Five would go to Vanya's room every time that things got especially bad. She was his safe place, his escape from the whole superhero shebang. It's not a romantic thing, obviously—they're siblings. Even if Luther and Allison would, Five wouldn't, and neither would Vanya. But she's probably his best friend in the house.
One night, Five goes to Vanya's room after dinner, during their half-hour of semi-freedom. The only time for "fun and games," as Reginald calls it, is on Saturdays from noon to half-past, but they do have certain times of day when it's almost possible to sneak out. After dinner and before lights out is one of those times, and Five has the perfect power to do it without getting caught. Besides, he needs to talk to someone.
There'd been an argument at dinner, again, between Five and Reginald, about the time traveling issue. They were cropping up more and more often lately—they'd had one last week, and Five knew that they would have one the next.
For ages, Five has been itching to use his new power, needing to do it. The need is like a physical thing, clawing and crawling around inside of him, and every time he's told he has to hold back it grates on him a little more. He feels almost like it's going to burst out of him one day if he doesn't let it out himself. Vanya's the only one that didn't hear the argument, since she hadn't showed up to dinner. Five isn't sure where she was, what she was doing, but he wants to tell the story to her. Get it out of him.
Vanya's curled up on her bed, smiling at something in her lap, but she jumps when she sees him. "Go away, Five."
"Vanya?" Five asks, walking over. "What's going on?"
"I can't talk right now," she says, curling in on herself even more.
"I won't tell Dad," Five says, because he thinks it's the right thing to say.
"You won't?" Vanya asks, lifting her head.
"Trust me, he's an asshole. Why would I help him?"
Vanya doesn't say anything as Five sits on the bed, just turns around a little and adjusts herself. She holds out her hands, and Five scoots back involuntarily.
There's a little, wet lump of feathers in her hands.
"I—what—what is it?"
"A baby crow. The cat got his mom. I'm all he has." Vanya is grinning brighter than he's ever seen, so he doesn't tell her she's insane.
"Do you—can you feed it? What does a crow eat?"
"Crickets. And beef kidney."
"Well, where the hell are you going to get crickets and beef kidney?" Vanya looks up at him, bring the crow a little closer to her chest, and he shakes his head and tries to correct himself. "Sorry. Habit. Where—how do you know that's what they eat?"
"I read it in a book," she says, nodding over at the open volume lying on her desk. It must have come from the library, although Five doesn't know why Reginald would own a book on baby crows.
"Are you sure you can feed it? Crickets aren't exactly gonna be too common in the city."
"It's a he. And I can. I will."
Five sighs, and then jumps when he hears footsteps coming down the hall towards the room. "Put it—him—in the closet or something. Quickly!" he whispers, hurrying out into the hall. He isn't supposed to be outside of his room, even though they technically have free time.
He runs right into Grace.
"Hi, dear. You're supposed to be in bed, aren't you?"
"I had to borrow a pen from Vanya, so I could do my homework. Mine broke." He grins innocently up at her, but she sees through it. Five doesn't know if it's part of her interface or if she's just developed intuition, but she can always see through their lies.
"Don't worry," Grace says, with her poster-ready smile, "I won't tell your father. Don't let it happen again, though." Five lets out a breath of relief. "Now, hurry on, now. Don't want someone else to catch you out and about."
"Good night, mom," he says, sparing one glance back at Vanya's door before walking off.
Over the next weeks, Five sneaks out almost daily in order to help get food for Vanya. He zaps out during their free time, before breakfast, after dinner. Sometimes he has to leave in the middle of the night, but it's worth it seeing Vanya so joyful. It turns out that there's a decent number of stores selling beef kidney in their neighborhood. Crickets, too.
One day, Vanya asks their Dad if she can play his violin. He says yes, and Five can hear her playing it shakily to the crow every night.
It's a month before he goes to Vanya's room, plastic bag clutched in hand, only to hear her quietly sobbing. Vanya doesn't tell him what happened, but he can tell.
