"Are you sure you want to do this?" Helga asked, brows furrowed in concern. The small cut above her brow had already healed over, leaving a freshly thin scar highlighted in pink flesh. Not that he had fared any better; it was only due to their enhanced healing that they had sustained minimal damage. Other than that, colourful & cartoonic band-aids and small paper cut-like scratches littered the two Garde, making the two look like they taken on a group of particularly angry cats.

"I have to—we have to" Theodore murmured, his eyes misty with unshed tears as he spared a glance towards the two humans who lay unconscious on the couch and camp bed respectively, of his apartment some time later. Thankfully both his mother and Milton were physically unharmed from the incident at the academy with the Ragnor-Ra staff, but he couldn't say that same for their mental states. As much as it pained him to do so, it would be better for the both of them if they didn't remember; not the alien hunt, nor their near deaths or even them.

"Alright" Helga nodded, her eyes clouding over in sad understanding that only another Garde member would understand. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah" Theodore nodded demurely, sparing a glance over his shoulder to the packed rucksack by the door.

Following the escape from the burning school and bloody bodies littering the linoleum floor, the quartet had missed the arriving police by the skin of their teeth. Theodore had been on edge the entire way back to their apartment, even as his mother and Milton had fired endless questions at the two. It was only upon Helga's interference that the two had finally stopped talking (she'd manipulated their brainwaves with certain accuracy that essentially told their bodies to go to sleep, knocking them out) and in the moment of silence the two broke down—one manically planning their escape, whilst the other silently wept in the corner of the kitchen.

Theodore knew that he had to go, had to leave, that he probably should've left years ago, but just couldn't bring himself to do it. Now, when the Ragnor-Ra staff had been in town (how had he missed them before?) he knew it was time to go, before they showed up on their doorstep. But that didn't make things any easier. Tears continued to flow even as he stripped the apartment of any trace of him. The simpering fireplace had swallowed pages and pages of school books, childish drawings and photos. He had to make sure that nothing remained, no photos, no awards, no stories, not even fingerprints remained. Just blank white walls.

"Let's do this" Theodore heaved a great shuddering sigh as he sat in between the two bodies in the living room. For once, Loren was mercifully silent.

"Okay…" Helga sat across from him, next to Mama—Vanya & Milton's heads, her hands splayed over their foreheads and illuminated in lumen. Theodore could only watch on in trepidation as they both jerked, their bodies arching from their respective resting places as the light entered their bodies and travelled through their veins like lightning beneath the skin.

Theodore would be the first to admit that he didn't quite understand how Helga's Legacy allowed her to manipulate a person's brainwaves, but from what he could understand from the medical jargon the blonde had used in her explanation, it was similar to hypnosis suggested things to a pliable mind or how a telepath could tell manipulate another's mind at will. The only difference was, Helga had to touch the person in order to manipulate the natural electrical current running through a person's body.

"They're ready" Helga murmured quietly, the sweat already beading on her brow as she closed her eyes in concentration. Theodore sucked in a hissed breath as both pairs of eyelids on his mother and friend flew open to reveal the whites of their eyes from where they remained rolled back into their heads, lumen dancing over them. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold their hands, but knew that if he did so could endanger them further. The circuit was big enough as it was, and there was no telling how Helga would feel with an extra person added to it.

"I know how hard it was for you when you lost Uncle Ben" Theodore started, his voice thick with emotion. "But…but what I'm about to do it has to happen, it has to happen for your own good"

"Theo—!" Helga warned as both occupants tensed int heir sleep.

"Just relax, just listen" Theodore shifted from English to Loric on a dime, his tone changing as Loren layered over it and helped to push the message into their brains as both became still once more "Helga Brown & Theodore Hargreeves aren't aliens, that's just how you're dealing with your grief" Theodore swallowed, pushing himself through the painful sorrow lodged deep in his heart, "There was an accident, but they felt no pain…and in their last moments—in their last moments, they thought about how much they were going to miss you" Sparing a glance towards Helga he saw his own painful tears mirrored on her pale cheeks. "And—and no matter where they end up in their next life, they will never stop thinking about you; they will always love—love you" He choked out the last words with great difficulty. "Helga Brown and Theodore Hargreeves are dead"

"Do you think they'll buy it?" Theodore asked as he sat atop the roof of the Umbrella Academy with his packed rucksack at his side and stared out at the nightlife below them. Even this far out, he could see the wailing red and blue lights of the police cars piercing the night as they screeched towards the remains of the burning school.

