"Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in this world."
On the top floor of the Umbrella Academy, in the farthest left room, two people sat cramped into a single, child-sized bed. It was the twins' old bedroom, of which they had shared as children.
Reginald Hargreeves had attempted to separate the two, trying his hardest to force them into sleeping in separate rooms by spouting psychological anecdotes about co-dependency and healthy setting for optimal progression in a child's mind, which was ironic considering they were being said by the very man who in one breath proclaimed his children needed a healthy growing environment and in the next would condone their torture under the guise of "training".
At one point in their childhood, he had even gone so far as to forbid them from sharing a room. Dragging Thea into another room further down the hallway, almost at the opposite end to her brother. At the time she had gone quietly, waiting until nightfall to sneak back into their room. The following morning she had woken to see her father's face, darkened in a manner that suggested he was frustrated at things not going his way. Thea had tried to keep the smugness from showing too much on her face, but from his pinched expression she guessed it had let slip. Eventually the man had to concede to the advantages of their sharing, as Klaus' nightmares when left alone would affect everybody else in the house, his screams loud enough to leave them all groggy in the mornings.
If there was one thing Reginald could not stand more than insubordination then it was unproductivity.
Thea had been allowed to sleep back in her original room alongside her brother under the premise that she ensured Number Four retained a healthy sleeping schedule so that they would all be in optimal condition for missions.
Other than the frankly insulting wordage used to describe them – they weren't bloody cattle no matter how much their father seemed to think so – Thea had agreed to the terms without much a fuss. It had been her responsibility to look after Klaus all her life, anyway. She didn't need an order from their father to do so. Besides, sharing had its advantages.
Other than the obvious – that she was so close to her brother –it had been fun figuring out how to decorate their room so that they could both enjoy their own respective hobbies and interests. While physically identical, the twins could not be further apart in aesthetics. Allison always commented on the harsh contrast of their room whenever she visited, saying that it was like an invisible line had been drawn down the middle to indicate which side belonged to who. Though those trips weren't very frequent, as Allison preferred Thea visit her room instead, which was bright and girly and filled with pinned up posters of boys from glossy magazines.
If a stranger were to look into the twins' room, they would likely find the contrast funny too. While Klaus' side was mainly decorated in darker colours; hanging tapestries pinned to the walls and band posters of people wearing heavy leather and chains, Thea's side was the opposite; white walls, bare save for some framed photographs of herself and her siblings, a modest bookcase and a multitude of lush greenery plants in all corners. The room was the embodiment of yin and yang and Thea loved it. She felt it embodied the two of them perfectly. Just like the concept, neither could be complete without the other as they both balanced each other out and also made them whole.
"Lost in thought?" Klaus mumbled.
Thea blinked back the memories and turned to look at him. How long had she been thinking? Always one to get lost in her thoughts, she sometimes had the tendency to fall into somewhat of a daze at times. Diego had figured it was likely a remnant of her ability, which made sense.
"Not lost, just... thinking." She looked around at the room, at the photographs that were on the opposite wall, smiling faces hidden behind dusty glass. "This room brings back memories, don't you think?"
Klaus scoffed. "Memories, sure." He rolled his eyes to look her way, sardonic smirk tugging at his lips. "Memories like walking into my own room and seeing my sister making out with my best friend?"
Thea blushed scarlet. "I mean, it is my room too..." she mumbled, taken aback by the sudden reminder of her childhood misbehaviours.
Klaus, meanwhile, had continued speaking as though he couldn't hear her. Waving his hand around dramatically, he seemed to really be getting into it. "Or better yet, how about the time I opened the door and you were-"
"Okay! Stop!" Thea squealed, falling onto him and pressing her hands against his mouth. "I get it! No need to bring up those memories..." she mumbled, willing the red from her cheeks. "Don't you have any good ones?"
"Dose are gud wuns," he tried to say from behind her hands. She narrowed her eyes but finally removed her hand from his mouth, letting him breath.
"Not for me!"
He rolled his eyes. "You surely seemed to be having a good ti– Woah! Okay, okay. No more embarrassing memories!" he conceded after seeing her raised hand, ready to throttle him if he continued. Klaus tapped his chin, thinking of any more memories that were considered both good and yet not embarrassing. "I dunno, it's hard sis. Most of the memories I have, you probably wouldn't like. You were kind of cringe as a child, you know?"
Thea resolutely smacked him across the head. "That's rich coming from you!" she snipped.
"Aha!" Klaus shot up so that he was now sitting beside her, finger in the air like he'd made a monumental discovery. "I have just the memory!"
"Go on..." Thea said warily.
