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Luther is eighteen, almost nineteen, and he is the last of his siblings living at home. He doesn’t blame them for leaving, not anymore, but he does feel lost without them. After nearly two decades of living with six people the same age as him, it’s strange now to have only a robot and chimp for company. His father is still around, somewhere, but he never sees him, not even for training these days. No, now Luther is expected to maintain his own training regime, as well as to always be prepared for a mission, even if that means going alone.
“Mom?” He calls, wandering in the direction of the kitchen. “Can we have french toast for breakfast?”
“Really?” A voice behind him asks. He jumps, whirling around and striking out without thinking.
His hand hits nothing.
“You’ve gotten slower,” The voice announces from behind him, and this time Luther registers it as belonging to Five.
He lowers his hand and turns. “Five? What are you doing here?”
“Maybe I’m here for the company,” Five says, arching a brow.
“Oh, uh, hi? Do you want french toast?”
Five snorts. “Sure, kid. Let’s have french toast.”
They fall in step together, making their way toward the kitchen.
Luther scowls, “Who are you calling kid? We’re the same age!”
Five shrugs. “I’m an old soul. Compared to me, you’re a child.”
“Whatever,” Luther rolls his eyes, bumping shoulders with Five. His brother allows it, but it doesn’t escape Luther’s attention how tense he is as he does. How tense he always is.
They’re seated in the kitchen, watching Grace make their breakfast when Five finally speaks again. Luther had known the silence wouldn’t last long, not because Five doesn’t like silence, he prefers it actually, but because Five has always been rather socially awkward and lacks an inability to segue naturally. He can’t recall if his brother has always been this way, but he knows it’s been a problem at least since Five ran away.
“You need to move out.”
Luther sputters, spilling the orange juice he’d been pouring himself. “I’m sorry?”
Sighing, Five hands him a towel. “Luther, think about it. Do you really want to live alone in this big empty house? It would make so much more sense to just get a smaller place and make it your own. Besides, eventually you’ll want a day job and to do that you’ll need experience, so get out there and start now.”
“It’s just not feasible, Five. I know that you all moved out as soon as you could, but I never planned on doing it. I don’t have some grand scheme or a place to live already lined up.”
Five brightens considerably, “Oh, is that the only issue? I have an apartment in the city that I almost never use. As long as you don’t mind me making an occasional appearance, you can stay there until you get on your feet.”
Luther shakes his head, “I can’t ask that of you, Five.”
“Pack your bags, I’ll be here to pick you up at four.”
He watches in shock as Five jumps away, appearing over by Grace where he grabs a few fresh slices of french toast and jumps away again, this time off the premises.
When Grace brings his breakfast over to him, he’s already made a decision. After all, moving out doesn’t mean he won’t be part of the Academy, it just means he’ll be self-sufficient too.
~
When Klaus invites him to lunch out of the blue, Five doesn’t know what to expect. His brother has always been odd, even in this timeline. Klaus may have gotten sober much sooner in this timeline, but all that had done was prove that not all of his strange choices were done under the influence. Afterall, he still got his hands tattooed with ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ for no reason other than he thought it would look nice.
“Klaus,” Five greets sliding into the booth across from Klaus. They’re at Griddy’s and Five can’t help the way it sets him on edge. Even now, over sixty years old, and this place reminds him of his past. So much has happened here, both good and bad, and it always makes him a little nostalgic for the way things could have been, for the siblings he’d let down.
“Five! You came.”
“Of course I did,” Five replies and the unsaid ‘you asked me to’ hangs in the air. One day, he knows, his siblings will put together that he always takes care of them, always answers their calls for help. Until then though he’ll maintain his distance as well as he can, and keep his own propensity to help as secret as possible.
They order quickly, and Five tries not to fidget as Klaus takes his time. His brother gathers himself, preparing for what is no doubt going to be a dramatic speech.
“We are gathered here today-“
Five arches a brow. “There are literally two of us here, Klaus.”
Clearing his throat, Klaus glares at his brother. “We are gathered here today, to celebrate a milestone in my life.”
“You finally talked to the cute boy at the coffee shop?”
“What, no,” Klaus scoffs. “No, I’ve been sober five years now.”
“Oh,” Five sits up a little straighter in his seat. “Congratulations, Klaus. I didn’t realize.”
“Yeah, well. I just wanted to buy you some lunch as a thank you. This never would be happening if it weren’t for you.”
“You could have done it. Besides, it wasn’t me that did this. I only took you to rehab that one time, you were the one who checked yourself back in when you fell off the wagon.”
“Maybe,” Klaus shrugs. “But I don’t think I would’ve found the courage soon enough if you hadn’t dropped me off at rehab that first time.”
“You would have,” Five tells him, eyes dark and haunted. “It may have taken longer, but you would have gotten there.”
“You seem so sure.”
“I am. Eventually, you’d have found a reason.”
The memory of Klaus, powerful enough to channel Ben, fighting off the Commission, comes to mind. He doesn’t remember the details of how, only that Klaus had gotten clean for someone he lost in Vietnam. He was glad to see him clean, less happy about the how and why.
Klaus beams at him, “You always have such faith in us, I don’t know why we all forget how much of a softy you are.”
“Because you’re all idiots?” Five replies. He doesn’t tell Klaus that of course he has faith in them, he’s seen them at their worst, seen them destroy the entire world. The siblings he sees now could never do that, they’re in much better shape.
Klaus wrinkles his nose, “Oh, that’s why, you’re still an asshole.”
Five steals a fry off of Klaus’s plate, biting down with unnecessary force. Klaus laughs though, so Five knows it’s okay. He hasn’t misstepped, not this time.
~
When Diego graduates from the police academy, he anticipates that afterward he’ll go out for a few drinks with some people from the academy. A few guys who aren’t very fond of the idea of inviting their family, so they’ve decided to go out on their own. They aren’t exactly his favorite people, a bit dismissive of the importance of family bonds for his tastes, but beggars can’t be choosers.
What actually happens is a bit different than that. As Diego holds his hand up, ready to swear the oath, his eyes scan the audience. He hadn’t invited anyone, who he would have invited (his siblings live scattered across the country and the ones who are in the area are the ones he’s never been too close to), but he likes to see the faces in the crowd, guess who is here for who. It’s a bit of a shock, really, when his eyes fall on Vanya, beaming up at him from the audience.
He stumbles through the rest of the oath, staring at his sister in shock. Then she turns to whisper to the person behind her, and Diego realizes that she isn’t alone. Behind Vanya, hair wrapped in a dark scarf and wide sunglasses obscuring her face, is Allison. She’s trying not to draw attention to herself, he realizes, to let him and his fellow officers have their moment. There’s a warm sensation in his chest, and he smiles over towards them.
They aren’t the only ones, he realizes. All of his siblings are there, watching as his badge is pinned to his chest, clapping along with everyone else. He has no idea how they knew, but he has to admit how nice it is to see them.
With the ceremony over, he excuses himself from his classmates and makes his way over to his family.
“What are you guys doing here?” He asks, even as he hugs his sisters.
“We’re going to go get dinner,” Five tells him, “Go get your stuff.”