They have a burial ceremony that Saturday in the backyard, just the two of them.
Now, Five sits on a chunk of rock, leaning forward and kneading his hands together, thinking. Klaus is draped across the ground on the other side of the makeshift fireplace they'd made.
They'd set up a little camp, a little ways off the side of the road. Five's cart of food is there, and Klaus has amassed a little collection of unbroken bottles. Besides that, they've assembled a little pile of loot—Klaus has two fur coats and a box of nail polish, and Five has six scavenged books. Everything is dusty and cracked, but intact nevertheless.
They'd found a couple of cans of chilli, but after putting them in a fire to heat up and realizing they didn't have a pair of tongs (or even an oven mitt), they'd had to leave the chilli there and eat something else. They'd settled on cold tortellini, straight out of the can.
"What happened?" Five asks when he finishes eating.
"See, this was specifically what I was talking about when I said your food would offend my delicate taste. Cold tortellini is not up to the standards I've come to expect."
"The apocalypse, Klaus—what happened?"
"I think I told you about the boyfriend that made osso bucco. Oh, that was fantastic. Actually, it wasn't you I told, was it? Yeah, no, it was the other one. The older one." Klaus laughs to himself, leaning his head back.
"Klaus, stop being an idiot. You keep talking about me, talking about some older version of me. What did I do?"
"What I would give for some of that osso bucco now. Oh, well." He sighs.
"Klaus, tell me."
Klaus groans, pushes himself into a sitting position. "I don't know, okay? Like I said—the apocalypse came, we tried to stop it, and we failed."
"What happened to the academy? Wasn't that the whole grand goal here? To save the world? You guys were supposed to be equipped for this."
Klaus pauses for a moment, fiddling with the hem of his jacket. "The academy fell apart," he says eventually.
"What?"
"About fifteen years ago, yeah. Right after Ben—"
"Right after Ben what?"
"Right after Ben. . ." Klaus forces the word out, "died. He died."
"What happened?" Five asks, and his voice is soft.
"I don't know, I wasn't even—I wasn't even there," Klaus says, and his voice breaks. "Apparently Luther—but I don't know. By the time they called me in, well, I could see Ben. But there were two of him."
It takes a moment for Five to grasp what Klaus means. "Oh," he says quietly.
"Yeah." There's a pause. "Y'know, as fun as this is—" Klaus says, pushing himself off the ground and making to walk off.
"Hey, no, wait. What happened after that? Why did you all leave?" Five leans forward, eyebrows knitting together. He feels a little thrill go through him. This is what he's made for, not survival. Detective work, figuring things out.
"I left first, actually. The next day. I'd had enough, I guess. So I don't actually know what the rest of them did." Klaus takes a long swig of whatever choice alcohol he's taking at the moment. "Sorry about that."
"But the next time you heard, they'd all left?"
"Yeah, all of them except Luther. Always the valiant hero, he was. He never even left, and it got him into a pretty, ah, a pretty hairy situation." Klaus laughs, sitting back down. "Also, Dad sent him to the moon. Four years. So there's that."
"What about the rest of them? Where did they go?"
"Well, Allison got famous. She was Annie, on Broadway. A little old for the role, but she got by. I wanted to watch it, but," he shrugged, "no money.
"It was hollywood next. I think I saw one of her movies. With a wheelchair, and a court scene. Don't remember much; I was probably drunk, knowing me."
"What about Diego?"
"Oh, he kept on with the superhero life, just not in the academy. Got a full-body leather outfit, kept his domino mask. He always did have a flair for the dramatics, our Diego. Not like Vanya. I'm pretty sure she joined an orchestra, but I didn't see any of her shows. Not until the last one." Klaus laughs one ha, quietly.
"Why do you say it like that? The last one?"
"Yeah, um. That's not—that's not really—are you done with your tortellini? I can wash up."
