Chapter One

We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals

(Part II)

It's still March 24, 2019

The jet lag was starting to win, but she just couldn't leave the cold and empty mansion this cold and empty. There were five people, a brilliant chimpanzee, and an android in it for goodness sake.

Celeste knew what must be done, but first she had to go see check on her twin. She felt out for him. He was almost like a mist behind the drugs, but she felt Klaus down in the basement. He was sitting on top of the table barefoot and smoking a cigarette while staring at his father's urn when she entered. She took in him and all the fun stuff that was no longer in use. The snack bar, the electric guitar, the foosball table.

Her father played foosball against Celeste and Klaus while they waited down in the basement. It was their eleventh birthday and normally Klaus didn't like playing games, but he also didn't like just sitting and waiting. Her father subtilely and silently challenged Klaus to make passes to Celeste and score goals. Celeste never thought she would feel Klaus enjoying a sport of any kind, but there he was smiling. Her father had a gift of bringing out the best in people, no supernatural ability needed.

After no longer being able to hide that they were telepathic but only with each other, both fathers confirming they had adopted one sex of a pair of fraternal twins from the same location, and of course their shared birthday, there was really no test needed. But Sir Reginald Hargreeves had to be one hundred precent sure. Celeste's father had to be one hundred precent sure that this was something Celeste and Klaus wanted and them alone. They both agreed and it was only then that he allowed Sir Reginald to stick a needle in his young daughter's arm.

She could feel the other siblings in main room above them also waiting, especially Number Five, who was pacing. Five did not want Celeste to endure and be scrutiny to The Monocle's experiments and training, but Five underestimated Celeste's father. Celeste did want to find out more about her abilities and how they paired with Klaus, but nothing was going to separate Celeste from her father's protection. Nothing except for death itself, which is what ended up happening.

Celeste hugged Klaus tightly, who let out tears of relief, when Sir Reginald confirmed they had a fifty precent gene match, significantly more than they had with the other siblings. They indeed shared a birth mother. Celeste had an actual blood brother, a brother-brother, as she would later call him. A brother-brother who would come over and raid her closet just to try on her latest ballet leotard while she fought him because he was going to stretch it out, but a brother-brother all the same.

"I have to do this alone." Klaus says, not turning around to her. So he could feel her, the high was wearing off.

"Why?" she says as he spins around and faces her. He slaps his face, which he thinks slaps off the high. She takes him in now that she can feel him more clearly.

"If you don't want to do it then it's not going to happen." She points out.

"Now, sister-sister, you know that's not how it works." he says bitingly. "We don't get the luxury of choosing when to use our powers like the others do!" He snaps at her.

Celeste takes a step back from his blows. She forgot how mean he can be coming off a high, but combined with the heavy circumstance of today, the feelings stab even more. He really wants to do this alone, even though they were given each other. She loves him enough to let him decide that so she leaves in silence.

"Lest…" He calls out after her. She stops on the first stair and keeps her back to him.

"I'll be staying at V's for the week, maybe we can get in touch before I leave." She taps her head as a signal and quickly dashes up the rest of the stairs.

Celeste feels Klaus pop the pills as soon as she gets to the next floor. A scream builds up inside her, but she can't let it out so she just runs with no particular destination in mind so of course she ends up in front of Number Five's room. It sits frozen in time and spotless, Grace must still been cleaning it. She steps into it and it feels extra young to her. He wasn't there to express his teenage angst through wall art like the others did to their rooms. There were the equations he wrote on the wall that slants above his bed. She knew they had to do with time travel, but she didn't understand them and, as the current situation shows, neither did he. BAM! She punches the wall. Out of nowhere. Nothing happens to the wall, but ouch! Her fist hurts. Was that Klaus's anger surging out of her? Surely it was. She couldn't sort it out now, Diego was coming up the stairs.

She looks out of Five's window straight into her old window and feels two people now occupying the space. She puts her hand behind her back and holds up two fingers for Diego to see. He stops right behind her and she nods her head forward towards the window. Diego throws one of his knives and it whooshes past causing her hair to move in its wind, then to the window, then boomerangs back past her head and back into his hand. She turns to him, smiling. Their abilities do work really well together. Maybe she should have stayed to become a detective with him like he suggested.

"Two people live there now, huh? A couple?" He asks.

"No, it feels like just roommates."

She suddenly remembers what she has to do before she leaves. She pushes Five's desk over as trinkets fall off. She feels the ground for the loose floor bored.

"Uh, Celeste? We moved them all to Luther's room." Diego reminds her.

"Oh, right. Duh. I..sorry, I got mixed up."

