Five Hargreeves left the department store with a tear in his eye and a wrenching feeling in his gut. That pain didn't come from the very sore wound in his side, but the unsettling feeling that this wasn't over.
He wanted it to be. God, that was all he had ever wanted, but he couldn't shake the idea that it never would be. Five was doomed to be chased by the apocalypse, looming over his head like the giant clouds of ash and death it brought.
The best he could do for now was try to move on. Hazel's words from earlier were bolded in his mind. There you go, you guys can grow up. It was that, and the image of Charlotte's lost expression that made him decide to give up Delores. She was a thing of the past, a safety blanket, a fake sense of familiarity.
Delores was a person created by his own deranged mind. She was a representation of every person he loved as a child. She was Grace's kind words, Diego's stuttered input, a wavering command from Luther, Vanya's concerned whispers. The mannequin was only a vessel for these people to inhabit. She was the only thing, other than decomposed corpses, that resembled a living being in all those years of solitude. Over time, Delores developed into her own person. She was a mixture of all of the best qualities of the people Five loved. She was the only person he had.
It was time to close that chapter now. He had to move on and grow up. Sorrow had to be left behind.
Despite this newfound hope for the future, there was still something lurking under the surface. Something was off and these opportunities didn't feel real. It was like watching a movie where all the characters think the worst has come to an end, but there's still forty minutes left to watch.
It all came together when he stopped to check for the daily newspaper on his way home. The headline was startling, but not unexpected. He knew that headline and that format better than any other text. It was newer and crisper than the one he found all those years ago, but it was the same print of the newspaper he found in the apocalypse.
Things weren't over yet.
His legs carried him down the sidewalk, picking up speed before he closed his eyes and thrust himself through a blue rift. He nearly fell into the rumble that was the Umbrella Academy.
The last few pieces of the puzzle clicked into his head just as he spotted something disturbing. From underneath the first pile of settled debris he found a dust covered rain jacket. Canary yellow against the choked air, it lay under a large chunk of bricks. Five almost dropped the newspaper when he crouched to inspect the coat. There was no blood that he could see, but if Charlotte was under that piece of wall...
"Five!"
The redhead flung herself at him before he could even react. She embraced him tightly and briefly, before pulling away. She was covered in plaster dust and tiny bits of the home he once knew. One of the sleeves of Charlotte's borrowed dress was darkened with blood and the same crimson liquid stained the collar. Her hair had been put up some time after he left the Academy, but the shortest pieces hung out of the ponytail in a halo of frizz around her head.
Relief made Five want to brush the plaster from her cheek, but rational thought made him hold his own hand back from the movement. She was clearly startled and trying to do something so affectionate would only rattle her more.
"It's Vanya," she breathed. "Vanya is all four horsemen, Five." Charlotte looked the same as she did after the explosion at the lab all those days ago. Shaken and small looking.
The endless gears in his brain twisted unnaturally to provide the full story. Vanya brought on the apocalypse. It was always her. "Are you okay?"
She cringed, as if someone had just threatened to hit her. "What? Yeah, I'm fine, but I haven't seen-" Charlotte cut herself off when they heard distant voices. Without hesitation, she grabbed Five's arm, for both support and to lead him in the direction of his siblings.
The Academy wasn't even a building anymore. It was reduced to a smoke pile of stone and broken furniture. He scanned the destruction as they stepped around the broken pieces of the building.
"Guys! This is it. The apocalypse is still on, the world ends today." His siblings looked on in despair, having already put the story together.
"I thought you said that it was over!" Luther said from the back of the group as he approached the teens.
Charlotte clung to his arm even as he began gesturing with the newspaper. "I was wrong, okay?" He shakily patted the familiar paper. "This newspaper, I found it in the future the day I got stuck. The headline hasn't changed."
Shaking his bloodied head, Diego swallowed bitterly. "No, that doesn't mean anything. Time could have been altered since that newspaper came out this morning."
He could already feel the headache fast approaching. It was the beginning of this week all over again. Five came back only to have no one take his word for truth. "You're not listening to me. When I found it, I assumed this place came down along with everything else. But here we are." He waved towards the sky and Charlotte flinched beside him. "The moon is shining, the Earth is in one piece, but not the academy."
