Notes: Sorry for the late update again, had a family event at home and it lasted all day long! ...My introverted-self is so drained, it's hard to type words that make sense, so that's all I'll say here .

Klaus (and Ben)

Klaus had spent the last few months trying to avoid his cult, they were so needy and exhausting, but more importantly, he had remembered Dave had grown up in Dallas around this time and he had decided it couldn't be a coincidence, so despite Ben's pestering, he had managed to find the place he worked and a dinner he used to visit frequently a day ago. His first attempt at talking to him had been mostly a disaster, he had been so happy to see him well and alive that he had hardly been able to be coherent, but today would be different, he had tried to think through the things he would say and that would be as ready as he'd ever be.

"You know, this might be your dumbest idea yet and you're pretty dumb," alleged Ben in the backseat as Klaus observed the dinner from his car.

"Just, don't."

"Is this considered stalking? Cause I think you're stalking now."

"Shut up!"

"Did you really need to drag me away from San Francisco just so you could rekindle your little Vietnam fling?"

"Why don't you stay out of my business, Casper?"

"Your business is my business," exclaimed Ben.

"Oh, well, then, congratulations, because you're fired!" cried out Klaus with a sardonic smile.

"This is wrong, Klaus. It's selfish," Ben tried to persuade him.

"Just stop, Ben," begged Klaus.

"You're just gonna confuse the kid!"

"Would you stop!?" finally yelled Klaus before turning back to him with a broken expression, "damn it, listen to me. When we were on leave in Saigon, Dave told me about the day he enlisted. It was the same day that Kennedy was murdered. And if you would just please leave me alone for five goddamn minutes, then maybe I could convince him not to sign up to that stupid war and maybe I could save his life!"

He turned back hitting the car wheel with his fists and sighed in frustration, "God damn it!" and then hissing he cradled one of his hands in pain.

Ben remained quiet for a minute choosing his words carefully, for once Klaus was trying to be selfless here and that was pretty surprising to say the least. "Look... just promise me you can handle this. Whatever happens."

"Yeah, yeah, I can handle it, I can handle it," Klaus assured eyes lost somewhere else.

They spent the next ten minutes in silence, Klaus wiggling to one side and the other whenever a car stopped blocking the entrance to the dinner, but just as he thought he had seen someone that looked like Dave approach the dinner, Ben grabbed his shoulder making him jump in alarm, he was still not used to being able to materialize Ben like this now that he was sober.

"God, Ben! what do you want now? I thought you were gonna let me do this!" exclaimed Klaus exasperated. At least he had managed to take a last glance at the guy and it was definitely not Dave.

"No, Klaus, wait. Isn't that one of Five's ghosts?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Look, over there," Ben pointed at a distant building's window.

"Are you serious?" Asked Klaus not even looking at the window. "Whenever I've been sober around Five, he's always surrounded by way too many ghosts and some of them are so… well… crazy grisly, I just try not to look at any of them, I'm already a little scared of Five as it is, you know?"

Ben wondered for a minute about the ghosts that must have surrounded him when they were kids, between that and dad's regime, it was almost hard to judge Klaus for getting into drugs back then, but just like himself, Five had probably just done what he had to do to go on another day. He wondered if he also saw the faces of the people he had killed every time he closed his eyes and if he heard their shrieks every time his mind went silent.

"Yeah… I know, I think even my Horror is a little scared of Five now," he joked trying to push away those dark thoughts.

Klaus snorted at that and went back to focusing on the dinner.

"But this looks like the old guy that is always there, you know, mustache, top-hat, slit throat?" Insisted Ben straining his eyes to make sure.

"Ah, the guy with the funny accent that doesn't seem to realize he's dead yet?" smiled Klaus despite himself, "yeah, I doubt there would be another ghost with that fashion around here. So what?"

"Are you for real? That has to mean Five's nearby, a couple of days ago you were sure everyone was dead, don't you want to see him? Maybe check if he's okay after saving us from the apocalypse?" asked Ben incredulous.

"Yeah yeah, it's great to know he's around too and I promise we will look into that later, but right now I need to focus on this, okay?"