"Remember the time you gave me that makeover? That was pretty funny." He scrunched up his face as though just remembering something. "Though Dad didn't seem to think so."
Thea huffed out a laugh at the reminder of those simpler times. Wondering what to wear on the rare day-off their father had so-graciously allowed them, Thea had ended up consulting her brother on the matter. Allison was already gone and nobody else in the house came close to owning a sliver of sense in regards to fashion. Wanting to impress Ben had been one of the only concerns in her life at that point, and she couldn't help but smile at the thought of being so young and innocent. Where a crush seemed like the most monumental challenge.
Sick of her whining and wanting to finally go outside, Klaus had picked a nice yellow sundress decorated with daisies and told her to stick it on. While she was dressing he had proceeded to slip on one of her skirts and prance around the room singing in his horrible opera voice:
It doesn't matter what you do~ It doesn't matter what you wear~
You'll never look as good as me, ooohh I do declare~
The pair had burst out laughing, both at Klaus' horrible singing voice and his impromptu lyrics, but were cut off by a harsh, reprimanding voice at the door. Reginald Hargreeves had seen it fit to halt any kind of happiness whenever he came across it and had taken one look at his son wearing the flouncy skirt and had snapped that they had no time for playing. Stop this foolishness at once. Once he had left the room with a stern final gaze, the twins had shared a look – one filled with loathing and contempt for the man who called himself their father.
"Don't think I never noticed that most of my skirts never made it back into my wardrobe," she said.
"I look better in them anyway," Klaus said un-apologetically. He stuck out his tongue for good measure.
Smiling fondly at his childishness, and feeling the lingering weight of their father's disapproval, Thea ran her fingers through the thick curls on his head. "You're probably right."
"So," she started up the conversation once more after lapsing into silence. "What exactly did the others say to Luther's murder accusation?" So caught up in her thoughts she'd completely missed the others arguing.
Klaus leaned back against the headboard, one leg thrown over the other and sighed. "Well, Vanya seemed hurt, which is unsurprising. Allison pretty much stormed out after glaring him out. I'm surprised he didn't melt on the spot, she sure gives a good stink eye," he chuckled. "Diego was pissed off but also kind of smug?"
"Sounds about right," she muttered, knowing that Luther's actions would be ammunition for the rivalry between the two. "Honestly, they're both idiots. Who even cares how he died?"
"So cold, sis," Klaus teased. She smacked him on the leg that was thrown over her lap.
"Don't act like you're not thinking the exact same thing." They shared a secretive smirk. "Besides, it's useless trying to figure it out when he's already dead. The bastard likely died so mysteriously on purpose, as one last fuck you to anybody trying to figure it out."
At getting no response to her rambling, Thea looked at her brother who seemed deep in thought. Nudging his leg she asked him what was wrong. He took a moment to speak, and when he did his voice was unusually timid.
"Maybe... I should try contacting him? I mean, it can't be that hard can it? It's what I do." The last part was said with some bitterness, as Luther's words came back to them both.
While normally quite empathetic in understanding the struggles of others, sometimes Luther was very tone-deaf in his delivery. Unlike his super strength, the man had the tendency of succumbing to ignorance when it came to the abilities of his siblings. Not all of their powers were as easily assimilated as being stronger than the average man. Some of them had been traumatised by their abilities...while some felt a dysphoric-sickness at the thought of using them. Not all of the Umbrella Academy children were equal in the accessibility of their powers.
Klaus' suggestion had brought that into reality and Thea was of two minds on the situation. While she adamantly didn't want him within seeing distance of the bastard that called himself their father, she could see the benefits. Not for Luther's junior detective training but for his own self-esteem.
It was too often a recurring theme in Klaus' life for him to put himself down for the ability he had been born with. Often forgetting just how incredible it was – the sheer possibilities of seeing beyond the veil of death was in itself earth-shattering – and instead he only saw it as lacking for its less than-useful effectiveness in combat. By constantly thinking he was useless compared to everybody else, Klaus had come to see his gift as a threat – an unwanted extension of himself that was like a constant chain on his self-confidence.
That was why Thea wondered if it might do him some good to be proven wrong on this. To be able to prove to himself that he was capable and that his gift did not shackle him.
On the downside...it meant contacting Reginald-bloody-Hargreeves. Ugh.
In the end, she simply shrugged. "It's not up to me to decide. But whatever you do, you know you have my support."
In a far better mood than moments prior, Klaus grinned brightly. He cupped her face and smacked a wet kiss to her forehead, ignoring the disgusted expression he received. She wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her shirt as he jumped from the bed with a renewed sense of vigour.
