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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘ. ᴘᴀɴ ᴇғғᴇᴄᴛ. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚ ▎❛ 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐔𝐃𝐄 𝐈𝐈𝐈 ❜ ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ᴡʜᴇɴ ғɪᴠᴇ ʜᴇʟᴘᴇᴅ
ᴀʟᴇxᴀ꒱
❝ WHY DO YOU ALWAYS GET
THE LAST WORD IN? ❞
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The drive back to Hotel Oblivion was tense, at least for Alexa. All around them, bits of the road drifted up to the Kugelblitz that now hung in the sky. Reginald seemed entirely confident that they'd make it back but she couldn't tear her gaze away from the window. The only thought on her mind was: what if I spent the last few hours of my life with dad? The idea was so horrific that she was almost convinced that it wouldn't— couldn't— happen.
Thankfully, they did indeed arrive at the hotel without difficulty. Reginald made a beeline for the receptionist, Chet, where the two Hargreeves siblings learned that their father was the one who owned the hotel. Alexa was far less concerned with this fact than she should've been, but she was too preoccupied with wanting to reunite with the rest of their family. Their father was straight to the point as usual and didn't let Klaus' questions delay them long; soon enough, they had mounted the stairs to the second level where the rest of their family was waiting.
"Dad?" Ben asked. (Alexa had hardly seen him at all in this timeline so she was still getting used to his presence. It was more than a little surreal, to say the least.)
Allison stood from her seat with surprise. "Klaus."
"Hey!" the long-haired man greeted her.
Before Alexa could locate her boyfriend, an unexpected weight crashed into her. Two long arms wrapped themselves around her waist to pull her closer and she only squirmed in protest for a minute before Five's familiar voice registered in her ears. "Lexa. Thank god. I thought you'd been blitzed."
The blonde relaxed into the boy's grasp and buried her face against the comforting feeling of his blazer. She let all of the stress from the day melt away from her shoulders as she took solace in his presence. At his words, she shifted her head to grin up at him. "The world can't get rid of me that easy."
He met her gaze with eyes full of love. (For even if he couldn't say the sentiment, he certainly still felt it for the girl.) "I'm glad to hear it."
As their father called for them to gather around, Alexa hesitated for a moment before she added: "um. . . when you have a minute, could you help me with something?"
Five— albeit reluctantly— released the girl and raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. "Help with what?"
She crossed her arms with irritation. "Not like that, you horny old man. I just. . . I'll tell you later, okay?"
☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎
Later turned out to be the fifty minutes between Reginald's unwelcome 'mission speech' and Viktor's coming out party that Luther had planned. After the party would be Sloane and Deianira's wedding (no one was particularly thrilled about this announcement except for Klaus.) To make the most of the short amount of time that they had, Five blinked Alexa to one of the (now many) empty rooms of the hotel. There, they sat next to each other at the foot of the bed.
Five turned slightly to face her and reached for her hand so he could intertwine their fingers together. "Are you gonna tell me where you were today?"
She took a deep breath. "Yeah. So. . . the reason why I ditched you for Klaus was because he said that he knew someone who could help me get my powers back on track."
The boy let out a incredulous scoff. "You believed Klaus?"
"Well. . . I was pretty desperate."
"I could've helped you, Lexa," he pointed out rather indignantly. "Even if I don't know your powers as well as I do mine I can learn things very quickly, in case you haven't noticed."
"I've noticed," she reassured him and squeezed his hand. "That's why I'm asking for your help now. Um. . ." She did her best to summarize the events of the day, mostly skipping over Klaus' training since they were in a time crunch. "And when I ran so far I kind of. . . fell into my powers, I guess. It was so. . . I don't know, it's hard to describe. But I could feel everything."
"Feel everything?"
"Yeah. I could feel my heart beating, hear my blood flowing through my veins and I could see my lungs breathing. It was like. . . I'd been lost this whole time and only now could I see the whole of myself."
Five shook his head. "None of those things are possible, Lexa. Maybe you-you were dreaming, or something. I can accept a lot of impossible things but what you're describing is scientifically unfeasible."
She huffed. "Okay, so the fact that I literally can't grow up like I'm some freaking Peter Pan— which makes you Tinkerbell, by the way— isn't beyond your grasp but this is?"
