Chapter Notes:

Among other things that happen herein, Five invents a new branch of science, Ben reflects on missed opportunities to gossip about girls with Vanya, Allison checks that everyone did their therapy homework, siblings cry, Five tries to explain timeline shenanigans, siblings are perplexed, Klaus makes another casual reveal, Vanya breaks some windows, Ben recalls Diego not getting arrested for murder, siblings hug. (Content allergy warnings in endnotes.)

Chapter Three

What a Noble Name for Such a Cruel Gift

...o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o…

"I was promised some kind of moan-and-bitch session for poorly-adjusted assholes. We doing it, or what?"

Thanks to the diminished startle reflex of the dead, Ben was the only one who didn't jump at Five's sudden and vocal appearance in front of the fireplace, completing the set of siblings. He did, however, put away his book. Looked like this was happening.

Diego yelped, "What the shit, Five! Don't- Wait, you're actually doing this with us?"

"I would like it noted for the record that it was a dirty move, sending the family's two worst sets of puppy dog eyes after me." Five seated himself in the chair across from Diego's, crossing his arms with an air of irritation.

From his spot next to Luther on the sofa, Klaus gestured towards where Ben was seated atop the bar. "I'd have sent Ben's sad brown puppy dog eyes too, but, you know, invisible."

Ben couldn't help but smile back as everyone turned to him with warm and wistful expressions, but he quickly hid it behind a look of exaggerated disdain. "Really, Klaus, puppy dog eyes?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, would you prefer kitten eyes? Guinea piglet eyes?"

"More like eyes of resigned despair at his brother's frequently terrible choices in life and also fashion."

Klaus affected a shocked gasp. "Rude! Everyone, you should know Ben is being very rude to me right now."

Five guessed boldly, "But he's right, isn't he?"

Ben very maturely stuck out his tongue in victory as Klaus pouted, "Oh, how would you even know that, you little terror? Like your life and fashion choices are any better."

The corner of Five's mouth quirked up, and Ben could see Klaus treasuring that hint of a smile as a consolation prize.

A closer view of the action was called for.

It seemed Klaus had already let his guard down, because he startled again as Ben relocated between the ends of the sofas away from the fireplace, near Klaus and Vanya. "Hey! Can you not do that jumpscare thing right in front of me? At least Five has the decency to flash a light and make a sound when he zips all over the place."

At that, Five leaned forward and cocked his head in Ben's general direction. "Ben can teleport?"

Despite his invisibility to the room at large, Ben wavered a hand in an 'ehh, kind of' gesture. "Not exactly. Where I am feels… less relevant than when I was alive? It's not like I'm made of matter, as far as I know. So if I want to be somewhere else, I am."

Klaus repeated his explanation almost word-for-word, hand motion included.

Sometimes Ben felt a little guilty about benefiting from this older Klaus' own guilt about whatever had really happened with his timeline's Ben in their alternate future. But it wasn't enough to diminish the relief of finally being acknowledged.

"Huh." Five leaned back, one hand over his mouth in thought. That was the face of someone plotting to pioneer the field of ghost physics.

Unlike Luther and Five himself, Ben had never particularly enjoyed the harder sciences. But he had missed reading in Five's room and half-listening to him prattle about math. It would be nice to have the chance again, even if Five couldn't see him now.

Using a tone that reminded Ben that she was a mom now, Allison announced, "Okay, we can talk about ghost powers later. Right now, it's time for our second official Hargreeves family therapy meeting."

"Oh," Klaus said, "are you leading group this time?"

"If you'd rather do it, you're welcome to. I just thought we probably need someone to keep us on track. You did great last time."

"Danke! But no, you can have at it. Lead on, MacDuff!"

Five muttered, "That's not how the quotation goes," and was duly ignored.

"Thanks, Klaus." Allison clasped her hands together and looked around at everyone. Diego and Five in the chairs by the fireplace, Luther and Klaus on the sofa facing hers, a slow skim over the space where Ben was, Vanya seated next to her. She went back to Five. "So, Luther and Vanya both talked to you? How did that go?"

Five pursed his lips, then admitted, "Yeah. Vanya and I… cleared the air about some apocalypse-related matters. And I found out about some things I hadn't known had happened," his eyes flicked to his right in the direction of Klaus and Luther, but back away before making contact with either, "both after I disappeared, and during the… pre-apocalypse weeks. And of course what happened with all of you the other day. Heard about all the crying, and what can I say? Couldn't pass that up."

Diego protested, "I did not cry."

"Never said you did," Five pointed out with that mocking grin of his that might look sardonic on an old man's face, but came across as impudent on this one.

Meanwhile, Klaus wagged a finger. "Yet! Don't worry, dearest Diego, I'm sure you'll get in a cathartic sob or two sooner or later."

Diego glared at him, but didn't say anything.

"It really is cathartic," Vanya piped up. "Releases endorphins. You should try it sometime."

Diego turned to glare at her, and, instead of quailing or looking away, she met it with a smug smile.

The Vanya that had come back from the future was much more confident and snarky than the one Ben had last seen storming out of the mansion after stumbling across a family meeting about the end of the world. Which she had apparently been about to cause? And then she'd somehow been involved in starting a new apocalypse after Five had flung them all into the 1960s to escape the first (but chronologically second?) one. But then they came back to this timeline, after some trippy-sounding detours, and made it so none of that… would happen? Had happened? Was going to have happened? Or something like that.

It was a good thing he'd been able to eavesdrop on some more enlightening conversations around the house, because all Ben had been able to gather about what had happened with Vanya from Klaus was that she had dumped her murdery boyfriend (more fatally than this time around), then blew up the moon with her secret powers (those had been a bit of a shock), then became a homewrecking nanny who seduced a farm Frau? Which had made Ben curious, given that she'd never mentioned finding any girls cute like he did during their private chats when they were kids. But good luck getting a straight answer (no pun intended) on how Vanya would characterize her own orientation out of Klaus, who sometimes seemed to view orientations other than 'anything with a pulse and an interest' as abstract concepts on par with the principles of algebra. Perhaps that was a natural result of growing up pan in an extremely (bizarrely) sheltered home.

Ben actually hadn't realized until some time after his death that their upbringing had been not just sheltered, but sheltered in some unusual ways.

Like how, back when Klaus had tripped and busted his jaw on the stairs while wearing Mom's heels, the upbraiding he'd sat crying through (while the rest of them had watched from above) had been focused on how 'Number Four' clearly needed more physical training and sparring practice if he lacked the balance required to 'parade in such frippery as millions of people manage without incident on a daily basis'.

