A/N: And now we're onto our favourite sentient STDs!

Read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: blurgh.

Weird dreams were nothing new for Diego and Lila.

After all, they were comfortable enough around each other to share what they'd dreamed about – so long as both parties got the chance to tease each other over it. It had seemed a little mean-spirited at first, but in truth, it was better this way: making fun of their dreams was the one guaranteed way of keeping the best and the worst of their late-night fantasies and fear from bothering them over the course of the day. Well, that and a generous dose of late-night relief-fuelled sex, of course.

And in a world dominated by Reginald Hargreeves, there were an awful lot of nightmares to make fun of.

Initially, most of them had seemed to involve the Handler: back when she'd been eight months pregnant, Lila had been jolted out of a sound sleep by a dream in which she'd been sitting behind the Handler's desk at the Commission and even wearing her clothes, while Gracie – all grown up – disassembled a handgun in front of her, cringing at every criticism Lila fired at her. Jokes had been the only thing that had been able to calm Lila's tears over that one, and Diego's smartass remark over the boner-killing potential of the Handler's fashion sense had been more than enough to coax a laugh out of Lila even at her most distraught.

And Diego had found himself dreaming of the Handler as well, only this dream was set at Gracie's first birthday, in which the Handler kicked the door down and demanded to know why she hadn't been invited – except now she was a giant spider from the waist down and she had syringes instead of fingers.

Once Lila had gotten home from the hospital, though, almost all their dreams and nightmares had been about the hellscape they were living in: Gracie being taken away from them and raised in some hellish indoctrination centre, Lila getting arrested by the secret police, Diego being gunned down by Hargreeves security, all three of them getting evicted from their house, or some other awful fate befalling one of their siblings… the list went on and on, but all of their fears were real. It had lessened a little over time as they'd gotten used to the realities of life as citizens of Reginald's world, but it had never really gone away. After all, the two of them were still pretty formidable even without their powers, but there was only so much they could do when pitted against an entire army of heartless mercenary bastards, an air force of drones armed with anything under the sun, a small elite unit of cold-blooded clinical psychopaths, and whatever else Reginald Hargreeves had going on under the mask. Yep, there was only so much two trained martial artists could notice before they threw in the towel.

These days, Diego and Lila enjoyed a much more cautious lifestyle.

The decision to tone things down had first occurred to them in the weeks following their arrival in Reginald's paradise. While Luther was searching for any trace of Sloane, Ben was getting bounced from one job to the next, Viktor was taking up the violin again, Five was doing his Oliver Twist routine, Allison was doing god only knew what, Viktor was taking up the violin again, and Klaus was landing in more clover than was humanly possible, Diego and Lila realized that until their siblings could get their act together, they had only themselves to rely on for the time being. After all, there was no ultra-reliable robotic nanny to patch them up if things went wrong, and despite the fact that the Commission didn't exist in this freshly-rewritten reality, Lila's parents didn't seem to exist either.

So, with a child on the way and nothing to gained from becoming vigilantes or powerless superheroes or whatever, they'd made the decision to seek out a calmer line of work that would still satisfy their tastes, something safe enough so that their daughter wouldn't grow up without parents. Both had agreed that signing on with Hargreeves Security would be unacceptable, especially considering the crimes that company committed on a daily basis, and applying for the secret police would be unthinkable for the same reasons.

So, they'd found work as consultants at Chainmail Solutions, a small and semi-independent security firm that was mainly used to protect businesses too small for the tumorous bulk of Hargreeves Security to bother with. It was a young company, one that struggled to keep up with the new breeds of criminals that operated with Reginald's permission and even more with the off-duty HS officers that enjoyed covertly burglarizing small businesses for the sake of "salary augmentation".

Worst of all were the relic hunters, fanatical burglars who were prepared to risk getting caught in curfews, invade buildings through the sewers, carve their way through upper story windows with diamond blades, even murder nightwatchmen and late workers, all so they could get their hands on some box of miscellaneous junk that the business had gathered off the street the previous evening.

So, in the face of all the carnage meted out to the smaller operations, it didn't take long for Diego and Lila to make themselves useful with as much honest work as they could get their hands on.

All in all, it was a good job: Diego satisfied his need for heroism by teaching security guards how to defend their clients from the newer, deadlier threats on the streets, and often tagged along for the late-night rounds just in case shit went down – and it often did. Lila satisfied her need for action by leading the guards on wild obstacle courses and training sessions that pushed them to the very limits of their endurance, and just like Diego, she liked tagging along with the guards on late-night patrols for the thrill of it. And when they got home, they worked off the remaining adrenaline by screwing their brains out until they were too tired to do anything but lapse into well-deserved slumber.

