number_five | December 25, 2020

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December 25, 2020

When Five had first arrived in Darrow, he'd been convinced that he was going to be stuck there alone. After all, he'd spent 45 years on his own, and it just seemed par for the course.

But then Klaus had shown up, and suddenly he had family again. Sure, it was Klaus, but despite his brother's many eccentricities, Five cares for him, and it's been good having a chance to catch up. There hadn't been a lot of time for that, scrambling to prevent one apocalypse after another.

And though Five has been floundering, trying to figure out what the hell happens to him next and what he's supposed to be doing with his life now, things have been okay. Even if he'd become convinced that it'd just be the two of them. This isn't a result of Five trying to time travel, this is something sending them all hurtling across dimensions; maybe the rest of them show up, but odds are, they don't.

Five had been trying to make his peace with it.

That is, until seventeen days ago, when Five found his sister in the street, asking if they'd managed to make it home. And five days ago, when his other sister had knocked on the door in the middle of the night.

Suddenly, there are four of them.

They're all in Darrow, but somehow, it feels like they're still scattered.

Truthfully, Five has had the idea for a while, but it's after Allison shows up that he really decides to put it into action. He's only gotten a peek at Darrow's underworld before now, heard whispers at some of the less reputable establishments he sometimes finds a way into. But it doesn't take long before he finds an in, and gets himself hired-- anonymously, of course-- taking out high value targets from rival gangs.

It's like Commission work, but easier. He takes on a job, gets the money, comes home late and hopes Klaus doesn't notice the blood on his collar.

He's not supposed to be doing this anymore, he doesn't enjoy it, it started to turn his stomach after he took the Handler's deal. But he needs a lot of money, he needs it fast, and... well, this is what he knows how to do. He's good at it; the Commission made sure of that.

So it doesn't take him long at all before he has enough money to put a down payment on a small building on the corner of Crescent and Gerard. Three floors, a basement, a decent amount of space, even if the rest of their siblings do eventually turn up.

The invitation might be a bit much, he knows, but his siblings do turn up at the right time. Five is standing out front, his hands in his pockets.

"This has been a shitty few months... few years, depending on your perspective," Five says, "I figured it was time for a change."

He pauses, looking back at the building, then back at his brother and sisters.

"It's ours, and you're welcome to stay here if you want, but don't feel obligated. And it's not the Umbrella Academy, but maybe it can be something else."

Everything still feels scatted, but maybe this will help. Maybe the pieces will finally start to come together again, after 45 years.

[Tag in, tag each other, tag Five]

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When Klaus first saw the invitation, returning from stepping over it in his quest for coffee, he thinks it's a joke. But then he remembers that it's Five, who never jokes, and he looks at the invitation with a more critical eye, unsure of what to make of it. Five isn't there for Klaus to pester for answers, so he folds the invitation and sticks it in the back pocket of his jeans.

He spends Christmas Eve with Obi-Wan, even though neither of them have any real sort of attachment to the holiday. He ends up staying over, and the next morning he thinks that he kind of gets the hype about Christmas mornings, that rush of excitement when you're gifted with something precious.

So, he's in high spirits when he heads out to the address on the invitation. The building isn't familiar to him at all, but Five is standing out front. Klaus doesn't even really have a chance to even start asking questions before Allison and Vanya show up. They give each other questioning looks, but then Five starts talking. Klaus's brow furrows as he listens, and then lift in surprise once he processes what's going on. He looks from Five to the building and back again, blinking a few times as he reaches up to put his cold fingertips against his jaw as it goes slack.

And then the surprise lingers, and Klaus feels a swell of positive emotion that he doesn't quite know how to process. When Five showed up at his apartment and claimed the spare bedroom, Klaus had never really thought that it was because Five had any actual desire to live with him. It was better than the orphanage, and he couldn't get a place of his own until he got emancipated, or whatever, after which he'd be gone.

"Well, you've been a busy boy," Klaus says to Five, trying to keep the waver of emotion from his voice. He's still reeling in vague confusion, and it takes him a moment to land on the bummer reason why: Klaus simply hadn't thought that any of them would want to live with him.

He takes a step forward, bringing him closer to Five as he keeps his hands in his pockets, looking at the front door before turning to face his brother with a bewildered smile. He huffs in amused disbelief and lifts a hand, shaking his head with a breathless laugh. "I don't know what to say."

For a moment, he searches for a joke, any way to draw focus from what he's feeling, but nothing comes. Instead, he just gives Five a slightly confused but hopeful sort of look. "There's really a room for me up there, huh?"

"Should be one for everyone," Five says, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key, tossing it to Klaus, "Four on the third floor, four on the second. I think it used to be a boarding house, by the looks of it."