And once, when Ben had seen Dad catch Luther and Allison in an uncomfortably romantic situation, the old man had told them off for inappropriate and wasteful use of recreation time, instead of the inappropriateness of holding your sibling's hands while standing entirely too close and gazing longingly into each other's eyes until Ben had thought they were going to kiss, ugh.

Then, that one time Klaus had stolen one of Vanya's skirts and worn it to lessons, what Dad had lectured them all on was the ungratefulness inherent in refusing to wear the clothing that he had so generously and carefully selected for its impeccable respectability, purchased at some expense, and arranged to be personally tailored for each of them. He'd further declared that only their individually-given uniforms were to be worn to lessons, training, missions, mealtimes, or media appearances, and if they wanted to wear other clothes during their downtime, they would have to purchase such with their own money. Which had backhandedly given them permission to possess personal clothing. (Although back then, they'd lacked both the resources to buy it and the time to wear it.) Klaus had insisted his misbehavior had been worth it just for that, even though he'd been indisposed by 'extra training' for a day or so.

In retrospect, their upbringing had been atypical in so many ways beyond the obvious ones of ape butler, robot mom, eccentric billionaire father/drill sergeant, numbers for names, and being purchased and raised to be superpowered soldiers. Which had already been more than enough if anyone cared to ask Ben, even if some good had come with all the bad.

And while he was lost in thought, Allison was fulfilling her self-assigned duties as moderator.

"Hey! Guys! I'm sure anyone who wants to cry again will get a chance to, and you don't have to cry if you don't want to," she said archly. "Everyone okay with that? Good. Now, Luther, Five, you two had a conversation as well? Do you want to tell us anything about that?"

The two glanced at each other questioningly. If Five had any idea how young that expression made him look, Ben had no doubt he would never have let them see it.

Luther cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. We talked about, um, you know, touch deprivation and all that. Turns out Five had already researched it too."

Five waved off a few skeptical and surprised looks with a scoff. "The rubble of the local library had a surprisingly thorough neuroscience section. Conveniently located in the 610s near the first aid information, so I got to it early on."

It was almost funny in a sad way to see that Vanya's expression was the only one to twist with distress at the thought of their thirteen-year-old brother scrabbling through the ruins of civilization, searching for a surviving book to help him treat injuries that could swiftly become life-threatening in an empty world. The rest of them looked solemn, but mostly approving of his survival tactics. Their family was so messed up.

Luther picked up the thread again. "When we were talking, we decided it would probably be a good idea to inform everybody how each of us wants to deal with… touch."

Oh wow, the two of them came up with that? Ben was proud of them. Normally he would say as much, but now Klaus might relay it, and he doubted the sentiment would be received as kindly as intended.

Luther glanced at Five as though to ask if he wanted to go first. When met with a flat stare, he cleared his throat again. "So, um, this body is pretty fresh from the moon again, so there's that, but, you know, my powers kept me from having to go through the normal gravity retraining and the process of rebuilding muscle and bone density and all that, so it's not like any of that's really a concern."

Klaus raised his hand like he was going to ask Pogo to be excused from the lesson. "Uh, am I the only one who literally never even thought about any of that?"

Everyone else except Five raised their hands as well. Diego matter-of-factly, Vanya wincingly, Allison shamefacedly, and Ben with a fair amount of disappointment in himself.

Five put his own hand over his face and visibly refrained from calling them all idiots.

"Yeah, that's definitely a thing for long-term astronauts usually. I mean, I know my bone density and at least my fast-twitch muscle numbers lowered while I was up there, but they're still higher than normal for a, well, for a healthy thirty-something human in Earth gravity." Luther put on a particularly miserable smile. "Only a touch higher than a non-human great ape, actually. I, uh, I don't know if that lowering was because of the years in low grav, or if it's a permanent effect of the serum. I wasn't really… paying much attention to the tests Dad ran before the moon. And then in Dallas, I didn't do much exercise aside from running. My goal was more along the lines of making the matches look good without doing too much damage to the other fighters, so I wasn't exactly pushing my limits. And it's not like I had a cytology lab to look at samples anyway."

And there was that calculating look on Five's face again. "If you want some assistance with running tests or an extra set of eyes examining slides, I'd be willing to lend a hand sometime."

Ben wondered, "Since when is Five interested in biology?"

Sure enough, Klaus immediately said, "Ben wants to know what's with the sudden interest in biology."

After a speculative examination of the general area where Ben was, Five replied, "I ended up spending a fair amount of time in those 610s, and the medical sciences grew on me. Besides, I have a project I'm working on." And he left it there.

Klaus raised a questioning eyebrow and Diego appeared concerned, but everyone else seemed to find the news heartening. Ben understood that Diego and Klaus were probably worried about replacement obsessions, but decided that he was cautiously optimistic about Five having a project that didn't involve an apocalypse.

"Great! Maybe you can tell us more about that later," Allison said with probably unwarranted hopefulness. "Meanwhile, Luther, you were going to tell us about your plan for reintroducing touch?"

"Yeah. As I was saying, this body has only been back on Earth for a month or so, but my mind has had several months to get used to…" he waved a hand vaguely, "people in general. Kind of had to, working as a bodyguard and a boxer. The cigarette girls and servers at the club were actually probably the most help. Most of them were always touching everyone on the arm or shoulder when they were talking. Said it got them better sales and tips. Anyway, that was pretty low-key and easy. So I was thinking touch like that is probably the best way to go for me. Just kind of casual and light mostly. I mean, if, I don't know, if someone wanted a hug or something, I'd probably be up for it most days, so just ask."

Klaus got straight to work on the suggestions, patting Luther on the forearm with a, "There, there," and provoking a couple chuckles to cut through the innate awkwardness of the situation.

"Thank you for sharing that with us," Allison said sincerely. Honestly, it sounded like she was leaning a bit too hard into method-acting her 'group therapy leader' role, but Ben wasn't going to be the first to mention it (for multiple reasons). When she turned to look expectantly at Five, everyone else followed suit.

Five had shut down his expression, and his apprehension was only apparent in the slight flare of his nostrils and his uncharacteristically long pause before speaking. "As I've discussed with some of you, and as the rest of you have probably guessed, friendly human contact hasn't really been present in my life for… Well, I was going to say forty-five years, but it's not like I was exactly a cuddlebug before that either." His eyes went a little far-off. "It's the little things that get to you, you know. Things you don't even think about. Just… A hand up during team training, a pat on the back after a spar, bumping into someone while running down the hall. You wouldn't think you'd miss…" He broke off to stare at the fireplace.

Luther had crossed his arms and was blinking hard.

Ben wasn't sure what his own face was doing, but the heartbroken look Klaus was giving him implied it wasn't pretty.