But even if they hadn't unexpectedly blundered into their dream jobs, the work earned them a decent wage, enough to pay the rent on a good-sized apartment in one of the safer housing complexes. There, in comfort and safety, their little Gracie had grown up a happy little girl, regaled with bedtime stories of the Umbrella Academy in its glory days, and regularly visited by her adorably crazy uncles: strong and huggable Uncle Luther, crazy Uncle Klaus with his sleight of hand and showmanship, sweet Uncle Viktor – always willing to play the violin and watch Gracie's eyes light up in delight… even Ben's perpetual bad mood seemed to calm when he was around Gracie, enough to give her the odd piggyback ride, though that might have been because Lila had threatened to castrate him with a vegetable peeler if he ever made Gracie cry.

Yes, they were at ease with how things had turned out, give or take the occasional jab of depression whenever they realized that Gracie believed that their stories of the Academy were just tall tales and nothing more, but all in all, they were contented – if not necessarily jubilant. Diego had even gotten used to the fact that his hard-won skill of throwing knives the mundane way was now being used exclusively to entertain Gracie.

And yet…

Well, there were always things to worry about, always things to spoil their happiness. And chief among them was the knowledge that they weren't doing enough, that they couldn't do enough to protect Gracie from the very worst that Reginald's world had to offer. They weren't superpowered anymore, and they definitely didn't have the resources of a superhero team or a time-travelling police force to rely on, and the fact that there were limits to their abilities as parents – that they couldn't have kept their powers just to protect their own daughter – rankled and worried at both of them.

And the frustrations and fears that came with being powerless kept stacking up with every nasty shock and near miss that Reginald's world threw at them. Those surprise shakedowns from Hargreeves Security, for one thing. The mystery man that had tailed Gracie and her babysitter home from the park for another. The drone that had been hovering outside the nursery window. The unfriendly new teachers at Gracie's kindergarten and the worrying lessons that had scared their little girl in ways she didn't yet have words for, no matter how many bribes Diego and Lila had paid to keep her away from the indoctrination…

But not all their fears were shared between the two of them. Diego had different anxieties and frustrations than Lila, after all, and perhaps the one thing that nagged at him more than anything else, the thing that sent him lurching out of bed in the middle of the night and left a boiling cauldron of bitterness and anxiety in the pit of his stomach until sunrise, was their missing sister – the one member of the Umbrella Academy who'd never featured in any of Gracie's bedtime stories.

There was now a hole in the family where there'd once been someone he'd trusted, despite the on-and-off insults, someone he'd thought would always be on their side.

It seemed he'd been wrong.

Say what you would about Viktor's meltdown, but at least he'd been manipulated and coming down from several decades on mood-altering drugs at the time. At least he'd returned to the Academy almost immediately afterwards to face up to what he'd done.

Allison… hadn't.

Yes, Diego and Lila had good cause to have nightmares.

But even so, Diego couldn't recall the last time their sleep and dreams had been completely synchronized: they'd awoken at the exact same time, each of them lurching out of sleep in perfect unison, hearts pounding out perfectly synchronized drum solos like Buddy Rich on a cocaine bender.

And when they calmed down enough to discuss what they'd seen, it hadn't taken them too long to realize that the details were identical, right down to the ending. They'd both seen the realization of what had to be done to save the space-time continuum, the moment where the family had sacrificed themselves, and that final beautiful vision of a world at peace – a lush park where everyone who had suffered because of them could be found, living happy lives of their own. Eudora, Grace, Pogo, Stanley, even their own children had lived on despite this "Cleanse", safe in this strange, wonderous new world, never knowing the conflict that Reginald Hargreeves' children had brought to world by sheer virtue of living, or how terrible their lives would have been if the Umbrella Academy had ever existed.

It was strange, and even stranger that they were experiencing this particular dream in unison… but then they'd heard Gracie mumbling in her sleep next-door, and Diego had gone to check on her just in case a surveillance drone had decided to peep through her window again in another hamfisted warning from the security forces. And by the time he got back, the dream had been pushed out of his mind by more immediate concerns, and he'd forgotten all about their strange nightmare and its suicidal finale.

For a time, though, Lila was left sitting up in bed, unable to shake her own thoughts of what the dream had meant. Almost twenty minutes went by, with Lila's eyes remaining fixed at a distant point somewhere above the bedroom door, her mind buzzing with the kind of strange, despairing thoughts that she'd only known in the weeks after her mother (the Handler, she reminded herself, she's the Handler, not your real mother) had almost murdered her, her betrayal revealed in the process.