"Why am I Tinkerbell?"
The blonde gave him an unimpressed look for that being the thing he protested against. "Because you're small and can only have one emotion at a time."
He returned her answer with an expression that said 'really?' but because this was Lexa, he let her get away with it. "Okay, moving on. So, let's say what you experienced today was real. What do you want me to do about it?"
"Well, it's like this. . ." She went on to explain her heart-versus-mind theory about her powers and wrapped up with: "so, whenever I give one of you some of my power, I can. . . feel your energy, like a type of fingerprint— except it becomes the same as mine. I think that I can combine both aspects of my power and. . . do something with it. I don't know what to expect but I at least want to try."
The boy studied her for a moment. "And you think that doing this will help the difficulties you've been having with your shields?"
"You don't have to do this if you don't want to," Alexa spoke quickly, misinterpreting his excess amount of questions as reluctance. "Like I said, I don't know what's gonna happen— if anything. It could have detrimental effects or—"
"Lexa," Five cut across her gently. "I'll always be here to help you. That's not why I'm asking. I'm just trying to understand."
"Oh," she said softly. "Um, yeah. I think that maybe the trouble I've been having might be repaired but I dunno if I can do it by myself."
"Alright," he agreed. "How do we start?"
Her eyes flicked up to meet his and she gave him a small, grateful smile at his easy acceptance. The appreciation swept through her, prompting her to lean forward to press a chaste kiss lightly to his lips. She pulled away before he could deepen it and her smile became brighter at the sight of his quickly reddening ears.
☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎
Shortly after that, they were sitting in the middle of the bed instead of at the foot of it. Alexa sat cross-legged with perfectly straight posture while the boy did his best to mirror her; they sat so closely to each other that their bent knees were touching. She reached out across the gap of their legs to grasp both of his hands in hers.
"So this meditation thing will probably be hard for both of us," she admitted. "But at least this room has less distractions than the field and I don't have to worry about Klaus or dad. Basically what I did was I closed my eyes and focused on what was important to me. This is gonna sound really cheesy but that was, um, you guys. So I just focused on our family until the world eventually went quiet around me." She purposefully left out the part about where she'd run from her doubts. "Just. . . whatever you do, try to keep your eyes closed. I'm not sure if it'll work otherwise."
Five sighed. "You're right about the sitting still part being hard. What am I looking for?"
She shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe you'll feel different or something."
"Great."
The girl's eyes narrowed. "You don't have to help."
He took his hands from hers to hold them up placatingly. "Fine, fine. I won't complain anymore."
Alexa reached forward and grasped his hands again. There was a brief flash of blue as she shared her power equally between them. When the boy met her eyes again, there was a thin ring of blue around his green irises. She smirked faintly at him. "Wouldn't that be the day? Now shush."
He sighed again and closed his eyes— but not before he muttered: "why do you always get the last word in?"
"Shush!"
Then, the room fell silent. The only noise was the sound of their breathing. Five did his best to sit still on the mattress but— like Alexa— he'd always found that hard to do unless he was reading a book. All too soon, his limbs ached to move, even if his hands were pleasantly occupied by his girlfriend's. He fought to keep his eyes closed as he stared at the back of his eyelids and wondered when something was going to happen.
He waited. . .
and waited. . .
and waited. . .
☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎
Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore. Five opened his eyes.
Initially, there was no change to the room and his heart sank. He could only think about how disappointed Alexa would be when her theory proved to be wrong. He'd desperately wanted this to work, more for her than anything else. He let out a deep breath and turned to face the girl.
Wait.
He'd been sitting across from her! How had his position changed without consciously doing it?
That's when he realized that he was standing next to the bed rather than sitting on it. And— he was still sitting there, across from his girlfriend. They were still holding hands and their eyes were still closed. Except— instead of the brief flash of blue that had appeared when Alexa had shared her power, there was now a blue aura around both of them, like one of her forcefields. But. . . this one seemed to be custom-made for two people as it followed the molds of their bodies.
Upon seeing the mirror image of himself, Five did a quick check for Paradox Psychosis but found that his results came up empty. Confused, he studied the pair again but determined that it really was them, just as they'd been sitting moments ago. He approached the bed cautiously. "Lexa?"
No response.