Five took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. He continued in a distressingly hollow voice, "I was the only living human on Earth for over forty years. Before I joined the Commission, the last time I touched human skin was when I buried you. Numbers One through Four, that is. I was… not in the best condition, and the terrain wasn't suited for digging, so I ended up making cairns more than graves. It took me a while. At first, you were so- you looked so- I shook you, just to check. But by the end, you weren't even…" He swallowed hard. "I did consider staying with you. But at the time, I still had hope that… I'm sorry. I did what I could."

Oh, so that was on the small list of things that could make a ghost cry. Good to know.

It wasn't like the rest of them were doing much better. Klaus somehow looked even more heartbroken now, Vanya had pulled her legs up to her chest like a child, Allison was covering her lower face as though to hide her shaky breaths, and Luther was now weeping openly. Even Diego was wiping at his eyes, though his expression was more one of pained fury than of sorrow.

Five pulled his gaze away from the fireplace to survey his devastated siblings with a detached look of the sort that reminded Ben he was now a fifty-eight-year-old assassin. He saw the moment Five decided to push through quickly and deal with the fallout later.

"I actually came across a book on the neurological aspects of social contact and loneliness early on after, as I said, I had the idea to scour the library for an intact first aid manual. Given the relevance of the subject matter to my situation, I of course picked it up and read it directly after completing the volumes I'd found on first aid and other potential medical necessities. It was useful in my development of strategies to mitigate the effects of isolation."

It wasn't particularly unusual that Ben had stopped all motion to better hang on Five's every word, but he hadn't expected the rest of his sisters and brothers to do the same. He'd never seen them so still.

"I'd met and started traveling with Delores even earlier on; she was actually already with me when I found your- when I found you. But that book is what inspired me to put more effort into building a relationship with her. Of course, that turned out to be a very worthwhile endeavor. Delores has never been one to initiate contact, but she also never turned down an embrace, and that helped."

God, Ben didn't know how to feel about that. Was Delores a heavily anthropomorphized comfort object? A delusion? An imaginary friend taken to extremes? Projection personified? A distinctly Hargreeves instance of the 'marrying a woman like your mother' phenomenon? Had Five actually dissociated a fragment of himself so thoroughly he externalized it?

… Did it even matter? Whatever else she was, she seemed to be the main reason that Five's psyche had emerged from his unthinkably extreme isolation still recognizable as human, let alone recognizable as their brother. Ben could at least be grateful for that.

Five continued in a clinical tone, "I also made sure to regularly engage in activity intended to stimulate the c-tactile afferent nerves especially, to help stave off and minimize touch starvation symptoms." He pushed up his right sleeve to demonstrate by stroking a couple fingers up and down his inner forearm, then switched to swiping his thumb back and forth across his wrist. "Optimal speed is three to five centimeters per second. Tactile afferents can also be stimulated with gentle pressure to sensitive areas like the hands," he used his right thumb to massage the opposite palm, "and the face." He lifted his right hand to the far side of his face and ran his thumb from the side of his nose out towards his ear, pressing along the arch of the cheekbone. "That sort of thing."

Looking around at his siblings' heartsick faces, Ben guessed he was not the only one picturing skinny little actually-teenage Number Five, alone at the end of the world and fresh from burying most of his family, reading from a ragged book about the science of loneliness, clutching a partial mannequin to his narrow chest, gently stroking his own arm, trying to convince what parts of himself he could that he wasn't the only person left alive…

Five closed his eyes, left his hand on his face, and seemed to collect himself for a few moments. Then he returned his blazer to order and regarded them all coolly once again. "When the Handler recruited me, of course, circumstances changed. At first, seeing other humans, even just breathing and walking and going about the business of living, was overwhelming. Actual touch was… electrifying. And no, not in a good way. Burning skin, a stunning jolt up the nerves. Not ideal for a would-be assassin. Had to spend a while in Medical anyways, because apparently growing up in a desolate hellscape can cause some long-term health issues. Who'd have guessed. I never knew what all they did, but by the time they released me, my breathing was easier, my eyesight was better, my former bad knee only hurt when it was going to rain, and casually brushing by a coworker in the hall was no longer paralyzing. Oh, and I had a tracker in my arm, but that's neither here nor there."

There were raised eyebrows and furrowed brows all around, but Allison was the one to jolt in indignation. "What?"

Five definitely misunderstood her concern, because his response was to push up his sleeve again, this time far enough to expose a small bandage just below the crook of his arm. "Don't worry, I cut it out less than a day after I got back the first time around. Vanya cleaned it up." He nodded at her in apparent gratitude, and she nodded back.

"You cut it out yourself?" Allison almost squeaked in dismay.

"Wait, wait," Diego cut in with an apprehensive look on his face. "You're saying the tracker stayed in you, even when you jumped into your thirteen-year-old body?"

Oh, good point. Everyone looked a little confused as they tried to work that out. Five's tracker and his suit had remained the same, so why had his body, also a physical object, been the only thing altered when Five 'projected his consciousness' into… whatever it was he'd called it?

Of course, Five began to rattle off a predictably brain-bending explanation. "I didn't so much jump into my old body as I used the template of the most contemporary instance- You know what, that doesn't really matter. The point is, the Commission has the ability to affix objects to, or detach objects from, particular timeline streams. Apparently they fixed the tracker to my personal timeline. Could've been an issue if I'd messed up too far and ended up significantly smaller, I guess, but," he shrugged. "Actually, I know of at least two Corrections recruits who were taken from alternative timelines and affixed to the Commission timeline before the divergence point was corrected and their timeline of origin was erased. Well, by 'before' I mean in their personal timeline and in the Commission timeline, but not in the main timeflow, of course. If they hadn't been unmoored and re-anchored, then they would have ceased to have ever existed in that form before they were recruited, so it never would have happened at all."

Ben thought he might be able to understand that if he processed it for a while, then listened to a slower repeat. Which meant that Five was almost certainly dumbing it down for them all. Luther and Allison looked like they were trying to work through a particularly tough riddle, while the other three were just kind of… stunned and blinking.

Five continued regardless, "That's actually a bit like a simplified version of what happened to my own timeline. My natural time travel lacks certain timeline-stabilizing effects that are usually provided by the briefcases, though, and that makes everything a little messier. As you all experienced, unfortunately." Five gave a rueful, almost apologetic tip of the head, and there were a few shudders and winces among the siblings. "Honestly, for the first week or two back, I was a little concerned that this timeline's younger me might pop out of the woodwork from his own failed experiment in time travel, and who knows what that would have done to my personal timeline's integrity? But he didn't, so I suppose my timeline closed the loop properly, and part of it just runs through an alternate timeline that may or may not exist in any real sense. Which is existentially uncomfortable, but not unheard of in the ebb and flow of a healthy timeline."