Five probably should have looked into the history of the building before buying, but it's structurally sound, not too close to the Necropolis, and it was available. Five didn't want to chance that someone would snap it up before he did. Or that the building would disappear. Or any other random fucking thing subject to happening in Darrow.

But now there's enough room for all four of them, with some to spare if Diego and Luther ever turn up too. Though he has his doubts about whether Diego would buy into something like this.

Klaus catches the key and stares at it for a moment, throat working as he tries to process what he's feeling. It's astounding to him that Five would do something like this, and even more astounding that Five would include him.

"Five." He wants to hug his brother, and even twitches forward to do so, but he remembers all the times that Five has shrugged him off, so he reels himself in and blinks down at the key again. It's very unlike him to not have a joke ready for any situation, but this isn't just any situation. This is all of them living under one roof again, not because of the Academy or the apocalypse but by choice.

"I guess we need to pack up the apartment, huh?" He huffs out a laugh and looks at his brother, forcing himself to stay still. "And here I thought I was ahead of the game, getting you guys presents at all."

"Well I didn't wrap this one, so we'll call it about even," Five replies. Reginald Hargreeves was never one for Christmas, so he imagines this is probably the first one most of them have spent together. Though, Five never really intended this to be a Christmas present in the first place, the timing just happened to work out.

"And we'll have to hope this one isn't haunted, because I don't think I can return it."

The comment, as offhanded as it was, makes Klaus's smile grow even wider, because it means that Five took him into consideration. This place is far from the Necropolis, which is the one part of this city that Klaus hasn't explored, because his whole body seizes up in terror if he gets too close. This building may be haunted, but there is no sense of dread, nothing instinctually telling him to stay away. It's perfect.

"So far, so good," Klaus says, and this time he does reach out to put his hand on Five's shoulder, patting once and giving a brief squeeze as he passes by to step up onto the small porch. "Come on, then. Give me a tour."

It was only an offhand comment Klaus made to Five about the Bramford Building being haunted, but it was enough for Five to remember to take location into consideration when looking for a place for them all to live. Of course, a simpler solution would have been to just ask Klaus along when he was looking but...

Well, he likes this better.

Klaus squeezes his shoulder and pushes past him, and Five manages a small smile before he walks forward to open the door.

"It's definitely smaller than any of us are used to, so give it a chance first," Five says as he steps in. The entryway almost immediately splits off into the library on the left and sitting room on the right. The stairwell's just ahead, but Five makes a right, into the sitting room, where an old, dusty couch is the only thing there at the moment.

"Last tenants left that behind," Five says, "I hadn't had a chance to get rid of it yet."

"Ah, you underestimate me, brother," Klaus says with a laugh, looking around as the walk through the small entryway. "I've stayed in my fair share of dives. I lived in a studio apartment in Japan for almost a year. And technically, I shared it with Ben. Ghosts don't take up too much space, though."

They step into the sitting room and Klaus walks around the back of the sofa, patting at the cushions and raising a brow at the dust cloud that rises from it. "Put it on the curb. Someone will take it. Guaranteed."

Allison and Vanya run through the entryway and head upstairs, and Klaus smiles at having four Hargreeves under one roof again, with none of them even fighting. Yet. His attention turns to Five again, and he raises a curious yet very nonjudgmental brow. "Are you going to share how you got the money for this place, or leave it up to my very vivid imagination?"

Five frowns, but doesn't have to consider his answer.

"It's probably better if that goes unsaid," he replies. For as many times as Five has called Klaus useless-- more back home than in Darrow, probably because they're not under the threat of a looming apocalypse-- he knows his brother isn't stupid. There's no way Klaus didn't notice the erratic comings and goings of the past few weeks, the spots of blood on his clothes, Five's increase in his coffee intake.

Long story short, it's probably better if any of his siblings don't ask too many questions about it all.

"Why Japan?" Five asks.

Whether Five means for it to be or not, the non-answer is enough to confirm Klaus's suspicions. He's more observant than his siblings give him credit for, but even if he weren't, he thinks he might have noticed that Five has seemed a little off. A little tired looking, a little overcaffeinated.

"It was far away," Klaus says with a shrug, walking a slow circle around the room. "But I liked it there. The food was incredible, and Tokyo was just lights and sound everywhere. Amsterdam was where I stayed the longest, though."

He turns his gaze from the crown molding, and smiles over his shoulder at Five. "Altijd een leuke tijd in Amsterdam."

Five considers this for a moment, then nods.

"I could see you in Amsterdam," he replies, "I've only been there briefly myself. Not a bad place. Not that I had a lot of time for sightseeing."

It had been a quick mission. The 1928 Summer Olympics. Somehow, he thinks the city's probably changed a fair bit from then to when Klaus was there.

