As the door to the Umbrella Academy opened, Rhea thought she was going to throw up because of her nerves. She had heard rumours about the eccentric billionaire, Reginald Hargreeves from radio news she had heard over the recent years, but she hoped he wasn't as crazy as they made him out to be. She couldn't bear it if she had come all this way for the door to be slammed in her face.

Luckily when a beautiful, smiling blonde woman appeared, Rhea let out the breath she had been holding. The woman looked just as homely and welcoming as the outside of the house appeared to be. This was it, her chance to find a home.

"Hello, can I help you? Are you lost?" Her high, happy voice was attempting to drown out the male shouting she could hear going on behind her. Rhea only caught snippets of what the man saying, "That insolent little boy...no respect…How dare he!"

"Umm I'm sorry to disturb you, Miss, but I'm looking for help. I heard that Mr Hargreeves who lives here may be able to?" Rhea squeaks nervously.

"Now's not really a good time, dear. I don't think Mr Hargreeves will be able to help you. Unless you need directions from me, you best run along..."

Rhea felt crushed. Of course he couldn't help. No one could. She had come all this way for nothing.

"Please, Miss. I… I… I have… I can do things, things no one else I know can do. I heard on the radio that the Umbrella Academy is a place with other kids like me." Rhea stuttered in her last attempt to be listened to.

The shouting, though indistinct, quietened down and Rhea could hear footsteps on the tiled floor in the hallway as they approached behind the woman in the beautiful teal dress.

"My dear, are you trying to tell me you have powers?" The woman tried to ask Rhea, but the door was abruptly jerked open wider and an older man with a monocle appeared. The kind woman moved back to stand behind her master.

"Powers, eh?" He towered over Rhea, and she guessed that this man was Mr Hargreeves.

"Sir I… I have come all the way over here from England, and... Please, sir I have no one and nowhere else to go," she pleaded quietly.

"Child, I do not help strays, no matter how far they have travelled. Now stop wasting my time and get off my front porch." Hargreeves raised his arm to shoo Rhea away, but before he could bring it in to close the door, Rhea reached out and grabbed his hand.

Just as Hargeeves went to shake her off and shout at her for the very unwelcomed action, he stopped dead in his tracks. An emerald green light glowed from her fingertips and his hand started to change before his eyes. His wrinkles and age spots began to rapidly disappear and his skin, previously brandished with age became soft and smooth.

Quickly suspecting what was happening, he promptly wrenched his had away from the girl on his door step. His hand immediately went back to normal, the signs of age rapidly reappearing on his skin.

Both adults appeared stunned and Rhea could only hope they could finally see that she wasn't just an ordinary 13 year old girl.

"Summon Number Six." Hargreeves said after a few moments. He started to study his hand and the girl with interest. "Now," he insisted to the woman beside him.

The woman stepped back further behind him and called, "Ben, dear. Could you come here please?"

Rhea had no clue what was going on or what a Number Six was. Was it a henchman of some kind coming to kick her to the curb?

A small boy appeared in the hallway and moved shyly towards the front door.

"Yes, Mom?" he addressed the woman and Rhea guessed that the boy was the same age as her.

Hargreeves pulled the boy forward using a rough hand on the lad's shoulder. "Give her your hand," he ordered the boy, Ben, she noted. "Girl, do it again." He gestured for Rhea to proceed as Ben cautiously held out his hand out toward Rhea.

Rhea takes Ben's hand and her green glow shone and the hand with the rest of his arm changes. Both limbs began to shrink and Rhea had to let go of Ben's hand due to the arm rapidly receding in length. In panic, Ben shuffled off his blazer on one side to see what is happening to him.

"How extraordinary," Hargreeves mused while Ben's Mom helped the now terrified boy unbutton his shirt to expose his shoulder with a now baby-sized and shaped arm, wrist and hand oddly attached.

Ben started to sob and Rhea moved forward to help, "It's okay, I can turn it back to normal." Ben was reluctant to let her touch him again at first, but her sweet bright eyes and kind smile made him feel like he could trust her, so he nodded and leaned towards her again.

Rhea gently touched the baby arm and her powers transformed it - quickly re-growing back to its original, teen size with no pain or struggle, just like before. To hopefully prevent Ben from being too scared of her, Rhea also giggled and told him, "I can also make you look older if you'd like, but who wants to be all old and wrinkly?" This made Ben release a small snigger too, and he hastily pulled his clothes back on properly.

Ben, once sure his appendage was back to normal, shyly beamed at Rhea which she gladly reciprocated, finally feeling a bit more at ease.

"How fascinating; it's as if she can manipulate the human flesh to any point along its biological timeline…" Hargreeves summarised.

"I can also move forward through my own timeline within reason, Sir. If I have a destination in mind - somewhere I can see before me or have been to before - I can manipulate my movements so I can just step into where I will eventually end up...Though, because it happens so fast, it's more like a flash to other people."

"Interesting... Just like Number Five, but less advanced... Come in, girl. I shall start the paperwork at once. Welcome to the Umbrella Academy. From henceforth, you are known as Number Eight Hargeeves."

