Klaus POV

12/31, 8:00 AM

Two parties in one day? Count me in.

I am the party planner, the expert arranger, the connoisseur of celebrations. Throwing a gender reveal and a New Year's Eve party in one day? Call me up, I'm your man. After today, I'll have exactly one day's experience doing that. Qualifications.

I stand in the kitchen, following the instructions from a YouTube video, showing me how to bake the gender reveal cake.

'You're supposed to put the dye in now, Klaus.', Ben says, hovering over my shoulder and watching as I worked.

'Yeah, I know, I'm just so confused.', I said, holding the bottle of food dye in my hand and examining it. 'I've never seen clear food dye before, the label has the colors, but I just don't see them.'

'It's supposed to bake into the color it says on the label.', he commented, confusing me further.

'What kind of witchcraft is that?'

'It's the magic of chemistry, Klaus my dear.', he said, his voice going up on the last part. I clicked the YouTube video closed.

'You're far more insightful than this lady, and you've been dead for most of your life.'

'Don't know if I should take that as a compliment or not.'

Annie came running into the kitchen, sparkly pink sunglasses bobbing on her face. She carried a bucket of plastic army men, a few of them falling out in the floor in her speed.

'Hi Benny, hi daddy.', she said, plopping herself down on the floor and beginning to set up the army men in rows, like a battlefield.

'Hey Annie. Who's the army going to battle with this time?', Ben asked, being the floofy uncle he was.

She lifted her sunglasses up to eye him.

'The Chinese, but it's okay, because they have Destiny's children to help them fight this time.', she explained, dumping out several barbies dressed all in blue from the bottom of the bucket. Two or three of them had their heads ripped off, but she had assured me a couple of days ago that they would make a full recovery.

Ben and I laughed as I poured the batter into the pan.

'Can you get the oven door for me?'

'Sure'

And I slid the cake into the oven, fingers crossed that I wouldn't screw it up.

'And your name is Dave, and your name is Dave, and your name is Dave too.', we heard Annie say, poking the heads of different army men as she placed them in formation.

'There's only one Dave, diva cup.', I said, sighing. She was too young to understand what I meant by that.

'Actually there's fourteen Dave's.', she answered, straightening her sunglasses.

'An honorary infantry.', Ben commented, reassuring her.

'You should come and play with me, Benny, and you too, daddy.'

'I'm game.', Ben said, sitting down with her criss-cross on the floor. I followed him, setting a timer on my phone for the cake.

'Here. I have a rule. You can't play unless you wear sunglasses like me.', Annie explained, twirling her hand around and looking at us from above her glasses. Ben chuckled, and I put my hands on my hips.

'Hand 'em over, chief.', I said, as she pulled two more sparkly pairs of sunglasses out of the bucket, one purple, and one yellow. Ben and I put them on, and they were way too small for our heads, but that was okay.

'Here, you can command Destiny's children, and Ben, you get the snipers.', Annie said in a matter-of-a-fact tone, handing out our characters.

The battle ensued, and Annie, as always, was making the most realistic war sound effects. It was almost disturbing how realistically she could imitate the sound of someone getting machine gunned in the neck.

'Dad, the Chinese are coming up the hill, they're going to take the fort of Destiny!', Annie screamed, ripping off her sunglasses and chucking them to the side so I'd know she was serious.

'Not on our watch.', Ben said, picking up several of his sniper men and positioning them. Following Annie's lead, he made gun sound effects, and shot down the imaginary Chinese invaders. I laughed at him.

'Pew, pew!', I said in a mocking, sarcastic tone, looking at him.

'Leave me alone Klaus, realism is what makes it fun!', he said, staring me down. I rolled back on the floor laughing.

'Benny! Watch out! You missed one and he's coming to slit your throat!', Annie warned, terror in her voice.

'No! I'll get away, I have to live!', he said back, equaling the dramatic tone in her voice.

'No! Krchkrcherkrcherkurcha!', Annie exclaimed, attempting to mimic the sound of a knife ripping through a neck. I cringed. 'You died, Benny!'

'If only I had someone to resurrect me!'

'Hey, I can do that!', she said, hopping up, making sure to put her sunglasses back on, running back to Ben and placing her palm on him.

'Live, Benny!', she yelled.

And she dropped into the floor, having actually used her powers, and Ben and I both looked at each other. How could she have any real effect on a ghost?

Before our eyes, Ben's ghostlike body slowly materialized into a physical, flesh body. I stood up from the ground super fact, not bothering to take off my purple sparkly sunglasses.

'What the heck just happened?!', I scream-asked, freaking out.

'I have absolutely no idea.', Ben said, the color drained from his face. Wait. The color drained from his face?

I reached a hand out to touch his cheek, and there it was, warm, material, and draining color.

'Ben?'

'Yeah Klaus?'

'Can you kick that table leg for me?'

'Why?'

'Just do it, I need to test a theory.'