"That's a shame. It's beautiful." It's strange to think of Five as an old man traveling the world. They've all lived so much life apart from each other, and that's kind of bittersweet. Or mostly sad, in Five's case. Five was always so tough, tougher than Klaus ever was or will be, but he hates thinking about his brother being alone for so long, tough or not.

"This thing we're not talking about," Klaus says quietly, so their sisters don't overhear. He puts his hand on Five's shoulder as he goes to pass him, looking at him curiously. "Is it ongoing, or are you done?"

"Done," Five answers, though he's not entirely certain it's the truth. Anonymous contract killing served its purpose here, he found a place for his family. But it would be a lie to say that he hasn't considered it to be a plan B for him in Darrow.

As far as professions go, there aren't too many for a grown man trapped in the body of a teenager, even in Darrow. And Five definitely isn't going to enroll in high school. He doesn't have a lot of options.

"I'm not entirely sure what comes next, but I'm putting that behind me."

The invite had been a bit ridiculous, but Allison was curious enough to see what Five had in store. Though she's had many good Christmases in the past with proper decorations and gifts and traditions to make sure Claire got the sort of childhood the Hargreeves kids never did, it still feels odd to be doing it now. Once everyone was gone, there hadn't been any real reason to get them all together again for a holiday they'd never celebrated.

A Hargreeves Christmas is an alien concept, but Allison is navigating the day carefully, with cheer and (sometimes forced) optimism.

The house they're standing in front of as Five gives his little speech comes as a shock. Allison has a million questions, such as how the hell he got the money to get such a big home, but those can wait. She can get out of her apartment now, move into a building with her siblings and feel much safer, much more like a home away from home. If they have to be stuck here, then at least they can have a home that Allison will help make damn sure is as far away from the Academy as she can manage.

"Five," she breathes out, staring at him, then up at the building, then back down to him. Questions of money aside, he's done this for them, as a family. Allison knew he did think of them, and much of his crazy focus on the apocalypse involved making sure they were all okay, but this...it's actual physical proof that Five does have a soft, squishy center somewhere in there. She'll take it, and give him a proper thank you when she can get a moment alone with him later.

Allison beams, and claps her hands together in excitement. "Is there a backyard? Or a garden? I call the room with the best view!"

Edited 2020-12-24 21:26 (UTC)

Allison's reaction actually elicits a small smile from Five, and he reaches into his pocket, digging out a small key.

"Backyard, sort of. Garden, no," Five says, and he tosses the key to her. He had six made, but he'll keep two, just in case Luther and Diego ever turn up. It's starting to seem more likely, given how soon after Allison's arrival Vanya showed up, but Darrow is, if nothing else, exceedingly unpredictable.

"It's been sitting empty for a while, so whatever semblance of a garden there used to be is basically just weeds at this point."

Allison catches the key with a delighted laugh, and she barely hears Five's response as she gazes up at the building again. All those windows, rooms enough for all of them -- and for Diego and Luther, if they ever do show up. She can't imagine Five would do this and not think of them.

"We can call it work in progress," she says, looking back down at Five. "We'll fix it up. Call it a family project."

"Never been much for gardening myself," Five says, and for a moment thinks back to his time in the apocalypse. Once food started becoming scarce, it'd been one of his first thoughts, but a ground scorched by the apocalypse had never given him much to work with in the first place.

He turns and takes his own key to open the front doors. The handle sticks for a moment, and the hinges creak, so he figures what Allison says is going to be a reality soon enough. Family project.

"Come check out the inside," he calls back to her.

Allison slips her own key safely into her jacket pocket, then claps her hands together in delight as she follows Five into the house. Their house.

It's been over a decade since they were all living together, and Allison finds herself wanting it more now than she ever had since she left home. While before she simply missed her siblings and longed for some magical childhood they'd never had the slightest chance of having, now they were all adults and could choose how to live.

The dark hallway already feels safer than her apartment, if only because she trusts Five to have provided something of a safe haven for all of them.

"How did you manage this so quickly?" she asks, but doesn't even wait for an answer as she slips by Five to go further down the hall, sticking her head into the first room she reaches. Light comes in through the large window facing the street, and she can see Vanya and Klaus through it briefly as their figures follow them into the house and their voices filter down the hall. "This is amazing."

Edited 2021-01-06 01:21 (UTC)

"Probably better if I don't answer that," Five replies. Looking like a 13-year old doesn't exactly make it easy to make money the old-fashioned way, so Five has unfortunately had to rely on skills he acquired at the Commission.

There are back channels in Darrow. It's all not exactly above board, but it's all quick. He'd rather his siblings don't know too many specifics, though. It's probably better for everyone involved.

"But it's safe, that much you don't have to worry about."

At least until the next crisis, but Five hopes that never actually comes.

