(If you haven't read part 1, "Ashes and Dust" you should probably do so otherwise this won't make much sense.)
9:34 pm, Monday September 2nd, 2019
It's been four days.
Four days of questions with no answers, of steadily building frustration like a boiler with a broken valve. Four days with no word, no sign, no whisper of where Five had gone. The Commission had stolen him right out from under their noses and none of them had any idea how to get him back.
They didn't even know where to begin.
Luther wasn't optimistic enough to hope for something as mundane and helpful as a ransom note. It was the Commission, they hadn't wanted money; they'd wanted Five.
They should have seen it coming. He should have seen it coming. It's not like Five hadn't been warning them the whole time (as long as he was able to) and at first they were all on high alert. But then a week passed, and then another and another and they began to hope that maybe Five was just being paranoid. That the Commission had given up. That it was really over.
It was what they'd all desperately wanted to believe so they had, lulling themselves into a false sense of security. All except Five. But then the regression started and suddenly they had much bigger, much more immediate, much more tangible things to worry about than the vague threat of retaliation from some nebulous shadow organization.
He sees now how clever the Commission had been. How they'd waited, circling like vultures until the family were all too exhausted and heartsick and ground down to think straight. Until the spirit of the Umbrella Academy had stretched to the breaking point and they'd nearly forgotten about the Commission completely.
Until Five had been incapable of even the slightest resistance.
("I heard a rumor you didn't want to hurt anyone.")
Luther drops his face into his hands and has to admit they've been expertly played. That he's been played. (Way to go, Spaceboy. How many other siblings are you going to lose on your watch?) Because this whole mess is at his feet. He's the leader, he should have seen it coming, should have prepared, should have-
"Hey," Allison says, taking a quiet seat beside him and Luther scrubs a hasty hand over his eyes.
"Hey," he croaks out in response, voice rough-hewn and sounding exactly like someone who's trying to pretend they're not on the verge of breaking down. Not that it would have done any good; he's never been able to hide anything from Allison.
To be honest, he's grateful she's here. Grateful she stayed on instead of going back to California (and Luther's not too proud to admit he'd literally begged her not to go, only to be told it wasn't necessary).
"Claire has Patrick,"she'd said, "And however we feel about each other now, he's still a good father; she'll be taken care of. You guys on the other hand need all the help you can get."
"You miss her though."
"Every day. But I can't leave things like this. Five needs us."
She places a gentle hand on his shoulder and he finds himself flinching at the contact. He feels poisonous, a cursed monkey's paw destined to bring ruin to everyone around him and he doesn't want her getting too close. He doesn't want to fail anyone else. He can hear Klaus' voice in his head i"Don't give yourself all the credit"/i and he knows it's right but he can't help it.
He was the leader.
Maybe he'd been sent to the moon for a reason.
"Klaus and Ben haven't found any record of a Temps Commission in any of the libraries they've checked," Allison is saying, "and Diego says there's no one with the first or last name of Hazel matching his description anywhere in the city. He may not even be in this time period anymore." And he may not be willing to help even if he was Luther thinks. It didn't matter; 'Hazel' had only ever been a long shot anyway. One more desperate straw to grasp at, just like everything else they're doing.
He pulls himself out of his well of self pity long enough to form an answer. "So where does that leave us?" Nowhere, same place they started. He knows that but he wants her to keep talking. It helps having her near.
"Vanya and I will keep checking the camera feed."
After Five lost control of his warp ability they'd started up the house surveillance again, the easier to find him whenever he vanished without warning. They'd already examined the footage from the day he'd been abducted (horrible word that, with all the connotations it held but he can't bring himself to call it anything else). Six men in suits wearing masks, different from those worn by Hazel and Cha-Cha but just as garish and ridiculous. Three briefcases between them. They'd compromised the lock and come in through the front door, splitting off into three teams of two, sweeping the mansion room by room until they found what they were looking for. One of them neutralized Grace almost before she could react, nearly hacking her head off with something akin to a machete. Another picked up Five, his body limp and unresisting in their arms. They left as quickly and unceremoniously as they'd come, zapping away while the family was still downstairs pointlessly squabbling with the Handler. The whole thing had taken less than twenty minutes.
"What if we- what if he never-"
"Hey, don't talk like that," she says, her small hand rubbing gentle circles on his back. "We'll find him."
"How?"
She bites her lip. "I don't know."
He snorts softly. "Me neither." What good was a leader who couldn't lead, who didn't know which direction to march? "Maybe Diego should be the leader."
"It's only been four days; don't give up on yourself so soon, okay? And don't give up on Five, either."
He nods a bit reluctantly, taking a deep breath and willing himself to believe her. It's not easy; his sense of self has taken some pretty big hits over the last few months. "Yeah, I just- I mean...I'm Number One, right? And I've got this big, strong body but I feel..."
"Helpless," she provides.
"Yeah."
"I know, me too."
When he finds his voice it's smaller and more frightened then he wants it to be. "I don't know what to do, Allison. I don't know how to get him back." Then again, neither did anyone else apparently.
Whatever Allison is about to say gets interrupted as Vanya comes rushing into the room. "Guys, I think I found something."