"Well then, I better get on it! I have a dead father to contact!"
Reaching forward and pulling her from the bed, Klaus linked their arms together and began to lead her from the room, whistling all the while. He soon cheered up, she thought sarcastically.
"Time to see dear old daddy-o~" he sung as they disappeared down the hallway.
. . .
The light atmosphere had soon disappeared, as Thea sat behind the bar with a whisky in hand, bored out of her mind. For an hour now she'd been watching her brother sweat, curse and shout at their father's urn, pleading, demanding and begging for him to come out. The girl wasn't sure what she expected, though her alcoholic brain conjured up the image of Reginald Hargreeves floating out of the urn like a genie in a Disney movie and she snorted into her glass, spilling it everywhere. She stared at the liquid mess she'd made of her shirt in inebriated dismay.
"It spilt," she whined.
Ignoring her, Klaus continued his performance. "Tell everybody who killed you and find eternal peace," he pleaded, hand raised in the air in mock prayer. He looked like one of those televangelists who scammed innocent people out of their money through sermons that she'd seen once on TV.
If that old fart gets eternal peace then karma truly is one fucked up bitch. Thea thought while taking another sip. She decidedly ignored the puddle of spilt alcohol. Too drunk to care. Watching Klaus become progressively more riled up was more entertaining. His placid expression had gone from determined to annoyed and from there his frustration had accumulated until he was down-right pissed. He finally gave up, leaning forward to pour himself a drink but misjudged his movements and accidentally bumped into the urn.
Almost in slow motion, Thea watched the exact moment the urn tipped onto its side and spilled all of the cremated ash onto the bar table.
"It spilt," she said rather unhelpfully.
Both of them stared at the pile of pitiful ash in a muted sense of morbid fascination before Thea snorted, spilling even more whisky down her shirt. She ignored it once again to stare at the pile of ashes in a rising sense of horrified hilarity. "Oh my god," she said shakily, laughter threatening to spill forth.
"Oh my god," Klaus repeated, looking wide-eyed at the ashes that were quickly becoming damp from Thea's spray of whisky, looking up at his sister, who was wide-eyed and trying not to cry with mirth.
It only took that one shared look for them both to burst out laughing. The laughter had a hysterical edge to it that neither could contain. What a riot!
"Oh my god," Thea kept repeating, finding it all way too funny. "Oh god." She held her side, feeling an oncoming stitch forming from the amount of laughter spilling forth.
Klaus had collapsed against the bar, trying and failing to hold himself upright as he stared right at the crumbling and soaking pile of ashes that used to be their father. "Oh my god."
The two continued to cackle for a long time afterwards, high on the morbidity of the situation as well as the rather fitting conclusion to their father's life. To be reduced to a wet pile of ash on the expensive bar of your lonely mansion by the two children you hated most. It was too good.
With shaking hands, Thea poured two more drinks and raised a toast.
"To Dad!"
Klaus followed suit, tears streaming down his rosy cheeks. "To Dad!"
. . .
After an indiscriminate amount of time had passed the twins were tangled up with one another atop the kitchen table. They had given up on Klaus' call into the afterlife and instead had made the logical decision that to lay sprawled upon the hard, wooden table was the best plan of action after too many glasses of whisky.
Perhaps it could be said that they were also a little high from a shared joint, but their giggles made it clear that they weren't quite in the right mind to make a distinction. The only thing that cut through their bliss was when music began to play throughout the academy. It was a familiar, if not nostalgic tune, and as the beat began to play out it was clear who was responsible.
♪ "Children behave. That's what they say when we're together." ♪
Klaus snorted. "Does the oaf think he can buy our forgiveness with Tiffany?"
Thea didn't reply straight away, instead listening to the lyrics with her eyes closed. Finally, she laughed, unable to stop the fond smile from her face. "I think it's working. Only Luther could apologise for accusing us of murder with 80s pop."
Klaus groaned as he shifted and rolled off of the table. When he seemed to have found a semblance of balance, he offered her a hand, goofy grin on his face. "May I have this dance, madam?"
♪ "Holdin' on to one another's hand." ♪
She took the hand and giggled. "You may, good sir."
♪ "You put your arms around me and we tumble to the ground and then you say-" ♪
Klaus took the lead. Prancing them around the room, their inebriated senses causing them to slip and tumble a few times before they found a good rhythm. He even began spinning her around and Thea laughed as the world around her became a blur.
♪ "I think we're alone now. There doesn't seem to be anyone around.
