it. “I mean, Vanya would totally appreciate someone to hand her things from high shelves, I’m sure.”This time, the chuckle, albeit watery, actually sounds real. Good. She steps back. “Come on. Cookies await, Number One.”He gets up, window frame creaking threateningly. “Lead on, Number Three.” +
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+ There is a long minute of silence after One and Three blow out of the room. Mom grabs the empty cookie platter and leaves for the kitchen.Even Klaus is holding uncharacteristically still and staring at Ben with something like smugness on his face. Diego is… confused. No, that’s not right. Pissed, maybe, that Luther might not be a complete asshole. Frustrated because he’s feeling sorry for someone he really doesn’t like. And hurt on his behalf because, God, at least Dad eventually stopped fucking with them, didn’t he? He never stopped with Luther. Eventually, the silence becomes too much. “W–wh–what the fuck just happened?” He grinds his jaw, frustrated at the stutter. Dora pats his knee. “Ben just applied his mean to Luther,” Klaus explains, cheerfully. He points at their brother. “That’s the voice he used to use to stop me doing certain drugs or going with certain johns. It’s terrible, isn’t it?”Ben rolls his eyes. “Sorry I was looking out for you.”“I forgive you, because seeing it work on someone else was awesome. Doubly so, considering your poor, unprepared target was none other than our darling, stubborn brother.” “Wait,” Five blurts. “Johns? What does that mean?”Yes, Klaus. What does that mean? Please explain to your thirteen-year-old brother what you just blurted out about your unsavory, traumatizing past. Diego says none of that, just leans into his wife. No-one’s bleeding yet, but apart from that, this is actually pretty much what he expected. Drama, revelations, heartbreak, disaster. “It means,” Klaus starts, loses steam, pauses, “that I used to do a lot of things I’m not proud about and we can talk about them when you’re older.” He nods, apparently satisfied with his very adult sounding reply. Five flips him off. Klaus sticks out his tongue. Vanya facepalms. Dora turns, very pointedly, toward Ben. “So. Read a lot of psychology books?”He snorts, points at Four and Seven. “Living with these disasters? I hardly read anything else.”“Hey!”“Rude!”“But,” he talks right over them, “that was easy, really. Hanging around Klaus for almost a decade taught me that you can lead an idiot to water, but you can’t make him drink. He’s gotta come to that conclusion himself. And from what I just saw, I’m pretty sure Allison’s been working on him already, which is why I’m not a ghostly smear on the wall.” He shrugs prosaically. “Oh my god,” Klaus groans. “We are all so over-therapized and well-adjusted, I could puke.”Five brains him with a throw pillow. “Ouch! Not you, you’re a menace! Speaking off,” he grabs the pillow from Five and snuggles it against his torso, “I think the big one was right.”“What’s that mean?”“It means I should probably try to summon Dad.”Everyone else’s cries of outrage have already died down when Diego is still stuck on the first fucking syllable. It’s pathetic, really. He’s had this under control for years, barely even stuttered at his own damn wedding, but he’s back in this house and worried and angry and bam, there it is again. He just can’t fucking escape, can he?The others are silent. Dora is squeezing his knee again and Van is keeping Five quiet and they wait. For him. To say what he means to say. As kids, they used to talk over him or finish his sentences and he hated it. Now they wait. Today, that’s worse. “Deep breath,” Dora mutters and Diego finally manages that goddamn sound. “W-w-why the fuck would you do t-t-that?”Dora pecks his cheek and Vanya smiles and Klaus gives him a thumbs up and Ben ruffles a mostly-solid hand through his hair before drifting over to an empty seat and they’re all so damn proud of him for such a little thing that he can breathe again. And speak. “You know he never gave us any straight answers.”“You know he’ll only use it to pick on you and belittle you and you don’t need that, Klaus,” Vanya adds. “Let him rot,” is Five’s opinion. “Can I hit him if you summon him?” Dora wants to know, because she likes to pretend she’s a by-the-book kind of cop, but there’s a hella vindictive streak in that tiny package. Diego kisses her, because he can. She beams at him. Klaus stares at his hands, turning them over thoughtfully. “All excellent points,” he allows, the verbosity a sure-fire sign he’s nervous. “However, the cards have been speaking loudly and not very plainly ever since he died, so it seems logical for him to have something to do with whatever is going on. Besides, if it comes to that,” he raises his hands, trailing a faint, blue shimmer, like a heat mirage in color, “I think he’ll find the playing field much more level than it used to be.”For a second, maybe less, the entire room is bathed in blue and Diego can see a dozen unfamiliar outlines, tall, short, broad, slim, scattered about the room. Ghosts. Then they’re gone again and Klaus turns, nonchalantly, toward the closest mirage, still visible to him and politely asks, “Would you get off the sofa, dear? Your blood is soaking the cushions.”He pokes at a perfectly dry piece of upholstery as he talks, making his point to whatever ghost is there. “Not really,” Five mutters. “Just because you can’t sense it, doesn’t mean I want to sit in it, baby bro,” Klaus counters and just like that, he’s himself again and not the eerie thing he sometimes turns into. Diego rubs at his forehead. “Ok, whatever. What do you need?”“Mhm. Is his monocle still around? Much as I hate that thing, it’s probably got the strongest imprint of the old ass. And then… courtyard, I think. His ashes are probably still there. That’ll be enough. Oh, and for all of you to not be there.”More outrage. Klaus flaps a hand. “Ben can come, but I don’t want you guys around.”Ben gives an unenthusiastic little cheer. “Yay!”Vanya stands, pulling Five with her. “We’ll ask Mom about the monocle.”Diego scowls. “I’ll be right on the other side of the door, is that clear?”He thinks Klaus would like to argue, but Dora is fingering her gun, nodding along. She’ll be there, too. Klaus swallows. He knows better than to fight with her.“Ok. Ben with me, overprotective Patches just out of sight. Roger that. Let’s go!”He claps his hands. They flare blue again. +
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+Naughty secret time: Klaus always intended to summon Daddy Dearest from the Great Beyond. The family meeting served a twofold purpose. One was to bring up the subject and convince everyone of its necessity. Two was because Klaus, quite frankly, doesn’t want to do it alone. He could have snuck in at any time, gotten the old man’s things and done it but that smacks too much of being alone with Reginald in the cemetery, at midnight. Still. He puts up a token fight about Patches in the rear but no more than that. Vanya and Five join them in the tiled hallway leading outside from the kitchen and eventually, so do One and Three. One’s head is hanging low, and he’s very quiet. Three is holding onto his arm and smiling serenely, if sadly. Klaus makes a mental note to feel sorry for their last siblings’ destroyed world view at a later date. Right now, he’s busy. He’s clutching the monocle in one hand, chain smoking with the other and trying to hide the fact that the cigarette is shaking between his fingers. Must be an earthquake. He considers, briefly, finding Mom to get a hug from her. Unproblematic hugs are the best. Well, not really. Vanya’s hugs are tighter, for all that she’s tiny, and Diego’s hugs swallow him up nicely and U’s always feel like a gift, and Benny’s hugs are the best because they are still rare and – He digresses. Chop, chop, time to summon his jailer. His torturer and overlord. Off he pops. He fiddles a new cigarette out of the squished package, sticks it in his mouth and pulls as he presses the dying butt of the last against it. Let there be nicotine. Technically, he’s never summoned a ghost before. He doesn’t even know if it will work. Sure, he’s stood on the roof and hollered for Pedro, and he’s ordered around the others, but those were all, fundamentally, already here. Just out of sight. Daddy’s not hanging around. Daddy, you see, was far too self-contained to die with unfinished business. Oh no, nothing so sloppy for Daddy. Nothing so human as regret. Klaus really doesn’t want to do this. Oh, he put on a big show, but – but – Daddy hurt them all so much. He hurt Klaus so much. He doesn’t want – “Hey,” Ben whispers. He’s gone invisible again to preserve Klaus’ powers and it’s like it used to be, just Klaus about to do things that are bad for him and Ben, perched at his shoulder, his sanity given form. “You don’t have to do this. So we don’t get answers. Fuck it. We don’t need them.”No. No, they don’t. But see, that’s the thing. They deserve them. At the end of it all, they deserve to know why. Why he took them from their families, why he molded them. Broke them. (Not all of them, a voice in his head whispers. Just the bad ones. Just the useless ones. Just Four, Six and Seven, the ones too afraid to fulfill their function, or too powerful to control.)He straightens his shoulders, lets go of his cigarette, abandoning it to dangle from his lips. He looks back at his siblings. They’re all looking at him and, for once, not pushing him. Not rushing. Not even Luther. All seven of them in one place and no-one is yelling. Look at us now, Daddy. It propels him all the way out into the courtyard. Ben leans against his statue while Klaus crouches over the sad, damp remains on their father.“Well, come on then, Daddy. One last chance to berate me for everything I’ve failed at. Now or never!”He dangles the monocle over the ashes, lets himself be a little hypnotized by the swing of it, lets it settle something inside of him as he draws up the strongest (worst) memories he has of the pile of ashes at his feet.The looming, the booming, the shouting, the hitting, the locking of doors. The hellish meals, the endless training sessions that only ever led to bruises, the scoldings to stand up straight, to be a man (ha!), to shut his mouth. Being twelve years old with his jaw wired shut and his father telling him he deserves it. He thinks of all of that and he reaches out, into the place no-one else every sees, the place no other living soul has ever visited. He reaches for it and he thinks Reginald Fucking Hargreeves, reaches, reaches, reaches – Draws on his memories and his emotions and his powers, draws on all the things he keeps in little boxes in his mind, draws until his hands glow blue and his cigarette has died between scattered leaves, until the monocle has stopped swinging and hangs, eerily still from the goodbye hand. He draw and draws and draws and feels Ben like a beacon and beyond him, the dead woman in the attic, the boy in the pantry, the dead couple two doors down, the hit-and-run victim in the street, the cemetery two blocks down and every soul trapped in it. He feels a dozen dozen ghosts, all of them, outwards and up, feels their energy, their rage and loss and hunger, the animal parts of them winning over the people they once were, the dark and the twisted things and he knows every single one of them flicks blue, visible for a single heartbeat. Wrong direction. Daddy’s not there. Klaus knows this, feels this, in his bones, in their marrow, in his blood, spilled too often in this house. He pulls it back in, reels it in like a fish on a hook, a tidal wave in reverse until it all comes crashing back into him, and the monocle glints and the power surges, crashing againstintoaround him and he thinks, again – Reginald Fucking Hargreeves, you fucking bastard pulls it all inside, to the place where all the dead are tethered, where Ben sleeps when he’s not here, where they all go, in the end, pulls it in and up against that shimmering barrier, that line inside himself that he has never crossed - (Vanya says he is a door, a gateway, but even Vanya does not understand how literal that is)and pushes.+
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+Ben has always been able to feel Klaus – long before he died. When they were still little, when he didn’t even know yet that the eternal rumbling in his belly, the eternal, mindless mutterings about hunger and blood and death in his head weren’t normal, he could feel Klaus. He mistook it for love for the longest time because Klaus felt warm and safe. Klaus felt nice. Klaus made the voices quiet and the rumbling cease. Klaus made Ben feel human. And Ben clung to that with both hands and called it brotherly affection. He knows it for the desperation it was, now, but it’s been so long and changed into so much care and love and devotion that it doesn’t matter anymore. He can’t change it. Klaus will never know that the first time Ben slipped into his bed at night it was out of a desperate need to make the voices stop. Ben will never tell him, because everything since Klaus raised his blanket with sleepy eyes and said, “’S okay, Benny,” has been love. But that doesn’t change the fact that Ben can feel his brother in a way he’s never felt anyone else.He figured it out eventually, because when he was alive, Ben did little else but navel gaze. Literally. Because right beneath it, hell awaits.And the truth about it is this: the horrors like Klaus. Something in him, some detail in the way he’s made, in the gateway he represents, calls to them. They’re a matched set, gatekeeper and doorway, The Horror and The Séance, Four and Six, Ben and Klaus. Klaus contains all the realm of the dead inside of him the same way Ben does the horrors. It’s why neither drugs nor booze nor oblivion ever got rid of the ghosts. Because they’re not an outside influence Klaus can block out. They come from inside of him. Ben doesn’t know if his brother is aware of that. They never talk about it. Maybe they should, though, Ben thinks, as something like worry settles in his dead bones and the horrors start dancing in his belly. They’re not dead, why would they be? They existed before him and they exist now, after him. He is their keeper and their realm is inside of him, somehow, but also outside, beyond. It makes as much sense as they do, tentacles and wings and beaks and teeth and claws, non-Euclidian geometry and utter madness. But they have been quieter since he died. A step removed from him, or he from them. (Or maybe like there is a barrier between them now, something made of flesh and blood and tattooed palms, Ben on one side, they on the other.)At the center of the courtyard, Klaus crouches like some ancient shaman, eerily still. Not even his hair moves in the slight breeze. Beyond him, their siblings watch, distant. Unaware. They can’t feel what Ben can, the stirring, the moving. Can’t feel Klaus drawing in power (death) like some primordial sea creature rising from the depths, displacing entire oceans with its might. Klaus, when he lets go, is a terrifying thing.The horrors sing in tune with the rising crescendo of power that is their his brother. They sing of madness and blood and angels made from bone, of death and fire and destruction, absolute. They sing and sing and sing, gleeful and alive and writhing, begging to be let out and Ben can feel Klaus draw in more and more power, build up to something far beyond anything he’s ever done. He knows as well as Four: Klaus has never summoned a ghost from beyond the veil before. But now he reaches and reaches and pulls and pushes and – Something pops. Like a cork out of a bottle, like a bomb exploding, like a membrane snapping. It breaks.Klaus has found the veil, the barrier, the wall inside of him and he has torn it down. Reginald Hargreeves stands before them, bathed in blue, fluttering in the wind. Inside of Ben, the horrors fall absolutely, perfectly silent for the first time in thirty years. The silence feels almost like reverence. “Finally, Number Four. I have been waiting for days!”The opening statement of their dead father is so bold and unexpected, it distracts Ben from the feeling of dread at the horrors’ silence. He jerks around to stare at Reginald, standing with spread legs and squared shoulders in front of a still-crouched Klaus. The tableau is so reminiscent of their childhood, it makes Ben angry. The horrors hiss in agreement. They don’t like it when their his their brother is being threatened. He decides to take it one thing at a time, shushes them and doesn’t marvel at how they actually shut up, before taking a step forward. Klaus’s gaze flicks to him, the quick, furtive kind of gaze he gives other ghosts in public. Ben stays out of Reginald’s reach, but close. There. He’ll let Klaus run the show but if he gets a chance, punches will be thrown. Potentially with tentacle support. They’d enjoy that. “You,” Klaus starts, blinking up at Reginald. His gaze is bleary, unfocused. It’s an act, a throwback to the drugged-up Klaus from seven years ago. Reginald wouldn’t know better. “were waiting for me to summon you? How in the hell did you know I would?”“Language, Number Four, do try to be less of an embarrassment than you are. And do stand up.”Klaus, obviously, plops down on his ass, leans back on his palms and spreads his legs almost obscenely wide, his demure heels bracketing their father’s legs. Ben sees the man’s impulse to step back. He smirks. “Well?” Klaus prompts.