A/N: Hope you guys enjoy :)
Chapter Fourteen: On The Stalker Side
The room the hospital had assigned to Diego for the next few days was not very large, it was smaller than the typical hospital room, Vanya found herself wishing it was a tad bigger as everyone gathered inside once Diego was permitted to have more visitors. The room seemed to shrink even further with everyone packed inside, it was a tight squeeze, a slightly uncomfortable one, but everyone seemed content to just be there despite the small room they had to move around. Though content, the atmosphere was on the awkward side because the Hargreeves siblings felt they had said to much in front of the strange cop woman they knew nothing about, they needed to speak but each of them silently agreed it was best not to speak well she was still in the room with them. Politeness and manners are what held them back from outright kicking her out, she had waited right along with them for news on Diego's surgery and his wellbeing, it felt wrong to tell her to leave.
"I'm sorry Diego." That was Eudora's seventh apology in the last 15 minutes, to occupy herself Vanya was keeping track of how many times Eudora apologized to Diego and how many times Diego told her everything that happened in the motel room wasn't her fault and there was nothing to forgive. Vanya felt bad that Eudora was filled with this consuming guilt for what happened to Diego that even being told it was okay by the very man she thought she wronged, she still felt the need to apologize over and over again.
"It wasn't your fault, okay? I don't blame you, I'm not angry at you." Diego repeated the same words to her that he's been saying since her first apology. Half of him was getting irritated that she kept apologizing to him when he's already said they were good, the other half was sympathetic because she had probably sat in the waiting room coming up with more and more areas in that moment in the motel room that she had "failed" him. Eudora didn't like making mistakes, she's always prided herself on doing her job fast and efficient without accidents, so he knew this incident was eating at her because she felt she failed at keeping someone safe. Despite knowing this though, he was getting tired of repeating himself and trying to absolve the unneeded guilt that she felt.
"Regardless I'm sorry," Vanya counted to eight in her head, she could see Diego's eyes squint and his jaw tighten when Eudora apologized again, "I guess I should go now though...your family looks like they want to talk to you in private, I'll visit you later." Eudora promised as she ran her eyes over the people in the room who were all unconsciously fidgeting, waiting for her to leave. Her eyes lingered on Vanya for a second longer than necessary before she moved them away and turned back to Diego who she could see was getting frustrated with her apologies. She wanted to hug him before she left but she wondered if that would be seen as something more than it was so she didn't. Instead, she waved goodbye to everyone before making her way out, when the door had closed behind her, all the siblings lingered their gazes on it waiting to see if anyone else would be coming into the hospital room.
It was tense silence that surrounded the siblings after Luther took the initiative to explain everything they had discussed and/or found out in the waiting room when Diego was in surgery, Vanya had a brief thought that maybe someone other than Luther should have explained everything to Diego, but their largest sibling had been the one to open his mouth first before anyone else could attempt to gather their thoughts enough to explain.
"What are we going to do about Klaus?" That was the most pressing immediate concern in Diego's head, their brother was God knows where, in God knows what year, with some stranger named "Dave", who knew what intentions this Dave person had, whether they were good or bad and how much these intentions would hurt Klaus, they needed to get him back before anything else.
"We can't do anything, we just have to wait until he comes back on his own," Five answered bluntly, he didn't want to be the bearer of bad news but Klaus had time traveled via briefcase, he needed to use it to come back as well, "When he does come back, we have an advantage with the briefcase, me and Luther discussed in the waiting area that the best course of action to handling the apocalypse would be to get to the root of those who refuse to prevent it, the way we do that is by contacting Hazel and Cha-Cha, they will come for the briefcase and when they do, I will tell them to contact The Handler." Vanya admired the confidence in which Five said his plan to them, it did not sound like a foolproof plan, it had a lot of holes and a lot of areas where things could go wrong, but by the way he said it one could believe that it was as good as done. Whether Five truly believed his plan would work or not wasn't important, Vanya just really appreciated the lack of doubt in Five's voice.
"How are you so sure Klaus will come back with the briefcase?" Allison questioned, that was a big assumption to place a major plan of stopping the apocalypse on, Klaus could very much decide he's happier in the past with "Dave".
"Trust me, he'll come back, time traveling isn't all it's cracked up to be." Five would know that better than anyone, he was sure Klaus hasn't made it back yet because he found something (possibly this Dave guy) worth staying for, but eventually he'll come back because it's just the Hargreeves luck to have any happiness they find snatched away from them the second they start thinking that nothing could ruin that happiness.