As he spoke, everyone surveyed the ruins once more, still able to feel the vibrations that shook them as the place came toppling down.
Klaus snatched the newspaper the moment his little brother stopped talking. "I'm confused."
"Then listen to me, you idiot. Vanya destroys the Academy, before the apocalypse. I thought Herald Jenkins was the cause, but he was the fuse. Vanya is the bomb. Vanya causes the apocalypse."
Overhead, a bright light shone. The survivors squinted up at the helicopter, surely there to search for anyone that was still alive after the collapse of the building.
"We have to go," Luther said, already rounding on Allison, ever silent with the injury to her throat.
As the other Hargreeves scattered, Five took hold of Charlotte's icy hand and pulled her into the blue light to jump.
"What are we doing here?"
Five grimaced as he brushed against one of the sticky countertops. "It's a neutral meeting spot."
Glancing around the bowling alley, Charlotte wrapped her arms around herself. "Couldn't we have gone to a park or somebody's house?"
"Who's house?" Five asked. "What? You think any of my siblings are capable enough to own their own home?"
She looked like she was working through the idea, but came to the same conclusion. "Fair enough."
"Could I get two pairs of bowling shoes?" Five said over the front desk of the Bowling Alley. Charlotte stood behind him, staring at the patterned carpet as the clerk approached.
"Yeah, what sizes?
Once settled with their shoes, the pair limped down the steps to where the alleys lay. They sat on hard benches across from each other and silently pulled their shoes off. Not having Delores next to him left an ache in Five's chest, as unhealthy as he knew it was. It must be similar for Charlotte, he thought. She had to know that Denis wasn't good for her, but he was there for so long that he surely became a crutch, the same way Delores was for Five.
After tying her shoes painfully, Charlotte fixed her hair and grabbed some napkins to wipe the dried blood from her arm. She had been through a lot too, but here she was, fully prepared to run through the end of the world with him. Maybe it was that, or just how similar the two were, but Five felt a strange attachment to her. He had only known the woman for a few days, but it felt like a lifetime of adventures. Surely there was much more to get to know, but he'd have to stop the apocalypse before getting to see all of that.
"Grace..." She said quietly. Five glanced up, shaken from his thoughts. "She didn't make it out. I'm sorry."
He squeezed his eyes shut briefly and let the emotion roll past him. It wasn't time to grieve something he lost long ago. "I figured."
They sat in heavy silence for a while. The dread of the situation weighted them down in their seats.
"Hello. Uh, I hate to intrude, but my manager says if you aren't going to bowl, you have to leave."
The group frowned collectively at the woman in her blue uniform. Without hesitation, Luther turned and plucked a bowling ball from the rack and flung it randomly at one of the alleys. Charlotte jumped once the ball began to bounce, blinking out of sight for a split second.
Five grabbed her arm, but then retracted when he felt fresh blood under his fingers. "Sorry. But hey, get that under control."
She sneered. "Oh, well you try getting in under control when your monkey of a brother is going around imprisoning people and throwing heavy objects."
"I heard that."
The girl crossed her arms over her chest. "Good."
Allison tapped at her notepad with a Sharpie, holding it up to Luther before he could say anything in response to Charlotte.
"We're the only ones capable of stopping this." He spoke as he shook his head at his sister. "We have a responsibility to dad."
"To dad?!" Diego shouted across the space. "No, I've heard enough-"
"He sacrificed everything to bring us back together."
With his headache growing by the second, Five butted back into the conversation. "I'm with Luther on this one. We can't give her a chance to fight back. There are billions of lives at stake."
"I'm not helping you guys murder your sister."
Luther held up one of his gigantic hands. "Hey, no one said anything about killing her."
"I'm pretty sure you did!"
In the middle of all of this, Klaus scanned his family. "You know guys, maybe I can help."
Five could already feel his eyes rolling on their own accord. Nothing could ever be straightforward with his family. Someone always had some stupid idea or some reason to set them back. He loved his siblings, but man, did they grow up to be wrecks.
The drug addict stood and everyone started to pay more attention. Allison watched with an uncertain expression and the other girl of the group held her head up with the palm of her hand.
"The real hero was Ben."
Everyone froze to take in this information. "Who's Ben?"