“Yeah, okay,” Diego agrees. He learned long ago that arguing with Five should be reserved for important matters, that way Five can’t extrapolate what he’s likely to say next time they argue and use it against him. “But what I was asking is how you knew? I didn’t tell any of you about this.”
“You didn’t?” Luther asks, brows raising. “Five told us to be here, I thought you’d just put him in charge of it.”
“Why would I put Five in charge of inviting people? If I was going to have any of you do that it would be Allison.”
“So how did you know?” Allison asks, looking to Five.
He smiles, and Diego can’t help but notice that it seems more like he’s baring his teeth than a normal smile. Five has never been much of a smiler though, so Diego doesn’t think anything of it.
“Oh, you know,” Five says. ‘“I know things.”
“Right,” Klaus claps his hands. “As creepy as that is, let’s get going now! I’m hungry.”
Diego shakes his head, “Alright, let me go grab my bag.”
He returns to the locker room, and begins to snake through the small crowds of celebration, trying to make it to his locker unseen. He really doesn’t want to be asked about his family, no matter how much he loves them, not today. Today the focus should be on the new members of the police force, not the Umbrella Academy.
He’s almost made it back to his siblings when a hand lands on his arm. “Diego!”
“Eudora,” He greets, eyes flicking over to his family, where he sees Five watching him, and then back to her. “Hey, how are you?”
“Good,” She smiles widely, “You still going out with the guys tonight, or do you wanna come to dinner with me and my family?”
“Actually, uh, I’ve got other plans. My siblings surprised me, came to graduation. We’re going to dinner ourselves.”
Eudora glances over at his gaggle of siblings, “Good. I’m glad you had someone here. Have fun, Diego.”
“You too,” He tells her, watching as she blends back into the crowd.
“Who was that?” Ben asks as Diego rejoins them.
“Just my friend Patch.”
“Patch?” Five repeats. “That a last name?”
“Yeah, Five. Most people don’t have names like you.”
“We should get going,” Vanya tells them. “People are starting to notice Allison.”
Sure enough, Diego could see the tell tale signs of Allison’s fame making an appearance. Already, people were talking amongst themselves, pointing with no sense of subtlety. He sighs, and begins to usher everyone toward the door.
“I’ll meet you there,” Five tells them, throwing car keys at Luther.
As they leave, Five approaches Patch who is chatting happily with her parents. He focuses on how he presents himself, trying to exude the role of proud brother, rather than trained assassin with trust issues. He doesn’t smile, well aware that no one finds it reassuring.
“Sorry to interrupt, but could I get a moment of your time?”
“Um, sure,” Patch agrees, waving her parents off. “You’re Diego’s brother, right?”
“That’s me,” Five agrees. He doesn’t offer his name, unsure of how much Diego has offered about their childhood and well aware of how he reacted to Vanya sharing information about it in the last timeline. Having a brother named Five would only raise questions if she wasn’t already aware of Diego’s past.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“Listen, I don’t know what Diego’s said about me, or our siblings, but I do know that he’s not the kind of person to ask for help. So I’ll do it for him. If he ever needs help, with anything, I don’t care if it’s backup in a situation that’s gone bad, or if he just needs someone to talk to, just let me know and I’ll take care of the rest.” He hands her a card, one of the few he has on his person, knowing that it’ll raise more questions than it answers. The smooth cardstock is a glaring white, emblazoned with only his number and a few words: Commission Chair.
“Umm, sure,” Patch agrees. “But we watch out for our own, he’ll be okay.”
“Yes,” Five agrees. “He will be. Oh, and do me a favor, don’t tell Diego about this conversation.”
Patch blinks, and when she opens her eyes, Five is gone.
~
“He said he was coming, right?”
“No, Luther,” Allison snaps, “I chose to have someone who told me they weren’t coming walk me down the aisle. Of course he said he was coming!”
“Okay,” Luther says, raiding his hands in defeat and stepping back. “Vanya, your turn.”
Rolling her eyes, Vanya approaches. “Just ignore him. If Five said he would be here then he will be, he never breaks a promise. Besides, this is just the rehearsal dinner, you know he wouldn’t miss the actual wedding.”
“No, but what if he misses the rehearsal and doesn’t know what to do tomorrow!”
“I would know,” Five’s voice breaks through the chaos as he strolls toward them. “I’ve been to weddings before. Sorry i’m late though.”
“Who’s wedding?” Klaus wonders, speaking at the same time as Allison.
“Oh, thank god. Where were you?”
Five shrugs. “Just some people I met. And I had to take care of some business before I came, in order to make sure I’m not disturbed during the important parts of the wedding.”
“You mean you couldn’t just ask your boss for the days off?” Ben asks, crossing his arms.
“No,” Five snorts. “Not really. Now, I should be good until after the wedding though.”
“Okay” Allison breathes, “Okay, let’s get started then.”
As Allison begins to direct people to their places, eager to begin, Diego makes his way over to where Five stands, waiting for his cue. He watches his brother for a moment, trying to decide how best to broach the topic.
Eventually, he decides to just face the topic head on. “Five.”
“Diego.”
“There’s blood on your sleeve.”
“Oh,” Five looks down at the aforementioned garment and frowns. Then, he begins the process of rolling his cuffs at just the right angle to hide it, but also look natural. “Thanks, Diego.”
“Anytime,” Diego tells him. “What’s it from though?”
Five smiles. “Just a few people who were a little interested in Allison’s wedding.”
“Damn paparazzi,” Diego sympathizes.
And time rolls on.
The rehearsal portion of the night goes well, so well that Allison actually relaxes enough to socialize normally. It’s the dinner part of the evening that Five struggles with. Allison has opted for a simple garden party style for her dinner, and as such Five has been left to roam amongst the other guests rather than being seated at a family specific table. He tries to stay close to Ben originally, thinking that he’s the most responsible choice, but he quickly gives up on that idea when Ben opts to go introduce himself to all of the groomsmen. Klaus is also far too social to be around, Vanya is doing Maid of Honor activities, Luther and Diego are invested in some kind of party game, and so Five allows himself to reside beside the lemonade, watching the festivities.
He regrets it when a bridesmaid in a light blue dress approaches him.
“Hi,” She smiles, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You’re Allison’s brother, right? Five?”
“That’s me,” He confirms, hand repositioning itself so that if need be he can grab the nearby wine glass. It won’t be the most efficient, but he can easily break off the base and leave only the sharp stem.
“I’m Aliison’s friend Marilynn. She told me to keep an eye out for you.”
“Why?” Five asks. Was she asking about him? Trying to hunt him down and using Allison as a source of information. Old Commission sympathizers still do exist, it’s possible that she’s one of them, come to kill him while his guard is down.
“Acting is only part time for me,” She confesses. “I’m actually an astrophysics student, she said you might want to talk shop.”
His hand falls back to his side. “Oh, yeah, sure. What are you working on right now?”