“I said stand up, Number Four.”Klaus waves a hand, blue tinged up to his elbow. “You know, I might lose the connection at any point. So I suggest you get your heartfelt goodbyes off your chest now. You never know, right? Tomorrow being promised to no-one, and all that.” His smile is utterly serene and Ben realizes, for the first time, that Klaus isn’t afraid anymore. For as long as Ben has been able to think, Klaus has been terrified of Dad. But he isn’t now. He smiles and it’s not the fake, pained grimace is always used to be. It’s just… a smile. Maybe their father sees it, too, because he moves on. “I ordered Pogo to have me buried on the twenty-fourth. I assume today is my funeral? That gives us eight days then. What have you learned so far?”Ben blinks. Dad ordered his funeral? Down to the date? Eight days to what?“Eight days to what?”“The apocalypse, Number Four. You have summoned me to learn what I know about the situation.”Well, Ben thinks, numbly, that would definitely be a bad thing. Glad they ducked that bullet, even if they have no idea how.“Right. And you know about that how? Also, why did you know when you’d be buried?”Reginald waves a hand. “Do keep up. As a last resort to gather you miscreants back in one place, drastic measures had to be taken. Now, back to the mission.”Klaus blinks. Slowly. “Did you just say you killed yourself rather than pick up a fucking phone?”“The mission, Number Four!” Reginald bellows. The horrors rear inside of Ben, pushing against flesh and bone. There is a slight commotion behind the door where the family is waiting.Klaus shuffles until he’s hugging one of his knees. “So, apocalypse eight days after your funeral, that would be, what? April 1st? Dude. The end of the world is literally a joke. Ha ha.”“Cease this insolence. I demand answers.”A snort. And Ben decides, you know what, fuck it. He’s treating this like a mission, but it isn’t. Reginald doesn’t deserved that kind of respect, doesn’t deserve to be given that power. He rounds the man and drops down next to Klaus, leaning into his brother’s side. “Yeah,” he drawls, ignoring the shock on the other ghost’s face. “Slight problem. Today’s the eighth. No apocalypse!”“Whoopsie,” Klaus supplies, grinning. It’s too much for Reginald, apparently, because he rears back, arm drawing up and out and Ben can already see the trajectory of it. Ghost or not, intangible or not, their father is going to strike Klaus across the face. With his stupid fucking signet ring on. God, even Luther must have a scar or two from that fucking ring. The rest of them sure do.Ben moves, the horrors shift, Reginald brings his hand down and Klaus – doesn’t even twitch. He just stays there, chin on his kneecap, arms around his shin, eyes turned upwards at their raging, swinging father. He doesn’t move. He only blinks. And Reginald is gone. The door bursts open, their siblings come rushing out and Klaus flops backward until he’s flat on his back, and starts hysterically laughing. +
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+ Five isn’t sure what’s happening in the courtyard, because all he can see over Vanya’s shoulder is Klaus, crouched down, doing nothing, but it feels like the air before a storm, all charged and ready to explode and then, suddenly, their father is there. Five expected him to look… old. Frail. He seemed ancient to his teenage gaze seventeen years ago, after all. But he seems the same. Ghostly blue and dead, but the same. The pale hair, the strict clothes, the perfect posture. Even a ghostly monocle stuck to his eye, copy of the real one in Klaus’ hand. He looks like he’s about to start barking orders again and Five feels something like dread swoop low in his belly. Then Allison is there, slinging an arm over his shoulder, and Van leans back and into his side and he can breathe again. He may still be thirteen, but his siblings aren’t. And he knows if Reginald were here now in the flesh, they’d fight him. Eudora opens the crack they left in the door a little wider, hoping to hear the conversation. Klaus is talking too quietly, but Father’s booming commands carry. Eudora looks sickened as she turns, grabs Diego’s hand, squeezes. Klaus replies quietly and Five wonders if it’s the same meek voice he remembers, Klaus with his eyes on the floor, letting Reginald rage. It certainly looks that way. But then, suddenly, he’s plopping on his ass and no, that’s definitely not the same Klaus from before. This is adult Klaus, not giving any fucks. Hold on. “He thinks the world is going to end?” he hisses.Vanya shakes her head. “He thinks the world was going to end. Should have ended. What the hell?”Behind them, Luther quietly rumbles, “Why didn’t he just say something?”“Because he’s an asshole,” Diego supplies, promptly, just as Ben reappears, sitting next to Klaus, copying his dismissive body language. Five loves his brothers, really. But then they say something Father doesn’t like at all and he rears back and Five flinches, eyes closing, Diego curses, Eudora shouts and – Nothing. When he opens his eyes, Reginald is gone. Ben is on his knees, looking livid and Klaus hasn’t moved. The blue glow is gone from his arms. Eudora yanks open the door and they all tumble out, Mom bringing up the rear. Vanya and Eudora pile onto Klaus while Diego drops down next to them, not minding the mess of damp leaves at all. Allison hesitates briefly, then joins them and Five decides to hell with it and drops, too. Into Ben’s lap. The ground is gross, he’s not going to sit there. Ben wraps his arms around his waist and squeezes. Luther remains standing a few feet away, Mom at his side. For a long minute, no-one talks. Somehow, all of them find their gaze drawn to the sad little pile of ashes, monocle now dropped on top of it. “So,” Klaus finally breaks the silence, “that was dear old dad. He was shorter than I remembered.”Five can feel Ben shaking with laughter behind him and a quick glance tells him it’s only a little hysterical. “I thought he’d look older,” he supplies. “Please. He’s always looked ancient,” Vanya pipes up. True. “He was going to hit you,” Luther says. Everyone cranes their neck to look at him. He hunches into himself and would probably get defensive, the oaf, if Mom didn’t put a hand on his forearm and stroke. Klaus giggles, finally wiggling into an upright position again. “He used to do it all the time. Why does this surprise you?”Eudora makes an angry noise. Five likes Eudora. Luther shrugs, shakes his head. “I don’t know, I just…,” he pauses, unsure. It’s a novel look for him. “You expected it.”No-one replies. No-one had to. The only one ever surprised at their father’s cruelty is Number One. He shakes his head. Changes the subject. “What did he say?”“Apparently, the world was supposed to end last Monday and it wasn’t an April’s Fool joke. We didn’t get much further than that, what with the imminent violence. Oh, and apparently, he killed himself to get the band back together. Phones are obviously too pedestrian.”“Be fair,” Ben chides. “No-one would have picked up.”Klaus flaps a hand, conceding the point. “But killing himself? Really? I never thought the old man had the guts. I mean, yay, dead! But… you know.”Five does know. And he doesn’t care. Their father is dead. They’re free. That’s all that matters. And maybe he expected Klaus to summon him back, to bring him back somehow, but Klaus never would. Not even if the world was ending. Which it isn’t. “So that was the thing that didn’t happen? The literal end of the world.”“Apparently. I mean, it’s the ultimate ‘bad thing’, really, isn’t it? And the cards did say – “Klaus trails off, wiggles a hand into his jeans pocket and pulls out a card. It shimmers or maybe shivers for a moment, before turning into the moon. But Five would swear for a moment, there, it showed another image. “Meteorite,” Klaus supplies, staring at the card like he can still see the other image. “They said meteorite.”“Do you think that’s why Dad sent me to the moon? Because he knew it’d be a meteorite?” Luther perks up, probably at the idea of his mission not having been pointless after all. “I don’t know,” Ben offers, in that kind voice again, “did you do any research into that kind of thing up there?”Immediately, Luther deflates. It’s starting to lose its appeal and just become sad, at this point. Poor idiot. Obviously, the answer is no. Besides, any research of that kind could be done just as well from Earth, even Five knows that and his science knowledge is years out of date. He finally needs to blackmail someone into going to the library with him. Klaus flaps a hand again. “Not the point, though.” He sends the card flying, not checking where it lands. “The point is somewhat more sinister, dear family.”He looks around, expectantly. It’s Diego, surprisingly, who provides the punchline. “How did Dad know the world was going to end?”+
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+“How did Dad know the world was going to end?” Diego asks, to Allison’s surprise. It shouldn’t be. Number Two is a successful PI. He basically does police work, solving cases. He’s not dumb and her childhood impression that he was, was always tinged by his preference for sullen silence. “How did he know it with enough certainty for kill himself for it?”“And,” Klaus adds, one spindly finger extended, “Why the fuck did he think we were the right people to stop it? We’re a walking, talking, seven-headed disaster.”Vanya immediately complains. “What? No, we’re not!” Then deflates. “But that is what he thought. I mean, Mom, did he keep track of any of us?”Mom cocks her head, obviously taking the question seriously. Then she shakes it. “My databanks do not indicate any sort of tracking on you children. He knew your addresses and marital states, but nothing beyond that.”“Lack of interest or arrogance?” Diego asks. Allison shifts a little, feels damp leaves squish under her butt. “How about we talk about this inside? Where it’s dry?”And the ashes of a human body aren’t three inches left of Klaus’ feet. She knows it’s their father, but it’s also kind of gross. And she has the weirdest feeling like he’s still hanging around. She knows he’s not, Klaus wouldn’t be so relaxed if he were, but it’s like that shiver down her spine she used to get on nights they were attached to the monitors. “I don’t know,” Five pipes up, tiny smirk on his face. “I’m fine.”He wiggles pointedly on top of Ben, who rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but keeping your ass dry is draining Klaus, so move, squirt.”“Actually,” Klaus pipes up, “Klaus is feeling fine. Not drained at all.”Vanya and Diego throw him incredulous looks and Allison agrees with them. She hasn’t seen Klaus do much more than make Ben varying states of solid in the past few weeks, but she knows it’s a drain on him. And he just did something he’s never done before, according to Seven. He should be wiped. But he and Ben just look at each other and there is something in their expressions Allison can’t hope to read. Those two were always thick as thieves, but now they’re… eerie sometimes. Like those urban myths about twins. One gets hurt the other is in pain, that kind of thing. Understanding on a whole new level. Something happened here, today, and they both know it, but they’re not sharing. She rolls to her feet, pulling her sister and sister-in-law up after her. “Come in,” she decides, breaking the moment, “inside.”They troop inside, all nine of them, and disperse for a moment to go looking for dry clothes and/or towels while Mom disappears into the kitchen. Hot chocolate, probably. Early April isn’t the best time to sit on the ground outside and not get cold. Luther trails her upstairs, their rooms next to each other. The end rooms of the hallway. On the way, Allison looks into the others. Five’s room is nice, preserved since 2006, the way it used to be. The others are less pristine, teenagers being hard on everything. They’re all smaller than One and Three’s rooms. Hell, Vanya’s and Klaus’s rooms are less than half the size of hers. She nods toward Vanya’s, barely big enough for a bed, dresser and desk. “Did you ever notice how small their rooms are?”Luther makes a thoughtful, tired noise behind her. One that says he did notice and he rationalized it somehow. That’s how the rooms were built. Dad wanted their bedrooms together, so they had to make do. She hopes he keeps going now, to the point she’s landed at: then what a coincidence that his favorites got the big rooms and his ‘failures’ got the closets. She doesn’t voice it. This day has been unexpectedly draining, for all that it’s only late afternoon and she hasn’t been at the center of any of it. (Unusual feeling, that.)She leaves Luther at his door, finds dry pants and pulls on an extra sweater, big and fuzzy and just what she needs right now. When she opens her door again, Pogo is standing in front of it, hand raised to knock. They blink at each other for a moment, before the old ape takes a step to the side, leaning on his cane. “If I may inquire, what did your excursion yield?”She wonders why he’s asking her and not Luther, but then Pogo has been avoiding Luther for the past few weeks. Especially on the subject of the moon, Pogo tends to make himself scarce. Allison might dig, if she didn’t think it’s none of her business. Those two have a decade more history with each other than with anyone else left alive. She’ll keep to her own crap, thank you very much. (Lie.)For a moment, she considers not telling him. Just because she’s not Number Three anymore and she doesn’t give mission reports anymore. But if anyone knows anything – “He thought the world was going to end. So he killed himself.” She remembers something. A comment about the funeral. “Which you helped him with, right?”Big, round eyes flick to the floor. Ashamed. “I tried to dissuade Master Hargreeves. But he was ever so determined. In the end, I could do nothing but honor his last wishes.”Cop out.“And did he tell you about the whole apocalypse spiel?”No reply. Which is its own reply. “And you didn’t think we might need to know that? At least after it didn’t happen?”More silence, thin lips pursed. She can’t read him. Never could. “I think,” she tells him, as Five’s door opens and the boy comes out, looking like he might have been listening, “you should come with us. Family meeting.”+
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+Dad killed himself.Dad didn’t love them.Dad didn’t love Luther. Dad killed himself.Dad thought the world was going to end.Dad thought the world was going to end and he killed himself rather than call them, because he didn’t love them. Didn’t trust them. Luther was on the moon for four years and he was so alone, so very alone, and his father thought the world was ending and he killed himself and he couldn’t even call. Dad – The sharp clack of the cocoa jar closing snaps Luther out of it. He blinks and he’s in the kitchen, helping Mom fix hot chocolate for everyone. The others have all gone to change, or find a few extra layers or just take a deep breath. Luther didn’t sit with them. He didn’t get dirty and it doesn’t matter where he is, he can’t breathe anywhere. He went upstairs first, but he could hear Diego’s wife making fun of his posters and Klaus and Vanya chatting and he couldn’t - So he’s helping Mom.That’s a lie. He’s standing in the kitchen, watching her, useless. As always. Dad didn’t call, didn’t even – Dad thought the world was going to end, but it didn’t and he thought they were going to ask him for help, but they didn’t and Luther thought their father loved them, in his own, complicated way, but he didn’t and everyone except him knew. Even Diego, angry, ready-to-throw-down Diego, only looked at Luther with pity. Like he was in idiot. Like he should have known that already, slowest kid in class. Klaus was always the slowest during their lessons, constantly distracted, lagging behind. Dad called him lazy and stupid and so Luther, did, too, because if Dad said it, it had to be true. Dad was always right. But Dad was so sure the world was going to end that he killed himself for it and he was wrong. He was wrong about Klaus, too, because he’s not a junkie, wasting away, his powers squandered. Klaus is flighty and weird and eccentric and in that courtyard, he was a complete stranger to Luther. Self-assured and calm and powerful. And Vanya. And Diego. And Ben. He was even wrong about Five being dead. Five. Who has been back for two weeks and Luther has only seen him a few times. Usually over the shoulder of one of his siblings as they shove themselves between the two of them. Like a wall. A line of defense. Like they’re protecting Five from Luther and Luther felt insulted when he first noticed, and angry, and hurt and he punched a wall and then stared at the hole for a long, long time, wondering. (When they were kids, Ben sometimes stepped in front of Klaus like this. Allison and Five did it for Vanya. Sometimes.)His siblings are guarding Five from him.Because they think he might hurt him. Looking at the hole in the wall, he thought he might, too. When they came to the funeral, they took him down in under ten seconds, perfect formation. Ben went in for the surprise attack while Diego covered the asset (Klaus, Klaus, Klaus, it always comes back to Klaus, powerful and strong and sure in the courtyard, drenched in blue) and Vanya orbited, powers at the ready (powers?).A three-tiered formation, ready to attack as well as defend. It was the kind of thing they never really succeeded at in the Academy because they couldn’t work together long enough.They did it without effort. Without Luther.Without Dad. Because Dad said they would waste away outside, without guidance, without the Academy to give them purpose, but he was wrong about that, too.“Mom?” “Yes, dear?” she pauses in fixing a tray full of mugs, turns to him, her eternally uncomplicated smile on her new, aged face. She asked for it because she wants to go outside. Luther never even considered that she might. Dad said not to and he never – He would have taken her. If she’d asked, he would have taken her outside. He would have. She blinks, patient. “Dad was wrong about a lot of things, wasn’t he?”She cocks her head. “Mr. Hargreeves was a great man,” she starts and he almost dismisses her, because anything she says with that expression on her face is just programming. But then she continues, “Great men do not always pay attention to little things. To him, you children were, indeed, little things.”He thinks that over for a moment, carefully. Fights back his impulse to deny her accusation, to get angry, to argue. Just thinks about it. Mom waits for exactly twenty seconds, then nods, turns back to her task. She finishes and he automatically holds out his hands to accept the tray, leaving her to carry the big carafe she filled with hot chocolate and the bowl with marshmallows. As they turn toward the door together, he says, carefully trying out the words, “He was wrong about that, too, wasn’t he?”Mom nods. And because she’s Mom, because her love is uncomplicated and eternal and involuntary, he can asks her, “What do I do now?”He feels… empty. Exhausted. Hurt. Guilty. Too many things to parse, too many to want to parse. Lost, most of all. He feels lost. Mom matches her steps to his. In her hand, the carafe steams, too hot to touch for a human. She doesn't feel it. “Well, I thought I might go to the park tonight, for some fresh air. There is a band playing there tonight, Allison said. I have never seen a band play before. Would you like to come with me?”Luther has never seen a band play before, either. (If she’d asked, he would have taken her.)“Yeah, Mom, I think I’d love to.”+