"Here," Vanya says, pausing the tape. They were huddled together in the surveillance room, staring at one of the small black and white monitors. "This is time stamped almost two weeks ago." Luther leans forward, peering at the grainy footage. It was an aerial view of Five's room, camera aimed at his bed. He can clearly see Five laying on the bed, still and quiet, lost somewhere inside his head. There's a flash in the lower right corner, almost out of frame and the figure of a man appears, his back to camera. He steps forward and Luther can make out the handle of a suitcase clutched in his hand.
"The Commission," Allison says icily and Luther nods.
"So that's how they knew where to find him," he adds, "but why didn't they grab him then?"
"No time," Vanya answers, "watch." On screen the man turns his head a fraction, looking towards the door. A second later disappears in a crackle of energy that momentarily disrupts the camera feed. Diego enters moments later, a plate of food in his hands.
"That still doesn't make any sense," Luther says. "Diego's tough but we've seen the Commission fight, we know what they can do and he would have had the element of surprise. Besides, Grace never mentioned anyone being in Five's room."
"It might have been during one of the periods she was recharging," Allison says.
"It doesn't give us anything more to go on though," Luther sighs, disappointed.
"I know," Vanya says quietly, her eyes falling. "I'm sorry. They kept their back to the camera."
"It's okay," he says, putting a hand on her shoulder. It wasn't her fault they were fumbling around in the dark. "It does prove they've been watching us this whole time. Must've gotten a real laugh out of it all." There's a acrid taste to the words, their bitterness coating his tongue.
Vanya tries to smile but he can tell she's still blaming herself anyway, just like he is, just like they all are. He tries to find something else encouraging to say but the words shrivel on his tongue and everything seems so...inadequate. What could he offer her besides more useless platitudes and hollow encouragements? What difference would they make anyway? He gives her shoulder an awkward pat and leaves without saying anything at all.
He slams the refrigerator door too hard and hears a muffled crash as several items go tumbling into each other. Whatever. Just one more mess, at this point. He'll clean it up later.
Behind him Klaus raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything. Klaus has actually been uncharacteristically quiet lately and Luther can't help but think it's probably for the best right now. That likely makes him the asshole in the room but witty repartee had never been his area and at the moment the idea of trying to tolerate any level of pithy banter sets his teeth on edge.
For all that, he can still tell Klaus has something on his mind from the way he keeps looking at Ben. (He assumes it's Ben).
"You might as well say it," he says as he washes out a coffee cup with methodical slowness.
"Say what?"
"Whatever it is you're thinking."
"I'm thinking he's still alive," Klaus replies and Luther feels his shoulders stiffen as he swallows around the bone in his throat. "I can't make contact, so..."
"You couldn't contact dad, either," he says without thinking.
If the barb stings Klaus doesn't let it show. "That was different," he says simply, "I was high. I was really, really high. Hell sometimes I had a hard time seeing Ben."
"Doesn't mean he's alive," Luther counters. He doesn't know why he's arguing the point. He doesn't want Five to be anything other than alive and well, though he'll settle for 'alive' right now.
"It's a good sign he's not," Klaus counters, seeming unbothered by Luther's capricious mood.
"What difference does it make?" he asks sharply, even though he knows it makes all the difference in the world. "We don't know where he is, we don't know how to find him, we don't even know when he is and I can't- there's nothing I can-" he feels something rising inside him like bile, clawing it's way up his throat and he realizes he's shaking.
"Hey, hey," Klaus says, materializing at his elbow. "Take it easy, big guy, c'mon, sit down and breathe, okay? You fall over you're gonna leave a dent."
Luther nods in acknowledgement, over-sized body sinking awkwardly to the floor and the part of his brain that isn't a static buzz wonders what's wrong with him.
"There, yeah, that's good," Klaus says, fluttering around him like an insect, "You stay there, deep breaths okay? I'll go get some-"
Luther will never know what it was Klaus was going to go get because at that moment the kitchen lights up electric blue and there's the familiar crackling sound of an energy charge and the smell of ozone and the next instant Five's standing there, looking dazed and lost.
"F-Five?" Luther asks, not trusting his eyes. He's dreaming right now, has to be. He'd fallen just like Klaus said he would and cracked his head open on the tile and- and he looks at Klaus but Klaus is staring at Five so he must see him too. Five tracks the sound of Luther's voice and blinks at him. His mouth opens but before he can speak his eyes roll back into his head and he topples over. Luther watches it play out in slow motion: the serpentine waver as his knees buckle, body folding in half on the way down and Luther thinks if he could just move he'd have more than enough time to reach him before he hit the floor but he feels like he's planted to the ground by invisible roots.
"Shit," Klaus curses, scrambling towards him but he's not fast enough and Five crashes down in an unceremonious pile of limbs. The sound of body striking tile shakes something into place in Luther's head, the gears start turning and he can move again. He darts after Klaus, who's at Five's side already and rolling him onto his back. "He's breathing," he says, glancing up at Luther with an odd mix of relief and worry scurrying over his face.
"Go get the others," Luther says, his voice hoarse.