The following conversation regarding wormholes is one of the most interesting ones he’s had since the apocalypse. He excuses himself as soon as the thought enters his mind, a pang of loss shooting through him. It's been years since he’s seen Delores, but it still feels wrong, standing here without her and enjoying himself. She would have loved this, loved to see Allison get married, to watch his siblings grow up. But she didn’t exist, not yet. He'd been to Gimble’s when he first arrived, looked for her, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Breaking away from the party, Five finds himself staring out over the pond about thirty feet away from the main gazebo.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing here. Not really. Yes, Allison had asked him to walk her down the aisle, claiming that it had to be him or Ben, who is reluctant to be in anything that could allow people to link him to the Umbrella Academy, but he isn’t sure what he’s doing outside of that. He has nothing in common with his siblings, not anymore. He’s old, in his mid sixties, if his calculations are right, while his siblings are in their twenties. He doesn’t know how to talk to them, how to be around them, and he has to wonder if it wouldn’t be better if he just let them be, let them take care of themselves. The apocalypse is gone, there’s nothing left for him.
“Hey,” a voice cuts through his inner monologue, and he turns quickly, crouching slightly so that, if need be, he can leap into action.
It’s Patrick, Allison’s fiance.
“Patrick,” Five raises an eyebrow. “What brings you over here?”
He shrugs. “I just noticed that you were alone over here, and you’re the only one of my new siblings that I haven’t met yet. Figured I would come introduce myself, not that you seemed to need it.”
“I’m not one for small talk so I’ll go ahead and say this now.” Five jumps forward, grabbing Patrick by the tie and pulling him in close enough to growl in his face. He’s well aware that he looks unhinged right now, he generally does when he isn’t making an effort to hide it. “I would do anything for Allison, for all of my siblings, so if I ever, ever hear about you hurting her, you won’t like my reaction. I’m not afraid to hurt you, Patrick, but I’d prefer if you didn’t make me.”
Then Five releases his tie and steps away, brushing at the shoulder of his suit as it settles back into place. “See you at the wedding, Patrick.”
When Five jumps away, Patrick is still wide eyed and fearful. Good.
~
Arriving at the Academy, he’s not surprised to find it virtually empty. His siblings have been gone for years, he made sure of that. He’d done it for their own sake, but now it works in his favor. He stalks through the halls of the Academy, avoiding the areas he knows Grace and Pogo tend to linger. He cannot afford to deal with them right now, not when they would see the rage in his eyes and try to delay him.
He throws the doors to Reginald’s study open, and makes eye contact with the man behind the desk.
“Number Five,” Reginald greets him. “What brings you to the academy today?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Reginald doesn’t speak, simply raising his brow.
“I saw your mole, at Allison’s wedding. Why are you still watching us, Reginald? The Umbrella Academy is gone, dead. We’ll never come back to you.”
“Maybe not,” Reginald shrugs. “Perhaps I just want to be sure my children are well.”
Five scoffs. “Please, if you cared about that you never would have adopted us. Look, I don’t care about your reasoning. You’re going to stop monitoring us.”
“I don’t think so,” Reginald says, standing and making his way around the desk. “You see, I know exactly what you’re scared of, Number Five, and if you ever come back into my home and try to threaten me again, I’ll make sure you face it. Do you think your siblings would still love you, if they knew what you’d done? Do you think they’d trust you, if they knew how long you’ve lied to them?”
Five clenches his fist, maintaining eye contact. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“No, I rather think it does.”
Five nods, once, twice. “If that’s how you want to play it.”
Then he jumps, promising himself to take care of the issue sooner rather than later.
~
The phone buzzes, and Five glances over to it. The only people that have his number are his siblings, Dot, and Herb, meaning that whatever it is will be important in one way or another. Sighing, he sets his coffee down and reaches for it, hoping that he’ll at least be able to finish his drink this time.
It’s from Vanya: Hey 5, can u make my next concert? A week from tomorrow, 5 pm, usual place
He shoots back a quick confirmation before sending his other siblings the necessary information. He isn’t sure they were really invited, but, well, he remembers what happens when Vanya feels lonely and unseen, he won’t let it happen again.
He finishes his coffee, a smile on his face.
The concert itself is Vanya’s first in the position of First Chair. It doesn’t mean anything to him, and he knows his siblings don’t understand it either, but he encourages them all to bring her a different bouquet of flowers in celebration, and the way she beams as they hand them over seems to say that he’s done something right.
“Dinner?” Vanya asks, linking her arm through his.
“Already on it,” Ben replies. “We have reservations.”
The seven of them, and god that’s still a novelty to Five, all seven of them together and alive, make their way to an Italian place a block away. Five had left the reservations up to Allison, but now, looking at the menu, he regrets that.
Everything is some kind of bread or carb, or something unpalatable. Even now, years after escaping the apocalypse, it haunts him. He cannot bring himself to eat foods that would go bad too quickly, for fear of mood or deadly bacteria hidden within.
So, he compromises, ordering kids sized risotto. Rice has never turned against him, in fact it had saved his life many a time, with large twenty pound bags lasting nearly thirty years. The fact that the rice is combined with other stuff is a problem, but he’ll simply eat as little as possible and move on.
Conversation runs rampant as they wait on their meals, and Five can’t help but relax into it. He’ll never grow used to this, to the comfort of being surrounded by them all, no apocalypse looming over his shoulder. He listens to them, the corners of his mouth quirking up as he is confronted with just how young and unjaded they are. He’s glad to see them like this, glad he made a difference. He only wishes it hadn’t been at the expense of the other versions of them.
The food arrives, and Five stares at it, thinking of cockroaches and mold and twinkies that don’t last forever. He closes his eyes and remembers the fever wracking through his body, the sensation of food poisoning and a fear of eating intertwining with a fear of starving.
He sets the spoon down. His stomach growls.
“Thank you guys for coming,” Vanya is saying. “It means a lot, more than you’ll ever know.”
“Thank Five,” Luther tells her. “He told us about it.”
Five nods and, with his siblings eyes on him, takes a bite of his dinner.
The conversation turns to Klaus’s time at cosmetology school, and how he’s enjoying learning how to cut and style hair. It suits him, Five thinks, better than how he has lived last time. Listening to Klaus casually mention banishing a ghost merely confirms it, his siblings are thriving. He’s the only one struggling, and, if he’s honest with himself, that was always bound to happen, no matter which timeline he landed in.
He’s three bites into his risotto, his family is nearly done with their meals, when his phone rings. The sound cuts through the chatter around the table, and Five pulls it out of his pocket, well aware that six of eight people with his number are currently seated before him. Dot. The name on his screen flashes as the shrill sound continues.
“I’ve got to take this.” Five announces, throwing cash down on the table and shoving his chair back. “See you around.”
“You aren’t coming back?” Diego calls after him.
He waves a hand, shaking his head, and picks up the phone. He’s got a job to do.
~
“What is it?” Five asks, jumping directly into the Infinite Switchboard Room.
Herb and Dot are waiting for him, with the former stepping up in order to gesture at the screen. “It’s started. Reginald has found another one of the forty-three.”
Five runs a hand through his hair. “Shit, which one?”
“Carla, the healer.”
“Has he reached her yet?”
“No,” Dot answers. “He’s making plans now, though I’m not quite sure what he expects to happen if he just shows up on her doorstep.”