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+ Allison, Eudora decides, would either make a decent cop, or has at least played one in Hollywood before. Her ability to frogmarch reluctant persons to where she wants them is excellent. And that might sound like a joke, but it’s actually not because maneuvering someone with your own gait and posture without actually touching them is harder than it looks. Allison Hargreeves does it well. But then, Pogo the monkey butler isn’t quite on par with a juiced-up crank-head at the height of a tantrum.It still ends with Pogo fully inside the room, Allison looming over him, arms crossed, and the rest of them waiting for the tableau to resolve itself with raised eyebrows. (She should have made Diego bring goddamn popcorn when Klaus’ text popped up in the group chat. She regrets trying to be an adult about it, now.)Everyone else is already piled into the room, made to admire the hand-colored sneakers Klaus found in his old bedroom and will probably wear for the next several weeks. Or until it rains. They don’t look like they’ll survive rain.While everyone’s attention was forced onto his feet, he’s been exchanging weighty looks with Ben and Eudora may be the newest member of this family (not counting Five), but she is well aware that something beyond the obvious happened in the courtyard. The fact that Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are parked on opposite ends of the room is a pretty clear indicator for that. She exchanges a quick look with Vanya, who raises an eyebrow. Yeah, she noticed, too. The smaller woman nods toward their little brother and Eudora nods. Okay. She elbows her husband. “We’re taking Five home tonight,” she informs him just as everyone reorients toward Pogo and Allison at the front of the room. He grunts a question, but she ignores it as his sister starts talking. “Dad said he ordered his funeral, right?”Klaus nods, redundantly. “So I thought we should ask Pogo about that. Pogo?”The monkey lowers his head. “It was his last wish and I saw no harm in honoring it.”“How about in stopping him from committing suicide?” Luther asks, but he doesn’t sound as… zealous as Eudora expected. But then, the guy keeps taking hard hits today. He’s mostly attached himself to Grace and settled for keeping his mouth shut. That makes Pogo straighten up. “You most of all, Master Luther, should know there was no dissuading your father once he set his mind on a course of action. I tried. But perhaps,” he pauses, licks his lips. The silence stretches before he admits, very quietly, “Perhaps my heart was not in it.”Does that means he wanted the old man dead? She tries to imagine it. Being a science experiment, something that would be treated like an animal or a curiosity anywhere outside of this house, trapped here for decades with a mad scientist for a master, watching seven children be abused to the point of breaking and beyond and never being able to interfere. Never daring to. Yes, she can see how Pogo’s heart might not have been in it. Doesn’t mean he’s off her Hargreeves-related shitlist.Suddenly, he straightens, drawing himself up to full height and drawing a breath with the air of someone about to confess a murder. “I have regrets. Many of them, as any old creature is wont to have, and most of them revolve around you. For far too long, I watched and I did nothing to shield you, to protect you. I thought my position too precarious to have a choice. That was a lie. I did have a choice. It was a bad one, my dear children, but it was a choice and I, as an adult, should have made it, to protect you, who could not protect themselves quite yet. I failed. And for that, I am deeply sorry.”It’s Ben, the eternal watcher, who calmly counters, “Bit late for that, isn’t it?” Pogo nods. There is something dignified about admitting all his sins in front of a firing squad of this caliber and not getting defensive. “Yes. I thought it too late. I believed Master Hargreeves’ predictions of your fates, your failures, until I saw Miss Vanya’s face on the newspaper last month and read the article enclosed.”Eudora knows that article. It’s tacked up on their cork wall in the hallway. It’s about the Icarus Theater’s musical young hope, a quick interview where she states that her brothers are her lifeline and support and she’s so lucky to be close to them, despite their upbringing. In fact, one of them works here, too. It’s a fluff piece, but a good one. “And I realized that, against the odds, you succeeded. And I was very proud, despite having no right to do so. If you can become more than what he intended for you, then it is time for me to strive to do the same. That is why, when Master Hargreeves convinced himself that he had to be a martyr to save the world from some ridiculous fate, I did not argue as hard as I should have. “And if you give me a few more days, I will have legal and airtight documentation for Master Five, claiming him as a late adoption, a replacement for the original Number Five and putting him, firmly, and legally, into your custody, Miss Vanya, Master Klaus. If anyone else is lacking necessary paperwork due to your upbringing, it would be my honor and pleasure to do what I can to provide. There are ways, you understand.”Probably illegal ones, Eudora is aware, but if it means her husband gets a birth certificate that doesn’t say Number Two under ‘first name’, she doesn’t really care. In the wake of Pogo’s speech, there is silence as they all try to digest the apology, years too late but, Eudora can tell, still meaningful. She knows Diego, at least, has wondered, all these years, why the ape, who claimed to love them, never lifted a finger to help them. It was a child’s question and now he has an adult’s answer. It won’t heal the old hurts, but it might soothe them. She can tell from the siblings’ faces that, in a way, it already is. They look surprised, vindicated, and a little relieved. They all loved Pogo growing up, she knows. Loved him and wondered why he didn’t make the bad man stop hurting them.It’s Five, who eventually breaks the silence with a dejected, “That means I have to go to school, now, doesn’t it?”He sighs and dramatically flops into Klaus, sitting next to him. It’s such a cliché teenager move that everyone laughs. Even Pogo cracks a smile. “Indeed, Master Five. Although I believe you would be wise to rather fear Master Klaus as your legal guardian.”“Hey!”“True. Very true. Thanks for that, Pogo.”“Now, one last thing. Your father kept separate journals for each of you and your powers. He hid them and I do not know where, but they are yours by right. You should look for them, even if only to burn them.”He pauses, nods to himself once, and turns to leave the room. Most everyone calls out a quick thank you or goodbye and Eudora sees how his shoulders straighten, just a little, as they do. He’s not forgiven, but, she thinks, he’s family.God. Her Dad is going to freak out when she tells him he’s related, by marriage, to a chimpanzee. +
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+ They all want to go looking for the journals, which is half the reason they don’t. It’s late, they have had a long day and there have been enough emotional shocks to last them the night. Besides, some of them have jobs to hold down. Luther is chafing to go look for them on his own, but Allison has a firm leash on him. “We do it together. As a family.”That pretty much kills all plans he probably had to wait until they were gone and go for it. Vanya salutes her sister’s skills in blatant manipulation. Dora swoops in on the way to the cars, claiming Five for herself and Diego. Apparently, they, “still have three MCU movies left, come on. We’ll bring him back before work tomorrow.”And with that, they’re back to the base crew. Vanya, Klaus and Ben. Klaus jogs up the stairs ahead of Vanya and by the time she locks their front door, he’s already halfway out the window, his shoes left where they dropped, one in the hallway, one in the kitchen. She follows him at a more sedate pace, finds him pacing on the roof like a trapped thing. Briefly, she worries about his bare feet on rough gravel, but a quick look tells her not to bother. Klaus is walking over the roof, instead of on. Usually, that’s something that takes him immense focus. “Does he know he’s levitating?” she asks idly of Ben, watching with his arms crossed in front of his chest.“Don’t think so,” he replies, shrugging and leaning into her. He’s been corporeal ever since Klaus sent Dad packing. And now the levitation. Ben shakes his head at nothing and releases her, goes to sit, cross-legged, smack in Klaus’s path. Klaus stops abruptly, staring down at him an inch away from collision. Then he drops down, too, and it’s her two boys, knees touching, sitting close enough to play hand games. They used to do that for hours when Klaus first got sober. Sit on the floor, surrounded by piles of pillows and blankets, and try to make Ben solid enough to play patty cakes with. Klaus and Ben and Ben and Klaus and no matter how much she loves both of them, no matter how close they are, those two will always be closer. They couldn’t survive without each other, she doesn’t think. Wouldn’t want to, either. If she were a romantic, she’d call them soulmates. As it is, she takes a few steps closer and waits, within their circle, but not really a part of it. “Klaus,” Ben starts after a while. It’s a question. Klaus shrugs, reaches out and presses a hand flat against Ben’s abdomen. Vanya’s heart stops at the implication of that single movement. “I can feel them,” Klaus says, very quietly. Ben hums. “They can feel you, too. They always could.”Klaus nods. “I know. Sometimes – I know. But now it’s – ““Yeah. They like you. Did you feel – ““Yeah. I never did before, but now it’s easy. I think I broke something.”“I think you fixed it. The door’s been-““Half open, yeah, I’ve heard that metaphor before.”“Well, what’s it feel like now?”Klaus chews on his lip for a moment, ruining his lipgloss. Vanya forces herself to breathe. “Closed. Open. Like I have a choice. Do you think I could,” he pushes his hand more firmly against Ben’s middle. “They’d let you,” Ben answers. “Why?”“Doorways. Other places. I told you. They like you.”Vanya raises her hand. She waves. When that doesn’t work, she clears her throat. They both pause, turning eerily similar expressions on her. “For anyone not telepathic: what the hell is going on?”The goons both start talking at one, then stop, start again, glare at each other. It ends with Ben having Klaus in a friendly chokehold while Klaus explains, “The Horror likes me. We think it’d let me call it, now.”Vanya… does not know what to do with that. She shuffles closer, kicks them apart and borrows a page out of Five’s book by dropping into Ben’s lap instead of getting dirty. Gravel. Eugh. “Explain.”Ben jostles her. “They’ve always liked Klaus. But it was low-key. Less, since I died. They haven’t been as… close to the surface since then.”“But when I summoned Daddy Dearest earlier, they took notice. I can feel them now, almost like they’ve burrowed into me, rather than Bentacles, here.”“But they’re on their best behavior for him. It’s weird.”She digests that, chewing on her own lip, like Klaus did a minute ago. It’s like that joke about married couples growing more like each other, except Klaus is her brother and they’ve obviously been living in each other’s pockets too long. “But… why? What does summoning Dad have to do with,” she pokes Ben in the ribs. He squirms. They both pause. Significant looks happen. Then Klaus shrugs. “You know how you keep comparing my powers to a door of some sort?”“Blue wood with rusty hinges,” she agrees with a little smile. He sticks out his tongue. “There is nothing rusty about me at all, thank you kindly. I don’t… I’ve never touched it before tonight. Not really. Beyond it is… terrifying. I can sense the edges of it, of where the truly dead things dwell.”Ben grabs her hand and pushes it, meaningfully, into his belly.Oh.Oh.“But the ghosts?”“Are already here. And I don’t think they’re really… souls. Just echoes. It’s why they fade and twist. Beyond that door are souls. We think I kept Ben from ever passing through. And tonight I ventured there and dragged one out. At a guess, my fanbase in Ben’s rumbly tummy was impressed.”Vanya mulls that over for a long time. It doesn’t make sense to her. Her own powers are based on emotion, are an extension of what she feels. Klaus, as well as Ben, has always described his powers as something separate from himself. Something Other. So, no, she doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand why Klaus summoning the dead impresses the Horror, or why he keeps Ben corporeal so casually now, or what it changed, to touch that door. She knows that the idea of Klaus never having really used his power before today terrifies her. And she knows that Ben gets it, which is enough for her. She can guess at the shape of it, a little, can make out the presence of Klaus’ power from the space around it, but she doesn’t get it. But she knows he has Ben for checks and balances and she knows he looks sure. He’s not pale, not shaking, not jumping at shadows. His back is straight and his hands are steady and something shifted tonight, but she doesn’t need to understand it. She just needs to accept and be ready to help if necessary. So instead of digging deeper, she leans into her boys and asks, “So, apocalypse, huh?”+
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+ Fuck, but it’s been a long day.Diego bites back a groan as he sinks into his side of the bed, making a conscious effort to relax his shoulders and back, lest he wake up crumpled into a ball tomorrow. Five finally conked out on the couch half an hour ago, so they settled him there, with a pillow and blanket and got ready for bed themselves. Dora’s still doing arcane hair things in the bathroom that remind Diego of Klaus and always will.He’s wiped out. Emotionally exhausted to the point of feeling physically tired. Back at that house, seeing Dad again, hell, seeing Luther and Pogo and the new Mom (god, Mom!), learning that the world was going to end but didn’t and that their abusive shit stain of a father was even more useless than they thought. Hearing Pogo’s apology, watching Luther collapse in on himself and least of all, whatever the shit happened to Klaus out in the courtyard. All of it. He’s never been too good with either emotions or change and today was a heaping of both. Dora pads into the room quietly, her hair up in a way that makes her look like a pineapple. He is never going to tell her that. She knows it, but he’s still never going to say it out loud. Woman has a gun. She climbs into bed next to him and crawls over until she can rest her head on his shoulder and hug him sideways.“You okay, Di?”He grunts because he’s never been able to verbalize any of it. That’s Klaus and Ben’s job, saying things. Diego just hits what needs hitting. Dora gets it, though. “Yeah. I feel like I have whiplash and I only got about half of that, I think. Do you want me to call in tomorrow? Go over to the house with you?”He seriously considers it. But in the end, “Regular shift?”“Yeah. Unlikely to run over, unless we catch a bad case.”“Go. I’ll be fine.”She kisses his chin, smiles. “I’m proud of you.”He squeezes her waist. Then, finally, remembers, “How the hell do you know my Mom?”She stills. Busted!“Would you accept a generic excuse and let it go?”“No.”“Okay. I was going to tell you anyway.” She takes a deep breath, hides her face in his t-shirt a little. “I was scared I was going to freak out.”“Hn?”“Diego, I love you, but your bizarre-meter is broken. One of your brothers is a dead doorway to freaking Cthulu, the other summons ghosts and your sister regularly makes shit fly when she doesn’t get the last piece of cake. Your childhood stories involve superhero shenanigans, a monkey butler and a robo mom. I was terrified that Grace would be really weird and I’d freak out and break your heart. So I… struck pre-emptively.”Diegos first impulse is to argue. But he’s too tired to yell, so he thinks instead. He’s met Dora’s dad, obviously. Retired cop, likes to swear in Italian, plays a lot of baseball and listens to really weird seventies punk. Her Mom died when Dora was a teenager and her side of the family is Colombian and huge and loud and sort of a cliché, but warm and happy all the same. Dora’s little brother has two little girls and a pregnant wife. The weirdest thing that ever happens in the Patch household is the children speaking a weird mixture of English, Italian and Spanish. Compared to that… okay. Yeah. A little.“So you went to see her?”“Yeah. She’s adorable. And I think she’s adopted me. Sorry I took that from you.”He considers the worry and love that went into that course of action and shrugs as well as he can with his arm going numb under her pineapple skull.“It’s fine. I love you.”“Love you too, Di. Now let’s sleep. It’ll be a long day tomorrow and there’s a grumpy morning person on the sofa.”Eugh. Don’t remind him. +