"Lexa!" He tried to call her name more loudly but there was still nothing. He waved a hand in front of her face (while pointedly not looking at himself because that was just. . . weird.) He was reluctant to actually touch her because he didn't know how that would affect whatever state he was currently in.
In an effort to take better stock of the situation, Five did a slow turn in the room to see if there was anything else that was out of place. Sure enough, the room wasn't as unchanged as he'd initially thought. He stared in shock at the very familiar Umbrella Academy door that sat in the middle of the bedroom.
He approached the door warily and did a careful inspection of it. It was a perfect mirror of the door that had haunted them throughout their childhood, complete with the black embossed umbrella on the clouded glass and the gold handle. Except. . . when he looked behind it, there was nothing there. The rest of the room was there, of course but the door didn't seem to. . . lead anywhere. He glanced back at the motionless girl on the bed.
More curious than he was willing to let on, Five tried the handle and it swung open with ease. In front of him was another perfect mirror, this time of the foyer of the Umbrella Academy. The spindly table still sat in the middle of the room, the sweeping grand staircase was at the far end; the white marble pillars were all familiar and there was an entrance to the left where the sitting room was.
He couldn't resist the urge to glance around the edge of the door again. Behind the glass, the room in Hotel Obsidian was still there. Through the doorframe was the too-familiar home of his childhood. He let out a tense breath. "This is too trippy."
☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎
Upon further study of the foyer, Five was able to determine that yes, this was the Umbrella Academy, just as it had been in their original 2019. His next venture was into the sitting room-and-bar area. This, too, was exactly the same: the same couch, the same furniture setup, the same table, the same antlers that where mounted on the marble fireplace.
The only difference was that this Academy wasn't lived in. There was an eerie, still feeling to it, similar to an empty church. When he moved, the air around him seemed to protest the change and it was noticeably chillier than the Academy was in real life. Five figured that he must have spent a good fifteen minutes inspecting the familiar-yet-not setting. It was only when his gaze turned to the fireplace against the opposite wall did he become suspicious again: the picture above the mantlepiece wasn't him.
After the last time the picture had changed, he immediately tensed. Five approached the mantel guardedly, as if he was expecting it to jump out at him. The boy paused for a moment as he realized that his previous observation was false: he was in the picture, except. . . Alexa was also there. They were both sitting on the couch that was directly next to him; the blonde was studying while he looked over her shoulder. Five frowned as he tried to recall any recollection of them sitting together like that so. . . openly, but found that he couldn't. His eyes narrowed at the painting.
Wanting to examine it further, he located a nearby ottoman and placed the puff underneath the mantel. Using the ledge as a balance, he stood on the ottoman as if it were a stool and leaned closer to the image.
"I didn't know you were going to paint me."
"I thought I needed to fuel your ego," the blonde commented mildly without looking up from the day's assigned schoolwork.
He leaned back against the cushions, crossing one leg over the other as he rested his hands on his head. "It's very good, you know. You've always been talented. There's only one problem."
"Oh? And what's that?"
"I'm not dead."
"Of course you're not!" she exclaimed, surprised. Then she lowered her voice: "I think I was just feeling the effects of— well, y'know," she finished lamely. "And I didn't want to see his face, I wanted to see yours."
Five lowered his arm and rested it on her weightlessly. "At least Dad won't forget about me."
She rolled her eyes. "Is it only Dad you're worried about?"
"What's up, Lexi?" Klaus joined his sister on the couch.
Alexa's head jerked up at her brother's interruption and her face flushed. She hoped he hadn't heard. "What do you want?" she snapped irritably, giving him a glare that would rival Five's.
Next to her, the boy rolled his eyes at their brother's interruption. Klaus held up his hands. "Hey, I can walk right out, you know. I'm just here for civil conversation."
Her grip on her pencil tightened. 'Civil' these days went under a different definition. "You going to rail me for something?" she asked defensively.
Klaus nodded to her painting and decided to ignore her question. "You've got him down pat, you know. The only thing missing is that nasty glare." He tried to mimic it. "You know, the one that said 'I'm better than you, you're all idiots?'"
"He didn't think that!" Alexa fired at him, feeling the need to defend the boy.
Next to her, Five gave her an amused look. "Yes I do."
