4:46pm, Sunday September 8th, 2019
You can't avoid them forever, Dolores says, watching with calm serenity as Five furiously scribbles code into a notebook. He's trying to remember the dream he had, the one that woke him up shaking in a cold sweat. He needs to write it down before he forgets.
Forgetting things has arrowed it way to the top of the short list of things that terrify him, overtaking even the fear of a second apocalypse.
"I'm not trying to avoid them forever," he replies, not looking up. "Just until I understand what's going on." Just until he had something to tell them, for Christ's sake. He's been trying to piece together the fragmented timeline of his illness, track it's progression from start to finish, find the gaps in his memories and analyze them. He's not sure what it will accomplish but he'll rest better once he's got it straight in his head and maybe, just maybe he'll remember something significant. If he can remember what happened everyone else might finally leave him alone about it.
He's spent most of the last day in his room. It's not that he doesn't want to see them, but every time he does all they want to do is ask him things. Even when they don't, when they make a concerted effort not to, the questions hover like malcontent ghosts in the air between them; his whole life is haunted by them. How is he feeling? (Fine.) Does he want to talk? (No.) Has he remembered anything new? (Not yet.) Is he crazy? (Is he crazy?) And oh by the way, does he remember throwing his brother across the room? (He doesn't, just as he doesn't remember what the Commission had wanted.) He's told them all this before but he doesn't think they believe him (as if he had any reason to be loyal to the Commission of all places). Right now they're either tiptoeing around him (Vanya, Allison), pressing him for answers he doesn't have (Luther, Klaus) or avoiding him altogether (Diego).
Dolores is his only ally. Just like old times.
I'll always be here for you, she says, hopefully.
Five looks up at last, something cold snaking it's way through his stomach. "What's that supposed to mean?"
I don't think Luther likes me very much.
He frowns. "Why do you say that?"
He threw me out a window, she reminds him.
Well, that was fair. "I don't think he realized you were real," Five says, coming to Luther's defense. His brother was an idiot but he wasn't malicious or cruel; he wouldn't have threatened Dolores if he'd known.
Am I real? she asks and his frown deepens, becomes a scar across his face. It's been a long time since she's asked him that. He gives her the same answer as last time.
"You're real to me." But last time she'd asked him he was the only person alive in the world, and his opinion the only one that mattered. Reality had been as he defined it and there was no one left to argue the point. She had been as real as anything else in that hellish place, because he had declared her so.
Things are different now she says sadly, and he puts the notebook down, going to her and taking her in his arms, because he couldn't bear it when she was sad.
"Please don't cry," he says softly. "You're real, of course you're real." His own pain he could deal with handily; he's had a lifetime of practice ignoring it.
He's never been able to ignore hers.
He's about to make her promises when there's a knock on his door. "Five?" Vanya. Vanya was the other person in his life he couldn't bear hurting so gives Dolores a gentle kiss, puts her down and goes to the door.
"We'll talk some more later," he tells her, "I promise." He opens the door.
"Hi," she says and he's instantly suspicious. There's a forced casualness about her demeanor that has him on guard. Behind him Dolores says, Be careful
"We're having a family meeting," she says, "It's important that you're there. And...I'd like you to come."
"What's it about?" he asks, but he already knows. Of course he knows; he isn't stupid.
"You," is the predictable answer, and he at least gives her credit for a lack of chicanery. She could have lied, or tried to trick him downstairs. He's grateful she didn't because that means he doesn't have to resent her for it.
"What about me?"
She takes a deep breath. "We're worried about you. And I think we all need to talk, as a family." She can tell he's going to say no, so she fires her last salvo. "Please?"
He sighs, "Vanya-"
"Please? For me?" He closes his eyes but nods. For her. Truth be told there wasn't much he wouldn't do for Vanya, but he'd rather that not become general knowledge. In his world such affection was a liability for them both.
Vanya smiles in relief and he wishes she wouldn't.
This isn't going to end well Dolores tells him, and he has a sinking feeling she's right; she usually was and anyway, he doesn't see how it could be otherwise. He follows Vanya downstairs regardless because it's not like that's ever stopped him before. Bad decisions are stacked behind him like days; his hands drip red with regrets. Why stop now?
If the intervention/interrogation is (as Dolores predicted) an unmitigated disaster then at least it's one he'd anticipated. After all it was only a matter of time that, being unsuccessful approaching him individually, they inevitably try a coordinated attack.
That his siblings coordinated efforts at doing anything were rarely successful is a detail they seem to have overlooked.
He glances around at them and doesn't bother feigning ignorance. "Well, let's get this over with."
"We're just trying to help you," Luther says, and the words get under his skin, making him itch.
Five arms himself with nothing but honesty, and if his siblings had half a brain between them it would be enough. "You can't," he tells them, because it's true.
"You don't know that," Allison says, and Five fixes her with a flat stare that curdles around the edges.
"Yes I do. Whatever the Commission wants they are going to try and get by any means possible and if you get in their way, then whatever happened to me is going to happen to you, if you're lucky." He scoffs at their faces; resolute, unyielding. Fucking stupid. They're going to get themselves killed. "I shouldn't even be here."
"Then why are you here?" Diego asks, and it's the most he's said to Five in the last two days. "We couldn't keep you here if we tried, so why are you staying?"
Diego doesn't know it because Diego doesn't know anything, but Five's been asking himself that same question ever since he woke up. It's more than the promise he made to Vanya. He feels compelled somehow, a bullet fired from a gun on a trajectory he can neither predict nor alter. He's tried to leave; he always comes back. He can't help it. The most he can do is this; lock himself away, write it all down. Try to understand what's happening to him before...before.
