"One lane please." Five flipped out his wallet and handed the woman at the counter some cash.
Pins crashed and laughter erupted as she typed something into the computer. "Okay! You're all set!" the employee said in a too cheerful voice. I rolled my eyes and we sat down and waited on the others.
I looked over to Five beside me whose eyes were sadly fixed on our laced fingers. My mouth opened and closed not sure what to say. "You asked me the first thing I remember." His eyes darted up. "Well... Everything before last night seems fuzzy. I remember waking up in a cell beside Vanya in her form and then that happened. Scattered bits 'n pieces here 'n there, and, yeah... Does that help any?" I couldn't meet his eyes and instead locked my gaze on his thumb brushing against my hand.
He sighed. "Yes and no I suppose..."
"A full week?"
"Yeah.. Yeah..." He replied in a low, breathy voice.
"What happened?.. How, how did this happen?" My eyes moved to meet his then back to our interlocked hands.
He deeply inhaled while he pondered what to say. How could he sum up everything that's lead to their love in a few minutes? "You showed up seven days ago in this timeline and I can't tell you how thrilled I was." He chuckled. "The first thing you thought of was coffee apparently, same as I did."
"You?" I chuckled. "I thought you didn't like coffee."
"Do you remember the old man in that cafe? July 29, 1995." A smile crossed his face as I puzzled things together.
"He had your eyes," I murmured in thought. My brown eyes goggled. "You were at the Commission the entire time!" I smacked his arm.
"Just for a few months until I figured out the equation to get back eight days ago." He shrugged. "They picked me up after forty-five years in the apocalypse aftermath."
My face dropped. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. I'm here now. You're here now. And we're here together." He grinned and I chortled.
"So what about us?" I locked my focus on him with a small smile.
"Well, you couldn't find any coffee in the house which is aggravating I know."
"It's so weird, right?" I laughed.
"Makes not a lick of sense." He grinned. "You decided to go to Griddy's for some decent coffee and I followed you. When we were there, we had our first dance in years." He pulled me up off my chair and placed my hands around his neck then moved his to my waist.
"Let me guess. In a rain of gunfire, right?" I smirked as we swayed.
"Why of course." He smirked back. We chuckled. "Our first kiss—again—was in the infirmary after you saved me from yet another fight." He traced the scar running across my collar bone. I noted his stupid grin with interest. "That's when I told you I loved you, this time not half asleep, aand a little more."
"Wait we didn't—"
"We didn't." His goofy smile spread. "But you did say after we saved the world, so." I rolled my eyes. "But given our current snafu, I'll let you off the hook for now."
"For now?" I scoffed with a smile.
"For now." He repeated smugly in my ear then dipped me.
"Still presumptuous as ever." I laughed as he spun me away at arms length.
"Ah, you love me for it. Said it yourself." He spun me back into his arms.
I filled with butterflies at hearing those words again. "You're right." I chuckled with glee. "I do love you."
"Y-You, you do?" He looked at me dumbfounded. "You still do?"
"Oh, jo. I never stopped." I eyed Five lovingly.
"I loue ye." He pulled me closer to him.
"I loue ye too." I sweetly smiled. His eyes fluttered to my lips..
Thud
The doors swung open and our family stumbled in at once. They searched for us to see us dropping our arms from our dance. I smoothed out his jacket then we sat down, followed by the others. The seat squeaked as Luther sat down. "Look, I hate to be the one to say this, but everyone needs to prepare."
Diego squinted his eyes at his brother. "For what?"
"To do whatever it takes to stop Vanya." Everyone of us looked at him in horrified disgust. Allison slapped his abnormally large arm. "I—" He sighed. "We may not have a choice, Allison."
"Bullshit," Diego called him out.
"Ah gotta say, this is unlike you, Captain America. She's our sister. There's always a choice."
"Coming from the former assassin." One scoffed.
"Yeah well that was our choice. Sorta." Five backed me up and put a hand on my thigh. "But, yeah, we don't have many to choose from at the moment." I suddenly felt uncomfortable by his touch.