“I imagine that he won’t give her too much of a choice,” Five says darkly. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
Herb nods, once, twice. “We know you will, Number Five. You always do.”
~
Ben, being a mature adult, invites all of his siblings when he graduates from grad school. A smile curls Five’s lips as he looks down at the text, sent in a newly created group chat, and realizes that for once, his siblings are reaching out for one another. He deletes the draft message in his notes, the one he’d have sent out tomorrow if Ben hadn’t mentioned it today, and cheers that he doesn’t have to once again reveal just how closely he watches his sibling’s actions.
The graduation itself is boring, but Five doesn’t mind. Boring is good, it means that there isn’t any danger, no apocalypse to avert, no food to scavenge for, and, for now, no targets to kill. What’s concerning is what comes after graduation. Luther suggests a bar, a thought that Five shoots down immediately, eyes flicking to Klaus and back. He wonders if Luther is actually that insensitive, or if perhaps his brother doesn’t know. Klaus has never been one to talk about his problems, talk yes, but never about anything of substance, so it seems unlikely that he’d have ever mentioned it. Five hasn’t.
“No,” Klaus says, shaking out his hair. “A bar sounds good. Let’s go.”
Five frowns. “No! I refuse.”
“Why?” Diego asks. “I know you drink, I’ve seen you suck down a whole bottle of tequila by yourself.”
“Exactly,” Five agrees. “That’s why I’m taking a break from drinking.”
“Oh,” Vanya says, soft. “I’m so sorry, Five. We didn’t realize.”
He shrugs, glancing at Klaus. “It’s not a big deal. Just something I’m trying out.”
In the end, they decide on ice cream rather than drinks.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Klaus tells him, bumping shoulders with Five as they walk down the street.
“I know,” Five informs him. “I chose to. If you don’t want them to know, that’s fine, I won’t make you tell them, but don’t put yourself in a bad situation. They’d understand, Klaus.”
Five doesn’t mention that the only reason they’d understand is because they never saw the ugly side of things. It’s a lot easier to forgive addiction, to be supportive and loving when one only has to acknowledge it as a past problem rather than to deal with the addictions and relapses as his siblings had in the other timeline.
“Maybe,” Klaus tells him, “But not today. Today is about Ben.”
A smile creeps onto Five’s face. “Yeah, it is. He made it to graduation.”
“Did you think he couldn’t? Our Benny boy? He’s too smart not to.”
“No,” Five answers. “Once he got out of the Academy, I never doubted him.”
~
The good thing about being a time-traveling assassin, particularly one that has a reputation like his, is that it is remarkably easy to get your hands on drugs or poison. It is even easier when you run the place providing the poison.
Succinylcholine, or Sux as it’s called, is a paralytic typically used by medical professionals for procedures like intubation. The syringe that Five has grasped in his fist is for something far more nefarious.
Sneaking into the Academy is easy given his powers, as is jumping directly into Reginald’s room. The man is laying in bed, fast asleep, just as Five had planned. Reginald had always been punctual, following his schedule to a T.
Killing him is easy. Five has killed a lot of people, many of them far less deserving of death than Reginald. In the end, he slides the needle into the crook of Reginald's arm and watches as his body freezes, lungs inoperable. He stays long enough to confirm that man is dead, and then leaves with no regrets.
~
They stand in the courtyard, under the tree, and Luther tips the urn filled with Reginald’s ashes. This time, a gust of wind picks them up, spreading them out, but Five can’t help but think fondly of the last time he was at this funeral. It had gone poorly, yes, but it had allowed him to see his siblings, alive and well rather than the cold corpses he had associated with them for so long.
Once again, Pogo steps up in the silence. “Would anyone care to say a few words?”
“I will,” Five offers before any of his siblings can. He’d like to avoid unnecessary tension for now, particularly given that Luther and Diego still argue every time they see each other in every timeline.
“Go ahead.”
Five clears his throat, conscious of the fact that all of his siblings have their eyes on him. He’s never been one for speeches, and if he’s honest with himself, he never will be. Forty plus years in the apocalypse, particularly given that they were formative years, can never be erased.
“Reginald has never been someone I am fond of, but he certainly has shaped our lives. He was an abusive, spiteful old man, one who couldn’t let go of the past, but we are stronger for it. We are who we are in spite of Reginald, so I guess he did one thing right in his life. He brought us together.”
There's a moment of silence, before Pogo speaks again. “Right. Well, thank you, Five.”
The funeral breaks up soon enough, but Five remains, staring down at Reginald’s ashes. “Sorry old man, but I couldn’t have you bringing about the apocalypse. Who knows how many of the forty-eight you could have found.”
~
Being summoned for a reading of Reginald’s will is unexpected. Five doesn’t remember one happening last time, though he had been distracted by the impending apocalypse so it’s possible that the notice had been sent out. He’d also been missing for almost two decades at that point, so Reginald would have had no reason to include him. Still, nothing about the situation is particularly alarming, so Five agrees to attend.
His siblings greet him as he enters the conference room, last to arrive as usual, and he nods at them, dropping into the remaining seat. Pogo stands at the front of the room, will in hand, and Grace besides him.
“Welcome, everyone. I have yet to read the will, I chose to wait for you all instead, and as such, copies of it will not be sent to probate until after today.”
“So when should we expect our cut?” Klaus asks, waggling his eyebrows.
Ben snorts, “If we get a cut.”
“It should be within the next few months,” Pogo assures him. “Are you all ready to begin?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Luther says with a tight smile.
“Very well.”
Pogo unseals a large manilla envelope and gently removes the contents. His eyes scan the paper, and Five watches with rapt attention as the chimp’s brows climb his face. He clears his throat.
“To my children, Numbers One, Two, Three, Four, Six, and Seven, otherwise known as Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, and Vanya Hargreeves, I leave the entirety of my estate, divided equally among them.
To Number Five Hargreeves I leave this: nothing. Nothing that I possess shall be given to him.”
Diego whistles, “I knew he didn’t like you, but I didn’t realize he actually liked us more.”
Five can’t help but snort at that. The old man had never cared for him, but he hadn’t expected him to lash out like this. It isn’t an issue, not at all, Five still has his retirement from the Commission, as well as the benefits from what he does now.
“What?” Allison exclaims. “He can’t do that, Five is one of us.”
Five shakes his head, “Don’t worry about it, I really don’t need his money.”
“It’s not about need,” Vanya argues. “You may be fine, but that doesn’t change the fact that Dad is withholding enough money to keep you from ever working a day in your life.”
“Trust me,” Five tells her. “If I wanted to live like that, I could. I like to be busy. Speaking of, I’ve got to go. Let me know if you need anything.”
With that, he jumps.
“I don’t understand,” Klaus says. “How can he not be thinking about the money? Dad was loaded.”
“I think he may be pretty well off,” Luther offers. “Back when I moved out, he could afford to pay for my apartment as well as wherever he lived. We were only eighteen too, so I can only imagine that he’s made more money.”
Ben frowns, “What does Five even do?”
Grace smiles at her children. “From what he has told me, Number Five works with those who need help moving on, perhaps after some kind of trauma?”
“Like a social worker?” Diego wonders.