"Something wrong?" Diego asked.

"No, no, it's… it's just that… well, I was thinking about the dream and…"

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever feel like the world would be better if… if…"

"What?"

Lila hesitated for a moment longer, trying to find a way of putting her thoughts into words.

But then, from just outside the window directly behind Diego, there was a flash of golden light, distracting Lila for just long enough for the moment to pass.

She shook her head. "Oh, it's nothing. Must've had too much black-market stilton before bed."

"You sure?"

"Positive. Now, let's get back to sleep."

How could she tell him that, for the briefest of moments, she'd been certain that the world would have been a better place if she'd never been born? After all, Diego was still very much in love with her, despite her many foibles and their long history of deception and violence they'd shared; she didn't want him to worry… even if it was true that a lot of people would still be alive if not for her.

From the moment she'd graduated from the Handler's training program, she'd been prepared to kill at a moment's notice, even once she'd left the Commission behind – as the unlucky team of switchboard operators could have attested to if she hadn't murdered them at their desks. But even after she'd partially cleaned up her act, she'd still ended up getting an innocent killed by sheer carelessness.

Stanley was dead, disintegrated by the kugelblitz, and all because she'd wanted to allay her own fears with some stupid prank on Diego.

Of course, things were different in this new reality. Stanley was still alive here, courtesy of some colossal act of time realignment on Reggie's: she'd bumped into him on the street less than six weeks after they'd made it out of the Hotel Oblivion for the final time, the same perpetually grumpy little urchin he'd been in the timeline she'd known, morosely trailing after Trudy in much the same way he'd trailed after Diego. But he hadn't recognized her or Diego, and why would he? This version of Stanley had never met her… and now that she thought of it, Lila couldn't help but wonder if that hadn't been the best possible outcome.

Wouldn't it be better for everyone in the universe, for everyone in every possible universe that could ever be, if Lila didn't exist? She hadn't a clue as to how dying and being absorbed by a giant monster composed of Ben and his weird not-quite girlfriend could somehow erase her from history in all possible timelines, and she had no idea how to make that possibility real outside of a dream, but on long dark nights like these, strange ideas like this seemed enticing beyond belief. For a time, it was all she could think about, the thought that ending herself might mean ending the nightmare they'd helped Reggie create seeming to blot out every single competing thought in her head.

But then, just as she was starting to wonder if it might be possible to skip the nonsense about Marigold and Durango or whatever the fuck, and fast-track the process of removing herself from the timeline…

…she heard Gracie stir in the room next-door and – still half-asleep – call out to her.

"Your turn," Diego chuckled.

And in spite of herself, Lila smiled as she slid out of bed and made her way to her daughter's room, ready with comforting words and bedtime stories and whatever else Gracie needed, all dark thoughts banished to a vault in the deepest, dustiest corner of her brain.

How could she think of ending it all when she still had a family? She had a husband she loved with all her heart, a daughter who'd single-handedly squashed every single anxiety Lila had ever had about being a mother, and yes, siblings that were worth staying alive for no matter how annoying they were. She had family, friends, work that kept her stimulated and well-paid, and even a few places where the police couldn't touch those she cared about.

And in the face of more important things, the dream was forgotten, along with her darkest thoughts.

For now.

Reginald barely suppressed the urge to scream.

How was it possible to fail in two completely different ways with these people?

Well, he knew exactly how, but it was still unbelievable, even if the failures were due to the monumental personality flaws of both targets. Diego was simply too stubborn to even let the impulse to end himself enter his head, too consumed by his own hero complex for the prospect of killing himself to occur to him unless an imminent threat was in place, and not exactly a deep thinker to begin with.

And as for Lila, she was a veritable pie crust of personality layers, with her sarcastic, exuberant, aggressively determined exterior hiding a deeply depressed interior that hid an even more sarcastic, even more exuberant, even more aggressively determined third layer. Also, she was almost as easily distracted as Diego, which only made things even more unstable.

He should have waited until their daughter was away at daycare before inducing the stimuli. He should have waited until they were alone and more easily lulled into extremes of anguish and despair, preferably without being dragged back to their reality by their own baffling attachments to their own accidentally conceived offspring – yet another reason for him to dislike children.

There was still one chance left before he'd have to reconsider his approach, however. All he'd need was one success to get the other members of the Academy to reconsider their refusal to end their miserable existences.

As Harry Nilsson had so eloquently proclaimed, One was the loneliest number…

A/N: Suffice it to say that Five's relationship with Lila is not a thing in this fanfic's continuity. No more need be said of that bullshit.