Klaus snorted in disbelief. "Yeah, sure. Look, I just wanted to tell you that I don't see him, alright?"
"See him?"
Five was now doing a very exaggerated show of mocking their brother by pretending to act stupid. Alexa hid her smile.
"Yeah. I've tried to find him by summoning, you know? He's still alive as far as I'm aware. I thought you'd want to know."
The tip of her pencil pressed sharply on her page and broke with a loud snap! "Of course he's still alive, idiot," she snarled. "Why on earth wouldn't he be? If you've got nothing better to say, leave me alone!"
Klaus shot her an annoyed look and stood. "No wonder you don't talk to any of us anymore with that attitude," he rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll leave. Just don't say I never tried to help."
After her brother left, Alexa sighed, feeling the annoying prickle of guilt for being so harsh towards him. "That's exactly how I would've reacted, you know," Five commented.
"I know," she said irritably. "Shut up."
Five felt the world around him right itself as he was. . . pulled out of the picture? He stared at the painting with wide eyes: he had no memory of ever having that conversation with his girlfriend.
"What the hell?" he wondered aloud.
But then he remembered something that Alexa had admitted in the not-too-distant past: and then after Ben's death— to help cope with the loss, I suppose— I imagined you were with me so you never really left.
Was what he'd just seen. . . one of her memories?
Once he'd formed this hypothesis, Five was far too curious to just. . . leave. So, he took the grand staircase up to the place where their robotic mother had recharged their batteries. Sure enough, the paintings there were different, too, than what they were in real life; these ones were memories of missions and training sessions.
One thing that Five had noticed as he'd begun to understand what he was seeing was that not all of the paintings were as clearly defined as others. Some of them were perfect, realistic portraits that portrayed scenes from Alexa's perspective. Others— usually ones from earlier in her life— were of different, less precise art styles. A particular one that had amused him had been Jackson Pollock-esque with eight navy-colored splotches and one gray one organized in the same way that they sat around the dinner table.
He made slow progress down the corridor as he observed and admired each distinct artwork. They were exact (or sometimes less accurate) snapshots of Alexa's life— including the moments he'd missed out on due to his time-traveling mishap. It was only when he got to their bedrooms that it really got interesting.
☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎
It was fairly obvious from the first door he'd opened that each room held specific memories of the inhabitants that they belonged to. Five quickly skipped the recollections that Alexa had of his siblings because he (selfishly or egotistically could fit here) wanted to see her memories of him. To his credit, he paused outside his door before he hesitantly let it swing open.
He needn't have worried, though: compared to the amount of paintings that were in Viktor's room, his was chock-full. There was no space of wall left bare and smaller, framed images sat on top of his dresser and bedside table. Even the quilt on his bed showcased the memory of their tenth birthday.
White stars with long tails were embroidered on the dark material while squares of gray made up the rooftop. Two felt-made children lay on their backs as they looked up at the night sky. The fabric-Five had his hands clasped underneath his head as he gazed up at the meteor shower that was taking place. On the other hand, fabric-Alexa had her gaze focused closer to Earth: on him.
This time, real-Five remembered this particular night— or early morning, he supposed— when Alexa had forced him out of bed to watch the phenomenon. He'd been so enraptured with the sky above them that he'd hardly noticed what the girl had been doing at the time. Intrigued, he approached the blanket and reached out to touch it so that he could watch the memory.
"If you told me I could've just blinked us up here," he grumbled.
"Where's the fun in that?" The blonde gently pushed him towards the blankets she'd managed to sneak up. "Now, lie down. We don't have much time."
"Time for what?"
"You'll see."
They lay there for several moments in the chilly darkness and she could hear Five grumble audibly as he shifted in his blankets. The stars twinkled above them, still and silent. Alexa held her breath for long moments in anticipation.
It started off slowly as one streak of light across the sky. Several more followed, causing the boy's complaints to cease. The sky grew brighter as silver tails flashed across the dark expanse, one suddenly coming after the other in a rain of fire and they disappeared closer to the horizon as they burned out.
The girl gave a little smile at Five's gasp of amazement. There was precious little that could shock him.