"Seriously Klaus? Are you not even a little worried about him?"

"Did you not pay attention to what we talked about two seconds ago? You should be more worried about anyone crossing paths with our little psycho brother. Trust me, he's definitely fine."

Ben shook his head, "yeah, Five seems so composed and skillful it's easy to forget he's human, but he is, didn't you hear him screech in pain while he was creating the portal?"

"Okay yes, yes, I know, but he can surely wait for another hour or two while I do this, don't you always say he's the most reliable of us?"

"Klaus-," started Ben.

"Ben, would you just shut up for five minutes, please?"

"No Klaus, this is important!"

"Ugh, fine, will you leave me alone after we see what's going on with Five?"

"Yeah, sure, why not?" nodded Ben exasperated.

"Fine, let's go," said Klaus leaving the car with a big sigh.

As they were approaching the building, they noticed the ghost moving and after a while their brother left the structure carrying a huge long bag in one hand, almost as big as himself.

Klaus was about to call out to him when Ben pulled him by the shoulder to hide behind a corner.

Why are we hiding?" Asked Klaus frowning.

"He's being sneaky, maybe he's being chased or chasing someone, we should follow him for a while and see what's happening," he explained.

"Okay, good idea, I'm not in the mood to get abducted and tortured again," Klaus whispered. "Wait, is that a…?"

"Looks like a sniper bag, yes," nodded Ben. "Come on, let's go."

As they followed him, Klaus noticed Five looked uncharacteristically anxious and shaky, looking behind his shoulder now and then to nothing in particular, skin clammy and face pale.

"Is it me or Five looks a little out of it?"

"What do you mean?"

Before Klaus could reply back, Five staggered and fell against a corner hitting his side, it didn't look like he had fallen too hard, but he hissed pressing at his side and barked at the wall kicking it with absolute rage.

"That's what I mean," noted Klaus frowning at Ben pensive, "it's almost like he's…. is he going through withdrawal!?" He suddenly exclaimed flabbergasted.

"Oh, come on Klaus, he's not you," scoffed Ben, he's just probably going through a really bad day.

Five looked around and started walking to the park nearby.

"Ben, you've seen me go through withdrawal a lot of times, doesn't that look familiar to you?" He pointed at the Boy, pale, shaky and face covered in sweat.

"Okay, it does look familiar, but he could just be really nervous, and you didn't stagger like that."

They stopped behind a bench as Five hid himself within a bush wall carefully opening the case and revealing a CZ Tactical Sniper Rifle.

"Well, he's probably famished or whacked too, from what we saw back in 2019, he kinda seems to have forgotten he needs food and sleep," said Klaus suddenly realizing the reality of that statement after it came out of his mouth, maybe someone should have made sure Five was coping fine with… well, everything. "But look, you know him even better than I do, do you think he wouldn't notice we were following him this close?"

"Not a chance," Ben replied defeated, "but why?" He had noticed Five was very close to having a drinking problem, but he knew him well enough to tell that out of principle he'd avoid anything that could affect his brain as much as possible, he was too proud of his intelligence, so he probably only got drunk when he was experiencing sheer desperation; but drugs were different, depressants would most likely mess with his powers like they did with Klaus' and stimulants would mess with his brain in weird ways for sure.

"Well, it seems like Mister 'I'm the only functional adult here' is not so well adjusted after all," sniggered Klaus.

Ben shook his head. Sure, who could blame anyone who went through the things Five had gone through if they decided to get into drugs to deal with the trauma and the guilt, but things just didn't add up, Five had looked focused and perfectly clear-minded back in 2019. "I don't like this; it doesn't make sense."

"What, you never thought Fivey could be as pathetic and weak as whiny Number Four? And here I was thinking he was just a boring grumpy old man, I was half joking when I told him he was addicted to the apocalypse drug, but if I had known he was actually addicted to more than that, we could have had so much fun together!" almost griped Klaus.

"Klaus, it just doesn't make sense, he even reproached you for thinking about getting high back in 2019, remember?"

"Okay fine, maybe it's weird, but he's definitely going through withdrawal right now, look, he's yawning too."