"I've been trying to stop the apocalypse from this end, when I should have been focused on stopping the people who make sure the apocalypse happens. No matter what I do here, The Commission will correct it to make sure the end of the world still happens, some way or another." Five realized it wasn't the most thought out and elaborate plan, especially not compared to the plans drafted up for missions when they were younger, but he was working with what he had with the time period he had to do it in, this plan was as good as any other.
"I'm going with you guys." Diego said from his hospital bed, he wasn't going to let his brothers run off after psychos without him there to make sure that they don't do anything to stupid and get themselves hurt in the process or worse killed.
"No, you're staying here for now to recover as much as you can." Vanya ordered, it was an odd feeling to be included in on the discussion of some plan to save the world, she was keeping to herself though because she had no ability nor any form of help to offer this plan. But she would be damned if she was going to keep quiet about Diego leaving on a mission so soon after surgery, she was under no delusions that he was going to stay the full time at the hospital that the doctors wanted him to but he did at least need to give himself a day of rest. Vanya would be willing to take a few hours even, but he wasn't running off so soon after surgery to go play hero when he could hardly even move on the bed without wincing from pain.
"Vanya's right Diego, me, Luther, and Allison will go, and you need to stay here for now." Five didn't need to be responsible for Diego possibly getting shot again because of slow reaction time due to not recovering fully, Allison and Luther nodded their heads in agreement. Diego wanted to argue that further, but he didn't when Vanya aimed a glare his way.
"I'll wait in the waiting area for Klaus to come back, we don't know when that will be so someone needs to wait out there for him." Five had already explained that Klaus would come back to the place he originally left when he uses the briefcase to travel back to them, Vanya was happy to see that she wasn't the only one who seemed to be completely confused on how the mechanics of the time travel briefcase worked.
"Are we just going to ignore that Luna has some form of power?" Luther asked, everyone turned their eyes to him with unreadable expressions, he thought it was a valid question, he seemed to be the only one in the room who wanted to discuss this though. Five said to wait until they were all together, well here they were.
"Of course not," Diego responded, this was his daughter they were talking about, of course he would want to know what sort of ability she had, especially because thus far she seems to have felt their physical injuries on some level, and that didn't make him a happy camper, he hated the thought that she was getting hurt because of their reckless choices, she was a little girl that didn't need to be burdened by their actions, "But Five said EVERYONE was going to be together to discuss that and that includes Klaus." Vanya nodded her agreement; glad she didn't have to talk Diego into waiting for Klaus to come back to have this discussion.
"Well Five waits for Klaus, Luther you stay with Diego and Luna. I need to talk to Vanya." Allison didn't give anyone time to respond to her unexpected need to suddenly pull Vanya out of the room. She pulled her until they came upon an empty room that Allison had no problem going in, the hospital smell was stronger in the room then it was in the hallway, it must have just been cleaned out of a patient.
"So, I know you probably don't want to hear it right now with everything else that's happening, but I just need to get it out there. I tried finding this Leonard guy over the internet, and I couldn't find anything on him Vanya. It worries me that he went to your house, unannounced and it just wasn't sitting well with me so I wanted to see what I could find on him, and I found literally close to nothing and that's a red flag if I've ever seen one." Allison's words almost tangled together from how fast she was trying to spit them out. She couldn't let that feeling of something being wrong after seeing those roses go, so well they were waiting for Diego to come out of surgery she figured why not look up information on the guy. She thought she would find something worrisome like multiple charges of some kind on him, but it was the finding nothing that worried her more.
Now was probably not the best time to bring this up to Vanya, all things considered but she needed to get it out there as soon as she could. She watched as Vanya processed the words being told to her, she had expected her sister to react in anger to digging into something that was in all honesty none of her business, prepared herself even for Vanya's no doubt negative reaction.
"He's just a friend Allison." Her sister was a stalker, Vanya found herself more amused than anything else with her sister's snooping, it reminded her of when they were kids and Allison would pester her for weeks when she thought Vanya was keeping a secret, she hated being left out, she hated not knowing everything. Despite Allison's pestering in their younger years, Vanya never got annoyed with her sister, those times were really the only time in their childhood that Allison would take a genuine interest in Vanya's life and Vanya treasured those times, they meant the world to her.
"You said you were going on a date?" Allison knows she hadn't misunderstood that part; Vanya had told her she was interested in Leonard and that she had agreed to go to dinner with him.
"Not a date anymore, I'm going to go out with him but to let him know that showing up at my house wasn't okay no matter how good intentioned the act was, and to tell him I can't date him or be with him or whatever." Her and Allison had never been close growing up, the only time Allison took interest in Vanya was when she thought she had a secret to uncover so it was a bit strange speaking about this so openly with her however Allison's concern was real, and she wouldn't disregard that as if it meant nothing to her.