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+ For the first time in two weeks, Klaus sleeps without Vanya curled into his side. Instead it’s Ben, chin hooked over his shoulder, arm around his waist. She took one look at them piled under the blankets and retreated, smiling softly. Sometimes, Klaus feels a little like he’s in a poly relationship with three of his siblings and someone’s wife because they have such weird boundaries. Like, he’s told normal adults don’t sleep with their siblings? Even in a platonic way?Not like he’s getting (or wanting) the other way. But, like, they do so much negotiating and carefully balancing time and effort that it feels like a relationship. Which it is, just, not a romantic one. But it’s work, is his point, and he feels like he deserves sex, sometimes, for all of it. But then he remembers who he’d be having the sex with and no, gross. They’re all Barbie dolls here, thank you very much. Last year, he briefly dated that one asshole who thought he and Van were cute together and didn’t understand Klaus scrunching up his nose at it. “Why? It’s not like you’re actual siblings.”Which leads to a few interesting questions about the definition of siblinghood and what is key. Is it blood? Is it socialization? In that case, how the fuck are they siblings because they sure as shit never got socialized in any healthy, normal way. And then – “Klaus?”Klaus blinks into the night-light dark of the bedroom. Went down a rabbit hole there. “Yeah?”“Why are you mumbling about socialization experiments in monkeys and incest?”“Genetic attraction,” Klaus mumbles, rebelliously, then sighs and sinks back into his brother’s very solid, very non-see-through chest. Ben snuggles are the best snuggles. Ben ignores him, valiantly. “We didn’t tell Vanya everything. I don’t like it.”“It’s not like we’re lying, is it, brother dearest. We don’t really know ourselves yet, and you know little sis doesn’t care.”Ben huffs into his hair, shuffling closer, belly to back. Klaus can feel the shift and rumble there, now, like he never could before. It’s like the horrors extend, in some invisible intangible form, from Ben all the time. He wonders if Ben can even feel them, thinks he probably can. It explains the endless parade of hoodies and Ben with his hands stuffed in the pocket, cupping something not really there. Experimentally, Klaus pokes at them with his powers. Just a little. Delight. Glee. Hunger. They poke back. Ben grunts. “Stop that.”“Does it hurt?” Klaus asks, immediately contrite. “No. Just feels weird. They’ve never… interacted before. With anything.”He wonders if this connection between them is the result of overlap of some kind. Of the place the horrors exist in and the place the dead reside them. Are horrors from outside of time and space classified as alive or dead? Where do dead people go? What is a soul and to the monsters have it?He thinks the answer to all of that must be some variation of yes, because why else would the Creatures from the Void trapped inside his dead brother’s metaphorical skin strain toward him? Why would he even be able to feel them? He shakes the thought for the more immediate conversation. Cthulu. Interacting with him. “Unless they were eating it?”“Unless they were eating it.”That’s got to be a downer. For Ben, obviously, but also for the wiggly things. Maybe they need socialization, too. “How are your power levels?” Ben wants to know, distracting Klaus from planning a movie marathon with Cthulu.Because it’s Ben asking, he actually checks before he blurts, “Fine. Seriously fine.”Klaus is a door. A gateway. A place for things to pass though on their way to other places and as doors are wont to be, he is rooted in both, half here, half elsewhere. He knows this. Has known this. He was not the one to first apply the metaphor, but it fits well enough. And maybe, maybe, he’s one of those weird doors in Harry Potter that go more than two places. Maybe that’s how the horrors – Maybe he and Ben are one in the same, sides of a coin, different doors into the same, bloody, nightmarish rooms.Guesswork. Fantasy and the dreams of two little boys, desperate to be less lonely than they are. Stick with what he knows: Klaus is a door. What he didn’t know, not really, not fully, not until today, until an ocean of blue and Daddy with no power over him, was that he was born half undone, unlatched, an invitation for every thief to steal in and rob him of his peace, power and sanity. Today, in that courtyard, crouched over their father’s ashes, he ripped the door wide open and then, with a hand flying at his face, with the memory of the pain it would cause if it connected, he slammed it closed. All the way. For the very first time. And he feels stupid now, in a way, because the door metaphor has been around for years and he never even thought to ask if it was open, but it’s drowned out under the sheer fucking brilliance of it. Of not leaking power and ghosts all over the place, of not being half broken, half drained, half split down the middle.Of being…coherent. A whole. Klaus did something today that was amazing and an accident entirely. He thinks – he thinks – He squirms and wiggles until he’s facing Ben, pressing their foreheads together, tightly, grabbing for something to hold on to and finding Ben’s shirt. Feels something gentle and a little damp wrap around his wrist loosely, a bracelet, a hello.“I think I… fixed myself today, Benny.”
I think I finally figured out how I’m supposed to be.
Then he starts crying. It’s not the quiet, pretty-to-look-at crying he’s perfected to get guys to take pity on him on the streets, but the gross, heaving ugly kind born out of relief. He was so afraid, for so long, so terrified and bitter and lost and today, today he just sat there and let their father yell at him and he wasn’t afraid anymore. What if, all these years, all it took was not being afraid? Of Dad, of the mausoleum, of the dark, of the ghosts, of himself and blue, blue, blue. Of coming down and getting high and of the one syringe that would one day kill him. Of himself. All that fear and today he didn’t even hesitate, didn’t let it hold him back because he had his family at his back and a future to look forward to and for the first time, fear didn’t even occur to him. And now it’s gone. He is so, so relieved it’s finally gone. The scars, the trauma, the memories, those are all still there, will always be there, but he’s not afraid anymore. He’s not afraid.Ben holds him close and the thing on his wrist squeezes periodically, a little comfort as well. “We got you,” Ben murmurs into his hair. “We got you, shhh, it’s okay, Klaus, we got you.”Klaus wonders, idly, if he notices he’s talking in the plural.He falls asleep like that, with Ben wrapped around him and not a single unwelcome ghosts in the entire building. It’s the best sleep he’s had since he was three years old.+
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+ Despite their agreement to not go looking for the journals until they’re all together, they all hurry back to the Academy the next day. Five, who spent the day with Diego, looking up schools on his laptop, is kind of amused by how subtle his supposedly grown-up siblings aren’t. An hour after lunch, Diego called his current employer, informed her that her missing daughter was living it up in Chicago with her new boyfriend and then pretended to have no more work. “Might as well head out for the day,” he suggested, piously. Halfway to the car, Klaus called to ask for a ride because, “Today’s fitting was a breeze.” Vanya, meeting them at the house, “Had a last minute cancellation.” Dora, “Screw the paperwork, Beaman can do it.” “You know,” Five comments, idly plucking on the tops of those fucking knee socks, “You could just admit you’re all dying from curiosity, it’s not like it isn’t obvious anyway.” Predictably, that has them all squawking. Idiots. Inside, Luther and Allison are on them practically the moment they come through the door. Obviously, no-one in this family is capable of patience. The only one who looks like he might have waited is Ben, trailing after Klaus like a faithful shadow. They all gather in the sitting room, under the creepy portrait of Five. Is his chin really that pointy? Silence ensues until Klaus, in typical Klaus fashion, disturbs it. “Soooo, how are we going to do this? Search quadrants? Room by room? Together? Split up? Ohhh, do I get a sledge hammer? Dad might have hidden something in the walls, <i>you never know</i>!” He sings the last in a gleeful voice, beaming. Five imagines taking a sledge hammer to this place. The study, in particular. Then he imagines Klaus taking a sledge hammer to anything at all and immediately hears sirens. Luther glares at Four for the suggestion, but says nothing. Which, progress. Good for him. That way, Five won’t have to wedgie him. He bets with that bulk, Luther would have a really hard time getting unbunched. (He might try it later, just for the hell of it.) (Diego maybe should stop giving him all that caffeine when he goes to the office with him.) “I thought we could start with the study? I talked to Pogo, he said they’re seven identical journals, embossed with initials, gold on brown. About this big.” He shows them with gloved hands. “Can’t be that hard to find.” “If they’re together,” Diego argues. “Old bastard was paranoid enough to hide them in different places for maximum security.” “Maximum security would have been burning them,” Ben argues. He’s finally stopped being entirely solid, fizzing a little at the edges. It’s calming to know Klaus hasn’t suddenly mutated into a super-charged version of himself. Whatever happened yesterday that left him and Ben staring like creepers, he’s still Klaus. He proves it by firing finger guns at Ben in agreement. “Let’s go!” Mom chooses that moment to appear, perfectly timed, bearing a humongous tray with refreshments and snacks. “Searching is a hungry job. You kids should take this with you.” They troop upstairs, Klaus dancing ahead of them – tap-tap-slide – and Luther bringing up the rear like a growly field kitchen. The study seems smaller to Five than it used to, but then it’s also crammed with five adults and Luther right now. Diego takes great satisfaction in clearing off the desk for the try by simply swiping everything on the floor. Luther glares again. “What? We’re here to wreck this place, Luther, and talk shit about the old man while we do. If you’re going to be a shit about it, go cry on the roof.” “I just don’t see why you have to be such an asshole about it,” Luther snarls back, slamming the tray down. Juice spills. Klaus sticks a finger in the puddle, licks it and before Diego can make it around Dora and punch Luther, he replies, “Because he hurt us. He was cruel. Because he didn’t respect us, so we sure as fuck don’t own him any respect. That enough reasons for you? Or, hey, because it’s therapeutic!” “Come on, Luther,” Allison pipes up with her new, patient voice. “Don’t tell me you never had the urge to rip up his files when he gave them more attention than he gave us. Or throw something at him when he made us stand at attention for half an hour before even looking at us.” Luther glares at her, reflexively. But he doesn’t say anything else. Instead he turns back toward the table, half the stuff brushed onto the floor, a penholder balanced precariously by the far end of the tray, papers scattered from their neat piles. He chews on the inside of his cheek and somehow, everyone else is holding their breath. “I asked him to call me Luther,” he tells them, suddenly, quietly, after a long minute of tense silence. “When you were all gone and it was just me and he still called me Number One. I told him he could call me Luther, now.” “What did he do?” Vanya asks, equally quiet. As if they don’t all know the answer already. Luther keeps staring at the desk. “He didn’t even look at me.” Then he reaches out, very slowly, very deliberately, and gives a tiny little push against the tray with one finger. On the opposite end, the penholder goes flying off the desk. Klaus applauds. Five makes eye contact with his biggest brother, leans forward from his perch on the old man’s chair, reaches out one arm, stretches aaaaand – tips over a Tiffany lamp that probably cost a fortune. It shatters on impact, colorful shards flying everywhere. One of them lands at Diego’s feet. He blinks down at it and then, catching each of their gazes in turn, steps on it and grinds theglassintothePersianrugwithhisheel. Vanya, grinning like a lunatic, picks up a lead paperweight and, very carefully, aims it over the mouth of a porcelain vase on the shelf. She lets go. The vase bursts at the bottom and the paperweight rolls out and thumps to the floor. Klaus hastily jumps back to avoid it, hip checks the desk and sends some more antiques flying. There is a pause, all of them fairly vibrating with energy, grinning at each other, expectantly. Allison and Ben exchange looks. Ben blindly reaches into the bookshelf behind him and swipes out a handful of books, raises an eyebrow at Allison. She bends down, sorts through the debris briefly and comes up with a letter opener. Then she straightens, looks at them all, and announces, “My therapist keeps telling me catharsis is an important part of dealing with trauma.” Then she turns, marches up to the oil painting behind the desk, stands on tiptoe and stabs the letter opener into the middle. Thensheripsdownward. After that, it’s a free for all. Klaus grabs anything fragile he can find and fires it into the walls and the hardwood flooring. Eudora keeps handing him stuff, a grin on her face. Diego and Ben go for the bookshelves, Vanya and Allison keep mangling the artwork. Five pops up here and there, fucking shit up where he can. Luther stands, spellbound, at the center of the room for a long, long minute, staring at what he started. Five decides, for once, to take pity and passes him one of the porcelain figurines Klaus hasn’t gotten to yet. To help the lump along, he offers a brief, “He paid more attention to this crap than he did to us,” before popping over to the window and yanking at the drapes to see if they’ll come off. A second later, he hears a loud, satisfying crash. Suddenly, there’s music, Dora’s phone on the snacks tray, blasting some terrible, upbeat song about city names and Klaus is giggling and Diego is laughing and the girls are holding on to each other to keep from falling over with hysterical guffaws as they rip, shred, shatter and tear their father’s sanctuary to shreds. Finally. +
