Sixteen years (and four months and four days) have passed since The Boy disappeared and The Girl froze, and now Reginald Hargreeves is dead and the surviving children are coming home. Quinn, who's been alone since Luther went to the moon, is beyond excited to have her siblings back, if only she weren't in a coma and unable to talk to them. For a family who only sees each other at weddings and funerals - and didn't go to their sister's wedding - there's certainly a lot of history to work through, and Quinn has a lot to say on the matter, if only she could say anything.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Umbrella Academy or any character except for Quinn!

Chapter title is from Gasoline by Halsey

Hear No Evil

You Can't Wake Up (This Is Not A Dream)

Luther always thought that Quinn had gotten lost in her head, that losing Five had left her floating, and had always hoped that maybe he could pull her back. -Vanya Hargreeves, Extra-Ordinary: My Life As Number Seven

It was quiet. Too quiet. It was always quiet, ever since Luther went to the moon, but it was never this quiet. She could always hear Grace's heels click-clacking on the hardwood floors, or Pogo pacing the halls, she could usually even hear Reginald's loud footsteps, never concerned about his overbearing presence. And Luther; every day for sixteen years at exactly ten in the morning, Luther would spend an hour just talking to her.

Even for his four years on the moon, he sent a transmission every day that Grace would play in her room, and it had kept her sane ever since her twin had left her. It had allowed her to track time, to keep separate her sixteen years in the mansion's infirmary and the almost fifty years she had spent trapped inside Five's mind in the future, in the apocalypse and everything that came after. She would have lost her mind if it weren't for Luther, for her big brother who couldn't bear to let go even after all of their siblings had gone. But, for the first time in sixteen years - and four months - there was nothing.

Locked in her own mind, with nothing for company but Five's thoughts, Quinn couldn't stop her mind from wandering. Had Luther gotten tired of the transmissions? Had he given up on her, like the rest of the Hargreeves children? Was she, for the first time since October 1st, 1989, truly alone?

Before she could follow that train of thought any further, she was pulled back to the present by a gentle hand wrapping around hers. Not for the first time, she wished that she could open her eyes and see who it was - no one ever touched her anymore. Grace bathed her and brushed her hair but that was it, Pogo adjusted the medical equipment that she was attached to, and Reginald, well, Reginald didn't acknowledge that she existed but that was nothing new. Still, no one ever really touched her, not without a specific purpose, careful and calculating and focused not gentle and relaxed like the hand that still held hers, or the one brushing dark bangs from her forehead, and she wanted to know who it was.

Thankfully, that question was about to be answered.

"Sorry I'm late, Quinnie," a familiar voice said softly, and Quinn's heart leapt in her chest.

'Luther,' she wanted to cry. She wanted to hug him and ask why he was back and to tell him how much she loved him, how much she missed him while he was gone. But she could only lie there, could only listen.

"Sorry I'm late," he repeated, chuckling wetly, "I knew that I wouldn't get here in time but I wanted to talk to you in person. You deserve to hear it for yourself, not from someone thinking too loudly."

'What happened?' she wanted to shout, 'why do you sound so scared to tell me?'

But as always, there was nothing that she could say or do, nothing but wait for Luther to continue.

She heard him take a deep breath, and she knew instinctively that he was rolling back his shoulders, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. She might not know what he looked like after all those years, although she did know about Reginald's experiment, but in her mind's eye she could still picture him at thirteen, doing exactly that before asking Reginald for permission to "train" her himself - an excuse to sit on the roof and tell her all about the stars in the night sky.

She was pulled back out of her thoughts by a sharp exhale.

"Dad is dead," he said, and Quinn would swear that she felt the world shift beneath her. In fact, she almost felt lucky to be lying down, it meant that she couldn't collapse as she processed her big brother's words.

Dad is dead, it echoed in her head, resonating so loudly that she was sure that Five could hear her, whenever he was. Dad is dead. Reginald was dead? Was that why the mansion had been so silent, she had to wonder. Was that why Luther was finally back? Was that why Grace and Pogo had both missed their nightly and morning visits? Did Five, off in the future or maybe the past, know? Had he seen it coming? Why didn't he tell her?

"Breathe, Quinnie," another voice echoed in her head. "I can hear you losing it. "

"Dad is dead, Finn," she shouted - as much as she could within her own head. "He's fucking dead."