"I don't know, but it doesn't have to be that. Like Eighty said, she's our sister." They rolled their eyes. Apparently he was still quoting me when he wanted to get a point across. They'd listen to me more than they would him so if I was saying it too then he thought they might listen.
"Look, whatever we decide, we need to find Vanya. And fast, okay? She could be anywhere." Luther suddenly stood up out of annoyance.
Klaus unfolded the newspaper. "Or... here." We got up and crowded around him to see her picture on the print.
"That's right. Her concert is tonight," Diego announced.
"Nice job, Klaus." I gave him a smile.
"Hello," the girl at the front desk from earlier greeted. "I hate to intrude, but my manager says if you're not gonna bowl, you gotta leave." She smiled at us.
"Why? We're paying you." I made a face at the manager behind the counter putting his hands on his hips.
"I'm just doing my job." I scoffed. I knew she was but still.
"Who's turn is it?" Diego asked the group.
"Oh for..." Luther chucked a bowling ball over his shoulder across multiple lanes and the pins clattered in a strike while not breaking eye contact with the scowling manager.
I crossed my arms. "Hey look at that. Ten points to Spaceboy."
Allison tapped on her notepad with a pin. "SHES OUR SISTER," she piped up. Well, sorta.
"We're the only ones capable of stopping this," Luther told us.
I sighed. "Aye, he's right."
"We have a responsibility to Dad."
"I retract my previous statement." This time I sighed out of annoyance and slouched back in my chair.
Diego snarled. "To Dad? No. I've heard enough about—"
"He sacrificed everything to bring us back together."
True, but Ah don't like it.
"I'm with Luther on this one," Five agreed.
"That's a first," I muttered under my breath.
"We can't give her a chance to fight back. There are billions of lives at stake. We're past trying to save just one," Five announced. I diverted my stare to the ground. The worse part was that I agreed. That was ultimately my job at the Commission for almost seventeen years. It may be a little hypocritical but I just despised hearing it.
"Hey, you know, guys, uh... maybe I could help," the Séance offered.
"Now is not the time," Luther huffed.
"Nae, hear him out."
"Yeah, let him finish." Diego pointed at his brother. "He saved my life today." I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow at Klaus. Diego saw my look. "She did too." He gestured to me.
"That's not what I was getting at. I think Klaus has something to say."
"Is that true?" Luther asked in astonishment.
He glanced at my glare. "Yeah, yeah, I did... take credit for it. In fact the real hero... was Ben." They diverted their confusion to me. Five tilted his head at me in question.
I put my hands up. "Keep going," I told Four who nodded his head in response.
Klaus sighed. "Today... Listen. Today, he punched me in the face. And earlier at the house, he was the one that saved Diego's life, not me." I didn't need to see Ben to know that he was brightly smiling with finally getting the acknowledgment that he deserved. "Eight-Eighty saw it, didn't you?" He used the 'Eight' card because Diego would listen to his childhood best friend.
"I did. I saw Ben." They glanced at me but chose to ignore my comment this time.
"You are unbelievable, Klaus." Luther glowered in disappointment.
"Not even gonna believe your sister that literally came back from the dead using my power?" Luther crossed his arms. He saw me take Vanya's side, even if I didn't remember it, and lost that respect for me. "Okay, you want more proof, is that it? All right. I-I'll give you proof." He picked up a bowling ball. "All right, it's showtime, baby."
Please work.
"Catch!" He tossed the ball into the air.
Thud
Well... It didnae work. It bounced away and people glared at us.
"Is there any way to silence that voice in your head that screams out to be the center of attention?" Luther fired a dirty look at him.
"Hey! He's telling the truth. It juist doesn't look so great right noo."