Allison hums neutrally, knowing Five's right. She's happy to accept that this has happened for now and won't press any further, knowing she won't like the answer. Maybe that's cowardly of her, but all she wants right now is to feel safe in her own home. With no answers to why they're here, she'd never felt comfortable in the apartment.

Besides, Five has literal decades of surviving in the apocalypse behind him, and the paranoia to prove it. There probably won't be a safer home for them than this one.

"I believe it," she tells him, patting his shoulder in appreciation as she passes by him and heads further down the hallway. She stops at the staircase, one hand on the rail as she looks up the stairs, then back down at Five. "How many rooms?"

"Enough," Five says, "If Luther and Diego ever decide to show up, there'll be a place for them if they want it."

That part was non-negotiable for Five. At the rate his siblings seem to be turning up in Darrow, it seems like only a matter of time before they're all joined by their brothers. This whole place, this whole plan is about them all finally getting to be a family again, and as useless as Luther and Diego might be some times, that includes them too.

Vanya is fully crying when she pulls back from her affectionate assault on Five. The warm, white glow from her middle is faint. She opens her white eyes. The resonance in her ears only isn't the whine of a tuning fork, but something smaller and more meaningful, like the small scrape of a bow against violin strings that only the musician holding it can hear. It's the soft clap of her sister's hands and the way all four of them are, without trying, breathing perfectly in sync.

Knowing how she looks when she's tuned in and knowing what she's done to her siblings (and Allison in particular) in a state that looks similar would usually have Vanya afraid of isolation. Now, she feels right. In the absence of suppression, full of the real Hargreeves love that Reginald suppressed in all of them, she knows she can prove she's not a danger to anyone. She's in control. In the space of a deep breath, Vanya's eyes close. When they reopen, she's pink skin and hazel eyes again. She walks the few steps to her sister and takes her hand gently at their sides. She takes in the place with quiet wonder.

"I call whatever's farthest from the basement," Vanya murmurs low but plenty loud enough to hear.

Next to them, Klaus chimes in: yes, count me in. Vanny and I are going to the tippy top! Vanya laughs in delight. Now she's beaming up at their new home.

"I can't believe this is real."

Edited 2020-12-26 20:51 (UTC)

Allison's eyes are wide as she watches Vanya and Five, a familiar mix of fear, guilt, and awe churning away as her sister's power flows out and around them. It's hard to look at Vanya when she uses her power, knowing that she had been the reason none of them knew about it. That Reginald had used Allison in the worst way possible, and made that manipulation feel natural and right.

She lets that wash away as Vanya's power fades and the color returns to her face, and Allison allows herself to just be happy for now, because her sister is. It changes Vanya's entire demeanor, and Allison knows she'd had a part in dampening her joy, too.

It's easy to smile and blink away the tears in her eyes, let them be thought a part of this moment as Vanya takes her hand. Allison is overwhelmed, and that is because of Five's gesture. That's all it needs to be, for now.

"I know," she says with a deep breath, and she laughs again to let something out, to loosen the knot in her chest. Allison puts an arm around Vanya's shoulders and pulls her into her side for a brief hug as she stares up at the building with her. "If we have to be stuck here, then at least we'll be stuck here together. We'll probably start fighting over chores in about two weeks, but until then...it'll be perfect."

Edited 2020-12-27 07:48 (UTC)

While Vanya doesn't know exactly what her sister is going through in this moment, she at least knows they're two Hargreeves with no ability to self-soothe, so she stands strong and silent for a little bit. Allison squeezes her close and Vanya leans into it as long as it's there. There is still a lot of work to be done. If only their father had been as generous with the idea of therapy as he had been with books and targeted pharmaceuticals.

Not a single part of Vanya feels stuck here, though. She'd been stuck in reality in no uncertain terms, one way or another in New York and in Texas. She knows they are trapped, and she knows how hard that must be for Allison without Claire. So, this is something she'll keep to herself. What a luxury it is to choose to have a secret.

Similarly, Vanya wonders if any one of her sibling have ever done a single chore. Vanya's been on her own since she was 18 and has long since adjusted to sustaining her own space. Allison has a child, but did she have butlers? Cleaners? How much fancier was her life than at the Academy, a life that had been pretty fancy on its own.

"What do normal families do about chores?" Vanya wonders aloud, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Besides just doing them."

"I don't know," Allison says with another laugh that's brighter, more honest. "I used to have people that did it for me. Then there was Raymond, it took a month or two after we got married to convince him that chores were a couple thing, not just a woman thing."

Her voice falters at the mention of Raymond, but it's nice to think of the better memories in the bright sunlight. While most of her memories of Raymond are drenched in the grief of knowing she'll never see him again, some are better than others.