"Stop being an idiot, Klaus. What happened at Vanya's concert? Does it have anything to do with this?"
Klaus sighs, and Five resists the urge to snap at him again. Of all the siblings for him to end up with after the apocalypse, of course it's Klaus that he gets. And Klaus is exactly the same as the Klaus Five knew—brash, immature, sloppy.
"Fun little dee-tail," Klaus says after a moment, "I think that Vanya might've caused the apocalypse."
Klaus has to be mistaken. "That's insane. What the hell does that mean?"
"I don't know, all right? I told you. There was some sort of. . .energy, or something. Coming out of her. I don't know."
"Stop saying you don't know, Klaus. You were there, and you're the only source of information I've got."
Klaus sighs. "That week was...a mess, Five." Five glares at him. "Fiiiiiiiine. A week before the apocalypse, Dad died. At least, I think it was a week. It got extended just a tad for me, and living in another timeline for ten months tends to mess up your senses," Klaus says, laughing, and Five throws the empty can at him. He yelps.
"Did I say stop being an idiot? I understand it's hard for you, but try to tell the story like a functioning human being."
When Klaus starts again, there are tears in his eyes, and Five braces himself for what he's about to hear. "Vanya wrote a book, a ways back. Basically outing us on all the shit we—and Dad, for that matter, I suppose—pulled when we were little. She explained how she was oh-so-lonely her whole life, how we all ostracized her. She complained about dear old Dad's regime, about his punishments, blah, blah, blah, all stuff we know already.
"Five terrible years passed—not terrible because we weren't speaking to Vanya, because we hadn't really been speaking to Vanya for ten years anyway. We hadn't been speaking to each other at all. They were terrible just because. . .I don't know. Things were normal, let's just say that. And then, five years later, Dad," Klaus pauses, wipes his eyes, "died. Killed himself, yeah. He made it up into this big murder mystery thing, trying to get us to band together or whatever usual bullshit. He wanted us to stop the apocalypse."
At this point Klaus goes silent for a moment, gulping, and Five presses him. "What happened then?"
"Well, then you—you turned up. Said you'd been in the apocalypse for forty-five years, and that we needed to stop it. I mean, you didn't say all of that up front, you sure didn't get any more straightforward in your old age, but you told us eventually."
Five takes a second to grasp this, that he stays here for so many years, that he goes back. Tries to stop it. It's all too much to take in.
Klaus continues. "You were being chased by something—something called the Commission, I think? Assassins, and they were after you because you were trying to change the timeline. They took me—but that's not, that's not important. They um—"
"We can figure that out later. Where does Vanya fit into all of this?"
"I really don't know, Five. She showed up the day before the apocalypse with this guy, and none of us knew who he was. Except that Allison had done some research on him, and she thought that he was actually Harold Jenkins, not whoever Vanya thought he was. And we don't know what Harold Jenkins did, but it was bad. He served jail time.
"Anyway, Vanya had a concert the night that the apocalypse was supposed to happen. We weren't going to go, not because we don't love her, just because there were some slightly more pressing things to deal with. But then Luther comes barging into the house in all of his...large, ape-like glory, saying that 'Vanya has powers.' 'Oh, Luther, could you maybe explain a tad bit more?' 'No, Klaus. Didn't I tell you to get out of the van?' 'Oh, now you don't want my help?'"
"Klaus."
"Yeah, so, then, uh, we went to the concert hall. And Vanya, she," Klaus's voice slows, like it's being dragged down, "she was. I'm not really sure what she was. Something was wrong—her eyes were all white-y and creepy. I think there was some sort of energy coming out of her."
"At her concert?"
"Yeah."
"She's been successful with the violin?" Five asks. It's not the point, but he can't seem to connect the two versions of Vanya in his head. He can't connect the girl who would risk punishment to take care of a baby crow with someone who would want to destroy the world. He can't.
And also, he's happy for her.