"I know," her brother told her softly, so much older than when she'd last seen him but as familiar as it had always been. "But you need to breathe. You're going to hurt yourself like this, you know that."

He was right, loathe as she was to admit it. She had spiralled before, many times, and it always took several days - based on his counting and Luther's transmissions - before she regained control over her mind and she knew that one day she wouldn't come back from it. So she tried to follow his instruction, focusing on his counting; a habit left from counting her breaths through her panic attacks.

By the time she settled back into herself, Luther had long since moved on and was talking about, well, she wasn't sure what but it involved Reginald's obnoxious monocle. She was just starting to figure out his point - the monocle had maybe been stolen, or something - when she heard the tell tale clacking of Grace's shoes approaching the door.

"Luther," she heard her mom say, voice soft and melodic as it had been when she was awake, "your siblings are home."

Luther's hand tensed in hers, and she wished desperately that she could squeeze it back, that she could tell him that everything would be okay, as he so often did for her. But she could only wait helplessly as he pulled his hand away from hers, and a quick probing into his mind - a habit she never broke from her childhood - told her that he was primarily focused on Allison, although he was worried about Vanya showing up and Diego starting a fight; clearly nothing had changed since they were all children.

"I'll be back, Quinn," he told her softly, squeezing her hand gently before pulling away, and she listened as his heavy footsteps faded away.

Her sense of time was, well, non-existent unless someone was with her, but she thought it was only a couple of minutes before she heard the door closing the chair scraping across the hardwood floors.

It wasn't until a gentle hand, familiarly calloused from years of holding knives, cupped her cheek that she knew who it was.

"Hey there, Q," Diego murmured, and Quinn couldn't help but surprised by his lack of a stutter. "I guess someone's probably told you about dad already, huh? I read the coroner's report, apparently it was a heart attack."

'I didn't know he had a heart,' she wanted to snap.

"I'm more surprised that he has one than that it killed him," he continued, and she could almost feel Five laughing in the back of her mind, ready with some sort of quip about their similar trains of thought.

But Five wasn't there, physically or mentally, and Quinn would have tried to reach him had Diego not continued speaking.

"But… I guess it's been a while since we - since I talked, huh?"

'Ten years,' she thought, ten years since he told her that he was joining the police academy and leaving the mansion; leaving her.

"I did go to the academy, even joined the force for a bit until I punched my captain and got kicked out. Now… now I do what we always did, I guess. I…" he laughed shakily, and Quinn knew that years ago he would have been stuttering his way through all of it; the fact that he wasn't told her more about how long it had been than anything else could have. "I don't know, Q, coming back here… it feels like nothing's changed since the day we left."

'You left! You left me behind, I never ever got out.'

She heard a loud knock on the door and then the obnoxious creaking as someone opened it.

"Appointments only or is she taking walk-ins?" she heard Klaus ask, and she felt a flood of joy as she realized that her siblings seemed more interested in seeing her than mourning their father.

Diego sighed loudly, failing to cover up a laugh at whatever presumably dramatic entrance Klaus had made.

"Hey there, Quinnie-The-Pooh," he sang, obnoxious and wonderful as ever, "long time no see. And I've gotta say, sis, I'm so sorry. I know that I aged gracefully as a swan but you," he hissed dramatically, "you don't look a day over thirteen. At least you still look better than Diego there," he continued, ignoring his brother's sputtered protests.

That was what Quinn had always loved about Klaus. While Luther and Diego were both naturally quiet, lapsing into uncomfortable silences that they instinctively expected her to fill, Klaus could carry on a conversation as if he knew exactly what she would have said. It was nice, familiar and over the top and absolutely perfect.

"And man, Luther… Did he get into steroids after we left? Talk about passing your prime, or whatever," he laughed.

She heard, distantly, as Diego made his excuses and left the room, as Klaus continued with his dramatics, easily filling her in on his own life and what he knew of her siblings' adventures in the past several years. Some she already knew, from Luther's daily visits, but somehow she'd never heard mention of Allison's divorce - had it happened after Luther left? She wished she could have asked, but even if she could, Klaus had long since moved on to, well, she wasn't entirely sure. Klaus could be hard to follow, after all. She took a peek into his mind, and found that his story had something to do with his latest stint in rehab.