“I’m unable to confirm,” Grace shrugs. “Five has never relayed that information to me.”
“It just seems a little out of character,” Vanya muses. “I always thought he’d be a physicist or something.”
“He does like to subvert expectations,” Klaus mutters.
“It doesn't matter,” Allison cries. “What matters is that Dad didn’t include Five in the will!”
“I’m sorry, Allison.” Pogo says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing to be done. We can’t argue against it, not when it was so explicit.”
~
The reading of the will is too good of an opportunity to pass up, and so, when he jumps away from Allison’s outrage, he wills himself to appear in Reginald’s office. He can’t afford to allow any of Reginald’s notes to emerge from this room, not after Harold. Instead, he sets to work destroying everything.
He works systematically, starting with the series of leatherbound notebooks that Reginald has kept on them since they first began presenting with powers. There are pages and pages of notes, all of which Five pours into a nearby trash can. He takes the trash can with him for the next portion of his work, disposing of the files located within Reginald’s desk. He doesn’t bother to look at them; he’s not sure he wants to know what Reginald thought of his siblings. While at the desk, he accesses the computer, completely wiping the files on it.
Paper threats disposed of, Five looks around the office. He’s sure that there are things in here that he doesn’t want his siblings to see, and see it they will as the new owners of everything here. His eyes roam about the room, stopping on one display on the wall. A hammer and a broken drill bit.
“Well, well, well, why would you keep this?” Five wonders, reaching up to remove it from the wall. He isn’t sure why Reginald would keep the weapons from when he first revealed himself, but he would rather not leave them for his siblings to wonder about. Better for them to wonder about the disappearance of his belongings, papers and all, than to read some of what Reginald has no doubt committed to paper. Afterall, Five can guide them along in the assumption that Reginald had arranged for his notes to be disposed of. It’s the kind of thing he would do.
Trash can in hand, Five jumps home, happily thinking about how best to burn what he stole.
~
When his phone rings, he almost jumps. He’s standing with Herb and Dot, and his siblings generally prefer text over phone, so the only reason that could explain a phone call is bad news. Panic growing, he glances at his caller ID: Allison.
He lifts a hand in farewell, and jumps away from Herb and Dot, directly into Allison’s living room where he lands in a crouch, prepared to fight.
There’s no one there, so he creeps through the hallways, flattening against the wall when he hears voices in the kitchen.
“He isn’t picking up.” Allison. She sounds fine.
He rounds the corner.
“You’re okay?”
Allison and Patrick both jump at his voice, the former grabbing a nearby knife and brandishing it at him.
“Shit. Five! You scared me.”
“Sorry,” Five shrugs. “You called me; I assumed you were in danger.”
“Danger? Wha- no. I was calling for something else.”
“Oh?”
A smile breaks out on her face, and Allison intertwines her fingers with Patrick’s. “Patrick and I have news. I’m pregnant!”
Oh. Five does some simple math only to realize that yes, Claire’s birth is approaching. He’d forgotten, having never been able to see her before.
“Congratulations,” Five tells her. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Oh, well, we don’t actually know the gender yet. I think it’ll be a boy though.”
“No, mark my words; you’re having a girl.”
~
He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten. All these years spent changing the future, watching his siblings backs, and he had managed to forget the things that bring them joy. He forgot he had a niece. If he can forget that, a whole person, what else has he forgotten. What else can go wrong?
He picks up a bottle of whiskey, and begins to drink. There’s no Delores, not anymore. No one to stop him.
He drinks, and drinks, and drinks.
~
When Claire is born, all six of Allison’s siblings are huddled in the hospital waiting room. When they’re allowed to visit her, Five jumps ahead of everyone else, determined to be the first to see her. He has a lot of time to make up for. Besides, he’s older than all of them, and he will exercise his seniority, even if they don’t know about it.
“Do you want to hold her?” Allison asks, and Five takes Claire, gently cradling her in his arms.
He’s never held a child before, not in his seventy plus years of life. It’s terrifying, in a way. He hasn’t been gentle in years, his hands used for killing and torturing, doing dirty work. He doesn't quite know how to use them for affection.
“Support her head,” Patrick tells him, and Five corrects his grip as quickly as he can.
When his other siblings reach them, Five is happy to pass his niece off to Ben. He loves her, he does, and he’ll protect her like he does his siblings, but he isn’t quite comfortable around her. Not yet. She’s fragile, breakable.
Delores would remind him that their relationship was gentle, loving, but Delores isn’t there.
He watches his siblings take turns holding Claire, and sidles up to Allison whole they’re all busy cooing over their niece. Patrick is supervising them, so Five feels as safe as he ever will to take Allison’s hand.
“She’s beautiful.”
Allison beams, “Thank you.”
Five hesitates, lips turning down in a frown. “You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but I have to say it. I don’t think it’ll be an issue, not this time, but I can’t be sure.”
“I’m sorry?” Allison responds. “What won’t be an issue?”
“You haven’t used your rumors for personal gain in a long time, but, Allison, kids are hard. You’re going to be tempted, gonna want to rumor Claire into going to bed, or being quiet. Don’t do it. You’ll regret it, and you’ll lose her and Patrick.”
“I wouldn’t do that!” Allison responds, her voice a hushed whisper.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t.”
~
The thing is that Klaus has pretty good control over his powers. He had started training fresh out of rehab the first time, and never really stopped. He trains everyday, because unlike his siblings abilities, his requires effort not to use. Keeping ghosts away everyday is an act of effort, something he had to work up to, and something he sometimes needs a break from. He gets tired.
He’s taking one of these breaks, relaxing in his apartment, one specially chosen on account of the fact no one has ever died in or near it, and he isn’t exorcising the ghosts. He doesn’t need to, not now. He saves that for when he leaves the apartment.
So it’s a bit of a surprise when Five, who he’s never given his address to, appears in his kitchen, surrounded by a swarm of ghosts.
Klaus yelps.
There’s probably about twelve ghosts, all of various dress and appearance. It isn’t a lot, all things considered, but seeing as how he’s never seen a ghost here before and that means they must be following Five, it’s far too many for comfort. He can’t see any one thing that could connect them all, not when there’s everything from a little boy dressed like he belongs in the forties to a grown woman in an elaborate gown, one that screams sixteenth century nobility.
“Sorry to burst in on you like this,” Five tells him. “I needed a place to wait for a few hours. My meeting got delayed.”
“Right,” Klaus says, eyes flickering from ghost to ghost. “And what was your meeting for?”
“Nothing fun, just work,” Five shrugs, grabbing an apple from the basket on Klaus’s counter. There’s a pause, Five watching Klaus. “What are you looking at?”
“There’s ghosts here.”
Five frowns. “I thought that you could exorcise ghosts now, that you hadn’t seen them in ages.”
A ghost, this one a middle aged man with army fatigues and dog tags hanging around his neck, looks over at Klaus. Their eyes meet, and the ghost reaches out to him, eyes pleading.
“I haven’t, but I was taking a break. I didn’t expect there to be any ghosts here-”
Before he can even close his mouth, Five, and the ghosts, are gone.