"You know, I liked you a lot better before you got laid." We all looked between Klaus and Luther with surprise, especially Allison. Realizing his mistake, Four tried to correct himself. "Which was a complete... It-It wasn't his fault, 'cause he was ridiculously high, right?" Our stupefied expressions gradually grew. "An-And the girl, she thought he was a furry..." Allison's stare darted to One. Klaus was running his hand through his hair while he paced as he struggled to try to fix his predicament.
"Stop," Spaceboy demanded. Allison took her notepad and walked away. "Allison, wait." He followed after her.
"Excuse me." A woman walked over to our group with her son trailing behind her. "It's my son Kenny's birthday today, and... Uh... wouldn't your son and daughter be happier playing with kids their own age?" she said in a too perky voice. "Assuming it's okay with your two dads." My disgusted face matched his.
"I'd rather chew off my own foot."
"A'd cut masell wi' mah fingernails then leisurely rip mah skin tae ribbons while submerged in a bath o' pepper spray afore Ah did that."
Five and I snarled our retorts in unison then looked at each other with horror. "Good Lord," we said in unison. He noticed my thumb sticking up slightly and he clasped my hand together. He knew I wouldn't do it but he was sickened by the thought, especially seeing how I have died from something as small as a paper cut. He was still terrorized by it.
"Let's go, Kenny."
"Well, happy birthday, Kenny." I sarcastically smiled and the horrified woman drug her son away.
"If I was going to date a man, you'd be the last man I would date," Diego turned to Klaus disgusted by the thought.
"You'd be lucky to get me," Klaus replied.
Klunk
Five and I looked at each other then ran off to where we heard the sound. He picked up a Commission capsule and opened it. "How the hell did she find us?"
"She's the Handler. Can't say I'm too surprised." I looked around for any of the Commission temps. "Five. The candy you took."
He pulled out the candy in his pocket and went slack-jawed. "You remember that?"
"Aye. Yeah, I think so." He cupped my cheek in his hand and flashed a gleaming smile.
I grinned back then took a piece of candy out of his pocket and untwisted it revealing a blinking tracker. "Huh. The witch is guid." I sighed then looked at him and the piece he was holding. We dropped them on the ground and smashed them.
"Jesus." He sighed then popped the cap on the capsule and broke the fortune cookie inside then unraveled the note.
—————
TIME MARCHES ON... OR DOES IT?
Rain Quail, Rm 12
—————
"What's that supposed to mean?" I puzzled.
"I don't know, but there's an address."
"Not exactly Commission type, is it?" I spoke.
"No. No it's not," he replied.
"Think it's a trap?"
"Only one way to find out." He shrugged.
"Suppose so. You wanna do the honors?" I held out my hand. My jo took it and spatial jumped us to the address. We walked down the hallway of the apartment complex. "Room 9.. 10.. 11.. aand Room 12." The door was already cracked.
"Five, Cameron, I've been waiting for you," the familiar voice of the Handler called. We entered to find the Griddy's waitress tied up and gagged.
"You must really like donuts." Five put his hands in his pockets.
"Help me!" Agnes muffled through the cloth.
My face creased in thought of something I think is a memory. "You're alive."
Five kept his steel stare but his heart raced with excitement. She's remembering.
"Yes. It appears that way." She sighed. "It's been a while."
"Not long enough." I crossed my arms. I honestly had no idea how long ago 'not long enough' was to me but I didn't care if it was years or seconds.
"Three days," Five responded to her then studied me to see if there was any flicker of remembrance but I discreetly shook my head.
"For you, maybe. But for me, it's been a lot longer since I've seen those adorable little shorts and those lovely brown eyes."
"Well, you've had time to heal," Five stated.
"Luckily, for the three of us, time is the one thing my organization has an abundance of."
"Got your message, by the way." Five slowly paced a few steps. "Nice packaging."
"Fortune cookies aren't exactly Commission protocol though. I'm surprised."
"There have been... a lot of changes since you left the Commission. You two really did some damage. The briefcases were all but destroyed, to say nothing of the... highly trained personnel you killed. After all, what is an institution if not for—"
"Why did you send for us? What do you want?" I narrowed my eyes at her.