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+Half an hour later, Klaus drops into the debris with a dramatic sigh, hand to his forehead. “This whole catharsis thing is more work than I expected,” he moans. Diego promptly bends down and picks him up under the arms, putting him back on his unwilling feet. “Not in here, idiot. You’ll hurt yourself.”Since the floor is covered, pretty much completely, in shards of glass, porcelain and wood, that assessment in not wrong. Vanya steps forward automatically to help herd Klaus, when something tugs on her hand. Looking down, she notices she’s still holding Allison’s. She can’t remember the last time she held hands with her sister. Can’t even remember if she ever did. She tries to pull back on reflex, but Allison holds on, squeezing a little and giving her a smile before letting go. She smiles back, still breathing hard, sweating and happy and turns back to the boys. Only to find that she’s trapped. The desk has been shoved sideways and the remains of what looks like every chair in the room are piled at her feet, making a thicket of wood and splinters. Luther. No-one else is strong enough to rip apart furniture. She looks at him, finds him looking… well. A little sheepish, a little wide-eyed. Smiling. She didn’t expect him to approve, much less join in. But then, it’s been a long time. Even trapped in the amber of this house, Luther had to have changed in some ways. Once he got going, he got really into it.Seeing her predicament, he strides over, grabs her around the waist and hoists her over the mess like she weighs nothing. To him, she probably doesn’t. Standing straight, she’s eyelevel with his nipples. They must look comical. Still, it surprises her enough to squeak a little. He puts her down immediately, making a clumsy attempt to right her shirt. She pats his hands away. “Thanks,” she tells him, because he was only being nice, even if he should have asked before he grabbed her. He ducks his head, blushing, before turning back to Allison. Her, Vanya notices, he offers to lift over instead of just doing what he wants. A few years ago, that would have tasted like bitter bile on her tongue. Right now, with the image of Luther tipping over that penholder, an expression of learned terror on his face, still fresh in her mind, she dismisses it. Baby steps. Anyway, Allison shakes her head, sits on the desk and slides across it, no help needed. Vanya, meanwhile, grabs Klaus by the arm (she is allowed to grab him, just like he is allowed to grab her, they trust each other) and starts towing him out of the destroyed room. She’s not sure where she’s going, but she knows Klaus and it’s a miracle he’s still wearing shoes. She needs to get him away from the shards. Before they get very far, Allison hollers, “Come on. Clean up in my room, then we can actually start looking!”Since Vanya is pretty sure she has pieces of shredded canvas in her hair, that seems like a good idea. On the way upstairs to their old rooms, Klaus idly hooks fingers behind the terrible, terrible posters of little children kicking, biting and gouging and rips them off the wood paneling, one by one. Diego, following in their wake, yanks down the tattered remains. Dora makes sure to step on them. It’s a procession of destruction all the way to Three’s room at the end of the hallway. They pile in and, in an unparalleled show of solidarity, start picking dirt out of each other’s clothes and hair. Even Luther is included when Five zaps up onto his shoulders to pull a stray piece of wood out of his collar. Eventually, they’re all mostly clean and Vanya doesn’t know about the others, but she feels punch drunk with joy and strangely exhausted. Like this cost her more than just the physical exertion. “That was,” Klaus starts, pauses. Leans into Diego, grabs Dora’s hand, visibly feeling for her pulse. “Unexpectedly therapeutic. I vote we apply the same interior design principles to the rest of this mausoleum.”He spits the last word, the way he always does. Mausoleum is a curse word, to Klaus, a place more hellish than hell itself. Diego and Dora pull him more firmly between them. Ben, suddenly at her side, throws a mostly- tangible arm around her shoulders. Five stays on Luther’s shoulder, either to be a little shit, or for some stealth snuggling. That leaves Allison, who is idly picking through her vanity, before suddenly pausing, holding up something small. It’s a bottle of sparkly, pink nail polish. “Oh god, remember this, Five?”“Mhm?” he looks down at her over Luther’s bulk. “Oh, that. You begged me to get this thing for you for two weeks. It was so annoying.”“It was the last thing you ever did for me,” she counters, smiling softly. “You got the wrong color, I wanted Dusky Rose, not Spring Rose, but I kept it all this time because it was all I had from you.”Vanya has a tiny little toy violin that probably once belonged to a doll for that exact same reason. She has no idea where Five even found the thing, but one day, he slipped it into her hand with a wink. A week later he was gone. Klaus, with his fine-tuned sense for emotional moments, leans over and demands, “Does it still work?”Allison shakes it. They all listen for the little click of the bead. Nothing. She shrugs, opens a drawer to dump it in and freezes as Klaus gives a happy shriek before practically launching himself at the drawer. It’s full of nail polish. He yanks it out by the fistful, handing them blindly to Dora, who rolls her eyes and piles them on the bed for him. Once he’s done, he crawls back into his place and starts inspecting his loot. “Oh, Diamond Midnight. Sparkly! Sinful Serenity. Hey, there’s Dusky Rose. Wanna try?” He looks up. Allison holds up two perfectly manicured hands. Klaus pouts. Diego sits on his hands. “You know the rules, man.”He’ll let Klaus at his nails, but only with shades he considers decent, which really only means black. Sometimes a dark, dark blue. Once, purple. Klaus paid for that with a missing eyebrow.Vanya looks down at her own, chipped blue nails and considers volunteering, when Luther suddenly grunts. “Oh my god, here,” he snaps, and shoves his hand in Klaus’ face with an eye-roll. “Just get it on with so we can start cleaning up sometime today. We’re not leaving that mess to Mom.”Even Diego gives Luther a pleasantly surprised look at that. Klaus just beams and starts debating colors.Half an hour later, Luther is still Luther, but now with pale lilac nails. They look quite fetching against the broom he’s wielding. +
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+ They’re all adults, their father just died and they’re trying to find out why the world didn’t end and yet, Ben decides, watching Diego and Luther peacefully heave a ruined rug into the dumpster behind the house, they’ve never been this happy. No. Not happy. Not quite. Content, though. Content in each other’s presence. All seven of them. Like, he actually thinks they got more sibling bonding done in the past three hours than in the entire thirty years before that. Most of them anyway. It’s… he’s going to settle for heartwarming, because all other adjectives will make him curl up and cry ghostly tears.He follows his brothers back inside to find the others have finished mostly setting the study back to rights. It’s… a lot emptier than it was. Klaus is perched on the desk, pretty much the only furniture to survive, apart from the shelves, chewing on a freshly painted nail. “So. Do we just keep going like this? Because speaking from years of drug-induced pawning experience, this shit is worth a lot of money and maybe smashing it all, while undoubtedly therapeutic, might not be the best idea. I don’t know about you, but I’m almost sure the old man donated all his money to, like, whatever the Nazi equivalent for the Salvation Army is, just to spite us.”Vanya hops up next to him, shrugging. “This was good, but I don’t really feel like wrecking it all. I mean, Mom and Pogo still live here. So does Luther. It wouldn’t be fair.”“Could use some updating, though,” Dora adds. “I’d start by ripping down all the drapes and letting some actual light into the place. Maybe add some color that isn’t dark brown or blood red.”“Modern furniture,” Ben offers his two cents.“Furniture that doesn’t make your ass regret existing,” Five tags on, only to be immediately swatted by Diego for his language. As if it’s not several decades too late for that. “We’re getting side-tracked,” Allison pipes up. “Journals, remember?”“Right.” Vanya leans back, picks up something from behind Klaus and holds it up. It’s more a book than a journal, at least an inch thick, but it looks like Luther described. “Klaus found it. It fell out of a box. It says #7 on the first page.”“As well as her newborn measurements,” Klaus provides. “I know little about babies, but I think Van was already tiny as an infant. It’s cute.”They start squabbling while Ben stares at the book between them. There’s one of those about him. About the horrors. He wonders, for the first time, what’s in it. Observations? Experiments? Statistics? How many living, breathing human beings can #6 shred in under thirty seconds, what impact does it have on his psyche?No. Of course not. Dad never cared about their mental states. When Ben came out of that bank, covered in blood, all he got was a scolding to wipe off the blood, he was going to scare the civilians. No word of concern, no question what happened. Ben was eleven years old and covered in blood and Reginald didn’t care.When does it end? With his death? Is there a final, angry entry about how #6 was too pathetic to live, how he slipped from Reginald’s grasp by getting torn apart from the inside out, the coward, the waste of space?He’s not sure he wants to know. He’s equally sure he needs to know. If only to finally be sure just what it was Reginald did to him. How much of it was always Ben and how much of it was training. Were the horrors always there? Was Ben born with them? Because he thinks he was, but he also thinks he remembers a time where they weren’t constantly at odds with him.He remembers peace and he wants to know what broke it. “Are you going to read it?” His question cuts above Klaus’ squeals as Vanya tickles him in retaliation for the ‘tiny’ comment.Everyone pauses. Vanya chews her lip, book safely in her lap. “I think,” she starts, pauses, shrugs. “I think I want to wait. Until we all have ours. We can do it together.”“Ohhh, book club!” Klaus cheers, faux-happy and obnoxiously loud.Five zaps over to box him in the shoulder. Five is a good kid, really. Right priorities.“So, where next?” Luther asks. Diego opens his mouth to answer, then pauses, visibly restraining himself before asking, “What do you think? You knew him longer than the rest of us.”Ben can see how much that cost Diego, and so can Dora, because she beams at him and gives him a brief, hard kiss. He blushes, which will never not be adorable. Luther, visibly thrown, opens and closes his mouth a few times. It takes Allison’s encouraging nod to get him moving. “I think we should look in the library and the labs. Maybe his bedroom, but I looked through that when I first came back, so there’s probably nothing there. The other rooms seem more likely.”The gang considers that, then seems to accept the logic of it. Ben, standing closest to the door, steps sideways (into the wall, really) and bows a little. “Lay on, MacDuff.”Luther lays on.+
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+ They make a game out of it. Whoever finds the next journal gets to decide what they’ll do during the break they inevitably take after every room.Vanya finds one and picks Chinese take-away. Diego finds one and asks for cookies from Mom. Eudora finds one and makes them all play a torturous thirty-five minutes of Never Have I Ever. Well. Torturous for them. She learns a lot and collects enough blackmail material to get breakfast in bed for the next three months. Four, if she’s clever about it.Five wishes for silence when he finds one hidden on top of an eight foot bookshelf in the parlor.Ben is a good boy and picks another round of Never Have I Ever. Only he knows all their childhood stories and he makes it hurt. As consolation, he foregoes his second wish, just like Vanya did. Klaus doesn’t find anything else because he mostly flounces around critiquing the décor. Allison joins in, because she has opinions and Luther is just really bad at searching. He can’t reach the small places. Actually, watching him, Eudora grows more and more certain that there is something inherently wrong with his anatomy. The way his shoulders roll forward could just be bad posture, but his hands are… off. The knuckles are too broad, the fingers strangely articulated. His back seems malformed in some way. She makes a mental note to ask Diego when they’re alone but never does, because the next three days are spent with work and then wrecking the Academy until close to midnight, going home, rinse, repeat. One night, it gets so late that they collectively decide to fuck it and just pile into the available beds.Allison and Luther each take their own rooms, Vanya piles in with Five, Klaus and Ben curl up like puppies on Vanya’s bed and Diego and Eudora spend the night on his childhood bed. It should be a chance for all kinds of kinky stuff, but they’re both exhausted and the fact that the room her husband grew up in has the personality of a hotel room is kind of a turn-off. So they sleep. By the time the weekend mercifully dawns, they have found all seven notebooks. Pogo has congratulated them in passing before making himself scarce. He probably doesn’t want to be around for the reading. Smart man. Monkey. Ape. Whatever. After breakfast, they all settle down to read. Which, no. Eudora puts her foot down. “No way are you reading those things here.”“What, why?” Luther demands, sounding slightly offended. It’s pretty much his default tone, she’s found.“Because whatever’s in there is going to be bad and you’re going to do it in a safe place.”He frowns as if the concept of a safe place is foreign to him. “We won’t get attacked here.”“Not that kind of safe, One,” Allison quietly corrects, already catching on. It breaks Eudora’s heart that she calls her brother by his number. They still, after all these years, do it. In times of stress, they default to the first names they ever had. “A place where you feel safe and comfortable,” Vanya adds.“Meaning: one untainted by the old goatfucker,” Klaus provides colorfully. They all exchange looks and then, by some silent signal, chorus, “Attic!”What happens next is the most sibling-like display Eudora has seen out of the Hargreeves since they all came together. Diego and Five start piling up food while Klaus, Ben and Vanya go about stripping everything they can find of blankets and pillows. Allison and Luther ferry it all upstairs before Luther dips out again and returns with a record player and some records. Within fifteen minutes they’ve set up a giant blanket nest on the floor of some dusty, forgotten attic room that they all homed in on without discussion. “We all used to hide here,” Diego offers in an undertone as they lug up sodas and water. "Dad was too dignified for the ladder. Only Mom or Pogo ever came up here.”Ah. A hiding place. The eight of them pile in, Roxette softly crooning in the background, Five and Klaus already munching on some trail mix, the books set between them. “So….”“One at a time, or all at once?”“One at a time, I think. We can pause when we need to, right?”“Oh, we’ll need to.”“Don’t forget, we’re looking for hints toward this apocalypse.”“Shut up, Luther, we know.”“I just-“
“Both of you shut up, we’re doing this. Now. Grab your book. Ready. Steady. Trauma!”+
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+ It’s weird, being here, the seven of them again. Sure, Dora’s with them and they’ve all changed, but that’s part of the weirdness, really. Because even though it’s been over a decade and they’ve all changed so much, all become strangers to each other, they also know each other. Vanya knows that head tilt Allison does when she thinks hard, knows Luther’s nervous ticks, knows where Five will place himself in any given room. She knows how Diego will react to Luther and how Ben will carefully orbit Allison. She knew, when they decided to go to the attic, who would take which job, would fetch what and bring it where. She knew to pile up extra pillows for Allison because an old injury makes it hard for her to sit on the floor for long and to leave only two layers of blankets in one place for Klaus, who isn’t comfortable on soft surfaces.For all that half of her siblings are strangers to her, they are also still painfully familiar. They fall into old behaviors almost automatically and at times, Vanya needs to check herself to make sure she’s not melting into the background the way she used to. It would be such an easy rhythm to fall into, in this house, such an easy role to slip back into, like a dress you haven’t worn in a long time, but that still hangs in the back of your closet, waiting. And that’s another problem. The dress isn’t inherently bad. It’s just a dress. Just like this place is just a part of her past. Not all of the things she can feel herself gravitate towards are bad. And, yeah, ok. She stretched that dress way too far. Metaphorically speaking, that is.Point is, the way Allison and she are sitting right now? Next to each other, shoulders brushing. That’s an old, familiar thing and it’s good. The way they all fell into preparing the attic, the way they sometimes did when Reginald went away on a trip and they had the house to themselves? That’s a fond memory, too. It’s just that with the good comes the bad and she has a hard time stopping herself from falling into one when she’s actually eager for the other. None of that probably makes sense out loud, either, but there it is. Past and present and too much time and not enough time in between. Collision. Boom. Since everyone else is already busy reading, she takes a moment to just watch them. Klaus, with his tattoos and bright clothes, holding Dora’s hand as he flips through his journal, visibly forcing himself still. Diego, on Dora’s other side, sharing her attention without a hint of the jealous, angry boy he used to be. Ben, shimmering blue, his face still so young. Luther, big, big, poor Luther. Allison, beautiful and tall and poised. Even Five has changed, although in less obvious ways. They’re all different now, more and less and still – Looking at them, she can cock her head a little and see knee socks and uniforms, no problem. The same, but not. That’s what time does, she guesses. It makes familiar strangers out of people who were once your entire universe. Gently, Allison jostles her with one elbow. When Vanya looks over, she nods toward the journal on her lap, a questioning expression on her face. Yeah. She should probably get to it. It surprises her, how little she feels the need to. Once, she thinks she would have gobbled this book up. But now, it feels like a chore. She’s reading it for hints about that weird apocalypse business. Not out of a need to know. To understand. She knows everything she needs to know about herself and she understands just fine: Reginald was wrong and they were innocent and they deserved better. It’s all she needs, now. Still. End of the world, and so on. She flips open the book.#7 in old fashioned cursive stares back at her.