The lights fell from the sky for many long minutes until they stretched into an hour filled with bright, burning space particles. As they died down, Alexa turned on her elbow to face the boy. Five's mouth was slightly open, his green eyes wide as they fixated on the sky above and starlight reflected in them, turning the vibrant green color silver. His head turned away suddenly to face her, the starry look still showing in his gaze.
Her heart caught and she swallowed.
She was in love.
As his world righted itself once again, Five blinked several times to free himself of the feelings that clung to him like cobwebs. He'd always known that Alexa had fallen first; that much had been obvious from the very start. What he hadn't realized was when or the sudden intensity of her feelings. While it sort of felt like he was invading her privacy— and trust— by watching these scenes from her perspective, he couldn't bring himself to feel guilty about it; the concept of emotions had always been hard for him to grasp and it was easier to understand them from someone else's point of view.
He spent quite a lot of time in his room as he watched each piece of artwork. Some were small moments that had gone completely over his head while others— like their 'library time'— were so obvious that he had those memories as well. As he watched each scene, he began to truly comprehend how much Alexa loved him. He knew that her saying the words 'I love you' meant a lot to her (as they did to him), but seeing is believing. A warm, fuzzy feeling filled him at how fondly she thought of him and it remained even as he closed the door to his room. There was one final room that held interest to him: her room.
Five approached Alexa's door with bated breath as he wondered what he would find in there. How did she perceive herself? Would it be memories of the times that she was alone? Would he find her missing college years? Would there be three-dimensional pieces as it pertained to her rather than others? He wasn't sure but there was only one way to find out.
The door swung open effortlessly. What he saw made him stop and stare with. . . confusion.
Unlike the rest of the house, Alexa's room was entirely. . . empty. There was no furniture, the floor was bare wood and the walls weren't even painted. A single window was located in the opposite corner; its four glass panes were crystal-clear and let in a pale, white light that illuminated the room. To his left was the only spot of color: a canvas painting that made up the entire length and width of the wall.
The boy entered the room as carefully as he could; it seemed that whatever effort he made, his footsteps were deadened. While the air had been still in the rest of the house, there was a sort of. . . quietness to it in this room. Logically, Five knew that air was almost always quiet but in here. . . he could almost hear it be silent. It pressed against his ears and even his steady breathing seemed to be too loud. He approached the painting.
In the image, the sky was an azure blue that was only seen on the most perfect spring days. Puffy white clouds floated across the expanse until the vanishing point. A thin, bright line of blue indicated the horizon, which was necessary because otherwise it would have looked like the painting was entirely of the sky. Five realized that it was actually water which reflected the sky like a mirror. Taking a deep breath, he stepped towards the canvas. On the other side, his foot splashed in shallow water.
Compared to the stillness of the house behind him, a light breeze ruffled the loose strands of his hair. He'd been expecting such a blue atmosphere to be crisply chilly but instead, warmth wrapped around him like a comforting blanket. His shoulders seemed to ease just within seconds of being in the peaceful space. Time was entirely irrelevant here; it seemed impossible that this place could be affected by the apocalypse that haunted them or any tragedy that came with it.
☂︎ ☂︎ ☂︎
Five walked through the world slowly as he enjoyed the feeling of safety. . . of being protected. He could have walked for miles in the serene setting and never tired of it. Behind him, the empty room grew smaller until just a spot of brown remained amongst the expanse of blue. Sometime later— it could have been minutes, days or years— he came across something that wasn't blue.
A bright, white-yellow sphere hung in the sky at shoulder height. The light that pulsed gently from it was only slightly warmer than the surrounding temperature but wasn't uncomfortably hot. The boy examined it as he walked around the orb; it appeared to be utterly harmless. Curiously, he reached up both hands to grasp it gently between his palms. The warm, soft light pulsed in his hold and seemed to seep into his bones, easing the tiredness from them. He held the energy for several long moments before he released it, and the sphere floated back to its original position. Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to have happened except that he felt. . . rejuvenated. He stretched and closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling further.
When he opened them again, he was back in Hotel Obsidian's room with the glass doors shut behind him.
A/n: As you can probably tell, I borrowed some ideas from both Locke & Key and Demon Slayer. The concepts seemed to be the perfect way to symbolize Alexa's thoughts/feelings; I have more planned with this but I'll have to see what happens in season 4!
Next week's updates cover the wedding episode :)