I think we're alone now. The beating of our hearts is the only sound." ♪
The pair continued to dance, making silly faces at one another and performing mock serenades, unaware that the rest of their siblings were doing the exact same thing throughout the house. The combination of the nostalgic song and the alcohol coursing through her veins was liberating and for a brief moment, Thea could imagine herself younger, much younger than she currently was and surrounded by her entire family. Nobody missing or dead or on bad terms, but just filled with childish rivalry and affection and free from the troubles of adulthood.
Her fantasies were rudely interrupted by a close call with a flying knife, which managed to barely miss impaling her in the neck as it went soaring through the kitchen. A thundering sound boomed from outside, followed by an illuminating strike of lighting.
Klaus somehow managed to catch their fathers urn before it could fly of the table and follow the rest of the magnetised cutlery. Multiple knives, forks and other kitchen utensils now decorated the brick wall, like a bad modern arts exhibition.
Looking at one another in bewilderment, they could only follow the sound of voices from outside the kitchen. It was their siblings, all congregated together in the garden and staring up into the sky where a giant mass of blue energy seemed to be fluctuating ominously. Thea was about to ask what the hell was going on when she watched Klaus run past her holding a fire extinguishing, of all things.
"Out of the way!" he exclaimed before attempting to spray the clearly alien, not-of-this-world, fucking scary-ass energy wormhole. When that brilliant plan obviously didn't work he simply threw the extinguishing into the thing in annoyance. The vortex easily sucked the metallic object into itself, which only solidified how dangerous this phenomenon was.
Thea took out her incredulous frustrations by pulling her brother back and smacking him over the head.
"Are you an idiot?" She screamed, trying to be heard over the almost deafening sound which the energy mass was emitting. When Klaus went to open his mouth, very much likely to explain away his idiocy, she quickly shut him down. "Never mind." She shouldn't ask questions she knows the answer to. Instead she turned to her other siblings. "What's going on?"
Nobody had an answer. They all stared up at it in equal parts fascination and terror. Luther, coming to his senses stepped in front of the group, arms raised either side so that his large body acting as a shield to them all.
"Everybody get behind me!" he shouted.
Diego soon hurried to stand beside him too, completely ignoring his previous words. "Yeah, get behind us."
Thea would have rolled her eyes at their usual behaviour, always trying to one up each other even when they were about to be consumed by some freaky pulsating mass of pure energy, but she was too busy trying not to die. Klaus was dealing with the situation as he always did, which was to crack jokes at everything before hightailing it out of there, but as he tried tugging on her arm to pull her away from the vortex, Thea put a halt to his actions when she caught sight of something within the mass of swirling blue.
An outline of something was forming...taking shape...the shape...of a person? Could it really be a human coming out of it? Would a person even survive being in contact with whatever this energy vortex was?
A tremendous flash of lightning formed beneath the energy before a booming thunder followed soon after. The sound was deafening, even more so because of their close proximity and the ringing in her ears was enough to send Thea reeling. She felt disorientated, dizzy from both the alcohol and the dancing and now, being faced with whatever life-changing situation they'd found themselves in... she'd about had enough.
She closed her eyes briefly, trying to centre herself quickly before she became too overwhelmed and when she opened her eyes again, she was greeted with a peculiar sight.
The blue energy had disappeared and all the swirling mass of sound had gone along with it. The sudden silence was almost as deafening as the thunder before and it took Thea a couple of seconds to come to her senses. Because there, on the ground, was a boy.
A boy no older than thirteen had come tumbling out of the energy vortex to land on their back garden, wearing a very ill-fitting grey suit and his dark hair in an untidy ruffle atop his head.
Cautiously, the siblings took a step closer to get a better look, but none were too willing to help the stranger who had clearly originated from the dangerous and as of yet unknown portal. Thea, meanwhile, could feel a strange churning in her stomach, accompanied by a distant ringing in her head that signalled something was wrong here. Something she should have guessed already was happening and she wasn't sober enough to keep up.
It was only when the boy lifted his head up to look at them all that she felt like the floor from beneath her feet had suddenly disappeared and she was freefalling forward, crashing into him with a silent cry of acknowledgment and wide-open arms.
Klaus, staring at his sister in the arms of a bemused boy they had all long thought lost, could only sum up the situation aloud, wondering whether he had somehow fallen into another of his drug-induced daydreams or if they were all collectively experiencing this unexplained miracle.
"Does everybody else see little Number Five, or is it just me?"
Number Five. The boy lost in time. The brother who had been gone for sixteen years and had somehow turned up once more. The boy who was currently being smothered in the arms of his inconsolable sister.