"I think we're going to have to eventually figure out exactly what a Chore Chart is."

The pocket of joy that Allison finds falters quickly. Vanya slips her hand into Allison's, soft in solidarity. Sissy wasn't her spouse - they only spent a month of stolen moments together, whereas Allison and Raymond had 2 years to fall in love and build a life. Allison used the cosmic mix-up to start anew, to give herself a chance at an honest life where she could feel like she deserved the good things she got. Vanya hid in a barn and made herself forget the future. If either of them deserves to suffer, it's not Allison.

"Oh my God, I know what that is!" Vanya gasps, very excited that she does. "Sissy had one on the fridge!" Mostly it was to help Harlan learn measurable structure and respect for their surroundings. Harlan always did his chores. "I bet Klaus and Five will do their share better than Carl." Carl refused to even acknowledge the chart's existence. The few "chores" Sissy assigned to him in the name of fairness to Harlan never got done. Until Vanya came around, and she always let him take credit for it.

"Come on, let's go see the inside!" She's tugging Allison toward the house, now. Her head is already reeling with the possibilities of new memories and she needs to know what the interior of the house looks like.

Allison laughs at Vanya's excitement, glad to focus on it instead of being in her own head. She wants to ask about Sissy and Harlan, to hear all about Vanya's month alone, but they have time for that later. After they pick rooms and move in and feel more like a family. There'll be friction and arguments soon enough, but hopefully the warmth and connection Allison so desperately needs with her siblings will be there, too.

"Carl sounded like an ass," she says, and Allison didn't need more than the bare bones story they got from Vanya. She knew men like Carl, knew the world Carl grew up in. "They absolutely will do better."

She follows Vanya into the house, eager to explore. "I want a room up on the top."

"Definitely an ass," Vanya concurs, laughing a bit, but she does feel a bit guilty. He did let her stay there and use his car, and she did sleep with his wife and give his kid the powers that killed him. Even though he was a creep, he'd already paid dearly for meeting Vanya.

The Hargreeves Chore Wheel. It probably won't have so many stickers and if it does, there's no way she will feel as much glee and pride watching Klaus or Five put a sticker by their chore as she did when Harlan did his.

It's been a couple weeks and her heart doesn't ache any less for them.

"Did you ever find a chore you hated?" Vanya asks as the question pops into her head. "My first month in college I found out I hate cleaning toilets."

"Yeah," Allison says as if the answer is obvious. She's taken the lead now, heading right for the stairwell and pulling Vanya along. The bedrooms are probably upstairs, and she wants to score a good view before the boys do.

"Literally all of them. But I guess cleaning toilets is high up on the list. Let's make Five do it."

Vanya is beaming now as Allison tugs her up the stairs. They almost got to this place before she let "Leonard" mess everything up for her. Without the barrier of the Rumor or medication, Vanya's mind goes to dark places fast. She's squeezing Allison's hand rather than thinking about how she'd almost killed her. Not now. She needs this peace.

Allison answers and Vanya laughs. Allison is an exceptional person, not just in power but in resilience. Vanya spent so much time trying to be okay being ordinary that she found a couple chores she doesn't hate. Hell, she'll do all of them. For a little while, at least. She won't say that. Not in front of the boys, at least.

"Holy shit," Vanya breathes once they're on the topmost floor. There are five doors - two bedrooms on each side and a bathroom at the end of the hall. Briefly, she hopes there is more than one bathroom, but there has to be. God, there had better be.

She looks down from the bannister slackjawed. She supposes it's smaller than the Academy, but it's somehow more beautiful, even bare and waiting to be made whole. She feels the house buzzing with potential, sort of like her. Big, hazel eyes look all the way up at Allison.

"I can't believe he did this for us."

Allison lets go of Vanya's hand when they make it to the top, already opening the first door closest to them to investigate and stake her claim. This one is alright, but the window to the street turns her off. She pops back out into the hallway and smiles at Vanya.

"I think I can. That grouchy old fart does love us, in his own way."

She had a lot of time to think about her siblings in the last two years, and once she could properly sort through her memories without the constant fear and adrenaline that had colored the days after Five's return, Allison could see things a little bit clearer. Five had come back for them, to stop the apocalypse and to save them.

There's a strange, juvenile feeling that jumps up in her, like she's just heard her sister shit-talking their dad - it's exciting, but also sort of guilty. There is a while spectrum of things she's feeling for the first time. It's very weird.

Allison is right: it's obvious that Five loves them. Even when he first came back the same but so eerily different, Vanya knew he was trying to get home, and that it wasn't the architecture that Five had been returning for. Even knowing without a doubt that he was trying to kill her at more than one point in the past couple of months before their arrival doesn't change that, either.