Before what? He closes his eyes. He feels wrong; everything about this body feels wrong and he's used to that, he is. He doesn't belong in this skin, not for many, many years and hardly a day goes by that he doesn't wish he could peel it off, shed it like serpent's scale and find one that fit him better.
But it's been different these last few days, the feeling of wrongness even more pronounced. They did something to him...
"..in case they come back," Allison is saying, and he has no idea how much time he's missed. He frowns; it wasn't like him to remove himself so completely from a conversation that he can't recall it. Oh he often acted like he wasn't listening, but he was. He always did. "We're just trying to figure out how best to help you."
"I don't-" he stops mid sentence, an odd throbbing sensation at the base of his skull. "I don't need help," he says again, eternally. Round and round they go, the six of them like planets in orbit around each other, circling a dark star.
"Yes you do," Luther counters, voice firm and irrevocable and Five has a feeling something more is being said, some deeper intention behind the words.
They want to send you to a doctor, Dolores says, and he startles because he hadn't realized she was here. They want to send you away. Do you remember what happened last time you saw a doctor, Five?
"No."
Yes you do; you pretend not to have nightmares about it. Imagine what they'll do to you when they find out you're hearing voices.
"I- I'm not..."
Isn't that what they'll think? Isn't that what they all think?
"Five?" Vanya asks and he startles, blinking. "Who are you talking to?"
"N- no one," he says, sparing a guilty glance in Dolores' direction and wondering why she's asking him to lie.
"You feeling okay?" Klaus asks, sharing a secret look with whom Five assumes is Ben.
"OF course," he says, words preprogrammed and automatic, rolling of his tongue like someone stuck a coin in him.
Let's not talk about this anymore. Dolores sounds bored and Five says without thinking, "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
"Five," Luther says, standing up as though his height would give is words legitimacy, "This is important. You're important to us. We know something's wrong; let us try and help you."
Help him, help him...over and over again, a record skipping on the same tired words. He didn't want their help. He didn't need their help. What he really needed was some aspirin and a stiff drink. A symbol clashes in his brain, skull reverberating with the pain of it. "Fuck off Luther; who died and left you in charge?"
And Luther answers calmly, "Dad."
Five laughs at him and Luther bristles like the animal he is. "I'm the leader," he begins, "Dad left me in charge-"
"Dad left you on the moon," Five corrects, and then because he's tired of this pointlessness and his head hurts a good deal anyway he delivers the truth they all know but no one will say. "You're not a 'leader', Luther. You never were. That's why you're so bad at it. You have no idea how to lead. The Umbrella Academy only ever had one leader, and we all called him 'dad'. He's the one that picked the missions, told us where to go, what to do, ran our lives down to the minute. He was the leader, Luther, not you. You were a -a field sergeant. His faithful lieutenant; your job was to keep everyone marching in the same direction. But you never got to decide which direction to march. You took your orders from dad just like the rest of us. And he knew you were so desperate to please, to be needed, that if he told you you were the leader of the academy, you'd fight tooth and nail to keep it together. And you did. You spent your whole life swallowing his bullshit, believing he valued you, thinking you were better than you really were. And then dad died and you had nothing; an empty house and lap full of lies. And even then you were too dumb to realize it; still calling yourself the leader. But you can't lead; you were never taught how. The only thing you were ever taught how to do was follow orders. And when you didn't have any more orders to follow you broke. That's why the apocalypse happened, Luther. It wasn't Vanya; it was you."
The room thrums with tension, taut as piano wire as they all stare at him, open mouthed and shocked but not a single one of them refutes it. Diego comes closest, muttering "Jesus, Five" under his breath. Luther looks at him and Five can tell he's landed a critical blow; he's an assassin after all. He knows where all the vital points are and how to puncture them. But Luther's a stubborn bastard and still on his feet. Bleeding out perhaps, but not giving up.
Five preferred a clean kill; the slow deaths were always his least favorite.
"Maybe so," Luther says quietly, "But that doesn't mean we're wrong about this."
He needed to hear the truth anyway, Dolores says and Five shakes his head because..."this isn't' right," he mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face.
Sometimes I wonder why you don't just burn the whole place to the ground and start over she remarks. You always hated it here.
Another symbol crashes and everyone is staring at him and he's starting to shake...he needs to get out of here. He needs to get away, he needs to get back to the academy and warn them, tell them about...about...
The bathroom. He's in the bathroom on the third floor. He knows logically he must have jumped there but has no memory of doing so. No memory...he stares at himself in the mirror, at the stranger staring back at him. "What's happening to me," he whispers, and there's no answer because Dolores isn't there. For some reason it's a relief.
To be honest he's worried about her; she wasn't acting like herself.
He sighs and shakes his head. Maybe a shower would help. He needed a shower anyway; he hasn't had one since waking up. Hygiene had been far down on the list of concerns in the apocalypse and he'd worked hard to reestablish a personal standard of cleanliness. He couldn't let himself fall back into the bad habits of a wasteland vagabond.
It wasn't healthy.
He starts the water running, turning it to hot because things like hot running water hadn't stopped feeling like a luxury to him yet. He starts peeling out of his clothes, letting them pile carelessly to the floor. He runs his hand over the puckered scar on his stomach, a grim reminder of his last days at the Commiss-
His hand stops. He looks down.
There is no scar, the skin perfectly smooth and pale, as though it had never happened. He hastily checks his shoulder, that thin line where an assassin's bullet had grazed his arm at Gimbels. Nothing. There's nothing there; it's as if his body had never known a day of pain or violence.
And suddenly it makes sense. The odd feeling of disassociation, the strange newness of his limbs. The feeling that he didn't quite 'fit', like a leather shoe before it's broken in.
He looks at the stranger in the mirror. "Shit!"