A/N: Hope you guys enjoy :)
Chapter Thirteen: Fucking Klaus!
Vanya forced herself to loosen her death grip on the door handle to the passenger side of the car, she couldn't bring herself to drive with her frazzled nerves so thankfully Allison was with her to take over that requirement and was pulling them into the hospital parking lot safely in no time at all. They hadn't said anything to each other on the drive there, the only sounds in the car were the low hum of the radio playing a popular pop song that Vanya vaguely recognized in the back of her mind and Luna's hiccups from the backseat. Her little bug had calmed down considerably during the car ride to the hospital, now all that was left over from her fit was dried up tear stains on her red cheeks and low hiccups every other minute.
She hadn't let go of the door handle since getting in the car, the simple action was helping Vanya to ground herself but now that they had parked and Allison was getting out of the vehicle, she released it in order to take deep breaths before getting out herself. She exited the car with clumpy movements that almost had her face-planting before she caught herself; Allison was a gift from the heavens right now because she had already gotten their bags and Luna from the backseat without a word, all the while Vanya was trying to steady her legs.
Her palms felt clammy, and her skin felt tight walking into the large hospital, a small part of her wanted to turn right back around and leave but a larger part pushed forward, knowing that she couldn't and wouldn't do that, the only reason she was considering it was because she didn't like the feeling in her chest. It was a pressure that felt like it was constricting her airway and her thoughts. The front desk check in held two irritated plump receptionists that gave them directions to the floor Diego was on, the further they walked into the hospital the more anxious Vanya became. The hospital smell penetrated her nose making it twitch, it wasn't a bad smell per say but it was an artificial one that Vanya's never liked, the white on the walls hurt her eyes, and the bright lit hallways were too long, they seemed to go on and on with no end in sight.
Walking out of the elevator on the appropriate floor they were met with another desk, nurses of all shapes and sizes behind it checking charts, making phones calls, and typing into computers. None of these women or men looked anywhere near as irritated as the women that directed them here.
One particular nurse, who had sunshine radiating from her, didn't hesitate to lead them to a waiting area where Five, Luther, and Eudora (a woman Vanya has only seen in a single picture) waited in small red plastic chairs that looked very unpleasant to sit in. Upon seeing them enter, Luther immediately jumped from his seating spot to crowd into Allison's space, fiercely whispering something to her, what he was whispering Vanya didn't know, truthfully, she didn't care to know, if it wasn't about Diego then she wasn't concerned about it.
She grabbed Luna's hand to lead her over to the unoccupied chairs next to where Five was seated. Five nodded to her and offered a smile to Luna.
"Have you heard anything?" The nurse that led them to the waiting room unfortunately did not give them any information beyond saying that Diego was in surgery, and they would have to wait along with everyone else for the doctors to do their job. She placed Luna in the seat between herself and Five, from Luna's bag she pulled out her HeiHei and Moana dolls to distract her little bug from the conversation.
From the corner of her eye, she seen Eudora taking glances at her, Vanya wasn't pettily ignoring the other woman on purpose, but she wasn't throwing out welcoming vibes either, she wasn't ready to examine how she felt about Eudora being here and waiting along with them for Diego to get out of surgery.
"No, they're still operating on him." Five rubbed her shoulder in a show of silent support.
Glancing around the mostly empty room she realized she didn't spot someone that should be here.
"Where's Klaus?" Vanya demanded, she was looking forward to him being here, so Luna could see that he was fine, after her demands for him Vanya thought this was one of the good things to come from this whole mess, Luna would be able to see that her uncle Klaus was fine with her own eyes. She still didn't understand fully what had happened to Klaus, but Five had said on the phone that he was coming to the hospital as well, so it was concerning that Klaus wasn't in the room with them.
"He took off." Luther butted in with a reply before Five had a chance to even open his mouth, Luther and Allison had stopped whispering among themselves and had silently joined Five and Vanya, it was almost awkward how they excluded Eudora.
Vanya has been the one on the outside looking in more times than she could count, the one not being a part of the group huddle, it wasn't fun, but she didn't make any attempts to introduce herself or have one of her siblings include the other woman. She doesn't know Eudora so she can't say if she likes her or not, but she can say she's uncomfortable with Eudora's history with Diego, she wasn't in any rush to include her on family matters.
"Where?" That didn't make any sense, why would Klaus leave?
"We don't know, he wasn't here when we got here. The nurse said he was but he must have left without her noticing." Luther further explained shrugging his shoulders, Vanya scrunched her face in response to that shady explanation.
"So, you didn't see him leave?" Vanya wanted clarification, here Luther was making assumptions when in all truth he didn't know, they all made assumptions before and look where Klaus had ended up.