"To be happy. To have a simple... unfettered life, to... do the work my superiors require. But... your being here, well, it complicates all that." She sat down on the couch.
"Billions of people will die tonight. You can change that," Five spat.
"Tonight, tomorrow. So little difference in the scheme of things. Don't you remember the Commission's raison d'être?" She lightly threw her hands up. "What's meant to be is meant to be, or, as I like to say, que será, será." I scoffed.
"It's bullshit in any language," Five snarled. "Why did you call us here?"
"I wanna offer you a choice. Everyone's going to die tonight, but... unlike the rest of the world, you have a way out." I shifted uncomfortably. "You can abandon your family and skip ahead to the apocalypse, take a walkabout for a few decades, wondering if I'll comeback and offer you a job again, or you can stay here, with your family." She glanced at me to see my reaction to leaving out the other half of my family at the Commission. "And die a horrible death." She sighed at our reluctance of speech. "While you weigh your options, just know your siblings are fighting for their lives without you."
I scrunched my face in disgust at her. "Shizzle."
"You brought us here to pull us away." Five held his hand out to me.
"It's been nice knowing you both." I took it and we blinked away to the Icarus theater.
"What's with all the lollygagging?" Five said as our family crouched behind seats in the mix of peppered bullets.
"Five! Eight! Get down!" Luther ordered. I gasped then tugged him down behind a row of seats.
"I thought you bailed on us," Number One shouted over the gunshots.
"We had an errand to run." I shrugged.
"This is not good." Five shook his head.
"Nae Shizuoka."
"You know these guys?" Diego asked.
"Aye." Five peaked his head out behind the seats and I pulled him back down before a bullet grazed the seat where he was.
"And?" Diego questioned.
"We're screwed," Five and I said together. I morphed into Diego and redirected the bullets at two of the attackers then turned back.
Klaus burst through the doors. "Guys, it's Cha-Cha!"
"Sure, why not. What's another person in this party?" I rolled my eyes then turned into Five and blipped us into another row.
Four stammered, "It's Cha-Cha, she—"
"Klaus! Get down!" Luther yelled. The Séance froze.
"Hey. Cover me, okay?" I asked Five. He glanced at one of the shooters then teleported onto his back. I spatial jumped to Klaus then blinked us behind some seats. "Klaus, can you summon Ben?"
"I-I can try!" he yelled over the rapid pops of their guns.
"Okay! Guid! I'll be right back," I shouted back. Time for a trick. I blipped over to one of the attackers, turned into Three and whispered in their ear. "I heard a rumor that you shot your team members." But before it could have any effect, one of them put him down.
Pop
"Well that's disappointing," I muttered as myself. I looked up from my spot crouched behind a seat to see a blue glow. I watched in awe at Ben picking up the attackers and rippping them in half with some of his tentacles and throwing some against the wall with the others.
We all stood up and watched the Horror massacre the rest of the enemies. "It's him. It's Ben," Luther muttered in disbelief.
Five glanced at me from two isles over with a sliver of a grin. "I told you," I mouthed. As Vanya's music grew more and more intense and she glowed a blinding white contrast, the walls started to crumble, just like the Umbrella Academy had.
Five's eye contact drifted to the gunman behind me. "Bonnie! Behind you!" He teleported in front of him and lifted his gun to the sky but not before he pulled the trigger.
I looked down to see a red flower of blood blooming across my side. "It's not that bad," I muttered the reassurance to myself. "It's-not-that-bad. It's-not-that-bad." I looked back to where my shooter was and saw him on the floor with his head bashed in and Five standing over him. The Boy dropped the gun he'd used as a club and ran over to me.
He held me at arms length and looked me up and down. "Are you okay? Were you hurt?"
I crossed my arms over my main wound so it wasn't as noticeable. "I'm fine. It's nothing."
"Even a scratch for you is something." He saw the blood creeping across my body. "Bonnie, you said you weren't hurt."
"It's not mine. I'll be fine." I nodded my head towards our group and started walking. "Let's go," my voice wavered.