Suddenly, she wants to say something to Allison: about the apocalypse or the way that she can't sleep some nights because she's afraid of what she'll dream and what will happen if she does. They're going to be living together. She has to.

"Allison..." She's groping for words immediately. She doesn't know how to have feelings and she really doesn't know how to talk about them.

Allison comes back out of the second room next to the first, already deciding against it. The light's all wrong, and if she's to make this her new home while they're stuck here, she wants a perfect room.

She's making her way down the hall to the next set of bedrooms when she hears Vanya call her name, and Allison immediately stops to turn back. Something in Vanya's voice tells her she needs to stop and listen, an action she never took enough in their past. At least she can work on doing that much more now.

"Yeah?"

Vanya swallows hard. Now that Allison is looking at her with her kind, keen eyes, she wants to retreat. Not because she is afraid, but because the fear of rejection that is almost as old as she is has sparked up in her center. How can she apologize for all of the things she's done? There just aren't words, and that's what gives her the courage to keep going. Her whole life has been an impossible task that has her apologizing for nothing at every turn. This one isn't nothing. This is one that deserves to be said.

"I--" Her heart bottoms out again. She sets her jaw and tries to get strength from the floor, but looking there makes her feel worse. Like a coward. That is something she knows now that she is not. Part of the reason she knows it has to do with this fiercely loyal woman that is constantly bettering herself.

"I owe you an apology," she starts, her hands feeling kind of heavy and useless at her sides. "Hundreds of apologies. I don't even know where to start.

"When I found out about... everything, I was so angry. And Leonard--Harold-- I'm nor making excuses. I--" She takes a breath and tries again. "I never got the chance to tell you that I don't blame you for what Dad made you do. I didn't know. And when, at the cabin... And after..." She can't even bring herself to say it. She just winces a little.

"For as long as I can remember, all that I wanted was for you guys to see me. You did. You were there for me and you were brave. And I almost killed you." Twice. It's hard to say, and Vanya finds that her eyes are welling. She had to, though. If she can't say it, she can't be better from it.

"I'm so, so sorry."

Allison breathes in and out, folding her arms to help steady herself and to keep from reaching up to touch the scar at her throat. It's faint but still there, a slight ridge of raised tissue covered up by the red and green Christmas scarf she still has on.

Being thrown into Dallas mute and hurting had made things harder, but had also helped smooth Allison's way into the life she eventually built. After fully healing she'd stayed mute as self-punishment, maybe, but it had helped her learn not to use her powers and to move on.

She'd gotten Raymond and a life because of what Vanya did, and if that twisted dynamic didn't represent the Hargreeves to a fault, then she didn't know what did.

"Thank you," Allison says, because she knows the apology is important to Vanya, and she finds that it's important to her, as well. "I never blamed you for it, Vanya. I didn't hate you, even when you ran off. I hated Leonard for manipulating you. And dad, even more. But not you."

It's funny; for years, she swore she'd hated Vanya for her book, for what now seems like something so trivial.

In all of her ordinary years she never could have counted the number of times she wanted to hear her sister say these things. When she came back to New York for their Father's funeral - a fated thing, as it turns out - things were starting to go well. She remembers Allison standing in her apartment, telling her she loved it. Vanya had expected to see the tells of dishonesty, but she meant it. It's incredible that they've been through what they've been through and done the things they've done to each other and how the thing that sticks out most in Vanya's mind is the way her face looked the first time she saw Vanya in her own space. The way that she showed up when no one else would.

"Dad was the worst," Vanya commiserates, swiping at a couple tears that have overflowed unnoticed until the slid down her face.

"Leonard" was the worst too, but she's not ready to go there. Unpacking the lifetime of shit their father had done to her - to all of them - is going to keep her plenty busy. Eventually she will have to face it, but not now. Now is about Allison and their family and mending the things that were born and forged broken.

"Thank you," Vanya says. "Everything is really scary now. I promise I'm going to learn to control my powers. I don't want to hurt anyone anymore."

Reginald was absolutely the worst, and Allison doesn't think there's a Hargreeves in the house that would disagree with that.

She smiles gently at Vanya, unsure she can even understand where her sister is coming from or what she's dealing with, but the least she can do is sympathize and help. Anything, to give Vanya the support she needs when Allison had never done so before. She has a lifetime to make up for.

"I can't even imagine," she admits, "what it's like. But we'll help you however we can. Who knows, maybe even someone else in this weird little city can. Klaus is dating a Jedi, anything is possible."

While Vanya's not totally sure what a Jedi is, it sounds bizarre (and vaguely familiar), so the point is made. The tension in Vanya is broken. She thought it was something they shared between them, but she's starting to think it was all in her head. Reality is a new thing to Vanya and she wants to learn to live in it. No matter what it takes. As long as no one is hurt and she is with her family. Five is finishing something this place started. He's giving them an honest shot at being a family. Equals.

