"This isn't right," Ben says.
Klaus swallows hard and looks over at Vanya. Allison is trying to get past Luther to get to her, but Klaus knows there's no way he can do that. Luther has already proven that he can and will pick Klaus up and throw him around like a rag doll. There's no reason to think anything will be different this time.
"This isn't right," Ben repeats. "Klaus, you need to get her out of there."
Klaus doesn't say anything aloud, but his eyes flicker to Luther.
"Screw Luther!" Ben cries.
Klaus barely resists the urge to roll his eyes, because of course screw Luther, it's not like he's not freeing Vanya because he agrees with him. The problem is that Luther is massive and way stronger than Klaus, and so there's really no way that Klaus can get past him and get to the door.
"Wait until he's distracted," Ben suggests. "He's probably going to take Allison back upstairs any minute. Sneak back down while he's up there."
Ben has a point.
As predicted, Luther starts leading Allison away a few moments later, and they all start heading down the hall, away from the room with Vanya's cell. Klaus's stomach is twisting and twisting and twisting, and he knows this is wrong but he just needs to let it go for a few more minutes until he can come back and fix it, and then he turns around and catches sight of the abject despair on Vanya's face when she thinks they're leaving her and he snaps.
"Klaus, wait!" Ben yells, but Klaus is already sprinting back to the door.
He grabs the lock and starts trying to twist it open, but it's old and shut tightly, and he's no match for Luther's strength, which is undoubtedly what shut it in the first place. He puts all of his weight into it, and he's pretty sure the lock has just shifted a little under his hands when suddenly something grabs him, and then Klaus is in midair, and then he hits the wall with a crack.
The world goes dark for a few moments. Klaus is vaguely aware of someone yelling his name, and he's vaguely aware of other yelling in general, but he can't focus on any of the sounds enough to actually be fully aware of them. His head is pounding, and his whole body feels like he's just been run over by a cement mixer, and there's a hand on his shoulder.
Klaus opens his eyes to see Allison leaning over him, offering him a hand. Ben is next to her, saying Klaus's name over and over like a prayer. Allison doesn't look strong enough to pull Klaus upright on her own, but Klaus definitely isn't strong enough to pull himself upright on his own, not right now, and Ben is unfortunately incorporeal, so Allison will have to do. Klaus takes the proffered hand, and somehow they manage to both end up on their feet without either of them falling over.
Diego is fighting Luther, and even though they've always fought a lot, this fight is different. This fight has no holds barred. This fight doesn't look like one it's going to end as easily (well, relatively easily) as their usual fights do.
"Klaus, you still need to get Vanya out," Ben reminds him.
"Right," Klaus mutters under his breath. "Vanya." He turns to Allison. "Can you help me?"
Allison nods, although she looks like a stiff breeze will knock her over, and the two of them make their way to the door and grab the lock. The two of them together are definitely stronger than Klaus was on his own, but they're still not strong enough.
Ben tries to grab the lock, but his hands go through every time. "Come on!" Klaus yells at him. "You were able to get solid long enough to punch me in the face, but you can't get solid long enough to free our sister?"
"I'm trying!" Ben snaps. Klaus tries too, focuses on Ben being as solid as possible, and then Ben's hands grip the lock, and between the three of them, they have just enough strength to turn it.
Vanya tumbles out the second the door opens and promptly falls onto Allison and Klaus, neither of whom are steady enough to keep her upright. The three end up on the floor, tangled together in a mess of limbs. Vanya doesn't seem to mind; she just curls up against Allison, clinging to her like her life depends on it, repeating over and over again that she's sorry, she didn't mean it, she's sorry. Allison, for her part, strokes Vanya's hair in nonverbal acceptance. Klaus takes a deep breath and blows it out, trying to ignore the pounding concussion in the back of his head.
Behind them, Luther lets out a bellow, and as Klaus turns around, he sees Luther throw Diego off him. "Let go of her!" he yells. Klaus isn't quite sure if he's talking to Allison or Vanya, but he supposes it works either way.