She did have to admit to herself that Allison wasn't the only one who was weirded out by the act of Leonard leaving those roses. On some level she knew that she had come to her conclusion on Leonard well before even leaving the house to come to the hospital. She was in love with Diego, with him being shot, she realized she almost lost this chance with him and for Vanya that was not okay. She wanted him in hers and Luna's life, and she didn't need to add another complication to the works with trying to make something with Leonard that was so obviously not there. Leonard is sweet and kind, but he didn't measure up to Diego, they could stay friends, but it would never be more than that.
"Oh," Allison had prepared herself for an argument from Vanya's end, she didn't expect for Vanya to have already made up her mind on Leonard, she almost wanted to push her sister so her prepared argument could be said and not wasted, she had really thought this whole conversation was going to go completely different, "Okay."
"Thank you for looking out for me though, a little bit on the stalker side but that's okay, I love you anyways." Vanya teased Allison, pulling her into a hug that Allison tightened after she tensed, unuse to Vanya being physically affectionate with her.
Commotion from the hallway pulled their attention away from their hug and their talk on Leonard, they left the empty room, down the long hallway from where they were standing Vanya could see Klaus and Five wrestling with the time travel briefcase, each of them fighting to have the better hold on it.
"I need it, Klaus! Let it go!" Five shouted at him, Klaus looked far worse than what Vanya was expecting to see, Luna had warned them he was going to come back sad, but Klaus looked more than sad to Vanya, he looked heartbroken, on top of that he was dirty and bloody, his clothing was torn, and his hair was messy. He was hysterical and clearly wanting to destroy the one advantage they had over The Commission. She and Allison ran over to pull Klaus away from the briefcase, when they pried his hands off if it, Five hugged the stupid thing to his chest protectively. Vanya suddenly found herself with arms full of her brother, who was squishing her to him and sobbing into her hair, the weight of him was too much for her tiny frame to handle on her own, she collapsed to the floor with him.
"It's okay Klaus, everything's going to be okay." She whispered to him; they had attracted the attention of the hospital staff, but Allison was fending them off as best as she could. Vanya might have been making empty promises with saying it was going to be okay, she didn't know where Klaus was coming from and what he's been through, but she couldn't not say anything to him well he lost himself in tears and mutters that Vanya couldn't understand.
Several floors below them a janitor was looking at shattered windows. He had been called to come pick up the glass but was given no explanation as to how the windows shattered to begin with. A frantic witness that had apparently seen the whole thing was trying to explain to the security guards that the windows first started cracking on their own and then it was like an invisible force pushed a sore point on them and the windows came crashing down in a waterfall of glass.
He didn't believe that for one second, more likely it was some punk kids that threw rocks at the windows and the witness didn't see them. Either way he supposed it didn't matter much now, he picked up his broom and dustpan and started sweeping the mess up.
A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed, feel free to drop a review
P.S for anyone that's maybe confused...Vanya did unintentionally shatter the windows; it can be left up to the reader to decide when she got emotional enough to do that, seeing as I didn't specifically add that in.
Also...YAY! Vanya made the wise choice (however unconsciously) not to be with Leonard! We should have a party to celebrate her intelligence lol we must reward good decisions.
***ANSWERS TO REVIEWS***
To Genbo: Thank you so much for reading my stories and not just once either lol I feel very proud that I made something someone is willing to re-read a couple times. I'm glad that you commented and reviewed on both this site as well as AO3, reading them is always the highlight of my days, hell my week lol thank you so much for taking the time to write a review, I really appreciate it, and I'm so sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've had that pesky writer's block for this story and it's been a pain trying to get rid of it lol anyways thank you again!
To V: I'm so glad to know you enjoyed the story, the Diego and Vanya pairing is not the most popular, but I think they complement each other fairly well, I honestly wish there was more stories for them but unfortunately not everyone sees the potential in this couple :( hopefully that changes in the future lol thank you for leaving a review, it's much appreciated.
To Yaztellsyouastory: Thank you so much for believing this story deserves more reviews, I believe so to (I could be bias though lol). Although I think it's partially my fault for that, I had first posted this story to AO3 and it wasn't until much later that I cross posted here, so I uploaded all 14 chapters in one day (suffice to say I don't think that was a smart decision, lesson learned lmfao). I do have plans to finish this story, unfortunately I can't put a timeline/date to when I'll be able to update it though :( but thank you so much for this kind review, you take care as well :)
