When he appeared in Gwen's bathroom she was already there, crying. He knew in an instant that she had seen it. That a vision had told her what had happened to him. Neither said a word as she stitched the deep gashes and bandaged each and every cut she could find. He did not allow himself to scream when she reset his dislocated knee. He had a broken rib, but there was not much she could do about that other than see if his internal organs were alright. Her breath of relief told him that he would be fine. He glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of her room as he, with Gwen's help, limped over to the bed. Four hours. Sir Reginald had tortured him for four hours. He fell onto the bed with a pained hiss but immediately accommodated Gwen as she carefully placed the covers over him. Absently, he realized that she must have thrown them off when she rushed to get what she needed to patch him up. They lay side by side for hours, neither able to sleep. At three in the morning, roughly six hours after his arrival, Gwen turned to face him.
"We have to kill him," she whispered, fear creeping into her voice as her consciousness of reality slipped away from her, "I can't see properly but I think… Oh God." Somewhere, distantly, she heard Five hiss as he shifted. But all she could see was Sir Reginald's face, twisted with rage. Her head throbbed as Klaus screamed. Then all she could see was Ben's empty eyes. When Gwen came back to him, Five was leaning over her, ignoring his pain to make sure she was alright. "We have to kill him," she insisted, tone hardening as her fear was replaced with anger, "before he kills one of you." Five kissed her then. He kissed her to numb his pain and take away her fear. He kissed her because he loved her and her desire to commit murder for him was enough to convince him that she loved him too. She kissed him back. By sunrise, their lips were swollen and the plan was finished. In a way, the transition from platonic to romantic was anticlimactic. But in the end, it did not matter. They had been waiting for years, him many more than her. After all, they put their own spin on it by planning his adoptive father's murder.
They did not waste any time. They did not need anything in particular other than Sir Reginald. Hopefully alone, as neither of them believed that the other Hargreeves children were morally gray enough to accept it. Five grabbed her hand once she was dressed and with a sweet kiss to her lips, he jumped them both into Sir Reginald's bedroom. It was empty. Their next stop was the forbidden study. The locked door did not bother him. Hand tight in Gwen's, he jumped them right past it. Sir Reginald looked up at them and Five was pleased to see the surprise in them. He knew that Sir Reginald knew who Gwendolyn Silver was. But her appearance in his study had caught him off guard. She stopped his heart in minutes.
By the time Grace discovered Sir Reginald's body, he was beyond saving. When the children found out, Luther insisted on checking the surveillance. The tape was gone and, Luther realized with a trepidatious glee, so was Five. But Vanya and Allison quickly put an end to his theories when they directed him to Five's room and they found him asleep. At least, they believed that he was sleeping when, in reality, he was watching through his link with Gwen as she burned the tape. Once noon and trash collection came around, all evidence of foul play was gone.
Five sat at the dinner table and listened as Luther tried to insist that the coroner's report was wrong. Diego glanced at Five but, finding no confirmation nor a denial, he stated that it made sense. Their should-have-been father figure had died of heart failure and they should be celebrating. Once dinner was over, Five retreated to the living area with his family. With Sir Reginald gone, they finally had control of their own lives. "Grace won't lose custody," he said as Luther grumbled darkly about the possibility, "You'll see in about half an hour." It was the only vague confirmation they would ever receive. All of them knew, but never for certain. Luther called it immoral. Five called it plausible deniability.
Grace met Gwendolyn Silver for the first time that night. Monica Silver rang the doorbell and presented her with the documents she needed to sign to gain custody of the children, stating that since their children were friends she would hate to see Five disappear due to a pesky technicality. Without hesitating, Grace signed the papers. She might have been a robot, but she loved her children. And though Monica declined her invitation to stay for tea, Gwendolyn does not. Watching the blonde with Five, Grace knew that she would love the Silver girl too.
"All ends tied up," Gwen whispered as she took a seat beside Five in the living area, "I'll say, it's probably one of the prettiest bows I have ever seen." She turned to Klaus, eyeing him up and down. The boy actually looked nervous and she smiled warmly at him. "I have a Thirties style blouse that should fit you," she stated, "It's far too long for me and I promise that it will match your nail polish." She was determined not to let the boy who could speak to ghosts become the man she had seen in Five's memories. With Sir Reginald gone, half the work was already done. Klaus lit up at her words and Gwen immediately faced Five. He sighed but glanced at Klaus' nails and disappeared. A few minutes later he reappeared and thrust the magenta fabric at his brother. Gwen smiled as Klaus teared up and thanked her profusely. She shook her head. "It does not go well with my coloring," she explained and Klaus actually nodded in agreement, "I'm just glad to be rid of it."