He kicked the leg as hard as he could, and let out a huge grunt, reeling back from the impact. He fell on the ground holding his toe.

I looked down at him through my sunglasses, and he looked back at me through his. Our gaze shifted to Annie, and then back to each other.

'Holy crap.', we said in unison.

Allison POV

'Come on Klaus, bring the cake out!', Luther said in a booming voice.

'Just a minute, hold your horses!', Klaus said back, but it didn't sound like Klaus. What?

'What happened to Klaus' voice?', Vanya asked, her face just as confused as the rest of us as she stood poking at a bundle of blue and pink balloons set up in the den.

'It actually sounded like-'

And then Diego's voice cut off, as we saw something utterly unexpected.

'Hey guys.', Ben said, carrying the cake in and setting it down.

'Ben?!', we all said, freaking out, huddling towards him.

'In the flesh, it appears.', he answered, smothered in a huddle by all our hugs surrounding him. We were all so shocked, we didn't know what to do except hold on to him tight.

'What?'

'How is this even possible?'

'How did this happen?"

He laughed as we pulled away from him. 'Looks like little miss Annie is a bit more powerful than we thought.'

I turned to Klaus, who now stood behind him, holding Annie in his arms.

'Klaus, did you know she could do that?', I asked, tears forming in my eyes.

'No idea on earth.', he answered, the same tears forming in his. I smiled at him warmly, my heart full and my mind bursting at the seams with questions and awe.

'It's been so long, bro.', Luther said, giving Ben a hug by himself. They stood there together a minute, then released. Luther tried to hide it, but I saw he was crying too.

'I can't even believe this. This is incredible, Ben.', Vanya said, Ben pulling her into a hug.

I came closer, and looked at him, wiping a tear. He pulled me in, and wrapped me up in a real, warm hug. I felt the slick coolness of his leather jacket, and inhaled the smell of his skin on the back of his neck. He was real, alive, right here in front of me and holding me tight. 'It's really you.', I breathed out.

'It's really me.', I heard him say, and felt the sound in his chest, as I was still in the hug. I steppe out of it, wiping his jacket off, trying to dry off tears with the sleeve of my sweater. That made him laugh, and I saw that in the corner of his own eyes, moisture formed.

'Tears!', he said, touching his hand to his eye. 'Haven't had those in a long time.'

We all laughed with him, exuberant.

'Well, now that we've all cried a bit about Ben being reincarnated, let's cut the cake!', Luther said, clapping.

'Slice that sucker open!', Annie said, echoing his sentiments. We all burst out laughing.

'Okay, alright, I'll cut the cake.', I said, stepping over to the table, Ben handing me the knife. Luther walked up beside me, standing at my side.

'You guys ready?', I asked, getting a rush of adrenaline. The others all murmured in the affirmative.

I sliced into the cake, which was iced in white. Pulling the knife out, I was thoroughly confused.

'It's… green?', I said, turning to Klaus.

His eyes grew wide and he walked over towards me. Diego laughed out loud, and Vanya joined in as they both walked closer to the table. Klaus took the knife, cutting into a different section of the cake. He pulled it out, and it was the same color.

'Crap! I knew that color changing food dye was a load of crap!', he said, rubbing his temples and looking at Ben.

'That's unfortunate.', Vanya said, chuckling.

'It's a frog baby, people.', Annie explained, causing everyone to burst out laughing. Ben ran off to the kitchen, without explaining what he was doing. '

Moments later he came back, holding two boxes.

'Here, I went and got backup earlier in case this turned out to be crap. And it did. So cut these.', Ben said, getting a laugh out of Klaus.

'Oh, really, Mr. 'magic of chemistry'?', Klaus said, laughing. We all smiled. After all, it was a Hargreeves family function, something had to go awry or the balance of the universe would just be out of balance.

'Awesome. But why two?', Luther said, confused.

'Yeah, that was supposed to be another part of the surprise.', Klaus said, rubbing the back of his neck. 'Surprise! It's twins.'

Luther and I looked at each other as some of the others shouted celebrations. Our eyes grew wide, and I laughed, breathlessly.

Ben unboxed both of them, giving both Luther and I a knife.

'Okay, cut them at the same time.'

'3,'

'2,'

'1-'

And Annie came running through, wielding a blue lit up toy lightsaber in one hand, and a fake sword in the other, wearing a pair of sparkly pink sunglasses.

'I'll help!', she exclaimed, crashing the two weapons into the cakes, revealing the colors.

One pink cake, one blue cake.

I looked at Luther, and we both smiled at each other as the others cheered.

'Gosh, I was really hoping for a Mary Kate and Ashley scenario…', Klaus said, causing us all to bust out laughing.

Annie licked the icing off the lightsaber, then switched hands, slurping it off the sword. She stared at the whole situation, looking very proud of herself.

'Can we eat them now please?', she asked, and we all laughed, happier in this moment than we all had been in a long time.

The only thing that would have made it better? Five and Dolores being here to share it with us.