Celeste feels stupid. How did she forget that?

He helps her push the desk back. She picks up the desk clock which has stopped working with the hour hand frozen on the 12 and the minute hand frozen on the 7. Diego picks up a toy truck, a binder, and a photo frame. He looks at the frame and then passes it to Celeste.

"Do you think you two would still be together?" He asks.

She takes the frame. It's an old polaroid of her and Five in front of the penguin exhibit at the zoo. This must have been right after their thirteenth birthday.

"Given how all of you turned out? No, I don't think we would be."

She sets the frame back on the desk.

"But you two were…Celeste, you two were better partners than most adults I've seen."

Diego, the hopeless romantic. She can feel he is thinking of a specific girl of his own, but she stops there. That's his business.

"We were just kids, Diego." She shrugs. "We never got an opportunity to mess it all up."

And that's because of Five, so actually there was an opportunity and he did. The thought flies across her brain and she feels heat rise in her. What was going on? She concentrates on Diego, who fiddles with his knives, and cools down.

"Oh, Romeo. It doesn't help to dwell on such things, but you know what does help?"

"What?" He gives in.

"That outfit you're wearing."

He playfully lunges at her as she runs out of Five's room to Luther's.

It's not that the siblings couldn't listen to music, but they could only listened to what Sir Reginald deemed classic. Celeste's father and grandmother had a different definition of "classic" and she had quite the selection in her room. Somedays, when The Monocle stepped out for a bit, Five would open his window, call out, and she would see all seven of them waving to her. She would open her window, pick out a record, and turn the volume up. Then they would all let loose, them in Five's room and her in her own. An "Alleyway Dance Away" she called it. Records were then snuck over and hidden under Five's desk for the days when her ballet practices ran long. Eventually Sir Reginald gave in and let the siblings listen to whatever they wanted and they moved all the records to Luther's room and a few down in the basement. And of course, grew a collection of their own.

It was a couple months after Five left and Celeste wondered if she would ever smile again. It was a dramatic thought, but everything seems so permanent for teenagers. Then one day she heard music coming from across the alleyway. She looked out her window and it took her a bit to get past the pain of Five's empty room, but she eventually could feel the siblings all dancing in their own rooms, yet together to the song Luther picked out. Celeste's face remembered how to smile and her legs how to dance, something she was sure they forgot. And she laughed and cried and danced alone in her room with them.

And that is exactly what needs to happen before she leaves. Allison is in her room behind her closed door. Celeste knocks on Luther's open one. He nods at her and she enters. Quiet and contemplative Luther. That is his biggest strength. Celeste hopes that one day he'll see it and stop competing with Diego on who can be the loudest.

"I would like some exit music." She slides a hand across his records, which he has in chronological order. "Maybe something from this era." She hovers over the late 1980s. Luther smiles and picks out a record. Celeste walks down the hallway as a recognizable drum beat and bass line fills the entire estate. She feels Luther swaying and Allison trying not to smile, but failing. Good.

The song plays on as she makes her way to the grand staircase. Vanya slowly gets up and closes her eyes as she does her endearing and quirky moves in the foyer. Celeste quietly sneaks behind her and opens the doors to the main room. There's Diego, killing it. Celeste puts her hands over her mouth to stifle a laugh of pure joy. She sneaks over to her suitcase and quietly rolls it out and closes the door behind her, undetected.

Vanya dances away. Celeste feels down to the basement. He is pretty foggy, but Klaus is dancing in his dramatic way. Good, they're all moving and it's not quiet. She can leave in peace. She gets to the front door when Vanya calls out to her.

"Leaving already?"

Celeste spins around and dances to Vanya, who laughs.

"I think I'm going to collapse from jet lag, so yes." She says mid dance.

Vanya doesn't stop dancing and pulls a set of keys from her pocket and hands it over to Celeste.

"Collapse away."

'If you want to stay here tonight, I mean, do what you need to." Celeste says while trying to do the Running Man as well as Diego.

"Thanks, I'll let you know." Vanya says mid Robot.

Celeste can barley keep her eyes open in the cab. She looks back over at The Academy that grows smaller. It looks like a cloud has appeared over it and, was that lightening? Blue flashes of light come from the cloud. No, she must be delirious. Lightening isn't blue. And it can't be storming just over the mansion. She really needs to get some sleep.

Celeste wasn't sure how long she had been out when Vanya's phone rang, but it was dark out. It was Vanya calling from The Academy. The funeral went terribly and she was heading back. Also, something had happened after Celeste left, something Vanya wanted to tell her in person. She was too far away for Celeste to feel her and get a sense of what it could be. Phone calls really did level the playing field.