"No, but you know how Klaus is Vanya, he takes off when things get rough." Luther fumed, unhappy that someone, Vanya of all people, was questioning what he was saying. Everyone knows how Klaus is, it really isn't a surprise he left, he was probably thinking the people in the hospital were going to try and detox him before sending him home, got scared and figured he would leave before everyone could show up.
"Why would he leave? Diego was just shot and if I understood correctly Klaus was just kidnapped, why would he just take off without letting someone know where he's going!" Vanya argued back, it's true that Klaus has a reputation for leaving at inconvenient times, it's been like that well before they even hit teen years, but it just didn't add up right now, Vanya knows this isn't something Klaus would do in their current situation.
"I don't know Vanya; all I know is that he just left!" Luther snapped, he didn't like that she was making sense, but there was no other explanation other then he left because he's obviously not there with them.
"Maybe he went to the manor to get cleaned up." Five suggested to everyone, hoping to calm them down, logically Vanya made sense but so did Luther, but the last thing any of them needed was to be kicked out of the hospital over an argument that would get them nowhere.
"We'll look for him when Diego gets out of surgery, he probably needed some time to think and process what he's been through by himself." Eudora stood up from her chair and walked over the few paces to Diego's family, including herself in their conversation, she had waited to see if one of them would acknowledge her but when none of them did she took it upon herself to interject her opinion.
The woman, Vanya, was not what Eudora had pictured in her head well she was sitting down anticipating the arrival of Diego's new girlfriend and daughter. She was tiny in comparison to herself, pale, with mousy brown hair and eyes, she was pretty but nothing about her really stood out to Eudora. As upset as Diego was when she left him, she had somewhat expected to encounter someone who resembled her features, the woman in front of her in no way, shape, or form looked anything like Eudora.
Their daughter on the hand was the cutest child that she has laid her eyes on in a while, she was without a doubt Diego's offspring, she looked just like him, very little of her features resembled her mother despite having the same color hair and eyes. Eudora couldn't help but imagine what hers and Diego's daughter would have looked like, had they been able to work through their problems. It was dangerous territory she was trekking in her head, but it wasn't like anyone could see her thoughts, so she figured it was okay as long as she didn't voice those thoughts out loud.
"With Dave." Luna's soft voice confidently spoke up from her place on the floor where she had moved to in order to set out other toys, she had a whole ensemble of them organized in a circle. Everyone at once seemed to snap their attention to Vanya, expecting her to clarify who "Dave" was.
"I don't know who that is." She told them shaking her head, she watched as Allison got on the floor in front of Luna, reaching over she picked up the Moana doll, she smoothed out the doll's messy hair and moved the doll so the beige skirt it wore swished back and forth.
"Your uncle Klaus is with Dave?" She gently asked Luna, ignoring the others curious looks, in Allison's mind they have been putting off the strange things Luna has been saying as child gibberish, but Allison has known something unusual was going on from the start of being told Luna was experiencing pain in her arm without reason, that voicemail from Diego just drove those suspicions home. Allison thought there was no harm in seeing what her niece would say back when actually paid attention to and questioned further.
"Yup," Luna nodded her head excitedly, happy to have someone down on her level paying attention to her, "He opened the box and went away."
"The box?" Vanya was confused, what in the world was Luna talking about now? What box? Whose Dave? Went away where?
"Uncle Klaus opened the box and went away to be with Dave?" Allison ignored her sister for now, she didn't know what box Luna was talking about, but they weren't going to get anywhere with throwing out their questions without specifying a meaning to them. Luna nodded her head again, she was excited about this news for whatever odd reason, but as she opened her mouth to say more her face fell from its smile and turned into a frown.
"He's coming back sad." Luna stared at them for a minute with her frown before going back to playing with her toys, less happy and enthusiastic with her game then she was before. Allison didn't know how to respond to that, so she put down the Moana doll and stood back up.
"In that voicemail Diego said that he thought Luna could tell him where Klaus was, he found Klaus after talking to her." She let her sentence simmer in the air around them, let it sink in. She didn't want to outright say what she was thinking, she waited for everyone to come to their own conclusions, the only one who wasn't fully understanding her implication was the lady cop that was with them that kept throwing weird unreadable looks to Vanya and Luna, not anything hostile, more curious, like she found something that was peculiar.
"You're not suggesting what I think you are?" Vanya rhetorically asked, not truly expecting an answer back from her sister. She couldn't think straight, was Allison really suggesting her little bug had a gift?
"Vanya just think about it...how on earth could she know what she knew about Klaus?...I think it started when she was complaining about the pain in her arm." Allison still didn't want to be the one to say it, this was just her putting together pieces of a puzzle that didn't fit before, but Luna wasn't her daughter, it wasn't her place to force her assumption that Luna had a power on Vanya, no matter the overwhelming evidence that clearly stated her niece did have a gift.