God, she wishes the rest of their brothers could be here.

"Is it possible you'll help me decorate my room?" Vanya posits, lifting her shoulders a bit with a sweet little smile. "You saw my apartment. I need help."

Allison can feel her own tension melt away when she sees Vanya relax, pleased that there's at least one thing they've addressed that needed to be touched on. They'll need longer talks to work through the whole host of issues between them, but for now it's good enough.

"Yes," Allison says with barely concealed joy and relief. "I'll help, absolutely. I'm sure Five can bankroll us for some decorating."

For some reason, that makes her laugh. Their brother, the thirteen-year-old middle-aged man must have a credit card that says FIVE HARGREEVES at the bottom under an off-brand Mastercard logo. Their tiny, angry brother who they thought was lost to them forever, who inhales coffee and exhales condescension is going to give them a decorating budget?

"I think we should look into other financing options," Vanya murmurs, unable to keep herself from grinning. "Or aim really low." That reminds her, though: "I saw a little second-hand store not far from here. Maybe we can check it out. You could tell me whether I look better with cool tones or warm tones or... if that's all just bullshit."

The invitation had scared the shit out of Vanya. She woke up one morning on Klaus and Five's couch to a little letter slipped under their door. It occurs to her that it's not her place to look, but the letting is face-up and she sees that it may be for her, as well. To my siblings suggests so, but she's not felt like she belonged at all until very recently.

When she opens the door to her assigned apartment for the first time, the letter is there. A small, grateful smile twitches at the corner of her mouth. This is Five. He never pushed her away and she knows now that he never intentionally abandoned them. He'll never say it, but she knows that she is a part of what he missed while he was off being broken down and rebuilt by the apocalypse and the Commission.

Her hands are shaking a little when she walks up to the address. There's a part of her that is scared Reginald Hargreeves will be at the end of a walkway at that address, or that she'll find out the invitation had been sent by mistake and that her siblings will all look at her with that icy why stare she saw every day growing up.

It's a house. It's a big house - brick and huge windows and what looks like three floors. Vanya's trying to complete the picture here in the space before Five talks. Is this a reboot of the Academy? Is there something inside that Five needs their help taking on? She's too anxious for this kind of silence and the way her blood pumps into her ears she's afraid too much more uncertainty is going to blast out of her beyond her control.

It's ours. These words bump useless against the walls of her mind. She has to process it several times before she starts to understand what is happening.

"This is... for us?" Vanya asks quietly, her eyes big and curious and terrified. It's only once she pulls her eyes from the structure to see that Five's small, usually tough face is rich with an unfamiliar softness. She's stunned, gently bracketed by her other brother and sister. Klaus sounds deeply touched. Allison's voice is full of wonder. Vanya can't even imagine what words might sound like coming out of her right now.

Without any knowledge that she is doing it, Vanya launches herself the short distance between herself and Five. Her arms vault around his shoulders and she holds him tightly, willing her gratitude into him. To her, it feels like the sound of the trees rustling, the little keys jingling in their hands. It's Five's heartbeat against hers and the stunned breathing of their siblings, the sound of their shoes on the ground. There's a faint resonance that pulses out from her middle. Beneath her tightly shut eyes, she knows that her irises are white, but she is not afraid. The energy is warm and gentle - a vague sound of windchimes with a warm, pleasant breeze. Though she can't control it and has never felt anything like it, there is no fear in her. It's like the first time she played violin after the pills wore off, like the song within her and around her are finally the same melody.

Five doesn't expect to be hugged. Come to think of it, he can't remember the last time he actually was hugged at all. Not in the few weeks he was trying to stop an apocalypse-- either in 1963 or 2019-- definitely not with the Commission, and human contact wasn't exactly in abundance when he was alone for four decades.

So to say he's not sure how to process it at first is an understatement.

He's had a feeling a few times that Klaus has wanted to do something similar, but Vanya just goes for it, leaving Five with his arms plastered to his sides as he tries to remember what the hell he's even supposed to do with them. At least until the sound of the wind in the trees around them starts to swell, mixing with the tinkling of nearby windchimes. He returns the hug, wrapping his arms around his sister for a long moment.

When he finally pulls away, Five reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key and holds it out to Vanya.

"You should see the inside," he says.

As she finds Five's arms around her, the wind kicks up a stronger breeze. Though the resonance doesn't feel dark and destructive like it has before, she is still afraid of what losing control might look like in this new feeling. She shuts off the metronome of her mind. When she pulls back, she's cool-toned, hazel-eyed Vanya again, the tops of her cheeks just a touch wet. She swipes at them with her hand.

