Rachel frowned as they turned onto the same street as Morty's. She could sense Elliot. He was terrified and worried. Something wasn't right. After Lila parked the car at Five's command, they got out with him leading the way. Rachel sped up to get close to him.
"Elliot is having a bit of a freak out right now. Should I…?"
Five looked back at her and gave his head a slight shake.
"Don't worry, I don't think he can really touch us. Just be prepared to sedate him subtly."
"I vote for a different way of referring to my power, but I understand now is not the moment for that debate."
The group of four entered Morty's from the storefront. They slowly ascended the staircase on the right side. As soon as they all reached the living area, Elliot appeared through the kitchen, moving forward and pointing a gun at them.
"Where did you get the film?" the man demanded," 'The Frankel Footage.' The truth this time."
He blinked rapidly as he yelled, showing a physical sign of his fear. He was truly afraid of them. Rachel knew that was actually an accurate thing, but she felt bad because Elliot had been nice to them so far. While the members of the Umbrella Academy kept their calm, Rachel was comforted by the fact that Lila's anxiety spiked. She may be crazy, but she was not stupid.
"You know this lunatic?" Diego asked Rachel and Five, eyes glued to the gun.
Five just sighed.
"New acquaintance. He's harmless."
"Are you sure about that?" Lila questioned.
Elliot moved toward them until he was in the center of the room.
"Are you or are you not an enemy of the people?"
Rachel cringed. The members of the Umbrella Academy were all of like mind as they spoke at the same time.
"Such an open-ended question, yeah."
"Really depends on the people."
"When you are standing on a certain side of an issue..."
Lila looked between them all like they were the crazy ones. Their comments did nothing to appease Elliot.
"You move one more muscle, I will blow your brains out."
Diego glanced over at his younger companions.
"You want to take this or should I?"
"No, we got him," Five responded, slightly irritated," Now, Rach."
Diego got Lila's attention as Five disappeared from beside Rachel. The girl aided her partner by inundating Elliot with feelings of fatigue to slow his reflexes. Five reappeared in front of Elliot, knocking the gun upward just as it went off, causing him to shoot the ceiling. Diego walked over with a few strides and pulled the gun from Elliot's hands with ease. Elliot's fear spiked, but Rachel ramped it up to the point that he was frozen in place. Diego rid the gun of its bullets. The shorter girl looked up at the taller one with a raised eyebrow. Her emotions were of amusement and confusion. Not much concern anymore.
"What the hell just happened?" Lila asked, sputtering and laughing at the same time.
Rachel shrugged and moved over to Five.
"He shouldn't be moving. I'll tie him up."
Grabbing a pile of rope from Elliot's messy table, she put some around his hands and then bound his feet. She knew he regretted having so much miscellaneous items in his apartment as she worked. She was nice enough to use a dishtowel in his mouth as a gag.
"Let's see this tape he clearly watched without us, then," Five announced," Let's set up the kitchen."
"Yes, boss," Rachel quipped, getting her a look from Five.
"We can role-play that out later," he snapped back.
Diego pretended to retch from behind them.
"Could you two just not right now, please?"
Rachel just laughed as Five humored his brother and led the way to the closet that doubled as a dark room. Diego carried Elliot while coaxing Lila into coming with them. As Five fetched the projector from the dark room, Rachel motioned for Diego to set Elliot down on a chair in the kitchen. Lila pulled up a chair next to him, propped Elliot's feet on her lap, pulled a bottle of green nail polish from her pocket, and began painting his toenails. Five rolled a cart with a projector into the middle of the kitchen. Diego pulled down the projector screen before hopping up onto the kitchen counter to watch and Rachel leaned against it, her shoulder leaning on Diego's forearm. She turned to her old friend as Five set up the projector, checking to make sure he knew how it worked.
"Sorry your brother left you in a mental institute. For what it's worth, I wasn't yet in this time."
Diego shrugged at her.
"He mentioned. You really don't need to apologize for his bad behavior. You'll be apologizing for the rest of your life if you do."
The two shared a smile. Rachel nudged him with her elbow.
"I'm only apologizing because it's you. You know he cares; he just shows it badly. I'm okay with apologizing to family on his behalf."
Diego leaned his head against hers.