3rd November 1989 – The child is already manifesting. Objects in her vicinity vibrate in place and sometimes move. Strong negative emotions such as hunger and discomfort seem to enhance the effect. Positive emotions require further testing.
It appears -
+
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+ Diego’s journal holds no surprises. Along with Luther, his power is probably the least remarkable or complex. Luther is really strong, Diego can throw shit in really weird ways. All the testing either of them underwent was the most basic one might expect from a morally bankrupt billionaire creating an army of child soldiers. Endurance. Limits. Levels of complication. Dora reads over his shoulder sometimes, although he makes sure she doesn’t see the series of tests that followed after they discovered his secondary power. Those were the worst battery of tests he ever underwent, although at least they were over quickly. Once Dad found his limits (all substances, no time limit) there was no point in training, either. He hates bathing to this day and fish tanks give him shivers, but that’s all. Dora’s other side is plastered up against Klaus, who is mangling her left hand while chewing his lip bloody, reading. Klaus would probably consider three days spent in a locked water tank comfortable, compared to what happened to him. He’s being very brave. But then, when isn’t he?On Diego’s other side, Ben is perched, birdlike, book on the floor in front of him, probably so as not to tax Klaus by holding it. He doesn’t look much better than Number Four, but unlike everyone’s favorite disaster, Ben doesn’t like it much to be touched when he’s in distress. He’ll come collect his comfort later, and probably from Klaus or Vanya. Diego just keeps an eye on him, for now. He meets Allison’s gaze across the loose circle they’ve formed, finds her already looking. He guesses her journal isn’t very spellbinding, either. Terrible, but in a mundane sort. It doesn’t read like torture porn, the way their siblings’ probably do. They exchange sad smiles and Allison slips closer to Vanya, reading over her shoulder. Vanya herself is reading intently, but not frantically. She seems surprisingly relaxed with all of this. Good for her. Luther’s reading his own (probably boring one) as if he’s going to be quizzed later it on. Five is – “Did you ever wonder how the old man figured out our powers?”Everyone turns to look at the youngest. Klaus immediately slaps the page in front of him. “Uhm, testing?”“Yes, obviously. But how did he know what to test for? Vanya’s and Luther’s powers were probably pretty obvious and Ben’s, too, maybe. But the rest of us? I remember that I couldn’t jump until he made me train. How did he figure out something as specific as throwing things around corners? And my favorite - ‘I heard a rumor’? That’s one very specific phrase, in a specific language, with a specific result. How the hell did he figure that out?”“Same way he figured out the world was going to end last Monday?”“Yeah, that was some real trusty intel,” Klaus snorts. “It was to him,” Vanya points out before anyone else can. “He believed it enough to literally die for it.”Which is very much out of character for the old man, but Diego won’t be the one to complain about that. Good fucking riddance, as far as he’s concerned. “So?” Ben demands, looking at Five. Those two have always ridden the same brainwave. “You have a theory.”Five nods. “Of course I do. I know it’s been longer for you, but do you remember what he said about time travel the night I left?”Diego tries to remember, but the fact that Five walked out the door and never came back kind of overshadows everything else. Klaus was high, so he’s as clueless as Diego. They exchange looks and shrug. Five groans at them. “Something about acorns?” Allison asks, tentatively. “The dangers of it,” Ben adds in broader strokes.“I remember that he sounded nuts,” Klaus muses. “Which I found vastly entertaining at the time.”“Nuts and very specific as well as… strangely poetic,” Five provides. “In hindsight, it sounded like experience more than theory.”Ben is the first to catch on. “You think Dad time traveled.”“It would explain the weird anachronistic vibe this place has going,” Vanya points out. The Victorian furniture, the futuristic tech, the fifties housewife. Yeah. Five nods in her direction. “I think he was either from, or at one point traveled to, the future long enough to gather information about this time.”“So he what? Terminator-ed back through time to save the world?” Diego snorts.“Wouldn’t that be John Reese-d?” Dora asks, idly. Five glares at them both. “Essentially, yes. My theory is that he came back to try and prevent whatever apocalypse was supposed to happen. Or happened in his timeline. I’m still working on figuring out how time travel affects timelines. It’s complicated math.”Also probably beyond-most-humans-math, but no-one points that out. Five and his brain are scary. “He must have known about us in conjunction with it. Known about our powers. Maybe he gathered us to save the world.”“So,” Luther pipes up, “he… did everything he did to… help? To save the world?” He sounds so hopeful it kind of hurts just to look at him. It’s Klaus who shrugs dismissively, even a little kindly. “Cool motive,” he offers their brother, more careful than he’d usually bother with. “Still child abuse.”“Title of your sex tape,” Diego blurts, because they’re all heathens here. Also, it’s better than considering Reginald Hargreeves with the power to fuck up all of human history. If he does that, he’ll never sleep again. +
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+ Allison has long since trained herself out of something as obvious as biting her lip, but she does shift, a little nervously, before pulling up her phone and hunting down a very specific e-mail. It gives everyone else a minute to make more Brooklyn 99 jokes and settle down a bit. Even Luther chuckles at one point. The sound is deep enough to vibrate her bones.Finally she finds the e-mail and holds up her phone, screen out. “I uhm, have something else.”Five pops over, snags her phone, pops back to his place and starts reading. She huffs, but doesn’t complain. Five is Five. Instead she explains for the others, “When I got my first big role, some guy turned up and claimed to be one of us. One of the ‘chosen’, he said.”“How very Buffy,” Klaus snarks. Eudora gives him a low five. Allison is not jealous. “Was he?” Diego asks, always more goal oriented. “No. But afterwards, I hired an investigator to find the others. Just so I’d know if one of them ever did turn up, you know?” It had cost a mint to hunt down this many people, globally, but he’d done it and done it well. “I have the files here,” Five remarks, waving her phone. “Yeah. There’s a map in there. Open that attachment called ‘global’ something.”Ben makes his way over and the two of them turn the little screen this way and that, zooming in an out. Neither of them says anything. She rolls her eyes. Beside her, Vanya snickers.“He marked down every one of us on it. Our birthplaces, I mean.”“So?” Luther asks. “We know where we were born.”“Sure. We even know the order in which Dad collected us.”One through Seven. He started in America, North and South and North, then hopped to Europe, then Asia, and finally Russia.She’s about to explain her theory, when Ben does. “He skipped babies. There were other births en route to us, other babies who were closer. You think he came for us specifically.”“They might not have wanted to give up their child,” Luther pipes up. He sounds defensive. Allison fights the urge to sigh. “I had my guy check that. He didn’t.”“People lie,” Eudora points out. “Especially about things they are ashamed of.” She does it in a calm, even voice, playing the devil’s advocate rather than lashing out. Allison smiles at her, briefly. Diego found a good one, there. “Three of the kids he bypassed were given up for adoption within days of our birth. Chances are good they’d have taken the money.”“It confirms my theory, or at least bolsters it,” Five interrupts before Luther can find another argument. “Your theory,” Vanya summarizes, “which is that Reginald came from the future to stop the apocalypse and to do so, gathered us, in particular, to what, save the world?”“Ghost Daddy certainly implied it,” Klaus muses, flapping a hand. “Which still doesn’t tell us how the whole apocalypse thing was supposed to happen. I mean, might it still? Or was it a one time deal?” Ben demands, getting them – sort of – back on track.Allison looks around at her siblings. “Anyone find anything?”Beside her, Vanya snorts. “Apocalypse related? No. I did find out why I’m claustrophobic, though.”Klaus immediately dumps his own journal into the Patches’ laps and comes crawling over to snuggle her, graceful as a baby gazelle in an earthquake. Allison barely ducks a stray elbow. They both go toppling over and she leans to grab the journal and reads the open page.Curses. What the – the basement? Containment cell? Sound proofing? – She remembers – she thinks – she flips, frantically, forward, then backward, then forward again. Next to her, Luther has tensed up, calling her name. Worried. She finally finds – “#3 has done her duty. The compulsion seems to be holding strong.”She feels a suddenly urge to throw up. Everyone else has fallen eerily still. Allison spins to her only sister. “I didn’t know, I couldn’t remember, oh my god, I am so sorry, Vanya, I am so sorry! I didn’t – “Vanya, still buried under Klaus, scrunches up her face. “Did you… did you rumor me?”She’s obviously fighting to reclaim the memory Allison just relived in Technicolor. A soundproof room, her sister on a big, empty bed. Foam spikes on the walls. The strange sound quality of it all. Their father looming over her, his hand on her shoulder a weight like a mountain. Hand pressed to her mouth, Allison forces herself to confess. “I rumored you to believe you’re ordinary.”Suddenly, Eudora snatches up the journal. “1994. You were four years old. I don’t think – ““I did it,” Allison snaps. “I used my power to make her believe – “Just like Patrick. Just like Claire. She took away her sister’s free will. Took away her power. Took away –“You didn’t have a choice. Hey, hey, Three, breathe.” That’s Vanya, almost crawling into her lap to hug her, squeezing impossibly tight for such a small body. “He would have forced you, you had no choice. I’m okay, we’re okay. I know I’m special, I know about my powers, it didn’t hold, it’s okay. It’s all okay. Breathe.”It held for over twenty years. It held long enough. Later, Allison will laugh over her brother’s one-track mind. But right now, when Five says, “Huh,” all she feels is gratitude for giving her something else to focus on. She hugs her sister, tries to still her heartbeat, tries to not panic, tries to somehow work around I rumored my sister to believe a fundamental lie about herself for most of her life, and asks, “What?”“Why,” Five asks, popping over to put a hand on each other their shoulders, “would you take away the power of one of your apocalypse soldiers?”+
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+Despite Five’s arguments to the opposite, they break up the ‘Ouchie Book Club’ (Klaus’ term) after Allison’s break down. She sobs into Vanya’s shoulder for twenty minutes, apologizing endlessly, and eventually, Vanya is sobbing, too. Klaus watches over them, patting shoulders and generally being Good At Things, while Diego and his wife hover and the rest of them feels useless.Well. At least Luther assumes they feel useless. He certainly does. Allison keeps talking in between sobs and he hears the name of her husband and daughter and he thinks this might not all be about Vanya and eventually, Ben says, “Break for tonight? We all need some space.”The girls go huddle in Allison’s room together, Diego and Eudora pack up a fretting Klaus to ‘go out’, whatever that means and Luther vaguely hears them plan to drop off Five and Ben at home for a movie night on the way. Which leaves Luther on his own. The last one. As always. His siblings file out, a few of them with a smile or a goodbye for him, but in the end, they’re all gone. And he’s not. He goes to his room, ignores the quiet sounds of talking from next door changes. Then he goes to the gym to hit something. On the moon, Luther thought he was completely zen. After the third year, he thought nothing would ever throw him, or surprise him again. He thought he knew himself perfectly, understood how the world works, his place in it. He thought he was… balanced. It only took a week with his family to show him that that was utter bullshit. You can convince yourself of anything when you spend four years without input, without people, without even setting foot on earth soil. That doesn’t make it true. And lately, spending his nights down here, hitting things and thinking, Luther has come to the conclusion that most of what he built his zen on, were things he learned in this house. (What else would it be, a snide, Diego-sounding voice asks. He’s never been anywhere else.)And everything he learned in this house came from Dad. And Dad was wrong.About the apocalypse, about Four and Seven and even Five and Two and Six. He was wrong about locking Mom up and about so many other things. Earlier, Luther read some of Klaus’ journal over his shoulder. No-one ever thinks he can be sneaky, so no-one ever guards against it. He didn’t like some of the things he glimpsed there. He didn’t like that Dad wrote them about one of his children. He didn’t like what he read in his own, either. The last entry, dated six months ago.
The boy remains convinced of the veracity of his mission even now. There has been no notable decrease in the volume of the data and samples he sends. His obedience, while convenient for the Mission, borders on naiveté and must be addressed at some later date. It implies a reliance on authority that might be abused by outside forces.