Turning to her briefly, Five answered. "Our dead brother."
"Ah, right."
"Listen, today he punched me." Klaus pointed at his own face for emphasis. "In the face. And he's actually the one who saved Diego's life."
They only stared at their brother in disbelief. Of course, he wasn't really sober, they all thought. Klaus could never control himself and as much as his family loved him, they all expected him to fail, time and time again. Most of them had watched him spiral into a vicious cycle of drug abuse since they were teens. If Five ever really stopped to think about it, he knew that part of Klaus was really trying, but this was just too much. Everyone was aware that Klaus hadn't properly summoned a spirit in years because of his addictions.
But the look on his face wasn't one of delusion. Klaus didn't seem like he was lying, but one could never really know.
He walked over so that he stood in the middle of their group, but Luther stopped him before he could further explain. "You are unbelievable, Klaus."
"You want proof? Is that it? I'll give you proof." He grabbed the closest bowling ball and began to prepare himself.
"Whoa, whoa! Stop throwing shit!"
He ignored that. "It's showtime baby," he said, with his eyes glued on something a few yards away from him. "Catch."
Charlotte scooted Allison away from the man as he flung the hot pink bowling ball into the air and it fell. The Hargreeves and Charlotte simply stared. The ball began to roll away.
"Is there any way to silence that voice in your head that screams out to be the center of attention," Luther spit.
His brother scowled back at him. "You know, I liked you a lot better before you got laid." Their faces fell. "Which was a- uh- complete- It wasn't his fault, because he was ridiculously high, right? And the girl- she though he was a furry-"
From Allison's side, Charlotte burst into an uncontrolled fit of giggles. The girl next to her slapped the top of her leg, making her yelp and hold onto her thigh.
"Stop." Luther looked like he was ready to either tear off someone's head or crawl into a hole. His family could only sit in silence.
After a few moments, Five turned to Charlotte, who was still biting back laughter and holding her leg. He shot her a look as if to ask, did you know about this? She simply shrugged.
Allison looked close to tears as she stormed off, making a very flustered Luther run after her.
This wasn't going anywhere. The apocalypse could happen any moment and his siblings were running around like chickens with their head cut off. Five rolled his eyes at the constant drama and leaned forward.
"Excuse me?"
Both Klaus and Diego brushed their hands down their face before looking up at the person who had rushed over to them.
"Excuse me!" The woman who stood in front of them with a teenager tucked under her arm smiled at Five and Charlotte. "It's my son, Kenny's, birthday today, and uh- wouldn't your son be happier playing with kids his own age? Assuming it's okay with your two dads."
A frown easily came as Klaus looked between Five and Charlotte, then at Diego.
Charlotte, who was curled up awkwardly on the chair across from them raised an eyebrow. "Uh, excuse me?"
"I would rather chew off my own foot."
Waiting for the apocalypse to turn the world to ash feels like drowning in sand. Every worry about the upcoming events piled on to the mountain of anxiety crushing Charlotte. As she sat and waited for someone to do something, she could practically feel the world drawing to an end around her.
It didn't help that every other worry, every detail from the past few days was bouncing around her skull like pinballs. Charlotte knew more about this ability that she had lived with since her adolescence. She now knew minimal information about her mother, and that she wasn't the only mother to give birth to an extraordinary baby. Charlotte knew about the end of the world and she knew about all the terrible things that Denis had done.
She shivered at that thought and anxiously ran her hands up and down her own arms. Her fingers caught the tear in the shirt she wore, but she ignored the sting it brought. With a heavy sigh, her good foot began to tap at the shiny floor. This was all too much for her to process. The world was going to end, they were all going to die.
Just as Charlotte came across the question of how death would feel, a voice interrupted her.
"Hey, you alright?"
Her doe-like eyes unfocused before landing on Klaus. He was the one that certainly wouldn't be alright, she should have asked that question. "Yeah, you?"
He flashed her a nervous smile. "As good as you can be, I guess."
Beside him, Diego huffed. "Do you ever take anything seriously?
Before Klaus could answer, Allison came back to the group. Everyone stood to greet her in case she had news. She had nothing but a splotchy face and her notepad in clutch. Diego carefully examined their sister.