"I dunno, brat" Loren replied, unusually quiet for once. It was clear that the events of evening had severely rattled the blue crystal as well. "There wasn't much left of the academy when we left, so it's not like they can trace it back to us"

"Yeah, I s'pose" He murmured, his voice still hoarse from the amount of crying he done earlier in the evening. After the two Garde had altered the memories of both humans, Helga had left to clean up her own home while Theodore left to take Milton back to his; sliding him in through his bedroom window and tucked into bed. In turn, his mother—"It's Vanya now, brat"—had met her boyfriend & gone on holiday out of town for the time being. "Loren?" Theodore hedged, his thoughts turning to how the pair of Garde had agreed to meet at the city's limits early the next day before they made their escape.

"Mm?" Loren hummed.

"How do you say goodbye?"

Following the frustrating confrontation with Vanya and the resulting snoop around her suspicious boyfriend's house earlier that day, Allison felt that she was quite deserving of the cigarette that now sat snugly between her lips even if Klaus sat tucked at her feet looking for all the world like a kicked puppy as the pair sat on the large windowsill. Klaus had returned to the house at some point earlier in the day sporting a new tattoo, a pair of worn military dog tags and was skinnier than she'd ever seen him.

Of course these observations had gone out the window when he hobbled into the room with Luther carrying Diego in his arms and calling out for help. Five had been nowhere in sight, and Luther had rushed out some kind of rambled explanation involving the masked intruders, a briefcase and an ice cream van. "Those are pretty bad for you, y'know" Klaus muttered, though his eyes remained transfixed by the swirling clouds of smoke that she would blow out of her lips every now and then.

"Well, you would know" Allison retorted, blowing a ring of smoke towards her junkie brother. The little alcove that the two sat in was different than the one she had used as a child, owing to the fact that even in this gigantic house, Pogo had still been able to track her down. So instead, they were tucked away in one of the back windows that overlooked the city's limit as it danced in beneath the twinkling lights of the city.

"Hey! I've been sober!" Klaus retorted.

"For what? An hour?" She raised a brow at him, unconvinced that the pale parlour and shaking hands were due to him really going sober.

"I've been sober for an entire day, thank you very much!" He replied indignantly, arms crossed like a child as he continued to paint her toe nails in horrendously clashing colours.

"Uh huh" Allison hummed, tapping her joint against the window ledge as she closed her eyes against the cool breeze that wafted in through the open window.

Comfortable silence fell between the two as they fell into their own little worlds with only the gentle ministrations of miniature paint brush against nail to ground them. It continued on like this for a while as Allison's mind turned blank, and the sound of her nephew's emotional singing floated in from the somewhere up on the roof above them.

"Na na na heyana
Hahiyaha naha
Naheya heya na yanuwa
Anhahe yunuwana
Na na na heyana
Hahiyaha naha
Naheya heya na yanuwa
Anhahe yunuwana"

"Is he still up there?" Klaus asked, dragging Allison's attention back to him.

"Mm" She hummed, quirking her lips at the little rainbow flowers he appeared to be painting on her toes. "Pogo said he seemed pretty upset about something when he turned up"

"Did he say why?"

"No, he just said that Theo looked like you did after you broke your jaw in Mom's heels"

"Oh yeah! I remember that!" Klaus chuckled as his hands roved over the various nail polish bottles on the sill next to him. "I swear you walked around in those bloody dagger heels just to piss me off!"

"That was just an added bonus"

"Na na na heyana
Hahiyaha naha
Naheya heya na yanuwa
Anhahe yunuwana
Na na na heyana
Hahiyaha naha
Naheya heya na yanuwa
Anhahe yunuwana (ha ha ya)"

"Well, blood or not, he's definitely Vanny's son" Klaus returned to the conversation at hand.

"Oh?" Allison quirked a brow in question.

"I don't know what language that is, but it makes me want to cry!"

"Yeah, you could always tell when Vanya was upset 'cause her music was the same. Remember when Five lost his teddy bear in a jump and she played that song from Schindler's List when they had that mini funeral?"

"I thought it was the one from Phantom of the Opera?"

"Nuwa nu
Nuwa heya nu
Nuwa nu
Nuwa heya nu
Nuwa nu
Nuwa nu
Na na na heyana
Hahiyaha naha
Naheya heya na yanuwa
Anhahe yunuwana"

"It was sad, whatever it was" Allison dismissed.

"And funny" Klaus replied, dabbing the excess paint off her toes. "Didn't they do like a viking funeral for it?"

"Yeah, Dad was more annoyed they'd wasted the old shoebox than the fact that they had a viking funeral in the bathtub for a missing teddy bear"

"Heh, well, we've never really been normal, have we?"

"No, I s'pose not…"