Luther’s first thought was as opposed to abuse from you. It shocked him so badly, that thought, that he immediately regretted it, expected to be punished for it. Of course, nothing happened. There are no telepaths in this family, thank god. He wasn’t abused. That’s silly. He wasn’t - You can call me Luther now.Allison printed out the definition of abuse for him. It says that there are many kinds of abuse, not just physical, but emotional, psychological. She marked certain phrases with pink text marker. She said he should read it and come to her with questions. She said- Luther wasn’t abused. Allison says that’s the abuse talking. The conditioning. They were taught to be loyal and obedient or they’d be hurt or punished in some way. Luther was always good at being obedient. In his last entry, Dad wrote about that like it was a bad thing. But he’s the one who taught Luther to be obedient. And still it was wrong. Wasn’t enough. Wasn’t – “Master Luther? Are you quite alright?” Pogo stands in the doorway, dressed for the night, looking worn and worried. Luther pauses, catching the sandbag on the return swing. His arms ache. He didn’t notice. “Pogo?”“Yes, Master Luther?”“Why did Dad send me to the moon?”Pogo’s lips thin visibly and the corners of his eyes tighten. His shoulders tense. “What did he do with all the research I sent him? I didn’t see it anywhere when we looked for the journals.”The lips get thinner, the eyes tighter. “My dear boy,” Pogo starts. Luther doesn’t let him finish. “There was no reason, was there? No threat. After the accident, he just wanted me gone. Out of sight. There was never any mission on the moon. He just – “He just couldn’t stand to look at Luther anymore. To look at the last of his failures, the one too dumb to even run from him. Luther always thought he was stronger than his siblings, because he stayed.Now he thinks he was just dumber. The pained expression on Pogo’s face is all the confirmation he needs. Right. He turns back to his punching bag. And hits it. And hits it.And hits it. And – “Luther?”Vanya, this time, in the doorway, small and hugging herself, and he startles so badly he almost attacks. Her eyes are wide and luminous and he’s only wearing a t-shirt and she can see.She swallows, once, twice, while he tries to figure out what to do now, and then she says, “Hey. Pogo said you might need someone to talk to? So I figured, Allison and I, we’re watching a movie. Do you… want to join us?”He looks down at himself, at all the hair and muscle and wrong, at the reason Dad sent him to the moon, just to be rid of the sight of him, and then up at her and back down. He wants to disappear. He wants to be invisible. He wants to hurt something. Someone. (Dad.)But Vanya doesn’t look freaked out. She doesn’t ask. Maybe, if tonight weren’t already terrible enough, he’d make a joke about her being used to weird, living with Klaus. He doesn’t. “I should clean up,” he says, instead.She nods. “Yeah, okay. But afterwards? You’ll join us? It’s some Disney flick we found in her room. We’re going to poke fun at it.” He studies her face. He’s not good at reading people. But he thinks, he thinks she’s being genuine. Like, she actually means the invitation.“Dad sent me to the moon for nothing. He probably just couldn’t stand the sight of, of this.” He points at himself. She smiles. “Dad was an asshole.”Yeah. He’s starting to see that. +
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+ They reconvene after breakfast. Klaus is still munching on a donut with one hand, protecting a mostly-filled box of them with his other like freaking Gollum and loudly praising the sugar gods. Ben is feeling ghostly today, so he’s floating half a foot off the ground and ignoring the laws of physics as he lies almost horizontally on thin air to study his brother’s face from way up close. “Are you hungover?” he asks. Loudly.They’re in the entrance hall of Asshole Manor. It echoes. Beside Klaus, Diego winces theatrically. Dora lowers her sunglasses long enough to give Ben a death glare. Ben leans back, sticks his head through the wall into the parlor and hollers, “You know what I feel like?! Really loud rap music!”It’s a testament to how far Klaus’ powers have stabilized, that he manages to make Ben first fully invisible and then abruptly corporeal despite his hangover. When he plonks down on the ground and actually hits it, Diego is already there to smack him.Ouch! Ghost abuse!“I thought I’m the child here?” Five asks sardonically as he enters with a tray of mugs on it. He mercifully passes out coffee and the five of them make their way back to the attic, where the other three are already sitting.Ben’s mood goes out the window the moment he sees their faces. “Vanya had an idea last night,” Luther explains. He’s been using his hark, I am the alpha! voice a lot less lately, so it actually sounds like a simple statement. He’s also sitting between the girls without anyone looking like they’d like to beam to Rio now, stat. Huh. Progress.They all plonk down and Klaus is made to relinquish his donut box for the good of all before Vanya, journal on her lap, announces, “We watched Pocahontas last night.”Okay?“And I realized how little I actually know about the fighting between settlers and natives. I mean, we all know the basics. The Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving, the Trail of Tears and the Reservations, and something about Alcatraz? But the rest of it? All the battles that must have come between it? There was this thing where the white people stole children, I think, but that might have been Australia. And as soon as we get done here, I am going home and learning all about this, because I live in this country and I should know its history. “And, like, those things I just mentioned, they happened centuries apart, but they’re all mushed together in people’s heads. And there’s narratives to consider. Every side focuses on something else and this might be a bad example, because in this case we know who was in the wrong, really, but I got to thinking: how much did dad know, if he was really from the future? If the world really ended in some way. How much factual knowledge would he actually have had, centuries after the fact?”Ben is still reeling somewhere between Pocahontas and their time travelling father, but Five latches on immediately. God knows, the kid did little but think last night. “You think his information might have been skewed or fragmented or outright wrong.”“No.” Vanya grabs a donut and eats it while everyone stares at her. Sadist. “I’m saying we’re assuming things from our perspective, which he would not have had. We know we’re basically the good guys, but what if he didn’t know that? What if he just knew our names and ‘apocalypse’?”She flips open her journal on a marked page and passes it to Allison so she can continue to munch. Dutifully, Allison reads, “The girl’s powers are locked away and suppressed chemically. She is no threat any longer. The other two will not be so easy to deal with, I am afraid.”“We assumed that he collected you to stop the apocalypse,” Dora summarizes into the deafening silence that ensues. “But you think he collected you to stop you from causing it.”Around a bite of donut, with her nose powdered white with sugar, Vanya nods. “Yup. Father thought at least three of us had the potential to end the world. And he dealt with it by having me brainwashed by my own sister and then drugging me up for almost twenty years. Which,” she adds flippantly, “does, actually, make me feel a little bit apocalyptic, if I’m being honest.”Luther looks alarmed. “You want to end the world?” Idiot. Big, clueless, lumpy idiot. Vanya rolls her eyes. “No. But I do kind of want to take Dora up on her offer of gasoline and matches.”She licks the tip of her nose and goes for another donut. “So,” she asks idly, “how was your evening?”+
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+ Klaus can see Benny thinking Vanya’ proposal through to the end and reaching the inevitable conclusion planted there like a nice, big… uh, palm tree or something. God. He should not have drunk so much. But U challenged him to a tequila-off and he had to and he hates her and he should know better. Still. While everyone else (mostly One, Three and Five, who aren’t fully used to assertive, clever Vanya) still are at their littlest sister, Klaus focuses on his deadest brother. “Hey,” he says, quietly, “hey, hey, don’t let it get to you. You never did anything even vaguely apocalyptic and you know it. Your tummy tenants aren’t all that scary. Right guys?” He directs a look toward Ben’s middle and feels a vague sense of… agreement pulsing from there. That’ll never not be weird. And awesome. But mostly weird. Apparently, transdimensional beings like him. He is sort of one of them. In a way. A little. In the sense that he, too, walks between worlds. “Because he stopped me,” Ben mutters, one hand going into his hoodie pocket to press against his abs, as if he needs to hold something in. “Because I’m dead.”Klaus wiggles his fingers at the ghostly not-really-there things reaching out of his brother, invisible but present. He missed so much playtime with them before he was able to feel them. “Bullshit. You’re still here. They’re still here. World’s still here. Daddy Dearest was obviously completely off base.”“What the hell are the two of you talking about?” Five demands.And whoops, that’s everyone staring at them. Klaus waves. Ben hunches into himself. “The obvious. I’m the second apocalypse candidate. That’s why I’m dead.”“WHAT?!”“Sedating me was never an option. Not with the horrors. They don’t even let me get drunk. So the only way to make sure they wouldn’t eat their way out of me and devour worlds, the way they want to, was to kill me.” He shrugs like he doesn’t care and Klaus hugs him tight.“But your death was an accident,” Luther defends.Ben turns to study their brother with hollow eyes. “No, it wasn’t.”There is a very long, numb silence until Ben sighs. “Come on, Luther. It’s been years. You have to have figured it out by now. Only the two of us, when everyone else could have easily come. Wrong intel. We knew about ten armed guys going in, there were more than three times that. Reginald’s threat to you: do not fail me, Number One,” he doesn’t even bother faking Dad’s accent, the way he usually does. Just flat out says it. “Making sure you’d not leave until the job was done. Basic manipulation. And my orders, don’t leave you. Keep you safe, or there’ll be extra training.”Allison catches on with a partly thoughtful, partly horrified expression. “He sent you into an impossible situation and to make sure you wouldn’t run, he used Luther as your anchor. Luther wouldn’t leave and you wouldn’t leave Luther and the numbers were always against you.”The odds, Klaus thinks, full of old sadness, were never in their favor. Ben smiles at her. It’s the smile he used to have after extra training, all hollow-eyed and broken inside, just shards beneath skin. “And so, Number Six died.”Luther is white as a wall, clutching at his coffee mug hard enough for it to shatter, sending shards and hot liquid everywhere. He opens his mouth a few times, but apparently can’t think of anything to say. Ben’s smile stays broken. So Klaus musters one of his own. Too bright, too manic, classic Four. “Don’t worry about it. Benny died and joined me in fuck-off land. If you think about it, it worked out just fine. He’s been free of Dad for longer than any of us, except Five-y. He gets to spend his days reading books and critiquing my sense of style now, just like he always dreamed off. No fighting, no missions, no training. It’s the life, really.”“Except he’s dead,” Five mutters and Klaus glared at him because what difference does that make? It’s just a different state of being. Biologically, physically, a dead body is no different from a living one. Metaphysically, a dead soul is the same as a living one. And Ben is here so they can all stop fussing. He’s here. He’s free. Ben hugs Klaus back, finally, squeezing tight. See? Same as he always has been. “I love you, Klaus,” he mutters, very quietly. Ben and Klaus against the world and don’t they see? It’s fine. Ben lets go to turn back to One. “It wasn’t your fault, Luther. You were manipulated, same as me. And I… I knew when I let them out to protect you, there it’d be too much. I knew how it was going to end. And I still did it.”“To protect me. Because I didn’t listen to you and leave.” Luther never once abandoned a mission. And Dad knew that. “To keep my brother, who I love, safe. That’ll always be worth it, man. And like Klaus said, I’m still here. So who cares?”“Whom,” Klaus corrects, primly. Because this mood is getting him down. It makes him think of little gleaming pills and powders and fairy wings to carry him away. So he deflects. It gets a weak chuckle out of the girls and Vanya leans forward enough to offer Ben her fist. “Apocalypse twins,” she cheers.He bumps his own against hers. Which, rude! “Hey,” he complains. “Apocalypse triplets! Don’t be mean! I deserve acknowledgement!”+
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+ Allison knows she’s staring at Klaus incredulously, but then, so is everyone else. She is trying to think of a way to ask, “But what did Dad ever do to you?” That doesn’t make her sound like a complete asshole. Vanya was rumored and drugged. Ben, who couldn’t be drugged, was killed. And god, oh my freaking god, their father killed Ben. Orchestrated for him to be killed. And used Luther as the tool. She’s going to… scream or cry or punch something later. All of it, possibly. Or hug them both until they stop looking like a strong breeze might blow them apart. God. God. Just the idea of hurting Claire, of willfully endangering her in any way – but she already knew that Reginald wasn’t really a parent. Didn’t feel about them like a parent should for their children. Still, though. Klaus?He shrugs at them all, seemingly not needing the question. “Well, I mean, the drug route did introduce me to narcotics and their fun side effects, so I won’t say they did nothing, but they didn’t work the way Daddy wanted them to. As in, they didn’t suppress my powers. They just made me not care what they did.”As if to prove his point, the entire room flares blue for a moment, silhouettes of half a dozen ghosts appearing and then disappearing like a camera flash. There, then not. Klaus is inherently creepy at times. “Wait,” Diego blurts, “Dad is the reason you got into drugs?!”Another shrug. “Yeah, I mean, who else? It’s not like we were ever unsupervised. So the only way for me to get into this shit was, you know, supervised. It was mostly prescription drugs and some of them had really weird effects on the ghosts, but, well.”He flaps his hands, out of sync and careless. As a child, she always believed his act. As an adult she sees it for what it is, deflect, avoid, confuse. He’s protecting himself. Defense mechanism. “But that’s not,” Allison licks her lips, tries again. “He experimented on all of us. Why do you think you’re the third, I don’t know, ‘candidate’?”“Who else would it be?” Ben asks. “No-one else’s powers have the destructive potential ours do. Vanya can shake buildings apart. I have eldritch horrors for intestines. And Klaus has potential access to every dead soul in this world.”“You hear the one about how there are roughly as many people alive now as have ever died in all of history?” Klaus pipes up, hands moving again. “Not quite accurate, but, you know.”Thumb. Forefinger. Close enough.The fact that he even knows that is mildly terrifying.And, okay. Yeah. Allison could whisper in someone’s ear to start WWIII and Five could potentially change the timeline to end the world, too, but those are some really long odds. They’d require planning and intent and she doesn’t think – none of them are capable of that. Even Reginald had to have known that. But as far as unintentional world-ending scenarios go, yes, she can see how Four, Six and Seven would be the best candidates for that. This family. Seriously. Other people worry about hereditary male pattern baldness. They have apocalypse triplets.“So what then?” Luther asks, his voice curiously flat, even after he’s cleared his throat a few times. God. He was just told he helped kill Ben. That he was bait in a trap for their own brother. Allison still remembers what he was like, after Ben died. He blamed himself without solid evidence, bogged down by survivor’s guild. Now that he has it - this has to be so much worse. “Drugs… drugs didn’t work. Why didn’t he – “
Kill you, too?
