Chapter 8

"Luther, I'm going to fucking kill you this time."

Klaus looked at the stupid gray road, and the stupid gray trees, and the ridiculous gray sky. Fucking Hell. (Well, Heaven.)

Where were They?

Almost as if summoned by the thought, a bell rang, and Klaus turned to see a bicycle coming his way. Great. So this time, God was an ethnically ambiguous little girl on a bike. She took Her sweet time, finally coming to a stop right in front of him.

"Almost didn't see you. Keep on riding around here. So pale and all. They don't have any sun down there?"

"Yeah, yeah, I could use a tan. Hurry up, kick me out, I have a brother to murder." Klaus stopped being amused by these encounters after his third death.

The girl frowned, and at first he thought She was just annoyed he wasn't playing along this time - he was supposed to ask where he was - but then She shook Her head. "You've upset the balance."

"Upset the balance? What does that even mean?" This was new… interesting. He still didn't want to linger, though. With his luck, his siblings would abandon his dead body in the wreckage of the house, and he'd have to dig his way out. The longer he remained buried the more difficult and painful it would be.

"You've abused your powers in ways you shouldn't have."

"Well then maybe you shouldn't have given them to me," Klaus scoffed. Abused his powers? What had he done differently since the last time he died? He'd been using his powers to exploit others for over a decade… Oh. He'd discovered his ability to destroy souls. He guessed that might be the kind of thing that could piss God off. Still. She was the one who gave him the power.

As if reading his mind, She shook Her head again. "I'm not the one that provided that one. There's a balance." Hadn't She claimed to create him? If not Her, then who?

Klaus rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you mentioned. Could you hurry this up? As I said, I have places to be, and I'm sure you do too. The next part goes, 'I don't like you, you can't stay here.'"

"You need to stop before you break something that can't be fixed," She ignored his suggestion.

"I'll keep that in mind. Now vite! Are we done here?"

The frown grew deeper. "Time is flying, so hurry up. He's waiting," She pointed, and the movement felt very definitive, his attention immediately drawn to the ramshackle building that hadn't been present previously. He felt the sudden urge to rush towards it, almost like a compulsion.

He shook his head, having to work to pull his attention back to Her.

"No, I don't think so. There's no one you have that I want to talk to right now," Klaus refused.

She looked very surprised at the rejection. She expected him to just cooperate. How cute. He didn't have time for this though.

"You need to-" She started.

"No, you need to. You need to send me back." Klaus was getting frustrated and annoyed now. Neither of them truly wanted him here, and they both knew he wouldn't stay. He'd had enough of this dog and pony show. He didn't know who was waiting in that building. It could be anyone from his father to Dave, but he had different reasons for not wanting to talk to either of them at the moment. Whatever it was She thought was going to happen here, he wasn't going to go along with it.

The two stared at each other for a moment, and Klaus was startled to hear leaves rustling in the trees. There was a breeze blowing through the area, and it was picking up speed. If this were Earth, that wouldn't be too strange, but in all his visits to Her domain, the weather had never once changed or altered. Everything he encountered had always been still, like stepping into a photo, other than Her.

"Stop it," the Girl nearly shouted.

Oh. "That's not you doing that, that's me." That was a statement, not a question. He just knew it was true. Every time he was here, She seemed perfectly in control, it was Her domain. Except. God was Creation. This was the realm of the Dead. This was Klaus' domain.

The wind grew stronger, the flowers in the little basket on the front of the bike starting to lose their petals.

"It was never you, was it? You showed up, you started this loop, just so I wouldn't notice." He hadn't even considered that it was weird to be personally greeted and then kicked out each time. Of course he would be, he was important! There was his ego getting in the way. And Klaus had never visited at full power before. Every time he had died, Frank had been with him. Now he was ten months without the leech, and stronger than usual. And emotional - his power was always stronger when he was emotional, and he was so very angry right now (he wanted to destroy Luther… it wouldn't be the smartest immediate move, but it would be oh so gratifying). Dirt and twigs began to be swept up into the air, miniature twisters circling the area. God looked as though She wanted to step in, to do something, but now they both were aware that She couldn't. She was just a visitor in this place as well. "It was never Heaven and Hell, just the Realm of the Dead. They're all here, I can feel it now," Klaus smiled at her, an expression he was sure was a touch manic. Because he could feel it, so much stronger than he ever had before. This was where he pulled his power from, he knew that. His control of the dead, his ability to move things without touching them, and even to rip apart souls. The barrier had never felt more open to him.

"Wait!" She cried out, but Klaus had already pressed -

"- killed our brother!"