Catching Diego's baffled gaze, Five shook his head in exasperation. "She's going to adopt all of you," he stated darkly, put out that his time with Gwen undoubtedly would be compromised, "just you wait and see." Diego nodded, awestruck by the force of nature that was Five's best friend. Both of them watched her as she told Allison, her direct tone contradicting her delicate wording, that the Umbrella Academy uniform looked atrocious on her and that she needed to make a call to the same seamstress that made the clothes for the Silver family. Five was equally proud and discomforted by the fact that his girlfriend had his entire family eating out of the palm of her hand within an hour. Even Luther seemed to reluctantly warm up to her. "We should probably get back," he said suddenly, cutting through the conversations around him as he stood, "It's getting late and you've got to get to school tomorrow." Gwen rolled her eyes but did not fight him on it. Five took her hand and jumped them to her room without saying goodbye.
"You know," Gwen said casually as she stepped away from him, "there is no reason for you to be jealous of your family." She had not even needed to look into his head to understand his thoughts as she interacted with the other Hargreeves children. It was obvious in the disgusted curl of his lips whenever she laughed at Ben's running commentary or Klaus' delight with his new blouse. Five grumbled darkly, turning away from her when she unzipped her skirt. "I promise," she added sweetly, accepting the sapphire blue, velvet nightgown he handed her, "you will always be my favorite Hargreeves." Once she was changed, she braided her own hair while Five followed her lead and dug out a clean pair of pajama pants. They fell asleep like they always did, with Five on his stomach, an arm slung over Gwen who slept on her back. Their fingers entwined and their eyes dropped, neither regretting anything that happened that day.
About a week after Sir Reginald's unfortunate death, the doorbell to the Silver townhouse rang. "Who is it Simon," Gwen asked from the kitchen, looking up from her Latin homework, "did Mom forget her keys again?" She knew it could not be Five, he was out playing bodyguard to Klaus at her behest to ensure that the ray of sunshine did not try to get high. Simon replied, rather dryly, that it was a 'Mr. Hargreeves' seeking Ms. Gwendolyn. "Yes, Simon," Gwen bit back, "that really narrows the options down, does it not?" Sighing in irritation, she abandoned her homework on the kitchen island and stepped into the foyer. She was surprised to see Diego on her doorstep. "Is everything alright?"
"Five said you're a good listener," he said, surprising himself with how nervous he felt, "and I could use someone like that right about now." Gwen nodded to Simon, who stepped aside and let him in. It was a whole other experience seeing the townhouse in daylight. If he had to guess, most of the furniture were antiques. Yet, it was clean and organized, unlike the cluttered mess that the Hargreeves home had turned into. Absently, Diego noted that his mother would love it. "I need to talk to someone who, I don't know," he hesitated, "knows how to keep a secret I guess."
With an enigmatic smile, Gwen led him up the stairs to the library. "I suppose this has something to do with your conflicted feelings regarding one ms. Vanya Hargreeves," she guessed, gesturing for him to sit in a plush chair, "I was wondering when that was going to become a priority." She marveled at the fact that no one else seemed to see it, the way Diego looked at Vanya. At first, she thought Five did, but she realized that no, he did not. Perhaps it was due to her experience with lost love that Gwen knew the signs. She could tell that there was history between the two, history beyond what happened when they all splintered off. There was conflict in Diego's gaze, a battle of loyalties. Simon placed a tea set on the side table and bowed slightly before leaving them alone. "What's her name," Gwen asked quietly, causing his head to snap up to her, "the other girl you're thinking about?"
Diego did not know what to say. He liked that she seemed to understand, that she did not fault him for his troubled thoughts. "I… I think it'll be easier to just show you." Gwen prepared tea as he braced for an impact, something to give away when she entered his mind. Nothing happened. She gave him a cup and he was surprised to find that she made it exactly how he liked it. Memories of Eudora Patch, some from the police academy, some from his time as a vigilante, floated to the surface as they sat in absolute silence. A pin could drop on the carpeted floor and they would hear it.