Ben sighed suddenly feeling more apprehensive, since Five had returned to their lives, he had tried to protect them by keeping them in the dark about so many things until there was no other option, was this something like that or was this something even worse?

"Let's just see this through, okay?"

"Okay," nodded Klaus acknowledging Ben's worried expression, he hated to admit it, but he had a point.

"We waited for a while until he targeted two random guys and shoot them."

"We?" Asked Luther frowning.

Ben smiled widely, Klaus had managed to tell the story skipping he had been the one to notice Five's ghost, but now he'd have no other option but to reveal he was there, finally.

"Yeah, Five and me," Klaus rapidly clarified.

"Oh, okay, that makes sense… I guess," consented Luther frowning at the rest as Klaus smiled impishly at Ben.

"Then he simply put away the gun and blinked away," he shrugged.

Raymond sat on a chair trying to assimilate this fictional new reality, this was too crazy, nobody seemed particularly bothered by the fact that their kid brother was a practiced assassin, and the powers? If another one of them could see dead people and the other looked like a giant, did that mean all of them had special powers? Did Allison have a power too? Why had she never mentioned any of this?

"Allison, I know this is important to you but what's this Commission you're talking about? Are they a government bureau? Secret agents? Are we in danger?" he finally asked.

"They are bigger and more problematic than any government," started Diego.

Allison cleared her throat, "Maybe we should talk about that later," she pointed with her eyes at the big-eyed lady just staring at them in awe.

Lila stood up and walked around, "maybe I should have never left the center because either I'm hearing things again or this whole family is crazy."

Diego hurried to Lila and clasped her shoulders tenderly, "trust me, you're not crazy, nobody is crazy here," he reassured her.

"Are you sure?" She said hesitantly.

"Listen, I know it sounds crazy, but this is just like yogurt, it doesn't make sense, but it's real either way."

Lila smiled softly pretending to calm down, she had never expected they'd spill so much in front of her. She probably shouldn't have followed Diego to begin with, but after seeing Five's state following the mission, something had pushed her to come, guilt but also a little relief filling her as she heard his siblings finally noticing something was wrong.

"So, are you going to introduce us?" said Klaus approaching them.

"Oh sure, this is Lila. Actually, I found Allison a few days ago thanks to her!"

"Oh? How did that happen?" Klaus asked.

"She said she knew an abandoned building we could use to hide for a few days and inadvertently brought us right in front of Allison's working place, I saw her through the window," Diego explained as Lila smiled at them timidly, she probably shouldn't have helped Diego with that, but they were unbelievably bad at finding each other and for some reason that had become utterly frustrating for her.

"Wasn't that a little too convenient?" murmured Ben staring at her intently.

"You've read too many crime novels," whispered Klaus.

So far Lila had managed to ignore the ghost looming around Klaus like an expert; she had felt a little sorry for him during the conversation, but right now she was incredibly grateful that Klaus hardly seemed to pay any attention to him, getting suspected right in the middle of a family reunion would be rather problematic.

"Ray… Lila…," started Allison exchanging glances with Diego, "I promise we will explain everything to you later, but guys, we need to keep focus now, we need to find Five," she said finally realizing how incredibly hard it was to keep their family on track.

"Yes, you're right!" Nodded Luther.

"So… how do we even start? Do we know anything about the Commission?" asked Klaus leaving everyone silent.

Notes: Okay so working with Commission times, Sixties times and time-travel got quite strange here, I'm thinking this probably happened after a few weeks in the Commission and before Lila started talking more often with Five reducing a little his drug intake, so by then he'd start getting addicted to some of the strongest depressants and getting some withdrawal effects from the stronger stuff the Handler gave him during harder missions. Bet it's easy to tell I don't know much about the subject lol, but I hope it makes enough sense!

I know there's no interaction between Klaus/Ben and Five here like in the other siblings' chapters and I'm sorry about that, but one thing lead to another and in the end this is what made the most sense for the story :F

Anyways, after the calm comes the storm, next chapter... we're finally back in the present with Five, get ready for intense stuff!