"It was an accident!"

His hearing came back first, and Klaus could hear fragments of an argument. It sounded as though the voices were right above him.

"That makes it even worse! How could you!" That was Diego.

"He started this, it was his fault!" Ah, Luther. Justifying his actions.

"He saved us! And you killed him!" Wow, Vanya sounded genuinely upset. Being off her pills must be good for her.

"I came back to save all of you," Five sounded so very cold and hard.

"I didn't know that-"

"That what?" Klaus coughed as he forced the words out. Damn his throat was sore. "That grabbing someone by the neck and throwing them around would snap someone's neck? How convenient." He gasped a few times, struggling to draw in breath.

Every eye turned towards him immediately.

"K-Kl-Klaus! You - You… You were dead!" Diego immediately dropped to his side. His eyes were red, and his face was still covered in tears. Huh.

Five also invaded his space. "How? I felt your pulse. There wasn't one. You were dead."

Klaus laughed, or did his best to. "You think that's the first time Luther has 'accidentally' killed me?" he put air quotes around the word, and tossed in an added dose of venom. He took in another breath, pressing his hands to the sides of his neck. Someone had straightened his neck for him, which was convenient. It meant the lingering injury was now closer to a dislocation rather than broken bones. A quick glance around showed they were definitely not at the mansion. Although he didn't recognize the room, a violin stand made it pretty clear this had to be Vanya's place. He had been left on a couch, and everyone else was crowded into the cramped living room, except Allison. He hadn't heard or seen her. Ben was sitting on a counter across the room. He was the only one not currently freaking out, although he did look surprised about the Luther comment. Of course. He hadn't been there for Klaus' first death, and he and Frank had never bothered to inform him.

"What does that mean?" Diego sounded enraged on Klaus' behalf. Curious.

"What do you think it means? Luther tends to lose control of his strength around me. Has ever since we were kids. Broken bones and bruises, and on a particularly memorable occasion, he pushed me into a table and my skull cracked open. I found out the hard way that I can't stay dead as part of my powers," he massaged his throat as he talked, trying to at least minimize the pain. This definitely wasn't a fun way to go, but it wasn't as bad as the bullet to the head. It was better than strangulation too, because that had crushed all the delicate parts of his neck, and it was swollen for weeks.

"That didn't happen," Luther sounded petulant. "I would have noticed."

Klaus shook his head at Luther's stupidity and then winced. Bad idea. Diego moved closer, resting a hand on his shoulder. He looked worried. "It was the day I left. I noticed they replaced the table. Probably couldn't get all the blood out. Mom was the one who put my head back together. She could tell you."

Everyone was silent for a moment, and then Luther finally spoke. "After the house came down, we couldn't find Mom. Or Pogo."

"Allison got hit pretty bad by some falling debris, and we weren't sure - Ben, did he - is he…?" Vanya sounded hesitant again, all her energy vanishing with her anger.

Summoning and using his power over the dead was always easier after he'd passed through the Veil himself, so he figured instead of a verbal answer he could grant them another visual. He stretched out 'Hello,' and suddenly all the ghosts in the room were corporeal. Oops. He definitely hadn't meant to do that. He had reached for a trickle and instead received a flood.

There was a brief pause, and then several gasps. The first was from Diego, who noticed his lady cop and ignored all the guys with knife wounds. Then Vanya, staring at Five's swarm (they definitely had the most interesting injuries of the bunch). Five merely stared back with a hard look in his eyes. Luther's ghosts had a variety of broken bones, and he actually looked uncomfortable with the sight. (Could he be taught? Klaus had his doubts - the bruises around his throat said otherwise.) Harold had been ranting in the corner, but looked up at the commotion and grinned, diving for the group. There was a scream from the apartment next door, and several very loud thuds from the apartment above.

"Ah, shit." Klaus released his power immediately, and the dead returned to intangible, just in time for Harold to pass through him. So it hadn't just been this room, but maybe the entire building? How far out had his reach just spread?

"What was that?" Luther demanded, the first to recover. "Where did they all come from? Where did they go?"

"They're all still here, I'm just the only one who can see them," Klaus rolled his eyes. "And who do you think they were? Those are the people you've killed. They follow you around and demand revenge. Most murder victims do. Patch over there was special," Klaus waved a hand to where she was lingering next to Diego (her name came to him instinctively now that he reached for it, like most of the dead), "she followed our brother instead of her killers. And Ben, of course, chose to follow me around. Most who linger do so because of unfinished business."