Diego walked towards us gathered in an isle from the stage. "Oh, welcome back. Where were you?" Luther asked him.
"Honoring a memory," he answered in a low voice. "So, how do you wanna end this thing?" Diego asked the question as we huddled in a group.
"We surround her," Our team leader said. "All right? We come at her from all angles."
"So it's a suicide mission," Klaus clarified hoping for another answer.
"Yeah, but one of us could get through. It's the only chance we've got," Five told us.
"Are we all in?" One asked.
"Yeah." Diego looked between all of us. Allison shook her head no but the rest of us nodded in agreement.
"Aye." I angled my arm at my side to cover up the spreading blood but Five saw.
"No, no, no, no. You're not doing anything," Five told me with wide eyes.
"Did you get hurt?" Two asked with creased eyebrows. Five gently lifted my arm to see but I jerked it back before the others could.
"I said I'm fine. That's that. I didn't ask for any input," I fired. If A'm dying tonight, by golly A'm gonna die fighting.
"All right," Number One said. "Stage left," directed Diego. "Stage right." He gestured to himself. "You guys take the front," he told Klaus, Five, and I. We all bolted to our assigned spots.
"Now!" Luther ordered. We stormed her from all sides only to be lifted out of the air with her power.
She's killing us. I looked at Five and gave him a small smile which he returned wide eyes. I turned into Vanya with a small shriek and used her power to drop the others. I could feel my power grow as I focused on one sound, the sound of my own heartbeat throbbing in my ears.
Vanya, it doesn't need tae go this way. We can help y—
I don't need help. Get out of my head! She jerked her head up and lifted me off the ground using her power rather than mine. I fought but I couldn't control it. It was in my grasp yet it was helpless. Being parched but the water ran through my finger. Shiitake...
I'm not giving up on you. You can't see straight right now. I can feel your power running through my own body. It's overwhelming. I underst—
I said get out of my head! Now! She shouted her thought but her face never changed. I however, have not had much time in her skin and was squirming to get out of her power's grasp around my neck.
Van.. You're killing me... Again. My face was turning blue from the tentacles of light squeezing the air out of me. It burned to try to breathe. If she felt any remorse, she didn't show it.
She squeezed my chest tighter and I saw spots as my vision gradually darkened and my body lost it's fight. You should've thought of that before you all ruined my life.
"Bon! Bonnie!" I thought I heard Five muffle but I wasn't sure.
Van... My world went dark. She tossed my body to the side like a rag doll.
"Bonnie!?" Five shouted as he ran towards the identical Vanya. He took a step and was immediately suspended in air along with the rest. "Bon—" He suddenly felt the oxygen being squeezed from his own chest and throat. At least this time I'll die with her. Won't have to feel guilty over the 'should I or shouldn't I' of whether to go on or not.
Bang
A shot rang out and Vanya fell, revealing Allison behind her with a gun, but there was no blood. A beam of pure power made an arrow for the moon.
—————
"Sae, this is it. This is how it ends. Nice aim, Vanya, seriously. Ah mean space is pretty big, it couldn't have even been a little ways tae th' side?" I sighed then took a breath and let myself relax. "See ye soon, Five..."
—————
Vanya collapsed into Allison's arms and they all ran to her except for Five who sprinted to Bonnie's dead body. "Bonnie, Bonnie, Bonnie." He lightly shook her then checked for her nonexistent pulse. "No, no, no, no. You're not doing this to me again. I can't lose you a third time. This is it, okay?" He readied himself to do CPR.
Diego looked over to see Five performing CPR on Eighty then ran to her. "Move. I got this. I took a class during the police academy." Five gritted his teeth and reluctantly moved out of the way. Despite their history, Diego was the only other one he saw fit to protect her.