"You know…I never got around to saying this…probably because having you back came so abruptly and in a really screwed up way…but I'm glad you married into the family...sort of."
Rachel raised an eyebrow at him in surprise. She had never expected him to say that. Years in a mental institute apparently meant a lot of contemplation time for Diego to sort through some feelings at least, if not his whole hero complex. He leaned over and kissed the side of her head.
"Love you, sis."
Rachel bit her lip.
"Don't make me cry, Diego."
She surprised him this time by hugging him around his middle. He gave her a one-armed hug in response before Five looked up, done with the projector, and gave the two of them a disapproving look. The two parted with Rachel waving a hand at Five to tell him it was nothing. Diego pulled out a knife to occupy himself and ignore his brother's jealous look.
Five started up the footage. Voices kicked in with an older woman on screen first.
"Is it on?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean? There's an 'on' button. Just- There's something over-that jigga-ma-thing, whatever."
The camera tilted as the woman went to help the man behind the camera. There was a clear view of the Texas School Book Depository as what was clearly a couple kept playing with the camera.
"They're so cute," Lila noted, "I love old couples. I'm always so proud of them for not murdering each other."
"Then you'll love being around Five and Rachel," Diego said in a monotone," Why are we watching this?"
"Shush," was Five's response.
Now a man was on screen, the husband of the woman.
"Yeah, I…I'm Dan Frankel. And…"
"I'm Edna Frankel."
"Edna Frankel. We are in Dallas, Texas, to see the president. Today's date is November 22, 1963."
Diego and Lila's attentions were now very focused on the film.
"Well, that's six days from now," Lila noted.
"Holy shit. This is it," Diego said, leaning forward," The grassy knoll. Kennedy's about to get shot. How do you have this?"
"Hazel died to get me this footage. It must be the key to stopping doomsday."
Diego's eyebrow raised as he flooded with surprise.
"Hazel?"
"Long story."
"What's doomsday?" Lila asked.
"Longer story."
"What exactly did he say to you?" Diego demanded.
"Well, he was killed before he could explain. But whatever he wanted us to see, it's on this film."
The screen erupted in gunshots and people screaming. The camera tilted as the couple filming started to run.
"Oswald," Diego murmured.
In the midst of the bouncing and rotating footage, there was something familiar that appeared on the screen.
"Was that-?" Rachel asked, choking on the rest of the sentence.
"Oh, no," Five mumbled, turning back the footage.
After a moment he stopped it and pulled the cart back to enlarge the screen. Diego got up off the counter in stunned silence.
"This can't be," Five said in awe, moving toward the screen with his brother.
"Okay, you gonna fill me in now, boys?" Lila asked, a sense of worry striking her," What the hell is this shit we're watching?"
Rachel didn't have to go toward the screen to recognize who the image looked like. The screen showed a tall man in a dark suit carrying an open black umbrella. He had a pointed beard and a monocle over his left eye.
"No, that's impossible," Diego stated.
"Clearly, it's not," Five said with venom.
"Whu…Whu ih ih?" Elliot asked through the gag around his mouth.
"Dad," the two men said together.
Lila looked up at Rachel who had moved around to her side of the projector.
"Did they say dad?"
"Yeah, this is a younger version of their dad…somehow at the assassination of the president."
Rachel frowned at the screen as Diego moved across the room to sit on the kitchen table. Five began pacing in front of the screen, anxiety rising from both.
"Of course Dad would be involved in the assassination. I should've known," Diego commented, his long-standing disgust with his father rising the surface.
Five shook his head, his old man pacing picking up speed.
"No, you're jumping to conclusions."
"Well, what the hell else is he doing standing on the grassy knoll, holding an open black umbrella on a sunny day in Dallas the exact same moment the president gets shot?" Diego shouted, getting up from his sitting position.
Rachel groaned and crossed her arms in front of her. Another Hargreeves family argument was brewing.
"It doesn't look good, I admit."
"No, he's the signalman for the whole goddamn thing."
"Easy, Diego. Seriously."
"No, it makes sense. This is what Hazel was obviously trying to tell you. We have to stop Dad from killing the president."
The fact that Diego could only harp on one thing kept getting clearer and clearer to Rachel. No wonder Five had left him in time out for a day.