"Why did you do that? Make all of them visible?" Luther was still using his Number One voice, and Klaus really wanted to punch him in the face. (The rest couldn't blame him for that, could they? He was the victim here, a punch was the least he was entitled to!)

"I didn't mean to, obviously. I was reaching for Ben. But I just died so sorry if my control is a little disjointed," Klaus scowled, turning the attention back to Mr. I'm-the-Leader.

He closed his eyes, ignoring whatever else was said, and reached for his connection to the Veil. Where before Veil had been an accurate name, a thin sheet separating him from the dead, now it was an open archway. No wonder everything was so much stronger. He'd been reaching through a sieve for years, but now his true potential had been unlocked. This was what God had been trying to prevent, all those times She encountered him after his deaths. She had made it so he didn't think to reach, and so when he shot back into his body, he thought it was Her doing, rather than a tether pulling him back. He had entirely broken down the barrier between this realm and the next.

He hesitantly reached again, looking for just the barest pinprick, and received the trickle he had expected the first time. Ben and Patch popped into existence for the others, and Klaus strained to ensure they were the only two. It would be easier to just shove all the other ghosts away so he didn't accidentally materialize any others… Well, fuck it. Might as well rebuild his barrier while he was doing this. He reached out to familiarize himself with Patch and Ben, and then shoved at everything not-them. He overshot it again, could feel himself using too much power, and the wave that left him stretched much further out than he had planned. He remembered thinking only earlier this week that pushing his barrier to cover a whole block of the city would just be an excessive waste of his power, and now he'd done it by accident. He almost wanted to laugh. He didn't even feel slightly drained. Then he paused and thought of the downsides of this boost. He was going to have to relearn his powers all over again. Shit.

He opened his eyes again, and saw that the room had fallen completely silent, every eye turned his direction.

"What?"

"You were glowing," Ben supplied, and the others didn't even turn in his direction, although he knew Ben was definitely corporeal.

"Glowing?" his voice sounded skeptical.

"Similar to how Vanya did, before the house fell apart."

"Hmm. Well, this has been fun, but I'm going to leave now. If I have to look at Luther for one more minute, I'm going to tear his tiny head from those gorilla shoulders," Klaus stood up, only swaying slightly. He might not be weakened from his powers, but his body was still very unhappy.

"We're not done talking yet!" Luther cried out, face turning an interesting shade of red.

"What is there left to talk about? You are a dick, Vanya has powers, I have powers, we all have powers, thank you, goodbye."

"She destroyed the house! She hurt Allison and probably killed Pogo and Mom. She's dangerous. She needs to be contained."

Klaus snorted again, and noticed there was a distinct absence of comments from the peanut gallery (usually Diego was the first to leap into a fight with Luther, but he looked spooked, his attention mostly on Patch, who was whispering quietly to him). Fine. This needed to be done, and it looked like he was going to need to be the one to do it. "You destroyed the house. I had everything under control, right up until you actually killed me. You are dangerous. She just learned she has powers, and hasn't even had a chance to learn control. You've known yours for all these years and want us to believe my death was an accident? What if it had been Diego? Or Five? They wouldn't have come back, and I'd have one more ghost in my entourage. You are dangerous. Maybe you're the one who needs to be contained."

Luther looked disturbed by his comments, and looked for support in a room that was wholly against him. "You said Dad was scared of her, that he locked her up to protect everyone from her!"

Klaus gave a smile that was all teeth. "And he sent you to the moon, to keep you away from everyone. I wonder what that says about you, Luther. You didn't get a secret room in the basement, you got sent 200,000 miles away from every living human."

"Five said-" "Don't bring me into this." "-that the mansion came down just like it did in the apocalypse. That means she is what destroys everything. We can't let that happen."

"You're so fucking obtuse it makes my brain hurt. Fine." Klaus threw his hands in the air. "I already know that the apocalypse won't happen, because the Temps Commission has been destroyed. There are no more people out there, secretly manipulating events to make it happen. The only loose ends left are Hazel and Cha-Cha, and I plan to take care of them, too."

"How could you know that?" Five demanded.

"What do you mean, 'too'?" Diego questioned.