Klaus looks at him and smiles sadly. "Yeah, really successful. I wish—I wish I'd gone to see her shows."
"I'm sure she was great."
"Yeah. At that one concert, she was. Although I didn't listen too hard; I was a tad bit preoccupied."
"What makes you think she did it? I mean, couldn't it have been something else? I mean, you're..."
"High?"
"Yeah, high, most of the time."
"Sober. For two days. I told you," Klaus says, but his voice doesn't have any of the laughter that it did earlier. Instead it just sounds resigned. "I wish I wasn't.
"You're sure she did it?"
"There was definitely some sort of energy. I mean, I can't explain it, but I saw it. Her suit changed color, and there was blue light everywhere. And the theater was shaking.
"The people in the orchestra tried to run, but she swung her bow and something happened, I don't know. It looked like she attacked them."
"Jesus."
"Yeah."
There's a pause, and then Five says, "Klaus, we need to stop this."
"What?"
"If there's a way that we can go back and stop it from happening, we need to do it."
"I mean, obviously, yeah, but how? I mean, your. . .zappy thing, it's not working, right? And how else can we time travel?"
"I don't know, but we can figure that out later. If you're right about all of this, then Vanya tried to destroy the world. And that's. . .that's not the Vanya that I knew, back home. Something must have happened. Maybe we can stop that thing from happening, Klaus. Maybe we can figure out how to stop the apocalypse."
There's a silence, and then Klaus says, "It's getting dark. Don't you have a bedtime? You're a kid, right?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Five snaps, eager to have something to grab onto. He feels like the ground's been yanked out from under him. "And I'm not tired."
"Oh, I changed my mind, you're very mature. Well, I'm tired, even if his highness isn't, so let's continue this conversation in the morning, bitte."
"Fine," Five says, because he doesn't want to talk about it anymore, at least not really. One side of himself is desperate to know the whole story, especially the Harold Jenkins part of it, and the other is terrified to. He lets the latter win, and it makes him feel like a coward. But he doesn't want to think of Vanya as a villain, not yet.
It only takes Klaus a moment after curling up under his coat to quiet down, even if it does seem like he's resting fitfully.
For Five it takes a while longer.
There's something here that doesn't add up. This Harold Jenkins guy, for instance. Where did he come from? And what did he do to Vanya? It must have been something, because Five knows that there's no way Vanya would have willingly destroyed the world. Why would she have done it? He knows she didn't.
But does he?
It's morning when Five hears the talking. He'd woken up early and gone to search the nearby buildings for more food, and he's just climbing up to the camp when the voices float over the rocks..
He's not sure if it's his imagination, at first—he'd hardly gotten enough sleep. (He's never drank coffee—their dad hated it—but he supposes that this would be an appropriate time to try some, if he could.) Klaus had woken him in the middle of the night crying out, scratching at his own face and holding up his hands as if defending himself from invisible attackers.
"Klaus," Five had said blearily. Klaus hadn't answered. "Klaus!"
Klaus's eyes opened with a start, and his hands stilled. He sat there for a moment, panting, and then rolled over and grabbed a bottle off their pile of supplies. Only after downing it did he lay back again, sighing. "That's nice," he murmured, and Five hadn't responded.
Now he can hear Klaus speaking again, but it's not the frenzied cries of the night before. He seems. . .sane. Put together, even, if not for the fact that he's replying to nothing.
"...you show up after all this time?" Klaus is saying, staring at an empty patch of air.
"...Klaus?" Five asks tentatively, keeping his distance.
"Why is everyone attacking me? Aren't I suffering enough already?" Klaus says, not to Five.
"Klaus!" Five snaps, and Klaus starts.
"Oh, hey, Five, good morning," Klaus says, casually.
"Who's the friend?"
"Oh, yeah," Klaus says, laughing, "you guys haven't met yet."
"Excuse me?"
"Five, this," Klaus gestures toward an empty area to his right, "is Ben, your brother."
"What?"