Vanya flinches away, and Allison wraps her arms tighter around her and lifts her chin, giving Luther a look that dares him to go against her. Klaus manages to claw his way to his feet and stands in front of them, aware that he makes a fairly pathetic human shield but not moving away.
Luther looks like he's about to explode. "She's-" he yells, but they never find out what Vanya is (although Klaus has his suspicions), because at that moment, a knife appears at Luther's throat.
"Threaten our sister one more time," Diego says, his voice low and steady, no hint of a stutter at all, "and I'll cut your throat open. And unlike Vanya, I'll cut deep."
Luther freezes. He still looks furious, but apparently he's weighed his chances at getting away from Diego without getting his throat slit, and they must not be high enough for his liking.
"So," Diego says, looking around Luther at the others, "what do we do now?"
Klaus's knees go wobbly, and he quickly leans against the wall to keep himself from falling over. "Go upstairs?" he asks. "This place is really creepy, not gonna lie."
"What do we do with Luther?" Diego asks. "Put him in the cell?"
Allison's eyes go wide. Vanya lets out a quiet whimper at the word cell. Ben's mouth twists.
"No," Klaus says. "No, no more cells. No more mausoleums. This is how Dad would have dealt with the situation, not the way we should deal with it."
"Klaus," Diego says, his knife still steady against Luther's throat, "Luther knocked Vanya out and locked her up in a cell, and he threw you into the wall."
Klaus shrugs. "Sounds like sibling stuff."
"Pretty sure most good siblings don't do that," Ben counters.
"Shitty sibling stuff, maybe," Klaus allows, "but we're still a family. We're not locking Luther up cause he's dangerous. That's the exact same thing he just did with Vanya. We're not doing it."
Diego scowls. "Then what do we do?"
Allison taps on the floor as loudly as she can with her marker, then she holds up her notebook when Klaus and Diego look over at her.
LET LUTHER GO.
"Like hell," Diego spits immediately.
Allison flips to a new page, and a moment later, she holds up the notebook again. LUTHER, WILL YOU HURT VANYA?
"I don't want to hurt any of you," Luther protests. "I just want everyone to stay safe, and if Vanya has powers that she can't control-"
"Then we teach her how to control them," Diego hisses. "We help her, asshole. We don't lock her in a cell."
"I agree with Diego," Klaus says. "And also Allison. We help Vanya, and we let Luther go." He shrugs. "Worst case, you throw a knife at him, Diego."
Diego still looks pissed. "What does Vanya think?"
Klaus looks over at Allison, then he crawls over to Vanya because he's pretty sure he's too dizzy to walk. "Van? Vanya?"
"Tell Diego to leave her alone," Ben says, scowling. "She's upset. I agree with you, by the way."
"Ben agrees with me, for the record," Klaus says, then he lays a gentle hand on Vanya's shoulder. Vanya flinches, but when her eyes finally fix on Klaus, she doesn't look afraid, so that's something.
"Van," Klaus says gently, "we need to figure out what to do next. Want a vote?"
"Don't put Luther in the cell," Vanya says, her voice barely audible.
"There you go, we win," Klaus says, turning back around.
Diego scowls, but he finally lowers his knife from Luther's neck and takes a step back. Luther raises his hand to his throat and rubs it, looking both irritated and relieved.
"We do need to do something about Vanya," he immediately says, because of course he does.
"You need to stay the hell away from her," Diego retorts immediately.
"I could take my pills again," Vanya suggests in a very small voice.
Luther looks like he's considering the idea, and Klaus wonders why Vanya is allowed to self-medicate her problems away when he can't. Is it because Vanya's pills came in a little orange prescription bottle? Klaus has gotten pills from prescription bottles too, and his prescription was probably about as real as Vanya's.
"No pills," Diego says. "None of that shit. We'll teach you to control your powers, Vanya."
"Dad couldn't teach me to control them," Vanya says. "That's why he made the pills in the first place."
"When you were, what, four?" Diego retorts. "You're almost thirty now, Vanya. You can do a bunch of things you couldn't do when you were four."
Allison taps Vanya's shoulder and shows her the notebook. WE'LL ALL HELP.