~
“I’m worried about Five,” Klaus whispers to Ben. He knows he should be focusing, afterall, it’s his job to ensure that the museum’s new exhibit is set up properly, but Ben was here on a field trip with his students, and Klaus couldn’t resist.
Ben arches a brow. “Aren’t we all? The man has no social skills.”
“No,” Klaus hisses. “Not like that. Not this time. Ben, I saw him the other day and he had a whole swarm of ghosts surrounding him.”
“Wait, what?” Ben bites his lip. “Did you find out why?”
“No, but I think one of the ghosts wanted to talk to me. I was going to try and summon him later.”
“Later? No, do it now!”
Klaus looks around. “I’m at work, Ben.”
“So am I! But Five could be in danger.”
“Fine,” Klaus bites out, dropping his shields.
There are ghosts all around, of course, they’re in a museum and most of the artifacts can’t be considered conflict free. Klaus ignores them, focusing on the man he’d seen when he last saw Five. He pictures him in his mind’s eye, and pulls on his internal well of power, focusing on his intense desire for the man to appear before him.
When he opens his eyes, the ghost is before him. Glancing around, Klaus makes sure no one is looking, before he makes the ghost visible. Ben jumps, not expecting it, before looking at Klaus.
“This is the one?”
Klaus nods, dry swallowing. He’s still nervous around ghosts, even after years of therapy and degrees of separation.
“You were with our brother, Five,” Ben says. “Why?”
“No,” the ghost replies. He steps back. “No, I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“According to who?” Klaus asks. “And why would you listen to them? You’re dead. They have no control over you.”
“He’s Number Five! You think he cares about things like life and death. You told him we were there, and now he knows about us. He told us what he’ll do to us if we talk to you.”
“And you believe him?” Ben wonders. “You actually think he can touch you after death?”
“I’ve seen him at work. I know he can.”
“But-”
A child tramps through the ghost, and he disperses, as if he was never there.
~
They don’t all live in the same area, so it’s strange for all of them except for Five, to be in the same room. Allison has brought Patrick and Claire along, and her siblings coo over her daughter and chat with her husband as she looks around the room. They’d kept the academy for family gatherings, as it was the only place large enough to fit all seven of them and any potential partners they may have. Not to mention that Mom and Pogo needed a place to live, where else could an android and a chimp go.
“That’s everyone,” Diego announces as Luther ducks into the room. “What’s going on, Klaus?”
“Ben and I are worried about Five!”
Ben sighs, stepping toward the front of the room. “Here’s the thing, Five is followed by ghosts, and they’re terrified of him. Klaus and I spoke to one of them, and he basically told us he's still scared of what Five could do to him.”
“Maybe Five killed him,” Patrick suggests. “That would explain the fear and why the ghost was linked to Five.”
“No, Five wouldn’t kill anyone.” Vanya objects.
She’s met with silence.
“Seriously? Come on guys, Five is a bit rough around the edges, sure, but he’s a good guy.”
“He is,” Allison agrees. “But V, you have to remember that we started fighting crime when we were really young, and Five, he was different after he ran away. Do you remember that robber that killed himself on Five’s knife? He wasn’t even phased by it.”
“To be fair,” Luther starts, “Being desensitized doesn’t mean that he would kill a man.”
Diego tugs at his earlobe. “No, but the sheer number of times I’ve seen him with bloodstained clothes might mean that.”
“Well the ghost can’t be that,” Klaus shakes his head. “There are other ghosts too, ones that are obviously not from this time period. It wouldn’t make sense.”
“Unless Five finally figured out time travel,” Ben suggests.
Luther shakes his head. “Listen, I could believe that Five had killed someone, but I really don’t think he’s some kind of… time traveling serial killer.”
“Look, your brother is… intense,” Patrick informs them. “But the only time I’ve seen him looking murderous was when he threatened me before I married Allison. I don’t think he’s killing people unless it’s to protect you.”
“I’m sorry,” Allison crosses her arms. “Five did what?”
“We’re getting off track!” Vanya interrupts. “The whole point of this meeting is because we’re worried about Five.”
“Five has always been different,” Diego says. “We’ve always respected that before. Are we really going to start asking questions now?”
“Yes,” Ben says. “We are. It isn’t a matter or privacy anymore, it’s a matter of safety.”
“Okay, then.” Klaus claps his hands together. “Where do we start?”
Silence. Despite their commitment to figuring out what is going on, none of them wants to be the first to break Five’s trust.
Luther sighs, standing, “If we’re doing this, we should start from the beginning. Five has been strange since we were kids, he’s known things the rest of us don't. We need to figure out what and theorize from there.”
“Five was the one to figure out I have powers?” Vanya offers and Luther strides over to a chalkboard, writing that down.
Patrick speaks next. “He took me shooting one time, Allison told me after that you guys didn’t use guns as kids, but Five was good at it. Well practiced.”
“He fixed my first car,” Klaus tells them. “Not like, a flat tire, but real mechanic work. I’d never seen him even read about cars before.”
Eyes flicking over to Patrick, Allison sighs. “He knew Claire’s name before either of us actually told him.”
“He knew how to hem clothes, back when we were teens. I didn’t want to ask mom to fix my uniform and he taught me how to sew so I didn’t have to bother her.” Diego frowns. “I don’t know who taught him, but it wasn’t mom. I asked her later.”
Ben bites his lip. “He’s weird about food too. You can’t throw anything out if he’s there. He’ll either take it for himself or make you save it.”
Luther adds it to the list, and everyone stops for a moment, to look it over.
“Okay, that isn’t helpful at all,” Luther admits. “But it does seem to point to one thing, none of us really know anything about Five. So that should be where we start. We need to get to know our brother.”
~
Five has never been to therapy. It’s never been an option. Reginald didn’t let him and his siblings talk to anyone except the press, and those conversations had been carefully planned. After the apocalypse, he’d gone straight to the Commission and he wouldn’t rust the shrinks there as far as he could throw them. Now, his body is forty-five years too young for the amount of trauma he has, and he could never explain what he’s experienced to anyone outside of the Commission because it never happened. So no, Five has never been to therapy.
Now, as Allison chatters along about Patrick on the other side of the phone, Five wishes that perhaps he had. She sounds in love. Really, really in love, in a way that he had never heard in the last time line. He misses that, and he hates that he’ll never have it again. Delores was it for him. Delores was it, and he’ll never have her again. Not when this version of her has never known him.
He hangs up the phone.
Staring at the ceiling is not a coping mechanism. He knows this. He does it anyway.
Time is passing. He knows this. Time is always passing and he can always feel it. The seconds tick away against his skin, his to young skin, reminding him of his true age. He’s lived too long. He knows this.
If he still had his original body, he’d be dead. The ash and smoke and rough treatment of the apocalypse would never have allowed him to grow quite so old. He was lucky to make it to fifty-eight in his original body.
He wishes he had his original body.
~
“Do you live in town?” Vanya asks Five over her coffee. They’re sitting at a bench in the park, watching the geese in the pond. “I mean, you’re usually here when I ask to meet up, but you’re also always there when Allison asks you to be and she lives on the other side of the country.”