"Now I have a headache," Klaus moaned, flopping bonelessly across the arm of the sofa.

Vanya said, "I didn't follow, um, any of that, but the main point I'm getting is that there was at some point a risk of an alternate dimension version of you showing up and causing your… past to implode or something?"

"That's… almost entirely wrong. But close enough for your purposes, I suppose."

"And you didn't tell any of us about that risk?"

"It's not like you could have done anything about it."

Vanya let her face fall forward into her knees in defeat.

"Okay!" Allison declared. "We are officially adding another purpose to family therapy meetings! They are still for sharing and emotional catharsis and support. But now they are also for communication of important developments." She put out a hand to shush Five almost before he'd opened his mouth. "Even if you don't think anyone can help the situation, if it might affect your wellbeing, we'd still like to know about it."

Five slumped back in his seat with an air of resignation. "Fine. Though I would like to point out that being communicative about the 1963 apocalypse did not in fact go any better for me than playing the 2019 apocalypse close to the vest did."

"That's a fair point," Allison allowed. "But I think we're getting better at helping each other out when we need our family." She glanced over and shared a gentle smile with Vanya, almost certainly in reference to a memory that Ben wasn't privy to but, based on the faces around him, everyone else was. "And I think more open communication is a step in the right direction."

Diego said, "In the spirit of communicating important developments, I've got a question for Five. What are the odds I've got a tracker in me, considering I have no idea what Lila gave me or how long I was out before I came around in the Handler's office?"

Ben turned to Klaus. "Really? You didn't think Diego being abducted by the evil time police warranted a mention in your summary?"

"Hey, don't look at me!" Klaus protested, drawing the attention of the room. "I don't think I even knew about that." He shrugged defensively. "What? There were, just, a lot of things going on. You know how it is; sometimes weird things happen or people know about future events and you don't know why, and you just have to go along with it. Or else you might end up punching your possible alternate future soulmate in a crappy diner and enlisting even earlier this time around."

Ben was not the only one to express confusion and alarm at that, but Klaus was on a roll.

"Though that would explain why Diego disappeared sometime between me and Ben making out with the gardening girl and me puking him up in the alley. Oh, and I guess maybe it explains how Diego came back with his little Commission buddy, knowing where Vanya was and that she was about to kickstart the apocalypse again. All I caught was something about headhunting and a switchboard? It was a very confusing time."

From the looks of everyone else, at least some of that ramble had been news to them too. Though possibly not the same parts.

In particular, Allison scrunched her eyes closed like she had a migraine, Vanya buried her face back into her knees with a small noise of distress, and Five rubbed his forehead while muttering, "How. How are we possibly this shitty at communication?"

Diego was the first to pull himself together. "Yeah, looks like we're all gonna need a bunch more chats about how things went down. But I think I'd like the answer to my question first."

Five sighed deeply. "Honestly, it's not very likely. If you did have one, there's a good chance you lost it when I… spectacularly botched that first timeline jump. Unless the Metaphysics division somehow anticipated that possibility, which I didn't even know was a possibility until I did it. Either way, it's probably not urgent, considering nothing's happened yet. And you're on good terms with the new management, anyways. But we should still check you over with the x-ray machine later."

An in-house x-ray machine: essential equipment for the eccentric billionaire that doesn't want to deal with negative press over having his child soldiers in and out of a radiology clinic every time they might have broken another bone.

"Glad that's settled for now," Allison said firmly. "And we will definitely have to schedule another family meeting later to see if we can get everyone filled in on what the hell was going on that week, because apparently no one else has all the pieces, either. And that will probably turn into a big talk-therapy session too, but for now I think we should get back on topic. Any objections?"

No one dared.

"So, Five, you were going to tell us about how you want to handle your reintroduction to touch. You were giving us background, and we were up to you being released from Medical at the Commission."

"Yeah." Five narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment, then picked up his tale. "After that, incidental touch was no longer actively painful. But, for a few years there, the only intentional touch I experienced was fighting, killing, or checking for a pulse." He seemed to briefly consider whether or not he should voice his next point. "Or the Handler. She was always touching my arm, putting a hand on my shoulder, patting me on the back. At first I thought she was doing it to help desensitize me, and I imagine that's what she would have said if I'd asked. But the truth is, that woman never saw a vulnerability she didn't exploit."

The bits and pieces Ben had heard so far about the Handler (mostly first-, second-, and third-hand from Five, Diego, and Klaus respectively) should have been enough for him to already hate her sight unseen. But somehow what actually did it was his youngest/oldest brother's grim eyes and barely perceptible shiver as he rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Point is, casual touch isn't going to go well with me like it will with Luther. Best case scenario, I'll find it… discomforting. Worst case scenario, I'll automatically react like you're a threat." He ran his gaze over his living siblings. "Luther, Klaus, Vanya, you've been telegraphing well enough that you can continue as is, so long as you won't take it personally when I avoid your attempted touch. I may occasionally let you make contact in order to practice desensitization. Just don't try it if I appear… distracted."

The three nodded, Klaus like he expected as much, Luther with a look of concern, and Vanya sadly.

"Diego, you're the only one who still consistently moves like you're ready for a fight, so you should probably hold off until I've recalibrated my fight-or-flight instincts."

"Fair enough," Diego allowed, somehow combining pride with a tinge of disappointment.

Surprisingly, Five looked in Ben's direction next. "Ben, we'll cross that bridge when Klaus is able to keep you corporeal longer. But I would consider attempting… significant friendly contact, given that you wouldn't be harmed if I reacted poorly."

"Aww," Klaus announced, "you gave him happy puppy dog eyes now! Adorable."

"Shut up," Ben said through his grin.

Five actually smiled briefly, but sombered again as he turned to Allison. "First off, I'd like to thank you for restraining the maternal impulses I've seen you experiencing. Just so you're aware, I'm not so much of an actual teenager that it's the… the affectionate sentiment that I object to. Though I will ask you not to cut the crusts off any of my sandwiches."

"I'll keep that in mind," Allison said wryly, humor subdued under the general air of foreboding.

"It's just that there are some… types of interaction I would almost certainly react badly to, especially from-" he paused and squinted into the middle distance as if re-evaluating. "Actually the list applies for all of you. And I should mention it to Mom and maybe Pogo at some point as well." He refocused and continued, "Basically, it's a bad idea to touch my hair, touch my face, straighten any of my clothing, or stand directly behind me." His whole face twitched as an unpleasant thought seemed to occur to him. "Oh, and, Allison, I know the other evening at dinner, for just a moment, you almost moved to- to clean something off my face with a napkin. That probably would have ended very poorly. Just for future reference."