Klaus let out a heavy sigh. What to tell them… "They had their headquarters in the 50's. Every single one of them died in the 50's. After you left, Five, someone showed up and wiped them out. I guess they 'corrected' the wrong person, and someone showed up for revenge. The dead are my domain. They aren't able to lie to me. So when you showed up with your groupies, I started pulling at ghosts with knowledge of the Commission. More so after Hazel and Cha-Cha kidnapped me. There were a few with more information than most, some woman who called herself the Handler, and the apocalypse case handler, Dot. I learned everything they knew about the apocalypse. If we do nothing, then it's done. Over with. No death of everything. But if Luther gets his way, then there's still a chance. If there were agents to send, they'd be here already, trying to set Vanya off to convince us all that he's right. She wasn't even supposed to have her first real explosion of power yet. I told her early, expecting the pills to still be in her system. I didn't realize that crazy guy stole her pills when he recognized they were antipsychotics instead of the anxiety medication she said they were." He paused there and turned to look at his (officially, now that he was ten months older) little sister. "You really should have gone to an independent doctor instead of trusting something our father's been giving you for years. We all knew he was a horrible person, but the stuff he was giving you was truly messed up. You probably shouldn't quit cold turkey. Find a good doctor and wean yourself off. Anyways. Questions?"

There was an explosion of noise in response, and Klaus rolled his eyes. He preferred it when he had been on his own. In LA, he didn't have to answer to anyone about anything. Sure, both Ben and Frank had tried to influence his actions, but they knew he was the one in charge. Luther was so obsessed with being Number One that he expected everyone to follow his lead all of the time, and everyone was so over Luther being Number One that they often just did what they were told. Usually Diego's inferiority complex could be counted on for a good fight or two, and Five had always been an arrogant shit, but they had been oddly quiet since he had woken up. He didn't think he'd ever heard that specific tremor in Five's voice, when he mentioned checking Klaus' pulse.

And that was really the crux of it… they had witnessed Klaus die, so now they were all convinced that they cared about him again. A case of the 'don't know what you've got until it's gone.' He hoped it would blow over quickly.

"Why don't you all go fuss over Allison for a while? I'm tired. Everything else can wait until tomorrow."

Five's eyes narrowed even further, and Klaus could practically see the equations streaming behind his eyes.

As expected, Luther almost immediately left the room. It was occasionally a toss up as to what was more important to him, Allison or being the leader, but an injured Allison would always win out in the end.

"I know it isn't much, but you can have the couch, Klaus. Allison is in my bed," Vanya sounded quiet and drained again. He missed the confidence from earlier, the fact that she had yelled at both Allison and Luther. Then again, she had also just found out that her powers could cause the apocalypse, so he'd give this to her.

"That's alright Van. I don't want to stay that close to Luther. I'll get a hotel room or something."

"Where are you going to get money for a hotel room?" Diego snorted, finally looking up again. "Just stay here with the rest of us."

"I know none of you think very highly of me, but I do have my own money. I haven't been living on the streets, or constantly high, or whatever else you thought. I made something of myself while I was gone," Klaus rolled his eyes. "Don't worry. I'm sure I can maintain Patch here even if I'm elsewhere."

Diego immediately stood, turning his back on his girlfriend for the first time that night. "Hey, you know that's not my concern, right? I'm worried about you. About my brother. You were dead, Klaus. I carried you all the way here, and you were cold in my arms. I thought you were gone forever. I don't want to lose any more of our family."

Klaus wanted to believe him, he really, really did. But he knew what brotherhood felt like, and he'd never gotten it from the others in the Academy. There was no reason for that to change now. He did appreciate that Diego had been the one to bring him with them, though. If it were left to Luther, he was sure he'd still be digging his way out of the rubble now.

"I'll go with him," Five stood too. "I'm sure between the two of us, we can handle any problems. Vanya's apartment is feeling a little too cramped for me right now."

Klaus glared at Five for a moment. He didn't want Five dogging his steps. He was pretty sure Five knew that he was planning to hunt down the last loose ends in this whole thing. Then again, this had been Five's quest long before it became his. And he used to do what those two did. He'd probably have an idea of a starting point. "Fine. I'm sure we can find somewhere for two. Ben, you can stay here. Just remember what we talked about."

Klaus moved towards the door, and was surprised when Diego's arms wrapped around him.

"Be careful, bro. Those freaks who shot up the house are still out there. I don't care if you don't stay dead. Don't take any risks."

"We're just going to a hotel," Klaus awkwardly patted his brother's back. He couldn't remember the last time Diego had been physically affectionate towards him.

Diego stepped back only to be almost immediately replaced by Vanya's much smaller frame. "Thank you," she said in her soft voice. "For telling me the truth, and for protecting me. For not letting Luther do anything to me."

"If he tries anything while we're gone, tell Ben and he'll come get me. Luther's not laying a hand on you." He feels like he'd made it pretty clear doing so would start the apocalypse, but Luther's skull had always been thicker than average. Hopefully Allison would wake up soon - she'd always owned all of Luther's brain cells. He didn't know exactly how bad she was hurt, and didn't particularly care, but it couldn't be too bad or they'd have taken her to the hospital instead of Vanya's apartment.