"Doughnuts for dinner or breakfast?" Celeste asked.

"Both." Vanya answered.

"Correct. I'll see you in a bit."

On the bus ride to Griddy's she ran through all the possibilities of what could have happened. Maybe Klaus was able to conjure their dad? Or they found out what had happened to Luther? She feels around the bus. Most people are just done with their day and tired, but the driver is having some serious buyer's remorse. The bus comes to a stop and she hands the driver some money as she gets off.

"For whatever it was that you wanted to buy."

He is dumbfounded. "Are you an angel?"

Celeste shakes her head. "There's usually some sort of wind with them."

She gets off and walks towards Griddy's. She gets that a lot. Are you an angel or something? She normally shakes her head, but she is something, isn't she? They all are, aren't they? Their births were extraordinary and they all have these abilities, except for Vanya, but still. Just what was that something though? During her tours around the world with the ballet company she tired to find out, but there were a lot of dead ends.

It's her labored breathing that first gets her attention. She's right at the front door of Griddy's and the next thing she is aware of is her heart pounding in her chest. She was so lost in thought she didn't realize two things. First, five people were making their way toward Griddy's and they had intent to take or kill. But it wasn't her they were after, it was the boy sitting at the counter.

The boy. He was the second thing and he confused her greatly. She hadn't felt this in 16 years, 4 months, and 14 days. But where was he?

The boy.

She had gone through every scenario she could think of over the years. Imagining what he would look like now, yelling at him for what he'd done, forgiving him, finally getting to say goodbye and move on in peace, but she never imagined this. She still wasn't entirely sure what she was seeing. She opened the door and felt the boy go ridged as he saw her in the desk bell's reflection. She kept waiting to see Number Five, but all she saw was the back of the boy. But she knew that outfit. No. No. This was impossible.

The boy turned to her. The look on his face must have mirrored her's, except he had no confusion. He did have Number Five's thirteen year old face though. How did this kid look just like him? Wait, was this his son?

"Lest?" He gets up off the stool.

To say his feeling struck her would be an understatement. This mix bag of all the emotions was more like an electric surge to her.

It was the combination of hearing his voice and looking into his eyes that there was no more denying it. This was Number Five. Right in front of her. She would assume that no time had passed for him, except she could feel years on him, decades of pain and darkness. She tries to make sense of it as he takes a step towards her and she takes two steps back.

He stops and put his hands in his pockets. She feels the five people get closer and triage takes over.

"I didn't think-you look-"

"-There's five people coming up now and they want to either take or kill you." She interrupts him.

He simply nods his head.

"Hmm. They found me sooner than I thought they would."

He takes another step forward and she takes another step back. He stops.

"Let me get you out of here."

She can feel they don't want witnesses, so it seems Five is her only way out. Then, she feels someone in the office behind them.

Celeste points to the office door.

"Lock her in first."

Five looks over and nods. He grabs a chair, blinks over, and blocks the door with it.

She knows this is all happening within in seconds, but she can feel every second stretched out. Maybe Number Five is able to manipulate time or maybe it's just adrenaline. Or both.

The first man opens the front door as Five runs to Celeste. She doesn't move. Five opens his arms and collapses them around her. The sound of a bullet being fired goes off. Celeste instinctively wraps her arms around Number Five like no time has passed between them. She's not much taller than she was at thirteen, so in that way their embrace feels exactly the same. It makes her stomach turn and she feels like she's going to throw up.

Then heat engulfs her. Five had explained it to her, what happens when he blinks. He's moving through space so fast that it causes an almost unbearable amount of friction and that's why it feels like they're going through fire. He blinks them out of the diner just as she feels the bullet near her back.

It never hits her. She opens her eyes and they are across the street. She looks over Five's shoulder to Griddy's and the men with guns look around, shocked.

"I'm going to go take care of them, stay here."

He has no intention to take care of them.

"That's an ironic way of saying what you're about to do."

Five shakes his head. "They'll just follow me if I don't."

He blinks back into the diner. She can't tell if the burning in her is from the friction or her emotions. Either way, she's seething.

Guns fire and lights flicker from Griddy's. Five attacks. Five kills. Five has acquired a lot of new skills.

The deaths sting her like bees. So this is what Vanya wanted to tell her. Celeste takes off and runs through the chill of the night. All Number Five had to do was wait until he was ready to time travel, but he didn't wait. So why should she?

Chapter Two

Run Boy, Run.

March 25, 2019. The Midnight Hours.