As Five gave them the probably-partial list of his triggers, Ben found himself taking deep breaths (unnecessary, but still calming) to settle the Horror (or his post-death phantom limb manifestation of the Horror? Klaus had never seemed certain about that either) for the first time since that one dealer had- No, remembering that incident now would not help. Anyways, it was the first time he'd had to settle it in a long while. Meanwhile, he soothed himself with the reminder that Five and the rest of them had seen the Handler die with their own eyes. Yes, that had been (was going to have been?) in their alternate future journey into the past, which had been erased. But he had heard Five reassure their siblings that events in Commission employees' timelines were fixed, regardless of alterations to the 'main timeflow', so she was definitely dead.

Diego seemed to be having similar thoughts. "I am so glad you heard that bitch coming and gave the Swede an opening to gank her, back in the barn."

Five raised an eyebrow as though he somehow didn't follow the obvious connection between his rundown of his triggers and his protective brother being glad the Handler was dead, but nodded in agreement.

Vanya spoke up, "That isn't really what happened, though."

Five acceded to everyone's inquiring looks with minimal grumbling. "Yes, she's right. I wasn't planning to bring it up to everybody until I had a better handle on the new aspect of my powers, especially after the timeline fiascos, but I suppose sharing is the word of the week." He gave a resigned huff. "I didn't do a spatial jump to the doorway because I sensed the Handler approaching. I did a spatiotemporal rewind to that place and time because, the first time around, she came in and shot up the place." He gave Diego a measured look. "Including Lila, when she protested and called us her family. Lila and the rest of you died almost instantly, but I was heading there a little slower. The Handler gloated a bit, the remaining Swede showed up and put an end to that, and just before I joined you all, I figured out a new way to use my powers. So, for the third time, I ended up running my personal timeline in a closed loop through an alternate timeline where you all died. At least each one has been shorter than the last." And he had the audacity to shrug dismissively.

"Wait, you were shot too?" Vanya questioned. "You didn't tell me that."

Five tilted his head. "I didn't mention that? Yes, well, as is apparently customary now, I was the lone survivor. Though this time it was just a quirk of semi-random weapons fire, not because I screwed up a time jump."

Allison brought up a point that Ben had missed in his shock. "Wait, if you jumped back in time, why weren't you still shot when you landed?" She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "You weren't hiding bullet wounds again, were you?"

Five gave a tetchy little snort. "Not this again. It was a shrapnel wound, it was the same wound each time you all decided to poke at my unconscious body, and I didn't try to hide it this last time around, did I?"

"Didn't really get a chance," Diego pointed out. "We already knew about it, and also you passed out again right after we landed." (It would have scared years off of Ben's life if such a thing were possible. A flash of light, Five fell onto the bar out of nowhere looking the worse for wear, everyone else staggered or outright collapsed, and Five… didn't get up.)

Five ignored Diego's contribution. "But no, I wasn't still shot. It wasn't a jump or a vortex; I didn't go directly from one point in the continuum to another. That's why I'm calling it a rewind. I pushed myself through spacetime, not across it, and time rewound for my body as well. I don't know if that's an inherent feature of the ability and would happen no matter what, or if my survival instincts subconsciously chose to do that." He scowled. "I've been trying to work out the math of it, but the available data are very limited."

Luther asked, "Wouldn't trying it out some more help? Like with the consciousness-projection group time travel; it seems like you really got a handle on it by this last time."

"Not an option right now," Five said with almost threatening finality.

Five was more subtle about it than either Klaus or Ben himself had ever been, but Ben suspected their oldest/youngest sibling harbored fear of his own powers. The temporal aspects, at least, and apparently with good reason.

Now wasn't really the time to delve into that, though. Not when everyone was being so dumb. Ben turned to Klaus in irritation. "Seriously? You hear about how Five saw you all die again, and saved you all from dying, also again, and none of you think to express the slightest hint of sympathy or gratitude?"

Klaus heaved a sigh like he'd just been assigned to clean all the bathrooms as punishment duty, but did turn to Five. "So, it blows that we all died on you again. Thanks for saving all our asses. Including yours. Because, wow, would it have sucked to wake up to that. I mean, evading my cult and a national manhunt, and probably either the Swede or the Handler too, while dragging all your newbie ghosts, except the one I was already used to, along with me to Reykjavik? Would not have been fun."

Oh God, first the mausoleum, now his habit of not dying? Was Klaus going to 'accidentally let slip' one deeply traumatic and closely-held secret per family therapy meeting? Or he could still play it off as a joke. Wouldn't be the first time.

"Thanks," Five said, sounding a little startled. "But sorry to say, you died too. It was quick, if that helps."

"Oh, was it a headshot? I mean, that might have done it. They say it works for zombies. I wouldn't know; never tried it. And apparently whatever happened in the very first apocalypse worked, if you managed to bury my lovely corpse without incident. It's just that none of the ways I remember dying so far have stuck." And he actually shrugged, the complete asshole.

Ben braced himself.

Sure enough, Luther gawked as Diego, Allison, and Five all screeched mingled questions and imprecations. But the award went to Vanya, who let out a shriek of, "What the fuck, Klaus?" that cut through the din and cracked at least two windows.

In the ringing silence afterwards, Ben stated darkly, "If you say anything like, 'Oh, I forgot to mention that?' I will punch you myself, corporeal or no."

Klaus put on a thin and shaky smile. "To be fair, I never really believed that I had ever actually died until, oh, a couple days before Vanya blew up the moon? The night after the day that we jumped back to." He mouthed that last sentence again to check it made sense, nodded in satisfaction, and continued. "I cracked my head, and woke up… somewhere different, and met a… being? Who told me I wasn't supposed to be there. That's when I met up with Dad, and he spilled the beans about the whole killing himself thing. And then I woke up on the floor surrounded by a bunch of people staring and backing away and generally looking like they'd seen someone come back from the dead. Ben told me they'd already checked for a pulse and were trying to decide what to do with my body when I woke up. Apparently some of them wanted to toss it in a dumpster out back. So rude, am I right?"

Before this afternoon, the closest Ben had come to crying in a long time had been at their therapy appointment the previous week, when Klaus had shared that story. Alternate Ben must have been shattered, watching some of his worst fears coming true, all alone, powerless, hoping against hope that Klaus could pull off the impossible one more time…

Luther pulled himself out of his stunned stupor to ask, "What do you mean, you didn't believe that you'd died before then?"

"Well, it had always been in situations where it was possible I just blacked out and recovered. Like hitting my head, or hypothermia, or, of course, overdose. Sometimes I even got some official medical-type drugs and jolts to the old ticker from a paramedic, so it could have been a miracle of modern medicine! Other than that, usually only Ben was around. And it's not like he could check my pulse, so I tended to brush it off whenever he said he'd thought I was dead." Klaus gave him a sad smile. "Sorry, Benny."