"Where's Five?"
"He left," Diego answered Luther.
The giant man squinted. "Oh, for the love of- where'd he go?"
Charlotte pulled herself from her chair. "He just disappeared. I think he found a clue or something."
He regarded the girl- woman really, and turned his head in what appeared to be shame. "Well, we're not waiting around for him. Vanya's concert starts in thirty minutes."
Classical music had always been such a delight to Charlotte as a child. She never did like the constant chatter of other children and she rarely played with them, but music was something that could catch and keep her attention. It was beyond ironic that the comforting music that she always found solace in would be the soundtrack to the apocalypse.
"So what's the plan?"
"Well," Luther began, clearly wracking his brain for an idea. "I think that, uh- We go to the Icarus theater."
Raising a slit brow, Diego responded immediately. "That's a location, not a plan."
"You don't have a plan, do you, Luther?" Charlotte leaned forward. Rage was bubbling under her skin, but she understood that turning all of that on Luther didn't make any sense. "You got us into this mess, and you don't even have a plan to stop her?"
He held up a gloved hand. "Hey, this isn't my fault. Vanya destroyed the academy, not me."
"Yeah, well who drove her to it, because it certainly wasn't me." She uncrossed her arms to gesture at Klaus just as somebody further down got a strike. "It wasn't him." Klaus paused with his mouth full of popcorn to listen.
She was pushed back gently by Diego, who stepped closer to his older brother. "Look, you want to be Number One? Fine, but you're going to have to get us on the same page, because right now we're all over the place."
He considered this for a moment. "You're right, we need a plan."
The pale hair on the back of Charlotte's neck prickled. With a deep frown, she swiveled around. The Hargreeves saw it a split second after she did: a squad of masked, armed men, pointing guns their way.
Fuck.
Her body became translucent, then transparent. She ducked as the first shots were fired in their direction, pulling Allison down with her. They collapsed under one of the counters, among the bowling balls. Klaus covered his ears next to them, lowering his head as if in pain.
A few feet from them, braced behind another counter, Diego and Luther did the same.
"Who are these guys?"
"Maybe they're here for Kenny's birthday!" Klaus shouted across the space.
Peeking around the bowling balls briefly, Charlotte's body faded in and out of vision due to fear. "They're from the Commission!" They never could get away from them. For whatever reason agents were sent to kill them, of which there were many, they were there to do the job right. The gunshots, one after another and overlapping all at once, were deafening.
They all watched as Diego stood to throw a knife at one of the attackers. No one wanted to chance getting up long enough to see what happened to the guy, but he must have fallen onto the light settings, because the bowling alley went dark all of a sudden. The only lights on were the glowing blacklights used when the place was busy.
The fire paused as everyone realized the change in setting. Charlotte would have a chance then, with her own ability and the dimmed lights, she could move easily, without detection.
She crept out from their shelter on the side with less bullets raining down, quick to let that cold wave wash over her before she sprinted across the carpeted floor. She swayed away from the closest man's line of fire, which wasn't hard considering he was shooting blindly and didn't know she was there. It didn't take long for her to round on the one farthest from the other gunmen.
Her legs, still very sore from constantly running and being injured, wrapped securely around the suited person's waist from behind. The person yelped, and grabbed at the slim arms enclosing around their throat. Charlotte held tight, even as the man started to stumble and sway with panic. The gun fell to the floor, and before the others could find out what was happening to their colleague, Charlotte used all her weight to topple them forward, effectively slamming the agent's head into a glass display case, sending the glass flying.
Somewhere near her, an agent went down with a bowling ball to the face. It didn't take a genius to know who did that.
The Hargreeves siblings were making a run for the alleys just as Charlotte found a pen. She dug the writing utensil into the neck of another agent, cringing at the blood welling up around the puncture and the gasp from the man's throat. Scared that someone would realize there was an invisible girl taking them out, she dashed to the group.
Her leg burned and stretched while she ran, but she didn't have time to nurse it. A collection of bullets ran past her head when she made it to the start of one of the alleys. She was probably coming back into view now.
All five of them slid through the back of the bowling alleys successfully and sprinted down the narrow hall that lay behind where the pins were collected and filtered back in. They ran for the back door.
It was going to be a long night.