/

"I survived on scraps, canned food, cockroaches, anything I could find to survive." Five lets out a hollow laugh before he says, "You know that rumour that Twinkies have an endless shelf life? Well, it's total bullshit."

"I can't even imagine," Vanya responds while Rhea quietly says "How awful…"

"You do whatever it takes to survive, or you die. So we adapted. Whatever the world threw at us, we found a way to overcome it."

"We?"

Five ignores Vanya's question, "You got anything stronger?"

"I'll second that," Rhea pipes up.

The group get up from the sofa and Vanya leads them into the kitchen. Never being one to drink herself, Vanya takes Rhea's bottle of whiskey from out under the kitchen sink. Rhea realises the bottles' previous pride of place on the counter had been harshly demoted in her absence.

"The end of the world… Christ. How are we going to stop it?" Rhea questions holding out her mug to Vanya to pour some in to mix with the coffee. After adding just a dash, Rhea raises her eyebrow in protest of being cut off before she's even began, but Vanya just chooses to pour some into a tall glass for Five and screw the cap back on. Again not a very generous pouring, but Vanya was wary of effectively encouraging underage teens in to drinking alcohol.

In all fairness, it does look odd to see a kid in a school uniform holding it, Rhea muses to herself.

"You think I'm crazy," Five accuses Vanya after he takes a sip of his whiskey.

"No," Vanya stammers "It's just it's a lot to take in."

"Exactly what don't you understand?"

"Why didn't you just time travel back?"

Five scoffs at her words, "Gee, wish I'd thought of that. Time travel is a crapshoot. I went into the ice and never acorn-ed. You think I didn't try everything to get back to my family?"

Although Rhea had no idea what "ice and never acorn-ed" meant, she was a bit moved by how passionate Five sounded about wanting to get back to his family. Since he came back, he hadn't exactly seemed like he was pleased to see them. Klaus had always told her Five wasn't affectionate, but it was clear from his words he did care, he just didn't like to overtly show it.

"If you grew old there, you know, in the apocalypse, how come you still look like a kid?"

Rhea could see Five's growing agitation at Vanya's questions, so she jumps in, "He did explain that already, V."

Five strides over to the whisky bottle to help himself to another splash. "I must have got the equations wrong," he growls.

Vanya presses, "I mean Dad always used to say that time travel could mess up your mind. Well, maybe that's what's happening?"

Five slams down the glass, "This was a mistake. You're too young…"

Rhea steps between him and Vanya, stopping him from going towards the front door by placing a firm but gentle hand on his chest.

"Wait, hold up a second. I believe you, okay? I get it, but give Vanya a break; it's a lot to ask us to take in. She just needs a time to process this, we all do."

Five's eyes drift down towards the hand touching him and she can feel his once tense stance slowly relax under her fingertips. He looks back to her and the anger previously flaring in his liquid eyes begins to slowly extinguish. His eyes look more green than blue now. They change depending on the light, Rhea randomly observes.

Vanya, grateful Rhea stopped Five from leaving, pleads to him, "Stay. I haven't seen you in a long time, and I don't want to lose you again. That's all."

Rhea's mobile on the counter rings, disturbing the silence and causing Vanya to jump. Rhea slowly removes her hand from Five's chest and steps back to reach for her phone. "Sorry," Rhea whispers, silencing it.

"You know what, it's getting late, and I have lessons early, and I need to sleep and I'm sure you guys do too." Vanya darts around the two teens to start laying a blanket out on the couch for Five. "Rhea's right, I just need time. We'll talk in the morning again. Okay? I promise."

Vanya walks back towards Rhea, "Are you coming to bed?"

"I'll stay up for a bit. I'm not going to let a good Irish Coffee go to waste, am I?" Rhea gently jokes to try relieving some of the tension.

"Okay," Vanya says.

Both bid her goodnight and Vanya leaves them to go into the bedroom.

/

Five slowly plods over to sit on the sofa and Rhea carefully follows to sit next to him, coffee mug held tightly in her hand to prevent herself from fidgeting.

"Thanks for believing me," Five softly says after a few minutes, "and for your help at the diner."

Sensing the genuine gratitude in his voice, something she wasn't expecting at all, Rhea gently replies, "You're welcome."

The moment was soon short lived as Five then says, "though I could have quite easily handled them by myself." And there was the Five she knew, back to his usual, egotistical self.

Five sits forward, elbows on his knees and begins to unravel a piece of black cloth from his pocket. He peels back the fabric and takes out a brown eyeball and rolls it between his fingers.

"Eww, what the hell is that and why on earth do you have it?" Rhea can't help but sound as grossed out as she feels. Killing people: fine, hurting people: a breeze, but seeing an eye, even if it was made out of glass, outside a socket creeped her out.

"There is someone out there who's going to lose an eye in the next eight days. They're going to bring about the end of life on this earth as we know it. We need to find out who it is and stop them."

Rhea contemplates his words, "We, eh? So you are going to trust me to help you, now?"

Five turns his attention to the redheaded girl next to him whilst he wraps the cloth back around the eye and pops it back into his inner jacket pocket.

"I will. But I'd like you to tell me why you haven't aged. I've told you my story, so it's only fair you share yours." Five says simply.