Ben couldn't muster snark or even a false smile to return. "I know. You're taking better care of yourself now, and that means a lot."

Five demanded, "How many times."

"Ooh, good question. Ben, how many do you think?"

Ben heaved a pained sigh for emotive effect. "Probably more, but there are four I saw and was pretty damn sure of, no paramedics involved."

"Okay, and then there were a couple maybes from before you became my shadow, and the one when I met up with Dad. Oh, and there was one in the 60s that other-future-Ben insisted counted. So, probably eight? Give or take a couple."

Luther, Allison, and Vanya each looked like they'd been stabbed unexpectedly, while Diego and Five looked furious. On second thought, that was probably also how Diego and Five would look if stabbed unexpectedly. Ben pointed out, "Notice how they all look like you just shanked them in the gut? Oh, look, and now Luther and Vanya crying again. Told you I wasn't overreacting."

"Oh wow, okay!" Klaus put his hands up as though to assuage the general atmosphere of distress. "It's fine; I'm okay. Wow, you are all… very upset. But I'm fine, and at least semi-immortal, so that's good news, right?"

Five bared his teeth so fiercely Ben almost expected him to growl. "Of course we're upset, you imbecile! Do you have the slightest glimmer of appreciation of what I have done, how hard I have worked, just to keep you death-seeking morons alive? And now I find out, this whole damn time, you have been killing yourself with drugs, and head trauma, and- and hypothermia! What the actual hell?'

Klaus looked to Ben as though he could (or would) help him out of this situation, then gave up and winced at Five. "Um, sorry? I'll try not to do it again?"

"I don't get it," Allison said with an uncharacteristic waver in her voice. "Of all the rest of us, only one of us has died once in over thirty years. One and a half if you count Luther's… incident. Hell, Five made it to almost sixty in a literal post-apocalyptic wasteland and then the definition of a high-risk job. And yet, somehow, you have managed to die eight damn times."

Klaus' lopsided attempt at a smile indicated that even he was having trouble playing carefree about this. "I don't know if it's ironic or to be expected, given my powers, but death never seemed… all that serious to me? Like, it's just something that happens sometimes, but- Well, I was going to say life goes on, but I guess that's not very à propos. I mean, dead people are kind of creepy and gross and obsessive and rude and generally horrifying - present company excluded of course," he blew a half-sincere kiss, but continued, "except for the rude part, Ben's much ruder now - and there were lots of ways of dying that looked really unpleasant, but death itself was never actually scary? So it's possible I wasn't trying as hard to stay alive as people are supposed to."

At this point, everyone was staring in stunned shock. Ben couldn't really blame them. Their therapist had covered her reaction better, but then again, Louisa had probably had at least one patient literally missing a survival instinct before. Maybe.

Klaus shrugged and continued his explanation, "See, and then there were you first three especially, and Five too when we were kids, you were all so gungho with the death-defying heroics, and Vanya wanted to get into it so bad too, it took me way too long to realize that trying not to die was actually supposed to be the default. I guess some part of me assumed all the civilians were always running and cowering because it was a scary stressful situation and they didn't want to get hurt because, you know, injuries suck. And honestly, Dad's general disregard for our safety and complete lack of ethical or moral compunctions over having us naïve kinder go around openly killing people didn't really help me figure it all out. Not to mention his," he made a weird wavy gesture with both hands, "air of irritated disappointment each time we lost a sibling. Turns out that was not actually normal or healthy! Who knew?"

With a surprising degree of restrained calm, Five asked, "When did you realize your relationship with death was dysfunctional?"

"Okay, bit of a harsh and borderline indecent way to put it. But I'd say the realization fully settled in, oh, sometime in Vietnam?"

Eyes widened, palms met faces, and Ben sighed hard.

He could practically hear Five's self-restraint cracking. "You had Ben's ghost following you around for over a decade, and still didn't realize death was a bad thing until you were in an actual war zone?"

"See?" Ben pointed at Five. "What did I tell you?"

Klaus looked between the two of them and whined, "Why are you guys ganging up on me about this? I already said sorry!" He turned more to Five. "I don't know, I guess I thought all Ben's fussing about me dying was because he'd already done it, you know? Like how there's always that one guy in whatever group who mistook wasabi for something else one time, and he's forever bringing it up and warning everybody about it, like, every time anyone even mentions Japanese food."

Ben sighed even harder and more pointedly.

"Oh my God, Ben, we both know you don't need to breathe; what's with all the disappointed huffing and puffing?"

Allison raised a finger warningly. "Nope, Klaus, I definitely agree with Ben on this. Pretty sure we all do. Right?"

Luther, Diego, and Five all nodded, as Vanya added gently, "Yeah. Dying is bad. Even if you think it won't stick, I think we'd all appreciate if you didn't do it anymore. Please?"

Something about her soft sincerity seemed to get to Klaus, because he swallowed hard before replying, "Course, Vanny. I, uh, I promise. Cross my heart and hope not to die."

Luther's eyes were still damp as he turned in his seat to better face Klaus. "Hey, would it be okay if…" He opened his arms tentatively.

"Oh. Yeah, yeah, of course."

Klaus leaned in, and Luther gently wrapped his arms around his brother. One big hand came to rest on the back of Klaus' head as he tucked his forehead against Luther's chest.

Almost mirroring them, Allison stretched an arm around Vanya's shoulders, and she snuggled against Allison's side in response.

Ben swallowed back his envy. They'd been working on it. Soon, he'd hug Luther and Vanya and everyone. Even Five, which was something he'd never even dared to dream of after… everything.

He glanced over at Diego and Five, and was a little surprised to see envy there as well.

On second thought, he supposed Five made sense, given the obvious conflict between his yearning for closeness with his treasured living siblings and his fear of losing them, of hurting them, of being hurt, of everything to do with messy human relationships.

Diego, however… He'd been quiet. This meeting, last meeting, honestly pretty much since he'd come back from the alternate future. Number Two had always alternated between quiet and loud, but this had been an unusually long stretch of largely-uninterrupted quiet.

If they had still been kids (if he had still been alive), Ben would have taken his current book to wherever Diego would be practicing his throws, waited for the inevitable missed mark from overworked powers or distracted attention, and asked a soft question or two to provoke his brother into spilling his troubles.

As it was, Ben could make a few guesses. The 1960s mental institution thing was probably related to Diego's reticence during the family therapy meetings, but he actually seemed to be processing that pretty well overall (at least, well by Diego's standards). Then there were his obviously tangled feelings regarding the mysterious Lila, which everyone else was being unusually supportive about (at least, supportive by the Hargreeves' standards). And, of course, there was his lost lady friend Detective Eudora Patch. It had been a while for him, but coming back to right after her death had clearly stirred up some of the grief.