But before he could make his point, she heard another knock.

"Hey Klaus," she heard Allison, her voice as steady and strong as ever, a rock that Quinn could always lean on. "I was just going to say hi to Vanya - she just got here - but I wanted to see her first."

"Well here she is in all her glory," her brother announced, and Quinn was sure that he was gesturing towards her. "Gotta say, the outfit could use some work. Hospital gowns are so last season."

Allison laughed, but unlike her siblings she didn't approach the bed, and Quinn listened as both of them walked away.

Left alone again, Quinn reached out to her siblings' minds, listening through Allison as the siblings fought in the foyer, until she was pulled back into herself by the gentle closing of the door.

"Hey, Quinn," she heard Vanya say; always soft and quiet and no doubt still remembering their last conversation, how she had told Quinn that she wished she'd never been born.

For sixteen years, Quinn had wished desperately that she could tell Vanya that she forgave her, that she loved her. That everything was okay. After Luther had sat in her room for an entire day, reading Vanya's book to her, she had wanted nothing more than to hug her big sister, to promise that she knew that Vanya loved her despite their fights and her cruel words. But she couldn't, and she often worried that Vanya would never know.

"I… I guess Luther probably told you about the book," she chuckled ruefully, "or one of the others mentioned it. I guess… god, Quinn, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry if I hurt you, I just… I didn't think about it until it was too late. I never thought about you hearing all of it."

'It's okay,' she would have sobbed, 'I know. I love you, I forgive you, there's nothing to forgive, you're my sister, you'll always be my sister, I love you, I love you, I love you.'

She thought that Vanya was about to say more, but then the door slammed open.

"You have no right to be here," she heard Luther snap. "Not after what you did."

"Luther-"

"Get out," he hissed, and Quinn could hear the door shut behind him.

"I forgot what it was like to have so many people here," he told her, and she had to agree. She and Luther had both spent so many years alone that having an almost full house was beyond weird, although she figured that she probably enjoyed it more than he did.

She wanted him to say more, wanted to hear about how everyone had changed, wanted to know what was going on when they weren't in her room, but instead she heard a familiar melody emerge from the speaker in her room; the same one that Grace used to play Luther's transmissions.

Children behave, that's what they say when we're together

She heard the song, one of Luther's favourites, and for the first time since she'd lost Five to the future, she truly felt at home. She knew that the others could hear it too, knew that they would all be remembering their rare free time, the blanket forts that she used to convince Luther to build so that they had somewhere to sit together, listening to music because if they spoke they'd argue.

And so we're running just as fast as we can, holding on to one another hands

She tried so hard to reach out to Five, to bring him into the moment with the rest of them, but there was nothing there. It was like the connection, one that had been there since the day they were born, had been cut off, and she had never been more afraid in her life. Without Five, without her other half, what was she? How could she be, without her twin? And what had happened? Was he… she couldn't bear to finish the thought.

I think we're alone now, there doesn't seem to be anyone around. I think we're alone now, the beating of our hearts is the only sound

She had lost herself so deep into the memories of a childhood long forgotten, and into the fear of losing her twin, that she was surprised to realize that the song had come to an abrupt stop, that Luther had clearly stopped it instead of letting it finish. But of course she couldn't ask, couldn't look around, and Luther wasn't offering any explanation.

"Something's happening, Quinn, I'll be right back," he told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

While she couldn't see what was happening, she heard quick footsteps and the door slamming, and knew that she was alone again. She was used to being alone; what she wasn't used to was the absolute silence coming from Five when she reached out, to not being able to hear her other half across all of time and space.

And then, for the first time in sixteen years, four months, and four days, Quinn Hargreeves' eyes snapped open.

-Fin-

Dun dun dunnnnnnnn

Hope you enjoyed the first real chapter! This was a very difficult (but fun) chapter to write because of just how introspective it is, but I'm very happy with how it turned out and I hope that you all liked it too! I did split the first episode in half - or sort of half - so I'm hoping to take less time with the next excerpt than I did with this one! As always, I hope you all enjoyed it, I'd love to hear any thoughts that you have on this chapter and this fic, and you're always welcome to talk to me on tumblr over at randomestfandoms-ocs!