"Look, as riveting as this conversation is, can we move it upstairs?" Klaus asks. "Also, I think I'm gonna puke."
Apparently, withdrawal and concussions don't mix well. Who knew?
Ben takes a quick step towards Klaus, but before he can reach him, Klaus turns around and, as promised, throws up. He leans over the doorway of the cell when he does it, so all of his vomit ends up in there. It's gross, but they're not going to use the cell for anything, so Klaus thinks it's the best place for him to puke.
"Okay," Diego says, apparently using his position as Number Two to take control, since no one is really in the mood to take orders from Luther. "Allison, Vanya, do either of you need help getting upstairs?"
"I can do it myself," Vanya says, her voice just barely steady. "But Allison might need help."
"Luther, help Allison," Diego says. "And if you lay a hand on Vanya, I swear to God-"
"I won't," Luther says, moving somewhat sheepishly over to Allison and offering her a hand up. He offers one to Vanya too, but she doesn't take it.
"And you," Diego says, walking over to Klaus, "are gonna get checked over by Mom."
"Sounds good to me," Klaus says, accepting Diego's hand up. He can't quite get his legs to stay steady under him - honestly, concussions are the worst - so Diego more or less drags him to the elevator. Luther and Allison have already gone up, but Vanya is waiting at the bottom for the elevator to come back down.
"Didn't want to ride with Luther?" Klaus asks. "Good move. That elevator is so cramped with him and his massive shoulders."
"Maybe now isn't the best time to make jokes," Ben says.
"Screw you, Ben, my jokes are hilarious."
"Is Ben really here?" Vanya asks in a small voice. "His- His ghost?"
"Yup," Klaus replies. "He's been haunting my ass since he died. And let me tell you, death has turned him into a sassy little shit."
"Nah," Ben counters, "that was spending so much time with you."
Klaus scowls. "Again, screw you. I am a delight."
"Sure you are," Diego mutters under his breath.
"You are all terrible people," Klaus declares. "Except you, Vanya, you're my new favorite."
"Really?" Diego says dryly. "Not the one who's hauling your ungrateful ass upstairs?"
"You're being rude about it," Klaus says, then he clamps his mouth shut against the bile rising in his throat.
"You look like shit," Ben says.
Klaus raises one hand to flip him off.
"Um, Klaus?" Diego asks. "Who are you trying to flip off right now?"
Klaus flaps a hand in Ben's general direction, trying to swallow down the bile. It's disgusting, but Klaus is a drug addict and an alcoholic, he's used to forcing down puke.
"Is it Ben?" Vanya asks.
Klaus nods, offering Vanya a thumbs-up, then he gives up and twists away from Diego to puke again.
"Jesus," Diego hisses, shifting away. "How hard did you hit your head when Luther threw you?"
"Not as hard as I hit it when I died," Klaus replies. "Also, this is definitely at least fifty percent withdrawal."
"You died?" Vanya asks, sounding horrified.
"No big deal," Klaus says, spitting out the last bit of bile in his mouth. "Apparently God doesn't like me, so she sent me back."
Diego stares at him. "Okay, is this the withdrawal or the concussion talking?"
"This is the me talking," Klaus says as the elevator descends. Vanya steps in first, then Diego and Klaus follow her, and Ben hops in, sitting on the edge, halfway through the metal bars that make up the door.
"The you who's… dead?" Diego asks.
"Who was dead, Diego, keep up."
"Does any of this make sense to you?" Diego asks Vanya.
"You didn't tell me about any of this," Ben says in a quiet voice. "I mean, I saw you die for a few minutes, but you didn't tell me what you saw."
"Didn't exactly have the time, Benny-boy," Klaus says, suddenly exhausted. Are you allowed to sleep with a concussion? Klaus is pretty sure he's heard you shouldn't, but he also has the feeling he's heard that that's bullshit. Considering the fact that God doesn't want him, he's honestly not sure he has to worry about it at all, but he probably shouldn't bank on that too much. If God decides she does like him, Klaus isn't sure he's ready to die yet. He's got shit to do.