"I'm sorry we didn't do anything to stop him," she had tears in her eyes when she pulled back. "It all just happened so fast, and then everything was falling apart, and… I'm sorry."

"It's Luther," Klaus responded, shaking his head. "There was nothing you could've done. Next time, I'll be ready."

"Next time?" she sounded tentative again. If she was going to get a handle on her powers, she would need to learn to be much more confident. To have faith in herself. They could work on that later.

"It's Luther," Klaus repeated, nodding. "Anyways. We'll come back in the morning. Sleep well, Vanya. Diego."

Five says his goodbyes as well, and they finally leave the apartment. Klaus breathes a sigh of relief, not even bothering to contain it next to Five.

They walked in silence for several streets, before Five finally spoke.

"So. Someone took out the Commission?" He said it in a very pointed tone.

"Yup."

"Any idea who it could've been?"

"A few."

"You gonna share?"

"Mmm."

Five stopped him, pulling him into an alleyway. "It was you, wasn't it?"

"What makes you say that?" Klaus reclined against the brick wall, staring at his older brother.

Five snorted. "I'm not an idiot like the others. 'I'll take care of them, too.' You weren't even trying to hide it."

Klaus shrugged. "The others didn't notice."

"As I said."

"They killed someone important to me, so I destroyed them," Klaus admitted, shrugging. "I got there right after you left. The chaos definitely helped me do what was needed."

"So you knew I was going to make it back there before I even contacted the Handler. You knew it would be taken care of by the time I made it back for the family meeting… How did you know I would make it back for the family meeting?"

"Logical deduction. I knew when you left, and there's no way you would waste time when you still thought the apocalypse was incoming. I knew about Harold before you made it back with the name. If you hadn't managed to come back with something important, I'd have found a different way to get rid of him. And I knew Vanya still needed to be triggered, so I made it happen. As I said before, I didn't think it would be quite so big, but you can't plan for everything. If her outburst happened in the wrong circumstances, there's nothing Luther would stop at to lock her up. It's actually more convenient the mansion is already gone, because that means the room in the basement is gone too. No more nuclear Vanya." he spread his hands wide, as though revealing a grand plan. Maybe it was a grand plan. He wasn't supposed to die during it, but it'd turned out alright in the end. It had given him this shiny new upgrade to work with. "The only remaining loose ends are Hazel and Cha-Cha. I assume you know where they are? Or should I get one of their victims to tell us?"

Five was staring at the pavement as though it was particularly interesting, and he remained like that for several moments until finally he looked back up. "Did you figure out why they did it? Why they needed the apocalypse to happen? She - the Handler - implied that there was a greater purpose behind it."

Klaus pondered for a few moments, whether Five would believe him or not, whether he would take him seriously, but he hadn't ridiculed him yet. "Intergalactic politics. The Earth is going to be prime real estate at some point, but comes with the pesky limitation of current inhabitants. But if those inhabitants were wiped out in a convenient disaster… there's nothing to stop certain parties from auctioning off the planet."

Five's jaw dropped open as he took that in. "Alien politics?"

"Alien politics," Klaus confirmed. "Speaking of. Dad was secretly an alien. Probably how he knew the disaster was coming in the first place, he just forgot to get all the facts first."

"Reginald Hargreeves was an alien…" Five trailed off. "Well, I suppose that makes sense. We always did say he couldn't experience human emotions." He chuckled then, and looked slightly surprised at the sound, before laughing even louder. Klaus joined him. It was genuinely ridiculous. He knew that the people who had sponsored the Temps Aeternalis were still out there and he might need to step in again at some point, but their current operations on Earth were over, and he knew to keep an eye out now. Fucking aliens.

Five gathered himself up, and looked as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "While I had access to the tube room, I sent Hazel and Cha-Cha messages saying they should kill the other. They've probably turned on each other by this point, we just need to figure out where they've gone."

"I hope they haven't gotten too far yet. Cha-Cha's mine."

"Fair enough," Five responded, and led the way to the motel where they had last been camped out.

Huh. Maybe not all of his siblings were that bad after all. Then again, he had mentioned that Five was his favorite just by virtue of not being around for so long. He'd been away even longer by his perspective, time to grow up and grow away from the Academy. The distance had definitely been for the better. He wouldn't have been able to share this much with any of his other siblings without fear of retaliation.

Maybe things were starting to look up.

About time.

A/N:

"Vite" is French for quickly/fast.

This is NOT the last chapter.