"Her arm?" Five's bemused but intrigued voice asked, his brow was turned up in that way it does when he's trying to solve a difficult problem. It was silly to think of in that moment with everything else going on around them, but Vanya missed that look on Five's face when he had disappeared, it was a nice feeling being able to see it again in person.
"She's complained twice now about pain that shouldn't be there, first with her arm and today it was her side...where did Diego get shot at?" That information hadn't been provided to them on the phone or by the nurse.
"On his side." Eudora answered in a low voice, she felt left out of some big family reveal right now. It was fairly obvious that Diego's sister was insinuating that his daughter had some form of ability, what she didn't understand was what ability and how that was possible.
After thinking for a moment in the silence that followed Eudora's answer, Five hurried to take off his jacket and button-down shirt, he's glad he remembered to put on a muscle shirt beneath his button down, least he be bare chested in front of everyone. He turned his arm towards everyone where the crudely done stitches he had hurriedly given himself after being grazed with a bullet could be viewed. The wound still stung but it was far less painful now then it was when he got it, the surrounding area of the injury was bright red and irritated, but he knew it would heal completely soon enough so he wasn't worried.
"Hazel and Cha-Cha managed to get me; I wasn't fast enough." He could see the gears in his siblings' heads going and clicking into place, he was already there but of course his siblings were slower than he was so he had to give them a second to comprehend what he was telling them and what that meant for Luna.
"Holy shit!" It was almost humorous how they all understood what he was implying at once, exclaiming out the same curse together, it was times like this that it was obvious the Hargreeves were siblings.
Luna was experiencing some kind of connected pain to Five and Diego.
"What does that mean for Luna though? She gets hurt when Diego and Five do? She knows where Klaus is? That just doesn't make sense." Luther pointed out the obvious, none of it made any sense but really did any of their own gifts make sense?
"We need to wait to have everyone here that way we can all speak together and see what everyone knows before throwing out guesses." If they wanted an accurate assessment of everything Luna could do or not do, then Five knew they had to wait to have all the information in order to make the best educated guess.
"She has a power...she has a power." At Five's smirk Vanya knew she seemed to be a little late to the party, she understood what was being implied just fine but to say it was a whole other thing, it was adding credence to it and making it more real rather than just something that was going unsaid.
"But wait...was Klaus carrying a box?" Vanya asked Eudora trying to ignore the odds looks the other woman kept throwing her, Vanya was recuperating some of those looks herself, so she didn't feel the need to point it out. Truthfully, she didn't want to involve herself in conversation with Eudora quite yet (if ever) but she did seem to be the only one who knew anything about what had happened before Diego got shot so Vanya picked up her big girl panties and asked her the question.
"No," Eudora told them, she felt uncomfortable with all their gazes on her, it felt like they were assessing her, their looks made her want to stand up straighter, they made her want to come out on the good end of that assessment, which made no sense to her, "But he was carrying a briefcase, he was holding onto it pretty tightly too, I guess it was kind of shaped like a box though."
"Fucking Klaus!" Five yelled as he jumped up from his chair, his murder child face full on and glaring at everything in a matter of seconds.
It took some work but everyone minus Eudora who had went back to her seat after being properly introduced to everyone, had worked to calm Five down from his outburst, at least enough to be able to explain to them what had worked him up to begin with. After the explanation, Vanya thought it was somewhat just like Klaus to get himself in a sticky mess like unexpected time travel by briefcase. Five also explained to them everything he had told Luther in the motel room about The Commission and why these people were after him. When he was finished explaining to them the loose ends they didn't know about, Five and Luther got into a discussion that Vanya couldn't hear because they had moved themselves across the room. After their brothers separated themselves, Allison too had moved to sit a few seats down saying she wanted to do some "digging" on her phone well they waited, whatever that meant.
Vanya was glad Eudora had freaked out a little at Five's outburst, she had moved back to her own chair before Five got into any explanations, Vanya didn't think getting her more involved in this whole mess was a wise decision. The introductions between them had been weird, unnatural almost, Vanya could almost hear the silent question of what Diego saw in her in Eudora's mind. Vanya couldn't see any residue feeling for Diego in Eudora's face which did make her feel slightly better but not so enough that she was willing to prolong a conversation with the only other woman Diego has ever loved.
Besides small snippets of thoughts on Eudora, Vanya tried to occupy herself with thoughts of worry over Diego's surgery, worry over Klaus's adventure in time travel, and worry over Luna's newfound ability that she had no clue what it was or what to expect from it. After getting over her essential surprise of it, she was still worried, but she was also now very curious, it seems her father was not so delusional in his letter that suggested Luna gaining an ability. As heartless as it sounds, she's glad that he's gone, he wouldn't be around so he wouldn't be able to exploit her daughter the way he did her siblings.
Everything that's happened in the last few days thus far has been one roller coaster after another, she wanted to catch a break and not have surprises jumping out at her at every turn but that seemed like a lot to ask for with the apocalypse days away from them.