They reach the top of the elevator and step out into the hallway, which is empty. "Who wants to bet that Luther and Allison are off doing their weird incestuous crap somewhere?" Klaus asks.
"Shut up," Diego says, looking mildly nauseated. "Vanya, can you find Mom?"
Vanya swallows visibly and, instead of moving away to find Mom, shrinks closer to Diego. Klaus gets it. After a trip to the mausoleum, he always wanted to be with people too, and that's not even taking into account the fact that Vanya is probably worried about running into Luther, considering the fact that he definitely hasn't gotten completely onboard with their whole "not locking up Vanya like a criminal for no reason" thing. If Vanya doesn't want to split off to find Mom, Klaus gets it.
"I can get her," he offers, then he yells at the top of his lungs, "MOM!"
Diego flinches so hard he almost drops Klaus. "Warn a guy before you scream in his ear!" he snaps. Klaus would feel sorry, but he's pretty sure there's a teeny-tiny smile on Vanya's lips, and as he said before, Vanya is his new favorite, so that matters more.
Ben vanishes for a moment, then he reappears. "Mom is on her way," he reports.
"Ben says Mom heard me," Klaus says.
"Of course she did, people in China probably heard you," Diego mutters.
A moment later, they hear the familiar click-clack of Grace's heels, and then she turns the corner and smiles her cherry-red smile at them, her fifties-style dress and pin curls exactly the same as they were through Klaus's entire childhood.
"What happened here?" she asks, sounding weirdly cheerful considering she's just turned the corner to see one of her sons being held up by another while one of her daughters hides behind them. Then again, this is Grace, she always sounds weirdly cheerful. Klaus has gotten used to it.
"Mom," Diego says, and Klaus can feel how much he relaxes at the sight of her, "we need you to take a look at Klaus. He hit his head."
"And the rest of my body too, but mostly my head," Klaus agrees.
"And how did that happen, silly?" Grace asks, stepping forward and tilting Klaus's head up to look at his pupils.
"Luther threw him into the wall," Diego says.
Grace freezes for a moment, then she takes a step back. "Diego, can you help me get your brother to the infirmary? Vanya, you can come with us too."
"Okay," Vanya says in a small voice. "Is, uh, is Luther there?"
"Luther is with Allison in her room," Grace reports.
"Weird incestuous crap," Klaus mutters in a sing-song voice.
"At least Allison is taking one for the team and keeping Luther away from the rest of us," Diego retorts, helping Klaus shuffle over to the stairs. Grace slides in under his other arm so that the two of them are basically carrying him, and Vanya trails behind them. Ben is still there - Klaus can see him out of the corner of his eye - but he doesn't say a word.
"So," Diego says as they head to the infirmary. "What are we going to do now?"
"Take a nap," Klaus says immediately. "Can you sleep with a concussion?"
"You need to let me look over you first," Grace says. "Then you can sleep, but someone should watch over you."
"I have my concert tonight," Vanya says in a small voice. "But I don't know…"
"You should do it," Klaus says. "I wanna hear you play."
"But what if I hurt someone?" Vanya asks worriedly. "Maybe I should take my pills."
"You take your pills, I take my pills," Klaus says with a shrug.
"Klaus-" Diego begins, sounding irritated.
"It's the same thing," Klaus protests. "Vanya's pills were just okayed by Dad. Doesn't mean she's not taking stuff to turn off her powers, just like I do. Did."
Vanya wrings her hands. "I don't know if I would have gotten first chair if I'd played on my medication," she admits.
"Then you're not playing on it tonight," Diego says. "We'll all be there, and we won't let you hurt anyone."
"You'll all come?" Vanya says, sounding almost a little surprised.
"Sure we will," Klaus says. "Where do we buy tickets?"
"I actually had some reserved," Vanya admits. "Six tickets. One for each of you, and one for…"
Her voice trails off, and she wrings her hands even harder.
"Mom can take the the extra one, then," Diego says. "Right, Mom? You'll come with us?"
Grace looks at Diego with the closest thing to confusion that her face can manage. "Come with you?"
"To Vanya's concert," Diego says. "Do you want to come with us?"