At the mention of his status as little, however, Number Five looked down at his body, namely how easily Thea had managed to smother him in her rather petite form like a mother holding a baby.
"Well, shit."
. . .
The kitchen was drowning in awkward tension and an uncomfortable atmosphere, though the blonde girl who had taken up residence on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs back and forth like a child, was none the wiser. Or perhaps she had simply long-ago learned to ignore the awkwardness often caused by family meetings and was purposefully choosing not to acknowledge it.
Five had changed into something a little more fitting to his regressed stature, adorning the old Umbrella Academy uniform. Blazer and all.
The rest of the siblings had congregated around the dining table, staring at the boy like he was an alien and if the twitch of his brow was of any indication, the staring was beginning to grate on his nerves. Trying to ignore them, he instead focused on making a sandwich. Time travel was ravenous work, after all.
"What's the date?" he asked casually, buttering the bread evenly on both sides.
"March 24th, 2019," Thea answered before anybody else could. When they boy nodded her way in thanks for the specificity of the date, she beamed back. The others watching couldn't help but roll their eyes at the by-play. It was almost like a student eagerly answering their favourite teacher.
The pause of his look at the girl did not go unnoticed, his expression complicated – both pained and yet awe-struck – but they were all too mentally befuddled to give it any deeper thought. Especially the recipient of such a look. Too wrapped up in simply watching him be here. Alive.
"That's good," he mumbled, continuing his motions as he thought. Luther, however, always disgruntled at being ignored, cut in before he could say anymore.
"Are we going to talk about what just happened?" he asked, exasperated. "It's been almost two decades since you left, Five. What the hell happened?"
Seemingly non-plussed at his brothers accusations, Five spatial-jumped past the man toward the cupboard that Thea was sat beneath. When he was presented with the bag of marshmallows he'd wanted, he couldn't help but crack a smirk before spatial jumping back.
"Trust me, it's been a lot longer than that," Five muttered, attempting to squish as many marshmallows as possible onto the small square of bread.
"Then where did you go?" Diego asked, just as confused as the rest of the family.
"To the future." Five's tone was bland, as though only just holding himself back from adding on a dry 'duh, where else?'. "It's total shit, by the way," he said, spatial jumping once more towards another cupboard on the opposite side of the room, grabbing a large jar of smooth peanut butter.
"Called it!" Klaus shouted for joy, raising his hand and waving it about while looking around the room for validation. His usual supporter was too busy staring at the boy to notice and so he pouted in indignation.
Five most of all was ignoring him. He'd popped back and began slathering on copious amount of smooth paste all over the other half of his bread.
"I really should have listened to the old man, you know," he muttered as he pressed the peanut butter-covered square down onto the one overflowing with marshmallows. Success. He smirked. "Jumping through space is one thing but jumping through time is a total toss of the dice."
He took a large bite, finally looking up at them all. "Nyis sgurt," he said, mouth crammed with marshmallows.
Klaus jumped in place, brightening instantly as he brushed imaginary dirt from the black leather skirt. "Oh, well. Danke."
"Hold on..." Vanya cut in, looking a little sheepish but just as confused as the rest. "How did you get back? Back here."
After swallowing his mouthful, Five replied. "In the end I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that existed in every possible instance of time."
He waved his free hand about in the air as though this explanation was a simple matter of semantics, and not completely above any of their mental capabilities.
Thea thought she got the gist of it, though she would certainly avoid admitting that she was using a copious amount of fiction tropes to reconcile it within her mind. She'd read plenty of time-travel fanfictions before, they were probably on the same kind of wavelength, right? Fix-it au's were rife with this kind of thing. She totally had it down.
"Like Back to the Future?" Diego mumbled, likely having meant to say that only in his own mind. The reproachful look he received from Five was enough to make it clear that the resident time-traveller very much did not agree.
Right, Thea thought sheepishly, avidly avoiding eye contact. Perhaps using Harry Potter fanfiction as reference material wasn't the best course of action...
"Why are you giggling?" Allison asked dryly, and all eyes turned towards Thea who was caught, red-cheeked and giggling in sheepish embarrassment.
"Nothing!" she said with a goofy smile, trying to avoid explaining herself to Five and very likely embarrassing herself further.
Luckily, Diego was just as embarrassed as she felt and he soon took the attention away from her when he shot back at Five that his explanation made no sense.
Thea would have shaken her head in dismay – why would anybody tell Five that he was wrong on something? Did they have a death wish!? – but she'd happily let him take the proverbial bullet for her.