“I’m a man of many talents.” Five replies. “And there’s nothing stopping me from travelling.”
“Right, but where do you live? We’ve been out of the academy for about a decade, and I’ve never even heard you mention where you live.”
Five raises an eyebrow. “Why does it matter? It’s not relevant to what we typically talk about.”
“That’s fair, but now it seems like you’re avoiding the question.”
“No, just trying to understand where this is coming from.”
Vanya glares. “You just did it again, answer the question!”
Five sets his coffee down on the bench beside him, looking at Vanya assessingly. “This is important to you, huh?”
She folds her arms. “It is.”
“Okay then, I live in town.”
“And?”
“And what?” Five asks. “I told you what you asked for. I respected your wishes, now you can respect my privacy.”
He stands, crumpling his cup and throwing it in the nearby garbage.
“I’ll see you around, Vanya.”
~
Herb is not fond of Number Five. He respects him, respects him more than anyone else he knows, but he doesn’t like him. Number Five scares him. He knows everything Five has ever done, knows exactly what he’s willing to do in order to keep his family alive and well, and that terrifies him.
Five is the reason he has what he has. The reason he and Dot run the commission, and so Herb is always willing to tell him what he needs to know, to give him the missions he wants, and pay him his retirement. He never asks about the briefcase Number Five stole years ago, and he’ll gladly give him a new one if asked. Not that Five needs one now, not with how much he’s honed his power.
Dot, he knows, feels differently about Number Five. She fears him, yes, respects him too, but she also pities him. She looks at how separated he is, how he has no one except himself, and she regrets leaving him to rot in an apocalyptic wasteland for so long.
Herb doesn’t. He knows that wasteland is the only reason that Five was able to change his siblings lives for the better. He knows Five would never surrender it.
He watches on the Infinite Switchboard, this timeline and the last. No, Five would never give up his time in the apocalypse, not when it has saved his siblings from themselves.
~
They’re at the gym together. Luther had asked and Five, for all his grumbling, had done what he always does when asked by a sibling to do something, and given in. He doesn’t regret it, he never regrets making his siblings happy, but he isn’t quite enjoying himself either.
“You know, we don’t exactly do the same kind of workouts, why did you need a partner today?”
“I wanted company, and Diego had a shift.” Luther tells him, “And actually, I didn’t know we favored different kinds of workouts. I knew we wouldn’t be doing the same weights or anything, but you’ve never mentioned any kind of workout routine. You don’t like to talk about yourself.”
Five frowns. “Maybe I just don’t like to work out.”
“Maybe,” Luther purses his lips. “You do anyway though, I can see that you're in shape. Hell, I can tell even when you're in one of those suits you always wear.”
“I stay healthy.”
“Whatever,” Luther rolls his eyes, and gestures at Five to keep lifting his weights. Luther is spotting, not that Five has needed him. “Why do you always wear those suits anyway?”
“What else would I wear?”
“Normal clothes, casual stuff. I get it if you wear a suit to work, but why anywhere else?”
“I’ve just always worn them; why have work clothes and other clothes?”
“Comfort,” Luther suggests. “Besides, where do you even work?”
Five gives a tight lipped smile, setting his weights down. “I don’t like to mix work and family.”
“Okay,” Luther replies, stretching out the o. “You don’t need to tell me where, but at least let me know what you do?”
Five’s lips twist. “I work with the disadvantaged.”
“As like, a social worker? Wait, but you’d need a college degree. Did you go to college without any of us knowing?”
“I do a lot of things without you knowing,” Five bites out before jumping away.
~
“I’ve got to go get Patrick from the airport, can you give Claire her bedtime story?”
Five looks up from his newspaper. “I’m sorry?”
“Can you tell her a story? Patrick’s plane was early.”
“You want to leave me alone with her… while she’s awake.”
Allison taps her foot, looking down at her watch. “Yeah, Five. Can you do it?”
“I’ll go get Patrick for you.”
“No, Five, I don’t need you to get him, I just want you to read to Claire and then she’ll go to bed.”
“I can’t do that,” Five informs her. “Tell Patrick I’ll be waiting for him in the arrivals area.”
When he jumps away, Allison throws her hands in the air before stalking off to Claire’s room. It isn’t that she minds putting her daughter to bed, she loves Claire and Claire loves her stories. She’d simply been looking forward to the car ride alone with her husband, not to mention having Five actually get to know Claire. Every time he visits he gushes over her, or well, as much as Five ever gushes, but he never spends time alone with her. She’d wanted to change that, but instead she’d driven her stubborn brother away.
She tells Claire a new story that night, one about a boy with six siblings.
“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He grew up loved, not by his parents, but loved nonetheless. He had six siblings, and all of them had special powers. The boy, we’ll call him Cinco, could be wherever he wanted when he wanted, and he always took advantage of this power. Sometimes, it made his siblings angry, and he couldn’t see quite how much they loved him. That’s what drove him away. He was so determined to learn more about his powers, so separated from his family, that one day, he ran away to try and learn more.
He was gone for a long time, and when he came back, he was different. He has lost his ability to trust, but he had also learned a little bit about love. He didn’t open up to his family, not about his life, but he taught them how to love better. He taught all of them to open up and how to live, even though it seemed to cost him something.”
When Five comes back with Patrick, Allison is standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of wine. She greets her husband with a smile and a kiss, before asking to speak to Five privately.
“Do you not like Claire? Is that why you won’t spend time with her?”
“I-” Five blinks. “What? No.”
“What is it then? Do you hate kids?”
“Of course not,” Five runs a hand through his hair. “I just don’t feel comfortable caring for one.”
“Why, what do you think she’s going to do to you?”
Five lets out a bitter chuckle. “I’m not worried about her doing anything to me; I’m worried about the opposite. I’m dangerous, Allison.”
“She’s a kid, not an attacker, you’re not going to hurt her.”
Five shakes his head. “Hurting people is easy, Allison. Trust me. I could do it, even by accident it could happen.”
“You’d never hurt your family.”
“I would. I have.”
Five leaves Allison pondering his words.
~
“You never order anything real when we get food,” Ben comments, helping himself to a bite of his burger.
Five sips his margarita. “I have a small appetite.”
They sit in silence for a moment, enjoying each other's company. It's one of Five’s favorite ways to spend time with his siblings. He gets to see them, alive and well, without anyone opening
their mouth and revealing the differences in their life experiences.
“So,” Ben hums, wiping grease from his mouth. “Klaus said you’ve got ghosts.”
Five drops his margarita and disappears.
~
“I’m sorry,” Five says. “I know that you don’t know who I am.”
He’s standing in Grimball's, looking at Dolores. She’s beautiful in her shiny, sequin top and he knows that she’s thriving here in a way one never could be in the apocalypse. He’s happy for her, even though it hurts.
Are you talking to me? Dolores says, really? No one ever does.
“I know. Do you, do you mind if I say something to you, just to get it off my chest?”
No, not at all. Some company would do me good. Besides, you look like there’s something you need to get off your chest.
“I feel like the walls are closing in around me. It’s been so long, so long I thought that I would get away with it. That my siblings would never know, that they’d never ask. Now though, now they keep asking me things. They want to know about my life, and I don’t want them to know, but I don’t want to lie.”