"I'm not supposed to leave the house," Grace demurs.
"Yeah, cause Dad's a dick," Klaus says.
"Dad is dead," Diego says firmly. "You can come with us if you want to."
"I would like to see Vanya play," Grace admits.
"Then you'll come," Diego says. "Six tickets, six of us."
"Ben can sit on my lap," Klaus adds.
Ben rolls his eyes.
"I could see if I could get a ticket for him," Vanya offers tentatively. "If Ben wants one. Is he here? Ben, do you want a ticket?"
"Tell her I'm fine," Ben says. "I can stand in the aisle. No one will see me anyway."
"Ben says not to bother," Klaus reports. "He wants to sit in my lap."
"Screw you, Klaus."
"Love you too, bro."
"I can't decide if it's weirder thinking you're talking to yourself or weirder knowing you're talking to our dead brother," Diego says.
"Is Ben here?" Grace asks, looking around.
"Tell Mom I say hi," Ben says.
"He says hi," Klaus says.
Grace beams. "Tell Ben I love him."
"Tell Mom I love her too," Ben says. He's not being blatant about it, but Klaus can see that he's thrilled to be having these interactions with the family. No one's believed Klaus about seeing Ben's ghost, so for them to accept it now - accept it and actually talk to Ben - must be exciting. Klaus, for one, is just glad to be believed for once.
They reach the infirmary and Klaus, with a little boost from Diego, hops up onto the cot. He obediently allows Grace to check his pupils and run her hands along the bump on the back of his head. "You should be fine, if you take care of yourself," she reports as she finishes the examination.
"Can I go to Vanya's concert tonight?" Klaus asks.
"I don't see why not, as long as you rest before and after," Grace says. "We'll all be there to take care of you if anything goes wrong."
"You don't have to come," Vanya says in a small voice.
"I wanna go," Klaus says. "I mean, how often do you get to go to a concert where your little sister is playing first violin?"
"We're all the same age," Diego protests halfheartedly. "And if Vanya's the first violin now, I bet we'll be able to go to a lot of concerts."
"But how often do you get to to go to the first concert where your little sister is playing first violin?" Klaus retorts. "Also, the ten months I spent in Vietnam make me the second oldest after Five, so there."
"Ten months in Vietnam?" Vanya repeats.
Klaus waves a hand. "Long story, I'll tell you later. Shouldn't you get ready for you concert?"
"Probably," Vanya agrees. "I need to pick up some stuff from my apartment."
"Someone will go with you," Diego says immediately. "Just to be safe."
"Just to clarify, are you still wanted for murder?" Klaus asks. "I could have sworn I heard someone say something about that."
"That's being dealt with," Diego dismisses. "Probably. Maybe I shouldn't go with you, Van."
"We'll make Five go, after he gets back," Klaus says. "After all, he wasn't here for everything else, so he should do something today."
"I know Five is actually a terrifying fifty-eight year old assassin, but he doesn't exactly look intimidating," Diego says. "Maybe I should go, Vanya."
"Whose heart do you want to strike fear into?" Klaus counters. "We're just sending someone with Vanya to make sure she's okay getting back to her apartment."
"And since when are you the planner?" Diego demands.
"Hey, just cause I normally don't like planning doesn't mean I can't!"
"Nah, it just means you're normally an idiot," Ben says.
"Hey!"
"Can you make Ben corporeal?" Vanya asks. When Klaus looks over at her, she shrinks a little, but then adds, "I thought I saw him earlier, when you and Allison were opening the door."
"I mean, I didn't think I could until Ben punched me in the face earlier," Klaus says. "Personally, I was hoping for a hug or something, but-"
"I was trying to stop you from taking those pills!" Ben protests. "And it's not like I knew I was going to make contact! Normally my hand just goes straight through!"
"Oh, so you try to punch me a lot?"
"Considering the fact that I'm stuck with you? Yeah, and I don't think anyone could blame me."
"Ugh, screw you, Ben."
"So you can make Ben solid?" Vanya asks, valiantly ignoring the half of the argument she could hear. "Can you make him visible?"