"Well it would make sense if you were smarter," Five snipped back and Thea struggled to hold in her nervous giggles again. She had to covertly muffle her laughter behind a hand, though the looks being sent her way by Klaus and Vanya meant she probably wasn't doing a very good job.
Diego shot up from his seat at Five's tone of voice but Luther held him back. That wasn't the best course of action because Diego's sensitive Luther-detector went off and they two were back to subtly trying to out-flex the other and filling the room with Alpha-male pheromones.
"How long were you there?" Allison asked instead, trying to take the attention away from the two idiots butting heads. She sent them both a derisive look from beneath her nose.
"Give or take...forty-five years."
That stopped everybody short. Diego and Luther paused in their arguing to sit down in shock while Allison and Vanya looked gobsmacked, the latter a little upset. Thea had been sure that she was slowly coming down from her high but that revelation certainly sobered her right the fuck up.
She must have made some kind of noise because Five's eyes shot up to look directly into her own. Past the usual mask of arrogance and childhood youth, his eyes looked...wounded. Open and raw and vulnerable.
"What are you even saying?" Diego asked in surprise. "That you're...fifty-eight right now?"
Five continued to look at the blonde, though he'd managed to close himself off a little more, no longer was the vulnerability to clear to see in his eyes. "My consciousness is currently fifty-eight, yes. But my body has regressed to that of my thirteen-year-old self."
At this he finally looked away, effectively cutting whatever was going on between them moments before. He looked down at his body in a mixture of amused disgust and bleak acceptance. Staring at the sandwich in his hand, no longer hungry, Five sighed before taking a mechanical bite anyway.
Vanya was frowning, seemingly trying to wrap her hand around the conflicting facts. "How does that work? Being a different age mentally and physically?"
"It's simple enough of a concept, Vanya." Five muttered between another tasteless bite. "I've lived those fifty-eight years, experienced more than you can imagine. But now I've been crammed into this shell of a boy by coming back."
His stare wouldn't meet any of his siblings and so he soon found the newspaper lying on the kitchen table. Picking it up he saw the recognisable yet distant face of Reginald Hargreeves on the cover. "Huh. Suppose I missed the funeral."
Instantly suspicious, Luther narrowed his eyes. "How did you know about that?"
Still caught up on the revelation of Five's age and the multitude of heavy thoughts that came alongside that, Thea couldn't help herself from pushing those into the back of her mind for now, to be looked at carefully at a better date, and reply to Luther's absurd comment.
"Travelling to the future sort of implies foreknowledge of past events, Luth. I'd thought even you'd have understood that," she drawled, looking at him from hooded eyes. "If knowledge of Dad's death was enough to warrant guilt then the whole world should be added onto your suspect list."
Sheepish at being called out, Luther remained silent, though his shoulders remained tight with tension. It seemed he didn't take too well to things spiralling so far out of his control. When Five commented on the cause of their father's death, Diego and Luther disagreed once more, though with the tense atmosphere, their argument sizzled out before it could spark a full-blown fight.
Five watched them in bored contempt and clicked his tongue in annoyance as he threw the newspaper back onto the table. "I see nothing has changed much." Finishing the final bite of his sandwich and too uncaring to clean up after himself, Five began to head towards the kitchen door, seemingly done with the conversation.
"Is that it?" Allison couldn't help but ask, feeling like they had hardly began to scratch the surface of the complete shit show that had been dumped onto the family in the last day. "We aren't finished!"
"I certainly am," Five drawled as he disappeared out of the doorway, his voice could be heard echoing from the hallway. "Circle of life and all that. It's nothing new."
The rest of the Hargreeves were left in the kitchen, feeling the full weight of the dreadful silence which permeated the house. Uncomfortable all of a sudden, at both the awkwardness and at the sudden realisation that she was coming down from her intoxicated high, Thea felt like she needed to leave. Escape the gloomy kitchen and the even gloomier thoughts pervading her mind.
Too much had been thrown at her feet and she wasn't sure she was sufficiently equipped to deal with any of it.
As she left the kitchen, head in her hands, she hissed in pain.
It was all too much at once. All too much.
. . .
She had decided to make her peace in the living room. The memorial Luther wanted to hold would be soon and she didn't fancy traipsing up all those stairs only to be forced to come back down in less than an hours' time. So there she was, shuffling into the grand living room and flopping face-down onto one of the stiff and spine-shifting sofas that were much more fitted for display purposes only and absolutely not for sleeping on. Oh well. Perhaps the feeling of her spine being realigned against her will would distract her from confronting her thoughts.
A constant humming at the back of her mind signalled an inevitable truth: her powers were returning at full force. At the moment it was like somebody was mowing the garden from a distance, but soon it would become a full-on buzzing directly inside her ear canal, as though a colony of bees had gotten stuck and were trying their hardest to escape.