Do you want my advice?
“Always.”
Let them get to know you. If they turn away from what you’ve done, that’s on them.
~
Diego doesn’t mean to start following Five, really. It’s just that they’ve decided to learn more about Five and then as he’s walking down the street, leaving his gym, when he lays eyes on his brother, wearing a suit and holding a briefcase at nine at night. It wouldn’t be all that odd, plenty of people wear suits, some even keep them on last business hours, but the fact that he had a briefcase and was in this neighborhood, a neighborhood more likely to have someone steal Five’s fancy watch than for him to have a business deal, is odd. So, he follows him.
He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, not really. For Five to notice him? A meeting with some kind of monster?
He isn’t expecting Five to meet with a short man in glasses and a taller woman wearing an old fashioned dress. Neither of them seem to fit their surroundings, and the man is holding a briefcase identical to Five’s. Curious, Diego can’t help but wonder why they’re here and who they are.
Five nods at them, “Herb, Dot.”
The woman, Dot, smiles, “Number Five, successful again, I see.”
As she speaks, she gestures to the briefcase. five seems to know what she’s talking about, handing it over without so much as a glance at it.
“Of course, though that retrieval wasn’t challenging at all, it would have been good training for the new recruits.”
“We tried that,” Herb shrugs. “But after one of them died, we decided to have a professional do it, and you were asking for a job.”
“So I was.” Five agrees. “How did the 1835 job go?”
“Perfectly,” Dots answers. “We had Team Seventeen do it, and they followed your specifications exactly, stopping the assassination without alerting anyone to their presence.”
“Good. Do you think they’re ready?”
Herb purses his lips. “Just about, why? Do you want to schedule their assessment?”
“Keep them around next month. I’ll be there when they least expect it.”
Dot laughs. “You always are. We’ll see you then, Five.”
Together, Herb and her open their briefcases, and a wave of blue light warps out of them. Diego lifts his hands, shielding his eyes, and when he drops them Five is standing alone.
~
He’s reluctant to go, of course he is, the last time he’d seen one of his siblings, Ben had mentioned the ghosts that trail him, and that can mean only one thing. If Ben knows, they all know. They may not know how, or why, but they know that there is something wrong, that something about him attracts the dead. They’ll have questions, he knows they will.
But it’s their birthday. It's their birthday and they haven’t all celebrated together in years, and its been even longer since he’s seen them without Claire and Patrick or Eudora, or the girl that Vanya’s seeing, Helen or something. It's their birthday, and Five wants to see them.
Delores would tell him to go.
He goes, and that’s how he finds himself standing in the middle of the living room while Klaus’s hands glow blue and materialise the ghosts of the people he’s killed.
“Enough,” Five demands, as the room begins to fill and fill. He frowns, looking out over the sea of faces, wondering if the room is even large enough to contain all he’s killed. “Enough, Klaus. I’ll tell you what you want to know. Just stop making them visible.”
The ghosts disappear, and Five finds himself looking at six faces, alive and whole, and expectant.
“So,” He says, scanning their faces. “What do you want to know? Where should we start?”
His siblings all clamor to speak at once.
“Where are the ghosts from?”
“Why are they scared of you?”
“Who are Dot and Herb?”
“What’s your job?”
“Why don’t you tell us what we need to know, Five.”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “The best place to start would be with Vanya’s question. I work for an organization called the Commission. It’s an organization meant to maintain the timeline, and sometimes assassinations are the only way they can do that. That’s what the ghosts are from.”
It almost includes assassinations, but there’s no need for him to say that. They don’t need to know, and if they’re curious they could put it together from the sheer amount of ghosts they just saw.
“And the fear?” Ben asks. “What are they so scared of?”
Five smiles, that wide, feral smile that he knows haunts the dreams of many Commission employees. “Me. They know killing them was hardly the worst thing I could’ve done to them. I’m very good at what I do. In fact, I may be the best assassin the Commission has ever seen, and ghosts, ghosts talk.”
“Why?” Klaus asks. “Why would you become an assassin? You had to have known what you’d be doing. That you’d collect ghosts, that we’d find out.”
Oh, Five thinks. He doesn’t care about the killing, about the morality of it. No, Klaus wants to know how he could take a job that would inevitably add to Klaus’s own trauma.
“Nevermind that,” Luther barks. “How can you just kill people? Are they bad?”
“Luther,” Five says. He remembers clearly another timeline in which his brother threatened to kill Delores for the lives of strangers just in case they weren’t bad people. “I can honestly say I only kill people if it’ll improve the world.”
Those people aren’t necessarily bad, but that’s no one's business but his own.
“What about Herb and Dot? They don’t look like killers.”
Five shakes his head. “You’re right, Diego. They aren’t. They run the more administrative side of things, the stuff that men like me aren’t equipped to handle.”
“Why did you join them?” Allison asks. “What made you decide that this was the route you wanted to take?”
A laugh bubbles up in his throat. He pushes it back down. Allison talks about this like he chose it, like it isn’t all that he knows. He’s been a killer almost as long as she’s been alive. They turn thirty today. He’s seventy eight. When she was her age, he was crawling through heaps of debris begging, praying that he’d find something, anything to fill the gaping maw that was his stomach. His lungs had been aching from years of inhaling smoke. By the time the Commission had found him, by the time they’d fixed his damaged body, he’d been almost grateful. Grateful, to an organization that had left him to suffer alone for years. No, things were always going to go this way. He couldn’t let his family die, and he couldn’t let the Handler or the Board live.
“There was never any other option for me.”
“Of course there was,” Allison objects softly. “We got out, Five, we all got out. Why didn’t you?”
“You didn’t get out,” Five tells her. “Not all of you. I got you out.”
“What,” Luther scoffs. “Because you convinced me to move out? Five, that has nothing to do with this.”
“Yes, it does.” Five informs him. “Because there was a timeline in which you never left, where you stayed there until the missions dad sent you on almost got you killed and the only way to save you was a serum that left you as much monkey as man. Because in that same timeline Ben died when he was fourteen years old, torn apart by his own powers.”
“How long?” Vanya asks. She looks pale. “How long have you been working for them?”
She thinks that he’s worked there since he was a child. He can see it in her eyes, can see the fear and shock and her working through the memories of how odd he was after he ran away.
“Not as long as you think.” Longer. “I was an adult by the time I started to work for them. It’s the only job I’ve ever known though, and I’m good at it. I won’t stop just because it makes you uncomfortable.”
Diego’s voice cuts through the air. “We won’t ask you to stop.”
“We-,” Luther sucks in a breath, “What?”
“We won’t,” Ben agrees. His eyes are warm, assessing as he watches Five. “He’s our brother. We have to trust him to know what he’s doing. If Five says that the work he does makes the world a better place, well, I believe him.”
“Thank you.” Five tells him. He means it.
It isn’t everything. It isn’t the whole truth. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready to share that, but it’s something. He’s shared something about himself and he hasn’t been turned away. His family, for all their problems with it, still loves him. They still accept him. For now, it’s enough. For now, he’s content.