"Family for Diego Hargreeves?" The all to happy nurse that had led Allison and Vanya to the waiting area spoke from the doorway, apparently, she was the same nurse that had seen Klaus, Five, Luther, and Eudora to the room as well. Vanya took it as a good sign that the nurse wasn't smiling sadly at them in pity, ready to deliver bad news.
"That's us." Vanya jumped up from her chair, she along with everyone else crowded the poor nurse, eager for any information on Diego.
"He's in recovery right now, he should be waking up soon. The bullet thankfully did not hit anything major, the doctors were able to remove it and stitch him right up." The relief that spread through Vanya's body was unlike anything she's ever felt before, she was terrified they were going to come in here to say they did everything they could, but it made no difference.
"Can I see him? Me and my daughter?" Vanya asked, she was desperate to see with her own eyes that Diego was fine, that he wasn't taken from her and Luna. It wasn't that she didn't believe the kind nurse but to hear something and to see it with your own eyes were two very different things.
"You sure can Hun." The nurse's smile was warm but then regretful as she aimed it at everyone else, "Not everyone can go back though, it's to many people and we wouldn't want to overwhelm him so soon after surgery."
"That's okay, Vanya and their daughter should see him first." Allison waved off the concern that they would be upset they couldn't see him, she was just glad to know he was alive and okay, she could wait until more people were allowed to see him and so could everyone else.
After throwing a grateful glance in Allison's direction, Vanya gathered Luna up in her arms and followed the nurse out the room.
Vanya lost herself in all of the twists and turns of the hallways that the nurse led her down, it seemed like a lifetime later when they finally stopped in front of a row of hospital beds that were separated by curtains.
"We're preparing his room in the meantime that he comes out of the anesthesia, it shouldn't be long before he starts showing signs of being fully awake. We woke him up briefly after surgery, but the effects of the anesthesia take some time to wear off the body." The nurse explained as she checked the machines connected to Diego's still form, afterwards she threw a reassuring smile Vanya's way and left the open room, pulling the curtain closed as she did.
Vanya's never seen Diego this vulnerable before, in real life and in her mind, he's always been this strong formidable force, something unshakable and indestructible. Diego was only human though, something that was proven with this gunshot wound, he might have an incredible gift, but he was still as human as anyone else, he could still get hurt and he could still die at any moment.
Luna wiggled in her arms, clearly asking to be put down. When her little feet touched the ground she ran to Diego's unmoving form, she lifted herself up to sit on a bare corner that Diego wasn't occupying and started talking like it was normal and an everyday occurrence to see someone in a hospital bed with tubes and such coming out of their bodies, machines humming next to them.
Her little bug was something special and it had nothing to do with any ability she might have. For Vanya's part she took her place on the chair next to the bed that looked far more comfortable than the ones in the waiting room, this one actually had cushion that didn't numb Vanya's butt right as she sat down.
Vanya vaguely listened to Luna in the background as they waited for Diego to wake up. Mostly her thoughts were focused on the events that had shaken up her dull and normal world in such a short time, but she could hear Luna telling him of her playtime with her dolls, and all the exciting adventures those pieces of plastic seemed to go on all the time.
"I think I should go live with Moana and HeiHei, they seem to have pretty cool lives." Diego rasped out, Vanya nearly jumped out of her skin, she hadn't noticed that he woke up, Luna giggled with an excited nod to him, his eyes met Vanya's and a moment passed between them where everything was still and calm, before Vanya rushed out of her seat and hugged him as tight as her thin arms could. She was trying to be careful not to touch any of the tubes, but Luna wasn't as thoughtful with her own hug, Diego didn't seem like he minded though.
"Hey, it's okay...I'm okay Vanya." She hadn't noticed she started crying until Diego lifted his arms to wipe her tears away with soft hands and careful motions.
"I almost lost you, Luna almost lost you." She's never been more thankful for learning how to silently sob in the Hargreeves household growing up then she was right in this moment, it was bad enough Luna and Diego were watching her cry, she didn't need nurses gathered watching to.
"Are you kidding me?" He lightly scoffed, "I just got you back Vanya...believe me when I say it's going to take heaven and hell to pull me away from you guys." He tried to make it seem as less of a bigger deal then it was but he knows her worries were warranted but still he didn't want her or his daughter thinking that he was close to leaving them however involuntary. He didn't want to think about the fact that he could have died, he didn't want to entertain that possibility no matter how close he was to making it his reality.
"I'm going to hold you to that, you know." She teased as she tentatively moved around where Luna was doing her best to hug the life right out of him, Vanya grabbed his face between her small hands and brought his lips to hers to share a few chaste kisses, with the last one she felt him smile against her lips, "I should get shot more often if means I get kisses."
"You're ridiculous." She laughed as she pulled back from him.
A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed, feel free to drop a review :)