"Diego, calm down, all right? Dad was no Boy Scout, but presidential assassination? It's never been his thing."
"How would you know? You skipped out on his golden years."
Rachel took an inhalation of breath. Diego had pressed a bad button on Five.
"Skipped out? You think I had it easy, Diego? You think I just waltzed off with Rachel to tiptoe through some tulips? We were alone together for 45 years!"
Diego's face twitched, wanting to say something but knowing he shouldn't. Rachel moved over and put a hand on Five's shoulder. She seemed to shake him out of his anger a bit. That was not wholly by accident on his account nor Diego's.
"You know what? We don't have time for this right now," Five decided, moving away from Rachel's grasp to pace again," Dad's clearly in Dallas, right? Let's just go talk to him. Maybe he can help us fix the timeline."
Diego shook his head.
"Dallas is a big place. We need to find him first."
Five scoffed.
"Gee, if only we had some magical, old-timey way of finding people and their addresses."
Rachel moved off to find the Telephone Directory, which was luckily right by Elliot's phone. She dropped it down on the kitchen table for the males. Diego quickly began scanning through it. Rachel looked past them to see Lila heading to a back room. She radiated sadness, but Rachel could tell it wasn't the type of sadness you talk to with someone you just met. It was deep seated. She turned back to the males.
"Let's start simple. His name."
"Hargreeves…Hargreeves...Hargreeves…Shit, nothing here."
"Try his company, D.S. Umbrella Manufacturing Co."
Diego turned to glare at his brother.
"Yeah, I know the name. Thanks."
He began looking at it while Rachel gave Five an irritated look. He scrunched up his face at her, clearly asking "What?" with his eyes. His partner pinched her thumb and pointer before pulling them across the front of her lips and shrugging at him. Her intent was clear: "Why do you have to take the talking too far?" Five looked at her incredulously before pointing at Diego, then at his own head. He was saying he could never tell since Diego was dumber than him. Rachel just rolled her eyes at him.
"Holy shit," Diego said softly," 'D.S. Umbrella. Eighty-two Olive.' Let's go."
The three began walking out of the building with Diego pulling up the screen so they could pass through the kitchen door. Elliot made noises from his chair, watching them go.
"He okay to leave here like that?" Diego asked.
"Yeah, he's fine," Five responded, unconcerned," What about the girl?"
The three members of the Academy stopped and looked back into the kitchen to see that she had disappeared. Diego cursed and Five sighed. Rachel pointed to a door in the back for Diego's convenience
"She's in the closet. Dark room. Be nice."
As Diego left them to talk to her, Five put his hands in his pockets and looked over at Rachel. She pouted at him.
"No…Five, come on. I'd be the best person for tracking down your Dad."
"Yes, but I need someone I trust to look after these two. That girl was in a mental institute and needs looking after. Diego has no idea what he is doing with her, so just keep an eye on her. I don't trust her. You can untie Elliot when you feel he won't actually harm either of you or…when the crazy lady finishes with his fingernails."
Rachel looked down at the floor and sighed, her hands rubbing themselves together. She watched as Five's hand took one of hers, stopping her nervous tick. His other hand lifted her chin.
"I always come back," he reminded her softly, a grin on his face.
"Sure, but not always how you left. Remember the shrapnel? We don't have Grace anymore."
Five couldn't disagree with her statement. Instead, he kissed her. Rachel pushed him away by his chest.
"Don't distract me. When I'm right you can just say it."
"No, I'm definitely not going to do that."
He kissed her again, but this time she let him. By the time Diego got back they were in a full blown make out session.
"I'm really tired of walking in on you two and your public displays of affection. Isn't attraction supposed to wane with age?"
Five pulled away from Rachel with a smirk on his face.
"Even scientifically speaking the answer is no. But the extra vitality of our teenage bodies isn't hurting us any."
Diego just made a face and headed for the stairs.
"Gross."
"Good luck, Diego!" Rachel called after him.
She got a raised hand in response. Five put his hands in his pockets, kissed her cheek, and headed out.
"I love you!" Rachel called after him in an expectant tone.
"Goes without saying."
Rachel couldn't help but smile.
"Only so many new tricks you can teach an old dog. At least I no longer need to hide things from Dolores."