It was maddening and only cemented her earlier belief, being sober was overrated. At least intoxication had the added benefit of drowning out the effort she had to make on a constant basis to block out everything from spilling in. At the end of most days she had suffered terrible migraines, bad enough that the pain relief she had depended upon had begun to stop working. The doctor had told her that she'd become resistant to them and only stronger medication would work.
Which of course was denied to her, because what doctor could understand the mental deterioration behind an ability like hers? They would simply tell her to control her abilities better – she was a famous member of the Umbrella Academy, wasn't she? Surely that was something easily done! – but that was besides the point. Thea could easily control her ability, but the mind-reading had become such a menace that it hadn't seemed worth it.
While she could be selective about what she read, no amount of control could really aid in combatting genuine and overwhelming mental activity. If somebody around her was to suddenly feel a large amount of fear, surprise, love or anger, then Thea was bombarded with those thoughts and feelings as though they were her own. It was like a combination of somebody suddenly coming up to you and shouting out their emotions – "Hey! I'm feeling very frustrated and murderous right now! – and even when that didn't occur, the only way she could describe that aspect of her ability was to compare it to a radio frequency. Where she could occasionally tap into different frequencies, or people, and hear their unique station of thoughts.
When controlling it this way, the world around her was mostly quiet unless she chose to target someone specifically, but still, for attentive ears there remained a distant and dull buzzing even when her gift was seemingly 'switched off'. Muted and yet after a long period of time and constant exposure, the buzzing because a heavy throbbing that weighed her down.
Her ability was not one to be activated, like Allison or Five. It was, while very different, quite similar developmentally to Luther's super strength, in that the boy did not actively have to 'switch on' his strength, only dial-up or down his strength to fit the situation.
The buzzing indicated that people were thinking around her, that their brains were full with activity and ripe for the picking, but that she had selectively muted them as best as possible. But that awareness soon became overwhelming and almost clawingly claustrophobic.
As a child, when she couldn't really control it, she had even been told multiple times to speak quitter after unknowingly shouting out her words. Other people couldn't understand why she felt the need to speak so loudly, but of course they weren't trying to speak over the multitude of other voices echoing throughout the room, all fighting for control and attention over the other. It had led to a lot of awkward and embarrassing moments.
The humming continued. The humming droned on and on and on and–
"Are you okay?" A soothing voice cut through the noise and Thea rolled over to blearily open her eyes. Above her, a pale face was looking down at her with soft, brown eyes. Vanya.
Thea blinked a couple more times, trying to ignore the need to raise her voice instinctually over the humming of bees. She hummed, rubbing her eyes. It looked like she'd been laying here longer than she'd expected as her arms ached with the movement. "Headache," she mumbled. "I need another drink."
Vanya was visibly concerned. "I don't think that's the best idea...Can I do anything to help?"
While her words were kind her voice belied the nerves simmering below. Recognising the signs of anxiety from childhood, Thea tried sitting up and facing her sister with a little more dignity.
"I'm good thanks." She groaned at the throbbing of her skull at being upright. "You're probably right about the drink...I'll see it through."
"Will you be okay for Dad's funeral?"
"Fuck Dad," she replied rather inarticulately. Honestly could they not go an hour without being reminded of the man? And why did Vanya sound so earnest, so worried about the prospect? Did she really continue to seek the man's approval even beyond death? It could be argued that Reginald Hargreeves fucked over Vanya the worst of them all, so why her sister continued to seek approval from those around her baffled Thea.
However none of those rather selfish words could be spoken when she met Vanya's open concern. Thea sighed. Defeated once again by her betters. Emotional maturity was such a difficult thing to navigate. Sometimes she just wished they were children again so that her outburst could be chalked up to adolescent hormones.
"Sorry. I'm sure I'll be sober enough to acknowledge that the old man's dead," she said sarcastically, smoothing out her hair from its ruffled mess. "But thanks. It's nice to know you care, Vanya."
A little taken aback at the gratitude, Vanya smiled nonetheless, looking a little less weighed down by her worries. Well, good. At least one of them was. Dropping back onto the sofa, this time face-up and with a little more dignity to her position, Thea planned on getting a few more minutes sleep before the chaos of the funeral would unfold.
That plan was shot when a familiar voice entered the room. "It's nice to have proof Dad didn't forget about me."