"I mean, I could try," Klaus offers. "Don't know if it would work, but-"
"No trying out new powers while you have a concussion, dear," Grace says.
"I'll try it out in a week, then," Klaus says. "Anyway, you should spend today practicing, right? Don't you need to do that?"
"I should," Vanya agrees, sounding a little more confident than she did before. "When is Five getting back?"
"Do we even know where he went?" Klaus asks.
Everyone looks at each other. "No idea," Diego finally says. "That's probably not a good thing, is it?"
"Five can take care of himself," Ben says, a touch uneasily.
"Sure he can," Klaus agrees, but he sounds about as confident as Ben.
And then, to everyone's relief, the sound of the front door opening echoes through the house, and a grumpy thirteen/fifty-eight year old assassin stomps in.
"I'll go fill him in on everything," Diego says, leaving the room. Klaus listens intently, waiting for the yelling and smashing, but to his surprise, he doesn't hear it, even after he hears Diego's footsteps come to a stop. He looks over at Ben, who rolls his eyes but leaves the room to go spy. Having a ghost brother is so helpful sometimes.
"I'm sorry about what Luther did to you," Vanya says in a voice so small Klaus almost doesn't hear her.
"What?" he asks, looking over. "Why are you sorry? Luther's the one who did it."
"He did it because of me," Vanya counters. "If I hadn't hurt Allison-"
"That was an accident," Klaus says.
"But if I hadn't trusted Leonard-"
"That's not your fault, Vanya," Klaus says. "Look, we've all made a lot of bad decisions, but I'm pretty sure I'm still the winner there. Or loser? Whatever, what I'm trying to say is that I make a lot of bad decisions too. And the others make bad decisions all the time. Honestly, we're a disaster family, and we should be stopped."
Vanya snorts.
Klaus brightens a little, pleased with himself for replacing Vanya's worried, guilty look with a small hint of a smile. "Anyway," he says, "what I'm trying to say is, you made a mistake, big deal. We all make mistakes. We've all made a lot of mistakes. And you realize what you did was a mistake, which means you immediately beat Luther, cause I don't think he's ever admitted to making a mistake ever. Wow, I just said the word mistake so many times."
"I could have killed Allison," Vanya says in a small voice.
Klaus shrugs. "Yeah, but you didn't."
Vanya doesn't seem to think that's enough, but before she can say anything, Five and Diego enter the infirmary. "The newspaper outside is different," Five reports. "We stopped the apocalypse."
"Go us," Klaus cheers.
Five turns to Vanya. "Diego says I'm supposed to walk you back to your apartment before your concert," he says. "Wanna go?"
"Uh, sure," Vanya says. She gets up to leave, but before she does, she hugs a startled Diego, then Klaus, who's prepared enough to hug her back.
"Thank you," she whispers in his ear.
"You're my sister," Klaus replies. "Don't mention it."
Vanya is smiling when she pulls away, which Klaus takes as a major win. "Bye, Ben!" she says, waving indiscriminately.
"He's over there," Klaus says, pointing at Ben. "And he says bye back."
"Don't talk for me," Ben says, scowling. "But I do say bye back."
Vanya and Five leave, and Klaus groans and lies down. "I'm taking a nap," he declares. "Wake me up for Vanya's concert."
"Will do," Diego says. "Although, wait, shit, does this mean I have to tell Allison and Luther?"
"Weird incestuous crap," Klaus sing-songs, closing his eyes.
"You sure you can't do it?" Diego asks, but Klaus is already half asleep.
Also, there's no way he's doing it, that's is Diego's job.
(Diego talks to Luther and Allison, and Grace wakes Klaus before the concert, and they meet up with Five at the concert hall. Their seats are towards the front, and maybe they're not dressed quite as nicely as they should be - Klaus has a concussion, sue him - but they definitely applaud the loudest after Vanya finishes playing her piece. Maybe they're a little too loud, but Vanya beams at them, so Klaus doesn't think any of them care about the looks they're getting from the people around them.
And they're happy, and the apocalypse is nothing but a potential future that will never come to pass, and for the first time in years, the Hargreeves family is whole.)