"Why were you with her if you didn't love her?" Gwen realized that she should have given him a warning when he jumped enough to almost spill his tea. But she was genuinely curious about his answer. Diego had clearly cared for Eudora, but his love was for Vanya and Vanya alone. For the life of her, Gwen could not understand why he limited both of them by trapping them into a relationship that would not satisfy either of their requirements. They both wanted him to love her. He could not, yet they stayed together. It made absolutely no sense.
Diego was defensive though. "Of course I loved her!" He almost left her there, but something held him back. Something inside him that told him to listen to what the strange girl Five spent his time with had to say. "I loved her," he added weakly, "and she died."
"Don't be an idiot, it is unbecoming," Gwen reprimanded primly, "To care a lot for someone is not the same as loving them." She sipped her tea and waited for her words to register in his mind. His thoughts were plagued with images of Eudora, dead in his arms. Dark, pained whispers, pleas for forgiveness among guilty self-deprecating words echoed no matter what corner of his head she searched in. "You're forcing yourself to believe that you love her, are you not?" Again, Gwen was confused. Surely he realized that he was back in a time when she was still alive. "Diego," she murmured, placing a comforting hand on his arm, "You might be forcing yourself to love her so that you can believe that she died for a reason, but she's not dead." He looked up at her, pain in his brown eyes. She put her cup down and moved her chair closer to his, taking both of his hands in hers. "The reason you feel guilty for loving her was erased the moment you left that timeline," she reminded him gently, "and so was the reason you and Vanya did not work out."
Silence lapsed again while Diego processed what she was saying. Eudora was alive and unaware of who he was. He had not yet had an impact on her life. Sir Reginald was gone and Vanya was no longer powerless Number Seven, so her reasons for leaving the family and writing the book were obliterated. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Diego allowed himself to consider normalcy. A girlfriend, college, a house with a white picket fence and a swing on the front porch. "How the hell do you do it," he asked after several minutes, "how the hell do you see the things you do and still care enough to help?"
"Five thinks that seeing people's best and worst moments makes me empathic," she replied, lip quirked thoughtfully, "since I technically, at least for a moment, am walking in their shoes." Five had chuckled about it, commenting that the saying about walking a mile in someone else's shoes before judging them applied to her in the sense that she heard the motivation behind every choice a person ever made. "I don't think I could ever leave someone if I knew I could help them," she added quietly, "It's why I'm talking to you, why Five wakes me up if he's had a nightmare and I'm still sleeping." Diego nodded. "Talk to her," Gwen encouraged, "Talk about whether or not you both are willing to take this second chance and try again." The boy looked down at his tea cup, up at Gwen and then out toward the stairs. "Go, find her, and tell her how you feel."
An hour later, Gwen was back in the kitchen and done with her Latin homework. She had moved on to geometry, wanting to get as much done as possible. Five kissed her jaw, making her jump as she had not realized that he was there. "Hello," she murmured, happy about the excuse to take a break, "How did Klaus-sitting go?"
"He did well," Five replied against her throat, "but I'm far more concerned with what you've done to Diego." She turned around in her chair, her confused gaze meeting his amused one. "He actually smiled at us when we got home," he explained, crossing his arms, "and then he kissed Vanya before asking if she wanted him to go get her a hot chocolate." Gwen turned back to her homework, smirking all the same. Five shook his head. He had known that she would make an impact with his family but he had not expected her to get results quite so fast. "Klaus wouldn't stop talking about you, by the way," he continued, abruptly changing subjects, "and he was wearing that blouse you gave him with a skirt he borrowed from Allison."
Gwen waited. She knew him and therefore she knew better than to believe his dropping the subject of Diego. "I'm glad he likes it, considering that I didn't," she replied casually, gaze locked on the papers before her without really seeing what was written on them, "but I would prefer if you just told me what game you're playing today." She gasped when her chosen barstool was spun around and she came face to face with him. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips, his mischief mostly reflected in his blue eyes.
"You're changing their lives," he murmured, his lips brushing against hers, "just like you changed mine six or seven years ago." Five stood impossibly close to her, his body lining up with hers like pieces of a puzzle. The tension, hormones charged by his never ending affection for her, was so very close to snapping. "I wanted to thank you," he continued suggestively, "while your mom is at work and Simon's out for groceries." All it took was a nod from her and suddenly they were kissing in her bedroom. Gwen gasped and her eyes fell closed as Five's hands tugged her shirt out of her skirt and slipped them under it, his gentle touch on her torso a stark contrast to the passion with which he was kissing her.