Five walked inside and came to stand beside the sofa alongside Vanya, both of them looking up at the pretentious, gilded portrait of the missing Number Five hung up as centrepiece for the fireplace. He turned to Vanya, seemingly leaving the blonde girl be as she closed her eyes again, too tired to reminisce over the very man she disliked most.
The two of them spoke of unimportant things, the boy briefly mentioning the book Vanya had written as an expose on the Umbrella Academy, airing out all of their metaphorical dirty-laundry for the world to gape and awe over. It had been in bad taste, sure, but Thea had read the book with her brother with an ambiguous amusement. While it had certainly painted them all in a bad light, Vanya hadn't lied at all, only embellished certain things for suspense and intrigue.
Thea, as a proclaimed lover of fiction, couldn't fault her for taking control of something in her life and making it hers. Vanya's past was hers to expose as she wished, after all, though she could have left out some of the more personal mental health issues of her siblings.
Five's voice was dulcet and clearly amused at the girl's balls at publishing something so daring. "I'm sure that went over splendidly."
Vanya's voice was filled with shame and regret. "...They all hate me."
Thea couldn't help but snort. Feeling the gazes on her face, she kept her eyes closed as the darkness was comforting for her splitting headache, but answered the silent question.
"I can't speak for the others, but Klaus and I certainly don't hate you." She spoke honestly. "You're our sister," she added as though that was reason enough. Humming she considered that Vanya probably would want more than that as insurance against their hatred. She hadn't the best memories of sibling camaraderie, after all. "Honestly, had I been in a similar situation I would have likely done the same thing."
At Vanya surprised sound, Thea cracked one eye open minutely. Both Vanya and Five stood towering above her, similar expressions of surprise on their faces, though Five's raised brow indicated he was a tad more intrigued.
The blonde sighed and let her eyes slip closed once more. "Why are you so surprised? I admit I'm a petty bitch when I want to be, and I'm quite aware of how I was as a child." She snorted. "If I had been treated they way you were I would have blown up at everybody far sooner than you. I was surprised you hadn't twisted everything further to paint us all out to be proper villains. Props for sticking to the truth – nobody can really complain when you just told the truth, can they?"
Looking at her sister once again, Thea saw the thoughtful expression on her face. it seemed Vanya had not expected such a nuanced and calm reaction from anybody.
"Of course, Klaus was just more amused at some of the tales you told. He'd forgotten most of them and had a riot at some of the anecdotes of Luther and Diego. Said he's keeping them in his arsenal for future blackmail material." She shook her head. "Anyway, what's done is done. No need to walk on eggshells around us all, Van. You wrote the book, own the fuck up to it. It was well written, anyhow."
Vanya had laughed a little at that, her shoulders no longer as tense as they once were. Five remained silent. Sensing the atmosphere had eased, Thea clicked her tongue.
"What does any of that matter, anyway? Dad's dead, this guy," here she pointed at Five. "Miraculously came back and I heard there's going to be cucumber sandwiches after the funeral. All sounds merry to me."
Laughing at her easy-going nature, Vanya's smile finally reached her eyes.
The two began to talk once more, walking over to the painting so that she could get some rest, but the blonde decided that she'd spent enough time inside. While the darkness was helpful for her pounding head, the stuffiness and general gloom of the manor were only counteracting any positivity.
She rose from the sofa to leave but almost fell over when Five and Vanya's conversation filtered into her awareness.
"-like what happened to Ben?"
It was as though the carpet had suddenly been yanked and Thea was sure she'd fall straight onto her face, unable to catch herself from the sudden loss of control. Being turned away from her and presuming her asleep, neither Five nor Vanya had noticed her reaction and continued to talk. Thea felt her throat close off and barely noticed as the lack of air caused her vision to blur.
"Was it bad?" Five asked softly, eyes downcast.
But Thea didn't hear Vanya's reply. Didn't want to. Couldn't hear it. There was nothing the girl could say that would make anything regarding Ben's death anything she could handle. She was shaking, she realised dimly. Fingers trembling from the strain of keeping her body standing and functioning without falling to the floor in a dramatic heap of uselessness.
A wounded noise escaped her throat without her consent and the two whirled around in shock, eyes filled with regret. "Thea-"
The girl ignored Vanya's call, turning to rush from the room without looking back. She didn't want them to see the tears gathering in her eyes or how hard she was trembling.
"I need some air," she croaked, throat dry and scratchy from lack of air.
"Z," Five tried to call but she ignored him too.
"I need some air." She repeated, automatically. "Just some air."
Without further comment she disappeared out of the darkened living room and into the garden outside, briefly illuminated by the light spilling forth from the door before it shut behind her, leaving it all behind.
If you read this, then I hope you enjoyed!