"Thank you so much, Five. This is amazing." Because she doesn't know how else to express the tidal wave of emotion, and because she's not sure what would happen if she did, she squeezes Five's shoulder and moves herself away with a final swipe at the dampness on her face.

Vanya collects her key gently from Five, then grabs him by the hand with much less care. She yanks him toward the house. "Come on. Show me everything." While they are standing in front a place she wants to explore with her brother, she does mean everything. She has so much to learn from him. They have so much to learn from each other.

Five's eyebrows go straight up when Vanya grabs his hand and pulls him forward toward the house, but he doesn't yank it away. He should have expected his siblings would be this excited about the house, but somehow he didn't think that the four of them being so scattered really bothered anyone else as much as it does him.

Five has no delusions about what happened to him in the apocalypse. He knows that long alone had an affect on him, even if he hasn't had a chance in the last few years to sit still long enough to realize it.

He just never really thought they felt the same way he did.

The door's already unlocked, so Vanya's easily able to tug him inside. It's not nearly as spacious as the Umbrella Academy mansion, the entryway splitting off into the library and sitting room almost immediately as they walk in.

"I think it used to be a boarding house," Five explains, and makes the left into the empty library. Built-in bookshelves cover the walls, but they're empty for now.

As her feet and Five's beat a path to the front door, she is clamping down the blast doors in her head as hard as she can. Vanya has felt something like this only once before: in Texas where her family took what seemed like their last stand and came out on top. Together. There was no time or space to feel anything other than triumph and relief. Here, in front of the most incredible (and maybe only) gift she's been given in her entire life, she can feel a whole cacophony of things that make her feel all kinds of ways she doesn't understand. All she can do is focus on her hand on Five's and hope that's enough to keep them all safe from any unintentional harm.

The inside of the place knocks the focus out of her. She's got her hand cupped in Five's when they reach the juncture to the library. All the way up, empty space to fill with anything they want. Anything they want. This is not the Library of Reginald Hargreeves. She is standing in what will become the Hargreeves Family Library.

"It's incredible," she breathes, mouth falling open a bit as she scans all the way up the empty rows. Her mouth shifts into a small smile as she adds, "we're going to need some ladders."

"First, we're probably going to need some books," Five says, and he looks up at the empty shelves in turn. He's bought a few books since arriving in Darrow, mostly to try to get more of a handle on just how weird the city is, but it's nothing compared to how many they had at the mansion.

Or how many he managed to gather after decades in the apocalypse.

"I used to live in a library," Five says, probably more nonchalant than he should be, "Or what was left of one, at least."

"That, too." That small smile is a full grin, now. She lets her hand drop from Five's and is pulled gravitationally toward the empty shelves.
When they were young, this is the kind of stuff they'd dream up: big rooms full of books they'd like where they could go in whenever they want and read anything they wanted. No curfew, no restrictions, no stupid rules. Then, Five was gone. Standing in that space feels like a win for the little Vanya that could have been and her brother that used to feel like her only friend in the world that got whisked off to the end of it. A certainty beats in Vanya's heart: they deserve this. All of them.

"Yeah?" Vanya asks, quietly grateful to hear anything that comes out of her brother's mouth about his life, about the things he knows. She turns to face him. "Tell me about it." The shelving is such that Vanya can tuck herself atop one of the rows, perched in an almost-sit on what she assumes is a display shelf, considering the space between it and the shelf above.

"I wandered for a long time," Five says, crossing both arms over his chest, "I guess I didn't want to settle down just in case there was anybody else... for better or worse."

Five frowns, wishing there was somewhere to sit and leaning against one of the empty shelves instead. He hasn't gone into detail about what he went through all that time he was alone, then again, there hadn't been much time to.

"I spent so much time researching, trying to learn everything I could so I could figure out how to make it home, a library just made sense."

As Five talks, Vanya pulls a leg onto the shelf and sets her head on her knee, listening. It's hard not to feel a little sad thinking of Five by himself in the rubble of a library for 40 years, looking less and less like her brother as he stands before her now. Sometimes, when Five is really tired or really melancholy, Vanya thinks she can see that old man.

"Of course," she says, watching him sideways for a little longer. "So, that's how you survived? I imagine you had to learn to grow food - how and where - and gather and filter water, right?" She wants to understand, but this isn't a cool hypothetical desert island they're talking about, and Vanya wants to approach as gently as possible.

"Not at first," he says, thinking back to those first days. Even after all this time, it's still not a time he likes to revisit. "At first there was a lot of looting stores that hadn't been destroyed, salvaging what canned goods and perishables I could. At least until everything started going bad."

He'd been so young then, and it'd taken a couple of bouts of food poisoning before he started turning to alternative means for food.

"You know that rumor about Twinkies? It's bullshit."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

December 25, 2020

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