Rhea sighs and lifts up her mug to gulp down the rest of the now-cold contents. She then gets up to retrieve Five's whisky from the kitchen and tops up her own cup with the strong amber liquid. Sitting beside him again, she passes Five his glass and takes another big swig from her cup, pleased it lights a warm trail through body as it goes down - liquid courage and all that.

"It happened the day Ben died. We were fighting the bad guys, like we usually did, kicking ass and using our powers... We were winning and nothing seemed to be amiss. But then…" she swallows another large mouthful of whisky then places the cup down on the table before them.

Rhea then takes a deep breath and touches her face, specifically the cheek that is facing Five. Five can see her emerald green glow emerge from behind her fingers and then she tentatively removes her hand away from her face. There, on her once smooth, pale skin, was a thick, angry pink scar. The mark started from the corner of her left eye and curved around in a crescent moon shape to just below the side of her chin.

Five's eyes widen, she guesses from the shock of seeing her nasty wound, not from her use another power. He's just as repulsed as other people usually are, her insides whimper, so she hurriedly raises her hand to her cheek again. However, Five is faster, and he wraps his fingers around her wrist to stop her. He just stares at her with an unreadable expression for what seems like ages.

Confused, she's about to protest why he stopped her, when he asks, "This is why you've prevented yourself from aging?"

"Well, yes – why would I keep this awful thing on my face when I can manipulate my body to stay the same as it was the day before it happened?"

"Wow. I didn't think vanity would be the reason," Five says bluntly.

Now Rhea went from upset to hurt; she roughly pulls her wrist away from his grasp, "Vanity? You think it is fun to have everyone in the street constantly staring at you and kids always pointing at you saying what they're all thinking? That I'm a 'horrifically scared freak!'" Realising she shouldn't be raising her voice whilst Vanya was asleep, she gets up, grabs her phone and puts on her leather jacket to leave.

Five stands up to object, but she spatial jumps away from him and onto the street outside the Academy. Her relief of escape is cut short, as she's instantly knocked into by someone walking into her from behind and she stumbles forward. Strong arms catch her around the waist and although she's embarrassed as hell, she turns back to around to thank the stranger who stopped her face-planting the ground. Only she sees Five's face staring back at her.

"Are you kidding me?" she screams, exasperated.

She untangles herself from Five's arms and jumps again to her old bedroom inside the Academy.

Once she lands, the same thing happens again, he appears right behind her and they collide ungracefully. Fortunately, it's her dressing table prevents her from falling over this time, not Five. She huffs and pushes past him to sit on her bed.

He hums, amused, "You were right - we can travel through each other's teleports without touching."

Rolling her eyes at him, she tiredly asks, "What do you want, Five?"

"To finish our conversation. For someone who isn't actually teenager, you sure act like one." He sits beside her on the bed, and Rhea suddenly feels too exhausted to argue with him.

"I was about to say it's not that bad that you have to hide it. And wouldn't it fade over time anyway? You just need to let yourself grow up enough to see that."

Rhea laughs without humour, "My power works both ways, Five. I can manipulate myself to any point along my physical timeline. I've seen myself at my real age of 29 and it's still there. But it doesn't matter how much makeup I use to even cover it because I know it's still there."

"You can't let that stop you from moving on with your life."

"Trust me, I tried leaving it and growing up for a while, but every time I was with the others… I could see their attention drift to it. Not because they judged me or were grossed out, but because it's also another reminder of the day we all failed. The day we let Ben down… Hell, even I kept thinking about that day just looking at myself."

Five waits patiently for Rhea to continue, realising there was clearly more to it than he originally thought. He begins to feel a strange ache in his chest because of his previous assumption of her and his thoughts swirl trying to work out why. His attention is drawn back to her when he hears her British lilt again,

"As I said, people in the street pointed and the press wouldn't stop pestering your dad for a comment on how it happened, but all that didn't matter to me as much as the looks the others gave me." The look Diego gave me… her thoughts whisper.

Her voice trembles as she continues, "Do you know how hard it is, to be marked with a physical reminder of the day you lost your brother?" she shakes her head and moves on, voice stronger, "so, eventually, I decided to just revert back to what I looked like the day before it happened. Of course, the others questioned it at first, but I could see the relief in their eyes that the reminder was gone, even though they'd never admit it. And I don't blame them because I've not looked back since... We all missed Ben fiercely, but whenever we looked at my scar, it kept adding salt to the wound."

She yawns and begins to unlace her boots so she could finally go to sleep. "Not that it matters anymore, right? What with the end of the world as we know it and all that jazz, as they say," she sarcastically quips. Remembering her scar was still on show, she reverts her skin back a few days on her timeline, as if it never happened.

After watching her do this, Five's jaw ticks before he gets up from her bed, stuffs his hands into his pockets and walks to the door, now deep in thought. "I'll see you in morning. Night," he says as he leaves the room.

Rhea doesn't have a chance to say anything back because he's already out and shut her door behind him. She lifts up her legs up onto the bed, deciding to stay outside the covers again, just in case. She falls asleep practically the second her head hits the pillow.