Klaus makes a face. “Well, he tried. It’s not like I can die. Or, I mean, I can, but I don’t stay dead, so….”Allison doesn’t think six people crying out at the same time constitutes an uproar, but they’re damn well trying. Diego is cursing, Vanya is barking questions, Luther and Eudora are blaring denials. Five and Allison are just… shouting. In the end, it’s Luther’s sheer volume that wins. “What the hell are you talking about, Four!?”Klaus and Ben exchange looks because of course Ben knows whatever Klaus is talking about. He nods at Klaus and then shrugs. “You gotta tell them, man. I told you that years ago.”Klaus sticks a finger in his mouth and starts chewing, hunching into himself. Diego grabs him, hauls him sideways until he’s half lying on him and Eudora and all Klaus does is wriggle to get comfortable and then stop, which is a pretty clear indicator of his state of mind, right there. He’s not meeting anyone’s eye when he says, “Okay, so. Remember that thing I do where I tell you terrible stories about my drug days and you say things like ‘God, how did you survive that shit?’ And the answer is generally that I didn’t?”“What?”“I die. I go away for a while. I wake back up.”“You mean you pass out,” Luther corrects, sounding more hopeful than stern.Ben shakes his head shattering that idea. “I’ve seen him with his neck broken, guys. He dies. That time, he was out for about an hour. It wasn’t- “ Before he can finish, Allison drops her hand from where it automatically went to cover her mouth in shock and scrambles over to hug Ben. Because Klaus is already being comforted and she feels sick just hearing about her baby brother dying but Ben had to watch it. More than once. He squeezes her back tight enough to leave bruises. “How did Father know?” Vanya asks. She’s curled into Luther’s side, looking so, so small, clutching Five’s hand in hers. “Is that… is that why we find you up on the roof, sometimes?”It takes Allison a few seconds to connect the dots, but when she does, she shivers. Ben whispers in her ear, “He’s never jumped. The idea of Vanya seeing stops him. He just…he’s never jumped.”That’s not as reassuring as he might think it is. But then, Klaus has always had a strange relationship with death. This explains it, she guesses. No point in being careful, in treating your body well, if you know you’re not going to stay dead anyway. If she were the praying type, she thinks she might pray for her little brother. Klaus removes his face from Diego’s neck long enough to announce, “Training,” in answer to Vanya’s question, before diving back in, blocking out the world. Muffled, he adds, “Don’ wanna tal’ boud id.”Translation: their father killed Klaus. Intentionally or not. He killed him. Their little brother, the sweetest, kindest, most cheerful of them all. The one who’d play the clown for them all until Luther smacked him down, just they’d have something to laugh over.They all huddle tighter and stay like that for a few long, silent minutes, all of them leaning into someone, holding on. Overload, Allison decides. Emotional and mental. They stay pressed together until they’ve managed to shore themselves up a bit. Enough to continue. Enough to hear the rest of it. She takes a deep breath. “So drugs didn’t work. Dying – dying didn’t work.” She takes a page out of Klaus’ book, tries to make light of it. “Hey, with your powers, even if it did work, you would have just joined Ben in haunting us forever, hey?”Luther gives her a narrow-eyed look for that off-color comment, but Klaus perks up. “That would have been brilliant,” he agrees. She can imagine it, too, Klaus and Ben, semi-transparent, sitting on the mantle downstairs, critiquing all their life choices in faux haughty voices.She smiles at him. “So what did he do?”It’s Five who answers, his voice flat and cold and too old for his sweet face. “Isn’t it obvious? He broke Klaus.”Ben’s fingers dig into her hip so hard, she knows she’ll bruise. She holds onto him just as tightly, watches Diego and Eudora hunch over Klaus protectively. Vanya is crying now, big, silent tears.“He cracked the door,” Klaus mutters, not really meeting anyone’s gaze. Ashamed, suddenly. Klaus should never, ever be ashamed. It’s fundamentally wrong. “He cracked the door and left me leaking dead things all over the place.”Suddenly, his hands curl into fists and start to glow that spooky blue. “But I’m better now,” he tells them, shoulders straightening, hands brightening. “I’m better now and I think it’s time we clear this up, once and for all. What say you?”He blinks big, dark eyes exactly once and then their father is there. +
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+“Dad!” Luther doesn’t know who blurts it out. It might even be him. After the revelations of the past half hour, he’s not sure of anything anymore. Vanya drugged, Ben dead (Luther killed him, Luther might as well have been the one, Luther refused to abandon the mission because he wanted to be a good son and was a shit brother instead and Ben didn’t care. Died for him anyway.). Klaus broken. Bright and loud and hurt and passive, never raising a hand against anything that could hurt him, never defending himself when life comes to slug him, just laughing in the face of it. Sometimes, when they were teens, Luther wished he could be like Klaus. That he could just not care. But Klaus cares. About everything and everyone and it must hurt so much and he must be so brave. Of all his siblings, Klaus is the only one who has never once told Luther to fuck off, has never yelled at him, or fought back. Hell, the day of the funeral, Ben had to scold Luther for what he did to Klaus, years ago, because Klaus never would have. Da – Sir Reginald studies them and Luther can read his ghostly face well enough to see the displeasure there at them huddling on the floor, curled together. Sentiment is weakness. Luther hauls Vanya further into his side and slightly behind his bulk and forces himself to not move a muscle at the disapproval. “Okay!” Klaus announces. “Rules! We have a few small questions pertaining to the end of the world and you are going to answer them, briefly and without any vitriol. If you should start spitting your usual fucking hate rhetoric, I will banish you back into non-existence until such a time as you shut your fucking mouth. Clear? Clear. Goody! Let’s start!”He waves a hand grandly and Sir Reginald opens his mouth, eyes narrowed. They all know that expression.Klaus blinks and he’s gone. Diego snickers damply. Allison giggles. Ben looks to Luther. Luther looks steadily back and says nothing. Klaus counts off ten on his fingers, then makes their father reappear. Before he can try again, Klaus asks, “True or false: you knew enough of the apocalypse to know that the seven of us were somehow involved in it.”Luther can see Sir Reginald’s tight anger as he answers. “Very good. Any child might be proud of such intellectual prowess.”“Well, since you’re the one who was responsible for our education, I’d say well done,” Five snipes back without missing a beat. Sir – oh, hell, he doesn’t deserve even that honorific – Reginald jerks around to stare at Five, surprised enough to let it show. “Number Five! You have returned.”“Nope,” Five drawls, leaning into Vanya. “I’m a mirage. I’m not the freaking jedi you’re looking for.” Even at thirty, Luther will never be as deadpan as his thirteen-year-old brother. “On topic: You assumed three of us would be possible catalysts for the apocalypse.”Reginald can appreciate someone sticking to the facts, if nothing else. He lets the insubordination go in favor of a nod. “Klaus, Ben and Vanya,” Allison concludes for them all. “Four, Six and Seven, yes. Their powers are emotion-based, unlike the rest of you. The wrong trigger could have had possibly cataclysmic consequences. I see you finally understand your purpose.”“They have names.” That’s Eudora, something fierce on her pretty, sweet face. “I beg your pardon.”“Your children, you morally bankrupt son of a bitch. They have names. Use them.”“Who are you?”“I’m their sister-in-law, and this one’s wife.” She points at Diego, who flips Reginald the bird. For the first time, something like this makes Luther want to laugh instead of cringe. “I will refer to my children however I please.”“Property.” Eudora corrects and Luther is reminded that she’s a cop. Her poker face is fantastic. If he were a criminal, he’d shit bricks if confronted with it in an interrogation room.She waits a beat, but Reginald doesn’t ask. “You meant to say ‘property’, not ‘children’.”Klaus snickers. Diego grabs her hand and squeezes. “Give it a rest, babe. Bigger fish.”“Never,” she declares, fiercely, but subsides. “So,” Five continues instead. “What was your grand plan?”Vanya leans around him to tap her journal. “I’m more interested in that ‘purpose’. Why all seven of us?”“A defense was surely necessary, should my plans fail.”Luther has known, in an abstract way, ever since Vanya came out with her theory. He, best of all, knows how their father’s mind worked. He knew. He just didn’t want to. “You meant for us to kill them, if they went,” he reaches for a word, “apocalyptic.”Thinking of earlier, Vanya joking about feeling apocalyptic in between humming snippets of Colors of the Wind, he winks at her. Delighted, she beams at him. Her and Klaus have the right idea. Never take anything seriously. Maybe they can teach him how they do it. They seem… lighter for it.“If necessary. There was also a small chance of Five, or possible Three being a risk factor.” Reginald concedes.“You’re a monster,” Eudora summarizes. “You drugged Vanya. We figured that out easily. It’s in her journal. You… helped kill Ben by sheer fucking negligence.”“He was losing control more and more with every mission.” He doesn’t even try to defend it. Hide it. Sugar coat it. Anything. He just says it like that. Like that wasn’t their brother. Like, if it weren’t for Klaus, Ben would have stopped existing at the age of sixteen.“You could have just stopped sending me out to kill people,” Ben snipes from behind Reginald. “That would have helped.”He spins, stares at the other ghost, angry. Opens his mouth. Blinks out. This time, Vanya counts loudly to ten.He blinks back in.“And Klaus,” Eudora goes on, prompting. “Number Four was especially difficult, giving his resistance to drugs and his inability to die. I was forced to resort to drastic measures. I derived no pleasure from that, I assure you.”“No, but it didn’t stop you either,” Klaus pipes up. “Did it ever occur to you,” Vanya asks, “that you could have just taught us control? That that was all it would have taken? That maybe terrorizing us and suppressing our powers, intentionally breaking us might have made things worse?”Reginald purses his lips, hands folded behind his back. “Obviously,” he starts, scathingly, “my methods worked. The world appears to still be intact.”That’s when Klaus starts giggling.+
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+Klaus has a lot of giggles. Drunk giggle, happy giggle, manic giggle, panic giggle, sad giggle. That last one is hard to pull off, but Klaus does it with panache. This is his This-shit-is-so-funny-I’m-going-to-piss-myself giggle. Not the manic one, not the panic one, not the one he used to have when their father came for him with that look on his face that they all knew meant dark and terrible things. This time, Klaus’ giggle is filled with sheer, fucking glee. And Vanya can’t help it. She joins in. And then Eudora. And then Diego and Allison and Ben and Five and even Luther because the man who terrified them all their lives is standing there, in the middle of the room and he is so, so wrong. He is so fucking wrong and he has no power over them anymore. None.They’re free. They have been free since Vanya quit the pills, since Klaus got sober, since Ben refused to go gently into that good night, since Allison ran to California, since Diego stopped playing by the rules, since Five ran away. Even Luther’s free now, even if it took him longest. They’re all laughing hysterically and Reginald stands in the middle and fumes and it doesn’t fill Vanya with dread anymore. He tries yelling once, and Klaus just phases him out between hiccups, burying his face in Diego’s belly to try and get control of himself. They keep laughing. Vanya’s cheeks hurt and her sides burn and Luther’s laughter is rattling her bones and she can’t breathe and she’s still not stopping. Five topples into her and she topples into Luther and Allison and Ben are curled up like commas on the floor and for once it’s laughter, not pain. Eudora is crying with it and so are Vanya and Klaus, wiping at their cheeks and gasping for breath and not stopping.They’re free. And every time they catch someone’s gaze, they set each other off again until Vanya thinks she’s going to pass out from lack of oxygen.“Okay, okay. Control yourselves,” Klaus eventually chides, what has to be fifteen minutes later. He’s gasping, sweaty and fanning himself in between wiping at his cheeks.He makes a very stern face, takes a deep breath, then ruins it with a grin and snaps his fingers.Reggie appears mid-gesture, as if he was shouting the whole time. “You killed Bentacles,” Klaus starts, voice loud enough to carry over the yelling. Reggie stops, smooths down his waistcoat. Collects himself after his frankly gauche display of emotion. Vanya smothers a giggle into Five’s hair.“But he’s not dead. And neither are the gummy worms. Say hi!”He points toward Ben, who rolls his eyes and pulls up his layers and layers to reveal a pale stomach and something slithering beneath. Klaus actually waves at them and fuck her sideways, but Vanya is pretty sure the tentacles wave back. Ben lowers his shirts. “And the world didn’t end.” Klaus beams at his literally captive audience.“You drugged Vanya up to the gills, but she’s been clean of that shit for almost seven years now and using her powers to reach the top shelf for just as long.” He spreads his hands, palms up. “And the world didn’t end.”“You fucked me up in the head so bad that I couldn’t turn off my power, couldn’t escape the screaming, the mutilated corpses. You toppled me into a decade long panic attack. But you know what? My family didn’t let me fall. They picked me up and they cleaned me up and they helped me fix my fucked-up self.”Dora smacks him at ‘fucked-up’. Vanya gives her a thumbs up.“And I’m in control now. And the world didn’t end. “So fuck you, Daddy. You were wrong. And we’re not broken, or bad, or dangerous. We’re fucking fantastic because we have each other and as long as we do the exact opposite of what you taught us, we’re going to be just fine. And hey, I’m turning this shithole into a way house for fuck-ups just like us, and if you’re good, I might summon you sometimes, so you can really, really hate your afterlife, you miserable old fuck. The apocalypse didn’t happen. Not because of you, but despite of you. Because we’re better than you and we always were. Fuck you!”He clasps his hands, bows as well as he can in his seated position and adds, “And so-““Wait,” Luther blurts, suddenly struggling to untangle himself from Vanya and get to his feet. “Awww, Luther. You’re ruining my finale!” Klaus pouts. Luther scowls and gets to his feet, steps up to their father. “Can you make him corporeal for a sec?” he asks. Klaus rolls his eyes. Diego sighs, muttering something about ‘daddy’s boy’ under his breath. But their father solidifies. And Luther hauls back and slugs him in the face so hard he goes flying over Ben and Allison’s head and crashes into a wall. “That was for all of us, asshole,” Luther tells the groaning, moaning form of their father. Then he very calmly turns to Klaus. “I’m done now, thank you.”Reginald winks out. Luther straightens his glove. “Is anyone else feeling like pizza? I kind of want pizza.”There is a beat.Then another. Diego rolls fluidly to his feet, bringing up his wife with him. “Only if we’re taking Mom.”Luther rolls his eyes. “Of course.”Klaus flops around until he’s up, too, then hauls up Vanya and Five. “I want pineapple on mine and anyone who complains will be shot with olive stones.”“Oh,” Allison cheers, “Olives.”Ben shudders. “You’re gross. That place by the record store?”Vanya hooks her arm through his. “Where else?”Luther claps his trash-can-lid hands once. “Okay. Let’s go, team.”Everyone groans. But no-one complains. They’re free. +
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+They have pizza for brunch.Then they head back to the house to binge watch Disney movies until they all fall asleep. They return the next day to clean up the attic and the next to help sort out the other rooms and the one after that and eventually, Dora’s car automatically brings her to the Academy instead of home after work. Even if Diego isn’t there, someone else usually is. She helps Five with his essays once Vanya finally caves and lets him homeschool himself. He has a plan that involves his GED at fifteen and then Harvard. Little over-achiever. She helps Allison, too, early on, with getting the court mandated therapy transferred into this state and later, she helps, along with everyone else, in cleaning out a room for Claire to sleep in when she visits. They create a room for Grace too and take her to every art gallery in town, because she wants to go and her childlike wonder isn’t exactly a hardship. Eventually, Klaus stumbles into the house with a bunch of design boards under his arm and presents his idea of turning the basement part of the house – the one that was once a butcher and another storefront – into a soup kitchen, and some of the back rooms into little apartments.“For battered women, runaway teens, you know. Whoever needs a soft place to land.”Allison volunteers her time, name and money immediately. Diego grunts and agrees to help with the renovations. Vanya starts googling super-sized kitchen appliances. Off the top of her head, Dora knows at least five ‘repeat customers’ she could send here and sleep more soundly knowing they’re off the streets.They all look to Luther. Who frowns. “Would… would Pogo need to hide?”Klaus shakes his head. “Nah. This all the lower level. We update the old kitchen behind the servant quarters and we can keep this part of the house strictly separated. “Who’d manage it?”“Weeeeeeell,” Klaus beams. “I’m glad you asked. I would, but during theater season, I’d need a second man. You looking for a hobby, Luther, my bro?”And that’s how they make Reginald Hargreeves spin in his ashy grave even more than he already was. Klaus, Vanya and Five move back into the Academy shortly after that, because there’s little point in their apartment, at that point. When her and Diego’s lease is up half a year later, she just looks at him as he hems and haws for a solid ten minutes. In the end, she takes pity on her lump of a husband. “We’re not living in your childhood bedroom.”“What! No! Of course not! The east tower is empty and it has its own bathroom along with two bedrooms and a spare and I thought -.”“Good. Grace is not going to be our maid.”He just glares at her, insulted.“And my dad meets Pogo before moving day.”He splutters. Luther is excellent for moving furniture around, even with Claire perched on his shoulder, visiting for the summer. The others lug the smaller things all the way up to the tower, chattering and joking all the way. Ben sits on a chandelier and gives orders.Ella, Vanya’s girlfriend, paints a beautiful mural in the nursery of a summer landscape in full bloom. If you look close enough, there are seven tiny, caped figures flying low against the horizon. One is a little bigger than the others and one a little smaller.What was it Klaus’s cards said, way back when? Happy reunions? They were definitely right.And Dora was right, too. Her dad absolutely does get a kick out of Pogo. +The End