"Come on, Bonnie," Five murmured as he stroked her hair out of her face. They had all gathered around their other sister with the real Vanya in Luther's arms. Even if she was resuscitated she still would chance dying from blood loss, though by the looks of it, they're all gonna die within a couple minutes. They'd just rather her be with them in their last moments. Five needed her to be with him. Diego slowed, about to call it when I gasped.
Five dove to prop my head up on his lap. "Bonnie! Oh my God, Bonnie. You have to stop doing that." He kissed my hair.
I grabbed my aching chest. "Jeez, did Ah get hit by a truck? Ah feel like death," I wheezed out.
Five chuckled and kissed my forehead then went back to stroking my hair. "Something like that." He looked to Diego and nodded a thanks.
"Uh, guys? I hate to break up the moment but, well, we haven't got a lot of those left." Klaus pointed at the sky. "You see that big Moon rock coming towards us?"
"That's not good," Luther commented.
"Not great either," I muttered. We stared in awe as the Moon exploded and the burning hunk of rock came flying towards us. "Well... it's a beautiful way to go."
"So this is it, huh? So much for saving the world." Klaus looked down at his deceased love's dog tags. He'd be seeing him soon. "If only Sir Reginald could see us right now, huh? The Umbrella Academy. A total failure." Five played with my fingers in thought.
"At least we're together at the end. As a family," Luther recounted.
Five looked up from our hands. "This doesn't have to be the end."
"What? What are you saying, Five?" We all looked to the fifty-eight year old.
"I think I have a way outta here. But you gotta trust me on this."
"Yeah, I don't think so." Luther scoffed.
"No." Diego squinted his eyes and the others shook their heads.
"Ye hae git tae be kiddin' me richt noo." I rolled my eyes and winced at the sharp pain I received when I sat up. "Would you just listen to him? You have no idea the hello he's been through and you don't have much other choices." I gestured to our inevitable deaths falling from the sky.
"If you're not gonna listen then we might as well accept our fate, because in less than a minute, we're gonna be vaporized," Five told them urgently.
"What's your idea, then?" Diego snapped.
"We use my ability to time travel. But this time, I'll take you with me."
"Didn't work out so well last time you tried to do that," Klaus retorted.
I waved my hand dismissively. "That was different, and this time, this time all we need to do is get out of this moment. 1910, 2030, two days before now, doesn't matter."
They looked between each other in question. "You can do that?" Luther asked.
"I don't know. I've never tried it before," Five bluntly told them.
"In theory it should." I looked to Five and shakily exhaled. "I can't help ease the weight of carrying us all with you. If I turn richt now I die and we don't have time for tha'. Are you sure you're up for this?"
"I have to be," he told me then squeezed my hand.
"What's the worst that can happen?" Diego eyed his siblings for their approval of the idea. I snorted a half-scoff-half-laugh.
"You're lookin' at it. A fifty-eight year old man inside a child's body, so there's that." He smiled at me.
"You should really knock on wood after that comment." I chuckled.
"Oh, what the hell? I'm in," Diego agreed followed by the others.
"Yeah, whatever. I'm in," Klaus announced.
"Me too. Allison?" Luther asked Three who was being oddly quiet. She nodded.
"What about Ben?" I loved that Five had asked that. We can't always see him but he's still here.
"Great, yeah, he's in," Klaus answered for him.
"Okay, great. Luther, grab Vanya." Five helped me stand up.
"Wait, should we be taking her? I mean, if she's the cause of the apocalypse. Isn't that like taking the bomb with us," Luther asked.
"The apocalypse will always happen. And Vanya will always be the cause, unless we take her with us and fix her." I lovingly smiled at Five's answer. The logic wasn't entirely accurate but it beat the easy way out.
The roar of the explosions shook our bones. "Our minute's almost up." I looked to the sky. We all gathered around in a circle and grabbed each other's hands. The electric portal crackled above us.
"Hold on! It's gonna get messy!" Five warned. I looked around and saw little us's in a circle. I looked down at my hair. I was in my original Bonnie look, the day that I met them. The heat of the wave of fire coming our way enveloped us but before it could scorch us, we vanished into the portal.