...o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o…

Not long after the time jump, an officer and a detective had come by to ask Diego some questions. In a rare display of foresight, the family had actually planned for this. (This time, that was. Seemed it had gone badly last time.) They had decided beforehand to pretty much tell the police the truth, minus the alternate future stuff and any directly Commission-related details.

As the story went, Diego had been looking into the shootings around town in his capacity as a concerned citizen (pronounced 'vigilante'). Then the house had been invaded by two lunatics in masks who had shot up the place, fought three combat-trained super-powered residents to a draw, and escaped. (This was corroborated by the house's shot-up state, which had yet to be fixed at that point.) The siblings present afterwards had been under the mistaken impression that Klaus had left the house after a family meeting (pronounced 'argument') earlier, and so they had failed to realize at the time that he had been kidnapped in the attack.

However, their recently-returned, young-looking brother Five had also gone missing again. Diego had told Patch about the home invasion and that one of his brothers was missing, then gone looking for Five.

On a related note, Diego had taken the opportunity to officially inform the police that the missing child case of Number Five Hargreeves had been resolved with the reappearance of said 'child'. Also, despite the fact that he should be exactly the same age as the rest of his siblings, Five still looked thirteen, though he acted older. Oh, and he claimed to have disappeared due to a time travel mishap, grown up in an alternate future, and physically de-aged in a second time travel mishap that had landed him on the day of their father's funeral. This was verified by Five porting in, glaring suspiciously, tersely backing up Diego's story, and porting back out.

As they had hoped would be the case, the cops had looked like the whole bewildering mess was above their pay grade, and declined to press for more on that matter at the moment.

Ben had missed the next part, as he'd gone to give Klaus his cue to wander through the entrance hall and 'run across' the questioning in progress. (The dramatic timing aspect of the plan had been important in securing Klaus' buy-in.)

Having finished hearing Diego's part of the story (when they'd arrived, he'd still been a little choked up from recounting finding Eudora's body), the detective had said to stick around, but give them some space for a bit to interview Klaus.

Klaus had proceeded to relate a highly stylized version of the events of his kidnapping, ending with Detective Patch overhearing his noises of distress, entering the room, asking if he was Diego's brother, and freeing him. He wasn't sure what had happened after that because, as he went to get out of the way and make his escape out a ventilation shaft, his view was obscured by all the ghosts. Oh, hadn't he mentioned? Yes, he was the Séance, legal name Number Four Hargreeves. And his kidnappers had, just, so many ghosts following them around. The spirits were especially pissed at the woman, who they and the man had called Cha-Cha, by the way. She was a real nasty piece of work.

Was there anything that would corroborate his story? Oh sure, just check the blood on the chair at the crime scene.

(From his vantage point on the banister, Ben was the only one to see the scowl of concern that crossed Five's face as he eavesdropped from the mezzanine level.)

Yes, if they did the right tests, they would find that it belonged to a super-rare blood group. And, unless one of the other 'miracle children' had also gotten into hot water with local law enforcement at some point, the only other example of that group in their records should be his.

(Not that Dad had ever so much as hinted to them that there had been surviving miracle babies other than themselves. One of their 'recent world history' lessons back in the day had briefly mentioned that most had died from abandonment, delivery complications while far from medical services, or superstitious infanticide; the implication being that they were the remainder. And then Ben's siblings had come back from an alternate future talking about Lila and the possibility of others. Really would have been nice to know about earlier, even if only because having such a small rare blood group was a bitch in the kinds of medical emergency situations his siblings found themselves in way too often.)

After they'd interviewed Klaus, the detective had located Diego and given him an off-the-record update. (Definitely not in accordance with procedure, but Diego had grown up to be surprisingly good at winning people over and gaining their loyalty.) Apparently the cops had at one point been looking at Diego as a person of interest due to his fingerprints at the scene. But then they'd gotten a tip that led them to a different hotel room, where they'd found the murder weapon, complete with fingerprints that returned some impossible matches. The distinctive and near-identical descriptions of the pair who'd checked in at both rooms pretty much cinched it. The cops had put out a BOLO for the suspects and been staking out the room where they'd found the gun, but no dice so far.

Diego had earnestly thanked the detective, who'd promised an invite the next time 'the guys' went out for a drink. Then the detective rescued the officer from Klaus, and they left on good terms.

...o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o…

Looking back, that day was the last time Ben had heard Diego talk so much at a stretch. Which wouldn't have been unusual, except that he was the only one who hadn't shared anything personal in their new type of family meetings.

Well, no, Allison hadn't shared yet either. But, since the time jump, she'd been putting much more than the court-mandated effort into her own therapy. When she'd gone on her four-day trip to LA with Luther and, surprisingly, Five in tow, she'd met with her therapist and apparently convinced him to change her therapy format to phone sessions so that she could 'stay close to her family' for a while. Even more surprisingly, she'd reportedly managed to convince him of the whole unbelievable situation (likely Five had something to do with that), and also increased the frequency of her sessions.

To Ben's knowledge, she'd had three of those phone sessions already. None of which he had eavesdropped on, as he had been proud to report (and Klaus had been proud to enable him to report) to Louisa when she'd asked about his progress on boundaries during their own most recent session.

After Allison's first phone session, she had gone and had a private discussion with Luther that hadn't involved any raised voices but had ended in tears for both of them. At which point Allison had detoured to change into pajamas and grab some nail polish. Then she'd showed up at Klaus' room requesting a manicure and offering reciprocation, which he of course accepted. Just like old times. Klaus hadn't even directly asked about the clear evidence of tears on her face, only whether she wanted to talk about it. She hadn't, and Klaus wasn't really one to push.

After the second session, she'd invited Vanya over for a wine-and-old-movies sister night that honestly seemed to be an excuse to cuddle on a couch in the screening room before they fell asleep halfway through the second movie. Ben had been able to draw out just enough of Klaus' power to pull their blanket over them properly and turn off the projector.

After the third, Allison had located a phonebook (with Pogo's help) and gotten to the task of finally scheduling someone to come fix the chandelier. Then she'd dragged everyone to a furniture store (except Five, who had abused his power to escape) where they selected replacements for not only the damaged furnishings, but also for some undamaged pieces that were just uncomfortable. Allison had even found a business specializing in antique and vintage furniture and scheduled them to take away the old stuff for repair and resale. It had been a very productive day.

Overall, Ben felt like Allison was on a good trajectory for healing and growth even without their informal group therapy.

