November 22, 1963
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
"You answer it," muttered Séance, still half asleep.
"I don't know the code," Xuan murmured back, "I can't answer it without that-type-in-code...thingy."
"I thought I taught it to you last week."
"I think I would've remembered that.
"Ah well, it can just ring then."
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
"I think," sighed Xuan, "That this person is very persistent."
"They can suck it up," insisted Séance as he placed his pillow over his head, "I'm going back to sleep."
"Good luck."
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
"Whoever is calling me," said Séance through gritted teeth, "should prepare to die."
(Unless they were already dead. He had been called by dead people a few times in the past. Only thing to do in those situations was to get a priest and exorcise their asses.)
"You're cheerful this morning," yawned Xuan.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
"How cheerful am I supposed to be?" he groused, "I get woken up at four a.m to answer the phone."
"It's two," noted Xuan as he started to kick away the covers.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
"I was having a lovely dream about dancing cockroaches too," groused Séance.
He saw Xuan raise an eyebrow at him as he shuffled over to the phone. He picked it up slowly. Just as he was about to give a testy 'hello' he heard the person on the other side of the phone yell;
"Klaus? Where are you?"
(Kraken.) Séance had been woken up at two in the morning to do something for Kraken. Judging by the tone of his voice it was serious, and he couldn't risk Kraken getting killed before they saved J.F.K. That would just be counter-productive. He could still give him hell though.
"Codenames man!" he said nastily, "You gotta call me by my codename."
"Now Klaus!" Kraken practically screamed, "I've got more vampires then I know what to do with and two men down!"
Oh dear. He was probably talking about Gia Long. Okay, that had been a long shot. It had seemed like a good idea at the time though. You get a mummy-emperor-sorcerer to fight you enemies. So what if he might turn against you? (Ah well, such was life.)
Now he had to think about why Kraken was talking to him. He was probably asking about the helicopter. The helicopter had been his pride and joy for several years. Some people valued cars. He liked flying death machines. Séance also liked However; he supposed that he still technically owed him one for the whole smuggler situation.
"Roger Serpent," he yawned, "Things got real hot real fast here, and it's a big jungle. Ghost out."
He turned around at Xuan who had started to stretch. It had come as a surprise to him that dead people actually slept. In the past Séance had thought that he was quite the expert in the subject of ghosts. He was learning all sorts of new things about them now that he was married to one though.
"Gotta take the helicopter out," he yawned as he rifled through his wardrobe for something decent.
(Damn the sixties and their shit fashion sense!)
"Think you could fly it for me while I go and save my brother's sorry ass?" he said, trying and failing to balance while putting on his pants.
"Why not?" shrugged Xuan, "At least you taught me that."
"Hey," frowned Séance from the floor, "Don't say it like that. Helicopter driving is very difficult."
"I mastered it in two minutes."
"That's just because you can go all ghosty with the machine," said Séance, getting to his feet.
"You just voodoo it."
"Touché."
He went picked up a shirt with a lightning bolt on it. It would have to work.
"I don't feel comfortable leaving Klaus home alone though," Xuan said after awhile.
"Hoa and Pogo are here," he said, pulling the shirt over his head.
"Hoa needs her sleep and Pogo's working in the shop."
As he had been told repeatedly by Pogo, Hoa, and Xuan, the shop was no place to keep a kid. This had surprised him because his son seemed to love all of the sharp tools and sparks that randomly flew out. Still, it was better to just agree then to have an angry chimp, an old but fierce woman, and a poltergeist on his hands.
"We'll take him with us then," said Séance.
"We're taking him to the battlefront?" said Xuan in disbelief as he shrugged one of his jackets on.
"Knowing Diego it'll be over before we get there," Séance said as he fished around for his sunglasses.
"Then why are you going?"
"Well," said Séance as he put them on and started down the stairs, "Gotta go and pick him up. We've got a president to save, remember?"
There was some silence as Séance picked up Klaus. (Haha, Klaus picked up Klaus.) Carefully he put him in his carrier and started out. Séance wasn't very good socially, so he didn't address the silence until he heard Xuan say;
"So, you are coming back after that, right?"
Séance chose his words carefully before replying.
"Xuan," he said, "I will try. I'm not bullshitting this. I'll try but I can't make any guarantees. Time travel is just a teensy bit shit so I'm not exactly sure how this is going to go. Rest assured though. I have absolutely no desire to go back to my present. It appears that my past was more interesting then that life ever was. Well, it's better anyway."
He patted his son on the head. Klaus had a rather bleary expression on his little face. (Made the whole thing sorta cute.)
"This is my life right now," he said, "I don't want to be part of the Umbrella Academy anymore. I never did. It's all full of messed up people getting more messed up by the year. Well, I'm comfortable with how screwed-up I am now. I'd like to keep it that way."
Leaning over she kissed him lightly on the lips before grinning.
"You'd better come back," she said, "Or I'm coming for you in seventeen years. Got it?"
"Hey," he said as he climbed into the helicopter, "Scout's honor."
"You were never a Boy Scout," she said as she slipped into the machine and made it take off.
"That's why they're still honorable."
