Number Eight: Apocalypse (Umbrella Academy)

10

2019
"MY CHILDREN'S APPLICATIONS HAVE BEEN WHAT," Heather shouted the next morning on the deck at Aria, who decided it was best to get the bad news over with while the children were asleep.  Aria tried to explain calmly, "I talked to some people in the approval sector yesterday, and they said all applications will be frozen for the next four days..."  "But there is only six days left until the apocalypse," Heather stressed as she paced around her deck as the sun was almost risen.  Aria tried to find the positive in this situation, "that still leaves two days..."  "Two days is not enough time for three rounds of approvals, a stamping ceremony and time to show the kids around and explain to them that we can't go back home," Heather panicked.  Aria reasoned, "well, you already made them think you are moving in five days anyways..."  "That's not the point," Heather snapped.  Aria said as her friend continued to pace back and forth, "I am trying to get your applications on the priority list, but I do need some time."  Before Heather could shout at her, Euan slid the glass sliding door open and said kindly, "and we really appreciate your efforts and all your help, thank you Aria."  Heather looked a little surprise at her husband's sudden arrival.  Euan, who just woke up due to all her screaming, shut the door behind him and slumped down in his patio chair.  Aria asked, "did we wake you?"  Euan sipped his coffee he brought with him as he said to Aria, "you didn't."  Heather walked over to him in urgency, "did you hear!  They are freezing all the applications!"  Euan closed his eyes as his wife's loud voice pounded in his overtired and sore head, than he responded calmly, trying to get the pain to stop, "yes, honey, I have heard that, since you left the bed actually."  Heather rolled her eyes in frustration, Euan sat calmly in his chair, and Aria stood behind another chair, watching Heather pace as she panicked. 

It was all silent, until the UPS truck pulled up in the driveway, and a shorter man with a handlebar moustache and wearing common long sleeve shirt and pants came out carrying a small plain brown box package.  The deck Heather, Euan and Aria were standing on was the front deck that one needed to go on in order to enter the house.  There was a larger deck in the back yard, but in the mornings the front was sunnier and further from the children's rooms.  The man stood at the bottom of the three steps leading from the pavement to the deck and he held out the pen connected to the clipboard with a paper stuck onto it and said, "I have a package for a Mrs. Heather Scott, it needs to be signed for."  Heather walked over to him and asked curiously, "who's it from?"  The deliveryman looked at the package, and then looked at Heather and said emotionlessly, "some Reginald Hargreeves fellow."  Euan and Aria suddenly stared at the ground and whistled uncomfortably as Heather began to stare at him with an annoyed and angry face, "You can't be serious."  The deliveryman shrugged, "well I am, now please hurry up and sign for it, I have a lot of deliveries to do and not a lot of time to do to it."  Heather, very angrily, snatched the clipboard and signed the paper, then throw it back at him, "feel better now."  The deliveryman scowled and tried to hand her the package, but Heather wouldn't accept it, "leave it on the deck," she said with disgust.  The deliveryman placed the box on the deck sternly and angrily stomped back to his truck and hastily drove away.

Heather sat in her chair and stared intently at the small brown box on her deck entrance, Aria and Euan silently, and uncomfortably, stared at each other, wondering if they should say something.  Aria, who was now standing a few meters behind Heather, was motioning to Euan to enact a conversation with his wife, because Aria knew if Heather gets fixed on something for too long, its really hard to break her focus.  Euan, who was sitting off to Heather's far right, glared at Aria, and gave a slight head nod towards Heather, signalling Aria to start the conversation instead.  Aria shook her head violently and sternly pointed at Heather, signalling Euan to start the conversation.  They went back and forth a few more times before Heather said, while still staring intently at the foreign package on her deck, "is there something either of you would like to say?"  Both Aria and Euan looked at her, unsure of what to say.  Heather, after five minutes of sitting in her chair like a statue, suddenly got up, grabbed the package, and returned back to her chair, now staring at the package in her hands.  Aria opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out, so Euan decided to rip off the bandage and asked his wife considerately, "are you going to open it?"  Heather kept looking at the box, she lifted it up, and then set it back on her lap, "it's a little heavy."  Then she slightly shook it, and she could hear something moving inside, but she couldn't tell if it was breakable or not.  Euan looked at her as she ran her finger along the edges of the boxes, measuring it in her mind.  He looked at Aria, unsure on weather he should let his wife process or not.  This package was the first form of communication she received from her father, other then the key and note at his funeral, in seventeen years.