On the other hand, he was a little concerned about Diego, who wasn't getting any outside assistance so far as Ben was aware. He was reluctant to mention it to Klaus, who could be unpredictable in his level of tact and delicacy bringing up such matters. He'd give Diego one more shot. If he hadn't shared anything by the end of their next family therapy meeting, Ben was siccing Klaus on him.

While Ben had been reminiscing and considering, life had gone on around him.

"Really," Vanya was insisting, "I'll talk to Pogo about the glazier. I'm the one who cracked the windows, after all."

Allison asked, "You're sure?"

Vanya nodded resolutely. "Putting it off any more isn't going to help. Friday before dinner, I'll talk to him. About the windows, and then… we'll see how it goes."

Allison patted her on the knee. "You can always just talk about the repairs, start slow, and leave anything heavier for later. But if you feel ready, I think it's a good idea."

Everyone was wearing expressions of mingled concern and support. Okay, this definitely had something to do with the reason Vanya had been avoiding Mom and especially Pogo since coming back in time. Yes, everyone had been avoiding Pogo at least a little, which made sense given it had come to light that he'd been keeping a lot of secrets. But Vanya in particular had been avoiding him so thoroughly, Ben didn't think he'd even seen the two of them in the same room since the time jump. He'd have to ask Klaus about that later, because it looked like he was privy to the background info as well.

"Okay," Allison said purposefully. "So, Friday, Vanya will talk to Pogo, then we'll all have dinner, then we'll talk out what the hell was going on with everyone during… well, during the pre-apocalypse weeks at least. Anyone have anything to add?"

Klaus sent Ben a look, and he gave back an encouraging nod.

"Actually, me and Ben have been practicing, and… Five, you pretty much admitted you'd let Ben hug you when I can keep him corporeal longer, right?"

Five nodded cautiously.

A grin spread across Klaus' face. "Well, we're up to a couple minutes simultaneously visible and tangible. Even without, you know, life-or-death levels of adrenaline." He waved his arms in a flourish of presentation. "Voilà!"

Ben had so far learned to distinguish one main sign of tangibility: the floor was giving more resistance against his feet than usual. It was a subtle sort of feedback, not quite like what he remembered touch feeling like.

Less subtle were the blue glow and the sharp intakes of breath from most of his siblings as he became visible.

Five stood up suddenly, his face frozen, then began to move towards Ben like a sleepwalker.

"Hey, Five. Been a while, hasn't it?" Ben took the last couple steps to close the distance. Taking care to telegraph his movements, he reached out and wrapped his arms around his oldest, smallest, long-lost brother.

He was there. He was really there. This wasn't Ben's old sense of touch, but the physicality of it was still intoxicating, and so new. That's probably why it took him a few seconds to realize that Five was trembling.

"Thought I'd never see you again," he confessed into Ben's shoulder. "I should have been there; maybe I could have- could have done…"

Ben shook his head and gripped tighter. "Don't. Don't do that to yourself. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. At least, none of yours." Relieved to finally have said that and been heard, he lifted his eyes to look at his other siblings over the top of Five's bowed head. He saw universal smiles, and more than one set of glistening eyes. Including, to his surprise, Klaus'.

No longer trembling, Five slowly pulled himself away and took a couple steps back, his eyes locked on Ben's face.

The rest seemed to take that as a signal to go in for a group hug. Well, most of them.

"Klaus," Ben insisted, "you get in here too."

Of course, he leapt up and clamped onto Ben's back with all four limbs like a baby monkey, and only Luther's strength kept them all from toppling like dominoes. Over Diego's shoulder, through Allison's curls, Ben glimpsed Five smiling unselfconsciously.

This. He had thought he'd never get to interact with anyone but Klaus ever again, and now this. "I missed you all, so much."

And just as Ben sensed everyone's arms tightening around him, Klaus' power ran out.

Diego, Allison, and Vanya fell into Luther, who stumbled, unbalanced, but remained upright.

Klaus, his entire support no longer corporeal, dropped like a stone. He reflexively slapped out to protect his spine the way they'd learned as small children, then lay on his back, blinking at the ceiling.

Five let out a single startled laugh, and suddenly everyone else was dissolving into giggles. Ben included.

He caught Klaus' eye, and quieted his laughter long enough to say, "Thank you. Just, thank you so much."

A proud, childlike grin brightened Klaus' face in return.

For the first time he could remember, Ben began to let himself hope that they were all going to be okay.

...o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o…

What a Noble Name for Such a Cruel Gift: Survival

...o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o0O0o…

Author's Notes:

Content Allergy Warnings: Oblique reference to past suicidal ideation. Musing on the possible psychological origins of Delores. More discussion of touch aversion, and of the Handler's canonical levels of handsiness. Discussion of various canon past temporary character deaths in varying levels of (non-graphic) detail. Discussion of contributing factors to and effects of a person lacking a survival instinct entirely. Oh, and some brief internal discussion of orientations. (In this fic 'verse, Ben is straight and possibly demisexual but hasn't thought about it much due to being the ghost of an actual child, Vanya is bi but Ben doesn't know for sure yet because she was secretive about her crushes when they were kids, and Klaus is enthusiastically pan and Ben is 110% aware of that.) If any of that may cause you problems, please protect your mental health.

General Chapter Notes:

There were a couple snippets of this chapter that had been floating around in my head pretty much since I first conceived of this story, and I'm glad I finally got to share them with you!

The thing about optimal stroke speed for stimulation of c-tactile afferents came from an abstract I found while researching touch starvation several months ago (for obvious 2020 reasons). As I tried it out on my forearm, an image popped into my mind of young Five in the apocalypse, reading from a tattered medical journal, deliberately testing the information against his own forearm, and then his skinny shoulders sagging in pitiful relief. When I handed the narration over to Ben, my mental representation of him came up with a slightly different image, but the sentiment is the same.

And as soon as I worked out the combination of time travel (and inter-timeline travel) methodologies I was going to employ in order to get to the classic "S2 happened but everyone's hanging out in the undestroyed mansion in 2019" setting, and realized that Ben's ghost would totally be around according to the world logic I just made up, I knew I had to take his heartbreaking line about missing them all so much, and turn it happy - or at least bittersweet. Since skin hunger was a theme, the group hug was a no-brainer. I also managed to squeeze a couple other lighter-hearted echoes of sad canon events in there, so that was gratifying.

Right after I post this, I'm going to post a tiny little in-media-res prologue for the next story in the series. It will be titled To Be Haunted because I decided to go with the Emily Dickinson theme (though I cannot guarantee at this juncture that Edna St. Vincent Millay lines won't also sneak their way into chapter titles). It will also have far longer gaps between chapter postings than this story did, as it is not prewritten. It is not even significantly pre-plotted. (Though, neither was this. Neither is anything I write, really.)

Leave a review or send me a message if you have a critique or a question or an urge to chat!